Messing with the stoplight thieves

About a month ago I was traveling East on Manchester Road in St. Louis County, Missouri. I decided to make a right at New Ballwin Road but the light was red. I put on my brakes, slowed down to where my speedometer went to zero. I flipped on the signal, looked left and right and then made my turn. There was an officer several cars across from me as I made my turn and I had seen him as I stopped. I thought nothing of his presence until he hit his lights and pulled me over. The officer was completely professional and courteous as he wrote me a ticket for not coming to a complete stop before making my right turn on red. I asked the officer whether he was a traffic officer or a regular patrol officer and he identified himself as a traffic officer. You see, traffic officers are those which choose to lay about in wait for giving tickets to unsuspecting alleged lawbreakers. Traffic officers do not arrest burglars, robbers or kidnappers or such unless there’s no one else to call upon for assistance. Traffic officers write tickets which generate revenues and make the city not have to raise other taxes or fees for their citizens. The ticket was allegedly for my not making any “complete cessation from movement” before making the right turn. I explained to the officer that I had ceased all forward momentum, turned on my signal, looked around and safely made my turn and that as for any “complete cessation from movement,” that was not possible in our physical universe. The officer and I debated the language of the ordinance, which he said was not as I had told him. Some readers know that I am an attorney. The whole “complete cessation from movement” thing seems like a scam so I did a little research. It seems that any “complete cessation from movement” actually does not naturally occur in our universe. At approximately - 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Kelvin) molecular motion is slowed to its minimum but, such motion never stops. [More . . . ]

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The value of uncertainty

At Edge.com, John Brockman recently had a fascinating conversion with Emanuel Derman, who noted that "many physicists and other scientists . . . have flooded Wall Street in recent years." Derman described their work as follows:

They are known as "quants" because they do quantitative finance. Seduced by a vision of mathematical elegance underlying some of the messiest of human activities, they apply skills they once hoped to use to untangle string theory or the nervous system to making money.

Derman then quoted particle physicist Heinz Pagels on the importance of maintaining uncertainty on Wall Street:

Mathematicians and others are endeavoring to apply insights gleaned from the sciences of complexity to the seemingly intractable problem of understanding the world economy. I have a guess, however, that if this problem can be solved (and that is unlikely in the near future), then it will not be possible to use this knowledge to make money on financial markets. One can make money only if there is real risk based on actual uncertainty, and without uncertainty there is no risk.

This quote fuels my suspicions regarding the unnecessarily complex nature of modern financial instruments.

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We’re letting our children down.

Look what advertising has so often come to: img_2567The advantage of going with this company is that they won't hit you with "hidden fees." They won't cheat you. Much food packaging and advertising is comparable. We won't poison you with strange chemicals! Zero grams of trans fats! All natural!

America... just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.

- Hunter S. Thompson

But it gets worse. In our schools we work hard to teach our children civility and kindness. For instance, take a look at this wonderful set of "Rules to Live By" displayed at New City School, in St. Louis Missouri. Who could possibly dispute the importance of any of these rules? These characteristics precisely describe the kinds of children we want to raise, right?

img_2593

Now consider the accusations that we commonly hear as the centerpiece of media stories, especially political media stories. They are full of untruths, untrustworthy characters, refusal to listen and tons of vicious put-downs. Our conflict-pornography obsessed news media works hard every day to undo the lessons we so carefully teach our children. There is something terribly wrong with us. Fixing this lack of truth and civility should be one of our highest priorities. One easy suggestion is to turn off the television or radio whenever they report fake news that is really conflict pornography. Label it as not-news and just shut it off. Or, better yet, switch over to real news like Democracy Now with Amy Goodman, where you'll hear truth from a trustworthy reporter, who will actively listen to her guests and offer absolutely no put downs.

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Messing with the phone company

My phone company has utterly and repeatedly lied to me about my bill. It's infuriating. I call them up and ask them to justify my bill. They "apologize" and insist that it will cost exactly $X every month in the future. Then the bills show up and they are $X plus an extra $15. What do you do, go to small claims court over $15? I'm saving up my bills and I actually might do that someday. In the meantime, I do wonder how many other people are having the same experience, and I assume that there are plenty of you out there. Unfortunately, these do not make good class actions because they usually involve oral misrepresentations over the phone. In order to prove that a large group of people were lied to, you'd need to call every customer into court to testify. Courts usually reject these as class actions. Therefore, anyone with this situation is likely in the same boat I'm in. Small damages also combine with clever arbitration clauses to amount to telephone company immunity. I'm telling you this little story as a prelude to showing you this image. I do understand this person's frustration. Bravo!

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