December 2003 Archives

I've written about comment paradigms before, and discussed some reasons the high-traffic sites don't want to bother with comments at all.

But what if a site owner could charge commenters $0.01 per comment? Using technology like BitPass it would be possible to configure Movable Type in such a manner. By restricting access to the comment CGI script and requiring the commenter to enter a BitPass login, the owner of a busy site could make a few bucks a day, at least. Heck, most people would probably be willing to pay $0.10 or more to leave a comment.

Charging to leave comments would also eliminate much of the hassle involved. People would be less likely to post spam, and even though the cost-per-comment would be low flame wars would get expensive. When people have to spend money (even small amounts) to access a service, they're generally more careful and conservative.

I'm hardly the first one to come up with this idea, but I became aware of the BitPass technology through an email from Bill Hobbs (who's moving to www.billhobbs.com soon). Here's a draft document from BitPass explaining how to charge access for scripts. It's the wave of the future, folks.

In honor of the upcoming new year (2004, what an uninspiring number), I'd like everyone to share their earliest memory. When? Who? What?

Mine is 1981, sometime between December 7th and December 21st. I remember holding out four fingers, looking at them, and deciding that four was an exceedingly great age to be. My parents had just told me that I'd be having a little brother born soon, and I was looking forward to that. We were riding in our blue Blazer, driving on some long curved road in the desert... I think. It was sunny, and everything outside looks yellow in my memory.

I have vague recollections of the house we lived in before I turned two, but it's hard to say if they're real or not.

Instead of multilateral, I propose a new word that more accurately represents the intended meaning: evilateral. The point of "multilateralism" isn't just to get more countries involved, it's to get the evil folks on board.

I just noticed that the debate I started is continuing on blogs I've never been to. (HT: Kevin at The Smallest Minority.)

I've been busy painting all day. I'm redoing my living room, and I'll put up pictures when I'm done. Gotta paint over the 60s'era wood paneling.

Meanwhile, Candace passes along the perfect late Christmas gift. Gotta go check Ebay....

Happy New Year!

Here's a perfect example of why we need to maintain Coalition control of Iraq, and not turn the country over to the UN or the Iraqis too soon.

BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro — Jailed former President Slobodan Milosevic (search) and another U.N. war crimes suspect won seats in Serbia's parliament as an extreme nationalist party swept weekend elections, according to results released Monday.

Vojislav Seselj's (search) Serbian Radical Party, which supported Milosevic's Balkan war (search) campaigns in the 1990s, won 81 seats in Sunday's ballot for the 250-seat parliament — far more than the pro-Western groups that toppled Milosevic three years ago, the state electoral commission said.

It looks like the Serbian Radical Party won seats mainly due to the economic difficulties in Serbia since the war and the appearance of corruption in the pro-West coalition that's ruled the country for the past few years.

After campaigning on a platform of defiance to the West and accusing the post-Milosevic leadership of corruption, the Radicals have also focused on the devastated economy and from deep anti-West feelings generated by the NATO bombing of Serbia for its crackdown in Kosovo in 1999.

Milosevic, who presided over four Balkan wars, has been on trial at The Hague since February 2002 on 66 counts of war crimes, including genocide. Seselj is accused of allowing paramilitary troops under his control to murder and torture non-Serbs during the Balkan wars.

The Ba'ath party must be entirely rooted out and disposed of before our coalition leaves Iraq. We must guarantee that anti-west radicalism has no place in the newly rebuilt country, despite the tough economics that always follow military defeat.

I know you must often wonder: what is polyamory? Well here's a (nonsensical) guide: "Polyamory - What it is and what it isn't." Aside from being awkwardly written (avoiding some common contractions, but using one in the title, for instance), the essay is dull and boring. Plus, it's not based the slightest bit in reality. Anyway, what is "polyamory"?

Polyamory has been defined as the philosophy and practice of loving more than one person at a time with honesty and integrity. Synonyms for polyamory are responsible, ethical, and intentional, non-monogamy. Because those descriptions are somewhat clumsy, the term Polyamory was coined in the late 80's by a pagan Priestess, Morning Glory Zell, and defines a range of different lifestyle alternatives. In most cases, but not all, this involves some sexual or at least intensely intimate sensual behavior.

