Iterate

Digging Deeper Graves

2008-01-31T18:40:00.000-08:00

I wrote to my senators asking them not to use taxpayer money to bail out homeowners that took on more debt than they could afford. There are plenty of ways to correct incentives and rewarding bad behavior is not one of them. Senator Murray's form letter of course did not nothing to address my concerns, but I was suprised to read that he actually told me he's doing his best to make things worse:

For example:

To help educate borrowers of their options to avoid foreclosure, I secured $180 million in the Fiscal Year 2008 Consolidated Appropriations bill to provide housing counseling services across the country. Housing counseling programs assist borrowers with mortgage modification and restructuring so they can avoid or mitigate the losses associated with foreclosure.

What exactly is the impact of this other than putting us another $180 million in debt and driving down the dollar further? I could support this if Senator Murray would offer to give me a portion of these funds in return for "counseling" borrowers, but I don't see this as part of the deal.

In addition:

In addition, I was a key leader in pushing S. 2338, the FHA Modernization Act of 2007, sponsored by Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT), through the Senate. The FHA Modernization legislation provides the FHA new flexibility to tailor products to customers based on their credit rating, income, and relative risk. FHA modernization is a key component in addressing the subprime crisis because it will enable the FHA to offer safe, alternative mortgage options - as opposed to adjustable rate mortgages - to borrowers.

Why is the government still in the mortage business at all? You're going to take my tax money and use it to subsidize borrowers so a sane consumer like myself remains priced out of the market indefinatly? Jee, thanks! I feel much better now after reading how you are busy in Washington D.C. helping me out!

Tragedy of Incentives

2007-08-31T09:54:00.000-07:00

One of the Daily Dish's guest authors raises the issue here of America's delusional assumption that Iraq's care about the whole. Part of this may hark back to the negative connotations people have concerning incentives. I am referring to something along the lines of: "Altruism is what good people do, bad people need incentives to achieve the same results". As an example, in high school the founders of the US were never discussed as having benefited from the break from England, but they went from being the second class (below the ruling British) to being the elite as a result. They also got to shape the future of a nation and become one of the few models for democracy the world has ever known. How cool is that?

We should be asking questions like "Does the ruling party in Iraq feel like a stable Iraq is there only option? If not, how do we incentivize them to create a stable Iraq?". But if we are trapped in the 'good people are altruistic' mode, we can't ask those kinds of questions and hope to find an answer.

NPV of user

2007-08-14T13:45:00.001-07:00

What is equation for valuating users that incorporates referrals? I haven't found this on the web anywhere and they didn't teach it at Wharton so I thought I should write up what I've managed to stumble through on my own. I probably am just missing the right terminology to do a proper search for it; maybe a reader can help.

It costs money to acquire a user. Let's call this the cost per click (CPC)

It not all clicks lead to registered users. Let's call this the conversion rate for ads (CONV-ADS)

Each registered user is worth money. We can break this out in terms of click through rates etc. but for now lets just stick to average revenue per user (ARPU)

Each user refers one or more users (REF)

Each referred user has its own conversion rate (CONV-REF)

Finally, refers take time. We can break out average time per referral and use a yearly discount rate, but to simplify let's assume you did that and now just have a discount rate per referral iteration (DIS)

The equation starts out like this:

NPV = -CPC + CONV-AD * ARPU

Which is simply chance of getting a registered user times value of that user minus cost of acquisition.

Now to add referrals, we change the value of that user:

NPV = -CPC + CONV-AD * (ARPU + REF * CONV-REF * ARPU)

This prices in the value of the referrals to the value of the original user. The discount rate leads to:

NPV = -CPC + CONV-AD * (ARPU + REF * CONV-REF * (1 / (1 + DIS)) * ARPU)

But of course each referal can refer someone else:

NPV = -CPC + CONV-AD * (ARPU + REF * CONV-REF * (1 / (1 + DIS)) * (ARPU + REF * CONV-REF * (1 / (1 + DIS)) * (ARPU + REF * CONV-REF * (1 / (1 + DIS)) * ...

You get a geometric series which converts back down to:

NPV = -CPC + CONV-AD * ARPU / ( 1 - X)

Where X = REF * CONV-REF / ( 1 + DIS)

This converges if X < 1, otherwise you get infinite value per user. Of course this assumes conversion rates, referral rate and ARPU are constant as your user base grows and therefore can't really 'price' infinite iterations of referrals, but I'm finding it useful to do sensitivity analysis on various changes to web sites when I set N in the geometric series to something like 3 rather than infinity as above.

