New Stuffs

The Oatmeal and Toothpaste 4 Dinner on sidebar. They are funny, if odd.

This is amazing

http://cafehayek.com/2010/01/keynes-vs-hayek-rap-video.html

Principled Disinterest

I am confused. I got an email Friday from a member of the minyan asking us to "do a mitzvah" before shabbes and support his son's charity that is in the running to receive a grant through the Chase Community Giving project. My sense is, however, that there are lots of really worthy charities out there, and it is rather difficult for me to assess that one is more deserving than another. Furthermore, the money has already been allocated, so my vote won't increase the funds given to charity, only affect the recipient. What then is my ethical incentive for participating?

This seems to be a perfect instance where a specialist might well be a better arbiter than the demos.
UPDATE: If you were to, ex ante, choose between giving microloans to the developing world or find innovative ways to remind women to perform self-exams on their breasts, which would it be? I suspected as much; 14,000 for breasts and 8,000 for microloans. So this is not a question worthy-ness, breast cancer kills more than 40,000 of women every year. But it is unclear that self-exams go very far to prevent those deaths, whereas microfinance won a Nobel Prize for saving the world. I just don't think people are very good at prioritizing when there are no constraints on their decisions.

Shout Out to Josef

Martha Nussbaum likes your channukiah.

Silly Idea

Is it possible that the Tiger Woods hoopla is society performing a passion play, projecting angst regarding its favorite squeaky clean African-American icon onto its second favorite?

Dear Pres. Obama,
Please, please don't cheat. I don't think my tolerance of stupidity can withstand such an assault.

Very Truly Yours.

In other news, Leiberman has defected. Should the Dems play Tit for Tat, Grim Trigger or just suck up their Sucker payoff? I am guessing Reid will go for the latter most.

How to Win the War in Afghanistan and Why it Will Never Happen

How to win the war: legalize smack.
Why it will never happen: an African-American president will get nowhere (politically) by legalizing dope.

Leiberman Redux

Quick thought: Reid's payoff for having Lieberman in the party is n(v)-c where:
n= frequency he votes with the party from 0 to 1
v= value of Lieberman's votes
c= opportunity cost of giving the Homeland Security committee chairmanship to someone else.

As the Democrats approach 60, v increases. At the same time c might be rather small because it is good for the Democrats to have a hawk chairing HS. If v is high and c is low, n can dip and Lieberman will keep his chairmanship.*

I was wrong. He's not nuts. And he gets money from the insurance industry.

* We had a separate argument in the department about the utility Lieberman reaps by keeping his chairmanship. I don't think he needs it as much as others do, and even if he did, he seems to benefit by signaling that he will defect.

Self-radicalized, homegrown nut

Sen. Joe Lieberman has cracked under five years of alienation and pressure. After being turned aside by the Democratic party, feeling alone with no alternatives, he has cracked.

So I am responding to this article about the Ft. Hood shooting (which the FBI has said is not a terrorist incident), but also to his statements about supporting a filibuster against health care reform. CT is a fairly liberal state and all five representatives voted yea on HR 3962. So why would Lieberman not only vote against the bill (which would reduce its margin of victory), but also threaten not to impose cloture? What does he have to gain?

My detached sense (no longer in the DC world) is that he is finished with politics and wants to throw his weight around. I was not upset when he decided to support McCain, as that did not affect his legislative duties to the party. But when he not only doesn't support the party platform, but actively undermines it I just can't see how he can retain his HS chairmanship.

The Ft. Hood thing is just weird. It was a guy that cracked. Case closed. Is it really worth the time of the US Senate to understand why outliers happen?

A Special Shout Out

to Rep. Owens (NY-23) on HR 3962. I will sleep happier tonight knowing that Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck made this vote possible. It would have happened without him, but it still makes me happy. The bill actually passed by 3 votes, one was Owens and another Cao of LA. So Owens's votes might have actually been fairly decisive.

Health & Care

I had a series of shabbes conversations on health care today. What astounds me is the often callus regard physicians have for their patients sentiments. They agree that the highest level of care should be provided to every patient, but that excessive wait times (5 hours in the emergency room) and curt explanations are just a fact of life. Deal with it. Often, doctors claim to be exceedingly busy and unable to spend the necessary time to explain their diagnosis to patients and do general hand holding. My instrumental counterclaim is that more time hand holding will yield fewer malpractice suits. My friend's response was, don't sue so much and your health care premiums won't go up so fast. This is obviously silly, as the the cost of malpractice suits is 1) negligible to the entire cost of health care in America and 2) shouldered far more by doctors than patients. The reply strikes me as exceedingly arrogant, however, and reveals a certain bravado amongst physicians.

What really bothered me, however, was my inability to give a non-instrumental argument as to why health CARE is important. Why am I owed an explanation? I come in which a life threatening illness that almost kills me. Doctor enters, grunts, writes a prescription, and leaves. Five days later I am totally healthy but without a whit of understanding as to why. Has the doctor shirked her responsibility? Is she blameworthy? I feel like I could offer some souped-up Kantian 'respect' argument, but somehow that feels forced. Are we entitled to care, above and beyond health?

11221, you are so predictable like that

Netflix has this cool feature that lets you see the top 100 movie rentals across the country. Of course shlock like "The Pursuit of Happiness" and "The Bucket List" are on it. But then you can get a list of the top 25 rentals in your area. Ann Arbor is a bit more posh than the rest of the country so we get Season 5 of "The Office" and "Annie Hall." I know those titles, though. Where are they uber-hip, where do all the cool kids hang out? So I googled "Williamsburg, NY zip code" pulled 11221 and punched up the list. What do I get? A documentary of Hasidic Jews, a 1983 PBS documentary on Style, "Masculine/Feminine" and nine foreign titles (two of which are Ingmar Bergman).

Oh 11221, it's good to know that you so are predictably trendy.

I want to see any movie

which, according to the NYT, is rated R for, "drug use, swearing and the repeated violation of Commandments 3, 5 and 7 to 10."

It would be funny if the MPAA characterized moral breaches in movies according to the Rambam's minyan hamitzvot. That would be a very Coen brothers thing to do.