Teddy Bloggie Blog Blogging

Tahoe : April 3-5

The Ol' Marketocracy gang up in Tahoe. Did anyone expect so much snow, so late in the season? Tahoe was brilliant white with that fluffy stuff.


Bolinas : April 5-6

I've never spent much time in Bolinas before this trip. Maybe driven through the town once or twice on the way to Stinson Beach or Point Reyes. The view out of Julie's family cabin was spectacular, a great green contrast to the white of Tahoe just a few hours earlier.

We played some b-ball, frisbee on Saturday and went for a 3hr tour the next day - in a a few kayaks. Then, we were so hungry that we walked to the nearest restaurant and had some barbequed oysters and clam chowder. In California, from its mountains to its oceans and across its deserts down to Baja, there's always something to do and some landscape that you just have to stare stupidly at and enjoy.

There are two things I'm really uncomfortable with in this war we're fighting. The first is that we're targeting the Iraqi leadership with guided missles. Am I the only one who feels uncomfortable with this tactic? I guess assassinations are deemed fair game by Bush and Co. That's strange though because I've always thought outright assassinations were illegal under any pretext. I think the U.N. and Geneva Convention state something like:

"Governments shall prohibit by law all extra-legal, arbitrary and summary executions and shall ensure that any such executions are recognized as offences under their criminal laws, and are punishable by appropriate penalties which take into account the seriousness of such offences. Exceptional circumstances including a state of war or threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency may not be invoked as a justification of such executions."

You open up a Pandora's box when you start allowing for targeted killing of leaders. I think for me, the idea of the U.S. being judge and executioner is unsettling. Defenders of assassinations would say that such measures would save military and civilian lives that would be otherwise lost if you had to go to all out war or if you imposed sanctions. I can't really argue with that, but it still doesn't make moral sense to me. Although morality doesn't coexist well with war, I'd like to think that it should in some way. I mean, we don't let cops go around shooting gang members because they might kill some innocent people. We don't allow cops to kill them even if we think have killed other people. We have trials and we have a rule of law. Expediency and preemption cannot justify the usurption of our domestic laws - so why should international rules of engagement be any different? The road leading to legitimizing assassinations is also a two-way street. I think you'll see more assassination attempts on the U.S. and other Western leadership as a result of our policy toward "terrorist" groups. In the end, everyone's definition of "terrorist" is their own and very different.

Second, I'm uncomfortable with this war because we've killed a lot of Iraqi civilians and soldiers. Why even soldiers? Because I suspect most of them do not want to fight. It's funny what you'll do when there's a gun at your back. Sometimes you'll even take a seat in a tank that's about to be cooked up by U.S. Apache helicopters. Most soldiers are conscripts, they didn't volunteer to serve. And then there are the truly innocent people. The hospitals in Baghdad are running out of supplies and they're stacking dead bodies in the back. These scenes aren't what we see on our late night news. We get the picture of soldiers being kissed and Hussein statues being torn down. A very one sided view in the land of the free. Our news networks are run by the State department and Disney. I'm exaggerating but how far am I from the truth?

I've never thought of myself as a pacifist, mainly because I can see myself being violent. But now I find myself uncomfortable with the "killing" aspect of war. I know, it's going to happen when you're tossing 2000lb bombs into a city's center, but it doesn't mean I feel good about it. I hope that Americans remember that it's still wrong to kill innocent people no matter what's on the line. I hope they remember that it's been a war of choice that we've been fighting in Iraq, not a war of neccessity. I hope American's don't celebrate in the streets like it's Mardi Gras when this thing is over.

The Iraqi's weren't a true threat to U.S. security as this war has clearly shown. I hope we think about that when our leaders try to convince us that we need to kill Syrians and Iranians to bring them a better life. I hope the hawks don't move on to Syria and Iran when this is done. I suspect they actually like the head rush of war. I suspect they believe themselves to be "big picture" thinkers, who don't really spend much time thinking about individual lives, and I suspect they don't share my discomfort with war.

