Google is jumping the shark

Google became useful and popular because it created tools that people want to use.

Since Google+, however well intended that project may be, Google has shifted to creating tools that it wants people to use.

Couple that with the fact that their search engine reached an apex some years ago and that virtually every change since has damaged it and made it less useful (particularly the insistence that people prefer millions of useless answers over a small number of useful ones - or indeed, a zero count that itself is useful), and you have a company that, currently, is in decline.

I don't think it's too late. I don't think Google is evil, or has bad engineers. But it needs to step back and ask itself if it's really going in the right direction.

All Aboard Florida shows why private passenger rail is still a victim of hostile government

(Note - I'm strictly non-ideological when it comes to how to provide a quality passenger train. For profit? Government subsidized? Don't care. I just care it happens. This rant will concentrate on attacking those who demand profits for their apparent complete silence when it comes to a railroad that's trying to do exactly that.)

Given the attacks on Amtrak by the "free market" right over the years, and their insistence that passenger rail only failed in the US because of market forces, and nothing else, you'd think they'd be jumping on the FEC's All Aboard Florida project as a chance to show "how it should be done", lobbying for pro-rail policies in Florida that do everything except issue a subsidy.

In particular, you would assume:

• Land that's State owned, unused, only suitable for right of way use, and less likely to be necessary for future expansion if a train is taking passengers off the roads, should be made available to the railroad at low cost.
• The system of taxes, levies, etc, waged against railroads that seemed relevant in 1902 when trains were the only viable means of medium/long distance travel should be reformed so passenger trains aren't subsidizing cars and airports.
• Given that choice is supposedly a keystone of a free market, and given rail is actively harmed by a lack of choice, you'd expect planning reforms from communities wanting in on a private train service.

Those are three Pretty Big Deals. The first is necessary because private passenger systems are unlikely to succeed if they're limited to travelling on existing rail lines, especially given the massive cuts in routage the national system has suffered in the last 100 years. Case in point - there's only one line, owned by CSX, that goes from West Palm Beach to Orlando, which is a connection the FEC wants to make.

The second is ridiculous: it remains the case today that passenger systems are essentially punished by the tax code. I don't mean that in a "I'm a billionaire and I have to pay a 30% tax rate boo-hoo I'm being punished leave job creators aloooooooooooone!" sense, I mean actually punished - railroads provide a service, and they're penalized for doing so. How?

Well, passenger rail, whether used or not, adds value to local communities. By all accounts, a neighborhood's property values increase by approximately 80% compared to similar neighborhoods, if connected to a rapid transit system. But this happens regardless of how well the system is used. People like having a train available, and are prepared to pay higher property premiums (and, uh, property taxes - take note) to live in a place that's connected, even if they don't plan to use the train on a regular basis.

Couple this with current planning laws, where all new (since the 1950s) neighborhoods are built such that usage of a car to transport yourself is all but mandatory, and you reduce the chance that any passenger system will ever be able to pay for itself. Most passenger services have, and always have had, low margins. Requiring any passenger service that's desired by local residents, but not heavily used, to pay high taxes for its infrastructure, makes it much harder to succeed as a private for-profit enterprise. And this is in large part why most railroads went freight only in the 1970s. Shooting a freight line through a neighborhood damages that neighborhood's value rather than increases it, which reduces the taxable value of much of the infrastructure owned by the railroad located there, as well as requiring less infrastructure (typically well used passenger lines need to be double tracked) to be taxed in the first place.

The State seems dysfunctional

So, the State of Florida, which suffered an abrupt end to the FEC's passenger service in 1969, and everything else in 1971, thanks in large part to hostile rail policies, has learned its lesson, right? Right?

I'm not going to say the State doesn't get it completely. They're relenting on the aforementioned stupid car-only planning policies from Jupiter to Miami, but otherwise they appear to be looking at All Aboard Florida not as a chance to relieve themselves of some of the burden of providing transportation infrastructure, but as a chance to make a fast buck.

The FEC needs a right of way to get it to Orlando. For decades the FLDOT has had such a right of way available, making it clear that part of the land currently adjacent to I-4 and various turnpikes was intended for rail use, publishing maps describing this.

Nobody else has expressed any interest in building a railroad on these rights-of-way, and the FLDOT even, when the FEC made a request to use the line, opened up the proposal to ask for counter offers. Which is right. They should have done. But there weren't any.

So, the FEC's getting the land for free, right? Or perhaps for a nominal charge like $1, or $1 + a $500 filing fee?

Well, no, staggeringly the amount of cash the FEC is paying varies, but at least one portion will cost over $275,000 a year. There's no suggestion property taxes are being reformed.

But the bit that stunned me is that All Aboard Florida will actually pay one of the turnpikes - yes, turnpikes, owned by the State of Florida - compensation for lost revenues caused by people choosing to take a train instead of driving.

There's no suggestion property taxes are being reformed. So essentially the State wants AAF to increase the extent to which passenger trains subsidize car owners, not decrease it recognizing that passenger trains inherently reduce costs for road infrastructure.

There were plenty of articles when the service was being proposed about local politicians up and down Florida's Treasure Coast, where I live, and an area through which the FEC passes through, excitedly requesting the service serve us because, you know, c'mon! There's a lot of us, and we'd like to use it too. And I know it's not going to happen. It just isn't. It's not that the FEC couldn't get enough of us to use it to cover the direct costs of providing stations here (and presumably additional trains because you don't want the main Miami-Orlando service to be slower), it's that the amount of additional revenue would be slight, and the effect on its tax burden massive.

And those same politicians aren't actually instituting reforms that would increase the number of passengers. I'm not seeing a single Martin County politician who's taking concrete steps to end suburban sprawl - indeed, Martin County's "slow growth" policy has always been anti-urban, with bans on buildings four stories high, and with the usual parking mandates and mixed development bans that prevent walkable communities from ever happening. Martin County is a cluster of HOA-controlled "communities" and strip-malls, as a matter of public policy. Why would a politician who refuses to change that think that a private train company would be remotely interested in serving that community?

But they're going ahead anyway

Despite the ludicrous attitude of the government, All Aboard Florida is still on track, so to speak. And good for them. They expected it to make a large amount of money, and they're looking at a million here, a million there, etc, as relatively minor in the great scheme of things. But without significant reforms, AAF isn't going to be a demonstration that private rail service works. AAF will, at best, prove that certain types of express service can be profitable and unsubsidized. AAF will be able to link large transit-served population centers, separated from one another by long distances. 

Meanwhile I'm not hearing criticism of the demands that AAF find additional ways to subsidize car owners, that existing subsidies for the roads from railroads be lightened, and that planning laws continue to prevent people from using any form of transportation other than cars in most of Florida. Why the silence?

Culture of danger

I'm a little staggered by the fallout over the accident at Lac-Mégantic.

In theory, most of what happened is open and shut. An accident happened - a tragic disastrous accident - when an unattended train rolled away and derailed in the middle of a city with its cargo catching fire.The CEO of the railroad has claimed the engineer that was responsible for the entire train failed to set the correct number of handbrakes before leaving the train, thus, accident.

Of course, "thus accident" is never that simple. The train was:

• Unattended
• On the main line
• Using substandard equipment to carry the cargo
• Had a locomotive that was in such a bad state of disrepair that it was noticeably on fire within 15 minutes of the engineer leaving it - and reportedly the engineer said it was a problem to his taxi driver when he left it.

Were any of the above not true, the accident wouldn't have happened. Accidents are rarely caused by one thing going wrong.

• If the train were attended, steps would have been taken as soon as the train started to roll to stop it
• If the train hadn't been on the main line, the train wouldn't have gone anywhere.
• If the DOT-111 tankers had been replaced by more modern equipment, the derail would be unlikely to have been as lethal, as it would have been highly unlikely a fire would have broken out.
• Had the locomotive not caught fire, it wouldn't have been turned off, which means the airbrakes would have held, and the train would have stayed in place.

The CEO's attempts to point the finger at his engineer are far from reasonable either. The engineer in question knew his train was going to be taken over by a different "crew" later on that night. So it's reasonable to ask the question: if the CEO is right, and the engineer was that irresponsible, why did he not expect to be caught by his relief? Put yourself in the shoes of the relief "crew" (is it really a crew if you're one person?), you get to the train, the lead locomotive is a mess, and you go to disengage the handbrakes only to find there aren't any engaged. Are you seriously not angered enough by such a disregard for basic safety that you can't be bothered to report this?

