May 2005 Archives

Nathan Smith forsees newspapers of the future will focus on what they do best: delivering dead trees door-to-door rather than producing content.

A generation from now, running a newspaper will be pretty simple. One, you'll surf the web for good articles, debates, the latest major speeches, think tank reports, and blog posts. Two, select fifty thousand words or so of the best, most relevant content, in a variety of styles. Third, contact the writers for permission to syndicate, decide which fees (for those who ask them) are worth paying, and transfer the appropriate amount to their PayPal accounts. Fourth, correspond with advertisers, and assemble all the ads that are ready to print on a given day. Fifth, lay out your paper. Sixth, send it to the printers. Seventh, distribute it. Your staff will consist of web-surfing editors-and-content-finders, layout people and printers, and delivery boys with bikes, plus a staff to drum up advertisers and maybe a few reporters who deal with local issues.

He's got a lot more, and even describes a system whereby writers could continue to make a living. His ideas are pretty similar to the thoughts I wrote in "Media As a Loss Leader". Bryan at NetCynic obliquely notes that blogging companies face a similar dilemma: charging for their service would reduce its value.

(HT: Clive Davis.)

Maybe someone with more economic insight can clarify the issue, but my understanding of subsidies is that they're ultimately harmful to the economy of the country providing them. Obviously the recipient industry and its owners will benefit immediately from subsidies they receive, but the economy as a whole -- and the taxpayers who pay the subsidies -- will be harmed in the aggregate more than anyone will be helped. Ultimately, economies based on subsidies (i.e., Communism) cannot compete with free markets, but if subsidies are kept small as a proportion of the economy as a whole then specific industries can be built up without seriously threatening the survival of the rest of the system.

So, European Airbus subsidies hurt Europe more than they hurt America -- in total -- but they can do significant damage to the American commercial airline industry, and Boeing specifically. America doesn't want to hurt itself by subsidizing Boeing, but we also don't want Boeing to be put out of business by an opponent that doesn't mind hurting itself to hurt us. Aside from larger economic concerns, we have a national security interest in maintaining a domestic commercial airplane manufacturer, so we can't just sit idle while Boeing is put out of business.

There doesn't really appear to be any way to fight subsidies without using subsidies. The only comfort is that whichever side uses fewer will end up stronger economically in the long run.

So what are you guys up to this weekend? I'm just relaxing. Yesterday my fiancée and I replanted the flowerbed in front of my house. The gardenias were over-grown and 90% wood, so we pulled most of them up and put in marigolds of various flavors. It looks pretty cool, and I can't wait for the flowers to get bigger. It's funny because I don't like gardening, but just about anything I do with her ends up being fun.

I also installed some new exterior lighting; the old fixtures wouldn't accept the fluorescent spotlight bulbs I found. I love fluorescent bulbs, especially for the outside, because I can leave them on all night. Each one only consumes about 11 - 14 watts of power, and I use a half-dozen or so around the house at night so I can see what's going on outside. I don't care for motion sensors -- because they're always clicking on and off when you don't want them to, and they never go on when you need to look out the window.

Today I'm going to go running and hang out with my family. I hope the soldiers in the field are having a decent day, I know we're thinking about them over here. My thoughts have turned to Paul Varner more than once, and my prayers are with his family and all those who have lost loved ones. God bless America.

It's pleasing for many reasons to see that the French have rejected the proposed European Union constitution. The only problem is that the story says that the voters were displeased because the constitution wouldn't have protected France's social welfare system as strongly as the leftists would have liked. I've skimmed through the European constitution, and it's no right-wing capitalist dream -- far from it -- but it would have forced France to lower some of its protectist walls while at the same time sucking power away from the populace and entrusting it to a permanent elite bureaucracy. Unfortunately, the threat to their liberty didn't seem to scare the French as much as the potential loss of their 35-hour work week... which makes one wonder if their taste for freedom has already been extinguished.

I missed this story last month, but apparently Northrop Grumman was hiring illegal immigrants at its Continental Maritime division. It looks like the defense contractor didn't know the immigrants were illegal, but it also didn't try too hard to find out.

During the two-month investigation, agents reviewed employment records of 755 employees. Most of the illegal workers who were detected used fake immigration documents to dupe the company, ICE officials said.

The local divisions of Northrop Grumman don't participate in a voluntary national program that allows employers to check immigration documents through a government database.

