MegaMillions Lottery - Team Hater vs Team Dreamer

The comments I see about the lottery today fall in two camps: haters and dreamers. As a dreamy hater, let me try to bridge the gap.

The haters indicate that the probability of winning the MegaMillions lottery is infinitesimally small. How small? Well, this graphic, via Businessweek, compares it to other improbable events.

Note that, once the lottery is won, the chances of dating a supermodel remarkably improve. As experienced mathematicians know, one must be careful to distinguish between independent and dependent probabilities.

I won't show the precise calculation here, but those of you know how to calculate combinations and permutations, it's pretty straightforward.

Haters might also point out that the dreamers are especially delusional to believe that, because the headline amount is actually larger than the odds of winning, some ticket buyers are deluding themselves into thinking that it actually represents a better bet than, say Vegas. The haters say that the dreamers are fools, for they are neglecting the possibility that multiple tickets will have the winning numbers. Even if a person wins, they could find out their winnings are much, much lower than expected if the jackpot is shared, either via a pool or through coincidental tickets. This is actually the plot of an entire Martin episode.

The haters strongest argument is that the expected value for a ticket, even with a jackpot this size, is most likely negative. A Time Magazine article indicates that the expected value estimates vary - one economist says that the expected value is actually positive ($1.23 payoff per $1 ticket), while a computer scientist claims that, based on simulations, the maximum expected payoff for a Mega Millions ticket is $0.69 (for a lottery of about $420 million). Assuming the computer scientist's figures are more correct, then Mega Millions tickets have a strongly negative payoff.

In fact, one of the strongest critiques of state lotteries are that they are a tax on the poor and ignorant. One study even claims the poor spend 9% of their income on lottery tickets. It is true that the vast majority of the revenue that feeds the lottery comes from the poor - the poor play more in both percentage and absolute terms.

Haters also claim that it promotes the belief that one can become rich through anything other than hard work, (or a lucky womb, or ridiculously clever tax attorneys).

The dreamers basic defense is that it's a combination of fun and hopeful.

It's fun to think about being wealthy, and even joke about the whole mania with others. It's fun to go to a store and chat in line with other people waiting for a ticket. It's fun to watch people and their "systems". It's fun to suspend disbelief - if it's not for you, then you must not like books, novels, or the 2012 Republican primaries.

Proponents of the premise of The Secret-- the premise of the Law of Attraction, if not the book itself--say that aspirational thinking can help clarify goals and enrich life now. Even if a person doesn't win the lottery, dreaming about what they would do with one, two, or ten million dollars is one step closer to actually planning and implementing it.

My behavioral econ is rusty, but I suppose it boils down to our ability to magnify certain low probability events (while marginalizing others). It's evolutionarily adaptive - seeing someone get killed by eating a funky mushroom might turn off the entire tribe from them.

More fundamentally, there's also the fact that the utility function of money doesn't necessarily need to be continuous. There are life-changing changes in wealth, and not-life-changing changes. The lottery, especially this one, has the potential to be life changing.

One final quantitative note: the rule of thumb for lotteries is that the lump sum is usually half. However, it looks like the lump sum offered is about 1.26%. This is pretty damn low, and reflective in general of low interest rates. Almost nobody takes the annuity anyway, but, when one considers the likelihood of inflationary pressures sometime in the next decade, rising interest rates, and higher taxes in the future, it's a particularly good time to be a lottery winner. Not that it's ever really a bad time. But if you win, send Ben Bernanke and the inventors of the mortgage-backed security and credit default swap some chocolates. The 2008 financial crisis made you considerably richer than you would have been otherwise.

Good luck folks! If you don't hear from me in the next couple weeks, that means I'm living on my own island somewhere.

Explaining the past to a young cousin

It just occurred to me that I'll have to explain some things to my young cousins someday.

Teruo: Ryan, you were an astronomer once, right?
Me: Sort of. I was training to be one. But I stopped before I became a professional.
Teruo: Oh. (pauses) Can I ask you a question?
Me: Sure thing.
Teruo: (pauses) Why did it take so long to send a submersible to Europa to look for life?
Me: (long pause) Do you remember something called a Kardashian?
Teruo: No.
Me: How about "The Jersey Shore"?
Teruo: No.
Me: How about Twilight?
Teruo: No!
Me: Well, between the First and Second Cold Wars, America spent roughly the amount of money and time and energy on these three things that it would have taken for such a mission.
Teruo: Were these important projects?
Me: (pause, thinking) They were to some, Teruo. They were to some.

Where do I come from? What am I? Where am I going?

I offer no apologies. I am not addressing rumor shared at church. I speak mostly to myself.

The breakthrough is, if not a lie, vastly overrated in therapy. I am an easy crier, and so it is accompanied with tears, a breaking voice, and approximately 25 kleenex. It had happened many times before, and so I did not leave with the optimism and relief of other times. The good doctor wanted me to wait for a few minutes before I hit the rain-battered roads, but I assured him thus: "Death of a Salesman is my favorite play, but I am not ready to pull a Willy Loman. I will be back next week." I would not wait -- I had a new student to tutor, and bills to pay.

This anger -- it is real. Emotions are, and legitimate in themselves, even if their expression often takes illegitimate forms. I did not break any tables. I did not hit anyone. I did not even curse out anyone verbally. In some ways, the last post could be seen as tame, even impotent. It is unworthy of chatter after Sunday service, and I would ask those who engage in it to make a choice - discuss directly with me, or stop. Well-intentioned gossip is still gossip, and unworthy of you.

I have bitterness, regrets, anger occasionally spilling over into rage, when even the high walls I have constructed are incapable of holding in the accumulated pain. In this I am neither unusual nor pitiable. What I am, is lacking in the wisdom that finds a better way of dealing with it, more frequent, if less intense, expression -- more honest, if less pleasant, engagement with others.

I told my therapist that a fundamental insight had emerged over the last few years, as I contemplated my barren love life. Some claim theirs is barren or pitiable -- I do not claim those words for my own. But it is perhaps noteworthy that I have spent a total of one week of the last decade of social adulthood, and sixteen years of physiological adulthood, in anything coming close to a romantic relationship. I've never really had a "girlfriend". And I think it's worth thinking a bit about why, while not obsessing over it.

