It shows that there are a lot of people that don’t like gay folks. It’s hardly surprising really. Here’s the thing about votes like that, at best, you are only going to make a lot of people mad no matter how the vote comes out. I sound like a broken record (skipping CD?) but this kind of politics breeds resentment and hatred. The hell of it is that there isn’t any reason for the government and its laws to be involved at all. The best way to sort out this problem is to have the government out of the marriage business. There really are some things that governments do not do well and social/religious agreements are at the top of the list.
Author: Isaac
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Root canal
Had the first part of my root canal today. The procedure really wasn’t a big deal. Yeah, it did feel really odd to have the dentist essentially roto-rooting my tooth out, but that’s about it. That may in no small part be due to the fact that the nerve in that tooth has died. The pain I felt on friday and saturday was most likely the last hurrah of that nerve.
Can’t say I’m real disappointed to hear that the nerve is dead. That thing has been bothering me off and on for three years. It’s a relief to know that it isn’t going to be causing me any more pain. On the other hand, the infection that caused that nerve to die is something that needs to be taken care of, hence the root canal. I’ll be popping antibiotics for the next week and I have at least one more visit, but I’m hopeful that this will be the end of the issues for this tooth.
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Like walking on stilts…
… that’s the best way I can describe the relationship I have with my feet. I can still mostly feel them, but it’s like they’re disconnected. It leads to constant balance adjustments, and you can imagine what it’s like trying to stand or walk in the dark, imagine doing that with stilts!
It is still a really odd sensation to feel something and not know where you feel it. Imagine feeling something and realizing that the sensation is coming from something 4 feet away from you. Yeah, it is that weird.
I don’t know how many times I have tried to move one of my legs only to find out I can’t. The reason is because I had crossed my legs and there was a leg on top of the one I wanted to move.
Ah, nothing beats fun with MS…
Back in the mid 70’s, Gordon Tullock and James Buchanan wrote “The Calculus of Consent.” Its subtitle is “The Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy.” This book, along with his previous writings, earned Buchanan the Nobel Prize in Economics for launching the study of political economy.
People have all sorts of ideas about how the political process works, and even more opinions about how it should work. Political economy is the study of how politics actually works. As it turns out, politicians aren’t all that different from people in any other job. On a day to day basis, they will do whatever allows them to keep their job and get them promoted. What these things are will vary depending on the type of government and the times they live in, but the general concept holds.
So why call the subject political economy? Why not just call it political science or just political studies? Another name for microeconomics is rational choice theory. By putting the label of “economy” on it, we emphasize the rationality of the actors as opposed to the ideology of them.
Political economy essentially tells us that when faced with a decision, politicians will tend to make the choice that benefits them the most. In this governmental system, politicians need votes, but it usually pays for them to target specific voting blocks. Political economy also has a lot to tell us about why bills tend to look the way they do. I’ll talk more about political coalitions and bill formations in a bit, the main idea I want to get across is that politics works the way it does because of rational choices given the incentives that they face. People’s frustrations over politicians stem much more from the system than from individual politicians. It isn’t a matter of avoiding evil ones and electing “good” ones, the system makes politicians what they are. In an ideal system, it wouldn’t matter much who was elected, but that’s not the system we have.
I think the next installment will be about voting blocks and the nature of power in the political process.
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Root canal time
Well my tooth has flared up again, so my dentist told me I need a root canal. This is the same tooth I just got crowned about a month ago. Grrr… The good news is that this will finally take care of this damn thing. It’s been bothering me in one way or another for three years. I guess it’ll be nice to put this behind me and be able to drink cold stuff and eat ice cream without worrying about the pain, but still. Ugh.
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Food update
Just a quick follow up on my dining in the nearby Brookfield Plaza… I tried out Tippy’s taco house. How best to describe it? It isn’t as good as Baja Fresh, but they have Taco Bell prices and the food is worlds better than that! I had a burrito, taco, and some guacamole. Good for a fast food place, and the Mexican lime soda I had was really good too.
Went to the Korean place with a friend and I’m still not sure if I like Korean food. This was the third time I’ve tried Korean food. The prices were higher than the other places, but I had a dumpling soup that was pretty good. It’s not that I didn’t like it, but I’m not sure if there was anything to draw me back in. I might try to find a more knowledgeable Korean foodie and head up to Annandale, it’s supposed to be a Korean food haven.
Went back to Ravi’s kabob place, this time for kabobs. I dunno, I guess they were pretty good, but I don’t think they were as good as the Afghan place. Speaking of which…
The Afghan kabob place was a madhouse for lunch, it was much busier than any of the other places seemed to be. That boded well for the food, even if I had to wait a bit. It was a great lunch. The chicken kabobs were amazing, not so sure about the shami (ground meat) kabobs. I had a mound of rice, some potatoes, and great bread, you can’t complain about the portions that’s for sure! Ravi’s kabobs (the Pakistani place) just didn’t have as much flavor even if the sides were just as good. Cooking over charcoal like the Afghan place does makes a big difference in the taste, for the better. I need to try out some of the Afghan place’s non kabob fare to compare to Ravi’s one of these days.
