The Economist stories for the week of 31 December 2009

Asian carp advance on Chicago
So much for the engineering wonder that connects the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins.

House prices and mobility
This, among other things, is a wonderful argument for young people to rent and not own.

Mobile-phone culture
Good comparison and contrast with cell phone use around the globe.

Obituary: Oral Roberts
I can't tell whether the obituary writer was being genuine or sarcastic...

This is the year to get Sugar Bowl tickets

If at the beginning of the season you had told the folks at the Sugar Bowl that they would get matchup of #3 versus #5 they would have been estatic. However, comma, one team (Cincinnati) lost their coach and plays in a stuadium seating 35,000, while the other team (Florida) lost a chance at the national championship.

You can get tickets directly from the Sugar Bowl for $110 or from StubHub for as little as $50. I might see if I can get in for $40 from a scalper Friday night.

Pithy quote time

This week at the hotel several students are here from George Mason University. A pair of them came in and we talked a little while. One of them had transferred from Emory & Henry, in my hometown, and we managed to exchange a couple of stories. The other kept peppering me with "do you know this person" and "well this family was important" about people from northern Virginia, which was well away from me.

That second person was very flustered that he wasn't able to impress me, and it reminded me of people I have run across from time to time whose entire identity is based on their accomplishments growing up or who they used to know. Not an original thought, I know, but I sum it up and christen this Pithy Quote:

"For some people the most depressing day in their lives is the one where they find a person who does not care what they did when they were growing up."

Merry Christmas!

No Economist for this week. Merry Christmas!

Is this the sign of an intelligent dog?

My fiancee and I have an eight-year-old West Highland terrier. I just found it curious that as I walked him this morning he just happened to wait until he got next to a Jay Batt for Council sign before he decided to poop!

Too bad I had to play Mr. Responsible and clean up after him...

The Economist stories for the week of 17 December 2009

Reproductive biology
This one's for the girls; a study shows that stress induces mothers to spontaneously abort male fetuses.

Banks: Goodbye, or see you again?
Everyone's paying back TARP money. Not coincidentally, those that don't do so before the end of year can't give out mega-bonuses.

Spain's El Gordo lottery
I've always wondered how this thing works!

Direct democracy: The Tyranny of the Majority
California's constitution is even longer than Louisiana's; at least we can blame civil code.

Bird and Mike go bowling

It's almost time for the first bowl games to start - Southern Miss and Middle Tennessee play in the New Orleans Bowl on Sunday - so Bird and Mike wanted to talk about their New Year's plans.

Hi everybody! After Uncle Jam/Daddy sings his concerts we get to watch bowl games. We like the ones with actual name names like Orange Bowl and Sugar Bowl because when our teams are in them it means they did well. We think the Chick-fil-A Bowl that Bird's team is in is especially bad cause Bird doesn't want people to eat other birds.

We saw this thing where sometimes schools lose money even though they have teams go to bowls. This is poopyhead! We think that at least if someone like the San Diego County Credit Union wants to name a bowl after themselves they should at least give enough money for the schools to break even.

Merry Christmas! -Bird and Mike

----------

James here again. There's actually two legitimate reasons the San Diego County Credit Union has the advertising budget to sponsor a bowl - they are the largest bank-type institution based in San Diego; yet, they face immense competition from, among other places, the largest credit union in the world. I can't give the first person who gives the right answer anything but a pat on the back, but I'm interested in seeing if any readers know the answer without looking it up on Wikipedia...

Messiah Thursday and Friday nights!

I'll be singing with the Symphony Chorus of New Orleans as we and the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra present Handel's The Messiah at 7:30 PM on Thursday, 17 December at First Baptist Church New Orleans and the same time the following night at Holy Ghost Church in Hammond.

Tickets for both concerts are still available here and here and start at $15. The concert lasts about 2 1/2 hours including intermission.

At least for the New Orleans concert, I'm in the middle row just about center stage. Can't miss me; I'm just about the only young tall guy with glasses in the whole group. Hope to see you there!

How not to empty a trash can

At the hotel we have a couple of commercial garbage cans that SDT services every morning. At the Tuesday 4AM pickup, SDT puts the trash in the dumpster and puts the bins back on the sidewalk...with the lids open. As you may recall, we were in monsoon phase at that point so, naturally, the 96-gallon kunks filled up with water.

Here's a hint: don't grab the handle a try to tilt it on its wheels to take it to the storm drain. You guessed it - Aspie boy did just that, not realizing the thing was so full that the water immediately rushed out on all sides, soaking my socks and shoes. At least I found anohter hold on the other can and tilted it away from by body.

So, I get to spend the rest of my shift in my bare feet while the socks and shoes dry at the fireplace. Oh well.

Is it ever going to stop?