It is not that I did not have opportunity. It's not that I'm hideous or disgusting or incurably obnoxious or devoid of charm. (I do confess that, as I grow older, I have increasingly negative body self-image. As my previous shibboleths of value have come crumbling down, social pressures and norms have come creeping in through the ruins.)

I have concluded this: no woman I have ever met could break my heart as much as my father already has. But rather than take this as a mandate for fearlessness, the great pain it caused, and still causes, restricts my ability to share my heart with others, in all relationships.

It's why my friendships seem so unfulfilling. They really do exist only because the other sides carry the weight of setting up meetings and dragging me places. For this, I am grateful, though sometimes puzzled, and sometimes resentful. Medicine never does taste pleasant. And I have much emotional cancer to cure.

My problematic relationship, in concept and in practice, with my father, should not be new to most. But, then again, I am a more private person than I am willing to admit, despite the periodic outbursts of rage or despondency. I've tried coming to terms with what my father means to me, and whether I can forgive. I've even tried writing to a hypothetical future son, and exhorted the fathers of imagination to be better men, all in an effort to exorcise this first, and greatest, torment. It powers even my political and religious views on homosexuality.  I've tried discovering my existential why, and remain empty-handed.

It's worth noting that my interactions with my father aren't the sole influencing factor on my extreme reluctance (historically) to open myself to people. A language barrier with my grandparents, coupled with other issues concerning my relationship with my mother, led me to keep my own council on a lot of things starting at a very young age. It "worked" for some time, but obviously couldn't work forever. One cannot consistently succeed operating with an eight-year old's sense of emotional equanimity and judgment.

It's not that my father's odd mix of invasive and destructive presence coupled by intellectual, physical, and emotional absence hasn't shaped my life - the whole point of this is that it has, and so have the other things. What I'm trying to say is that, even as I've sort of moved on regarding that aspect of my life, the damage has been done. I have skewed lenses through which I view the world and measure worth external and internal, despite my attempts at rationality, insight, and perspective.

It plays a large role in why I am alone, and lonely, and have been for quite some time, and will likely be for a very long time. It will stop when I change how I live, or when I die. This isn't ideation -- it's simply how it's going to play out.

This wasn't supposed to be this self-indulgent. It was intended as an explanation, and an apology. Not for my rage - but for my inability to share, to open up.

I believe there were people who loved me, and who cared about me. I believe that, if I had been stronger, or wiser, I could have fallen into and out of love many times, and may have discovered my soulmate. That I did not was not because I thought you unworthy, or that I did not wish it. I wished for it passionately, intensely, perhaps too much. But I also self-sabotaged it, preferring to rot within this emotional palisade then open the drawbridge. And so you left, and moved on. People I knew, and people I never suspected, moved on.

And it's too late! To pretend otherwise is to be an even greater fool! At least it's too late for some relationships, some friendships that might have mattered more, or love that might have enriched both our lives before one or both of us found a way to fuck it up, or, perhaps less romantically, we grew apart. It's too damn late! And it is true -- we regret that which never was more than mistakes of commission. I had years, years, devoted to broad smiles and intelligence and assumed awkwardness and politeness, learning, too late, that had I cried, and swore, and made a scene, I might have won more than I would've lost, that I might have become a more mature, happy, and generous man.

It's too late for us, vague, amorphous, and perhaps wholly unknown Beloved. But in your honor, maybe I will get my shit together, maybe I will open my heart, and break this anchor of a past. Maybe I'll try to get back together with you -- and since there was no first time, it will be an effort to rewrite the past as well as the future. Blind faith and dreams -- but my eyes of analysis and insight have done precious little on this world, anyway. Best to be blind, for a time, and maybe stumble into the impossible on the way to the exit.

But do not wait.  I don't think anyone is. But in the arrogance that comes with depression and low self-esteem, one believes one holds the world back more than is actual. But just in case, do not wait. Go! Go! Fly and be free! I'll join you shortly, or never, but it's worth it. If you have have a chance, go! Get the hell out! And carry with you the best of me, even if you have to subject memory to twisted lies. Carry away a bit that is good. For when you fly away, I'll still see it in your hands, high in the distance, and it will be a beacon of possibility for me. For my good, and for yours, go.

So, to never-lovers past, to the friends I never let in, to family I tricked into believing all was well, to the father I never loved enough to forgive, or hated enough to leave forever, I offer this: my real pain. My rage. My authenticity. For if you love me as I am, broken and lost, then you will give me what I need to become sincere and compassionate once more. Two lifetimes of debt -- but second chances are never given with the intent to be repaid. At least not the ones that work. But I need, so badly, to borrow strength, and not from an abstraction like God or Duty. Those offer letters of credit not recognized in my emotional inner world.

A small window, a bit of light, to banish this shadow, if only for a time, and remind me that this is not as good as it gets, that it is worth trying for something better. Go now. Fall in love. Achieve great things. Leave me behind to sort out what must be sorted out. Leave, for both of us. Live.

Art imitates life, or, How George Orwell Plagiarized from American History

I am currently reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's wonderful book, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II, I am consistently amazed at how much stuff I just don't know about this time period. The actual War overwhelms the history books, crowding out any domestic events in these decidedly crowded years. Many, many passages are absolutely wonderful to read. They also uncomfortably underline how little real history I know and comprehend.

One passage reminds me of George Orwell's masterpiece, Nineteen Eighty-Four, definitely one of my favorite books of all time. I had always thought Nineteen Eighty-Four was brilliant because it portrays a futuristic dystopian world in breathtaking detail. It does do this, and does it in a way that should make it the envy of all fiction. But its real, insidious genius is to warn about the potential future in a way that is subtly, but definitively, a mirror of the present times. As I found out from No Ordinary Time, one way Orwell did this was to lift directly from what was, for him, recent history.

In Nineteen Eighty-Four, there is an amazing scene in which Oceania switches sides in the war, declaring war against its former ally, Eastasia, and allying with its former foe, Eurasia. It happens during a rally, and the conditioned hatred of the population is such that it is accepted without puzzlement or question. The signs held at the rally, now directed against the wrong nation, are attributed to spies and saboteurs, and are hastily torn down.

What a puzzling scene! How could a people be so immersed in doublethink?