Perhaps the program should should be mandatory, or perhaps Northrop Grumman should be keen enough on national security that they participate voluntarily. I'm totally in favor of adjusting laws to put more reponsibility on employers, but any reasonable measures would require the creation of a robust government identification system, which many people on both sides of the aisle seem to oppose. There's really no other way to stem the tide of illegal immigration.

VDARE has a long list of other incidents in which illegal immigration intersects with national security. The Mad Tech has a great post about the hidden costs of illegal immigration, along with a list of companies that have been caught hiring them.

USA Today writes about a poll showing that a majority of Americans may vote for Hillary Clinton in 2008. However, I think the results are less significant than the article presents.

For the first time, a majority of Americans say they are likely to vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton if she runs for president in 2008, according to a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday. ...

Voters under 30 were by far the most likely to say they would support a woman for president. More than half of them said they were "very likely" to vote for a woman, compared with less than one-third of those 50 and older. ...

•Strongest support from those with the lowest income. Sixty-three percent of those with annual household incomes of $20,000 or less were likely to support her, compared with 49% of those with incomes of $75,000 or higher.

First, the poll was of "all Americans", not likely or registered voters, and this is reflected in the age and income breakdown. Young people don't vote as much as older people, and (I think) very poor people don't vote as much average people. Second, the poll was taken over a weekend, when Democrats typically poll much stronger than Republicans. John Hinderaker at Power Line also points out that it took Kerry a long time to get his negatives this high. From the article:

In the poll, 29% were "very likely" to vote for Clinton for president if she runs in 2008; 24% were "somewhat likely." Seven percent were "not very likely" and 39% were "not at all likely" to vote for her.

Alexander K. McClure points out that New England liberals don't tend to win elections, but it's important to remember that Hillary is from Arkansas. [Xrlq writes in the comments that she's from Park Ridge, IL, but she did live in Arkansas for a while.] She's New York to the core, but I'll bet she can dig into her roots at the right time and summon up some good-old-girl uh, charm. Well, assuming she has any charm at all, which hasn't yet been evident to me.

McQ is the only rightist (I think?) I've seen who looks worried about the poll. He notes that the article says:

Clinton commands as much strong support - but more strong opposition - as George W. Bush did in a Newsweek poll in November 1998, two years before the 2000 election. She is in slightly stronger position than then-vice president Al Gore, the eventual 2000 Democratic nominee, was in 1998.

I think the "more strong opposition" is key, and I highly doubt many of the 39% who said they wouldn't vote for her are going to change their minds. Good impressions can be lost very quickly, but bad impressions last. Once the campaign starts the negatives for both candidates are going to skyrocket, and I doubt whoever the Republican is will start as far in the hole as Hillary.

The article quotes two political pundits, one from Hillary's political action committee and one from Emily's List, a leftist group that works hard to get leftist women into office and keep right-wing women out. No one from the right was consulted on the importance of this survey. I sincerely hope the left is drinking the kool-aid and that Hillary is nominated in 2008.

Cecilia Barnes is suing Yahoo over fake profiles that her ex-boyfriend set up to harass her.

A woman sued Yahoo Inc. for $3 million, alleging the Internet site failed to fulfill a promise to remove nude pictures of her from the Web.

Cecilia Barnes, 48, in a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Multnomah County, claims an ex-boyfriend began posting unauthorized personal profiles of her containing the photos in December. The profiles included her e-mail address and work phone number.

The former boyfriend also engaged in online discussions in Yahoo chat rooms while posing as Barnes and directing men to the profiles, the lawsuit claims.

"Due to these profiles and online chats, unknown men would arrive without warning at plaintiff's work expecting to engage in sexual relations with her," the lawsuit claims.

The key seems to be that Yahoo didn't remove the profiles when they were asked to. The ex-boyfriend could cause as much havoc by posting the same information on street poles and the electric company shouldn't be responsible for the misuse of their poles, but in this case the woman was not able to remove the postings herself and had no choice but to rely on Yahoo to help her out. Does that create a responsibility for them to do so? The ex should be criminally liable for harassment, but I doubt he has deep pockets, which is why Yahoo is being sued. Should the woman win money, or just an order from a judge for the profiles to be removed?

Update:
The Blog News Channel says that the woman sent letters to Yahoo in January, February, and March. Actual physical letters? I wonder if emails would have worked better or worse?

Clayton Cramer points to a sad-but-true story about British researchers who want to ban kitchen knives. Apparently these days the sun never rises on the British Empire.

