Guns...Are...Awesome

I've been Civil War reenacting for some time now. In fact, I'm about to begin my seventh season on the field. It's strange to believe that it's been that long; it seems like just yesterday I was in Florida, reading The Killer Angels and trying to convince my dad to do it. In all that time, however, I have never done one thing that I've really, really wanted to try: actually shoot a Minié ball from a Civil War era rifle.

That is, I never had done it.

This weekend was the annual Spring Drill, where we all come out of our holes and remember how to march. We had about 12-15 guys on Saturday, which was a great turnout. My group is the 44th Tennessee, Company K, though we have a sister company on the Yankee side that we like to fall in with--the 49th Indiana, Company F. This year's drill was held at the 49th's Captain's home in Brownsburg, Indiana. For most of the day we were separate, though we spent some time combined on bayonet drill (more on that in a future post) and did a squad competition to see who remembered commands the best. Near the end of the day, one of the guys from the 49th said that they'd be doing some live firing and that if anyone wanted to try it out, he'd be happy to let them use his gun(s). How, I ask, could I resist that kind of opportunity?

Some people set up targets and hay bales about 25 yards away from where we'd be shooting from. I watched for a bit before gathering the guts to ask if I could go next. The guy was really nice and asked if I'd like to shoot both guns. "Both?" I inquired.

Apparently, he owned not only an 1853 Enfield rifle (.577 caliber, the second most common gun in the Civil War, behind the 1861 Springfield, which I own; see photo below for the Enfield):


But also an 1842 Springfield (probably the prettiest gun of the war, and the last .69 caliber rifle ever made--see below):


The Enfield shot your typical Minié ball. It is easier to aim, since there are two sights--one right past the hammer and one at the end of the barrel. I hit the bales pretty easily (by then, the targets had been blown away). It also has a relatively minor kick.

The 1842 Springfield, however, was a knockout. It is smoothbore, so not rifled, which means that it becomes very inaccurate very quickly. Additionally, it uses the 'buck and ball' round--one .69 caliber lead ball with three .40 caliber 'bucks', or smaller balls. The effect is similar to that of a modern shotgun: deadly at close range, though increasingly useless further away.



Using these weapons, you suddenly realize how horrifying the experience of a soldier must really have been. The shots have more of a delay than modern guns, meaning that there is a noticeable time lapse between seeing the smoke come out of the barrel and seeing the effects of the bullet. To imagine a literal torrent of lead is awful. It turned out not only to be a fun time shooting cool old weapons. Instead, it led to a realization and a greater respect on my part for what a man in the Civil War had to expect. After all, that is one of the main reasons to be a reenactor; you want to be able to vividly relive at least a bit of what your ancestors went through, and, ultimately, you want the public today to undertand what kind of pains and sacrifices were made almost 150 years ago.

We're coming up very soon to an important anniversary. On April 9, we commemorate the 'traditional' end of the war, with General Lee's surrender to General Grant at Appomattox. Soon after, on April 15, we remember the first--and probably most profound--assassination of a president in U.S. history. It's good to take some time to reflect on how important that era was to what we are today.

Will We Soon Have a Vacancy on the Court?

Dahlia Lithwick (with whom I rarely agree and for whom I rarely oft provide a link) ponders that very thing in an excellent article.

My only issue is that he thinks Obama will appoint a "like-minded liberal centrist" to fill the next spot. Now I agree that Obama will certainly find someone who is like-minded (especially to Ginsburg--the only Democrat-appointed member of the liberal wing who may be retiring soon), but not that the person will be a 'liberal centrist'. Lithwick would contend that there is no Scalia of the left--the progeny of a William Brennan or Thurgood Marshall--but that doesn't mean the liberals on the Court are centrists. The difference between Brennan and Ginsburg is that Ginsburg doesn't make a big production out of it when she shreds the Constitution to fit her politics.

Anyway, it's worth the read.

Reynard the Fox

It's been a while since I posted anything about puppets. I had been working on a triceratops puppet to match Schubert the T-Rex, but I've put that on hiatus for the time being. In its place, I've begun working on a fox puppet named Reynard. He's a takeoff of the medieval fable, which I've recently discovered and become very interested in.

