Potpourri

1. Prediction: the IPad will bomb. I think it has a couple fatal flaws: 1. no flash support, 2. no keyboard, and 3. no device to hold it up. One of the great things about a laptop is you can put it on your lap and adjust the angle of the screen and get a good, hands-free view of the screen. 4. No gray-scale screen. The Kindle screen I think makes is better for people who want something like the IPad for reading. 5. Not as portable as the IPhone. most people will think they're covered with their IPod Touch/IPhone. Could be wrong, but this is what my gut tells me.
2. Did you see Superman Returns? I just watched it again recently. It seemed to me that the story was a dramatization of the gospels. First, Superman goes off for several years by himself, to investigate his destroyed planet. Something similar to Christ's fasting, or maybe the unaccounted for time before his ministry begins. When he returns, Lois tells superman that the world doesn't need a "savior," but it clearly does in the form of Superman. Superman proceeds save a number of people miraculous for some period. In the mean time, Lex Luther creates the crystal island in the middle o the ocean which threatens to destroy almost all humanity. Superman knows he is going towards the kryptonite that Lex Luther has, but he intentionally submits to his own death.  He is killed by Lex Luther on the crystal island, even stabbed in the side, before falling into the water to his "death." He is pulled from the water and his wounds are tended to by Lois for some time. He then returns to the water only to emerge to purge the world from sin crystal island. It's not a perfect analogy, but to me, the parallels are striking.
3. Has there ever been a more uneven movie than Up? I wish the whole movie was like the first 20 minutes, but that probably would not keep 4 year-olds interested.
4. My new most hated company is Samsung. I bought a Blu-ray player for Christmas, and it worked fine except that it never would connect to the internet, despite saying "Wireless LAN ready" on the box. I finally broke down and read the instructions, and it said I needed a USB wireless card. If a Blue-ray player can't connect to the internet immediately it's not "wireless ready" it's "wireless compatible" at best. So I bought the cheapest wireless card I could find, not really knowing how it would work with the system. After trying that a bit, and not getting it to work, I went online to discover that, to get the wireless to work, you have to buy a Samsung proprietary "dongle" (no really), and that dongle costs 70 bucks, or almost the cost of the Blu-ray player itself. So I took the player back. I think I'm just going to get a PS3, mostly for Blu-ray, although I'll probably play it some. I do like the aesthetic of Samsung products, though.
5. I love this short post about the Alito-Obama Citizens United confrontation. I wish supreme court justices like Alito would do more media. I can only see it helping. I also like this Althousian post. Every once in a while, between photo blogging, and other semi-serious posts, Althouse criticism someone witheringly. You make a lot of enemies with posts like that. I think I care too much about being liked to write posts like that.
6. In an effort not to insist upon the last word, I'm not going to post any more comments over at B v. E on the last two blog posts (Avatar, and Education). I do have more thoughts about education. Brett, the reasons I used economic analysis on this education question, is that I essentially view the problem as an economic one: we have a finite amount of resources (money and time); how do we best allocate those resources in the classroom? Do we teach math, science, dance, psychology, self-help, curiosity, architecture? When you have so many alternatives and each person derives different utility from different options, you need a market responsive to individual preferences.
7. I just got a copy of No Country for Old Men, and I'll re-post on it when I'm done reading (which could be a while).

Citizens United

While I generally like Reason, this post kind of irritates me. With the exception of some fundamental rights that are necessary to the operation of a democracy, I'd prefer most policy choices be left to normal statutory law. But when courts snatch policy decisions from the democratic process using some specious constitutional theory, then the only recourse remaining to the people is to amend the constitution.

What Welch has done is lump together constitutional decisions based upon actual constitutional provisions --like the flag burning decision based on the First Amendment--with policy decision masquerading as constitutional law--like the right to abortion or same-sex marriage. I think most people who are pro-life or pro-traditional marriage would be more than happy to leave those decisions to the democratic process if the courts did, too.

Really, Welch is saying the constitutions should always represent his policy preference of expanding freedom. We can agree that increasing freedom is good, but I guess we don't agree on what constitutes increasing freedom. For instance abortion might increase the freedom of pregnant women but it significantly decreases the freedom of the unborn. So the constitution should always expand freedom and freedom is what Welch says it is.

On a semi-related topic, I also think Stossel way oversimplifies the complexity of the First Amendment jurisprudence. Talking about the recent Supreme Court decision in Citizens United that held corporations have First Amendment rights, Stossel writes:

This should be obvious. The First Amendment reads: "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." What part about "Congress shall make no law" don't the other justices understand?