A team from West Middlesex University Hospital said violent crime is on the increase - and kitchen knives are used in as many as half of all stabbings.

They argued many assaults are committed impulsively, prompted by alcohol and drugs, and a kitchen knife often makes an all too available weapon.

The research is published in the British Medical Journal.

The researchers said there was no reason for long pointed knives to be publicly available at all.

Mr. Cramer goes on to suggest that all Britons be required to wear public safety suits that encase their hands and feet in foam so as to prevent them using any sort of heavy object as a blunt weapon. He says that biting someone to death is hard enough that Lecter-like masks shouldn't be necessary, but tell that to these guys.

I've got an idea! Instead of nerfing the world and banning everything that could be dangerous, why not just prohibit people from attacking each other? And then, if they do, we throw them in jail or execute them. The key is that we have to put them in jail long enough that they won't have another opportunity to hurt anyone for a long time. Such laws may or may not deter other would-be criminals, but just by taking thugs out of circulation we should be able to reduce crime drastically.

Peggy Noonan has a great piece about how pompous our politicians have become. This is why I hate award shows in which a group gives its members awards and we're supposed to care.

Why do they do this? Is their egomania not part of a trend? Have you noticed that every announcement now made on television has become an Academy Awards show in which the speaker announces that he is the winner? I often watch cable news during the day, and in the past year I've been taken aback by what happens when a local police chief announces the capture of a serial killer who's been murdering people for 30 years. The police chief does not say, "We finally got him." Instead he gives a long speech congratulating himself, lauding law-enforcement personnel, complimenting his department, congratulating investigators and their families, and nodding to the district attorney, the attorney general and the governor. Sometimes the police chief's voice shakes, so moved is he by the excellence of himself, his colleagues and his bosses. Then he announces a bad guy got caught. The only thing he never says is, "Sorry it took 30 years!" The only question he doesn't want to hear is, "Didn't you get tips on that guy in 1978?" ...

I think everyone in politics now has been affected by the linguistic sleight-of-hand, which began with the Kennedys in the 1960s, in which politics is called "public service," and politicians are allowed and even urged to call themselves "public servants." Public servants are heroic and self-denying. Therefore politicians are heroic and self-denying. I think this thought has destabilized them.

People who charge into burning towers are heroic; nuns who work with the poorest of the poor are self-denying; people who volunteer their time to help our world and receive nothing in return but the knowledge they are doing good are in public service. Politicians are in politics. They are less self-denying than self-aggrandizing. They are given fame, respect, the best health care in the world; they pass laws governing your life and receive a million perks including a good salary, and someone else--faceless taxpayers, "the folks back home"--gets to pay for the whole thing. This isn't public service, it's more like public command. It's not terrible--democracies need people who commit politics; they have a place and a role to play--but it's not saintly, either.

Instead of Campaign Finance Reform, how about a law that prohibits anyone from revealing the name or face of a politician? We can assign them all numbers and they can release position papers to their hearts' content, but no public fame or recognition whatsoever.

Orin Kerr and Eugene Volokh point to a company named Professays that writes essays for college students but does an extraordinarily bad job of it. No surprise, since one wouldn't expect a company based on cheating to be made up of intellectual giants. One of Orin's commenters raised an interesting hypothetical:

I'd like to think that perhaps the essays are bad deliberately, as a form of for-your-own-good-we're-going-to-get-you-caught maneuver. (I'm not sure it's good to cheat those desperate enough to pay for a paper, but on the other hand, I'm pretty sure it's good to get cheaters caught, and some of the customers will be merely lazy or wicked, not desperate and honestly failing. In a much less significant way, I put this on the same moral level as taking money to commit a crime and then not doing it - not very immoral at all, but somewhat unsettling.)

As I consider this situation, I'm forced to conclude that it's not at all morally objectionable to use deceit in certain contexts as a weapon against bad guys. After all, is cheating a cheater different than an undercover cop who lies and infiltrates a gang of thieves, a spy who disguises himself and sneaks into an enemy country, or a general who feints with some troops while attacking elsewhere?

The only difference I can see is that Professays is intending to abet and profit from the dishonesty of others, whereas a cop, spy, or general is more nobly motivated -- assuming their larger goals of infiltration or military victory are justified, then so is the deception. But that's just it! In the same way that thieves are the enemies of cops, cheaters may be seen as the enemies of those who live honestly; therefore, honest people are justified in exposing thieves, even if it requires deception. That there's profit in the endeavor makes the exposer no different than the police officer who draws a salary for doing his job.