Hope VI puts on conferences for housing youths and they do some amazing things. I'm looking forward to going up to Seattle at the end of the month to work with them on weblogging. The video clip above is from a previous conference held in Berkeley, which I unfortunately didn't attend. I really like it though when I saw it so I thought I'd share it with y'all. It's in the evil Microsoft Video format (.wmv) so if you have a windows media player, it'll work. Enjoy.

I went to Davis yesterday for a visit with the faculty and graduate students in the Department of Agriculture and Resource Economics. The visit was to last from 10am to 3pm, each of the 7 faculty members spoke to me for about 30 minutes, with an hour and a half for lunch with three graduate students.

What stuck me immediately was how non-hierarchical the faculty and student relationships seemed. I arrived just in time for Friday morning donuts, a weekly affair that gets the graduate students, faculty and staff together. A few minutes after 10am, with a chocolate old-fashion in hand, I sat down with Professor Edward Taylor. I spoke about why I wanted to go to graduate school and he showed me his work in Mexico and his computer modeling that explained rural land use after NAFTA. He was beaming, excited with his work and told me about the opportunities of doing research work in Mexico or in China through the AgEcon department. Like most visits of the day, we went over the allotted 30 minutes. I went on and visited with Professor Farzin, who shared my view that economics needed to take into account, social, political and anthropological conditions before concluding what constituded a workable policy. Prof. Farzin's experience in the World Bank, doing computer modeling, showed him that cookie-cutter solutions do not work. Prof. Chalfant's the Chair of the department and told me a bit more about the M.S. program's courses and how they differed from the PhD courses. Prof. Rozelle was next on my schedule. He's a specialist in Chinese rural economies, and we had a great time talking about how quickly political decisions in China gets translated into actions, no bureaucratic red-tape or democratic debate stands in the way of far-flung projects like the three-gorges-dam or the reforestation of Northern China. There have been many graduate students advised by Prof. Rozelle who have gone to China to do research - something I'm interested in doing.

Lunch was with Rocio, Caroline, and Hiro. Three graduate students from Spain, Canada, and Japan, respectively. They told me that the first two years of coursework was very intensive and prelims and orals were stressful and it was sometimes necessary to take them over. But the main impression I got was that they liked studying at Davis, they liked their advisors and enjoyed being TAs and research assistants.

After lunch there were more visits with Prof. Smith, Goodhue, and Boucher. Smith is an econometrician and a finance guy. He plays rugby. Prof. Rachel Goodhue, the only female faculty member I met during my visit, was the Gradate Committee Chair. Basically, she heads the committee that decides whether you get in - or not. She told me that next Wednesday would be the planned meeting to discuss applications and that she had not looked at my file prior to our meeting. She's a Berkeley grad I think, and I know some graduate students at Davis find her intimidating. She seemed like a Berkeley professor, a little more serious, a little less smiling and laughing, so in a Davis environment maybe she does come off a bit intimidating but I didn't think so. I thought, "Okay, next Wednesday. I'll call next Friday to check in." She asked me why I chose AgEcon instead of Economics. I replied that I thought AgEcon would be more applied. I could learn my modeling and theory and get on with applied research work. Plus, right now, I think I want to focus on Development Economics and AgEcon's better suited. My final visit was with Prof. Boucher. We got to talking about Brazil and Portuguese. Which led him to tell me a story of how he was invited to do research in Mozembique while in graduate school because he was learning Portuguese on a fellowship. I had all my questions answered by this point and we just chatted about what other classes should be taught in the department. Theoretical courses on incentives and contracting and asymmetric information was at the top of that list. During my visit with Prof. Boucher, Prof. Goodhue came in and asked me to see her when I was finished. So I headed up (or was it down?) to her office a bit past 3pm.