Is this what bothers me? Kinda. But what's equally troubling is the rail establishment's reaction. Because apparently everyone knows "Ed" - Ed Burkhardt, the CEO of Rail World, the company that owns MM&A, the railroad that executed this tragedy. And if there's one thing they all know, it's this: you guys should Leave Ed Allllllllllloooooooonnnnnee.

Burkhardt is an interesting character. He's a long time railroad professional, and apparently has rescued more than one railroad from a likely grave. MM&A is just one of his latest projects. While I don't know him personally, I have to say based upon everything from Rail World's website (which might as well be called Ed Burkhardt .com) to his decision to wait a week before going to Canada because he wanted to work out all the insurance details himself, personally, that he comes across as a bit of a micromanager. Perhaps he isn't. But certainly as the head of a railroad, as a lead proponent of some of the policies - like the one man crew issue - that are now being questioned, it's hard to suggest that, well, he's not at all responsible for what happened. And it's definitely hard to see why people shouldn't actually criticize Burkhardt's response given it's difficult to separate him and the culture that caused the accident. BP's Tony Haywood could be reasonably held blameless, he wasn't in charge of BP long enough or close enough to the people involved, to be considered responsible for the Deepwater Horizon Gulf oil spill, and yet poor Tony was slammed for his response to that disaster. Meanwhile, this arguably bigger tragedy has people actually claiming the CEO is being treated terribly unfairly.

So why's he being defended? And so forcefully? A clue lies in the general response to one of the counts against MM&A. The media has been trumpeting the fact that the MM&A has a below average safety record, and it does, it has an accident rate more than twice the average.

Burkhardt's defenders point out that's misleading. They say that short lines do, typically, have much higher accident rates than average. MM&A isn't actually a short line, it's actually larger than many major Class 2s such as the FEC, but I suspect the point they're making isn't about size but liquidity and financial health. The MM&A is having trouble making profits, they say, and so its safety record needs to be compared to other railroads on shoestring budgets rather than, uh, the FEC.

Another clue, perhaps, is in why people like Burkhardt are popular to begin with. Trains Magazine's Fred Frailey posts a highly positive profile of another CEO, the Illinois Central's Harry Bruce, in the latest issue. Why Bruce? Because Bruce reportedly rescued the IC using some highly exciting (not really) corporate restructuring leaving most of railroad functional afterwards. Nothing wrong with that, of course, I'm just pointing out that's what's important.

I'm going to say it: what Burkhardt's defenders appear to be coming from is that in this industry it may be necessary to cut corners, but as long as you're doing so to keep a railroad alive, you have your heart in the right place.

I don't think that's right. And I grew up in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s where the worst people since Hitler were Myra Hindley (a serial killer), Ian Bradey (another serial killer and Hindley's co-conspirator), and Doctor Richard Beeching (someone who successfully proposed cutting 1/3 of Britain's railway network.)

And what concerns me more than anything else is that this might be the attitude of the rail establishment within the US. It's certainly easier to explain the anger at Burkhardt's critics if you believe that MM&A's policies and culture is typical of mainstream railroading.

(It might even be easier to explain things like the FRA's ludicrous over-the-top passenger rolling stock requirements if you assume the FRA, after decades of experience, just doesn't trust the railroads to give safety a passing thought.)

Bitcoins

I guess I'm reacting to our friends at /. obsessing over Bitcoins again, but I'm finding it hard to take the idea seriously. At the same time, readers should be aware that I'm not exactly a great predictor of stuff:

- I thought the iPhone wouldn't happen, and when it did I couldn't see how a $600 locked down EDGE-only device could possibly be successful.
- I still don't understand why people want iPads.
- I thought, early on, that Windows 8 would be a hit, although I did couch that a little by saying that I assumed the UI would be worked on and made more desktop friendly before launch.

And then there was my backing HD DVD over Blu-ray. True, I never predicted it would actually succeed, and my subsequent prediction that Blu-ray would be a flop anyway despite the failure of HD DVD turned out to be mostly true. But in all honesty, the only technology I think I successfully predicted would be an outright success in the last decade or so was the original Wii console.

So the fact I'm thinking "Bitcoins? Load of crap" shouldn't mean a whole lot to you. But I can at least write down my reasons here, and then revisit them in five years when the Fed announces that the dollar will be backed by Bitcoins to help with "consumer confidence" or something or other...

So, anyway, here's what I think.

I think Bitcoins are fundamentally a result of the massive confusion and distrust of basic economics that the techie community has, which in turn is why they'll probably fail in the long term.

Here are my major reasons.

First and foremost, Bitcoins are based upon the concept that a "legitimate" currency must be based upon something tangible and rare, and that "fiat" currencies like the dollar are problematic because they're not.

I completely disagree. Fundamentally, currencies like "gold coins" did well at one point in time because people were willing to accept them in exchange for goods, services, or other debts, and no other reason. The fact they were made of gold, a rare and usefulish metal, did little but kickstart the process of making the currency a medium of exchange.

With fiat currencies, the currency is, by definition, something an entity is willing to accept in exchange for goods, services, or other debts. That is, the government is saying "Even if nobody else does, we'll accept it."

From that point of view, a fiat currency is more valuable than a currency based upon tangible goods, because you're aware that there is always a customer, who always will accept the currency at the stated price. True, you can distrust that customer, believe they'll mismanage the currency or whatever, but the degree to which this matters determines how long you'll hold on to the currency rather than whether you'll take it to begin with.

Second, there's the belief Bitcoins are based upon something tangible, like gold.

They're not. Bitcoins cost precious resources to make, but they don't represent those resources once made. If I own a Bitcoin, I don't have access, in any form, to the amount of energy needed to make one. I can't heat my home from a collection of unused Bitcoins. So even if you take the position that "gold coins" beats "dollars" any day of the week, you miss the point of why those gold coins were valuable to begin with.

What are Bitcoins? At best, information, but the information can be shared freely once extracted, so they're not even that.

Thirdly, there's the belief that their uncontrolled rarity makes them useful as a universal currency

If there's one thing the last 100 years of economics has taught us, it's that currencies must grow with the economies they support. A lack of money in circulation leads to stagnation or even to economic depressions. Bitcoins contain no inbuilt mechanism to rapidly expand the amount of cash in circulation if such a need arises. At best, Bitcoins' proponents claim that existing non-BC systems like Fractional Reserve Banking could be used, but FRB is distrusted by people who support Bitcoins because it's exactly the kind of "Wealth being represented by money in a way they don't understand" they're trying to get away from, it's not clear such a system is even viable in Bitcoin world.

Economies that attempt to restrict the amount of cash in circulation end up suffering extreme "Business cycles", booms and busts caused by massive expenditures followed by the amount of cash being available being significantly lower than that needed to represent the new, expanded, economy. I don't know about you, but I don't actually want to live in that kind of world.

My thoughts

Ultimately I think the assumptions behind Bitcoins are wrong. I don't think the promoters understand actual economics, and I don't think Bitcoins even fit the economy they think they're implementing. They've gone all-in for rarity, without recognizing the need for value according to their own models.

Will Bitcoins succeed anyway? Well, maybe. But never as a replacement for actual currency, more as a convoluted and absurd way to pay for things, while simultaneously acting as a conduit for paranoid investments, and possibly even some forms of money laundering.

What will kill it as a way for any substantial legitimate group to consider using it as their primary currency is that the lack of real value in Bitcoins means that the currency will continue to oscillate in value between massive extremes and do so too rapidly to be worth considering as a transactional currency. Ironically, for a currency promoted by people who are obsessed with the dollar being subject to hyperinflation or hyperdeflation at any moment, they've managed to build a currency that's had more bouts of both in the last decade than other major Western currencies have had, all put together, in the last Century.

More thoughts on solutions to gun violence

Mike DeAngelo has an excellent contribution to the gun control debate, and he seems to go further than I did, which suggests I may be more liberal (not in the Dems vs Reps sense) than many gun owners on the issue. While I drew a line between "Dangerous" and "More dangerous, requiring more responsibility" weapons, Mike wants responsibility tests for any kind of gun ownership, and wants large capacity magazines banned outside of those kept on shooting ranges.

I thought it was worth raising. For the most part though looking at the "public debate", I'm finding it's unfortunate because the two major sides are too entrenched in their positions. Gun control groups such as the Brady campaign are entrenched in the concept that (a) "Assault Weapons" are especially bad and, yeah, putting a heatsink on a barrel makes it super awesome for mass killings and (b) bans are required and good and will work.