It seems like we're getting at least 2 inches every other day with no signs of stopping. It reminds me of that great quote from the computer game Civilization:

Rain, Rain, more Rain! Noah predicts. 

The forgotten minority group

When I talk with other people here and someone asks me to descibe myself, I like to (jokingly) point out that I'm in two minority groups here; I'm not a native New Orleanian, and I'm a Methodist. The large Catholic proportion of the population and the influence of the Archdiocese in everyday life make New Orleans unusual if not unique among Southern cities.

I bring this up because this Slate article talks about the increasing religious homogeny among the Supreme Court justices and how this may or may not influence the court's thinking. It would be an interesting exercise over the coming weeks to think about things we take for granted or don't notice down here that are influenced by the area's religious tradition.

Economist stories for the week of 10 December

The Red Cross movement: How much evil can you not see?
There are very few organizations in the world that can truly call themselves completely neutral. The day will come when the IFRC has to give up its neutrality as well.

Public-sector unions: Welcome to the real world
The battle over preservation of pension plans is the holy grail of public sector unions; in recent months this issue held up the long-expected privatization of New Orleans' public transport management.

Softly softly, charming Huckabee
I don't know whether my more progressive friends should be happy or concerned about his future prospects. Comments please!

Better ways to collaborate
Lest people forget, people even had shared Interne discussions before mass email. Anyone remember Usenet?

It's sad when you have to say "Which shooting?"

We had two shootings in town overnight, here and here from WWL-TV. A couple of other news outlets had one story but not the other on the front page, or vice versa. Maybe they were trying to sugarcoat our problem and not give us all the bad news at once?

In any case, now the cab drivers who pick up fares at the hotel are up on edge and I'm going to have to pay for parking next time I go see the LPO. Ugh...

Surprise, surprise: Mitch is in

Fox 8 WVUE among others is reporting that Mitch will officially join the mayor's race tomorrow. Why couldn't he have done this a month ago so we could just deal with 4 or 6 people's commercials instead of 9?

A hero steps up for Dr. Tiller's memory

Dr. LeRoy Carhart, who in the past spent some time working at the late George Tiller's late-term abortion clinic, has expanded his own clinic in Nebraska to take the patients who would have formerly gone to Wichita.

I am not nearly as militantly pro-choice as I used to be. I can sum up my position in two sentences:

1. I will not make my agreement with a politician's or judge's stance on abortion a necessary or sufficient condition to vote for her or him.
2. Judicial and legislative fiat are not my preferred means to reduce the incidence of abortion.

I congratulate Dr. Carhart for the courage to stand up to his convictions; pray for safety of him, his employees, and his patients; and continue to hope that people who disagree with him do so by civil means.

Saints fans make themselves known many ways...

Virginia Tech's student newspaper notes in this story that in Bud Light's ongoing campaign to sell team-colored cans, that the most popular combination is black and gold, "color for Purdue, Central Florida, and West Point". They forgot one thing:

Geaux Saints!

You can vote for black and gold yourself here.

This week's The Economist stories

Electricity generation: No pinch of salt
First there was learning by osmosis, and now this.

Rwanda's laptop revolution: Upgrading the children
Soon India won't have the world's cheapest computer engineers anymore.

Banyan: The world's forgotten fair
Yup, the world's fiar is still around-we even have an exhibit this time.

The Panama Canal: A plan to unlock prosperity
Now if only we can get more of this increased traffic.

Now that Tiger Woods has done his mea culpa...

...my opinion of him really hasn't changed.

In case anyone has been living under a rock for the past couple of weeks, the National Enquirer wrote an actual researched, fact-based story about Tiger having a tryst with someone other than his wife. This was followed by digging more dirt by the Internet media and relative ignoring by traditional sports information sources such as ESPN. Then, the morning after Thanksgiving he is involved in an auto accident and goes to the hospital with facial injuries that could have come from eith the accident or an argument with wife. After days of trying to blow off everyone looking for him to admit that he wasn't Mr. Perfect with his family, smoking-gun evidence shows up and he finally puts out the "I'm sorry I hurt my family, now leave me the f*ck alone" press release.

Now why does this not change anything? Basically, Tiger Woods is four things, in about this order:

1. Probably the best golfer ever known to humankind.
2. Someone who cares very much about his family - first his father and now his children.
3. A corporate shill.
4. A person so hell-bent on being the three things above that he will not let the media or the public get in his way.

None of this affected 1 whatsoever. When Nike said they were behind him no matter what happened, and his other sponsors lined up and took care of 3. That leaves 2 and, people, don't you think the hell he is going through with his wife is a lot worse than anything tabloid journalism can do?

Be careful next time you go to Destin

Image from Lagnaippe Mobile

A TV station in Mobile put up a billboard with pictures of their anchors next to live Twitter feed. Hopefully WDSU will keep this picture in mind if they decide to do the same thing with theirs.