Dave Friedman's Soul of Wit

Hiatus Canceled...

...at least temporarily.

Jeremy Siegel, finance professor at Wharton, writes in today's Wall St. Journal:

The outsized influence of the tech sector in 2000 greatly distorted the capitalization-weighted indices. There are 10 sectors in the S&P 500 Index: technology, financials, health care, utilities, industrials, energy, consumer discretionary, consumer staples, and materials and telecom. If we exclude the tech sector, the S&P 500 would be 16% above its level reached in 2000. Seven of the 10 other sectors (excluding tech, telecom and consumer discretionary) are significantly higher than their 2000 levels. Even within the S&P 500, more than two-thirds of stocks are above the price they reached in 2000, but the big cap tech stocks had so much weight then that their collapse forced the whole index lower now.

In more prosaic terms: capitalism is triumphant, wealth is being created, and you would be a fool to bet against the tendency of man to become wealthier over the years. Even if you are a stupid day trader bidding up the prices of worthless companies, overall, man--Americans, that is--has created wealth over the past six years. And there is no reason that such continued dynamism won't continue, left-wing hand-wrining over "income inequality" notwithstanding.

The Thrill Is Gone

The proprietor of this blog (that would be me) is taking a long-deserved hiatus from blogging for the foreseeable future.

On Stupidity

The Wall St. Journal on HP and Congress:

Are there any bigger lessons here about "corporate governance"? Not really. The fad of dividing the roles of CEO and chairman may sometimes make sense, but at H-P that division of responsibility led to dysfunction. Ms. Dunn seems to have meddled too much in corporate operations by supervising a leak probe run from the H-P counsel's office. That's one danger of dividing the two jobs. But like any collection of human beings, the knowledge and judgment of the individuals on a board matter far more than its structure.

Mr. Hurd and the entire H-P board also seem to have ignored a law of modern public relations, which is to get all the bad news out early, take responsibility, and move on. Instead, the board knew as early as June that the probe involved "pretexting," or misrepresentation, to obtain Mr. Keyworth's phone records, yet it failed to stop it. Mr. Hurd has finally acknowledged he should have paid more attention to the details of the probe, but he was also too slow to accept that Ms. Dunn had to leave as chairman. He's fortunate H-P's stock has performed so well, or some investors would be using this episode to call for his head as well.

As for Congress, we understand the impulse to grab some camera time by beating up on H-P witnesses. But even otherwise shrewd Members of Congress have been known to do stupid things from time to time. The last thing the country needs is a new Bureau for the Prevention of Bad Business Judgment, which is at bottom what the H-P saga is all about.

Though the Journal is undeniably correct here, good luck in getting Congress to take as nuanced an interpretation of the events as this. Politicians, as always, are out for blood, and no group of people is more easily demonized than businesspeople, never mind the fact that the size of our government is a direct function of the size of our private industry; government could not be government without the wealth created by business. Governments that print money in the absence of any economic underpinning experience hyperinflation; witness Germans buying loaves of bread for quadrillions of deutshce marks in the years after World War I.

And yet, HP et al will be demonized by government.

Explain to me how this makes any kind of sense?

Possibilities

There's a possibility I will become wealthier than Bill Gates.

There's also a possibility that I will live to 120.

There's also a possibility that I will one day score a hole in one in golf.

There's a possibility I will be struck by lightning.

It is safe to say, however, that there exists no possibility that Scott Dyleski will become a productive adult. See, he was convicted of bludgeoning to death his neighbor, in an apparent act of premeditated murder. His lawyer's understanding of probability suggests remedial math is neeced:

His lawyer pleaded with the judge to give the teen "the slimmest opportunity" of a chance at parole after he serves 25 years in prison for the brutal murder of Vitale, his 52-year-old neighbor.

"Scott Dyleski made a terrible mistake," public defender Ellen Leonida said. "There is always the possibility that he can mature into a responsible, productive citizen."

In a proper world, of course, this monster would have been sentenced to death, not life in prison, but we live not in a proper world but in the world in which our legislatures and judges have seen fit to warehouse murderers, not execute them.

Alas, it is folly to argue, even if it is one's duty to do, that one's client is redeemable. Such is the mockery of life and murder that our criminal "justice" system engages in daily.

It is also worth noting, of course, that 25 years till parole is, essentially, the same sentence about to be imposed on Jeffrey Skilling of Enron fame; to assert that fraud and murder are essentially the same, which is what sentences of equal length implicitly do, is to mock perspective.

Middlebrow and Urbanity

Civic leaders of various large cities claim that Wal-Mart is too middlebrow and therefore has no place in cities:

Wal-Mart is used to opposition, but these antagonists are tougher and better organized than earlier breeds. In the Northeast and America's big urban centers, they've augmented a traditional anti-Wal-Mart message with something more potent: an appeal to urban cultural values. Here, Wal-Mart is a metaphor for the worst of middlebrow America.

After missing out in Boston, the company lost a two-year fight to open in Leominster, in central Massachusetts. Some of the same antagonists are now organizing to block Wal-Mart in adjacent Lancaster.

Officials in Miami prevented Wal-Mart from locating a store amid a 55-acre midtown redevelopment project, on the grounds that its sprawling, suburban aesthetics and low-end appeal didn't conform to the city's architectural and social vision for the project.

"I feel bad for Wal-Mart, but that's their image," says Johnny Winton, the former Miami commissioner who helped plan the project.

Now, there is some truth here: Wal Mart is middlebrow, decidedly and avowedly so. They pursue middlebrow with a passion. And, it is true that, in cities such as Boston, Miami, and New York, there is a relatively large population of people too wealthy* to shop at Wal Mart.

But so what? Why does it follow from any of this that (1) the poorer residents of the city would not benefit from having access to a cheap retailer, (2) that Wal Mart should not make its presence known, and, if concerns about its middlebrow-ness turn out to be true, lose money from its operations in the city?

The notion that there is a "correct" retailer and an "incorrect" retailer for a city is nothing less than class snobbery, of the very worst sort, because, this type of class distinction directly affects the pocketbooks of those least able to afford it.

There certainly is something to be said for the wanton nature of Wal Mart's stores. They are poorly laid out, hard to navigate, attract low income people, sell crappy products, have annoying, cloying ads, and otherwise do not appeal to me or most of my demographic. But so what? I have the option of not shopping there; why can't low income people have the option of shopping there?

