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Kenneth Trump, a security expert who founded the National School Safety and Security Services consulting firm, said ... zero tolerance policies can work if "common sense is applied."

Airlines should allow voice calls, at least for business travelers, one woman posting on Computerworld.com said, adding that she thought businesspeople could be counted on to use the service in a "respectful, quiet manner."

But that optimism isn't shared by others who assert that, as a blogger elsewhere put it, "these Type-A business people are the worst in bellowing on their cellphones." Another comment on Computerworld.com supported the in-flight blocking of Skype and similar programs "until phone users learn to speak in a normal conversational tone instead of shouting."

Gabriel M. recently arrived in the U.S. from Romania to study for a Ph.D. in economics. I wish him the very best in that endeavor. Today, he gives us a list of observations of the things that have made the biggest impact on him since his arrival. Funny how Americans take some of these for granted. For example,

“Free refills”, a.k.a. all-you-can-drink for a flat fee—for soft drinks that is.

And the sort of thing an economist would notice,

Lower prices than in Romania for most food, household appliances and other basic necessities (at Walmart, for example) and higher prices for almost everything else (at exchange rates).

And unfortunately,

Lower Internet bandwidth at a higher price, compared with what I got back in Bucharest. This is particularly interesting.

We are lagging behind in high speed Internet access, that's for sure. I pay $29.95/month for about 1.5Mbps. I could go faster for a few dollars more, but for most of what I do right now 1.5 is fine. (I don't do a lot of online gaming or Second Life or anything like that.) But I am quite confident that over time I will want more.

But here's the interesting thing.

Three years ago when I signed up for service with my ISP, I got 384kbps for the same $29.95. A couple months after signing up, they improved their service and lowered their rates, so I got about 750kbps for $29.95. Recently, they did it again, this time upgrading me to 1.5Mbps for the same $29.95.

Obviously, I'm hoping that they'll double my speed again in the near future.

The fastest service that I know of in my area is about 16Mbps and that would run about $70/month. Right now I don't see the need for it at that price, but it's nice to have the choice available.

The day before John Palmer visited, we were down in the St. Louis area to do a Relay for Life with my in-laws. We raised some money to be a part of their team, and then spent just about the whole night on the track. I walked or ran all but 1/2 hour between midnight and 4am. Most of it was walking, but distance-wise I probably ran 6 or 7 miles and walked another 6 or 7.

Here's a picture of my son and I out on the track before the sun went down and before I changed into some better running clothes.

The pictures out of Cedar Rapids (a place I have been innumerable times) are just devastating.

KCRG TV 9

Cedar Rapids Gazette

The levees broke, and the river crest will shatter the mark from the flood of '93 as well as the record high set in 1929.

In the pictures, and perhaps on the news broadcasts tonight you will see the city hall building on an island in the river. I was at that very spot a few months ago. I parked on the bridge, which normally is far above the surface of the water.

Now that bridge is underwater all the way up to the railings. A terrible sight.

The people there will bounce back, but it's going to be a tough summer.

Word comes from Janet at SCSU Scholars that King Banaian is in the hospital. He had surgery to remove his gallbladder today. Stop by SCSU Scholars and wish him well.

April.

It's a word that conjures up images of pleasure and pain in the academic world. The academic year is almost over, but indeed we have miles to go before we sleep. So it has been for this April.

No need to bore you with the details. I've been spending a lot of time at the computer doing research and revamping a course. Both are activities that are not very conducive to blogging breaks. On more than one occasion I sat down to write a post never to finish.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel, and more blogging lies ahead.

A very merry Christmas to one and all. Thank you to my loyal readers and commenters for keeping me going.

It's always nice to get a little spike in traffic. I see that we have a number of new readers finding their way over here from About.com where Mike Moffatt gave this blog (and 9 others) some kind words. Thanks for the link, Mike. And welcome to the new readers. Take a look around. Hope to see you back soon.

And while I'm on the subject of welcoming new readers, it is that time of year again. My visitor log is filled with lots of search terms that sound like term paper topics. Welcome, students...and here's a bit of friendly advice. If you find something here that is noteworthy, take the time to follow the link to the original source. Your papers will be better for it.

Yes... the twice-a-year "term paper search" traffic spike is noticeable. Very.

The headline from the Wall Street Journal reads: "Five-Year-Old Chimp Beats College Kids In Computer Game"

Japanese researchers pitted young chimps against human adults in two tests of short-term memory, and overall, the chimps won.

...

Ayumu, the chimp that did the best, was included with nine college students in a second test. This time, five numbers flashed on the screen only briefly before they were replaced by white squares. The challenge, again, was to touch these squares in the proper sequence.

When the numbers were displayed for about seven-tenths of a second, Ayumu and the college students were both able to do this correctly about 80% of the time. But when the numbers were displayed for just four-tenths or two-tenths of a second, the chimp was the champ. The briefer of those times is too short to allow a look around the screen, and in those tests Ayumu still scored about 80%, while humans plunged to 40%. That indicates Ayumu was better at taking in the whole pattern of numbers at a glance, the researchers wrote.

Yes, the headline grabbed my attention and I had to read it. And yes, I chuckled when I read that it was a short-term memory test involving college students. But seriously, this sounds like an interesting experiment to do on people with different occupations. I would hope that people in careers where the powers of observation, quick reaction times, and short-term memory matter (police officers, air traffic controllers, and derivatives traders come to mind) might do better on this test than the average adult.

