Morning Fog

Dark Age

For at least three weeks now, in my neck of the woods, the lengthening hours of darkness have cast their shadow on morning walks (bringing depressing blackness to the 5:30 AM sky) and on those evening activities for which we supposedly invented Daylight Saving Time (preventing us from being able to see what's on the grill, or whether it's done, at 7:00 PM). 

Obviously, it's that time of year again, the time when summer time has outlived its usefulness (if it ever had any) and we revert naturally to "regular" time as God and the Greenwich Meanies intended it.   We get our light in the morning, and we get our darkness at dusk.  How neat!  Just as the hours of daylight and dark become about equal in the fall, we switch back to standard time... 

Except that we don't.  Instead, we are in thrall to a handful of Congressional idiots who, unable to conceive any sensible actions to reduce our energy consumption, dreamed up instead the unproved and unprovable proposition that we are "saving energy" by staying on "daylight" time.  As I have pointed out earlier, even Congress's own commissioned study was unable to come up with convincing evidence that daylight time saves anything at all.  

Thus we remain condemned to suffer through another six weeks of artificial and needless light-shifting, all the way through Halloween.  (By the way, parents: It's supposed to be dark when the kids go out trick-or-treating.  That's what makes it scary and fun!)

But in consolation, keep your eye out for the reports, when we do set our clocks back again, of all the energy that was saved while we were on daylight time.  You won't see any such reports, of course, but you can look for them if you like.

Surveys, And The Tyranny Of Statistics

One of the greatest tools humankind has for understanding -- understanding ourselves, our environment, our motivations, you name it -- is statistical analysis. 

In politics, statistical analysis often depends upon opinion polls, surveys, and other indirect means of determining voters' interests, desires, or voting plans.  Unfortunately this branch of mathematics has been hijacked by politically motivated charlatans who have discovered that you can conjure up statistics to prove anything at all by manipulating the questions asked or even controlling whom is asked.

A perfect (horrible) example arrived in my mailbox a few days ago.  The whole look of the envelope screamed "junk mail," but for some reason I opened it anyway.  Perhaps it was the catchphrase "Tax Increase Impact Survey, Arlington Virginia Area."  It turned out to be from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative political action committee thinly disguised as a "think tank."  (More on that line of thought later, though here I should note that of course progressives also have such "think tanks.")

The "survey" began with a lie (it wasn't about Arlington, Virginia at all) and continued with a letter describing in one-sided terms the conservative screed against taxes, any time, anywhere. 

The letter and the survey are full of Republican buzzwords like "liberals," "Obamacare," and "death tax," as well as serious distortions of the truth.   The thinking respondent may ask himself, for example, how one can swallow the unashamedly misleading statement that repeal would increase taxes for 100 million Americans by an "average" of $1716, when we know that the "average" household will be unaffected by the reinstatement of taxes which benefit mainly the better-off individuals and corporations.

Naturally, the real purpose of the "survey" is to beg for a contribution so that the Heritage Foundation can go on with its work of "unbiased analysis" of tax issues (among others).  Yet there's not even a hint of unbiased analysis in the statements made in this mailing; it's 100% partisan, and each question is loaded to evoke the politically desired answer.

The Foundation's Orwellian definition of "unbiased" will be reinforced by natural selection (a principle which we might suppose would be abhorrent to a conservative think tank).   Those who receive this survey and agree with its thrust are likely to fill it out and return it; those who recognize its fundamental dishonesty and resent being manipulated are not.  And, presto! Even though this whole thing is mainly a fundraising tool, I look for the Heritage Foundation promotional materials to appear soon, referring to a "recent survey" in which 90% of respondents agreed wholeheartedly with the Foundation's "unbiased" analysis.

This study in statistical distortion is signed by one Edwin J. Feulner, Ph.D.  It's hard to conceive that the holder of a doctoral degree could sign off on a presentation of such monumental disregard for the common standards of academic inquiry.  Perhaps they're giving Ph.Ds in chicanery these days.

Fighting Distracted Driving

Police in Fairfax County, Virginia (near Washington DC) have found a way to tackle the problem of distracted driving.  Faced with a next-to-useless "no-texting" law passed by lily-livered legislators -- a law that allows texters to avoid a fine if they say they were "looking up an address" -- law enforcement officers in Fairfax will now try pulling people over for observed behavior that violates an older law requiring that motorists devote "full time and attention" to their driving.

Undoubtedly some will object.  There is a school of thought among the public that seems to think the Bill of Rights provides for a right to break the law or to practice unsafe behavior if you damn well feel like it.  I haven't been able to determine whether this attitude belongs primarily to a single political party or whether it's one of the few matters where bipartisanship prevails.  No matter; it's the rationale for those who rail against red-light cameras and speed cameras, and could become the rallying cry of the text-and-talk crowd too.

