From Hayek's Nobel lecture:

"We know...the general conditions in which what we call, somewhat misleadingly, an equilibrium will establish itself: but we never know what the particular prices or wages are which would exist if the market were to bring about such an equilibrium. We can merely say what the conditions are in which we can expect the market to establish prices and wages at which demand will equal supply. But we can never produce statistical information which would show how much the prevailing prices and wages deviate from those which would secure a continuous sale of the current supply of labour."

Here's Dilbert on a similar issue.

Applied research, I'm sure.

A Japanese civil servant has been demoted for viewing pornographic websites more than 780,000 times during office hours over a nine-month period. [...] Despite his frequent porn viewing, none of his colleagues noticed his activities.

The man's superiors discovered his extensive porn site visits after his computer became infected with a virus [...].

So, how can you tell when a bureaucrat is doing his/her work? Preliminarily, I'm guessing that this one wasn't.

Co-bloggers post poems;
Gotta appear productive.
But wait... I'm tenured!

Here's a Louisiana version:

Found state budget funds;
could give it to taxpayers.
Nah, need to buy votes.

Sunshine, liberty
No classes here in Indy
Baby on the way

Buildings vomit kids.
Blue books full, minds are empty.
Bluetiful flowers.

A great time sink! Visit the site and hit random to sample the comics.

HT: Kate.

Last night, Mike Hammock and I served pancakes at the semesterly pre-exams Pancake Study Break here at Rhodes. As one might expect when output isn't priced, there were periodic long lines and mismatches between quantity supplied and quantity demanded (particularly for the chocolate chip pancakes). I asked a student as he was coming through the line about the important economic lesson we were learning from this. His response was unexpected:

"You're working for free, so it looks like incentives don't matter."

... from Dave Barry:

For example, according to IRS Rev. Proc. 2006-50, certain individuals recognized by the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission may deduct up to $10,000 for whaling expenses. Could this deduction apply to you? Think about it! I, personally, have done many things that I later could not remember; being a recognized Eskimo whaler would not be the weirdest of these. So go ahead! Find an empty box on your 1040 form and write ''Harpoons -- $9,990.'' (Don't claim the full $10,000, because that might arouse IRS suspicion.)

Also, if you are an ostrich rancher, you can claim the depreciation on your ostriches. The IRS doesn't give an exact amount, so let's say for the sake of argument that your ostriches have depreciated to the tune of $4,800, or, rounding off, $17,000. If the IRS questions this figure, explain that you had to start raising ostriches because you were unable to make ends meet with just the whaling. That way your story is basically airtight.

Read the whole thing here.

30

HT: Angus

Even though most of you will probably read this after the 1st. It includes these goodies:

"But Partridge’s ordeal was only beginning. It’s reported that he woke up the morning of his death to the sound of the church bell announcing his passing...

Partridge would frequently be stopped on the street for inquiries into how his widow was coping..."

The story could be used for a discussion on marketing, adaptive expectations, finite vs. infinite time horizons, etc.

Trust me, you'll definitely want to read to the end to find out who the prankster was.

HT: Mark Shea's blog.

Johnny Kelly on the P-Word.

HT: Michael Dolan.

Late this afternoon, I received a call from a textbook rep trying to pitching me principles texts for next year. Less than 30 minutes later I received the following email from him:

Professor,

Good Afternoon. I’m sorry I missed you today. I can’t wait to talk to you regarding your Economics courses for Fall. Please let me know how I can assist you in creating the course environment you desire.

[Publisher name redacted] has a variety of textbooks and levels to fit your needs.

Exhibit A:
February 12, 2008
"...increased spending is a result of long-term growth, not its cause..."

Exhibit B:
February 13, 2008
"Yes, consumer spending is 70 percent of GDP, but consumption is the result -- not the cause -- of economic growth. You can't consume what hasn't been produced."

As I'm waiting for the swelling of my head to subside (by the way, it's hard to keep your tongue in your cheek when your head is swelling), I'll just say that Stossel's column is, as usual, much more instructive and entertaining than is mine. And, as usual, I didn't say anything original anyway. Since the title of Stossel's article is "Stimulating Nonsense," the fact that I just posted this shows that the article title was prophetic.

[HT: Kate Sheehan]

From Reuters Oddly Enough series:

It's official: mail is slow as snails Thu Jan 24, 2008 11:06am EST

WARSAW (Reuters) - It's official. Postal delivery is as slow as snails, at least in Poland.

