messages left at the cross-roads

01:49 pm - A repulsive story from Iraq

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/11/iraq.humanrights?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront

Note that in Basra, government workers and the police consider the British and us to be the enemy. Which Iraqis don't?

10:44 pm - Can you say Contrabass Sarussophone?

You can buy these things on eBay. My children and cats should be very afraid.

12:19 am - Recent email thread

JL> Hopefully the Professor can add some squirrel stories. Huckabee says they are easy to cook in a popcorn popper.
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JT> Huckabee who?
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I relocate them. To avoid return, they must be taken more than 1 mile. We painted the tail of one yellow (whilst in a trap) and let it go ½ mile away. Either somebody else paints captured squirrel tails the same color or ½ mile is not far enough.

Not as many this year, only about 6. Peak was 3 years ago, nearly 100.
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JL> You should 1) always paint the tails using the same color. People will think they have mutant squirrels This would drive people crazy.
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JMc> Perchance, what color did you paint the squirrels' nuts*?

*acorns, walnuts, almonds, pine nuts, coconuts, coco puffs, etc.
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JT> Squirrel gray, a special Benjamin Moore mix.

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JMc> I have a friend who neuters cattle in Montana, and know a different fellow who neuters sheep in PA. Want to meet 'em sometime?
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JT> Funny you should mention that. I happen to notice that the most aggressively upset squirrels (when trapped in a Havahart trap) are the males. The males do indeed have very discernible testes, which when poked with a short stick causes the squirrel some level of increased annoyance though clearly no greater annoyance than poking them anywhere else. Indeed, not poking them at all creates greater motion and activity in the trap than not poking them. I conclude from that they enjoy the attention, but I have no patience for massaging them in an fashion so I just pop them in the trunk of the car (atop a real estate sign to protect from unwanted squirrel deposits) and away relocate them under my squirrel relocation program. The females, by the way, are vastly less agitated when caught. They never get poked.
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JL> This must be a Philadelphia thing – “poking” squirrels. I can see where the males would be more agitated. Word has gotten around the neighborhood. When you get thrown in the slammer, be careful bending over to pick up the soap.
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JT> I am deeply insulted. I have never, at no time at all, ever thrown soap in the Havahart trap while a squirrel was incarcerated.

10:42 am - Who ya' voting for?

Three stooges for president

07:11 pm - Jim Henson from 1965

05:09 pm - A parody of a parody

02:30 pm

A bunch of Clemson Econ students dropped by to talk about economics as a profession. My contribution was a little analysis that runs along the following lines.

Suppose that you are going to have a starting salary of $50K per year and that your annual earnings will double over the next 15 years, and remain constant thereafter. So, in inflation adjusted terms you would be earning 100K when you retire.

Suppose that you sock away 10% of your earnings into a 401K plan each year.

Suppose that the inflation adjusted return on common stocks is 7% per year after inflation while fixed bond rates yield 3% per year more than inflation. (Stock returns actually have been higher over the last 20 years, but were lower for the prior 20 years.)

In the early part of your career you should invest in stock mutual funds to get the high return. There has only been one 20 year period since 1900 when you would have been better off buying an interest type investment rather than stock. However, there are individual years when the stock market goes down more than 30%. Therefore, you won’t want to run that risk as you get close to retirement. For my little model, I assume that your 401K will earn 7% per year until you get within 10 years of retirement. At that point I assume that you will shift 50% of your capital to bonds and then in another five years you shift the rest of your capital to bonds. Thus, in the model your 401K would earn only 3% per year for the final five years.

Combine these assumptions in a spreadsheet and you can calculate that you will have about $1.2 million after 40 years.

If you retired and invested in an inflation adjusted bond fund, you would have a retirement income of about $36K per year.

However, let’s assume that by the time you are 90, you will have much lower expenses. So, instead of just living on interest, lets assume that you buy a 30 year inflation adjusted annuity that returns part of your principal as well as paying interest. At the end of 30 years, you would have nothing left, but until then, you would have a retirement income of $60K per year. Add social security at that would mean you would be living just as well as when you were working.

Now, suppose that you figure that your income is going to be increasing significantly for the next 10 years. What happens if you postpone investing in your 401K for 10 years. After all, you are trimming off only the low income years.

What happens, if everything else remains the same, is that you would save $700K instead of $1.2 million. This means that your retirement income would drop by 42%.

Would it help if you saved more once you started saving? Yes, but you would have to save 16% of your salary instead of 10%.

