Friday, July 29th, 2005 | 11:16 am
This is really a worthwhile read as this guy really takes several prominent creationists to task on their own turf…
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
My favorite line:
What bugged me were his incessant imprecations that we be humble before the glories of nature.
Humility? How dare these people talk about humility! You know what scientists do when confronted with nature’s complexity? First they spend five years or more in graduate school, living in near-poverty, having no life, studying all the time while being used as cheap labor by the university, just to get a PhD. Then they go out into a job market that presents the very real possibility of unemployment as the reward for all that hard work. If they’re lucky they’ll land a post-doc, and bounce around the country for a while struggling to find a permanent position. Even if they are lucky enough to land a permanent position they could very well find themselves in some two by nothing town in the middle of nowhere. They spend years trying to get a research program off the ground, scrapping for grant money, and fighting with ornery referees to get their research published.
And why do they do that? They do it because they know that’s what it takes if you want to understand nature’s complexity just a little bit better. That’s what it takes to make the tiniest dent in the sum total of human ignorance.
That’s humility.
What isn’t humility is having a used car salesman give you a brief description of some complex system, conclude after five seconds’ reflection that it could not have evolved, and then decide that only an omnipotent God could be responsible for such a critter. That’s not humility, that’s supreme arrogance. That’s pride and sloth all wrapped up into one.
Tuesday, July 26th, 2005 | 7:08 am
Yes, there was a big fire in Atlantic Station. The Element construction site across the street caught fire early Sunday morning and it turned into one of the biggest multifamily residential fires in decades.
One building of our condo complex caught fire and several units had severe damage. My car has some minor damage from falling (burning) debris. From what I understand, 90+ people had to leave their homes, though only 20 condos in our building were “severely damaged”. Our condo is fine. Heather and I were in New York for our good friend Scott’s wedding.
I shot a few photos of the destruction, including the damage to my vehicle. I’ll try to post a few other links when I get a chance. This building looks like a war zone, especially the cars along the street that burned.
Thursday, July 21st, 2005 | 12:28 pm
A few weeks ago (6/23-6/26) was my friend Scott’s bachelor party, and he really pulled out all the stops. We flew to Boston Thursday evening and stayed with his brother for the night. Scott’s brother Dave lives with his wife Mira and their new son Ralph in a very nice house in Brookline, Mass.
Lesson #1: I remembered that you can’t exactly clunk around the house making all the noise you want at 11pm when there’s a baby sleeping. That’s somewhat foreign to me, as our apartment rarely gets quiet before midnight, and I can make all the noise I want. I bet whenever Heather and I have kids, I’ll always be waking them up on accident.
Let me back up. Thursday night, I flew up to Logan Airport in a seat next to a drunk woman who twice asked me if “the bartender” had come by yet, in between her short naps. My plane got in ~10:30pm, and of course the bags took another 30 minutes to arrive. I’ve been hesitant to carry my luggage on the plane with me for a while now, because of how annoying all of the people are who bring gigantic bags on the plane and then whine when there isn’t any more room to stuff them in the overhead bin. I always roll my eyes and think “Yeah, too bad there’s not a gigantic compartment somewhere on this plane where we could all put our luggage. That’d be swell.”
Lesson #2: Don’t expect to get in a cab in Boston from the airport and use your cell phone any time in the proceeding 20 minutes. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the
system of tunnels is amazing, but I’m not used to being in the middle of a big city, on a major interstate, and being completely unable to get a cell signal.
Scott and I had some great sushi in Brookline and had a few beers before we went to sleep. Er, after we attempted to get into the wrong house for 5 minutes. No, we didn’t drink that much.
In the morning, we took two cabs over to the harbor and boarded the boat.
The Double Down, docked expertly at the Harborside Inn (inn not pictured) Present were Scott, Andrew (his new brother-in-law), Rich (his new father-in-law), Ralph (his dad), Dave (his brother), and Ray (the captain) and his crew.