Renaming some of the terms will probably make this equation less web centric, but the web vocabulary is what I'm most familiar with these days.

Money blinders

2007-08-14T13:39:00.000-07:00

The Economist comes to the conclusion that the west no longer controls worldwide money supply here. I think they are underestimating money supply growth greatly; what about all the counterfeit currency the North Koreans are printing? That won't show up in official reports. The M0 increase may be concentrated in the west so even their assumption that all the growth is in emerging markets may be wrong.

Yay! Inflation!

2007-07-29T10:18:00.000-07:00

I just ran across this peice at the PI, that espouses more inflation as the solution to all of Seattle's our housing woes. Perhaps rather than visiting the 'West' Mr. Trahant ought to visit a country in say, South America, that was lucky enough to enjoy the pleasures of hyperinflation. I'd love to see his spin on why this is a good thing; it should bring a chuckle or two.

China & The Greenhouse Effect

2007-07-23T18:02:00.000-07:00

It looks like China's position on global warming is shifting a bit. A couple speeches have trickled out recently (here and here) indicating the gravity of the issue is starting to be talked about within the country. But China Daily's own reporter's article about the need to penalize foreign firms reminded me of how ludicrous China's positions still can be. The article itself somehow blames foreign companies for the fact that China's government hasn't cared about the environment for years (never mind the fact that Exxon can pollute far more at a Texas refinery than say one on Antwerp; China's standards might not so different from America's in some places). There was a similar argument when they fought for 'developing' status in the Kyoto agreement. Just because your government failed to implement capitalism sooner and you are therefore years behind in development, doesn't mean you should get a free pass now. If anything, China is greatly benefiting from the know-how from advanced economies. If the Chinese government wanted to, they could have avoided the mistakes made by other countries and had a cleaner environment from the start. Now China has embedded dirty technology interest groups that will fight the transition to clean tech, much like what we see playing out in US.

Republican Genius

2007-07-23T17:42:00.000-07:00

I love this:

Looks like Harry Reid is being the least bi-partisan majority leader in history. The filibuster is there to protect minority rights. If minorty rights get abused by a majority leader who simply tries to ram through non-bipartisan legislation, what else do you expect?

Found in the comments section here of a post detailing the explosion in filibusters in this senate term. The Democrats are so out-classed. From the sidelines it always looks like both parties believe the public to be irrational decision makers, but only the Republicans bother to take advantage of that fact. Of course bad decisions lead to bad policies, and you can't fool everyone all the time, but in the long run we're all dead anyway, no?

McCain in the Economist

2007-07-20T17:57:00.000-07:00

The Economist piece on John McCain last week is a touch specious. What's wrong with firing someone that was "part of Mr McCain's political family"? Perhaps McCain was not happy with the fact that "his campaign managers ... spend like drunken sailors" and decided to fire them. It's called accountability. Here's a link for those unfamiliar with the term.

Hillary Clinton's Disappointment

2007-07-20T09:31:00.000-07:00

My two cents on this Hillary discussion: she lacks courage. In the 2004 election she declined to run, knowing full well that we had a president that tortures people and that she, out of all the potential Democratic canidates, had the best chance to deny him a second term. Yes, I'm sure her political calculus told her to wait, that the odds of her winning in 2008 would be higher than in 2004, but 2004 is when the country needed her most.

Proof of arithmetic series

2007-07-18T22:02:00.000-07:00

I derived this proof of an arithmetic series. I very much doubt it's anything new. But I didn't see it on Wikipedia or after a quick Google search so I figured I'd record it here for the net.

1) Sum of i as i goes from 1 to n : 1 + 2 + 3 + ... + n

2) Add the summation to itself, but think of adding the second summation backwards:


1 + ... + n

n + ... + 1

3) If you think of the first Sum as (i), then the second sum becomes (n - i + 1)

4) So 2 * the sum is (i) + (n - i + 1) or (n + 1) for each item in the series

5) Since there are n items in the series, the 2 * sum value is n * (n + 1)

6) for a single series, we end up with (n * (n + 1) / 2)

It's pretty straightforwards to convert this proof for a series of arbitrary interval.