From No Ordinary Time:

On the political left, confusion reigned. FOr months, following the Nazi-Soviet pact, communist-leaning organizations had been busily engaged in marching for peace, provoking strikes, and opposing aid to England. With Russia under attack, however, these same forces began to cry out for immediate intervention and massive aid for Russia. Robert Sherwood recalled attending an interventionist rally in Harlem on the Sunday afternoon of the Russian invasion. When he entered the Golden Gate Ballroom, there was a communist picket line in front with placards condemning the Fight for Freedom supporters as "tools of British and U.S. Imperialism." By the end of the rally, the picket line had totally disappeared. "Within that short space of time," Sherwood marveled, "the Communist party line had reached all the way from Moscow to Harlem and had completely reversed itself."

That same day, in a different part of the city, Michael Quill, the left-leaning head fo the Transport Workers of New York, was delivering an angry speech denouncing the imperialist war, arguing that the American worker should have absolutely nothing to do with it. In the middle of his speech, he was handed a note informing him that the Nazis had invaded the Soviet Union. Without missing a beat, Quill totally changed direction, arguing that "we must all unite and fight for democracy."

Why I am Proud to be a Republican

http://www.cityofart.net/bship/liberty_spirit.jpg 

Ladies and gentlemen, this address is titled, “Why I am Proud to be a Republican”. But I feel the more appropriate title would be, “Why I am Proud to be an American.”

I believe I should have titled this speech “Why I am Proud to be an American” because I believe deeply that our values and principles do transcend party and politics. They speak to the essence of what it is to be an American.

It is not because I fear to be associated with the Republican Party, or Republican values. I embrace both wholeheartedly. I have tried, however imperfectly, to live them as best as I can. In my life, I have worked to uphold them, and will work to my dying day, as long as the American people will have me, to improve the Republican Party, and ensure that it always, first and foremost, answers to the will of the people and the values of our Founding Fathers – nothing more, and nothing less.

If we ignore the histrionics of the media and the pundits, we will see that the present, brutal economic crisis has, in important ways, brought our national parties together. Both parties seek the restoration of our economy and way of life; both of us seek to restore American greatness. It is a greatness that stems not from the strength of arms, or of our economy – but from the moral fiber of a people unafraid to realize their greatness, and the responsibility it entails.

Make no mistake: our party and theirs offer a clear choice on critical questions of policy. Just how will we restore prosperity? To what degree can the people of this nation be trusted to make their own decisions? What role should the Federal government play in the lives of American citizens? These policy distinctions have been made abundantly clear, and the voters will give their verdict in November.

But Republicans and Democrats do not disagree about the greatness of America, or the importance of being true to its core values. It is important, even in this season of politics and campaigns, to remember how far we have come together.

Time and again, American servicemen and civilians have stepped forward to render assistance across the world: to feed the hungry, to defend the helpless, to oppose tyranny. Why? Why do this? Why sacrifice the flower of our youth, the riches of our industry, the energy of our people in this way? Not because it was in our national interest—for often, it was not. Not out of imperial ambition—our nation was born in defiance of empire, and will oppose it for all times, and have fought and will forever fight the forces of empire, to our dying breath. No. We did this because it was the right thing to do, because to do otherwise would be to reject values so close, so essential to the American spirit that it would be an act of national suicide.

We disagree, sometimes vehemently, with our opponents. But fundamentally, we do not question their patriotism. We question their judgment, their reasoning, and their arguments. That is how it should be. I hope they will extend us the same courtesy.

But I pray, plead, and beg our distinguished opposition to remember that our hard-won values and traditions are not yet universal. As Americans, we have done our best – and will continue to do better – to stay true to our better angels, and to promote democracy around the world. For it is human nature to seek liberty, however difficult the road, over the safety and comfort of the most gilded cage.

But not all have embraced this path, and some are threatened by our democratic principles. There are those that would do us as much harm as they could, who would slay innocents, even our children, in cowardly, dishonorable attacks, who would spread lies to divide us—anything, in their desperation, to destroy America. We must never forget that America’s enemies are real, and they are dangerous.

We are a nation of laws. But the international environment is a wilderness, with potential friends, but also proven enemies. It is our sacred duty, as representatives of the people, and citizens of America, to oppose evil, ancient and modern, wherever we must. We are not warmongers. We oppose them because it is right, because that is the role demanded of us by our history and our honor— just as it has been demanded of all previous generations of Americans. We pray that we will have the courage and wisdom we will need, borrowed from our common history and shared with each other, to defend American values from all enemies.

I respect the contributions of the Democratic Party, and of its membership. My ire is not directed toward them, for they, like ourselves, are at our best when we serve the people. Though we may disagree on policy and method, I believe that we share fundamental principles that speak well of both our parties, and of this nation. They are sometimes misguided, but they are our brothers and sisters. We both believe the words of our great, first Republican president: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” And the array of present challenges facing our nation will require the full resources of all individuals of courage and ability.

No, I save my disdain and harsh words for the forces of division and disloyalty that seek to rend our united will with voices reduced to noise, to cloud our minds and dilute our will with falsehoods. Of them I have this to say: They are opportunists; they are demagogues; they are duplicitous and unscrupulous charlatans. They would be laughable in their desperation, were it not for the fact that they seek to strike a mortal blow to our Republic. Knowingly or unknowingly, they are helping our enemies abroad when they seek to turn us against ourselves. They dishonor themselves, and cower behind the protection offered by the very American principles they demean.

Their strategy is simple: they seek to shame the American citizen. They act to drag our flag, our history, our very self-respect through the mud. They would have us disown and dishonor our heritage and the sacrifices of those who came before under the golden calf idol of progress. They would have us turn against ourselves and destroy the best of America for any of their false gods. They would turn the words “American” and “patriot” into epithets.

I have no doubt that they will fail, and that American principle and honor will prevail over the forces arrayed against us. For I have placed my faith in the American citizen. That faith has been justified, countless times, even when I, personally, was unworthy of the blessings and second chances given to me by that most noble and most humble of men.

American citizens deserve that faith. For it is the blessing, and burden, of the Republic that the citizen knows he will have to live with the consequences of his actions. The burdens of high taxes, of uncontrolled government spending, of social policies, of restricted liberties, of the disgrace of failing to leave a better nation and stronger economy for those who are to come – these he is asked to bear. And so, burdened by conscience, but strengthened by native courage, the American citizen votes; he speaks, he fights, and, across all professions and all walks of life, he serves his country. He serves no party, not even our Grand Old Party; he serves the nation, however he can, however he must.

