Diagnosis: Autism

"Pi Landscape" by Daniel Tammet

So I took the Autism/Asperger's screening test at http://psychcentral.com/quizzes/autism.htm.

I scored a 35 which says that "Autism is likely..."

The quiz was pretty obvious in terms of what makes an "autistic" answer - things like "do you enjoy social situations", that sort of stuff.  But being a geek you sort of naturally fall into the autistic category: intense work in computers, math, and electronics hardware do not fit in well with "I enjoy social activities" and "I can tell what others are thinking just from their face."

No, I probably can't tell what you're thinking just by looking at your - but I can follow a bug for three days in with a multi-threaded asynchronous communications protocol stack in C++ running on a collection of disparate processors and nail it.

No, I'm not "rain man", I can dress myself though I cannot match color well in my own clothing, I can do software sales, I don't count toothpicks or anything like that.  I am, however, dyslexic beyond belief, I can see and hear patterns quite well and I have really "good ears" for musical arrangement and timing.

I became interested in Autism a few years ago after reading a book called "Born on a Blue Day" by Daniel Tammet.  Its a story about his journey through life, Daniel being severely autistic in some ways, and how he dealt with it. 

Of particular interest to me was his description of the number Pi.  He talks about how he was able to remember it to some 22K plus digits and recite them accurately within about five hours.  He explains in the book how all 22K digits of Pi look to him like a colorful landscape - numbers having shape and color - and how the reciting of Pi is kind of like walking through that landscape.

This struck a note with me because, as a child, I used what seems like a similar kind of imagery to remember things like directions, for example, to me "west" is an image kind of like the one above for Pi.

I am not skilled at social interaction, much like Daniel describes himself in the book.  As a child I was often teased.  Later in life my disinterest in social interaction has left me more or less as a "loner" I suppose (hence the name of the blog in some way).

Since ancient times humans have been social creatures - men in particular hunting in groups, chopping down trees, etc.  I, on the other hand, am an outsider, I as I sometimes say, "hunt alone".

This has its advantages and disadvantages.  From a business perspective I have not "followed the crowd" - often being accused of running a "lifestyle business".  This was particularly true in the early days of Lexigraph.  I followed what I believed customers wanted - to the annoyance and anger of those working with me.  I followed my customer's lifestyle making products that worked for them - not my sales and marketing people.

"No, No!" they would cry - you have to play nice and make products like everyone else - if you don't no one will like you.

I didn't agree.  I wasn't running a business to increase my social stature.  I was running it to feed my small children.  My children cannot eat "social stature" for dinner.   I made products that I thought would fit what customers needed, not what every else in the market was doing.

Yet here I am, some 15 years later, still in the same business still selling products based on the same designs and technologies.  All the nay-sayers are gone - lost in the blur of history - no doubt moved on into other industries.  (It turns out a lot of people just kind of live under the management radar and move around from business to business in a herd as industry changes because everyone wants to maintain their social connections.)

I certainly express the same relentless attention focus that the severely autistic exhibit - working sometimes alone on a product for six months or more - risking everything based on what may seem to others like an insane premise.  Lost in a focus so intense time vanishes.

And if you are successful in this regard you are an "evil rich man". 

If you fail you're just a crazy geek.

So what's my point with all this?

First of all I think that the notion of "Autism Spectrum" and particularly some aspects of Asperger's Syndrome are really just efforts by those "in" various social herds groups to characterize those of us who fall outside as somehow "odd" or "sick".  Because we geeks do not go around building networks of social "friends" our thoughts on how humanity at large (and outside geekdom) is organized are never really put out in the open.

After all, since geeks are known to be socially inept who cares what they think....

But, like the underclass of "bell boys and waiters" led by Tyler Derden in the movie "Fight Club", we geeks are also everywhere - fixing your computers, your cars, designing things you need in your everyday life, building Facebook, developing plastics so that the latest cell phone covers don't wilt when you leave them on your car dash board, and so on.

You see, without geeks the rest of humanity would no doubt be still throwing whatever rocks they could find at whatever animals were running by at the time. 

It took a geek to spend the hours, days, weeks, months or even years figuring out how to sharpen a piece of flint reliably into a usable knife - to diddle around in what no doubt seemed like a "social black hole" to friends and family - no doubt ignoring them completely - until that processes of making a better flint knife was completed.

If, on the other hand, our distant ancestor that loved to diddle about with flint, was easily distracted by the latest social gossip he may have never finished learning how to make that knife.

Geeks know that the truth of the matter is that without us there would be no Facebook or cell phones or newspapers or  telephones.  Imagine that world - which of course existed for hundreds of thousands of years - where no one could talk to anyone except those who were right their in front of them.

In those days geeks were the heroes - not  even considered geeks at all.  They made peoples lives easier by finding ways to solve problems.

And today what's happened?

The world of the social in crowd has turned on us - labeling us "sick" or "ill" - casting us out of the very social herd which would not exist as it does today without us.

The Fracking Debate

What is "fracking"?

This is the process when drilling a gas well of fracturing the underlying rock in order to all the gas trapped inside the rock to flow freely to the well pipe.

A few years ago they were drilling gas wells near my home.  I knew nothing about this process so it was quite interesting to watch.  The wells being drilled were called "shallow" wells because they did not penetrate very far into the earth (about 3,500 feet).

Basically the crew flattened what I would guess to be about 1/2 of an acre of ground with bulldozers.  Next they dug a shallow pond and lined it with plastic.  Then they brought in the drilling equipment.  In the case of shallow wells this is basically a semi-trailer with a large hydraulic drill, some diesel, and some drilling pipe.

The drill itself is just a big hydraulic system that spins the drill tip.  The drill tip starts on a section of pipe (about 25 feet long).  The pipe is spun by the drill into the ground using water from the pond as a lubricant.  Once about 20 feet of the pipe is in the ground the next pipe section is attached.  Each section is threaded so the drill stops turning the section in the ground.  Then a new section of pipe is taken from a rotating set of available pipes, positioned over the pipe in the ground, and then spun on until it locks tight.  The drill then continues until the new pip is mostly in the ground and another section is to be added.

(Actually three concentric holes are drilled - the actual well bore hole and two outer holes - one a few hundred feet and one fairly short.  This are filled with concrete in order to stabilize the hole and keep ground water from leaking into the well.)

Drilling to 3,500 feet took about 5 days or so.

When the drilling stops you have a chunk of pipe sticking out of the ground 5 feet or so.  The drilling pipe is thick and has hexagonal walls (I think so the drill has something to grab on to to spin the pipe).

But once the drilling stops no gas comes out...

Why not?

Well, for one thing the pipe is sealed - so no gas leaks into it.  For another there may not even be gas because no one really knows what's below the ground that far.  They can guess but they are not always right.

The next step was for the drilling company to send out a specialized rig with thousands of feet of heavy cable and a winch.  At the end of the cable was some sort of radioactive box with some sensors.  The idea is that the box is lowered into the pipe and the sensors are recorded.  The composition of the bore hole surroundings tells the geologist running the device whether or not a given section of pipe spans a likely gas source. (Gas is often found in shale.)

Now what?  There still isn't any gas...

So how do I get gas to flow into a pipe 3,500 feet away from where I am above ground?

Explosives.

The next step, once we know where the pipe spans the likely gas formations below ground, is to "open up" the pipe so gas can flow into it.  A large shrapnel bomb is constructed with a core of high explosives and a wrapper of shrapnel.  This is lowered into the pipe to the span were the gas is likely to be and then detonated.  The shrapnel pierces the pipe so the gas can flow in.

But even after this only a small amount of gas comes out.

Now what?

Now its time to "frack".  With gas trapped in shale its necessary to create cracks in the shale so the gas can flow to the well pipe.  To do this water (and other chemicals) is pumped into the well hole at very high pressure.  The water flows out the holes blown into the pipe and enters the shale.   Because its under such high pressure the shale fractures (hence "frac'ing") leaving room for the gas to flow.

So why is this so controversial?

First off people are ignorant of geology and physics.  The outer well casings are put in place so that between the steel bore pipe and the ground there is about 2-4 inches of concrete down several hundred feet.  The exact depth of this being determined among other things by the depth of the local ground water.