But really there are all kinds of speech that congress can abridge. Like the classic example of yelling "fire" in a crowded theater. Or what about a conspiracy to commit murder. Both of these are speech of a type, but not protected by the First Amendment. So while I agree that this was the Supreme Court reached the right decision, the correct analysis is, in fact, more subtle that simply reading the text. See, here, here and here for a more thorough analysis.

Blog Grab Bag

I have a lot of post ideas, but not enough time to write detailed post on all of them. So I've decided to write a sentence or two on each in one post.

• Avatar: I agree with all the political criticism that's been written about Avatar (Brooks, Goldberg). But the thing that really bugs me about this movie is how the technology in the "future" hasn't evolved far enough to have unmanned aircraft, or unmanned robot warriors. Absurd.

• The Fugitive: I just realized that this movie has a ridiculously leftist plot, that as many times as I've watched doesn't really make complete sense. Still I watch this movie almost every time it's on TV.

• No Country for Old Men. Saw this on USA. Really bloody for cable. The story's seems simple yet I think there is some deeper meaning. There must be something to this "film making" talent. Have you seen it and do you think that it is a conservative movie? Also, what does it mean?

• Elders Quorum Moves: Do you think that church members should rely upon the elder's quorum to move them when they could probably handle it themselves? Is it abusing a church system to do so, or giving others a chance to serve?

• Conan v. Leno. I like Leno but  love Conan. (I've never liked Letterman, although I think he is edgier/usually funnier than Leno.) But I don't think Conan ever had the broad appeal necessary to make the Tonight Show work. I also don't think it's Leno's job to just get out of Conan's way either. Maybe Conan can partially blame the low ratings on the Leno Show's bad lead in. (Although there is still the local new in between.) But the Tonight Show is not Conan's entitlement. I do think this mess is Zucker's. He thought he could promise Conan the Tonight Show to keep him at the network and the day of reckoning would never come. He was right. It's going to be more like a month or reckoning.

• I have this compulsion to always make another blog comment. It's not that I necessarily want to have the last word, just that I always have some other thing to say or new way to make an argument that I dwell on until I put it down in a comment. In real life I just bit my tongue and the urge leave after the subject has changed. In blogging, the post is always out their taunting me. When do you say "when" when blogging?

• Art, it seems to me, is best when it combines something familiar, yet somewhat edgy. Music that pushes boundaries but is still melodic. Movies that have not formulaic plots, but still have plots. Does that mean that trends are necessary to keep art great?

• Being a lawyer is considerably suckier than I anticipated. I think this is for two reasons. First, you clients usually aren't happy. Frequently the kind of people that are involved in a lawsuit are shady characters. At a minimum they have sharp elbows. Also, they're not happy because almost all cases end in a compromise. Second, cases have real value, usually in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars range. It's not fun making close decisions when an errors can have huge ramifications.

Harris on Hume on Woods

Have you seen this clip where Brit Hume advises Tiger Woods to convert from Buddhism to Christianity?

Plenty of people with whom I usually agree are defending Hume. But I agree with Althouse, this is weird.

Seems to me Brit is doing one of two things: he's either evangelizing (come to Christ for forgiveness of sins) or he's offering some sort of PR advice (Come to Christ for forgiveness of fans).

I'm fine with evangelizing in the proper venue but Hume is paid to give political analysis. What's good for Wood's soul is a personal digression and not really relevant. It's an imposition. (Maybe all evangelizing is an imposition.) It's also weird. I wouldn't go to court and offer legal analysis based on the Book of Mormon, even if I thought it had some bearing on certain policies. Why is Hume offering political analysis based upon his religious beliefs?

If what Hume's suggesting, however, is Woods should convert to Buddhism to save his career, then that is truly crass. People should adhere to religion because they believe in it's teachings and principles, not for PR.

Hume apparently had a evangelical conversion after his son committed suicide, so I'm guessing this is evangelizing, which is less strange, but still out of place.

Incentives in Arbitration

Arbitration is a process for resolving civil cases. Instead of using the court system, the parties agree to submit the decision to an arbitrator. The arbitrator is simply another lawyer who acts like a judge in the case. He'll hear motions and, if act as both the judge and jury in the trial-like arbitration. The arbitrator then makes his award which is generally binding on the parties, barring extraordinary circumstances.

Arbitration is usually preferred to court trial because it allows the parties to save some money. Courts are slow and formal, whereas arbitrators are swift and informal. Speed saves money.

Despite the similarities, it occurred to me that while arbitrators act like judges, they are unlikely to reach the same decisions as judges. I think this is for two reasons.