Age seems to make a difference too.

The other factor is the youth of Ayumu and his peers. The memory for images that's needed for the tests resembles a skill found in children, but which dissipates with age. In fact, the young chimps performed better than older chimps in the new study.

I received a book today. (The pile grows.) The full title is The Euro and the Dollar in a Globalized Economy. However, the space on the mailing label was limited. It proclaimed "The Euro and the Dollar in a Glob".

I have long believed that all students should have some experience with the Latin language. Sadly, it was not offered in my high school by the time I was old enough. It had been offered years ago. But I did manage to take a year's worth of Latin in college. Truly, a knowledge of Latin helps to make you a better writer and speaker--or at least I can see the effect of my own study of the language on my own speaking and writing. This is likely due to the fact that knowing Latin causes you to be keenly aware of grammar.

So I was delighted to see this in the NY Times:

AT first glance, it doesn’t seem tragic that our leaders don’t study Latin anymore. But it is no coincidence that the professionalization of politics — which encourages budding politicians to think of education as mere career preparation — has occurred during an age of weak rhetoric, shifting moral values, clumsy grammar and a terror of historical references and eternal values that the Romans could teach us a thing or two about. As they themselves might have said, “Roma urbs aeterna; Latina lingua aeterna.”

...

Following in his father’s footsteps, George W. Bush studied Latin at Phillips Academy (the school’s mottoes: “Non Sibi” or not for self, and “Finis Origine Pendet,” the end depends on the beginning).

But then President Bush was lucky enough to catch the tail end of the American classical tradition. Soon after he left Andover in 1964, the study of Latin in America collapsed. In 1905, 56 percent of American high school students studied Latin. By 1977, a mere 6,000 students took the National Latin Exam.

Recently there have been signs of a revival. The number taking the National Latin Exam in 2005, for instance, shot up to 134,873.

Why is this a good thing? Not all Romans were models of virtue — Caligula’s Latin was pretty good. And not all 134,873 of those Latin students are going to turn into Jeffersons.

But what they gain is a glimpse into the past that provides a fuller, richer view of the present. Know Latin and you discern the Roman layer that lies beneath the skin of the Western world. And you open up 500 years of Western literature (plus an additional thousand years of Latin prose and poetry).

Read the whole thing.

The last week or so before the break here was a race against time to get some things done for classes and so forth. More regular blogging will resume after the weekend. Enjoy the day.

And enjoy this link to the Wall Street Journal's Thanksgiving tradition. They have been running this editorial on the day before Thanksgiving since 1961. It applies just as much now as then.

And the Fair Land

(I believe this link goes to a free version.)

Looking for good public schools? Find a smallish to medium sized city with a medium to large sized university. Our little (20,000 pop.) town fits that description. According to recent data, over 13% of adults 25 and over in our town have a graduate degree. (Only 10 non-metro area communities in the country scored a higher percentage.) A lots of them are Ph.D.s. And a lot of them are parents. Parents with Ph.D.s (at least those I know) tend to be actively involved and demand quality education for their kids.

So out of curiosity I was looking at school data (2005-2006) for Illinois and found that in 6th grade math, our school is right around the level of the top 100 in Illinois. (I was counting individual schools, not district averages.) Just a few places down from some of the suburban Chicago magnet schools, and on par with some other districts with stellar reputations. How many schools with 6th grade classes in Illinois? A lot. I didn't count as it's hard to separate the individual schools from district averages. But it's certainly more than 1000.

How about HS ACT ranking? I may have miscounted when trying to separate individual high schools from district averages, but it looks like Macomb is no lower than about a tie for 70th out of Illinois (public) high schools. (We beat out Urbana, Charleston, and Edwardsville... all university towns like we are...though they also were high on the list.) Evanston, IL (I hear they have a university there) was just 3 places above us. In downstate Illinois, Macomb is one of the top few. The list is, of course, top heavy with Chicago prep schools and high property value suburbs. (In case you're curious, our district's average ACT score was 22.2 which is somewhere above the 63rd percentile nationally.)

It is nice that such data is available on the web. I've had such good experiences with our school so far, I just wanted to see how we rank. I wanted confirmation for my suspicion (based on more evidence than just my current residence...I've seen it in other places I've lived) that small to medium sized towns with medium to large universities do well. And I wanted to confirm that the good experiences we've had so far are indicative of what we might see as our kids go through the system.

It is certainly possible that part of the explanation is that children of parents with graduate degrees (like households where one or both parents are university professors, doctors, lawyers, etc.) get a lot of early education at home so they start reading before kindergarten. But in our district math scores rise from 3rd grade to 6th grade, so the school is providing some value added. So maybe there are positive externalities to this kind of clustering.

Maybe having a lot of Ph.D.s in town is a substitute for a large property tax base in determining school performance?

UCLA law professor Stephen Bainbridge (aka Professor Bainbridge) wanted to build an addition on his house. The zoning department told him that according to their records, his house doesn't exist. (Neither does his street!)

At this point I would start looking for Rod Serling to come out from behind a tree because it sounds like this zoning department is in the Twilight Zone.

Suffice to say he won't be getting his addition. Read his story.

Clip art by T.C. Design

The Notices of the American Mathematical Society are now freely available online. One item in the most recent issue that may interest my readers is an interview with Stephen Smale.