An IT worker, after receiving a letter on January 3 that was sent on December 20 as priority mail, calculated that a snail would have made it even faster to his home than the letter.

Daily Gazeta Wyborcza said Michal Szybalski calculated that it took 294 hours for the letter to arrive at his home. He also said the distance between his home and the sender was 11.1 kilometers.

Given the distance and the time, the speed of the letter was 0.03775 kilometers per hour. Szybalski calculated that a garden snail travels at around 0.048 kilometers per hour.

Story here.

Pour a little out for The King. Today is Elvis's 73rd birthday.

I cannot draw the line so starkly as Dell (Gary Busey) from the underrated 1983 comedy, "D.C. Cab," in which Dell proclaims in victory, "Okay but I don't work on January the 8th, cause that's Elvis's birthday." Alas, I am at work. (Can't you tell?)

Here is some mindless Elvis birthday trivia.

My favorite Velvet Elvis.

Weird Al Yankovic's tribute to Elvis velvets.

My, what you can find on the Internet in five minutes!

I got this New York Times article from social-networking-benefits-of-booze expert, Ed Stringham:

The Claim: A Little Alcohol Can Help you Beat a Cold

THE BOTTOM LINE: Alcohol will not help cure a cold, though moderate consumption may reduce susceptibility.

I'm in Western New York with family and most of us have colds. Not me, though..... Bartender!

... at least for the entitled:

As protesters gathered at colleges around the country to criticize federal budget cutbacks that would raise the price of subsidized birth control at student health services, one University of New Mexico student described the imminent horror to Albuquerque's KFRQ-TV: "(Students shouldn't) have to make a choice between their birth control and their cell phone bill or their birth control and their gym membership ..." [KRQE-TV, 11-12-07]

Debra Jackson said she likes shopping at the Dollar Palace, partly because "I don't have to get all dressed up like I'm going to Wal-Mart or something."

HT: EclectEcon

That's the three-letter airport code for Sioux City, Iowa.

Fun story, After decades-long fight, Iowa airport embraces unflattering identifier SUX - Metro

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) - City leaders have scrapped plans to do away with the Sioux Gateway Airport's unflattering three-letter identifier - SUX - and instead have made it the centerpiece of the airport's new marketing campaign.

The code, used by pilots and airports worldwide and printed on tickets and luggage tags, will be used on T-shirts and caps sporting the airport's new slogan, "FLY SUX." It also forms the address of the airport's redesigned Web site - www.flysux.com.

Now if only I had a reason to go to Sioux City.....

HT: Sarah Skwire at Liberty Fund.

This, from the AP:

CHARLESTON, S.C. - A former economist pleaded guilty Friday for his role in swindling investors out of an estimated $90 million, which authorities said he used to purchase a half-dozen homes, swanky cars and jewel-encrusted pens.

Al Parish, 50, admitted to two counts of fraud and lying to investigators. He faces up to 45 years in prison.

Even economists, it appears, respond to incentives:

At a hearing in May, a psychiatrist testified that Parish suffered amnesia resulting from extreme stress, but she also said Parish's memory improved after he learned amnesia was not a defense to the criminal charges.

A news item:

A Californian man has been charged with using his false leg to smuggle three endangered iguanas from a nature reserve in Fiji to the United States.

Prosecutors say Jereme James stole the banded iguanas while on a visit to the South Pacific island in 2002.

He is alleged to have constructed a special compartment inside his prosthetic limb to move the reptiles.

Just for fun: Here's a tongue-in-check "example" of a negative feedback from ecoEnquirer.com, a site run by Roy Spencer. A good-natured article about the site is here.

[M]any people are now also having to deal with another sinister side effect of the extra CO2: plants are loving it. The extra plant "food" has caused a worldwide greening of the Earth, with vegetation sprouting to life in the spring weeks before it is supposed to. This unnatural disruption of Mother Nature's busy schedule has even caused some tropical species to expand their habitats poleward.

This worldwide greening has led to an unexpected problem for motorists in many countries. People are increasingly finding their cars, trucks, and SUVs covered in vegetation that has grown overnight into tangled masses that engulf their vehicles.

