EclectEcon

What Legal Issues Are Involved with Snow-Stomp Art?

I had intended to do more work on my most recent snow-stomp art, depicting champagne being poured from a bottle into a champagne glass. But just as I was finishing the glass, a long-time resident of the condo building where we live (and in front of which I did the work) came out onto his balcony and asked me what I thought I was doing.

I explained with a big smile that I had made a bottle in the snow down the hill (which he could not see from his low balcony) and was now making the glass into which the champagne was being poured.

He informed me in a very officious manner that the condo doesn't own the hillside (where the bottle is); that is public property. He then asked if I had city permission to do that? 

Me: I'm just walking in the snow, making a design.

Him: And you know this part up here is owned by the condo. You have to get permission from the condo board to do anything.

Me: I'm just walking in the snow, making a picture for people to enjoy.

Him: But we have a person who is in charge of the landscaping here. You need to get board permission if you are going to change anything.

[etc. etc.]

Me: Oh. Okay.

and I left. 

I can't imagine there is any legal bar to my doing the snow-stomp art. And I can't imagine I need anybody's permission to do it in a public park or on the lawn of the condo where I live. Maybe if I had designed some sexually explicit erotica, it would be a different story; and maybe he objected to the depiction of alcohol use on the condo lawn; but I doubt it.

Quite frankly, I think he just objected to anyone having fun.

Happy New Year -- More Snow-Stomp Art

The glass is on a flat, level surface, but the bottle is on an uneven hill. I thought the label was a nice touch. 

As before, Ms. Eclectic took a series of photos as it was in process. The art work looks much better and clearer in the sunlight, when the stomp patterns are more obvious.

I tried to bump up the contrast a bit in these photos that were taken when it was cloudy. The result isn't great, but it shows the process.

.

A Christmas Present: Full Live Concerts

At least that's what Jack called this list when he sent it to me:

A Collection of Full Live Concerts!

Enjoy hours of fun musical browsing, and see your favorite artists doing what they do best - making beautiful music!

 

