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Cablevision's Lustgarten Proves the Afterlife Exists

The Wall Street Journal reports on September 22, 2006 that "Cablevision awarded options to a vice chairman (Marc Lustgarten) after his 1999 death but backdated them to make it appear they were awarded when he was still alive."

This would seem to undercut the argument that stock options are incentives for future management performance.

But, on second glance, this is proof that there is life after death. Why would such a greedy group of men as the average telecommunications upper management team share the options bounty unless Lustgarten had, in return, something he could provide?

One can imagine Marley appearing to Scrooge, not to ask him to reform, but to ask him for 666,666 options at $6.66 a share, backdated to 6/6/1866. 

In return, Marley might hint at solar storms or meteors disrupting sattelite TV transmissions, lightning strikes or floods at telephone switching centers, and perhaps plagues of boils inflicted on municipal officials who don't yet see the same clear vision of the future that Cablevision Systems Corporation does.

The occasional plague of locusts might distract media attention when weak quarterly earnings were reported.

If Lustgarten (and I love that last name for a corporate executive) could arrange for congressmen to have visits from their "guardian angels", his options might be quite cost-effective relative to the standard methods of lobbying.

So, I find in this story hope for a better life in the hereafter. Maybe I should post this on Beliefnet.

Want to get hit by a car? Wear a helmet!

That headline is one of many comments in response to a study by Ian Walker. The study has been getting a lot of attention in the bicycling community, but is basically junk science. Let’s start with a condensed version of the press release: 

“Drivers pass closer when overtaking cyclists wearing helmets than when overtaking bare-headed cyclists, increasing the risk of a collision, the research has found.

Dr Ian Walker, a traffic psychologist from the University of Bath in the UK, used a bicycle fitted with a computer and an ultrasonic distance sensor to record data from over 2,500 overtaking motorists in Salisbury and Bristol.

Dr Walker, who was struck by a bus and a truck in the course of the experiment, spent half the time wearing a cycle helmet and half the time bare-headed. He was wearing the helmet both times he was struck.

He found that drivers were as much as twice as likely to get particularly close to the bicycle when he was wearing the helmet. Drivers passed an average of 3 inches closer with the helmet than without

The research has been accepted for publication in the journal Accident Analysis & Prevention.

"This study shows that when drivers overtake a cyclist, the margin for error they leave is affected by the cyclist's appearance," said Dr Walker, from the University's Department of Psychology.

"By leaving the cyclist less room, drivers reduce the safety margin that cyclists need to deal with obstacles in the road, such as drain covers and potholes, as well as the margin for error in their own judgements.

To test another theory, Dr Walker donned a long wig to see whether there was any difference in passing distance when drivers thought they were overtaking what appeared to be a female cyclist.

Whilst wearing the wig, drivers gave him an average of 5.5 inches more space when passing.

Junk science?

While this article has gotten wide publicity in the cycling community, it’s basically junk science. It’s good for stimulating conversation, but that’s about it.

1. Experimenter bias is likely. Walker’s hypothesis is that drivers are subconsciously making judgments about how close they can pass.  But then he goes and does all the experimentation using himself as a subject.  It is well known that an experimenter who knows what results he wants, or what results he should get, can unconsciously influence the outcome. That’s been known for decades, and if he is a research psychologist he would have learned this in the first introductory research methods course.

This might occur quite easily. One of the cues cyclist give off is how straight a line they maintain versus how wobbly they are. Did he wobble more when he was farther out in the lane, perhaps because he was unfamiliar with being out that far? Did he do the conditions in a certain order, so he was more relaxed with the equipment as he went along? Lots of things can happen, which is why you usually wouldn’t use yourself as the only subject.

2. How bad of a cyclist is he? In the course of the study, he was hit twice.  This is in about 200 miles of cycling. This is an incredibly high accident rate, which indicates that something other than normal cycling behavior is going on.

3. Incredible labeling.  Walker sometimes rode with a wig in order to gauge motorists reactions to female cyclists. But there’s more to being a female cyclist than just long hair, and looking at Walker’s picture it seems more likely he was measuring the response to cyclists with long hair. But he persists in the article in insisting this indicates something about being female. Why?

 

The managerial version of the published study is at http://www.drianwalker.com/overtaking/overtakingprobrief.pdf

The press release from Walker can be found at http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-09/uob-wah091106.php

Dr. Ian Walker's picture is below. How feminine is he with a wig?

 

Who picked these holidays, anyway?

Here's next year's holidays at the company I work for:

New Year's                                         Monday, January 1

Memorial Day                                      Monday, May 28

Independence Day                             Wednesday, July 4 

Labor Day                                           Monday, September 3

Thanksgiving                                       Thursday, November 22

                                                            Friday, November 23

Christmas Day                                    Tuesday, December 25

New Years Eve                                   Monday, December 31

These are pretty standard, but there's one interesting thing about them. Of the 8 holidays, 5 of them are bad weather holidays. Only 3 have decent weather (Memorial Day, July 4th, and Labor Day).

What were we thinking?

“Our character is measured by our desires.”

“Our character is measured by our desires." 

Emanuel Swedenborg   from the ARCANA COELESTIA 5128

Interesting to contrast this with basic Buddhist philosophy:

• Suffering is universal,
• It is caused by desire and yearning
• Suffering can be prevented and overcome and
• Eradication of desires can lead to removal of suffering.

(from http://www.hindunet.org/avatars/buddha/index.htm but available in many places)

Swedenborg is a bit more optimistic: in his view, we can't really eliminate desires so much as focus desires -- focusing on the desire to do good, the love of the use (desire to be of service), and the love of God.

 

Reading skills of tech support

Actual correspondence with regard to equipment for an "absolutely top priority" project:

August 09, Dan:    Attached is an exception request requesting two 500Gb external hard drives.

Sept 13: Dan:    Steve, an external hard drive was delivered to me today. My exception request was for two 500Gb drives. I received one 80Gb drive. Do you know what happened?

Sept 13: Steve, Tech VP:    Sorry, Dan, the people who transcribed the request form got 300 Gb from the exception request form and not 500Gb. Send back the incorrect part and we'll try to get the right one ordered and delivered.

So, we asked for TWO 500Gb drives. This was "transcribed" to ONE 300Gb drive, and they sent an 80Gb drive -- five weeks later. 

Best Buy has larger drives (600Gb) for $349 with one day delivery, or available for pickup at 4 of their stores within 10 miles. 

The worst part is, there's a decent chance that when Dan returns the 80Gb drive, there will be further disruption because he didn't return the 300Gb drive.  There's also a decent likelihood we will have to go through the whole approval process again.

Who is Uranus really named for?

The planet Uranus, forever the butt of jokes, might have had a different name.

"William Herschel tried to name his new planet ``Georgium Sidus" for King George III, but the international astronomy community would have none of that, calling it Uranus instead." writes Owen Gingerich in the Boston Globe http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2006/09/03/planet_politics/?page=full 

Given that George III has been the butt of many jokes in America, that's not surprising.

The recent controversey about Pluto has brought many of these jokes back out of the closet. Consider today's Brewster Rocket comic:

"Sorry O-Dor, the other planets voted that Uranus jokes don't get old."

O-dor: "You mean the planet formerly known as Uranus. We got a corporate sponsor to buy naming rights to our planet. No longer will Uranus be the butt of jokes."

"Who is your sponsor?"

O-Dor: "Preparation H"

http://www.comicspage.com/brewster/brewster.html

This will be my fourth mention to Uranus being the butt of jokes, so perhaps it's time to end this entry.

What Wine Goes with Peanut Butter and Jelly?

Bill Daley, in the Chicago Tribune's food section, ponders the issue of what wine to serve with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/food/chi-0609060019sep06,1,1620992.column?coll=chi-leisuregoodeating-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

A top entry is this one:

"Rare Wine Co. Madeira Boston Bual

Made from the bual wine grape, this Madeira is an especially pleasing tribute to the city of Boston (a major consumer of Madeira back in colonial days) plenty of oak, leather, figs and spice. The wine gave the peanut butter a boost and some tasters thought it added kick to the jelly, too. $40 (3 corkscrews)"

I sent this to a colleague in France, who has just been over for some collaboration. During that time, the phrase "peanut butter sample" came up, as a description of a particular type of statistical sampling philosophy. He'd never had peanut butter, so another colleague introduced him.  His French palate was unimpressed, probably similar to an American trying that Australian concoction, Vegemite.  Now he will truly think Americans have no taste buds.

