Tag: articles

happy birthday

We take a lot of criticism, much of it deserved, but the world would not be a better place w/o the U.S.

Not to mistake meeting and conferences for work and results.

“The mismatch theory is not about race. It is about admissions preferences, full stop. Mismatch can affect students who receive preferential admission based on athletic prowess, low socioeconomic status, or alumni parents. An important finding of mismatch research is that when one controls for the effect of admissions preferences, racial differences in college performance largely disappear.”

GoAir, an Indian low-cost carrier hires only female flight attendants because they are on average, 10-15 kg lighter than men. Such parsimony pays off. Fuel accounts for a third of an airline’s cost and every kilo thus shed reduces $100 from an aircraft’s annual fuel bill.

It was going to be Clinton v Bush again. I was a little unhappy with the dynasty idea, but it seems inevitable. Republicans seem not interested in the Bush alternative. IMO, Democrats would treat Clinton similarly if they had a real alternative. But it is true that both had an unusually difficult and unexpectedly bad year.

Mens sana in corpore sano

Everything is easier when people are well-behaved and polite.

“Economists, who can render the most exciting of material dull, will be more interested in the state of the galactic economy. Did the destruction of the Death Star at the end of the sixth film in the series trigger a massive financial crisis?”

A question and a comment. Why would you want to become a morning person unless you were in an occupation – like farming – where you depended on sunlight to do your work? And this article was obviously written by a young person. How do I know? Principle #1 Drink lots of water. It is hard to sleep when you are thirsty. Same for hunger and food. If I do that, I will not get a good night’s sleep at all, since I will be visiting the bathroom a half dozen times.

“Thanks to the industrious Bosnians, an entire neighbourhood in southern St Louis, Bevo Mill, was transformed from a crime-ridden area pockmarked by abandoned buildings into a decent quarter with small shops …Their community has lower crime and unemployment rates than among the general population. And they are better off: Jack Strauss of St Louis University has found that immigrants in the area, many of them Bosnians, earn on average $83,000 a year, or 25% more than those who were born in America.”

Better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven?

Take care of the dirt and the dirt takes care of everything else.

People wonder about the “next China” and fear that the best days of world growth are behind us. Africa will be the next world success story. Of course, not every country and it will not be like China to the extent that it is not one disciplined country. But – like China – countries of Africa are shaking off the old dirigiste ideas, in practice is not in theory. There is no reason why many of these places should stay poor. As national management improves, the next boom will be there. It seems impossible now, but I remember when the world wrote off China as perpetually poor. It was actually not a poor country just a country managed poorly. This is the general problem around the world.

We have had beavers on our land. They can be good or bad, depending exactly where they are.

They grow bigger with less food. We can have more fish with less impact on the environment. Many stores will bow to the pressure of misguided activists and not sell the product. It will, however, no doubt be available on Internet. I will be among the first to buy.

I posted an article a few days ago about the changing demography with lower population growth. Here is another example of the already changed world. Our immigration debate is about the past, not the future.
We had a few big waves of immigration from specific areas. The largest was NOT the Hispanic wave; it was Germans. We also had big waves of Scots-Irish, Irish and Italians. Each time it seemed like it would go on forever and each time it abruptly stopped. Looking forward, we will suffer a shortage of labor and will be hoping for more immigrants, at least those with specific jobs or skills.
Yesterday’s debate was about how to keep them out; tomorrow’s will be how to attract them in.

But Qiu and Turner aren’t calling for slashing cornfields or removing city blocks. Instead, they say it is possible to get big gains in freshwater benefits by making small changes in targeted places, such as adding rain gardens or parks to urban areas.
I love rain gardens, but they are surprisingly unpopular. I suppose that is because they tend to look a little untidy (just what I like, BTW) and people claim they attract animals, which they probably do and is another benefit.

We don’t need one at all. We now have a much more diverse energy mix and there is more flexibility because of technologies like fracking.

One of the good things about working in Brasilia Embassy was that there were no decent restaurants within walking or even convenient driving distances, so most of us had to eat at the cafeteria. I got to know my colleagues and I got to know a lot about what they were doing.