I thought perhaps I'd forgotten something in my application. She invited me in. "We had an informal meeting," she said. "And we decided to offer you a letter of acceptance, the fee remission and TA or RA-ships for the next two years."

Wow. In my dumbfoundedness I said, "You can do that?"

Prof. Rozelle's office was across the hall. He smiled, characteristically, and congratulated me and told me he was impressed.

So starting in September, you'll probably be able to find me in this building.

It's the Social Science and Humanitites Building at UC Davis. People there call it a maze and I can see why... there are doors and halls all over the place, unintuitively scattered, so bring a compass.

For an allegorical take on the budget mess on capitol hill these days, check out John Iron's excellent blog entry. ArgMax Economics Weblog: Homer's Budget

I share my questionable taste in cars with only a few people that I know. Yeah, I don't have an eye for the most popular. Most people think I'm kind of crazy for wanting a Mazda Miata. But I don't care...I like old BMW Isettas and Fiat 500s -- so there. I don't like speed as much as a sense of speed or a sense of fun. My first car was a Porsche 914, the epitome of ugly, slow, and fun, and I loved it.

So, when I saw this up-and-coming model, I immediately liked its ugliness and practicality. It gets fairly good gas mileage at 30/33, and I bet I can fit my mountain bike in it if I take off the front wheel on my bike and put the rear seats down. The short overhangs front and rear and the ultra-boxy look is a nice change. It'll be great for those tight parking jobs since you won't have to guess where the car's corners are.

This one's going to be coming to California in June, to be marketed as a Scion xB. Scion will be just another brand under the Toyota umbrella like Lexus, but this car looks like a winner to me. Unfortunately, since I think it's a cool interpretation of personal transportation, the corporate types at Toyota should actually be nervous for obvious said reasons.

But I do have a few suggestions that may make Scion a more mainstream hit here among my peers. First, get some more options on the list, like the 4wd and CVT (constantly variable transmission) choices that I believe are available already in Japan. The 4wd option would make the Tahoe crowd take a second look at this unique model and the CVT would make gadgety people, like myself, happy. Also, I like the idea of having turn signals on the outside mirrors - another option available in Japan I believe. They look upscale and it's a nice safety feature (especially for motorcyclists like me, who could be riding along-side). Lastly, throw in a really big moonroof option, because that would make this a great minimalist camper with star-gazing possibilities. An idea you could market to daydreamers and motel-phobes. Yeah, I'd get one if I could get all those features along with this box on wheels - I bet others would too.

I just sent off my taxes today, only to read about the U.S. using my money to spy on China; and then getting caught for it. There's a single angle story in the Times today. I say single because it only concerns who was responsible for this embarassment, and it's really only suitable as a gossip column instead of a proper news article that tries to figure the incident's impact on international relations. I'd be really concerned about how China's reacting to this, especially since they have a part to play in our up-and-coming dealings with North Korea. It leaves almost all my questions of this event unanswered, including why we felt planting bugs on China's version of Air Force One was necessary and who makes the decisions that go into these operations.

This whole incident is typical of U.S.'s hypocrisy. Our government goes around and plants bugs while at the same time it gets wildly upset when it, without sufficient evidence, detains a Chinese-American nuclear scientist who is suspected of stealing information. Time to get off your high horse.

I mean, since Bush has been in office, we've been caught spying on our friends in the U.N. and NATO on top of being caught spying on China. It's hard to openly deal with friends and allies when you're known to perform colonoscopies on other governments with the NSA, FBI and CIA. I wonder why the paper spends so much time trying to figure out where the leaks are instead of trying to figure out how terribly costly this whole operation has been. The international political fallout and disgust with the way the U.S. conducts foreign policy should be the news. The actions of this administration remind me of Nixon's domestic political games, except in this case it's our foreign policy and international reputation that are getting trashed by Bush and pal's insecurities. It's pathetic.