Heard on National Public Radio yesterday afternoon, during a sponsor’s blurb for an educational foundation: “We guide children to think outside the box.” Say what? If you’re guiding them, it can’t really be outside the box, can it? “No, no, Johnny, that’s not how to think outside the box. This is how to think outside the box!”

Seen on a store sign at the mall: “Every jean on sale.” Say what? Will you really sell me one jean?

Tyler v. Alex: A Guide to the Perplexed

The Penny Pyramid Project: Picture of completed version: 289,318 pennies.

It's from April 2006 but still cool.

Funny and interesting comments at digg.com

It's an old chestnut, but Kamerschen (not Kamerschen as it turns out; see update below) lays it out so nicely.

Bar Stool Economics

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that's what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20."

Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?' They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.
"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, "but he got $10!"
"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!"
"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!"
"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics
University of Georgia

Update: Frank pointed me to Greg Mankiw's site, which in turn links to Snopes.com. David Kamerschen has expressly denied authorship, which has yet to be determined.

Tim's post reminds me of a joke that I heard when I was an undergraduate: The Vatican is considering freezing holy water and selling it as Popesicles. Which goes to show that reporting people's actions is funnier than making up jokes.

Mike Lester of the RNT provides a nifty follow-up to my post yesterday:

"Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities. We didn't have to produce anything. You've never been out of college. You don't know what it is like out there. I've worked in the private sector. They expect results!"

- Dr. Raymond Stantz, a parapsychology professor played by Dan Aykroyd in the Ghostbusters movies.

[HT: OCPA]

Christopher Buckley offers a new screening test for the astronaut program.

HT: Craig Newmark

Mike Lester's cartoon is the better of the two, but this one from Chip Bok provides unsuspected context.

While visiting friends this weekend, my son watched A Christmas Story for the first time. When the movie was over he came downstairs and I asked him how the movie was. He said, "It was good. This guy got shot in the face." Without skipping a beat, my friend said, "What were you watching - the Dick Cheney story?"

Jacko stalked by wacko looking for a thriller

The 2006 Ig Nobel prizes will be awarded next Thursday, October 5.

Live webcast is promised starting at 7:20pm Eastern.

Finally, someone has captured the essence of the American economy - or at least the essence of the economic thinking of far too many Americans:

"[T]he Bush/Halliburton team [is] pulling out the stops to get the Republithugs back in office. Once the dirty deed is done we can expect heating oil prices to climb just when we need it the most. This will be followed in the spring by another “market driven” increase in the price of gas just as the summer driving season begins. It is an old game, drive prices higher just at the time when we need it the most and let them decline just when we don’t use it as much. These gyrations are just a way to tamp down our outrage enough to let them get away with it again next time and conveniently keep their profits down when elections are about to occur and our outrage might lead to change.

"Think I am wrong? When did we invade Iraq to seize their oil? March, just before driving season. Easy cover for jacking up oil prices wasn’t it? When will we invade Iran? Before May, I promise.

"It is no accident that elections are held in the fall. Long ago the oil companies figured out that the fall was not an especially profitable time for them due to low gasoline usage and relatively tame energy usage for heating and cooling. What better time to manipulate the market for lower energy costs?"

This is great satire precisely because it rings true - you can read rants that aren't all that different on left wing blog sites every day. Worth reading the whole thing.

Oh -- I would so love to do this when someone's cell phone goes off in my class.

[HT: Alex Padilla]

From the September 16, 1906 NYT:

Many a girl has lost a good friend by marrying him.

Liquor improves with age. The longer you keep it the better it is for you. Figure it out.

The minute a man accomplishes anything he is called a crank by those who have failed.

If you go about it right, a quarter will make as much noise dropping into the collection plate as a five-dollar gold piece.

Okay, libertarian professors, you claim to support capital formation. Let's see if you implement this in your classroom.

To entice you to click, of course you'll want a teaser quote:

"Now if only Apple could do this with girls."

Does money buy happiness? Maybe a better question is whether a system that allows productive activity to generate wealth generates happiness. Anyway, an article at NewScientist.com answers in the affirmative. Excerpt:

Large industrialised countries fared well in the new analysis, with the US and UK coming in at 23 and 41, respectively, out of 178 nations. This stands in contrast with the recently released "Happy Planet Index" from the New Economics Foundation think tank, which placed Columbia (sic) and Honduras high up.