A $40 wine is great with PB&J -- especially if you leave out the PB&J.

But even PB&J can go upscale: "Chef Grant Achatz's take on "PB&J," a single peeled grape coated with peanut butter and wrapped in the thinnest toast wafer, was a sensation when the Lincoln Park restaurant [Alinea] opened in May 2005.

Joseph Catterson, Alinea's wine director and sommelier, approached that PB&J with a half-dozen possible pairings before deciding a glass of Sercial "Charleston" Madeira "

Now THAT sounds more French!

Death, Where Is Thy Stingray?

Yes, that's the actual title of a memorial article on Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter, on SOMA

http://www.somareview.com/deathwhereisthystingray.cfm

repeated on Beliefnet:

http://www.beliefnet.com/nllp/Inspiration.aspx?WT.mc_id=Inspiration03&date=09-06-2006

I don't get cable, so my exposure to Steve Irwin was limited. Still, I don't think he'd mind the joke much. Probably would tell it himself, if he could.

Toyota Prius tops 500,000 mark

I bought a Prius earlier this summer. I hesitated because (1) I hate spending that much money on an asset that depreciates, and (2) I really wanted to wait until the technology was proven in a larger number of cars.  I bought a Ford Windstar the first year out, and let's just say it was lucky for me I got the extended warranty.

But Toyota has sold a lot of these. According to http://www.toyota.com/movingforward/2006/july/prius.html?url=image_button they've now sold over half a million, over half of these in the U.S.  This (and the good quality reputation) have made me feel better about the purchase. 

Germany interested in Czech territory again?

Der Spiegel reports with some glee that a right wing group in Germany has been trying to attract young people with a campaign featuring an attractive woman and the slogan "Germany is hot" (Deutsch Ist Geil!)

Problem #1: The young woman is actually Czech. An attractive Czech model, but still a Czech. Not ... a ... German.  Didn't this issue get settled in the 1940's?

Problem #2: The image is "hot" in more than one way -- as in stolen. The owners of the image are starting legal action for copyright infringement.

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,434760,00.html

Should Bush debate Iran?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060829/pl_nm/nuclear_iran_dc_92

"TEHRAN (Reuters) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday challenged        President Bush to a televised debate and voiced defiance as a deadline neared for        Iran to halt work the West fears is a step toward building nuclear bombs. "

My guess: Ahmadinejad will offer to put Iran's nuclear capacity in a lockbox.

He can get a deal on cheap lockboxes from Al Gore.

The Onion fact-checks?

I was interviewed by a free-lance writer earlier this year, who didn't get proper contact information from me. I'm quoting from his request:

" The editors I'm working with need contact information for
people I'm quoting, just for fact-checking purposes. Can I get phone
numbers from : Joe ____, Dave ___, Mike Kruger. I moved all the way up here and then realized I didn't have their info. My fault entirely. ... I've got a good shot
at getting this ... story published in a local magazine this
fall. .... I've recently moved to Madison to take a job with the Onion."

Is he hinting I'm about to be in The Onion? Surely he can't. That would mean The Onion does fact-checking! I thought that was the type of thing only the Boston Globe and the New York Times and such did  -- or maybe now it is only The Onion that fact-checks?

Of course, I didn't see anyone else with this story:  http://www.theonion.com/content/node/51848

 

UPDATE: Scott informs me that, while he works for The Onion, the story is being written for a Chicago-area magazine.

Today's depressing statistic: beating only Turkey.

"A survey of 32 European countries, the US and Japan has revealed that only Turkey is less willing than the US to accept evolution as fact."

(Jeff Hecht article in New Scientist based on surveys by Jon Miller of Michigan State University)

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19125653.700?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=mg19125653.700

"Even though the average American has more years of education than when Miller began his surveys 20 years ago, the percentage of people in the country who accept the idea of evolution has declined from 45 in 1985 to 40 in 2005 (Science, vol 313, p 765). That's despite a series of widely publicised advances in genetics, including genetic sequencing, which shows strong overlap of the human genome with those of chimpanzees and mice."

More proof there's no response to gas prices

I'd earlier noted that while the majority of people SAID they were cutting down on gasoline usage, gasoline usage was actually up slightly. [ http://journals.aol.com/mikekr/ZbicyclistsZlog/entries/2006/08/09/watch-what-we-do-not-what-we-say/783 ]

Here's more proof Americans are still only talking, not acting from this Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial:

"The Environmental Protection Agency reports that 2006 model vehicles sold in the U.S. average a tepid 21 miles per gallon, the same as in 2005. ...

For all the fuss about increased energy costs and Middle East turmoil, the 2006 fleet average for all makers is 5 percent below the peak of 22.1 mpg all the way back in 1987-88. Despite a worsening energy picture, fuel economy seems to be locked in reverse."

Floyd Landis -- my theory

I bicycle a lot, but don't race. Oh, I've gotten a day license for a cyclo-cross race or two, but I'm much too slow to dream. With 30% below normal lung capacity due to sarcoidosis there's not much hope of competing with my age group. 

Nevertheless, I follow racing a bit, and acquaintances ask me what I think happened with Floyd Landis. Here's my theory.

Only a tiny bit separates first from not-first at the top level of competition, and that difference is worth a lot of money. Plus, there are a lot of races, and so there's a lot of need to recover as fast as possible.  Under these conditions, there are huge temptations to cheat.  It's also hard and expensive to test. The testing protocols are statistical, and even the first level test for the A samples cost $300 each, so the testing is hardly continuous. At low levels of drug, the type that fly below the testing radar, you probably aren't doing much damage to your body (relative to what you are already doing by a career as a professional athlete).

So, temptation$ plus low likelihood of being caught plus little physical risk... that adds up to a high likelihood that there is a lot of cheating. There's evidence posted on this site http://www.cycling4all.com/index.php?content=d_news12.php that cycling and baseball have the highest rates of positive drug results.

Without any evidence whatever, I would guess that Landis was taking a complicated pattern of doping with testosterone (perhaps to improve recovery) and then adding epitestosterone as a masking agent to hide this (since the screener, $300 test, measures whether the ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone is above 4:1).  In Landis's disappointment at finishing stage 16 so poorly, and perhaps because he had too much alcohol to drown his sorrows, he did not follow this regime to the letter.

The next day, he may have realized this might have been the case, which is why he drank so much water during the stage (a count of 70 water bottles either drunk or poured over his body was noted).  This may have been an attempt to flush. In addition, a rider from the T-Mobile team drafted him during his entire ride, up until the final climb. The T-Mobile rider wasn't helping Floyd because his teammate Kloden was one of Floyd's rivals. The T-Mobile rider was trying to hang on to Floyd in hopes of having morestrength at the end and winning the stage in the final sprint.  If so, Floyd would have had only a 1 in 70 chance of being tested (they test the winner, the leader, and two other random individuals) and would probably have gotten away with it.  But the T-Mobile rider couldn't hang on and Floyd was tested.

So, my guess is Floyd was moderately doping, but messed up and got caught.

Who advertises to those with empty Inboxes?

I just cleared out all the messages from an e-mail account I seldom use. It's mostly used to provide an e-mail address when I'd really just as soon not provide one, and mostly accumulates spam. After clearing it out, I re-checked the in-box to be sure it was empty. It was, but the empty spot contained 3 ads -- all for lonelyhearts services. Asian women look for men - Women from Philippines, Thailand, and other asian countries   Single in Chicago? - Meet quality Singles in Chicago Parties, Trips and Introductions. eHarmony® Online Dating - Looking for a Serious Relationship? Let eHarmony Help. Free Profile!

This makes sense, now that I think about it.

Watch what we do, not what we say

Today's fun pair of facts, from the New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/09/us/09gas.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

"In the Pew Research survey of 1,182 Americans — 1,048 of them drivers — 55 percent said they were driving less because of the recent increases in gasoline prices. The poll, taken from June 20 to July 16, had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

Yet Americans’ overall gasoline appetite has barely budged. Total use this year is up about one-half percent to 1 percent compared with 2005, according to federal figures — a slower rate of growth than in the past, but hardly the mark of a nation with its foot fully on the brake."