But what about the fact that Professays -- even if they are trying to expose cheaters, which I doubt -- may often end up merely helping the cheaters to cheat? In order for deception to be morally allowable, it seems to me that the truth must eventually come out in the sight of honest men. Cheating the cheaters is ok, but honest people must not be hurt in the process. Situations in which collateral damage to innocent bystanders is allowed (such as non-cheating students whose grades are ruined or non-combatant civilians who are killed or injured) should be treated as wars and lifted out of the realm of personal morality.

So Carrie Underwood is the new American Idol, good for her. I'm surprised no one objected to Bo singing the mildly racist "Sweet Home Alabama" for his closing number, but whatever, he was building up all season for that song. One interesting piece of trivia came from the president of the company that ran the voting (what was his name?): there were more than 500 million votes cast over course of the season. I wonder if that many votes have ever been cast over any one issue in the history of civilization? I'd bet not.

In today's Best of the Web, James Taranto quotes Howard Dean talking about his religion.

I don't go to church all that much. I consider myself a deeply religious person. I consider myself a Christian. And I don't--you know, some of the other Christians would dare to say that I'm not a Christian. Frankly, it's what gets my ire up. We get back to the Rush Limbaugh stuff. I am sick of being told what I and what I'm not by other people. I'll tell you what I am. I'm a committed Christian. And the fact of whether I go to church or not, people can say whether I should or shouldn't, I worship in my own way. It came out in the campaign that I pray every night. That's my business. That's not the business of the pharisees who are going to preach to me about what I do and then do something else.

The problem with the Pharisees in the Bible was that they added their own set of rules and regulations to the laws that God made. New Testament Christianity isn't supposed to be legalistic, but a person who claims to be a "committed Christian" and doesn't go to church is either fooling himself or trying to fool others.

Hebrews 10:24-25

24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. 25 Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

It's impossible to be a fully devoted follower of Christ without belonging to, attending, and serving in a local church.

Tyler Cowen, one of my favorite economists, addresses an issue I've thought about many times: what's the best strategy for avoiding torture? He assumes that you've already been captured by someone who thinks you have valuable information and is willing to torture you, and that you'd rather spill the beans that get tortured. I think his strategy #2 might be best.

1. Break down immediately, beg for mercy, humiliate yourself, and spill the beans. (If you talk right away, will they torture you anyway? And since no further good information can be offered why should they stop?)

2. Go in acting tough, really tough. At the first sign of serious pain, start crying and switch to strategy #1.

But as a minimally trained interrogater points out about strategy #2:

This also might work. Frequently the tough demeanor types crack the fastest. However, the sudden conversion would be fishy. If I had a lot of time to work on you, I would consider, after you broke, giving you time to rebuild your defenses and see if the tough demeanor returned. If it did, that would be more convincing. That is, if you are really the tough guy type, that won't go away from one session where you broke, and would return after you had time to put yourself back together. It might go away after sustained torture over a long period, but not from one session where you broke at the first sign of serious pain.

The other problem with this strategy is that it might actually work. That is, if you are convincing, what I have learned is that I can get you to alter your behavior by inflicting serious pain. Even if all I am looking to do is extract information, I will probably torture you to the serious pain level at each session, as a sort of warm up.

There's more, and it's an interesting problem to consider.

(HT: GeekPress.)

It's kinda stupid to link to a bunch of stories I found on Drudge, but whatever; sometimes he's got nothing, but today he's got the goods.

First, an inside look at the ratings wars and how Fox has risen and NBC fallen even further over the past year. I remember when Fox first started 19 years ago; everyone said they couldn't possibly compete with the Big Three networks... and now they're number one.

Italian writer Oriana Fallaci has been charged with defaming Islam for writing that "terrorists had killed 6,000 people over the past 20 years in the name of the Koran and said the Islamic faith 'sows hatred in the place of love and slavery in the place of freedom.'" I don't have a good understanding of Italy's legal system, but it appears that a prosecutor refused to bring charges citing freedom of speech, but a judge later indicted Fallaci anyway.

Betty Ostergren is fighting to keep private identity information off the internet by posting the Social Security numbers of powerful people. Sounds similar to protest actions taken against the leaders of the Total Information Awareness program from a couple of years ago.

