voluntaryXchange

The Seven Words You Now Hear Everywhere

Motherf***er is used (in books) 700 times as often as it was in 1950.

But sh*t is the big winner in the proliferation of swearing over the last 70 years.

Read the whole thing. There’s graphs and shit too.

Technorati Tags: swear,seven,dirty,words

Podcast: If the Lights Went Out In America

Doug Fabrizio of RadioWest interviews Ted Koppel (yes, that Ted Koppel).

He’s retired from network TV now, and he’s written a book about the threat of terrorist attack on our electical power grid.

Think about it: what exactly would you do if there was no power for a year or two? He thinks that’s possible. Click to listen.

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I knew this before I heard the podcast, but if you’re not familiar with the San Jose incident of 3 years ago, you should probably read up on it.

It is believed that this was a completely successful paramilitary dry run on disabling part of the electrical grid.

Here’s the skinny: at night, persons unknown cut phone lines, then proceeded to use high powered rifles to shoot holes in storage tanks used for coolant, damaging 17 of those huge transformers you only see behind big security fences, and then got away leaving almost no evidence.

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TMI: my dad was a Ted Koppel stalker back in the late 1970’s. Dad was a newshound and he liked Ted Koppel. Koppel used to vacation at the same location where my family owned a rental property; we got to stay there for a week or two of cheap vacation every year too. This was at an intellectual spot called Chautauqua Institution, where they had speakers several times a week. So Koppel would come and speak, probably make a little money, and maybe take a tax deduction on the room and board at the guest house where he’d stay. So my dad would drag 10 year old me along while he’d wait outside the guest house for a glimpse of Koppel coming and going, and maybe a quick handshake. It was all ridiculously innocent, but just a little weird.

Technorati Tags: power,grid,cyber,attack,terrorism,metcalf,san,jose,koppel,podcast,radiowest

Tilting at Windmills, Imaginary Jane Austen, and Progressive Policies

Progressives seem awfully tied up in magical thinking these days. How else to explain the certainty that nonsense like a $15 minimum wage just must be a good idea?

Betsy’s Page quotes and writes about literary criticism, and finds much the same thing going on:

Robert Garnett writes about this recent tendency among critics and biographers to create an entirely new Austen more to their political liking despite a total lack of evidence for their arguments.

… The world she knew—“three or four Families in a Country Village,” as she puts it in one letter—offered more than enough of human character, high and low, to constitute a moral microcosm. …

That was enough for Austen, and for 200 years it has been enough for readers. But a book out this past May, “Jane Austen, the Secret Radical” reveals that her novels “deal with slavery, sexual abuse, land enclosure, evolution, and women’s rights.” The evidence? “I offer flashes of an imaginary Jane Austen,” the critic admits, “glimpses of what the authoress might have been thinking.”

What might she be thinking today of her rebirth as a discontented oracle bristling with progressive opinions? …

The idea that a literary critic would brag about discussing "an imaginary Jane Austen" indicates how baseless her theory is. But why should that matter. She likes Austen's novels; she's a radical; ergo Austen must have been one also. Evidence can be imaginary since the theory itself is what matters.

I like a progressive policy just as much as the next person. I’d just like to see it supported by data rather than wishful thinking and bluster. Betsy gets it:

It resembles a lot of liberal policy proposals - the intent is good, therefore the policy is admirable - forget the unintended consequences of a hiked minimum wage, universal healthcare, or peace with Iran.

(Without defending Trump and/or the national level morons in the Republican Party), I find it very curious that progressives prefer to speak of their policy proposals as exclusively about helping people. Does no one else recognize that conservatives are in the position of defending the less powerful from being hurt by these policies? When did that become morally problematic, much less wrong.

We’re in a period where the mere mention that there are benefits and costs, and therefore we should be looking at net rather than gross benefits, is being shouted down as if it were hate speech.

Don’t forget that explicitly ignoring costs is actually a policy of regulatory agencies like the EPA.

Via Cold Spring Shops:

[This is] Just the thing as the unintended consequences of universal health care (and a lack of imagination on the part of Our Political Masters) hit, and hit hard.

They’re hitting hard here, as the most competent specialist in town has been cut by my school’s health insurance, seemingly at the instigation of just the sort of “healthcare” conglomerate preferred under Obamacare because it has a monopoly on our local hospital.

It’s not so magical here on the ground.

Made Me Laugh: Funniest Thing Librarians Have Found In Books

Ask a Librarian:

$100. When I called the most recent patron, she wasn’t home, but her husband took the call. Respecting privacy, I simply said, “We have something at the front desk that she may have left in a book.” His response, “Has she been using cash as a bookmark again?” ­­—Amy Gillespie, Hill Top Prep Library

I worked as a page/clerk in a public library for a couple of years. I handled a lot of books. Honestly, I can’t ever remember finding anything interesting stuck inside one. I’m sure there were things … but 35 years on I have very few interesting stories about working in the library.

Via Marginal Revolution.

Technorati Tags: library,librarian,book,odd,funny,inside

A Gem In Some Old Photos

From some parking lot in June 2013:

Technorati Tags: mordor,photo

H.M.S. Terror Found

In 1845, Sir John Franklin led two ships, Terror and Erebus, into Canada’s Arctic archipelago. He was searching for a Northwest Passage.

They were never heard from again. It is known the crews abandoned the ships and tried to march south; artifacts have been found on land from tiime to time.

The loss of the two ships has been one of the biggest maritime disaster stories for almost 170 years.