Below are a few sketches that I've made of how I'd like him to look. I'm attempting a resin casting for making his eyes (it's what they do for taxidermy; I'll blog it soon), and I'm slowly getting the foam together. As per usual, I don't use patterns (which is stupid if I ever want to recreate anything, but c'est la vie). I did use a variation of my sphere tutorial. See? These things come in handy all the time.

How Much Is the Environment Worth?

A really interesting article.

http://reason.com/news/show/132416.html

The Geithner Plan: A Primer

So, it's finally arrived: Tim Geithner delivered a new baby plan via The Wall Street Journal, presumably because last time he tried to give a speech all hell broke loose.

Some are cautiously optimistic, while others think it is dead on arrival.

So, what is the plan? I, here, will attempt to explain, as I understand it now.

We all know that there is a credit crisis. This is caused by bad assets (mostly bad mortgages) being spread throughout the financial sector in the form of securities. The problem? No one knows exactly where they are, since when they were securitized, they were all chopped up into little bits. Because they are who-knows-where, banks aren't willing to lend, since they don't know when the next shoe will drop and another investment of theirs will collapse. The entire credit system comes to a standstill.

Enter the Geithner plan:

1. Lend money, through TARP and the FDIC to investors (mostly hedge fund managers) for the purchase of bad (and potentially bad) assets. Lend 85% of the purchase, expect 15% to be paid by the investors. The 15% gives them a stake in the success of the enterprise.
2. Give management of a "Public-Private Investment Program" (P-PIP?) to the hedge funders.
3. At the same time, the Federal Reserve will join with the Treasury Department to expand the lending that they can.
   

OK--that seems simple enough. What the administration is hoping is that:

• First and foremost, the balancing sheets of banks will be cleared of crappy assets (I keep trying to get people to call them 'crapssets'). This (hopefully) will make them healthy and happy again, lending as carelessly as in days of yore, like 2006.
  
• The banks will make some money from the sale of the bad assets, though they will still take a significant loss. Currently, since no one is willing to buy them, the assets sit on the books at no cost (thanks to mark-to-market accounting). With the new P-PIP (what a lame acronym), there will be a separate market for bad assets, away from the banks' coffers.
• Hedge fund managers will invest in these bad assets, paying little for them (but more than zero), hoping to make a veritable fortune when (and if) they reach maturity.

In the end, it means that banks will be cleared of bad debt, taxpayers will be recouping a portion of any bad debt that survives to maturity, and--most importantly--the credit markets will start moving again.

However, as Paul Krugman notes in his New York Times editorial (linked above), Geithner is banking (pun definitely intended) on one thing that no one can guarantee, and that is that the bad assets (crapssets) will actually end up being worth more in the end, and not simply remain as the worthless sheets of paper they are now. Christina Romer thinks that the market will determine that the bad assets are undervalued. Krugman's point is that that assumption may not be true, and if it isn't true, there will be major consequences, since no one will pay for the assets, they will stay on the banks' books, and taxpayers will be out a few more billion dollars. Additionally, the Obama administration will be out of political capital, and a second try may not be possible. He says:

"The Obama administration is now completely wedded to the idea that there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the financial system -- that what we're facing is the equivalent of a run on an essentially sound bank. As Tim Duy put it, there are no bad assets, only misunderstood assets. And if we get investors to understand that toxic waste is really, truly worth much more than anyone is willing to pay for it, all our problems will be solved.... What an awful mess."

We shall see what happens, since a large part depends on investors. Are they willing to buy into the idea that these crapssets are worth more than everyone thinks?

Unrelated: the New York Magazine has a great article on "Obama's Brain Trust" of economic advisers.

AIG Is Paying Out Its Bailout Money to Investment Banks?!?!??1!?!! Uh...That Was the Point.

In all the populist fervor surrounding the AIG debacle, one argument is being shuffled around the media. AIG, it seems, paid out their share of the bailout money to (*sarcastic gasp*) Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan and other investment banks! Frank Rich at the New York Times and Eliot Spitzer (reminder again: how did he leave office? Oh, yeah--in disgrace after cheating on his wife with hookers.) at Slate have both pushed this line of reasoning.

Uh, guys? Am I missing something? AIG paying out to these banks is the whole point of the bailout.

AIG, you see, is an insurance company. That means they sell insurance policies, and many of those policies were bought by major financial firms.

Finance, you see, is the business of risk management. We can see from the current debacle that financiers didn't manage their risk particularly well. Their firms are now hemorrhaging money. One reason for that is because even their safety nets have collapsed. AIG was one of the main safety nets.