For some reason people believe that gas would flow either A) through the sides of the well bore pipe and through the concrete casing or B) up from 3,500 feet below to contaminate "ground water".  Neither of which is physically possible (unless something goes drastically wrong which can happen).

(For example, if the casing and pipe broke at the level of 100 feet down were there was groundwater then, if the well were capped, there would be gas being forced into the water table.  However the pipes are 1/2 or thicker steel surrounded by concrete - so they are not likely to break unless something like an earthquake hits.)

The bottom line is that under any groundwater source (which tends to be between about 50 to 400 feet below ground) is shale containing gas - anywhere in the world.  If the gas could flow up to the surface it would have to do it through the local ground water.

But it doesn't.

And between the lower end of where groundwater is and the gas shale is about 3,000 feet of mostly solid rock.  Which is why there is no gas in the groundwater to begin with.

Secondly all the water and chemicals pumped into the bore hole are drawn back out after the fracking.  Otherwise there would be no way for the gas to reach the surface save bubbling through all that water.  The gas pressure is typically 75 psi or higher so have that much pressure under the fracking liquid will only do one thing - make a heck of a fountain.

(All the water used for drilling and all the waste water generated by the well itself are saved in trucks or the pond built at the start.  Nothing spills over onto the ground.)

The bottom line is that there is always danger of something going wrong but its very unlikely a gas well will ruin a water supply.  Fracking has been used for many decades without issue for tens of thousands of gas wells.

Gas well drillers have no right to drill on any property for which they do not have permission by the owner (of either the property, the mineral rights, or both).  So if there is a concern don't give them the right to drill or write a contract that ensures fresh water even if they make a mistake.  If the risk is too high then the well won't get drilled.

If you're "green" you have to follow this line of reasoning:

1) Coal is killing 10,000 people per year.

2) Gas from wells does not kill 10,000 people per year.

3) Gas from wells could replace coal.

4) Are the deaths of 10,000 people worth the very low risk of groundwater contamination from "fracking"?

Newer Marcellus shale wells are 7,500 feet deep - do they pose a threat?

Do they pose a bigger threat because they are deeper?

Do they pose a threat (even a financial one) if they are on your neighbors property but not yours?

The Yerkes-Dodson Law of Arousal

(I bet the title (no pun intended) aroused your interest in this article - but its not about what you think...)

Over one hundred years ago studies were done to determine what "caught people's interest" in things in terms of the amount of information they received.  What was discovered, and what goes by the name of the Yerkes-Dodson law, is that there is a "sweet spot" or "hump" in terms of environmental stimulation and the alertness of a given organism.

For example, too little environmental input and you become bored.  Too much and you are overwhelmed.  But supply just the "right amount" of input and you become happy and busy. 

This is all fairly obvious.

Its not just human's either.  Dogs will become lazy and sleep when nothing is going on and become agitated and wild when someone comes and winds them up with too much play or roughhousing.  But give the dog a job, like guarding the porch or following the tractor and he's both happy and busy.

What's interesting about this law is that a lot of what we do as a society impacts people in the way this law describes.  A while back I wrote in "Too Much Information" about how airline pilots are lulled into complacency by so called safety systems which take over their jobs for them - literally allowing them to fall asleep on long flights.

These effects, though, are not limited to just airline safety systems.

Today a number of automobiles have safety systems of a similar nature: cars that can do "stop and go" on the freeway automatically, cars that parallel park by themselves, and so on.

There is also a correlation between youth, "multi-tasking" and boredom.  Young people, who have grown up on constant digital stimulation are only too happy to have some sort of system take over for them - but often they are so overjoyed that they no longer have a responsibility they actual become less safe.

I think, though, that this is more than just "young people" - its really about society and how it works at a very basic level.

Take the current US debt crisis as an example.

Many people don't even want to think about because it represents an overwhelming amount of information and threat to their well being.  Others are "really into it" and hang on every news report, twitter post, and so on.  The only ones who are "in the sweet spot" on something like this are those that can manage the amount of input they receive on their own.

The "sea of information" on this topic alone is vast, complex and really overwhelming.  Major newspapers have on-site bloggers and twitter posters, constant news feeds, radio updates, video and TV updates, news updates, and on and on.  It constantly changes - one day one side is ahead, the next the other.

The consequences of this problem are large and potentially affect everything from the price of food and gas to the recovery of the job market to the position of the US in the world.

What I see is that people, on their own, will apply the a sort of Yerkes-Dodson filter to this information and bifurcate (divide in two) this overwhelming input.  Most will determine that its all really beyond them and their own lives are filled with enough activity that they don't need to think about this themselves - hence they become "lazy" on the topic and basically ignore it.  Others, often I think a smaller group, will become fully "lit up" by the issue and will dig into it.  Very few will be able to throttle in the information into their own "sweet spot" where they can effectively handle what's going on and filter and process the input in a useful way (kind of right at the split of the bifurcation).

You see this all the time in real life.  Perhaps you meet someone or a group and start or become involved in a conversation.  The topic turns to one of real passion for one of the participants who becomes animated and spews forth a vast amount of information about that topic.

Almost immediately the bifurcation begins.  Some, as they say, will have their eyes glazed over - their minds saying "Ugh! This is not something for me!" for whatever reason and shutting down their brains - becoming "lazy" on the topic.  Fewer will remain and become engaged on the topic.  Most unlikely of all will be that someone in the group shares the passion for the topic and feels "right in the sweet spot" with respect to the conversation.

So the hump of the diagram above is kind of like a wedge.  When we hit some new situation or information the hump generally divides us into two groups.  Those that find the topic overwhelming or uninteresting which pushes us to one the "lazy" side and those that find the topic one which "fires our imagination".

An interesting point about this is that often the information which divides people so readily, and particularly the type of information that drives people to "shut down" and ignore that information is in fact very important to their futures.  Almost as if the realization that "Oh my God! The country is going to hell because of X!" says that even though I could do something about X I won't because its too much (too scary, too whatever).

The bifurcation is deepest when the issues are the most fundamental too, I believe.  The shallowest when the outcome of the discussion basically has no bearing on your life, i.e., talking about Lady Gaga's "meat dress" right after it happens - most everyone can engage on the topic and the split is relatively minor, at least for most people.

This is why people talk about Lady Gaga at parties and not the debt crisis.

This bifurcation is very interesting and really, as I mentioned, goes into the most fundamental forms of at least "mammalhood".  At a clap of thunder some dogs run and hide, others run to the window to see what's going on - more hide than run to the window.  But the clap of thunder splits a larger group into two smaller subgroups - each who react very similarly. 

The larger consequences of this are very unfortunate.

I think this all implies that on "ugly, divisive" topics there will always be a majority that's lazy about the topic and ignores it - even to the point of harming their own interests.

I think this also implies that those in that group will look on the "other group" with disdain: "why are you engaged on this - don't you see how frightening/stupid/ridiculous/.. it is?"

This all implies a sort of Yerkes-Dodson Law of Bifurcation - which basically says that in any given situation the fewest, if any, people will be at the "sweet spot" happily engaged - the tip of the hump in the diagram.  The next fewest will be on the "passionate" side of the split with strong beliefs and engagement.  And the majority will be tuning out the entire affair.

Death Knell for the USPS

The WSJ reports (see this) the USPS is considering using "local businesses" to replace closing local post offices.

Once this starts I do not see how it will (or can) end - particularly with the budget crises (yes, I know, the USPS is not part of the "government"...)

Its a sad day as I once owned a mailing company.  My partner worked in a mailing company that still had Addressograph metal name plates when I met him (I guess I am a real antique).

Once this snowball is rolling I see the USPS eventually breaking even (financially) as something which most people will never hand contact with - instead it will be the local office store, UPS store, Kinko's etc. that you will use for all but the most serious commercial mailing services. Kind of a "router" for mail collected from various other businesses.

The end of an era begins...

A very sad day.

Debtor's Banquet

One of the hallmarks of addiction of any kind is denial.

