Other Than That Mrs. Lincoln...

Last weekend the wife and I left the kids in Nana's care and bugged out for Chicago. A quick trip to celebrate our 11th Anniversary and to rest and recreate a bit before packing the whole family into a van for South Dakota for a week in July. We stayed with our friends Jim and Jana in their new, palatial house in the Beverly neighborhood on Chicago's South Side. Jim works for the Chicago Public Schools but they have skillfully played monopoly with Chicago's housing market and gentrification patterns and parlayed a modest purchase in 1998 in Canaryville (hard by the old stockyards) into a very nice house in one of the nicest neighborhoods in Chicago.

A very pleasant afternoon was spent in my old neighborhood of Wicker Park. Unbelievable how upscale the neighborhood is now. When I moved there in 1990, I was considered a crazy urban pioneer. Now it is the trendiest neighborhood in town. We shopped at Myopic Books and found some great deals on clothes at Ragstock. Laura found a cute little black dress for $5!

Saturday night we got together with some of Laura's old friends at Cafe Iberico, for tapas and sangria. If you are in the City I can't recommend this place enough. Great food, exotic atmosphere (always very, very busy) and people watching extraordinare. Nightcap at my old haunt, Clark Street Ale House. Back in the day, my friends and I had a movable New Years' Eve Party in a different bar every year. This was the location of one of the last of those.

Sunday we nursed our hangovers -- actually Laura nursed a hangover, I had been the DD on Saturday. Went shopping at a great little market near Jim and Jana's house, think Whole Foods but without all the highfalutin' design and branding. Made a massive brunch of organic this and that. Then, off to Bridgeview for the Grand Opening of the Fire's new stadium and the game against NY.

Everyone felt much better. Hooked up with my buddy Bob Tisch who was almost late, as usual and nearly missed out on getting a ticket for the sold out match. Had a massive feed at the Barn Burner's tailgate. It will become clear in a moment why I will now mention that I ate a lot of food and had exactly two beers.

We trooped into the stadium. A wonderful, lovely facility. It has been well worth the nearly five year saga of building the thing. Here's the view coming into the stadium from the Supporter's Entrance.

I have been a fan of the team since its founding in 1998 and have been sitting in the all-singing, all-standing supporter's section called, Section 8 both for the designation of the old seating section in Old Soldier Field behind the South goal and also as a sly joke at the crazy nature of the fan base. Here is Section 8 getting warmed up as the players enter the pitch.

Section 8 has always been a general admission section. For the new stadium, seats were left out in place of plain benches, as most of the denizens spend the game on their feet in any case. Note the streamers in the air. Here is where things get ugly for me. I went to throw a streamer, sanding in the aisle. When I followed through my knee banged HARD against the edge of the seat back. I looked down to see a massive gash in my right knee and blood everywhere. If you are morbid, you can go to the flickr site and see a full-sized image which pretty clearly shows a big hunk of flesh and blood on the seat endcap.

I staggered up the aisle to the first aid station. It was pretty obvious that I was going to need a number of stiches and my day at the game was over. The folks at the aid station were really nice off-duty Bridgeview EMT's and they called for an ambulance. A young woman from the stadium came by to get some general information on what happened. An usher was sent to fetch my wife. When I saw blood gushing from the wound, I just headed straight to the aid station, figuring I could send for her later or return. The funny thing is, while I was waiting for the ambulance, two other people showed up at the aid station with similar gashes in their knees. Not long after the National Anthem was played, I was carted out of the stadium by Bridgeview F.D. Paramedics.

Short trip to Christ Hospital where I arrived about 6:30 p.m. Long story short, usual urban Emergency Room experience (one D.O.A wheeled in while I waited in the hallway). Very nice staff. Note to readers, if you are ever in this sort of situation, make every effort to be as cheerful, patient and helpful as possible. Finally sewed up with 15 or so stiches, 6 or so inside and eight outside and released full of Vicodin at 11:30 p.m. Laura drove us home, bless her heart.

