The True Booty of Pydna

J.F.C. Fuller, in A Military History of the Western World, Volume I, explains the true significance of the Roman victory at Pydna, which ended the Third Macedonian War:

Nevertheless, once this ruthlessness ended, the result was not the decay of Greece, but the victory of Hellenism; for the Greeks were the Chinese of the ancient world and always conquered their conquerors. What they needed, in order to exorcise the excessive individualism which had kept them fractionalized and mutually antagonistic, was the authority of a strong and stable world-government. And what Rome needed, in order to become a civilizing world power, was the culture of the Hellenistic world. These two things and not plunder and tribute were the true booty of Pydna and the Third Macedonian War.

No Fish Tale: Thais Catch 646-Pound Fish

From No Fish Tale: Thais Catch 646-Pound Fish:

Thai fishermen caught a 646-pound catfish believed to have been the world's largest freshwater fish ever recorded, a researcher said Thursday.

The 8.9 feet Mekong giant catfish was netted May 1 by villagers in Chiang Khong, a remote district in northern Thailand, and weighed by Thai fisheries department officials, said Zeb Hogan, who leads an international project to locate and study the world's largest freshwater fish species.

He confirmed it was the heaviest recorded fish since Thailand started keeping records in 1981.
[...]
The fishermen had hoped to sell the fish to environmental groups, which planned to release it to spawn upriver, but it died before it could be handed over, and was later chopped up and sold in pieces to villagers to be eaten.
[...]
The Mekong giant catfish — which shares the title of largest freshwater fish with a close relative, the dog-eating catfish — was listed as endangered in 2003 after research showed its numbers had fallen by at least 80 percent over the past 13 years.

One-Shot Drops: Surviving the Myth

One-Shot Drops: Surviving the Myth, from the FBI's Law Enforcement Bulletin, shares a number of shocking examples of handguns not taking down a perp:

In the authors’ ongoing study of violence against law enforcement officers, they have examined several cases where officers used large-caliber hand guns with limited effect displayed by the offenders. In one case, the subject attacked the officer with a knife. The officer shot the individual four times in the chest; then, his weapon malfunctioned. The offender continued to walk toward the officer. After the officer cleared his weapon, he fired again and struck the subject in the chest. Only then did the offender drop the knife. This individual was hit five times with 230-grain, .45-caliber hollow-point ammunition and never fell to the ground. The offender later stated, “The wounds felt like bee stings.”

In another case, officers fired six .40-caliber, hollow-point rounds at a subject who pointed a gun at them. Each of the six rounds hit the individual with no visible effect. The seventh round severed his spinal cord, and the offender fell to the ground, dropping his weapon. This entire firefight was captured by several officers’ in-car video cameras.

In a final case, the subject shot the victim officer in the chest with a handgun and fled. The officer, wearing a bullet-resistant vest, returned gunfire. The officer’s partner observed the incident and also fired at the offender. Subsequent investigation determined that the individual was hit 13 times and, yet, ran several blocks to a gang member’s house. He later said, “I was so scared by all those shots; it sounded like the Fourth of July.” Again, according to the subject, his wounds “only started to hurt when I woke up in the hospital.” The officers had used 9-millimeter, department-issued ammunition.

Rocky Marciano's Punching Power

This article on Rocky Marciano's Punching Power shares a number of famous boxers' comments on Rocky's devastating strength, but I enjoyed this (apocryphal) bit of science from the U.S. Testing Co.:

"Marciano's knockout blow packs more explosive energy than an armour-piercing bullet and represents as much energy as would be required to spot lift 1000 pounds one foot off the ground."
— Boxing Illustrated, December, 1963

Stopping Power

Some astounding facts on handgun Stopping Power:

[B]eing shot with a handgun is fatal only about 5% of the time, and result[s] in serious medical damage approximately 15% of the time. It has even been estimated that survival rates after being shot in the heart are roughly 50%.

Overpenetration — shooting through one target and hitting another — isn't a problem — because hitting the intended target is so unlikely:

And according to NYPD SOP-9 (Standard Operating Procedure #9) data, in the year 2000, only 9% of shots fired by officers engaged in gunfights actually hit perpetrators. In the same year, there were a total of 129 "shooting incidents" (including non-gunfights, such as officers firing at aggressive dogs, unarmed or fleeing perpetrators, etc.), 471 total shots fired by officers, 367 shots fired at perpetrators, and 58 total hits on perpetrators by police. So when non-gunfight shooting data is added, the rate at which police hit what they aim at in real life situations is still only 15.8%.

Super-Sized Strawman

Super-Sized Strawman lists some facts about minimum wage:

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 63 percent of workers who make the minimum wage or less receive raises that put them above the minimum-wage level within one year of employment. Only 15 percent of workers still earn the minimum wage after a period of three years.

Are there teeming masses of starving minimum-wage earners throughout the nation? Actually, minimum-wage-earners comprise only 3.0 percent of all workers paid by the hour in the United States and only 1.8 percent of American wage and salary earners .

A great portion of minimum wage-earners are young people — more than business-bashing activists would have you believe. 'Just three out of 10 of those earning minimum wage are youths,' writes left-wing columnist Mark Shields. 'Seventy percent of minimum-wage earners are adults ages 20 or older.' Shields's use of the word youths is misleading.

It's true that 27.5 percent of minimum-wage-earners are sixteen- to nineteen years old. But it's equally true that those ranging in ages sixteen to twenty-four make up 52.6 percent of minimum-wage workers.

According to a July 2004 study by Joseph Sabia and Richard Burkhauser, only 5.3 percent of U.S. minimum-wage-earners come from households that are below the official U.S. poverty line. Some 40 percent of U.S. minimum-wage-earners live in households where the total yearly income is at least triple the maximum amount of income a household can receive and still be classified as being below the poverty line. And 63 percent of those who earn the minimum wage are not the highest income-earner in their household.

