arbecht macht frei

According to diesem NY Post artikel, der kommisars of Westchester County, New York are considering to offer the resident "alter cockers" the wondrous opportunity of being worked till death in order to rectify for the sin of declining to kick der bucket without paying their property tax tribute.

Update: Fixed article link

anti-gravity

(click image to see entire strip)

Having just purchased the handsomely-discounted complete three-volume set of Calvin and Hobbes (on Amazon.com for $67!), I've been setting aside some time every day to read a couple of pages. At the rate I'm going I suppose I'll be finished some time next year. (BTW, you can view the entire collection here in chronological order.)

The cartoon above was part of the few I skimmed this morning a short while after having breakfast. The cartoon was still on the mind later in the day when I came to a shocking realization that gravity, the force that keeps us mere mortals firmly planted on terra firma is also responsible for that Calvin losing his balloon, for that blimp soaring overhead, and keeping watergoing vessels afloat. Gravity is not arbitrary in that sense that it only applies to certain bodies, but not all.

The revelation of course is intuitive-- the relative density of interacting bodies is the key to deciding via gravitational force which objects will force their way towards other bodies of mass, upsetting and forcing aside less dense materials in the process.

The balloon thus floats away from Calvin because denser molecules of air are pushing to occupy the space that less dense gases dare occupy hidden within their rubber spheroids.

The next step from there is quite unclear to me; yet if you have a rigid, yet lightweight balloon 'filled' with vacuum, I'm supposing that it will float away from earth so long that the density of the air that displaces the entire volume of the balloon exceeds the density of the material comprising the skin of the balloon.

Better yet, if we fill that balloon with anti-matter, or 'negmatter' as Robert L. Forward calls it, we should have ourselves a true anti-gravity device, not one that simply takes advantage of relative density in a gravitational field.

the left hand of.. something

"Wrong had been done and it had to be balanced out and accounted for personally. But humans were full of rights, and very short of responsibilities." -- Karen Traviss, City of Pearl

City of Pearl is the first book in Traviss's six-part series called the Wess'har Wars. To be candid, I found this book on the formulaic side, one which failed to capture my imagination or blow it to smithereens in the process.

To be fair, it could be my disliking of Traviss's confusing political philosophy which put me off given that her universe is one in which the evil corporations (sigh!) on Earth have eliminated most natural growing foods and have replaced them with genetically-modified and patent-secured replacements to reap monopoly profits with the side consequence of mass starvation for the rest of the human population (::rolling eyes!::)

Or that the protagonist is a former cop, once an environmental hazard protection goon whose past was mired in a conspiratorial battle against eco-terrorists in the highest rank of industry and government.

Then there was the repeatedly mentioned "Government's work is God's work" and other similar endorsements for institutionalized mass servitude, which at times was bewildering because you knew that Traviss had it in herself to transcend from the socialist-leftist memeage into the more mature left-anarchist/left-libertarian tradition. Though to her credit it, I sometimes felt as though I was holding a book by Ursala K. LeGuin, as witnessed by this post's opening quote, by far my favorite line in the entire book.

the political means

"It's the lawyers. They're evil. They're bloodsuckers. They're parasites. We create wealth, they live off our scraps. They see guys like us with money, and they say, 'Okay, let's invent some law that fucks this guy up. Let's create some rules about accounting that are tricky and complex and arcane that nobody can possibly comply with them. Then let's bribe some Congressmen to pass the law, and we'll shake these rich bastards down.' That's what it is. You pay to settle the case, and the lawyers split the money. They're all in on it together - not just the plaintiff lawyers but your own defense lawyers too. At the end of the day it's no different than if they put a gun to your head and robbed you in an alley. It's a mugging. Same damn thing. Like it or not, this will only end one way - you will write a huge check, and these fuckers will fight over it like a pack of hyenas tearing at a deer carcass."

-- Fake Steve Jobs, oPtion$

Actually it's not quite the same thing--

"The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a 'protector,' and that he takes men's money against their will, merely to enable him to 'protect' those infatuated travellers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these. Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful 'sovereign,' on account of the 'protection' he affords you. He does not keep 'protecting' you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and an enemy to your country, and shooting you down without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures, and insults, and villanies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave."
-- Lysander Spooner, No Treason

fall in line

I was somewhat amused, although not quite shocked to see this postcard stuck in my regular mail delivery.

It's not that often that you see the naked hostility of the state presented in so clear a manner; after all, apologists can be found aplenty to offer explanations as to how the master-slave relationship we live under is nothing more than on a benign voluntary basis.