It was announced today that the wreck of the Terror has been found in 80 feet of water, several dozen miles south of where she was suspected to lie. Erebus was found 2 years ago.

Interestingly, both ships were found on the south side of King William Island, even though a note was left behind on the north end of the island.

King William Island is roughly triangular (with one apex pointing north). The Arctic Ocean is relatively shallow in the Canadian Archipelago, and prevailing westerly winds drive sea ice into the shallow passages. These are sometimes blocked for years. The “trick” to navigating the Northwest passage is to go along the east side of King William Island where the water — protected by the island — stays ice free for the longest, and then to run west along the south side of the island, continuing on until you reach the open waters of the Beaufort Sea. This is how Amundsen made it the first time. He wintered in a harbor along the lower east coast of the island. The location of Terror and Erebus suggests they got stuck in ice on the west side of the island, and were carried south without ever breaking free. So I wonder if they made a critical mistake from which recovery was not possible (not that they would have known that “trick” at the time).

Now that the ships have been found, the new mystery is how they got there. Terror looks like it was abandoned in ship-shape, and was found in a natural harbor. I wonder how the ice carried it south, then east, then north into the harbor without crushing it.

Also, the note indicating abandonment was found on the northern corner of the island. Yet most artifacts were found on land to the south … much closer to the ships’ final resting places. Did some men stay with the ships? Did the sea ice open for a week or two, permitting one last sail of a hundred miles or so. Or did the men proceed south, while the ships were pushed along parallel to them, and perhaps not wish to stray to far from them?

Would you believe I can recommend a favorite novel about the expedition? Try The Terror by Dan Simmons.

One better: can you believe I can recommend a song too? Here is "Lord Franklin", by Pentangle (although it’s pretty much a John Renbourn solo piece).

Now if they'd just get their act in gear, and premiere the TV series based on the book. It had been scheduled for as early as 2015, but now they say 2017.

Technorati Tags: franklin,terror,erebus,renbourn,northwest,passage

Pretty Weird

Maggie McKneely lists out and discusses all of the legacy media creations that are (strictly positive) stand-ins for Hillary Clinton.

Not that there’s anything wrong with the notion of a female president. But as early as the 1990s, TV shows have been promoting the idea of one specific female as president: Hillary Clinton.

Admittedly, she’s the best all-around candidate (no pun intended, really) for an artist to use as a model. Even so, we’ve had many other first ladies, a few dozen female senators, and the first female Secretary of State was a black Republican.

For my money, the quantity is ridiculous enough to call a weird fixation. McKneely lists out:

• 5 network TV series explicitly based on parts of the Clinton biography.
• 10 TV series with something between an episode and a story arc based on Clinton.
• 4 movies with Clinton-like leads. One of these, Primary Colors, was actually purported to be truthful.
• 6 musical numbers more or less about Clinton.
• 25 children’s books are currently on sale about Clinton, including these two:
    
• Then there’s the Axis of Time trilogy targeting the adult science fiction audience with a post Clinton II world.
• Oh, and a Clinton paper doll set
• And, and, 2 Clinton coloring books.

Amazingly, the whole article does not even mention the seminal connection from the early 90’s: the Clintons tight relationship with the Thomason’s. At the time they were among the most powerful people in the entertainment industry, creators of a TV show rated in the top 10 during the election year (Designing Women), another show rated in the top 20 (Evening Shade) that was loosely based on Clinton’s first adopted home state of Arkansas, and a brand new show 2 months before the election (Hearts Afire). No wonder they produced the big video shown at the convention that year.

Read the whole thing at Newsbusters.

FWIW: I’m still putting my disclaimer on these posts. I’ve hated Donald Trump for over 30 years, including 7-8 before I’d even heard of Hillary. I’m not voting for either one.

Technorati Tags: hillary,hollywood,legacy,media

Why Is Macro So Hard: What Passes for Expert Evidence

I was unable to find the review written by Tyler Cowen online, but here’s the money quote from his blog post:

You can’t write a good book which attempts to repeal the laws of economics, especially when it focuses on an economic topic.

Of course, the thing is, the book being reviewed has already been written, edited, published, and retailed.

Whether or not it’s a good book, it is now a published book that enters the canon of discussion of the (UK’s) housing crisis. So here’s the score:

Non-economists writing as experts about economics	1
Tyler Cowen (a respected and well-known economist)	0
Me (a respected but not so well-known economist)	0

I would say the non-expert won.

Technorati Tags: dorling,housing,crisis,why,macro,so,hard

Vampire Economics

Freakonomics has a podcast today discussing some of the articles about vampires and economics in:

Unfortunately, it doesn't mention the chapter I co-authored :(

OMFG: A Thomas Friedman Quote I Can Actually Post for Future Reference

Thomas Friedman is a columnist for The New York Times, and author of The World Is Flat.

I read The World Is Flat about ten years ago, and I enjoyed it very much.

Here’s the thing: it is the only book I’ve read in almost 30 years in which there were zero items worth highlighting.

Zero.

That has always amazed me. It is the exemplar of mental cotton candy: I “enjoyed it very much” and there was nothing left behind when I was done.

Until now. I missed this quote, and I like it:

Communism was a great system for making people equally poor – in fact, there was no better system in the world for that than communism. Capitalism made people unequally rich.

For this quote I thank Mark Perry at Carpe Diem.

Technorati Tags: thomas,friedman,world,flat,quote,communism,capitalism,equally,poor,unequally,rich