Author: Tony

The Internet is closed?

Is there a better way to jump back into blogging than to return with a rant?

Like most everyone these days, I pay my bills online. It’s convenient, it saves postage, and I don’t have to deal with humans. It’s the trifecta of incentives. I haven’t purchased new checks in nearly six years, as a result. I love the Internets. But apparently there are operating hours for the Internets. Encountered tonight while attempting to pay my health insurance:

The online self-service feature you have requested is unavailable at this time. Our regular system operating hours are Monday through Friday from 4:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., Saturday from 4:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., and Sunday from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

I’m familiar enough with IT to base my livelihood on knowing it. I’m fairly certain that no computer system, regardless of the business’ size, needs 53 hours of maintenance per week. I suppose the gerbils behind the scenes are unionized, so anything more than a a 68.5% up-time would be abusive.

If it wasn’t such a hassle (and irrational), I’d change my insurance company. It’s not too much to ask to be able to submit a few bits representing money at 7:30 on a Sunday night.

It’s 4:00 am and I can’t sleep.

I’ve been meaning to blog. Really, I have. But … There’s always a “but”, isn’t there? Of course there is. And it’s always something ridiculous like “I had to watch one more episode of Battlestar Galactica” or some other time-sucking necessity. I know. It’s true.

So, I’ve meant to blog. But tedium got in the way. Danielle’s needed help with a flat tire. Then the flat tire had to be replaced. Being the only person in the house with an abundance of free time meant I got to search dealerships for the best rates and wait with the car while all the necessary stuff was inflated and rotated and stuff.

Also, my car ran into a minor, self-inflicted issue. The check engine light appeared, alleging that the coolant temperature sensor was busted. The part was $7 and easy to replace, so I replaced it. Except I left the old o-ring in the tube, so the sensor was not secured by the clip. I knew something was wrong, but chose the moron path. The first time I drove after this repair, being cautious to verify that everything was good, I journeyed no more than one mile from my house before my car had spilled all of its coolant. I caused no damage to the car, but more days lost with getting everything back to normal.

I also bought a new car. I ordered it, actually, but it isn’t here yet. It ships today. More on this later.

Most importantly, reports that joblessness will lead to a significant increase in productivity for hobbies and long-buried dreams are all false. At least for me. I needed a break when this stretch started in April. I needed it into May and probably beyond. But at some point, I tipped from regenerating to degenerating. That point snuck by me unnoticed. In the future I’ll pay more attention should this scenario arise again because now I know it’s part of this fun.

This time around, though, wow. Now I know what it’s like to let nearly 6 months pass and have not nearly enough to show for it. This is not bad, but it must stop. If that makes sense. I want to write more, both here and not here. I must accomplish tasks for my house. There’s missing drywall in my garage from a leak many months ago, for example. Cold weather isn’t that far away, my garage is a mess, and a new car needs to park where there is now just a mountain of disorganized uselessness. And so on.

Since I’ve done nothing but scour the Internet with a less-than-focused attention, I’ll start refocusing. The internet is wonderful but only a low level of mindless wandering is worth the expense. If I’m going to surf for the blog, I should blog. I’m going back to work soon, so I expect my overall productivity will increase. I want to do more, too.

For starters, to ease back in, I liked this post from Scott Adams on freedom:

Thanks to religious restrictions on freedom in the United States, we have a long list of things you can’t do (at least whenever you want): prostitution, marijuana, euthanasia, gambling, polygamy, and on and on. You might argue that the law is just trying to protect people from harm. But if that were the case, bicycles would be illegal.

The details on some of those list items are important, but yes. Yes.

The short version of this entry is that I’m still here and plan to be here for a long time. Even though I don’t demonstrate it sometimes. Still, blogging at 4:00 am must count for something, right?

I’m never watching the Phillies again.

The title of this entry is a lie. I’ll be back in February, as anxious as ever, when the Phillies return to Clearwater for Spring Training. But after last night’s series ending debacle, I need all four months between now and pitchers and catchers to forgive this team for being the stupidest successful team I’ve ever witnessed.

In the sixth inning last night, with the Phillies losing 1-0, Rollins and Utley walked with 1 out. The pitches they saw from Jiminez were progressively worse. The only smart move for the next hitter, Pat Burrell, is to step into the box and pretend to be a statue for at least one pitch. The bat should not have left his shoulder. Make the rookie Jiminez throw something good before thinking about swinging. It’s what the Rockies did the entire series to the Phillies pitchers. Pat Burrell swung at ball 1, popping up to shallow left field. The rally died before it got going. The Phillies lost the chance at a championship by abandoning fundamental baseball.

This entire postseason never happened. Let’s never speak of it again.

The Race for Eleven One

I have stories to blog about, but I’ve been focused on car issues and the Phillies in the playoffs. The car issues are resolved, fortunately, and the Phillies in the playoffs is almost resolved, unfortunately. Something more substantial than baseball will return tomorrow, I think.

