A date which will live in infamy

Washington DC,
December 8, 1941

Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the Senate, and of the House of Representatives:

Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.

Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. And while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time, the Japanese government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

Yesterday, the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya.

Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.

Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam.

Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.

Last night, the Japanese attacked Wake Island.

And this morning, the Japanese attacked Midway Island.

Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.

As commander in chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. But always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph -- so help us God.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire.

-F.D.R.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

There is an ad running around here from a car dealer named suntrap Kia. In the ad, a person is asking questions to a car dealer and the dealer is only responding with turkey gobble noises. The ad then says basically that if you are tired of other dealers talking turkey to you, you should come to Suntrup Kia. The inference here being that Suntrup does not talk turkey to its customers. The ad is cutely seasonal in that it is presently around Thanksgiving.

Now, maybe I’m just a bit odd because I actually think about what an ad actually says, but I can’t help but note that to “talk turkey” means to talk honestly. That’s what I remember and that’s what thesaurus.com says. In fact, thesaurus.com (http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/talk+turkey) adds that to “talk turkey” is a synonym for “get down to brass tacks, make no bones about it, mince no words.” I would think that I would WANT a car dealer to talk turkey to me, especially when the antonyms are “devious,” “dishonest,” “indirect,” and “wily.”

This also means that what the cute little seasonal Suntrap ad is saying is that if you are tired of other dealers talking honestly and directly to you, you should come to Suntrup. The inference is then that at Suntrup, they don’t talk honestly or directly when trying to sell you a car. That is about the stupidest thing a car dealer could advertise; that they are dishonest. And if they aren’t dishonest, then they are just idiots for running an ad where they don't know what they are saying. Either way, would YOU buy a car from these guys?

Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving!

Gas Leak

There was a natural gas leak up the street that caused the city to decide to evacuate a six block area. When we got home from work we found two messages on the answering machine. The first message was the fire department telling us we needed to evacuate. The second was also the fire department -- telling us we could come home again.

Query: Why would you call the home you ordered evacuated to tell them they could come home?

Allstate

You may recall my previous post on Geico's stupid commercial. Well, apparently stupid advertising is not limited to Geico, because Allstate does it too. More to the point, Allstate assumes you are stupid.

A recent ad showing a lot on TV has their spokesman saying you'll be surprised by how much people save by switching to Allstate; or at least that's what they want you to come away with. But what they really say (with a slightly different emphasis) is "People who*switched* from Geico to Allstate saved" some amount of money. Query: If I wasn't going to save, why would I switch? In fact, if only 1 person in the whole world saved by using Allstate over Geico and that person switched and saved $700, the they could say that people who switched to Allstate from Geico saved an average of $700. Even if everyone else saved $1000 switching from Allstate to Geico.

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who saw this too. So, hey Allstate, how about telling us what the average person pays on the same average policy between you and Geico? Or would that statistic be too useful to consumers?

Disclaimer: Author insures with Erie Ins. Co.

Being number two

On NPR today, they were interviewing Gale someone who seems to have written a book. I would assume that she is a feminist based on the topic and the questions. The host asked her if now that since in almost every college the number of women outnumber the number of men and women are 50% of the work force was feminism done?

She responded by saying it had changed and then launched out with this little gem: She observed that when there are two sexes, one will always be ahead in something and one behind. When the host asked, she concluded that it was okay to be in the top two.

Now, I understand that there is a difference in just being second and having everyone assume you are not as good and therefore second. However, saying basically that it is okay to be number two because someone has to do it, sounds distinctly contrary to the position espoused by most feminists for the last 90 years and especially the last 40 years. How would they have reacted if some male pundit on some radio show when asked why there were more men in the workplace, college, politics, etc. replied, "Someone has to be number two."

CURRENT thoughts on the Healthcare Debate

The “Healthcare Debate” has been raging for several months now and appears to have no end in sight. Like many people, I’ve been mulling it over and I have some thoughts, and not the ones I expected to have.

First, let’s remind everyone that money is a zero sum game. Assume insurance is voluntary and assume you have two people in an insurance pool where assume everyone paid $500 a month in health insurance. For the purposes of this example, assume they are the only two people in the world. If Person One needs on average $700 of healthcare in a month, then Person One considers the insurance to be “worth it” But assume Person Two only needs $300 a month in healthcare. Thus for Person Two the insurance is not worth it. Ignoring for a minute any need to make a profit, the insurance company is breaking even. However, Person Two will likely opt not to be insured in this system because that is the logical choice for Two. Suddenly the insurance company is looking at a $200 per month loss. It raises the cost of insurance to $700 per month which means that One is paying what he spends. If you assume that the insurance company wanted to make any profit at all, One is better off not having insurance. If instead of just two people, there were five people, with gradated amounts of need, you still have a good chance of getting back to just One as each drops off in turn when the insurance becomes “not worth it.” If you force the insurance company to carry a loss, eventually you have no insurance company. If you force people to pay for insurance that “isn’t worth it,” they get angry.

The above is grossly over simplified but illustrates the market forces at work and also shows that where someone benefits from such a system there must be corresponding losses. Consider that most people, when young, are usually fairly healthy and have low healthcare costs. The few exceptions who need a great deal of expensive healthcare at a young age only serve to reinforce the problem above. As they age, people’s generally healthcare costs rise. Yet if we insured only the elderly and the sick, you would see astronomical premiums, and that assumes that the insurance companies would to insure at all. But if you FORCE the healthy to pay for the insurance, almost always at a higher rate then they will incur in costs, they will get angry.

I know at this point, if not sooner, someone will point out that you take out insurance to cover the unexpected large cost. No one takes out fire insurance because they hope to need it and make money on it. To some extent this is true and I will point out that I did say my example was over-simplified. However, consider that with fire insurance, the insurance company can choose not to insure a bad risk. That is often not the case with health insurance because often employer insurance ignores pre-existing conditions (the health insurance word for bad risk). And some of the new healthcare plans are talking about forcing insurance companies to insure even people with pre-existing conditions. “Gonna need $11M in treatments that might not even work, sure join the party; we’ll be happy to pay (to doctors!) for you to experiment.” The flip-side problem is of course, if these people are the ones who really need “insurance” and if they don’t have to, no insurance company in the world will take them.

At this point, I come to two conclusions. First, in a purely open system, if you let people choose to have healthcare or not depending on their own self-interest, which in humans is invariably short-sighted, they will only choose to do so once they cross the threshold of “needing it” by which I mean they get free money because their expenses exceed the cost of insurance. Second, I conclude that we aren’t in most cases, talking about insurance at all, for all we continue to use that term. Insurance is something you buy for that one-time, catastrophic, unexpected event that costs you a lot of money. If your house burns down or you total your car, these are such catastrophic events, and insurance against them works because lots of people pool money over time so that if such an emergency occurs, the party facing the hardship finds most of the expense paid by his or her “neighbors.” To some extent, “health insurance”, works like real insurance. If you need to fix a broken arm or have your tonsils out, it covers that. However, most of health insurance (and more and more this seems to be what people are talking about when they mention the concept) is not insurance at all; it’s a payment plan.