The day we stop trusting the American citizen to do what is right is the day the Republic ends. Those of us who love this country, who owe everything to this country, will fight to the very end to ensure that day never arrives.

It is that faith in the American citizen that the technocrats of this administration and some members the elite media underestimate. It is ridiculed as outmoded thinking, inappropriate for a modern, complicated world. They call it quaint, naïve and simplistic.

But the truth is, sometimes, very simple. We make no pretensions to being a complicated people. But we are a brave one. We greet the dawn as Americans of ten generations have; with both sword and outstretched hand. It is how our diverse and variegated society finds, in spite of differences and disagreements, the spirit to grow and thrive.

We place our faith in our God. We place it in the American soldier, the American engineer, the American teacher, the American doctor, the American protestor, the American factory machinist, the American construction worker and the American entrepreneur. We place it, even, yes, in the Democrats. Whether we know it or not, whether we like it or not, our lives, and our souls, are daily placed in the common peril of a world seeking to tear itself apart, and daily saved by the courage, industry, and dignity of an army of familial strangers. This is not an exaggeration—this is simply the way we live, the way our society functions. This simple faith is what keeps us safe and gives us the courage to meet the modern, complicated world head-on. Our faith in the character of the American citizen, of the free individual, makes us the envy of the world, and on the right side of history.

We cannot continue to trust this young, inexperienced man, however bright and well-spoken, however well-intentioned, with the future of our three hundred million citizens--with the future of the entire world. Our country chose the allure of youth over the experience of age four years ago, and even those who made that choice have come to regret it. Yet through it all, we have served, for our duty requires that we serve always, and not only when it is convenient, and that we protest when it is right, and not only when it is popular. We respect his heart, his demonstrated intellect, and his gifted oratory. We respect his love of this country. But our commitment to the American people demands our dissent and opposition, and demands a new President..

The will of the people must be served, and it will be, in November. And the message will be clear to both victor and vanquished: work together to restore American greatness.

Let America’s natural drive for industriousness and justice be fully unleashed. Give business the tools it needs to race forward. Give the individual citizen the dignity of independence, the respect and deference earned by his actions and the sacrifices of ten generations of fallen heroes. Give our soldiers our confidence, our material support, and our prayers. Reaffirm our solemn vow to use them only when we must, and to honor their sacrifice by remembering them in war and in peace.

Do not be afraid to be noble, to be proud to say “I am American” with stentorian confidence. For, in all of human history, there has never been a title as great as that of “American citizen”. It is the most unforgiving in its demands of responsibility. But with it comes the most generous of rewards realized by mortal man – dignity, honor, and liberty.

Let us remember and live the words of the great American clergyman, Phillips Brooks: 

“Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks! Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle. But you shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come to you by the grace of God.”

March forward, Americans. Take back your country from the forces of division that seek to shame us, to manipulate our natural honor and integrity for their own gain. 

March with eagles in your eyes, charity and humility in your heart, and the wisdom of the ages in your mind. 

March with the confidence of righteousness and experience. 

March with the confidence that you carry the flame of ages to a darkened world. 

We carry each other to the Promised Land, to the Shining City upon a Hill. 

We carry on, to tomorrow, to eternal glory. 

We do this because it is right and it is honorable. 

We do this because we are Americans, and refuse to live any other way. 

May it be said, a thousand years from now, of our dark time, that men and women of integrity, of vision, of compassion, and especially of courage, made their voices heard, stood against the forces of evil, and prevailed. And may it be said we did so united, one nation under God, indivisible, with justice for all.

Thank you, and God bless America.


-Demosthenes

HSBC gives the bird to its North American retail banking customers

I realize that HSBC is getting out of the retail banking business in North America. Still, it's a dick move to have this on the homescreen for its North American personal banking page. (Note the URL.)

I took this on March 10. Haven't seen it in recent logins - maybe someone smart figured out that it's bad to kick a man when he's down, especially if you're pulling money from his not-so-free-anymore checking account.

A Grim Trigger Strategy for Israel and Iran

One of the blessings of being an unknown, unimportant voice in the blogosphere is that my opinion matters so little, even to my own family and friends, that I can make a statement without fear of retribution or consequences. I do not expect those in power or responsibility or reputations worth defending to speak as plainly as I intend to now. But, one vainly hopes that plain words can, indirectly, promote reevaluation among those who do not have the luxury of that personal indulgence.

In an era of more limited resources and domestic inflexibility, American foreign policy may need to clarify its interests and reevaluate any commitments in which neither interests nor values are served.

For these reasons, I suggest two "grim trigger" strategies to modify existing American policy:

1. An ultimatum to Iran to suspend its entire nuclear program and submit to IAEA inspections within nine months, or face military reprisals.

2. A clear statement to Israel that if they attack unilaterally, all aid will be immediately suspended.

Iran:

Iran has demonstrated its inability to cooperate within the guidelines of the global community. Perhaps even more tragically, it has brutally demonstrated that reasonable voices of dissent are both unwelcome and powerless within the Iranian state. No one should wish ill upon the people of Iran for the folly of their leadership. But we also must recognize the limits of our power, diplomatically, economically, and militarily, to effect regime change anywhere, especially Iran.

Unfortunately, this means that the Iranian people are largely on their own. God willing, we will not attempt  nation-building in a country with over twice the population and four times the land area of Iraq, a nation that, religiously, linguistically, and historically, has found itself at mortal odds with most of its neighbors. Such an invasion and occupation would make the folly of Iraq look like Grenada.

At the same time, one should be pessimistic about the outcome of diplomatic efforts. Both Russia and China are not subject to the rules of either liberal democracy or a self-identity founded upon liberalism. Russia, in particular, has demonstrated a particularly brash willingness to support Syria to provide it strategic access to the Mediterranean. Both nations, because of their geography and demography, also have a vital interest in crushing self-determination movements of any form. They are, in short, not reliable partners in containing Iran, and cannot be trusted to adhere to sanctions. I pray that our national leadership never becomes so populated with fools that we would ever trust our national security to the whims of these two international actors.

