Liquid Randomness, Just Add Water

From the land of that Arch-Environmentalist, Al Gore, comes the $480 bottle of water.

I kid you not -- the Washington Post reported that a company called "BlingH2O" in Tennessee is selling a special edition of its water, which normally sells for the already outrageous price of $40 per wine bottle size, for 12 times as much.

When you consider the price of water coming out of the tap, that exorbitant cost for this bottled water, which I remind you comes from Tennessee -- not Fiji, not the Alps, not some glacier in Antarctica -- seems both ridiculous and sad: ridiculous that someone would even consider paying that much for a bottle of "special edition" water; sad for the same reason.

Now, before you insist that bottled water is better than tap, and thus worth the extra cost, there are a few things to consider.

First is that, for all that people say that they can taste the difference between tap and bottled, blind tasted tests have demonstrated that people can't tell the difference between the two, for all the campaigning that bottled water has a better "mouth feel". An acquaintance of mine runs a tasting room at a winery down in Santa Ynez valley; he once told me that the easiest way to get rid of a poor selling wine is to not put it on sale, but to tell folks in glowing terms that the wine has a unique taste that can't be found in other wines. The various bottled water companies have figured this out: you can have a unique water with a taste that can't be found anywhere else. Which leads me to wonder if water actually has a taste.

Second, there is no government regulation of bottled water. There is, however, several strict regulations on what may come out of the tap in your home. What this means is that you can be sure that the quality of the water coming out of the tap is high enough. High enough, in fact, that bottled water companies such as Aquafina and Dasani are bottling local tap water and selling it for 1,000 times more than the cost of the original tap water. But, you say, the companies are putting the water through more purification and that makes the water better. All those companies are doing is purifying already rather pure enough water. That is, if they are purifying it. The Natural Resources Defense Council reported that while 25% of the bottled water available in this country is basically tap water, a good portion of the time it's not even given further purification.

Third, consider the cost of the bottle. Bottles are made of plastic. Plastic is made from a petrochemical. Petrochemicals are made from petroleum, commonly known as oil. Given that oil is currently selling at about $140 per barrel, and that the supply is rapidly decreasing, if you'd like the price of gas that goes into your car to go down, you need to cut down on the demand for other products which are generated out of petroleum. Worldwide, some 2.7 tons of plastic goes into making those bottles. "Making bottles to meet Americans' demand for bottled water requires more than 1.5 million barrels of oil annually, enough to fuel some 100,000 U.S. cars for a year," said the spokes person for the Earth Policy Institute.

Then there's the cost of transporting the bottle from there to here. Consider Fiji water: indeed that water is not tap water per se, but there is the environmental cost of producing the bottles and shipping them to "thirsty" Americans thousands of miles away. As of the first of the year, the company has gone "carbon-negative", which means that the company is purchasing environmental offsets. Good for them; still bad for the world -- most of those bottles will end up in landfills.

Fourth, with all the complaining about the cost of gas these days, you'd think people would question the cost of water. Figure an average cost of $2.50 per litre -- more if you're buying the "fancy" stuff -- and that runs roughly $10 per gallon. I don't think I need to write more on that subject.

Fifth, water is a human rights issue, but Americans will only defend the right to waste their money on what is nearly free to them. In many parts of the world, demand for that most basic of human rights -- the right to drinkable water -- is outpacing supply. Currently, over a billion people are living without access to safe water. It is believed that, if current trends continue, by 2025, two out of every three people on the planet will be forced to live on less than 14 gallons of water a day. That's the total for bathing, cooking, cleaning, and drinking. As a comparison, the average American uses 96 gallons a day. Yet, the Earth Policy Institute reports that some 41 billion gallons of water are sold annually in bottles. Of that number, American consumers account for 7 billion gallons, making it the world's biggest consumer of bottled water as it chugs downs 17% of the global market.

Granted, our culture's views on "healthy" water is not new. Back in the days before germs were understood, most northern Europeans viewed bathing as unhealthy. Most people drank wine or beer because water was a disease vector. Today, marketers are telling us that bottled water from glaciers and from some volcanic well on Hawaii are super pure because those waters have been "untouched" by humans. That doesn't make the waters better. If anything, I'd really be concerned about the glacier and iceberg waters -- while the ice may be untouched by humans, that's not to say that it was untouched by anything living. I really don't want to know if the Charmin bears took a pit stop on that glacier.