Seattle Police II

2007-07-18T21:58:00.000-07:00

As an update, later that day an officer did come to our buildling. The person I saw on the street had already been arrested for an unrelated crime. There was not a way to link our breakin with the person however. My landlord found his missing wrench so it couldn't have been the one the person was holding. The officer said that the reason police are hesitant to confront the street people sometimes is that they do not want to talk action without a partner present. I can't blame them for that. Backing three guys high on herion in an ally probably isn't the safest thing to do.

Seattle Police

2007-07-12T20:31:00.000-07:00

I have no doubt that some of Seattle's finest have made mistakes in the past; there is ample evidence from the WTO event. So I'm not going to say it's wrong for the NAACP to criticize their actions.

However, Seattlites should be aware that we are in desperate need of a functioning police force. This post is one example, and up in Capitol Hill, it's not much better. This morning my apartment building was broken into. My landlord spent all day trying to get the locks fixed, and when he called the police to report the incident he was told they 'may' stop by. I just saw a few blocks away someone trying to bum cigarettes that carried a wrench in his hand surprising like the one stolen from my building today. He was cursing at people, obviously high. Drugs + wrench + anger is not a good combination. My building residents have seen the same people shoot up in the alley behind our building, and have learned not to bother calling the police for the help they 'may' provide.

How do we get a competent police force that doesn't abuse power while still protecting the people? Maybe it's too much to ask for and I should just move. Greg Nickels's plans don't seem to be working here.

Guantanamo Detainee Appeal

2007-06-29T13:14:00.000-07:00

The rehearing grant has been making noise in the blogsphere. Howard Gilbert's comment on scotusblog may have some merit. This could just set in motion a process whereby the Supreme Court desides to back the president rather than lead to a conflict over habeas corpus as some people are hoping.

Porcelator Meme

2007-05-28T10:04:00.000-07:00

Recently I finished both Sam Harris's End of Faith and How We Believe by Michael Shermer. Harris left me unconvinced that it will be possible to end faith. He makes a good argument for its dangers but Shermer's left me wondering if the only solution terror issue is introducing a new meme. These meme would have to both 1) neutralize the results of beliefs that are detrimental to our civilization and 2) have greater fitness than current memes. Yes, this sounds very similar to the anti-malaria mosquito.

The only way I could think of to neutralize civilization-destructive beliefs is rather grizzly: some type of suicide mechanism that forbids harming others in the process. For the fitness property, there are already memes that provide paradise after death and riches for the family left behind. Perhaps the fitness problem could be outsourced; what if all the believers wealth transferred to their religious institution? Then it would be in the entrepreneurial clergy's best interest to devise ways to make this meme win over other memes. Would that produce a high enough fitness?

But this must be a topic others have worked on in the past. I probably just need to do some more reading to find out what are the best contenders for this procelator meme.

Reason in Politics

2007-05-16T22:51:00.000-07:00

I ran into Bruce Guthrie the other day and had a short but insightful chat with him about the Libertarian Party’s struggles to break out of the low single digits in elections. One issue is around creating a ‘big tent’ for the party.

Libertarians divide themselves into two camps: ‘Anarchists’ and ‘Incrementalists’. Anarchists strive to bring about the wholesale destruction of the government. When Ron Paul talks about eliminating the IRS, he is speaking to the Anarchist wing of the party. Inside the Libertarian Party itself, Incrementalists view themselves as realists that will propose arguments such as ‘Although we all want to get rid of public schools, its part of the state constitution, so we should just aim for allowing school choice.’ The Anarchists form the core of the traditional party and the Incrementalists are what the party hopes to use to create big tent inclusion.

Unfortunately, these two groups are diametrically opposed. Incrementalists are simply Conservatives with a different name. They admit the world is the way it is and try to modify the state of affairs rather than destroy and rebuild. How can you ever expect Anarchists and Conservatives to agree on policy issues? How can a Libertarian Party found by Anarchists ever grow to include Conservatives?

I had a conversation with a Goldwater Republican that turned Libertarian after being disillusioned with Nixon’s protectionism. The individual surprised me with his description of the strong economic bent in the drive for his group of Anarchist members to join the Libertarian Party. The economic studies of the 70’s caused many people to believe ‘liberty’ was a better model for economic growth in the US than the state driven, protectionist approach advocated by both the left and parts of right. Reason drove them to become Libertarians, not belief.