"Here rests in honored glory, an American soldier known but to God." --inscription on the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery

I took this photo in April 1989.

Friday is being declared a national "Orange and Maroon Effect" Day by Virginia Tech alumni and friends across the country. Everyone is encouraged to wear orange and maroon today to honor those whose lives were so tragically ended and in support of the Virginia Tech community.

The blog will proudly sport orange and maroon throughout the day. (You may need to reload the page to see the color change.)

Information on WIU observances can be found here.

Being messy is a good thing. (NY Times)

An anti-anticlutter movement is afoot, one that says yes to mess and urges you to embrace your disorder. Studies are piling up that show that messy desks are the vivid signatures of people with creative, limber minds (who reap higher salaries than those with neat “office landscapes”) and that messy closet owners are probably better parents and nicer and cooler than their tidier counterparts. It’s a movement that confirms what you have known, deep down, all along: really neat people are not avatars of the good life; they are humorless and inflexible prigs, and have way too much time on their hands.

...

In the semiotics of mess, desks may be the richest texts. Messy-desk research borrows from cognitive ergonomics, a field of study dealing with how a work environment supports productivity. Consider that desks, our work landscapes, are stand-ins for our brains, and so the piles we array on them are “cognitive artifacts,” or data cues, of our thoughts as we work.

Isn't that the truth? Do you know people who say about their messy desk/office, "I know where everything is."? Are you one of them? I am. My office and desk are full of "cognitive artifacts" that remind me what is where, which ones are important, and when I might need them. It's nice to have a name for them, and I intend to use the term next time someone asks how I can find anything in my piles. They're just my cognitive artifacts.

H/T to Katie Newmark

Thanks to all my loyal readers. Take a couple days of rest. We'll have some fun this coming week with predictions for next year and a look back. In the meantime, Merry Christmas!

Bill

Thirty-one years ago this evening, the Edmund Fitzgerald and her crew of 29 was lost to the depths of Lake Superior. The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum will have a memorial service, but unlike last year, there is no sign that it will be broadcast on the web. See my posts from the last two years.

Tomorrow, we observe Veterans Day. Originally called Armistice Day, the holiday was to commemorate the signing of the armistice at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. Today, we honor all who have served.

Today, the clouds are rolling fast overhead as a strong north wind makes the rain seem all the more miserable. Ugly as it is, it is nothing compared to what Lake Superior would have felt like on this night in 1975. In that cold wind and rain this afternoon, a university flag across the street flies at half-staff in honor of another Illinois son.

And so it goes, in the present we see reflections of the past. And we remember.

Excuse the lack of posting. Last week, I took a group of students to compete in the "Fed Challenge" in Chicago. The Fed Challenge is a competition in which student teams present a summary of economic conditions, a short-term forecast, and a monetary policy recommendation to a panel of judges. Most teams structure their presentation as a mock FOMC meeting. I would tell you how we did, but I have not received the official results yet--all anyone knows is who made the final round and who won. I can tell you that we did not win--Northwestern University took that honor and will represent the 7th Federal Reserve District in Washington, D.C. at the national competition. However, our students learned a lot from the competition. This was also the first time that WIU has entered a team, and I picked up some valuable ideas for next year.

Last minute preparations and missing a day last week left me in "catch-up" mode, and due to some other obligations this weekend, I still have a day or so before I'm caught up. I have to grade some exams and write some exams--not the fun part of the job, but one of the obligations nonetheless. Normal blogging will resume shortly.

In the meantime, there's an election tomorrow. Here is a Slate piece by Steven Landsburg from 2004 and Tyler Cowen's response. I'm with Cowen on this one. People do not (often for good reasons) treat every decision as a rational optimizer. Sure, there's no payoff from voting, nor is there payoff from many of the things we do that seem to contradict utility maximizing theory. For example, I tip generously even when I know that I'll never be back at that restaurant. I call the highway patrol to report road hazards even when a rational person would figure that someone has already called it in. The latter is probably a pretty close analogy to voting. I'm doing something at a (very small) cost to me when I have every expectation that it doesn't matter for the outcome. I feel good about it, but that's not a satisfactory explanation. Putting warm fuzzy feelings in the utility function allows you to explain anything. I think it is more accurate to think of voting and other similar actions as a commitment to a social contract. Some people are more committed to the contract (willing to pay a higher cost to uphold it) than others. Those less committed free ride on those who are more committed. Years of observation suggests to me that the same is true on the public roadways.

So tomorrow, vote or don't. But if you don't, please do not pester me with this business of how it is irrational to vote. As for me, I plan to incur an extremely small cost to display my allegiance to the social contract.

You hear stories like this every now and then. It bears repeating. Commas were not meant to be sprinkled liberally into your writing. A misplaced comma can change the meaning of a sentence. When that sentence contains an escape clause for a contract, the consequences can be costly. The NY Times has the story.

The dispute between Rogers Communications of Toronto, Canada’s largest cable television provider, and a telephone company in Atlantic Canada, Bell Aliant, is over the phone company’s attempt to cancel a contract governing Rogers’ use of telephone poles. But the argument turns on a single comma in the 14-page contract. The answer is worth 1 million Canadian dollars ($888,000).

Citing the “rules of punctuation,” Canada’s telecommunications regulator recently ruled that the comma allowed Bell Aliant to end its five-year agreement with Rogers at any time with notice.

