The Reason for the Season

As Halloween grows in popularity, does anyone remember its connection to All Saints Day?  Just asking....

Update: A reader reminds me of the connection to Samhain as well.  Apologies to my Celtic friends.  

Movie Quiz

What 1977 movie starred Chris Sarandon, Martin Balsam, Eli Wallach, Burgess Meredith, Ava Gardner, Beverly D'Angelo, Jerry Orbach, Jeff Goldblum, Christopher Walken, Jose Ferrer, Arthur Kennedy, and John Carradine?


Highlight directly to the right to reveal the answer:  The Sentinel

Pitted Olives

Question for my readers:  I'm a big fan of Kalamata olives, especially those that have been pitted.  But the brand I've been buying, marked "pitted" clearly, contain the occasional olive with a pit.  From a legal point of view, is the brand liable for these olives, especially if one bites down and breaks a tooth?  This hasn't happened to me, but I'm just curious. 

More Unintended Consequences

The Law of Unintended Consequences can be stated thus: "The law of unintended consequences, often cited but rarely defined, is that actions of people—and especially of government—always have effects that are unanticipated or unintended." Rob Norton, The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics  There are plenty of examples in the world that illustrate this effect:  We don't like X; we make a law against X.  X goes up.  

Driving while texting fits this pattern.  Everyone agrees texting while driving is stupid and dangerous.  Many states have made laws outlawing texting while driving.  It turns out, accidents might have increased in some of these states. (hat tip: Radley Balko) As counter-intuitive as this might be, a potential reason is this: if I'm committed to texting while driving, I hide the phone on my lap or at my side.  This makes my driving more hazardous.

Moral: in the future, if there's an action you detest, and think "there oughta be a law," be careful what you wish for!  While the law is not ironclad, it should play a role in your deliberations. 

Quote of the Day

"Seriously, Italy. The Renaissance started in you, and now look at yourself." Kevin at Lowering the Bar in reference to the trial of the Italian seismologists.

Lil Wayne

There's a reason he's a rapper and not a singer:  for proof go here

The Afterlife

Dr. Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon, has an interesting essay in The Daily Beast in which he describes an experience he had while comatose.  His overall claim is this experience occurred at a time when there was no brain activity in the cortex and thus consciousness is something more than and independent of brain activity.  He also infers that the overall experience was veridical, which would indicate that there is a realm accessible in the afterlife. 

I find the description of his experience fascinating, but the pyrrhonist in me wants to balk at his larger claims.  First, there is the problem of timing: while he believed his experience occurred during a time in which his brain was inactive, it is possible that the experience occurred as his brain was beginning to shut down or that it occurred at the time of awakening.  This would render problematic his claim that the conscious events were somehow independent of neural activity.  Second, vividness of one's dreams does not necessarily imply the truth of the dream.  One is reminded of Descartes' dream argument in Meditation I.  His inner compulsion to believe in the truth of what happened should not obligate us in believing that what he experienced was the afterlife. 

To be fair, his final proposition is one I think merits consideration: near death experiences occur to many people, and there's no reason why they should not be the subject of an investigation of neuroscience. 

Eating Cheese More Dangerous Than Using Crystal Meth!

This article from The Independent in the UK amuses me, because of its poor reasoning.  The title should set off alarms, not those intended by the author though:

Super-strength lager 'causing more harm than crack or heroin'

The lager to which they refer is a high gravity beer.   High gravity beer tends to have a higher alcohol content than ordinary beer--the beer they refer to in the article has alcohol content of 9 per cent.  A craft brewery in Spartanburg produces a few, including one of its best-selling beers, Bell Ringer.   Samuel Adams brews specialty beers with ABV (alcohol by volume) in the 20 percent range.

The thesis of the article is that these high gravity beers are causing comparably worse harm than illegal drugs, and thus, presumably should be "made" scarce, through taxation or other means.   How does the article support the lead claim?  In the following way:

"Asked about the claim that high-strength beers and ciders caused more damage than illegal drugs, Sir Ian Gilmore, a spokesman on alcohol issues for the Royal College of Physicians, said: "Because the number of people using alcohol is so much higher, the harm is likely to be much more." "

Suppose that 300 million people partake in activity X, causing approximately 5 units of harm to each of them.  Suppose 30,000 people partake in activity Y, causing approximately 5000 units of harm to each of them.  Conclusion:  X causes more harm than Y!!!

One could be charitable and reinterpret the overall claim in a very weak sense.  That of course is not what the papers are intending.  The outrageous sells!

Herewith are some of the articles I'm working on:

Using toothpicks causes more harm than sniffing glue!
Golf causes more harm than civil war in a third world country!
Reading philosophy causes more harm than playing the clavier!

