JayB

BeaverFest. l01dOVMd5vA

http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/26/pf/jobs_jeopardy/

IMO: it seems to be a selfish psychological drive to have kids in the first place. But hey, that's just me. You're saying that reproduction of the species is a selfish psychological drive? I would've thought it's more of an inherent evolutionary drive. I was gonna say hormonal, but maybe you pegged it. Without fail, once a society accepts birth control and becomes financially sound and fairly secure; people have fewer children--to the point where often there aren't enough kids being produced to replace the existing population. So I would think the "hormonal" drive seems to have a little merit, but not a whole hell of a lot. People often get control over their "hormones" when not having a litter of six is a viable option. Interestingly - the fertility rate for first and second generation Americans with Mexican ancestry is substantially higher than that of Mexicans. I think that the same is true for several North African populations living in Euroland, but I'd have to check to make sure. I suppose it comes down to how one defines "selfishness," but I don't know how, under any definition of the word, refusing to have children because it will interfere with your career goals, make it tougher to afford the dream-home, make travel and socializing more complicated, etc - could be construed as *less* selfish than having children. I also think that - imagine this coming from me - there are economic factors that heavily influence reproduction choices on a country-by-country level. One obviously selfish motive for having children is so that you'll have someone to look after you when you can no longer care for or provide for yourself. When the state assumes a legal obligation to provide for the elderly, the odds are good that this motive is no longer as forceful, and this factors into people's decisions about the way they'll live their lives. Ditto for the societies in which children add to, rather than ameliorate, the financial burdens on the parents. I'd also venture that the extent to which young people are taxed to support the elderly has an effect on their reproductive choices, whether consciously or not, as responsible people who are in households where both parties have to work full time to earn enough after-tax money to get by aren't as likely to have children, IMO. Complicated issue, to be sure.

I think there's already some research coming out showing that micro-managing kids lives down to the minute and engineering every ounce of physical out of their lives is hardly a foolproof method for producing a happy and productive adult. Seems like a significant amount of the changes in parenting over the past 50 years have been driven by the psychological needs of parents rather than any objective consideration of what's actually good for the children. When they canceled track and field day in favor of a bunch of gay-ass sharing games, and make us wear badges that said "I am lovable and capable" I new that things were going seriously awry, even as an eleven year old.

Making a fortune suing doctors over birth defects which they had no control over, then opposing legislation to create a state fund that would help families with children cope with the said defects since provisions of the said legislation would curtail the very lawsuits he'd made his fortune with, then investing a substantial portion of the profits in, and deriving fees from an offshore hedge fund that's foreclosing on homeowners in New Orleans as a consequence of sub-prime bets gone bad, all while lambasting offshoring, unscrupulous subprime lenders, etc every day on the campaign trail...the economic equivalent of Senator Craig's "wide stance" in the bathroom stall. The man is a sack, but thankfully he has zero chance of securing the Democratic nomination.

RE: your first paragraph, you of all people should know better. Price is set by what the market will bear, not by the cost of goods sold. People pay more for food produced sustainably and naturally (whether certified organic or not) because it is more nutritious, contains less unhealthy ingredients, and because many consumers want to patronize farmers that are good environmental stewards. whether or not overall inputs for organic farming are greater than for conventional. One thing has become clear, however: organic farmers make higher profits per unit of output than conventional ones. If consumers are willing to pay more per-unit for organic crops/produce, and organic production yields more profits per unit (and any loss in production per-acre that occurs is more than offset by increased profit-per-unit), then it's quite a mystery why all conventional corn/soy/wheat/citrus/vegetable/etc farmers haven't either converted, or undertaken efforts to convert their entire production to "organic" methods. If the difference between the price that the market will bear for organic produce and total production costs is $2 per unit, and the same difference comes to $1 per unit with conventional production, and the organic yield per acre is at least 51% of the conventional yield per acre, then the farmer who is still using conventional production methods is behaving irrationally. Even if you assume that there are costs associated with converting to organic production methods, farmers will be able to make some assumptions about the persistence of the price differential over time and determine whether or not it makes sense to make the investment. Factory farms and agribusiness may or may not care about any number of factors, but I have yet to hear anyone claim that they are not concerned with profits, so why they haven't adopted methods that are both less capital intensive and more profitable is another mystery. Presumably it's not because their own marketing materials have duped them into doing so. Still think there's reasons why farmers choose to use conventional production techniques, despite the price differentials. Other point is that the said differential will inevitably dwindle and eventually disappear as supply meets demand. This is good news for anyone who cares whether there's an organic label on the food that they purchase.