You are not alone

Today's fun fact, from Dannon:

Did you know you have over 100 trillion bacteria cells living in your body right now?

In fact, you have about 10 times the number of bacteria in your intestinal tract as you do cells in your entire body!

(OK, that's two facts.)

Chase reluctant to give me my money, part 3

This instance is less important, but this time we also include a comparison to another bank.

Some 12-15 years ago I purchased some state of Illinois bonds from First Chicago (now JP Morgan Chase). At some point, they sold the rights to service some of these bonds to US Bank in Minnesota.  Two bonds matured this year on the same day, August 1, one from JP Morgan Chase and the other from US Bank.

I mailed them both, registered, on Friday July 28. 

I mailed one to US Bank in St. Paul, MN. I received a check Wednesday, August 2, which is as soon as it would be possible to receive a check. That's good service.

I mailed the other to JP Morgan Chase in Chicago.  I just received the check today, August 7th -- 5 days later. Where has this check been? It's been on a long tour. I mailed the bond to Chicago.  The check was issued in Dallas. The check was mailed from zip code 35210, somewhere in Alabama.

The net effect of this cross-country tour is that a bond that should have been paid out August 1 gets paid out August 8th -- one week later (since the banks are already closed tonight -- it won't be credited until tomorrow even if I use an ATM). 

This is called cash flow management.  I know what it's called, but I don't have to like it.

Earlier installments of this series:

http://journals.aol.com/mikekr/ZbicyclistsZlog/entries/2006/07/04/chase-reluctant-to-give-me-my-money-part-2/772

http://journals.aol.com/mikekr/ZbicyclistsZlog/entries/750

The obvious question is: when am I going to move banks? It's a pain to move an account -- especially one with several automated payments.  So, I only want to do it once. The nearest US Bank branch is 3.5 miles away, which is possible. Maybe I've found a candidate.

Synergy -- or sometimes that pile of parts comes in handy.

Sometimes all that crap in my basement comes in handy.

 

I went into REI to get some camping stuff. They were having their "garage sale", which basically is a bunch of broken stuff cheap.  They had a nice Blackburn floor pump with a built-in gage for $10.

 

The problem was that the head was broken, making the pump useless. I remembered I had kept the hose and head off an old pump. I had once fixed that old pump by getting one of those pump repair kits that comes with the appropriate hardware (e.g. fitting and hose clamp), and had put it "somewhere".

 

Lo and behold, I quickly found the old hose and head, and fixed the pump to working order in less than five minutes. 

 

Now, if only I could figure out what to do with the rest of the crap.

Lest bicyclists get too sanctimonious about drugs

Interestingly, in a Velonews article on Floyd Landis's problems (testing positive for testosterone doping at the Tour de France) there's a Google ad -- for testosterone usable for doping!  Velonews probably just agrees to let Google post ads in this area and has no control over their content. Google just matches up key words. The result is, unfortunately, embarrassing.

The ad's in the lower left corner of the picture. The screen print transferred poorly to this journal page, due to AOL's limits on the size of images.

I wrote Velonews about this, but they didn't reply and it wasn't one of the letters to the editor they posted on the website.

 

Bicyclists are a drain on the environment?? #2

Now I'm actually reading the article, and there are some interesting little
facts along the way.

There's also a discussion on rec.bicycles.misc here:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.bicycles.misc/browse_frm/thread/a6a739a9a02b0b59/37366830108b9b3a?hl=en#37366830108b9b3a

Some of those facts:

Average automobile in US uses 3.8 MJ/km. This is substantially higher than
the average for the OECD countries of 2.5 MJ/km. So, roughly speaking, if we
drove the smaller, more efficient vehicles common elsewhere in the developed
world we could drive just as far just as often and still use one-third less
gasoline.

A person on a bicycle uses 17kJ/km directly, or 77kJ/km in terms of food
energy (since the ratio of work done to food energy consumed is about 22%).
The energy required to produce, process, and transform the food is 5.75
times greater than the energy in the food, so the total energy cost is about
0.44MJ/km, or about 1/6 to 1/9th that of the automobile.  There's a lot of
difference between 17kj and 440kj, which might explain some of the
discrepancies in some of the discussions on this newsgroup over time over
the food energy cost of cycling.

Several dozen studies show exercise expenditure of 4.2 mJ/wk (about 1000
kcal, or what we usually call 1000 calories) is associated with a reduction
in all-cause mortality.

The fatality rate (from accidents) is assumed to be 12 times as high per
kilometer for cycling as for driving. Fatalities, of course, lower future
energy consumption.

Increasing logevity does not change end-of-life healthcare requirements, but
extends the healthy years.

Ulrich's conclusion is that bicycling that replaces automobile use (even if
you still own the automobile) lowers total per capita energy consumption
from all sources by -.005 (i.e. half of 1%), even allowing for the increased
energy used by living longer.  0.5% is well within the error range of his
analysis, so the effect could be zero.

However, if your biking kilometers don't replace automotive use, you don't
save energy, but still live longer. Therefore your energy use increases by
.037 (3.7%)  This makes sense -- many of us have noted that driving to a
ride uses up energy rather than saves it.

Electric scooters or electric bicycles have similar energy patterns and
fatality patterns as a bicycle (they just use electricity instead of food),
but don't increase longevity. Therefore, they have a more positive impact on
energy use over a lifetime.

As others have noted, Ulrich assumes the cyclist still owns the same number
of vehicles so he misses the energy benefits of not manufacturing the car.
Are there a lot of such people with "one less car" in their household (who
aren't posting on this newsgroup)? Is there an estimate somewhere of how
many? If there were such an estimate, this could be factored in.

All in all, the study documents its assumptions and is presented in a clear
manner and is worth a look.

Earl wondered who paid for the research. The paper doesn't say, but Ulrich
does have another bicycle paper in his resume, and this usually doesn't
indicate hostility:

Taylor Randall and Karl Ulrich, "Product Variety, Supply Chain Structure,
and Firm Performance: Analysis of the U.S. Bicycle Industry," Management
Science, Vol. 47, No. 12, December 2001, p. 1588-1604.

There's also this chapter:

Karl Ulrich, Taylor Randall, Marshall Fisher, and David Reibstein, "Managing
Product Variety: A Study of the Bicycle Industry," in Managing Product
Variety, Tech-Hua Ho and Chris Tang (editors), Kluwer Academic Publishers,
1998.

There's a bit of small-world theory involved here, since I just presented a
paper extending one of Reibstein's other models at an INFORMS conference,
(and Management Science is an INFORMS journal).

Bicyclists are a drain on the environment?? #1

I'm indebted to Richard B for this gem:

"Research by UPenn professor Karl Ulrich came to the conclusion that
bicycles offer little benefit to the environment.

Why you may ask...

Because Cyclists live longer and therefore are more of a drain on energy
and resources!

Here is a link to the research paper in Adobe format.
http://tinyurl.com/eae2d:   or

http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/~ulrich/documents/ulrich-cycling-enviro-jul06.pdf "

This reminds me of some of the old smoking arguments.
Governments argued that they should be compensated because of the cost of
taking care of sick smokers.
Tobacco companies argued that no compensation was appropriate because, since
smokers died sooner, they collected overall less in government benefits over
their lifetimes.

As I work on retirement planning -- retirement not being imminent, but
planning being necessary -- it's pretty clear that one of the big factors in
how much money I need to save up in retirement is how long I should plan on
living after retirement.

 

Where to deleted characters go?

Although many of these entries read as though nobody even wrote them, let alone bothered to edit them, there is a certain amount of re-reading and editing going on. In the course of this, the backspace and delete keys are used heavily. 

So, where do those deleted characters go?

The laws of thermodynamics would seem somewhat relevant here. If letters can be neither created nor destroyed, then am I really destroying them? Do they go into some sort of letter sink, waiting to be recycled (self-plagarized) later?

If a humorous sentence is deleted, do the characters go to live in the Old Jokes Home?