This fascinated me because it provided a link between the Anarchist and Incrementalists. What if, rather than saying: ‘Individuals should be free to make choices for themselves and to accept responsibility for the consequences of the choices they make’, the party platform said something more like ‘Our understanding of economic systems implies the country would be better off if individuals were free to make choices for themselves and to accept the consequences’. Even though the statement leads to the same policy result, the discussion has now shifted from a shouting match about beliefs to reasoning about what is better for the country. Anarchists might think this approach makes sense because it harkens back to the reasons they joined the party, while the focus on logic would appeal to the Incrementalists.

This rational approach could also help the party succeed against competitors. The Democrats and Republicans are both belief-based institutions. The beliefs may have changed over time as the country has changed, but both parties try to position themselves to voters as representing their ‘values’. It is in their DNA to appeal to the emotions of citizens to get votes. Using beliefs to tug at the right emotions is a great tool for motivating voters, but the Libertarian Party is unlikely to win this game. The major parties have already perfected the art; why would the Libertarian Party be any better at it? If the Libertarian Party came across a belief system that was more successful at motivating voters, what would prevent the Democrats or Republicans from co-opting that belief system and using their size advantages to beat the Libertarians?

The trick would be to change the way politics operate in this country. Building a party based on reason might be the method to do this. Reason has already been successful in making gains in Washington State for the Libertarians; instant runoff voting did not flow from the traditional Libertarian principles but was a rational choice to improve the country’s democracy. Questions remain on when and how voters choose to vote with their minds rather than their emotions, but if executed properly, a rational campaign could beat the major parties by having voters dissect and discount belief based arguments.

Stadtluft macht frei

2007-05-10T16:36:00.000-07:00

Either a cathedral or bazaar reputation universe with an isomorphic mapping of identity to agent is a scary thought. Some definitions here:

Identity: A unique ID in the namespace of a identity system
Agent: Something, usually a person, that is associated with an identity
Reputation: A rating associated with an identity

If agents are allowed multiple identities on the same reputation system, agent can always deal with a bad reputation by creating a new identity and associated reputation. This is an overall good because although bad agents can erase their bad identities to restart at zero:

1) Those bad agents can only create good reputations the hard way, by being good
2) Requiring good reputations to be only created the hard way rewards being and staying good
3) Agents that end up with bad reputations by no fault of their own (id theft, etc.) can loose those bad reputations by creating new identities

If agents are not allowed the multiple identities on the same system, #3 is lost. Agents will need to leave the reputation system in order to reset their identity. Imagine being an Ebay seller whose account was either hijacked by a bad agent or inadvertently sold bad goods because a bad supplier. The seller would have to re-establish themselves on Amazon, which may reach a smaller market than Ebay did. So the lack of multiple identities starts to hurt agents that aren't necessarily bad.

The worrying part is if identities become linked across systems. This can occur if agents and identities have a 1:1 relationship. For example, an agent just has one SSN. To the credit system, an agent has only a single identity. Now if that agent has a bad reputation on Ebay, that agent cannot start anew on Amazon. The Amazon marketplace buyers can refer to the agent's Ebay reputation.

Today there are many sites that allow agents to have multiple identities. For example, agents currently can have more than one Google account. But there is a trend towards linking agents with a single identity. Facebook ties the agent to the graduating class of their university. Linked-in ties the agent to their resume. How does a agent escape getting a bad reputation associated with their real world credentials such as place of birth, work history, or previous residences? Agents can easily hide the fact that they were seller123 on Ebay when they become seller456 on Amazon, but an agent is going to have a harder time doing so when their identity is tied to their personal history. "No, I'm a different John Smith that was born at 7:45AM in the First Hill Swedish Hospital in Seattle and went to Garfield High and UW and spent 4 years at Trilogy Software in Austin being a code monkey".

Reputation + isomorphic identity will prevent agents from starting again; moving to Alaska will not save you anymore.

http://www.goland.org/reputationsfree/

Alexa blowback

2007-05-08T12:27:00.001-07:00

There goes network neutrality!

http://www.nik.com.au/archives/2007/04/19/dont-like-alexa-block-it/

Top Heavy Seattle?

2007-04-17T14:15:00.000-07:00

Last night I had dinner with some friends. They were telling me about their house hunting adventures, and one thing I was surprised at was how many million dollar houses seemed to be on sale here in Seattle. I thought to do some quick math to figure out if we are top heavy.