People want health “insurance” to cover routine doctor visits and long term illnesses or life-long conditions. They want to pay in so much and have these expenses covered, many of which are later in life. Further, everyone will die and usually with some healthcare complication. Everyone should go to the doctor periodically. With these things, what people mean when they say “health insurance” is some way to spread out paying for them over a longer period (often a life time) or, better yet, have someone else pay some of the costs when everything is totaled. (And we discussed at the beginning of this entry why the latter can’t work for everyone.) I think it would help the debate a lot if we admitted we are talking about a national healthcare payment plan because that shifts the paradigm of thinking.

Now there is an option for a payment plan coupled with insurance and that is the Healthcare Savings Account, but it only works if you start young and don’t get sick until you are older. The HSA has two parts. First, it has “catastrophic” coverage for any super major expenses. This had a very high deductible however. Then you have the HSA account which is similar to an IRA (meaning you can deduct what you invest in it from your pre-tax income up to a certain amount per year). The account can then be used to pay for healthcare expenses without being taxed. Generally, if you start young and invest regularly, you will accumulate money in the beginning meaning you have a dedicated reserve to pay for later costs (making it a payment plan – pay early when you don’t need to so you have the money later). The hazard is also one of the benefits of the account; it can be invested like an IRA. That means if you choose to invest with some risk, you can end up losing money. Finally, once you are 65, you can withdraw from it like it was an IRA and pay taxes then. For some reason I can’t fathom, Democrats don’t like the HSAs and keep making them more difficult. However, they are the only thing I can think of that comes close to being insurance with a payment plan.

So, now we have established that we are, to a large degree, talking about a healthcare payment plan. We also know that if left unregulated in the hands of insurance companies, only the “good risks” will be insured (which is fine if you are one of the good risks). Since age makes people a bad risk, this has obvious consequences. However, we also know we cannot have a functioning system if John (or Jane) Q Public can choose to only participate in the payment plan once s/he needs it. We also must not lose sight of two other factors: 1) It is the damn DOCTORS who make a shitload of money off healthcare. They may wear white coats, and many of them are good people, but a large percentage are greedy bastard who think their white coat gives them an entitlement. If you don’t believe me, read some NON-MALPRACTICE cases where doctors (or better yet groups of doctors who get together for investment purposes) get sued. 2) It is our CULTURE OF HEALTHCARE as a populace which is driving this mess. There is a tendency in our society to say: a) Oh no, Aunt Sally is dying; and b) Death is the absolute worst evil and must be opposed at any and all costs and extremes; which means c) good and loving children/spouses/people/doctors will try everything possible, regardless of probability of success or cost if Aunt Sally might benefit; because d) if we don’t we aren’t good loving family to her; and besides e) we don’t have to pay for it. I’m not saying as soon as Aunt Sally sneezes, she should be placed in hospice nor am I saying that everyone thinks in the above manner. However, a significant number of Americans seem to and when you are spending thousands of dollars of other people’s money on an experimental treatments with a .003 chance of success, it’s a problem. Worse, it’s a damn hard problem to criticize without looking like an insensitive number-crunching bastard. After all, how can you put a price on life (especially if the number-crunching bastard in question never knew Aunt Sally and what a wonderful person she was). Of course, those emotionally involved are not good decision makers here either; they may know aunt Sally, but it is rarely their money they spend which makes it very easy to do. The Doctors are also in a position where when they order a test, they don’t have to pay for it and might even get part of the test fee. They face a lot of pressure from families and, not wanting to look like number-crunching bastards, usually order a test, even if it is unnecessary. After all, the one big incentive they have is to not get sued by distraught family members who think the Doctor could have/should have done more. Doctors rarely get sued for running too many tests. The “Do everything possible, Doctor” method of operation is one of the major things pushing up the cost of Healthcare.

So where am I on this debate, not being a fan of doctors, insurance companies, or the wisdom of the masses? It is undeniable that healthcare has costs for our society. Even were we to insure no one and provide no medi-whatever benefits, we would have a cost. If you presume (and I say presume because I don’t want to get into another long argument about the presumption) that society benefits from having more healthy, longer-lived people in it, then you can conclude that the People, and vicariously the government of the People, has a vested interest in making it so. The analogy I draw is actually to education.

Education is something else for which we presume the polis benefits by having more and better educated citizens. It is not, strictly speaking, a fundamental human right nor is it particularly guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. Education is an investment the people make in themselves, and it is an expensive one. However, having deemed education to be beneficial and worth while, the government provides every person in the country with a certain minimum education, even the abnormally expensive students. No one, to my knowledge, leads a serious attack on the concept of public education as being socialist or argues that the government should not pay (and tax) to provide it. Sure, we have arguments about how much to tax for it or whether those who opt out and go private should receive credit for the tax, but that is not the same thing.

Which brings me to: If having a healthy population is beneficial to the polis and therefore desired by the People, it should be treated exactly like public education. That probably means that I believe it should be funded by a tax, probably created by Healthcare Boards elected just like School Boards, and administered, TO A MINIMUM LEVEL, by the government though those self same Healthcare Boards. This means I probably support the government option and believe that any program without it is wasting time. Everyone should be taxed to provide these minimum services and the services should probably come through a government facility and government doctors. Likewise, just as people can opt to send their children to private schools, people should be able to opt to for care at a non-government facility for healthcare if they want to AND IF THEY CAN AFFORD TO DO SO FROM THEIR OWN POCKET. They would still be paying the Healthcare tax just as people who opt for private school still pay school tax. This covers the payment plan aspect of the debate with one small notation. The healthcare thus provided will not be an “all-possible-measures” type of care. It will provide reasonable care that reasonably has a chance to do something and always provide hospice care. If the patient wants to opt for additional care or radical treatments, they can do so at their own cost (or for free if someone’s research budget will cover them).

With the government providing certain minimum levels of healthcare (including office visits and long-term illness treating), health INSURANCE now becomes true Insurance just like fire insurance. You can opt to take it so that if you want to “go private” you can. You can also opt not to without compromising your basic care. Employers would not have to provide it (but would be paying taxes towards the government facilities in return). Even HSA’s would continue to have a place. Perhaps, insurance would cover catastrophic injury beyond basic care, perhaps it would only be in case you wanted to try a treatment not provided by the government facilities. This gets vague until you know exactly what the government clinics will provide. The best example may be Britain’s system. This is, however, all detail work and this post is concerned with broad concepts and philosophy.

I don’t LIKE my answer above, but the more I looked at it, the more I concluded that we cannot go on the way we have. Like education, basic, life-long healthcare seems to be something the government can and should provide, knowing that it will get expensive at the end for most people. Having reached that conclusion, the obvious answer seemed to be not only a public “option” but a tax-supported one that can be opted out of by those with the means and desire to do so. I can find arguments why I’m wrong – plenty of them, but they all fail on the question, “What do you have that is better?” Public education in America is far from ideal, however it is better than any other option I can see. I’m afraid I’ve come to the same view on Healthcare in spite of my loathing for Big Government. (And I’ll note that my solution would use local government like school boards as much as possible instead of national government.)

Race and Health Care

So on NPR today they were discussing the objections to Obama's Health Care Plan. One of the commentators (not callers) writes a race column for some Chicago newspaper. Admittedly, she said that there were legitimate issues which needed to be discussed, but then she went on to say that people who are so vehemently objecting to the President's health care plan are doing so because of racial issues they cannot otherwise voice. Obviously, while there may be "legitimate issues," she believes this racially motivated segment of the population constitutes a significant enough portion to be worth mentioning. THEN she says that many of those who have these racial issues with the President don't realize their issues are racial ones because they can't admit it to themselves.