Weather in Arizona was very much like weather in Virginia at the same time. It rained – pretty hard – as we left Phoenix. The night before, we had supper at San Tan Flats. It was a very 1970s type place, reminded me of my college days parties. Just add 50 years to the party goers.

I guess that nobody owns pets anymore. Now humans are custodians who just clean up after them. Alex Sandoval and I took a walk in the hills near his and Lisa’s house.

The change has already happened. It is like the light of a distant sun. We are still seeing the past, since there are lag times of decades.
The big debate still going on is about immigration, too much. The debate will shirt to immigration – too little. Population growth in place like Mexico and South America is stopping. This means immigration from there will be/is stopping. We will miss the labor.
Half the world’s population already lives in countries with growth rates below replacement rate. Population will soon peak and then decline.

I did some research on Brazil’s population. The birthrate has fallen rapidly and now is lower than the U.S. and below replacement rate. Pensions are going to be – already are – a bigger problem in Brazil. People can retire very young.
We are facing aging and soon declining populations worldwide. The population bomb will implode in our lifetimes and we will be trying to get immigrants to come instead of trying to keep them out.

The problem with this story is that if it was not from a satirical publication we would assume it was from a real university.

I think we all need to stand up to these sorts of bullies. There were lots of mistakes made in the 1960s, when universities caved to ridiculous demands. It took decades to recover. We should not let that happen again to our institutions.
Speech should be free, except in instances of actual physical threat. Ironically, those activists calling for free expression for themselves are most eager to restrict it for others.

Cousin Elise and Carl have a very artistic house.

We stayed with cousin Elise and Carl at their house at Dove Mountain. It is a well planned development with natural areas preserved among the homes. I like the idea of mixing humans and nature. It is good for the human soul & allows for the sustainable preservation of nature when done correctly. The pictures are from the natural areas near their house.
You see my picture with the cactus. Carl saw my picture with my pine trees and liked the idea of the comparison. I have become a unit of measurement. This saguaro looks to be about five matels high.

It is hard for me to accept that there can be a mature forest that does not provide shade, but the saguaros qualify as forest and let most of the sun get to the ground. Saguaros are remarkable organisms. They grow slowly and can reach an age of 200. They grow only in the Sonoran Desert and are well adapted to the limited & seasonal rainfall. They soak up water when they can and save it for the dry times which always come.
The saguaros take a long time to get established. They often grow under the shelter of mesquites or palo verde trees. Later they return the favor by soaking up much of the water and out competing the nursery trees.

Galileo made Church officials uncomfortable when he saw the moons of Jupiter through his telescope. Young Einstein made universities so uncomfortable they tried to keep him out. In fact, different ideas make those with weak minds uncomfortable. They need to hide in “safe places.” That is okay if they want to hide, but when they try to make others “respect” their safe places, we have the right to object.
Any idea that needs a “safe place” doesn’t deserve to have one. The kids are not okay when they demand an endless extension of their safe children’s play space.

Chrissy and I had a couple beers at the Barrio Brewery in Tucson. The beer and the atmosphere was good. I like it that small breweries are popping up all over. They often do it in the old industrial areas, hard to find. But GPS makes them accessible.

One of the few places where you can drive from Mexico to Canada in about a half hour is Mount Lemmon near Tucson, at least you can pass through the biomes on your way up. As you make the vertical climb, you move from the Sonora Desert environment, through mixed woodland and ponderosa pine and finally get to a mixed pine-fir forest near the top. On the first picture you can see the various biomes lined up
The temperature at the bottom was a comfortable 65 degrees. At the top is was 37 degrees. Chrissy and I rented a convertible so that we could see and feel all the differences on the way and and we kept the top down, admittedly with the heater on, all the way up.

We may have a genuine culture conflict here. I have no doubt that it important to seek truth and that seeking it may – probably will – make people uncomfortable. Consider the other side, IMO the people trying to pull us back, – “It is your job to create a place of comfort for students,” the outraged Ivy League co-ed exclaimed. “It’s not about creating an intellectual space. It is about creating a home here.”

In a just system, the guilty should fear the law and the innocent welcome it. This poor guy was in danger of 40 years in prison. His crime was that he deleted two emails from his telephone, something he did evidently w/o malice and something he acknowledged doing from the very start. I guess deleting email really can be a serious offense.

