incipit vita nova

Milton Friedman Slams "Michael Moore"

The young guy in this video really is thought to be Michael Moore, today's much larger filmmaker.

However, it's not Michael Moore!

 

This young man asks Friedman about the unsafe nature of the Ford Pinto, with an exploding gas tank. The true situation with the Pinto is a bad business calculation made by Ford - frequently given in business ethics textbooks. Ford really did calculate it would be less expensive to tolerate the eventual lawsuits that came from its car's cheap construction and instability in rear-end collisions, than it would be to improve the car's safety. They were mistaken, as just one of the resulting lawsuits cost more than their original calculations.

HOWEVER - one of the reasons this young man was thought to be Michael Moore is, he argues that Ford should do whatever it takes to save any human life, and says that any cost would be justifiable as long as it would prevent even one life being lost. A minute later, he says, "I'm for abortion and I don't think there's a right to life." This guy's totally at sea with Friedman. It's pretty funny even if it's not Michael Moore.

 

Blood Lite 2: Halloween Hilarity

Courtesy of editor extraordinaire Kevin Anderson, we're all pretty happy that Blood Lite 2: Overbite, the anthology of hilarious horror stories, is now available in an affordable mass-market paperback edition.

Blood Lite 2 features "The Epicurean" by me, about Vanpirs, a vampire suffering from a terrible disease of civilization - high blood cholesterol. Poor, poor Vanpirs.

 

 

Reese Hopkins: Almost Free

Reese Hopkins was falsely accused of child rape . . . now, years ago! Reese spent over 2 years in Rikers Island, unable to pay for a private attorney or pay for bail. He had his first trial in March, which was declared a mistrial - but the jury voted 11-1 to acquit Reese. His second trial is coming up within days.

The young woman who accused Reese has changed her story many times. Reese was alleged to have committed the crime years ago, and the young lady made a very serious mistake. She stated Reese raped her when she was only age 11 - but gave the time and location an apartment that not only wasn't occupied by Reese, his girlfriend and stepchildren at the time - it was not OCCUPIED AT ALL. That's right, a man sat in jail for over 2 years and is still not 100 percent free based on a charge easily able to be disproven immediately. The accuser, by the way, now says the "crime" occurred at a different month and time. Her descriptions of the rape from time #1, to the March mistrial, are almost completely opposite.

And, the detective to whom she made the original accusations, is now the only witness for Reese Hopkins' defense. That's right: he no longer believes the accuser. He is testifying as to what he was told prior to Reese's arrest, so the jury can contrast it with the current accusations. However, I believe that the young woman will not be testifying at all at this time.

 

 

Copenhagen Rocks! (Science-Wise)

In August, the Centre for Geogenetics at the University of Copenhagen reported that there had been large fluctuations of Arctic sea ice in the past 10,000 years, including long periods of time where less than half of the amount of ice seen today was present. Sometimes when I think about efforts like the Franklin Expedition, discoveries like this seem so ironic. They need not have lost their lives, if they were not searching for a passage that was sometimes open, sometimes not. If they had a concept of change, which I am certain wasn't as tangible as it is today - and it's still not very tangible - they might not have invested so much time and effort for such a fruitless pursuit.

The bad news the study reports is that there is a clear connection between global climate change and current reductions in the level of sea ice. The good news found by the study is that from 8,000 to 4,000 BCE, there was much less sea ice, but it was still able to regenerate itself as temperatures cooled. The period between 8,000 to 4,000 BCE is called the Holocene Climate Optimum, a warm period (warmer than today) following the most recent Ice Age.

I Missed The World's Biggest Margarita!

Jimmy Buffett and the Wounded Warrior softball team celebrated the opening of Jimmy's Margaritaville Casino at the Flamingo Las Vegas on Friday.

I can't believe I missed it, because they also made the world's largest margarita, which was certified by the Guinness Book of World Records!

This big baby is an 8,500 gallon margarita that will serve over 180,000 people called "Lucky Rita" and it's still on sale to the public: it's going to last a while. It was mixed up in a casino-sized container. For ever gallon sold, Margaritaville Casino will donate $5 to the Wounded Warrior softball team. All of the team members have suffered an amputation from being wounded in Afghanistan or Iraq. But they look extremely happy in this picture, which is the point of the Wounded Warrior project.

Set Dun Lady's Jess Free

Talented writer Doranna Durgin has worked very hard to revert the rights to her beautiful novel Dun Lady's Jess from Canadian publisher Fitzhenry & Whiteside. A lot of people have featured this situation, so I am coming a bit late to the situation, thanks to a heads up from Elizabeth Moon.

In today's publishing environment, situations like this are extremely bad. In common language, Doranna agreed with the Canadian publisher to reprint a paperback edition of her book Dun Lady's Jess, which was her first novel, and an award-winning reader favorite with a beautiful story about a horse who is magically transformed into a beautiful young woman, gaining human personality and intelligence, but retaining her inner nature as a horse all along. If you love horses and romantic, exciting fantasy stories, I highly recommend this book, but for the time being, even if you wanted to buy this book from the Canadian publisher Fitzhenry & Whiteside, you would have a challenge.