Let me summarize: you have sex with lots of people, but there won't be any complications if you all love each other.

The authors purposefully confuse all sorts of different meanings for "love".

Polyamorists say that love is an infinite, not a finite commodity. An example of this is with children. When my oldest daughter was born, I loved her with every ounce of my being. When my son was born, I found that I didn't have to give them half a love each, I could love them both fully. My third child is loved as much, if not more, than the other two.

It's absurd to assert that people love their children in the same way they love their spouse/whatever. You may as well say "I love pizza and I love hamburgers; in the same way, I can love both Jill and Heather." There are all sorts of different kinds of love, as I think we're all well-aware.

The authors also appear to have no understanding of what love really involves.

This also applies to friends - when you meet someone new, you don't have to think about who you are going to drop off to make them fit. As a woman said when explaining why she chose polyamory - "I refuse to accept the myth that I have to stop loving one person before I start loving another."

There's only so much time in the day. I'm sure we've all lost contact with friends due to lack of time. It's absurd to think a person could invest the amount of time necessary for a truly intimate loving relationship with a large number of people. In fact, most humans can't even maintain one healthy relationship (judging from the divorce rate).

And then, "falling in love".

Polyamorists say that love should be unconditional, rather than the monogamous proposition that "I will love you on the condition that you will not love anyone else" - "forsaking all others" is how it usually is put. And as shown by history, monogamy and marriage are no safeguards against falling in love with someone else.

And there's no way we can possibly control our feelings, is there? We're doomed to fall in love with other people and destroy our marriages! Except, of course, that loving someone is far different from "falling in love" (as we say). Loving someone involves a conscious choice, whereas "falling in love" is merely an emotional phenomenon.

The authors blather on a bit and then try to refute the idea that polyamory might displease God by quoting two atheists.

It is sinful - God doesn't like it.

"Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others." Oscar Wilde Chameleon.

"Confusing monogamy with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other error." George Bernard Shaw

The sinfulness and wickedness of sex is based on the assumption that God doesn't like sex. This poison has its roots in Ancient Assyria, and the religions of Mythra and Zoroastrianism, which first put forth the idea of "the obscenity of the flesh." The sex drive, being one that cannot be denied, becomes a rich source of implanted guilt and shame, used to manipulate and degrade the individual. Therefore any sexual (natural) feelings need to be accompanied by shame, and therefore kept secret.

Of course, there's no real indication that God dislikes sex, so they're beating up a straw man. As they note, much of the Bible was written by polygamists. However, the authors aren't advocating polygamous marriage, they're advocating committment-free sexual liasons. The Bible makes it pretty clear that God wasn't thrilled with the idea of polygamy (see Solomon's downfall and Paul's instruction that church elders have at most one wife), even though he doesn't condemn it, but polygamous marriages laid responsibilities on all parties involved identical to the responsibilities in monogamous marriages. They weren't sexual free-for-alls.

Ok, there's a bunch more stuff I won't address directly. It's repetitive.

Their last point is the most absurd. After discussing jealousy at great length, they then ask an apparently rhetorical question that implies monogamy has no biological basis.

If monogamy is so natural and hardwired, why is there such a large relationship industry - the "How to make it right" of magazines, books, TV shows, marriage guidance, etc.?

Hm, could it be because we want successful monogamous relationships, but have trouble making them work? Maybe because we keep "falling in love" and never make a real decision to actually love someone in spite of our frequently fluctuating emotions? Could it be because nonsense like this polyamory paper twists and distorts people's understanding of love?

(HT: Random Walks.)

Others have speculated on the likelihood of terrorist groups transforming into mere organized crime syndicates as they struggle to raise money (Steven and Wretchard for two, although I can't find the links), and now it looks like there's evidence that it's happening.

Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network has become deeply involved in international drug trafficking, using the money to buy arms and, possibly, radioactive material for use in a so-called "dirty" nuclear bomb, senior U.S. officials say.

The seizure earlier this month of boats carrying heroin and hashish, and operated by al Qaeda-linked persons, has brought to light an al Qaeda drug operation that has grown tremendously since the September 11 attacks, the sources say.

