King for a day

Question
What would you do if you were made head of the country for just long enough to impose one piece of legislation? Would you right a perceived wrong, or attend to your pet cause? Essentially, the question is: what added law would do the country the most good?



My Answer
I would set up a system for the public funding of elections.

I thought for a while about the various other causes I might want to try and devote my 15 minute reign to, but I think this works out best. When you're trying to decide between a number of choices, I'm a big fan of third-way options which use a creative alternative to allow you to have you cake and eat it, too (aside: I used to hate that aphorism, but it's growing on me).

The theory behind my choice: as cynical as I may sound sometimes, I really believe that well-run democracies will eventually come up with the right answers. In our case, however, there is a huge problem created by the process of elections.

In order to be a serious contender, you must have some serious cash backing. In order to get that backing, you must be supported by major corporations. And in order for major corporations to think that you're worth investing in, they must believe that your election will bring them something in return. Obviously, there's a huge incentive there to govern in the interest of your financial patriarchs, rather than in the interest of your constituents.

People have tried to fix this problem through campaign finance reform laws. Unfortunately, there are a few major weaknesses in those laws:
1. It's really hard to plug all the potential loop holes.
2. Without some sort of financing, the super-rich have a huge advantage.
3. There is some concern that it is a violation of free speach to prevent people from giving money to political organizations.

My solution to the problem is publicly-funded elections. Here's how it works: money is accrued through taxes (the cost is an estimated $1 per person). Any candidate getting a requisite minimum number of signatures is eligible to spend this money on an election. If all the candidates in a race opt to run with public money, they are each allowed a fixed ammount. If only one candidate elects to take they public money, enough is given to catch him/her up with his opponent. Since the opponent now has no incentive to try to outspend his/her rival, the total money spent drops significantly.

I like this idea a lot because it frees politicians from their financial obligtions, and allows them to support the legislation based upon whether they think it is sound, rather than whether it will be good for their backers. This would end the patron system we have now, and get real work accomplished on immigration, the environment, education, the economy, and many other areas in which companies havea vested interest.

Published in the LA Times!

I didn't discover it until today, but I was published in the Los Angeles Times on Sunday.

Background
Just before beginning this blog, I briefly entertained the hobby of publishing satirical edits on Conservapedia.org, a wacky alternative to the supposed liberal bias of Wikipedia. Most of them were promptly deleted, but on occasion I managed to get some edits to stick.

So:
On Sunday, the LA Times printed an article on Conservapedia. Contained within that article are several quotations from articles on the website. Included amongst them was a quote pulled from the article on George W. Bush:

"And the state of the economy under President Bush? Much better than the "liberal media" would have you think: "For example, during his term Exxon Mobile has posted the largest profit of any company in a single year, and executive salaries have greatly increased as well."

With fewer than 12,000 entries and typos galore (the misspelling of Mobil above; the mayor of L.A. is referred to as "Anthony Varigoso"), Conservapedia isn't about to supplant Wikipedia — which boasts 1.8 million articles in English alone."

These fingers first wrote that sentance about five months ago, and somehow it survived long enough to be discovered by a Times reporter. How you like them apples, world?

When aliens come to Earth...

...I think they'll find it odd that we present plant genitalia to eachother as part of our courting ritual.

Running off with the nomination

Introduction
If ever there was an argument for run-off balloting, this presidential primary season is it. Both parties find themselves in the awkward position of of having a frontrunner who is viewed negatively by a large portion of the party. Keep reading for a brief explanation of the problem and potential solution.

Republican Primary
Former mayor Rudy Giulliani currently leads the Republican field with a slim majority of the vote. Giulliani appears to have a percentage of voters loyal to him within his party, but much of the rest of conservative America appears reluctant to support a pro-life, pro-gay rights candidate. Despite the fact that many of his party, perhaps even most, would list him at the bottom of their preferred candidates, Giulliani would likely be the Republican nominee if the vote were held today.

Democratic Primary
The Democrats face a similar predicament. Hillary Clinton has a significant lead over her rivals in the polls. However, in a one-on-one election, she would lose to many of her competitors. She is viewed negatively by many in her party, but has a large enough chunk of supporters to lend her the lead. (Aside: Hillary is by far the most-hated Democratic candidate among Republicans--most would prefer any other Democrat to her. And yet, she is the most conservative in the Democratic field by far. Can anyone explain this to me?)