Meanwhile the NRA has reached a point of principle, it seems, that any talk that remotely suggests that any gun might possibly slightly even maybe make it easier to murderize people is blaming guns, and so seems to avoid, for the most part, any restrictions on gun ownership save for token generalizations about the mentally ill.

Here's what I don't think:

• I don't think bans are likely to work. And as a liberal, I don't believe in banning anything except as a last resort. It's not clear to me we've gotten anywhere close to testing alternatives.
• I don't think "Assault Weapons" is an especially helpful definition of a gun that requires a special level of responsibility to own safely.
• I don't think the Brady campaign is a terrible group dedicated to stealing teh freedom. I do think it's made up of victims, direct and indirect, of gun violence who are focused on the wrong things and aren't necessarily expert in the things they want controlled, or banned.
• I don't think the NRA is a good advocate for gun owners. They've turned the entire debate into a left vs right thing and are doing everything they can to alienate liberals, while simultaneously putting forth spectacularly bad arguments. A future Democratic congress is more and more likely to pass draconian anti-gun laws, and it'll be in part because the NRA never engaged liberals or attempted to get them on their side.

A liberal position should involve encouraging those who want guns to own them responsibly, not criminalizing their possession.

How Hollywood glorifies violence

Kinda something that's been kicking around in my head since Wayne LeOutoftouch made his infamous post-Newtown speech blaming video games and Hollywood for the massacre.

I can't honestly say that either of the movies Wayne picked depicted violence positively. In both cases, violence was depicted as insane, horrible, and unpleasant.

But I can say numerous John Wayne movies have depicted it positively. That is, they've described violence as a tool, to be used legitimately under certain circumstances, largely something about killing "bad people". And here's the thing: the speech affirmed those values. The only person who can deal with a bad guy with a gun, said the NRA's chief, is a good guy with a gun. Add some swagger and a pseudo-Texan drawl, and you've got something that'd sound exactly like it was said by John Wayne himself.

Could it be Wayne's right, and that Hollywood does product influential pro-violence movies, but that he, not numerous mass murderers, is the victim of them?

Sensible gun control

Let's accept the following premises:

1. The AWB is a load of crap. It involves weapons not involved in most of the infamous shootings of this decade. While it was internally effective (it did reduce the number of the weapons it targetted circulating), it was ineffective at its intended ultimate goal (reducing gun violence or making it less lethal - there was no reduction in the amount of gun violence during its enforcement.)

2. It's certainly arguable that it's too easy for people who wish to misuse guns to obtain them. And there's quite a bit of concern about any guns that can fire a lot of bullets in a short space of time.

3. Under the current constitution, you can't ban the vast majority of guns.

4. In the current climate, legitimate gun owners would not cooperate with any program, voluntary or otherwise, that requires they give up existing weapons, and they'd lobby hard against restrictions on what they can own.

So what we're looking for is a gesture that would satisfy the concerns of those who strongly believe (2) above, while recognizing (3) and (4), and also doing something that's not already been tried, and not already been completely discredited.

So this is where my mind is at at the moment.

In most states, there's already a set of laws about under what circumstances you can bear arms. The system in most states is:

1. Anyone can bear arms inside their own homes.
2. Anyone with a Concealed Carry Weapons Permit can bear arms outside of their own homes, as long as they keep them out of sight until needed.

The CCW system is relatively popular amongst gun owners. It's not controversial for the vast majority. Most gun owners I've met encourage other gun owners to get the permit, but they see the requirements as actually a good thing.

Permits are issued under a number of circumstances, but even in "Shall Issue" states (Shall Issue means that it's up to government to prove you're irresponsible, rather than for you to prove you're responsible) there are specific actions from those applying for a permit that encourage responsible ownership. Here in Florida, for example, there's a mandatory gun safety class that needs to be passed before you can get your CCW.

States have massive lee-way in terms of how they implement the CCW program (well, it's their program.)

My thought is this. Rather than an all-out ban on "dangerous weapons" (or worse, "scary weapons"), perhaps a better solution would be to recognize the CCW programs in each State and divide weapons between those that can be owned by anyone (which would have restricted capacities, non-detachable magazines, etc) and those that can only be owned by someone with a valid CCW permit. As a starting point for what constitutes a permit-free weapon, a revolver would pass. A basic bolt-action hunting rifle with a built-in magazine should pass too. Given the popularity of .22LR semi-automatic rifles (.22LR is a relatively weak type of ammunition, so such rifles are extremely popular as user-friendly plinking and target practice guns), it might also make sense to relax the restrictions for guns carrying certain types of ammunition.

It would be up to each state to determine the rules for CCW permits and over time States can experiment with tests of responsible gun ownership, handling things like "Weapons being stolen" on a state by state basis. (I'm not in favor of laws that punish people for merely having their weapons stolen, or otherwise misused by a third party, although I can see a case for doing so where the theft was in part due to carelessness on the part of the owner.)

Recognizing permits in this way would also solve the argument over the "Gun Show Loophole". Whether the loophole really exists or not, it can be taken off the table if you simply require that any gun buyer, in any transaction private or commercial, either passes a background check or shows a valid permit. This eliminates any issues about the rights of private individuals to sell their own property, and prevents gun shows from becoming exclusively gun dealer based.

This shouldn't be controversial. You're using State laws that are aimed at identifying responsible gun owners, and restricting guns that may need more care to those people. Most existing gun owners would probably, in all honesty, be entirely unaffected by this law. You're also providing the States with a means to discourage irresponsible gun ownership without punishing responsible gun owners.

Of course, I expect it to be controversial anyway...

Rules of engagement

1. It is not unreasonable or despicable to, in the wake of a horrific tragedy, demand changes to the law you think will prevent it from happening again.
2. That said, it is unreasonable and despicable to demonize your opponents who have done little but disagree with you, and thus far won the arguments, as responsible for that tragedy.
3. It also doesn't mean you're right.
4. Also the world of politics is a little nuanced. You do not speak for all liberals, or all conservatives.

On the final note:

1. The NRA has itself to blame if an overwhelmingly Democratic government, voted in in 2014, imposes draconian gun control laws. Gun control was a bipartisan issue until you waded in during the mid-nineties and demonized Democrats and liberals, alienating a group that usually sticks up for individual liberties. St Reagan was infamous as Governor of California for getting gun control legislation passed that was aimed at disarming groups he didn't like. The infamous AWB had overwhelming bi-partisan support, attracting the vote of almost every Senator.
2. If you're a liberal (or for that matter a conservative) you need to see through the above. The fact that you can find your political opponents coming up with spectacularly bad arguments for a position you find initially uncomfortable does not make that position wrong. As an example, a liberal might want to actually study the effect of the AWB and its similarity to what's being proposed today. It heavily restricted semi-automatic weapons and crippled magazine sizes. And the studies done do not suggest it made a blind bit of difference when it came to gun crime.

My view?

• There are so many guns of all descriptions in circulation any attempt to limit them will have no affect on availability.
• The difference between an AWB-compliant AR-15 pattern rifle and a standard semi-automatic AR-15 is relatively minor: that is, some psycho who wants the rifle they see on  TV to kill people with (which seems to be the thinking behind banning them) is going to be able to find one, just by modifying a legal rifle.
• I doubt, actually, that America's "gun culture" has much to do with the violence we see. Britain doesn't have a gun culture and there were two major massacres while I lived there. Proportionally to population, the number was much smaller than the US. Proportionally to British gun owners, I'd say the ratio of terrible events to gun owners was much, much, higher. And then there's Switzerland, where there's a semi-automatic version of their military's standard issue assault rifle in many homes, proportionally much larger than here, and there's very little gun crime.
• There are actions that can be taken that would not affect civil liberties, and might help prevent problems, but are treated as beyond the pale by the gun community. Registration is probably the most obvious. Being able to say "We know this person is unsuitable at this moment due to {a relevant mental illness | an injunction after domestic violence | etc }" seems relatively reasonable. A better solution than limiting magazine sizes might be to increase taxes on ammunition not normally used in large quantities by ordinary shooters.
• The other issue people raise is that it's generally felt we don't have an adequate system for identifying people with mental illnesses, with a view that somehow this would have prevented this tragedy. Honestly, I don't know. Lanza is speculated as to having had Asbergers.  Does that normally exhibit itself in a burning need to kill children? Would any treatments for Asbergers  have actually affected whatever it was that caused Lanza to break down?

To be quote honest though, I'm currently of a mind that there just may not be anything that can "be done" after this massacre that would have prevented it from happening, if only it had been done before.