What about quantum effects? When I delete something here, does it show up in somebody else's blog in some parallel universe? (In reverse, this effect would explain why sometimes these entries look like they were written by somebody else not in complete contact with this universe.)

More answers here: http://www.JumboJoke.com/ask_the_computer_guy_755.html 

Home bike mechanics prayer

    God, grant me the courage to fix what I can
    The money to let somebody else fix what I can't
    And the wisdom to know the difference.

Triking Grandmother Triumphs

The grand award winner float at the local July 4th parade consisted of an 80+ year old woman on a tricycle "towing" a pickup truck full of people (her children, grandchildren, and maybe a great-grandchild in there).

 

Nancy switched to the trike a few years ago because balance problems made it hard for her to ride her regular bike, and she's a frequent sight around the neighborhood -- and an inspiration to those a generation or more younger.

Chase reluctant to give me my money, part 2

In a previous entry, I noted the difficulty I had getting OUR money from a matured CD out of Chase Bank:

http://journals.aol.com/mikekr/ZbicyclistsZlog/entries/750

So, last Friday I had another one that had renewed. Given wise advice from my wife, I decided to try a different branch.

Different branch, same experience. [Well, this time, I didn't lose my temper but it took even longer, about an hour and fifteen minutes from the time I first asked to get my money. I'm not counting wait time.] Obviously, Chase wants to make the experience of getting your money out so painful that you will renew the CD's even though their rate is over 1% lower than competition.

So, it's obviously not the banker him/her self. And it's obviously not the branch. It must be the entire bank. I plan to continue my current policy of moving CD's and other accounts from Chase as they mature.

Today's questionable stat: Organics

The Tribune today reports http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0606260140jun26,1,7538640.story?ctrack=1&cset=true reports that antibiotic foods are not necessarily safer.

"The study was funded by the Institute for Food Technologists Foundation, a non-profit scientific and educational group with 22,000 members working for the food industry, academia and government. The panel was composed of microbiologists and food scientists from leading universities. Besides the University of Georgia, panelists were drawn from Rutgers University, Iowa State University, the University of Tennessee, University of Minnesota and the University of Maryland. Many Food and Drug Administration food laboratories are located at Iowa State." [Note double plug for Iowa State, possibly the writer's alma mater?]

"Doyle dismissed possible concerns about the food scientist members of the panel being too closely linked to the food industry, noting that about one-third of the panel was made up of microbiologists."

So, two-thirds are not microbiologists. Some of those microbiologists also work in industry. Most of those who are not microbiologists seem likely, given the composition of the group, to work in industry as well, or to be academics with strong ties to the food industry. These guys couldn't have pressure put on them by their employer, could they?

About the most that can be said for this study is that it's a counterweight to earlier studies for the Organic Trade Association, another highly unbiased group.

Kal-Haven Trail Bearable

“Chuck” posted this on a bicycling forum about the Kal-Haven trail, which runs from South Haven to Kalamazoo, Michigan:

“I'm about 10 miles from home at about 1:00 a.m., just cruising with the light on....and this black bear steps onto the trail only about 20 yards in front of me. It didn't pay any attention to me. It just kept at the same pace, crossing the trail, getting out of my light. I never felt threatened, but I wasn't hanging out there either. It makes me wonder if I need something more than a knife for these night rides.” 

Chuck didn’t indicate which bar he was biking home from.

Stubborn Father's Day

I thought a ride with my daughter would be a great Father's Day gift for
me, so I suggested it to her the day before.

"Where do you want to go?" she asked, and I said we might head up to
Lake Forest and I could show her where the Skokie Valley Trail hooked up
off Lake Cook Road. "Sounds great," she indicated.

The next morning, she wasn't up at 7. Or 8. Or ... well, let's just say
she rolled out of bed at 12:30 and announced that it was so hot last
night that she hadn't slept at all and we'd have to bag the ride.

"If we'd left at a reasonable hour, we'd be back by now," I complained.
"If you didn't want to go on the ride, you should have said that
yesterday!"

"Oh, all right. I'll GO on the ride. Let me get my stuff on," she
yelled. I regretted pushing it this far. There's nothing like a ride
with a sullen riding partner to make riding solo look good.

But, a few minutes later, we left.

Two blocks from home I was going to ride up on the sidewalk to push the
pedestrian button, but I took the low, wet curb at too acute an angle
and went sprawling. My knee hurt. There was a bleeding cut on my left
shin that looked exactly like the imprint of a pedal. My daughter said,
"Now I know why you told me I should get bicycling gloves."  I resolved
to ride through the pain.

At 4.3 miles in, I hear labored breathing from behind me and a strangled
"Dad!"  My daughter was having a panic attack. After that subsided, I
asked her if she wanted me to call Mom to pick us up, wanted to turn
back, or wanted to continue. "Let's keep going," she said. She's
stubborn -- must get that from her mother.

It started to rain. We ignored it.

After we left the garden and headed up the Skokie Valley Trail, it was
pretty clear we were out there alone so we rode side by side. My riding
partner is young enough to be my daughter and isn't carrying an extra 30
pounds around her middle, so she pressed the pace enough for me to be
slightly winded while she breathed easily.

We started to mellow. We had a nice snack at Einstein's in Lake Forest
and had a mellow ride home. Total miles: 43

It was a great Father's Day. I attempted to draw some sort of moral
about this in the evening, about how we might have arguments about
various aspects of her late adolescence but that if we just kept going
through them we'd come through this OK. She'd already forgotten about the
argument, the crash, the panic attack and the rain and
remembered only how nice a ride it had been. It was a great Father's
Day.

 

Headlines heating up, too

Competing Reuters and AP headlines today:

Last 25 years warmest on Earth since 1600 - 

Earth hottest it's been in 2,000 years 

How many marketing scientists does it take to forecast a crew shirt?

I just returned from the INFORMS Marketing Science Conference. This was 3 days of listening to mathematical models of demand, supply, forecasting, logistics, optimal product assortment, and similar topics. Registrants received a souvenir crew-neck shirt.

With 700+ "marketing scientists" at a conference, you wouldn't think that the conference would misforecast the number of souvenir shirts of various sizes required so badly. There were plenty of XL's, but no S or M's at all. Evidently, they thought this group of academics would be wearing the shirts around their egos, not their torsos.

This entry is a bit unfair. The hosts at the University of Pittsburgh did a fine job organizing the conference, and this was the only glitch I saw.

Privatize the Illinois Lottery?

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich  has an interesting state lottery twist.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0605240150may24,1,5263300.story

He proposes selling the lottery to make more money now for "education" -- but the state would then get no money from the lottery beginning in 2024 (when today's babies graduate high school). Of course, he won't be governor then. And the big extra dollars this plan would provide would arrive in the state coffers in the next four years, matching what Governor Rod B. hopes will be a triumphant second term.

The Tribune editorial notes: "If Illinois schools receive more funding, some of it should go to teaching the rudiments of economics."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0605240022may24,1,5049536.story

Did I mention it's an election year? The only suspense is whether opponent Judy Topinka can come up with something even dumber.  She gave us Alan Keyes as a candidate for senator in 2004, so I don't want to underestimate her.

They still write American fiction?

I don't read much fiction any more, but I am still surprised to find out how little.

The New York Times today did a poll of "experts" to see what they thought was "the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/books/fiction-25-years.html?8bu&emc=bu

Twenty-seven books are listed as receiving multiple votes. I have read none of them.

This can probably be best interpreted as a combination of appalling ignorance on my part and the shrinking relevance of modern American long fiction to modern American life. (to get more extreme, consider modern American poetry)

I've printed out the list and I am resolved to read at least 3 of these books by the end of the year.  Complicating this is that I've realized there are a lot of earlier classics that I would benefit from re-reading or have never read; I've been wading through "Anna Karenina" for some time now.  (Clearly 19th century Russians had a longer attention span than 21st century Americans.)

Price Elasticity of Gasoline

I see more bicycle commuters this year, possibly due to gas prices going up. So, I started to wonder about the price elasticity of gasoline.

Price elasticity is the amount demand changes in response to price. To oversimplify just a bit, a price elasticity of -2.0 (typical of many consumer packaged goods) means if the price goes up 10% the demand goes  -2.0 * 10% = down 20%.