Click Here to Watch	ABBA - USA 1980
Click Here to Watch	Adele - London, England 2011
Click Here to Watch	Aerosmith - Tokyo, Japan 2002
Click Here to Watch	a-ha - Oslo, Norway 2001
Click Here to Watch	Alicia Keys - New York, NY 2005
Click Here to Watch	Amy Winehouse - Glastonbury, England 2008
Click Here to Watch	Amy Macdonald - Open Air Festival, Czech Republic 2012
Click Here to Watch	Arctic Monkeys - Manchester, England in 2008
Click Here to Watch	Avril Lavigne - Calgary, Canada 2007
Click Here to Watch	Barry Manilow - 2011
Click Here to Watch	Barry White - a selection of performances
Click Here to Watch	Beach Boys - The Lost Concert 1964
Click Here to Watch	Beatles - Melbourne, Australia 1964
Click H e re to Watch	Bee Gees - MA, USA 2001
Click Here to Watch	Beyonce - Glastonbury, England 2011
Click Here to Watch	Billy Joel - Tokyo, Japan 2006
Click Here to Watch	Blur - Glastonbury, England 2009
Click Here to Watch	Bon Jovi - Udinese, Italy 2011
Click Here to Watch	Bob Marley - Dortmund, Germany 1980
Click Here to Watch	Britney Spears - London, England 2000
Click Here to Watch	Bruce Springsteen - Glastonbury, England 2009
Click Here to Watch	Celine Dion - Memphis, USA
Click Here to Watch	Christina Aguilera - London, England 200
Click Here to Watch	Coldplay - Austin, Texas, Christmas eve 2011/2012/span>
Click Here to Watch	Cranberries - Chile 2010
Click Here to Watch	David Bowie - Vancouver, Canada 1983
Click Here to Watch	Deep Purple - Copenhagen / New York 1972-1973
Click Here to Watch	Depeche Mode - Paris, France 2001
Click Here to Watch	Diana Ross - Sweden 1968
Click Here to Watch	The Doors- Hollywood, USA 1968
Click Here to Watch	Duran Duran - London, England 2004
Click Here to Watch	Elton John - Rome, Italy 2005/span>
Click Here to Watch	Elvis Costello - Cologne, Germany 1978
לצפיה לחץ כאן	Elvis Presley - Hawaii, USA 1973
Click Here to Watch	Eminem - New York, NY 2005
Click Here to Watch	Enrique Iglesias - Belfast, Ireland 2007
Click Here to Watch	Eric Clapton - Windsor, England 1992
Click Here to Watch	Frank Sinatra - Tokyo, Japan 1985
Click Here to Watch	Franz Ferdinand - Glastonbury, England 2009
Click Here to Watch	Genesis - Dusseldorf, Germany 2007
Click Here to Watch	Green Day - Italy 2005
Click Here to Watch	Guns and Roses - Paris, France 1992
Click Here to Watch	Gypsy Kings - Los Angeles, California, USA 1990
Click Here to Watch	James Blunt - Nyon, Switzerland 2011
Click Here to Watch	Jamiroquai - Nyon, Switzerland 2010
Click Here to Watch	Jay-Z - London, England 2012
Click Here to Watch	Jennifer Lopez - Moscow, Russia 2012
Click Here to Watch	Jimi Hendrix - Stockholm, Sweden 1969
Click Here to Watch	Joe Cocker - Baden-Baden, Germany 1996
Click Here to Watch	Kane - London, England 2007
Click Here to Watch	Kings of Leon - Landgrf, Netherlands 2011
Click Here to Watch	Kiss - Fuji, Japan 2006
Click Here to Watch	Kylie Minogue - London, England 2011
Click Here to Watch	Lady Gaga - Sydney, Australia
Click Here to Watch	Led Zeppelin - London, England 1970
Click Here to Watch	Leonard Cohen - London, England 2008/9
Click Here to Watch	Linkin Park - Madrid, Spain 2010
Click Here to Watch	Little Richard - London, England 1972
Click Here to Watch	Louis Armstrong - Belgium 1959
Click Here to Watch	Luciano Pavarotti - Barcelona, Spain​
Click Here to Watch	Madonna - Lisbon, Portugal 2004
Click Here to Watch	Manic Street Fritz'rs - Scotland 2009
Click Here to Watch	Mariah Carey - Morocco 2012
Click Here to Watch	Metallica - Nimes, France 2009
Click Here to Watch	Michael Jackson - Brunei 1996
Click Here to Watch	Moby - Novi Sad, Serbia, 2009
Click Here to Watch	Muse - London, England 2012
Click Here to Watch	Neil Young - New York, NY 2012
Click Here to Watch	Nirvana - Rome, Italy 1991
Click Here to Watch	Norah Jones - Amsterdam, Netherlands 2007
Click Here to Watch	Offspring - Woodstock Festival in New York, USA 1999
Click Here to Watch	Phil Collins - Paris, France 2004
Click Here to Watch	Pink Floyd - Venice, Italy 1989
Click Here to Watch	Pixies - Brazil 2010
Click Here to Watch	The Police - Cologne, Germany 1980
Click Here to Watch	Prince - New York, NY 1985
Click Here to Watch	Queen - Argentina 1981
Click Here to Watch	Radiohead - Saitama, Japan 2008
Click Here to Watch	Red Hot Chili Peppers - Paris, France 2011
Click Here to Watch	REM - Hamburg, Germany 1998
Click Here to Watch	Ricky Martin - New York, NY 2000
Click Here to Watch	Rihanna - Manchester, England in 2007
Click Here to Watch	Robbie Williams - Leeds, England in 2006
Click Here to Watch	Rolling Stones - European Tour IMAX
Click Here to Watch	Roxette - Johannesburg, South Africa 1995
Click Here to Watch	Santana - Montreux, Switzerland 2011
Click Here to Watch	The Scorpions - Recife, Brazil in 2008
Click Here to Watch	Shakira - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2008
Click Here to Watch	The Shins- Hurricane Festival, Germany 2012
Click Here to Watch	Simon and Garfunkel - New York, NY 1981
Click Here to Watch	Simply Red - London, England 1998
Click Here to Watch	Smashing Pumpkins - Mexico City, Mexico 2010
Click Here to Watch	Stevie Wonder - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2011
Click Here to Watch	Sting - Berlin, Germany 2010
Click Here to Watch	System of a Down - Nuremberg, Germany 2011
Click Here to Watch	Talking Heads - Rome, Italy
Click Here to Watch	Tina Turner - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1988
Click Here to Watch	Tom Jones - Chile 2007
Click Here to Watch	Toto - Amsterdam, Netherlands 2003
Click Here to Watch	The Verve - Glastonbury, England 2008
Click Here to Watch	U2 - Glastonbury, England 2011
Click Here to Watch	Whitney Houston - New York, NY 2009
Click Here to Watch	2Pac - House of Blues 1996

