The "joke" that you hear every winter.

Every goddamn year when there's a blizzard, you arrive at work, the grocery store, a friend's house, etc, and some moron will say "Did you bring this snow with you?" Which leads me to one of three conclusions:
1. The person actually wants to know if I am physically capable of causing precipitation to follow me around.
2. The person thinks that I have never heard it before, and that I'm immature enough to find it funny.
3. The person is trying to piss me off.
In most cases, the third possibility seems the most likely. I hear the joke so much that I doubt there is a single person over the age of six in Fort Wayne who has not been asked "Did you bring this snow with you?"

Comedy is like flying an airplane. You really shouldn't try it unless you are confident that you know how to it.

A blog that regular readers of this blog might like.

After having worked for the Social Security Administration since 1970, I retired on January 2, 2009. Anyone who has worked for a government agency that long and hasn't turned libertarian either hasn't been paying attention or doesn't care.

This fellow has been a huge influence on me.

Thought of the day

If an elected official thinks he knows whats best for the banking industry, (or any other industry) then he can best serve the economy, the public good, and even his own interests by resigning from office and pursuing a career in that industry. No doubt that a bank would perform more ethically if not more profitably if it had Barney Frank as a CEO.

Ben Bernanke, Time's Man of the Year

I got a chuckle out of what somebody put in the Wikipedia article about Time's Person of the Year issue. Here's the quote because I'm sure they'll take it down soon.

Despite the magazine's frequent statements to the contrary, the designation is often regarded as an honor, and spoken of as an award or prize, simply based on many previous selections of admirable people.[5] However Time magazine points out those such as Adolf Hitler in 1938, and Joseph Stalin in 1939 and again in 1942, and the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, and Ben Bernanke in 2009 have also been granted the title.

However, I think that it is highly unfair to compare these men to Ben Bernanke. Hitler, Stalin, and Khomeini all knew what they were doing, and were all more popular when they made the cover of Time.

Many college graduates will get this one wrong

Which of the following countries did the United States invade during WWI?
a. Germany
b. Japan
c. Italy
d. Russia

How Obama can earn his Peace Prize

The draft is obsolete. It has as much military value as a smoothbore cannon or a Sopwith Camel. Like an antique musket it is maintained more to preserve the past than to prepare for the future. Ending Selective Service could be an important symbolic and cost saving gesture.

Curiously, over this past decade many hawks and doves alike have pushed for a revival of the draft. Pro-draft hawks believe that the draft will improve combat effectiveness. Pro-draft doves believe that it will make Congress and ordinary citizens alike think twice before supporting a war. I’ll address the hawk argument first.

Our modern military has become increasingly specialized. Current doctrine stresses quality over quantity. This is why the Army turned down many applicants even when it wasn’t meeting recruiting goals. (It’s meeting those goals now, though that may be due to the recession.) There are many qualifications for being in the military, and I would argue that the most important one is that the recruit has to believe in what he is fighting for. Forcing people who are opposed to the war into the military creates a huge security risk. It would be like putting a PETA member to work in a laboratory that tests medicine on animals.

Some people think that a peacetime draft would deter members of Congress from voting in favor of the next war or global contingency operation. But any politician cynical enough to send your kid but not his own can simply pull the strings to keep his offspring in the rear.

I’ve even heard people say that everyone has an obligation to serve in the military. National defense may be an important field, but so is agriculture and healthcare. I’ve never heard anyone insist that I am obligated to work as a farmer or a nurse.

If President Obama gets rid of Selective Service, it would set an example. If other nations follow this example, it will significantly reduce future conflicts.

The future of monarchy

"The Mote in God's Eye"
"Dune"
"Star Wars"

The first two are science fiction books that take place in the future. The third is a movie that take place in a distant galaxy in the past. All three feature emperors ruling over vast regions of outer space.

A reoccurring theme in sci-fi is technology moving forward while society moves backwards. So you'll have post apocalyptic movies where everyone rides around in hovercrafts but nobody exhibits any manners or personal hygiene. In the examples I've cited above, it is taken to its logical extreme: People can fly faster than the speed of light but can't choose their own leaders. It's as if while all the smart people were working on faster than light travel, the dumb people banded together and made one of themselves king.

I would think that, no matter how evil or powerful you are, referring to oneself as "emperor" is a bad PR move. It pretty much spells out your intentions in advance, which is what most successful politicians try to avoid. I could imagine someone like Palpatine becoming neighborhood association president, but he simply wouldn't be able to influence more than a 1000 followers in real life. And most of them would be trying to rub him out so they could take his place, so you could see how that model breaks down rather quickly.

"Dune" "TMIGE" and "Star Wars" are classics. The writers were likely trying to imagine a society different from that with what the audience would be familiar. I hope that future writers try to imagine something that has not existed yet, rather than something obsolete.