Here is the kicker: My friend Bob happens to be an Assistant State's Attorney and his brother Carey, also a fan in attendance is a construction engineer. Bob called Carey on his cell phone and urged Laura to get pictures of everything. Carey's initial opinion was that the endcaps on the seats were very dangerous.

So far two phone calls to the Fire front office have yielded a very nice, Megan McMaster, who promised to let the Operations Manager know about the problem. When I explained that I would probably be looking to have the Fire pay my medical expenses -- I haven't even begun to meet my $600 deductible for the year -- she sent me to Dave Feely. Two phone calls to Mr. Feely have been unreturned. Very odd behavior as I have been very reasonable in my messages, stating that I'm a big fan of the club and more than willing to work something out quickly and inexpensively. I just want someone to cover the expense of the ambulance trip and the ER visit.

Today I am still pretty sore. The leg can't be flexed very much for a week or so. I can drive a little but basically just to the office and back. So, I have had to cancel a couple of sales meetings. Sleep is hard to come by because I essentially have to sleep on my back with an immobilizer on the leg. Very much a drag.

But the Fire won 2-0.

Update 1:30 6/28/06: Finally heard back from the front office. A very sympathetic Director of Guest Services offered to have the MLS insurance policy cover the accident. He also offered some free tickets but it was an either or deal. I could have the probably close to $1000 worth of medical bills covered OR I could have $120 worth of Fire ticks and sign a waiver of liability. That's pretty lame. I'll be taking the insurance coverage, of course, I don't have much of a choice.

It just goes to show that in modern sports business, the fan is really just a commodity to be exploited. I mean would it really have killed them to throw in a few vouchers? In the end I would be happy and excited to go back to a game. Now, I just feel like I've gotten the brush-off.

DeLong Channels Aristotle

A Dialogue on the Anthropic Cosmological Principle - Brad DeLong

Zoticus: What is this Anthropological Cosmological Principle?

Paracelsus: You mean "Anthropic Cosmological Principle.

Zoticus: I do? Anthropic Cosmological Principle.

Paracelsus: Did you see the sun rise this morning?

Zoticus: I did. 5:45. Rising over the north part of the Diablo Ridge. The dog is always puzzled by the sunrise. She stops and looks around, as if the sudden increase in brightness conveys some opportunity or threat...

Paracelsus: OK. The sun rose the furthest north it ever does--in your experience at least--right?

Zoticus: Yes.

Paracelsus: And 5:45 is the earliest the sun ever rises, at least around here, yes?

Zoticus: Yes.

Paracelsus: And if I asked you to explain to me why it was that the sun rises earliest, 5:45, and furthest north on June 21, and does this every year, what answer would you give?

Zoticus: Well, I would say that humans could only evolve on a planet of roughly 4,000 miles in radius in an orbit roughly 93 million miles from a G-type star.... That we could only evolve on a planet that was rotating, hence days and nights.... That the axis of rotation would not be perfectly aligned with the normal to the plane of earth's orbit, hence sometimes the days are longer. And June 21 just happens to be the day that the earth's axis of rotation points closest to the sun.

Paracelsus: So days are of different length--with June 21 the longest--because?

Zoticus: Spontaneous symmetry breaking--some day has to be the longest.

Paracelsus: And 5:45?

Zoticus: No significance: it depends on exactly how tilted the earth's axis of rotation is and what latitude we are at.

Paracelsus: So in answer to the question, "Why does the sun rise at 5:45 on June 21, which is the longest day of the year?" you give an answer that relies partly on spontaneous symmetry breaking, partly on chance and accidents, and partly on the Anthropic Sunrise Principle: Sunrises are very rare in this universe--go to a point at random and you will have to wait a long time to see one--but sunrises are common in places where humans have evolved. Hence given that we are humans who have evolved here, we should not be surprised to see a sunrise once a day.

Zoticus: But this doesn't explain why the sunrise is something that everybody sees...

Paracelsus: But "everybody" doesn't see the sunrise, if by "everybody" you mean "observers at every point in space." Only a very few observers in very particular places see the sunrise--hence the right explanation has to be one in terms of chance, contingency, and the Anthropic Sunrise Principle.

Zoticus: But that is unsatisfying.