So, what does a bit of Googling get me?

The Mackinac Center for Public Policy http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=1247 estimates the short run elasticity at -0.2 and the long run elasticity at -0.7.  This makes sense -- in the short term, you are still driving the same car from the same house to the same job. In the longer run, you are likely to change one or more of these things.

An FTC study in 2005 http://www.ftc.gov/reports/gasprices05/050705gaspricesrpt.pdf cited studies showing  a -0.23 elasticity in the short run -0.6 elasticity in the long run (more than 1 year). The long run number is from Molly Espey's meta-analysis of 42 studies.

The Environmental Economics blog quoting a Wall Steet Journal article, http://www.env-econ.net/2006/05/inelastic_short.html quotes the WSJ as saying "Research suggests it takes years for higher gas prices to meaningfully damp consumption. Opinions differ, but many experts say that, in the short term, the "price elasticity" of U.S. gasoline use is as low as 0.1. That means gas prices have to rise 10% to produce an initial 1% drop in demand.

The Cascadia Scorecard Weblog http://cascadiascorecard.typepad.com/blog/2005/09/is_gas_elastic.html notes that "In 1999 you could buy a gallon of gas in Washington state for less than a buck.  As recently as 3 years ago, gas prices averaged about  $1.20 a gallon.  Right now, though, expect to shell out about $2.85.

So what has a 136% price hike done to gasoline consumption?  As it turns out, not a lot.  In 2002, the average Washington resident went through about 8.4 gallons of gas per week.  Based on data through July 2005, that's now down to about 8.1 gallons per week -- a 4 percent reduction. (graph at right)"

If there were no other factors involved, this would be, let's see, a 136% price hike, and a 4% reduction -- that would be a -.03 elasticity.  But there are other factors involved, and at least there's been a leveling off.

So, everybody agrees the short term elasticity is low. So, for those interested in profits NOW, the answer is try and move the price up.

As for the long term -- well, as Keynes said, "in the long run, we are all dead."

So, I'm riding my bicycle. And, when the Iraq war started, I feared it would go badly and instead of increasing the flow of oil had a decent chance of doing the opposite. So, I bought BP and Shell stock. I'm happy with that decision.

Bubble Wrap Biking

I was biking this afternoon in the rain. The rain and wind encouraged a large number of maple seeds to cover the bike path near Caldwell and Devon. They snapped under the tires. It sounded almost like biking over bubble wrap.

Chicago Botanic Garden adds Marxist-Leninist feel.

My wife and I have been members of the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe for over 25 years. Over that time, we’ve seen a number of new gardens added: the Japanese Garden, the English Walled Garden, the Enabling Garden, the Prairie Restoration Garden, the Waterfall Garden, and others. Each space is different. Last winter as I walked around the construction, I looked forward to the opening of the Escalande Garden in the large lawn leading down from the education center to the lagoon. Yesterday I saw it for the first time.

 

Frankly, it is very disappointing. The overly-large areas give the garden a Soviet-era feel. Perhaps to fully create the mood a giant statue of Lenin might be perfect (and these are surely available cheap from eastern European sources). Even on Mother’s Day at 3 p.m., one of the most crowded times of the year, the overall scale seemed too large for the crowd.

 

There were large masses of tulips blooming. The tulips were individually wonderful. Put into such large masses, they seemed designed to impress not so much by artistry as by their sheer number.

 

The signage indicates this garden has “world-class design”.  This in itself is curious. “World-class” is basically a B.S. phrase that means nothing.  Furthermore, if the garden is really “world-class”, would they need signs telling you that? I don’t remember signs touting the “world-class” nature of the gardens of Paris, nor are such signs needed. The signs were surely written and ordered before the garden was opened, and written by the garden itself, so the amount of self-congratulation involved is ... world-class.

 

It’s a wonderful garden and not everybody likes all parts equally. I plan to avoid this part, or maybe focus on the lagoon fountain as I walk through it.

Church audience participation goes awry

Bishop Kline, the head bishop of our denomination, was here this weekend for the marriage seminar. He preached this morning, using the first section of Swedenborg's Conjugal Love for his text. In that chapter, there are imaginary heavens. Some people imagine they will be happy just to get to heaven. Some people imagine heaven will be a chance to talk and laugh forever. Others imagine heaven will be a place of sensual delights (here represented by grapes and a box of Dunkin Donuts Munchkins), and others imagine they will be on a throne, ruling others. All are dissatisfied with their heaven after a few days. The analogy to various false (or optimistic) beliefs about what marriage is about is clear.

 

Appropriate props had been set up and the Bishop asked for 5 volunteers. Mark was the man happy just to get into heaven. Malcolm and Erik pantomined talking. A woman I didn't know sat on the throne. There was one spot open, so I was left with the sensual delights of grapes and donut holes.

 

I thought I should act the part, so I occasionally ate some grapes while the bishop when on with his sermon. Then, for reasons I don't fully understand, I wondered whether I could fit an entire Dunkin Donuts Munchkin into my mouth whole and then eat it.  I opened wide and popped that Munchkin right in. Unfortunately, the bishop walks around during his sermon and evidently this was visible to most of the congregation. A wave of laughter ensued. The bishop turned around and caught me in mid-chew, but I figured this was an event best explained later, rather than right on the spot. 

 

I didn't eat any moreMunchkins during the service.

Lightning did not strike. Nor did the bishop, known to tell a good joke himself, seem particularly concerned afterward.

 

We'll see how long it is before I'm asked to volunteer again.

 

Background texts for the sermon:

 

The text, from Conjugal Love section 3, doesn't actually mention donuts: "What else is heaven but a paradise, stretching from east to west and from south to north-- a paradise wherein are fruit trees and delightful flowers, and in the center the magnificent Tree of Life, around which the blessed will sit, eating fruits of delicate flavor, and adorned with wreaths of the most fragrant flowers.

 

And since, by reason of the breathing of perpetual spring, these fruits and flowers are born and reborn daily and with infinite variety; and since, by their perpetual birth and blossom, and by the constant vernal temperature, the mind is continually renewed; the blessed must needs attract and breathe out new joys from day to day, and thus be restored to the flower of their age, and thereby to the primitive state into which Adam and his wife were created, and so be led back into their paradise which has been transferred from earth to heaven....

 

[But this heaven, like the others, isn't enough: ] "It is now the seventh day since we came into this paradise. When we entered, our minds seemed as though elevated into heaven and admitted to the inmost enjoyment of its joys. But after three days, this happiness began to grow dull and to be diminished in our minds and become imperceptible, and so to become null."

 

The point is that while it may help to imagine what heaven -- or an ideal marriage -- is like, these ideas ultimately aren't enough.  It is only love (in being useful to others) that creates a true bond.

Today's "Wish I'd Said That"

> One wonders how earlier generations survived.

well, most of them are gone now ;-{

Remembering up, now down

Quick: Write down the names of the people you remember from high school. Now cross off all the ones who were in your same year. I'll bet what's left has a lot more kids that were older than you than younger than you.

This makes sense. If you were on a JV sports team, you probably knew the names of a lot of the guys on varsity.  If you made varsity, you probably paid little attention to the guys on JV.

This leads to an interesting assymmetry when you run into people later. They might remember you, but you don't remember them, or vice-versa.

Today's junk stat: Homeowners hire most illegal immigrants

From the AP via Yahoo comes another interesting survey result: "The No. 1 employers of day laborers, many of whom are illegal immigrants, are homeowners — not construction contractors, not professional landscapers." http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060429/ap_on_bi_ge/hiring_day_laborers_3

"Forty-nine percent of day labor employers are homeowners, according to 2,660 laborers interviewed for the study. Contractors were second, at 43 percent. The study also found that three quarters of day laborers were illegal immigrants and most were from Latin America."

This occurs at a time when there is political discussion of the illegal immigrant question. There is particular discussion about the role employers should pay in enforcing the laws about illegal immigrant employment.  So, why not throw a few red herrings in there that suggest that ordinary American homeowners are the people really to blame?