How did the "Happy Planet Index" reach its (to me) unexpected conclusion? The HPI is computed as follows:

HPI = (Life satisfaction x Life expectancy)/Ecological footprint.

This imposes an elasticity of -1 on income, assuing that "ecological footprint" and income vary more or less proportionately. This way you can conclude that Palestinians (52.6) are happier than either the Swiss (48.3) or the Israelis (39.1). Likewise, Americans (28.8) are less happy than Mexicans (54.4) or Guatemalans (61.7). I guess that explains why the Mexican and Guatemalan governments can't keep out those damned American immigrants. By the way, citizens of Nigeria (31.1), Congo (41.8), Burma (44.6), and Vietnam (an amazing 61.2) are happier than Americans.

The headline of an article in the August 8, 1906 NYT:

BELCHER IN STRIPES - Begins his 12 year term in Jail - Will have work in the Kitchen

I clicked on the story because the headline was interesting. Heck, one never knows if there was an interesting case of belching in public or whatever.

It turns out that Belcher was the ex-mayor of Paterson, New Jersey, going to jail for ebezzlement and forgery.

Flight simulator mashed with google maps

HT: Dennis Wilson

This morning, I'm dropping the critter off at her day camp which is located inside one of the state office buildings downtown. As we walk in the lobby we see an Ohio State Highway Patrolman (the OSHP has jursidiction on state property in Ohio) who looks at me wearing a Florida State University t-shirt.

Cop: "Sir, I'm sorry but you can't come in here with that shirt on. Only OSU shirts are allowed."

Me: "Ha, ha. I can't win. Just last week the guy at Will Call at the Detroit Tigers game told me when I showed him my ID that he couldn't give me a ticket because I was from Columbus."

Cop: [Smiling now.] "That's funny. I've given tickets to lots of people from Michigan."

"No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session," goes an old saying. But now and then a legislature does something right, even if it is only correcting something the legislature did before.

The Florida legislature closed out its session last week by passing legislation allowing dogs to join their owners in outdoor seating at restaurants. The law had formerly prohibited their presence, even in these outdoor areas. Yeah! One thing I always liked about living in Ecuador many years ago was the ability to take my dog into restaurants. This is the kind of thing that really has little to do with public health, and that the market is perfectly good at regulating. This small step to increase freedom will make the lives of thousands of Floridians just a little bit more enjoyable.

And note, too, that the legislature also did away with a per drink tax on alcoholic beverages, and named a state pie - the former being an objectively good thing, the latter a better use of time than many other things they could have done. They provided for voter registration at bait shops and gun shops, which for some reason the St. Pete Times doesn't like - presumably, the paper is all for easier registration, just not of gun toting, fishing yahoos.

On bigger things, the legislature's record was mixed. But allowing dogs into restaurants - well, I'm thinking of moving south.

HAYWARD, Calif. — A man who spent five hours naked and stuck in the chimney of his stepmother's home was arrested on suspicion of being under the influence of drugs, police said.

Police say Michael Urbano, 23, locked himself out of the house early Saturday morning and decided to get in on a cable TV wire through the chimney.

But the wire broke and Urbano fell, getting stuck about three-quarters of the way down. He was freed when a firefighter pushed him to safety.

Story here.

From the April 13, 1906 NYT is an advertisement by Anheuser-Busch :

A beverage made of barley-malt which is flavored with hops, induces restful sleep and yields placid nerves? Hmmm...that sounds something like - BEER!! Okay, perhaps it wasn't fermented beer, that is, it was alcohol free, but are we sure about that?

After all, according to my knowledge of brewing (some say I have a knack for the science), it isn't the hops that provides for a restful sleep.

Such interesting advertisements populate the old papers. My understanding of truth in advertising and consumer protection laws, such as food labelling, etc., is that they stemed from ads like this. Mothers (or fathers, or both) were "tricked" into thinking that drinking "predigested food" (that probably looked, smelled, and perhaps tasted a lot like beer - even if it wasn't technically beer) was preferred to, say, eating some broccoli and drinking some milk.

Well, perhaps some folks need/needed to be protected from big beer and themselves, as well as Nigerian e-mailers.