Finally, over 82 percent of minimum-wage-earners are childless or are not the highest income-earner of their household.

From Rental Cars to CEOs: A Review of 'Freaky' Research

Alex Tabarrok and Bryan Caplan share the stage in WSJ.com's latest "Econoblog" column, From Rental Cars to CEOs: A Review of 'Freaky' Research.

To Fight Avian Flu, Dutch Farmer Takes Unusual Skills to Asia

Gruesome. From To Fight Avian Flu, Dutch Farmer Takes Unusual Skills to Asia:

As a 5-year-old on his family's farm in the Netherlands, Harm Kiezebrink wondered why his father instructed him to drown newly hatched male chicks in a large plastic drum inside the hatchery.

The answer: male chicks are slaughtered because they won't be able to lay eggs and because they will be too scrawny for meat.

Mr. Kiezebrink grew up to become an expert in this unusual field. Today, his family company sells killed chicks to zoos and falconers. And it has developed technology for efficiently killing birds.

Now he is also taking his skills to some places that need them urgently: Asian nations fighting bird flu. He has brought them some of his bird-slaughtering machines, such as the AED-100, which kills about 10,000 birds per hour, catching them by the feet and dragging their heads through an electrified pool of water.

Tomorrow's Planes: Higher Humidity, Mood Lighting

Tomorrow's Planes: Higher Humidity, Mood Lighting explains some upcoming passenger-comfort improvements:

The wide-body — a Boeing 787 that will fly for the first time in 2007 — will be the first big transport plane with a fuselage built of composite plastics instead of aluminum. Composites are stronger and won't corrode, and those are big advantages in aircraft design. You'll feel the difference in the cabin.

Boeing's 787 offers travelers significant improvements in the cabin's atmosphere, including more humid air quality and light-adjusting windows (below).

Boeing Co. says the composites allow the 787 to have a lot more humidity in the cabin -- about 20% relative humidity compared with a Sahara-like 4% or so in long-haul wide-body planes today. Travelers won't feel as dry and contact lenses won't be as scratchy.

What is more, the pressure in the cabin can be set to the equivalent of about 6,000 feet above sea level, instead of today's 8,000 feet, because the airplane's frame is stronger. It's roughly the difference between Denver and Vail, a difference I feel when flying in an unpressurized single-engine prop plane. If I cruise at 8,000 feet, I arrive more tired than at lower altitudes because the air is thinner at higher altitudes.

Can a People Have Too Much Respect for the Law?

William Hepworth Dixon, an English barrister, visited the United States in 1867 and wrote a book, New America, about his experiences. In Can a People Have Too Much Respect for the Law?, Lee Harris explains that Dixon found Americans agreeable — except for one flaw:

Yet there was one aspect of our national character that disagreed with him. Our 'deference to the Law, and to every one who wears the semblance of lawful authority, is so complete…as to occasion a traveler some annoyance and more surprise,' Dixon wrote. 'Every dog in office is obeyed with such unquestioning meekness, that every dog in office is tempted to become a cur.'

Dixon singled out the Justices of the Supreme Court, noting with apparent dismay that they are 'treated with a degree of respect akin to that which is paid to an archbishop in Madrid and to a cardinal in Rome.' Then he concludes with an admonition:

'More than once I have ventured to tell my friends, that this habit of deferring to law and lawful authority, good in itself, has gone with them into extremes, and would lead them, should they let it, into the frame of mind for yielding to the usurpation of any bold despot who may assail their liberties, like Caesar, in the name of law and order.'

The Challenges for 'Active' Safety

The Challenges for 'Active' Safety looks at the next wave of auto safety devices:

Infiniti is already offering on its FX sport utility vehicle a system that warns the driver when he or she wanders out of the lane without signaling.

One benefit of these systems, besides helping dozing drivers from wandering off the pavement, is that they encourage wide-awake motorists to signal lane changes. UMTRI researcher Jim Sayer said a study found that motorists in a vehicle equipped with a lane-departure warning system were 30% less likely to dodge into the left lane without signaling, and 35% less likely to make an unsignaled lane shift to the right.

Swim, Bike, Run -- Repeat

Swim, Bike, Run -- Repeat tells three older triathletes' stories. I thought 70-year-old Roger Brockenbrough's story was fairly impressive:

I spent 30 years as a structural engineer with U.S. Steel and got out at 57. I started a one-man company and work half-time, and now I do 10 to 12 triathlons a year.

My first was in 1985, when I was 51. My oldest son, John, was getting into it, so I trained with him for a couple of years. I jumped into a local race, got a plastic trophy and have been hooked ever since.

That was only impressive until I read Ken O'Grady's over-the-top story:

It wasn't until after my right leg was amputated and I had open-heart surgery that I began competing in triathlons. At 61 years old, I entered the Tom Landry Triathlon — and training for it saved my life.

And You Trust the TSA to Protect You?

Jacob Sullum contrasts American and Israeli airport security in And You Trust the TSA to Protect You?:

My family and I flew to Israel last week on El Al, but we bought our tickets through Delta, which flew us from Reagan National to JFK. Delta let us check our luggage in D.C. for the whole trip, which surprised me, because El Al usually has its own security screening. It turned out that the bags were supposed to be screened again in New York, which no one mentioned until we were about to board the plane for Tel Aviv. At that point an El Al security guy whisked me into the bowels of the airport to identify our bags and answer questions about them. He explained that we could not get on the flight with the bags until they had been cleared by the airline. When I mentioned that the luggage had already been screened by the TSA in D.C., he laughed and said, 'And you trust the TSA to protect you?' While American air travel security is just for show, he said, the Israeli version is for real.