Boys who attend Christian schools are less likely to be sexually promiscuous, and also less likely to have psychological problems or be suicidal. Correlation or causation, and in which direction? Other studies show that the connection between depression and sexual activity is even stronger for girls.

About 25% of sexually active girls say they are depressed all, most, or a lot of the time; 8% of girls who are not sexually active feel the same. ...

About 14% of girls who have had intercourse have attempted suicide ; 5% of sexually inactive girls have.

About 6% of sexually active boys have tried suicide; less than 1% of sexually inactive boys have.

Of course, early sexual activity and depression may both stem from the same underlying causes, and neither may directly cause the other, even if there is a vicious cycle.

Finally, a tool that shows what it would be like if a nuclear weapon were detonated in your city. Unfortunately the server appears to be overwhelmed.

Oh whatever, who cares? But just for today let's pretend that there isn't much else going on in the world. Who's gonna win? Who should win? According to TradeSports, Bo Bice is the favorite, with his contracts asking 69 to Carrie Underwood's 35. He's certainly a better singer and performer. I wonder how the votes tend to break down? Do female viewers vote for cute male contestants, and male viewers vote for cute female contestants? If anything, I'd say that women are less likely to vote for an attractive female than are men to vote for an attractive male, so on that basis alone I'd give the victory to Bo. But, of course, I have no idea how the demographics of the viewers are spread.

If you really crave more Idol news, check out Judge Jru's top 10 Idol performances. The AZ Reporter has an American Idol News and Results blog that will fill you in on the timeline of this season, in case you can't remember when so-and-so was voted off. I'd keep an eye on American Idolblog also, even though their most recent post is from last week....

Roger Scruton at Right Reason has one of the best discussions of home and private schooling that I've ever come across. In his post he explains the position that I've had but couldn't put into words.

I think it would help the conservative cause to recognize the enduring validity of Hegel’s tri-partite distinction (put forward in the Philosophy of Right), between family, civil society and state, and the contrasting and mutually dependent forms of obligation to which those three spheres give rise. For it is the false dichotomy between family and state that has led to so much of the conflict over education. The third and crucial term has been missing from the debate.

The family is a sphere of affection and duty, governed by obligations that have never been chosen. The state is a structure of command, organised by law, and directed from the centre by legislators and bureaucrats. Between the two lies civil society, which is a system of voluntary association, organised by good will, and directed by local initiatives in which those who have an interest in some outcome are also involved in producing it. Home schooling is an attempt to rescue children from the state and to return them to the family. But it would be sufficient to return them to civil society, in the form of the locally organised private school, where parents play a role and contribute directly to maintaining the teachers who run the operation. ...

Nietzsche pointed out long ago that, in a democracy, state institutions will quickly be colonised by resentment. (He used the French word, ressentiment, in order to emphasize the deep and pre-rational sources of the emotion.) Not able to win people by the normal means of cooperation, concession and mutual respect, the resentful will seek to co-opt the power of the state in order to break down resistance to their punitive goals. In the sphere of education the power of the state is enormous. Legal measures compel parents to educate their children, deprive them of any choice among the schools offered by the state, and impose a curriculum and timetable that transmit the secular and libertine morality best suited to inducing dependency on the state. I don’t say that there is an intention to produce dependency on the state: dependency arises by ‘an invisible hand’, once the egalitarians have succeeded in taking control of the educational network.

Civil society, which flourishes through cooperation, emulation and a forgiving acceptance of talent greater than your own, does not make room for the resentful. Hence, since education is dedicated to achievement, knowledge and the growth of human potential, it should be entrusted to civil society and not to the state. This means that we should encourage the growth of private schools, which will rescue not only the children of the wealthy and the highly educated, but the children of everyone. Home schooling aims to recapture for the family children who had been confiscated by the state. It is, it seems to me, only an interim measure, which must make way, in due course, for the private school. In a flourishing private school children will be protected from state control while gaining valuable social resources from outside the family.

Read the whole thing. I hate public education, but I've never been comfortable with "pure" home schooling; however, I really like the idea of locally controlled private schools that pool the resources of the community for the good of the students -- that's what public schools are supposed to be, and maybe were until Nietzsche's predictions ran their course. I'm not a fan of Nietzsche, but he's got modern bureaucracy nailed.

In the future, when I refer to eliminating the public school system, this is the post I'm going to link to to explain the alternative to my critics. Schools must be taken from the state and returned to the sphere of civil society.