*Of course one can't be too wealthy to shop at Wal Mart; this is an attempt at wry irony. Don't read too deeply into it.

In Other News, 2 + 2 = 4...

Sentence read today while reviewing CFA materials:

Rigidities in a national economy can prevent it from quickly joining growth in a world business cycle.

Say Italy? Or Japan? Or Mexico? Or Brazil? Or Russia? Or France?

Eureka, Or, How to Circumvent Calculus??

How the hell does the following make any kind of sense:

In mathematics, formulae form a crucial end result of many calculations. For example the problem of determining the volume of a sphere is one that requires a sigificant amount of integral calculus to solve.

Archimedes displaced water long before Newton and Liebniz invented calculus*.

*It should be noted that this blog post was written by someone who took precisely no math in college. And yet, your humble blogger seems more numerate than most?

My comment on Wikipedia's discussion page:

The reference to needing integral calculus to determine the volume of a sphere doesn't make sense, in light of Archimedes. While it makes sense to argue that integral calculus is needed to derive a formula with which to determine the volume of a sphere without dunking the sphere in water, one can nonetheless dunk a smaller sphere in water, measure the volume of water displaced, and proportionately calculate the volume of a larger sphere. So, calculus is not needed to determine the volume of any sphere. Its use is limited to creating a general formula with which to calculate a sphere's volume.

Yet more info: the density of the sphere in question doesn't matter, though density affects bouyancy. A sphere with a one-inch radius has the same volume, 4.1 cubic inches, whether it weighs one pound or one ton, though the one ton sphere is much more dense.

Posse Comitatus

Historically literate Americans will find something alarming in this headline:

Gov.: New Orleans crime calls for military presence

This, of course, would violate the Posse Comitatus Act, which, among other things, prohibits troops under Federal control from fighting crime on American soil, unless a special provision is made by Congress for such.

National Guard troops who are under the authority of a Governor, however, can be an adjunct to the civilian police force.

Logic

Take The Mantra:

The only thing I ask of the religious is that they consider the depths to which religion has sunk man.

Nothing in that mantra can logically be construed to mean that no non-religious man has sunk man; the statement makes a claim only about the religious. It says nothing about the non-religious.

Why is it, then, that when I quote The Mantra on other people's blogs, I invariably receive a response "yeah well, Hitler wasn't religious and look what he did." Well, yeah Hitler wasn't religious and look what he did.

The Mantra is stated as it is for a very simple reason: it would be demonstrably fallacious for The Mantra to be "the only people capable of sinking man to great depths are the religious." See Hitler, and what he did, above.

UPDATE: The comments are raging on this point of logic, at the comments linked to above. I think the bluntness of the mantra induces people into a sort of emotional stupor.

Nice in Theory, But...

One of the interesting things about theories is that, while they often sound nice, putting theory to practice seems elusive.

This is especially so when you are dealing with the troubling tendency of poor kids being consigned to life long poverty due to factors beyond their control. A Constrained Vision notes that some research suggests environment, not genes, augurs academic performance for the impoverished. Here's the research quoted:

Among families of lower socioeconomic status, variation in IQ is far more environmental than genetic in origin, whereas the converse holds in families of higher socioeconomic status. That is, an impoverished child's background and experiences can so heavily influence his or her degree of achievement that his genetic makeup is nearly irrelevant in predicting his academic success. Optimistically, such a powerful role for experience suggests that intervention may be particularly successful among disadvantaged children.

I commented:

Well, that sounds nice in theory, and makes some kind of sense, but how do you inculcate such an environment?

Take kids from impoverished families and warehouse them with educated people who can speak well?

As always, a nice theory, but what is its practical application?

To quote Rod Tidwell, "show me the money."

Bad Writing

There is nothing more important in the world than writing well about Donatella Versace. And yet, Wikipedia throws this garbage at us:

Also, in many other films, including the recent hit, The Devil Wears Prada, the mention of "Donatella" is used sporadically.

How about the more fluid:

Donatella's name is mentioned sporadically in other movies, such as the recent hit The Devil Wears Prada, which gives some indication of her influence on pop culture.

Now, as to why I'm wasting my time reading a Wikipedia entry on Donatella? Well, that's for me to know and you to find out.

Stupid PR Move

Idiot lawyers strike again.

OfficeMax is apparently suing because some families of Americans executed by Castro's regime are themselves suing to recoup funds frozen by American authorities as redresse for their relatives' murder:

The U.S. Foreign Claims Settlement Commission, an arm of the Justice Department, has certified nearly 6,000 U.S. claims for property seized by Cuba. Claimants hope that after the reign of Fidel Castro ends they can recover their homes, factories, beachfront land and sugar plantations believed to be valued at $6.7 billion today. To settle some claims, they also expect to gain access to more than $268 million in Cuban assets -- largely held in U.S. banks -- that were frozen under the Kennedy administration's Cuban embargo.

Most citizens and businesses will likely have to wait years to recoup any losses. In the mid-1990s, a coalition of U.S. companies, including OfficeMax's future parent, put pressure on the Clinton administration to settle its members' numerous claims with Cuba -- with no luck.

But thanks to special antiterrorism laws passed in 1996 and 2002, a few families have been able to leapfrog to the head of the line. The legislation helped permit relatives of Messrs. Anderson and Ray to seek, and ultimately win, wrongful-death judgments in Florida state courts, with a federal judge in January clearing the way to tap into the frozen Cuban funds.

OfficeMax wasn't pleased with the news. In March, the company filed court papers in New York U.S. District Court, Southern District, seeking to block the Ray and Anderson relatives from collecting.

Robert Muse, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who represents Cuban Electric and OfficeMax, says the dead men's families shouldn't be given first dibs on the accounts. "I'm not trying to be provocative," Mr. Muse says. "That money was sequestered for the purpose of paying [restitution] claims."

Now, Muse may not be trying to be "provocative," but he sure is being rather stupid in not considering the venomous hatred most Americans have for Castro, and, therefore, the natural sympathy other Americans have to those whose lives have been affected by Castro. The smart thing to do--again, not necessarily the thing that protects OfficeMax's legal interests--is to leave well enough alone and let these families seek their redress.

The idiocy of lawyers continues apace.

