Disqus - Friends of JohnPaul

Re: ketan.org >> Radiohead experiment response described badly

ketan — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 23:25:34 -0000

Indeed, which makes it all the more significant how they mischaracterized the situation.

Re: ketan.org >> an argument against a bailout

ketan — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 23:29:01 -0000

The super-flipper is a two-headed turtle. He's a curiosity. The other guy is a much more typical example, both for gauging how bad things are going to get in general, and also to serve as a warning for others. The bankrupt flipper isn't so useful as a warning for others because there are like 1/1000 as many people like him.

Re: ketan.org >> public universities in football

ketan — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 23:32:36 -0000

I wouldn't require players to go to college first before entering the NFL. Is that even a formal requirement? I know it isn't for the NBA (Kevin Garnett, et al.), and probably not for MLB.

The popular sports may subsidize scholarships for the less popular ones, but I'd be surprised if that amounted to a whole lot. I assumed that the contribution back to academics of the football program included those scholarships. I could be wrong. Even so, I don't see the benefit of giving a scholarship for athletics to someone to go to college, especially if it's someone who wouldn't ordinarily meet the admissions criteria in the first place. I don't think the trend for athletes to skirt the actual education is so easily dismissed. Indeed, that actually emphasizes the waste because it's throwing good money at people who waste it. Why not get rid of all the unprofitable sports (to the extent allowable by Title IX) and just use the proceeds for regular, merit- or need-based scholarships?

Re: Theme-able comment textbox

ketan — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 13:42:44 -0000

And make it much bigger.

Re: ketan.org >> the facts may have changed, but my position remains the same

ketan — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 16:47:56 -0000

Retroactively to 2003?

Re: ketan.org >> against birth gifts

ketan — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 17:40:28 -0000

I agree. A birth gift isn't necessarily shallow, sexist materialism. In theory, it can be profound, thoughtful, and reflective of marriage as an equal partnership between two people. However, if most of the time it is shallow, sexist, and materialist, the theory is irrelevant. We make decisions based on what's probable, not what's possible.

What's likely to happen in our society is that the birth gift is going to be another one of those things like the diamond engagement ring: something many women want because they've been trained to want it and men get because they know it's expected. That's not universally true, of course, but how can you really know that you're different? How can you be sure it's something that comes from you, and not from social conditioning? Buck the trend and find your own, personal, unique way of honoring the occasion (not that you necessarily need to honor it at all).

A gift "just because" has only appreciation and consideration behind it. A gift that aligns with a cultural norm is less "pure" in some sense because there's more driving it.

Re: ketan.org >> the first woman president?

ketan — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 22:31:03 -0000

Look at the shiny game, Tetris addict!

http://www.chainfactor.com/

Re: ketan.org >> against the minimum wage

ketan — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 19:29:01 -0000

That's an economic that I specifically avoided because it does not seem to have convinced people, including me.

Re: ketan.org >> against the minimum wage

ketan — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 00:22:44 -0000

None of that relates to what I was trying to say. Those are economic arguments. As I mentioned above, I was not convinced by the economic arguments against the minimum wage. My statement about "it" having nothing to do with economics was a poorly anteceded pronoun; I was referring to my opinion.

My comment about teenagers was to indicate that the minimum wage wasn't targetted for maximum utility.

On a "living wage..." People should get paid the wage they can get. I certainly agree with workers getting paid more. I certainly agree with regulations to make sure the employer/employee relationship is in some form of balance, so that employees aren't subject to reckless danger or harassment. However, nobody is owed a job. Nobody is owed a wage. I am perfectly happy to support people who cannot support themselves; indeed, to a point I'm even willing to support people who can but WON'T support themselves. If Wal-Mart won't pay enough for their employees to support themselves, I would like to see measures such as reverse income taxes like the EITC to make up the difference. That lays the burden on everyone, not just Wal-Mart shareholders. That's what I mean by it being a collective responsibility.

Re: ketan.org >> on affirmative action

ketan — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 00:38:05 -0000

They aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, but we can do a lot more. The quality of schools is very uneven. I think that improving the quality of the schools poor children attend would do a lot more than affirmative action. We've had affirmative action for 40+ years. It makes sense as a transitional step out of apartheid, but as a permanent institution? What are the exit criteria for the policy? How quickly is it reaching its goals? My sense is that it's not working fast enough, and maybe it's not working at all. Even if it is, my sense is also that affirmative action is a distraction. I fully believe that there are people who feel like affirmative action is enough and are unwilling to support doing more. Is Head Start is the be-all end-all of early childhood intervention? Are you claiming that the programs you mention are the best we can do? I assert we can do better. Affirmative action has had its chance, and I just don't think it's delivered. Yes, those are tenuous conclusions, lacking in specific recommendations. I apologize for reporting a bug when I don't have a patch to fix it. Boo hoo.

Re: ketan.org >> on affirmative action

ketan — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 14:01:21 -0000

The burder of proof isn't on me to demonstrate affirmative action is a failure. By definition affirmative action is an alteration of the "natural" state of affairs; the affirmative proof of efficacy is on the proponents of the policy. Do we have exit criteria for the policy? What sort of evidence would demonstrate to you that affirmative action is inadequate? For me, that progress in narrowing the inter-racial achievement gap appears to have stalled is meaningful. For another, that the policy doesn't make logical sense is another. There's also research that indicates that affirmative action in some circumstances may be worse than ineffective; it may be actively detrimental:

http://chronicle.com/free/v...

