brandonrobison.net

Tyler Cowen linked to a post regarding Park51, colloquially referred to as the Ground Zero Mosque. The following paragraph about sums it up, and I agree:

My general take on the debate is that it really does boil down to an issue not just of religious freedom but also a means of putting into practice the very American values which Al Qaeda seeks to deny. A mosque in NYC, near to the site of 9-11, is not a “monument to the attackers” (a pernicious claim, which puts collective responsibility for the terrorist attacks on all Muslim Americans) but actually a repudiation of the Al Qaeda ideology. What they want is to make Muslim Americans reject American identity and follow their call to jihad – explicitly, as Anwar al Awlaki has repeatedly stated, and even succeeded (ref the cases of Fort Hood and Times Square). An American mosque, built for American Muslims, is literally the antithesis of what the enemy most desires.

Read the whole post here.

My simple take: There are numerous reasons to support the building of a Muslim community center in lower Manhattan; and frankly, the reasons against it are all merely divisive.

I was asked by my boss to review and “look for gaps in the logic flow” of a report prepared by the Soldier and Family Services division here at the National Guard. The report was nearly 40 pages long, but the only real substance was found in the first page with sentences like, “Army National Guard’s confirmed suicide rate reached an all-time high of 17.9 per 100,000,” and, “The intent of this campaign plan is to take a strategic approach to mitigating suicides and high-risk behavior across the Army National Guard.” Beyond that, the paper rambled on with long words and even longer sentences. I’m proud of the critique I wrote, provided below…

Two specific problems, and two general problems. First, the specifics:

The Situation, page 1, item 1: Is 17.9 suicides per 100,000 really something we need to have a ~40 page paper about? Looking at national statistics suggests that it’s not. In 2006, the US suicide rate for males was 17.7 per 100k and for women was 4.5 per 100k. Considering more than 85% of our force is male, we should expect an overall suicide rate of about 15.9 suicides per 100,000, so 17.9 isn’t that far off from what we should expect. These are back-of-the-envelope calculations, but the point still stands that the alleged suicide epidemic in the NG isn’t nearly as dire as the paper seems to suggest. Furthermore, I believe if we controlled for geography, race, and age, the expected suicide rate for the Guard would be higher, thus weakening the seriousness of the problem even further.

End State, page 2, item c: “The suicide is reduced” seems to be our goal — so if our suicides drop from 17.9 to 17.89, will we consider that success?

Then the general:

Even if I were to buy into the notion that I should be overly worried about the suicide rate, I didn’t see anywhere in the paper any sort of scientific or mathematical analysis to indicate why any of the proposals to reduce the rate should work. The paper just implies that we should all assume that the programs work, and that they all work equally well, so we should just dump lots of time, money, and effort into them. But if, for example, substance abuse programs are twice as effective at combating suicide as financial assistance programs, more resources should be put into the more effective programs.

Also, resources spent on suicide prevention likely have diminishing returns to effectiveness, meaning that the first $100k spent on suicide prevention will be more effective at reducing suicide rates than the tenth $100k. This implies that there is a point at which additional resources spent on suicide prevention will have such a miniscule effect on suicide rates that it is wasteful to spend those resources. This concept forms part of the basis for cost-benefit analysis, and while it is very unemotional and perhaps “inhuman” to suggest doing a cost-benefit analysis on resources spent toward suicide prevention, that’s ultimately the most rational choice. Perhaps these types of analyses have been done, but I read no reference to them in this paper.

I really should update once in a while huh.

Maybe.

I’ve been collecting books for the past several months and only reading a couple of them, due to time constraints. Those time constraints will, to some extent, be lifted soon. So here are some potential reads for the summer. Chance are I’ll only be able to get through 3-5 of them… so, in no particular order:

• A Brief History of Liberty by Schmidtz and Brennan. Sort of recommended by Tyler Cowen. Seems like a casual reading kind of book, where I’ll already know a good deal of the material, but it will help to build context.
• A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper by John Allen Paulos. My friend Elliott Griffin recommended this one to me. Don’t know much about it, other than the title.
• A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. I’ve wanted to read this for a long time. And possibly more by Hawking. Frankly, I’m not sure what the audience is for this book… so I may either “get it” or be completely confused.
• The Death and Life of the Great American School System by Diane Ravitch. The author was on EconTalk with Russ Roberts recently; I didn’t listen to the podcast, but the blog post made the book sound quite interesting.
• V for Vendetta by Moore and Lloyd. It’s my second favorite movie, so it might be a favorite book, right?
• The White Man’s Burden by William Easterly. Seems like required reading for anyone interested in development economics, which I am. I need to get on the ball.
• Why Not Socialism? by G.A. Cohen. It’s really short (80ish pages, and small pages. It’s almost like a big pamphlet). Supposedly espouses how wonderful socialism is. I want to read it so I can try to understand the other side better.
• The Return of Depression Economics by Paul Krugman. This is longer, though I suspect it’s a lot like the previous book on this list. *sigh*
• A Pilgrim’s Path by John J. Robinson. A book about becoming a Freemason. A buddy at work gave it to me.
• The Nurture Assumption by Judith Rich Harris. Recommended by Bryan Caplan. I think I’ll understand the content of Bryan’s upcoming book, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, if I read this book.
• Free-Range Kids by Lenore Skenazy. Same as last description.
• Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count by Richard E. Nisbett. I stumbled onto this in a bookstore one day, and it looked interesting. It’s got 4 stars on Amazon, so I picked it up.
• The English Reader: What Every Literate Person Needs to Know by Michael and Diane Ravitch. Heard about this on NPR. I think if I read this, I won’t have to read any of the classics. It’s like a giant Sparknotes for them all. Or something.
• South Africa’s War Against Capitalism by Walter E. Williams. He mentioned it in class last semester. I think he actually does real economics in this book.
• Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use by Jacob Sullum. Hey now, I’m a fan of legalizing drugs — all of them. But Sullum is taking it a step further. This book is just bound to be ridiculous, maybe. (I think he might just be talking about marijuana, in which case it might not be so ridiculous. I honestly don’t know.)
• Roots by Alex Haley. Why haven’t I read this yet?
• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Maybe the other book higher up on this list covers this one, so I won’t actually have to read it?
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Ditto. I dunno.
• Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen. Another development econ book. (I’m actually not THAT interested in development econ, truthfully.) I think this was one of the first books Sen wrote after he won the Nobel prize.
• Hamilton’s Curse by Thomas DiLorenzo. I liked The Real Lincoln. If anyone can build a case against Hamilton, it seems like DiLorenzo’s the guy.

Any other recommendations for me — either from this list or from elsewhere?

I’m only a month and a half late posting this!

2009 had some great movies. It also had some awful ones. I’ve never seen so many bad movies in one year… so this year, not only will I be posting the best of 2009, but also the worst. Enjoy!

5. Drag Me To Hell
This movie was just fun. I know, it’s a horror movie, but my face hurt hurt after I left the theater because I had been smiling and laughing so much throughout. You might think, “A horror movie that just makes you laugh? That doesn’t sound like a good thing.” But it is.

4. The Hangover
With many comedy movies in which ridiculous events occur, the viewer must often suspend their belief in reality temporarily in order to enjoy what they’re seeing. Despite The Hangover being ridiculous and far-fetched, it was somehow incredibly believable for me. I felt a sort of nostalgia watching the movie, perhaps because as a teen, my friends and I would do some pretty wild things around the Las Vegas Strip. Anyway, there’s good reason this movie has claimed the throne of highest grossing comedy of all time.

3. Inglourious Basterds
Unlike other Tarantino movies where characters have really long, strange, seemingly unnecessary conversations with one another, the conversations in this movie were really great. The opening scene is one of the tensest scenes I’ve seen in recent history, and the “rat speech” is brilliant. In fact, every scene with Christopher Waltz is fantastic.

2. District 9
The political message of this movie is on the one hand quite subtle, and on the other hand, bashes you over the head with a club. It’s hard to not be annoying with political messages, but District 9 does it flawlessly. The format (mockumentary-style) is also quite novel and enjoyable.

1. The Hurt Locker
I need to see this again. (This next part might be considered a spoiler, but I don’t think so…) My favorite scene is near the end when the main character goes home and is walking through a store with his wife. The movie did such a good job of sucking you into the feeling of being a soldier in Iraq that when you’re finally brought back to “civilization” it feels truly eerie. On top of that (and I think other critics have probably mentioned this), it portrays the war in Iraq without any political bias, and does it superbly.

Honorable mention: Avatar
Yeah yeah, the story was pretty cheesy, cliché, etc. But Pandora was beautiful.

Best movie I saw in 2009 that wasn’t made in 2009: Ondskan
Everyone should watch this movie. Several times. It’s Swedish, so you’ve probably never heard of it (unless I’ve told you to watch it). I don’t want to say what it’s about, but it’s now one of my favorite movies.

Worst of 2009:

5. The Proposal

4. Bride Wars

3. Year One

2. Nine

1. The Road
The Road was awful. I like dark, depressing movies, but this one just sucks your soul out of you. And it’s monotonous. I think I wanted to die while watching this.

Biggest disappointment: Watchmen
I don’t even know what was going on here. I feel like the original story is far too complicated to be put into a single movie. It’d be like if movie makers tried to cram Atlas Shrugged or Lord of the Rings into 2 and a half hours of movie. You’d just leave the theater thinking, “WTF mate?” And that’s what happened here.

Hi all,

A handful of classmates and I have banded together to start a new blog. Its primary discussion will revolve around economic, political and social issues, but will undoubtedly also cover pop culture, religion, philosophy, and a myriad of other topics.

I don’t plan to get rid of my personal blog, and I’m not sure how I will divide up posts between it and this new one I’m involved in. So, just plan on checking them both! The worst thing that can happen is you might learn something.

So, why not head over to Unconstrained Optimism?

Yesterday I voted in the Virginia election. There were only five (or was it six?) positions to vote for. I want to tell you all a little about my experience voting.

First off, I only voted for three of the positions: governor, attorney general, and house of delegates. I guess that last one is like the state legislature or something? I really have no idea.