I took the census numbers for 2005 in Seattle to get a feel for the ratios of different income brackets. From the brackets I also derived the range of monthly payments possible (mortage + taxes + etc = 1/3 of gross income). From that I used a 6.01% 30 year mortgage with 20% to determine how much house that would buy. Finally I went to Windermere's site to get the sales numbers of those brackets. This is what the data looked like:

Income Range	Household %	Payment Range	House Price Range	Windermere Count	Count %
49,999 or less	51%	$1389 or less	$225k or less	91	3%
$50k to $75k	17%	$1389 to $2083	$225k to $350k	527	17%
$75k to $100k	11%	$2083 to $2777	$350k to $450k	574	19%
$100k to $150k	12%	$2777 to $4166	$450k to $675k	~700	23%
$150k to $200k	5%	$4166 to $5555	$675k to $900k	~400	13%
$200k plus	5%	$5555 plus	$900k plus	727	24%

Ignoring the fact that making less than 50k pretty much disqualifies you from owning anything, the spike in million dollar houses did indeed manifest here. Although the number of households that could afford houses in the 675k to 900k range was similar to the number of households that could afford houses worth 900k+, the number of 900k+ homes were significantly greater. Are people making 200k+ twice as likely to own a home than households in the 150k to 200k bracket? The housing market seems to think so...

GOP's Collapse

2007-04-16T11:32:00.000-07:00

Although I don't doubt some shifts are taking place, I'd be interested in knowing the dot product of party affiliation and propensity to vote. For example, if the percentage of young GOP members has dropped by 30%, perhaps those that are still members are much more likely to vote, while those that have left the party are unlikely to vote. In the end this could cancel out or even be a good thing for the GOP.

Well probably not, but it might mitigate the 30% drop.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/04/the_young_and_t.html

Washington Republicans

2007-03-26T10:25:00.000-07:00

The quote Andrew uses here makes me wonder about a second angle to this attorney general mess. The White House would not have fired these AG's unless the someone was calling for blood. Who thought it was perfectly legitimate for the White House to fire AG's for not being partisan? We need to investigate each of the fired AG's in turn. It's already gotten some politicians in trouble; is Dino Rossi next?

2007-02-24T11:51:00.000-08:00

The Heart is the Soul

Andrew Leigh asks:

Where’s the evidence that the soul does not reside in the heart?

Potential answer: the artificial heart.

I say 'potential' because I suppose you can argue that people with articiial hearts do not have souls anymore. I'm not sure how exactly to prove that right or wrong.

2007-02-24T11:38:00.000-08:00

Federalist Paper X

Madison describes one of the benefits of a larger union of states to be that it becomes harder for a majority party to exist. His idea is that the more people a republic needs to encompass, the more diverse those people will be. So it would be harder to unite a significant faction under a common party. Did Madison not have a Grover Norquist equivalent in his time that could figure out a small quantity of exclusive hot button issues (God, Guns, + Gays) that would unite a significant portion of the country?

I'm heartened however to read that the founding fathers looked at the tyranny of the majority as the main evil of democratic institutions. They were hoping that the republic they set up would obviate this type of action. The followup questions and answers missing from the Federalist X include: were the founders wrong about the ability for a majority party to exist in a large republic or is our current state of affairs being governed from just one extreme untenable? If it's possible to govern our republic from a non-centrist position, what can we do about it?

I went to a 3rd party meetup (non-Republican and non-Democratic) the other day, and to me it was obvious how useless our 3rd parties are in the US today. I could see a path for a 3rd party to grow from a local, grass-roots level, but these 3rd parties lack the leadership to make that happen. The activist want the big splash of large national campaigns which are unrealistic for a 3rd party to ever succeed at. So I don't see the majority party symptom to be cured by a 3rd, balancing political party anytime soon. Are there any other solutions out there?

2007-02-16T11:30:00.000-08:00

French Farmers

An excuse to rant about one of my favorite topics, the French. Chirac calls our cotton subsidies "scandalous" but off course fails to mention the long list of products subsidized by the Common Agricultural Policy, of which France is the largest beneficiary. Don't bash the US until your own house is order.

