This should make you cringe...

 

... assuming you've ever had the real thing.

What about the individual?

I saw this article a few weeks back about US Major League Baseball teams violating a previous agreement and recruiting Japanese baseball amateurs. The whole article is about the dispute between Japanese baseball officials and MLB officials, and the viability of Japanese baseball. Somehow the article's 1300-odd words managed to avoid any mention of what was best for the players in question. If a Japanese player wants to play in the United States, who are Japan's baseball leagues to stop him? What business is it of theirs? They have a concern about their baseball leagues. Fine. Whatever. Do what you will to keep it alive. But to restrict the freedom of a Japanese citizen? To keep him from finding the best place for him to offer his services? You can't justify taking away the choices of a real person for some nebulous and not particularly important concept like "Japanese baseball." That's just not right.

Excessively non-judgmental

The NY Times refers to the people who shot up Mumbai as militants. I know the word terrorist has been misused and debased over the years, but it does have a pretty specific definition: someone who uses threats and violence, especially attacks on civilians, to advance a political agenda. If these guys aren't terrorists, I don't know who is. Have some spine, NY Times.

Bush redux

The religious right's embrace of Sarah Palin demonstrates they have learned nothing from the lesson of George W. Bush. With Bush, they chose rapture over reason, ignoring obvious flaws because he shared their "values." Never mind that his abilities and record were weak at best. Now, while many of them have become disenchanted with Bush, they haven't figured out that the problem wasn't with Bush, but with them. You can't second-guess a result without second-guessing the process. Well, you can, but that would be stupid.

The Democratic Convention is not news

Does anything meaningful happen? Isn't the conclusion pre-determined? So why is anyone paying any attention? Michelle Obama said nothing that we hadn't heard before. Hillary Clinton's speech was completely predictable as well. News implies novelty. It implies that there is new information to be had. The Democratic Convention is nothing but the same old thing recycled. It's a waste of attention.

Spam suspect identification

One of the advantages of having my own domain is that I can give every service I sign up with a different, unique email address. As a result, I know that Macy's gave my address out so I could get spam from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Thanks!

Freedom is just too much work

A bill to authorize the previously-illegal NSA wiretapping program is stalled in Congress, meaning the government will have to revert to the previous, i.e., legal, way of doing things:

A return to the old rules, they said, would mean that government lawyers, analysts and linguists would once again have to prepare individual warrants, potentially thousands of them, for surveillance of terrorism targets overseas.

Telecommunications companies would also have to spend considerable time shutting down existing wiretaps, and then start them up again if ordered under new warrants, officials said. In some instances, the broad orders given to the companies starting last August cover tens of thousands of overseas phone numbers and e-mail addresses at one time, people with knowledge of the orders said.

My goodness! Are they saying it would take time, effort, and possibly even paperwork!?!? We might as well surrender now.

Google stock is worthless

The current price is $588.14/share, but the rational, fair-market value is $0. There are two ways of realizing value from a stock. One is for the company to pay out dividends out of its cash flow. The founders have explicitly said they never will do that.

The other way to convert a stock into money is for someone to buy the whole company in order to capture their cash flow. That won't happen with Google. Their current stock price translates to a market capitalization of $184 B. That's what it would cost at current prices to acquire all of the outstanding shares in the company. Nobody can buy Google. Even if GOOG went down to its IPO price of $85, it would still be worth $26 B. There have only been a handful of acquisitions at that level. Would you buy a Google hoping for a buyout, knowing that your share would have to lose 85% of its value for that to happen?

Even if that unlikely occurrence were to happen, it still has to go up against the founders, who have said they have no interest in selling out. Of course, shareholders have rights. When your management acts against the interest of the shareholders, you can overrule them. At least, that's what you can do in normal companies. Not with Google. Larry and Sergey each own about 10% of the company. Eric Schmidt owns another 3% or so. They own Class B shares, which each have 10 votes. Everyone else gets Class A shares, with 1 vote apiece. If you do the math, it turns out that those three guys have about three times as many votes as all the other shareholders put together. You read that right. So you can't overrule them. And you can't buy Class B shares, either, because they turn into 1-vote Class A shares when they're sold.

It's possible for them to change their minds, of course. Why would they, though? Larry and Sergey are each worth something like $18 B each. Even if Google loses 99% of its stock market value, they'd still be fantastically wealthy. It's hard to imagine anyone being able to offer them anything they can't already get. It's only if they lose interest that they might sell, but that doesn't help anything because the remaining founder would hold a dominant number of Class B shares. You'd have to wait for both of them to get bored. When would Larry and Sergey both lose interest in Google? Going by Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, it takes at least 30 years. That's a long time to wait for the possibility that Google will shift policy and pay a dividend or sell out.

To summarize, in other words: Larry, Sergey, and Eric won't give you anything, they won't let anyone else give you anything, and you can't make them, even if you buy up every single Class A share. It's like a piece of paper from a diploma mill.