I studied rhetoric and her statement, particularly the last bit, is simply a justification for ignoring opposing viewpoints. You see, if I don't like the Obama plan, then my conclusions are possibly (probably) based on racial issues and since we know those are illegitimate basis of argument, my entire objection becomes likewise irrelevant. Even if I don't know or don't think my motivations are racial, she can conclude they are because so many of us poor dumb bastards just don't know what we really think.

Talk about a fucking elitist argument. It's practically Plato. You either agree or you aren't smart enough to know to agree and thus, your opinion, which is probably based on an invalid reason deep in your subconsciousness, doesn't matter.

It's sad that some people believe this.

International Law

This post is written with a whole lot of cynical realism. It assumes that self-interest motivates more people and nations than anything else. It assumes that idealism works fine until it’s your ox being gored by the ideal, at which point in time, the ideal becomes anathema.

What is law? Think about this for a moment. Is law simply tradition? Is it an ethical system (of which there are several) or is it a divinely endorsed moral code (in which case there are maybe even more)? Does it have layers; are some laws divinely endorsed (Thou shalt not kill) while others unrelated to ethics at all (the Income Tax Code)? Is law a set of rules only? Maybe a set of rules back by the enforcement power of the sovereign? Is law a social contract for conduct in a society?

I ask because that question comes to mind every time I hear a well meaning pundit say, “international law.” Excuse me, but what is that other than a way of saying, “what I think is right?” “XYZ, the country, has done thus-and-so in violation of international law.” Really? Please show me the statute book, the codification of what sovereign nations may or may not do as passed by the International Parliament or maybe as dictated by His Imperial Majesty, Emperor of the World or maybe simply as decided by Matthew Harrison Brady (see Inherit the Wind.)? Oh wait, we don’t have those institutions. Well surely it will be enforced by the International Police and violators taken into custody by the International Sheriff and put in the International Prison while we wait to have a trial in the International Courthouse. Wait, we don’t have those either?

What do we have? Well we have treaties which are sort of like contracts you enforce with armies. We have the ability to conduct ourselves in our relationship with others, trading or not trading for example. We can try to get other nations to act as we do. Yet, none of that has the force of law. None of that meets the exactitude of law. None of that creates law.

If you really look at it, international law is a farce. It is a Weaver-esque “god-term” which sounds great, until you chip through the gold paint to realize the substance is balsa wood. A nation state may, at will, act as it chooses and if it doesn’t like the dictates of “International Law” as espoused by another, it may ignore them and laugh in their face. There is only a penalty, if whoever espouses “international law” can get enough others on their side to bring home a consequence to the “law” breaker. And if the breaker is one of the big kids… well, the same rules just do not apply.

International law is often espoused by those of the same liberal mindset who breathily talking about “human rights” over lattes and scones. They treat it as if it has an existence outside of the custom of the moment, a solidity beyond their own mind. Yet it doesn’t. As most often used, International Law springs from humanistic ideals about the inherent rights of people. The problem is that not everyone believes in those rights and when those unbelievers, those heretics to the church of International Law, act according to their beliefs, we condemn them for their violation of the law. We say law because it sounds much more serious than to say they violated what we think or even they violated our philosophy. If we say law we sound more authoritative and sure. We sound like we are espousing something that exists beyond simply our opinion. Laws, we all know, must be obeyed. Or else.

But what is the or else here? If we call our ethical system and beliefs (including the belief that we can impose our humanistic system of rights on others in spite of their rights to self-determination (which only apply when they agree with us about having it)) law, then we devalue the concept of law. Equating your opinion to law means that real law has no more force that your opinion; no more independent existence than any other though of yours. It would not have to be obeyed. Tell that to the next sheriff, policeman, or judge you meet.

If you look back at the beginning, I offered one possible definition of law as a social contract. This may be the closest to International Law. If all nations operated under the social contract as did their citizens, you might actually have something that could be considered a law. I just don’t think we are enough there to call it International Law.

Today's Headline

The BBC.com site had this little gem today: "Will British Troops Succeed in Afghanistan?"

Ah, sometimes a sense of history is awesome. Names change, but the questions remain.

Nukes

Heard yesterday that the U.S. and the Russians signed an understanding that we would each reduce our nuclear stock piles by about 1/3. Iran continues to enrich or try to enrich Uranium. North Korea has nukes and is test firing missiles. Pakistan has nukes and a leaky history about them. China and India have nukes. Great Britain has nukes as do the French.

In 1921, the great powers of that day met in Washington, D.C. for the Washington Naval Conference. That conference led to the Washington Naval Treaty which decided that Great Britain, the U.S., and Japan would build battleships in a 5-5-3 ratio respectively. It also limited the number of ships and the armaments of each ship, which, in turn, caused the scrapping of older ships and reduction in the size of a number of navies. It was designed to prevent antagonism between the two naval super powers of that day, Great Britain and the U.S. In a way, it was the START treaty of its day.

In as much as Great Britain and the U.S. had their fleets divided all over the oceans of the world whereas the Japanese only had a fleet in the Pacific, it lead directly to Japanese naval superiority in that ocean. Many historians believe that this fact was a key fact in the aggressive Japanese policy which ultimately led to Pearl Harbor and Japan's involvement in World War Two.

In 1921 we were reducing the number of battleships and, in so doing, created the greatest naval conflict the world has ever seen. Now we are playing with nuclear weapons, the least of which dwarfs any battleship in destructive power. I've read quite a bit on the monstrous effects of nuclear weapons and I'll be the first to admit, I hate the things. However, I would hate more a situation where we don't have any, but our enemies do. I am not against a reduction in the inventory, but I wish I thought our policy makers had paid a bit more attention in their history classes.

Getting ice and charge minimums

I don't know if I'm the stupid one in this tale, but I thought I'd relay my shopping experience of yesterday.

Cinda, Clarisse, and I headed out to Sarah's with our ice cream maker, batter, etc. We had everything but the ice (2 bags needed) which we planned to pick up at the last minute to minimizing melting in transit. Stopped at a BP station, Cinda parks, I get two bags of ice and then wait in line to check out. "$3.00" says the clerk. I hand her my credit card. "Credit or debit?" says the clerk. "Credit," says I. "We have a $5.00 minimum," says the clerk. "Then debit," says I. "We have a $5.00 minimum," she says again. I check my wallet for cash as a line is forming up behind me; I have a single dollar bill. "I only have a dollar," says I as I show her this fact. She gives me deer-in-the-headlight eyes; "We have a $5.00 minimum." Now clearly, I am supposed to go find another $2.00 worth of purchases and then get back at the end of the line (which is now about five people long). Instead I gave her the two bags of ice and walked out. I bought my ice two blocks down the road at the grocery store for $0.25 less a bag.

Cinda tells me she could have gotten gas and doesn't seem to understand my insistence that I will not be coerced into spending almost twice as much by some store clerk and her policy. Especially after she has already accepted the card and asked me "credit or debit?". There was no notice of this minimum charge policy either; I looked.

I understand that, with the way the charge companies work, it might be desirable to have minimum charge policies. And, as I did in law school, I do change my shopping habits to avoid spending money in places with minimum charge policies. As long as they save more money avoiding less than the minimum charge than I would spend their they made the right call. but I am not a sheep and I can, and do, express my opinion with where I take my business. In the circumstance at BP, with the line piling up and having already taken the card for the $3.00 purchase, the clerk should have either 1) run the card anyway or 2) taken the dollar in cash and be done with it and on to serving the next customer, especially when ice is cheaper just down the street.