Apollonius: Permit me, then, to interrupt. June 21 is the longest day of the year because that is the day the sun enters the constellation of the Dioscuri. The stars Castor and Pollux have a unique attraction to Helios--remember, Castor was the horse-tamer, and they were both sons of Leda the Swan, and brothers of Helen of Troy. Helios--the sun--gathers strength from proximity to Castor and Pollux, and so June 21 is the day that the sun stays up the longest because it is the strongest. Our trained astrologers are hoping to find a way to renormalize our calculations so that we will be able to post-dict your 5:45 number, but there are a substantial number of technological mathematical problems yet to be resolved. We hope that new developments in mathematics--the "zero" it is called--will improve the accuracy of our calculations.

Paracelsus: But that's completely false!

Apollonius: It is, however, satisfying in a way that the Anthropic Sunrise Principle is not.

Zoticus: And the relevance to the Anthropological...

Paracelsus: Anthropic

Zoticus: Anthropic Cosmological Principle.

Paracelsus: Just this: the answers to the big questions physics is now asking may be equally unsatisfying--that the laws of nature are very different elsewhere in places beyond are vision, and are what they are by chance and contingency, and we're here to see them via evolution and the environment we need to survive.

Zoticus: But that's very unsatisfying...

Gotta love the classics. I find DeLong's little vingette useful not only with regards to fundamental questions of Big Science, but also in regards to our understanding of certain um, inconvienent truths relating to the scientific method. Specifically how the theories resulting from its work impact the sustainability forecast for current modern society. One can look at the facts and consensus of scientific inquiry in the matters of global warming, peak oil and their associated issues and find them deeply unsatisfying, nay scary. It is probably much more satifying to feel more comfortable beleiving the mythology being spun by people like this. But fully sane people will reply as Zoticus does, "But that's completely false!"

Take your pick.

Distracted

Grumble... stupid Uragayan refs... mutter... handball, fume... offsides? Seminar... must fill seats. Anniversary this weekend... can't forget. Library planner report... frown. Shortsighted, unimaginitive. Heavy sigh. Never sell it.

Football Fever

Well, the quadrennial madness is upon me again. I think I watched about 9 1/2 hours of the twelve hours worth of the six World Cup Games on this weekend. In my defense however, I did take time to do the usual household chores and take the kids out for an afternoon at the Discovery Center and a DQ treat Sunday afternoon to relieve the tedium of a dreary weekend.

Nothing shocking so far. England muddling through underachieving. Germany dismembering its opponent with precision. Slept in and missed the Dutch game and it looked to have been one of the best of the first round of play but they won against the plucky Serbs and Montenegrans. Best value so far was Shaka Hislop and nine other guys stonewalling Sweden for a scoreless draw. Aside from Germany, Mexico was the only other team scoring big. They won big over an Iranian team that looked in the first half to at least be their equals but then totally ran out of ideas in the second half.

Tomorrow at 11:00 is the game we've all been waiting for USA vs. The Czech Republic. I'm on pins and needles and will be helpless from 11 - 1 tomorrow but I don't have much hope. The U.S. has never beaten a European football power on European soil. I'm expecting us to loose 2-1 but to give the Czechs all they can handle. But you never know, every World Cup has its first round upset and we haven't really had one yet. Trinidad and Tobago notwithstanding. If we somehow manage to pull of a win tomorrow, make no mistake it will rock the world.

I have a very busy work week ahead. I'll be pulling long hours what with trying to sneak the USA game as well as Germany-Poland on Wendesday and perhaps Argentina-Serbia on Friday. I also have a board meeting and a couple of major deadlines looming at work. But, if I get it all done, look for a post later this week on the economics of biofuels.

Ding Dong Zarqawi's Dead

It is always good to see a murderous psychopath get his just desserts and make no mistake, Zarqawi was an evil muthafucker. But at the end of the day, I don't think this is a significant victory except as a form of vengeance for all the people he's had a hand in murdering.

First question that popped into my mind: Does the pilot of the plane that dropped the bomb on him get to paint a dead terrorist leader on the nose of his plane? I know if I'm the guy I'm painting a fat, balding guy with a beard right under my cockpit.