Would it help if you kept all your money in stocks instead of shifting to safer investments over your last 10 years? Yes. Your retirement income would drop only 24%. Of course, the problem is that the stock market could fall 30% the year before you decide to retire and if that happens, there is a chance you would have only half the income you were counting on.

So, could you just work a few more years to make up for it? Yes. However, even though you are earning more at the end of your career than at the beginning, you still would have to work more than 7 additional years to end up with the same retirement income.

Bottom line: Start putting aside money in that 401K as soon as you start working.

12:02 pm - Captain Beefheart's advice for Guitar Players

1. LISTEN TO THE BIRDS That's where all the music comes from. Birds know everything about how it should sound and where that sound should come from. And watch hummingbirds. They fly really fast, but a lot of times they aren't going anywhere.

2. YOUR GUITAR IS NOT REALLY A GUITAR Your guitar is a divining rod. Use it to find spirits in the other world and bring them over. A guitar is also a fishing rod. If you're good, you'll land a big one.

3. PRACTICE IN FRONT OF A BUSH Wait until the moon is out, then go outside, eat a multi-grained bread and play your guitar to a bush. If the bush doesn't shake, eat another piece of bread.

4. WALK WITH THE DEVIL Old delta blues players referred to amplifiers as the "devil box." And they were right. You have to be an equal opportunity employer in terms of who you're bringing over from the other side. Electricity attracts demons and devils. Other instruments attract other spirits. An acoustic guitar attracts Casper. A mandolin attracts Wendy. But an electric guitar attracts Beelzebub.

5. IF YOU'RE GUILTY OF THINKING, YOU'RE OUT If your brain is part of the process, you're missing it. You should play like a drowning man, struggling to reach shore. If you can trap that feeling, then you have something that is fur bearing.

6. NEVER POINT YOUR GUITAR AT ANYONE Your instrument has more power than lightning. Just hit a big chord, then run outside to hear it. But make sure you are not standing in an open field.

7. ALWAYS CARRY YOUR CHURCH KEY You must carry your key and use it when called upon. That's your part of the bargain. Like One String Sam. He was a Detroit street musician in the fifties who played a homemade instrument. His song "I Need A Hundred Dollars" is warm pie. Another church key holder is Hubert Sumlin, Howlin' Wolf's guitar player. He just stands there like the Statue of Liberty making you want to look up her dress to see how he's doing it.

8. DON'T WIPE THE SWEAT OFF YOUR INSTRUMENT You need that stink on there. Then you have to get that stink onto your music.

9. KEEP YOUR GUITAR IN A DARK PLACE When you're not playing your guitar, cover it and keep it in a dark place. If you don't play your guitar for more than a day, be sure to put a saucer of water in with it.

10. YOU GOTTA HAVE A HOOD FOR YOUR ENGINE Wear a hat when you play and keep that hat on. A hat is a pressure cooker. If you have a roof on your house the hot air can't escape. Even a lima bean has to have a wet paper towel around it to make it grow.

http://musicthing.blogspot.com/2007/06/practice-in-front-of-bush-captain.html

12:27 am - Thought for the day

Perhaps the Bush administration is encouraging oil prices to go up so that the Russians can afford to get back into the arms race. There is lots of money to be made making the tools of the trade.

10:25 am

This might have been the first funny email I ever saw back in the early 1990s. It comes around every year of so and I laugh every time.

They're Back! Church Bulletins: These sentences actually appeared in church bulletins or were announced in church services:


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The Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals.
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The sermon this morning: "Jesus Walks on the Water." The sermon tonight:
"Searching for Jesus."
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Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale. It's a chance to get rid of those
things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands.
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The peacemaking meeting scheduled for today has been canceled due to a
conflict.
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Don't let worry kill you off - let the Church help.
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Miss Charlene Mason sang "I will not pass this way again," giving
obvious pleasure to the congregation.
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For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery
downstairs.
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Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the
help they can get.
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The Rector will preach his farewell message after which the choir will
sing: "Break Forth Into Joy."
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Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the
church.
So ends a friendship that began in their school days.
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Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of
several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.
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Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles and other items to be recycled.
Proceeds will be used to cripple children.
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Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased
person you want remembered.
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The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment and
gracious hostility.
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Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM - prayer and medication to follow.
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The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind.
They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon.
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This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn singing in the park across
from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.
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Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10 AM. All ladies
are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B. S. is done.
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The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the congregation would
lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday.
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Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM. Please use the
back door.
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Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church.
Please use large double door at the side entrance.
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The Associate Minister unveiled the church's new tithing campaign slogan
last Sunday: "I Upped My Pledge - Up Yours"

01:11 am - Ups & downs

11:44 pm - Pretty Clever

11:53 pm - The superbowl

It is SuperBowl week so naturally our thoughts turn to commercials. Can they top the classics? Check out some of the Wilkins Coffee ads that I recall from childhood. Can you sell coffee in 10 second ads? Probably as well as you can sell some stuff with half minute ads.