A Good Man

The Agitator has a great post about a 9/11 victim named John Perry, a NYPD officer filling out his retirement papers when the first plane struck:

Perry was at a police station near ground zero filling his retirement papers when he first heard news that a plane had hit one of the Trade Center towers. He immediately asked for his badge back, ran into an old captain on his way to the towers, and the two of them began assisting in evaucating the building. One report I read indicated he was the only off-duty officer killed on September 11. Perry was apparently assisting a woman who had fainted when the south tower collapsed. That's the last time he was seen alive.

There's a scholarship set up in Perry's name that seems particularly appropriate. The money goes to promising students affected by the insidious provision added to the 1998 Higher Education Act by drug war champion Rep. Mark Souder. Souder's amendment forbids federal aid to any student convicted of a drug offense. It's a policy that seems to fly in the face everything Perry stood for -- it inhibits the pursuit of knowledge and education, it's an unforgiving and draconian punishment for victimless crimes, and it's aimed squarely at kids who are attempting to move on from past mistakes. It's also a private, civil society solution to a stupid government policy.

If there is one thing more insidious than religion, it is the drug war.

September 11th

The only thing I ask of the religious, on this day that witnessed evil perpetrated by man in the name of religion, is that they consider the depths to which religion can sink man.

In Which I Am Divorced From Faith

The New York Times seems to imply that the Pope believes Muslims correct in rioting and killing in the name of defamation of their religion:

While the pope did not mention Islam specifically, his comments echoed previous statements about how Muslims cannot comprehend how the West has divorced itself from faith. His comment on the “mockery of the sacred” seemed too to refer to the controversy earlier this year in which many Muslims took offense to cartoons in a Danish newspaper depicting the Prophet Mohammad, which were defended in the West as an exercise in free speech.

On the one hand I doubt even the Pope could be so venal and stupid as to endorse wanton violence in the name of protecting one's religion (though I could be wrong on this count, and would not be surprised), and, on the other, there is no room to excuse the behavior of any religious person who reacts to satire and commentary with violence.

The only thing I ask of the religious is that they consider the depths to which religion has sunk man.

Comment on Comments

Apparently, I had 4 unapproved comments dating back to the middle of August, which I have now approved.

Apologies for the delay in approving comments; I don't know how they slipped under my radar. I will be more diligent in the future about comment approvals.

--The management

Innumeracy

Here's the situation. You're on a golf course. You tee up, swing the ball, and lo and behold, you get a hole in one.

It is therefore impossible for you to get a second hole in one in that round of golf, right? Because, the odds of getting one hole in one are so small, the odds of getting two holes in one must be infinitely small, that is, impossible.

But no. These are two separate events; the odds of getting the second hole in one are unaffected by getting the first hole in one. The odds of getting two holes in one in the same round of golf likely are very very small (but not impossible). But the odds of getting any one of those holes in one is the same, whether one previously scored a hole in one or not.

So why am I prattling on about math and a good walk spoiled?

Cause Althouse is blogging about some lady who won two jackpots in state lotteries. The title to her blog post is somewhat misleading: " The odds were 1 in 3,669,120,000,000". The odds of winning both lotteries very well may be 1 in 3.669*10^12, but the odds of winning the second lottery are unaffected by having won the first lottery.

UPDATE: Posner:

What would be socially and even economically useful would be to instruct high school students in the rudiments of statistical theory. That would help them learn to think straight about a range of public policy issues, as well as to avoid certain recurrent mistakes in everyday life. People are terrible at handling probabilities. For example, most people, including otherwise quite intelligent and well educated people, don't understand that randomness is not regular alternation--that a typical random pattern is 1000110110001, not 101010101010. And this mistake leads them, for example, to give undue weight to the recent performance of a mutual fund (e.g., 1101). But whether to teach statistical theory in high school is an issue of educational policy rather than a matter of raising the scores on math tests.

It would also be helpful to the United States, mainly from a public policy standpoint, if more of our people were scientifically literate; and it would help them to be so if they knew some math, because modern science is heavily mathematical. In my book Catastrophe: Risk and Return (2004), I examined the issue of scientific literacy briefly, pointing out that only a third of American adults (adults, not 15-year-olds) know what a molecule is, that 39 percent believe that astrology is scientific, that 46 percent deny that human beings evolved from earlier animal species, and that almost 50 percent do not know that it takes a year for the earth to revolve around the sun (many do not know that the earth revolves around the sun). These are amazing statistics, and yet, according to the materials I consulted, the scientific literacy of the U.S. population actually exceeds that of the European Union, Japan, and Canada.

Communism In America, Or, You Should Be Reading the Economist

It's true. In the land of the free and the home of the brave, communism is running amok, ruining the insurance industry:

Robert Muir-Wood, head of research at Risk Management Solutions, a firm that creates catastrophe models for use in the insurance industry, says that “if you ask climatologists how much of the extra activity is the result of climate change, the range of opinion is between 10% and 60%.”

The insurance industry has a strong interest in these matters. In 2004 and 2005, the two most active hurricane years on record, weather-related losses amounted to $145 billion and $200 billion respectively. The big losses of the past two years have pushed reinsurance prices up. “When events occur, prices rise,” says Christian Mumenthaler, chief risk officer with Swiss Re. “Post-Katrina prices in this bit of the reinsurance business have doubled. Such events usually pay themselves back.”

If prices are rising, that should be a signal to people and businesses to avoid settling in risky areas. The economic centre of the hurricane business is Florida, which is both the most vulnerable part of America and the most valuable. In 2004 the total value of insured coastal property in Florida was $1.937 trillion, compared with $1.902 trillion in New York. Unfortunately, the signal is not getting through to homeowners in Florida, because the government is cushioning the blow. Insurance companies in America may not set their own prices. The rates they charge customers (and indeed the models on the basis of which they calculate their rates) are regulated by state governments. “Communism survives in three parts of the world,” says Mr Muir-Wood: “North Korea, Cuba and the American insurance market.”

Kill communism. Let nature destroy the Southeastern United States and induce people to move away from such areas. A dead Miami is a good Miami.

Sentimentalists and Naifs Take Cover

The fourth season of The Wire is about to start, and, for those of us hip enough to have HBO On Demand, the premier episode is available for your viewing exercise.

I say exercise, not pleasure, because watching the Wire is like reading good literature. (Interesting discussion here about narratively complex TV shows, such as The Wire and, natch, Battlestar Galactica, two very different shows that nevertheless share the same narrative complexity that demands a lot of its viewers.) It's a safe bet that the viewers of either show tend to be more intelligent than the population at large, much the same way that a person who reads novels for exercise (not pleasure!) is more intelligent than the population at large. (Logic test for my readers: This shouldn't be construed to mean that those who don't read novels aren't more intelligent than the population at large.)