All About Mormons

A Tale of Two Prophets contrasts the bottom-line results of Marxism and Mormonism:

In the middle of the nineteenth century, two bearded prophets appeared who made a universal appeal to the poor and downtrodden of the earth. One lived in London, and his name was Karl Marx. One lived in Salt Lake City, and his name was Brigham Young. One, Marx, had science on his side. The other had the Book of Mormon. Marx argued that he had determined the iron laws that govern the movement of history, and told the poor and downtrodden, 'Organize socialist parties, and try to overthrow the capitalist system.' Brigham Young told the wretched immigrants who showed up on his door step in Salt Lake City, at the end of the weary and dangerous journey across the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains, 'Go first and plant vegetables. Learn to feed yourself by the sweat of your own brow.'

Of the two men, Marx had by far the greatest following. The Communist Manifesto, after all, was a much more cogent and compelling work than the bizarre text transcribed by Joseph Smith under the guidance of the angel Moroni. Yet whose prophecy has proved more fruitful? Go visit Russia and see what Marx's followers achieved, then travel halfway across the earth to visit Salt Lake City.
[...]
The American philosophy known as pragmatism should best be understood as a method by which intellectuals can try to come to terms with the religions of hard work. It looks at a figure like Brigham Young and it says, "I grant you that there is much that is frankly silly and absurd about Mormonism. Yet look at what the Mormons were able to do. They took a desert and transformed it into a garden."

Matt Stone and Trey Parker note the same thing, and voice it through Mormon-kid Gary, in All About Mormons:

Look, maybe us Mormons do believe in crazy stories that make absolutely no sense, and maybe Joseph Smith did make it all up, but I have a great life. and a great family, and I have the Book of Mormon to thank for that. The truth is, I don't care if Joseph Smith made it all up, because what the church teaches now is loving your family, being nice and helping people. And even though people in this town might think that's stupid, I still choose to believe in it. All I ever did was try to be your friend, Stan, but you're so high and mighty you couldn't look past my religion and just be my friend back. You've got a lot of growing up to do, buddy. Suck my balls.

We Are Our History -- Don't Forget It

We Are Our History -- Don't Forget It shares an amusing anecdote:

My son told me about a high school event that (at first) I didn't understand. A girl in his English class praised the Vietnam War-era draft dodgers: 'If I'd lived at that time and been drafted,' she said, 'I would've gone to Canada too.'

I thought she was merely endorsing the anti-war position. But my son set me straight. This student actually believed that if she had lived at the time, she might have been drafted. She didn't understand that conscription in the United States has always applied to males only.

Frankly, that's not half as bad as the doozies I can remember from high school:

"I don't understand. If we live in a democracy, why aren't we all Democrats?" — Amy S.

"It says here that Achilles is half god. What's the other half?" — Kara P.

How to Perform Strong Man Stunts by Ottley R. Coulter

"All the world loves a strong man," according to How to Perform Strong Man Stunts by Ottley R. Coulter, published in 1952.

Evidently it's pretty easy to drive a nail through a board if you just wrap the nail's head in a towel. I may have to try that.

(Hat tip to GeekPress.)

Libertarian Credo

Arnold Kling states his Libertarian Credo:

Libertarians see the state as just another human institution, with the same moral status as a supermarket or a bowling league.

No, I cannot be a pure utilitarian...

I have to agree with Tyler Cowen; this is just awful:

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses — even against their will — for private economic development.

As a result, cities have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes to generate tax revenue.

A Korean War Stat Lingers Long After It Was Corrected

From A Korean War Stat Lingers Long After It Was Corrected:

A decade ago, the Department of Defense corrected an important point in U.S. military history: about 36,000 American soldiers died in the Korean War, not 54,000 as first thought. The revision was the result of new research, conducted at the request of veterans.

Yet as the 55th anniversary of the war's beginning approaches, the larger, incorrect figure can still be found in textbooks and newspapers, in recent speeches from lawmakers and on war memorials — demonstrating how bad statistics can linger after they've been corrected.

The 54,000 figure included all soldiers who died during the war, anywhere in the world, from any cause — including about 18,000 heart attacks, suicides, car accidents and other nonwar deaths during the war years. Some occurred thousands of miles from the theater of war. In the mid-1990s, the Department of Defense began to clarify the record, and that quiet change received widespread publicity in 2000, on the 50th anniversary of the war.

Not in Front of the Kids: Documenting the Emotional Toll of Parental Tension

Not in Front of the Kids: Documenting the Emotional Toll of Parental Tension looks at John Gottman's latest research, looking at parental stress and its effects on children.

The effects aren't good, of course, but this statistic jumped out as one of those "big hairy moose" issues everyone ignores:

Such stresses are all too common; 67% of new parents experience a drop in marital satisfaction after the baby is born, his research shows.

In Modern Era, Self-Storage Has Right Stuff

According to In Modern Era, Self-Storage Has Right Stuff, the self-storage industry's revenue is up to $15 billion. We own so much stuff that one in every 11 American households has a self-storage unit:

American families at the middle of the middle class own more things, enjoy better health, have more choices than their grandparents — and (for most) their parents — did. The average home now has 3.1 televisions, on average, according to a survey done for the Consumer Electronics Association; in 1980, it was 1.7 per household. About 92% of households own a car, the most recent Department of Transportation survey found; even among households with incomes below $25,000, 80% own a car. Around 85% of households have air conditioning.

AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes

The American Film Institute has announced its AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:

#	Quote	Movie	Year
1	Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.	GONE WITH THE WIND	1939
2	I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse.	THE GODFATHER	1972
3	You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could've been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.	ON THE WATERFRONT	1954
4	Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.	THE WIZARD OF OZ	1939
5	Here's looking at you, kid.	CASABLANCA	1942
6	Go ahead, make my day.	SUDDEN IMPACT	1983
7	All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up.	SUNSET BLVD.	1950
8	May the Force be with you.	STAR WARS	1977
9	Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night.	ALL ABOUT EVE	1950
10	You talking to me?	TAXI DRIVER	1976
11	What we've got here is failure to communicate.	COOL HAND LUKE	1967
12	I love the smell of napalm in the morning.	APOCALYPSE NOW	1979
13	Love means never having to say you're sorry.	LOVE STORY	1970
14	The stuff that dreams are made of.	THE MALTESE FALCON	1941
15	E.T. phone home.	E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL	1982
16	They call me Mister Tibbs!	IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT	1967
17	Rosebud.	CITIZEN KANE	1941
18	Made it, Ma! Top of the world!	WHITE HEAT	1949
19	I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!	NETWORK	1976
20	Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.	CASABLANCA	1942
21	A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.	THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS	1991
22	Bond. James Bond.	DR. NO	1962
23	There's no place like home.	THE WIZARD OF OZ	1939
24	I am big! It's the pictures that got small.	SUNSET BLVD.	1950
25	Show me the money!	JERRY MAGUIRE	1996
26	Why don't you come up sometime and see me?	SHE DONE HIM WRONG	1933
27	I'm walking here! I'm walking here!	MIDNIGHT COWBOY	1969
28	Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By.'	CASABLANCA	1942
29	You can't handle the truth!	A FEW GOOD MEN	1992
30	I want to be alone.	GRAND HOTEL	1932
31	After all, tomorrow is another day!	GONE WITH THE WIND	1939
32	Round up the usual suspects.	CASABLANCA	1942
33	I'll have what she's having.	WHEN HARRY MET SALLY	1989
34	You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.	TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT	1944
35	You're gonna need a bigger boat.	JAWS	1975
36	Badges? We ain't got no badges! We don't need no badges! I don't have to show you any stinking badges!	THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE	1948
37	I'll be back.	THE TERMINATOR	1984
38	Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.	THE PRIDE OF THE YANKEES	1942
39	If you build it, he will come.	FIELD OF DREAMS	1989
40	Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.	FORREST GUMP	1994
41	We rob banks.	BONNIE AND CLYDE	1967
42	Plastics.	THE GRADUATE	1967
43	We'll always have Paris.	CASABLANCA	1942
44	I see dead people.	THE SIXTH SENSE	1999
45	Stella! Hey, Stella!	A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE	1951
46	Oh, Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars.	NOW, VOYAGER	1942
47	Shane. Shane. Come back!	SHANE	1953
48	Well, nobody's perfect.	SOME LIKE IT HOT	1959
49	It's alive! It's alive!	FRANKENSTEIN	1931
50	Houston, we have a problem.	APOLLO 13	1995
51	You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?	DIRTY HARRY	1971
52	You had me at "hello."	JERRY MAGUIRE	1996
53	One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know.	ANIMAL CRACKERS	1930
54	There's no crying in baseball!	A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN	1992
55	La-dee-da, la-dee-da.	ANNIE HALL	1977
56	A boy's best friend is his mother.	PSYCHO	1960
57	Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.	WALL STREET	1987
58	Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.	THE GODFATHER II	1974
59	As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again.	GONE WITH THE WIND	1939
60	Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into!	SONS OF THE DESERT	1933
61	Say "hello" to my little friend!	SCARFACE	1983
62	What a dump.	BEYOND THE FOREST	1949
63	Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. Aren't you?	THE GRADUATE	1967
64	Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!	DR. STRANGELOVE	1964
65	Elementary, my dear Watson.	THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES	1929
66	Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape.	PLANET OF THE APES	1968
67	Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.	CASABLANCA	1942
68	Here's Johnny!	THE SHINING	1980
69	They're here!	POLTERGEIST	1982
70	Is it safe?	MARATHON MAN	1976
71	Wait a minute, wait a minute. You ain't heard nothin' yet!	THE JAZZ SINGER	1927
72	No wire hangers, ever!	MOMMIE DEAREST	1981
73	Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?	LITTLE CAESAR	1930
74	Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown.	CHINATOWN	1974
75	I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.	A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE	1951
76	Hasta la vista, baby.	TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY	1991
77	Soylent Green is people!	SOYLENT GREEN	1973
78	Open the pod bay doors, HAL.	2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY	1968
79	Striker: Surely you can't be serious. Rumack: I am serious — and don't call me Shirley.	AIRPLANE!	1980
80	Yo, Adrian!	ROCKY	1976
81	Hello, gorgeous.	FUNNY GIRL	1968
82	Toga! Toga!	NATIONAL LAMPOON'S ANIMAL HOUSE	1978
83	Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make.	DRACULA	1931
84	Oh, no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was Beauty killed the Beast.	KING KONG	1933
85	My precious.	THE LORD OF THE RINGS: TWO TOWERS	2002
86	Attica! Attica!	DOG DAY AFTERNOON	1975
87	Sawyer, you're going out a youngster, but you've got to come back a star!	42ND STREET	1933
88	Listen to me, mister. You're my knight in shining armor. Don't you forget it. You're going to get back on that horse, and I'm going to be right behind you, holding on tight, and away we're gonna go, go, go!	ON GOLDEN POND	1981
89	Tell 'em to go out there with all they got and win just one for the Gipper.	KNUTE ROCKNE ALL AMERICAN	1940
90	A martini. Shaken, not stirred.	GOLDFINGER	1964
91	Who's on first.	THE NAUGHTY NINETIES	1945
92	Cinderella story. Outta nowhere. A former greenskeeper, now, about to become the Masters champion. It looks like a mirac...It's in the hole! It's in the hole! It's in the hole!	CADDYSHACK	1980
93	Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!	AUNTIE MAME	1958
94	I feel the need — the need for speed!	TOP GUN	1986
95	Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.	DEAD POETS SOCIETY	1989
96	Snap out of it!	MOONSTRUCK	1987
97	My mother thanks you. My father thanks you. My sister thanks you. And I thank you.	YANKEE DOODLE DANDY	1942
98	Nobody puts Baby in a corner.	DIRTY DANCING	1987
99	I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too!	WIZARD OF OZ, THE	1939
100	I'm king of the world!	TITANIC	1997