I summarized the following points for Debtors Anonymous discussed at psychology.com:

1. Lack of clarity about your financial situation.

2. Poor saving habits.

3. Compulsive purchasing on impulse.

4. Struggling to meet basic financial obligations.

5. Living in chaos and drama around money.

Let's look at how our government meets these points.

"Lack of clarity" - the government spends about $44,000 USD per second (from my post "Epic Debt Fail").  It turns out that the government makes about 114,000 payments per hour across all of its systems: social security, welfare, medicare, military, and so on.  These systems are designed, mind you designed, not to stop paying and not to be able to stop making a particular kind of payment.  There is no accounting mechanism to control this either.

So one of the reasons the country cannot weather a violation of the debt limit is that it cannot "manage' its payment system in a meaningful way.  Unlike you, who if you lost your job, would probably still be able to buy food but might stop paying first credit cards, then cars, then mortgage, and so on as things got worse, the government can pay all its bills or none - there is no middle ground.

Because about $20,000 USD of that $44,000 USD is borrowed each second you basically have a direct flow from Treasury U S Bond sales to the check printer.  And because there is no concept of different "systems" that can have their payments "managed" (i.e., stopped or slowed down) you have your basic financial train running down the track out of control.

To put it another way imagine that about 45% of your blood is draining out of your body at any given time and the only way to stay alive is to eat and drink enough food and water to replace that blood supply.  Because you cannot stop the blood flow you must keep eating or you will die.

This is our government on point #1.

"Poor saving" As I wrote before the Social Security system has no cash (I do not believe that the US Government itself has any savings plan either).  Its all been loaned to the part of the government that, as I describe above, writes checks.  I imagine the same is true for the Medicaid and Medicare.  I think no savings qualifies as"poor savings" and telling old folks their future is safe when you have nothing but a safe full of IOUs from an out-of-control financial train wreck in progress ices the cake.

This is our government on point #2.

"Compulsive Purchasing" As if #1 and #2 above aren't bad enough we have the Obama administration spending trillions on health care and stimulus.  Purchasing things on borrowed money when you have no money and no means to payback the money you owe (remember confiscating all the money earned by all the people and companies in the US for one year pays off only the current deficit) seems to fill the bill.  Certainly if your credit cards were maxed out and you went out to buy a new expensive patio set it would qualify.  Same here for the government.

Now you might argue the government can "raise revenue" to cover the short fall and you would be right.  The current deficit is some few trillion dollars and the GDP is about 15 trillion.  This means you would be confiscating about 8% of everyone's income to pay off the debt for the current year.  The trouble is that only about 1/2 of all people in the US even pay taxes so you would have to raise the tax rate on those who do to 16%.  But of those who pay taxes only about 5% pay 80% of the taxes so you would have to change the tax rate for the very top earners to 160% of their income, i.e., they would have to pay more taxes than they earn.

So this is like selling off the kids, their clothes, your retirement, your mom's retirement, and everything else you can get your hands on just so you can shop for more "stuff".  (My grand kids each owe about $50K USD today.)

This is our government on point #3.

"Struggling with day-to-day finances." Not so much of a problem when you can print your own money - at least on the surface.  But remember, every second we go into debt $20K USD.  If you made 50K a year ($4,166 per month) but needed to borrow $1,700 each month just to get buy on food, clothes, car payments, etc. I would argue you were struggling day-to-day.  You might not if you were doing it but you would be in denial.

Our government on point #4.

"Living in chaos over money" Turn on the news.  Today the US is threatened with a poor credit rating because of its irresponsible borrowing habits.  We've maxed out the "new low rate" credit cards and now we're into the 25% annual rate cards. What more chaos do you need?  Both sides propose a meager 3 trillion in savings over 10 years - so $300 billion a year.  We are going in the hole more than that each year and are projected to for the next 10 years.

That's like saying on my $50K ($4,166 monthly) salary where I borrow $1,700 each month I will instead "make a hard cut back" and borrow only $1,200.

Duh?

Only a moron would imagine that doing this would solve the problem.

Certainly it reduces the problem - but my grand children are still $50K in debt.  This just makes reaching $100K in debt take a little longer.

Our government on point #5.

This is total, absolute insanity!

Debit addiction for sure.

And where are the adults?

The US Government is like kids on drugs run amok with mommy and daddy's credit and bank cards.

Will anyone stop this?  Or will will just sell off the house, the car, grandma's house and car, the other kids so finance this spending spree?  (This is what enablers and those that are co-dependent do - rather than face up to the actual problem simply finance the on-going destruction instead - its less confrontational and hey, credit is cheap.)

Some argue "we owe it to the seniors" - and to a point we do.  But government has promised grandma that it instead of grandma's family it will support grandma in the future - using money it does not have nor will have unless it takes it from others and the grand kids.

Do you think grandma wants to see the grand kids sold into slavery?

What kind of promise is this?

Do we owe it to the seniors to the point of putting the kiddies and grand kiddies in debtors prison (saddling them with a crappy government interest rate, stealing their future, etc.)?

The only cure for addiction is for the debtor (in this case the US Governmetn) to hit what they call "rock bottom" and discover that the debtor is responsible for their own actions as well as the consequences of the those actions.

Until someone in the Whitehouse or Congress does we are all doomed to sit at the Debtor's Banquet.

Women Better Off not Being Women

Holly Finn writes a tragic story (excerpted from her book) about infertility here about her efforts to conceive in her early forties. The article goes into horrendous details about the steps she is taking to try to conceive a child. 

(This piece is not about Holly or her personal tragedy per se - her tragedy to me is literally beyond belief - being a woman unable to conceive a child.  Nor is it about how she deals with it (see this). In my own life I have been close to similar tragedy and I know that it can easily scare a woman for life.)

While Holly's story is tragic the real tragedy is that her problems could have been avoided had she simply had children earlier in her life.

I remember personally the horror and shock in 1977 of friends and family when we disclosed that we were having children... 

"How could you throw your life and freedom away like that!"

"That's too much responsibility for some one so young!"

"How will you manage a child - you're barely a child yourself (I was 19, my wife 18)."

The real problem, of course, was not us.  We were merely doing what virtually every couple and parent before us had done for a hundred or so thousand years before us - conceiving children when we were biologically at our most able.  (And no, I don't believe a single "study" telling me how its much better to have children "later in life."  This is simply selfish, ME generation bullshit.)

I have a garden outside - we plant two kinds of seeds - one from the local big box hardware store - one from of the"heirloom" variety.  The difference between the seeds is vast - the heirloom's grow rapidly and reproduce efficiently, almost violently.  The other kind struggle.

The reason for this is simple - the natural genetic diversity of the heirlooms has been developed (bred) over the last centuries for viability, the ability to fruit, and the ability to reproduce. Really no different than us as  humans because, regardless of what you might believe religiously or otherwise, humans have spent a very, very long time  becoming efficient reproducers as well.

Like plants humans are able to reproduce soon after they reach "sexual maturity" - which until very recently was typically "puberty."  Before about 1960 or so no one did much to interfere with this process (there was no female oriented birth control and in general there wasn't much birth control at all).  Before this, in the middle ages for example, girls were married on average around mid to late teens - males somewhat later.

This is just like my heirloom seeds.  The plants, like us, reach sexual maturity, they flower, the insects come and pollinate them, and they bear fruit.

But poor Holly was blindsided along the way by the 1960's ME generation.

This generation that thought women were better off not being women, not having children until late in life, if at all, and certainly not at the whim of any man.  Holly, being younger than me by some thirteen or so years, no doubt heard far worse than I did about the evils of children and men.  I imagine the message was well entrenched in, for example, schools by that time (middle to late 1980's).

By the time Holly was a young woman (say 18 or 19) the message of the evils of having children "young" had had time to hit home - leaving poor Holly to wander through her twenties and thirties without a concern about having children.  Modern medical science no doubt helped to ease the journey with its spurious successes with things like IVF.

However, like garden plants, human reproductive biology does not listen much to what society says or the reason it gives for delaying children.

If you garden you know what happens to plants that are not fertilized at the right time - they tend to bear bad fruit if they bear any at all.

Sadly this is biological fact.  The viability of the plants sexual organs diminishes as time advances.

