I want to do a little expose on what political and life experience the main candidates for President have in both parties. Then I want to compare that to the experience the former Presidents of the past 50 years had before entering office. Hopefully, the latter will reveal something when compared to there relative successes. Then, we could attempt to figure out which of the former will make the best President in 2008.
Archive for October, 2007
I have not checked recently, but I do not think the readership to this blog is extremely high, but I am not trying to make money from advertising or change the world. So I will give a shoutout to my friend Bill’s Blog and an interesting article he linked to written by one of his profs.
As my political views mature and the political landscape of the United States changes life is becoming increasingly frustrating. I feel disconnected from the way our country works because to me it just does not make sense. I would highly recommend trying out this podcast by Dan Carlin. If you have never dabbled into podcasts before I think this would be a great way to become hooked. It is a reasonable and interesting commentary on current events without the political skew. It is also long enough where an issue can be developed, but you do not get bored. As of right now it does not have any commercials either!
Anyway back to my frustrations and this article. This deserves a more well developed post so I will try to make it short and let the article stand on its own. I think the really frustrating thing is the perverse incentives that are created by the destruction of state and individual rights. The scary thing about this is the lack of responsibility it creates in all levels of government.
It is fair asking how we kicked so much ass in World War II, but how we are failing so badly now. The article answers this question on a variety of issues fundamental to waging a war. What really concerns me and I think answers this question on a more broad basis is that Congress has not declared war. I think if we want to wage and win a war it should be a declared and focused effort. The War Powers Act should probably be limited and scaled back. I am all about the people. The Executive takes power away from the Congress, which represents the people. Remember when you vote for President that you are not only voting for their policies that will not be fulfilled, but you are voting for numerous appointments to Federal Administrations. People who make policy without a vote of Congress or approval of the President. Of course, Congress takes power away from the people, it was meant to make government more efficient so everyone does not have to show up to Town Hall. The problem is when they take so much power that the states lose their rights (10th Amendment, anyone?).
There is just so much disconnect between the citizens and our wonderful state.
I am going to see a presentation of the Shakespeare play that is this posts name. It sounds really weird, I will let you know how it goes.
Who bets their friend that they can make their wife cheat? Well I am sure there is a purpose in the play…we shall see.
I am sure there are several sites like this, but it has a lot of interesting books you can read online.
The Colbert Report is hilarious. Entertainers entering politics is not hilarious. It turns out that Political Entertainers running for political office is hilarious and legitimately awesome. Yes, several vague adjectives describe the excitement and ensuing laughs of watching Stephen Colbert on Meet the Press. If you did not catch it:
Now he also wrote a NY Times editorial last week, which is also quite funny. If you live in South Carolina… you know what to do.
October 14, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
A Mock Columnist, Amok
By MAUREEN DOWD
I was in my office, writing a column on the injustice of relative marginal tax rates for hedge fund managers, when I saw Stephen Colbert on TV.
He was sneering that Times columns make good “kindling.” He was ranting that after you throw away the paper, “it takes over a hundred years for the lies to biodegrade.” He was observing, approvingly, that “Dick Cheney’s fondest pipe dream is driving a bulldozer into The New York Times while drinking crude oil out of Keith Olbermann’s skull.”
I called Colbert with a dare: if he thought it was so easy to be a Times Op-Ed pundit, he should try it. He came right over. In a moment of weakness, I had staged a coup d’moi. I just hope he leaves at some point. He’s typing and drinking and threatening to “shave Paul Krugman with a broken bottle.”
I Am an Op-Ed Columnist (And So Can You!)
By STEPHEN COLBERT
Surprised to see my byline here, aren’t you? I would be too, if I read The New York Times. But I don’t. So I’ll just have to take your word that this was published. Frankly, I prefer emoticons to the written word, and if you disagree 
I’d like to thank Maureen Dowd for permitting/begging me to write her column today. As I type this, she’s watching from an overstuffed divan, petting her prize Abyssinian and sipping a Dirty Cosmotinijito. Which reminds me: Before I get started, I have to take care of one other bit of business:
Bad things are happening in countries you shouldn’t have to think about. It’s all George Bush’s fault, the vice president is Satan, and God is gay.
There. Now I’ve written Frank Rich’s column too.
So why I am writing Miss Dowd’s column today? Simple. Because I believe the 2008 election, unlike all previous elections, is important. And a lot of Americans feel confused about the current crop of presidential candidates.
For instance, Hillary Clinton. I can’t remember if I’m supposed to be scared of her so Democrats will think they should nominate her when she’s actually easy to beat, or if I’m supposed to be scared of her because she’s legitimately scary.