Furthermore, Iranian possession of a nuclear weapon would severely damage the power of the United States to effectively negotiate. The North Korean experience indicates that containment is possible only given the conditions of (1) powerful, proximate allies, (2) powerful, proximate adversaries who, because of their own interests, serve to restrain the regime, and (3) a weak enough technological and military capacity that major shipping lanes are not affected. The Iranian situation has none of these, leading to the conclusion that containment would be impossible, and long-term disruption of American interests inevitable, should Iran possess a nuclear weapon.

Sadly, inevitably, America is left with the option to do its best to, again, disrupt and destroy the Iranian nuclear weapons program. This means continued covert operations directed toward sabotage, which has already postponed the Iranian nuclear weapons program by at least a decade. But it will also mean an ultimatum to Iran: open up all sites to IAEA inspections and turn over nuclear refinement to an external party (Russia if necessary, but ideally someone else) by January 1, or the US will  direct strikes against Iranian nuclear installations, military as well as civilian, and associated anti-air defenses.

Israel:

That I am now reluctantly inclined to think that a strike against Iran may be necessary does not, in any way, moderate my frustration with Israel's efforts to push the issue in America. Although intended for a separate post, I have decided to address Israel in this statement as well.

 Lord Palmerston once famously said, "Nations have no permanent friends or allies. They only have permanent interests." (Nearly as famous was the requotation by Gorbachev to Thatcher, following the US-UK schism over the Falkland Islands schism).

A secret: America is not an exceptional nation. Neither is Israel. Both are subject to restrictions, natural and cultivated advantages and weaknesses, and the demands placed upon them by their respective systems of government and citizens.

Mature participants in the international community do not deny history. Nor do they use it as a shield against all criticism. They use it as a guide. The history of the United States tells us that there is danger in subordinating or confusing national interest in the name of satisfying the whims of a small, but seemingly indispensable ally, whether in the heart of Europe or in Southeast Asia.

The arrogance of the Israeli government in general, and Netanyahu in particular, of lecturing America while as a guest in the United States is egregious. I do not forget the approval of new settler homes during Joe Biden's visit, an obvious slap in the face to the Obama administration's request that the settlement process be at least temporarily stayed.

The political impossibility of any mainstream political candidate suggesting anything short of unqualified support for Israel reflects, if not direct coercion of US policy by a foreign power, the subduing of American interests through a combination of self-censorship and a powerful domestic lobby. Statements such as this are typically charged as anti-Semitic, even when made by Jewish-Americans with a demonstrated centrist or right-of-center political disposition and a record favorable toward Israel. (See: Joe Klein)

American policy must make it clear that if Israel attacks Iran unilaterally, the United States will immediately stop the estimated $3 billion in annual support presently given to Israel, most of it in the form of military aid. It is an appropriate response to what I can only consider the attempt by a foreign power to draft America into a war.

That I am concluding that a strike against Iran may well be necessary does not take away from the healthy and necessary aversion to American interests and policies being so roughly pushed by an ally.

Both of these would be considered "grim trigger" strategies. They deserve the name. Yet they also do represent a strategy consistent with American interests and limitations. And what is sorely needed, perhaps more than at any time in the post-Cold War era, is a consistent strategy founded on our interests.

A final note: I recognize that, for a range of reasons, one or both of these changes may need to be made secretly, or strategically leaked. They could be linked or not. There are lots of variations. But I would argue that these two policy changes hold the promise of improving the connection between our policies and our interests.

If I have done my job, I've pissed off more people than usual - those on the left and the right. So be it - I am not above changing my mind in the face of superior reasoning or information. I am not privy to all of the information that is germane to this issue. But now, you will need to speak up.

Democracy and Poo Poo

Everyone poops.

Even the majestic bald eagle.

Why? Because it's necessary to stay healthy. Not everything an eagle eats is healthy, or needed. The eagle poops out whatever's left over.

The poo poo gets recycled, and helps other things grow.

If the eagle doesn't go poo poo, then it gets constipated. And then, do you know what happens? It DIES.

Yes you did, Charlie Brown. You should have fed it more fiber.

We're approaching an election.

Elections are democracy's poo poo process. Sometimes, it works just fine.

Other times, not so much.

One problem is that, sometimes, people will try to confuse you about what is food and what is poo poo.

You can eat the poo poo if you want to; people will sell it to you in shiny gold packages.

But at the end of the day, you will have to face the fact that you gave away time and money to eat poo poo.

If that sounds bad to you, then don't eat the poo poo. Do your own research. Think for yourself. Vote.

THE END

Image credits:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everyone_Poops

http://www.nicolasdory.com/tag/bald-eagle/

http://www.quitsmokingpainlesslynow.com/category/world-no-tobacco-day/

http://friendsofbillhenry.blogspot.com/2010_02_01_archive.html

http://horstmann.com/hcmut/proglang2/introduction/#(1)

http://www.gaia-health.com/articles301/000305-poop-on-poop-transformation-of-crop-food-to-poison.shtml

http://www.cosplay.com/showthread.php?t=71021&page=1048

http://news.icanhascheezburger.com/2011/11/09/political-pictures-street-fighter-election-2012/political-pictures-street-fighter-election-2012-watermarked/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Hoover

http://www.nndb.com/people/360/000022294/

http://www.inquisitr.com/200801/rush-limbaugh-apologizes-to-sarah-fluke-for-calling-her-a-slut/

http://moronwatch.net/tag/shirley-sherrod

http://www.glennbeckisanidiot.com/

https://www.columbiaempirefarms.com/cart/searchlist.php?action=view&prod_id=793

http://restoringtruthiness.org/7136/superhero-phoenix-jones-tells-fox-news%E2%80%99-megyn-kelly-total-awesomeness

http://mybarks.com/dog-sniffing-another-dog-pooping/

http://www.tshirtbordello.com/Vote-For-Pedro-T-Shirt

http://www.ideann.com/images/Smiling_Face_Toilet_Seat_Applique.jpg

Haiku, origami, and the war

Today, Google celebrated the birth of Yoshizawa Akira with a Doodle, considered by many to be the preeminent origami master. My friend, Dr. Ann Martin, posted about another notable birth today, that of Osa Johnson, part of a running commentary about the gender represetation imbalance in Google Doodles.