Read More »

From the April 8, 1906 NYT:

1. You can't buy success at the bargain counter.*
   
2. The hand-shaker may be a leg-puller in disguise.
   
3. Love is a dream, but marriage is an alarm clock.
   
4. Love in a cottage now demands a town house as well.
   
5. Honesty is a virtue, consequently it is its own reward.
   
6. It seems easier to write life insurance than to right it.
   
7. A good cook is more to be desired than great riches.
   
8. No man is so fond of pets as to welcome the wolf at the door.
   
9. Many a man would trade a family tree for a load of firewood.*
   
10. The charity of some people begins with the Charity Ball, and ends there.
    
11. Many a thousand-dollar portrait has been painted of a thirty-cent man.
    
12. It's hard for a man to get into heaven who puts his religion in his wife's name.
    
13. Even the fellow who is wedded to his art may marry in haste and repent at leisure.
    
14. A fool and his money are lucky ever to have gotten together in the first place.*
    
15. The proof of the pudding may be in the eating, but the proof of the brandy sauce is on the breath.
    
16. Beware of the fellow who does the most talking about despising wealth. He generally wants to borrow a quarter.*
    

* My personal favorites.

Internet-wide boggle game.

Pretty cool.

HT: Boing Boing

Scientists say 'inflation' led to massive expansion.

But I'm confused, and I'm hoping a science-savvy reader out there can fill me in. The story says

By the faint cosmic glow of the oldest known light, physicists say they have found evidence that the universe grew to astounding proportions in less than the blink of an eye. In that trillionth of a second after the big bang, the universe expanded from the size of a marble to a volume larger than all of observable space through a process known as inflation.

Now, wikipedia says that the speed of light is roughly 300,000 km per second, or 0.003 meters per trillionth of a second. In the time of the inflation, then, light would travel only 0.003 meters yet the universe grew to the size of observable space so the universe is expanding much faster than the speed of light. How is it possible that we could observe a faint cosmic glow? Would it not be traveling away from us at a faster rate than the light would be traveling back to us to observe it?

If you drive your car 70 mph and pass point A, wait a second, then throw a baseball 50mph out the back window, the baseball will never return to point A.

And, my faint grasp of relatively theory is that something traveling near the speed of light doesn't experience time. If the universe was expanding so much faster than light, wouldn't the particles on the expanding edge still retain the same properties as the first marble? They wouldn't age at all, no?

What am I missing here? Besides even a bachelor's degree in science.

From the March 15, 1906 NYT:

CLEVELAND - A man whose rolling gait was justified by his sailor costume, strolled into the sixteen-story Williamson Building...this afternoon and boarding an elevator rode to the top floor. Then he took to the stairway that runs through the cupola, and unobserved, reached the roof.

When they [the police] reached the roof the man in sailor costume had sought a still higher level - he had shinned up the towering flagpole, 225 feet above the ground.

"Hey, you," called Hannan in tones of authority, "come down out of that."

"Can't do it," responded the man up the pole. "I have an engagement to meet a bird here in a couple of minutes."

"Don't you see you're blocking traffic?" demanded Bellet, pointing to the street.

"What, airships?" grinned the sailor, disregarding the gesture.

One of the policemen actually lassos one of the fellow's feet and they drag him off the flagpole to the cheers of the staring crowd below.

"Who are you?" the police asked.

"I'm Grover Cleveland," he said, "but don't give it away. Treat me right, and I'll do the same for you."

The police locked him up and have reason to believe that he is not Grover Cleveland at all, but J. Cline, formerly of the battleship Iowa.

Being a chairman is a lot like a full lobotomy (except the scars last forever)...
- Mike Munger

Why you don't loan your Corvette to your teenager. (Some ads may not be suitable for work?)

I hope this fosters some similar posts. We got our course evaluations back today from the Fall semester, and I received the following response to the question "What did you dislike and/or value least about this course and why?" (italics added):

"I did not like how there wasn't a whole lot of reviewing material. We were sometimes expected to know the information."

This one is going up on the fridge. As my office neighbor asked me, "Sometimes? What about the other times?"

From the Rome News-Tribune:

The tailgate of a truck owned by the city of Rome was reported stolen Tuesday.

According to Rome police reports:

Randall Vines told police a 2004 Ford F-150 was left at the city’s public works camp on Vaughn Road. When he arrived at the site close to 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, he discovered the tailgate was missing. There was no value listed.

After filing for Worker's Compensation for a bad back, stop running marathons.

Here is the story, segun Greenpeace, of the ramming attack by Japanese whaling vessels.

You can get the video there also. About halfway down. Just press the play button.