Questioning this statistic is like shooting fish in a barrel. The paragraph cited just counts "employers". So, if Joe Blow hires one man for a day to clean up his leaves, he's an employer. A landscaping firm employing 20 people for 8 months a year is also an employer, and counts equally in the stats. But the landscaping firm accounts for over 4000 more employment days than Joe Blow.  This information may be in the full academic study by Dr. Valenzuela, but somehow doesn't make it into the AP article.

Today's junk stat: Realtors make you $31,000

Today's junk stat comes to you from the National Association of Realtors blog http://narblog1.realtors.org/mvtype/narinthenews/ , which reports that "the average seller who uses a real estate professional makes 16 percent more on the sale of their home than do sellers who go it alone. That's an average of $31,800 per home."

Of course, I don't usually hang out at the NAR site. The Freakonomics blog has a blurb about this http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/2006/04/27/realtors-get-a-blog/ . The bloggers note that this figure is mysteriously high.

So where does it come from? "Leonard", A realtor who talked to the author of the study noted "I talked to the author of this study at the National Association of Realtors and it was based on a survey return from 155,000 mailings. The returns totalled 7400. The criteria was a sold, single famiy,detached home in the suburbs." 

So there's massive selection bias likely at work: the survey return is about 5%, people with very expensive homes might find it less than exciting to sell the home themselves and be more likely to hire a realtor, etc. But selection bias is expensive to eliminate, and almost certainly would lead to a less impressive headline than "The Cost of Selling without a REALTOR(trade mark registered): $31,800". So, if you are the NAR, why spend money on good statistics when there's better bang from cheaper bad statistics?

My own comment is that a good study would seem easy to do:

Wouldn’t a real study be stunningly easy to do? (1) there is usually an assessed value on the tax rolls, which are public information so people can compare assessments. Do this within an appropriate governmental unit so systematic variations in assessment don’t apply (2) house is sold either by a realto or not, which may be part of the publically available closing info (or may not, but would be easy to get by phone survey). One covariance analysis later and you’re done, and published!

Replicate this for 3115 US counties, publish each one, and sit back and enjoy that tenure—maybe even a chair endowed by a grateful real estate industry![*]

In fact, such a design is SO simple that one suspects that the results don’t provide much support to this.

[*]Some poetic license taken on this.

Chase itself send out suspicious e-mail

The latest Chase episode involves my attempt to provide helpful input. Really.

Part 1: Chase sent me an e-mail warning of certain pfishing attempts and providing guidance from William S. Shelby, Senior Vice-President.

Part 2: However, I thought some of their advice was flawed and told them so. Here's my e-mail:

I received the e-mail enclosed at the bottom from Mr. Shelby.

This contains the following statement: "Asks you to enter your User ID, password or account numbers into an e-mail or non-secure webpage."

I believe this statement is midleading and potentially dangerous. Even if the pfisher has a secure website, this doesn't mean that the pfisher is Chase. The secure website might be www.Bad_Scam.ca or some similar site.

Much better advice is to NEVER enter your ID, password, or any other personal information into any site that you got to by a link contained in an e-mail, or e-mail this information.

===========================
Dear Valued Customer,

We want you to be aware of e-mail scams that attempt to steal your personal and/or account information. Known as "Phishing," ... <snip> ....

you should never respond or reply to - e-mail that:
...Asks you to enter your User ID, password or account numbers into an e-mail or non-secure webpage. ....

William S. Sheley
Senior Vice President

Part 3: The Chase auto-responder (or perhaps a real person with too big a quota of responses to get out by the end of the day to actually READ the input) responded as if Chase's own message was pfishing spam. Maybe they are trying to tell themselves something.

Date:
 04-28-2006 15:24:44
From: Chase Online
Dear M. Kruger:

Thank you for submitting a suspicious e-mail message. We
receive a number of messages from customers and others who
have received suspicious e-mails that appear to have
originated from Chase. ...

[Now, of course, they even repeat the advice I was complaining about]

To help you safeguard your personal and financial
information, we recommend that you be suspicious of any
e-mail that:

...- Asks you to enter your User ID, password or account
numbers into an e-mail or non-secure webpage.
....

Thank you, Selina Hood
Internet Service Center
 

Does Chase want my opinion?

Lo and behold, shortly after I finished the previous blog entry critical of JP Morgan Chase's customer "service", I received an invitation  for a survey:

"Dear Chase Customer: Take a survey and receive a check for $10! ... We are interested in your opinions.... As a token of apreciation, if you qualify and complete this survey, you will receive a check for $10..."

At this point, still mad about the CD episode, I'm practically salivating to give Chase my opinion. I enter the URL for the survey. I answer questions about my age (which Chase already knows), occupation (which Chase already knows), and couple of questions about credit cards (which Chase partially knows, but I have several others). I'm then told I don't qualify and won't be getting paid, after answering several questions.  And, of course, there's no place to register my opinion.

It's as if Chase is taunting me.  And, maybe they are. They had just enough time to send out the survey invitation if it was automatically generated after the CD episode.

We are not amused. 

Attention JP Morgan Chase: It's OUR money, not yours!

The bank I use has been swallowed up several times over the past few years, moving from

Glenview Gauranty to

First Federal of Wilmette to

First Chicago, which was then bought by

NBD (formerly National Bank of Detroit) to

Bank One, Bank1 or Banc One (they spelled it different ways; I was particularly confused by the "Banc" spelling used by their investment products) and finally

JP Morgan Chase

Some things get better (bill pay over the internet is the most notable one) but, in general, service has gotten worse. The most recent example occurred Saturday. My wife and I went in to redeem a certificate of deposit because another bank was offering a better rate. In other words, we had entrusted OUR money to Chase for a time, and now we wanted to get OUR money back, with interest.

There was no line to wait. It still took 45 minutes to get a check for OUR money. Chase employees engaged in an entire variety of delay tactics and misinformation. 

If we were renewed, we were initially promised a 4% rate. Then 4.75%. (still not as good as the bank down the road giving 5.23%).

We were told this would generate an unusual taxable event (it would not).

The banker needed to contact headquarters for instructions on how to handle the transaction. This sounds reasonable if the transaction was complicated, but for redeeming a CD at maturity?  He then spend several minutes on hold, occasionally seeming to look for the right form.

We were told we would lose free checking and be charged for our checking account. I responded "bullshit" to this, which is exactly what it was. We still have more in the bank than what's required to get free checking.

Two bank representatives then pretended to "fix our account links" so we would "still qualify for free checking". Eventually, 45 minutes after we first made contact with a Chase representative, we were given a check for OUR money.

In the olden days, this bank sent you a form. You could indicate any change in the renewal period, or request them to send YOUR money back when the CD expired. They even paid for the postage. This was evidently too easy and logical. Now, you need to redeem the CD in person (or so I was advised by the call center desk earlier that morning).

Needless to say, I'm shopping for a new bank.

123456

Today, at 1:23 a.m. (and again p.m.) on April 5, 2005 it was 1:23 4/5/06

The world did not end.  I don't expect it to this June, at 6:06 a.m. 6/6/06.

It may be a beastly morning, though.

Killing time before a meeting

If you are in a meeting but can't start it until one last person arrives, take their phone extension and try to make a word out of it -- or, an anagram that has funnier connotations.

 

For example, If your extension is 2453, that spells BIKE. My extension is 2524, which is BLAH, matching my personality. That's good for a laugh -- although whether they are laughing with me or at me is sometimes unclear ;)

 

One day when Rita was late we figured out that her extension, 2883, spelled CUTE. Rita was insulted, in a feminist sort of way, when we pointed this out. But I later found out from her husband that she'd told him to use that as a mnemonic for her phone number, so she couldn't have been too insulted.

I Guess I Deserved This

I made two picks in the NCAA office pool. The first one was my legitimate selection -- pretty standard with some upsets thrown in because there are 45 entrants in the pool and only 3 winners.  If you pick only favorites, you get an above-average score, but still $0.

The other pick I named "Bush_In_Iraq" and figured I'd make a political point. Our policy in Iraq is such a longshot that I picked all longshots: #16 to beat #1, etc. Above that, I picked the service academy (Air Force).  But, trumping other rules, I picked Texas teams (Texas A&M and Texas), with nothing messing up Texas's march to the national championship.  I figured "Bush_In_Iraq" would be right there at the bottom of the standings.