In Britain, some of the bottled "mineral" waters have so much mineral content added that they are unhealthy for babies and children. Lead's a mineral, right?

Mostly, I'm worried about how much intelligence Americans have. There's a company in Hawaii that is selling desalinated seawater as "concentrated water" for $33.50 per 2 ounce bottle. That makes the product worse than the $480 bottle of water in that not only is it more expensive, ounce for ounce, but in order to get the "full enjoyment" of the water, you must add water to the water.

I don't think it can get any sillier, but I equally sure that with the right marketing campaign, Americans can be made to buy anything.

We're not being sold the Brooklyn Bridge, we're buying the water under it.

Photo Source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/bigphotos/16306346.html

Random Political Funding

During campaign seasons, I find it safer when asked what I do for a living to say that I'm a stand-up comedienne -- which, given my teaching style, isn't far from the truth. The reason for this fudging is that when politics is heavily in the news, people have opinions. Strong opinions. They think that if their opinion matches that of a professor of politics, they are smart. However, is often the case, my professional opinion can differ from their casual viewpoint, and in those cases they feel the need to argue with me so that I would "admit" that they are smarter than I.

Yet another reason why I do not want this country to pass a law making voting mandatory -- I really don't want the ignorant and the mentally entrenched to be forced to vote.

The problem is that this country contains a number of people with strong political opinions. Thus even the mundane is invaded with discussions of politics. Such was my luck to visit my old religious society on the day that the sermon covered the current political climate.

The minister had been given a request by a member of the congregation to preach on leadership and politics. The minister's passion for the topic was commendable, but her perspective was limited. It is understandable that a minister of any religion would object to the fact that one candidate for president this year has rejected his previous promise to accept public financing, and thus a limit on expenditures. After all, one's honor is tied to one's ability to keep one's word. In this case, the minister was unhappy because "her" guy was breaking a promise.

But there's more than one man's honor at stake here. What is at stake is the honor of all the parties and their members within this year's campaign. Unfortunately, this country has gotten too used to dirty politics. Senator McCain and Senator Obama have each said that he will run a 'clean' campaign. That's great, but the truth is that there are more players on the field than the two campaigns.

In the 2004 election, President Bush was able to run a 'clean' campaign and win because Senator Kerry had to run against both the Bush campaign and the tax-exempt, unregulated 527s, the most notable of which was the 'Swift Boat Veterans for Truth' folks.

So, Obama has decided to refuse public funding. Big whoop.

He said that to limit his funding wouldn't make sense given the previous presidential campaign. Obama fully expects the Republican party and some 527s to come to the ball game with the intention of allowing McCain to keep his campaign clean while slinging the mud at Obama.

That fear may be well founded. McCain strategist Steve Schmidt pointed out that "the candidate who rebuked the Swift Boat Veterans might not do the same this time when it’s his name on the ballot". Top that with reports that while McCain condemned the adverts run by the North Carolina Republican party during that state's primary, he did say that "I am not going to referee, I am just going to run my own campaign." In fact, despite his statements that he did all in his power to kill the ad campaign, the NC GOP chairwoman said that she hadn't been contacted directly by McCain. Thus, the message appears to be that McCain may not like what conservative 527s may do to advance his cause, but he's not going to do anything about them.

On the other hand, Obama may not have much to fear in the way of those attack 527s. Most of the ones that have already geared up were aimed at targeting Senator Clinton. David Bossie organizer of Citizens United and fervent anti-Clinton political player, had "spent 18 months and millions of dollars making 'Hillary The Movie,'" but the problem is that the movie isn't relevant in a campaign out of which Clinton has bowed. After spending so much on the anti-Hillary campaign, the organization is lacking the funds to seriously go after Obama. And they are not the only one suffering from limited funds; Richard Collins' StopHerNow group raised only $8,000 more than it spent in the last reported cycle. The Republican public affairs firm that set up and funded Progress for America 2004 has allowed that 527 to die, mostly out of concern for losing their more money generating clients. T. Boone Pickens, the man who gave the Swift Boat 527 $3 million to run its campaign has, through his spokesperson, announced his withdraw from this year's presidential campaign, disappointing many who had hoped for his financial backing.

"Conversations with more than a dozen Republican strategists find near unanimity in the belief that, at some point, there will be a real third-party effort aimed at Obama." But funding just isn't there at this point; and, when there is funding, it might be too late to make a difference.