First, parties are less likely to appeal an arbitration decision. The standard for overturing an arbitrator's decision is higher than for a court. Appellate court generally do not defer to trial court's decisions on questions of law. Trial courts will, however, defer to arbitration decisions on these questions.This leaves the arbitrator more latitude.

Second, the arbitrator is usually selected by an agreement of the parties. That means that arbitrators are unlikely to be extremely biased in their decision. If they were, one side of a dispute would never choose them. But it also means that arbitrators are unlikely to send one party home empty handed. A lawyer that gets a really bad decision will probably never use the arbitrator again unless it was really clear that their side of the case should fail.

So, I think if you want the result that may be in tension with the law but seems fair, you probably want an arbitrator.  And if you have a technically good case but are seeking a result that seems less fair, you probably want a judge.

Sick of Reform

I know we're all "sick" of the health care debate. I'm "nauseated" every time I think about the healthcare bill passing. Still, I had a couple things to say on the subject. (And these aren't all directed at this particular health care bill)

1. We hear a lot about uninsured Americans. This number fluctuates from forty million to sixty million, which indicates to me that we really have no idea how many uninsured Americans there are. When you break down those numbers, you discover many of the uninsured fall into the following categories: illegal aliens; young, healthy individuals; people who can afford to purchase health insurance but choose not to; and people who qualify for existing assistance programs, like Medicaid, but aren't signed up.

There are probably some people who don't qualify for Medicaid, but also can't afford health insurance, and that's a problem. Here are two things that I think are often overlooked on this insurance point.

 First, not having health insurance doesn't mean you don't get health care. I, myself, purchased health care services without insurance. It's expensive, but doable. True, that's routine care, not serious surgery. But most of these people can purchase a doctors visit if needed.

Second, the comparison always drawn by single-payer advocates is between a free market system that has some people uncovered, and to a government system where everyone gets coverage. But countries that have "single-payer" health care usually have long lines for at least certain kind of tests of treatments. When you're waiting in line, you have less access to health care as a person in the U.S. with no health insurance.

2. Legislating is an ugly process. Everyone is rightly disgusted by the size of the payoffs that senators Landrieu and Nelson got for their states. Now we get to rely on the same institutions to fairly dole out or mandate services and coverages.

3. This particular health care bill mandates that uninsured people either buy coverage or pay a penalty. The bill then prohibits charging disparate premiums to sicker people than to healthier people. The result is that healthy people will subsidize the sick.

That's basically how insurance works in some sense, because it spreads the costs of people who are sick to people who are not. Now, however, insurance companies can hone in on riskier groups and charge them a higher premium. As I understand it, this bill will prohibit that.

One ways to figure out a person's potential need for health care is by age. In other words, insurance companies could charge the elderly more, and the young less. By prohibiting that risk calculation, this bill transfer money from  the young (who are now required to buy coverage) to the elderly. The young are relatively poor, while the elderly are relatively rich. So the bill takes money from the poor and gives it to the rich.

UPDATE: Here is an article making this same point that "community rating" means the healthy will subsidize the unhealthy.

Civil Obedience II

The last post on civil disobedience didn't get much response, but I keep thinking about the topic, and I can't figure out the answer. I'm trying find a theory for when it is okay to violate incorrect laws. Obviously this is a continuum problem. On the one hand, we have to obey some laws we believe are imprudent. If we didn't, the result would be anarchy. On the other hand, certainly some truly oppressive laws should be violated.

Here are the proposed answers so far.

We can/should violate laws:

1. When you are in a position to change the law through your disobedience.

2. Only in extreme circumstances

3. When the law is unjust

4. When the law violates inalienable rights

5. When the law prohibits exercising freedom of conscience

6. Something else?

1.

The problem here is it's results driven. Can you realistically know whether your actions will have the desired affect before breaking the law? Supposing Shadrack, Meshack and Abedego would not have changed the law by refusing to worship the idol of Nebuchadnezzar II, should they have worshiped the idol? I think the answer must be no.

2.

I agree that we should only disobey the laws in extreme circumstances. I just don't know that this test gives us much guidance to identify which circumstances warrant disregarding the law.

3.

This is the Martin Luther King Jr. argument. I think all sorts of well intentioned laws are "unjust" under his definition of "degrading human personality" and would be continually violating laws if I subscribed to this argument. Also, is the constitution unjust before the civil rights amendments, back when slaves and women could not vote?

4.

This is question begging. What are inalienable rights? Again maybe, but how do we recognize these rights.

5.

This may be close, but I fear that freedom of conscience may not be broad enough to justify all the circumstances were we think civil disobedience was justified. It works for the Shadrack example. Does it justify the american revolution? Maybe. What about the civil disobedience in the civil rights movement? eh, probably not. I'm currently leaning toward this one.