"Bin Laden does not mind trafficking in drugs, even though it's against the teaching of Islam, because it's being used to kill Westerners," said a defense official who asked not to be named. "He has allies and associates who are not members per se, but who move products for him and take drugs and buy arms and give the arms to al Qaeda."

I'm not pro-drug -- and drug legalization and regulation are complicated issues in their own right -- but if terrorists start turning more of their energy towards drugs then that means they'll spend less time trying to blow things up, right? On the other hand they'll have more money to play with, which would increase their terror capabilities.

Personally, I expect the former. As terrorists get involved more heavily is standard organized crime they'll gain a huge incentive to avoid attention and not rock the boat. They may want money now to fund attacks, but eventually they'll just start wanting money for itself, to support burgeoning hedonistic lifestyles like all drug lords the world over. They'll start fighting amongst themselves for money, territory, and power, and just like the Mafia they'll do everything possible to escape the attention of law enforcement -- getting raided, arrested, or caught with bombs is bad for business.

Additionally, the drug-running industry is pretty crowded already, and if terrorist groups start stepping on toes the lesser criminals may start giving us some useful tips they may not have bothered with before. Greed corrupts the best of us, and I have no doubt that greed will foster competition and conflict between terrorist/criminal groups who once cooperated due to a common enemy or a shared ideology.

Oh no wait, my mistake.

Planes from dozens of countries landed in the provincial capital of Kerman with relief supplies, volunteers and dogs trained to find bodies and survivors in the debris.

U.S. military C-130 cargo planes were among them, despite long-severed diplomatic relations and President Bush's characterization of Iran as being part of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and North Korea. ...

The United States arranged an airlift of 150,000 pounds of food, water and medical supplies. Four military planes flew into the country from Kuwait.

So an Iranian city is flattened by an earthquake and we send relief supplies... if I remember correctly, Iran's leaders were dancing with the Palestinians after 9/11. Huh.

Now, I completely support sending this aid. There are some good pragmatic reasons to do it, even apart from humanitarian concerns. First, the Iranian people tend to look on America pretty favorably and offering help in this tough situation reinforces their opinion. Second, it's a nice reminder to the Ayatollah that our armed forces are just a hop, skip, and a jump away.

"The reception was beyond expectations," said U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Jeff Bohn, who was on the first plane. "The warmth that the Iranian military and civil-aviation workers gave us was truly incredible."

The Iranian people like America. I've got a friend at church from Iran, and I hope to post a Q&A with him soon.

Howard Dean says he'll back whichever Democrat wins the nomination.

Dr. Dean repeated his promise to support whichever Democrat wins. "Any of them are better than what we've got right now," he said.

Really? Al Sharpton would make a better president than George Bush? C'mon.

Speaking of movie scripts, Aaron Haspel has a nice disection of how Hollywood protrays the business world.

The anti-business movies deal overwhelmingly with schlock purveyors: yellow journalists (Citizen Kane), swampland peddlers (Glengarry Glen Ross), penny stock hustlers (Boiler Room), shady aluminum siding salesmen (Tin Men), and out-and-out gangsters (The Godfather). It's a Wonderful Life gestures half-heartedly toward the notion of quality as good business, as in the scene where Mr. Potter's rental agent lectures him on how all the nice houses in Bailey Park are killing his real estate business. But mostly it's more people vs. profits hoo-rah.

In a "pro-business" movie like Executive Suite, our hero, William Holden, is the research chief for the furniture company, and in his big speech, as he ascends to the chairmanship, he tells the board that the company will never sacrifice quality, profits be damned. That it might actually be more profitable to manufacture good furniture does not cross the screenwriter's mind.

Incidentally, if I ever hear an executive of a company I own stock in say "profits be damned", I'm going to immediately sell.

Most people don't understand capitalism, and think profits are evil. The root of the misunderstanding is that many people want companies to be "nice", but companies don't exist to benefit humanity any more than you as an individual do. Companies consist solely of the assets of people who have invested (shareholders), and those people expect their money to be used for their own benefit, just like you expect your money to be used for your benefit. As Neal Stephenson hammers home in his excellent
Cryptonomicon, people who invest in corporations are interested in one thing: increasing shareholder value. Every corporate executive should realize that increasing shareholder value is the only moral use of company assets.