Solution: Run-off voting
Run-off voting solves this stratgy by allowing voters to list the candidates from favorite to least-favorite rather than simply checking their first choice. This way, one candidate cannot win by splitting the vote, for example if Hillary should win the nomination when anti-Hillary voters were unable to choose decisively between Al Gore and Barack Obama. Pay attention to this, I could easily see it playing a big part in this election.


Note
One way the primary system has countered vote-splitting in the past is by the winnowing of the field--candidates drop out as it becomes increasingly clear they will not win. This will be less the case this year, as the primary schedule has been rewritten so that the individual primaries are less spread out, not allowing time for candidates to drop out.

Ethics question: To kill a dolphin

See if you can help me figure this one out.

Question 1: Is it morally acceptable to kill a dolphin for food?

If you answer no:
Should a person then be able to be convicted of homicide for killing a dolphin?
Is it morally acceptable to kill a whale? If you said no again, how about a monkey? a wolf? a cow? Is there an IQ cut-off for what is acceptable to kill and what is not? Is there any other rubric we can use? Skip down to the discussion.

If you answered yes:
Consider the next question....


Question 2: What if it were determined that a dolphin is every bit as intelligent and sentient as a human? Would it be morally OK to kill a dolphin for food then?

If you answered yes:
Is it really OK to kill another sentient animal? If we were visited by an elite race of aliens, wouldn't we want them to consider us as equals and not kill us? Wouldn't we protest if they killed us for food?

If you answered no:
You seem to have decided that the cut-off for ethical killing is sentience: thou shalt not kill another sentient being. But what if we discovered that dolphins were about as smart as a mentally retarded adult? Is it OK then? What if they had the mental capacity of a 12-year old? A 5 year-old? A 2 year-old? Is there a cut-off IQ score below which it is OK to kill something? Is it then acceptable to kill a human being below that mark?


Discussion
My point is that there is a continuum of intelligence in the world. A mouse is somewhat more intelligent than a grasshopper, which is somewhat smarter than an tick, etc. As I said above, were we to encounter another sentient race we would certainly want them to consider killing one of us to be homicide, a crime of equal severity as killing one of their own. Therefore, if a dolphin can be proved by some measure to be sentient, shouldn't we want to extend that same moral maxim to the killing of dolphins?

All of this begs the question: where exactly is the line of sentience? Dolphins probably have a language that is as sophisticated as our own: there are 23 known dialects of dolphin-speak, and a dolphin can convey and understand much more information than a person (Aside: a much bigger portion of a dolphin's brain is devoted to speech, and they can therefore absorb much more information. A short series of clicks and whistles can likely convey as much information to a dolphin as a novel to a human).

Is there some rubric by which we can determine sentience? Can we establish a cut-off point below which killing is ethically acceptable? Should people spend a life in jail for killing a dolphin?

Please share any insight you might have to this question.

Republican debate II: the raw stats

Here's the raw, question-by-question data from the debate. Each group of letters represents one answer. I tried to develop objective methods of scoring (an answer earned an "O" when Wolf interrupted to tell them they were over time, for example). Also, to show the chronology of the debate, I jumped to the next column as soon as one of the candidates had answered that many questions. So: because McCain, for example, answered his second question before Tancredo had been asked his first, Tancredo's first answer appears in the second column. Hopefully, this shows the flow of the debate a little more clearly. Finally: if an N and an A appear in the same answer acronym, it means that moderator Wolf Blitzer pressed them for clarification and they then answered the question. Without further ado:


Candidate
McCain____A________NDOSAX___AXOS_________AO____NZ__ASO___A
Romney__CNNDO_____NPOD____AO______AS___NZPO___A___AO___A
Giuliani___AD_______AD______AS_______XS9___AO____AS___N____
Tancredo___________AO______AZBDO_________________________AB
Hunter_____________AXO_____ACAS_____NSB___________________NCO
Paul_______________AXO______________AX____AXB___AB___N
Brownback_NO_______AO_______________NO___NO______________AD
Thompson___________AO_______________AS___AZCO____________A
Huckabee___________ARP____________________NCO_______N___ABO
Gilmore___A________NO_____________________NO________AO______

A Answered
N Not Answered
R Unprompted Reagan Reference
X Attack on another candidate
P Platitude
O Over time limit
C Caught straying
D Attack on Democrats
B Attack on Bush
Z Shout out to the religious Right
S Tied answer to national security though the initial question did not
9 September 11th Reference

Republican Debate, Take 2: in which I bite off more than I can chew.