 

Take Some Time for Peace and Relaxation

Amazing how jumbled we are that we find it difficult to take 2 minutes to relax and do nothing. Amazing. I don't know if I've posted this before, but even if I have, it is so good it's worth seeing again.

http://www.donothingfor2minutes.com/

 

The 25 All-Time Best Christmas Movies?

Well, according to some, anyway [h/t M.A.]. 

• "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946)

• "Holiday Inn" (1942)

• "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (1993)

• "Stalag 17" (1953)

• "Miracle on 34th Street" (1947)

• "Die Hard" (1988) [EE: are you kidding me? 8-( ]

• "Arthur Christmas" (2011)

• "A Christmas Story" (1983)

• "Trading Places" (1983)

• "Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale" (2010)

• "Lethal Weapon" (1987)

• "A Midnight Clear" (1992)

• "A Christmas Tale" (2008)

• "While You Were Sleeping" (1995)

• "Scrooge (A Christmas Carol)" (1951)

• "Elf" (2003)

• "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" (2005)

• "Gremlins" (1984)

• "The Santa Clause" (1994)

• "The Bishop's Wife" (1947)

• "Bad Santa" (2003)

• "8 Women" (2002)

• "Batman Returns" (1992)

• "White Christmas" (1954)

• "The Ref" (1994) 

 

Scrooge and Competitive Markets

Do you think Ebeneezer Scrooge had monopsony power over Bob Cratchett?

Do you think Bob Cratchett was forced to work for Scrooge? 

Do you think Bob Cratchett had any other options available to him.... in London?

If you think Cratchett probably had other options available, why the heck did he keep working for Scrooge if Scrooge was such a .... Scrooge? 

And if Scrooge was paying Cratchett just what Cratchett was worth on the market, what any other employer would pay, why did the ghosts visit Scrooge and warn him to reform? Do you think those ghosts visited all the other potential employers of Cratchett who didn't offer him any better job than Scrooge did? 

If Scrooge was paying Cratchett the market wage, I'm not persuaded he was such a bad guy. 

And if the business mores of the time made it impossible or extremely costly for Cratchett to shop around for a better job, then maybe we should be grateful for increased labour market competition and job mobility, not for Christmas ghosts. 

Anyway, Merry Christmas, and "God bless us, everyone."

Update: Steve Landsburg defends Scrooge from a different perspective here.

More on the IPCC's Latest Leaked Document on Global Warming

Terence Corcoran of the Trono Globe and Mail has some thoughts here. A very telling quote:

At the Global Warming Policy Foundation in London, David Whitehouse zeroed in on the AR5’s graphic recognition that its previous computer-temperature warnings have failed to materialize. Models projected rises over the last two decades, when in fact no increase has taken place.

