NYTimes on Secret Lives.... and bloggers?

"I think what people are doing on the Internet now," she said, "has deep psychological meaning in terms of how they're using identities to express problems and potentially solve them in what is a relatively consequence-free zone."

I think the definition of cyberspaces as "consequence-free" understates the degree to which people take their on-line activities and identities to heart. But the discussion of multiplicity and secrecy certainly is interesting.

Brilliant twisted humor

Via The Sideshow:

This post at Mahablog has a good point about Newdow's latest crusade: Personally, I would think an atheist would approve of the religious trappings of the Bush inaugural. If Bush takes the oath of office with his hand on a Bible and is not struck by lightning, that's proof there is no God.

I just love the number of people and positions which get skewered in this compact little moment. Nicely done. Funny, too.

A Likudnik is a ...

Turns out that Israel's Likud is as faction-ridden and diverse as either of the American major parties. One, in particular....

Think, THEN speak: Probation edition

Amy's short list of things not to say to your probation office..... useful information, to be sure.

Let Madmen Set Our Agenda

The Madman of Chu thinks that the US would do itself some good if we solved the Israel-Palestinian problem (two states, of course) and made massive inroads into our oil dependency. He's right. Very right.

Our current administration is doing neither. Who's mad?

IQ and Marriage don't mix?

Apparently higher IQ is associated with better marriage prospects for men, but worse prospects for women. Very striking numbers. Ironically, it demonstrates that "IQ" is only a one-dimensional measure, because I've never been interested in anyone who wasn't as smart as I was, and married someone who's smarter in several dimensions. Best decision I ever made, probably.

Wal-Mart v. Libertarians (and the rest of us)

William Marinara, of Liberty&Power, points to this review of scholarship on the largest retailer in the country. He refers to it, ironically, as an example of "heroic capitalism" and I think it does present a grave challenge to the libertarians with whom he blogs. Wal-Mart relies heavily on legal and governmental institutions to keep its labor force low, routinely violates fair labor practices, and is heavily subsidized by federal and state governments:

For a two-hundred-employee Wal-Mart store, the government is spending $108,000 a year for children's health care; $125,000 a year in tax credits and deductions for low-income families; and $42,000 a year in housing assistance. The report [February 2004 report by the Democratic Staff of the House Education and Workforce Committee] estimates that a two-hundred-employee Wal-Mart store costs federal taxpayers $420,000 a year, or about $2,103 per Wal-Mart employee. That translates into a total annual welfare bill of $2.5 billion for Wal-Mart's 1.2 million US employees.

Wal-Mart is also a burden on state governments. According to a study by the Institute for Labor and Employment at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2003 California taxpayers subsidized $20.5 million worth of medical care for Wal-Mart employees. In Georgia ten thousand children of Wal-Mart employees were enrolled in the state's program for needy children in 2003, with one in four Wal-Mart employees having a child in the program.

What's the alternative, they might argue. Wal-Mart provides jobs (though rarely more than they take away, particularly when you factor in the outsourcing and cost-squeezing they impose on their suppliers), pays minimum wage or higher (though that's far from a living wage in this country, particularly for anyone who isn't single and childless), nobody is forced to take them (debatable), and they are immensely successful at bringing desirable products (well...) to purchasers at low prices. But the true cost of Wal-Mart's products is considerably higher than the ticket price, or even the ticket price plus sales tax. One way or another, Wal-Mart's customers are paying the full cost of Wal-Mart's labor, but because they've managed to shift the burdens to the state, those costs are hidden.

Full disclosure: I shop at Wal-Mart, sometimes. Mostly for things which are difficult to find otherwise in a small town, and almost entirely for things which, if I didn't buy them at Wal-Mart, I'd be buying them at another national chain store, because that's what we've got a lot of. I have nothing against large companies as such, or efficiencies of scale and real productivity increases; I do have something against companies that abuse their power, violate law and shift expenses from their customers to the taxpaying public.

Now, to be fair, many governments, though history, have subsidized corporations for developmental purposes, to maintain stability or growth, to maintain independence in some strategic product or skill, and though the results are mixed from a purely economic standpoint, non-economic purposes have often been well-served. Wal-Mart doesn't seem to me to fulfill any of those functions, at least not particularly well. Libertarians, in particular, who object to the government's intrusions into markets, should find this sort of pointless subsidy of bad business practices quite objectionable.

Product Feature: Sleep Volume

Most TVs and some stereos have a "sleep" function which will turn off the music at a set time. But when you're putting a child to sleep you need something more gradual. A slowly declining volume, with a variable end-time.

I have a stereo with clock-alarm capacity, and one of its settings is to get progressivly louder at thirty second intervals (by the end of two minutes, it's quite unpleasant to be in a small room with it). Something like that, but backwards, slower, and adjustable.

It'll sell like hotcakes for the parental set. Within two years of introduction it'll be a standard feature on mid-range boom boxes. And, of course, the cute-kiddy stereo market is still underserved. Perhaps because good features didn't exist?

Quotations #032

"An atheist is a man who believes himself an accident." -- Francis Thompson

"It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it." -- G. K. Chesterton

"Revolution is not a dinner party, nor an essay, nor a painting, nor a piece of embroidery; it cannot be advanced softly, gradually, carefully, considerately, respectfully, politely, plainly and modestly." -- Mao Zedong

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents, but rather because its opponents die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." -- Max Planck

"If money is your hope for independence, you will never have it. The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability." -- Henry Ford

Quotations: Other Sources -- Ferenc Szasz on History

My quotations come from my own reading, though I admit that "my reading" includes books of quotations.

Here's another source: History Quotations compiled by Ferenc Szasz.