i received one of those "pass it on" emails today. i see that people are quoting this thing on blogs as if it's insightful. hogwash.

i will give my critique first, because i don't want anyone to read the garbage below and think that i'm yet another person supporting it:

the anecdote supposedly shows that socialism won't work through an anecdote of a class for which the mean grade is distributed to all. i'm not sure if anyone thinks this is a true story, but it seems not to be--it seems to be older and made up:

http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/socialism.asp

also:

1. in the anecdote, a class is failed because their three test scores were a B, a D, and an F. B + D + F would usually result in a D, not an F for the whole class. i guess it depends how bad the last F was--but it would have to be a pretty miserable F, and that would imply that every single student got a terrible grade. how likely is that?

2. the whole anecdote rests on the final F--the most likely outcome after the D would be for all students to try harder and get another B. the students who want an A are hardly going to sit idly by while others get a free ride. anger and bickering might follow, but directed to the free riders. humans are very good at detecting and punishing free riders. if human nature were otherwise, no group project in which everyone shares in the same outcome would ever be successful. in other words, if this story were illustrative, it wouldn't be showing that socialism can't work: it would be showing that government can't work.

3. what's described isn't socialism, as far as i can tell.

4. nothing in any of obama's suggested policies are remotely like what is described here. for example, the proposition that everyone should have access to some kind of health care policy is hardly the same as giving everyone the same health care policy. (not even the shot-down public option would have necessarily resulted in that.)

some of obama's policies can be viewed as socialist, but for people who see it that way the argument should be with the structure of several government programs/policies, none of which obama invented (or has even managed to do much about one way or another so far). that might explain why this story is so old. (also possibly the TEA party.)

it worries me that apocryphal, decades-old stories like this are getting passed around as if they are an insightful critique of the current government.

finally, here's the original nonsense that provoked me to such a lengthy response:

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan". All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A...

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

Could not be any simpler than that.

me again: naturally, all true things in life are simple and simply demonstrated. also, if something happens one way once, it will always happen that way. this piece of reactionary conservative fantasy ends with:

(Please pass this on)

please don't. or if you do, please pass on some correctives too. also, it adds:

Remember, there is a mid-term election in 2010!

yes. there is. everyone should vote.

remember: humor is the very essence of a democratic society.

through my tracing of how people come to look at my pictures, i discovered that i'm the posterboy for sourdough bread! as of this moment, the picture of sourdough bread in the upper left here:

http://www.mahalo.com/sourdough-bread

is mine.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8748128%40N02/3675766088

great!

except. . . that picture is licensed. the license states that there must be an attribution. i'm ok with a click-through being an attribution, and further down the page the same picture is shown with a click-through. however, in the upper left, there's nothing. here's the license in case you're interested:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/deed.en

so, i've emailed them, saying the above, as well:

"please either update your page generation software to allow click-throughs on the picture reproduced on the upper left hand side, or cease using pictures that require attribution in that location."

d'ya think i'll get a response? i'll post again if and when i do.

I made a comic that isn't funny!
Please click for a legible version on Flickr.

about the biden/palin debate:

am i the only one who finds it completely scary that palin thinks cheney has done a great and proper job with his wacky interpretation of the vice presidency and his belief that the office has super untouchable powers?

(i just did a search: apparently not. but i did want to register my complete aghastness.)

this is what i wish obama or biden would say the next time mccain or palin says "barack obama still won't admit the surge worked."

ok.

fine.

the surge worked.

so let's get out.

let's get out responsibly but quickly. let's get out making sure the iraqis can maintain their freedom, if they want it. but let's get out.

[shuts up. turns to moderator.]

two things:

1. if i ever get a grant, i will blog sometimes. maybe even start a comic strip. i might do it! watch out! it will no longer be two plus years between posts!