I admit to one concern myself: the plan to use higher-set SUVs for enforcement, which will enable police to see more easily what drivers of sedans are doing.  This would seem to discriminate heavily against sedans.  Who's going to enforce the same rules vis-a-vis SUVs?

Nevertheless, having written more than once about the constant problem of vehicles coming to a dead stop in the road, slowing down unexpectedly, weaving from lane to lane, and the like, I have to applaud this new effort.  It's time people realized how impaired they are, not only when texting, but while carrying on a phone conversation (whether or not it's hands-free) or eating.

Muslims In The U.S.

The "Bipartisan Policy Center"  has put out a curiously timed review (really, must it have appeared the day before the anniversary of those memorable attacks?)  of the terrorism threat to the U.S. 

One of its conclusions is that the threat from "home-grown" terrorists, meaning radicalized Muslims who are longterm or even native-born Americans and who decide to try to initiate an attack, is serious and growing.  No duh.  That's been clear for a couple of years and having the BPC tell us so is rather like reading whatever book Thomas Friedman might have published lately:  "OK, sure, but tell us something we don't already know."  

Nevertheless, the statement is attracting a lot of attention on the September 11 anniversary, and in an environment where issues of Muslims in the U.S. have been on home pages and front pages constantly for weeks.  Those who would ban the construction of mosques in New York or Tennessee, or who would plan a Koran-burning, will probably be further emboldened by the BPC's not-too-surprising statement.

In this case again, however, our reaction ought to be the opposite.  This analysis of the threat tells us that we should start distinguishing the trees in the forest; of course we need to be vigilant against dangerous radicals, but we need to stop thinking of Islam as monolithic.  Actions that demonize all Muslims can only serve to accelerate the radicalization that turns some into terrorists. 

Unfortunately too, it doesn't matter much that Gainesville (Florida) guru Terry Jones has now decided that by gosh, he won't burn any Korans after all; nor will the fact the New York mosque eventually gets built (if it does) alter Muslims' views of how they are perceived.  The very suggestion of these sorts of hostile actions, and the support they've received in some quarters, is itself the radicalizing factor.  The damage is already done, in the minds of those we should be concerned about.  

Motivation For Koran-Burning

Aha! As I (sort of) predicted, Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center backed down on his plan to burn Korans on September 11.

But then, as I didn't predict, he claimed he only did so because he understood that someone (?) had decided not to go forward with the misleadingly nicknamed "ground zero mosque."  Having learned that wasn't the case, he now says he may get out his matches again.

This kind of waffling only heightens my guess that Jones's major motivation in this whole affair has been publicity and possibly some political rabble-rousing.  If there were an ethical or moral motivation, the Manhattan mosque wouldn't, and shouldn't, enter into his decision about book-burning one way or the other.  Morality isn't relative. (Is it?)  And besides, all the moral/ethical high ground in the Islamic Culture Center case lies with those who are in favor of building it.

More Light Bulbs

Hard on the heels of yesterday's post, in which a microeconomic example (General Electric's failure to adapt to new technology) provided a macroeconomic lesson (our business leaders prefer repetition to competition), comes the report of the annual World Economic Forum survey, bringing much the same message about our international competitiveness:  the U.S. slipped to fourth (down from second last year, first the year before).

Unfortunately, as the comments on this article already demonstrate, this report is being seized upon as another excuse for more yammering about whether Bush or Obama is "reponsible."*  But as we engage in that very natural instinct for political backbiting, we miss the main point:   

Our ridiculously short two-year election cycle leads our politicians and media to focus on short-term indicators, but we citizens don't need to succumb to that fault.  The roots of our current problem go back a decade or more.  We won't fix things overnight.  The political quibbling, and the see-sawing between the Republicans' and the Democrats' respective solutions (which they present as irreconcilably different) hasn't helped us.   We need two sets of tools - innovative private enterprise and responsible bipartisanship in government leadership - to be successful, yet for quite some time we've had neither.

 

* (Make no mistake; should I have to play the blame game, I'd punch my chad for George W. Bush, who used his eight years in office to destroy the economy, and left us in the worst recession since the 1930's.  Let's remember that about 85% of our current deficit belongs to Bush, that some of the most extensive tax cuts in our history not only failed to avert the crisis, but exacerbated it; and that he began two extremely expensive wars while depriving us of any means of paying for them .) 

U.S. Economic Stagnation - The Lesson Of Light Bulbs

Today's Washington Post carries a front-page story entitled "How Innovation Killed the Lights."  It's a tale already told in other places and in other contexts, of how a small General Electric plant that had been manufacturing the now old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs is closing down.  It focuses on the human impact of a couple of hundred lost jobs, and suggests (as the title indicates) that "innovation" was responsible. 

Well, in a way, yes.  Technology advanced to a new concept of residential light bulbs, the compact fluorescent (CFL for short) and the end result was the expiration of this plant.  But that's a little too "post hoc, ergo prompter hoc" for my taste.  I see the story differently.