Fiscal Cliff FAQ

There seems to be a little confusion as to what the effects of the Fiscal Cliff are, so here's some help.


1. What is the Fiscal Cliff?

It's a package of spending cuts and tax hikes that'll take effect on the 1st of January unless Congress acts to overturn it.


2. I've spent my entire career protesting about the deficit. Is the Fiscal Cliff bad?

Can you clarify your question?

2.1 OK, I'm against the deficit because I truly believe the government shouldn't have such a deficit.

Then the Fiscal Cliff is ideologically sound to you. Although many economic models, including those based upon Keynesianism, say that it'll end up increasing or doing nothing about the deficit because decreased revenues due to a stagnant economy and accompanying deflation will also be the result. But you don't believe in Keynesianism anyway, so that shouldn't be a problem. To you.

2.2 I'm against the deficit, but that's because as I understand it, it's a "bad thing", that's caused by "wasteful government spending", such as the government spending money on things I don't like, and not spending enough on things I do.

Then you should worry about the Fiscal Cliff because while it cuts money to things you don't like, it also cuts money to the programs you support. Also it too is a "bad thing", like the deficit. That is to say, it is something lots of people are worried about, and you sound like the kind of person who worries about things that other people are worrying about.


3. I'm concerned about my job. Is the Fiscal Cliff going to help?

No, your job will objectively become less safe if we go over, although some economists argue that long term, because most models point to a complete collapse of the economy, or that such an action will somehow cause all badly run businesses to fail while leaving all well run businesses alone (it's not clear what model they're using), you'll find it easier to get a job, probably in 2032 when the economy recovers.

4. I don't have a job because I have a lot of money, several million dollars actually, hidden under my mattress. Will the Fiscal Cliff help me?

Kinda. Make sure you don't let anyone know about the mattress though.

Please make it stop

Some time ago, but after my daughter's birth, my mother related to me a tale of a neighbor who, one day, ran out into the street crying and screaming. She banged on the hoods of nearby cars, and continued to scream, and people ran out to see what was going on.

SIDS.

The story terrified me. I honestly had a three day anxiety attack. I read up on SIDS, and read everything I could possibly find on the subject. I finally, after a few days, started to calm down and was able to be rational, but the story...

And the anxiety never completely stopped of course, but then yesterday I read another story via CNN, this time of a case of child abuse [lest anyone is in the same situation as I am, I shall not relate the story itself, but it involves a two year old physically abused to the point of brain damage and a coma by a - frustrated? - mother.] which caused a similar anxiety attack, with me finding it impossible to concentrate for the rest of the day. And just to make matters worse, I visited my mother today, who knew I was having issues with said story, who proceeded to relate stories of her sister, and how when her sister was three she repeatedly hit a baby over the head with a brick (drawing blood and probably more serious damage) wanting to know "what was under the skin", and who grew up to at least mentally abuse her children.

I'm having a freak out over all of this.

I'm hoping that I'll be able to calm down in time, mostly by applying a filter to what I read and listen to. I know much of this has to do with B's vulnerability.

B cries a lot. Well, she's a baby. I'll pick her up when she's crying and try to calm her down. She'll look at me, and she'll usually try to stop for a moment, but her face will still be all upset, and she'll have an unmistakable expression on her face as she looks at me: "Please, make it stop."

Sometimes it's easy to "make it stop". She's hungry. She just needs to be fed.

Sometimes though... well, we'll burp her if we can, or give her gas drops if the her tummy's gas is too far along. Worse still, she might just be tired, and she's too young to know that sleep will solve that particular problem.

But that expression is the killer, because it's right at the heart of why these stories affect me - actually, I'm guessing 99% of parents - so much. "Please make it stop" is the cry of a baby who has no control over her life, who cannot make her own choices, who is desperate for support from the adults she's learning to trust.

And the idea of someone in the same position as B in the hands of someone who wouldn't make it stop, or worse, is a terrifying idea.

Romney - killed by the echo chamber

What's the origin of the 47% remark? Well, it's a combination of a fact mixed with a lot of prejudice and served with a thick helping of wilful blindness.

Let's go over it. The fact that all of this is based upon is the observation that between the effect of the recession on household incomes, and the raising of income tax thresholds since Reagan, around 47% of households pay no Federal income tax.

By itself, interesting, if not useful. Why not useful? Well, to begin with, the stat only describes one form of taxation, and one form of direct taxation at that.

• Virtually all households pay property taxes, either directly, or as a portion of a rent negotiated with a landlord who knows property taxes will be an expense that needs covering.
• Virtually all human beings in the US pay sales taxes, from seven year olds spending their pocket money to Warren Buffet.
• Virtually all commerce involves taxes somewhere along the line.

Additionally, as many Democrats are keen to point out, a secondary set of income taxes, collectively called payroll taxes, are paid to cover the costs of some government services, such as social security and unemployment insurance - to ensure nobody feels like they're subsidizing those high-rollin' pensioners.

What people do not pay income taxes? Well, the list is broad, but it generally covers:

• Most of the military. The starting pay for an infantryman, for example, is around $15k per year.
• People who are between jobs, have paid income tax all their lives, and will pay them again, who may or may not be receiving services paid for out of payroll taxes.
• People who are students, and expect to earn money and pay income taxes when they end their studies and get a job.
• Pensioners, who have paid income taxes all their lives, and now are living from a combination of the services their payroll taxes covered, and private funds such as IRAs they saved while employed.
• Hard working blue-collar workers, especially in the South, where wages are terrible. Many would welcome the chance to pay income taxes, if only their cheap employers would actually pay them enough to cover them.
• Lazy people who live with their parents and can't be bothered to work
• A small number of the very rich, who are able to afford the right tax accountants.

With me so far? At this point, the "47%" looks entirely uncontroversial. Only two groups, the last two, could be categorized as being able to pay taxes, but failing to do so out of a lack of civic responsibility

But... no, that's not how it was spun. The controversy over the "47%" started with a Washington Times column that highlighted the fact and... to give you some idea of the tone of the article, described these predominantly low income individuals as "Lucky Duckies". "Lucky". Because you have such a low income that even the politicians have recognized you probably can't afford to pay their salaries.

Where does Mitt Romney fit in to all this? Well, the fact half of households don't pay income taxes became a right wing talking point. It was repeated ad-nauseum. Because, apparently, paying taxes is the most awful thing a government can force you to do (what?), it became taken as read that this was a terribly unfair thing and that these people who weren't paying taxes were just mooching off the work of everyone else. And in comes Romney, and he makes a truly big mistake.

I don't mean Romney made a political error. You already know that. I mean what he told a group of rich doners at a private fundraising dinner was factually incorrect. He mixed the prejudiced version of the "half of all households" story, and blurted out a nonsense. You see, in right wing circles:

• Democrats just want to take all the money from hardworking people and give it to lazy people.
• Lazy people like getting free money.
• Democrats do this because they think lazy people will vote for them.

So Romney stated the following:

• That the 47% consists of people getting handouts, rather than people who earn so little they don't pay a particular tax, right at this second, although many - most even? - have done so in the past and/or the future.
• That the demographics of the 47% consists pretty much entirely of Obama supporters. They'll never vote for Romney. Despite the military, pensioners, and southern blue collar workers, making up a large proportion of the 47%.

And then, to add insult to injury, knowing full well that "the 8%" (that is, those on unemployment benefits) are part of the 47% too, Romney made it clear he didn't care one hoot about them, despite the fact he's trying to run as someone who'll fix the economy.

The problem here is the echo chamber. Because people who live in the echo chamber don't get to hear the truth, if what they've heard is not the truth, until it's too late. Romney should have known on some level that what he was saying was utter rubbish, but was never handed that opportunity. If all you read is the Washington Times, all you watch is Fox News, and if you convince yourself that it's not worth getting your information outside of those circles because, well, people will lie, then more fool you. The facts about those not paying income tax were easy to see, but they were only drawn to Romney's attention long after he slipped up, and he slipped up after years upon years of being told, over and over again, that:

• Half the population doesn't pay income tax
• That half of the population are "lucky"
• That half of the population is there by choice, are there because they're lazy
• That Democrats prop up the lazy, because they want their votes.

When a lie is repeated often enough, even the smartest people out there start to believe it. Unfortunately for Romney, a smart, capable, individual who probably would make an excellent President, he chose to live in the echo chamber, where such lies are inevitable.