I again missed the Democratic debate and caught the Republican one. Sorry. For this debate, I tried both to keep a running diary and some stats on the debate. Whew. I had to give up on the stat-keeping when we got to the town-hall part. Anyways, here they are:

Live blog
•9: times Huckabee raised his eyebrows in his 10 second introduction.
•Romney: We have to have a broad response against Islam in order to make sure that they are moving forward to modernity--his response to whether nuclear weapons are reasonable. Nuking Islamics will catch them up with the rest of the world? We'll have to revise Cheney's "we'll bomb you back to the stone-age" threat to "We'll nuke you up to the space age."
•"We are becoming a bilingual nation and that is not good." -Tancredo. Seriously?
•What the heck is going on with Tommy Thompson's hair? He has his sideburns shaved all the way back to mid-temple. Must be shooting for the 80's hair band vote…
•Pretty funny that lightening continuously struck while Giuliani was answering questions about being opposite the church.
•Giulliani seems to suffer disproportionately from the lightening strike phenomenon.
•Romney puts Putin, Abinojad, and Chavez all in the same answer: whoa. At your local theater this week: Cold War II, Vlad's revenge.
•Romney's a great staller. You couldn't take that mike from him with a gun.
•Gilmore gets in a dig on Russia, too. I'm terrified that Putin will respond to this debate by nuking NH.
•You'd think the "Live free or die" state would be more into a libertarian like Ron Paul.
•"This is not a time to deal with disruptive issues like this" -Giulliani on Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Then cites the fact that Clinton has already dealt with it. Not too many subjects that a Republican would dodge by saying that Bill Clinton already solved it.
•"I would put him out on the lecture cicuit"- Thompson on how he would include George W. Bush in his administration. This is hilarious: if elected, Tommy Thompson will turn President Bush into a motivational speaker. He's got my vote.
•Giulliani takes Romney's stalling crown with a 100+ word answer to a "Yes" or "No" question.
•Romney, irate, responds with 150 words.
•Half-time analysis: All doing their best to avoid the issues of abortion, global warming, evolution, gay rights, pardoning Libby. Trying to bring it all back to security.
•Wow, hard not to feel impressed by the first young woman to ask a question in the town hall portion.
•McCain scores big by realizing that you can get up from the chair in the town hall part. All other candidates follow suit.
•Huckabee seems pissed to be asked questions on "morality".
•Apparently, Communism fell because Ronald Reagan was able to talk them out of it (Giulliani). We're approaching Chuck Norris level reverence.
•CNN uses some weird low and high angle shots to make Ron Paul look crazy. Paul helps them out.
•Romney scores with a reference to the "Kennedy-McCain" bill. Republicans hate JFK's little brother, so any linking to his name is poison.
•This standing up revelation is incredible.
•"Bilingual countries don't work, and we should not encourage it." -Tancredo. Take that, Switzerland.
•John McCain points out that many of our armed forces are Hispanic. Right on.
•I should've included a stat that tracked who got the big bursts of applause. Stupid.
•"The leading cause of fear in America is that you'll get cancer." -Brownback. Wow, I'd like to see the stats on that one. I wish that were true, but I think that if it were you would see the candidates trying to drag the debate back to health care rather than national security.
•"[The] tax system literally steps on [the American people's] head" -Huckabee. Yeah, I don't think that's true. Someone needs to explain the word "literally" to the good governor from Arkansas.
•To be an American means that you cut your ties with your past, according to Tancredo. Well, I guess I'm going to have to throw away my English rugby jersies if I hope to retain my citizenship during the Tancredo administration.
•Mike Huckabee stands for no man.
•Giulliani pulls a fake-out: first half of the answer sitting, second half standing.
•McCain's definition of what it takes to become an American includes a belief in the creator. Sorry Jefferson.
•Duncan Hunter, on whether the Republicans should be trying to work with the Democrats to forge consensus: "No". Unspoken: "F*** them."
•Romney 5, Blitzer 0. Wolf could hold Mitt underwater and it wouldn't stop him from talking.

Check back tomorrow for the raw stats.

Link

I haven't been great about updating this blog recently, and a busy few weeks will mean that I will continue to be less-than prolific in the immediate future. For those of you who are disappointed to be without a blog to read, try out my friend Tommy's site:
http://helgeninchina.blogspot.com/

He's far worse about updating than I am, but a much funnier writer who's doing much more interesting things. He's currently working as an English teacher in China. Check out the archives for his better work.