So, what's happening? My true pick is not doing well. I've been hovering in the lower half of the standings, and though I've risen to 24th of 45 that's still hopeless.

"Bush_In_Iraq" has been as high as 4th and currently is in 9th. If Texas wins it all, there's an outside chance of getting in the money. I've promised to donate it to "Billiionaires for Bush".

The moral?  Don't try to make a political point with sports.

Losing Face

An NPR pundit commented on the Dubai ports situation this morning by noting that the Arab owners of Dubai Ports World would not want to lose face, since not losing face is important to Arab leaders.

I recall Americans saying the North Vietnamese were pursuing the war to avoid losing face, because not losing face was important in Asian cultures. Similar comments used to be made about Japanese businessmen.

Are there cultures that like losing face? Why single out Arabs or Vietnamese or Japanese as particularly concerned about losing face?  Isn't "losing face" a common English idiom? The existence of this common idiom means that English speakers are quite familiar with this concept in their own lives, without reference to foreign cultures.

Googling on the term "save face" returns "about 99,500,000 entries". Maybe that's as high as Google's numbers go.

Wal-mart free blog

Everybody has a constitutional right to free speech, and so there's nothing really wrong about Wal-mart planting stories with bloggers (any more than, say, the Sierra Club). There's something creepy about it, though.

 

It's pretty obvious, and not always in a good way, that I'm writing my blog myself rather than channeling the Wal-mart PR machine.

 

 

NY Times, March 7, 2006

"Wal-Mart Enlists Bloggers in P.R. Campaign

By MICHAEL BARBARO

Brian Pickrell, a blogger, recently posted a note on his Web site attacking state legislation that would force Wal-Mart Stores to spend more on employee health insurance. "All across the country, newspaper editorial boards — no great friends of business — are ripping the bills," he wrote.

It was the kind of pro-Wal-Mart comment the giant retailer might write itself. And, in fact, it did.

Several sentences in Mr. Pickrell's Jan. 20 posting — and others from different days — are identical to those written by an employee at one of Wal-Mart's public relations firms and distributed by e-mail to bloggers.

Under assault as never before, Wal-Mart is increasingly looking beyond the mainstream media and working directly with bloggers, feeding them exclusive nuggets of news, suggesting topics for postings and even inviting them to visit its corporate headquarters...."

Full story at <http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/07/technology/07blog.html?_r=1&th=&oref=slogin&emc=th&pagewanted=print>

Today's top headline

Prosthetic legs returned; police stumped

Mar 6, 2006 9:58 AM (ET)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Two prosthetic legs stolen from a 16-year-old California girl have mysteriously turned up in her mother's van, the second time in three months that an artificial limb belonging to the teen has been taken and then returned, police said on Friday.

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Sgt. David Austin said investigators dusted the slightly damaged limbs for fingerprints and had interviewed a "laundry list" of people but were baffled by the thefts.

"We're treating this as a crime," Austin said.

(Thanks to Sorni for calling this to my attention.)

Unsuitable

Unsuitable. Just unsuitable.

Sunday I wore a suit for Tony Heilman's memorial service. Monday through Wednesday I was at the "Reinventing Consumer Packaged Goods" conference sponsored by IRI, my employer. At the office, we are "business casual", but at the conference suits and ties were required. Tomorrow, Bar Mitzfah in the morning, reception for the young gentleman in the evening.

Five days in a suit this week! This is the most since the 1980's, when I wore one every day to work. What, I wonder now, was the point of that?

Unfortunately the suits are left over from that time since they get so little use. Frankly, they don't look that classy any more. Wearing the expensive but old suit is a minor protest, but at least it's a cheap protest.

The search for the Yellow Hummer H3

On Thursday morning, February 16th, a female Northwestern senior, Archana Sriram, was riding her bike from her apartment in Rogers Park to Northwestern. A yellow Hummer H3 ran the intersection of Lake and Sherman and hit her. The impact threw her 10 to 15 feet and causing facial fractures, a broken jaw, a hip fracture and a broken leg.

This was an unfortunate accident due to driver carelessness. But it’s what follows next that makes this accident more than ordinary.

Hit and run

The driver did not stop. "(The witness) said that after (the driver) hit me, he just slammed the gas pedal and fled," Sriram told the Daily Northwestern. It is appropriate that the Hummer was yellow. Yellow is the color of cowardice, and there are few things more cowardly than leaving an injured person by the side of the road and driving away.

The Daily Northwestern reported on February 21st that Sriram and her family were frustrated with EPD’s handling of the investigation, saying it is too passive. Sriram said her father went out and talked to witnesses on his own Monday.

"EPD says they can’t look up registered yellow Hummers in the area, only license plates," Sriram said. "Hopefully people can keep their eyes out."

On Tuesday, February 22, the Evanston Police Department issued a statement Tuesday asking the public to help them find the driver of a yellow Hummer H2. The EPD said they could not give an estimate of when the list of yellow Hummers would arrive from the Secretary of State’s office because the office fields many requests from police departments statewide.

By Friday morning, February 24th, 8 days after the accident, the Illinois Secretary of State’s office had still not responded to EPD’s request for yellow Hummers. It has been a bad few decades at the Secretary of State’s office, between Paul Powell’s shoeboxes, license selling at several offices in the late 1970’s, George Ryan’s licenses for bribes scandal in the 1990’s, the recent Sun-Times reports that people whose licenses are suspended are continuing to drive with impunity -- even in and out of the Secretary of State’s parking lots -- and evidently a somewhat lackadaisical attitude toward modern computer database capabilities.

Press conference

Friday morning, February 24th, there was a press conference at the accident site. Randy Neufield of the CBF talked about safe streets initiatives and the need for drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians to share. Neal Nye, EBC president, echoed these concerns and noted the importance of good design and good community attitudes. EPD police chief Frank Kaminski repeated the plea for information about suspicious yellow Hummers, thanked those who had given earlier tips, and fielded the expected questions about the slow pace of the Secretary of State’s office in providing information.

In addition to the media, there were a number of EBC members. Ben Schapiro took this picture. I'm in the green jacket just to the right of the police chief. Neal Nye is fashionably attired in leather and sunglasses, the Budde's are in the background to Neal's left and right. Randy Neufield is in the green fleece on the right.

The Frozen Snot Century riders, headed from Chicago to Milwaukee, ran late but showed up in a large group just before the end of the conference.

I checked channel 7 news later in the day, because their crew was the first to arrive, but didn’t see the story. Searches of the web sites for the Tribune, and channels 5, 7, and 9 showed nothing. Perhaps Neal should have set his hair on fire.

The press conference did show up on Fox (channel 32) and the video is at http://www.blip.tv/posts/?search=archana 

Updates

March 3: The Daily Northwestern reports that the EPD received the list from the Secretary of State's office this week and “We’re looking at that information and trying to put it into usable form,” said Deputy Chief Joe Bellino of EPD. “It’s quite extensive.”  This conjures up a vision of information mailed from the Secretary of State's office in dead-tree form, perhaps sorted by the middle initial of the owner's name.

 

 

Junk Stats: Top 1% of have 58% of wealth

Another entry in our Junk Stats series. You may have heard the sound bite: "Top 1% of Americans have 58% of the corporate wealth, up from 39% in 1991.

In 15 years these people have gathered another 20% of the wealth of this huge country? Let's look a little closer.

NY Times Jan 28, 2006 -"New U.S. government figures indicate that the concentration of corporate wealth among the highest-income Americans grew significantly in 2003, as a trend that began in 1991 accelerated in the first year that President Bush and Congress cut taxes on capital.    

"In 2003, the top 1 percent of households owned 57.5 percent of corporate wealth, up from 53.4 percent the year before, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis of the latest income tax data. The top group's share of corporate wealth has grown by half since 1991, when it was 38.7 percent. In 2003, incomes in the top 1 percent of households ranged from $237,000 to several billion dollars.  

Farther down in the article, we see the likely junk stats culprit: changing methodology. In this case, it's not the methodology itself, but the tax policy upon which that methodology is based.  