Thoughts on "Mass Effect", IT, Story Telling, and The Matrix

(Spoilers in yellow to make 'em easy to skip)

After more or less avoiding them for a long time, I've been diving back into computer games for the first time in many years. As I've said before, walking into Gamestop, for me, gave me the same kinds of feelings as I'd expect to feel walking into a Swedish Porn Shop. Not knowing the language. Feeling out of place. The paranoia of feeling that any decision I make will show I have terrible taste, etc.

Diving back in is because of Steam, which is an awesome idea, and because of having a PC I ostensibly bought for work but would otherwise be an idle Windows PC for most of the time.

Boy have things moved on in the games world. Leaving aside the addictive mini-games that could just as easily have existed on the Amiga and been successes then (Plants vs Zombies?), the technology advances have been staggering, and I'm still utterly blown away by two games I've seen. The first, GTA IV, has NEW YORK CITY embedded in its code. NYC! What. The. Fuck? How? I mean, part of me thinks "Well, graphics with Unreal Tournament 2003/4 was up to that level, so why not eight years ago?" but of course it's more than that, and leaving aside the fact the UT2 engine gets very iffy about maps over a certain size, much of the genius of GTA IV consists of artists making the same leaps that others in the Middle Ages did when they jumped from tapestries to photographic images with perspective and shadow. Look at the jumps from GTA3 to GTA VC, and then SA, and you see each jump Rockstar and others made, but still, the leap from SA to IV is... well, unbelievable.

The other game, I picked up a few weeks ago, was Mass Effect. In ME, the thing that blew me away was the story and the story telling, together with an extremely rich universe of characters that, frankly, rivals the best science fiction writing.

For those unaware of the game, the general concept is this: In ME, you play a "Commander Shepherd", a man or woman (you pick) who is a war hero/survivor/etc (you pick) and very skilled in (one or two things you pick again) who is picked by Earth to become the first human "Spectre", a type of super-agent who works for a Galactic version of the UN. Your first missions, even before you're accepted to that role, are to investigate beacons from an extinct alien race that are broadcasting some kind of (spoiler, mind you you'll learn this early in the game) terrible warning about giant robots getting ready to annihilate all sentient life.

The game universe you play in is semi-open world, with lots of side missions you can take at any time that have nothing to do with the plot, although they can help in direct and indirect ways, coupled with more major missions where everything from your skillset to whether you've been nice to people can affect the ease with which you can complete them. By nice to people, I mean that making moral decisions can impact how people see you, to the point there's at least one side mission where you would normally win by having an old fashioned shootout, but if you've been moral enough ("Paragon", to use the lingo), you can walk in, give the right speech, and not see a single shot fired.

That mission kind of felt odd, needless to say. Also, not many like that, though many you can terminate early in that way.

As time goes on, you accrue team mates, and you pick two to come with you on every mission. Each squad member has different skills. Two are human, the others are various types of alien.

So, anyway, I rather liked the game. Reviews averaged about, uh, 90% for ME. Its sequel got even higher reviews. Mostly in the region of 99%. I know why. I respectfully disagree with the ratings even though I agree largely with the logic that got those ratings. While there's a long list of check boxes that say things like "Awesome sub-plot involving Shepherd having to work with organization Shepherd doesn't want to work with" and "Don't you just love Tali, but what's with her race and the other killer space robots?", I think the number one checkbox reviewers ticked when writing their reviews was "ME was awesome, and 90% wasn't enough! I'll make up for it this time..."

Why do I disagree? I disagree because I really feel, having played it, that ME2 just isn't put together as well as ME1. It has great ideas, but it... well, the closest I can think of is The Matrix.

Was Matrix Reloaded better than The Matrix? Hell no. But if I had to check off a long list of reviewer points, and I was a reviewer that totally felt embarrassed because I'd given the original a review that didn't match what my now higher view of it, and then realized it was a whole lot better than I thought, well...

I mean, the Matrix Reloaded had so much additional depth! You had some great new characters. More locations unlike anything in the original. You had a dozen awesome new concepts thrown at you. The universe was just so much richer with all these new characters and concepts, and Neo wasn't making some simplistic choices to "fight the man" (OK, "fight the machine") as he did in the original, but now he was making a more complex choice that would turn out to... well, anyway, you get the picture.

ME2 is richer in many ways than ME, and has some fantastic ideas, but it doesn't feel right. While ME was largely open world, ME2 isn't. ME2 has some utterly stupid game play decisions in it, you're forced to fly your own spaceship (not in a cool 3D way, but by clicking in a location and moving the mouse until the ship is where you want it to be), manually scan planets for required resources (uh, what? Yes, that's just what I see the savour of the universe wasting time on when on a ship full of people whose job it is to do this kind of crap), ME provided shortcuts so you wouldn't spend 30 minutes on something trivial just because your mouse isn't behaving that day, they're gone in ME2. Major locations have been replaced by... well, frankly, insulting structures. I mean, would you believe that one of the most important worlds in ME, The Citadel, which was a rich collection of beautiful locations with different personalities and concepts, is now a three story mall?

It's really not clear actually why 90% of the changes in game play have been made between ME and ME2 either. The weapon and armor systems are different without apparently being improved upon in any way. And, of course, the Elevators are gone.

Let's analyze that because it actually gets to the core of the problem: There were a lot of complaints about "Elevators" in ME, leading some wags, myself included, to call it "Mass Elevator". The deal was that, because the ME series uses the Unreal 3 engine, they can't make the maps particularly large (see above!) So the transition areas in ME are actual elevators. You walk in, press the button, then watch a long ass animation of the inside of an elevator with the you and both your squad mates chatting occasionally while, on occasion, a galactic news channel will pipe in news headlines, until the next screen has loaded. When the next part of the map has finished loading, the elevator finally reaches the top/bottom, and the doors open and your squad, if relevant, find themselves armed and ready to leave.

What was the complaint? Well, the complaint was you hang around in elevators a lot. Why do you hang around in elevators? Because it takes too long to load the next levels. People weren't complaining about the use of elevators to make the delay less boring, they were complaining about the delay.

What you get in ME2 is, instead, a more traditional animation that generally looks like what you'd find on a screen showing diagnostics or other information in 2001: A Space Odyssey. So the delay's still there, it's just more boring.

Why change it? It's changed because people were complaining or thought an aspect of the game was bad, and rather than analyze why, BioWare just changed something to something else. The end result is a game with a lot of good ideas, but a lot of things that are just wrong because they're trying to solve the wrong problems, or because they're hurried solutions that are just as bad as the things they're trying to fix.

Which brings me to IT and ME3. What's IT?

IT is "Indoctrination Theory". IT is an attempt by ME3 fans to make ME3 make sense.

ME3 is more or less a direct sequel to ME2, more or less the same concepts, and a continuation, just as "Matrix Revolutions" is more "Matrix Reloaded" than "The Matrix".

I haven't played  it. C'mon, I didn't like ME2, and the cheapest prices I can find are more than twice what I paid for ME and ME2 together. Why the hell would I buy it now? Maybe I'll take a look when Steam has it on a one day sale for $9.99 or less.

Anyway, everyone complains about the ending of ME3. The complain more or less centers around the fact it's a hurried thing that was obviously supposed to be more profound than it actually is, with Shepherd having to make a difficult choice and see the universe change in three different ways.

In that respect, Matrix Revolutions was a better sequel than ME3. Matrix Revolutions worked to give the hero a great send off, and tried to tie up any loose ends while creating a fairly enjoyable, if less intellectually satisfying, action romp that people could watch and enjoy. Say what you like about it, but that finale was fun to watch.

ME3, not satisfying. Why? Probably because of two reasons:

1. ME3 was put together by the same people as ME2
2. ME3 was ambitious, and had to hit a deadline

Also there's (3) - good endings are hard to write. I'd imagine they're even harder in a game universe where several paths can be traveled to get to that ending.

The result had many fans saying "No, not like this" over and over again, until one came up with a theory that explained everything. It goes like this:

What if, during the critical part of the last phase of the game, Commander Shepherd, our hero/heroine, was... dreaming the whole thing?

OK, dreaming is probably the wrong word, but, well, it's been established that the antagonists in the 
story, the Reapers, can control people's minds. So Shepherd's mind could be being controlled by the antagonists, and thus... something.

The evidence is as follows:

• Not everything that happens after a particular point in the story makes sense.
• The Reapers can control people's minds
• The ending sucked.