Which makes me wonder about the so called "logic" of those who clamor to move back child bearing to the late thirties or forties.

And this, of course, is the real tragedy.

Who are these "people" (or experts or whoever) who like Satan whisper into little girls ears that they should in fact not be little girls, should not grow into women, should not give in to their desires to marry, should not bear children until they are forty and have had time to "enjoy life"?  Clearly Holly is not now "enjoying life".  Would she have been better off with children at a much younger age?

What I see is that these "idiots" are in fact the divorced, burnout ME generation idiots who ruined their own lives with drugs and superfluous sexual relationships and now want you to ruin yours too - so you can be like them and there make them feel better about themselves.

The problem was that they were put on TV (because that's all there was in the 1960's and early 1970's) or in books and newspapers as if they were some kind of societal experts on human reproduction when in fact they were merely trying to convert the rest of us to their self centered ME-first way of thinking.

(Fortunately for me my young wife paid this bullshit no heed what-so-ever.)

Holly though, like many others, was drawn into the flame.  It all "sounded" logical - wait until you are older, have a career, have money, pick the right person to marry, blah, blah, blah...

The only problem was that it did not (and still does not) make any biological sense what-so-ever.

And more than likely Holly's problems were compounded by the trickery human birth control pills play on the female mind (see "Failing Our Future") - causing them to choose mates less wisely and without the underlying biologics to choose the best partner for conceiving children.

There are many studies that show human love is very much like an addiction (while lust is much like opiate addiction, oxytocin, on the other hand, helps with the sexual imprinting that makes bonds last a life time).  In Failing I describe how modern birth control pills destroy these processes as well.

At the end of the day I see Holly as being literally robbed of her womanhood by a foolish, selfish society that cares only for the individual ME and what it can "have" and not for couples or children or families.

(I recall living in New York City in the late 1970's with our two small children.  We could have made money as freaks in a sideshow so rare was our condition. Twenty year old parents with two tots.  And what irony that any time in the preceding hundred thousand years we would have been considered "old geezers" with children.)

Where is the "social justice" for Holly?  For her robbery?

Why must Holly and others pay for this through the price of excessive and more than likely useless fertility treatments?

Will Holly have a child?  Will that child pay for this with biological problems caused by diminished reproductive capability?

While no one can answer these questions it would be nice for those responsible for Holly's plight to at least own up to it...

Uncle Sam: Debt Addict...

I always wonder why our government here in the US uses a double set of standards in accounting.

If you own a business or company that is "public" you are required to report your financial information according to FASB - a standardized set of accounting rules.  This ensures that company A reports profits and losses the same way as company B so that investors who purchase shares of a company (or who work there) have a rational understanding of how the company is doing.

Congress, states and other non-corporate municipal entities are under no such obligation.  They can report however they like.  Now certainly if they sell bonds then they have to follow the rules there but in general there is little to pin down exactly where things are financially - after all - these are governments and they'll never default, right?

Well, I found this the other day at the WSJ:

"... For example, if Congress had submitted fiscal year 2010 financial reports of our country in a fashion similar to a corporation, the U.S. would show a negative net worth of $44 trillion, an operating loss of $817 billion, and $1.3 trillion of negative cash flow..." (from this).

Now what this means is that Congress (the USA) owes about three full years of Gross Domestic Product (3 x $15 trillion USD) in debt while spending $1.3 trillion USD more than it took in.

Personally I believe the "net worth" number is probably much larger due to social security, medicare and other long term obligations.

Congress does not have to account for these, though, in its budgets - which is fantastically childish, irresponsible and foolhardy.

The congressional view of "financial obligation" revolves around the fiction that a "budget" is only for one year, i.e., can I cover my costs for this year only. 

And most troubling they are under no obligation to account for more than the current interest payments due on debt in the current year.  So this is more or less like a twenty year old kid with their first credit card running up a bill they don't really understand the magnitude of long term.

This year's Congress is only concerned with whether or not they can make the payments and not what payments do to the country in subsequent years.

So the mentality goes like this in the Congress:

"Its November and I want to by a Maserati.  Now it costs $250K but I only have $20K in my pocket.  If I buy it on time I'll only need to make two $10K payments this year.  My car budget for this year is $20K so I am in like Flynn!"  I go down to the dealership and close the deal.

This is a familiar story to anyone with adult children learning to live on their own.

What's even more fascinating is that even if the Congress took every penny every person and company in the entire USA made for a year they'd only have about $14 trillion USD.

That's the currently outstanding "borrowing" obligation of the US - but that's only in "short term notes" like US Bonds and excludes the aforementioned social security and so on.  Basically this is like having an income of $50K and having credit card debt equal to $50K.  Sure the "minimum payment"might only be around $1,500 USD - but the debt never goes down at that rate.

The $44 trillion "negative net worth" would be like, in addition to the $50K in credit card debt having a house on which you also owe $150K.

So to sum this all up the USA has a "debt addiction".  Its an addiction because the Maserati mentality of buying things you cannot afford is tied up in a situation where the person is already in $200K worth of debt.

Just like with gambling and other addictions doing "more" of what your addicted to does not help the problem.  After all, who hasn't at some point in their life been asked by a "relative" with a gambling or drug addiction for that extra $100 bucks to get them through whatever - all with the promise to repay you tomorrow (still holding your breath?)

This would be high comedy if it were not so tragic.

Now the country is faced with the following dilemma:

Big brother is $200K in debt on his $50K a year job - and the credit card companies are clamoring to cut him off - there is no longer joy at the bank - the mortgage is coming due, and so on.

Is big brother going to take every penny he earns for a year and pay off his credit cards?

Sure he is - but he needs you to loan him $1,000 USD so he can get started....

SO big brother figures he can confiscate little brother's money - beat him up, whatever, and get some cash.  Now little brother has been down this road many times before.

What does little brother do?

He knows he's going to get beat and he knows his wallet is going to be lighter.  Since he's the responsible one what does he do?

A) Borrow money.

B) Nothing.

C) Start hoarding and hiding cash from big brother.

If he's not stupid C because that's the only way to limit his overall losses.

This is also why the economy is crap - no one wants "big brother" and his debt addiction to harm them - so they sit and wait for big brother to go down or get his shit together.  If they do get hit by him they want the result to do as little damage as possible.

And there you have the US economy in a single dysfunctional family nutshell.

From this: "Debt addiction is more than compulsive shopping. Someone who is addicted to debt uses debt as a crutch for solving their financial and personal problems without any plan for living differently or getting out of debt."

1) Its run so badly that they don't dare use their own legally required methods (imposed on "everyone else") to report on their own financial status (this is GA or AA calls "denial").

2) The use thuggery to extract from others to continue their addiction beyond what they themselves can afford.

3) They support their addiction by continuing to "borrow" what they cannot afford to borrow when they can borrow it.

Those that wink and look the other way are what again GA or AA call "enablers".

An "enabler" does not buy the drugs or go to the horse track - but they make sure that the one with the addiction is not hindered in his or her progress to self destruction.

"Oh, need a ride to the track?  Sure, hop in..."

Enablers are just as bad as the addicted because they positively reenforce the addiction.

Take away the enablers and the addictee hits bottom quicker and harder.  Often enablers and addtictees are co-dependent - read this about drug addiction to see how this applies here.

There days few people live without coming across the path of someone addicted to something.

The question is what do you do about it?

Adobe doesn't Get Along with Lion...

The wonder of Lion brings Apple again squarely in the face of Adobe.

Apparently many wonderful features including Rosetta aren't available in Lion (see this) magically rendering many of the older beloved CS* (Creative Suite) versions other than 5 useless or nearly so...

Thanks Apple.

Thanks Adobe.

"Backward" Scrolling Exposes Apple's Split Personality

I've been reading some of the reviews of Apple's new OS X Lion release.

I think its easy to see that Apple is at a tipping point with this - and not a good one.  I have used Apple products for my primary work functions for nearly a decade now - servers, laptops, networking equipment.  (I still use PC technology as well - my customers all use PC's - but the software I develop is always developed on a Mac first.)