Yobbo proposes we consider it as a geometry exercise. To wit:

As you can see, the highly skilled Japanese whaling captain somehow managed to “ram” the Greenpeace vessel’s bow using the starboard flank of his own ship. To an uneducated observer like me, this looks like the maritime equivalent of a handbrake turn. You’ve gotta hand it to the Japanese engineers who’ve invented the sea handbrake. Brilliant.

Another possible explanation is that the Japanese imported their technology from Neon Genesis Evangelion and secretly installed it onto the Greenpeace boat, then used a telepathic link to cause it to ram the Japanese boat against the captain’s will.

No two ways about it: the nose of the Greenpeace vessel strikes the side of the Japanese commercial ship. This is a lot like the thug complaining, "You hit my fist with your nose."

Now, before some Greenpeace folks decide to try to write this down on my permanent record somewhere, let me say this: I don't care much if the commercial vessel did ram you. So, save your technical explanations of the rules of the sea for someone who doesn't admire fishermen trying to do a hard job out on the ocean.

Sure, they should be careful. But they are trying to make a living by producing something. You bunch of nimrods are trying to make a living by playing on the sympathies of gullible contributors. I'm sure that Sad-eyes Sally in New Jersey will pony up another $100 for the outrage she feels about this video.

You should thank the fisherman. They enable your parisitic lives, Greenpeace. If you weren't such a bunch of pussweilers, you could become real pirates, like this guy. (Link from Yobbo, again)

We generate money by serving Google text advertisments on a network of hidden Websites. With this money we automatically buy Google shares.

We buy Google via their own advertisment! Google eats itself - but in the end "we" own it!

Only 3.4 billion years to go...

[Link]
[HT: Dave Reed]

They are apparently a real problem this year.

An excerpt:

One Santa was stopped by police for driving 150 kph (90 mph) on a northern German motorway, 50 kph over the speed limit.

"He said he was in a rush because he still had packages to deliver," said a spokesman for the police. They gave Santa a fine and took away his license.

A different excerpt, my favorite:

In Britain, police said they were looking for a Santa acting suspiciously -- a flasher who exposed himself to women.

Hey, Santa: That package is too small to deliver! And why don't you wrap it?

UPDATE: RL sends some more links for Bad Santas....
Buff robber santa
Flashing Santa
Shooting Santa
But, here, right here, is the worse Santa of all. Not work safe, and not "just ate" safe, either.

Okay, so I'm going through security on the way to go visit the DoL mother ship at Capital University.

And I noticed the guy at the x-ray machine sort of move his head forward, then shake his head, and then start to point. He called over another guy from TSA, and they both pointed and whispered to each other about what was on the screen.

I was thinking, jeez, some moron is trying to bring on some scissors. What an idiot. And aren't these rules stupid? Who cares about scissors?

Then, a bag comes out of the x-ray machine, and it's my laptop case. They ask, "Is this yours, sir?"

And my spider sense started to tingle a bit. At least, I think it was my spider sense. Isn't that where you urinate down your own pants leg? I'm pretty sure that's what spider sense is.

Because I remembered that I had left my pocket knife in my laptop case. I had been book review editor for Public Choice for quite a while, and occasionally I would use the knife to open boxes of books. When I moved from BR Editor to ROW Editor (that's "Rest of World", by the way, outside of Europe), I had slipped the knife in my laptop case.

And then carried it around for two weeks, never reaching down into the front pocket enough to notice it and take it out.

Here's the thing: this is not a small knife. It is not even a medium size knife. It is the John Holmes of pocket knives. Folded, it is nearly 7 inches long. The blade is six inches long, easy.

Anyway, by this time, TSA guys have their gloves on, and a group of about five of them are standing around the computer bag. One of them pulls out the knife, in its little sheath. "Damn! You were right!" the puller yells over his shoulder to the x-rayer.

At this point, I figure I am going to be on television that night, at least locally. "Moron tries to take sword onto plane; TSA vigilance saves lives. Moron killed with automatic gunfire." At a minimum, I expect some rude questions, a sginficant fine, and a delay long enough to miss my flight.

But the head TSA guy comes over to me, and explains (in a voice like you would speak to a child, but a child you liked), "Sir, you can't take this onto an airplane. It's against the rules."

I literally just stare at him, speechless. My spider sense, by this time, has started to make a pool around my left foot.