But, as always, I digress. This season's The Wire promises to be a meditation on the failed promise of public education, especially as it relates to the inner city poor. Witness the sullen, shell-shocked teachers forced to sit in front of an old, clueless lady, who claims that the secret to educating black America is IALAC--I Am Lovable And Contemptible. (OK, I made the "C" up. I forget what it stands for.)

You get the idea: (1) The Wire is a brutal, gruesome show that displays life in a manner which defines verisimilitude; (2) public education, especially in the inner city, is a complete and utter failure; (3) the tragedy to be explored in the show is that, given the poverty of their educational environment, the school kids would do better to sell drugs on the street, and have an income thereby, than to idle away their years sitting in ineffectual government-funded schools.

As to point 3: Never mind that one of the risks attendant with selling drugs on the street is that you will be laid low by an errant (or inerrant) bullet; the street gives you an income where the classroom does not.

The Fall Of the Berlin Wall

Mankiw notes that some former Soviet Bloc countries are friendly to starting businesses.

Those countries in which it is easy to start a business, of course, tend to be wealthier and more democratic than those countries in which it is hard to start a business.

That this should surprise anyone only demonstrates the ignorance with which most people lead their lives.

Wealth

Jane Galt on the wealthy:

Contra the belief I have encountered among my commenters, most rich people did not inherit most of their wealth, and most of their income comes from wages rather than capital. Some of my interlocutors seem to be working off an income distribution model they clipped out of the 1928 Catholic Worker.

I would agree with her on how wealthy people get their income but not in the way she likely thinks one should agree with her. The point is that the vast majority of Americans are (1) wealthy and (2) get the majority of their income from wages, not capital. The very wealthy (who, I presume, Galt is alluding to when she refers to "wealthy") do get their incomes primarily from capital, but it is nonetheless true that the vast majority of Americans have incomes far in excess of the average person's income and, therefore, by any right, they are wealthy.

Thoughts similar to mine at Mankiw.

What Does It Mean When I Have Access Where Paris Hilton Doesn't?

So, I've been to Bungalow 8 before.

Paris Hilton couldn't get in.

What the hell is the world coming to?!

Personally, I was a fan of the late, lamented Lot 61, as opposed to Sacco's new creation. And I'm not even a nightlife person.

Australian English

Apparently, the Australians call toxicologists toxinologists.

Which makes some kind of sense. More so, at least, than the Brits' kerb affectation.

How About Jailing the Bastards?

The Catholic Church wonders what to do about its pedophilic priests.

That it wonders at all suggests that it doesn't get it.

Kill religion. Elevate man.

This is rich:

Some [priests] have been convicted in a canonical trial but determined to be too elderly or infirm to endure being defrocked and are instead sentenced to a life of prayer and penance. Others have had the accusations against them referred to an archdiocesan advisory board consisting mostly of laypeople, including psychologists and lawyers. The board, which can interview the priest but does not have to, issues a recommendation to the cardinal on whether the priest should continue to minister.

A "life of prayer and penance" for raping young boys?

If I go out on the street tomorrow and rape a woman can I escape with a "life of prayer and penance"? Please? I promise to pray extra-fervently!

Kill religion. Elevate man.

Dope

Posner on doping in sports:

So is the ban on doping athletes just a mindless reaction against novelty and science, a Luddite reaction? Or does it just reflect a confusion between cheating when drugs are banned and lifting the ban? I think not. There are two valid reasons for the ban. One is the pure "arms race" character of the doping; there is no improvement in the entertainment quality of football if 400–pound linemen confront each other rather than 200-pound linemen. In contrast, the overworking law firm associates increase their firm's utput.

The other justification for the ban is that it is a rational means of protecting children. Because successful athletes earn high salaries, because success as an athlete does not require a high order of intelligence, and because an athletic career to be successful must begin in high school (in the case of tennis, perhaps even earlier), there is enormous competition by minors to achieve athletic success. If performance-enhancing drugs were legal, their use by teenagers would be pervasive, and teenagers lack sufficient maturity to trade off the benefits of an athletic career (discounted by the very low probability that any given teenage athlete will have a really successful athletic career) against the long-term damage to their health. Of course adult athletes could be permitted to use such drugs but minors forbidden to do so, but such a legal regime would be difficult to enforce, especially given the "role model" status of adult athletes in the eyes of minors. The lifting of the ban would remove all stigma from the use of such drugs. Their legal and widespread use by star athletes would validate the drugs in the eyes of impressionable youth.

Suffice it to say I think this analysis misses the point. People are interested in bigger, badder, meaner, mroe obese football players; witness, for evidence, the popularity of "The Fridge" in the '80s. (See this morning's earlier post for yet another round of football-bashing, if you're interested.) People are interested in who can belt a home run 600 feet 40 times in a season, and still steal 40 bases in a season (hello, Jose Canseco!).

Etc., etc.

Of course, you may still argue that, to retain the "purity" of sport and competition, it is necessary to ban certain performance-enhancing drugs. But it doesn't follow from any of this that the race to bulk up to monstrous proportions is in any way anything like a nuclear arms race; applying history lessons learned from the 1980s to the world of professional sport is the kind of folly of which only an academic is capable.

I would also add that Posner's counterpart, Gary Becker, destroys any credibility he has on the issue by misspelling Mark McGwire's name. That is sacrilege.

Texas Has Its Priorities Right

It pays football coaches more than it does teachers, Joanne Jacobs reports.

Clearly, Texans have their priorities in order.

Remind me never to go to Texas, lest they suffer from my withering condescension, the morons. Football, especially high school football, is, to my mind, the biggest pile of steaming dog shit since, well, dog shit.

In Which The Stupidity of the Academy is Laid Bare

Just finished a very interesting book, One Bullet Away, which is a memoir of a guy, approximately my age, who enlisted in the US Marines and fought in Afghanistan and Iraq before leaving in 2004 to return to graduate school. The author, Nathaniel Fick, graduated with honors from Dartmouth College in 1998, and by all rights, should have headed into investment banking or management consulting, as he readily admits.

For some reason, which is never really made clear to the reader, he decides to chart a different course and serve his country. Of course, this decision was made before 9/11 and the War on Terror, but one of the hallmarks of enlisting in the Armed Forces, I suppose, is that you don't know what the future holds, and, enlisting during a time of peace is no guarantee that your life will not be in danger.