What I also found sweet is the legerdemain involved in the implication that the leaves which fall off of trees 'owned' by the city, which you can be fined and/or jailed for pruning without a permit and a licensed arborist, would then have the balls to call it 'your' leaves, as if that now makes it your responsibility to contain. Sneaky bastards-- it almost makes me want to suffer violence upon the inexplicably uppity cartoon duo, and the mindless civil servants who brainstormed this mushy propaganda to sugarcoat this KP duty.

But this by far is not as ridiculous as other so-called 'laws' that I've encountered. For instance, while you may not own the sidewalk pavement in front of your property line, you must act as though you do. That includes maintaining and replacing cement flags as the city inspectors determine necessary, keeping a neat and clean condition on the sidewalks at all times including a minimum of 18" further onto to road surface. When it snows, the homeowner or landlord is obligated to clear a path and lay down salt to prevent ice buildup and is held personally responsible for injuries or damages that occur there. And so on and so forth.

And just a few days ago, I inadvertently opened a letter containing a tax notice for a defunct corporation and shivered over a display of audacious verbiage, including a 'Warrant' notice stating that so-and-so has been appointed by "the people of the state of New York" (funny, I don't remember authorizing anything of the sort) to seize properties of the said corporation for failure to pay taxes. I was quite horrified and repulsed by the brute and stentorian tone found in some sentences which read "you are commanded to do such and such".

monolithesia

Not too long ago, the NY Daily News ran an article titled 'City neighborhoods losing character to condos, chain stores' bemoaning the fate of losing indigenous mom & pop stores to the faceless, sterile corporate chain stores which often replace them. To it's credit, the article is pretty neutral in that the author simply attributes the wide sweeping change to real estate pressures, and doesn't use the opportunity to clamor for violent resistance (to impose regulations, etc.)

While I can agree with that sentiment on an emotional level, I realize and accept the fact that my preferences are just that, and that it would be immoral to escalate any resistance above a completely bilateral voluntary nature.

It also helps me to understand that the monolithization of our neighborhoods is a direct result of codified violence (zoning laws, licensing, permits) which disrupts the realization of consumers' preferences into a bizarre spectacle of what seemingly is perceived as the 'free market'.

Radley Balko does a wonderful job explaining the process and the unintended consequences that follow.

"...zoning officials and regulators tend to overdo the regulating, then lapse into bureaucratic coma when local businesses try to navigate their way through City Hall. For example, if you want to do something as simple as change the lettering on or repaint the sign outside your business in Old Town, you both have to apply for and pay $50 to obtain a "ladder permit," and apply for and pay $55 for a "building permit." It can take more than two weeks to get the proper permits, even if all you want to do is replace the "e" on your "Ye Olde Sandwich Shoppe" sign.

While all of this is intended to promote architectural continuity and preserve Old Town's historical charm, like most regulations it tends to promote the opposite of what city planners intended...

I guess the question is, whether one ought to need to have a lawyer on retainer in order to open a business in Old Town. And if Old Town is going to make that a requirement--intentionally or not--what effect is that going to have on the boutiques, art galleries, and antique stores that make up the very atmosphere the regulations are trying to promote?

My hunch is that Old Town's expensive, meticulous zoning laws have made it too difficult for the mom-and-pop places to do business. ...Franchise operators can often tap the resources of the parent company, particularly when it comes to accessing on-staff lawyers with experience navigating through and working with local zoning laws and business regulations.

The same people who gripe about how Wal-Mart is pushing smaller, independent places out of business tend to be the people who support onerous regulatory structures. What they tend not to understand is that regulatory burdens hit the smaller, independent places hardest, because they're the places that have the smallest amount of discretionary cash to hire lawyers or a tighter budget and, therefore, a smaller margin of error when it comes to hassles like delaying an opening because some bureaucrat determined their signage is a couple of inches out of compliance."

eris, bringer of strife

If you thought the last post was all I had to say about Gustav Holst and The Planets, well you might be amused by what I left out, and what I think is the clincher.

For those of you who bothered to wikipedia* Gustav Holst, you would have learned that the discovery of Pluto, the (former) 9th planet was discovered during his lifetime, four years prior to his death. He was asked by many to write an eighth movement to include the newly discovered planet [Earth was skipped in his famous seven movement piece], but refused primarily because he was acrimonious to the fact that the popularity of The Planets eclipsed his other work.

Well it seems that Holst was vindicated after all with the discovery of Eris, a dwarf planet which is the ninth largest body known to orbit the sun, which resulted in the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to officially define the term 'planet' for the first time, and remove dear old Pluto from her esteemed status, and in fact, place it second in line after the troublemaker Eris.