However, studies have shown that electoral memory is about six weeks. Thus, if those 527s can gear up before the end of September, they could affect the outcome of the election. Rumor has it that Karl Rove is contacting large donors in hopes of starting up an effective 527 by then.

But there is question as to whether this would be a good thing for the Republican party. A survey of 2,602 adults done the first week of May, 2008 by BYU/Harris Interactive showed that voters are more positive towards campaigns and associated parties that take small donations from individuals rather than large donations from special interest groups. The sentiment was stronger among those who had made donations to a campaign: 68% of this group said that they would view a candidate more positively if that candidate relied on small donations. This would be more significant if not for the fact that only about 11% of Americans donate to campaigns.

On the other hand, all those polled said that the total amount of money raised wouldn't change their view on a campaign or a candidate. Seems that it's not the total amount, but how that amount is raised.

When it comes to Obama's original promise, the voting public doesn't seem to care. In the same poll, 74% of the respondents reported that they would view Obama neither positively nor negatively if he rejected public financing. For McCain, the number was 72%. Those numbers are aggregates. Seems that if respondents are separated by party identification, it's more telling: 78% of Democrats have a neutral position on whether Obama rejects public financing, and 66% of Republicans have a neutral position on McCain's rejection of public funding.

Thus, the minister at my childhood religious society may be one of the few who is disappointed by Obama's "flip-flop" on campaign financing, just as McCain has "flip-flopped" on other issues. A man's word is his honor, but American's aren't worried too much about honor in this presidential race. They want "their" guy to win. Perhaps there is truth to the idea that American voters get the president they deserve.

Don't agree with my opinion? That's your right, and I will defend your right to be wrong. Just as soon as I'm done with my next set at the mic.

Image source: http://www.gocomics.com/nickanderson/2008/06/20/?campid=0&ssns=9&

Random Moments of Montreal

I spent three and half days in Montreal for a conference. At the end of that time period, I had a handful of business cards -- representing a number of new contacts -- and a smaller handful of photographs as there was very little free time to take pictures.

The paper presentation went. I'd like to say that it went well but that would be lying. We had the panel chair from hell and he cut my co-author off before Kai was done. I'd complain, but the problems with trying to fly back home has wiped out any need to make an effort.

Here is a few of the photos from that trip.










My thanks to Andrea, and her colleagues, for making it an enjoyable conference.

Super Random Delegates

During campaign season, whenever I'm asked what I do for a living, I tell the asker that I'm a stand-up comedienne. Mostly because I really don't want to get involved in a discussion of who will/should win the current election. This year is worse than most.

I've been interviewed a number of times by student reporters so far. And each time I have to dance around the question of who will/should win. You see, I work for the government and it is against federal and state law for a public employee to appear to be campaigning.

Yet, the students want to know: will it be Obama v. McCain or Clinton v. McCain? There a simple way of deciding for yourself, the CNN Delegate Counter.

I've run the numbers and the information is interesting.

As it stands right now -- April 25, 2008 -- the numbers do not look good for Clinton, despite her recent win in Pennsylvania. The delegate counter shows, when setting all of the remaining primaries and caucuses at the same level as she won in the last primary, that Ms. Clinton would need to convince 68% of the remaining super delegates that she would be the best candidate to beat McCain.

Further playing with the numbers reveals that should she win 61% of all the remaining contests and of the super delegates, she'd still be one delegate short of winning the nomination. It's not unconceivable that she might win by such a large margin. She did, after all, win 70% of the Arkansas vote in February. Okay, so that was the only time she won more than 58% of any state, but this is American -- the Land of Possibility.

And the blundering politicians.

There is every possibility that Barack Obama will shoot himself in the foot politically. Howard Dean seemed impossible to be beat until his unfortunate yell of enthusiasm four years ago.

The reality is that the super delegates could end the political morass that the Democrats find themselves by all of them signaling their support for Obama. If they did that, he'd have 5 more votes than he'd need for the nomination. If they did the same for Clinton, she'd still be short of the 2,025 votes needed by 130.

Let's say that in all the remaining primaries and caucuses the two candidates tie, fifty-fifty. And let's say that, in the states and territories where the number of delegates are odd, the split favors Clinton. She would need 76% of the remaining super delegates to cast their vote her way.