The Supreme Court may have gotten something right

Today, the Supreme Court handed down a decision in a discrimination case where some city in Conn. had administered a written test for promotion in its fire department and then, when the results failed to qualify enough minority fire fighters, decided to toss out the test results. The Supremes said 5-4 that you can't do that.

I caution that I have not read the decision.

But it strikes me from what I have read that it makes a certain amount of sense to say that you can't discriminate solely on the basis of race, which seems to be what the city did. They got back test results and discovered that only one Hispanic and no African Americans had passed the test. If, on that basis ALONE, they threw out the test, then the Supreme Court is probably correct. The reason I think the Sc might have gotten that one right is because the city failed to probe further into why the test results were so unequal; they just assumed and threw out the test. This means they threw out the test results on the basis of RACE ALONE; not because of differences in test administration or some provable bias in the test itself. Moreover their argument seem to be that the unequal results prove the unfair bias, almost arguing that using a written test biases the results. That argument assumes the desired result; a species of post hoc ergo proctor hoc logical fallacy. I have, and I suspect the majority of Justices would have, no problem tossing out the test if the city had bothered to establish HOW the test was discriminatory beyond the fact that it achieved a politically undesirable result.

At the end of the day, the law must be applied equally as well; and had the result been that not enough Caucasians qualified and the city then tried to throw out the results on that basis, I think quite clearly this lawsuit would have gone against the city. Moreover, I think the question begged here is why are we doing this kind of analysis anyway? Are we to decide the validity of any (and every) test or hiring result based on whether or not the results from that activity exactly match the racial distributions of the population? Oddly enough, random chance rarely produces results exactly on the numbers; it almost always produces some variation and must be allowed to generate results at the ends of the bell curve some time. In this case, you could achieve randomization by randomly selecting names form a hat for promotion or by going strictly on seniority, but those systems would not tend to necessarily put the most competent candidate in the position. Still, if the goal is "fairness" over competence, that would work.

Socialized medicine

I have heard much discussion about how people are not able to agree on the new Health Care System details. Specifically some won't vote for it unless it has a public insurance option while others will only vote if it doesn't.

I fail to see how any for-profit (private) insurance company can compete with a government sponsored not-for-profit insurance company. Won't the latter always be cheaper? So it seems to me that, in a free market, adding a government health care provider will drive all the private companies out of business.

So the question to me seems to be: Is that what we want?

Iran

Much news about Iran lately. Elections, riots, etc. Dire predictions about how that regime has ruined forevermore its legitimacy in the eyes of its populace. Much criticism of the President for NOT making stronger statements.

No country can sustain a democracy whose citizens are not driven to demand it, even at the risk of death.

Should Obama encourage the protesters too much, then he would probably get a bunch of them killed and legitimize, in the eyes of the Iranian people, the claims of interference made by the Iranian government. Moreover, unless the U.S. is willing to put troops on the ground to protect these rioters and to create a democracy (and we all know how well that worked in Iraq), we would be simply setting up those most able to drive the change we would prefer for failure and execution. If Iran is to succeed in becoming a democracy, it must do so through the will, blood, sweat, and tears of its own people. Otherwise, I don't see how that democracy can be sustained once we pull our troops out.

So far, I think Obama's approach is a wise one.

The Crazy Left

I've heard a bunch lately about how the "gay community" is upset with the Obama Administration because it filed a brief supporting a Defense of Marriage Act in a case. I even heard one activist saying that they realized that the Administration was obligated to defend the act, but that they did not think it needed to do so as enthusiastically as it did.

I note that the attorney involved on behalf of the government has the obligation to file the best brief he can. If he softballs it, he is behaving in a manner which, in the perfect world, would earn him disciplinary action from whatever bars he belongs to.

Second there seems to be a larger picture problem. The radical, strike that, crazy left seems to be acting like spoiled children on several issues. Having had "their candidate" elected, they wanted all their radical changes made immediately, now, right away, instantly, and overnight. When that hasn't occurred, they are now throwing the equivalent of a political temper tantrum -- they are threatening to take their money and their votes an walk away from Obama. Boy that'll teach him! If enough do that, he won't get elected next time. And then we can have another King George W. or some other conservative crackpot. I'm sure that forcing that result will really make the liberal crazies happy. That'll teach those moderate Democrats.

Same comment for the Crazy Liberals and their demands for the health care package.

'Course the Radical Left voted for Kerry and Gore before him so we know their political worth. Obama won because he carried the middle. And the middle is not necessarily supportive of the Radical Left's agenda. So, in essence, the Left is saying that we know we need those guys, but now that we are elected, fuck 'em. I can't think of a faster way to get a Republican Congress or a Republican in the White House.

And Obama is smart enough to understand it. He talked all through his campaign about healing the divide etc. You don't heal a divide by pursuing the agenda of one extreme. He may get to it eventually, but all the Left is doing right now is making it harder to pursue their agenda. Face it, in view of the economy, nuclear-bio-terrorism, and the extinction level threat from climate change, whether or not Ralph and Roger can get married to each other and then enroll in socialized health care is pretty irrelevant.

The House of Commons

I've had lots I've been meaning to write about in the last week or two, but I haven't gotten around to it for one reason or another. Things like commenting in response to the proposal that the government would limit doctor bills, that the government also then needs to step in and set a limit on the cost of medical school. And law school while they are at it. But that's not today's topic.

In case it didn't catch your radar, the Speaker of the House of Commons had to resign last week. I heard today on NPR that this is the first time a Speaker has had to resign in over 300 years.

My country is younger than that. Just for some perspective on this.

Political stupidity from NPR OP ED

Last Monday, on the way to the MINI dealership with a flat tire, NPR had a story on the use of behavior psych applied to economics. They were discussing how human beings will take inherently illogical actions which are not always in their best interests. Standard economic models assume the perfectly logical decision maker and therefore are wrong. The conclusion was that government can and will be able to make the good long term choices for people, that those people would not make for themselves and might not even want. Thus, government SHOULD be doing more of that sort of thing. It's CLASSIC capital-L Liberalism.

I'm just curious if anyone else sees the big logical jumps they made?

First, they ASSUME that government WILL make better choices. The obvious first point is that government is made of people. The answer to refute this came from proof provided by the advocate being interviewed was that the British government, realizing that many tourists were being hit by cars every year because they were looking the wrong way on the streets, put up big signs to look to the right. It worked, ergo government will make smart choices. 1) The people would probably acknowledge this was in their best interest. 2) Looking left instead of right was a matter of habit and training; not exactly the sort of complex issues where minds may differ. 3) This is argument by analogy which is inherently a weak argument. For starters, you can always, as I have done in point 2 previously, show how the analogy does not fit. More importantly, for every example where government has done something smart like telling people to look right, I can probably come up with an example where government has done something colossally stupid like failing to check the seals on rockets it was suing to launch the space shuttle into orbit. The "look right" argument does not address the criticism that government decisions are still made by people, and if the problem is that people can be dumb, it applies to government. Worse, MOBS (a group of people) can often be dumber than a single person.