The dwarf planet Eris was such named after her mythological namesake, because "[t]he name in part reflects the discord in the astronomical community caused by the debate over the object's (and Pluto's) nature.¹" What I also found lovely is that she is accompanied here by her daughter moon, Dysnomia.

And so to bring this farce full circle, we can discuss a book Harmonices Mundi, or "Harmonies of the Worlds" by Johannes Kepler which attempted to explain the musical harmony of the spheres, an ancient concept known as musica universalis, which regarded proportions in the movements of celestial bodies as a form of music.

Next, and with many pardons to Isaac Newton who suffered an erisian mishap with a falling orb, a [golden??!] apple which prompts a foray into describing the maths of celestial mechanics, only to be taken down a notch when Albert Einstein throws a wrench into Newton's game with his general theory which explains the erratic perturbations to local spacetime conditions. Isaac Asimov writes a short story about this and calls it "The Planet that Wasn't", [referring to planet Vulcan] although he never lived long enough to see Pluto demoted, which certainly would have delighted Gustav Holst had he been alive.

Whew!

* 'Wikipedia' is a verb, and you can google it if you'd like ;)
¹I think they mean to say 'nomenclature', not 'nature'.

leia, bringer of peace

By chance I flipped on the cars radio one day, and tune it to the local purveyor of classical music, when I hear an amazing piece which is hauntingly familiar to my ears. I'm prone to getting excited when I hear something very John Williams-like.

Determined to find out more, I check the stations homepage when I got home, to learn that the name of the arrangement is called The Planets by Gustav Holst. The very title alone sent shivers down my spine, as no other outer-worldly piece could inspire a composer who has made world-famous film scores to science fiction monuments such as Star Wars, E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Since I surely can't be the sole person on the globe who has made the connection, I google  "The Planets" and John Williams, and sure enough, the first link I'm offered is to an original recording of The Planets, with two bonus tracks- get this, the Star Wars main title and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

After some more mucking around, I turn up the webpage of other people who think likewise;

"Gustav Holst's "Mars: Bringer of War" will sound familiar to science fiction buffs, as much of the score of Star Wars consists of John William’s variations. In particular, compare the climax of this movement to the music accompanying the destruction of the Death Star."

It's these cues which reassure me from time to time that I haven't yet lost my sanity.

think different

A Gizmodo commenter with the handle OMG-PONIES has a lot to say on the subject of 'consumerism' when it comes to Apple's iPhone. Not having the questionable benefit of a formal education in economics, I'm quite curious to learn if the opinions expressed are what exemplifies the contents of a mainstream education in the dismal science.

"That's not "highway robbery"; it's a sound price point. If the price was egregiously high, people would not buy it because it would be too much of a sacrifice. If the price was too low, it would lose its cachet as an aspirational good and people would not buy it. [Veblen's status goods?]

Compare it to the Freakonomics example of Magnolia Bakery in the West Village. Magnolia sells cupcakes for a couple bucks a pop. They're decent cupcakes, but each one only costs a quarter to make. They were featured in an episode of "Sex & The City", were written up in the New York times, and mentioned in a popular SNL short. As a result, at any given time, there is a line out the door for Magnolia cupcakes.

Logic says that Magnolia can raise the price even higher because there are people willing to wait 1/2 an hour for a cupcake at that price. Theoretically, there is excess demand. However, by raising the price, fewer people will be willing to wait in line. The line adds to the cachet of the product. If they lowered the price, the cupcake would become a bargain and lose its cachet. It would not be a distinctive product.

It's about finding a balance. The buyer should feel a bit of sting in the wallet to convince him/her that s/he is getting value for the money. Too much and it becomes too painful. People shouldn't worry about their rent payment to buy the iPhone; let them charge the cost and pay it off over 10 years time. By the same token, you don't want every schmo to be able to get one because then the iPhone loses its distinction.

Consumerism isn't driven by a desire to conform; it's driven by a desire to be different."

It kind of reminds me of the pointless argument of whether human action is spurred because of the actors' desire to improve his situation, or his desire to remove uneasiness as much as possible. Either way, we know action is purposely driven, and the science of economics, cannot render a valid scientific opinion as to what constitutes the psychological factors behind any action.

As such, the unscientific topic of 'Consumerism' can only be said to represent the fulmination of the collectivist creed of hubris, ostensibly lending an opponent of freedom a scientific soapbox from which he launches a diatribe against other people doing what they believe serves their best interests.

FWIW, he also thinks that "The lead proponent of free-market theory is the Chicago School of Business, which believes in absolutely no controls on the market and advocates, to a large extent, an abolition of consumer protections."

