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Jens 'n' Frens
Idle thoughts of a relatively libertarian Republican in Cambridge, MA, and whomever he invites. Mostly political.
"A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures."
-- Daniel Webster
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Saturday, November 02, 2002 :::
I just got back from New Hampshire, and boy are my legs tired.
That's from a lit-drop and a stand-out, not from getting there and back. Harvard provided a bus, though I had to help with directions.
UPDATE: I got me some sleep, and figure I'll tell a little more. This was a trip sponsored by the Harvard Republican Club. I believe I was the only non-student, but they had quite a few people from other schools -- one from MIT, at least three from Tufts, and at least two from BU -- we totaled 11.
We went up to the Sununu HQ in Nashua -- not only is that close to Massachusetts, it also seems to be where they've decided the swing votes are. The 11 of us paired off and lit-dropped almost all of a ward, of which Nashua has around ten.
After lunch, we stood at a busy intersection with signs for an hour or so -- maybe a bit longer. I don't know how much good that does at this stage of the campaign, since I don't think anyone's going to go to the poll and say "gosh, I don't even recognize these names".
As far as giving directions to the bus driver, we went out there by getting route 2 west to 95 north to 3 north. We came back on 3 south, then turned onto 95 north. If you're reading this without knowing Massachusetts, this isn't an unreasonable thing to do -- 95 circles Boston, so 95 north at that point goes mostly east, and you can go to I-93 (which goes directly through the city) from there. But what had happened was that the bus driver thought he was on 95 south, and was looking for route 2. When we passed 93, I went up to the bus driver and got him back in the right direction, guiding him through Somerville once we got off of 93.
::: posted by Steven at 6:08 PM
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Friday, November 01, 2002 :::
I think we should ban the use of the word "just" at my workplace. It tends to be used as an attempted argument for doing something in the speaker's favorite way, e.g. "Why give the patient an aspirin for his headache when we can just perform brain surgery?"
::: posted by dWj at 10:32 AM
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Here's a Fox News story about the "unbecoming" incident.
::: posted by Steven at 10:10 AM
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Globe columnist Brian McGrory has a column which starts with the "unbecoming" flap, and goes on to discuss the Cape Cod race for District Attorney.
::: posted by Steven at 9:37 AM
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I'm not sure, Dean, about negative advertising. Its negative effects may be over-rated, but they exist. You have to separate good negative ads from bad negative ads, though -- deeply personal attacks are not the same as "comparative" issue-oriented ads. Tone is also relevant -- Mitt Romney has some funny negative ads and some scowly/scary negative ads up, and I know I react better to the funny ones. I've talked to someone who I think is a swing voter who plans to vote for O'Brien because of the dark ones.
This did surprise me, though, because O'Brien has nasty ads up, too. I'm most pissed off at O'Brien immediately after I've seen one of her ads. They tend to center around the fact that Romney invested heavily in some company that laid off workers, presumably implying that this has something to do with the job security of private sector employees under a Romney administration. Or maybe they think I'd rather not see state employees lose their jobs.
It would be to the advantage of the Romney campaign to show me one of her ads immediately before I vote.
::: posted by Steven at 9:23 AM
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I should have mentioned this before, but I guess I was in denial or something. At their last debate Tuesday night, Mitt Romney called Shannon O'Brien "unbecoming". There's been something of a flap since then, with the assertion that he wouldn't have used the word to describe a man.
I'm serious. They're really saying that.
A letter in today's Globe, by a Bradford Swing of Boston and under the headline "Romney should check dictionary," reads as follows:
When Mitt Romney claims that "unbecoming" is "a word which I would apply to a man or to a woman" ("Camps spar over Romney word choice," Page A1, Oct. 31), he might want to check the American Heritage Dictionary's first definition and usage example: "Not appropriate, attractive, or flattering: an unbecoming dress."
Would anyone ever say that a man's suit was "unbecoming"?
I assume he things the answer is "no".
I decided to check what Dictionary.com had to say. It turns out that Dictionary.com uses the American Heritage Dictionary.