Seriously though, here's the deal. The only way this has a significant long-term impact on Iraq is if in his absence anti-Shiia violence goes down. Zarqawi hated Shiias like Hitler had a thing for Jews. So, IF his successor(s) -- and believe me there are plenty of assholes lining up to step into his still-smoking boots -- tone down the Sunni-on-Shiia violence then there might be some long term upside for Iraq. Otherwise basically all we've got here is one more dead murderous psychopath with delusions of grandeur in a region that seems to have cornered the market on that particular demographic.

Update: 6.10.2005From the utterly indespensable blog Global Guerrillas comes this thoughtful bit of Zarqawi post-mortem analysis.

Zarqawi in Context
Here's how Zarqawi's role evolved:

• In the early phases of the guerrilla war in Iraq, Zarqawi was operational as the commander of a small cell. His group was able, through early large scale attacks, to set a plausible promise (an idea that many other groups could rally around) for the Iraqi insurgency. Namely, that it was possible to successfully fight the US occupation.


• During late 2004 and early 2005, his operational value diminished as the number of groups that were engaged in the war proliferated. During that time, he was focused on expanding the target set of the insurgency to include infrastructure, corporations and Iraqi military units. Later in 2005, his operational activities were focused on shifting the plausible promise of the insurgency from ousting the Americans to fighting Shiite domination (sectarian war) through attacks on Shiite civilians and symbols


• By early 2006, Zarqawi's operational activities were all but over. He had succeeded in seeding the original insurgency and shifting the plausible promise to include sectarian warfare. During this final phase, Zarqawi moved into a role of strategic communicator, much like bin Laden's role today. In this role, he produced videos that were distributed to a global audience through the Internet and global media.

Epilogue
Unfortunately, Zarqawi proved to be rather good at his role. Here's how to rate his abilities:

He successfully seeded the insurgency.

Innovation and adaptability. He expanded the target set for the insurgency, changed tactics when they proved disadvantageous (ie. beheadings were stopped and he ceded Iraqis control of the jihadi effort), and expanded the plausible promise of the insurgency to include sectarian war.

His main failure was that he didn't fully appreciate the value of systems disruption. His only attack on a systems target (the Basra terminal) was a failure. He also proved unable to give up operational roles in favor of becoming a strategic communicator (which ultimately led to his death).

ONE final note: If we put Zarqawi within a historical context, he was able to do what Che hoped to do with a foco insurgency (for more on this, read the brief on "Iraq and Foco Insurgency"). In essence, he proved that within a modern context (open source warfare and systems disruption), it is possible to seed the collapse of a state (or more precisely, keep a state in a perpetual failure).

Post Primary Comments and Clinton Results

Well, that was a drag. I had to go down to the Secretary of Agriculture race to find a candidate I supported who won. Go Denise, you organic, Earth Mother you. Other than that a pretty dissapointing night. I came in to watch returns at about 10:00 pm when the early results showed the 1st District congressional race something like 58-20-16-1 Dickinson, Gluba, Braley and Heath. We all knew that had to be Jackson and Dubuque County early returns heavilly favoring Dickinson. But still as the precincts reporting got into 50 and 60 percent Braley started creeping up making it 42-38 or so I had hope Rick might squeeze through. But it got closer and closer and closer until at last at midnight or so the last Blackhawk precincts put Bruce over the top. The governor's race was also tight but it was Blouin chasing Culver's five point lead all night.

My two takeaways: 1) I'm really happy with the Dem vs. GOP turnout numbers in the 1st District. Democrats turned out in higher numbers 29,386 to the GOP's 22,662 in a race tightly contested on both sides. That looks good for us in November. 2) Locally the Democrats also looked pretty good in relation to their November opponents. All the statehouse candidates are running unopposed but the number of votes cast is interesting. In Clinton County link State Senator, Roger Stewart, and State Rep., Polly Butka handily beat their GOP opponents, Clinton Mayor, LaMetta Wynn and Les Sheilds. Stewart got 1,030 to Wynn's 636 and Butka polled 938 to Sheilds' 541. New Democratic challenger Reg Kauffman has a way to go to unseat incumbent Republican State Representative, Steve Olson. Olson beat Kauffman 477 to 422. In Jackson County (no website) Roger Stewart stomped LaMetta Wynn 1740 to 319.