Truly Random Art

Having taught at a handful of universities and colleges, I've seen my fair share of what I'd call -- not being a trained artist, I don't know if there's a technical word for it -- temporary art. Over a decade ago, when I was still a grad student at UCSB, there was a student who had covered himself with so much protective gear that you couldn't see who it was, tied his bike to a rope lead with a light pole as the center, and rode 'round and 'round the pole. My fellow graduate student and I had a great time interpreting the "message" of the temporary art project -- we saw it as a metaphor for the life of a student at that university: The bike was the student's drive to succeed; the rope lead was the strange and contradictory rules and regulations for getting done; the light pole was the immovable administration which had no real interest in helping the student succeed in a timely manner. We were pleased with our interpretation and never did find out what the true message of the piece was.

Every quarter, the art department would send its students out onto the wider campus to express themselves through some sort of temporary art. That kid on the bike making endless circles has always stuck with me. Along with the kid who raised money by swinging in a hammock in a spiny coral tree and allowing the females to rub his chest hairs, which he had shaved into the form of a heart, for romantic luck. As temporary art that one was noticeable for its mercenary interpretation -- self-objectification as art. Yet each quarter, we looked forward to what would be next crop of temporary art.

I had forgotten about those installations until midnight -- the magical hour -- between Tuesday and Wednesday when I found a random art project that tickled my funny bone: an homage to random thoughts.

In the darkest hour of the night, the piece seemed a bit piratical. Bits of magnetized words were plastered randomly on a bit of normally boring artwork on campus. This "soft metal" work is in one of the main walkways, yet is often overlooked and ignored.

Not that night.

That Tuesday night, when it bordered on Wednesday, the sculpture spoke in random words. Inviting the passerby to express themselves in poetry and prose, only to have that expression erased in the temporariness of the piece -- words would be shifted and used by others and, finally, removed.

I could not help but be intrigued. And take pictures so that this temporary piece could find permanency in the greatest gallery of permanently fixed temporary art, the Internet.




































Perhaps this message was prophetic.






By 5 p.m. the next day, all the magical words had disappeared.

All that remained after someone had removed most -- but not all -- of the words were these, remaining above eye level and so missed by the cleaners.

Or, perhaps, they were the final message of the temporary artist.

Completely Random Thoughts

It has been a while since La Professora has visited the Land-o-Randomness, and, in that time, she has seen and heard quite a bit. So much so that those bits have crowded out the usual higher thoughts. In the interest of clearing the head so that the coming semester could be started with a fresh perspective, here is a random selection of oddities.

1: "Organic Salt"
There are days that I truly do wonder about the American educational system. Usually it's because I'm reading some rather atrociously written student essay, but this time around it is what someone said that has me, and a couple of other folk, alternatively giggling and agast.

For the winter holiday in which gifts are exchanged, I had recommended to the sibling of my romantic partner that she purchase gourmet salt as a gift for said romantic partner. So, off she went to the local gourmet food shop with her mother in tow.

At this point, I should mention that her mother used to be a professor of Chemistry and a former dean of sciences at Ohio State University -- not a dumb woman, that one, and she certainly didn't raise any idiots either.

The selection being made, they placed on the check-out counter a canister of Himalayan Pink Salt. I've seen the salt; it is indeed pink -- the chemistry geeks in the house tell me that has something to do with ferrous oxides, or some such; what do I know, I research military politics.

The sales clerk begins to gush, telling our heroines that she just loves the Himalayan Pink Salt because it is -- and they assure me that she actually said this -- "totally organic".

If you don't understand why the former professor of Chemistry had to bite her tongue to keep from correcting the sales girl, you need to go back to your science instructor and demand either a refund or a refresher course.

Oh, and the way, according to the sales girl, you can tell that it's "totally organic" is that it's pink -- unlike regular table salt, which has been bleached!

One hopes that someday she'll figure out why two women were horrified at her statement, and it's not because she revealed the "secret" that table salt is bleached.

2. "Traveling Sucks"
Well, that one is fairly self-evident.

We were 36 hours late arriving at our holiday destination this year because the first flight of our trip was canceled and the soonest they could get both of us on the same flight was two days later.

While I used the time at home productively -- I graded; the fewer termpapers I had to take with me, the lighter my bags -- the above mentioned romantic partner spent the time on the Internet reading horror stories about the airline that had canceled our flight. Trust me when I say do not try this at home.