Affirmative action appears to have become the end rather than a means for some people, which is a red flag all by itself. Furthermore, since the widespread implementation of affirmative action in the 1960s, higher education has become much more democratic. The preppy networks based out of the Ivy Leagues, for example, no longer have a lock on lucrative Wall Street careers. If you do well at any one of the top 100 (US News rankings, say) schools in the country, you're going to have a bright future. That's a much bigger field than before. And if you CAN'T do well at those schools, maybe they're not the best choice for you, and affirmative action isn't much help. Potential employers are paying more attention to grades now; it's not about graduating from a short list of schools. In other words, admission to the top schools just doesn't matter as much as it used to.

As far as solutions to schools go, it's obviously a complicated area. One thing it doesn't seem to complicated by is empirical evidence. The arguments are invariably political and ideological. The biggest issue is unevenness between different schools across the country; compare the United States against, say, Finland in the second set of graphs:

http://economist.com/world/...

Yes, Finland is a much smaller, more ethnically homogeneous country, but there are nonetheless lessons to be learned. Americans are oddly and unfortunately reluctant to learn from the experiences of foreign countries.

The connection between affirmative action and reduced interest in alternatives is certainly not a clear one. Nor do I assert that eliminating affirmative action would automatically result in increased interest in the alternatives. The fact remains that mainstream America just doesn't care about civil rights and racial equality the same way they used to. White people are perfectly happy to tune out poor minorities, which is why things like the images from Hurricane Katrina came as such a shock. As long as they think they're doing *something*, they're not going to think too hard about whether they can do better/more or whether that something is actually effective. That's just human nature.

Re: ketan.org >> against the minimum wage

ketan — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 14:04:10 -0000

I think the minimum wage has so much support because it's conceptually simple, and the costs and inefficiency are hidden. A reverse income tax is both more complicated and easier to see coming out of the federal budget.

Re: ketan.org >> against the minimum wage

ketan — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 14:14:19 -0000

The economic issues that I "wave away" are the macroeconomic ones, and what I'm waving away is the evidence that the minimum wage is bad at a macro level. At a micro level, I certainly agree that the minimum wage has a substantial impact on poor families. The issue isn't that it is worthless, but rather that we could be doing more good with the same expenditure. Also, note your numbers: only 15% of the increase in minimum wage went to poor families? That's pathetically inefficient. It's $11B more wages with only $1.6B going to poor families, while the EITC expansion alternative would have been an expenditure of $2.4B to yield $1.4B to poor families, or about 58% of the money.

I don't think corporations are part of us. They have too many privileges (not rights; only people have rights). Rather than add responsibilities, I'd rather take away privileges. Furthermore, your comment about the costs being passed on to the rest of "us" is much like the trickle-down theory of tax cuts for the wealth, except in reverse. I'm not sure it happens like you suggest, and even if it does, it's still an economic distortion leading to waste.

Finally, I care nothing for "income redistribution." What I care about is absolute levels of poverty. We should spend what it takes to make sure that every American has:

1) water
2) food
3) shelter
4) medical care
5) access to education

If we can make sure that the elderly poor don't have to choose between heart medication or heating oil, or that little kids don't go hungry, I don't really care the minimum wage is $0.02/hour.

Re: ketan.org >> the rest of 2007

ketan — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 20:18:28 -0000

I just used the number of pages Amazon claimed.

Re: ketan.org >> people can be idiots with cars, too

ketan — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 19:02:34 -0000

Is that supposed to be a 2 girls joke? Because this is a family weblog...

Re: ketan.org >> down but not out in Hill-ville

ketan — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 12:06:03 -0000

Re: ketan.org >> blooper tuesday

ketan — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 21:19:44 -0000

I think you're right, though it depends on how you define "much better."

Re: ketan.org >> Hillary-hating

ketan — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 21:21:12 -0000

I'm referring to the people who dislike Hillary Clinton (or George W. Bush, or...) as individuals in a seemingly personal way. The feeling is so intensely emotional and visceral.

Re: ketan.org >> a decision tree for interventions

ketan — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 21:22:01 -0000

I'm not questioning the science; I'm questioning the economic structure. Where the economic structure is sensible and the science sound, the results tend to be pretty good.

Re: ketan.org >> 10 till 2

ketan — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 17:30:12 -0000

Pfft. Nobody was further from the actual than you were.

Re: ketan.org >> buy quality and you only cry once

ketan — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 14:37:17 -0000

I had a set of Dewalt bits that served me well, and the new Milwaukee ones I got are certainly stronger than the cheep Skil ones that keep breaking. My guess is that good bits come from the same brands that the good tools do.

Re: ketan.org >> essentials for the modern nursing mother

ketan — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:30:15 -0000

I don't download movies, just TV shows, and thus far it's only been shows that are broadcast over the air anyway. We don't have a portable Tivo, but we do have a portable DVD player.

Re: ketan.org >> cheaper washing machines

ketan — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 23:14:32 -0000

Yeah, Purex is a cheap detergent. It's also apparently just as good or even better than the more well-known brands. Sadly, like with numerous other brands, you can't get BOTH stink-free and high-efficiency; you have to choose. Given the noxious Tide wafting off my supposedly clean darks, we're going to pay a little more for All.

There seems to be some collective intelligence on the Interwebs about how to manage cloth diapers. I'm not concerned. The action of the washer seems like it would be more effective, and ours can easily be programmed to do extra rinses.

Re: ketan.org >> cheaper washing machines

ketan — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 14:46:26 -0000

If only Amazon still sold Veggie Booty... That would be something to subscribe to. They haven't had it since the recall, though.

Re: ketan.org >> the civilized way to do it

ketan — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 14:59:47 -0000

Well, does he take $17,000 in child tax credits every year? If so, then we're already paying. If he can't, then just apply the same logic that excludes him from those credits to the paternity leave.

I wouldn't want to cap the number of times or the number of partners because that's too much like social engineering via the tax code.