If LaMetta is going present any problems at all for Roger in November she is going to have to raise those Jackson County numbers A LOT while totally wiping Roger out in Clinton County. That's a tall order and I don't think it is doable. These are all primary numbers of course and turnout was pretty low -- abysmally low actually, considering the juicy Congressional primary. Turnout in November will be higher but my impression from yesterday is that the Democratic base is way more motivated than the Republican base right now.

Back in time for the Election.

Long, long couple of weeks. Very strange and frustrating two weeks at work mostly dealing with Qwest issues. Shocking, I know. Finished up a grant application for the Great Places Sculpture Garden. Got a nice award from the Chamber for all the hard work. Battled a strange bat infestation in the house. Molly had her bike stolen.

Back in the saddle now though. Go vote!

Interesting Proposal on gasoline Markets

Everyone who isn't sleepwalking dreaming of an endless future of cheap gas... Which is is pretty much everyone I guess... *Ahem!* A clued in minority of people agree that the nation and the world need to find a way to use less petroleum and gasoline, especially at the consumer and transport levels. The main sticking point is over what method to use to convince people who are not willing or able to cut back on their use to do so. Most everyone who has given any thought to the matter agrees that raising the price somehow is the trick. Both conservatives and many liberals will not brook higher gasoline taxes. The former on general principle and fear of "big government" and the latter on the principle that higher gas taxes hit hardest those least able to pay. Never mind that ANY resource use tax is going to hit people hardest least able to pay. It is kind of the point of use taxes. Anyway, from the venerable Environmental Economist comes this modest proposal for tradeable gas rights.

In a system of tradeable gasoline rights, the government would give each adult a tradeable gas rights (TGR) debit card. The gasoline pumps at service stations ... would be modified to read these new TGR debit cards... Buying a gallon of gasoline would require using up one tradeable gasoline right as well as paying money.

The government would decide how many gallons of gasoline should be consumed per year and would give out that total number of TGRs. In 2006, Americans will buy about 110 billion gallons of gasoline. To keep that total unchanged in 2007, the government would distribute 110 billion TGRs. To reduce total gasoline consumption by 5%, it would cut the number of TGRs to 104.5 billion.

The government could distribute TGRs to reflect geographic differences in driving patterns. ... Businesses that use trucks would also get TGRs.

A key feature of these gasoline rights is that they are tradeable. Individuals with more TGRs than they need could sell the excess, while those who want to use more gallons than their allocation would have to buy extra TGRs. The gasoline companies could act as clearing houses for these trades, using their gasoline pumps to sell TGRs in the same way that they sell gasoline or to buy TGRs in exchange for the cash needed to purchase gasoline. Other institutions like banks could also trade TGRs for cash. And individuals could of course buy and sell TGRs among themselves by letting others use their card.

The market price of a TGR would depend on the number of TGRs that the government distributed relative to the number of gallons that households would buy if there were no TGR system. The smaller the number of TGRs, the greater would be the price per TGR... The money price of gasoline would continue to reflect the world price of oil and the local cost of refining and distribution.

Note that for this to work, the government doesn't have to "give every adult a TGR debit card," for this to work. That can be handled by banks, gas companies and the like. No, in order for it to work all the government has to do is set the benchmarks, gross total TGR's for the country and net TGR's per person/company and fire the starter's pistol. The market will take care of the rest.

Is it complicated? Yes, but that's not a good argument against it. Why must we assume it is a public good for people to remain ignorant of how much gas they consume, the true cost of same and the inner workings of commodities markets? The argument against by complexity is elitist.

If we remain true to the premise that some sort of mechanism pushed down by the government should be used to strongly encourage people to use less gas, then look at the alternatives to TGR's: higher CAFE standards or gasoline taxes. Even if gas tax money were used to offset social security premiums as has been proposed here PDF link, which solution has lightest government hand? Which has the greatest effect on demand?