Rogers argues that pole contracts run for five years and automatically renew for another five years, unless a telephone company cancels the agreement before the start of the final 12 months.

The contract is a standard one for the use of utility poles, negotiated between a cable television trade association and an alliance of telephone companies. French and English versions were approved by a government regulator about six years ago.

The dispute is over this sentence: “This agreement shall be effective from the date it is made and shall continue in force for a period of five (5) years from the date it is made, and thereafter for successive five (5) year terms, unless and until terminated by one year prior notice in writing by either party.”

The regulator concluded that the second comma meant that the part of the sentence describing the one-year notice for cancellation applied to both the five-year term as well as its renewal. Therefore, the regulator found, the phone company could escape the contract after as little as one year.

“The meaning of the clause was clear and unambiguous,” the regulator wrote in a ruling in July.

But Kenneth G. Engelhart, vice president for regulatory affairs at Rogers, disagreed. “Why they feel that a comma should somehow overrule the plain meaning of the words is beyond me,” he said. “I don’t think it makes any sense.”

But Canada is bilingual. Was the comma there in the French version?

Rogers is also pointing to the official French version of the pole agreement, which has equal status under Canadian law. While differences between the languages will not settle the comma question, Mr. Engelhart said the phrasing removed any ambiguity about the contract’s life span.

“It becomes very clear once you read the French version,” he said.

Of course it does... to him. Unfortunately, the Times did not print the French version.

Just when you think you've heard the most bizarre airport security stories... (WCCO.com)

(AP) NEW YORK British author J.K. Rowling says she won an argument with airport security officials in New York to carry the manuscript of the final "Harry Potter" book as carryon baggage.

Had security agents not relented, she said on her Web site, she might not have flown, she said in a posting dated Wednesday.

"I don't know what I would have done if they hadn't — sailed home probably," she wrote.

The author had participated in a book reading for charity on Aug. 1 with fellow writers Stephen King and John Irving. Security was drastically tightened after Aug. 10 when British police said they had intercepted a plot to blow up U.S.-bound airliners.

"The heightened security restrictions on the airlines made the journey back from New York interesting, as I refused to be parted from the manuscript of book seven.

"A large part of it is handwritten and there was no copy of anything I had done while in the U.S."

Eventually, she added, "They let me take it on, thankfully, bound up in elastic bands."

Would someone please explain to me how wrapping elastic bands around a book manuscript makes it less of a security threat? Couldn't she use the rubber bands as a weapon and take someone's eye out? Were they afraid that she might toss the loose papers in the air to create a distraction? What, I ask you, could possibly be the threat from a bundle of papers?

Unbelievable.

"Here rests in honored glory, an American soldier known but to God." --inscription on the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery

I took this photo in April 1989.

It is amazing to think that with modern DNA technology there will probably never be another unknown soldier. Indeed, the unknown soldier of the Vietnam War was identified in 1998 as Air Force 1st Lt. Michael Joseph Blassie. In a hundred years, people will wonder how it was that these remains could not be identified. That will matter little to the members of the "Old Guard" who will still keep their silent vigil. Only the whispers of the visitors, the 21 steps of the guard, and the clicking of his heels punctuate the stillness. Thus it will remain.

Well, my prediction that the Liberals would keep their hold on the Canadian government turned out to be wrong. Post-election observations:

1. The Conservatives did better in Quebec than I expected.
2. The Liberals did better elsewhere than a lot of people expected.
3. The NDP really shook things up (at the time of this writing, they were up 9 seats from the last election).

I happened to be visiting Canada back in 2003 when the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservatives was announced and it was all over the news. (I was there for the IAES Conference.) It was very interesting. I remember thinking that this new Conservative party would score a big victory within a few years. Certainly the 2004 election was a step in that direction. I figured that in one or two more elections they might win a majority. I didn't think it would happen like this.

And now the Conservatives have a government, but since they have fewer seats than the Liberals and the NDP combined (and fewer than the Liberals alone won in 2004) it will be difficult to advance their agenda. NDP leader Jack Layton suggested as much in his post-election remarks.

So what to make of the Liberals? With a stronger than expected showing and with a new (still to be determined) leader at the helm, they could emerge stronger next time. That would suggest to me that the next election will be just as close. And if the Conservatives don't deliver for Quebec, they could watch their margin evaporate.

If someone can breathe new life into the Liberals and the NDP gains a few more seats in the next election, the Conservative government will be short lived.

Americans can think of it this way... imagine the Republicans leading the Congress with a quarter of the members being of a 3rd (and 4th) party that is not on board with their agenda.

I know very little about the NDP. Until tonight, they were a marginal presence at best. But they made strong gains, and have their power concentrated in BC and Ontario (at the moment, it looks like the NDP beat the Liberals in BC). I would like to know more about them. They will, I think, hold the balance of power until and unless one of the two major parties breaks one way or the other.

The Conservatives have been given an opportunity to show Canada what they've got much earlier than most people would have expected back in late 2003. Their future in the next decade will be determined by what they do with that opportunity in the coming months. It's been a meteoric rise to power. Will it last?

Who will lead the Liberals? Will Quebec tilt even more to the Conservatives? Will the NDP continue to grow in influence? This is pretty exciting stuff. If you're burned out on U.S. politics, check out what's going on north of the border. I'm not even Canadian, and I'm hooked.

The Globe and Mail, of course, has complete coverage.