But I am content that a Japanese man is celebrated for something other than science or hot dog eating. Besides, it's not a zero-sum game.

I know next to nothing about Yoshizawa-san. For my part, it is an opportunity to reflect on the small role origami played on my family.

First, although I am Japanese-American, I never was proficient in origami. Neither was anyone in my family. The few cranes I did fold were lamentably bad; should I marry someday, and desire to engage in this particular bit of tradition, I'm afraid I'll have to outsource the folding of a thousand cranes.

For those who don't know, a thousand paper cranes has, in recent tradition, symbolized good luck. My mother was very fond of the story of Sasaki Sadako and the thousand cranes. Sadako was a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bombing, and developed leukemia when she was about twelve. She began folding the cranes while in the hospital. It is said that she finished only 644 before she died. Her friends completed the remainder, and buried her with the thousand cranes. To this day, she remains a symbol in Japan of innocent victims of war in general, and nuclear war in particular. The Children's Peace Memorial in Hiroshima shows her carrying an origami crane.

My grandfather's family was from Hiroshima. I have heard he lost a sister in the bombing. My aunt was some miles removed from ground zero, but remembers the window glass shattering in her classroom.

But the real connection to origami comes from my grandfather's haiku gatherings. As I wrote previously, my grandfather was a gifted haiku poet; in another time, and given different circumstances, he might have been a literature professor and a professional poet in Japan.

My grandfather hosted haiku gatherings monthly at his house. I remember them fondly. I soon learned that Mrs. Okada made traditional, strange-tasting Japanese food, and that she spoke almost no English. Meiko (May) and George Sakoda, on the other hand, spoke fluent English. May, in particular, would always bake delicious cakes. Being a child, I naturally favored May and her cakes over the odd seaweed concoctions of Okada-san. Mr. Yamashita spoke no English, but always smiled, showing off his handful of teeth and looking older than Moses. At his funeral, I later learned he was an original "wetback"; he jumped ship in a California harbor to illegally immigrate to the United States during the period of strict Anti-Asian immigration laws. Mrs. Yamashita was a contralto who reminded me a bit of a dowager queen in the old-time movies.

I don't know if George actually wrote haiku; if he did, he was definitely nowhere near as prolific or accomplished as his wife. But he did manufacture origami. Over the course of many years, he ended up filling up the kitchen cabinet with cranes, buckeyballs, boxes - anything that one could conceivably make out of paper. Naturally, he gave some of these to me - I still have a couple somewhere, stored deep in a closet.

Many years later, while at the Sakoda house, I saw his garage; it was filled with origami. I also saw a diploma from UC Berkeley in Chemistry. My grandfather hadn't even gone to high school; my grandmother may have left school after fourth grade. I had assumed that his friends were in similar situations.

As it turns out, George had worked for the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, which researched the effects of the atomic bombs in Japan. He was fluent in Japanese and a trained scientist, and was a natural choice for the job. He didn't talk much about those days. In fact, I don't even know if his family was in an internment camp; it's possible he had relocated to the Midwest or the East Coast voluntarily, and avoided that. Still, in retrospect, I would have been interested to hear about his thoughts and feelings working with radiation survivors after the war. George was, no doubt, a loyal American, and his identity was American - still, how could one not feel some conflicted identity when faced with those circumstances?

I don't know if he folded origami for any reason other than he enjoyed it. But maybe it also served as a reminder... of what, I cannot say for certain.

George died a few years ago; May died last year. My grandparents died over ten years ago. Mrs. Okada, surprisingly, is still alive and healthy at the age of 98.

Those times were important to me - more than I knew at the time.

And so, I hang on to these memories, and these bits of origami. They are what remains.

Photo credits:

http://www.wikinut.com/img/qij-6wuu5-c1j57f/Children-s-Peace-Monument-in-Hiroshima. 

 http://x6x6x6x.deviantart.com/art/origami-crane-82168565

My rough macroeconomic thoughts (yeah, I shouldn't reply to CNN comments)

Ordinarily, I try to avoid reading comments on CNN articles. And I especially try to avoid replying to comments. But I found myself doing just that recently. It was in response to a question about the current deficits that appeared in an admittedly fluff piece about how the Nov. 6 date for a Presidential election has meant a Republican victory since the Civil War.

It was a good opportunity to get, in rough form, my understanding - limited as it might be - on the macroeconomic factors that make the debt question challenging, and why I'm inclined to answer "No, it's not a problem now. Maybe later, but not now."

Here was the question (possibly rhetorical, but I took it at face value):

Robert

Would some liberal Democrat please explain to me why we would want to re-elect a president who has racked up more national debt ($1.8 trillion) in his first four years in office than all 43 presidents before him combined ($1.3 trillion)? Why would we want to enslave our future generations to staggering debt they'll never be able to pay off? We haven't even paid for the debt racked up by President Kennedy 50 years ago! Why would we want to do this to our children??? Some liberal Democrat please give me a reasoned response.

Here's my full reply:


I really, really hope that this is not a rhetorical question. Although I suspect it is, I will reply as best as I can.

First, some points of clarification:
1. Debt measures are not always useful using absolute figures. Even ignoring inflation, an absolute amount isn't useful for assessing the ability of a country to pay off its debt. After all, this is what's used when a bank determines the creditworthiness of a prospective borrower. A standard, commonly used measure is debt-to-GDP. Admittedly, given this measure, one takes a historically huge deficit and makes it only merely pretty damn big.

2. Not all debt (and debtors) are created equal. Our debt-to-GDP ratio is somewhat lower (but not dramatically lower) than some of the so-called European PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain). But these countries are experiencing a severe debt crisis - the US is not. Japan, which has a debt-to-GDP ratio of around 300%, has seen its currency STRENGTHEN vis a vis the Euro and the Dollar over the last couple years. Why these differences? It has to do with governance, the structure of the debt (Japanese corporations and the government hold each other's debt - which is stabilizing for small crises, but leads to systemic failure in large crises, as well as reduced ability to reform....), and the economic outlook for each country. For all the histrionics, the US is still a comparatively good place to do business, with prospects for economic growth, pro-business regulatory environment, an educated workforce, and - even with tax increases on the horizon - one of the lowest tax rates in the OECD.