As for the Phillies, after watching today’s loss, I feel like the season-ending script is re-writing itself. Sunday afternoon I felt as though I was a child in a poor family told by his parents that there’s extra money, which means there can be a Christmas this year. Today, I feel like those parents finally mentioned that, while there can be a Christmas this year, I won’t be receiving anything. Because they hate me.

I love the Phillies, and I have phaith that we can struggle through two tough road games this weekend to bring it back to Philadelphia for the deciding Game 5. But my intellectual streak wants to challenge that so badly because we are a stupid, stupid team. All emotion and no brains. That’s a recipe for the suckage portion of the emotion-fueled pendulum we’ve exhibited so far, not a consistent push for wins on the fundamental portion. We have to fix this.

The Race for Eleven

I don’t know where to begin. I’ve spilled so many electrons over the last few years on my frustrations as a Phillies phan. We’re always close but we’re never the last team standing. Good enough to phight. Not good enough to win. After last year’s season-ending thud, I wrote:

Like every spring before, I’ll be back next year, as gullible and full of optimism as ever when pitchers and catchers report to Clearwater.

And I was back this year, gullible and full of optimism. For good reason. The Phillies are the 2007 National League East Division Champions!

After fourteen years away, October baseball means something again. We have a chance. Like seven other teams, we’re 0-0. Like those other teams, we have an equal chance to chase those eleven elusive post-season victories necessary to win a World Series. I have never wanted anything more as a baseball phan.

I’m so happy that I couldn’t care less how the media will focus on the self-destruction of the Mets over the last 17 games, and how, even though the Mets went 5-12 to tumble down the standings, the Phillies went 13-4 to win the division by 1 game. So, focus on New York all you want. That’s the story. Run with it. But the news is that the Phillies have more baseball to play in 2007.

We’ve won 89 games. We’re not stopping until we reach 100.

I move closer to hoarding my savings in cash.

Hillary Clinton is unfit to be president:

“I like the idea of giving every baby born in America a $5,000 account that will grow over time, so that when that young person turns 18 if they have finished high school they will be able to access it to go to college or maybe they will be able to make that downpayment on their first home,” she said.

I recently purchased a new car. I like the idea of getting that car for free. I suspect the dealership will even hand over the keys to me and call it free, as long as I set up a separate transaction where I relinquish a specific number of dollars – strangely matching the value of the car – to the dealership’s possession.

Interestingly, that sounds much like the tax charade that would occur for every child “given” $5,000 from their own future earnings.

It’s possible that funding could come from the earnings of another person currently working (parents?) or who will work in the future. Regardless, I’m sure the “trust fund” aspect will remain an IOU rather than asset-based, with the present tax dollars used for some other socialist adventure. And I discount the possibility that funding would come from the child’s parents, since that would imply a measure of fiscal responsibility wrapped inside this socialism. Since that would also discourage poor people from having children if they have to fund an extra $5,000 up front, there’s no way Sen. Clinton would suggest such a thing. She’ll cave once that possibility arises and claim it’s society’s job to support all children, especially those of the poor, with the poor to be defined loosely later.

More thoughts at A Stitch in Haste, no third solution, and Catallarchy.

Dance, puppets, dance!

From last night’s Democratic debate (I know, there was a debate?):

This is insulting. Follow the Constitution and let reality be the message within that limited sphere.

Via Jeff Jarvis, who says:

The Presidency isn’t a PBS self-improvement show. It’s an executive job.

As some of Mr. Jarvis’ commenters stated, I’m afraid Sen. Obama’s statement is true for too many Americans. Rhetoric wouldn’t continue if it didn’t work, and it wouldn’t rely on the basest claims if those didn’t appeal. Thanks to people like Karl Rove, we have evidence.

The change we need is not to go from fear to hope, it’s from coddling to trust. Stop trying to have the government parent Americans.

Self-interest doesn’t have to match an altruistic goal.

A reader writes to Andrew Sullivan about capitalism and same-sex marriage (emphasis mine):

One of the most astonishing (and underreported) instances of this phenomenon is the defeat in committee of the marriage ban in the Indiana legislature. This past April a group of major corporations (Cummins Engine, Wellpoint, Dow AgroSciences, Eli Lilly, and Emmis Communications, etc.) lobbied against the measure and won.

While I’m not surprised at the lack of coverage, I think it’s important to note smaller victories like this in the civil rights movement. … But it’s also one of the few remaining conservative states remaining that did not write discrimination into its constitution. As a progressive Democrat with a strong populist streak, (as much as it may pain me to admit it) I really have to give credit to big business for doing the right thing on this one.

It’s a nice thought, but is that how it happened, big business doing the “right” thing? The story:

Eli Lilly and Co., Cummins, WellPoint, Emmis Communications and Dow AgroSciences spoke out against the amendment in the days leading up to Tuesday’s vote. All five companies argued that the amendment would send the message that Indiana was not inclusive and hurt their ability to attract top employees to the state.