He describes his time after leaving the Corps:

I drifted after leaving the Corps. At age twenty-six, I feared I had already lived the best years of my life. Never agian would I enjoy the sense of purpose and belonging that I had felt in the Marines. Alist, I realized that combat had nearly unhinged me....

After channeling all my energy into applying to graduate school, I got a phone call from an admissions officer: "Mr. Fick, we read your application and liked it very much. But a member of our committee read Evan Wright's story about you platoon in Rolling Stone. You're quoted as saying, 'The bad new is, we won't get much sleep tonight; the good news is, we get to kill people.'" She paused, as if waiting for me to disavow the quote. I was silent, and she went on. "We have a retired Army officer on our staff, and he warned me that there are people who enjoy killing, and they aren't nice to be around. Could you please explain you quote for me."

"No, I cannot."

"Well, do you really feel that way?" Her tone was earnest, almost pleading.

"You mean, will I climb your clock tower and pick people off with a hunting rifle?" [Ed: See here for an explanation.]

It was her turn to be silent.

"No I will not. Do I feel compelled to explain myself to you? I don't."

Now, this is probably the best demonstration of the stupidity and insularity with which academics conduct themselves. A couple of observations come to mind: (1) Marines are trained, primarily, to kill; (2) what one says in the heat of battle need not be indicative of what one will say or do in peace time, any more than a woman's ability to fend off a person trying to rape her is any indication of her strength when not threatened; (3) a person who cannot bring himself to say he looks forward to killing the enemy should not be a Marine, or, indeed, any officer of the Armed Forces.

So, here's a man who chose to serve his country at a time when his fellow classmates were working at those lucrative investment banking and management consulting jobs, and, yes, while those classmates were tearing up Manhattan, he, well, he launched a grenade at an Iraqi and blew the guy's head off. Says so right in the book. So, yes, he killed someone. But the killing he did is certainly as justifiable as the rape victim's incapacitation of her attacker.

We can either agree or disagree with the reasons why the US went to Iraq, and we can either support or disavow America's recent militarism. But to insinuate that this man is tantamount to a murderous thug for having chosen to serve his country instead of expatiating upon theoretical abstractions, as most of his demographic (including yours truly) are wont to do, well, that's repellent.

"dead Americans decomposed on American soil"

Trying to wax grandiloquent, the New York Times apparently takes the position that an American who dies ought not to decompose:

The dead man, a black man, had been sprawled like carrion on dry Union Street, just outside a parking garage, for several hot-crazed days after the late August hurricane. The only dignities granted him were a blue tarp across the face and orange traffic cones near the head, placed by a state trooper to keep the milling soldiers and reporters and law enforcement officials from driving over him like a speed bump.

...

A full week after the hurricane, as the colossal forensic challenge before them came more clearly into focus, various government officials struggled with an awkward but unavoidable question: Who is going to pick up the bodies?

Federal and state officials quarreled with one another over who had responsibility for collection: The Federal Emergency Management Agency? Louisiana? The National Guard? Meanwhile, dead Americans decomposed on American soil.

Now, I can accept that the New York Times wants to slam government bureacurats for gross negligence and caprice. But "dead Americans decompose on American soil" all the time; this is what happens to your body when you are dead and buried. (What, you thought that you'd rise from the dead like an angel? You're kidding, right? You're maggot food when you die.) Surely there is a less inane and inflammatory way to describe corpses rotting in the Louisiana sun?

Jesse Jackson Jr Is a Fool

It should come as no surprise that Jesse Jackson Jr is a fool, intelligence being closely linked to one's parents:

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., an Illinois Democrat, says he has allies on both sides of the Wal-Mart battle. The retailer recently opened a new store near Mr. Jackson's Chicago district. About 3,000 people applied for the store's 300 positions. Wal-Mart also hired local minority businesses to do accounting and logistical work for the store. But Mr. Jackson says he isn't ready to move into Wal-Mart's camp.

"I fundamentally believe in a living wage. What I refuse to believe is that the richest company in the world can't pay it. I can't reconcile that," he says.

Some quick observations: (1) Wal-Mart is not "the richest company in the world" as its profits are very small relative to its revenues; (2) Wal-Mart's wealth or lack thereof has no bearing on the wages it "should" pay its workers.

Kill political grandstanding. Elevate man.

And, speaking of racist blacks, let us not forget Wal-Mart's blunder when it had as one of its spokesmen the racist Andy Young:

The company's efforts took a step backward recently when Andrew Young, a former civil-rights leader hired to promote the company in urban areas, resigned under a cloud. Defending Wal-Mart in an interview with an African-American newspaper in Los Angeles, Mr. Young said mom-and-pop stores run by Jews, Koreans and Arabs had been "overcharging us" for poor-quality food. Mr. Young later called his remarks "completely and utterly inappropriate."

Overheard at Starbucks

Being somewhat of a yuppie, I begin my day with a venti soy chai latte from Starbucks. (If you don't know what that is, well, get thee to the twenty-first century! It is the nectar of commerce.)

Anyway.

A wee bit hung over from last night's exertions, I stood on line, and heard a conversation which I can't quite believe:

Son: Dad, what's 3.5 over 7?

Dad: You learned fractions in school. Why don't you do the math yourself?

Son: Yeah Dad but 3.5 isn't a fraction!

Dad: It isn't? Then what is it?

Son: My teacher says it's a decimal.

Dad: Well, what's a decimal?

Son: It's a part of a whole number.

Dad: So that's a fraction right?

Son: No, my teacher said decimals aren't fractions.

No doubt this innumerate kid is a proud product of New York City's public schools.

To adopt a slightly different mantra: Kill puiblic education. Elevate man.

Darwin

Lest anyone still think that man is not descended from ape here is a video showing a monkey doing martial arts.

Lawyer, Spammer, What's the Difference?

In which I take a jaundiced look at lawyers, or, my father used to be a corporate litigator.

When I was ten or so, I was hanging out in his office, and he had a TV, so, naturally bored listening to him tell his minions what to do, I watched TV. All of the sudden an ad came on for a personal injury law firm. Innocently, I asked my Dad how come his firm didn't have ads on TV? Mind you, I asked this question in front of his fellow partners and associates.