“The analysis did not measure wealth directly. It looked at taxes on capital gains, dividends, interest and rents. Income from securities owned by retirement plans and endowments was excluded, as were gains from noncorporate assets, such as personal residences. This technique for measuring wealth has long been used in standard economic studies, though critics have challenged that tradition. Among them is Stephen Entin, president of the Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation.... Lower tax rates on long-term capital gains, Entin said, may have prompted wealthy investors to sell profitable investments. That would show up in tax data as increased wealth that year, even though the increase may have built up over decades. Long-term capital gains were taxed at 28% until 1997 and at 20% until 2003, when rates were cut to 15%. The top rate on dividends was cut to 15% from 35% in the same year.”  

The underlying trend toward wealth concentration is probably true. But the fact that we believe the underlying trend is true is the reason why we are willing to believe extreme statistics like these.  If we saw similar statistics that disagreed with our beliefs, we would be more skeptical.  

I'm not picking on the NY Times. To their credit, the article contained ALL of the facts above. But then the Times has room to print the long version. Other media outlets either don't have the space, or don't want to bother with all that boring detail when there's better ratings in the sound bite.

Paternal Instinct?

Is there such a thing as paternal instinct? If there is, how does it differ from maternal instinct? Perhaps this story will illuminate.

This morning I'm biking east on Glenview Road about 8:30 a.m. in the cold (5F). As I go over the Edens Expressway, I see a black garbage bag in the middle of the opposite lane. Immediately, my thoughts turn to those stories about babies found in garbage bags in dumpsters. This seems to be a silly thought and I continue down the hill, but the thought won't go away. I turn around, ride back up the overpass, and stop.  At the very least, I will at least get this bag out of the traffic lane and make the world a slightly better place.

It's apparent when I pick it up that there's no baby inside, but I can't resist looking. Much to my surprise the bag is filled with -- used baby diapers! 

Was is the smell of the diapers that made me think of babies? This is unlikely. The bag was downwind, and sealed. In the extreme cold, the diapers didn't really smell much even after I opened up the bag.

I saw two other black garbage bags farther off the road, as if they had blown off. One was partly open and contained plastic bottles. So, these people were good people who separated their recyclables. The fact that they were either careless or intentionally dumped them on the side of the road notwithstanding, they did sort their trash so they aren't completely irresponsible. At least, not irresponsible enough to leave their baby by the side of the road. 

I didn't open the third bag, but it definitely didn't have a baby in it. I think it was tin cans.  I stacked the bags together where they weren't likely to get into more mischief and got back on the bike.

Paternal instinct? Maybe. But mine needs improvement if all it's finding is soiled diapers.

Dick Cheney, hunter

Republicans have suggested Dick Cheney invite Hillary Clinton on his next hunting trip.

Hillary plans to send Bill in her place.

Thretz

My daughter, the English teacher, issues this reminder on the importance of spelling in communicating clearly:

This is from http://www.foundmagazine.com/index.php?fuseaction=finds.view&fid=50

It WAS a romantic weekend

Deb wants me to acknowledge to the world that she was ready AHEAD of time and we left when I got back from giving a lecture at Northwestern University at 3:25 p.m.

It was a nice weekend. Earthrider in Brodhead, Wisconsin was a great place to stay (see link below). We watched the Olympics in the evening, and the funny romantic comedy "Fever Pitch", which is about an obsessed Boston Red Sox fan.  I indulged my own obsession by biking up the Sugar River Trail to Swiss-themed New Glarus, where Deb and I ate sauerbraten at the New Glarus Hotel and walked around most of the town. I biked back, the the path wasn't frozen over any more and it was soft; I spent a few miles on the roads. This was good because I got a chance to get some hills in and see more territory.

Sunday we went back up to New Glarus to walk around again. We bought some local rhubarab wine, then headed home. I'm working on laundry and bills now and heading to the grocery in a bit, so I won't start the week behind on chores.

Biker Valentine Weekend Getaway

I was the high bidder at the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation auction for a weekend at Earth Rider Hotel and Bicycle Shop, in Brodhead, Wisconsin.  It's a small hotel, with all the suites named after multiple winners of the Tour de France. I'm staying in the Bernard Hinault suite, although it possible that Greg Lemond will want the room before I'm done with it (there's a cycling joke hidden in there).

The hotel is right at the start of the Sugar River Trail, which runs to Swiss-themed New Glarus. http://www.earthridercycling.com/

My wife doesn't cycle, so this is more likely to involve walking around sightseeing. Luckily it is off-season for the antique shops, since we have enough junk. Perhaps I can get a few miles in if I let her sleep in during the morning.

It will be good to get out of the routine a bit and get out of the city together.

Equal Opportunity Blasphemy

"Muslim protesters infuriated by cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad raised the diplomatic stakes last night as Iran's best-selling newspaper announced it would retaliate by running images satirising the Holocaust.

The decision by the rightwing Hamshari daily to launch an international competition to find the most suitable caricatures came as demonstrators hurled firebombs and stones at the Danish embassy in Tehran and the Iranian government imposed a formal trade ban on Danish imports. Last night mobs were attempting to storm the Danish compound."

From The Guardian Feb 7, 2005 http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoonprotests/story/0,,1703925,00.html?gusrc=rss

Perhaps this is a good idea. Some tasteless cartoons from the other side might eventually trivialize the "free speech" part of the idea from the western side and provide a nonviolent outlet from the Muslim side.  A few salvos of cartoons and we'll be thinking cable TV farting contests will look dignified by comparison, but maybe there will be no fatalities. 

Fallujah: Glad I'm not there

I got little perspective lesson this week.

Periodically, my knee hurts. It hurts now. This problem originated in a pick-up football game in high school, when Dan gave me a cheap block in retaliation for something he thought I'd done earlier.

I haven't seen Dan for decades, but I think of him more often than I do most of my classmates. I don't think of him in a hostile way -- after all, we co-edited the school newspaper during and after this incident -- but I can't forget him.

He didn't make our reunion because he was preparing to go to Iraq at the START of the war. Now, I see from a posting he made on another alumni's obituary, he's STILL in Fallujah. Either he's on his second stint, or he's been there a long time.

Either way, I felt silly feeling sorry for myself with minor knee pain when he's in a combat zone.

Come back safe, Dan.

An Iconic Dispute

This week there is a huge furor over a Danish newspaper's publication of cartoon images of the prophet Mohammed. The editor of France-Soir has been fired for reprinting these. 

The story is all over the place, but I can't find the actual cartoons. They are probably somewhere out there on the web, but there are too many places to look.

I tried a Google image search of the term Mohammed, and got 75,000 hits. Most, not surprisingly, are photographs of men named Mohammed. There's this woman, whose last name is Mohammed and is in somewhat non-Islamic attire, although there's certainly a hint of "Arabian Nights"..

But there are a good number of drawings of the prophet himself. 

Does this mean there will be a holy image war? Is this just a case of these particular drawings generating an unusual response because of current tensions in the Muslim world? (Iraq, Hamas, Iran, Afghanistan -- just to name four trouble spots)  Will there be pressure on libraries in the west to purge themselves of images?

This is a particularly tough call because there are no images in Islam (which is clear from the average mosque) and western religions make heavy use of images/icons (clear from the average cathedral). So, culturally, we westerners are not even remotely attuned to the issue.

By following enough links, I did finally find the drawings, which are best described as editorial cartoons, including one "St. Peter at the Pearly Gates" type.  Suicide bombers arrive in heaven, only to be told "Stop! Stop! We're out of virgins!"  By western standards, nothing unusual. But then fundamentalist Muslims don't want to be westernized.

Running through my head as I write this, and oddly appropriate, is:

     I don't care if it rains or freezes,

     'long as I got my plastic Jesus

     Ridin' on the dashboard of my car.

 

     Goin' 90 I ain't scary

     'Cause I got the Virgin Mary

     Assuring me that I ain't goin' ta Hell.

 

8th grade Zen poetry

I am an 8th grade student

I have a very happy teacher

She teaches us poetry

BORING  

 

There is a principal i hate

he thinks every body is his frien

but nobodie likes him

he is very strict  

 

(courtesy of the teacher, my daughter Beth)

Possibly somebody else who got frustrated by the Bush presidency?

This was just a random news picture I picked to see if I could get a picture into the blog if I do the entry via AIM.  Unfortunately, I can't find it again to give proper photo credit.