Now, a good Catholic boy like me should have no objection to gambling. And for the most part, I don’t. (I mean, I do think casinos are pretty sleazy with the way they block any natural light and prey on old people, but it’s a free country, right?) After all, I grew up playing turkey bingo in the church gym and cherry bells at the church fair. But what If I told you that there’s a form of gambling where the house edge (which is usually a couple of percent at most if you’re at a casino) is 67.5%? You’d think it was an outrage, wouldn’t you? You’d never want to play a game like that, would you? But when you buy a Powerball ticket, that’s exactly what you’re doing.* It always baffles me when I hear about co-workers who get together and buy a bunch of tickets every week in the hopes that they’ll hit the big one. What the hell are they thinking? Obviously, they’re not very good at math.
Now, my point here is not to criticize the guy who goes into the convenience store maybe once or twice a year when the Powerball jackpot is $250 million. If you spend $2 a year on the lottery, you may be losing money—the odds are against you in virtually any** situation—but you’re never going to miss $2 a year. On the other hand, those millions of dollars would be really nice to have if you do luck out. SInce losing $2 a year is essentially equivalent to nothing, but winning a huge amount of money (even at odds of almost 200 million to 1) is really, really awesome, it’s not a bad deal (from a life perspective, not a strict financial perspective) if you play on very rare occasions. My point here is to criticize the people who spend $5 or $10 or $20 or more a week, every week, in the hopes of winning the big prize. Continue reading ‘state lotteries’
Living on the Gulf Coast I’m used to dealing with natural disasters. But this decidedly unnatural disaster we’re dealing with is quite bizarre. In some ways it’s like dealing with a hurricane—we even get a daily NOAA forecast—but it’s not like we have to board the windows and evacuate. We just move on with our daily lives and watch as what could become the worst environmental disaster in our nation’s history rages on some 60 or 70 miles from downtown New Orleans.
At this point I don’t really know how to feel. Should I pissed off at BP? Yeah. The government? Yeah. Maybe this is the work of a company cutting every corner it can, regardless of the risks. Maybe it was just a freak accident. (I think the former is more likely, but that’s besides the point I want to make). What I am pissed off about is the fact that for far too long we in Louisiana have run the risks and taken so much damage from the oil industry without being fairly compensated. For years Louisiana and the other states with offshore drilling got completely screwed out of oil royalties.* We got nothing.** States with inland oil and gas production? A 50/50 split between the state and the feds. What is wrong with this picture? Sure, there’s an argument to be made for giving the federal government some of the money; Americans have a right to enjoy all of our natural resources, not just the ones from the state they happen to live in. But we are the ones bearing the negative externalities while the federal government reaps the benefits. We are the ones who have had our wetlands ripped apart by subsidence and canals. We are the ones with Cancer Alley. And we run the risk of a spill like this. Continue reading ‘not getting a fair share of offshore oil royalties’
Earlier today as I was browsing facebook instead of working (which is what I should be doing right now), I saw a link to an article about Kelsey Grammer, who is currently starring as the less-flamboyant half of a gay couple in the Broadway revival of La Cage aux Folles. The story* is that Grammer is investing in and appearing in a promotional campaign for a new right-wing website called RightNetwork despite starring in a musical known for its sympathetic depiction of its leading gay couple—a show most famous for the defiantly proud song “I Am What I Am”:
(Skip to 3:01 to see the song; the first half is the similar “We Are What We Are.” That part is included for the many of my readers who enjoy drag queens and fancy costumes.)
So certainly, there’s a bit of irony that a noted conservative is starring in one of theatre’s most first and most prominent cries for gay rights. (Note: I have no idea whatsoever what Grammer’s specific views are on gay rights, gay marriage, or any other particular issue, but he’s made his support for the Republican Party quite well known.) But he’s an actor, isn’t he? That’s his job. Continue reading ‘people who only associate with like-minded people’
There’s 50 states in the USA. And 49 of them have something horribly wrong with their state governments. The sole exception? Nebraska. And what does Nebraska do right? They have a unicameral state legislature. Uni-what? Instead of having a senate and a house of representatives (or whatever the equivalent names are in various states), they have just a single chamber.
Some background: the US has a Senate and a House of Representatives. As you may or may not remember from your 10th-grade American History class, this was a compromise between the states with small populations (who favored an equal number of seats for each state) and the large states (who favored seats based on population). Eventually Roger Sherman masterminded the Connecticut Compromise, which led to our bicameral federal legislature.* Continue reading ‘bicameral state legislatures’
Before we begin, a semi-related cartoon for your education and entertainment:
I usually try to steer clear of politics, but given the out of control spending of the Bush and Obama administrations, I simply can’t stay silent. In the name of “economic recovery” or “stimulus” (since those sound better than “bailouts” and “corporate welfare” and “giving money to idiotic companies so that they can give huge bonuses to their executives”) the federal government has been on an out-of-control spending spree, one that could very well bankrupt future generations (read: “people my age”). Yet this stimulus spending is only a small part of the problem. We find ourselves in a demographic crunch in which a massive redistribution of wealth from workers to retirees may sink our country in a morass of debt from which we cannot escape. At the heart of this problem is Social Security, which was a bad idea when it began and is an even worse idea now. Continue reading ‘social security’
I hate smoking with a passion. It disgusts me tremendously. I don’t like the smell, I don’t like seeing other people harm their own health, I don’t like anything about it. If you smoke, you should quit right now. I especially hate it when I meet an attractive young woman and then see her light up a cigarette. So unappealing.
That being said, I’m also not a fan of the smoking bans that have been sweeping the country. Sure, smoking should be outlawed in government buildings, schools, and the like.* But restaurants, bars, casinos, or any other type of business? No way. Continue reading ‘smoking—and smoking bans’
You’ve probably heard about the so-called theory of intelligent design. Its advocates suggest that the world (or life, or intelligent life, or whatever) must be the work. Now, as far as the origin of the universe is concerned, it’s pretty hard to prove or disprove this; I actually agree with them, but that’s beside the point here. It’s a philosophical question, and in philosophy, most of the questions which were raised by Plato or Aristotle or any of those other dead Greeks still haven’t been answered with any greater confidence than they were more than two thousand years ago. If the intelligent design advocates limited themselves to philosophy, I really wouldn’t have any problem with them. What I have a problem with is what they have to say about the origin of living things, and of intelligent life. They dismiss all of the evidence in favor of evolution, put forth a few nonsensical theories, and then stir up all the controversy they can in an attempt to discredit evolution. What they are doing is taking a philosophical/religious concept and insisting that it is a scientific concept, when, in reality, it is about as far from science as possible, regardless of any validity it has in a philosophical context. Continue reading ‘the intelligent design movement’
The Supreme Court has done some stupid things throughout the years–Dred Scott v. Sandford, anyone? Today I’d like to discuss a very recent, shockingly stupid decision, one which was attacked by a diverse coalition, everyone from the NAACP to the AARP to the Libertarian Party. That decision is Kelo v. New London. New London is a Connecticut city of some 26,000 people. Since the city was a rusted out dump (albeit one with lots of pretty old buildings), some folks in the city government decided that they should seize some old houses so that they could give it to a business which would redevelop it as a commercial property. Continue reading ‘kelo v. new london’