A few other collections are posted. All well worth viewing. And yes, those are the muppets. (A demonstration of evolution.)

12:46 am - Investigative reporting

05:38 pm - Who were the winners?

Top Finishers and votes in thousands

Clinton (110)  Obama (103)  McCain (88)  Romney (74)  Edwards (48)  Huckabee (26)

Anyone know what the totals were 4 years ago (dems) or 8 years ago (repbs)? 

03:18 pm - No need for separation of church and state

Guess which political candidate said the following:

The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers. On the contrary, our Founders’ political views were strongly informed by their religious beliefs. Certainly the drafters of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both replete with references to God, would be aghast at the federal government’s hostility to religion. The establishment clause of the First Amendment was simply intended to forbid the creation of an official state church like the Church of England, not to drive religion out of public life.

The Founding Fathers envisioned a robustly Christian yet religiously tolerant America, with churches serving as vital institutions that would eclipse the state in importance. Throughout our nation’s history, churches have done what no government can ever do, namely teach morality and civility. Moral and civil individuals are largely governed by their own sense of right and wrong, and hence have little need for external government. This is the real reason the collectivist Left hates religion: Churches as institutions compete with the state for the people’s allegiance, and many devout people put their faith in God before their faith in the state. Knowing this, the secularists wage an ongoing war against religion, chipping away bit by bit at our nation’s Christian heritage.

http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2003/tst122903.htm

12:25 pm

When the frost is on the pumpkin
it is time for dickey dunking
'Cause when its hot and sticky
ain't no time for dunking dickey

11:11 pm - The second amendment

In New York, a convicted felon is in court challenging a law that bars him from carrying a gun. http://www.nysun.com/article/68607

Here is the Second Amendment:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the
right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

The "pro gun" folks focus a lot of that last phrase "...shall not be infringed." However, if the constitution permits absolutely no infringement, then why shouldn't prisoners in jails be allowed to carry guns? Don't they have a right to protect themselves and to revolt against a government they consider unfair?

Nathan forwarded a statement form a Libertarian group to the effect that individuals and the government have a covenant or social contract. If a person -- after due process of law -- is found to have violated that covenant, then they lose their gun rights. Hence, you can bar felons from having guns.

This argument is lacking. First, the Constitution does not use the word covenant anywhere. Article 1, Section 6 mentions felonies as one of the few specific reasons why the government would be allowed to arrest a Congressman during Session. Article 4, Section 2 mandates extradition between states of folks charged with felonies. No other mention of felonies. No mention of social contracts, either. Contracts appear in two places: states can't pass a "...Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts" and that the new government will honor debts contracted under the Articles of Confederation. Thus, if we are restricted to the words of the Constitution, there is no social contract. Nice theory, but irrelevant.

Second, the Supreme Court has been pretty clear that all of the other amendments apply to felons -- previously convicted felons don't have to testify against themselves, they can't be forced to worship, etc. There is nothing to suggest that committing a felony waives other rights.

Prisons are not a recent invention. Federal, state and local governments took away guns before and after the adoption of the Constitution. Thus, there must be some standard of reason at play here.

The fifth amendment reads, in part "No person shall ... be deprived of life,
liberty, or property, without due process of law;..." If a felon's gun rights are subject to due process of law, then I contend that due process of law should apply to anyone's gun rights -- unless the law precludes the maintenance of a well regulated militia.

I focus on the 'well regulated militia" because I believe that the second amendment deliberately referred to the rights of "the people" rather than the rights of individuals. Admittedly, there is some overlap between people and persons. The first amendment ensures the "...right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition for a redress of grievances." I suspect that this wording stems from the fact that it takes people to assemble, not just a single person. However, I concede that it is individuals that show up and a single person can petition for redress. Score one for people equals individuals.

The fourth amendment starts out "The right of the people to be secure..." The amendment taken as a whole doesn't scan very well. The gist of the amendment is that a warrant must name individuals, places or things so that the warrant won't harm other people. In other words, for everyone to feel secure, the government must focus on individuals when it conducts searches. Thus, I don't think that this amendment is an example where the founders clearly show that "the people" equates to "each and every person".