Anyway at that young age I learned that there is a hierarchy of lawyers, from which one must not deviate, lest the world stop spinning and we all fly off into space at an angle tangential to the Earth's surface: at the top of this hierarchy are the skilled lawyers who steal money from corporations, white collar defendants, and municipalities, in the form of "litigation." Far below them are the ambulance chasers, those avocats who chase the infirm and the wretched.

I am reminded of this because a lawyer, likely a member of the skilled part of the hierarchy, has unearthed an inept piece of lawyer-marketing by one of the denizens of the lower end of the lawyer-hierarchy:

In any event, Mr. Sheehan did three things wrong. First, his subject line was misleading. The e-mail had nothing to do with a "Wrongful Death Case." Rather, it was a commerical solicitation. Likely, Mr. Sheehan wanted to trick his e-mail's receipients into thinking a potential client, rather than a spammer, was e-mailing him.

Second, since Mr. Sheehan sent the e-mail to the Crime And Federalism inbox, it appears he is harvesting e-mail addresses from law blogs. In other words, he's a professional spammer.

Third, he sent spam to a computer-savvy blogger. Big mistake - times two. I found his e-mail addresses, which I am going to share. And now anyone looking for information on David Sheehan will learn that he's a spammer.

Lawyer-as-used-car-salesman. Where have we heard that before? Seems to me lawyers are always chasing their own tails, claiming they exist on a higher ethical plane than we common folk, and, therefore, they are right to be avaricious pusuers of justice.

But for the fact that what passes for "justice" in lawyer-speak is either slick marketing or else a wanton disregard for the facts (to say nothing of taxpayer or shareholder money).

Let's do away with the idea that lawyers are any more or less honroable than we common folk. Some are competent, many are incompetent, some are upstanding, many operate in a kind of moral squalor. Atticus Finch most lawyers are not. Lawyers suffer from the same deprivations as the rest of man; let us not pretend they are immune from the caprices of man.

Idiots Concerned About Pluto's Status

The freakshows otherwise known as astrologers are concerned about Pluto's demotion:

"Scorpios can be extremely explosive, and very direct, and this could be the trigger that makes them explode," says Milton Black, an Australian astrologer who claims to have more than 580,000 clients. Laura Bush, Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice, take note. All three are Scorpios.

How a group of astronomers decided that diorama you built in grade school has one too many planets.

Yesterday's ruling in Prague brought good news to some. The astronomers indicated that several planet-like bodies -- including the asteroid Ceres and the newly discovered UB313, sometimes known as Xena -- will also be classified as dwarf planets. That has generated excitement among a small group of practitioners known as "minor-planet astrologers" who have long contended that outer-lying asteroids and ice balls exert a powerful tug on our psychological makeup. Some astrologers believe that officially introducing new dwarf planets to the charts might give astrologers additional information about people, by providing more planetary bodies and forces to study in the charts.

"This is a moment that I've been waiting for a long time," says Eric Francis, a minor-planet astrologer who edits the Web site Planetwaves.net. "People are finally talking about Charon." Charon is Pluto's largest moon, which astronomers briefly considered granting official planet status at the IAU meeting.

Mr. Francis and many other minor-planet enthusiasts are interested in raising awareness about Charon and the new dwarf planets, Ceres and UB313, in part because they consider them female planets that would symbolize a rush of new maternal energy into the cosmos.

"Most of our clients are women, and we need stories women can relate to," says Mr. Francis. (A planet's sex is determined largely by the name given to it by astronomers.)

Kill religion. Elevate man.

That this shit should appear on the front page of the Wall St. Journal beggars belief.

By the way, are women really as weak as "most of our client are women, and we need stories women cna relate to" implies? If so, they should no longer have the right to vote or to drive, or to do anything which qualifies them as "human" for those beasts for whom astrology is a reliable guide are not man at all but fool.

Concision

Mantra, again.

Explain the Religious Mindset to Me

Posner on stem cell research:

There are several economic points that spring to mind about the U.S. ban. The first is its futility, and this for two reasons. Since the researchers are not tied to any particular country, the maximum effect of the U.S. ban would simply be to shift all stem cell research to other countries; it would not stop the research and save the embryos. In addition, however, U.S. law does not ban stem cell research, but only the use of federal funds for that research. The main therapeutic applications of stem cell research lie too far in the future and are too uncertain to attract much private investment, given the high discount rates that most businesses use to evaluate projects. But there is plenty of state and especially private charitable spending on medical research, and so the ban on federal funding of this one area of medical research should merely cause a reallocation of research funds. More state and private money will go to stem cell research and more federal money to areas of research that will be receiving less state and private money because more of that money will be used for stem cell research.

But if the federal ban is not affecting the amount of financial support for stem cell research, why are many of our researchers going abroad to conduct that research? Why do countries like the U.K. and Singapore think they can steal a march on us? The answer may be that the U.S. research community does not think that opposition to stem cell research will express itself only in a ban on federal support for such research. Although the Supreme Court has recognized a constitutional right to abortion, it is unlikely to recognize a constitutional right to conduct stem cell research, even if the objections to such research are the same as the objections to abortion. The fact that the objections are primarily a product of religious belief would not invalidate them, because banning stem cell research does not infringe anyone's free exercise of religion or constitute an establishment of religion. Many moral precepts embodied in laws that no one supposes unconstitutional are the product of sectarian beliefs that secular people (or indeed religious people belonging to sects that are less influential in this country) reject. However, most of the precepts themselves, such as the taboo against murder, are shared by people of different, and of no, religious faiths; you don't have to believe that Moses brought the Ten Commandments down from Mount Sinai (you don't have to believe there was a Moses) to condemn murder. In contrast, opposition to abortion and stem cell research is not widely shared by people who do not belong to a particular subset of religious sects.

The loss of leading-edge biological researchers to other countries could be costly to the United States, especially if there are complementarities between stem cell research and other areas of biological and medical research. We may wake up some day to find that foreign institutions have obtained patent protection for highly lucrative medical therapies that our population will demand the government subsidize. I predict, however, that generous state and private funding of stem cell research will stem the reverse brain drain. (And if researchers are easily lured abroad, they are easily lured back.) Moreover, as therapeutic applications of stem cell research become more imminent, the pressure to relax the ban on federal funding is bound to give way.

Now, what's that mantra I keep hearing about?

Oh yes: The only thing I ask of the religious is that they consider the depths to which religious belief has sunk man.

What's that? There's another mantra? Why, you're right: Kill religion. Elevate man.