Lesson #3: Yachts are nice. This particular model sleeps eight comfortably with 4 bedrooms and 3 full baths, not including the crew’s quarters. The dining and living areas are beautiful, as well as the gorgeous entertainment center, stocked bar, and spacious deck.
We sat on the boat a while and had some late-morning beers (Dont look at me like that; it was a bachelor party!) before getting on our way. The plan was to sail from Boston to Newport, apparently a 6-hour voyage. We encountered some rough seas on the way, however, and after about an hour of trying to get through some 10-foot waves, the decision was made to instead dock at Martha’s Vineyard and spend the weekend in Edgartown.
Lesson #4: Ten foot waves make for a very interesting trip. For the first 20 minutes or so, it’s kind of fun; holding on for dear life as the floor and ceiling of the boat play a fast-paced version of Pong with everone onboard. But like Pong, after the novelty wears off, it’s not fun anymore and it’s easy to lose it if you don’t pay attention.
We docked in Edgartown at the Harborside Inn, a beautiful spot that Ralph and Rich seemed to enjoy. (They stayed at the inn and the rest of us slept on the boat.) As it turns out, Edgartown was one of the principal filming locations for the thrillingly accurate documentary Jaws. I was somewhat surprised to find that the film greatly exaggerated the dangers of the surrounding waters, as only 3 of the 8 people on our boat were eaten by sharks, a much smaller body count than I’d expected. I helped moor the boat and felt like a genuine sailor for about 18 seconds, and then we quickly made for the nearest gift shop, as several of the men were cold. Yes, in the middle of the late-June heat, the evenings are still pleasantly cool on Martha’s Vineyard. So it was $30 long-sleeve t-shirts for all! (Except yours truly, who somehow managed to pack smart for once in his life). The town is also notable for its central role in the Ted Kennedy scandal, though they don’t have a museum or anything, as far as I could tell.
Our next stop was the Seafood Shanty, a decent joint with a tremendous panoramic view of the harbor, including the quaint lighthouse on one end and $10 million houses in the hills on the other.
After a few rounds at the Shanty, we made it back to the yacht for one of many fantastic meals prepared by Jason, the chef on board the Double Down. Jason is an absolutely tremendous chef, and made some of the best meals I’ve had in a long time. Even more incredible is the fact that he prepared huge meals for 8 in such a small kitchen. I guess he’s got months of practice, but I could have the entire kitchen and staff of a hotel and not create the feasts that he created with two people in a tiny kitchen on a moving vessel! Breakfast, lunch, and dinner were all ready when we were, and made the weekend that much better.
After steaks and red wine, we set out on the town to find out what kind of trouble we could get into in this small town.
Edgartown is one of only two towns on Martha’s Vineyard that even allows alcohol sales, and even so, last call is a far-too-early 12:30am. The bars in town are predictable, touristy places with the usual mix of local kids, vacationing partiers, and draft beer in plastic cups. Like everything else on the island, drinks are rather expensive, and I was glad the Family of the Groom was sponsoring the weekend.
At precisely 12:30, we strolled out of whatever bar we were at and marvelled at the number of cabs and people waiting for cabs. I guess the people in the dry towns have to go somewhere…
More drinks back at the boat kept us in bed far past the 7:00 wakeup call for the brave souls who decided to get up and go fishing in the smaller fishing boat that accompanied us on the trip. The guys who went fishing returned in time to have breakfast with us at 10:30, and regaled the nonplussed sleepyheads with tales of seasickness and catching absolutely nothing, the latter of which is apparently “the fun part” of fishing. Or so I’m told.
Most of the day was spent relaxing on the boat, venturing into town, and eating Milano cookies straight from the bag. We took a long walk in the afternoon out to the aforelinked lighthouse and back, spotting a wedding in progress on the way. I don’t want to even imagine what a wedding on the Vineyard would cost, but it was certainly beautiful.