Seriously, that's what the entire theory is built upon. Problems:

• The entire game is full of things that don't make sense. It's a computer game. It's hard to keep continuity going in a game where the player can make lots of different decisions.
• The player meets characters whose minds are being controlled throughout the game. They describe certain aspects of this that don't really fit with this theory, such as being conditioned to do the Reaper's bidding through pain.
• "And then I woke up and it was all a dream" is, well, an ending you learn, as a story teller, is spectacularly bad from the beginning.

Moreover, to me, the problem is that the ending is too generic. There's a rule in story telling that if something is going on that's out of that's not explained by taking events at face value, you make damned sure the reader finds it out. If "Did this really happen?" is meant to be a question, you specifically ask the question. If "It was all a dream" is actually the explanation, you show the protagonist dreaming.

You have to do that because every story, EVERY STORY, can have the words "And then I woke up and it was all a dream!" added to it, changing the entire story without contributing anything useful. As a story teller, you have a duty to ensure the plot has the tightest explanation possible, and that that tight explanation is visible to the reader. "It was all a dream" is the very worst contradiction of that principle. There are things you just don't do that would be more forgivable.

To put it another way, if IT is real, then any of the following would have been better if they'd happened in ME3:

• In the last minute, Commander Shepherd sees Mordin running up to him/her. "Stop" he yells, "Commander! I've done it! This mass effect powered device I just invented will end the Reaper menace, just press this button, and they'll disappear forever!". Shepherd presses the button. A cut scene is shown 200 years in the future, of people looking at a statue of Shepherd and Mordin together, and a father says to his boy "Those were Shepherd and Mordin, the two people who saved the galaxy." Game over.
• Shepherd boarded the Reaper. As wave after wave of Husk attacks, bullets fly everywhere, until one hits a hithertoo unnoticed spot in the wall. The wall breaks, and a nerdy looking human looks out. "Don't shoot! I'll surrender!" says the man. "I confess! There were no Reapers, I just... I just made these giant Reaper ships because I wanted attention. I'll stop now." Game over.
• Paragon Shepherd reached the Reaper Parliament. "Stop, I have something to say", says the Commander. There is commotion, but the Reaper speaker puts a hand/tentacle up and motions to the others to be quiet. "Commander Shepherd, you can have your say". Shepherd then says "Why don't you let us live? Go on! C'mon! Let us live! C'mon!" The Reapers confer with one another and then say "OK then." Game over.
• Commander Shepherd boards the Reaper, but notices ooze, oil, and brake fluid, leaking from various pipes. The Reaper stops trying to defend itself, and Shepherd receives a message over the intercom.  "Shepherd, it's Joker! We're getting reports all across the Galaxy. It's bacteria! The Reapers are allergic to Earth's bacteria! They're dropping like flies! It's over Shepherd! It's over!"

 IT would have been a great ending, but it needed to be done differently. Specifically:

• Indoctrination would have had to be described differently from the start, or else Shepherd would have had to feel unusual levels of pain when making certain decisions, with that being explicitly shown.
• Explicit hints, as in dialog, would have had to be given that Shepherd was indoctrinated. Comments from squad members explicitly questioning Shepherd's decisions and mental health, would, for example, help here, culminating possibly in a comment from Doctor Chakwas asking the Commander outright whether indoctrination was a possible explanation, or asking the Commander whether the Commander would know if he or she were indoctrinated.
• Most importantly, the game would have needed to end with a reveal. A cut sequence showing Reapers controlling the Commander's decisions.

Pretty much the only time I'd allow a story teller to avoid the last part is if you as a story teller are asking "Would you know" (such as in Total Recall), but notice that TR doesn't avoid the question, or consider it worth raising only with some minor hints, the question is central to the plot and is raised explicitly multiple times. The question is, reportedly, never asked, ever, in ME3 - the best anyone can get to it are multiple things "not making sense", which is true of the entire game, not merely the period that IT's proponents claim represents an indoctrinated Shepherd.

Anyway, the fact that a large proportion of the ME3 fan base consider it only understandable if you pretend it ends with "And then I woke up and it was all a dream" makes me very reluctant to play it, even when it does end up being 9.99 on Steam.

Which is a shame. As I said, I thought the original is awesome.

Confessions and concerns

As I get older, I become more misogynist. I think in part it's being married and listening to the horror stories of my (wonderful - don't misunderstand me - she's the exception) wife about how women treat one another, and the degree to which apparent friendliness and warmth men think they sense from women is faked.

So with a daughter on the way, I worry about being unable to connect, and being unable to be the father she'll need to be the best she can be.

I will need to rise above myself. Hopefully I can do that.

Using systematic corruption for good

Some years ago, I had an epiphany about John Major, Britain's first post-Thatcher Prime Minister. One of Major's signature achievements was the privatization of British Rail, Britain's battered state-owned railway company.

British Rail was a textbook example of how taking an industry into state ownership and then subsidizing it can cause it much harm. Originally intended to be profitable, the Government panicked after it made large losses for a few years in a row in the 1950s. A corrupt Minister of Transport, Ernest Marples, appointed a commission to look into BR's problems, and then appointed a contrarian member, who'd argued for BR receiving a lobotomy to return it to profitability, to take charge of the business itself. That man was Richard Beeching, and his cuts proved to be disastrous, causing a once universal rail system to drastically reduce in usefulness. The cuts did nothing to reduce British Rail's losses, indeed, I'd argue that they caused them to continue, when BR was in the midst of modernizing a network whose problem was more the high cost of maintenance than a lack of demand for services.

A second attempt, in the 1980s, to cut British Rail, was in some ways foiled precisely because Beeching's cuts were discredited. But there was no guarantee that this would continue, with the Thatcher government generally being rail hostile, and the risk of another corrupt minister deliberately undermining the rail system.

The British railway system is a critical part of British infrastructure, and it's virtually impossible to imagine the UK continuing without it. Roads of any size are overloaded, cities are too crowded to allow for every resident to own a car (just finding a parking spot outside of your own home is a rare luxury few enjoy.) And, quite honestly, public transport is pleasant. It's not perfect, but the view in America of buses being something you get mugged on, for example, which itself is ridiculous, is considered laughable.

And with environmental concerns about road based transport, as well as the oil dependency issues it raises (taken more seriously in the UK than US, where high gas taxes exist to attempt to prevent repeats of the 1970s), it's as much a national security issue that the rail system exist and be useful to passenger and freight alike as it is a practical issue.

So "something had to be done", and John Major, to give him credit, did something - intentionally or otherwise - that I think is pretty good: he used the corruption of government against itself.

-

Now, at this point, you can probably guess this is a kinda follow on to my last JE. In the UK, just like the US, there's a corruption in government. In the US, it's more obvious and arguably more tolerated. It's just assumed that you can buy influence, and to a certain extent people informing themselves about politicians vote in part based upon who's sponsoring them, rather than against them because they're being sponsored at all.

The UK has two major parties, the Conservatives, who are owned by the business community, and Labour, who are owned by the unions. The union ownership is largely uncontroversial - unions exist to represent their members, who are ordinary people, so giving them representation within government doesn't seem evil. But it should be kept in mind that this doesn't mean Labour does the right or most democratic things because of that: consider, for example, whether given the choice between an environmentally correct choice, and one that protects the jobs of coal miners, the system is set up to ensure Labour makes the right decision.

Now, Ernest Marples, above, owned a road haulage company, taking steps to disguise his continuing ownership of the company when he was in power. The biggest threat to road haulage was British Rail, which operated a relatively open freight and light freight network. Since the Beeching re-organization, routes have been cut, and the bars for being able to use the freight network have been drastically raised. So Marples directly benefited from his choice of Beeching to manage BR. But that's not all that was going on.

Let's look at the situation in the 1960s.

• British Railways was a branch of government. It couldn't lobby for itself, in the sense of making campaign contributions and aiding the election of friendly candidates
• The road haulage industry could lobby for itself, and did, causing the Conservatives to become anti-rail.
• The car industry could lobby for itself, and did, also causing the Conservatives to become anti-rail.
• The car industry and road haulage industries could also lobby non-political, but influential, entities like the media, a route not available to the state-owned rail company.
• The unions were split between the road haulage industry and the rail industry. Labour therefore followed the path of least resistance, which was to continue what was already in place. That meant implementing Beeching's cuts.

How do you protect British Rail (or rather, the railway system) going forward? Well, the only way is to build a counterweight to the road industry. 

• You create businesses that rely upon the existence of the railway system to survive.
• You bring in companies that would otherwise be rail hostile, such as other transportation companies, and make them reliant upon railway income.
• You ensure the subsidy system is not open to question, by creating mechanisms that at least suggest that if it were possible to run a system for less, the subsidies would be less.