The trip back was uneventful -- for everyone else. For me, not so much. Let's just say that a G.I. bug and air travel do not make for a good combination.

3. Unpaid Wiretaps.
While the Bush administration is trying to get amnesty for telecommunications companies for allowing Homeland Security to tap their customers' lines, it seems that those same companies would really like to get paid. Turns out that the FBI is in arrears with its wiretapping bill, and so the companies have been cutting access until the government pays up -- even for the legally obtained taps. Man, I could write gobs on this, but the punchline is so evident, that I couldn't begin to do it justice.

4. Election season.
Seems like the campaigning will never end.

For the first day of the Winter Session course on American Politics, as it was the day before the Iowa caucus, I had the students do a simulated caucus to vote on the best food for studying -- I'm weird, but I'm not crazy enough to actually have the students vote on real political candidates. Today, we covered how the Democratic Party allocates its convention delegates to the states. Then we went on to the far less complicated discussion of special interest groups.

(If you're interested in testing your AmGov knowledge, every day until the 18th, I'll be posting on my "other" blog the daily quizzes)

In the interest to helping out those not in the political know, here are some websites that you may want to visit in order to become a more informed citizen:

CNN has a pretty (and I mean that in both sense of the word) good site for understanding what is going on with the primaries and the caucuses: Who's up, who's down, who's out.

Smart Voter, a site produced by the non-partisan League of Women Voters, gives all sorts of useful information, most important of which is where to vote and what is on the ballot for individual citizens.

Once you know where to vote, you may want to know for whom to vote. Two different sites have popped up to help folks pick the best candidate for themselves. I'm not sure how helpful they really are, as I got two different "matches" from them; so take the suggestions with a large grain of salt, pink or otherwise.

The first is produced by USA Today. This one is interesting because it not only asks questions with slightly more exhaustive answer sets -- sorry, the methodologist in me can't help grooving on that -- it also allows the respondent to "slide" the importance of the answer groups. As an added benefit, you can compare you responses with the "average" American's opinions. Needless to say, I'm nowhere near being "average".

The second is a website created by some group called SpeakOut.com. Never heard of it before, but the candidate match quiz seems decent enough. Given more time, I might go explore a little more the site.

There were more sites that offered to match me to my dream candidate, but first they wanted to get all sorts of personal information about me, such as where I lived and what I would like to buy online. Message to Overstock.com: get stuffed.


And that's the current batch of ideas on which I would have written more, had I really wanted to do so.

Tell you what, if you're in need of more time killers, here is a short list of cartoons I like and thus read often enough:
The dark comic on the life a boy and his squid: Lio.
The twisted comic on the life of a succubus and a fairy: Pibgorn.

Still need something to do rather than what you're supposed to be doing? Suck it up! 'Cause I gotta write tomorrow's quiz.

Waste of Randomness

Divorce is bad for the environment. So is being single.

Used to be that a couple would stay together for the sake of the children. Now, it seems, the Environazis would like couples to stay together for the sake of the world. Scientists have studied households and their impact on the environment, and found that divorced and single people use more resources than married couples.

When a couple split and go their own ways, their electricity and water usage increases by 53% and 42% respectively. These newly divorced environmental gluttons use up 38% more products, throw out 42% – 1.5 tonne – more packages, and burn 61% more gas.

Likewise, the fact that the former couple now live in separate houses instead of the joint one points to the damage done to Mother Earth in building the additional housing and roads. Freedom, it appears, means a need for more room. Houses belonging to divorced Americans are one-third to nearly 100% larger than houses belonging to married couples. Let’s not forget that those houses must each have their own amenities: TVs, washing machines, stereos, microwaves. Each of those means more resources are used to build them.

Keep in mind, those same numbers are reported to be true for single people as well. The message here seems to be that your Mother Earth would like you to get married early and stay that way.

The best way for that to happen is to avoid bagpipes.

Seriously, the conservation N.G.O. Fauna and Flora International would like the Scots to consider cutting back on their piping. Not because some would consider it noise pollution, but because the wood used to make the instruments is harvested from a tree in Africa, known as Mpingo in Swahili, that is dying out due to over-logging. Some 70% of the trees in Tanzania have been cut down. Given that it takes 80 years for the trees to reach a height of 16 inches, it will take a very long time to replenish the forests.