Saturday night brought the best meal of the trip, a spread of lamb, couscous with raisins, and squash. We enjoyed the feast, celebrated my birthday (which was Saturday), and had champagne and cigars on the stern of the yacht. We again ventured into town for more imbibing, and found that every night at the bars of Edgartown is exactly the same. We saw the same people, the same situations, and everything was much the same. This is perhaps attributable to the fact that there are only 3-4 bars with any crowd in town. Still, we had a good time, and managed to continue to celebrate Scott’s upcoming marriage and my 24th birthday, all at once.
We sailed back to Boston on Sunday and had a delicious dinner at Kingfish Hall, an impressive seafood restaurant. The wedding is this weekend, and Heather and I are flying up to New York tomorrow for the celebration.
Thursday, July 21st, 2005 | 11:09 am
Hey, whattayaknow, it’s a new study that suggests that paying mandating a “living wage” isn’t necessarily good for everyone.
I learned something about wages in my first economics class, and apparently politicians want to either ignore it or are ignorant of the fact. A wage is just a price. When you fix prices artificially, you hurt the equation. A price ceiling (like rent controls) means the quality of the good suffers, and a price floor (like a minimum wage) means that the normal market forces of supply and demand won’t apply. Case in point: increasing the minimum wage. The simplest economics lesson is that there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. Everybody’s heard it. TAANSTAFL. How does it apply here? The extra wages to pay an increase in minimum wage (some labor unions have suggested doubling it) don’t materialize out of thin air. They have to come from somewhere.
As we learned in that same economics class, all costs to a business in a competitive marketplace are passed on to the consumer. If McDonald’s can save fifty cents on each burger they make by some new cooking method and still remain competitive, they’ll do it, and drop the price to attract more customers. And if they are required to spend $2-6 more per hour on labor, they’ll have to raise their prices to cover that amount. This is a pretty quick way to bring about rapid inflation. And whom does inflation affect the most? The poor. Now, when the Walmart employee is making $8.15 instead of $5.15, but his dinner at McDonald’s now costs $6 instead of $3.50, he’s in exactly the same place he was before. I, Middle Class Joe, can afford to eat at Chili’s whether it’s $12 or $14, so it doesn’t really affect me as much, and Chili’s didn’t have any minimum wage earners in the first place, so their prices remain the same. So, in fact, this creates a catch-22 that disproportionately affects the working class.
But the study admits that employers took away fringe benefits, overtime pay and passed the costs on to the consumers. It also admits that a “living wage” attracts better-trained and -educated applicants, thereby, hurting the low-wage earner the ordinance supposedly helps.
This is the “equation” I mentioned earlier, balancing itself out. I can hear the proponents of the living wage now, with even more “solutions”… We’ll restrict jobs at the lower tiers to lesser-qualified applicants… We’ll keep the jobs at minimum wage but pay a bonus to people who “really need the money”…
You can’t change economics. You can’t get something for nothing. Most of all, we shouldn’t incentivize stagnant personal development. You want to make more money? Make more money. That’s how the system is set up. Or, it’s how it should be.
Thursday, July 21st, 2005 | 12:00 am
Yes, we’re moved in. The sunsets are, for whatever reason, gorgeous here at the new condo. More to come…
Yes, we’re moved in. The sunsets are, for whatever reason, gorgeous here at the new condo. More to come…
Thursday, July 14th, 2005 | 10:50 am
I think using your 19-month old baby as a shield in a shootout with the cops is one of the most despicable acts I’ve heard of in a long time. The surprising thing to hear was that this was apparently only the second hostage to ever die during an LAPD SWAT Team standoff. That’s a pretty amazing record, and I hope this doesn’t hurt their image too much. Certainly, the killing should be investigated, and it’s horrible that the baby was killed by a police bullet, but the actions of the police did not put that baby in danger. Her ridiculously evil father did.