Feel free to suggest your own articles. 

Jagged Little Pill

Warning: Listening to Alanis Morissette for extended periods of time can lead to violence.

Speaking of Due Process

Check out this video posted on Radley Balko's site.  It presents an interesting view of NYC's stop and frisk policy. 

The Consequences of Rights

Ken at Popehat has a good discussion of the right to due process in the case of Fourtin v. Connecticut. Fourtin raped a mentally disabled woman but was released because the State of Connecticut charged and attempted to prosecute him for the wrong crime.   As we've seen with the right to free speech, having rights necessarily entails that there will be consequences that are "undesirable" in that we wished they would have been different.  Hence we wish "The Innocence of Muslims" had not been made, but defend its existence once made.  Likewise the right to due process lets some rapists free, but it protects the innocent from the state prosecuting us for crimes they did not commit.  

Fear Factor

Man dies after winning live roach-eating contest in Florida  

What surprises me:  eating a cockroach might be fatal AND that one would eat a live cockroach to win a python!  Why not just buy the python?  It seems easier. 

Last Lawyer Standing

Kevin at Lowering the Bar brought this to my attention: a law firm will hire new associates on a competitive basis, to whit: 

    " * All candidates are allowed to begin a paid contract legal assignment at $20.00/hour. If you apply you will be given an assignment.

      * Each day the candidate with the weakest work product will be cut until one candidate remains. This process will take one or two weeks until the final candidate is offered on-going employment. If you have seen reality television shows where contestants are cut from episode to episode such as Top Chef, Top Shot or Project Runway -- it will be like this. Do you have what it takes to be Top Associate?

     * If you want to participate you will come to the first day of hiring with your laptop ready to begin. You will be given a group orientation, and then an individual interview. You should be free to work 8 hours per day for the next two weeks to participate in the evaluation."

Now I'm a fan of Top Chef, but I also know this: the judges aren't in control of the process.  The producers of the program have input as well.   So why the process may seem meritocratic, it's not.  Likewise, I doubt if the competition put forward by the Mellen Law Firm will bring out the best candidate.  But it sure does sound fun if you're in charge and not a victim!  Unless of course one's a masochist.

Another Dilemma

I'm a die-hard Reds fan; I grew up near Cincinnati during the heyday of the Big Red Machine.  So naturally I want to see all the playoff games from start to finish.  But 9:37 PM starting time?  Are you kidding me?  The game took 3 hours and 27 minutes to complete, which means the last pitch as at 1:04 AM Sunday morning EST.

Note to MLB: I'm an old man.  I once in my prime was able to stay up until 1 AM and be bright and fresh in the morning.   Not only does this never happen, I'm physically unable to stay up until 1 AM, unless perhaps I use drugs!!!

So the dilemma:  Do I go to bed at my normal time, thinking the Reds are winning or losing, depending on their status in the 4th or 5th inning, or do I risk arrest by going out and buying some amphetamines from some guy on the street? 

Academic Integrity and Athletics

This article on the UNC situation shows how to lose one's academic integrity.  Notice it takes the complicity of a number of people outside of athletics to get this kind of situation going.  Hence it probably does not occur at most institutions.  But the pressure, especially for FBS schools, is there.  

To continue a trend: Cardale Jones, an OSU freshman QB, tweeted the following: "Why should we have to go to class if we came here to play FOOTBALL, we ain't come to play SCHOOL, classes are POINTLESS."  

Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias consists in believing claims not based on evidence, but on their tendency to confirm what we already believe.  The results can be tragic, but sometimes comical.  Take Iran's publication of The Onion's satirical poll comparing Obama to Ahmadinejad.  I'm sure it made sense to them that more Americans would want to hang out with their president rather than our own!

Retirement

Distinguished economists opining about my retirement plan.  It doesn't look good. (h/t Radley Balko)

Snatch

In this memorable movie, the character Brick Top delivers this discourse:

" And when you got your six pieces, you gotta get rid of them, because it's no good leaving it in the deep freeze for your mum to discover, now is it? Then I hear the best thing to do is feed them to pigs. You got to starve the pigs for a few days, then the sight of a chopped-up body will look like curry to a pisshead. You gotta shave the heads of your victims, and pull the teeth out for the sake of the piggies' digestion. You could do this afterwards, of course, but you don't want to go sievin' through pig shit, now do you? They will go through bone like butter. You need at least sixteen pigs to finish the job in one sitting, so be wary of any man who keeps a pig farm. They will go through a body that weighs 200 pounds in about eight minutes. That means that a single pig can consume two pounds of uncooked flesh every minute. Hence the expression, "as greedy as a pig"."

I was never sure whether this was believable but apparently it was spot on, as they say.