2007-02-02T17:47:00.000-08:00

DVD sales decline

I just read this in an old Economist issue laying around the flat:

But DVD sales are falling too, largely because viewers over the age of six get bored watching the same movie repeatedly and more films are available on television.

Ha! Even better than Maxim.

2007-02-01T12:54:00.000-08:00

Ronald Reagan

Looks like Greenwald also has doubts about the true conservatism of Reagan. Andrew Sullivan responds to Greewald's argument and mentions the 'peace dividend' that Reagan's legacy has provided us with. But we should not regard the 'peace dividend' in such certain terms. Putin is far from an ally, as this recent new item reminds us. Have we bungled the transition of Russia from communism the same way we are now failing and transitioning Iraq from Saddam?

2007-01-29T16:21:00.000-08:00

Travesties

I saw Travesties by Tom Stoppard yesterday at the Seattle Public Threater. It was good fun; I recommend it. I was worried that references to Ulysses would be a little too erudite for myself to handle, but the play turns out to be heavily based on The Importance of Being Ernest and is therefore far more accessible. I suppose this is meant to parallel with Joyce's recanting of the Odyssey in a deeper way than I could grasp; I'll have to revisit the play when I finally make my way through both the Odyssey and Ulysses.

2007-01-28T17:41:00.000-08:00

Non-Jewish Science Minister

Props to the Israeli government for appointing Galeb Magadla. I have never been able to internalize how the country could consider itself a modern democracy when religion and state are as intertwined as they are in Israel. I'm glad to see the country moving in a positive direction to give more rights to those that are not Orthodox Jews.

2007-01-24T01:34:00.000-08:00

Blacks on Jury

I was thinking the exact same thing when I heard the report. Is it OK for a black man living in a white neighborhood to be tried by a white jury? If we can answer that question, then Scooter Libby's scenario should just be the inverse, no?

2007-01-23T20:46:00.000-08:00

Filibust this

After the state of the union address, Senator Mitch McConnell was on NPR stating something along the lines of all legislation requires 60 votes to get past the Senate. If I remember correctly, weren't the Republicans pushing to eliminate the filibuster to get the president's Supreme Court nominations cleared? Something about how the filibuster isn't in the Constitution, so it can be ignored. Does Senator McConnell now think 1) Supreme Court members should require 50 votes and 2) legislation requires 60 votes? I'm waiting for some clarification...

2007-01-20T20:00:00.000-08:00

Aqueduct

It's it obvious what we need to do? Close the viaduct and run water through it! The reserve the top part for kayaks and keep the bottom half for salmon. Over time, earthquakes will reset the existing structure so that the kayaks have rapids and the salmon have a proper ladder. I mean, isn't that what Seattle is really about? Salmon and kayaks? I know that's why I moved here.

2007-01-19T16:58:00.000-08:00

Bread and games

A couple people seem to be upset by these comments. Personally, I don't think a significant portion of us Americans care too much about habeas corpus. People have been comfortable with conditional usage of the term for a long time; I have not seen much concern about green card holders being denied rights US citizens have come to expect for themselves. But if it's ok to deny to some aliens, maybe it's ok to deny certain classes of US citizens that fit a terrorist profile, like those that were naturalized citizens. And if we do it for terrorists, why not do it for serial killers, rapists, cat burglars, drunk drivers, tax cheats...

I do not see us questioning this habeas corpus issue because it would open an entire class of issues we never question. Why should a secret service member be willing to give his or her life to save the president? Would it not be weird to have Bill Gates require his bodyguards to agree to the same terms? Are we not all equal under God?

2007-01-16T13:29:00.000-08:00

Surge versus pullout

To think we have fallen from the principle of 'liberating' Iraq to letting an outright civil war to flair as our least worst option. The horrors that the Iraqi people have gone through are beyond my comprehension, to let it get worse is an option I cannot support. The only thing we can do is start taking this war seriously. Double the number of troops in Iraq.

This president has failed in uniting the country behind him. The onion posted this as a joke, but I remember the lines of 'yuppie' Americans at blood donation centers after 9/11 in New York City. I remember the horror everyone felt when people realized there was no blood needed, that there was nothing we could do to help. There was and still is a powerful desire to do good in the American people, we need a leader that can channel that desire. Yes it was a mistake in attacking Iraq. It was our mistake as a people, and we should be suffering at the front, not the Iraqis or the select few that will love their country enough to serve in the military regardless of the idiocy of it's civilian leadership.