Second, the position advocated assumes that if government CAN make smarter decisions then it SHOULD and has the MORAL RIGHT to do so. I fail to follow that premise. Do we live in a society where being smarter gives someone a moral right to dominate the will of the less intelligent? Even if government can make a better decision than I can about something, do I want it to? This Orwellian road leads to tyranny. We can't trust you to pick the right kind of car, so we, the government, shall pick for you. Ignore what you want; we shall do what is best. We only need one kind of car anyway. (Ignore the kickback to the guy deciding what kind of car you should drive; he's smarter than you.) You don't want that job; you'd hate it. We shall decide what job you do. We shall decide where you shall live. We don't think you are raising your child in the smartest way so we, the government, shall raise the child for you.

What a Brave New World that would be.

Stupidity from NPR caller

A comment from a caller on an NPR show last week (paraphrased as close as I can to the original):

"The purpose of Democracy is to prevent the rich from being able to run everything."

Huh? Here I thought that democracy was to prevent anyone from being able to run everything. Stop tyranny of any sort. All basic freedoms. (By the way, contrary to popular view of many similar callers, freedom to do something does not mean exactly the same thing as a right. EX: Yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre. You have a freedom to be gainfully employed as you wish but not a right to any particular job.)

In fact, it sticks in my mind that the founders of our democracy (which is a republic by the way, not a democracy), limited the right to vote to white, male, property owners. Those were the rich of their day. Why? Because they did not believe that non-caucasian, non-males were educated or smart enough to vote and that only property owners had enough "stake" in events to be worth counting. One wonders how the men who invented such an elitest, sexist, and even racist systems could have believed they were creating a system whose purpose is to prevent the rich from running everything.

Perhaps the caller was inserting his own paradigm into the minds of the founding fathers.

Or maybe he meant the Greeks. ... I wonder if he realizes he doesn't live in a democracy.

The saga of Black Kate

Dateline 8 June, 2009

At 5:00 I came out of work and climbed in Black Kate. Put my key fob in the socket (she doesn't have a proper key) and pushed the start button. Kate fired up and dinged that I needed to fasten my seat belt which I was doing. Then she tossed a funny little trill in at the end of her song causing me to look around. New cars are like that; they occasionally surprise you. I noted the low tire pressure light was one. Then I noticed it was RED. Now the low pressure light comes in two flavors: red and yellow. Yellow means low. Red means flat. Oh damn.

My first assumption was that I had somehow mis-re-calibrated the sensor when I was working through the instruction book Saturday. So I drove across the street to Motomart where there is free air. Now you may be wondering why didn't he just look at the tires? Remember, Kate has run-flats so you can't SEE a flat tire. Checked pressure on the driver's front and it was fine. Checked the driver's rear and it was fine. Checked the passenger front and it was flat. Found a large bolt/screw in the tire. Frak! Car is less than 48 hours old and I have a flat. But I bought the extended tire warranty and my tire's are covered against this for the first 50K miles or some such. I call the MINI dealer (sales) to advise them of the situation. Why sales? Well, they still had my paperwork on the warranty I bought and I had their number. I was told to bring the car right in and not to pull out the whatever it was. So off I go across town in Rush Hour with a flat tire (meaning no more than 50 mph) to the MINI dealer. I arrive at 6:05.

I then find out that service closed at 6:00. Moreover, service is at a different building about 4 blocks away. While I was told when we bought the car that they had 30 or so loaner MINI's to lend to people during service, those are controlled exclusively by the service department; sales cannot give me one. So I'm stuck at the MINI dealer 40+ minutes from home, still with a flat tire, and no way to fix it until tomorrow. Moreover, because this is a run-flat, it will probably require replacement, not repair. Sales guy tries to get his boss to give me a demo, but there are none to be given or permission is refused. I call my wife and asked her to drive 40 minutes to come get me while i cool my heels at the MINI dealership. The salesman suggests that the only thing he can think of is that I could drive my MINI home and once I got there, I can call the Roadside Assistance (which is free while the car is under warranty) who will come to my house and either tow Kate back to the dealer or put the spare tire on for me. This seems silly so I drive her to the service department and the salesman drive me back to wait for Cinda. Cinda arrives. Car fixed by 10:15 the next morning. If it hadn't been that would have been a WHOLE new issue. No problems since then.

ARRRRGHH! Thar be Black Kate!

Dateline 5 June, 2009

Black Kate, my new MINI Cooper arrived today. She’s a sophisticated little thing with beige leather interior, black body, white roof, and chrome trim bits. We even got the black and silver union jack side scuttle because Cinda liked the idea of a Pirate themed car and seemed to think the “Black Jack” scuttle was pirate themed. I don’t have white sport stripes because she threatened to call it Pepe’ because it looked like a skink. Likewise, I was not able to get yellow because then it “looked like a taxi” or “looked like a school bus.” I was also prevented from sky blue. Cinda probably would have gone with hunter green (“British Racing Green”) which would have looked sharp with the beige leather, but Green is a very common color of MINI and I wanted to avoid that. I’m also leery that green might lower resale. Red was way to common and I don’t favor pure metallic colors (silver, gold, etc.). The white wasn’t white; it was sort of a cream color. Went with a base Cooper because those still have spare tires but I upgraded to the 16 inch wheels which come with run-flats because there are more replacement options for the 16 inch size when the time comes. Because I had run-flats though, I opted for buying the tire maintenance warranty --- more on that later. Anyway, here she is … Black Kate. 2009 MINI Cooper Hardtop. Midnight Black with a white roof and chrome line package. Tuscan Leather interior with Piano Black trim. 6 speed manual transmission on a 1.6L engine putting out 118 horsepower and lots of torque. Automatic climate control, xenon headlights, front and rear fog lights, and 16” white bridgestone wheels. More pictures here.

I'm a hawk apparently

Maybe I'm crazy, but it seems to me that the response to piracy is well established. Failed state or not, vessels departing from the coast of Somolia are attacking vessels of other nations. We should blockade their coast and sink any vessel that sails from Somolia. Any pirate caught is hung. Activate the Iowa Class and shell any ports from which the pirates sail. A nation does not need a functional government to make war.

MINI??

So Cinda and I spent 5 hours in the MINI dealer and I think I bought a MINI. It's not the MINI I would have thought I would buy. In the last two weeks, I've been thinking Clubman then Convertible then Clubman then Convertible. Either the practical choice, Clubman, with it's slightly more cargo room, usable back seat, level cargo floor, etc. or the funner Convertible. I also have been playing with all the MINI colors from yellow to green to blue to brown to black. But I always came back to green, classic British Racing Green with tan leather and wood trim. All the other colors were play designs.

So today I decided to get a black MINI Cooper hardtop with a white roof and tan interior. This seems odd to me too.

So Cinda didn't prefer the yellow and the blue and I thought the bright red was too common and too likely to fade, which took out all the $0 colors. Cinda liked the green and so did I. But I also liked my black and white MINI and looking at all the MINIs on the lot, I decided that the silver trim looked better on the black than the green. I even added some chrome. The white roof was far enough away from chrome not to interfere and the white wheels looked sharp. Black is also a lot less common of a color than green, probably because it is not a MINI color i.e. colorful.

I also found out that all the Coopers and the Clubman (not the S's) come with a space saver spare, even when they have run flats. So we got the 16 inch wheels which necessarily are going to come with run-flats. BUT, once the run flats run out, I can switch to a normal tire and I'll have a spare. And there are a lot more options for the 16" rim than the 15" rim. Just look at tirerack.com

Still paying more that I'd like, but when you opt for leather seats, you pay more and I wanted the lumbar support that made me get the leather.