Other suggestions?

Commenting

JB's comment had me laughing out loud.

My theory of comments: all comments fit into these basic categories:
1. pedantic comments
2. The holier than thou comment
3. The troll comment
4. The overly sincere comment
5. the snarky comment
6. the absurd comment
7. the joke comment
8. the praise comment
9. the insightful comment

Civil Obedience

Do you believe in following the law, regardless of how wrong it is? Everyone in church Sunday seemed to agree that you should. One lady member went as far as to say she would send her sons off to war for Nazi Germany, had she been German at that time.

We believe in being ^asubject to ^bkings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in ^cobeying, honoring, and sustaining the ^dlaw. Link.

 and then there is this section:

 21 Let no man break the ^alaws of the land, for he that keepeth the laws of God hath no need to break the laws of the land.

There are no caveats in these scriptures, but certainly we don't always believe in following every law right? Then I remembered this section in Doctrine and Covenants:

We believe that all men are bound to ^asustain and uphold the respective ^bgovernments in which they reside, while protected in their inherent and inalienable rights by the laws of such governments; and that sedition and ^crebellion are unbecoming every citizen thus protected, and should be punished accordingly; and that all governments have a right to enact such laws as in their own judgments are best calculated to secure the public interest; at the same time, however, holding sacred the freedom of conscience. Link.

Now, this scripture doesn't directly say that men are free to rebel against government when the government does not protect their inherent rights, but isn't that what it implies? I think so. However, if I remember the commentary to these verses in the orange Doctrine and Covenants study guide correctly, it essentially says that members are required to uphold the government, no exceptions. If you have that commentary, I would appreciate you posting the section I am thinking about.

So I think you can commit civil disobedience if the government does not protect your "inherent and inalienable rights." But what are those rights? The only one identified here is freedom of conscience.

UPDATE:

What I'm looking for is some sort of guiding principles that helps explain when breaking laws is appropriate. Here's one such principle from Martin Luther King Jr.'s letter from Birmingham Jail (which I think is flawed in some respects):

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I it" relationship for an "I thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression of man's tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.

Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal. Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up that state's segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. Can any law enacted under such circumstances be considered democratically structured?

Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.

I hope you are able to see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country's antireligious laws.

Lost in the Public Woods

Conventional wisdom says that what happens on the streets adjacent to Tiger Wood's house stays in Tiger Wood's house. That is, whether Tiger crashed his car and his wife heroically tried to pull him out of the back window of his SUV (instead of the windshield, driver's side or passenger side windows or doors) to save him or she was actually trying to knock his head off with a golf club because he had an affair is none of our business.

But I think it is our business. It's our Nike, Buick, Gillette, General Mills business. Sort of.

Tiger has been good about not thinking that, because he is really good at golf,  he is also really good at politics, and I appreciate that. Still, he, like most great sports athletes, has profited, not from his golf winnings as much as his endorsements. He's traded on his fame, and it made him a lot of money. I don't really think it's fair for him or for any other celebrity to use the public's interest in their lives and personalities to make money when it's convenient, only to later argue that the public should stay out of their private life when the public scrutiny is inconvenient.

Reading the Tree Rings

If the majority of the world's most top notch climatologists or whatever they're called all agree that global warming is occurring at an alarming rate and we, as men, are largely to blame and they are in fact wrong,that really it's just a big media-hyped farce (like witches in Salem) why are all these scientists in agreement? What's their motive? Why do they want to squash dissent (or maybe they don't, maybe that's just the media). In other words, what's in it for them to lie or to distort or to exaggerate?

I've asked this question to people smarter than me before and they've said something along the lines of: so they can keep getting gov. funding for their science projects. It's easier for me to see the motives of the few scientists who say man isn't causing or quickly accelerating global warming--most of them (correct me if I'm wrong) are funded by oil companies. Link.

I looooove the East Anglia climategate story.  

Deference to experts is a logical fallacy. So is attacking motives instead of arguments. 

But in case you really did think that climatologists were some sort of impartial arbiters of fact and truth, I'm glad you are now totally disabused of this notion. Whatever motivates them, it is now very clear that they are, in fact, ideologues committed to stifling dissent.

Of course, that doesn't mean they are necessarily wrong.

Global warming alarmist who want the world's inhabitants to significantly reduce their carbon foot prints have the burden of proving their case. They need to show, with some degree of certainty, 1) the earth is warming, 2) it is, at least partially, caused by man (anthropogenic) 3) warming is bad, 4) it's bad enough that it justifies a drastic reduction in our standard of living 5) technology will not be able to solve the problem. Only if they can prove all of these does it make sense to dramatically reduce our use of hydrocarbons without a adequate substitute.