Then there are the environmental ironies to consider. The world leaders are gathering in Bali to discuss cutting greenhouse gases. They got there by way of airplanes. So did the media covering the event. Here’s a solution to cutting back on pollution: stop all the jetting round to talk about pollution. In the age of modern technology, a conference call could do the trick. It’s not like the U.S. is really going to change its ways. We’re still going to be driving our large cars while complaining about the price of gas, putting up holiday displays while bemoaning the jump in utility costs during the winter, and spending far more than we earn – it’s patriotic to buy, don’t you know – and wrapping it all in paper that will just be put out with the trash after the various December holidays.

So, let the politicians talk – better yet, don’t; that’s just hot air that will increase global warming – nothing will really change unless you get married and stay that way. Come on, it’s good for the environment. Just don’t let the spouse catch you with bagpipes.

Civil Randomness

Yesterday, I participated in a panel of professors discussing various aspects of Terrorism. Each of us had been given a question to prepare in advance and 15 minutes to present our answers. The question for me was “What is the threat to civil liberties in the War against Terrorism?”

As much as it grieved me to be quoting Justice Rehnquist, he had made a good point: Democracy is a fine balance between freedom and order, and in times of war, Americans have traditionally chosen to have more order than freedom. The trouble now lies in the question of whether or not the “war” on terrorism counts as one of those times.

The thrust of my talk was that civil liberties are each individual’s responsibility to defend. If one fears the government taking away one’s liberties, then one should exercise one’s political power and vote. Yes, vote. With only 19% of the college-age citizens voting, it is hardly fitting that those other 81% complain that the government is trying to restrict their rights.

The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states quite clearly that the people have the right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects. However, the Supreme Court, when ruling on whether that right extends to the public interaction, has consistently said that if a person has no expectation of privacy, then the 4th Amendment does not come into play.

Furthermore, the 4th Amendment is not applied to business when it comes to the collecting of personal information. That’s not to say that stealing is perfectly acceptable when done by businesses; stealing is stealing, and is punishable by law. It is not, however, a violation of the Constitution.

What is being discussed here is the collection of data on people’s purchasing habits and other bits of personal information. If you have in your wallet a credit card, a store “loyalty” card, or any other card for which you filled out an application form with your personal data, then a business has your personal information. That business can then sell your information to others.

If you have a MySpace, FaceBook, or any of the numerous other Internet blog-like pages, then you have been giving out free information. Employers are known to surf those sites for information about prospective, and current, employees. Think carefully about what your pages say about you.

I have often been amazed at the conversations I have overheard walking down the street in the vicinity of someone chatting on a cell phone. It is as if T.M.I. Chatter believes there’s some sort of cone of silence and no one can tell that Mr/s Chatter is discussing the most intimate of details. Sorry, there’s no such cone and we really can hear everything. I do mean everything, even the parts most of us would be happier not knowing.

It seems incredible, then, that citizens are complaining of the government wanting to collect the data that they are so wantonly giving away.

The Fifth Amendment only says that the government cannot compel you to give up information that may incriminate you. It does not say that the government can’t collect any information about you at all. If businesses can trade in personal information, if all of your cyber-friends can know every last detail about your life, if you blather loudly on your cell phone on a public street, you do not have an expectation of privacy, and thus should not be concerned about the government collecting your data.

What this has to do with terrorism is simple. To protect the country from those who wish to harm it from within, citizens expect their government, at all levels, to provide security. In order to make the country secure, the government has to know what is going on within the country. Data mining seems the best and easiest way to go about it.

Despite what Hollywood has fed us over the decades, terrorists are not evil geniuses. They have not figured out how to exist outside modern society and the reach of all its technology. If Barnes and Nobles can know what reading materials terrorists have purchased by tracking that information on their B&N membership card, if Visa can know what reading materials terrorists purchased at Barnes and Noble using that credit card, it should surprise no one that the U.S. government would also like to know.

In the continuing effort to keep terrorists from flying, the government has a “no fly” list of suspects, or, if you’d like, persons of interest. If your name is on the list because you are unlucky enough to share that name with someone else out there in the world who is of interest to the U.S. government, life is about to become simpler: soon, when you purchase a airline ticket, you will be asked for your birthdate. If you don’t want to share that information, do not be surprised that you will have difficulty getting through security at the airport. Furthermore, this data – your name, birthdate, and flight information – will be shared with the U.S. government. If you don’t want it to know, don’t fly; I hear the train is a lovely way to see the country, even if it is usually late.