When firms were chopping up subprime mortgages into little bits and selling them as securities, they were at least smart enough to try to insulate themselves from loss by buying insurance policies from providers like AIG. The problem with AIG is that it sold too many of these policies. Now, when everything is going to hell in a handbasket, the firms with the policies are calling them in. AIG ran out of money to pay. That is whey it needed a bailout.

(NB: I'm not discussing whether the bailout was a good or a bad idea, but only that the money was supposed to go to other firms.)

Imagine if suddenly, everyone with a car insurance policy got into a major wreck at the same time. State Farm, Geico, and all the other insurers would struggle to pay everyone back because there would be more demand for payment than actual cash available. Insurers like them bank on (and use actuaries for) figuring how much they should expect to be paying in any given time period. They use that to figure how much cash to have on-hand. AIG did the same thing but on a much, much larger scale. It just didn't expect the maelstrom.

So, what happens with the money from the bailout? When it is not being spent on executive bonuses, it is being paid out to the holders of policies. The government decided AIG couldn't fail--and this is something people don't tend to understand in this whole financial mess--because if it failed, the financial firms would have no safety net, and they would lose even more than they had already. Imagine you wrecked your car, but the insurance you had bought no longer applied because the insurer couldn't pay you. Suddenly, instead of being responsible for a few hundred dollars in repairs, you are liable for thousands. The government didn't want the same thing to happen in the financial world; banks couldn't pay the 'hundreds' (of billions), let alone the 'thousands', and bailing out the insurer costs way less than bailing out the policy holder.

Though, then again, we bailed the banks out, too.

Wow.

Wallace Stevens said that "the imagination is man's power over nature."

Sometimes, however, nature's power is difficult to imagine:

What is Quantitative Easing?

So, maybe you read on the Drudge Report today that the Fed created $1 trillion 'out of thin air.'

Well, that's true--it did.

And here's how that happens.

h/t Greg Mankiw

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Slate has an article about St. Patrick and the historicity (and veracity) of the claims made about him. Sure enough, like most early-church saints, we don't know too much about him, though we have many, many legends.

Those legends have become an intergral part of Irish culture. Below, for your viewing enjoyment, is one clip from the Oscar-nominated "Give Up Yer Aul Sins"--the story of St. Patrick as told by a young Irish schoolgirl:

New, Kind of Random, Pencil Test

This pencil test has nothing to do with the last post about the Romanovs and the Russian Revolution; the fact they've come on the same day is entirely coincidental.

However, I have been for some time working on a comic strip/animation idea about a farm which has a bunch of communist pigs (a la Animal Farm). Here's a talking test for the Lenin Pig using none other than a clip from Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

The Epilogue, Confirmed

4,300,000,000,000:1

That is the chance of the remains of two children found in 2007 in a mass grave in Russia being from a random family and not Tsarevich Alexei and his sister (either Maria or Anastasia).

So, with all but total certainty, the sad chapter of the Russian Revolution can be closed. The Tsar and his entire family were, on the orders of Vladimir Lenin, brutally murdered, their bodies burned in acid and disposed of in the woods outside of Yekaterinburg.

Will Big Bird Soon Be in the Unemployment Office?

I was disheartened to read that the Sesame Workshop will be laying off 20% of its workforce. Apparently, in tough economic times, even fuzzy inner-city monsters can't quite handle the strain.

Maybe some of them can find a job at Wal-Mart; especially the multi-lingual ones.

Does This Look Like Richard Nixon?

Earlier today, I was on an exceedingly boring conference call, and, as per my convention, I began doodling. I've been reading Anna Karenina, and I just finished the part where Anna and Vronsky go to Italy and visit a Russian artist there. The artist has just completed a work of Pilate and Christ. I thought, "Why don't I try to draw what I imagine that painting to look like?" The result? You decide. In my opinion, Pilate appears to be a zombie-looking Richard Nixon. I drew it on the fly, with nothing to use as a model. I really hope I don't have our 37th President on my mind...

Any thoughts?