Today I tried the Indian/French Bakery place for lunch. The buffet didn’t actually have a lot on it, but what I tried was really good. Butter chicken, chicken tandoori, some sort of curry chicken, rice, potatoes masala, eggplant masala, naan, it was all really good. Plus it was only 8 bucks for the buffet! I’ll be going back there, it might even become like my Indian place in Yemen, one of my more frequent places to eat…
So I still haven’t tried the Vietnamese place, the other (buffet) Pakistani place, the Chinese place, or the pizza place yet. Updates will come soonish I’m pretty sure…
This was a speech given on national television, can you guess who it was? What are the odds that a speech like this would be made today?
“This idea that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.
You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man’s age-old dream — the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order — or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, “The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.”
The Founding Fathers knew a government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose.”
It’s an excellent point and I think I’ll use it as a launching point for a couple of posts on political economy. That is, the rational choices people make in the world of politics. Those will follow in the next couple of weeks.
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My iPod, and an app question
My first purchase as an Apple employee was an iPod touch. A 32GB one to be exact. I am beyond happy with it. Not only does it make sitting on the train much easier, it’s really helping me out at work. No really! I constantly use the calculator, and I jot down various notes that help me out as I talk to customers.
It has also helped with my internet situation. Since my only regular internet connection is at work, I have been taking my laptop in every day to do my online stuff. No longer. Now I just take my iPod in. I can do my email and facebook stuff pretty easily with it. It has also allowed me to keep up with my podcasts. I don’t keep my itunes library on my laptop’s hard drive, it’s just too big. That meant that when I wanted to get the latest editions of my podcasts, I would have to take my computer and my external hard drive into the library along with the necessary cables, power cords, etc. Now I can download the latest ones on my ipod and then sync them to my music library when I get home. I had no luck researching that little scenario before I got it, so now everyone else can know about this!
I’m just dipping my toes into the apps ocean. So far, my favorite apps are the facebook one, stanza, and bejeweled. Stanza in particular is an amazing program. With it, you get an excellent ebook reader and easy access to thousands and thousands of free books. I need to find a good blogging app, does anyone out there have any suggestions? My favorite blogging program (Marsedit) hasn’t shown any interest in making an iPhone/iPod version.
I’m already plotting my next purchase. I’ve got my eye on the new 27″ quad core iMac that will be coming out in November. Not sure when I’ll be able to afford it, but I will have one eventually. To see the new Imacs is to covet them. No really, they are stunningly beautiful, Apple has really outdone itself this time. It will also serve as my TV. It’ll be about the right size for my smallish room. All it takes is some time to save for it, I hope I won’t go too crazy in the meantime…
I’m happy to report that I am doing quite well at work. It wasn’t obvious that I’d be able to do it at all really, but everything has been fine. As a matter of fact, I have gotten to the point where I am hardly sitting down at all during the course of my day. Granted, I still stay away from the stairs as much as possible, and I do get to sit with the occasional customer, but I’m really happy about my improvement.
It’s also good on another level. It had been looking as though I had a progressive form of MS. I came home and got worse, then stayed there. There’s no telling what caused my improvement, MS is such an inscrutable thing. It could be the supplement regimen I’ve been on (fish oil, vitamin D, magnesium, calcium, and a good multivitamin), it could be the forced exercise at work, or it could just be the nature of the disease itself. Since it was most likely a combination of things that caused the disease, it’s probably also a combination of things that have lead to my improvement.
I’ll say this though, just getting up every day and being forced to deal with it has helped immensely. Living at home with mom was a necessary thing, and was a Godsend at the time, but I think getting out on my own has been the best thing I could have done. Here, I have to get up on my employer’s schedule, stand and walk, carry groceries, figure out transportation, etc. I have precious little time to obsess about my condition like I did before. I’ve also been shown how things are possible, even if a bit of a pain in the ass.
All in all, I think getting out and living has been as much a part of the improvement as anything else. I’m feeling good, and I’m feeling useful. Let’s hope that’ll keep me going for quite a while!
I recently caught up with a friend of mine that I had originally met in Yemen. She’s the rare breed of person that really enjoys my econ writings and she’s encouraging me to keep at it. She’s also encouraging me to apply to the State department, but more on that later…
Here’s the thing, I haven’t been writing much recently, and it feels nice not being so negative all the time. I had originally thought that this particular administration was the root cause of all of my angst, but that really isn’t fair. I was just as upset with Dubya’s reign, and I’m sure that I will be as upset with anyone else that comes and would have been as upset with any previous administration. I have to keep reminding myself that administrations do what they do not for economic reasons, but for political ones. I also have to keep reminding myself that good economic policies won’t benefit any particular group (even if the population as a whole benefits) and so will never gain any political traction.
Politics is, and will always be, a trading of privileges and powers. If you spend any time at all wallowing in it and have a conscience you will get angry. The only politicians I could ever hope to support and be positive about are ones that advocate the lessening of government influence and it’s unlikely that anyone like that will be in the news any time soon.
So I will continue to write about economics, but I am going to try really hard not to get sucked into the political end of things. That’s not a promise, but I really am going to try…