Anyway, that was my night.

http://ur-manadu.mybrute.com

Buy American?

Back in 2001, my American made Mercury Sable shot craps by blowing its engine seals at about 90,000 miles. Suddenly without a car, I went car shopping and I knew what I wanted. I wanted a AWD or 4WD vehicle with some amount of cargo room, a manual transmission, and an engine that would deliver some performance at 70 MPH.

Detroit didn't make a car like that because they assumed that if you wanted a stick shift, you obviously only wanted it for fuel economy reasons. Thus, they only combined it with their most economical (translate smallest and least HP)engines on their most economical cars (Ford Focus anyone?). Alternately, you could get a stick on a two door sports car like a Mustang. Jeep was just debuting the Liberty which could come with a manual... in about 3-6 months. I ended up getting a Subaru.

FAST FORWARD to 2009. I'm car shopping again in the middle of a recession. The radio is replete with news stories that the Big Three are in Big Trouble and advertisements telling me that I should go buy American because most of the money from foreign cars goes to foreign places. After all, loyal Americans support America by buying American products.

Of course this ignores that in the interconnected 21st Century, we need the other country's economies to rebound too if we want to re-achieve a 90's like prosperity. It also ignores that having people over here with jobs is probably more important than where the money finally goes. I'd rather see an entire Subaru plant over here running flat-out than Dodge making its cars in Mexico and selling them here. It also ignores something else, something philosophical.

Once more when I'm shopping for cars, I am having difficulty finding what I want from an American manufacturer. This is not a quality issue; american cars are as good as any import and better than many... well maybe not Chryslers. But Ford and GM are. This has to do with what I want in a car, and I admit I'm not typical. I don't want a sun/moonroof. I do want a comfortable seat. I don't care about the stereo, but I like my stick shift. I like cars that are fun to drive; cars with character. And once again, Detroit just doesn't make them. Ford does AWD, but with low ceilings and assumes that if you want AWD, you MUST want the sunroof. Chevy assumes that you don't want AWD. Buick assumes you want large, FWD, and a low ceiling, probably with a sunroof. Etc.

So here I am, looking at MINI's and Subarus and Toyotas and getting guilt tripped about not being a "loyal" American. And that makes me mad. Detroit's argument is that you should buy what they make because they make it. Even if it is not what you want, you should buy it. Logically then, if it was a $30,000 scooter with a terrible reliability, you should buy it because they make it and you are a loyal American. "What's good for General Motors is good for America." Oh wait, that kind of arrogance was supposed to have died in the late 70's. My bad. No wait. Their bad.

In the almost 30 years since 1979, they still haven't shed that corporate culture and institutional American car maker arrogance. This recession may be the only way they will learn, can learn. And maybe they can't learn, can't change. Either way they still don't get it and I think GM thinks that we will not allow them to fail because GM = America. We'll come around any minute and buy their cars in droves, even if they go back to making the cream of 1978. Except we won't. Americans demand quality, performance, and choice. In this iPod, MyMusic, MyDocuments, MyWay world, maybe shooting for the largest common denominator doesn't sell cars. It doesn't sell them to me anyway.

No, it's not that "loyal Americans" will rescue GM/America by buying American made cars. Loyal Americans companies would have managed to make the cars that Americans want to buy. It is a shame when it is the foreign car companies who seem able to best read the American consumer.

MINI's part 2

Found out more over lunch.

My local mechanic thinks that the brakes on a MINI are like any other brakes. And some transmissions require special manufacturer created tools to drain/flush. VW & Porsche for example.

Tires is where the rubber met the road so to speak. The standard MINI tires are 16" run-flats in a non standard size. They cost about $1200 for four and last about 30K miles. By contrast, my Subaru's tires, for 4 would cost me about $680 and they would come warranted for 80K miles. I've gotten more like 120K from the current set. The absolute base MINI hardtop has 15" air tires in a non-standard size. They also only come in performance tires while the run-flats come as all-season if you want them to. However, 4 15" tires cost only about $570.

What that boils down to is that the MINI has twice as expensive tires that will need changing twice as often in all likelihood which means the overall tire cost is 4 times as much as the Subaru. With no run-flats, the MINI costs only slightly less than twice as much as the Subaru assuming the tires wear as fast as the run-flats.

I wonder if you can put 15" tires on the convertible after you get one.

Some one please explain to me why you'd build a car with great fuel economy... 28/36 but not have an economy variant. Why would you think that folks who are willing to pay for all the costly brakes, tires, and whatever else would care? If you have the gold to pay for the maintenance, you have the gold to pay for a car that gets 15/22 in MPG. If you car about the cost of fuel, you might also be shopping for some other economy features. I'd think MINI would at least have 1 car pitched to the economy minded.

Instead they have a car which over 100,000 miles will save about $3,000 in gas over the Lincoln MKZ. They then turn right around and have the same car eat $3,800 in tires, another $3,000 in brakes, and who knows what else. It obliterates the illusion of gas savings.

Car shopping saga -- LONG!!

So lately I’m car shopping. I started out looking at cars because my Subaru has 180,000 miles and it is a good time to buy a car. The original requirements were all-wheel drive, fog lights, comfy seats, heated seats (which usually means leather), climate control, and the ability to hold adult passengers. We also needed it to be an automatic transmission so my wife can drive it. Over time, I’ve changed that to decide that AWD is not necessarily a requirement; I just want the car to be sure footed. Likewise, I don’t use fog lights that often (dark rainy nights mostly) and many fog lights don’t do much. Then I realized that with my wife’s Aztek, I don’t need a car that will take adult backseat passengers or that has significant cargo capacity. For all of that we can use the existing AWD Aztek. So what do I need my car to do?

Well, I drive to work and back. I drive to the store and back. Occasionally I drive to a conference or something that is several hours away. My parents live two hours away. My sister lives eight hours away. Most LARPs I go to are either twenty minutes, thirty minutes, or an hour and fifteen minutes away. Every blue moon or so, I go three to five hours to LARP. About once a year I go on an eight to twelve hour drive. Most of the time, it’s just me in the car, or, slightly less often, me and my wife. After some thought, I decided I can opt for a more “fun” car.

I should note that during the original test drives, I started with the Ford Fusion/Mercury Milan/Lincoln MKZ triplets. They are AWD sedans. Then I found out that they have a fairly low ceiling and I have a long torso. This means that when you put a moonroof in one and thus drop the ceiling by 1.5 inches, it starts brushing my head. This bothers me after five minutes, let alone five hours. I also found out that Ford assumes that if you want AWD, you clearly want things like the moonroof. Finding AWD without the moonroof is really hard. I found one used Lincoln about 70 miles away, but when I test drove it, its brakes seemed off and it had a funny vibration that none of the other Lincolns had. Twice, I got to meet the nice people who had just bought the car I had come to look at. Once a dealer found an MKZ, AWD, no moonroof… in the one color I can’t stand. Milans with AWD are scarce, let alone one with AWD and no moonroof. Of course I could ORDER the Milan or Lincoln I want, but then a lot of the dealer created discounts seem to dry up. Plus as Lincoln MKZ program car AWD with no moonroof comes in at about $25,000 with about 15K miles. A NEW Lincoln starts at about $34,000 (and would have to be a ’10, not an ’09). I don’t want to pay more than $30,000; I get itchy past about $22,000.