Even the Hippies in Boulder Think This is Weird

FROZEN DEAD GUY DAYS

Yes, you read correctly. Nederland, Colorado, host of the annual Frozen Dead Guy Days just finished its seventh year of celebrating, well, a frozen dead guy

The year is 1989. The place is Nederland, Colorado. Trygve Bauge decides it is a good idea to bring the corpse of his recently deceased grandfather, Bredo Morstøl, to America. He puts it in dry ice to preserve it. Bredo was transferred to a cryogenic facility, where he resided until 1993. However, when Trygve was deported from the United States for overstaying his visa, his mother, Aud, continued keeping her father's body frozen in dry ice in a shack behind her unfinished house. Eventually, Aud was evicted from her home because it had no electricity or plumbing, which was in violation of city ordinance. She was afraid, of course, that upon eviction, she would no longer be able to keep her father's body frozen. Word spread, and created a 'sensation'. The city passed an ordinance on the keeping of dead bodies, though because of public outcry, they made a special provision allowing Bredo to continue to be held in dry ice. In 2002, some brillian tpeople decided to turn the weird story into a celebration, and it has grown in popularity since.

The actual celebration includes a parade, a costume ball (with prizes awarded to the best frozen dead guy and frozen dead girl costumes), a coffin-carrying race (six pallbearers per team), a freezing water plunge, and a dead fish throwing contest (see the entire schedule here). The party has become a cult, bringing people from far and wide, and inciting new and exciting activities (some events that are held, like the fish throwing, are not official).

It's held every second full weekend in March, so just ended this past Sunday. I may try to check it out next year. You should, too.

I'm In Love With PMQ's

What? You've never heard of it? What? You have no idea who these two fine chaps in the above picture are? Well...let me enlighten you, my fellow American. I, too, didn't know who they were not long ago. Now I do, and I must say, I am in love with the United Kingdom's Prime Minister's Questions.

To the left is Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister and member of the Labour Party (a Labourite). To the right is David Cameron, the Opposition Leader and member of the Conservative Party (a Tory). Each Wednesday, they do battle in the chamber of the House of Commons in London for thirty minutes, and it is awesome.

The tradition first began at regular intervals in the 1950's, though before that, the Prime Minister would take questions off and on. Today, it works like this:

1. Before PMQ's begin, backbenchers with questions submit them to the Speaker of the House of Commons.
   
2. The Speaker chooses the names of those who want to ask a question randomly, separated by party, and keeps that list with him.
3. The first question is traditionally given to someone who will simply ask "Number One, Mr. Speaker," which references the typical first question: "What has the Prime Minister been doing?"
4. The PM responds, usually, with something on the order of "This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I will have further such meetings later today." Now is when the fun begins.
5. The first actual question is given to the Leader of the Opposition (currently, David Cameron). He will ask a series of questions and follow-ups, to which the PM must respond on the fly.
6. The minority leader in the opposition (currently Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats, or Lib Dems) will ask a few questions and follow-ups.
7. The Speaker calls on the backbenchers from his list, and they will ask their questions. He alternates by party. If a Member of Parliament (MP) who is not on the list wants to ask a question (usually, a follow-up that is germane to the subject at hand), (s)he will stand up as the PM begins his answer to the previous question and will try to catch the Speaker's eye. If he so chooses, the Speaker will call on that MP next.
8. The gibing goes on for thirty minutes, when the Prime Minister basically says "Thank you" and leaves.

The big table in the center of the commons has two ornate boxes, known as the 'Dispatch Boxes' (see right). This is where the PM and the Opposition stand and face off. To the right, you can see two holders for the ceremonial mace. It is brought in by the Serjeant-at-Arms when the House is in session and symbolizes the power of the House as the representative body of the people and of the Sovereign as head of state. There are two lines drawn parallel to the benches, supposedly set two sword-lengths apart. Members are not supposed to cross the lines (and will be ridiculed by the other MP's if they do), out of a tradition that debating members should stand far enough apart that they cannot duel. Sometimes, listening to PMQ's, you're convinced that they're about to wring each others' necks.

The best part about PMQ's, from an entertainment standpoint, is the way that you see the raw disagreement pouring forth. Unlike the U.S., where our members of Congress snipe at each other through newspapers and give speeches to empty chambers, the House of Commons seems engaged in the day-to-day operations of Britain. This isn't just fun to watch, but it's important as well. Real debate is vital for a democracy to flourish. We don't get that very often in America, since there is a systemic flaw: members rarely, if ever, need to interact with each other in public. We then feel like everything is happening behind closed doors (which it is, in committee meetings), breeding resentment against the politicians.