"Now, sir, you have some options. You can take this down and put it into your checked baggage, or you can mail it to yourself...."

I start yelling, and waving my arms as if surrounded by invisible flying bees. "Take it, throw it away, I don't want it, no, I don't want it!"

TSA guy just smiles and says, "Okay, sir, it will be destroyed. Please be careful next time."

Now, here are my questions:
1. WTF?
2. Why didn't they at least ask some questions?
3. Why wasn't I fined?
4. WTFingF?

Anyway, I made it to Columbus. Really great to see the guys from Econ at WVU, who came over to do some other work, and hung around for the talk and for dinner. (How scary is this picture? Russ...decaf, man, decaf). Great times.

(Thanks to Bob L, by the way, for posting the streaming version. I thought it said "screaming Munger" at first, and it struck me that was redundant...)

"What’s astrology, daddy?" "It’s a system of belief for people who cannot handle the intellectual demands of Scientology." [Link.]

Can't.

Stop.

Laughing.

From tonight's Simpson repeat:

[Bart has just been expelled from Springfield Elementary].

Marge: Bart, I love you, but sometimes I don’t love your choices. (sigh) Now we have to find another school for you.

Homer: Yeah, and if you get kicked out of that one you’re going straight in the army where you’ll be sent straight to America’s latest military quagmire. Where will it be? North Korea? Iran? Anything’s possible with Commander Cuckoo-Bananas in charge.

In today's campus newspaper an alumnus complains about the newspaper's writing and editing,

I see less spelling errors and grammar mistakes in blogs.

Really? I see fewer.

Iowahawk spoofs the French riots; an excerpt:

PARIS - Former French matinee idol Pepe Le Pew was among the hundreds injured last night amid violent feline rioting in the impoverished Parisian suburb of Dans-le-Crappeur. Le Pew, 58, a former Warner Brothers studio actor turned Chirac government spokes-skunk, sustained severe scratches and concussions in the melee before nose-pin equipped EMT rescue squads could drag him to safety. He is expected to make a full recovery.

Last night's rioting marked the eighth consecutive night of violence in the Paris suburbs, as thousands of immigrant feline youths continue to rampage to protest a lack of jobs and cuts in French government tuna programs. Dans-le-Crappeur, home to tens of thousands of unemployed first-hundred generation immigrant cats, has been particularly hard hit.

If this isn't politically incorrect enough for your tastes, see also Iowahawk's Hawkeye Hoosegow Honey of the Week.

James Lileks fans should know that his new book will be released this week according to Amazon.Com.

Shhh. I'm getting a copy for my wife for Christmas.

As mentioned below, I was in Chicago to interview job candidates. One fellow on our list had bounced around at a few jobs and I was already a bit leery of him before he sat down at our table. We asked him to tell us about himself and here's roughly what he said:

Well I'm definitely leaving my current position sometime. Maybe not this year but soon. The pay stinks and the teaching load is too high. "What I really want is more money for less effort." (This is a direct quote.) ... I basically can teach whatever but am looking for a paycheck you know? I mean as the saying goes, I'd rather be fishing after all....

You gotta admire the honesty I guess, but he'll be working for less effort somewhere else.

One of my university's students is featured in Cosmo magazine as "Mr. Wyoming". Problem: he's never been to the state of Wyoming in his life. I would've thought that was a requirement. Go figure.

From last night's Ig Nobel Prize awards, as described in the Chronicle of Higher Education (reg req'd):

Economics: Gauri Nanda, who was a master's student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when she invented Clocky, an alarm clock that scurries around the room as it rings, forcing the person it awakens to get out of bed and chase it. "My goal with Clocky was to approach technology in a playful way," wrote Ms. Nanda in an e-mail message.

Some other awards:

• Agricultural history: James Watson, head of the School of History, Philosophy, and Politics at Massey University, in New Zealand, for his study "The Significance of Mr. Richard Buckley's Exploding Trousers: Reflections on an Aspect of Technological Change in New Zealand Dairy Farming Between the World Wars," which appeared in the journal Agricultural History.

• Medicine: Gregg A. Miller, of Independence, Mo., for inventing Neuticles, prosthetic testicles for neutered animals -- cats, dogs, horses, and steers -- in various sizes and three degrees of firmness.