John Vance, RIP

John Vance, RIP cites a Washington Post article on the man who uncovered the CIA's LSD-mind-control project:

Code-named MKULTRA (and pronounced m-k-ultra), the project Mr. Vance uncovered was the brainchild of CIA Director Allen Dulles, who was intrigued by reports of mind-control techniques allegedly conducted by Soviet, Chinese and North Korean agents on U.S. prisoners of war during the Korean War. The CIA wanted to use similar techniques on its own POWs and perhaps use LSD or other mind-bending substances on foreign leaders, including Cuba's Fidel Castro a few years after the project got underway in 1953.

Heading MKULTRA was a CIA chemist named Sidney Gottlieb. In congressional testimony, Gottlieb, who died in 1999, acknowledged that the agency had administered LSD to as many as 40 unwitting subjects, including prison inmates and patrons of brothels set up and run by the agency. At least one participant died when he jumped out of a 10th-floor window in a hotel; others claimed to have suffered serious psychological damage.

The Onion 2056

The Onion 2056 celebrates The Onion's fictional 300th anniversary — from the future.

Naturally, I enjoyed Leather-Clad Nomads Seize Power in Australia and Government May Restrict Use of Genetically Modified Farmers — accompanied by a Photoshopped image of World's Strongest Man Mariusz Pudzianowski doing...the farmer's walk.

In Tasmanian Forests, A Battle Breaks Out Over Bees and Trees

From In Tasmanian Forests, A Battle Breaks Out Over Bees and Trees:

There had been reports of a bushfire in the mountains that night. So, before dawn, the beekeepers headed west to check on their hives. Like most of the beekeepers in Tasmania, they set up their hives along logging roads in the forest, because their bees collect nectar and pollen from flowering leatherwood trees.

Leatherwood grows only on this heart-shaped island the size of Ireland, a hundred miles south of the Australian mainland and 800 miles west of New Zealand. The trees' small, star-shaped flowers blossom into the autumn, generating 70% of the 1,200 tons of honey produced in Tasmania each year.

But today, a battle of trees versus bees is unfolding here. For more than 30 years, timber companies have been energetically converting the forests of this Australian state, which have the tallest and oldest flowering trees in the world, into sawdust and woodchips, which are shipped primarily to Japan. The loggers want the huge eucalyptus, but like dolphins caught in a tuna net, the leatherwood, Huon and King Billy pines that grow alongside them are harvested as well. The loggers then firebomb the forests to clear out the debris, a process that can lead to runaway 'regeneration burns' and inadvertently destroy nearby leatherwood, and threaten the hives.

If the logging of leatherwood isn't limited, the beekeepers warn, not only will their livelihood disappear, but so will the world's only source of leatherwood honey, which has a sharp, musky flavor similar to honey from chestnuts or thyme.

Common virus kills cancer, study finds

From Common virus kills cancer, study finds:

'Our results suggest that adeno-associated virus type 2, which infects the majority of the population but has no known ill effects, kills multiple types of cancer cells yet has no effect on healthy cells,' said Craig Meyers, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the Penn State College of Medicine in Pennsylvania.

'We believe that AAV-2 recognizes that the cancer cells are abnormal and destroys them. This suggests that AAV-2 has great potential to be developed as an anti-cancer agent,' Meyers said in a statement.

He said at a meeting of the American Society for Virology that studies have shown women infected with AAV-2 who are also infected with a cancer-causing wart virus called HPV develop cervical cancer less frequently than uninfected women do.

AAV-2 is a small virus that cannot replicate itself without the help of another virus. But with the help of a second virus it kills cells.

Being Batman

According to the fairly silly Being Batman:

But you don't have to be a billionaire to become a caped crusader. Using commercially available training, technology and domestic help, the average guy could conceivably equip himself to become a real-world superhero, provided he's got at least a couple million to spare.

The bottom line:

Final Cost: $3,365,449

The Training: $30,000
The Suit: $1,585
The Belt: $290
The Car: $2,000,000
The Cave: $24,000
The Alter Ego: $1,109,574
The Butler: $200,000

The Secrets of Successful Aging

The Secrets of Successful Aging explains that those who age well are those who manage stress well.

The article's advice:

• Seek control when you can
• Information can relieve stress
• Keep friends and family close
• Exercise you hate won't help as much as exercise you like
• Get more sleep
• Pick and choose your stress relief

The Vivid Centuries

Ralph Kinney Bennett opens The Vivid Centuries with a Chinese proverb:

The palest ink is better than the best memory.

His point:

In the first vivid century, the 20th, we had the benefit of the motion picture coming to full fruition along with sound recording. Movies, radio and television grew rapidly from the early-mid century onward, making it possible, even routine, to know much about the sights and sounds that were a part of our parents' and grandparents' lives.

This was an important departure from the "silent centuries" that had gone before. These technologies have given us clues and more than clues with which to reconstruct the incidental ambience of daily life as far back as the early 1900s. They have put us in closer touch than ever before with social and cultural history at its most elemental and personal level.