3. The ability and willingness of the debt holders also matters. As the vast majority of US federal debt is held by US citizens, corporations, and trusts, changes across currency, to first order, matter less to them than to the foreign debt holders of Greek debt. Furthermore, the outstanding US debt, even pre-Obama and Bush, was such that the debt holders recognized that outsize histrionics could actually make an imaginary crisis real. (For reference: see the debt ceiling debacle a little while ago.)

4. Economically, a country like Greece has numerous liabilities - overly generous public sector compensation and retirement ages, a lack of a viable domestic growth industry, coupled with the inability to exercise either independent monetary or fiscal policy (former because of the Euro and ECB; the latter because it is a member of the EU and, at least on paper, subject to Maastrict). By contrast, the US dollar is still the global reserve currency, which helps put a floor on demand as well as guaranteeing liquidity. The Federal Reserve is independent, and in general, effectively run and organized, as well as increasingly transparent (which helps the purchasers of debt feel that US monetary policy will not engage in wild swings).

For those, and other reasons (most notably good subscription and pretty low yields) I hope I've made the case that the US debt burden, while historically large, has not yet hit crisis levels.

But perhaps the most significant point I'd make is that there is good evidence that we were still in the regime where Keynesian countercyclical fiscal policy was valid and effective. The fact that there was no inflationary spike post-stimulus confirms this.

One of the things I've been shocked by is how vitriolic the opposition has been from the Right regarding the proven track record of Keynesian policy during recessions. Indeed, the second recession during the Great Depression during Roosevelt's second term came precisely because his advisers pushed a belief that the debt burden was becoming too large, and austerity necessary. (This plunged the economy into higher unemployment and undid a lot of the progress done by the New Deal programs up to this point.)

Does there need to be a long-term plan for the debt? Absolutely. Does it also need to incorporate a more cooperative, less hysterical political environment? Absolutely. Note that S&P's downgrade cited not the absolute amount of US debt, but the political standoff that made it clear that, politically - not economically - the US might have problems coming up with a credible debt solution.

Keynesianism, in practice, does suffer from the problem that government spending is a ratchet, instead of a switch. So, down the line, some sort of official or unofficial restriction on deficits would probably be a good idea. However, to proclaim austerity in the middle of a fragile "recovery" is not only unwise - it's downright foolish.

The problem with comparisons with kitchen table economics is that the US, rightly or wrongly, plays by different rules, and is permitted to do so. We, as individuals, do not have a broad mandate to issue debt, change the amount of currency in circulation, or adjust interest rates via a discount or federal funds rate mechanism. We don't have a reserve currency.

One final point: it's also limiting to track responsibility solely by the budgets passed under an administration. First, one has to consider that Congress and the President aren't necessarily in lock-step (especially lately). It's a bit disingenuous to shift blame on Obama when Congress approves the budgets. It's equally disingenuous to place the responsibility of the Iraq war on President Bush when a vast number of Democrats voted for the war.

I haven't seen details of this, but if we really wanted to apportion "blame" - or more constructively, do a post-mortem and figure out what not to do again, it might be better to track policies and programs that helped us get to where we are today. So, given a certain amount of economic losses in the last few years, consider which fraction belongs at the doorstep of the repeal of Sarbanes-Oxley (under Clinton's administration and a Republican Congress), which fraction belongs to the expansion of home mortgages without corresponding oversight (largely, but not exclusively, Democrats under presidents of both administrations), what fraction is due to poorly conceived tax cuts for capital gains and the wealthy (largely Republicans, under administrations of both parties), and what might be due to the collective failures outside of government - Wall Street, bad lending practices, fraud by individuals on mortgage applications, overleveraging on households....

Under that picture, there's plenty of blame to go around. It's a bit disingenuous to lay it all on the new-ish guy's feet, especially given that he's has a Republican House since the 2010 elections (and a rather wimpy/difficult to manage majority in the Senate his entire term).

Such is the viewpoint of a somewhat left-of-center Democrat. But what do I know? I'm a physicist that took graduate level econ classes at Cornell - not a trained policy analyst or an economist.

WolframAlpha is interesting, but occasionally farts

I was using WolframAlpha recently as a graphing calculator. For those of you who don't know, WolframAlpha is a remarkable site that serves as a graphing calculator, computational tool, and aggregator of information. You can do a search for lots of things - not all technical in nature.

It is generally reliable, although I did run into a problem in which it returned only one of two correct roots (a quadratic involving sixth roots, or something like that; unfortunately, I didn't save the output.)

I was once curious about the demographic trends between Brians and Ryans in America. To my delight, it appears Ryan will soon become the dominant name in America.

Maybe Brians will have their names mangled, for a change.

But, occasionally, the outputs are really weird.

I'm not sure how I got this output - maybe I accidentally clicked on something. Maybe the book I was reading at the time somehow bumped the right set of keys. But I ended up with this.

Contrasts it with a query involving an actual celestial object.

I think God is telling me to get in touch with my roots. Either that, or Sanrio and WolframAlpha are engaged in a massive conspiracy to take over the United States using kawaii pilots.

70 years is still too soon. Who in the world thought this was a good idea? 

The history behind "Bad Romance: Women's Suffrage"

If you haven't yet seen this spectacular parody/tribute of Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance", then do yourself a favor and watch it immediately. It uses the famous song to tell the story of first wave feminism - specifically, Alice Paul and the Women's Suffrage Movement.

I knew precious little about the American Women's Suffrage Movement prior to this video and the research it inspired. But I guess that's the point of videos like this - to raise awareness and interest into the stories that are at least as interesting as this music video. Based on comments on Youtube and elsewhere, it appears lots of people are as ignorant as I was of the rich history in this video. This brief post will hopefully provide some context.

Alice Paul was a spectacularly remarkable woman. She grew up in a Quaker community that believed in equality of the sexes. As the eldest, she displayed remarkable responsibility and intelligence - she has enough degrees to make everyone else in America feel like complete morons. (They include a Bachelors in Biology, a Masters in Sociology, a PhD in Economics. She also earned a LL.B., LL.M., and  D.C.L. - law degrees). She learned how to be a "militant suffragist" in England, and was beaten and jailed during protests. She and others protested their confinement by engaging in hunger strikes. The institution guards tried to break the strikes by forcibly feeding raw eggs. The spit move isn't just a tribute to Gaga's original video - it is a reflection of what actually happened while Paul was incarcerated.