Nope. It's not in a realm of thought that I'm likely to dedicate much time to. If I read anything concerning Christianity, it's likely to be scholarly histories dealing with who wrote and modified the texts, under what circumstances, and for what purpose as opposed to anything that actually takes the contents of the text itself seriously in their own right. If it's a prolonged apology for the tale of Lot, it sounds as though it's something that should be fairly easy to summarize, though.

Is there a book of apologetics for just about every line in Deuteronomy as well?

You'd probably get hired in about 6 hours and qualify for a paid move if you decided to look in the greater Boston area. I could never live anywhere East of the rockies... don't know how you do it, Jay. Lots and lots of alcohol... In my case, the thing that complicated my "never live East of the Rockies" plan was marrying someone who had to move to Boston for a 3-year residency. If all goes according to plan, the 36-month-long nightmare will be over at 12:00AM on June 31st of next year. Having said all of that, and despite loathing Boston with a pathological intensity, I have to say that if someone put a gun to my head and forced me to live the rest of my life East of the Rockies, I'd probably choose New England - but I'd be in New Hampshire, Maine, or Vermont, or the Adirondacks instead.

Good to know. I'll have to start looking into this more closely before the planned unemployment commences next July.

You'd probably get hired in about 6 hours and qualify for a paid move if you decided to look in the greater Boston area.

The biotech job-market in Seattle seems to have been plummeting into oblivion from the late-90's onward. Is anyone out there still smoking the "Biotech will replace the IT/aerospace jobs in Seattle" crack?

Well, KK, here I am still unemployed. My six months of health coverage that was covered by my employer has expired. I will now write a check for COBRA coverage for $1500 each month. I assume that you've looked into a catastrophic plan? I was paying ~400 a month for 3-4 months before I realized that I should have gone with a catastrophic plan with a $2K deductible instead. Could have almost covered the full deductible with my premiums if I would have done that from the get-go. Catastrophic premiums were ~50/month, and when I did need care and paid out of pocket I got the benefit of in-network rates. Also - are you still eligible to get retroactive coverage 60 days out when the company stops paying the premiums? You might be able to arrange for a cat-plan to start on the day the 60 day window closes and spare yourself $3K worth of premiums without forsaking coverage for a single day. Not sure if you can pull this off without mucking with all of the continuous coverage business, though.

Another, perhaps.. http://orgprints.org/8234/01/lee_fowler_system_comparison_methodologies.pdf

Something that reads like a decent side by side comparison at first glance. http://ecommons.library.cornell.edu/bitstream/1813/2101/1/pimentel_report_05-1.pdf

If the yields are identical and the costs are the same, then they must have altruistic motives for producing any crops via conventional methods and forsaking the organic price premium. In the real world, I'm sure that there are quite a few constraints that constrain the crop choices and production methods of any given farmer, but if a farmer can make more money selling crops that they have the right combination of land, expertise, climate, water-rights, etc to produce - by switching production to "organic" methods then they'd be foolish not to. Having said all of that, I suspect that there is a price premium for organic food over and above the real difference in unit-production costs, but I wonder how much of the delta is being captured by the farmers versus the merchants. If most of the price differential is captured by the folks selling the food at the local OrganoMart, as opposed to those growing it, I suppose this could provide an explanation for why farmers haven't been more responsive to the retail price differential.