John McCain said on the trail last year that he'd institute a "President's Question Time" similar to the Prime Minister's. I'd love to see something like that happen, though I worry that it may pull something from the aura of the Presidency. Unlike the UK, where the State is represented by the officially non-partisan Sovereign, who is 'above politics', our head of State is intimately involved in the process. There remains, however, a majesty to the Office of the Presidency. We are protective of the President in a way that we aren't of Congress. We like the pomp of state dinners and of the State of the Union and of Air Force One and the White House. Perhaps it would be best to see a representative of the President go at it with the Opposition. Then the President would be called a wuss, though, and would be forced to show up in person to defend himself and would be lowered into the fray. Maybe it's a lose-lose with our system.

In the meantime, I will continue my infatuation with the Brits' PMQ's.

Vive le vin!

Oh, wine, that all-Amer...uh...all-French drink: delicious, complex, and too-often-expensive. For thousands of years it has been drunk across the world. Early on, it was a way to protect oneself from all the critters infecting water supplies. Now, it exists for pleasure.

Mike Steinberger, then, raises an excellent question: why do Americans care so much about justifying why we drink wine with its health benefits? Can't we just say that it tastes good and be done?

Wine is delicious. When I was younger, my parents had some relatives over, and they busted out a bottle of Merlot. As with anytime my parents pulled out alcohol (which wasn't that often), I asked for a sip. A sip I received. And, as much as I would like to say that I fell in love with the stuff then and there, it would be a lie. I hated it. It was dry and gross and inspired me to spit it out. I asked my mom if all wine was like that. She said yes, and I purged myself of all desire for the stuff.

Flash forward to college. I had but recently turned 21, and I was attending a dinner at the Quad Club at the University of Chicago, in honor of Harvey Mansfield and his book Manliness (I know, right?). The Quad Club is pretty swank, and, naturally, there was but one choice of beverage besides water: wine. My choice was white or red, and, remembering my mishap with Merlot, I chose the white. It was a good--very good, in fact--Chardonnay. I enjoyed it, but since our dinner was pork, I needed to try the red. For the life of me, I don't remember what it was (looking back, though, I'd guess a Zinfandel, since it was not particularly dry), but it was excellent. I spent the dinner talking with a professor of mine and listening to the Committee on Social Thought debate...and drinking wine. I have no idea what the conversation was about; I remember wanting to know more about wine.

I've since grown more and more to enjoy its subtleties. I am far from a connoisseur, due to both money reasons and the inability to justify becoming a sommelier when there are so many other worthy and less hedonistic things to spend my time on. However, I am an evangelist for wine. It tastes delicious (usually), can sometimes give you a bang for the buck, and--I'm loath to forget--has some positive health effects. So, people of the world, go, be merry. Remember the words of St. Paul and "do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery," but do enjoy it in moderation, for it is very good.

Postcards: Uniquely American Art

Slate has a neat slideshow/article about postcards. I've never thought about it, but postcards are a surprisingly unique artform. Sure, they are mass-produced. Sure, they tend to be boring views of streets or uninteresting pictures of towns and events. However, postcards have that added layer--they aren't only a boring picture; they're also personalized letters. On the town square in Crown Point, there are many shops that sell old postcards. Most already have writing on them, which is the best part. You can see what people had to say a century ago. My family has one postcard from my great-grandfather when he was away from home. It simply says that he'll be catching an evening train back to Indiana. There are postcards between my parents and friends, however, that betray a deep longing to see or hear from each other. Postcards, taken by themselves, are only notorious for their blandness. Add what people have contributed to them, however, and you gain a remarkably interesting and complex artform.

Thank Heavens

The Democratic House leadership has pulled the patently unconstitutional DC Voting Rights bill from its calendar. Thank goodness.

Weirdly enough, the reason appears to be that the NRA was threatening the Blue Dog caucus that it would use the vote in its calculations of which members of Congress were pro- or anti-gun. That scared enough of them away from voting for it.

It's about time the Blue Dogs got a spine. What's funny, however, is that the issue that gave them said spine was not anything to do with 'fiscal responsibility' (their supposed raison d'etre, though for the massive hypocrisy of most of the coalition, look under "Stimulus Bill of 2009, The"). Guns and the gun lobby apparently still have massive influence--even in this Democrat-dominated government. Go figure.