She later brought her knowledge of tactics and protest to the United States, experiencing similar handling by the police, but ultimately successful in pressuring the Wilson administration for a vote. She organized the National Woman's Party (NWP), an independent organization from both political parties and the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).  Interestingly, the split came about because the NAWSA leadership didn't feel it was the right time to push for a Constitutional amendment. Paul led a march the day before Wilson's first inauguration and organized the "Silent Sentinels" outside of the White House. Her full biography, definitely worth reading in its entirety, appears at the Alice Paul Institute website.

She was unflinching in her commitment, and reminiscent of Lenin in her belief in a small, motivated group to move mountains.

I never doubted that equal rights was the right direction. Most reforms, most problems are complicated. But to me there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality.

It is better, as far as getting the vote is concerned, I believe, to have a small, united group than an immense debating society.

Alice Paul, as it turns out, was also a vegetarian.

It occurred to me that I just didn't see how I could go ahead and continue to eat meat. It just seemed so... cannibalistic to me. And so, I'm a vegetarian, and I have been ever since.

Update: Mary Jane Lindrum of Soomo Publishing, the producers of the music video, informed me that the anti-suffragist vignette is actually taken from a contemporaneous political cartoon.

I just want to provide a little more information about the anti-suffragist scene in the video. It's based on a political cartoon that appeared in Puckmagazine in 1915. You'll see that it features a satirical anti-suffragist and pokes fun at those who did not support voting rights for women. You can find it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:POTD/2011-08-18 and here:
http://www.nwhm.org/online-exhibits/rightsforwomen/cartoons.html 

The second major story arc concerns the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. President Wilson was initially reluctant to push the issue of women's suffrage - however, after persistent protests, and influence by his strong, intelligent wife (arguably the first female president, if one considers the time when Wilson was incapacitated by a stroke), Wilson decided to push for its passage as a "war measure". (Both WWI and WWII saw gains by women, socially and economically.) The proposed amendment passed in the House but failed in the Senate; a year later, it squeaked by in both chambers. The amendment was sent to the states for ratification.

It came down to Tennessee, in which the pro-suffragists (the yellow roses) squared off against the anti-suffragists (the red roses). Gail Collins of the NYTimes describes the vote with her typical combination of humor and insight in a 2010 Op-Ed. But here's the gist of the story. Alcohol manufacturers and distributors, worried that women's suffrage would lead to Prohibition, handed out samples on the day of the vote. Both pro- and anti-suffragists were pretty piss drunk by the time the vote happened. After initial deadlocks, Harry T. Burn, a 24-year old legislator, and the youngest member of the Tennessee House, changed his vote from "nay" to "aye". The measure carried by a single vote. It is said that Mr. Burn had to escape out a window and hide in the roof for a few hours. The anti- forces tracked down his hotel, but he had fled town by that point.

He later justified his vote by saying it was the right thing to do, and also cited a letter from his mother that told him to vote for suffrage.

Page 2 of 7 of the letter Harry's mom sent him.

Page 6 of 7 of the letter Harry's mom sent him. 

The letter is about a wide range of things, but the parts relevant to the suffrage debate are these:

From page 2:
Hurrah and vote for suffrage! Don't keep them in doubt! I notice some of the speeches against. They were bitter. I have been watching to see how you stood, but have not noticed anything yet. 

Page 6:
Don't forget to be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt put the "rat" in ratification 

Burn directly cited his mother's letter as a reason for why he voted for suffrage.

 [T]hird, I knew that a mother’s advice is always safest for a boy to follow and my mother wanted me to vote for ratification.

(More details available in this pdf.)

On the video itself:

One thing I was asked a few times: why no women of color? That's actually an interesting question. From what I've gathered, African-American women formed their own groups (the National Association of Colored Women), partly because, outside of New England, women of color were not allowed to be members of white suffrage groups. Also, these groups had slightly different priorities - they were concerned with Victorian sexual morality, temperance, and economic social rights of women. But they were also actively working against Jim Crow laws and lynchings. W. E. B. du Bois came out in favor of women's suffrage, while other African-American males, including Booker T. Washington, were against it. This source has some good background on the position of African-Americans on the issue of women's suffrage.

As far as Asian-Americans and other races - well, it's notable that women received the vote in California in 1911. However, Asian-Americans, even citizens, faced increasingly severe restrictions, economically and politically, throughout the period leading up to World War II. I've written a bit about those in a previous post.

The video cleverly illustrates that women didn't stop baking, raising children, and doing laundry after they received the vote. The fears raised by anti-suffragists that women would desert the household en masse proved unwarranted.

I forgot to include this earlier - the phrase "Remember the ladies" is a reference to a letter Abagail Adams wrote to her husband, John, pushing him to support women's suffrage at the birth of the Republic. She was unsuccessful - however, it's fair to say that she was a prototype for empowered American women.

Finally, I'd like to point out the differences in the opening and closing scenes.

Opening Scene

Closing Scene

Note that in the opening scene, the husband and wife are on opposite sides of the shot. However, in the closing scene, they are together, and actually moving. The husband puts an arm around his wife and plays with the child, suggesting that suffrage actually brought some families closer together.

The policeman, in the beginning, is standing in an aggressive posture. At the end, he is seated. This perhaps reflects the end of hamfisted police action (at least when it came to white women).

In the opening scene, the suffragists have their faces covered. At the end, they have their faces revealed. They have come out from under the shadow of anonymity, and can now proudly, openly, be empowered women. (Or, is this commentary on the covering of Muslim women?)

It was prudent to display the male politicians in the back. Sometimes, we forget that real history is made in the streets, not the statehouse. Politicians, even those of courage and vision, are often merely confirming what was created by those in the trenches of the fight.

I was a bit confused that the anti-suffragist woman disappeared. Was she merely a symbol? If she were converted to the suffragist cause, wouldn't she appear in the final scene? There were probably a not-inconsequential minority of women who were anti-suffrage, just as there is a not-inconsequential minority of women today who claim to be anti-feminist.

Again, this isn't meant to be a comprehensive review. But I loved this video too much to just let it pass without comment. I strongly encourage you to read up on this fascinating chapter - there are obvious parallels to today.