Individuals should be charitable and generous with their own money, but no one has any business giving away money that belongs to other people.

Update:
Plus, the very existence of profit (absent monopolies and other market distortions (which are never entirely absent)) demonstrates that a company is providing a beneficial service to its customers as well as it's shareholders. As I explained here, trading in a free market is generally profitable for both parties -- otherwise one of the parties would refuse the trade. The economy isn't a zero-sum game; wealth is created through trading by redistributing resources to those who value them most.

Update:
Director Mitch notes that there just aren't any good bad guys left. But there's always someone richer than you to be jealous of!

It's been a slow holiday season here at Master of None, mainly because I've been taking advantage of the vacation to do a little writing on the side.

What really got me motivated is an excellent book by Stephen King called On Writing.

I can't recommend it highly enough; I read the entire 300 page paperback in one afternoon. The book contains a short biography, and then Mr. King gives a bunch of style tips and tons of examples.

Most of it isn't revolutionary, but he really got me thinking. I don't think I'm cut out to write novel-length fiction, but I whipped out a rough draft of a movie script yesterday afternoon that has real potential. I'm showing it around to some friends in the industry right now, and I'm pretty excited.

I also just finished Wolves of the Calla, which was pretty good. My favorite Stephen King book is still Wizard and Glass, though.

Next on the stack of books: The Brothers Karamozov.

One of the most fascinating results of the liberation of Iraq is the newfound potential for religious freedom in the Middle East; many Christian missionaries are already there, or on their way.

Some people seem to dislike the idea of witnessing to Muslims, but if you affirm free speech and free religion then there's really no basis for objection.

I was reminded of this topic because Mike at Fly Over Country left on a missionary trip to Beirut today, and I imagine that's a dangerous place to share Jesus Christ. Keep him, and the hundreds of other missionaries in the region in your prayers.

Matthew 9:36-38

When he [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."

Chris over at Interesting Times posts some Dean numbers from Google but makes "absolutely no claim that these numbers have any real meaning". Fair enough, considering that they're based on the number of searches performed on Google for the names of the various candidates. Go take a look, I can't quote his graphics here.

In the same spirit, I like to track the lines over at Tradesports to see what the gamblers -- the folks who put their money where their mouth is -- think of the situation. The following graphic shows that Dean is far-and-away the favorite to win the nomination.

Compare that with the numbers from three months ago:

If I were one of the candidates spending my own money on a campaign, I'd use this market to bet against myself to offset my expenses in the event of a loss. (Which may be illegal, but oh well.)

It's perhaps interesting to note that over the past three months, while Dean's odds of winning the Democratic nomination have been improving, the odds that President Bush will win re-election have also been rising.

But don't worry, these numbers don't mean anything. Heh.

I'd like to say thanks to everyone who's been linking recently. I try to maintain a constant level of spectacularity at all times, but it's more fun when other people read it! And special thanks to the generous folks who've hit the tip jar.

Christmas isn't a story, or even the beginning of a story. Jesus existed long before he humbled himself to take human form as a baby in a manger.

John 1:1-3

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

Jesus' birth was rather the beginning of the end of God's creation, the first of the final steps towards the fulfillment of God's plan and purpose for mankind.

Most people look on Christmas as a happy time, and indeed it is, but many may not truly understand why. It's significant that Jesus lowered himself to our level and lived as a man:

Philippians 2:5-8

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death -- even death on a cross!

But Jesus didn't only come to give us an example of humility and to teach us how to live together in peace. He came to fight and defeat, utterly and forever, the forces of evil and rebellion.

Jesus' coming -- Immanuel, "God with us" -- was a joyous occasion, but Jesus life was not a happy life. Isaiah prophesied of the messiah:

Isaiah 53:3

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

How could it be otherwise? Surrounded constantly by sin and evil (as are we, but how insensitive we become!), he was rejected by his closest friends and family, thrown out of towns, chased by bloodthirsty mobs, and finally captured, tortured, and executed as a humiliated criminal for crimes he had never committed.