Others piped in on other issues. Roger Pielke Jr., of the University of Colorado, said AR5 amounts to an “almost complete reversal” of the previous claims regarding trends in hurricanes, drought, and floods. The IPCC now has “low confidence” that hurricanes have increased: “Current data sets indicate no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency.”

I'd say the confidence intervals around any climate forecasts must be seriously, freaking wide. In non-stat speak that means, "Who knows what's gonna happen?"

Related articles

More on Global Warming

Even IPCC Is Abandoning Debunked Global Warming Hoax

Climate Change - UNIPCC Turns Sceptic On Cyclones, Floods And Droughts

London Ontario's Answer to Christo for Christmas

And here are some sequential shots of the process.

One Impact of Increasing the Size of Gubmnt

More people with good (and better) incomes want to live in the nation's capital, increasing the demand for housing and driving up house prices. When the size of gubmnt increases, not only are there more civil servants, but there are more political appointees and especially more well-paid lobbyists whose job it is to influence gubmnt. From WaPo:

While much of the nation is still struggling to emerge from a historic housing-market meltdown, the District is reliving its boom days. High rents, low interest rates, low inventory, and a flood of new residents in their 20s and 30s are making parts of the city feel like it’s 2005 again.

The increased size of gubmnt is make at least some people better off... namely the people who owned property before the gubmnt-induced property boom/bubble. If I lived in DC now, I'd sell and either move out of DC or rent.

Is Canada More Violent Than the US?

"Ironman" at the blog Political Calculations links to a number of comparisons and concludes that yes, Canada is more violent than the US (observing along the way, "At least Canadians are polite, eh? Just don't cross them...."). You may want to look into how and why he corrects for demographic differences, but here are some of his conclusions:

We break down the number of homicides per 100,000 by method for Canada and the most demographically-similar-to-Canada portion of the U.S. population, finding that Canada's much more strict laws regulating firearms "saves" about one life for every 100,000 people, although Canadian homicide offenders have adapted to the lack of firearms available to them by making murder more brutal. ...

We find that there's an additional price to be paid for saving that one life for every 100,000 people with strict gun control laws. It turns out that after adjusting for the major demographic differences between the two nations, Canada is a much more violent place than is the U.S.

 

Maybe the US Isn't As Violent As We Think...

Does the US really have fewer violent crimes per capita than the UK, Austria, Belgium, Holland, and even Sweden? Data reported in the Telegraph say it does (h/t Tom Hanna):

 [V]iolent crime in the UK ... increased from 652,974 offences in 1998 to more than 1.15 million crimes in 2007.

It means there are over 2,000 crimes recorded per 100,000 population in the UK, making it the most violent place in Europe.

Austria is second, with a rate of 1,677 per 100,000 people, followed by Sweden, Belgium, Finland and Holland.

By comparison, America has an estimated rate of 466 violent crimes per 100,000 population. 

I don't know if it is sloppy reporting or sly cooking of the data, but I see just "crime" in one place and "violent crime" in another. The article does caution about there being different measures in different countries, so be careful about the results here (and in every other cross-national study!).

But if the data correctly represent the situations, perhaps the rush to judgement about the US, violence, and guns is mistaken.

Related articles

I Used to be Pro Gun Control. If you are, too, please read this

Government: Violent crimes rose 18 percent in 2011

Violent crime drops in most O.C. cities

More on Global Warming

It looks mighty confusing out there to me. People I know and trust are on both sides of the issue. It seems pretty clear to me that lots of glaciers in some parts of the world are receding. At the same time there are other parts of the world where there is some ice build-up. And year-to-year fluctuations seriously mask the long-term trends, if there are any.

Apparently measures of global temperature are better now than they were a decade or two ago when they were rising in part because of urban sprawl reaching the weather stations and leading to artificially higher temperatures. And apparently these revised measures are not showing much of an increase over the past decade or so. 

I really don't know what to think. Add to this confusion, the possibility that whatever temperature increases we might be experiencing are somehow related to sunspot and solar storm activity. The upshot may well be that temperatures are rising, somewhat, and that some of this might be due to human activity. But I have no idea if or how much any of this is going on. One thing for sure (at least in my mind): it is not "settled science."