• Peace: Claire Rind and Peter Simmons, researchers in neuroscience at Britain's University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, for electronically monitoring the brain-cell activity of a locust while it watched selected Star Wars highlights.

• Fluid dynamics: Victor Benno Meyer-Rochow, a professor of biology at Germany's International University Bremen, and Jozsef Gal, of Hungary's Loránd Eötvös University, for calculating the pressure that builds up inside a penguin's bowels.

• Literature: The "Internet entrepreneurs" of Nigeria, for their "bold series of short stories" -- in the form of spam.

From AIR

Ig Nobel tonight!

Tonight the new Ig Nobel Prize winners will be revealed at the Fifteenth 1st Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony.

The LIVE Webcast begins at 7:15 pm Boston time, with a 15-minute pre-concert (The world premiere of "Infinite Chopsticks" performed by the composer, Nicholas Carstoiu)

The ceremony proper begins at 7:30 pm, and should be approx 90 minutes to two hours long.

More information:

The new winners will be journeying, from slightly more than four continents, to attend the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony on Thursday night, October 6, at Harvard University.

This year's theme is INFINITY. The ceremony will include three Infinite Lectures, as well as the premiere of the mini-opera "The Count of Infinity," and the Win-a-Date-with-a-Nobel-Laureate Contest.

I don't know much about protecting property in a hurricane because I choose to visit rather than live where hurricanes strike. I don't know what to say about this one, but maybe the Aggies know something other people don't?

Aggies and Tea-sippers can chime in.

Sign a left wing petition for every cause!

[HT: Brad]

A bio-diesel made, in part, with dead cats:

Koch said around 20 dead cats added into the mix could help produce enough fuel to fill up a 50-liter (11 gallon) tank.

But the president of the German Society for the Protection of Animals, Wolfgang Apel, said using dead cats for fuel was illegal."

A local tabloid ran a story about that funny obituary I posted about earlier. Sad story, but that's still one hell of an obit.

According to this Google Earth hack if I dig straight down from Arlington, I would end up somewhere in the Indian Ocean (I think) - I am not sure if that is correct.

James Robert "Beef" Ward

WARD James Robert "Beef" Ward, 39, passed away Thursday, September 1, 2005 at O.S.U. East Hospital. He will be sadly and sorely missed by his loving family. Jimmy, whom his family affectionately called "Pork" or "Bubba", will be remembered for his wonderful sense of humor along with his dedication to his family. A beloved son, brother and uncle he was also a devoted animal lover whose kindness and gentle soul enriched all who knew him. Preceded in death by his mother, Barbara Jean "Buffalo Butt" Ward and pets, Princess, Buster, Lady, Bonkers, Susie, Daisy and Silky. Survived by the "light of his life" fiance, Annie "Red" Callahan; father, J. Richard "Old Fart" (Debbie "Peep") Ward; sisters, Cathy "Funny Face" (Paul) Graf, Karen "Turtle" Ward, "Hamburger" Patty Ward, Amy "Amos" Ward; beloved children to be, Jessica "Thunder Child" and James; nephews, Joshua and Jason; numerous aunts, uncles, cousins and friends; pets, Simba, Charlie, Max, Bailey, Aussie, Sylvia, Elvis, Moe, Misty, Chloe, Blue, Sidney, Coco, Harley, Cassie, Paige, Little Dude and Diabla. A funeral service will be held...

Published in The Columbus Dispatch from 9/3/2005 - 9/4/2005.

The world was created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Hat tip to Financial Rounds
Here is the definition of viral marketing:

Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message's exposure and influence

I caught the virus. Here is the message.

A shocking revelation from the Bridgeport mall in West Virginia, reported by WBOY:

A former mall security chief is free on bond, charged with pocketing more than $120-thousand dollars in coins. […]

Police say he stole more than $120-thousand dollars over six years from the mall's kiddie rides. According to the criminal complaint. police say Beatty cut the wires to the machines and made off with around $20-thousand dollars a year since 1999. Mall officials started an investigation after noticing a drop in sales.

Wow. Who knew coin-op kiddie rides were so lucrative?

How did he spend or convert $20,000 in quarters per year? Wouldn’t your bank be suspicious if, wearing your mall security guard outfit, you brought in $400 in quarters every week?

Take a look at Google Moon. I suppose we could replace NASA with Google and be done with it all. The discoveries might be impressive - try zooming all the way in. The details are amazing.