As I said, Jesus' life was not a happy life, but it was a joyous life -- happiness and joy are not at all the same. While happiness comes from our fleeting circumstances, joy can live in us continually because joy is based on our hope of the future. When Jesus was suffering and dying -- and perhaps Satan thought his own victory was at hand -- the world looked bleak, but just around the corner were the most joyful, triumphant words ever spoken.

John 19:30

When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

It is finished. With those words, the Son of God announced victory over sin, and death, and evil. The battle is over; all that's left is to wrap up some loose ends. There's a victory feast, a huge celebration planned in Heaven, waiting for us, and our only job is to invite our friends and bring along as many as want to come.

Donald Sensing has a post denouncing the policy of Mutually Assured Destruction (in response to a post by Rosemary on Dean's World), specifically American use of nuclear weapons as a response to the detonation of a nuclear device in an American city by terrorists. The term "Mutually Assured Destruction" isn't really apt anymore (and Rev. Sensing doesn't use it), because there are no other nations (Russia included) with the power to annihilate the United States. What MAD has morphed into is a promise to respond to a nuclear attack with the maximum possible force, rather than "proportional force". We have no desire to trade cities one-for-one with terrorists; as soon as they show a willingness to nuke us, game over -- we will respond with enough force to end the war immediately.

Rev. Sensing claims such a response would be immoral, but this quote makes me wonder if he understands MAD:

I reject a nuclear response that seeks simply to lash out at presumed enemies and make Arabs suffer for suffering’s sake. Killing just to kill would not be warranted even under such grievous circumstances.

There are two parts to MAD: the threat, and the follow-through. The threat is intended to convince our enemies that using nuclear weapons against us simply isn't worth it. Terrorists can't get nukes without the aid of some rogue nation (as Rev. Sensing points out -- North Korea or Iran, most probably), and the threat of MAD should serve to deter those nations from helping the terrorists.

It sounds like what Rev. Sensing most objects to, then, is the possibility that we'd actually follow through on the MAD threat if we were nuked. We've never had to before, but there's no guarantee that the threat itself will deter everyone forever. The threat itself is brilliant and costs no lives, but if we're ever nuked we'll be put in a tough position. Do we retaliate with overwhelming (non-proportional) force, as we threatened to do, or do we back down? If we back down, our future threats will be powerless and we won't have any means to deter future nuclear attacks. If we don't back down, and we actually obliterate a city or two in the nation(s) we determine were involved, we'll be responsible for killing a great many people who were only peripherally involved in the attack against us.

However, contrary to what some of Rev. Sensing's commenters claim, such retaliation would not be "murder" or "revenge" -- such terms have no meaning in war. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed when we nuked Japan, but that action probably saved millions of lives (Japanese and American); it wasn't murder it was a strategic use of force calculated to end the war, and it did. Furthermore, since the utility of the threat wholly depends on our willingness to make good on it, it's not revenge to respond to an attack in the exact manner we guaranteed we would. If a thug pulls a knife on a cop, and the cop tells the thug to drop the knife or he'll shoot, it's not "revenge" for the cop to shoot the thug if instead of dropping the knife he charges to attack.

Far from being immoral, MAD is the only moral policy I've ever heard of that has a chance of deterring nuclear attacks against the United States. Rev. Sensing proposes some other possible methods in his post, but they'd all take years to implement, and would do nothing to prevent future nuclear attacks in the mean time. Rev. Sensing's proposals are all excellent long-term policies (most of which we should be doing now), but such possibilities will not be sufficient to deter our enemies from using nuclear weapons against us. You can't correct a child's behavior by threatening to send him to military school in ten years.

Update:
Rev. Sensing has updated his own post in response to mine. First, I'd like to say that I'm sure he's more familiar with MAD than I am -- it was his characterization of deterrence as mere "lashing out" that made me wonder.

By rejecting the use of nuclear weapons as a deterrent, Rev. Sensing seems to leave no real purpose for their existence at all. We certainly won't use them pre-emptively, and if we won't use them in retaliation either then there's no reason to have them. We can't even threaten to use them if our enemies know we will never follow through.

He describes many dire consequences that may follow from our retaliatory use of nuclear weapons, and he's probably right about many of them. But are those possible consequences worse than seeing another US city nuked by terrorists? I'm not sure that's the case.