Or Rudy Giuliani. I can’t remember if I’m supposed to support him because he’s the one who can beat Hillary if she gets nominated, or if I’m supposed to support him because he’s legitimately scary.
And Fred Thompson. In my opinion “Law & Order” never sufficiently explained why the Manhattan D.A. had an accent like an Appalachian catfish wrestler.
Well, suddenly an option is looming on the horizon. And I don’t mean Al Gore (though he’s a world-class loomer). First of all, I don’t think Nobel Prizes should go to people I was seated next to at the Emmys. Second, winning the Nobel Prize does not automatically qualify you to be commander in chief. I think George Bush has proved definitively that to be president, you don’t need to care about science, literature or peace.
While my hat is not presently in the ring, I should also point out that it is not on my head. So where’s that hat? (Hint: John McCain was seen passing one at a gas station to fuel up the Straight Talk Express.)
Others point to my new bestseller, “I Am America (And So Can You!)” noting that many candidates test the waters with a book first. Just look at Barack Obama, John Edwards or O. J. Simpson.
Look at the moral guidance I offer. On faith: “After Jesus was born, the Old Testament basically became a way for Bible publishers to keep their word count up.” On gender: “The sooner we accept the basic differences between men and women, the sooner we can stop arguing about it and start having sex.” On race: “While skin and race are often synonymous, skin cleansing is good, race cleansing is bad.” On the elderly: “They look like lizards.”
Our nation is at a Fork in the Road. Some say we should go Left; some say go Right. I say, “Doesn’t this thing have a reverse gear?” Let’s back this country up to a time before there were forks in the road — or even roads. Or forks, for that matter. I want to return to a simpler America where we ate our meat off the end of a sharpened stick.
Let me regurgitate: I know why you want me to run, and I hear your clamor. I share Americans’ nostalgia for an era when you not only could tell a man by the cut of his jib, but the jib industry hadn’t yet fled to Guangdong. And I don’t intend to tease you for weeks the way Newt Gingrich did, saying that if his supporters raised $30 million, he would run for president. I would run for 15 million. Cash.
Nevertheless, I am not ready to announce yet — even though it’s clear that the voters are desperate for a white, male, middle-aged, Jesus-trumpeting alternative.
What do I offer? Hope for the common man. Because I am not the Anointed or the Inevitable. I am just an Average Joe like you — if you have a TV show.
Not to spoil the post below which was an important throught process for me to lay out, but I think it shows that dwelling accomplishes very little.
What is intelligence? How does one know how intelligent they are? What sort of intelligence is the most significant?
I have been perplexed lately by questions of this nature. Mainly, how does one know if they are intelligent? Does intelligence only occur by chance, by the situation we are in, or are some predisposed to dominate any scenario? I am certain the question to that last answer is yes, but am equally certain the individuals that fall into that category are rare. Maybe each individual has a truly great talent or affinity for some form knowledge of knowledge and in his/her lifetime may never exercise that ability. Does it take the right situation, the right people, the right job, or the right support? Or is it a matter of the right chemicals interacting with each other at the right time somewhere in our body that makes do great things? Must one be intelligent to do great things? I believe I am writing this under the assumption that great things require knowledge, surely knowledge of moral issues and justice are required to determine the right course of action.
How does this relate to intelligence? Why have I chosen intelligence as they key characteristic of inquiry? It seems to me now that intelligence may be the ability to wield and acquire knowledge. By wield I mean find the right circumstances to employ that knowledge. So perhaps intelligence is situational. I mean this beyond the obvious, of course a computer scientist will be most able to solve a problem when confronted with a programming issue and a geologist with an issue of geology, but is intelligence triggered by situations. More importantly are situations enabling of establishing intelligence. For example, if one enters the right major as an undergraduate could thay access some previously unknown capacity to think and reason. I am steeply inclined to answer this question in the affirmative.
Personally I consider the acquisition of wealth and the capacity to care for the ones I love the aforemost goal of my life. This makes sense when considering a hierarchy of human needs. Ranked closely below that is the desire for further success measured by means of recognizable, tangible accomplishments. Lastly, (for the purpose of this post) I consider being well informed and understanding of societal, political, and economic issues essential to being a responsible citizen. How I plan to specifically accomplish those goals is not initially important. Becoming more and more a basic fact of life is that in order to achieve a commonly accepted form one needs to go to a post secondary institution, in my case college. More frequently one has to do work after graduating from said institution at another institution to be considered qualified in their field. Alternatively, one needs to find a job of interest and succeed or go back and learn how to be good at telling people how to do work. Since this is my blog, let us consider my case. I am attending Northwestern University now. Supposedly, by adopting this namesake as my future alma mater that has some significance beyond a large majority of other schools I could have chosen to study at. A competive schooling atmosphere lends itself to tradeoff with other things potentially prioritizable in one’s life. *What level of success should I accept to consider myself accomplished and fit to proceed in life to meet my goals?* Unfortunately, my desires are not the entire basis for creating the answer to this question. Granted the answer is shaped by my goals because a given avenue can more appropriately provide my oppurtunities to meet said goals. With my bachelor’s degree in economics that we will assume I am going to receive in two years I do not believe that this will be a sufficient, employable document. That said, I will have to find work and possibly get an MBA, go to graduate school, or go to law school.