So what are people paying for when they buy GOOG? As far as I can tell, they're all trading on the assumption that Google stock is worth something, but they haven't really thought about the implications of Google's ownership structure. It's a collective fiction. To be sure, so is the US dollar, but this is one of a whole different sort; people at least acknowledge that the dollar isn't real.

Above, I said there are two ways to realize value from a stock. I omitted one: someone else wants your share. That's the principle that there's always another sucker. It worked for a while in the late 1990s, but then the party ended. Do you want to be the one without a chair when the music stops?

Numbers supplied by Google Finance :-).

Note: this is a discussion just of the stock. The company is obviously very valuable.

Bulk buying power

It costs more per ounce to buy the bigger can.

The Iraq War funding bill

Somewhere in Fallujah, Iraq, November, 2008:
"Private, the enemy is approaching; why aren't we moving?!?!?"
"Sir, we're out of gas!"
"Private, why didn't you fill up before we left on patrol??!?"
"Sir, I did, but there wasn't any more! 6 months ago Congress cut off funding for the war!"

... in the ensuing firefight ...

"Sergeant, I only have 5 rounds! What should I do?!?"
"Write your Congressman. Now throw some rocks, corporal!"

... as they flee the city ...

"Where's my air support??!"
"Sir, the Air Force dropped their last bomb yesterday in Sadr City. They all flew back to Germany."

Iraq war funding is up for a vote again. The way the war supporters talk about it you'd think voting against it will mean pulling the plug right in the middle of the war. Get real. It's May. The bill is for funding in the next fiscal year, which begins in October. Even if they don't have the money for the war, there's still plenty of money at the Pentagon for an orderly withdrawal.

If they have any semblance of sense at the Pentagon, they already have plans on the books for how to get US troops out of Iraq within 90 days. Hell, I'd bet money they have a plan to get us out in 45 days; they have plans for everything. There are any number of reasons why that could happen, and thus why they should plan it. Political pressure at home could force it. North Korea could invade the South. Iraq could stabilize, or it could get much worse.

In other words, if the funding bill doesn't pass, we can remove our troops in an orderly and safe fashion*. They talk like pulling the plug on the war means stabbing our soldiers in the back. If Congress votes to end (our participation in) the war, we will leave. The only way soldiers would be abandoned is malice or incompetence from the executive branch.

* At least for our guys, if not the Iraqis.

Can we boycott the Saudis? Please?

What it's like to be an unmarried girl in Saudi Arabia. Cruel, stupid, and just plain sad.

Arlen Specter is a waste of space

A United State Senator getting involved in a scandal in football about some coach breaking a rule that shouldn't exist in the first place*? Yeah, because it's not like we have any real problems to solve that he might be pertinent to. Maybe it's for the best considering how utterly useless he was as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, where he blew a lot of hot air about illegal wiretapping. If he got involved in any real issues, what little progress we might expect the Senator to make would get reversed.

* You can use a video camera on the field, and you can look at signals, and you can write things down, but you can't record signals? The genius who thought of that is probably the same guy who thought up DRM.

super-lame company party

The medical practice I patronize is having a company party this month. You have to pay $5 to buy tickets to attend. How obnoxious is that?

So many pockets

Cargo shorts with 10 pockets? SRSLY?

Don't use words you don't understand

"If you go to Google Trends and track the number of times it is mentioned, the curve is almost algorithmic from a year and a half ago."

Emphasis mine. I guess his ignorance will keep him from being embarrassed by it. I'd be pretty embarrassed. But I'd like to think I wouldn't try so hard to sound smart, either. I'd probably just say "very steep."

Hey, there's another dumb thing in the article: "A steampunk fantasy game, Edge of Twilight, will be introduced by Xbox 360 and PlayStation next year."



Source.

a brillant firewall

Bank of America won't let me see the picture in this comment: "The requested URL belongs to the following category: Illegal Drugs." What? It's a picture. It's not like I can get a doobie out of my CD tray. That would be pretty freakin' cool, if only from a technical level.

Gas isn't too expensive

Recently observed behaviors:

If you would rather wait 3 minutes for a closer parking space instead of walking an extra 100 feet (in pleasant weather, even), gas isn't too expensive.

If you're sitting in your Ford Expedition with the engine running while your kid plays soccer, gas isn't too expensive.

If you pass someone as you're both approaching a red light (as in switching lanes, accelerating, and switching back), gas isn't too expensive.

Weaseling from Avent

Thanks for the helpful answer. I don't think they understand what the point of an FAQ is.

Do Philips AVENT baby bottles contain Bisphenol A (BPA)?
Philips AVENT reusable bottles, such as the AirFlex, are made from polycarbonate plastic. Polycarbonate plastic is approved for use and lawful for sale in every country where Philips AVENT products are sold, including in North America and Europe.

So is that a Yes or a No? Do a little reading, and you will discover it's a Yes, but geez. The whole point of an FAQ is to get straight to the point. They couldn't help using corporate double speak.

And hey, when did Philips buy Avent? Oh, 2006. Right about when I stopped paying attention.