Steve Jobs has been reported to say that he is grateful that devices like the iPad and iPhone hide the notion of files, the "Finder" or "Explorer", etc. from the user.  I can understand this because he wants people to use things like iPads instead of "computers".  iPads represent a neat, clean business model for him - no real support issues, no one calling with software problems, no muss, no fuss as they used to say.

But with Lion this is taken to the extreme.

For example, on my MacBook Pro laptop there is an integrated touch pad.  A "two finger gesture" of swiping up or down scrolls the screen - albeit in the opposite direction.  (When I move my two fingers up the screen scrolls down and vice versa.)  On an iPad where you are scrolling the actual view you are looking at the opposite is true - dragging your finger down drags the image or view down and exposes more of the top of the document or view.

Sadly, out-of-the-box, Lion works like an iPad scrolling the screen in the opposite direction from Snow Leopard, its predecessor.

Nice.

How about changing the direction of gravity as well?  Or the direction water flows to up?

Making a Mac like an iPad is fine if someone is only a casual user.

But I have to ask Steve "What about the rest of us?" 

I am a software developer and I like (save for comments I have made here about the latest XCode 4 platform) the environment - particularly for software development.

(Whenever someone asks why I would spend so much more money on a MacBook Pro than, say, some $1,000 USD PC laptop I reply with a simple question:  How much time during a given day do you stare at a spinning hour glass, frozen screen, etc.?  The answer is almost always at least ten minutes.  I point out that that's 2,500 minutes a year or about a week of time - useless while you sit idle.  I then point out that my time is worth at least $2,500 USD a week and so buying something that eliminates $2,500 USD of wasted time and money is at least a break even for me, i.e., it doesn't really cost me anything, plus I am not disrupted by random delays and thrashing in the middle of work which makes me more productive.)

I like the Mac, I like the way it is, it works well for what I do as it I am sure does for others as well.

The iPad is fine for what it does as well - but it doesn't do software development - and that's what I need to do.

Sadly, when companies reach a certain critical mass and mass market they forget what got them there in the first place.  Apple today is nothing like it used to be.  Today its a consumer giant - and that's fine and good for them.

(I worked in a NYC law firm and the partner next to my office did the initial IPO for Apple back in about 1980 or so - some 30 years ago.  Look where they are today - with some 70 billion dollars US in cash plus the iPad/iPhone market - who'd have thunk it back in 1980.)

But getting so large and so consumerish comes with a price - the price of always having to make big leaps forward.  When you're that large then all the small predators see you (or the food that falls out the sides of your mouth or your droppings) as a meal ticket - just like Apple did when it first started up all those years ago.

I have complained here about XCode 4 as well - its the same mentality as Lion - creating all powerful, wondrous UI's that do everything. 

But sadly they do it badly.

Steve - I know you are off on health leave and this is usually what happens when the founder loses control, but geez...

Messing with the core products developers use to create Apps for your App Stores is a bad thing - particularly when you make stupid and pointless changes to UI's for the sake of consistency with another, to my mind, unrelated product.

I like your existing OS X products as computer products - they are not consumer products.

I like your consumer products as consumer products - I own and use those two.

I do not like you changing the former into the latter because the former is not broken.

I agree with you that the market for consumer products is far larger than for computer products.  But I would like to make a living (and help you with yours) by developing software for your consumer products on your computer products.

Please don't break the value and wonder of your products for software people - after all its the lifeblood of your App world.

Don't castrate OS X  to make it more "consumer friendly".  Its not really a consumer product.  iOS is.

We need it to do what it does today without making it into a "me too" iOS shadow of its former self.

TSA: My First Cavity Search

From the title: "Helping your child understand why he may pose a threat to national security."

The original French version (circa 2008):

No doubt these are satire.

As seen on a TSA computer at an airport (no doubt this is the TSA using "My First Cavity Search" for humor on the job):

No one has been able to contact the photographer on Flickr to determine if the shot is real - but I imagine that it is from the looks of it - especially if the "Cavity Search" image predates the photo.

In Britain it would seem that the new, nude full body scanners violate child protection laws (see this).

Ostensibly one of the reasons pat downs are so intrusive is to "encourage" people to use the scanners.

Watch the video below and ones like it from YouTube.  Seems like the message it sends kids is "its okay to let government people do the things mommy and daddy tells you to run screaming for help from..."

I leave you with this (scan ahead to about 55 seconds if you're in a hurry - seems to meet the "unwanted touching" definition of rape - if you don't believe me try the same thing with a child you don't know of the opposite gender in front of a school - see what happens):

Access to Your Own Health Data

Marcellus Shale - Like the Wild West

I saw an article over in Information Week about accessing your health care data.  Basically right now you can't.  You can't see test results, doctors notes, assessments, treatment history, anything.

Of course the information is all there - usually in thick files hanging on the wall somewhere - but you can't use it.

Imagine if car repair worked the same way.

You take the car in, the mechanic looks it over, "hmmmm" he says, take it over to Bob's Auto Yest and have him do this.

He hands you a cryptic sheet.

You go to Bob's.

Bob hooks up wires and tubes to the car, runs some machine and says "Oh no."

"What's the matter?" you ask.

"Nothing you would understand," says Bob.

He scribbles on more paper, hands it back and says you'd better have your mechanic look check this right away.

"Oh," he says, "and here's a bill for $350.00."

Back at the garage the mechanic takes the paper from Bob's and looks it over.

"No, no," he says, "that's not right."

"Here," he says to you, "take it Frans and this time have Fran check this the way I wrote it down..."

You get another cryptic piece of paper...

And on it goes.

How long would you put up with this?

No information about what's going on, unable to see what their talking about, not knowing what's wrong, being shunted from specialist to specialist only to get no useful result.

Now even if your not a doctor you know how long its been since your last test, what the doctor told you about it and your problems, what drugs you might be taking, and so on.

Why does the medical establishment think you have nothing to contribute?

Its your body after all...

But the internet is changing all of this and soon you may have access to it all.

But that won't come without some danger and some responsibility for you.

As I wrote in "Surgical Ritual or Ritual Surgery" a while back the medical establishment is not real big on modern conveyances.   For example, check lists, a recent addition to the surgical process at VA hospitals, used to ensure that the right surgical procedure are used on the the correct patient produce remarkable results (remarkable in the sense of an 18% drop in surgical deaths).

That's right - just use a simple check list like grandma had for going to the grocery store to ensure your doing the right thing to the right patient - and 20% fewer people die (imagine how many surgeries the VA does in a year).

Now I would imagine that you wouldn't need a medical to degree to see that the test results were yours if you had access to your health records - and that alone might save your life.

Of course, all this is not really why the medical folks don't want you (and your lawyer) to have access to your records.

If you read this book you will be offered a glimpse into what really goes on on the world of medicine:

"Jauhar feels responsible when he botches the blood pressure check on a patient who later dies during an aortic dissection and when he misses the high blood sodium level of a man who then suffers irreversible brain damage."

The Information Week article misses this crucial reason why medical records are private - lawsuits.

Imagine what a skilled trial lawyer would do with the information in the book I quote above from "Intern: A Doctor's Initiation" by Sandeep Jauhar.  Jauhar goes into much more detail than this - about how deaths are handled and reviewed, about how deaths are looked at as "teaching moments" for interns.  If this book does not make your skin crawl I don't think anything will.

Right now I own a large piece of property over what's called the Marcellus Shale - an area full of natural gas deposits.  Hucksters call constantly looking to drill wells, purchase rights, run pipe lines, dig lakes, you name it - and that's with gas at around $4.00 (natural gas MMBTU's - its been as high as $15 per MMBTU).  They are all looking for that big natural gas payday.

It's kind of like the wild west.

In the case of health records the raw data itself will be like the bonanza of gas deposits for the lawyers.  I can seem them now hiring droves of interns to send out letters:

Dear Sir/Madame:


Please assign your patient lawsuit rights to Hackem, Chopem, and Suem.  We promise to get you the highest return for your lawsuit dollar and we only take 60%!

We will use our automatic healthcare trolling system to scour your records for mistakes, misdeeds, unfortunate circumstances, etc. - all at no cost to you.

Call today at 1-800-SUE-DOC


Sincerely

No doubt this will ensure medical costs stay low in the future...