Fords also offers the Taurus and (at least in ’09) the Sable with AWD. Not too pricy. My wife, Cinda, did not like them though. They were “just a car” meaning (I think) not exciting… boring. Next year the Sable dies and the new Taurus comes out. Price jump anyone?

I looked hard at Subarus too. I have one and it’s been a good car for 180,000 miles but it is beginning to wear out. But Subaru has only two engines, an boxer 4 that gives about 175 HP and a boxer 6 that needs premium gas. More to the point, the Subarus don’t have a six speed transmission or even a five speed automatic transmission; they have a four speed automatic transmission. The Lincoln/Mercury/Ford has a six. That four speed hurts the Subaru’s performance and its fuel economy. AWD also hurts fuel economy. The only Subaru with rear adult sized room is the Forrester. Drove one and it was okay, but not great. The console seems made of cheap plastic and the pickup was okay, but not great. I also don’t like the placement of the heated seat controls. Forresters don’t get much discount’ they are popular. Cinda wasn’t crazy about them either. Of course the Legacy is being redesigned for ’10 and is supposed to be more Audi-like as far as I can tell. It certainly has a more Audi-like price as it jumps $10,000 to START at $34,000 ish.

GM doesn’t seem to like putting AWD in anything that isn’t at least vaguely truck like (small wagons being “vaguely” truck-like). In fact, they seem to be moving back to RWD for sedans which is, IMO, double bad from a “sure-footedness” point of view. Since s-f is very important to me, I’m not liking that. In ’10 they will introduce the Buick LaCrosse remake which will offer AWD for probably around $30,000. I am tempted to wait because there is a lot of this car I like in it’s pictures and it might just be in my price range, but it will be a year before that car becomes discounted at all; it’s highly anticipated. Still, I actually like the Buick ride.

We tried the Hondas, but Honda thinks Americans are narrower than I am, making their seats decidedly uncomfortable even on short test drives. The side flanges of the seat press into my ribs. The CRV is the only test drive that actually cause me pain.

We also tried the RAV4. Loved the RAV4. Great pick up, small turning radius, good gas mileage, and even with a moonroof, I had head clearance. But right at $30,000 and I’m not sure I liked the back door which opens sideways, not up. I don’t need that big of a car and it feels much bigger than it actually is. Good reliability because it is a Toyota, but you are paying for it. My brother-in-law doesn’t approve of SUV’s, even with good gas mileage, on the principle that it encourages the manufacturers to make SUVs generally. Apparently that is a bad thing. Still, really liked the RAV4 and if we were replacing the Aztek, this would be both Cinda and my first choice. Also to avoid getting the extra expensive white paint job and the moonroof, we’d have to order. If we don’t order, we’d have to pay over $1000 for features we don’t want.

So we took the AWD requirement out and the world got much bigger.

Tried the Mazdas. Mazda 5 gives you a lot for a low price, but misses some core things too. Cinda thought it rocker side to side too much. Liked the Mazda 6. Cinda thought its braking was scary and on her second drive in one she said the suspension was making her sick in the stomach. I still really liked the car though.

Tried the MKZ out again and it’s quieter with AWD, but now Cinda complains that the dashboard is so high. I’m not sure I like the button arrangement. Neither of us likes the analog clock. I notice that the ’10 MKZ will have a digital clock and many other things that I regard as improvements. It also boasts 1950’s styling.

Non-sequitor: My parents grew up in the 50’s and they don’t see the MKZ as a real Lincoln; it’s not boxy enough or big enough. They would never consider one. Their friends the Moodys are the same except the Moody’s OWN a Lincoln – Towncar. The people who buy MKZs are in their 40’s, or like me, are 37. We are the younger buys that Lincoln wants to attract and needs to attract to survive. Yet, these 50’s ish design features are things my parents would like, not me. I prefer the ’09 and earlier exterior. So does Cinda. Lincoln doesn’t understand their buyers.

Anyway, Cinda flunked the MKZ on the second drive of one which seems odd to me since she didn’t on the first drive of one. So we went and looked at Buicks. I like the Buick’s ride; always have. My grandparents had a Buick LeSabre and I have fond memories of that car. It was a good car too. And Buick keeps topping or coming close to the top of J.D. Power’s quality report. The problems with Buick starts with General Motors though. Don’t get me wrong, I like the Buick dealer we found and their salesman, Jackson Anderson, is wonderful. If we get a Buick, it will likely come from there. There are two Buicks that make the running, both pretty much as program cars because the new price tag is just too high. The Buick Lucerne is the top of the line and comes in at about $25,000 with about 10K miles on it. Sweet floaty ride. Poor fuel economy. Large, boat like turning radius. Spacious cabin and back seats with tons of leg room. Up until 2006, it would have been a Cadillac. Tons of amenities like cornering lights, cooled seats (only otherwise found on the Lincoln), extra spiffy wipers with the automatic dog on the wiper arm, not the hood, decent pick up. But the Lurcerne, at the top of the line has some things missing, some odd things. Unlike every other car we considered, Lucerne’s steering wheel doesn’t telescope. Even the lesser Buick LaCrosse telescopes. The Lucerne has only a narrow pass through from the trunk; the back seats do not flip down. Storage space in terms of nooks, cubby holes, pockets, bins, etc. is very limited. Again, compared with the lesser LaCrosse, the Lucerne suffers by comparison. Neither car can have fog lights though except for the top of the line V8 super models with HORRIBLE fuel efficiency.

The LaCrosse has a telescoping wheel, good storage compartments, an arm rest that is comfortable, and it is smaller, especially in the back seats. But it is also narrower meaning adjusting the seats while driving is more difficult. Also, the LaCrosse doesn’t have the same ability to get lumbar support and the passenger seat does not offer nearly as many amenities as the driver’s seat.

Still, the $35K Lucerene for $25K was almost too good a bargain to pass up and we were about to say yes to it. I went up to test drive it once more and see if it had problems getting in my driveway (it doesn’t) and was told that another couple was also looking at it and if they said they wanted it immediately, they would get it. I was astonished that I felt relieved. I felt relieved that this bargain was almost slipping out of my fingers? Went to dinner that night with my parents and showed the pictures of the Lucerne. Mom asked me what I wanted the car for? Thought about it and talked to Cinda about it later that night.

I don’t need the car to do much more than get me to work and the occasional longer trip. I don’t need the back seat room the Lucerne offers. I realized I wanted sure footedness and that I could get a lot less “practical” in my thinking. So we re-evaluated and I began looking for “fun” cars too. I’ve never been a fan of outright speed, but I do like the occasional twisty road in a car that is fun to do twisty roads in. We had a Cavalier convertible when I was in high school and that car was a lot of fun. Maybe a convertible. What are the affordable convertibles?

Chrysler stopped making the PT Cruiser as a convertible in ’09 which is fine, I don’t believe Chrysler makes quality cars anyway. They also make the Sebring right at $27K. Ford makes the Mustang which is in the upper to mid 20K range and costs a lot more to insure. GM makes the Saturn Sky/Pontiac Solstice roadster twins which reportedly have reliability issues. GM also makes the Pontiac G6 in a convertible for the low 30’s. Mitsubishi makes the Spyder in the $27K range, but I know too many people who had problems with their Mitsubishis. Smart makes a buggy convertible but it sucks on the highway. Mazda makes the Miata and Volkswagen makes the New Beatle. Finally, MINI makes the Cooper convertible.