I could never get past one. Not that I know the earth isn't getting warmer; just that I doubt that anyone can accurately measure or show that it is. I agree with Derbyshire, that measuring the earth's temperature within one tenth of a degree is basically a fool's errand. And it's not just the temperature now, but the temperature going back hundreds of years from different points all over the earth, measured from ice cores and tree rings, etc. 

A lot of smart scientists do seem to think that the earth is getting warmer and that the warming is caused by man. And even though that has no bearing on the merits, it certainly makes the theory of global warming seem more plausible. However, we now know that the original East Anglia temperature data was deleted, and that even the data Anglia kept was inadequate and improperly processed. So, did this consensus of  scientist come from each individual scientist collecting his own data, or are they relying on the "treated" data from the likes of East Anglia?

UPDATE: There is also some money to be had and influence to be peddled by being a climate change believing scientist (again, not that this means they are wrong). See here and here.

Econ Talk Quiz

My commute is about 35 minutes. That gives me a lot of time to listen my iPod/iPhone. One of my favorite things to listen to is Russ Robert's podcast, Econ-Talk.

Here's a hypothetical question Russ asked one of the podcasts. How would taxing each cup of coffee 20 cents affect the size of the cup? I'll put my answer in the comments. The blog is also supposed to have an answer,and if I find it, I'll paste the URL in the comments, too.

Plasma vs. LCD vs. 720p vs. 1080p vs. My Pocket Book Bleg

Dear Blog Reader(s) (Brett):

I may or may not have some money to buy a high definition TV, and I am looking for some guidance. The two  main questions In my mind are: 1) should I get an LCD or a Plasma? and 2) Should I get a 1080p or a 720p?

I'm leaning strongly towards a plasma. The drawbacks to plasma compared to LCDs are that they are heavier, break easier, subject to screen burn, and use more electricity. The pluses are that plasmas have better refresh rates, are cheaper, and have darker blacks.

I'm also leaning towards a 720p, mostly because of price. Obviously, 1080p means a lot more pixels, and potentially a much sharper picture. Apparently, however, it's really hard to tell the difference between the two, and nearly impossible if you sit far from the screen. I'm eying a 50 inch, which is pretty big. Still, in our upstairs room, we currently sit about 10-12 feet from our 22 inch TV. To get the effect of the extra pixels in a 1080p, you are supposed to sit no further than 1.5 times the diagonal from the screen. With a 50 inch TV, you are not supposed to sit further than 6 1/4 feet from the TV. Pretty unlikely. Thus, I am not sure higher resolution will even be discernible, and with a TV that big, I'm not sure I'll ever want to sit that close. Also, most HD sources, like broadcasts (which I don't have in HD now, and which I don't want to pay for) and video games, aren't in 1080p, although blue ray is.

My basic thought process is: darker blacks, plus bigger TV, plus less money, equals the best deal. That said, I always have this fear that I'll discover there is just some feature, (like resolution) that I must have after I buy the TV. For now, though It seems like 1080p is not worth paying an extra $300-$500.

Dear reader(s), do you have any experience with this? any advice? Is there anything I should be considering that I am not?

Who are you?

Are we more than just our behavior? Is it nonsensical to say, that you love the sinner but hate the sin? Or that you like someone, but disapprove of their lifestyle?

"Who we are" is mostly what we do and say.  However, it's a serious mistake to take one flaw or behavior and use it as a basis for generalizing about a person. Teachers are not all alike. Lawyers are not all created equal. I like all sorts of people who have habits that I disapprove of, and I wouldn't say those people are "their bad" behaviors. We also all have inherent worth as humans,--or if you're religious, as god's children--regardless of our actions.

This works the other way, too. If you have one talent or trait that you are proud of, that's great, but that's not "you."

All this is obvious enough, but some people apparently don't know it.

This one's for (but not about) you, Leigh.

Economic Intuition

A conversation this week demonstrated once again how otherwise smart people do not understand or intuit the principles of supply and demand.

I and two other educated people were talking about getting a college education, and how with the bad economy, more people wanted to going to school. This increase in demand, one person thought, would decrease the price of tuition. The other person seemed to agree. I smiled. More people seeking a particular service make that service less expensive? That's exactly backwards.

Perhaps they assume that with increased demand comes an even bigger increase in supply. But there's no rule that says that is the case. Increasing supply, takes time, and in this case, some significant fixed costs (buildings, etc.) That cannot be implemented over night. The near term result of more people wanting to go to school is going to be higher tuition.