It's been a quiet week. GDP was revised downward just a bit, nothing to get excited about. Inflation numbers seem pretty tame. It will still be a while before we know how good the Christmas shopping season was and what it will mean for 4th quarter consumption and GDP.

And then, there's Greenspan's last FOMC meeting.

Lots to look forward to in 2006.

I've cleaned off my desk--shoveling away the debris of the semester just ended. Trying to finish a couple of projects and think about a couple of new ones. Despite the quiet of the last week, I won't be taking too much more time off from the blog. Not much blogging this weekend, however. But come back next week. I've been saving up some things.

And after the first of the year I hope to upgrade to the new version of Movable Type (happily continuing to avoid all of the problems fellow bloggers have had with Typepad). The new version allows multiple blogs on the same site. I'll be rolling out blogs for my courses over the break to coincide with the start of the semseter. I'll probably add a few links to this blog as well.

See you next week!

The "witch of November" is a term given for a fast moving, gale force storm that often signals the beginning of winter on the Great Lakes. Exactly 30 years ago this night, the a particularly brutal storm of this type was bearing down on Lake Superior.

The S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald left Superior, Wisconsin on the afternoon of November 9, 1975 bound for Detroit with 26,000 tons of iron ore. By 1:00am on November 10, the winds had picked up to 52 knots. By afternoon, the Fitzgerald lost her radars and was coping with waves crashing onto the deck. Sometime around 7:30pm, she sank beneath the waves with all hands.

In 1995, the bell--the symbolic heart of the ship--was recovered from the site of the wreck and the area was declared off limits to further exploration. Tonight, the bell, which resides at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point in Michigan, will be rung as part of a memorial service. The bell will ring 29 times. Once for each member of the crew. The bell will then be rung a 30th time for all who have been lost on the Great Lakes. The museum will have a webcast of the memorial at 7pm eastern tonight. Go here for more information about the ship and the wreck. This page was the source for the times given above.

The title of this post is from the Gordon Lightfoot song that memorializes the tragedy. Click the link for the lyrics.

UPDATE: Here's another link with a meteorological perspective.

The news comes from Reuters.

I guess my consumption of the stuff was not enough to bolster sales.

Arrgh.

Returning from a meeting, I glanced over at my phone to see if there were any messages. I did a double-take when I saw the time on the clock built into the phone. I could have sworn that the meeting was longer than my clock was telling me...an hour longer, in fact.

Then I realized that the folks who run our digital phone system jumped the gun on the return to standard time this weekend. So, remember to set those clocks back on Saturday night.

Here's what I wrote about daylight saving time last year.

When I worked in the dorm at Concordia College, the 1-4am shift on this night was the most sought after desk shift of the year. On the last Sunday morning of October, that shift was, after all, 4 hours long. That's an extra $4.25 or so, as I think that was the minimum wage at the time. (Conversely, no one wanted the corresponding shift in the spring.)

We had a big clock on the outside of our dorm. (The clock is visible on the upper right hand picture on this page.) As building manager, one of my duties was to keep the clock on time. Generally, it kept perfect time, and only needed to be reset when going on or off daylight saving time. The mechanism was controlled by turning a key that had three settings: stop, run (normal), and run (fast). Resetting the clock one hour back in the fall was the first time that I had to adjust it, so I figured that it wouldn't take too long to wind it forward 11 hours at the fast setting and get it back to 1am. So, I turned the key and walked outside to watch the hands move. That's when I learned that "fast" was not very "fast". But it was sort of interesting to see this big clock turning faster than normal, so my friends and I let it go, checked on it periodically, and got it set by about 2am. That's right, it would have been more efficient to just stop it for an hour.

But I'll never pass into or out of daylight saving time without thinking of the clock on Livedalen Hall.

Countless organizations will be collecting donations for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. If you have a favorite charity that helps out in situations like this, I invite you to support them. The standard line is that they need money more than actual physical goods. And the Red Cross has certainly distinguished itself in many tragedies for being on the scene so quickly and providing basic needs.

Click here for the Red Cross donation site.

Habitat for Humanity is gearing up to rebuild homes in the stricken areas. That effort will take some time, but they could use your help too.

Click here for Habitat for Humanity.

Brad DeLong links to this interesting little site. Ok, so Fermilab might not be a factory in a typical sense, but I'm sure it would be an interesting tour. Everyone should visit a factory sometime, especially economists. I've seen a number of factories/industrial sites, including some individual personal tours, and I'm always fascinated by what goes on. Manufacturing is not dead. It is changing, and in some pretty exciting ways.

This one was one of the most interesting factory tours I have seen.

I was out of town yesterday, unable to blog, and only able to catch news reports here and there. But every time I did catch a news update the toll was higher. Our prayers are with the British people in the days to come.

Via Market Power, this one takes the cake.

CHICAGO - It sounds like the meter maid's version of a speed trap: A ticket for parking at a meter that was installed after you park your car.

But that's what happened in Chicago last week, where a handful of motorists returned to their vehicles and found parking meters - and tickets - that weren't there when they parked.

According to a spokeswoman for the city's revenue department it was all just an innocent mistake. The way Efrat Dallal explains it, the vehicles were parked on a stretch of roadway where the meters were temporarily removed during street construction. Then, she said, the meters were put back and the vehicles parked in front of them were ticketed.

