JayB

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.

Back in what day? My house is right around 3400 sq ft and it is a hundred years old. Why is it suddenly a "mansion". And for everyone else out there ready to tell me I should live in a 600 sq ft studio--fuck you. One of the many things I like about living in America is I can live wherever the fuck I want. Just so happens, I chose to live in the best thing in the best place I can afford (all subject to my own opinions and tastes obviously). And I agree that changing the status quo on this deduction sucks; many of us factored that into our purchasing decisions (it doesn't change my ability to live in my home--but I have other homes I also finance and use as income property). Our tax system is screwed--but don't fuck the middle class in the ass til the ass is worn out. Try taxing the uber rich, the mega hedgefunds, equity brokerages, and the corporations at the same rate those of us in the middle class get taxed. At least pretend to be fair. Corporate versus personal tax schedules here: http://www.smbiz.com/sbrl001.html#ci Share of income and tax burdens by income bracket: Where's the write-off and credit section? that is where the rub is. I believe the chart shows actual receipts, so the figures are net of write-offs, credits, etc. Really? That wasn't apparent to me when I followed that link and looked at the page. It just lists rates. Furthermore, I don't see on that little graph where personal taxes are seperated from corporate taxes. Do you? I think that the chart in question deals only with taxes paid by individuals. This link: http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html Shows share of total income and share of total (individual) taxes paid by income group from 1980-2004. "The top-earning 25 percent of taxpayers (AGI over $60,041) earned 66.1 percent of nation’s income, but they paid more than four out of every five dollars collected by the federal income tax (84.9 percent). The top 1 percent of taxpayers (AGI over $328,049) earned approximately 19 percent of the nation’s income (as defined by AGI), yet paid 36.9 percent of all federal income taxes." Whether you think that this is fair or not is a matter of perspective.

If discussing some generalities which relate to Craig in some fashion were the same thing as defending Craig, then you'd have a point.

I'd actually be in favor of full legalization of all drugs, extending the legal benefits of marriage to any two consenting adults, etc - but this isn't about my policy preferences. I've just been arguing that there may be people who may feel that their lifestyle choices may not be an ideal template upon which to base the construction of public policy. So long as they're candid about their own behavior, I don't think that charges of hypocrisy are warranted. Different standards apply to different behaviors - especially those involving consensual behavior between two mentally competent adults, or behaviors which don't harm anyone else directly - but I think there are cases in which one can engage in behaviors and still conclude that they should be condemned, illegal, etc. I don't think that Patrick Kennedy, for example, is under any ethical obligation to argue that driving while gorked out on prescription meds should be decriminalized because he was caught doing so. T

Back in what day? My house is right around 3400 sq ft and it is a hundred years old. Why is it suddenly a "mansion". And for everyone else out there ready to tell me I should live in a 600 sq ft studio--fuck you. One of the many things I like about living in America is I can live wherever the fuck I want. Just so happens, I chose to live in the best thing in the best place I can afford (all subject to my own opinions and tastes obviously). And I agree that changing the status quo on this deduction sucks; many of us factored that into our purchasing decisions (it doesn't change my ability to live in my home--but I have other homes I also finance and use as income property). Our tax system is screwed--but don't fuck the middle class in the ass til the ass is worn out. Try taxing the uber rich, the mega hedgefunds, equity brokerages, and the corporations at the same rate those of us in the middle class get taxed. At least pretend to be fair. Corporate versus personal tax schedules here: http://www.smbiz.com/sbrl001.html#ci Share of income and tax burdens by income bracket: Where's the write-off and credit section? that is where the rub is. I believe the chart shows actual receipts, so the figures are net of write-offs, credits, etc.