To me, this demise of this plant demonstrates not the effects of scientific/technological innovation, but the results of a lack of manufacturing/business innovation.   The latter is at the root of our current economic doldrums.  New ideas are always coming along, sometimes driven by technology, sometimes by changes in society's approach to a product.  In the case of light bulbs, it was both.  This kind of change is a given. New techniques, new materials, new ideas ... all these can wreak major changes in a product or an entire industry.

But the success of our economy depends on how well business adapts to it.  It's said (even in business circles at times) that if you're not a part of the solution, you're part of the problem.  More germane here is a slight rephrasing:  If you're not a part of the future, you're part of the past. 

As CFLs were developed (in the U.S.!), with a clear advantage in much lower energy consumption, a sharp company would have begun to look at ways of producing.  Of course there were problems (early versions needed to be hand-blown) but the Chinese solved them (and now have moved beyond that labor-intensive stage). 

Couldn't we have done that in the U.S.?  Yes, most certainly; but the first reaction of General Electric was to oppose any efforts at legislation that would create incentives to switch, or to make it easier to begin producing CFLs.  So GE, often touted as one of our best and most innovative companies, immediately became not an innovator, but a defender of the status quo. 

Eventually, years too late, GE checked out the costs of producing the new bulbs in the U.S., but they looked only at the prospect of converting the old plant to the new production, even though it's pretty well known that retrofitting can be more expensive than building anew.  Not surprisingly they found it would cost too much, and the product would have to be priced significantly higher than the Chinese-produced ones.  (It's worth noting also that GE already had an investment in the alternate, but second-class, technology of halogen lighting.)

So General Electric, a paragon of U.S. industrial might, ceded the market to foreign manufacturers, following two principles that seem to have become ingrained in U.S. business thinking since the 1960s, both detrimental to our leading position in trade and manufacturing:

1.  Keeping up with technology is expensive and its benefits are usually longer term; seek protection from innovation, stick with what you know, and just keep producing it, modernization be damned.  This errant thinking has infected the course of events in U.S. industries as disparate as automobiles, major home appliances, and energy (which latter industry still insists on defining itself in terms of coal, gas, or oil and ignores alternate energy sources). 

2.  Manufacturing is old hat; making physical products isn't important; focus instead on shuffling assets to create an impression of growth.  Weird new financial instruments and the sale of "services" are where the real profits lie. 

And thus have we lost millions of manufacturing jobs over recent decades.  Captains of industry became corporals.  This outcome was not inevitable; but until American industry regains a keen sense of risk-taking and a willingness to innovate, we're likely to see further deterioration of our economy. 

In the same issue of the Washington Post, Steven Pearlstein makes a cogent case that we won't make much headway in reducing unemployment until we can restore a manufacturing sector that remains competitive in good times and bad.  

Light A Koran, Show Your Ignorance

We usually think of light as representing education, learning, or even salvation, but there's always something new in the world, and this week, it's the very un-pastor-like Pastor Terry Jones and his 50-member (FIFTY!) Dove World Outreach Center who are out there promising to demonstrate their ignorance by burning Korans.

There's no real surprise here.  Ignorance and organized religion, especially the wacko splinter groups like this one, have always gone hand in hand.  They're two sides of the same coin.  To believe deeply in DWOCianism, obviously, you have to make several leaps of faith that ignore (= ignorance!) basic facts and common sense, e.g.:

Your religion is the only true one and even if there are only 50 of you, everybody else must be wrong;
Religions can't coexist in the world;
Islam - not a handful of Muslims, but Islam - was responsible for the terrorist attacks on New York and Arlington, Virginia in September 2001
Intolerance is a Christian principle (well actually, there's a lot of evidence that this one is true!)
The practice of religion is not a peaceful pursuit; it's like the conduct of a war;
....and many other silly ideas too numerous to mention.

Will they go through with the promised Koran-burning?  Maybe, maybe not.  In today's news stories, the Firebug Pastor seems to waffle a bit, saying his group is praying and "considering" the action.  Though he claims not, I suspect he's thinking hard about what General Petraeus has said the consequences could be.  Maybe (praise the Lord?) he has also been thinking about the picture of his religious teachings that such an action could paint -- even if we believe Muslim extremists might burn Bibles, is it a proper response to burn Korans?

Personally, I believe Pastor Terry's pronouncement is largely motivated by a desire to grab headlines and perhaps attract a few more confused, ignorant sheep to his flock.  Perhaps that will work out for him, but more likely, either he'll set his own church on fire accidentally (there's some poetic justice for you!), or he will make this church a target, and on some fine Sunday in the future, he and his congregants will be set upon, carved into evangel-kebabs, and roasted over the coals of their own church by their worst nightmare:  a screaming mass of crazed scimitar-wielding Muslim terrorists who have come to avenge the insult.