We could continue to deter Russia and other nuclear nations with the rest of our arsenal, and withdraw our soldiers from around the world if need be. It would obviously be a Bad Thing all around, but would it be worse than losing another US city to another nuke?

Would our retaliation prevent another attack? No guarantees, but it could sure motivate some of our enemies to clamp down on the terrorists in their midsts right quick. If not -- if they're determined to fight a nuclear war -- then we have no alternatives anyway.

As for furthering the cause of Christ... I'll have to consider it. Off the top of my head I can't think of an effective nuclear deterrence policy that would also win people to Jesus if it had to be used. War in general doesn't tend to turn people to Christ, but does that mean we should never fight? Some pacifists say so, but their positions aren't convincing.

President Bush sure does seem willing to tackle some of the most obnoxious elephants-in-the-livingroom in American politics, and now the White House is floating some ideas for immigration reform.

President Bush plans to kick off his reelection year by proposing a program that would make it easier for immigrants to work legally in the United States, in what would constitute the most significant changes to immigration law in 18 years, Republican officials said yesterday.

Lobbyists working with the White House said Bush is developing a plan that would allow immigrants to cross the border legally if jobs are waiting for them. The sources said the administration also wants to provide a way for some undocumented workers in the United States to move toward legal status.

I've written about (illegal) immigration before, and frankly I don't like it; and I don't like the idea of a plan built around granting legal status to people who have already broken all the rules to get here. But I really don't see any other potential solution.

Anyone who thinks it would be possible (politically or physically) to find, catch, and deport every illegal alien is delusional. Likewise, those who advocate putting the military on the border to stop illegal immigration (as I've done, in my more idealistic moments) are living in fantasyland. Such operations would require tens of thousands of soldiers and cost billions of dollars -- an impossible investment, particularly in these troubling times. (Of course, many strident anti-illegal-immigrationists are also strict isolationists, and wouldn't mind devoting all our military assets to watching the borders.)

The country (and particularly California) has been stuck in limbo for decades. Everyone knows we can't ship 'em out, but no one has had a real plan for dealing with the present situation as well as the future. Closing the borders is impossible, and completely open immigration is extremely undesirable. There is a lot of middle ground, but with the huge number of (illegal) people involved it's hard to devise a system that will enlist their cooperation without giving them full legality.

My biggest concern with any reform program is that those who came illegally should not be given any advantage over those who followed the rules and came legally. It looks like President Bush has considered that angle.

The White House plan is being designed by Bush's senior adviser, Karl Rove, in consultation with the domestic policy staff. Sources said the White House's biggest concern is that the new mechanism not penalize people who had followed the law and reward those who had not. McCain's plan, which was introduced in the House by Reps. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), tries to mitigate that problem by creating a new type of visa for previously undocumented workers who would be allowed to live in the United States legally for three years. Then the workers could apply for the temporary worker visa, which would be the path to a green card, or legal permanent residency. That would amount to a three-year advantage for those who entered legally.

It's telling that the plan is being spearheaded by Karl Rove, President Bush's top political strategist. That detail -- along with my general cynicism -- makes me even more skeptical... but then, they haven't released any details yet. I strongly believe that our immigration system needs to be reformed, and I recognize that concessions will have to be made for the sake of practicality, so I'm eager to see the details of President Bush's proposal.

Merry Christmas...

Glenn Althauser, of Boring, Oregon, claims to own the world's tallest living Christmas tree.

The logger, who is 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighs 135 pounds, really needed a chopper. His tree is 160 feet tall and 21 feet around at the base.

"My wife, Grace, who died of cancer 10 years ago, kind of pushed me to do it," said Althauser, who is now 75 and still takes a chain saw to the occasional tree. "Grace looked into hiring someone to climb that Douglas fir to string up lights. But that was going to cost me $9,000.

"Being a tightwad, I didn't want to do that. So I rented the helicopter. It took the pilot 15 minutes to do the job, but he charged me for a whole hour. I remember very well. He charged me $400."

How seriously does he take his record?

"So, I will continue to make my claim until someone challenges me and proves me wrong," Althauser said. "Then I guess I will have to eat crow. Whatever."

"Whatever" indeed!