The third, fifth and sixth amendments are constructed as individual rights, not rights of the people. These are three instances where the Founders did not use the term "the people" when they might have.

The seventh and eighth amendments do not mention either persons or the people. The ninth amendment says "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." This does not clarify whether these inherently would be individual rights or whether, instead, there might be some collective right. The tenth amendment "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." clearly is not intended to confer rights on individuals. Score this one against people equals individuals.

Thus, in the Second Amendment "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people ..." seems to be written as a collective right, not as an individual right. Take out the first comma, it it would have been crystal clear. However, even if the amendment had been written "The right of individuals to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed because these rights are necessary to maintaining a well regulated militia and the security of a free State." I would still argue that infringement was defined in terms of maintaining a well regulated militia and the security of a free state, and did not refer to unrelated uses of the arms. (The word infringe does not appear anywhere else in the Constitution.)

So, do I want to take away everyone's guns? No. Guns seem to be a big part of the culture. I think there is a national consensus that a lot of people want guns and that since most behave responsibly, they should be allowed to have them. Yes, guns kill a lot of people, but so do cars. I would require everyone with a gun to have insurance so that victims of crimes or accidents associated with specific guns could get compensation. I would bar cop killer bullets and support sensible laws that might actually reduce crime. But I wouldn't want gun control just to hassle collectors and target shooters, etc. Frankly, there are going to be a lot of guns in this culture for a long time. It would be better if we trained people about how to use guns responsibly than focus too much attention on reducing the number of guns.

04:44 pm - Ron Paul

Ron Paul, responded to a press question about Huckabee's use of cross imagery, by quoting Sinclare Lewis ("....When fascism comes to this country, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross.")

Here is Ron Paul (and footage of the Huckabee ad.)


Interestingly, Huckabee replied that "I will confess this: If you play the spot backwards it says, 'Paul is dead. Paul is dead. " Score one for Huckabee. If you don't know the reference, google "Paul is Dead" and "Beatles". Brilliant.

On blogger researched the Lewis quote. Apparently it cannot be found in Lewis's writings. http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2007/12/pauls-issue-wit.html However, Lewis did write the following:

** From It Can't Happen Here ** "But he saw too that in America the struggle was befogged by the fact that the worst Fascists were they who disowned the word 'Fascism' and preached enslavement to Capitalism under the style of Constitutional and Traditional Native American Liberty."

Some Libertarians believe so strongly in the sanctity of property that they feel that no degree of poverty would ever justify theft (e.g. taxes to help the poor & unfortunate). If you are hungry enough, you should sell yourself into slavery or allow your body to be used for medical experiments, etc. Seems to me that this is the very Fascism wrapped in the capitalist flag that Lewis actually did write about. Score this one against Ron Paul.

06:01 pm - Mae West

Last night we watched Mae West and Cary Grant in She's No Angel. That was her second picture with Grant -- his first major roles.

West was born in 1893 and started as a singer. She sang many blues tunes, including several in the movie we saw. She recorded two rock albums in the 1960s.

In the 1930s, West produced a play with several black actors in leading roles. She was not allowed to cast a black man as her lover, however. She also supported gay rights.

Following her musical "Sex", Wikipedia reports that "She was prosecuted on morals charges and, on April 19, 1927, was sentenced to 10 days in jail for public obscenity. While incarcerated on Roosevelt Island, she was allowed to wear her silk underpants instead of the scratchy prison issue and the warden reportedly took her to dinner every night. She served eight days with two days off for good behavior. Media attention to the case enhanced her career."

A selection of quotes:

"A hard man is good to find."
"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."
[To the question "Have you ever met a man that could make you happy?":] "Several times."
"Why don't you come on up and see me sometime, when I got nothin' on but the radio?"
"Good girls go to heaven, but bad girls get to go everywhere."
"Sex is like bridge. If you don't have a good partner, you'd better have a good hand."
"My left leg is Christmas and my right leg is New Year's. Why don't you visit me between the holidays?"
[To the remark, "Goodness, what a beautiful diamond!":] "Goodness had nothin' to do with it, dearie."
"It's not the men in your life, it's the life in your men"
[the the remark "Oh, Miss West, I've heard so much about you.": "Yeah, honey, but you can't prove a thing."
"Don't ever make the same mistake twice, unless it pays."
"The best way to behave is to misbehave."
"Some women pick men to marry--and others pick them to pieces."
"I didn't discover curves; I only uncovered them."
"The curve is more powerful than the sword."
"Women with "pasts" interest men because men hope that history will repeat itself."
"I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it."
"Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before."
"It is better to be looked over than overlooked."