DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

I’m happy to see the PNAC in the news: The Project for the New American Century: Why American business should care

If you’re in a hurry, here’s an overview: Cheney/Rumsfeld foreign policy = all war, all the time.

As bad as the Iraq situation is (e.g. 210 US soldiers killed since the President’s May 1 “victory” speech), it’s even worse to think that Cheney and Rumsfeld and the rest of the PNAC goons planned the whole thing in 1998. The WTC attack was a convenient excuse to do what they wanted to do anyway.

Bruce Schneier’s essay on “profiling” injects some much-needed clarity to the debate: Terror Profiles By Computers Are Ineffective

He explains in clear terms what I’ve believed to be true but had no evidence to support: that profiling based on habits or, worse, race/culture/religious affiliation, doesn’t work. I can get caught up in the racist “us vs. them” mindset, in which I think, “I don’t like the looks of that guy; I hope somebody goes through his suitcase!” But it’s dumb, and contrary to the principles on which this country was founded. Also, as Schneier points out, it’s ineffective.

There’s a common belief — generally mistaken — that if we only had enough data we could pick terrorists out of crowds…

[But] identifiable future terrorists are rare, and innocents are common. No matter what patterns you’re looking for, far more innocents will match the patterns than terrorists because innocents vastly outnumber terrorists. So many that you might as well not bother.

In other words, profiling is a recipe for hassling innocent people. So while you might think profiling keeps you safe on the airplane, it’s much more likely to, instead, cause you stress and embarrassment and delay, and not very likely at all to keep you safe.

To illustrate the fallacy of profiling, Schneier closes his essay with a “modest proposal.”

Timothy McVeigh and John Allen Muhammad — one of the accused D.C. snipers — both served in the military. I think we need to put all U.S. ex-servicemen on a special watch list, because they obviously could be terrorists. I think we should flag them for “special screening” when they fly…

I’ve posted some favorite Schneier’s highlights in the past… fun to reread, fun to reflect on next time you’re stuck in line at a security checkpoint.

I guess Olympic Airways runs the Greek postal service… the postcards we mailed from Santorini on 15 September finally arrived today. Total transit time: 38 days.

The Greek post is clearly a much better value than the USPS. Consider that each postcard cost us 70 cents to mail — it seems expensive, yes, but bear with me. Mailing a postcard in the US costs 23 cents, and arrives within 3 days, for a final cost of over 7 cents per day. Our Greek postcards, due to their leisurely month-plus time en route, cost less than a half-cent per day. That represents a real value in international postal service; it’s 92% cheaper! Think of the money US corporations could save if they sent all their business correspondence from Greece.

Charles Siebert published an essay about Roy Horn’s tiger in today’s New York Times Magazine. The piece, Wild Thing, begins,

What on earth was he thinking, Siegfried & Roy’s 7-year-old white Siberian tiger, Montecore, sequestered now “in its usual quarters,” as one report phrased it, at the Mirage hotel in Las Vegas, his future as an entertainer, indeed as a tiger, in serious question.

I admit it’s early in the day; I have not read much yet this morning… but still, eight commas? Two phrases in apposition to the subject pronoun? A restrictive phrase — full of meaning, sure — taxed by a subordinate-clause aside (“as one report phrased it”) and two restrictive prepositional phrase to indicate location — spliced with a comma onto the clause/antecedent/appositive disaster-in-progress? Then yet-another complex phrase, itself containing two subordinate phrases and a prepositional phrase, tacked on after that?

Scraped clean of the loops and detours, we’re left with: “What on earth was he thinking, Roy’s tiger, sequestered, his future in question.” That’s only one-third of the words, but it’s already a mouthful. A brain-ful. Too many facts to hang on a single verb, especially considering the first and main clause is a cliche.

Or as Yoda might say, “Terrible writing that is!” It’s still early in the day, but after an hour’s analysis I continue to be unsure the sentence makes sense.

Initially I intended to diagram it, as an exercise and as word-geek entertainment, to force an upgrade to my mental parser. I haven’t diagrammed a sentence since the third grade, but I have my copy of Shertzer’s The Elements of Grammar handy at all times. How hard could it be?

Too hard, as it turns out.

We did the math… and decided that 20 years’ worth of free electricity sounds like a good deal. We just signed up for solar power. We’ll have a photovoltaic array on the roof by Christmas.

We considered waiting until the hardware is cheaper. The problem is that the big rebates and tax breaks diminish quickly… for example, if we waited until Jan. 1, we would pay $1100 more than if we installed it on Dec. 31. So, even though the gear will get cheaper, it could be a long time before it gets so cheap that the prices match the (roughly 50%) discount available today.

There are other benefits to committing now. Here’s one: Consumers can expect to pay up to 30 percent more for heating and cooking this winter because of the higher cost of natural gas, according to PG&E.

Yes, that article addresses the cost of natural gas, not electricity. The article goes on to explain that one of the reasons natural gas is 30% more expensive than last year is that “dozens of new natural gas-burning power plants have opened around the country.” Those plants have to buy gas, too, don’t they? I doubt they will absorb a 30% price hike.

Also, our new governor has announced his intention to “encourage energy firms to build more power plants”, according to the Chronicle. Who’s going to pay for those? PG&E is already bankrupt.

Whatever happers with Schwarzenegger’s plan to build more power plants, a 30 year analysis indicates that energy prices will go up. We’re happy to be exiting this vicious (and expensive) trend.

Ironically, the faster electricity prices rise, the sooner my PV system pays for itself.