The invention and perfection of photography in the mid 1800s made it a precursor to the vivid centuries. We know much of the mise en scene of our late 19th century ancestors' lives — from the stark spareness of a prairie settler's sod house to the opulence of a Victorian home because of this photography.

Once Seen as Risky, One Group Of Doctors Changes Its Ways

An idea just crazy enough to work, from Once Seen as Risky, One Group Of Doctors Changes Its Ways:

Anesthesiologists pay less for malpractice insurance today, in constant dollars, than they did 20 years ago. That's mainly because some anesthesiologists chose a path many doctors in other specialties did not. Rather than pushing for laws that would protect them against patient lawsuits, these anesthesiologists focused on improving patient safety. Their theory: Less harm to patients would mean fewer lawsuits.

HOV Lanes Linked to Rise In Car Crashes

From HOV Lanes Linked to Rise In Car Crashes:

Why might HOV lanes cause accidents? When the lanes are not separated by concrete barriers, drivers often illegally weave between the regular and HOV lanes, says Scott Cooner, a program manager for the Texas Transportation Institute, part of the Texas A&M University system. What is more, drivers stuck in gridlock tend to be resentful of the fast-moving HOV traffic and won't let drivers merge from the high-speed lanes back onto the regular freeway, causing accidents.

Putting HOV lanes next to regular lanes violates a basic rule of traffic engineering: Don't put cars moving at vastly different speeds next to each other.

James Heckman

Arnold Kling cites the best bits of an interview with economist James Heckman:

[W]hat do the GEDs earn? They earn what high school dropouts who do not get GEDs earn, once you adjust for their somewhat higher cognitive ability...They're missing motivation, self-control and forward-lookingness. I call these noncognitive skills.
[...]
Most job training is actually being done in private companies, not in the public sector. And who is more likely to get private job training? People who have higher cognitive and noncognitive skills—the same abilities that helped them get the job in the first place. These people earn high returns to private job training.
[...]
Richer families are much more likely to send their kids to college, but once one conditions on the ability of the child at age 17, virtually all of the income effect goes away. It's all about the ability that's embodied in the child from a lifetime of early investments.
[...]
Cognitive skills such as IQ can't really be changed much after ages 8 to 10. But with noncognitive skills there's much more malleability.

And here's why he's "guessing that Heckman is not a fan of a certain currently hot-selling economics book":

In some quarters of our profession, the level of discussion has sunk to the level of a New Yorker article: coffee-table articles about “cute” topics, papers using “clever” instruments. The authors of these papers are usually unclear about the economic questions they address, the data used to support their conclusions and the econometrics used to justify their estimates. This is a sad development that I hope is a passing fad.

Experts Say Schizophrenia Drug Cures SARS

"Cures" is a bit strong, but Experts Say Schizophrenia Drug Cures SARS:

A drug used to treat schizophrenia has been shown to prevent and treat severe acute respiratory syndrome, according to Chinese and European experts at a conference in China, the government said Sunday.

Cinanserin was found to inhibit the coronavirus that causes the deadly flu-like SARS, which first emerged in the country's south in late 2002, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. The finding was announced by experts attending a meeting of the Sino-European Project on SARS Diagnostics and Antivirals in the coastal city of Hangzhou.

The report said cinanserin was among 15 drugs that appeared effective in preventing SARS but that the other 14 had yet to undergo sufficient testing.

Caped Creator Bob Kane

NPR has posted an interview with Caped Creator Bob Kane from March 23, 1990:

In his autobiography, Batman and Me, Kane tells how he came up with the idea for the caped crusader, and what influence he had on the TV series and previous Batman movies. Kane drew Batman from its inception in 1939 to the late 60s. DC Comic still publishes Batman. The new movie Batman Begins has just hit theaters nationwide.

Is Grade Inflation All Bad?

In Is Grade Inflation All Bad?, Alex Tabarrok cites Mark Thoma at Economist's View:

There are two episodes that account for most grade inflation. The first is from the 1960s through the early 1970s. This is usually explained by the draft rules for the Vietnam War. The second episode begins around 1990 and is harder to explain....

My study finds an interesting correlation in the data. During the time grades were increasing, budgets were also tightening inducing a substitution towards younger and less permanent faculty. I broke down grade inflation by instructor rank and found it is much higher among assistant professors, adjuncts, TAs, instructors, etc. than for associate or full professors. These are instructors who are usually hired year-to-year or need to demonstrate teaching effectiveness for the job market, so they have an incentive to inflate evaluations as much as possible, and high grades are one means of manipulating student course evaluations.

Defend America, Become American

Pretty soon our legions may be full of Visigoths and Vandals. From Max Boot's Defend America, Become American:

The Army is getting desperate. Having fallen 25% short of already reduced recruiting goals last month, it is raising enlistment bonuses to $40,000 in some cases and lowering standards to accept and retain soldiers who would have been turned away in years past. A minor criminal record? No high school diploma? Uncle Sam still wants you.

Down this way disaster lies — the undoing of the finest armed forces in U.S. history. But what choice is there? With combat dragging on in Iraq and plenty of jobs available at home, there aren't enough volunteers. So far, a real crisis has been averted only because the Army has exceeded its retention goals and kept some troops in uniform past their discharge dates, but it will only get tougher to keep volunteers in uniform if troops are constantly deployed overseas.

There are two obvious, and obviously wrongheaded, solutions to this problem: Pull out of Iraq now or institute a draft. The former would hand a victory to terrorists and undo everything that more than 1,700 Americans have given their lives to achieve. The latter option, aside from being a political non-starter, would also dilute the high quality of the all-volunteer force.