However, none of these can account for the persistent difference in the money-price of organic vs conventional produce. I'd posit that organic produce costs more because the total value of the inputs required to produce a given unit of organic produce is greater than the total value of the inputs required to produce the same unit of produce with conventional methods. If you are just talking about yields in terms of units of mass per acre of a given crop, I have a hard time believing that whatever constitutes a consensus definition of organic farming actually achieves the same yield as conventional farming - not based on any personal expertise, but on the assumption that if farmers could use "organic" methods and generate the same yield-per acre - they would do so, so long as the savings generated on fertilizers, pesticides, etc were greater than any additional costs that they might incur by adopting these methods. If someone has some real data that they can share, that would be interesting to look at, though No argument about ending subsidies.

From R.G. Ingersoll, 1899. "The Devil" Some excerpts... "A little while ago I delivered a lecture on "Superstition," in which, among other things, I said that the Christian world could not deny the existence of the Devil; that the Devil was really the keystone of the arch, and that to take him away was to destroy the entire system. A great many clergymen answered or criticized this statement. Some of these ministers avowed their belief in the existence of his Satanic Majesty, while others actually denied his existence; but some, without stating their own position, said that others believed, not in the existence of a personal devil, but in the personification of evil, and that all references to the Devil in the Scriptures could be explained on the hypothesis that the Devil thus alluded to was simply a personification of evil. When I read these answers I thought of this line from Heine: "Christ rode on an ass, but now asses ride on Christ." .... "Neither will it do to say that the Devil -- the Serpent -- was a personification of evil. Do personifications of evil talk? Can a personification of evil crawl on its belly? Can a personification of evil eat dust? If we say that the Devil was a personification of evil, are we not at the same time compelled to say that Jehovah was a personification of good; that the Garden of Eden was the personification of a place, and that the whole story is a personification of something that did not happen? Maybe that Adam and Eve were not driven out of the Garden; they may have suffered only the personification of exile. And maybe the cherubim placed at the gate of Eden, with flaming swords, were only personifications of policemen. There is no escape. If the Old Testament is true, the Devil does exist, and it is impossible to explain him away without at the same time explaining God away." ... "Many of the clergy are now ashamed to say that they believe in devils. The belief has become ignorant and vulgar. They are ashamed of the lake of fire and brimstone. It is too savage. At the same time they do not wish to give up the inspiration of the Bible. They give new meanings to the inspired words. Now they say that devils were only personifications of evil. If the devils were only personifications of evil what were the angels? Was the angel who told Joseph who the father of Christ was, a personification? Was the Holy Ghost only the personification of a father? Was the angel who told Joseph that Herod was dead a personification of news? Were the angels who rolled away the stone and sat clothed in shining garments in the empty sepulcher of Christ a couple of personifications? Were all the angels described in the Old Testament imaginary shadows -- bodiless personifications? If the angels of the Bible are real angels, the devils are real devils. Let us be honest with ourselves and each other and give to the Bible its natural, obvious meaning. Let us admit that the writers believed what they wrote. If we believe that they were mistaken, let us have the honesty and courage to say so. Certainly we have no right to change or avoid their meaning, or to dishonestly correct their mistakes. Timid preachers sully their own souls when they change what the writers of the Bible believed to be facts to allegories, parables, poems and myths. It is impossible for any man who believes in the inspiration of the Bible to explain away the Devil. If the Bible is true the Devil exists. There is no escape from this. If the Devil does not exist the Bible is not true. There is no escape from this. I admit that the Devil of the Bible is an impossible contradiction; an impossible being. This Devil is the enemy of God and God is his. Now, why should this Devil, in another world, torment sinners, who are his friends, to please God, his enemy? If the Devil is a personification, so is hell and the lake of fire and brimstone. All these horrors fade into allegories; into ignorant lies. Any clergyman who can read the Bible and then say that devils are personifications of evil is himself a personification of stupidity or hypocrisy." Read the whole thing... http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/devil.html

If the total value of all of the inputs required to bring one unit of organic produce to market were identical to those required to bring one unit of produce generated by conventional agriculture to market, and the only factor making the price of organics higher was effective demand (not higher per-unit production costs ) - eventually enough farmers would respond to this price signal and grow only organic crops, until at some point the price disparity between organic crops and crops produced via conventional methods would disappear.