My parents had to deal with a $700+ water bill earlier this year at our beach house in Destin. The culprit seemed to be a faulty meter (or a faulty meter reader), and my dad worked out the hypothetical number of flushes per minute that would be required to use the thousands of gallons of water they were charged for. Well, they can at least consider themselves lucky they aren’t this woman, who received a $74,000 water bill from the city.
I’d really like to know why Brad Pitt’s illness is making headlines. Between the news teasers on TV and the articles linked from the front page of Google News, you’d think that people actually care about this crap. This is a celebrity with a runny nose. Is there any way we can focus on something a little more important?
Finally, Heather and I close on our new condo tomorrow morning, and we’re moving in the afternoon. Six weeks of packing and planning will (with any luck) culminate in a smooth, successful experience tomorrow and this weekend getting all our stuff together. Hopefully, there won’t be any huge surprises when we see the totals for the closing costs today. That’s our biggest worry at this point. That, and getting all of our stuff to the new place. Wish us luck!
Monday, July 11th, 2005 | 2:34 pm
I just wanted to post this since yesterday was our first wedding anniversary–
I LOVE YOU, HEATHER ELIZABETH VONK!
This first year has been like the rest of our relationship: thrilling, incredibly positive, and an experience I’ll always remember. Thanks for your help building memories and lives together. You’re an ideal partner and my best friend. Your love, as well as mine, make every day a thing of great value.
Friday, July 8th, 2005 | 10:13 am
GREAT speech by London Mayor Ken Livingstone:
[…]
I want to say one thing specifically to the world today. This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty and the powerful. It was not aimed at presidents or prime ministers. It was aimed at ordinary, working-class Londoners, black and white, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Jew, young and old. It was an indiscriminate attempt to slaughter, irrespective of any considerations for age, for class, for religion or whatever.
That isn’t an ideology, it isn’t even a perverted faith, it is just an indiscriminate attempt at mass murder and we know what the objective is. They seek to divide Londoners. They seek to turn Londoners against each other. I said yesterday to the International Olympic Committee that the city of London is the greatest in the world because everybody lives side by side in harmony. Londoners will not be divided by the cowardly attack. They will stand together in solidarity alongside those who have been injured and those who have been bereaved and that is why I’m proud to be the Mayor of that city.
Finally, I wish to speak directly to those who came to London today to take life.
I know that you personally do not fear giving up your own life in order to take others - that is why you are so dangerous. But I know you fear that you may fail in your long-term objective to destroy our free society and I can show you why you will fail.
In the days that follow look at our airports, look at our sea ports and look at our railway stations and, even after your cowardly attack, you will see that people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world will arrive in London to become Londoners and to fulfil their dreams and achieve their potential.
They choose to come to London, as so many have come before because they come to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to be themselves. They flee you because you tell them how they should live. They don’t want that and nothing you do, however many of us you kill, will stop that flight to our city where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony with one another. Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail.
Yes, I’m just pasting quotes lately. What can I say? It’s tough to be original.
Thursday, July 7th, 2005 | 12:46 pm
I’m sure by now you’ve seen the ads that Citibank has plastered across the country with slogans that basically say there’s more to life than money. For instance, one billboard says, “Hugs are at a 52-week high.” I’m sorry, but that’s the very last message I want my bank to be sending. They should run ads that say, “We will kill a man for a nickel.” That’s the kind of bank I’d like to have a checking account with.
-Aaron Karo
Wednesday, July 6th, 2005 | 4:21 pm
I was actually a little surprised to find that people actually think that Live 8 isn’t socialist enough. I mean, cancelling $40 billion in debt because the continent is rife with poverty is a pretty big transfer of wealth.
But some freaks are complaining that the concert series was too commercial because they were backed by large corporations… Who the hell do they expect is going to be able to back eight global concerts in one day, with an audience of two billion… Some non-profit?
Oh, and of course, the whole thing is just a political fraud on behalf of imperialism. Hey, at least I can agree with them on the “fraud” part.