Having reviewed all the other possibilities and found them wanting, I return to the solution I proposed on this page in February: Broaden the recruiting base beyond U.S. citizens and permanent, legal residents.

Balls Out

Wow. From Balls Out: How to throw a no-hitter on acid, and other lessons from the career of baseball legend Dock Ellis:

Thirty-five years ago, on June 12, 1970, Pittsburgh Pirate and future Texas Rangers pitcher Dock Ellis found himself in the Los Angeles home of a childhood friend named Al Rambo. Two days earlier, he'd flown with the Pirates to San Diego for a four-game series with the Padres. He immediately rented a car and drove to L.A. to see Rambo and his girlfriend Mitzi. The next 12 hours were a fog of conversation, screwdrivers, marijuana, and, for Ellis, amphetamines. He went to sleep in the early morning, woke up sometime after noon and immediately took a dose of Purple Haze acid. Ellis would frequently drop acid on off days and weekends; he had a room in his basement christened 'The Dungeon,' in which he'd lock himself and listen to Jimi Hendrix or Iron Butterfly 'for days.'

A bit later, how long exactly he can't recall, he came across Mitzi flipping through a newspaper. She scanned for a moment, then noticed something.

'Dock,' she said. 'You're supposed to pitch today.'

Ellis focused his mind. No. Friday. He wasn't pitching until Friday. He was sure.

'Baby,' she replied. 'It is Friday. You slept through Thursday.'

Ellis remained calm. The game would start late. Ample time for the acid to wear off. Then it struck him: doubleheader. The Pirates had a doubleheader. And he was pitching the first game. He had four hours to get to San Diego, warm up and pitch. If something didn't happen in the interim, Dock Philip Ellis, age 25, was about to enter a 50,000-seat stadium and throw a very small ball, very hard, for a very long time, without the benefit of being able to, you know, feel the thing.

Which, it turns out, was one of the least crazy things that happened to him on that particular day.

Hay fever not linked to kids' immunizations

From Hay fever not linked to kids' immunizations:

The relatively few children that had not been vaccinated for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTP) had virtually the same hay fever risk as the large percentage that completed DTP vaccinations by their fifth month.

As for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) immunization, unvaccinated children had slightly lower chances of having hay fever than those vaccinated in month 14, although the difference was not statistically significant.

The investigators found that with both DPT and MMR vaccination, children that got their shots late had about a 40 percent reduced risk of hay fever. The team suggests that this 'may be explained by a third factor causing both postponement and reduced risk, such as intercurrent febrile illness.'

Cook and colleagues also looked at anti-TB immunization with BCG vaccine, which is thought to protect against becoming allergic. However, that's not what they found. 'Immunization with BCG by age 2 was associated with an increased risk of hay fever,' they report.

Woolly Mammoth Closer to Asian Elephants

From Woolly Mammoth Closer to Asian Elephants:

Japanese scientists said Friday that DNA tests have shown that the prehistoric woolly mammoth is more closely related to Asian elephants than to their African counterparts, settling a long-running debate over the lineage of the giant animals that went extinct 10,000 years ago.

Nagoya University professor Tomoo Ozawa and his team examined muscle tissue DNA taken from a woolly mammoth excavated in Siberia and determined that the animal and Asiatic elephants branched off from the same ancestor 4.8 million years ago. African elephants diverged from the family tree earlier on, about 7.3 million years ago, the group said.

Consumer Vertigo

Virginia Postrel explains why even an overwhelming array of choices isn't really a problem in Consumer Vertigo: A new wave of social critics claim that freedom’s just another word for way too much to choose. Here’s why they’re wrong.:

Outside the artificial constraints of a psychology experiment, people adapt pretty effectively to proliferating choices. We go back to our favorite restaurant and order the same dish because we know we’ll like it. We find a toothpaste that suits us and stick to it. We don’t always choose anew.

James Bond Film Flowchart

GeekPress pointed me to the James Bond Film Flowchart and the Opening Sequence Flowchart.

Unsung Examples of U.S. Soft Power

Daniel Drezner points to a Chicago Tribune article, U.S. nice, but it's not home, which describes an unusual example of America's "soft" power:

Nazifa is one of 13 girls and 26 boys from Afghanistan who have studied in U.S. high schools this year. They are the first group of foreign-exchange students from Afghanistan to come to America in more than 30 years, and their year here is coming to an end.

Nazifa's serene expression changes as she considers describing her days as a sophomore at High Tech High International to the folks back home.

'Even if I told them, they might think that is not school,' Nazifa says, shaking her head and laughing. 'They would think you would have gone somewhere else.'

Just as her new life begins to feel normal, Nazifa prepares for home. The students, here through a U.S. State Department program called Youth Exchange and Study, are to return to Afghanistan in late June. Excited to see their families once more, they are also apprehensive about blending in again. The recent turmoil and violence surrounding treatment of the Koran and the slaying of a liberal female TV host just a few years older than they are has put the students on edge.

Hornets Given the Eyes of an Eagle

From Hornets Given the Eyes of an Eagle:

The call for F-18s to scan the ground below is all because of the new Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared (ATFLIR). This $1.2 million device, which is considered about five times more effective than earlier models, can clearly see people on the ground from 40 kilometers away, and 6-7 kilometers up. Pilots can see people with guns hiding on roofs, or behind buildings, waiting to ambush approaching coalition or Iraqi troops or convoys. Magnification at night is 30 times, and 60 times during the day. But at night, the ATFLIR gets sharper images because it is sensing differences in heat below. Things cool off rapidly in Iraq after the sun goes down, everything except the few people running around at night.

I believe these Hornets are given the eyes of an owl.