And then bring in the economists who point out that there are benefits to some people if there is global warming and that for those harmed by global warming, it might be more efficient to deal with it than to try to prevent it. 

Here is more in a recent piece by Matt Ridley in the WSJ:

The scientists at the IPCC next year have to choose whether they will admit—contrary to what complex, unverifiable computer models indicate—that the observational evidence now points toward lukewarm temperature change with no net harm. On behalf of all those poor people whose lives are being ruined by high food and energy prices caused by the diversion of corn to biofuel and the subsidizing of renewable energy driven by carboncrats and their crony-capitalist friends, one can only hope the scientists will do so.

In the article, Ridley does seem to be saying at one point that global temperatures may in fact be rising, but very slowly. Other times he points out that they may not have risen much, if at all, during the past decade or two.

The big take-away from the article is that subsidized alternative and bio fuels are costing the economy a whole lot, are a classic example of rent-seeking and cronyism, and are terribly inefficient for dealing with global warming.

My Annual Rude Christmas Card

Regular readers of EclectEcon eagrely await the annual posting of my rude Christmas card (language warning), a posting that has become a cherished tradition. It has reached the point where I would not want to let anyone down, so here it is once more.

I Used to be Pro Gun Control. If you are, too, please read this

I used to be in favour of gun control. My belief was that gun control legislation would cut down on violent crime. Then I started reading various articles that actually studied the evidence. I slowly and reluctantly changed my mind. Here is one of many good articles that summarize the literature (h/t Ted Frank). Some relevant quotes:

Mass shootings are no more common than they have been in past decades, despite the impression given by the media.

In fact, the high point for mass killings in the U.S. was 1929, according to criminologist Grant Duwe of the Minnesota Department of Corrections.

Incidents of mass murder in the U.S. declined from 42 in the 1990s to 26 in the first decade of this century.

Until the Newtown horror, the three worst K–12 school shootings ever had taken place in either Britain or Germany.

Gun-free zones have been the most popular response to previous mass killings. But many law-enforcement officials say they are actually counterproductive. “Guns are already banned in schools. That is why the shootings happen in schools. A school is a ‘helpless-victim zone,’” says Richard Mack, a former Arizona sheriff. “Preventing any adult at a school from having access to a firearm eliminates any chance the killer can be stopped in time to prevent a rampage,” Jim Kouri, the public-information officer of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, told me earlier this year at the time of the Aurora, Colo., Batman-movie shooting. Indeed, there have been many instances — from the high-school shooting by Luke Woodham in Mississippi, to the New Life Church shooting in Colorado Springs, Colo. — where a killer has been stopped after someone got a gun from a parked car or elsewhere and confronted the shooter.

Economists John Lott and William Landes conducted a groundbreaking study in 1999, and found that a common theme of mass shootings is that they occur in places where guns are banned and killers know everyone will be unarmed, such as shopping malls and schools.

 

Put away your feelings and beliefs. Just ask yourself (and the various articles you read), what policy is likely to lead to fewer mass killings of children and adults in the future? I'm reluctantly coming to the view that gun control leads to more, not fewer, mass killings.

The Arrogant Worms: Rude, Irreverent, and I loved The Show

I had never heard of The Arrogant Worms until two and half years ago when I started playing with the Saskatchewan Roughrider Pep Band. At the Rider games, between the 3rd and 4th quarters they play a recording of The Arrogant Worms singing, "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate". The song reveals a certain antipathy toward the financial system and some ignorance of economics, but it's pretty funny. I mentioned the song back then and have always enjoyed it. Here's a YouTube of it:

They were in London (Ontario) tonight, so I took my daughter to go see them. Their enunciation wasn't as clear as it could have been, but the show was still great. They concluded with "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate", which left me cheering madly, of course. Other songs I liked were "Carrot Juice is Murder":

And another song which really tickled me was "Jesus' Brother Bob". 