Saddam and Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes was a seventeenth century philosopher who lives on as a scapegoat in many an Introduction to Philosophy class. Hobbes believed that without authority humans live "short, nasty, and brutish" lives. Therefore, he thought that a powerful central government was necessary for a stable and peaceful state. To most idealistic young students, myself included, this violates the notions that a government should be derived from the will of the population, and that a central authority should have only limited power over the lives of its subjects.

However, if you wanted to make a case to vindicate Hobbes, a terrific example exists in Iraq. Iraq was controlled by an extremely powerful tyrant who ruled with an iron fist and brutally suppressed dissent. This method of government held together three societies that hate each other for over a decade, even in the face of international sanctions and extreme pressure. As soon as Saddam Hussein, the Hobbesian totalitarian ruler, was removed, the society exploded into violence. Democracy and foreign influence have been unable to contain the turmoil, and life in Iraq has indeed become "short, nasty, and brutish."

While I'll probably never count myself a Hobbes disciple, this is certainly one example of a situation in which it would appear that the one solution an otherwise untenable situation was the supreme authority figure that Hobbes envisioned.

Quick Disclaimer: Please don't misread me to be saying that brutal tyranny is an acceptable form of government. My point is that a system in which I vehemently oppose finally and ironically has a case to support it.

Hog Hell

I try to avoid posting anecdotes from my personal life here, but I feel compelled to share a recent adventure.

Background:
My girlfriend, Katie, and I recently spent about 10 days in Costa Rica visiting our friend Ryan, who has been working at Luna Lodge. Luna is a resort in the beautiful and remote Osa peninsula. While there, we decided to hike into Corcavado National forest, supposedly described by National Geographic as "the most biologically intense place in the universe."

The rest of the story comes from an excerpt of a e-mail I sent out describing my trip:

To tell this story properly, let's back up a moment to Wednesday night. We are discussing the upcoming hike with Lana, Luna's owner, who served as a guide in the park for years before she created Luna. Ryan has led a few short day-trips into the park before, but our three-day foray will be far longer than anything he has previously done. Because of this, Lana wants us to talk to one of the Tico (costa Rican) guides to make sure we're prepared. Katie wonders whether there are any animals that we should be nervous about. Oscar, a guide, says that one should always be careful to watch for snakes, but the larger animals will pretty much leave you alone. That is, except for the peccaries. Two species of these wild pigs live in Corcavado, Oscar says, and one is especially pugnacious. It has developed a defense mechanism of swarming anything that might be a predator and goring it to death with their long tusks. So what should we do if we see any? Run? No, says, Oscar, try to pull yourself into a tree. That's the only safe way to escape.

This warning is somewhat unnerving, and throughout the hike down to the park, Katie theorizes about the possible fates that we might meet at the tusks of a pack of peccaries. Ryan and I attempt to convince her of the unlikeliness of this scenario. Peccaries are, after all, pretty rare. Less than a mile into the park, however (you saw this coming a long time back, didn't you?), we hear rustiling in the dark underbrush to our left. Peering though the trees, we soon determine that the source of the noise is, of course, a pack of peccaries. For the moment, they are rooting around in the ground. Thinking quickly, I did what any dumb tourist would do in such a situation: took a picture. The peccaries, however, did not take kindly to having their images forever immortalized on my computer. They stopped foraging, and some began to stalk closer to us, sizing us up.

Though Ryan thought that they were probably the more-docile of the two kinds of peccary, he was unsure of what to do. He coolly attempted to convey this to us in the most reassuring choice of words possible. "Guys," he said, "I have no idea what to do right now."

It was now clear that there were a lot of peccaries in the bushes, well over a dozen. Being on a trail in the thick rain forest, we had only two avenues of escape: down the trail or up the trail. I suggested that unsheathing the machete might be an appropriate course of action. While Ryan did that, I armed myself with a full Nalgene bottle from Katie's bag. It should be noted, by that way, that there was a distinct scarcity of climbable trees on that particular stretch of path. The peccaries continued to work their way closer, and Ryan whacked his machete on the ground in an attempt to scare them off. This didn't work. The peccaries startled, and immediately began pressing closer. Worse yet, one of the larger pigs had manuvered to outflank us, and was now walking down the path towards us.

I decided to upgrade my weapon from Nalgene to large, rotting stick. With Katie in between us, we continue slowly down the path. We can hear that there are peccaries moving up ahead of us, and decide that we must press on so that we do not find ourselves completely surrounded. We move on and on, and finally find that the peccaries, while still following us, are all behind us. The big pig on the path is studying us from about fifteen feet away. I whack my stick against a tree, and he startles again. We begin walking faster, and soon can hear no more movement behind us. Safe at last.