As for me, I am La Professora; I know how to keep my technological profile low and my personal information private.

Footprint in Randomness

Nonny Mouse has recently ventured into the world of blogging and discovered the joy of having her very own internet troll. Having written a well thought out entry on the NASCAR immunization furore, she was soundly attacked by a member of what I like to call the Holier Than Thou EnviroNazis. I commented then, and now I think I will address the issue of carbon footprints here.

Everyone -- yes, everyone -- leaves a carbon footprint.

Some try to clear their consciences by purchasing offsets. This is hardly the solution that some seem to think it is. Buying offsets only means that the amount of CO2 remains the same, it rarely means that the commonly called greenhouse gases are decreased by any sizable amount.

Others get on the "Man Powered Transportation" kick and then on everyone else's nerves as they spout off on how much better their lifestyle is for the environment. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those folks who deny that there is the possibility of global warming; I'm just not interested in having someone else's lifestyle forced on me.

In one of my courses, I pose the following question: Is it better to have a good decision imposed on you or to have the freedom to choose the wrong one? Almost universally the students choose the freedom to make the wrong decision. I may be only guessing, but my feeling is that most folks -- whether in college or no -- would pick the same option. I choose to drive a car, which I bought second-hand. I also choose to recycle. I've chosen my lifestyle and I'm comfortable with the amount of carbon dioxide that that lifestyle produces.

Which is very little.

I know this because I've used the Friends of the Forest Foundation website for calculating the amount. According to the site, I produce 3.62 metric tonnes per year. That's a little over 1/3 of the amount produced by the average American.

The truth of the matter is that even the best of calculators do not factor in all of the impact caused by human activity. Let's take a look at that average "My bike is better than your car" cyclist.

First, the bike frame. The traditional kind is made out of metal that had to be mined, transported, smelted and forged, then transported again. Last time I checked, those activities caused CO2. Then there are the paint, the rubber for the tires, the petroleum byproducts of helmets and biker shorts -- which, if you ask me, can be far more offensive than any carbon belching sedan -- and the various other components; the production of which causes the release of gases.

I've been accused, when presenting the above ideas, of making a "specious" argument because I own a car that is made of more of those same components. I am not arguing that my choice of transportation is better than that of the cyclist, rather that all human activity impacts the environment.

Let us then take up the issue of the ground on which the cyclist rides. The push lately has been to create special bike trails so that cyclists and cars need not share the road. To build these trails, miles upon miles of concrete must be laid. Each mile takes up a goodly amount of cement to make up that concrete. Just one tonne of cement generates about 900 kilograms of CO2. That makes the cement industry worse polluters than the airline industry, as airlines as whole produce half as much in a given year. In other words, my flight to Japan last year put out less in the way of greenhouse gases than the cement used to build -- and let's not forget repair -- the bike trail Mr EnviroNazi uses to get to his office.

I don't have a problem with cyclists and their bikes and trails; I do have a problem with the "I'm Better Than You" attitude that a few of them project. The EnviroNazis of the world like to say that I would change if only I knew what harm I was doing to the world my grandkids will inherit. I know. The choices I make are informed choices; I am aware of the impact of living my life has on the environment. If I have one more person attempt to tell me what a horrible person I am because I drive a car that uses regular petrol, they will feel the impact of my footprint.

Exhaling causes the release of carbon dioxide into the air. If one is so concerned with the release of such gases, one need only to stop breathing out.

Mercenarily Random

Machiavelli is God, The Prince and The Discourses are the Old and New Testaments.

Heed the Word of Machiavelli:

"Mercenary and auxiliary forces are useless and dangerous; and any ruler who keeps his state dependent upon mercenaries will never have real peace or security. ... Experience shows that only princes and republics with troops of their own have accomplished great things, while mercenary forces have brought nothing but harm." (The Prince, Chapter XII)

The use of mercenaries can only harm a country, never really serving its interests. This is the real reason why Blackwater U.S.A. should never have been used in Iraq by the United States government. While I do have concerns about the company's owner, Erik Prince, because of his tight connections with ultra-religious conservative groups, I have no real complaints about the existence of such a company. My problem is with the U.S. government using, often without a competitive bidding process, these mercenaries, for I have read the Word of Machiavelli.