The common thread here is that subsidizing corn-ethanol production to the tune of 50 cents a gallon, while imposing a ~50 cent a gallon tarriff on ethanol imports from poorer countries that can produce ethanol way more efficiently with way less impact is just as dumb as all hell - both from an environmental and economic standpoint.

Today NPR had a public health expert being interviewed about the protocols of toe-tapping, etc at public restrooms. "I'll take 'Topics I Didn't Expect to Hear Addressed on All Things Considered' for $1000, Alex."

Actually, I think that since Mike Vick engaged in dogfighting himself, he'd clearly have to conclude that he'd have a moral obligation to argue for the promotion and/or decriminalization of dogfighting by means of specific legislation was the only morally and intellectually defensible posture for him to adopt in his capacity as a congressman. There are cases where legislators have an obligation to preach what they practice - and I think that's the case with closet cases that vilify gays - but I don't think that this principle is extensible to every single aspect of their personal behavior, especially in cases where the legislator in question is candid about his own conduct and frames his opposition in terms of policy outcomes rather than moral sentiments.

I agree. I still think there are real and hypothetical cases involving other behaviors where someone could live one way and legislate another without necessarily being a hypocrite. In most cases they'd have to be candid about their conduct and careful with their rhetoric in order to avoid wearing the scarlet H around D.C. Not the case with Craig, could be the case in other situations involving other persons.

Unfortunately there is some truth to this. The last thing a prinicpal wants is a parent calling about their child... or about anything for that matter. So if a kid is failing and a parent is on the phone with the principal pressure is put on the teacher. In many cases a parent phone call bypasses the teacher because the student tells his Mom that the reason he's failing is because the teacher hates him. After hearing from the parent a couple of times the principal will use the code words to the teacher of "try something different." In other words make it easier or let something slide. I taught at a small town Washington school for awhile where I told the kids that they would not pass my Freshman English class if they didn't pass their book quizes. They had to read two short novels in a semester and I would test them on the content of those novels as many times as they wanted...but they had to pass the quizes to pass the class. If they didn't read the books, it didn't matter what else they did, they wouldn't pass. Now these weren't hard quiz questions. An example of one might be, "What was the real Lord of the Flies? Hint: it was impaled on the end of a stick." If you didn't read Lord of the Flies, you wouldn't get this. But if you read the book, it would be simple to answer such questions. My principal told me that if he were in high school he didn't think that he could pass my class because of the book reading requirement. He forced me to dumb down my class. As much as politicans and internet posters would like to make education a partisan issue, it really shouldn't be considered one. My principal at that school was a hard core conservative...but I don't think that had anything to do with his actions. My wife is an elementary school art teacher and they are not allowed to give prizes for quality. They can't have competitions because a child's ego might get hurt if he or she doesn't win. KaskadskyjKoak would like you to believe that those of us who are liberal are on board with such a policy. This is not at all the case. My wife -- who is liberal -- would love to give prizes for the best art in her classroom. Indeed, she sees competition as a way to increase quality. I think you could find many many many examples of things that don't align with one's idea of partisan politics in education...and it drives me nuts when education is bandied about by politicians the way it has over the last few years. Though both political parties like No Child Left Behind, teachers on both sides of the aisle see it as problematic because it doesn't address many of the root problems in education. It doesn't take quality educational models into account and put them into action. There are some simple ways to fix most of the problems in education and they don't lead down the path to standardized testing. How about lowering class sizes and raising parental accountablility? How about paying the best teachers the best wages for working in the most difficult educational environments? How about raising the bar on disruptive student behavior? Ultimately teachers ARE responsible for helping kids with their self-esteem. But they are also responsible for teaching the kids...and part of teaching kids is teaching them that they are not always going to come in first place, but also teaching them that if they work hard they have a shot at it. I think schools would be much better off if the teachers had more control over these types of things instead of less due to restricive policies, political wrangling, and half-assed educational administrators. Jason Just curious - how do you feel about differential pay for different disciplines? I don't know too many people who will argue that it's quite a bit more difficult for the average person to acquire a B.S. in Physics than a B.A. in Social Studies, but as far as I know physics teachers and social studies teachers get the same pay.