Question of the day

Q: What four Czechs that meet on Sunday in LA have in common?

A: They all want to go back to Czech Republic.

P.S. Four is not enough for law of large numbers, so I don;t think this is necessarily general perception. It also should not suggest that life in the US is bad - it is probably better than in most countries. But it might suggests that young, probably middle-class, educated people find living at Czech Republic more appealing than being (possibly) rich (wealthy) elsewhere. Well, no surprise there - money can buy only so much.

Joshua Tree

On Saturday, we visited Joshua Tree National Park, which is famous, as the name suggests for Joshua Tree. We did not have much time, so we made only a couple of very short hikes. We did enjoy beautiful view over the sunset, Imperial Valley and the valley that funnels the smog from the Los Angeles basin. Pictures will be at Picasa soon.

Salton Sea

I have been traveling in the SD/LA region and one of the most interesting thing is the area around Salton Sea and Imperial Valley. The picture of the area from NASA shuttle (source: Wikipedia ) is interesting:


The sea itself is freshwater lake created by man (!) during a disaster in 1905-1907, when the flow of the Colorado river was diverted due to high volumes of water in the river that ruptured the irrigation channel. The water from the river flew for 2 years and created Salton Sea, which is 227 feet bellow sea level. The sea exists till today because of the run-away water from farms that you can see on that picture. Google Maps picture looks also very impressive. The Salton Sea was originally recreational area, but increases saltiness and pollution of the water lead to the end of the boom. Many buildings are abandoned and waters smells. In fact, the shores are covered with dead fish in various stages of disintegration. What looks like sand is in fact huge number of small shells of unknown (to me) small animals.(Pictures will be eventually posted on Picasa).
Since the whole area is in fact desert, water from Colorado river makes it very fertile. The region is the main producer of lemons in the US and we saw large number of other citrus trees as well. On our way to the Salton Sea, we passed through Anza-Borrego Desert, which is bare but beautiful area covered with occasional cactus and ocotillo. This time of the year, the weather was acceptable and many flowers were blooming.

Freedom and laws

Lawyers and some people like to play the game of "freedom". It works like this - you compare the legal systems in two different countries (say Czech Republic and the USA) and decide which of them gives more freedom to its citizens. Most of the people and some economists, however, realize that the actual freedom depends on how the laws are actually enforced.

Say, for example, taking pictures on the public property (e.g. street in front of the railway station). If you make a picture in the CR, chances are that people will think that you are nuts to take picture of this old and ugly building but that's pretty much everything that can happen. In the US., the policeman comes and you have a conversation that goes somewhat like this.

Policeman:"Sir, what are you doing?"

You:"I'm taking the picture of this building, because I like it."

Policeman:"Sir, you can't take picture of this building, because of security reasons. Please erase it."

You:"Officer, I'm on a public property, so I have a right to make this picture"

Policeman:"Sir, unless you erase that picture, I will have to take you to the station."

The thought of habeas corpus, Guantanamo and/or a day spent in the police station goes through your head in a quick succession.

You:"OK, OK"

Policeman:"Thank you and have safe day"

In fact, you do have a right to take the picture. You also have the right to make a phone call that is not wire-tapped without court approval. But nobody really cares. So you in fact do not have this right. In contrast, there is a plenty of stupid rules in the Czech Republic that nobody really cares about, and nobody even knows about. Still, I doubt that we have as stupid rules as this one that are enforced very much.

It seems pretty obvious that the US walked a long way under GWB (but it's not just him. US Army was censoring letters of US citizens as documented by RP Feynman in this book "Surely you are joking, Mr. Feynman", during second world war). It will be very hard to get back the freedom and it might actually never happen. There are still some constraints that will hopefully prevent complete walk-away from democracy, but I'm not so sure.

In fact, after about 400 hundred years for which people from around the world immigrated to the US, I would expect some US citizens to emigrate in this century. Like this famous science fiction writer. Freedom may not mean much to many people, but it means a lot to some of them.

A test in economics

One popular economic professor writes the following. Find a mistake in his reasoning. You have one minute. Seriously, it's easy.

"But there is a silver lining to this cloud and indeed it seems that consumers will fare okay in this world of growing fraud, even if we feel increasingly harried.
Think just for a moment about what fraud means. Fraud means that the seller is lowering costs, raising revenue and enjoying higher profits.
In the short run that is bad for the customer. But in the long run it means there will be more suppliers and more competition for our business and thus lower prices.
Take the proverbial cheat auto mechanic. Maybe half the time he will charge you even when he hasn’t done any useful fixing. But in the long run that extra revenue will draw about twice as many auto mechanics into the industry to compete for your money. Yes, they will be ripping you off half the time but prices will fall by a roughly proportionate amount.
In the long run, you, as a consumer, will do okay. You pay twice as often as you ought to, but as a consolation each time you pay only about half as much."

VK is my hero

Seriously. Vaclav Klaus, the president of the Czech Republic, probably the best economist ever, is my secret hero. I would not dream of revealing this to the public, but one has to be courageous.
He is my hero because he is not only able to say something very popular and "populistic" in Czech Republic, but to position himself so that he cannot be wrong!
There are the following options: First, there might be no climate change and no need to protect the environment (and climate). In this case VK is a winner, because he told us so.
Second, the climate change is coming, but it will be manageable. In this case, VK is also right, because current suggestions are mere first attempts that will almost surely be replaced by some other, more effective, mechanisms. In that case, he wins, because he criticizes current mechanisms as expensive and inefficient.
Third, he is wrong, and humans will fail and our mighty civilization will fall. In that case, who cares who was VK.
There is also the sweet cherry on the top - he is against most people, against "media" and other "conspirators".
Honestly, I don't believe how he could possibly loose. I have to admire him. You should too.

Mud cookies and biofuels

I though that behind the increase in prices of food was primarily bad season (in several countries), but it is certainly possible that botched attempts to save the planet by 5-10% of biofuel caused it.
In any case, the consequences are terrible:
"It was lunchtime in one of Haiti's worst slums, and Charlene Dumas was eating mud. With food prices rising, Haiti's poorest can't afford even a daily plate of rice, and some take desperate measures to fill their bellies. Charlene, 16 with a 1-month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt from the country's central plateau.

The mud has long been prized by pregnant women and children here as an antacid and source of calcium. But in places like Cite Soleil, the oceanside slum where Charlene shares a two-room house with her baby, five siblings and two unemployed parents, cookies made of dirt, salt and vegetable shortening have become a regular meal.
"

Needless to say, this is happening while 32% of Americans are obese.

Progress

If you really believe that our modern civilization has made a significant progress in terms of law & justice, read this.

Slow progress and multitasking

At the beginning of my PhD, and especially after I clarified my research ideas, I was hoping for fast progress. As usual, it did not realize. I had a couple of alternative explanations (topic is bad, research is difficult, I'm not smart enough, I'm not working hard enough).
After some thinking, I found out that the problem is concentration and multitasking. I'm not talking about working on one idea in the morning and on the other in the afternoon (and writing a blog in the evening), but about solving a model and say, talking to your friends over IM and reading a newspaper. The multitasking killed my ability to focus, to remember and to work hard.
There is a research why, but I'm still looking for how to reverse the process.

Democracy - the American way

If half of this is true, then George O. was off probably by a few decades, not centuries.
Or, as The Simpons put it: "Will anybody think of children?".