I sent the Globe the following:
A letter in today's Globe points out that the American Heritage Dictionary's first definition for the word "unbecoming" uses the example, "an unbecoming dress." The writer bizarrely infers that the word can't apply to a man's suit.
But the next definition in the same dictionary reads, "not in accord with the standards implied by one's character or position: conduct unbecoming an officer." Should this be read with the understanding that the officer must be a woman?
Frankly, I'm surprised they didn't put that definition first -- I know the first phrase that comes to my mind when I hear the word is, in fact, "conduct unbecoming an officer." Dictionaries tend to be conservative, though, and I assume the word was once more common than it now is.
Incidentally, this could determine my vote. I lean toward Carla Howell on days when I'm feeling mad at Mitt, but swing back toward him when I'm angrier at Howell or O'Brien. And I'm more irritated by her asininity than you might think.
And, yes, I would use the word "asininity" for a man.
::: posted by Steven at 9:21 AM
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Libertarian Carla Howell is coming in fifth in the race for Governor.
::: posted by Steven at 8:18 AM
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Jack-O-Lantern.com -- Patterns
::: posted by Steven at 6:09 AM
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Re burying Muslim terrorists with pigs, the Instapundit has a link to this.
::: posted by Steven at 5:53 AM
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Dean pointed this out to me via email. It strikes me as the sort of viciousness that a Russian might come up with. In this case, of course, viciousness is called for.
::: posted by Steven at 1:25 AM
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Thursday, October 31, 2002 :::
I was thinking the other day, reading a scare story in Reader's Digest about human cloning, that it's hard for an identical twin to get to worked up about the possibility; my latest thought is that it's certainly no worse morally than what Fox broadcasting does.
::: posted by dWj at 4:41 PM
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"Whistleblowers" in the abstract, and in some concrete cases, are exhalted in the current American zeitgeist, but there seem to me to be two notable exceptions: short sellers, and political candidates who blow whistles on their opponents. Mind you, I think people generally resent the latter less than they think people generally do; I think the conventional wisdom that voters dislike "negative advertising" is not true of a majority of voters.
::: posted by dWj at 3:15 PM
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I believe ours is the last blog not to have linked to this story about a conservative being accused of racism after speaking at the Dallas Fed.
It's a good read, so I might as well join the crowd.
::: posted by Steven at 6:29 AM
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Wednesday, October 30, 2002 :::
The son of the "alleged" sniper says
Even though he is my father, in my eyes, you reap what you sow. If you did it — you was man to enough to do it, you are man enough to pay the consequences.
The man may be evil, but you have to admire his ability to raise a boy. Senator Wellstone's son, on the other hand, used his supposed eulogy for his father as a political rally. What a cad.
::: posted by dWj at 5:52 PM
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It's also possible, Steve, that a run-up in price would induce other customers of your brokerage to sell -- whoever's playing the squeeze is buying from someone, as is whomever he's squeezing -- in which case your shares could be unborrowed for you even if your equity is fine. This is one of the differences between shorting shares and writing single-stock futures, which have caught on in Europe but I believe are banned here; short-selling is not done (banned? I don't know) in Europe.
::: posted by dWj at 11:05 AM
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Motley fool has a story on Research Frontiers, Inc. in their annual "tricks and treats". 18% of the float is short, and probably with good cause, but 30k shares trade each day at around $11, giving a short interest of 61 days of trading.
If you had a couple million dollars (and no moral qualms -- you'd be making a profit, arguably, by making the world worse off rather than better off), you could probably profit off a squeeze there; enter a 10k share bid at 12 one day, 13 the next, 16 the day after, etc.
As I said, I have neither the money nor the desire to do this, but the moral of the story is that you shouldn't short more than your equity can handle. I should keep this in mind, myself, as I've been shorting airline stocks at 20% of their peak prices.
::: posted by Steven at 3:22 AM
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Tuesday, October 29, 2002 :::
I said some positive things about the Russians' handling of the hostage crisis, but the Russian tradition of secrecy certainly isn't helpful to the medical personell involved, anymore than it was during the Kursk incident.
::: posted by Steven at 4:51 AM
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Sunday, October 27, 2002 :::
Chalk one up for denial!
::: posted by Steven at 5:29 AM
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