Yankees vs. Evil

Just in case anyone hasn't noticed, the Yankees are busy kicking the shit out of the Red Sox.

At Fenway.

Boston will continue to lick its wounds, and slide ever further into obscurity.

The Times, They Are A-Changin'

One of the reasons I refer to myself as libertarian-ish as opposed to plain old libertarian is that there are some uses of government power about which I don't get too exercised; among them, most obviously, is the death penalty.

Another argument for which I have little sympathy is the notion that the government ought not be spying on international communications without warrant.

I don't pretend any expertise in the area, however, and therefore, my opinion on it hardly amounts to the veritable hill of beans.

But. There are a lot of people who are knowledgeable about the issue, and the legal problems surrounding it. None of them are too happy with the legal analysis put forth by the peanut-farmer appointee, Anna Diggs Taylor:

The main problems, scholars sympathetic to the decision’s bottom line said, is that the judge, Anna Diggs Taylor, relied on novel and questionable constitutional arguments when more straightforward statutory ones were available.

She ruled, for instance, that the program, which eavesdrops without court permission on international communications of people in the United States, violated the First Amendment because it might have chilled the speech of people who feared they might have been monitored.

I don't pretend to know one way or the other whether this woman's reasoning was competent, incomeptent, or merely inflamed by passion, as some have argued. What I do know is this: the New York Times doesn't get it:

Judge Taylor also ruled that the program violated the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches and seizures. But scholars said she failed to take account of the so-called “special needs” exception to the amendment’s requirement that the government obtain a warrant before engaging in some surveillance unrelated to routine law enforcement. “It’s just a few pages of general ruminations about the Fourth Amendment, much of it incomplete and some of it simply incorrect,” Orin S. Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University who believes the administration’s legal justifications for the program are weak, said of Judge Taylor’s Fourth Amendment analysis on a Web log called the Volokh Conspiracy.

Where's the problem in that quote, you ask? Go to the source: click on the link I give you, above, and see if there is any link to Kerr's blog post.

What's that? There's no link? In the Times' lame attempt at "analysis" it fails to link to the sources on which it bases its analysis? That gets me more exercised than this warrantless wiretapping bullshit.

How stupid is the New York Times?

Link to the ludicrousness that passes for the Times today via Althouse, natch.

UPDATE: I would also add that it appears at least some commenters at Althouse's blog don't understand how newspapers work; they feign surprise and indignation at the fact that the Times' editorial board can be pro-Diggs and, at the same time, report on blawgers who trash the opinion. Talk about not understanding how journalism works. Ignorance on either side of the issue does little to inform debate, no more so than does the Times' resolute refusal to link to those blogs it considers relevant to its reporting.

Cluelessness abounds.

Disinfectant

Disinfectant.

Via Coyote Blog.

Brandeis if you don't get the reference.

Islamofascism

Writes one Roger Scruton in the Wall St. Journal:

Christians and Jews are heirs to a long tradition of secular government, which began under the Roman Empire and was renewed at the Enlightenment: Human societies should be governed by human laws, and these laws must take precedence over religious edicts. The primary duty of citizens is to obey the state; what they do with their souls is a matter between themselves and God, and all religions must bow down to the sovereign authority if they are to exist within its jurisdiction.

That duty to God or belief is subordinate to duty to nation should not surprise anyone; that it irks Muslims who fell maligned when references to "Islamofascism" are uttered by politicians or the media suggests that Islam is no "religion of peace" as its "mainstream" adherents like to claim.

Kill religion. Elevate man.

The only thing I ask of the religious is that they consider the depths to which religious belief has sunk man.

"If your self-esteem requires being told you're attractive by anonymous horny net geeks with their dicks in their hands, you really need to reevaluate your life"

So says Dispatches From the Culture Wars about Jacqueline Passey.

Sure, she's self-righteous and arrogant as hell, but I also think she makes a good point: successful, intelligent, attractive people tend to seek in their mates people they see as their equal. Now, that may not be a truth we all want to acknowledge, it being rather superficial, but it is nonetheless the truth.

Never Forget

If anyone needs a reminder of the depths to which religion can sink man, read this discussion of a group of survivors of 9/11 reminiscing about their experiences.

Then, consider the mantra: the only thing I ask of the religious is that they consider the depths to which religion has sunk man.

Then, go read Becker:

Objectors to profiling of particular groups complain that this would subject many innocent members of groups being profiled to obtrusive and sometimes embarrassing searches and even harassment. No question that profiling of a group inevitably means that innocent members of that group would experience greater delays and more unpleasant encounters than would innocent members of groups not profiled. This is regrettable, but there is no effective alternative to profiling when one or a few groups pose far greater threats than do the rest of the population. To limit the discomfort and anger caused by profiling, members of the profiled groups should be treated politely and with dignity. They should also be reminded that they too are being protected from terrorist activities by a small fringe.

Those objecting to profiling potential terrorists usually want to subject everyone to the same detailed examination and inquiry. However, when potential terrorists are part of a group that constitutes only a small fraction of the population, searching everyone with the same detailed care at airports or at other venues would be needlessly costly and time consuming. This would slow down and thereby reduce air travel and other vulnerable group activities. It would also lead to loud complaints by those affected after the fear of terrorism had abated.

People in the United States and other free countries are gradually realizing that effective conduct of the war on terrorism means that it is no longer possible to have the full complement of liberties they have been accustomed to. Terrorists and suspected terrorists may be subjected to psychological pressures in order to gain vital information, pressures that would not have been acceptable in the past. In addition, government anti-terror agencies will be listening in on some phone conversations, they will inspect some emails, they will check some spending and bank accounts, they will monitor travel, and in other ways too they will intrude on traditional liberties. Of course, profiled groups, including innocent members, would be subject to more extensive surveillance than others. Unfortunately, mistakes will continue to be made, as in the detention by Britain a few months ago of some Muslim men who turned out to be innocent.

There are two enemies in our fight against terrorism: (1) religion and (2) the naive, sentimental, and ignorant belief that all men are created equal.

Neurosurgeons are Not Pharmacologists

Eliot Spitzer is, allegedly, an intelligent man.

He bases his stance on medical marijuana on the claim, by his brother, a neurosurgeon, that "other drugs" work better than marijuana:

A Spitzer spokeswoman says the candidate’s not “ideologically opposed, but scientifically opposed” to medical marijuana use because his brother, a neurosurgeon, has told him other drugs work better. Spitzer is open to analyzing the issue further though, she said.