2007-01-15T19:36:00.000-08:00

I finished the book yesterday. I was surprised at how similar our philosophies were; after living in Europe it's hard to imagine there might actually be people I could agree with :)

Andrew Sullivan's discussion of the fundamentalist mind-set was refreshing to read. It's helped me internalize how to better understand the viewpoint and that's not easy since it is very far from my own mental framework.

His viewpoint on Ronald Reagan was also fascinating. I was very young when Reagan was president, so I lacked the political engagement during that time that Andrew obviously had. Reagan to me was primarily of 'Iran-Contra' fame, which disturbed me greatly for the proceedings contempt of Congress, and by extension the people. Nixon and Reagan created the 'conservative' tendencies in myself not to trust the government by showing how it can fail us. I loved reading both Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand but always felt more comfortable around Democrats as the lesser evil; I'd rather have a government that taxes me and wastes it on unions than one that wastes it on war.

I think that's why I was wary of the weapons of mass destruction argument. I can't claim to have 'known' it to be false of course, but I was not surprised when the PowerPoint deck turned out to be a scam. BTW- Andrew states that no intelligence agency doubted the US's claims that Iraq had WMD. But I do remember a quote from an Eastern European intelligence officer (Czech maybe?) that pretty much said the claims were B.S. That's far from proving that an intelligence agency as a whole knew the evidence to be bogus, but my working theory is that some agencies did not believe the US story. It was not, however, in their best interest to oppose the US position, so they kept quiet. I tried to do some digging and find that quote on the net but was unable to do so.

I've always held high respect for the 'conservative' temperament, both because I considered myself to have one :) and because I strongly feel it's the 'conservative' temperament that has made America great. It's kept the growth of government in check, etc. Andrew does a much better job than I ever could of describing it's value in his discussion of the founding fathers. His writing has however raised my respect for 'Republicans'. Before, I never had a clear connection between 'Republican' and Andrew's use of the term 'conservative'. Republicanism has always had a Machiavellian angle to it in my mind. If the Republican soul was at some point in history a 'conservative' one, it is a great loss for the country if that is no longer the case. It's definitely worth fighting to gain back.

Which leads me to the last point that struck me about the book: I did not feel it was complete. Where will current trends likely lead? What political science drives conservatism? I expected a chapter showing how the forces of fundamentalism will always steadily increase until there is a breaking point. The increase is from the strength of faith and certainty that a 'conservatism of doubt' will of course never possess. The breaking point is when fundamentalism goes too far and causes collapse, i.e. USSR. Is the Iraq blunder enough to wake up and mobilize the country against the fundamentalist mind-set or must things get much worse before they can get any better? Perhaps the steady increase and breaking point theory is too naive; regardless I expected Andrew to propose his own political theory on this point.

2007-01-15T19:20:00.000-08:00

To The Marine

http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2007/01/to_the_marine.html

Some additional cases of being kept in a bubble:

Sinclair broadcasting pre-empting the list of soldiers killed in combat because it
“appears to be motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States in Iraq.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4864247/

Or the White House not allowing photographs of fallen soldiers:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4807865/

2006-11-09T13:41:00.000-08:00

Financial Flip-Flop?

"Stocks Close Lower As Investors Question if Democratic Congress Will Be Friendly to Business"

The evidence is quoted as:

"The market's been looking for a reason to go to the downside, and a change in Washington is as good an excuse as any," O'Donoghue said.

Iowa Markets had the Democrats gaining control of the House since early October. The Senate flipped Democratic on Monday. Which means one of:
1) The efficient market theory is wrong and the markets took until today to react to this news
2) The AP is talking smack and today's drop has nothing to do with Washington
3) I am an idiot that failed to act upon globally unknown non-insider information

2006-11-09T12:55:00.000-08:00

In honor of the mis-understood genius:

The Unknown

As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

—Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing

2004-08-29T23:26:00.000-07:00

http://www.detnews.com/2004/editorial/0408/27/a09-255537.htm

I spent some more time looking at the CBO data quoted in the article. Its true that the top 20%, 10%, 5%, and 1% got a 3.8%, 3.2%, 2.3%, and 0.7% [sic] increase in federal income tax burden. However, the CBO data also says that those same groups had a decrease of -0.6%, -1.1%, -1.5%, and -1.8% in overall federal tax liabilities. So the impact was actually the opposite of what Luskin reported.
Please see:
http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=5746&sequence=1#pt4
table 4 year 2004. Luskin used the 'Change in Share of Individual Income Tax Liabilities' sub table and didn't mention the related 'Change in Share of Total Federal Tax Liabilities' sub table.

