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I have begun re-reading The Gay Science, partially for a mental refresher during “paper season,” and partially because I thought the goal of re-reading at least one Nietzsche text every summer might do me some good.

This aside, still more work to finish up - there is no rest for the wicked.

It is always at this time of year, when the weather is getting nicer and everyone else is looking forward to finally getting outside that I crawl up into my little groundhog-hole and curl up for a few (less than) leisurely weeks. Yes, we converge on finals. Up for this week: 4 essays, 2 exams, one quiz. Someday, I will peak my tiny little head back up out of this hole.

I have at least 5 recent articles to comment on. I’ll not even comment on how many weeks I’m behind on my Economists. Nor my journal reading. I’ll be back, eventually… until then, c’est la vie, bon soir, and au revoir, d’accord?

…Sweet.

A letter today:

I am very pleased to notify you that the Department of Economics has selected you as the Outstanding Undergraduate Major in Economics for the academic year 2005-2006. Recognition of this achievement will be permanently recorded on a plaque in the department office.

I guess this means I’ve… literally… made my mark.

Now, shall we wager on whether the degree will say, “magna cum laude” or “summa cum laude?”

I’m seeing a lot of random mumbling about the Moussaoui trial. Much of it disturbing. Demagogue alert!

from http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/04/05/moussaoui/:

In addition, the lone cockpit voice recorder recovered from the four hijacked planes will be played publicly for the first time, the judge has ruled.

Giuliani, the former New York mayor who some consider a possible presidential candidate in 2008, will testify about the impact of 9/11 as a witness for the government.

from http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/11/ap/national/mainD8GU3AIG8.shtml:

Jurors weighing the fate of Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui were shown gruesome photographs Tuesday of bodies burned inside the Pentagon and heard from two determined military officers who crawled almost blindly through falling debris, choking smoke and searing heat to safety.

Despite Judge Leonie Brinkema’s warning on Monday that too much highly emotional evidence could imperil a death sentence on appeal, prosecutors showed the most gut-wrenching evidence yet in a trial studded with horrific images. The images came from the mammoth military headquarters just a few miles from the courtroom.

Alright, so people need Rudy Giuliani to determine the impact of 9/11 for them? Ridiculous. Pictures of mangled bodies? Why is it necessary to subject a jury to this kind of treatment? To compel an emotional response from the jury? Certainly the death penalty cannot rest alone upon emotion. Certainly there must be real, reasonable, rational arguments for us to uphold its validity!

What is the point? How does this serve justice? The U.S. Department of Justice should be able to make its case without appeals to exhuberant emotion. Our justice system is - and must be - above this kind of behavior. We argue with one hand that justice is based upon rational, codified law which is not subject to the rythms of emotion, but as strong or as weak as that argument is, giving in to this kind of behavior in a courtroom simply destroys this argument as to law’s validity. Perhaps I have too much faith, respect, and pride in my institutions to believe that this kind of behavior is proper or necessary.

From a lay perspective, the Department of Justice is digging its own gave on appeal. They’ve been warned, but I have no idea how Judge Brinkema is letting them go this far. The DoJ is doing a disservice to the United States by prosecuting this serious case and serious sentencing with theatre, base emotional passions, fear, horror, shock, and sensationalism. I would say that I am slightly disgusted, but the adjective slightly would be perjorative.

Ignorance is the chiefest virtue of the thinker.

School is hard. Well, getting in is, anyway.

If you want to take advantage of an untapped market, create a program to aid strong Economics undergrads in catching up with their Mathematics and Statistics friends. This will aid not only the quantitatively soft B.S. Economics undergrads, but even those poor B.A. sods who thought that a foreign language or three would help them compete in the international business world. They can even tutor and T.A. in many departments - put them to work in the Economics, Mathematics, and Statistics departments… perhaps even Computer Science, Political Science, or (if you’re an avid Samuelsonian or Mirowskian) Physics departments for the truly intrepid ones. We could call it an interdisciplinary study.

Start with an accelerated Calc series, continue on with linear algebra and differential equations, add in some real analysis, a couple mathematical statistics courses… and, since we’re talking economics, weave in some mathematical methods in economics and econometrics courses. This gets the basic empirical foundations cemented like concrete before we pour so much theory in.

Alas, my monthly reading of http://www.econphd.net/guide.htm was on the evening’s to-do list. Does it show?

I suppose I should take solace in being admitted into one of the top two terminal master’s programs. I would, however, like to study, research, and eat.

Never trust a person who doesn’t like poetry.

The study of poetry is the study of UNCOVERING. It is the process by which we find those things hidden by history or obfuscated by words, those esoteric goldmines. How can we entrust the uncovering of the grandest story ever written, the natural world and its human condition, to those who cannot understand a little poetry? To those who cannot peer under the surface of that which man knows best - man?

Those who cannot appreciate poetry cannot hope to seek those deeply hidden things.

Why I am no objectivist:

I am human.
(This is a good thing.)

“Art exists so that the bow shall not break.” - Nietzsche, Richard Wagner in Bayreuth

The bow? What purpose the bow? The bow simply exists, broken or not. What is it for? Is it the art that gives us meaning for the bow? Puts the bow to a purpose? Is it the case that without a purpose, the stuff of our existence should break?

Is then Art the process of creating/finding/seeking meaning? If Art is Meaning, what is science? After all, we could not be led to meaning by what we consider science. How can meaning come from non-meaning?

Meaning and Being, perhaps?

Science is the search for being or existence? Art is the search for meaning or purpose? We, even with the onslaught of positivism, have a hard time distinguishing. It is our human frailty that being has meaning, and meaning has being. Or is it? Perhaps it is no frailty, but simply a perspective; the human perspective.

It’s a shame I can’t register intelligentdesign.com/.net/.org…

But, in other news, a new project will employ me on http://designintelligent.org and http://designintelligence.org.

And, before you make too many simplifying assumptions, look here:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0865475873/104-0432564-0219108?v=glance&n=283155
http://www.mcdonough.com/cradle_to_cradle.htm
http://books.slashdot.org/books/02/06/03/1245253.shtml?tid=134
http://www.forbes.com/manufacturing/2004/12/15/cz_ag_1215beltway.html
http://www.c2c-home.org/

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/articles/060327/27global.htm

Another hit on the doomsday button? America’s extreme dominance slipping? Good or bad?

Well, there’s nothing to spread liberty and a manner of equality in the world than economic growth. Notice… that equality. Yes, equal footing. Yup, that means what you think it means. Dominance doesn’t coexist with equality. Sorry, old chap.

Well, what does this mean in terms of education and research? We cannot afford to keep diminishing our support for these activities at the very same time that growing countries. Some say that this college premium on education, whereby the opportunity costs of education are covered and much more value is leftover (i.e. the returns are far, far greater than the costs) anyway there’s no point in subsidizing school or incentivizing it further with loans. Well, I think their measurements (often purely monetary, which in averages isn’t a hard thing to see, but in my case is doubtfully even true) are far from adequate. After all, as of 2003 only 27% of people have taken advantage of this HUGE premium. Is this from a lack of information or irrational agency? Or perhaps because we have problems measuring opportunity costs of education? This figure is, of course, the highest it’s ever been - but is it enough in today’s culture and economy?

Is the government the right body to fund research? Does anyone have any better ideas?