Well, leading up to the election, I was unsure as to whether I should vote for the D or the R guys. On the one hand, D is pretty close to B, which is the first letter of my first name. But on the other hand, R *is* R, the first letter of my last name. In the end, I chose to go for the R guys, and for reasons other than the first-letter-of-my-name thing.

Bob McDonnell’s competitor had put signs up all over Fairfax saying something to the effect that Bob wanted to get rid of schools. You might know I’m not a fan of public schools, so if Bob is against them, he’s my guy. I just don’t understand why his Creigh Deeds would have gone around paying for a positive advertising campaign for his election competitor.

I voted for Bob McDonnell, and he won by 6%. It’s a good thing I voted for him, because without my vote, he would have undoubtedly lost.

The race for attorney general had a similar story. The guy running against Cuccinelli (I don’t even remember his (or her) name) has been playing ads all over TV saying how Cuccinelli once said that he wouldn’t enforce laws he didn’t agree with. Wow! What a strong endorsement!

Seriously, these Democrats are horrible at the PR game. You guys are supposed to advertise negative qualities about your competitors (or at least talk up the good points of your own business). No wonder Republicans owned the elections last night.

Well anyway, I voted for Cuccinelli. This was a much closer race — Cuccinelli only won by 1%! My vote really counted here.

So in case you’re not keeping track, my vote has counted in two of two cases.

However, there is still the general assembly election. There was no R in this race, only a D. Having run as a third party candidate in the past, I can empathize with the lower-ranked parties. So I voted for the Green Party candidate, Anna Choi. I mean, I like the color green, so why not? And I can tell by her name that she’s Asian, and I like Asians.

Furthermore, her website claims she is a fiscal conservative… which in conjunction with being a Green means she probably just favors raising taxes really high to offset government spending. But that’s ok, because I learned recently from doing my macro homework that in a Keynesian world (which we live in), an equal increase in government spending and taxes results in a net positive effect on the economy. What’s not to love about this kind of fiscal conservatism?

Unfortunately, Anna lost her bid to serve us. It went to the D.

But I refuse to let one bad race prevent me from enjoying my democratic freedoms in this country and knowing that, at the very least, my vote counted in two of the three races.

A little over a month ago I posed a question about gun rights vs. health care rights. I liked all the comments on that post, but none of them were how I would have answered the question.

So why is there a right to bear arms in the Constitution, but not a right to health care?

The answer, very simply, lies in property rights. If one views the Bill of Rights through a lens of property rights, we see that almost every Amendment is a guarantee of a private property right. An “arm” is merely a piece of property, hence it can be privately owned. But how can health care be privately owned? How is it property?

In a free world (or free market), property is produced and exchanged voluntarily. So my owning of something does not forcefully impose anything on any one else. For example, I can own a gun, and my right to own that gun does not infringe on any other individual in any way. The same can be said about other types of private property: cars, clothing, iPods. Phrased even more simply, no one is harmed, forced, or imposed upon to provide me with private property: all private property is provided to me through voluntary actions.

Health care as a right, on the other hand, does not fit this description. If I wake up tomorrow and suddenly have a “right” to health care, it would mean that some doctor or doctors would necessarily be forced to provide that health care to me. At the point where I have a “right” to health care, voluntary action will have been supplanted by force.

Lorem Ipsum is a sort of made up language. Well, not really a language. It is “simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry” and also commonly used for people designing websites before they’ve been given any real content that will go on the site they’re designing. It’s designed to look like English (actually, looks more like the Latin language). Blah blah blah. Read more about Lorem Ipsum at lipsum.com.

I stumbled onto a song called Lorem Ipsum last night and I’ve listened to it dozens of times since. It was composed by Jake “virt” Kaufman, a video game and long time scene composer. virt is an incredible arranger and composer… really, listen to practically any of his songs and keep in mind he programmed the sounds with a computer, and you can’t help but be amazed.

In this latest song of his that I’m obsessed with, he has combined orchestra, rock, a singing choir, and a strange vocaloid together. But even more amazing (to me) is the lyrics of the song: It’s just Lorem Ipsum! Check out the song now!

Several weeks ago I ordered a book from Amazon for one of my classes. When I got it, and I realized it was missing pages 19-51. So I sent Amazon an email, and they sent me a new copy the next day (as in, I received a replacement *the day after I reported the problem*… Amazon FTW). Unfortunately, it had the same problem. So I asked around and found out other classmates had the same problem (ordering it from other bookstores, even).

I decided to contact the publisher, MIT Press:

I have ordered two separate copies of Lectures on Macroeconomics by Blanchard and Fischer (ISBN 0-262-02283-4) and both copies are missing pages 19-51. Other classmates are having the same problem. What can be done to fix this? It seems that multiple booksellers have the same faulty printings…

A couple days later, they replied with this:

Dear Brandon:  I have checked with the press, and they can’t seem to think of a particular book off hand.  Perhaps you can try Amazon.com.  I’m sending the link to hopefully help in the search.
thank you,
____

<http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=women+law+enforcement&x=0&y=0>

The punch line to this story is found by clicking on the link they sent me.