The Arrogant Worms are sort of a cross between The Kingston Trio and Buddy Whasisname and The Other Fellas, with a bit of irreverence thrown in. I was really glad I went to see them. Lots of fun.

What Do Old People Talk about?

Mostly we compare medical conditions and stories about who died recently. It's bizarre. And at first it seems maudlin, but now it seems almost routine.

I was laughing about this over lunch last week with former colleague, Ed Saraydar. We compared back exercises, diets, and the feelings of creakiness that just seem to come with old age. We had a good time, and we made plans to get together next week. Just two days ago we were corresponding about low-carb diets. Ed died yesterday. He was 87.

This comes on top of news of the deaths of others recently, including one friend's dad and another friend's brother. And today news of the death of Jazz great Dave Brubeck, about whom MA and I had been corresponding over the previous two days. And while I know it's all part of the process of life and death, it sure hits hard sometimes.

 

Will the Price of Garlic Be Driven Up?

According to many different news sources, Serbians are stocking up on garlic to ward off the threat of vampires. [see, e.g., this or this, h/t MA].

 Get your garlic, crosses and stakes ready: a bloodsucking vampire is on the loose.

Or so say villagers in the tiny western Serbian hamlet of Zarozje, nestled between lush green mountain slopes and spooky thick forests. They say that rumors that a legendary vampire ghost has awakened are spreading fear -- and a potential tourist opportunity -- through the remote village.

A local council warned villagers to put garlic in their pockets and placing wooden crosses in their rooms to ward off vampires, although it appeared designed more to attract visitors to the impoverished region bordering Bosnia.

Is it okay to use garlic from one's inventory and then put it back after the threat passes? I mean, can you take some out of the pantry, carry it around in your pockets for a few weeks, and then put it back into the pantry? If so, this vampire scare won't do much to increase the overall demand for garlic, other than from tourists possibly. But even in the case of tourists, I can imagine budding entrepreneurs either buying the garlic from them at cut prices as the tourists leave, or possibly even setting up "donation" bins for tourists to leave their garlic in for those who might be less fortunate and hence more vulnerable.

Sounds like a good paper topic for someone. I'd need a SSHRC travel grant to go collect the data, though.

If somehow a shortage emerges that isn't cleared with the price system, people can perhaps order garlic from Amazon!

Tyler Cowan on "Big Ideas"

Fortunately you don't have to live in Ontario to see this. It's available over the internet (or soon will be).

I'm setting our PVR to record it (5pm today and again 5pm Sunday, Ontario time). Here's the pre-broadcast blurb:

According to Tyler Cowan,  our speaker this weekend,  much of the problem with modern democratic societies is that voters know what they would like but have very little understanding of economics.    What most would like is for our economies to perform the way they used to for about 30 years after WWII.  And even though they have not done so in many years, the memory of that golden era is still presented by politicians as the standard by which the performance of their political opponents ought to be judged. The issue we are contending with is that we have a political culture premised on 3-4 %  growth with an economy that can only perform at 1-2 %. Tyler Cowan has been called America’s Hottest  Economist  by BusinessWeek Magazine and he teaches economics at George Mason University. His blog Marginal Revolution carries a telling subtitle, Small steps towards a much better world. His ideas on the slowing of economic growth are contained in a 2011 e-book The Great Stagnation; How America Ate All The Low-Hanging Fruit, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better.        Tyler Cowan will be joined on stage by National Post columnist Andrew Coyne.   And if all of this will make you want to take a course in economics, look no further. Tyler Cowan has just started to offer an on-line course in what’s been called “the dismal science”. If your interest in all matters economic has not yet been satiated, then take a listen to an audio podcast of a recent lecture delivered at the Gardiner Museum in Toronto by John Hancock, a Canadian trade specialist at the World Trade Organization in Geneva. It’s title: Our Capitalist Revolution.