The Riparian Preserve in Gilbert, Arizona was set up as a place to protect wildlife, but also – and maybe more importantly – to recharge local aquifers. Several shallow ponds are flooded to give treated wastewater and occasional runoff a chance to soak into the ground. Various ponds are occasionally drained and plowed so that the surfaces do not become too impervious to the water. It is a nice, green and peaceful area very popular with local residents as a place to walk and see animals.

I bought a 12-pack at Target, not expecting much since good beer does not come in cans, right? Well, the “Mama’s Little Yella Pils” is extraordinarily good. Really excellent creamy foam and good cling. I am not an expert like the guy who wrote the article linked, but I liked it so much that I am going to wander over to the refrigerator and have another before bedtime.

Mariza Matel – one more.

For Mariza Matel

We never “run out” of anything; we just find different ways to do things.

More green infrastructure.

Much of the best education is not relevant to the hottest issues of today. In fact, we should be looking beyond today’s newspaper (or cable news) to enduring values. And it is crucial to look beyond our personal identity. If we focus on the hot political topic of today, we will never get a worthy education. Keep politics in the political realm and let the rest to people.

Beats those clowns with the leaf blowers.

Public education is essential in a democracy, but it need not be delivered by a large public bureaucracy. In any system, there will be failures. The key to success is not to prevent all failure or even fix those that occur but rather to be robust enough to bypass and adapt, recognizing that some things cannot be saved and should be replaced.
This is why charter schools provide hope.

This worked out pretty well for all involved. If reason prevails, we can have a true diversity of opinion.

Super dogs.

History does not provide us with control groups for experiments, but it is unlikley that we have achieved the best possible outcomes. Now that China has become more open to the free market, although still very controlling, we forget the terrible times under Mao. We always have a “compared to what” in history. Chiang was a dictator and repressive, but compared to Mao…

I attended this event last week. Whether or not you like the subject, it is interesting to watch the speaker. Richard Epstein is a truly brilliant man, the kind you rarely see. I am not generally this much impressed by speakers. Take a look at the video and maybe pay attention to the Q&A, where virtuosity is particularly on display.

One of the dumber essays I have seen in WSJ. I think the professor reached exactly the wrong conclusions. It is not often you see something so completly wrong by a person who is supposed to know better.

This man is brilliant, in line for a Nobel Prize. How do you handle brilliant individuals who have serious moral flaws? Removing him from his work deprives society of his intellect. If someone can cure cancer, should we remove him on moral grounds? We need forms of punishment that do not cause our loss to be as great as his.

When you consider the whole environmetnal value chain, wood is perhaps the most environmentally friendly building material available.

In the U.S., we mostly harvest sustainably. Good to try to extent that model worldwide.

A good example of a problem that is an opportunity. Thinning is a good forestry practice. “But thinning trees is pricey: DEC regional forester John Wernet has gotten estimates as high as $2,000 an acre for a potentially 200-acre project in the largely pitch pine Rocky Point forest.”
Of course, in a rational universe, you SELL the trees to make paper and it costs nothing, even makes money. I plan to thin 86 acres next year and we will earn money. Of course, that is in Virginia where people still do forestry right. Profit is good. Strong markets mean strong forests. It is time we all relearn that lesson.

Pigs – the animals that keep on giving.

This is the nudge. So system is neutral, so you may as well design it – to the extent you can – to produce best results. A neglected road to success is to harness the power of inertia, sloth and procrastination. People will often avoid doing things, good or bad. It is good if the things they avoid are not good to do anyway. If you are too lazy to opt-out, it is a blessing to you to be opted in.

Article is interesting. Even more interesting is the picture with the shirtless Putin.

It is a sweet deal when you can borrow money essentially for nothing. In fact, it will be less than zero if inflation ever returns. But there is a moral hazard. If you load up on debt, even “free” debt, you still have debt. The USG is not like you and me. They pay off debt through economic growth, which increases tax revenues. But we are also growing very slowly, one reason interest rates are so low. All this is above my pay grade anyway.

The right way to handle crooks.

Happy birthday.