Open Mic at Mike's New Moon Saloon - Thursday's

Thursday's 8 PM to Midnight in Gibsonia, PA

Mike's New Moon Saloon
2059 Saxonburg Blvd
Gibsonia, PA 15044
Phone: (724) 265-8188

Located in Northeastern Allegheny county - Easily accessible from Rt 228, New Kensington, south Butler, Freeport, Natrona Heights.

Good prices on drinks and food. Friendly atmosphere.

Hosted by "Tex" from Zig Zag.

Mike's on Facebook...

Directions via Google Maps...

Cheating in School: It's Not Your Child...

Leon Trotsky

A few weeks ago while Mrs. Wolf was out of town I was sitting in a restaurant waiting for my food.  Across the isle from me another waitress was having a conversation with a couple seated at a table:

"Oh, you teach too .... blah blah blah."

"Yes, I sub middle school in district XXX and privately for YYY," said the waitress.

More enthusiastic discussion.

Then I heard "Oh I agree! There really isn't any time to teach reading and arithmetic with all the test preparation..."

"Absolutely!" said the other.

My fork fell to the table, my mind twisting in agony about jut what kind of middle school standardized tests didn't require reading and arithmetic to complete.  Were they just pictures and diagrams like you see on those IQ test things on the web and in Sunday paper magazines? 

Maybe they were science tests (I guess with pictures and diagrams and videos) - but then "preparing for the test" would sort of defeat the purpose of a test designed to measure your knowledge of, say, science.  Sort of like fudging your data to meet a particular conclusion and then writing about it in a prestigious journal....

No, it was far, far worse than I had imagined.

First there was this article from the Pittsburgh Tribune Review.  Basically the issue is the 2002 Federal law that requires school districts test children's progress on a regular basis.  The law, promoted by George W. Bush and Senator Ted Kennedy, is alarming simple:

If a school receives Federal funds than that school must periodically test their students to demonstrate that the students are in fact learning, i.e., the Federal dollars are being used to actively improve the kids education, as opposed to, say, putting a wide screen into the teachers lounge.  If the tests do not show the students knowledge progressing then the school could lose Federal funds.  The basically requires two things from the school districts according to the article: success and accountability.

Now I would imagine that this kind of testing requires that everybody know the same basic skills and facts, i.e., we can all add and subtract correctly, perform story problems, know basic history, multiply, divide, logically work through problems, that sort of thing, and they everybody moves along - gaining in skills and ability over time.

This seems obvious to me.

Secondly, I would imagine that the law demands that the districts be accountable for what's done in the name of testing, i.e., no cheating, no teaching to the test, that sort of thing.

Without this the law is being circumvented as is the child's education.

Seems pretty straight forward to me - our tax dollars at work so we expect no sleeping on the job, doing the job you were hired for, etc. - making sure little Suzy and Johnny get a good education and know how to add, cypher, and read.

But always the "administrators" quoted in these articles talk about how "philosophically" they agree with the law don't like the details of the law - how its onerous and difficult to meet.  Then we start to read about "cheating"... maybe, sort of, not actually, reportedly, criminally... both in small Pennsylvania towns as well as in big school districts like Atlanta (see this).

Then my blood starts to boil...

In my world everyone is accountable for what they do - drive through a stop sign and a cop sees you - instant ticket, that sort of thing.  While you could go to the judge and claim that while you "philosophically" agreed that stop signs are a good idea I think you would be hard pressed to convince her that you needed more to time "to learn how to meet the requirements" of stopping.

Most real grown ups have jobs that require accountability - whether driving a truck or running a business - customers depend on you meeting your mutual goals.

And if you don't meet them you could be fired, lose your job or lose your business.

But I guess teaching is an exception - or at least it was - and I suppose that's why there is such "resistance" to the law.

Just look at the Atlanta story.  A full decade of potential cheating.  Up to 178 teachers and administrators facing potential criminal charges.  But don't worry, parents, the District Administrators attorney claims that she didn't do anything intentionally wrong.

So tell me Ms. School Administrator...

If you are teaching the child to take tests how can you graduate a kid who understand the objectivity required, for, say, something like science? 

It sure seems to me that the real message being demonstrated to the kids in all of this is that its okay to tailor what you do for a needed result.

There is an old quote to that effect: "The ends justifies the means."  A common source for this quote is Leon Trotsky - a Marxist from the early Soviet Union.

Apparently ensuring the administrators and teachers jobs though continued Federal funding justifies cheating on standardized tests.  Of course that's more important than actual education or what the child actually learns.

Not only are you failing to teach but you are also creating in the child a philosophy that its okay to cheat in some circumstances.

So what do these teachers tell the children about cheating when caught in class?

Do yo think the children believe what they hear?

I wonder...

So we should not be surprised at our country's lackluster rating in world education standards.

So we should not be surprised that we are falling behind to foreign powers like China.

So we should not be surprised that little Suzy and Johnny have no moral character (even if you are an atheist, at least an ethical one, this is problematic) and see no issue with cheating to get ahead.

So we should not be surprised that things are going to hell in a hand basket.

I am sure this will not be the end of the problems, that they are not local to Pittsburgh and Atlanta.  That there will be more and more reports of the "ends justifying the means".

More Damning of Circumstantial Evidence

The "Monty Hall Problem"

I have discussed circumstantial evidence and why I believe its wrong to use it in a court case previously in the posts "Through the Keyhole" and "Casey Anthony and Circumstantial Evidence".

This post is about yet another reason to distrust "circumstantial evidence" in a court room situation.

There is a tendency in the human mind to impress upon situations what we "think" is probable.  As an example imagine that I ask a large audience to sit facing me.  I flip a coin five times and, while not letting the audience see the result, I claim to broadcast the results psychically to the audience.  I ask them to write down the heads/tails sequence they believe I am sending them.

I next explain that its very unlikely anyone will have received my psychic transmissions correctly because, well, that would require psychic transmissions to be real.  So I reveal the actual coin sequence, for example, THHTH (T = Tails, H = Heads) and, surprisingly, a number of people raise their hands and show that they have in fact written down the correct sequence of heads and tails.

(This example is summarized from this.)

At issue here is the audiences expectation of randomness (and presuming also that no actual psychic transmissions are occurring).  Any non-mathematician audience member is likely to write down something that to them does not appear to be random, i.e., they will likely not write down HHHHH,  TTTTT or THHHH, even though these outcomes for five coin flips are just as likely as any others.  Instead they are likely to write down something like HTHHT which to their mind's experience appears to be more "random" and hence more likely.

Should I actually flip HHHHH or TTTTT then probably no one will get it right.  But more often than not I will flip something that appears to match our expectations of "randomness" and someone will have made up a random sequence to match.

Another example of this type of confusions is called "The Monty Hall Problem" (see this video for a clear explanation).  This is another example of a counter-intuitive result based on what looks like a simple probability problem.

Given these types of examples I am going to now claim that by using circumstantial evidence is a court room situation there is much more than the prosecutor trying to claim that A implies B implies C where there is no direct evidence in the chain of events.

So imagine that the prosecutor, knowingly or not, assumes the roll of me in the first example above.  The jurors are the "audience members".  Now by presenting the facts in such a way as to control the outcome the jury expects to see the prosecutor has a distinct advantage over the defense.

The first advantage is the mere fact that the court case has gone to trial at all.  The jury must, even subliminally, believe that there is at least some merit to the charges otherwise there would not be a trial at all.  In my example this is the role of "psychic transmission" (some 70-80 percent of the population believes in the paranormal according to this).

Next the prosecutor divulges a "theory of the crime".  This involves demonstrating a logical chain of deduction going from the crime backward (or forward) through some chain of reasoning to the defendant.  Something like:

E: "Joe killed Sally."

D: "Sally is dead of a gunshot wound."

C: "Joe was at Sally's house the day she died."

B: "The day before Sally is found dead Joe bought a gun."

A: "The week before Sally told Joe their relationship was over."

So the prosecutor tells the jury that A implies B implies C implies D implies E.  The desire is that the jury converts each of the "implies" steps along the way to "causes", essentially like writing down the expected result of the coin toss.