Increasingly, I am finding law school to be an interesting an attractive option. This goes back to my junior high mock trial days and aspirations. What elements of success are necessary in my undergraduate work to find a well respected law institution to attend and facilitate accomplishing my goals? From my understanding there are two overwhelming factors: LSAT score and GPA. All other considerations go by the wayside until either one of the two key factors is falling short. As a person there are activities that I love to do. I love spending time with Monica, spending time with my family, reading the newspaper, watching the news, socializing, and exercising. To be a good person I feel that participating in these things is absolutely essential. I say good in this circumstances meaning well-rounded and balanced. I do not believe there is a current events section on the LSAT or a section dealing with how fast I can run a mile. In fact, I am absolutely certain these sections do not exist on any aptitude test required for three avenues recommended for post-grad work. A respectable argument could be made that being a well-rounded, balanced person makes you likeable and employable. I label this a respectable argument because I personally give it weight, but in this specific case I do not believe a law school application properly reflects that and if my LSAT score and GPA are not sufficient that part of my application will not even be considered.
This part of the post is lending a little bit to some stress I have been dealing with (okay, a lot of stress). Let us continue with discussion though. Although aptitude tests do not consider things that matter to being a person, GPA should…right? One should be able to choose a major that suits them and interests them. This allows some form of personal expression and adds value to their life in a more tangible way. Succeeding in school to the point that is considered above average requires one to sacrifice things that makes their person important them.
Admittedly, I am young and have a lot of time to ahead of me to live my life, but right now it concerns me and I think is worth talking about.
On the issue of trade offs, someone I have the utmost respect for told me today that everything in life has trade offs. This has been the focus of my study in economics, in fact, it is the science of scarcity. I have studied math equations that predict how one should respond to a bundle of economic decisions. I have been taught that rarely do real people think in terms of economics, but frequently economists make models that correctly predict the actions they do take. So obviously, trade offs do exist in life. I do not say that to belittle the person who brought this up, but to say that you do not need to study economics or to know anything about math to understand this. Trade offs exist. There is an oppurtunity cost to every decision that we make, that is to say when we make a choice we sacrifice a different possibility. It is frustrating to me that the things I immediately value do not have a tangible benefit and thus should be traded of to accomplish things in the short term that have little value to me, but lead to a long term benefit that is of great importance to me.
This does not seem so hard, does it? In fact, I can hear an authority figure talking to me: “Trade offs exist. You are in school. Deal with it.” This seems like good advice, but everyday I am confronted with distractions and things that truly interest me to a great degree. It fascinates me that the President of Russia can visit the President of Iran and create an incredible opposition to the country I live in, partcipate in, pay taxes in, and love. I find it fascinating what is happening in “the credit crunch”. Yes, reading about and understanding these things today will definetely have value later in life. Having a habit of knowing and understanding these issues would be immensely important to a good life. I am confronted with the question of whether or not I should do what I am accustomed to or I should change my lifestyle and devote it to school?
Most people have dealt with this question much earlier in their life. Granted, some wait a lot longer to confront this question. This is the basis for me inquiring about the basis of intelligence. I have not had an issue with this in the past. This poses a new set of questions. Maybe I have not been challenging myself enough in the past. Maybe I have not put myself in the right situation (read: major and institution). Maybe I am not as intelligent as I expected. I am not looking for anyone to say, “Oh yes you are Spencer, do not worry about it”. (Okay, maybe I would appreciate the do not worry part), but I am not looking for a confirmation of my intelligence. Rather I pose these questions in general do understand a somewhat objective view of life and what is important. From here I want to consider what matters to me.
On another level it is frustrating because it seems premature to consider my intelligence because as stated I have not entered a state of life where I can attempt to accomplish my goals. What role does my final intelligence play in laying the foundation. It seems on the surface of this particular question that the answer is that it plays a large role. On the other hand, I frequently hear that schooling and working have little correllation. Perhaps, actual skills are what this statement refers to and intelligence is the one aspect that is important.