The additional quotes in the article leave open an interpretation that these businesses behaved in a strictly altruistic manner, but that interpretation is strained. They acted in self-interest. Businesses, like individuals, will behave in a manner consistent with achieving what they desire. Eli Lilly wants to continue attracting talented employees, so it opposed a policy that could alienate some of those employees.

Partisans selectively remember that incentives matter. As Mr. Sullivan’s reader indicates, he normally doesn’t give credit to big business. I won’t presume to know exactly what the reader believes about big business, but I am willing to guess that it involves big business failing to act in a specific manner consistent with the reader’s beliefs. If a business values something else, it’s wrong.

Government incentives are then designed to accommodate inconsistent ideals. Big business should care about making their employees part of the middle class rather than paying them a fair wage based on merit, for example¹. When its incentives don’t match the goals of the government, surprise, a partisan concludes that the business does not respond as it “should”. The new expectation is that it’s evil because it ignores what’s “right”. The entire process is perverse and results in a ceaseless cycle of new incentives, often in the form of restrictions. But it remains the fault of the business, not the policy dictated by the government which is inconsistent with incentives.

The other side of the partisan spectrum acts in an identical manner. Those who believe individuals should not ingest certain substances or read certain material follow the same cycle of being so shocked anyone would defy what’s “right” that more legislation is necessary. The manner in which more legislation skews the incentive toward different evasion rather than compliance is ignored because the intention is what matters. They know how you should behave.

This is where libertarianism excels. There is a minimum expectation of civility, but beyond that, each person decides what’s best for his life. Libertarianism understands that incentives matter. Because it’s impossible to know what the incentive is for everyone, or anyone, libertarianism doesn’t direct anyone to a specific goal or outcome that she “should” pursue for herself. It will not push for the manipulative affect of government intervention on the individual.

¹ I’m assuming a specific belief here, but of a generic progressive partisan, not Mr. Sullivan’s reader. A fine distinction, I know, but my later example of a generic social conservative partisan is meant the same way.

The process of getting it shows why it will fail to deliver utopia.

Medpundit offers a concise summary of the fallacy that U.S. universal health care/coverage will mimic other established universal systems. It also explains why I don’t believe that universal health care/insurance will lead to the end of routine infant circumcision in America. (I removed the links from this excerpt because they make it appear too busy, but they’re worth reviewing at the original entry. Emphasis here is in original text.)

The British are often held up as the standard to which we should aspire. But we don’t live under a British style of government. We live under a government that’s truly government of the people, by the people, for the people. And what the people want, the people get. Witness the influence of disease activism even now on disease specific government funding and treatment mandates. In England, the government only pays for colonoscopies to check for colon cancer if there are symptoms suggestive of cancer or a family history of colon cancer. In the United States, the Medicare pays for a colonoscopy every ten years for everyone over 50, regardless of symptoms or risk. So do many insurance companies., sometimes if not by choice, by mandate. In England, mammograms are only covered for women between the ages of 50 and 70, and then only every three years. In the United States, we pay for mammograms beginning at age 40, yearly, and with no upper age limit. We just don’t have the heart for rationing that they have in other countries.

It’s possible, probable even, that universal coverage would reduce the number of unnecessary circumcisions performed as compared to our quasi-private system now. However, I suspect the decrease will be neither significant nor long-lasting. The fundamental flaw in populism is that it can’t say “no” if a majority demand a “yes”. Principles and rules do not matter. The rights of the minority do not matter.

In this particular procedure, the opinion of the patient will continue to not matter. He is treated as a statistic, at best. If the procedure has the potential to prevent a problem later on, regardless of the actual risk faced, the foreskin’s contribution to that risk, or the consequences of that risk, the illogical defense allowing parents to continue cutting the healthy genitals of their sons will continue.

Remember that populism doesn’t care about proper context in cost-benefit, or even the existence of such analysis. As long as the case could be made, every parent is assumed to be making it. And every infant is assumed to be pleased at that assumption, depsite the undeniable evidence that intact adult males almost never choose or need circumcision.

The out-of-context nonsense we use today is illogical to anyone seriously considering all the evidence. The risks are small. There are less-invasive treatments and preventions available. Comparable countries that do not circumcise manage to achieve the same low levels of disease. These facts are ignored because they contradict our mental conditioning. We believe of circumcision what we want to believe, not what is true. That is why we hear that male circumcision reduces the risk of HIV infection by 60% rather than the more honest explanation of how much it reduces the absolute risk. Sixty percent is far more persuasive than two percent.

For the United States we must be honest and ask if a central planner wannabe who is immune to the rights of individuals enough to issue mandates wouldn’t also be immune to fiscal rationing for non-medically-indicated circumcision, as long as it pleases “the people”.

Via Kevin, MD