2004-08-25T21:36:00.000-07:00

I always go back to Engelbart's paper to get grounding in what the point of it all is. We create tools that amplify intelligence that allow us to create more tools that will amplify intelligence further. Software was one tool that allowed Google to make the search tool. Now that we have search, what is the next tool that will trigger the next phase of intelligence amplification?

2004-08-24T21:02:00.000-07:00

Is recent upsurge in talk about DHTML anything new?

How is this different from Outlook Web Access, Netscape's plug-ins, or Java Web Start? I grok the debate between fat and thin clients, and the question of whether thin is bad because it means the end of windows as we know it or thin is good because it means a subscription revenue model. And postulating how and where the industry will evolve is a worthy exercise. But forgive me for not understanding why Google's and Yahoo's recent efforts along these lines constitute a shift in the technological landscape.

In what direction will information worker application innovate in the future? And will that direction be better served by what Win32 offers or what Google offers? If we are moving towards collaborative spaces that requires software that searches, analyzes, and presents "information universally accessible and useful" [sic], then Google has indeed shifted the landscape on the fat versus thin debate. Their web client for information workers may be better able to address these new types of applications than Win32 currently can.

Google currently offers only a free beta version of their API for personnel use. So they are making no revenue on it. But if their "platform" is where new applications take root, then that is a loss for Win32, no?

2004-01-27T05:28:00.000-08:00

Why didn't the government wait until these types commission reports were avilable before rewriting our airline security policy?

2004-01-26T05:28:00.000-08:00

Friedman has finally lost my respect. He tries to make the point that Europe has failed the Arab world by not doing enough to improve their well being. Which is a valid position, but its a bit more complicated than his two lines on Europe would imply:

"Europe has done an extremely poor job of integrating and employing its growing Muslim minorities, many of which have a deep feeling of alienation. And Europe has done a very poor job of investing in North Africa and the Middle East — its natural backyard."

Yes integration is a problem in Europe. But its not fully the European's fault. The immigrant Muslim population suffers the same fate as the inner city population in US cities such as Detroit and Phili. But unlike the US, Europe provides strong public education systems that these young immigrants could use to their advantage. Sadly, more often than not, immigrant Muslims are unprepared for integration. There is no work ethic and no interest in education. Youth gangs roam the street of Brussels, harassing women.

And as to the charge of poor investment in its backyard... Western Europe's backyard is actually Eastern Europe. Friedman makes a parallel with Mexico and the US's free trade agreement. Europe is moving towards the equivalant of allowing the Mexican states to join the US, giving Mexicans the right to live and work anywhere in the US.

How would Friedman propose Europe invest in North Africa and the Middle East? By giving money to the governments of Libya, Sudan, Syria, or Iran? By brokering deals with the Saudis whom in turn donate to terrorist organizations?

2003-11-21T06:29:00.000-08:00

Letter to editor:
I would be interested in reading an analysis by Mr. Hughes of how President Bush is reacting to the Georgia situation in relation to his recent speech on democracy. I agree that his words were exciting and visionary, but am confused as to how they should lead his actions in this area.

Is anyone actually hearing what Bush is saying? csmonitor.com

2003-11-14T08:35:00.000-08:00

Fundamentalists and brights need a common ground. These kinds of circular arguments aren't getting the country anywhere...

Hell No, They Won't Go By Bill O'Brien: "Tempers flared outside the courtroom, as a group of Moore supporters told a handful of atheists to go to hell. 'I can't,' the president of the Atheist Law Center of Montgomery says in the NYT. 'Hell doesn't exist.'"

2003-11-14T06:38:00.000-08:00

I'm unhappy with the National Review. Frum's Nov. 12 entry, 'Forebodings', doesn't have a single supporting fact in it. Its of course a valid theory, but I've seen this class of post to often in both left and right leaning press. His Nov. 14 post is better, since it provides analysis on what may happen as a consequence of Bush's trip to London.

http://www.nationalreview.com/frum/diary111203.asp
http://www.nationalreview.com/frum/diary111403.asp