But some motorists wondered if that was the case after at least one of the tickets was apparently postdated several hours after it was placed on a car.

That's a good story, but it's not the only good Chicago parking story. Unfortunately, Chicago sometimes misdirects their parking tickets. Lots of people who have never been to Chicago get them. Thing is, I've received a parking ticket for parking in a place where I had never parked. It wasn't from Chicago, it was from Iowa City. What made it easy to contest was that the vehicle description was all wrong. The person writing the ticket probably entered a character from the license plate incorrectly. I was told that it happens all the time. I would guess that is often the case in Chicago. I mean after all, when you write millions of tickets, there are going to be transcription errors and some poor guy in Vandalia is going to get a Chicago parking ticket.

I find this interesting on many levels. First, David Davis was from central Illinois. His house is a significant local historical site. Second, I really enjoy reading about American history between the Civil War and 1900. Third, it's a good reminder that the country was pretty evenly divided back then too. (That is, of course, much of what makes that period of history so interesting to me.)

From the Peoria JournalStar:

Two men believed to be former soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army have been found on Mindanao Island in the southern Philippines, the Japanese Embassy in Manila has reported.

The embassy sent three officials to the southern Mindanao city of General Santos on Friday to meet the two men.

It was not immediately known if the two men were aware that the war was over.

Reuters also has the story.

The last known Japanese straggler from the war was found in 1975 in Indonesia.

The timing of this story on Memorial Day weekend just serves to remind us of the shrinking number of WWII veterans, not just here, but everywhere.

I took this picture of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery a number of years ago. My high school band laid the wreath in the picture.

I haven't been back to the Memorial Day observance in my hometown for many years, but I remember it well--the introduction of the Gold Star mothers, the reading of "In Flanders Fields," marching in the parade with the high school band, the solemnity of it all.

One thing you could count on was Everett Johnson singing "My Buddy" dressed in his WWII Navy uniform. Everett had a wonderful tenor voice, and the song would bring a hush to the auditorium when he began to sing. To me, Memorial Day wasn't complete without him singing that song. When I left for grad school, I didn't get back as often for Memorial Day, but I never forgot Everett's hauntingly beautiful rendition of "My Buddy." I can still hear it in my mind.

Everett passed away in July 2004 at the age of 83.

This Memorial Day, I will remember Everett. I'm sure the town of Pelican Rapids, Minnesota is missing him greatly this weekend.

Here's a site for history buffs like me.

Today is the 19th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident and the 16th anniversary of Lucille Ball's death.

Famous people born on this date include Carol Burnett, John James Audubon, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Charles Richter (yeah, the Richter scale guy).

Who knew?

Just because I might want to check this site every day, I think I'll add a link on this page.

For more, click here:

VATICAN CITY (CNN) -- Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany has been selected by the Roman Catholic church as the new pope.

Cardinal Jorge Arturo Medina Estevez of Chile made the announcement to a cheering crowd in St. Peter's Square.

Ratzinger, who took the name Benedict XVI, appeared on the balcony of the Vatican Basilica to greet the people and deliver his first papal blessing.

Dominus tecum, Benedictus.

If so, don't forget your passport. Same goes for Mexico.

I can see this being a bit of an inconvenience for residents along the Canadian border who occasionally trek up to Winnipeg to shop. American shopping centers within driving distance of Canada might likewise be concerned that requiring Canadians to have passports will cut into their business somehow. I fully expect some griping, but in the end, most folks will probably jump through the required hoops. Signs of the times.

UPDATE: Boy, that was fast.

But some business leaders in the Fargo-Moorhead area worry that the new travel restrictions may keep Canadian visitors from crossing the border to spend money at local motels, restaurants, gas stations and retail stores.

"The harder it is for our Canadian visitors to come down, the more likely it is they won't," said David Martin, president of the Chamber of Commerce of Fargo Moorhead.

"Not everybody has passports,"Martin said. "There's some expense and process involved.

"For the casual traveler - the visitors that support our hotels and restaurants - it might not be worth the hassle," he said.

Don't despair though.

For residents living along the U.S.-Canadian border, Homeland Security officials may consider offering some sort of "localized border crossing card" in lieu of passports, he said.

But unless they exempt the city of Winnipeg (whence cometh all those shoppers), the folks in Fargo won't be happy.

My neck of the woods is going to be prominently featured on The Weather Channel this week during their "Tornado Week" on Storm Stories.

Tonight at 8:30 EST (7:30 CST) will feature the Utica, IL tornado from last April. Wednesday at 8:00 EST (7:00 CST) will feature the Roanoke, IL tornado from last July. The Roanoke tornado was an F4 that ripped apart a manufacturing facility just a few miles down the road from us.

Last year was a very bad year for tornadoes in Illinois. The day that the Roanoke tornado struck, the skies were mostly clear in Peoria (where my office is). I heard about the warning and called home to make sure things were ok. My wife reported no unusual weather there either. But the tornado was ripping through Roanoke at about that very moment.

I nearly saw a tornado last year during one particularly bad complex of storms. We have a very good 180 degree view of the countryside from a vantage point about 50 yards from our house. I like to go there to watch the skies during storms. So do the local storm spotters. So as the storm was approaching, I went up there to watch and talk to the spotter. I also had my video camera in hand. When the rain started coming down in buckets, I made the 50 yard dash back to the house to preserve my camera (and get out of the lightening and the wind).

