April 2007 Archives

Libertarians like to point to polls that suggest "a lot of Americans are libertarians", based on surveys like the Advocates' WSPQ. Then they sit around wondering why no one votes for Libertarians. "Surely," they say, "it must be because people are not aware of what we stand for."

Let's imagine a situation where everyone forgot what the traditional parties are about, and had to consider all the candidates based solely on their positions. So the Libertarians, of course, nominate some pure thinking radical with the campaign slogan "How dare you suggest we tax prostitution and drugs after we legalize them. Taxes are immoral." The Republicans find a good bible thumping reactionary with the idea to deport any "known homosexuals", cut capital gains tax, and bring back slavery. The Democrats campaign on a "100% income tax over $65,000, free abortions for all" platform.

That's how it goes right?

I think you see my point. I'm not going to vote for a wacko. I'm not going to vote for anyone whose claim to fame is being a heavy pot smoker, or dying his skin blue, or demonstrating a poor understanding of fractional reserve banking.

Will I be voting for a libertarian next November? Probably not. I hate all of the Dems running for President and Feinstein too, so I'll vote for Republicans in those races. My congressman, a democrat, fled the holocaust and went on to get a Ph.D. in economics. I doubt I agree with him, but I think he's at least qualified for the job.

Guess what, party faithful? The people afraid of government mind control rays won't vote anyway, because that would mean leaving their mountain cabin, or, heaven forbid, consenting to a government monopoly by mailing in an absentee ballot. This isn't 18th century Boston. The revolution is over. Time to learn how politics work and get with the program.

Oh, yeah, vote for me in ... 2010 or so. Peterson, Libertarian for Whatever, cause I've got the balls to support school vouchers even though they are not ideologically perfect.

I got my Bay to Breakers packet in the mail yesterday. So naturally I couldn't resist trying to duplicate the ad campaign. Not quite professional quality, but then I'm not a professional web designer anymore :) This is my first year running it, of course, since the last four years I've been away, and when I was in college, I would have been lucky to walk 12km over the course of a day without dying of a heart attack, or possibly junk food deprivation.

Now I just need to figure out how to get there. Oh yeah, and I'll be dragging the parents with me. Well, I will be pointing them in the direction of the slow people starting line, and wishing them a cheery "hope I'll still be sober enough to recognize you by the time you get to the finish in four hours!" Cal Train sounds like a good idea, but only a half hour before the start? I suppose there isn't any need to push to the front since it's chip timed, but I'd still rather not have to dodge people.

Yeah, yeah, I know, it's totally against the spirit of the race to actually run as fast as I can, but I didn't make it under 60 minutes at Emerald 12k, partly (about 2 minutes worth) due to getting stuck behind people who no way on any planet were running below 10 minute miles at the start, and I want to redeem myself and meet my self appointed and totally arbitrary goal. And, of course, sub-1hr 12k predicts a sub-4hr marathon.

So I made mention of what I was going to call the MacGyver principle, but I think the best pop culture reference for this idea is The Princess Bride. Slightly abbreviated:

Westley

And our assets?

Inigo

Your brains, Fezzik's strength, my steel.

Westley

That's it? Impossible. If I had a month to plan, maybe I could come up with something, but this....<shakes head> ... I mean, if we only had a wheelbarrow, that would be something.

Inigo

Where did we put that wheelbarrow the albino had?

Fezzik

With the albino, I think.

Consider that you are Westley. You have an objective. There is no partial success, either you succeed or you fail. The objective cannot be achieved without a wheelbarrow. Now we'll deviate from the story a little bit. Assume that Westley cannot know if he will have access to a wheelbarrow yet. He is making his plans, and he will meet with Fezzik and Inigo at the castle. He has no access to a wheelbarrow, and no way to communicate his need to Fezzik and Inigo. What should he do?

As far as I know, no one has yet solved such questions as "how do you derive ought from is," or "why is there something rather than nothing", or "how can we be sure we aren't just living in the matrix?" The difficulty lies in the fact that the best answers we have to these statements ("you can't", "no reason", "you can't") aren't very satisfying, and more importantly, they cannot be used to derive other conclusions, because of the weakness of the solutions to these initial problems.