(HT: Max Goss.)

I need to learn about internal combustion engines. It's pretty pathetic that I don't even know how to change the oil in my own car. I haven't been that interested in engines in the past, but with my recent purchase of an old RV it strikes me that my lack of experience in this area is a significant shortcoming. I think I'll take some auto classes at a local community college when I find the time.

I saw Episode III last night with The Spork, who disliked it more than I. The most maddening thing about the recent Start Wars movies -- and recent sci-fi movies in general -- is that they don't even make sense within the context of their own fantasy. The rest of the post contains spoilers, but should I bother warning you? Who hasn't seen it yet?

First off, the pre-natal care in Star Wars is atrocious. How could they not know that Padme was carrying twins? Don't they have ultrasounds? Plus, medical care in general is pretty bizarre. If you fall into lava and get dismembered, don't worry, we'll fix you right up; if you "lose the will to live" and give birth to twins, you're doomed. Haven't they heard of therapy?

Second, everything looks too high-tech. One of the coolest things about the original series was that the spaceships looked like someone built them in their garage. The Millenium Falcon was sweet because it was falling apart. All the ships in the new series look like they were designed by Dr. Seuss.

Third, the war-fighting just doesn't make sense. Why would you ever attack on the ground when you've got spaceships in orbit? Just bombard everything -- particularly when you're fighting giant ewoks with crossbows. (Were the little people too busy filming Willow 2?) Plus, why would Jedi ever get into a spaceship? They're nigh-invincible on the ground, but helpless against vacuum. The easiest time to kill a Jedi is when he's in space, so naturally they spend all their time flying around in tiny helpless spaceships. Why? Because...

Fourth, Jedis are stupid. The Light Side is supposed to eliminate all attachment to anything? Sounds like nihilism. The Dark Side seems much more practical, and if its users weren't murderous maniacs they could actually craft a much more just and useful social structure than any Light Sider could. The problem with Force-users in general is that they're so individually powerful that it's hard for the political process to balance their influence. Philisophically, I'd rather have a Dark Lord of the Sith for Chancellor than some annoying Jedi always pontificating at me; practically, Force-users would be way too powerful to co-exist with regular humans. Further, why was the Light Side so loyal to the Senate and the Republic? I thought they weren't supposed to care about anything. Whatever; it's stupid.

Fifth, George Lucas cannot write dialogue. Everyone knows this. I could ad lib more poignant and humorous scenes opposite a plaster bust of Adam Weishaupt. Maybe Lucas isn't doing as much drugs as he was in the 70s. That being the case, the prequels could have been done as silent movies with letterboards flashing on screen to indicate speech. I'm pregnant! Cue dramatic organ music. That's great! Dun dun dun! Computer generated actors could be used to give the characters a more lifelike appearance.

Sixth, where was Jar Jar Binks? We only got one tiny shot of him walking in a parade near the end. Holy crap, he should have been heeling Anakin every step of the way for a little hilarious comic relief.

Seventh, the part at the end with Darth Vader screaming "Noooooooo!" with his arms in the air was really stupid. C'mon.

Eighth, Qui-Gon Jinn was the first Jedi to become a ghost, but we never see him in Episodes IV through VI? That makes total sense. Plus, if it's something you have to learn, who teaches Anakin/Vader in Episode VI?

Ninth, the whole lightsaber fighting gimmick is done wrong. Robots can't use lightsabers, or at least not effectively against a Jedi. The reason Jedi can use lightsabers and other people can't is, supposedly, because they can use the Force to look slightly into the future to see what their opponent is going to do. They can block blasters not because their arms are fast, but because they know in advance where the blaster bolt is going to be. Robots can't use the Force, so they can't compete with a Jedi using lightsabers.

Tenth, eh, whatever. Time to go watch the originals again. I'm disappointed, but no more than I expected to be.

And now Austria wants to use DNA to catch dog's that poop in public places. If dogs must be allowed in public places, then their owners should certainly keep them leashed and pick up their poop. Although using DNA to catch spitters seems excessive, I'm all for catching dog poopers using whatever technology is necessary, including UAVs and undercover spies dressed like trees.

If anyone in the LAX area has experience with RVs I'd sure love to talk to you. For example, is there a service that will come to my house and empty my RV septic tank? Is there some way I can empty the tank directly into the sewer myself? What about a mobile RV mechanic service? Email me.