I no sooner got back to the house when the scanner (tuned to the storm spotter frequency) crackled to life with a report of a tornado. It was the spotter I had been talking to 30 seconds before! I just missed my tornado; but on the bright side, my camera survived the rain, I was not struck by lightening, etc.

I literally do not remember how many times we took cover in the basement last year. My standard for taking cover is when the spotters in our city have spotted a funnel cloud within 5 miles. That happened a lot. Tazewell County is right in the heart of "Tornado Alley."

I know a few economists who have something of a hobby interest in weather. Must be something about trying to forecast dynamic systems. Anyway, if you have an interest, watch The Weather Channel this week.

Apple is again giving away free iTunes in 1 out of 3 Pepsi bottles. They did this last year, and I raked in quite a few of the winning bottle caps. I already have three from the latest promotion, and I hope that this becomes an annual event.

Here's an article on the iPod (which I do not yet have--I just listen on my computer).

Always look, and stop, for flashing lights and sirens.

Always.

This story happened close to our neighborhood. We were about 1 minute away from witnessing this accident. We saw the squad car go through our intersection when we were stopped at a red light. When we turned down that street after our light turned green, we saw what happened. It could have been much worse.

Always look.

Here are two items which coincidentally were brought to my attention on the same day. First, a New York Times article on Iowa's efforts to keep young people in the state.

Lately the Iowa Legislature has been trying to find a way to solve a basic problem: how to keep young people from leaving the state. Right now, Iowa's "brain drain" is second only to North Dakota's. The Legislature is toying with a simple idea, getting rid of state income tax for everyone under 30. This proposal was front-page news in California, where most of Iowa moved in the 1960's.

Later in the article:

There is not enough life in the small towns of Iowa to keep a young person, and there is no opportunity on the land. The state faces an excruciating paradox. It can foster economic development of a kind that devours farmland - the sort of thing that is happening around Des Moines. Or it can try to reimagine the nature of farming, with certain opposition from farmers themselves and without any help from the federal government, which has fostered industrial agriculture for decades.

I love Iowa. Really, I don't think it's that bad. The writer probably hasn't been to Iowa City lately. What a great place! But in a sense, he is right. What makes Iowa City great is the student population and the energy of a university. If the students don't stay, that's an issue.

I don't think much of their proposal to eliminate the state income tax for those under 30. I just don't think it will have that much of an effect. Sounds good, but it will take more than a few hundred dollars a year during their restless youth to convince many to stay. College grads are going to want to go to Minneapolis and Chicago to see if they can make it in the big city. More and more families, however are moving back to the places of their youth, like Iowa and even North Dakota. It's not a flood by any means, but I think if these folks are looking for low hanging fruit, they might start with trying to woo back people in their 30s rather than hold back the torrent of those in their 20s trying to get out.

Then, just after I read that article, I see this.

Six investors are buying almost a quarter of downtown's office space. They have big plans for it.

A group of Minnesota investors has bought four downtown buildings and says it will buy more, in what could grow into one of the largest private-sector efforts to develop Wichita's core.

The six Minneapolis-area businessmen say they want to speed the conversion of downtown from an aging office center with a 27 percent vacancy rate to a vigorous community of lofts, condominiums, shops and artists' studios, as well as offices.

And later:

The solution, say the Minnesotans, is to convert the buildings into something in demand, such as apartments or condominiums, or studio space.

As more people move downtown for the urban atmosphere, they will want to shop and work close by. The whole dynamic of downtown will change, the partners say, from decaying office buildings to a community of renovated shops, homes, offices and more.

The same thing is being tried in Peoria, albeit not by Minnesotans (at least I don't think so). It's too early to call it a success or failure. It is, however, a tough sell. I wish those Minnesotans the best of luck. Urban renewal in cities like Wichita, Peoria, or Cedar Rapids is at times easier said than done.

While Iowa loses its kids to Minnesota, at least six Minnesota businessmen are making the trip down I-35 to Kansas. We are a mobile nation, with all the associated costs and benefits.

Sorry for the pause. Good discussions in the ol' blogosphere at the sites that I frequent.

Missed some of the State of the Union last night while out of town, but caught the last part and some of the C-Span commentary. Brad DeLong was on C-Span for just a few minutes. (Actually, I wish they could have kept him on a little longer.) Very gentlemanly of him to not only plug his own blog but also remind viewers of Andrew Samwick's blog (Vox Baby). I noticed today that Vox Baby has a link back to me. Many thanks!

Both DeLong and Samwick have good posts on Social Security today, so be sure to check them out.

Need to catch up from my day away from the office. Normal posting will resume either tonight or tomorrow (after I have a chance to read the SOTU).

It's 2005.

Go Iowa!

At the time of this post, they were just short of $7 million.

Amazon.com has a system to let you donate easily to the Red Cross to help the victims of the tsunami. Click here. As of this afternoon, they have already collected over $2 million.

The FAA is thinking about allowing cell phone usage on airplanes.

Here's my take on the matter. The only people who would bother me by talking on their cell phone on an airplane are the people seated right next to me. You can't hear a conversation more than a couple rows away because of the noise of the jet engines. It's not going to be that much noisier with people talking on cell phones. One possible glitch with that, however, is that I've never actually heard people talking on cell phones while the engines are running. (Currently they can only be used on the ground when the engines are much quieter if they are running at all.) People trying to talk over the engine noise might have to shout. (Not good.) Someone should do an investigation of this before it goes any further.