In cases with all or mostly circumstantial evidence, as with Casey Anthony, this is the only real chance for the prosecution: to convince enough of the jurors that they guessed at or concluded the same implications between each of the steps as the prosecutions theory put forth.

To convict someone of a crime you actually need a causal link between the events, e.g. A caused B, that leaves no room for doubt.  Yet, like the coin toss example, if you have a propensity to believe something (paranormal or that no mother would kill her own child) to begin with your mind is going to fabricate the "causal" implications for you.

The problem, of course, is that there isn't necessarily any link at all between each of  the events, just as there is no link between the results of one coin toss and the next.

So, based on circumstances and without causal links between events your predisposition to believe something is going to be what drives your conclusions.

Yet people, due to reasons they may not even know, create these implications out of whole cloth.  They literally make up links between events just like they make up "random" coin toss results.

Most people, and even many mathematicians, have a hard time excepting the "Monty Hall Problem" because it is so counter-intuitive.  And given a jury of lay people, more than likely without even basic mathematical training in probability, its a good bet no one will see beyond the theory of the prosecution to the weak logical foundation upon which it must rest (if there was real evidence people would expect to have seen it - again just like the Casey Anthony trail).

When there is a discussion of the apparently non-existent "CSI Effect" among prosecutors it is much more likely they are seeing the results of education over the centuries.  In the 1600's people believed in witchcraft as an actual "cause" for things and few had any education at all.  Today most people have at least heard that paranormal events are not real and have probably had to sit through at least one year of mathematics education where probability is presented.

Its little wonder today's juror is going to expect more than the A, B, C, D, E I presented above as the reason to convict Joe.

And this is not what the shrieking female talking head prosecutors want to hear - because causally linking A to B and so on is hard.  Much harder than they are perhaps used to.

Giving Up Your Password: A Fifth Amendment Issue?

I found this link today regarding the case of a woman, Ramona Fricosu, in Colorado.  Apparently she and others were allegedly involved real estate fraud ring of some sort - information about which was supposedly stored on a particular hard drive on a laptop she possessed.

The woman was arrested and the laptop seized based on a wiretap.

After seizing the laptop authorities discovered that the files on the laptop were encrypted at which point they demanded (or attempted to force) the woman enter her password in order to decrypt them.

Fricosu claims that this act, of entering the password, is the equivalent of incriminating herself and is therefore protected by the US Constitution's Fifth Amendment (see underlined portion): "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation posted this link to a brief they filed in the case.

Their claim is that this is a clear Fifth Amendment violation.

I agree that this should be the case - and the implications of it are quite fascinating...

For example, does what I do at, say amazon.com, get "protected" because the site requires a password from me to access?  Clearly there is the implication by amazon that using the site with a password is for my protection and privacy.

Then there is the following:  Though the data at amazon is password protected portions, let's say my "recommended list" for example, might not be - but access to them is controlled by the password.

By extension would this "recommended list" be in some way protected by the Fifth Amendment because its access is limited by my password, or put another way, does my mere belief by me that the password protects my amazon information (which authorities might compel amazon to release without my permission) some how grant "constitutional protection" to what's behind the password.

In the past the Supreme Court has found that a password is like the combination to a safe and unlike the key to a safety deposit box - the difference being the key exists in the physical world and the password or combination exists in the defendants mind.  Further they found that forcing the defendant to compel the password demonstrates that the defendant in fact knew the password (which was not necessarily a foregone conclusion) and that it also links the defendant to the device requiring the password (again not necessarily a foregone conclusion).

There is, however, an exception - when the surrender of the password to access encrypted information is merely a foregone conclusion, i.e., the evidence so insurmountable against the defendant that disclosing the password would not change the state of the case against the defendant.  So, for example, if the government had other evidence (which it does not in this case), say an email, indicating that on "such and such a laptop X exists" there might be reason to compel the defendant to disclose the password.

I think this is a very interesting case that will take a long time to resolve.

At its core the issue is the protection of what's in someone's mind and encryption is a game changer in that respect because there is no means to circumvent it - unlike a safe which could be cut open.

In 1991 PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) became available (a public key encryption system) - it was at the time considered a "munition" by the US government - and its creator, Philip Zimmerman was pursued by the government for several years because of it.  Ultimately though he was exonerated.

Why was it considered a "munition"?  Because governments do not like citizens to possess things they cannot access - rightly or wrongly.  PGP is basically unbreakable encryption so, in the case of Fricosu, the government cannot "crack open the safe" if Fricosu doesn't give up the password.

With the power of today's computers virtually everything from text messages to Skype to email and beyond could be protected in this way.

Modern Child Abuse

I about 1964, when I was about 7 years old, I was allowed to ride my bicycle to my friends farm to work.  This required a trip of about a mile down the road I lived on (which had no published speed limits) and another 1/4 mile down another road that my mother deemed "dangerous".  I was to walk my bike down that road.   Needless to say I did not.  Besides this...

We played in houses under construction climbing up and down ladders and catching birds trapped inside.

We road steer bareback and got a few good kicks to show for it.

We road the corn elevator to the top of the barn and jump down through the hay loft.

We skated on thin ice at local ponds.

We drove tractors and ploughed fields for pay.

We sat alone in cars while our parents ran errands or worked the fields.

We made explosives, rockets, used gun powder, and various motorized devices we rode on the road.

Most of my friends went hunting with real, loaded guns.

We went to school and the bus stop in -30 degree weather.

We were expected to be tough by our peers, the older sibling and our teachers.

Bullies were something to overcome to prove your mettle.

None of us wanted to be "that little kid" or "so and so's little brother" because that meant we wouldn't be allowed to do something fun, exciting and dangerous.

While there was always fear of injury the worse fear was that "so and so's big brother" who let us drive the car or whatever would A) get in trouble if we were hurt and B) take it out on us if we did.  (Besides, falling down out of a tree you were climbing made you look just plain stupid - so safety was important - just not for the reasons today's "Modern Mom" might think.)

Yet in my 100 or so square mile world no kid died, no one was injured seriously, no one went to the hospital, and, for the most part, no one's big brother got in trouble. (Tangling with specific farm machinery - combines in particular - was a known killer and dangerous.)

We didn't want to be kids - being a kid was like being a third wheel - useless.

"Ha ha - little Eddy has to sit home and watch TV." - the death knell for having a social life.

Twenty years later my own children had various adventures - one heading to the park to play with older siblings and falling off the "big slide", that sort of thing.  Everyone survived.

They were driven by the same motives as I was - to be grown up - to cross the "Ardmore" alone or, better yet, cross the "Ardmore" free on your own bicycle.  (We lived in town...)

Today me, my wife, and my parents as well as all the other parents of kids I grew up with would be in jail for child abuse, child neglect and God knows how many other legal infractions to numerous to count had today's court system known about what we or our children did.

I can hear today's TV prosecutors shreiking the whole time about how irresponsible and reckless we all are were as parents.

From my own perspective, however, riding my bicycle on the road was an earned privilege - even at age 7.  I understood what the dangers were - there were kids in my class with uncles, brothers and family members maimed or killed by farm machinery.  (I guess that those parents should also have gone to jail for allowing those injuries to their children.)  But advancing socially and being seen as independent out weighed those real dangers (in those days, for example, someone's big brother would pull up in their car along side you and give you a "push").

Yet where would I be today without those experiences?

Less able, less capable, unable to take risks, fearful, useless.

Let's contrast this with today's "child environment."

First off anyone who allows any sort of situation where a child might possibly be harmed to be discovered by a well meaning idiot is likely to face some form criminal prosecution.

God forbid you're child is seen hunting under age, riding their bicycle without a helmet, crossing the street alone at too young an age, playing the park, swinging, etc...

(Not to say there aren't irresponsible parents or that such parents should not be accountable.)

So what do children do instead today?  Why sit idly in front of the TV (image above) watching Sponge Bob and eating snacks full of sugar and genetically engineered corn and oils like soybean that are so unhealthy they should be banned (see "Genetic Engineering - Its What's For Dinner").