The initial conclusion of this post is that it probably is not important to access some arbitrary value of what my intelligence is, especially now, but rather it is more important to consider what is important in my life and balance those options carefully. I think as always school is an important part of my life and it would make sense as I progress that it will become more challenging. I do not think I need to let post-grad worry me to the point of becoming a person that only praises grades.
I think the final point is that life is confusing and hard – that is why it is interesting. I would love to keep this post going and relate it to my current reading of The Brothers Karamazov because it deals a lot with freedom in the way that I value freedom. I think that is the great part of life, especially at this point, is that we have the oppurtunity to make choices that shape the rest of our life and there will always be a shred of doubt (at least) that we have made an error or chose the wrong side of a trade off. Is it not great that we have the ability to choose in these trade offs? The fact that a trade off exists means we exercise our various faculties and conquer the doubt that enabled us to be free to make a choice. Without doubt there would not be choice and without choice, would we be free?
Worry less, live more.
How to cook rice perfectly. Best batch of rice I have ever made, much better than in a ricemaker.
I decided it would be fun to start doing reviews of restaurants that I dine at because it would be nice to be able to go back up and look up good places to eat.
The first Review is of Exposure Tapas Supper Club. It is a pretty low key place in Chicago’s South Loop (check out the Google Maps + Street View) There was no strict dress code, but you could dress up as much as you want or just go out in jeans. The service was great and the food was even better. (Note: You can already tell I am not going to be a cultured food critic) The calamari and cheese fondue were fantastic! I highly recommend these dishes if you go out here. If you are not familiar with the nature of tapas check out that wikipedia link. Prices were about $6-12. I would like to go back to hit up the chocolate fondue!
All in all, this is not an intense restaurant review, but we will see how this evolves.
Here is an article from the NY Times… With the prize announcing going on this week, Al Gore set a tough act to follow.
Americans to Share Nobel Prize in Economics
By GRAHAM BOWLEY
Published: October 15, 2007
The Nobel Prize in economics was awarded today to three Americans for their work in mechanism design theory, a branch of economics that looks at the design of institutions in situations where markets do not work properly.
Leonid Hurwicz of the University of Minnesota, Eric S. Maskin of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, and Roger B. Myerson of the University of Chicago shared the award for “having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.
Their work addresses situations in which markets work imperfectly, such as when competition is not completely free, consumers are not fully informed or people hold back private information. In such cases — for example, when people refuse to divulge how much they are willing to pay for a good — trade can break down.
Their work also addresses cases where transactions do not take place openly in public markets, but within companies, in private bargaining between individuals or between interest groups.
The prize winners’ groundbreaking work has been pivotal in assessing how institutions perform under such conditions, and in designing the best mechanism to make sure that goals, such as optimal social welfare or maximum private profit, are reached, the academy said. The winners’ work has helped determine whether government regulation may sometimes be necessary.
Mechanism design theory today plays a central role in many areas of economics and parts of political science, the academy said.
“The theory allows us to distinguish situations in which markets work well from those in which they do not,” the academy said in a statement. “It has helped economists identify efficient trading mechanisms, regulation schemes and voting procedures.”
The three economists will share the prize of 10 million Swedish krona, or $1.56 million.
Last week, former Vice President Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations network of scientists, were awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, for their work on man-made climate change.
Also last week, Doris Lessing, the Persian-born, Rhodesian-raised, and London-residing novelist, won the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Mr. Hurwicz, 90, who was born in Moscow, is Regents Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Minnesota. He pioneered the development of the field, and was followed later by Mr. Maskin and Mr. Myerson.
In a conference call with reporters today, Mr. Maskin was quoted by The Associated Press as saying of Mr. Hurwicz: “Many of us had hoped for many years that he would win. He is 90 years old now, and we thought time was running out. It is a tremendous honor to have the opportunity to share the prize with him and with Roger Myerson.”
Mr. Maskin, 56, was born in New York City. He has been the Albert O. Hirschman Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton since 2000. Mr. Myerson, 56, was born in Boston. He is the Glen A. Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago.
“There were a lot of us working in this area in the late 1970s,” Mr. Myerson told the A.P., describing his work as investigating “How does information get used in society to allocate resources.”
Last year, the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science was won by Edmund S. Phelps, a Columbia University professor, for his contribution to macroeconomics, in particular his sophisticated explanation of how wages, unemployment and inflation interact with one another. His explanation held, in essence, that wages and inflation tend to rise in tandem, one pushing up the other, until the unemployment rate reaches an “equilibrium” or “natural” level at which prices no longer rise.
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