The Unthinkable

Today, I discovered The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes—And Why, by Amanda Ripley as well as her related blog. I found her analysis of the recent DC Metro crash enlightening, and am adding The Unthinkable to my summer reading list. This real-time map of emergencies and disasters is also interesting.

Is The American Empire Bankrupt?

Kyle Murphy asked for my thoughts on Chris Hedges' column, The American Empire is Bankrupt. The article morns the dollar's passing as the world's reserve currency, and predicts increasing inflation as foreign central banks divest themselves of the dollar. Alarmist would be a good description, it closes:

The cost of daily living, from buying food to getting medical care, will become difficult for all but a few as the dollar plunges. States and cities will see their pension funds drained and finally shut down. The government will be forced to sell off infrastructure, including roads and transport, to private corporations. We will be increasingly charged by privatized utilities—think Enron—for what was once regulated and subsidized. Commercial and private real estate will be worth less than half its current value ... America will be composed of a large dispossessed underclass and a tiny empowered oligarchy that will run a ruthless and brutal system of neo-feudalism from secure compounds. Those who resist will be silenced, many by force. We will pay a terrible price, and we will pay this price soon, for the gross malfeasance of our power elite.

I think US fiscal policy gives cause for concern, but I don't believe the situation is as dire as Hedges forecasts. I'd like to take HIST 302, GMU's only class on ancient Rome, to better understand America in the context of an overextended empire. On a lighter note, today's Dilbert could also be a response to Chris Hedges' essay.

Better Reading in Bed

I like reading in bed. It's comfortable. The only problem is that if I lay on my side (as I prefer to) it is impossible to hold a book open so that both pages are readable. You must either rotate your book, or (my solution) rotate your body from shoulder to shoulder in a stationary shrimp. Neither solution is completely satisfactory, and one aspect of the Kindle that intrigues me is odd and even pages appear in the same place, making it easier to read in bed.

It was with great interest, therefore, that I read about Randall Munroe's attempts to use his Kindle in bed. The XKCD author found it was difficult to prop the Kindle up while keeping a finger on the next button. Undaunted, he took a steel coat hanger and twisted it to create a Kindle stand for reading in bed.

This is a great Kindle accessory, and knowing how to make it I am more likely to purchase a Kindle. Some people commented that Munroe should mass produce his invention. It is truly a niche product, and I wonder how large the "kindle owners who want a better way to read in bed but are too lazy to bend their own coat hanger" niche is.

The only other Kindle accessories on sale seem to be cases and memory cards. Are there other accessories being overlooked? I think a Kindle case with a small light built in for reading in the dark might be marketable.

Americans Spend Too Much on Medical Care

How can you tell? Time-series and cross-sectional data. Milton Friedman's How to Cure Health Care offers an insightful diagnosis and prescription of the current Health Care situation. I plan to write more about it in the future, but for now I found it satisfying to recognize the econometric techniques used in the analysis.

Cross-sectional data:
Time-series data:

Environmental Philosophy

Bloggingheads has a diavlog today between Jay Odenbaugh and Craig Callender on Environmental Philosophy. A couple excerpts:

(6:30) How much consideration do animals deserve? Using a thought experiment, where you are the last human on earth and about to die, would there be something wrong with using all the world's nukes to blow up the planet? Assuming the answer is no because there are other living things on the planet, should non-humans be given moral standing?

IMHO, destroying the world would be unacceptable because it would be impossible to know for certain that you were the last living human. The world is too big. I find nothing objectionable to launching one nuke just for the explosion, as you could be certain no people would be harmed and the property would have no value (happy 4th of July).

Also, I think the experiment may show other sentient beings have value, but it leaves room for humans to be absolutely more valuable. In that case, animal rights would be irrelevant so long as human welfare was at stake. A more revealing experiment would be a man and his spouse in a bunker, who need to launch a nuclear arsenal to eradicate an infectious disease which has killed the rest of the human race but has not affected some other animals. Other humans may or may not be in other radiation proof bunkers. Is it ethical to launch the bombs?

(44:04)There is also a good discussion of what we owe future generations. Should there be a discount rate like we use with bank loans and credit card payments? If so, what should that rate be? Or should we use a Rawlsian veil of ignorance to claim that we have no right to leave the environment any worse than it was when we were born.

55 Fiction

My local, independent paper, New Times, sponsors an annual 55 fiction competition. 55 fiction is the art of crafting a story in 55 words or less. It is a terrific writing exercise, particularly in editing and brevity (more information here).

Here is a story I've been building the last few days and plan on entering:

Child’s Play

He followed as the bubble whimsically floated up, settling carelessly next to a butterfly and some flowers. Little Alan squinted at the fragile orb: imagining. A door, a window, a chimney, he developed a rainbow-glass house for the butterfly.

What opulence!

The child laughed. The bug fluttered away. The housing bubble burst.

Muslim Students Want Religious Holidays

Wish I had a shorter headline - here is the article in the New York Times. My question - which isn't raised in the article - is why we cling so closely to the three-month summer schedule. Students in New York city, as well as those in the suburban sprawl, clearly aren't spending those three months plowing the fields; the historical grounding for such an arrangement has disappeared. Mayor Bloomberg is concerned that students will no longer be spending time in the classroom but he could easily increase class time by shortening summer to one month off instead of three. Oh, and wouldn't having time off for religious holidays be an educational experience in itself? Promoting tolerance is as important as ever in modern America (sometimes it seems so few nations are doing it elsewhere).

Shortening summer vacation is a sensible reform that has yet to gain any traction. Another sensible reform being ignored is having high schools start their days later. Why is the educational system to static and resistant to change?