Be Careful What You Pay For

In Be Careful What You Pay For, Arnold Kling looks at four different ways of compensating physicians for medical care:

• Capitation – pay a fixed amount per year per patient
• Outcome – pay on the basis of the health of patients
• Effort – pay on the basis of labor and capital costs of providing services
• Process – pay on the basis of adherence to guidelines

Each methods has its pitfalls, but Kling argues for process-based compensation.

An Immigrant's Tale

Nima Sanandaji tells An Immigrant's Tale:

Back in Iran my brother and I went to school six days a week and wrote our homework about two hours each day. A lot of our spare time was spent at the local library. My father worked full-time and my mother had worked first as a teacher and later as a vice president in the kindergartens that we had attended. Later she became a housewife. In the refugee camp nobody did anything. Nobody learned how to speak Swedish. Nobody was integrated in the Swedish society and nobody was allowed to get a job. The strong work ethic that we had brought from our home countries simpered away and we became used to the idea that social security was responsible for our lives.
[...]
Our dependency on social security continued even after we got a permanent residency and later became Swedish citizens. Although my mother got several jobs, we concluded that this really didn't improve our family's economy. A low pay job meant a couple of thousands Kronors more each month. However, income isn't everything. When our mother didn't work she could take better care of us. She could save money by buying the cheapest groceries from the shop on the other side of town and it was more economical to always be able to eat at home. Also, social security usually gave us more money than we were supposed to get. This was usually not due to cheating from our side, but rather because the social security secretaries wanted to be generous and helpful. During the sixteen years we have been in Sweden, my mother has in total worked less than one year.

One thing that my up growing has shown me is that there is little incentive to work and educate yourself in the Swedish welfare system. According to the Institute for Labour Policies the average salary of a person who has studied at a university for three years is only five percent higher of somebody who is uneducated. Most Swedish families would have higher income if they lived off government and made some money working in the black market.

One Possible Cure for the Common Criminal

Historically, measuring the effect of police on crime has been difficult, because it's difficult to tease out cause and effect: areas with a lot of crime have a lot of police.

With ever-changing terror-alert levels though, we have ever-changing police levels not tied to local crime levels. Fom One Possible Cure for the Common Criminal:

The two economists looked at daily crime statistics in Washington from March 12, 2002, to July 30, 2003. During that time, the terror alert level rose and fell four times. 'On high-alert days,' they wrote, 'total crimes decrease by an average of seven crimes per day, or approximately 6.6 percent.'
[...]
To make sure tourists were not just avoiding Washington during high alerts, the economists checked midday subway ridership and hotel vacancy levels, finding no significant difference. Nor did criminals appear to shift from District 1 to other parts of town. Crime was down throughout the city.

A bigger police presence does affect some kinds of crimes more than others. The number of murders, for instance, does not change.

"If you think about what crimes you most expect to be affected by putting more police on the streets, well, it's street crimes," Professor Tabarrok said in the interview. "Theft from automobiles and automobile theft are the classic street crimes, and we found that they fell by a whopping 40 percent during these high-alert periods." Burglaries were also down, by 15 percent.

Policing seems very cost-effective:

Using generally accepted cost estimates, Professor Tabarrok said, every $1 to add officers would reduce the costs of crime by $4. The authors did not identify a point of diminishing returns.

"We estimate that if we had a 10 percent increase in police, crime would go down by about 4 percent," he said, adding that researchers taking other approaches have come up with similar numbers. Nationally, he said, "that means about 700,000 fewer property crimes and 213,000 fewer violent crimes."

As a back-of-the-envelope calculation, Professor Klick offered an even more striking suggestion. "It wouldn't be unreasonable," he said, "based on our estimates and based on conservative estimates of the costs of crime, to say it would be cost-effective to actually double the number of people working in police forces, which is pretty amazing."

Chrysler's Storied Hemi Motor Helps It Escape Detroit's Gloom

From Chrysler's Storied Hemi Motor Helps It Escape Detroit's Gloom:

The new Hemi engine, which debuted in 2002, takes its name from rounded, or hemispherical, tops of its cylinders, and gives an exhilarating boost to a car's acceleration. The name and design are based on a legendary engine Chrysler produced in the muscle-car era. After Nascar's Richard Petty won 27 races in 1964 driving a 426-horsepower Hemi-powered Charger, the racing circuit banned the engine, thinking it gave drivers too much of an edge. After it was allowed back, with some restrictions, the Hemi enabled drivers to hit speeds of over 200 miles per hour.

Every customer who opts for a Hemi adds thousands of dollars to Chrysler's bottom line. That's because the Hemi's simple design makes it no more expensive to build than a smaller, standard V6 engine. A basic Chrysler 300 — the broad-shouldered sedan that has wowed customers from rappers to retirees — lists for $23,370. The Hemi version, called the 300C, sells for almost $10,000 more. While that model includes leather seats and other expensive features, analysts believe most of the difference is pure profit.

Some modern-Hemi technical history:

First, the team chose a decades-old design that was inexpensive to build. Second, they borrowed an idea from auto racing and gave each cylinder two spark plugs instead of one. They rounded the cylinders' tops to crowd fuel and air into the center where the mixture burned quickly and cleanly. That boosted power and reduced emissions.

To help with fuel consumption — just in case the V8 engine was ever put in a passenger car — they also developed a system for automatically shutting off four of the eight cylinders while cruising on the highway.

Weird Tales Gallery

Boing Boing links to a gallery of Weird Tales covers:

Weird Tales is one of the original pulp magazines, where Howard's Conan and Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos found their original home. Its lurid covers were even better than the fiction. Here's a gallery of Weird Tales covers spanning 1923-1943 — endless clicky fun.