--

John Major's privatization of British Rail looks exactly like what you'd expect it to look like based on a "Protecting the railway" agenda above.

1. You create businesses that rely upon the existence of the railway system to survive.

British Rail itself ceased to exist in the privatization, but several corporations were set up to manage the actual infrastructure and own British Rail's former rolling stock. One of these, Railtrack, the company that managed the infrastructure, was controversial from the start and was eventually brought back into national ownership, and arguably this is the one part of British Rail that should have remained nationalized.

2. You bring in companies that would otherwise be rail hostile

British Rail's operations were devolved into a set of franchises. Companies were invited to bid on each franchise, with the winner given a semi-monopoly on services covered by that franchise. BR's competitors were specifically encouraged to take part, and they did. Bus companies National Express and Stagecoach were involved from the start, as was Virgin, owners of Virgin Atlantic.

Suddenly companies that were competing with the rail network, were now directly benefiting from it. They had no reason to lobby against the network, and indeed had good reasons to argue for more government support.

3. You ensure the subsidy system is not open to question

While, to the surprise of some I guess, large parts of the rail system are profitable, many parts aren't, and so part of the process of picking companies to run franchises involves requiring each business bid on a subsidy (or lack of one.) The company that has the most positive effect on the Treasury, while being competent and able to run the services required, gets the franchise.

This makes it much more difficult to suggest that parts of the network are over-subsidized. If it were possible to run a serviceable train system for that franchise for much less of a subsidy, the company that bid on it would have been out bid.

--

So there you have it. Corruption used against itself. To be fair, the current British railway system is far from perfect, and there are a lot of complaints about the privatized system. Still, travel on it is astonishing cheap compared to 15 years ago, there are more services, and more frequent services, and most agree it's still the best way to get around Britain.

Moreover, Beeching is finally being undone. Train operating companies are demanding new lines be built, often to replace lines that Beeching killed. Until the privatization, there was virtually no entity with power capable of lobbying for those new lines, and still less any chance of them ever happening.

Other countries might learn a thing or two from what Major did. I'd like to see something similar in the US, with state owned rails, and privately owned trains. This would, at the very least, remove some of the inequities that make running passenger trains in the US so unprofitable, such as the absurd property taxes. And it would create "Big Train", a lobby that'd argue for expansion of the network. Unfortunately, legally and morally, it would be immensely difficult to do such a thing. The right time would have been with the break-up of Conrail, or even at the formation of Amtrak, but the concept of "Private lines, public trains" is so embedded in the US rail system it would be difficult to undo.

I, for one, welcome our Federal Overlords

I've come to the conclusion that Illinois has the least corrupt government in the US. "But Squiggie!", I hear you pretend to say, "That's so corrupt the governor was put in Jail last month!", to which my answer is "Exactly".

Blagojevich sits in jail because he demanded a reward for picking Obama's choice of Senator, it's not clear what kind of reward, it might have been spending money, or it might have been a campaign contribution. But it was wrong, and Rod's now being punished for the crime.

By comparison, my state's governor passed rules that force government employees to get drug tests upon being hired, something that is entirely unnecessary (and a cause of needless anxiety to the victims) but happens to benefit companies that do drug tests - like, well, the governor's. Clearly corrupt, and nobody's even considering jailing the bastard.

Corruption and abuse of power seems to appear in different forms at different levels of government. My experience is:

• HOAs are little more than person fiefdoms for cliques who use rules to inflict misery on those who cross them. People who attempt to vote out those cliques rarely end up any the better, and most residents are too intimidated to involve themselves in the "democracy" to change things.
• City and county governments have a mix of good and bad people, depending upon the luck of the draw. The politicians themselves aren't usually too bad in terms of how corrupt they are, but they usually have a myopic vision of the consequences of their actions, leading to frequent overreaches in terms of rule making and power. Police and other emergency services are usually fine at a high level, but as you get to the lower ranks, there's a certain amount of looking out for each other than comes at the expense of those served. [FWIW, one of the reasons I like the NCIS television show is that it somewhat subversively shows the corruption in action through the extremely ironic character of Gibbs]
• State governments tend to be somewhat larger versions of  city and county governments with many of the same problems. A bigger issue is that the politicians seem to be more ideological and more inclined to try to impose their ideology on others.

And then we get to the Federal level. Right now we have:

• A rather power obsessed executive that frequently abuses its power
• An ideological Supreme Court, though one reluctant to abuse its power in most instances
• A bizarre Congress that's mostly corrupt, but has great difficulty exercising power

So, who should have power?

I have to admit, I'd rather see power go upward. It's not that the Federal Government is less corrupt than, say, my HOA. It's more that Federal Laws are more difficult to enforce than local laws. The more unrealistic a Federal politician is, the less likely it is their attempts to exert power will be effective.

Defenders of self defense laws shouldn't smear Trayvon Martin

A young man is walking through a neighborhood on his way home from buying a drink and snack from a nearby store. It's dark and raining. He's suddenly aware that he's being followed. He stops his conversation on his cellphone, his heart racing he asks his stalker what's going on. It's dark, but the man following him is armed, and starts to ask threatening questions. The young man realizes he's going to be attacked, and attempts to smack down his accoster, who falls to the ground hitting his head on the concrete. After a brief struggle, there's a gunshot. The stalker has pulled out his firearm and killed the young man.

Is this story an attempt to defend Trayvon Martin, the teenager shot to death by a vigilante a few weeks ago? No, staggeringly, it's actually the story being told by the vigilante's defenders. They argue that Martin attacked Zimmerman, after Zimmerman followed and confronted Martin. They say Zimmerman was in the right because Martin was able to fight back, and may have thrown the first punch.

We don't know if the story is true, but one thing is for sure: if your idea of a right to self defense is that a scared young man shouldn't be able to fight off a stalker, but a lucid stalker should be able to shoot a scared and excited young man who has managed to get the better of him, then you have a very strange idea of what self defense constitutes.

Florida has a "Stand your ground" law, a law I reluctantly support. I think, on balance, it's better that someone who has a legitimate fear of being attacked be able to use force to defend themselves, than for them to have to worry about going to prison for doing so. While it may not feel like something necessary in a civilized society, the reality is that not everyone is civilized, and the fact someone might defend themselves is itself a deterrent against those who aren't. Moreover, it's simply inhuman to say that someone scared, whose judgement is going to defined by their fear, should not be able to use the tools available to them to defend themselves.

Stand Your Ground was attacked by some because they saw it as the catalyst for Trayvon's killing. They may be right, but not in the sense they argued. Their argument is that Zimmerman thought he had a legal right to dispense justice because of that law, an argument that's almost certainly untrue. Zimmerman clearly wasn't threatened until (if he was) he took a lucid decision to involve himself in a confrontation. Trayvon clearly never got an opportunity to make a lucid decision. He felt threatened, and he (if the story above is true) stood his ground.

Thoughts (political, etc)

Many progressives are demanding the head of Staff Sgt. Robert Bales after the recent massacre in Afghanistan. I'm not going to go there at this point: my problem is that - with, obviously, all due respect to the vast majority of soldiers who are able to cope with conditions in that country - it's not immediately clear whether Bales is psychotic, or someone who's exploded after extreme pressure.

My view is that training people to kill and then sending them into a country full of people who just don't like you, where a minority is even trying to kill you, while soaking you in propaganda depicting your role as heroic and worthy of unquestioning support from those very people, just... well, it seems almost inevitable that given enough people subjected to that situation, one of them would snap. And if someone engineer - by design or through negligence - a situation where such a brutal tragedy is inevitable, I would consider that person more culpable than the person who pulls the trigger.

Chances of such a person being officially identified, let alone held accountable? Zero.

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I'm considering holding my nose and voting for Obama at the moment. It depends, right now, on who wins the nomination. All signs point to Romney, who may be a 1%er jerk, but is apparently no worse than Obama and so would leave me free to lodge a "You didn't get my vote Obama, you torturing, executing, jackass" vote for a third party. But there's a moderate risk that Santorum will get the nomination, and actually I believe he's one of very, very, few people on the Republican side who would actively make things worse. And interestingly in part it's because of his proposal for a war on porn that scares me.

It's not so much the subject, although actually I do strongly support the rights of consenting adults to take pictures of each other and sell the pictures and movies on the Internet. My major concern here is the indication that he would consider such a war a priority and the implicit understanding that this means Santorum would, actually, use his executive powers under existing law to impose his screwed up moral values upon the rest of us. Given that there's no suggestion he's opposed to Obama's wars on civil liberties, such a President would give us the worst of all worlds.