So, the next time you have a headache, go see an allergist, because hey, it's a doctor as well. No need to see a neurologist. An allergist knows more about biology than you; therefore, that should be sufficient.

Just don't blame me if you die from an aneurysm. Because, really, an allergist is qualified to make an informed comment about your headache.

Huh?

In an article about the alleged dangers that laptops batteries pose in flight (unexpected fires, not terrorism) the Journal explains FedEx's handling of "dangerous cargo":

FedEx says the shipper violated federal guidelines requiring the batteries be packaged in a plastic sheath to protect them from making contact with other objects. Instead they were rolled in cardboard wrapping and placed in a cardboard box with metal tools used to install the batteries. Mr. Sudduth said the tools probably shifted during transit and struck the batteries, causing sparks. The Memphis-based air cargo carrier says it has tightened standards to exceed federal requirements. It now refuses to carry hazardous materials without first confirming they have been packaged according to federal standards.

So, federal guidelines require that batteries be sheathed in plastic, to prevent accidental short circuiting...and so FedEx "exceeds" that requirement by confirming that shipper have met the federal requirement?

And that exceeds the requirement how? Up next: a man who pays his taxes early and therefore "exceeds" the IRS' requirements for tax payments.

Posner on Terrorism

Posner appears to advocate the radical idea that we--the West--are at war with Islam:

Our ostrich brgade may retreat to the claim that "our" Muslims, unlike the British and Canadian Muslims, are fully integrated into American society and so pose no threat. That is false. The percentage of American Muslims who are potential terrorists is undoubtedly smaller than the corresponding percentages in either Britain or Canada. But as there are many more American Muslims than there are British or Canadian ones, and as (we now know) British (and presumably Canadian) Muslim extremists want to attack us and not just their own host nations, we cannot afford to assume that we are safe. Perhaps we shall no longer indulge that dangerous assumption.

Posner is correct. We are at war with an enemy that hides behind the guise of religiosity and piety; politically correct appeals to multiculturalism will not help us vanquish this enemy.

Kill religion. Elevate man.

Mantra: The only thing I ask of the religious is that they consider the depths to which religion has sunk man.

Paroxysms of Existential Despair

A libertarian has paroxysms of existential despair:

Do libertarians honestly believe that there will only be a few creationist private schools? The idea that school choice will end the culture wars, which I’ve read many a time, is downright insane. All it will mean is that even more kids grow up in a bubble of irrationality and godtalk, making things even more fucked up when they grow up and vote.

But I want to believe the public schools are unnecessary; I want to like school choice. The idea of giving a dime of public money to anyone who’s going to talk about Jesus, though, makes me physically ill. Meanwhile, L. is always on my case to be nicer to “people [I] don’t understand,”* and we all have to pay for things we don’t like (Quaker taxes do go to defense spending, after all), so I was trying to make myself buy into the more accomodationist position (which I honestly consider complete bullshit).

How exactly is it "libertarian" to oppose free choice?

Asinine Hyperbole

The New York Times, never known for its intelligence, claims that Staten Island is like Alaska:

There is a place in this city where teenagers go crabbing from the old railroad bridge, where people consider themselves residents of a town of half a dozen rather than of a metropolis of eight million, where the waterfront still harbors ancient secrets along with the inevitable clash of development interests.

It’s called Staten Island. It is the fastest growing county in New York State, yet it remains, in pockets, and in its peculiar way, the Alaska of New York City.

That is, a place where nature, however debased, still plays a role in daily life and where there is room to pursue a dream, whether that means amassing a mansion-full of musty antiques or a yard full of cars up on blocks patrolled by roosters, or building an artwork along a quarter mile of beachfront, or simply drinking a beer outside the corner store without having to hide it in a paper bag.

This Staten Island, somehow urban, rural and suburban at once, is hard to spot from the typical perspective of the nonislander taking a sight-seeing round-trip ferry from Manhattan or driving through to New Jersey and points west. But on a leisurely journey by foot, the island blossoms.

This is, to be sure, rather stupid and ignorant. Alaska is many things, but it is neither urban nor suburban. Alaska is twice the size of Texas, with fewer than 600,000 people. Which implies a population density of less than one person per square mile. Further, Alaska is a place where nature is not "debased" (despite all the prattling from the enviros about the Valdez and the ANWR).

Having actually been to both Alaska and Staten Island, I can tell you that Alaska has as much to do with Staten Island as Al Gore has to do with cogency. Which is to say noe.

Mantra

First, consider the mantra: The only thing I ask of the religious is that they consider the depths to which religion has sunk man.

Then, consider this:

Ervil LeBaron died in the Utah state prison in 1981. Before his death, he reportedly wrote a "bible" which included a commandment to kill disobedient church members.

It was also rumored that he left behind a "hit list" and that some of his 54 children were carrying out his commands.

Jacqueline LeBaron is one of six LeBaron family members charged with the June 1988 murders of three men who chose to leave the sect and the 8-year-old daughter of one victim. Each was shot in the head with a shotgun.

In 1995, three of the accused killers were convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Another was convicted of ordering the deaths and was sentenced to 45 years in prison. The youngest, who was 16 at the time of the murders, pleaded guilty to killing the child and served five years in prison.

Note also the moral lesson: if you kill a kid in the name of religion you will be out of jail in half a decade.

Kill religion. Elevate man.

0!

Of all the things that are certain in life, among them being evolution and gravity, add mathematics.

Anything multiplied by zero equals 0.

Except.

0! = 1.

In Which A Yuppie Wields a Gun to Subdue Canadian White Trash

Priceless.

What's that you say about gun control laws?

In Which I State the Obvious

Companies' market capitalizations are proxies for their skill--or lack thereof--in doing what it is they specialize in doing.

GE's market capitalization, therefore, is a proxy for its finance arm's ability to maintain its AAA rating, Wal-Mart's market capitalization is a proxy for its renown in logistics and efficient operations, and Coca-Cola's market capitalization is a proxy for its ability to sucker people into drinking sugared water like it's going out of style.

What the hell, then, does the following say about FEMA:

FEMA field officials working with the new systems say that their abilities, particularly those of the tracking system, are overblown.

For example, FEMA is equipped to track only the trucks delivering its own pre-positioned supplies. It can't electronically monitor the shipments of private contractors, upon who