For me, it's that total stranger sitting 6 inches from me who would be the trouble. (Think: 3 hours or more sitting in very close quarters with someone complaining about life/love/work/whatever on their cell phone.)

So here's my solution: When ordering your tickets, you should have the opportunity to make a pledge to not use your cell phone. Those making that pledge will only be seated next to others who make a similar pledge, to the extent possible (and if it's not possible, you should be informed before being charged for the ticket). We already have on-line seat selection. This should not be that hard to implement in that system. Those not willing to make the "cell-free" pledge would have no right to complain if they are disturbed. (Note that I don't think a "no-cell section" of the plane would really be necessary. Just try to keep cell users and pledged non-users from sitting next to each other.

And let's see if the market can figure it out. Maybe one smart company will implement my plan (thinking it will get more non-cell phone customers). Others might follow. I hope the government doesn't try to micromanage this.

Any thoughts on my idea? Any other unintended consequences?

I'm not opposed to cell phones on airplanes, but personally, I would like to be seated next to people who (like me) will promise not to use them in flight. Shouldn't be hard to figure out.

On a related matter, the FAA is looking at providing Internet access in the air. It's about time!

I'm cynical sometimes. (Aren't we all?) I rather like pointing out silliness in the world around us. (Who doesn't?)

That's why every now and then I just have to put my cynicism on hold for a minute. Sometimes, those calling the shots get it right.

At last, we have plans for a Caterpillar "showcase center" which promises to be even better than the museum wing that had been talked about earlier.

Read the article. I hope the city council signs off on it. While I'm biting my tounge to keep from saying, "What took so long?" I am really thrilled about the idea. The expansion of our local museum should be tremendous and Caterpillar would complement the facility well.

If you read the article carefully, you'll see that there's still a little silliness in the process. But I don't want to focus on that today. I also don't want to focus on local minutia since most of my readers are outside Peoria. However, everyone can learn from this. Imagine if the prime downtown address in your city went vacant for a decade. Imagine that literally acres of real estate in the center of your city is a crumbling, empty old Sears store (from the bygone days when Sears had stores downtown--a long time ago).

Imagine that for years nothing got built there because no one could agree on what kind of development was "appropriate" for the area.

Now imagine a Smithsonian affiliate museum and a "showcase center" for your area's largest employer (a company with a worldwide reputation) will be built there. Are you imagining that? Smiling yet?

That's how I feel today.

Also, just to add a special touch to the occasion, yesterday was the 75th anniversary of Caterpillar's listing on the NYSE.

...that 4 years ago tonight was the last time I visited the top of the World Trade Center. And the last time I ever would.

Sears announced a merger with Kmart. If you had some money in either stock, you are a little richer today. I have wondered for a while what would become of Kmart. The old "blue light" model no longer works, and they have faced stiff competition from Wal-Mart. The subtle change in the design of the stores and the new greenish colored logo just didn't seem like it was enough to help them turn the corner. I think a lot of people, myself included, are not really surprised that they are merging with someone.

But Sears? Well, Sears is another "old school" retailer that is going to have to change to be competitive in the post Wal-Mart environment. And there was an article in the Wall St. Journal on November 8th that might have given an alert investor a sign that something was afoot. The headline was "Vornado Realty Takes 4.3% Stake In Sears Roebuck" and reads in part:

In applauding the Vornado investment, Sears shareholders may be eyeing the success of Kmart Holding Corp. in selling off locations and amassing an enormous pile of cash....

Kmart and Sears have their largest shareholder in common: ESL Investments Inc., the Connecticut hedge fund run by Edward S. Lampert. But while ESL holds more than half of Kmart shares and Mr. Lampert serves as the discounter's chairman, he has not taken a public role in Sears....

An ESL spokesman declined to comment on Vornado's stake in Sears.

Don't feel bad, I missed it too. At least now we know what Kmart did with that pile of cash.

According to this timeline of the events of November 10, 1975, those were the last words from the Edmund Fitzgerald. Sometime between 7:10 and 7:30pm EST on that date, she slipped beneath the waves taking 29 men with her. The story is as fascinating as it is vexing. Why did it happen? We will never know. Like most tragedies, there was a long chain of events that led up to it. If the chain had been broken, the Fitz might still be plying the lakes or sitting dockside next to a museum. But the chain wasn't broken. Everything seemed to go wrong.

The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald gets a lot of attention because of Gordon Lightfoot's song and because it happened in our own time. Stories of shipwrecks often evoke images of bygone days, before the advent of modern navigational equipment. The Fitz had two radars. Both failed. There was a light and a radio beacon nearby. They failed. Ships in the area, such as the Arthur Anderson, were powerless to help. In the end, she succumbed to the gales of November like so many before her.

In her day, though, she was the pride of the fleet. For more than a decade she was the largest on the lakes and was the first to carry more than a million tons of ore through the Soo Locks. Thanks to Gordon Lightfoot and so many others who keep the story alive, the Edmund Fitzgerald will never be forgotten.

In memoriam

They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; These see the works of the LORD, and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits' end. Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven. Psalm 107:23-30

Blogging from the road today. Nashville seems like a nice city. All I've seen of it is an airport and a hotel though. The Missouri Valley Economic Association meetings are this weekend.

When life happens, blogging pauses. I'm back. Here we go...