Back in what day? My house is right around 3400 sq ft and it is a hundred years old. Why is it suddenly a "mansion". And for everyone else out there ready to tell me I should live in a 600 sq ft studio--fuck you. One of the many things I like about living in America is I can live wherever the fuck I want. Just so happens, I chose to live in the best thing in the best place I can afford (all subject to my own opinions and tastes obviously). And I agree that changing the status quo on this deduction sucks; many of us factored that into our purchasing decisions (it doesn't change my ability to live in my home--but I have other homes I also finance and use as income property). Our tax system is screwed--but don't fuck the middle class in the ass til the ass is worn out. Try taxing the uber rich, the mega hedgefunds, equity brokerages, and the corporations at the same rate those of us in the middle class get taxed. At least pretend to be fair. Corporate versus personal tax schedules here: http://www.smbiz.com/sbrl001.html#ci Share of income and tax burdens by income bracket:

What about older houses that are poorly insulated and equipped with extremely inefficient appliances? Seems like total consumption would determine who has the highest eco-virtue, not necessarily the size of the home.

It isn't. The question was whether it's possible for someone to make a distinction between their personal choices and what they consider to be the correct public policy. Another example might be a senator who smokes cigarettes but votes for higher taxes on cigarettes, for the elimination of subsidies for tobacco farmers, etc. because he's convinced that policies which reduce the number of smokers would be beneficial for the country. In order to be a more accurate parallel, you'd have to have an openly gay legislator who declined to support pro-gay policy initiatives, or a legislator who routinely criticized smokers while taking drags in secret - but I think that there are cases in which someone can conclude that their personal conduct or preferences aren't an ideal model to base public policy upon or to promote via legislation and decline to do so. For my part, I think that a certain degree of candor regarding one's own conduct crucial for anyone that wants to straddle this line without being a hypocrite.

We have a convoluted tax code with "checks and balances" throughout it. The tax rate is progressive and based on income. Deductions are based on individual expenses and financial burdens balanced with benefits to society and the economy as a whole. Deductions themselves are in turn limited and based on income - e.g. the AMT. The deduction for a "child" (there are at least 2, three if you are poor enough) is for a dependent, which can include an elderly parent. The deduction helps the family afford care for that parent - otherwise the state would have to pay for said care. The deduction for a child makes it easier to afford the basics for taking care of the child - food, shelter, health care, education, music and sports lessons, etc. Take away the tax credit and something else MUST give. Another deduction that has not been mentioned is for cost of adoption. Families are reducing the state's responsibility for an orphan or unwanted child by adopting, at a great personal cost. The benefits to society should be obvious. There are deductions for moving more than 50 miles, for having a disability, for having exhorbitant health expenses, etc. And then of course there are the benefits for employer-sponsored 401(k)s. Why should that be a deduction? I mean, if you choose not to save money, that's your choice right? And employer-sponsored flexible spending programs - why should you get a tax break for paying your insurance premium, buying sunglasses, etc - we all have those bills, right? In short discussing removal of one or two specific deductions in isolation is ludicrous. They are all part of a complicated progressive tax system. The alternative is actually something like the "flat" tax, which may seem like an enticing alternative, but I strongly suspect it would actually prove worse than our existing system. I agree with most of what you wrote here, especially the part about modifying two deductions while leaving the remainder untouched. I haven't invested any time in comparing flat-tax regimes with complex tax codes like our own, but there are a few states that have made the switch and it would be interesting to see what their collective experience has been. Aside from the uneven distribution of subsidies, exemptions, etc is the problem of corruption that is inherent in such a system. When an entire industry depends on tariffs, subsidies, or tax breaks for it's existence, or when some particular group stands to reap a substantial windfall from some modification to the tax code, this can only promote corruption of the law and/or the tax code for the benefit of some subset of society. I doubt that there's any system of taxation which eliminates these outcomes entirely, but it's hard to argue that a simplified tax code would be any worse than the system that we're living with at the moment.

Just to stir the pot a bit, isn't it possible to engage in a behavior and still believe that it's wrong, or destructive, or dangerous and shouldn't enjoy the sanction of the state? Take the case of an elected official who frequently gambles a significant portion of his net worth, but believes that legislation which eliminated restrictions on gambling would be contrary to the public interest? Is this position entirely untenable from an ethical perspective?

Not from P-Chem or DiffEq's if my experience is any guide. Still remember writing "Go Huskies!" on the final question of one of those exams, which was good for 1 point out of 10....