'Nuf said.

King Pharaoh, Anarcho-capitalist

Admit one John C. Wright to the hallowed ranks of anarcho-capitalists, as this following paragraph serves as his endorsement. Witness;

"I should mention: it was not until I became a Christian that I realized how scary Christians seem to their foes. Here am I, newly vowed to a faith that says I may not lift a hand to defend myself, may not hate my deadly enemies even in my secret heart, but must to pray for them and love them even when they come to kill me; and yet perfect strangers write in to my livejournal to tell me that they quail in a perfect cold sweat of terror, stockpiling arms, because we Xtians are about to oversweep the world and install a Theocracy so tyrannical it will make the Pharaoh seem like an anarcho-capitalist. It happened more than once: people writing me to tell me they were afraid of me. Now, I assume they are not actually afraid of me, because otherwise I would merely pass their names and IP address along to the Holy Office, so that the Jesuit albino-assassins or Benedictine-built killer-robots could come beat them to death with radio-active crucifixes. I hope I am wrong, but I secretly suspect it is puffery, a pose of moral superiority. I have to be painted the aggressor, so that they can paint themselves the victim."

There is a chock-load of interesting material in that post, the author detailing his beliefs and prejudices at the time he began the series, along with the various creative techniques he employed to pen the Chronicles of Chaos trilogy. Although it's quite prolix, I heartily recommend it to those who are familiar with the novels, and were perhaps looking for more critical understanding (verstehen) of the characters' paradigms.

i, dante dilettante

Shortly before this past summer began, I began reading Mark Musa's interpretation and commentary of Dante Alighieri's famous La Divina Commedia, beginning with Inferno. To be honest, I've never read any other translation, so I have nothing to compare with Musa's work, yet I still thought it to be excellent and very well presented. Not only does Musa translate the vulgar poetry into English (vulgar here meaning Italian, rather than the ancient Latin which was the lingua franca for major works,) but he brings it to life by explaining the back story of Dante's life and the socio-political backdrop of the feuding criminal classes between which power waned and waxed for the Ghibellines and the Guelphs.

With my Jewish Orthodox upbringing, I could relate to Dante's overall theological theme, although he obviously based it upon the Christian version of events. One technique, or device have you, stands out quite clearly in my mind; that of contropasso, a very key element to interpreting his allegory. In Hebraic terms the principle is known as midah keneged midah, which is to say measure for measure.

Many people like to think that God is a mean old cosmic tyrant who likes to inflict cruelty upon his creation for sport. Far from it, the concept of midah keneged midah is not a petty game of divine retribution, but rather expresses a concept akin to Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative; the maxim that "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."

In other words, God is so fair with us, that not only will he not judge us by what he expected from us, but rather according to the very same standards of justice that we ourselves judged to be correct. This is not to say that if one chooses to disobey God that there are no damaging consequences, only that God won't hold one guilty for acting according to the maxims that he or she believed to be universally true.

On Judgement Day™ God will scroll and scrub through this persons' life and check to see if the persons' actions were motivated according to these principles that he claimed to adhere to and flag those inconsistencies, where the man claims to adhere to moral code x, but acts contrarily to his own belief system. In that case the person is found to be intellectually dishonest, and the purpose of his contropasso is remedy his dysfunction.

One of the more enlightening chapters spoke of Dante's encounter with the level of hell reserved for hypocrites, in which the tormented are marched around bedecked in a friars vestment seemingly made of fine-woven gold. These robes however are lined with lead on the inside, making each step a back-breaking experience for the sinner.

Musa humbly explains that Dante's subtle contropasso here is as follows: The word 'hypocrite' stems from the Greek word ypo'krita, that in Latin would translate to superauratus, both meaning, "that which is covered with gold", implying an inferior non-gold substance constituting the interior portion, a striking simile to the hypocrite who pretends to be of noble stature and hides the ugly nature behind his golden veneer. A double-entendre, if I may call it that is inherent in Dante's ingenious choice of punishment.

Incidentally, I happen to think that the word krita meaning 'gold' is related to both carat and Crete, but I can't find any backup to that. And the root ypo is the opposite of Latin's super, the former like the prefix "hypo" indicating that which lies underneath, and the latter what is above, so I'm not exactly sure of how the word relates to the way Dante wants it to. Super is definitely related to Hebrew's TZa'PEh, which means to coat, or cover with an above layer, although it would have been nice if the Hebrew word for hypocrite would be a gold-coated TZaPUY-ZaHaV, the actual term is a more benign TZVoo'Ee, "the one who is painted", a reference to the same concept expressing that which haves a deceiving outer appearance.