Spy Suspect May Have Told Chinese of Bugs, U.S. Says By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON, April 14 — Counterintelligence officials fear that an F.B.I. informer in Los Angeles tipped off the Chinese government to a covert United States effort to plant listening devices aboard China's version of Air Force One, several government officials said today.

Sometimes you have to call out the hypocrisy.

djwudi.com > The Long Letter > Syria's political brilliance

And while Iraq wielded the propaganda tool clumsily, Syria is proving a far better foe. It’s latest move, tactically brilliant, is to introduce a Security Council resolution calling for the elimination of all WMDs in the Middle East.

The move comes as some in the US side scream about Syria’s alleged WMDs. Thus Syria’s move is nothing short of genius. If the US is truly serious about ridding the Middle East of WMDs, it should have no problem endorsing a resolution that would compell Syria to disarm. Right?

Wrong. The resolution would have the (intentional) effect of forcing Israel to surrender its nuclear arsenal — a course of action Israel would never accept. And the US, Israel’s most loyal ally, will thus be forced to veto the resolution.

So picture this — the US vetoing a resolution calling for the banning of all WMDs from the Middle East. In one fell swoop, Syria has negated the charges of WMDs against it, exposed the US’s hypocrisy on WMDs (our allies can have them, everyone else can’t), solidified its leadership of the Arab world, and forced the US to veto a seemingly common sense resolution, after blasting France and Russia for threatening vetoes on Iraq.

(via Daily Kos)

Here's a good blog for SARS updates.
SARS Watch org by Tim Bishop

This article is from Motorcycle.com
I got a laugh so I have to share it.

Motorcycle Online: John Burns; Great Arguments for Stupid People

Part One in a series...
By John Burns
Torrance, California, September 25, 2002 --

I first became aware of this particular stupid argument in law school, when a stupid ex-Army captain who was quite tall and insistent and therefore went on to become an excellent attorney I'm sure, used it. (This was the same guy who said that if he was in a foxhole with Russian tanks rolling toward it, he would not want to be sharing said hole with a homosexual. I was too retiring at the time to point out to him that--speaking as a guy who's been in a foxhole with friendly tanks rumbling around--that buggery would likely be low on the list of Things to Do at such a time.)

Anyway, I don't remember the topic, but I do remember the captain quite clearly saying, on a different day, "Well, it's easy to point out flaws in the current system, but you have no right to do so unless you have good solutions to fix them."

The following article shows that the internet can reduce a lot of costs associated with car shopping, especially if you're a woman or a minority.

How Much Is That Civic Online?

By VIRGINIA POSTREL

THE 21st century hasn't brought us flying cars. But it has made the nonflying kind a lot easier to buy.

Back in 1986, when I purchased my first Honda Civic, car shopping meant going from dealer to dealer to dealer, taking test drives and hearing sales pitches. The process was time-consuming and unpleasant. It required a lot of driving around, and to get a price, you had to be willing to dicker for hours.

Car buyers no longer have to go through all that. When I replaced my old Civic with a 2003 model, I test drove a couple of cars and, when I was ready to buy, filled out an online form. Within 30 minutes, a dealer e-mailed me an excellent offer. Two hours later, I had a new car.

In the early days of e-commerce, six or seven years ago, car sales were the pundits' favorite caveat. Customers will always want to kick the tires, they said, so the Internet is no place for selling cars.

While in Seattle, I did one thing I would count as 'productive'. I had the great fortune of participating in setting up the weblog for Bubble Bliss, a youth run and driven bubble tea and espresso business in the White Center community, Seattle, Washington. I don't think they will challenge Starbucks any time soon, but I think the venture will be successful in its own way.

The Boys and Girls Club, where they operate out of on most days, is a great space, with an indoor basketball court, a computer lab, and lots of youths running around. I met a few of them last Friday and they fixed me up with a watermelon bubble tea. I wanted to stay longer and play some ball, but I didn't wanted to play against anyone I couldn't beat. That basically ruled out everyone above fifth grade.

Take a look at this link:
the World as a Blog