I heard talk on the radio this morning about some school training teachers how to barricade their room. The castle went away at the time we developed gun powder. You want safer schools? Get rid of the guns free schools bullshit. Guess what? Psychos aren't particularly concerned about breaking these laws. The laws do nothing but keep the victims from protecting themselves. Easy solution, no training required:

Allow any credentialed teacher, administrator, licensed psychologist working at a school who served in the military and was honorably discharged, to carry a gun. If they're responsible for children, then they better be responsible. If they served in the military, they know how to handle a gun. Will this guarantee nothing like Colu...Black...whatever the massacre of the week won't happen again? No.

Well, I'll stop arguing this, and instead just link to this article at Reason which makes the same argument, but like, more professional and stuff.

June 25 update: Looks like someone is taking my advice.

Now, now, calm down there my gun toting, short haired, "if the poor don't like being poor they can get a damn job" friends. The Bay has not gotten to me yet. My tofu consumption has not increased and I do not have a handsome "roommate" with a well trimmed goatee. More to the point, I drive a Ford Mustang rather than a Toyota Prius, because I'm good at math.

Fact of the matter is, gasoline is an insignificant portion of the cost of car ownership. Based on my records, I spend about $1500/year on gas. Let's assume I bought a Prius that got 3x the mileage my Mustang gets. Wow, I just saved $1000! And it only cost me $25,000.

Figure the average yuppie buys a new $45,000 car every five years, drives it 50,000 miles and gets $20,000 back on the trade-in. At 20mpg, that's $7750/year for depreciation and gas. At 60mpg, that's $6875. Those amounts are close enough that no sane person is going to make mileage a big factor in the purchase of a car. For about $75/month, he can get the big ass SUV with room for everything instead of the hippie mobile. (The story is different if you have a really horrendous commute.)

I found some data at the man's propaganda machine. They say 840 million gallons of petroleum products consumed per day. Long hair hippie treehuggers estimate the Iraq war at around $105 billion a year. That's 34 cents per gallon of petroleum products. (You can object that not all of our oil comes from the middle east, go and do the more complicated math, and you will end up at the same number. Proof left as an exercise for the reader.) Right now, the price of gasoline is subsidized by 34 cents from other sources, meaning income taxes, borrowing from the children, etc.

So I get some annoying spam about this scam website the ex book. The email of course says that some ex posted horrible horrible things about you, log on to the site to check them out. Of course, to log on you have to pay for a subscription. Just a quick hint to anyone clueless enough to fall for this: legitimate websites don't register through Domains By Proxy.

If someone wanted to, they would have no trouble winning a lawsuit against these losers. Unfortunately, they probably don't have the assets to make it worthwhile.

You might not have noticed this, since the change was gradual, but Borders and Barnes and Noble don't sell books anymore.

I know you're thinking, "umm...dude, they're bookstores, that's what they do, they sell books." Well, yes, I'll grant that they still do allow you to exchange money for a bundle of paper, but that's not their primary business anymore. Selling books as a business model has gone the way of the buggy whip maker. Now, the objective is to provide a place for people who like books to hang out, and monetize it.

You may remember that word from the dot com crash of 1999. Let me use it in a sentence to refresh your memory:

"Our website allows users to track hot air balloons. In real time."

"That sounds fantastic, but how are you going to monetize it?"

"Monetize? Umm...we're just going to build a really cool website and then go public."

"I'll be happy to take over payments on the BMW when you go bankrupt."

The mega bookstores clearly are not about selling books. I could sell books much cheaper using significantly less space. Hell, I could even go online and do it over the internet. Pretty clear they aren't about providing the service of locating books either. What do they tell you when you walk in and say you're looking for Der Einzige und sein Eigentum? Usually, they offer to order it for you.

So what, then, do I claim Borders sells? Simple, they sell a public library with less reference books and more Guide to getting it on. But there's no money in that, so they monetize the library with selling books and coffee.