2. saint etienne is apparently the ideal grant-writing music for me. grant-writing is the reason that they are, by far, the most played artist on my lastfm profile.

that is all.

report from linkfest

yesterday, i and the family went to linkfest, and i investigated my charges of poor pedestrian and bike-friendliness of the shrewsbury station (see immediately previous post).

thankfully, it turns out that there is a way to cross the busy street to get to the station safely. however, here is what you have to do if you are approaching from the most populated area:

1. walk past the station in its entirety.

2. cross traffic once.

3. cross traffic a second time.

4. walk up the *only* sidewalk from the side of the road available for the entire stop. that's right: there are 3 lanes total for cars going in and three lanes total for cars going out, and 1 sidewalk.

5. cross traffic again.

so, it is certainly possible to cross safely, but it is not convenient or sensibly planned.

similarly, the forest park stop has a crosswalk for people who want to walk to the parking lot, but no crosswalk for people who want to walk to. . . forest park, which is perhaps .25 miles away.

i am a big fan of public transportation, and i want everyone to use the metro system. but i also want the metro system to remember that it is supposed to be serving *people*. at the moment, a martian would be forgiven for believing it serves *cars*.

some background: the st. louis metro system recently completed an expansion of its light rail system, set to open this weekend. the terminating station is in shrewsbury, near webster groves, and the system goes straight to washington university, where i work (and which has granted me a free metro pass). but here's the question: is there any way to get from where i live to the station, which is 3-4 miles away?

well, the metro claims that a variety of bus routes will be changing, and that, magically, there will be a bus that goes about a quarter mile past our place, straight to the metro. they haven't bothered updating that route so i can see how often it goes, but i trust them, for now.

how about by bike? today i rode to the station on my bike. here is my route. i have purposefully left it in maps form so you can see why google maps (and more particularly the pedometer i used here) is the *only* way to figure out bike routes around here. take a look at the area around the park: it looks like there's no way to get where i want to go. now click the "hybrid" button and zoom in. you can see the little path i took, right down, if you zoom in really close, to the little wooden bridge. apparently civic planners in st. louis are aware that pedestrians and bikers would like to be able to get to parks. good. it is even possible to see a route through the seminary that i took to get home--although this is technically partly on private property, and involves a very steep bit through the grass.

other bits of interest: on the way, on jackson road, i passed a house with so many plaster statutes i thought they must be selling them. also, the route goes through knights of columbus court. seriously? knights of columbus court? you're joking, right? much of knights of columbus court is taken up by a da-com office. so i guess if i want an office supply contract on the way home, i'm all set.

and the station? not so good. this thing has hundreds of parking spaces, but i only found one bike rack. with room for three bikes, tops. seriously. i guess there might be another rack somewhere, but i didn't see it. metro is probably figuring that most people who bike to the station will also want to take their bikes on the train. this is true of me. thus, i do not complain too much.

however, here's the thing: i've found a very safe route for my bike. i even found a traffic light route across lacede station road. it is very safe all the way up to about 100 yards away from the station, and then it falls apart. i can do the illegal but safe standby of hitting the sidewalk, but then i have to get across a four-lane road to get to the station. question: how, exactly, does metro think that people who live in shrewsbury are going to get to the station? do they all have to take buses or drive cars? is no one going to walk? there *seems* to be a traffic light further up the road, and this might allow safe passage for pedestrians and somewhat safer passage for bikes. but this is not in the least convenient for pedestrians: none will be coming from that direction. this is clearly all set up for cars.

i have emailed them to ask, among other things, what they expect pedestrians to do. do you think i'll get an answer? i was just starting to get excited about st. louis maybe finally getting serious about public transport, but it's a little disheartening that it seems to focus almost exclusively on public transport of people who would really rather drive.

update: the bus schedules are actually available, just not on the main bus schedule page. i received a same-day response from customer service, but the lady there says she's been too busy with emails to actually set eyes on the station. so, as for how pedestrians are supposed to safely cross a street with no apparent crosswalks and four lanes of traffic, no answer yet.