_______
Judgement Day™ is a registered trademark of the Libra Corporation, a Delaware registered limited liability corporation.

an eerie caveat lector

Everyone knows what Q-Tips™ are for, right?

Go immediately to your makeup drawer or bathroom vanity and actually read the suggested usage on the back of the blister package. Ah-hah. You won't find anything about cleaning out your earwax, which in my circles is its raison d'être.

Oh wait a second-- scribed in bold text towards the bottom of is a warning not to use the product to clean your ears, and that if you insist on it, only to use it gently on the outer surface of your ears, so as to not risk damaging your eardrums.

that which is not seen

“It’s a little ironic that five years ago the administration was saying we should end recycling because there was no market for it,” said City Councilman Michael E. McMahon, a Staten Island Democrat and chairman of the Council’s Sanitation Committee.'" - NY Times article

Mr. McMahon makes these remarks in regards to a new bill which the city council passed which raises fines for companies caught "stealing" recyclable materials from items put out for collection.

So let me get this straight; it's considered theft for a private individual to take materials left out for recycling collection. But when city employees comb through your trash to collect evidence for whatever nefarious purpose, we're supposed to look the other way?

Anyway, that wasn't my main point.

Man, I just love how pundits and politicians can overlook the costs side of the equation and declare any program a success because there is the appearance of profits. This happens when you ignore the elephant in the room so-to-speak; coercion, and by that logic, robbery too can be considered a profitable business.

Yes it may be appear profitable for third-parties to raid recyclable materials left curbside, but that is only possible once the individuals have already complied with the bureaucratic edicts which threaten their home and hearth for non-compliance. There is no shred of evidence however that individuals would find it profitable to separate recyclables if they weren't already threatened to do so. This being the case, one cannot legitamately speculate whether recycle programs are 'profitable' when the costs have been shifted over on to the individual by mean of coercion.

keytzad meraglim

A well-known Talmudic passage is related in the tractate 'Ketubot' as to what one tells to a groom at his wedding in order to bring him joy. The rabbis who were the students of the sage Shamai state that one is obligated to tell the groom his opinion of the brides qualities- be it pretty or pretty ugly, smart or stupid, etc.

The rabbis who were the students of Hillel the Elder argue that one is obligated to tell the groom that his wife is Na'ah ve'hasuda, pleasant and kind (in other words, heap the praises upon her), regardless what your actual opinion of her may be.

The Shamaiian rabbis ask-- but if the bride is lame or blind wouldn't that tantamount to lying, which the bible forbids against?

The Hillelians retort that if you would see someone in the market place who just concluded a transaction, do you praise his deal even if you think it was a lousy deal or can you criticize it?

Here the Shamaiians were in agreement- indeed you do praise the dealmaker, and the Talmud concludes from here that a person should always strive to be pleasant with others, no matter what your personal feelings as to how you perceive the bride, a market transaction, etc, and this would of course hold even where you might consider such words to be untruthful.

Some commentators use this passage to define what it means to be truthful. Truth, they hold, is a relative proposition, not an absolute and objective fact that stands apart from the situation. The example given is where a soldier is looking to kidnap or to murder a person, and he asks a third-party as to the whereabouts of the would-be victim. In such a case they hold that it is not considered untruthful to deceive the soldier, since the concept of truth is only meaningful within a moral framework, which in such a case of murder or kidnapping is not a required ethic.

bedtime (economic) fairytales

I first saw this novel when browsing at Barnes & Noble, and while I have not read it, the praise for the book tells me everything that is wrong with this work of historical fiction.

"Bruner and Carr provide a thorough, masterly, and highly readable account of the 1907 crisis and its management by the great private banker J. P. Morgan. Congress heeded the lessons of 1907, launching the Federal Reserve System in 1913 to prevent banking panics and foster financial stability. We still have financial problems. But because of 1907 and Morgan, a century later we have a respected central bank as well as greater confidence in our money and our banks than our great-grandparents had in theirs." -Richard Sylla, Henry Kaufman Professor of the History of Financial Institutions and Markets, and Professor of Economics, Stern School of Business, New York University

This paragraph sums up the mythological tale propagated by the establishment to set the scene for the dashingly bold technocrats to step in and to implement their planned chaos. Next follows the admission that the criminal tampering with the level of voluntary credit allocation (read: capital market) has still not perfected a method to siphon off wealth without creating great disruptions in those markets. The closing sentence is telling too; it's an assertion that the establishment has accomplished to con our generation into quiet complacency, more akin to an insult as disestablishmentarians would take it.