At the beginning of this month, the Washington Post wrote on the "steep price" that the U.S. is paying for having Blackwater U.S.A. provide "security" in Iraq. Let us follow just one money trail. The primary contractor to the Department of Defense is Halliburton. The subsidiary of Halliburton in charge of the contracts in Iraq is KBR. KBR, in turn, subcontracted ESS Support Services Worldwide to provide catering and support to troops in Iraq. ESS parted out some of that contract to Regency Hotel and Hospital of Kuwait, who contracted Blackwater for a 34-man team to provide security for ESS personnel as they travel through Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, and Turkey. Blackwater charged Regency an average of $876 per day per person on that security team. Regency, because it too needs to make a buck, charged ESS an average of $1,100 per day per person. Because ESS charged KBR on the basis of per meal, it is not easy to know how much KBR was charged per day per person, but it would not be unreasonable to say that it was more than $1,100. Telling is how much the average mercenary on the ground got: $800 per day.

Hardly cheap, given that the average unmarried non-com gets one-tenth of that each day. General Patraeus, the commander of the forces in Iraq, gets just over half of that rate.

Some would argue that these mercenaries are not really mercenaries because they are Americans who are fighting America's cause as civilians. I'd buy that if it weren't for the fact that, in true mercenary form, Blackwater has sent a great deal of personnel hired from Chile, the Phillippines, Bosnia, to name but a few states outside of the 50 belonging to the United States. The worst part of this is that many of those from Chile were commandos trained by Pinochet's corporatist regime.

It should also be pointed out that Blackwater is not the only security firm on the ground in Iraq. There are two other contractors, DynCorp International and Triple Canopy, but Blackwater is the one with the most private security "soldiers" there. As a group, it has been involved in more than 200 shootings in the past one and a half years. Most of those shootings were from moving vehicles, and Blackwater has the reputation of shooting first and not bothering to stop and ask questions second. That is hardly serving American interests.

Especially given the lack of communication and coordination between the private contractors and the military. Case in point, in March of 2004, four Blackwater contractors were ambushed, burnt and hung from a bridge in Fallujah; the commanding military officer in the region had no idea that the contractors and the convoy they were protecting would be in the area, but had to put aside his own plans and strategies in order to invade the city in pursuit of the insurgents who had executed the attack. This lack of coordination is made worse by the fact that for every 10 military serviceperson on the ground, there is one contractor. In Dessert Storm, that ratio was 50 to 1. This means that for every 10 of our guys trying to put an end to violence and insurgency, there is one guy -- with the probability of not being American -- shooting at the same people our guys are working with in order to get the job done.

It is a sad state of affairs when America begins to outsource its military. It's an even sadder state of affairs when Americans think it's a good idea. It's truly scary when some are saying that the government should be giving Blackwater bonuses, that the unprovoked shootings by those contractors are perfectly okay; after all, "Who says we have to fight fair?". Machiavelli points out that "men of little prudence will do a thing for immediate gain without recognizing the poison it bears for the future" (The Prince, Chapter XIII). Not fighting fair will hardly allow for the peaceable establishment of a secure Iraq, which presumably is in American interests. As the Blackwater employees enjoy immunity from prosecution for their actions in Iraq, the well of future peace in the Middle East is indeed being poisoned by imprudent men.

When America starts to depend on mercenaries abroad, it is only a short while before it depends on them domestically. With so many of the National Guards serving in Iraq, the usual duties of those soldiers -- disaster relief, prevention of civil unrest -- are being contracted out. In the wake of the Katrina disaster, a $73 million contract from FEMA was given to Blackwater for their 600 employees' help in the recovery operation. Blackwater's logic is simple enough: the war in Iraq will not last forever, even if it seems like it will, and so they must branch out into domestic service. The problem here continues to be a lack of accountability; under whose authority would the group fall, should their "shoot first, don't ask questions later" attitude make a reappearance in a domestic situation, is a question neither FEMA nor Blackwater seems willing to discuss.

It should be remembered, "anyone searching for the first cause of the ruin of the Roman Empire will find it began with the hiring of mercenaries" (The Prince, Chapter XIII).

Thus ends the lesson for the day. Go with Machiavelli my children.

Quotations: Niccolo Machiavelli, translated by Daniel Donno. The Prince. New York: Bantam Books, 1981.
Image credits: http://www.mrdowling.com/704-machiavelli.html
Corporate Warriors: books.google.com