Yet their "Prosecutor Mother's" applaud this because it allows them to run their busy lives without having to waste time watching their children.  My dogs get better treatment than this - they are less supervised, better behaved and have more freedom.

(As kids our mothers were always busy - working, cooking, cleaning, doing whatever they did - but they were never too busy to keep an eye out for mischief (or worse learn about it second hand from a neighbor).   All our childhood plots were foiled by some mom looking out the back window while doing dishes unbeknown to us...)

No, I think that sitting your child in front of the TV so that he or she becomes lazy, fat and a "slug" is the real child abuse - particularly when its done under the aegis of "I've got more important things to do".

What's more important than raising your child?   Duh?

Do you think you're child does not know what you are doing to them?

Why do you think they are now prescribing them antidepressants?

Modern junk foods are poison and feeding them to kids while they sit idly is even worse.

Robbing them of "freedom to be children" prevents them from learning social skills, physical skills (climbing, jumping, running), and mental skills (how do I outsmart the bully, how do I get along with someone who does not like me).

This is like locking a child in a room to grow up isolated and alone - just like you see in movies like "Sybil" - isn't it?  

You take away their recess at school - leaving them no outlet for stress.  Children are not eggs that sit neatly in a one-size-fits-all carton - yet you "lop off" the parts that don't fit with antidepressants and therapy so they do fit irrespective of consequences to the psyche.

You believe you are making today's "childhood" a kinder, safer place.

But you are wrong.

Today adults take on bullies on behalf of the child - leaving the child to know that they cannot and will not ever over come a bully without help.

Where does that leave the child in later life?  When the child has become an adult and must face a bully?

Without the skills needed to work out a difficult social situation, expecting others to do it, leaving them without a social clue.

A few weeks or months of a bullying or a lifetime of inept social ability - which is really better?

We had to stand for our principles against any sort of insurmountable obstacle - how else would you learn you limits or what you stood for?

Today the child cannot know his limits because he's not allowed to test them - its unsafe.

The shrieking, harpy like "do gooders" descend on anyone who they perceive "endangering a child" and attack.

So tell me, "do gooder"...

Why should I by my grandchild a bike?  If they ride it and fall off it won't be an accident (because there are no longer any "accidents" with children - only irresponsible adults).

Why should I take them for a walk were a bug their are allergic too might sting them?

Why should I take them for an ice cream that might have peanuts or some other allergen in it?

Why should I allow them to play anywhere but where the toys and swings are all safe, government approved squishy plastic?  After all, outside in the "wild" them might fall or get hurt.

Why should we throw a ball?  Someone might get hurt and I'd have to be questioned by the stupid but well meaning medical staff and then go through months of insurance company bullshit over who should pay for the stitches - no thanks...

In fact, why should I or their parents let them grow up at all?

After all adulthood is really scary place, isn't it?

Wouldn't it be better if they just all stayed "cute, little, and cuddly?"  Then they could just sit safely in front of the TV all day and do nothing.  Why we could pump them full of drugs to make them quiet and submissive, feed them food to make them fat and sedentary, ....

Oh, wait!!!

We already have this (see "Women are Insane, Men are Stupid") where some woman complain the men are all useless and not worth dating (cute, cuddly, and fat)...

I guess they getting (got?) what they asked for.

Sister Wives and "The Next Step..."

TLC's Sister Wives (Kody + wives)

Sister Wives is a popular show, particularly with women.  I'm not sure why but there must be some sort of morbid fascination with voluntary "sharing" a man - mind you not that most would tolerate it but its still apparently very interesting, at least to them.

The family is a polygamist family (with the show starting out in Utah).  There is one man (Kody Brown) and his four sister wives: Meri, Janelle, Christine and Robyn.  There are also 16 children ranging from a baby to one about 17 or so.

The first season culminated in the marriage of Kody to the most recent "wife" Robyn and the birth of a child by another wife.  The second season sees the Browns heading out of Utah because, surprise, surprise, the airing of their TV show alerted the Utah authorities to their status and they began an investigation (see my thoughts on this from a while back here).  The Brown's skipped town and moved to Vegas - yanking the kids out of school and sneeking around like common criminals.

Now the Brown's will be suing in Federal court claiming that Utah's laws against polygamy violate the due process clause and equal protection clauses of the US Constitution.  The suit will build on Lawrence v. Texas (summary here - link to full opinion at the top) in which the Supreme Court struck down a Texas sodomy law for the same reasona.  From the summary: "Justice Stevens concluded that (1) the fact a State’s governing majority has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice, and (2) individual decisions concerning the intimacies of physical relationships, even when not intended to produce offspring, are a form of “liberty” protected by due process."

Stevens gets it wrong in a big way here on both counts. 

The notion that a states "governing majority" viewing something as immoral "is not a sufficient reason" for upholding a law is one thing if you are talking about, say taxes or state parks, i.e., I might feel taxes are immoral but the government still has the right to impose them on me.

What's flawed is that following Steven's reasoning to its logical conclusion means the state could make any law (regarding a "practice"), and, regardless of its morality, and there would be no recourse so long as some one individual makes a 14th Amendment due process or protection claim.

The second flaw is for point #2.  The traditional view of the Constitution is that marriage, intimacy and so on were intended to "produce offspring".  In the second point Stevens argues that the "morality" part of his comment protects individuals who engage in a practice even if it does not "produce offspring".

Again, Steven's misses the point - shouldn't the Court be applying its broad concern for due process to the offspring that are produced, i.e., all citizens - not just the complainants?

As I wrote yesterday about Google the statutes must be looked at when drawn to their logical conclusion to see if they make sense.  (See my post yesterday regarding Google.) Clearly here they do not for two reasons:

1) Any "practice", under this opinion, becomes open to the 14th Amendment argument - including for example, beastiality.  Clearly many of us may object to bestiality on Steven's point of "traditional  view" yet he sees no issue with declaring it perfectly legal if someone brings a claim under the 14th Amendment.

2) So if a person married to, say a, dog, were to have a child by some means apparently Stevens feels that "due process" and "equal protection" apply to the parents (man/woman plus dog) but not to the child of said man/dog couple, i.e., the child has no right to grow up without a dog parent.

(Though I have to give Steven's credit for questioning the inclusion of minor's as participants in said various "practices" - this he feels is wrong - but somehow if the child were to experience the said practice (by watching) as an observer that's okay with him.)

Unfortunately I am not making this up.

As I have often predicted, the Brown family is following along with all the other recent 14th Amendment "claimants" for their spot under the "equal protection" clause.  Personally I do not think ill of the Brown's - the seem very nice on their TLC show - pleasant people all around, well behaved children, and so on.

NAMBLA, the local Goat Lover's association, the Man/Blowup Doll group and so on are eagerly awaiting the Brown's case to reach the Supreme Court to get their 14th Amendment pass so they too can pile on (after all goats and plastic dolls are not minors - so Steven's should be pleased to assist them).

As I wrote the other day in D. I. V. O. R. C. E. this type of lawsuit is all about ME and Steven's clearly casts doubt on there being anything but a large collection of selfish, self-centered ME's governing our country (so long as I can do what I want I don't care).

And this decision is for the most sacred and intimate portions of our lives - think of the fun you could have with the 14th Amendment and, say, advertising.  If you're allowed to have such relationships then why not promote them on TV, children's video and the internet as well.

Sadly, this is nothing but debauchery - plain and simple - an interesting and antiquated term for what you see before you.

Steven's has opened the Pandora's Box of "there is no evil" with this decision.  And, as far as protection of children goes, they will be targeted next because isn't the legal definition of a what is a minor simply a decision by Steven's "governing majority"?

Of course it is.

Do the Brown's realize what they are doing?

No.

Are they weighing their personal "rights" against the good of society?

I doubt it.

They truly seem like nice, well meaning people.  But then, so was Pandora.

(Clearly "serial monogamy" is common in today's culture - with starter wives and children and multiple marriages - isn't this just polygamy practiced over an expanse of time?  Just having a go with all the women at once?  What's that, no feminists chiming in in support of all this, or against it?

I can see why Kody is a salesman - it takes balls, wit and cunning to convince a woman to be "wife #2".)

To the rest of us: our house in on fire, our children alone...