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And on that note, would one of my conservative readers like to comment upon whether the "Right wing urges Gingrich to drop out, so that Santorum will get a clear run against Romney" thing actually makes sense? It doesn't to me. I've always seen Gingrich as coming from the semi-libertarian branch of the Republican coalition, he's definitely not theocratic, and I don't see someone who supports Gingrich the technocrat with unfortunate personal morals as being a natural Santorum supporter. In fact, I'd assume most of those people would actually consider Romney a better fit with their beliefs.

I understand that Santorum and Gingrich are both considered more "pure" than Romney, but on the left I'd argue that Glenn Greenwald and Vladimir Lenin are considered more pure than Obama - that doesn't mean if all three were running for President, and Greenwald dropped out, Lenin would pick up any of Greenwald's supporters.

So what's the deal? Are the conservative commentators who are calling for Gingrich to step down onto something I don't understand, or are they just... well, as crazy as Santorum?

Actions have consequences [note: not nice]

I prefer not to speak ill of the dead, but it would stand to reason that if, say, Bernie Madoff were to die tonight, very few people would be eulogising him. They wouldn't claim that his frauds were legitimate because they were in support of some greater goal.

And so I have to admit to feeling somewhat nauseous hearing even my fellow liberals pretend that there was anything good to say about Andrew Breitbart.

The man was a monster.

The man took down a poverty group because it had the audacity to encourage, and help, those it sought to help, to vote. ACORN ran a voter registration scheme, and after a years long smear campaign using the most liberal, but still legally correct, definition of "voter registration fraud", the right wing had failed to shut it down. Brietbart created a video designed to make it look like ACORN helped prostitution, a video that turned out to be, using deceptive editing and the removal of critical audio, 100% bogus.

The damage was done and those who needed help lost the support of a group of good, honest, people.

It might be popular with many on the right to side with the powerful against the powerless at the moment, but that doesn't make it any less evil. Breitbart was one of those who insisted on propping up the abusive against the less fortunate. Fuck him. I'm glad he's dead.

Class wars

Getting rather annoyed about the use of the phrase "class war" to describe those arguing that the wealthy should pay more in taxes. Leaving aside the motives of those spreading it as a meme - a rather transparent yet successful attempt to discredit the argument by pretending it's something else - it's also wrong.

As an ex-Brit, I know what classes are, and being rich or poor doesn't determine the class you're in. Being a member of a privileged class though tends to mean you have power, which usually implies you're given wealth as part of the deal.

The US has classes, but it also has a number of other social structures that undermine the class system and make it less of an issue than it is (or to some extent was) in the UK. The rich and powerful do what they can to remain rich and powerful, and ensure their children are rich and powerful, and that makes it harder for those who aren't rich and powerful to move forward, but you can't really point at the rich and say they make up a unified establishment linked socially and economically. The wealthy's use of power tends to be through bribes - sorry, lobbying - and control of the media, not through sitting in a House of Lords or having friends who do.

You can argue that there's similarities, but in reality, the similarities are only in the sense that the powerful have the power to remain powerful.

Arguing that the wealthy should pay more in taxes is not "class war", even if, as those who promote the "class war" meme, the argument is because we're at war with rich people. Rich people are not a class.

And, just to make it clear to my right wing friends who slavishly repeat this stuff, nobody's arguing you shouldn't be rich. We just don't see it as good policy to tax those who benefit the most from a society - by definition - at the same or a lower rate than everyone else. And right now we know that we're in a state where there's a chronic lack of demand, which isn't going to be solved until money starts to flow into the pockets of the majority.

Rethinking abortion

I'm going to preface this with a summary because this is such a hot button issue, that it's likely to get misunderstood. The position described by this blog entry is this:

I am pro-choice, despite misgivings about the morality of abortion. I consider the legalization of choice important, but there are issues I care much more deeply about, that are more black and white, and my support for those latter issues overrides my support for the first.

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There aren't many reasons for a liberal to support the Democrats these days. The Democrats have anti-liberal policies in most spheres. They're pro-war. They're pro-torture. The TSA has continued to grow and become more draconian under Obama's watch. They support the war on the drugs, even going so far as to undermine state initiatives to curb the excesses of that war. They care little, or not at all, about the unemployed until it's a year or so before the next election and realize that lots of unemployed people equals lots of votes for the other guy. And I get into arguments with like minded liberals online, and usually, after a large number of statements like:

• Yeah, but they ended the war in Iraq
• You mean they kept to the timetable Bush agreed to? And they attacked Libya, illegally!
• But... they passed healthcare reform!
• Yes, but the reform they went for was anti-liberal. Now we're forced to buy insurance from the same abusive assholes who caused the problem in the first place, and with one or two exceptions, the same crap still exists. How is this better?
• But, uh, Bush!
• Can you point at a Bush policy of importance that Obama hasn't ultimately continued, or even extended?

the issue of the Supreme Court comes up. If we allow a Republican to win, says the reluctant Democrat, they'll appoint a conservative to the Supreme Court, tipping the balance and causing abortion to be banned!

And because I'm a liberal, and I support choice, that's usually the point at which I sigh and get frustrated. If the Democrats can always rely upon liberals to support them, even when they're anti-liberal, then how do we get the Democrats to actually stop being anti-liberal?

But as I've thought about it, I've become more and more convinced it's a bad argument anyway. Abortion is an important issue, but there are a hell of a lot of important issues. And for some reason, it's OK to throw our children under the bus in pointless wars, our dissenting voices and whistle-blowers under the torture bus, our cancer patients and other people in severe pain under the drugs war bus, our unemployed under the foreclosure bus, and our general freedoms under the bus, but it's not OK to "throw women under the bus" - or rather, a small number of women who, rightly or wrongly, end up in the doctor's chair wanting to end an unwanted pregnancy.

What's wrong with that picture?

Does it do liberalism any good if only one issue is fought for? And wouldn't it take care of the choice issue long term if there was a major political party willing to fight for liberal principles - that was scared of losing the liberal vote?

And, hold on a moment, but is this really the most important issue liberals should be fighting for, to the exclusion of everything else? Those Democrats who are considered liberals rarely spend as much effort fighting, say, the war on drugs, as they do the war on abortion, and yet there are significant similarities between the two, obscured in some ways because the war on drugs is current and criminalized by definition, and the war on abortion is not.

The war on drugs causes both "good" and "bad" uses of proscribed drugs to be banned. So both dope using cancer patients and stoners both end up criminalized. It's not entirely clear that many states would ban abortions in all circumstances, but despite that I'd agree with most assessments that both rape victims and "abortion as contraception" users would end up suffering under the ban.

The war on drugs makes matters worse for those who plan to take drugs anyway. Supplies become unreliable and unregulated, making them dangerous. Those who sell the drugs are criminals by definition, which means an above average interest by the criminal element in managing the distribution chain. Sellers have reasons to push overly addictive drugs, knowing there are no sanctions for doing so that don't apply to other drugs. Likewise, a cynic would probably wonder how many anti-choice advocates have shares in companies that sell wire coat-hangers.

Both the war on drugs and war on abortion are ultimately wars on the body, a belief that government has the right to intrude upon an individual's ultimate right to decide what their body can and cannot do. Governments have every right to help individuals make the right decisions - and obviously has every right to minimize the danger of one person's choices to others - but there are lines that should not be crossed. But, actually, in many ways the government has a stronger right to regulate abortion than it does drugs. At some point - the religious might argue around two weeks after the LMP, others would look at the development of the zygote, embryo or fetus and point at something significant such as brain development or a heartbeat - one has to come to the conclusion there's another body involved.

In our zeal to protect a woman's right to choose, it's become obvious that equal or greater principles have been thrown under the bus. More-over, it's not clear to me that simply the addition of a conservative to the Supreme Court would cause permanent, irreversible, damage to the cause. A conservative might overturn Roe vs Wade, but it would still be necessary for states to take the next step, and it's not immediately clear many would be successful. Free movement would also make it difficult for such laws to be effective. This is not to argue that a state could not cause hardship in its zeal to ban abortion, but a Republican winning an election does not mean an immediate, draconian, nationwide abortion ban.

Liberals should not focus on one issue to the exclusion of every other issue at each election, and especially not on this one. The Democratic party should not be allowed to think that its support for one issue - and the Republican's polar opposite opinion - should guarantee support for it from the liberal bloc. If the Democrats are ultimately an anti-liberal party, they shouldn't have our support.