Comment On My Last Blog Entry

I made a blanket statement about the rich & also didn't make myself too clear about domestic animals in that last blog entry.

I went back & added "generally" to my statement: "wealth turns the heart cold and blinds the eyes."

My sister & her husband sent me an email about domestic animals that challenged my thinking. Yes, domestic animals exist, therefore aren't they natural? They live in symbiosis with us. The human urge to domesticate them seems to be natural instinct, too. Even the most primitive cultures domesticate animals of some kind. On the other hand, my instinctual conscience cannot accept locking up fellow creatures in jails and on chains! Does crying exist in vain? If we can figure out how to keep our relationship with domesticated animals without possessing them, without chaining or caging them, without punishing them for being who they are, then my instinctual conscience would rest free. Though I can only speak for myself, in my bones I feel that every creature shares this instinctual conscience.

I myself would rather die of cold & starvation, or be hunted down, free in the wild, than waste away on a chain or in a jail. To deny that all life has feelings & emotions is to deny our own feelings & emotions. Hurt to others is hurt to ourselves. Hurt to ourselves is hurt to others. Loving my neighbor, loving myself, and loving God (loving the Whole) are one inseparable thing, one trinity. This is common sense.

It's silly we have to convince ourselves with scripture what we already know by common conscience, but we get stone-hearted; if you are a conventional Christian who believes that the Golden Rule does not apply to animals and the environment, why, then, does Jesus implore you to "preach the gospel to every creature"? (This biblical word "creature", ktisis, literally means "every created thing"). The Golden Rule is the very Gospel according to Jesus, whether you read the truth you know in your conscience or are blind and have to prove it by written scripture.

Ever notice how the Law of Nature abhores prolonged suffering, but has no problem with death? Then notice how our present civilization has a problem with individual death yet promotes prolonged suffering, keeping it going day after day, year after year, passing it down through generations, and calling it "compassion"? (Though, paradoxically, present civilization has no problem with mass death through war & poverty). Ever notice how present civilization thinks "compassion" is keeping individuals from experiencing natural dangers, risks, and death?

Why do we think death, risks, and danger (things that cannot be avoided) are so horrifying, and yet we think prolonged suffering, which can be avoided, is an inevitable and necessary fact of life? So how do we avoid prolongued suffering? By accepting what cannot be avoided: death, risk, and danger.

Death, risk, and danger can be denied or postponed, but never avoided. The essence of present civilization is about denying or postponing death, risk, danger. Postponing death, risk, & danger is called debt, which only makes death, risk, & danger even bigger when they do happen!

Freedom comes with death, risk, and danger, without fail. Bondage postpones death, risk, and danger. Bondage is debt. Bondage is prolonged suffering. Yes, the basis of present civilization is delusion, our attempt to deny or avoid Natural Selection, which is bondage, which is debt, which is prolonged suffering!

Hot Ladies Talk Money With Bald Dudes

I try to expose my students to the lingo of financial markets (both the "standard" terminology and the looser dialect used in practice). To that end, I think I'll play this piece by Jon Stewart next time around.

HT: The Big Picture

I Want My Ph.D.

The other day I was discussing common anomalies like the Size, Market/Book, and Accurals effects with my investments class. The key point I was trying to make is that these proxies must be capturing some underlying risk factor (for example, the Mkt/Book effect is often explained by linking it to distress risk). In other words, if there's not greater risk of some kind associated with investing in low M/B stocks, then you'd be getting (just like the old Dire Straits song), Money For Nothing. In case you don't remember it, here's the video:


In a strange coincidence, Mike Munger just linked to a cover of this song by the band "Breezewood Honeymoon" titled "I Want My PhD":

Now look at those professors—that’s the way you do it
You do your research with your PhD
That ain’t working—that’s the way you do it
Money for talking and write for free

That ain’t working—that’s the way you do it
Let me tell you those professors ain’t dumb
Maybe get a blister on their typing fingers
Maybe get a little blister on their tongues

They want to publish peer-reviewed papers
They got the fire in the bel---ly
They are movers and shakers
Because they have that damned degree

See that rumpled fellow with the pipe and the tweed coat
Granny glasses and the thinning hair?
That rumpled fellow is a famous scholar
That rumpled fellow is a luminaire

He wants to publish peer reviewed papers… (etc.)

Someday I’ll finish my dissertation
I’ll write it up and I’ll turn it in
Someday I’ll have me a tenure-track position
Man, that’s when the fun begins
I’ll teach class Tuesday and Thursday
I’ll leave the research to my advisees
I’ll criticize them in office hours
I’ll give them all the third degree

They’ve got to publish peer reviewed papers… (etc.)

That ain’t working—that’s the way you do it
They leave the research to their advisees
That ain’t working—that’s the way you do it
Money for talking and write for free"

Now all we need is a gangsta version.

Dilbert's A Bayesian

Nuff said.

Job Satisfaction

Best line of the day: "I'm drowning and monkeys dressed as lifeguards are throwing me anchors"


I'm sure I'll find a way to use that in the next few days.

The World's Hottest Chili Pepper

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Bhut Jolokia pepper in India is 200x hotter than a jalapeno:

"When you eat it, it feels like dying," touts one online retailer. Even packaging the stuff is a pain. "Our workers wear goggles, face masks, head cover and protective clothing," says Ananta Saikia, whose firm is the pepper's sole exporter. "They look like astronauts." He and his wife have started shipping tons of dried bhut jolokia around the world, including Germany, England and the U.S. Annual sales, he says, are expected to jump 500% this year.

Read the whole thing here (online subscription may be required). And for a video of someone eating one, click here.

HT: Carpe Diem

Court Marshalled For Using Weapon of Insufficient Caliber

This very un-PC story made my day:

An octagenerian retired Special Forces member was put on trial by his peers for shooting an intruder in his home who'd threatened him with a knife. Unfortunately he used a 22 caliber handgun, so he was charged with "failing to use a weapon of sufficient caliber."

It was all tongue in cheek - he was acquitted with a round of applause from the room.

HT: Neal Boortz.