That is because Fitzhenry & Whiteside has 1,600 copies of the book in a warehouse, but it isn't available outside of direct order from them. They are not putting the book in the wholesale and distributor catalogs that bookstores order from.

Doranna included a specific reversion clause in her contract with this publisher, and they signed it. This type of clause means that if the publisher does not keep the book in print and available in bookstores, the author has the right to ask for her rights back, so she can sell and publish the book elsewhere, and it can be in bookstores.

After many polite and appropriate requests which the publisher denied, Doranna turned to the Science Fiction Writers of America Griefcom. This effective committee is usually able to resolve matters of this type quickly and well. In this case, Fitzhenry & Whiteside were not more cooperative with the Science Fiction Writer committee members. They told Doranna that she could buy all 1,600 books in the warehouse if she wanted the rights to her own work back.

Needless to say, they are not abiding by their contract, and their statement that she should buy these books is not done in the professional publishing industry. When I first read the statement, I was reminded of vanity presses that cheat unsuspecting and inexperienced authors by printing large numbers of books and selling them directly to the author at a high cost.

So . . . don't let this go by. The Fitzhenry & Whiteside representatives even said that the Science Fiction Writers volunteer representatives were "harassing" them by requesting they follow the contract. This is very bad, and Doranna's book should be set free. She should not have to sue this company to enforce her own contract. Even worse, there's no way to understand why the company has done this. It is difficult to see how this would benefit their business, and with the bad publicity now ensuing, it certainly will not.

Covers . . .

Krugman and Reality

"It’s a terrible thing when an individual loses his or her grip on reality," wrote Paul Krugman in the NY Times yesterday.

Points up: good grammar.

Points for content . . . ? . . . The article is all about how terrified he is the GOP could take control of the White House. It's like EEEE!!  EEEEE!!! The whole article is written in shorthand, and makes me wonder even more WTF this guy did to obtain a Nobel Prize and why he has such a bully pulpit.

By the way, I am sympathetic to the cat. He has another that looks to be almost as large as his wife.

Not missin' too many meals there, are ya, Paul? (Yes, I know that was a cheap shot).

He seriously writes this stuff every week - and gets paid - and here's where he was at a year and a half ago. I'm not sure who is more out of touch with reality - Krugman, people who read his stuff and believe it, or . . . it can't be the cat. Cats are usually very in touch with their own version of reality.

I just updated the "recovery" chart. This man seriously writes whatever he wants every day in the NY Times, he has a national platform and receives international awards. I think to be accused of being out of touch with reality by this guy is the highest form of praise. I had to make the red line go down because "they" figured out they could not possibly continue to report over 10 percent unemployment back in 2009. Anyone who is unfamiliar with the mathematical goalpost-moving that allows the Bureau of Labor Statistics to report whatever figure they wish as "unemployment" reported to the public should probably review this information.

American Jobs Act Blog "Bush League"

Forgive the analogy. I'm referring to the old baseball semipro league analogy for "not ready for the big leagues yet" concept.

I looked at the American Jobs Act information on the White House website last Saturday. An online commenter expressed a desire to go read for himself, and I went to check to see if the budget chart I had read with the line items and amounts was still there.

The separate chart appears to have been removed. A smaller version now appears at the end of the Fact Sheet and Overview of the American Jobs Act on the White House Blog.

Granted, I write for a living, and I have had this blog since 2003, though I've only been active in the past few years.

The way this official blog looks is . . . the nicest thing I can say is "Bush League." Not only have changes been made to budget line items since last Saturday (the date on the blog is September 8), different information has been added. It was hard to understand before. Now - it's impossible. All the additions appear to refer to either new "selling points," or to items that Republicans supported in prior years.

The additions appear in completely different fonts and styles from the original. In many sections, bullet points are mixed with numbers. Bullet points don't necessarily "go" with each other or act coherently under each main category heading, which theoretically is supposed to fit with the different budget expenditure categories proposed in the American Jobs Act. 

And toward the bottom, this paragraph appears, which I will cut and paste preserving its original formatting and spacing:

Social Security Trust Fund Would Not Be Impacted by Payroll Tax Cut: As with thepayroll tax cutpassed in December2010,theAmerican Jobs Act will specify that Social Security will still receive every dollar it would have gotten otherwise, through a transfer from the General Fund into the Social Security Trust Fund.

I think some of this is a result of cutting and pasting from both Word and Adobe PDF documents into the blog, with no effort made at examining coherence and formatting, before or after.

Possibly this may be an argument for the "millionaire and billionaire tax," so that someone with a moderate amount of skill can be hired to edit and present the White House website. 

An Unexpected Confidante for President Obama

Amid news reports of his increasing isolation, President Barack Obama has turned to an unlikely confidante in addition to long time advisor David Axelrod. Apparently in search of a different cultural perspective, President Obama has begun a series of late night VoIP calls via the Skype service to North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il.

White House insiders report that it's likely loneliness, and a shared interest in musical song and dance numbers.

When contacted for comment, White House spokesman Jay Carney hesitated before asking, "Kim Jong-who?"

"I'm so woneweee, so wonewee so wonewee and sad," said the senior Kim when contacted for comment.