Tried a Sky roadster; didn’t fit and didn’t like it except it sure was pretty. Miata same problem. Roadsters out. G6 too costly – out. Sebring and PT Cruiser are Chrysler – out. Mustang too expensive to ensure and too big a theft target – probably out. Spyder is Mitsubishi so probably out. So we get down to the New Beatle and the MINI. Drove both. Both Cinda and I prefer the MINI. The VW has metal body at the door sill and more importantly has no trunk space with the top down. Also seems harder to work the top. The MINI has a 5 cubic feet “boot” even with the top down. The MINI is fun to drive. (Cinda thinks it is too easy to get speeding tickets in and won’t be comfortable on long drives. I’m not sure how much of a I don’t like that is versus a I like too much. Regardless she says she can’t take it seriously.) MINI also has no spare it has “run-flat tires” which seem to be less cushy. MINI starts in the mid $20K’s but climbs fast when you start adding equipment to it. And with the MINI, I’m tempted to decorate it with things like stripes and so forth. ARGGGH!

So anyway, I also liked the non-convertible MINI a lot and since the base convertible costs $5350 MORE than the base hardtop, I can get a LOT more car in the hardtop. Plus the hardtop has some additional features. It has 3 grab bars (passengers) and also a full sized second side sun shade for the driver. It has a rear wiper. It has better rear visibility out the back corners. It has more cargo room. It has a spare tire (on the base, base model without the run flats). It has an overhead dome light. But the top doesn’t go down.

By comparison; the G6 convertible costs $7790 more than it non-convertible twin. The Spyder costs $5700 more than the Eclipse. The New Beatle convertible costs $7700 more as a convertible. So the MINI is not out of line in how much more it costs, and the MINI convertible includes a “sunroof” ability. I’m not sure how much you’d use it though; it seems to me that if it’s nice enough to sunroof, you’d want the top down and if its not nice enough to have the top down, you wouldn’t be sunroofing it either. I can also sunroof the hardtop for a not-quite-convertible feel.

Also, if you go for small, sure-footed, hardtops well then we have to put the Subaru Impreza and the Mazda3 in there. Impreza is a wonderful car and I enjoy driving it. But there is that four speed transmission again. The Mazda 3 I drove was a stick and it was a wonderful stick. But the seat needed to go back about 2-3” for me to be comfortable and that would get old fast.

So I’m back to MINI’s. Cinda and I go out and do her test drive (and you saw what she thinks). The salesmen lets slip that the MINI will probably need a brake job at about $30K. Then I find out he means a $1000 brake job. He claims that because the MINI is a performance car it has softer brakes and, depending how you drive it, you will need to replace every 30-40K miles. He also says that BMW makes the dealers do more than most independent car places and that the brakes would probably be about $500 at most places. $500 every 30K miles!? This sounds extreme to me; I only recall one, maybe two times in 180K miles with the Subaru. Not a performance car he says, not like a MINI.

I also find that they sell MINIs at MSRP + $500. No bargaining though for repeat customers or if I get one from the lot, they can waive the preparation fee. Still, ouch. I knew that it would be MSRP, but MSRP + $500?

I do more research and discover there are a LOT of unhappy MINI owners out there. Seems they have transmission/clutch problems. Problems like 3 transmissions in $30K miles that the dealers are saying is driver abuse. How do you abuse an automatic transmission? I study this and notice that all the problems are with either the 5 speed manual’s clutch or the CVT transmission on the base Cooper. After 2007, MINI junked the CVT and went to a 6 speed Getrag for both the manual and the automatic. The number of complaints on 2008 or later models is much less, but of course they don’t have the mileage yet. J.D. Powers rates the MINI as being below average in reliability, but that is based on the 2006 model year. They also find, even then that MINI and Kia are the most improved brands (albeit both still under average). I am reassured but still nervous.

If I want a convertible, the MINI still seems to be in the lead. However, I don’t want to buy a Lemon and I don’t want to see lots of shop time, or more importantly, costs. So I wonder.

An open letter to the Big Three and all the other car makers

Hey guys,

You might want to think about combining AWD with a Hybrid. Or do you assume that anyone who is interested in the gas saving of a Hybrid would not be interested in the AWD which decreases the MPG? Newflash: AWD is a safety feature that is required in any car I own. Hybrid is a nice option. If there was an AWD that got the Hybrid's boosts, it would be my leading contender for a new car purchase. Just an FYI.

Rush Limbaugh and Databasing

I keep thinking of things to put in this blog and I keep not having time to write them up.

In a twist of thought, driving to work today listening to the Obama show, I mean NPR, I thought of something Rush Limbaugh said on his TV show over a decade ago late one night when I had gotten home from my summer job bartending and was flipping channels. He started out by talking about how people are idiots and went into a diatribe for like five minutes on it. He then observed that if you were really conservative, you could not believe that, on the whole, people were idiots. If you did, then you had to believe they needed government to take care of them. Since conservatives believed in keeping government out of your life, they had to also believe that if left alone, people could care for themselves.

That comment has stuck with me for a long time as one of the only “smart” things Rush ever said. It’s like an itch I can’t quite scratch. I am pretty misanthropic. People are cattle and the herd is dumb. They will act selfishly and short sighted and are quite capable of happily running off the cliff and then wondering how they ended up falling (and looking for someone else to blame while they are at it; those damn greedy cliffs). I also believe that government should be small, cheap, and not intrusive. This sets up a bit of a conundrum as you see. How can one believe that people are dumb but not believe they need to be taken care of?

Of late, I have been thinking of something my father said to me. He observed that he was glad he lived south of the (Missouri) River because he felt when he went north of it the society became much more sharply divided between the haves and the have-nots. As a student of history, I know that it was the rise of the middle class that made the Industrial Revolution happen and propelled Western society, particularly England, to dominance. A strong middle class makes for a strong and ultimately wealthy society. Logically, then the whole is better off if the middle class profits and when things begin to get to sharply divided they need to be… corrected. Keep that in mind.

Back to Rush’s syllogism: Today it occurred to me that the piece of the logic that was assumed but unsaid is that if people are too dumb to look out for themselves competently then it falls to others to do it for them. I’m not sure I agree with that. To some extent, redistribution of wealth from the upper tier to the rest of the society creates a strong middle class. That should be good, right? Maybe. In the Industrial Revolution, the middle class became strong because it worked to become so. If wealth is redistributed via taxes, then the growth of the middle class is artificial. It may strengthen the society or it may weaken it as the society is trained that it is entitled to unearned income. From an incentive point of view it really sucks; you “punish” those who are the most productive part of society so you can support the least productive parts. The bottom’s incentive to improve is lessened while the tops incentive to keep producing is also lessened.

Viewed in Darwinistic terms, if you have people who cannot “make it” on their own and need to be “assisted” to survive, and you support them with the surplus created by those who can clearly “make it,” you are acting counter to evolution. You are introducing an element into your society which in good times you can afford to carry, but when the lean times come may create the difference between survival and extinction. You are, in essence, breading in weakness by creating a parasite. So, if as Rush said, you believe people are dumb, maybe the answer is to let them be dumb and see if they survive.


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My other project is programming a database on my iPhone using the HanDBase program. I’m learning a lot and I almost have my beta ready to go.