How To Become Pope

I'll pass.

Judges and Knowledge

The Supreme Court held oral arguments in Bowman v. Monsanto.  Here is one of the questions asked by Chief Justice Roberts:

Out of the gate, a plurality of justices appeared concerned about the policy implications of a decision in favor of Bowman.

Chief Justice Roberts: Why in the world would anybody spend any money to try to improve the seed if as soon as they sold the first one anybody could grow more and have as many of those seeds as they want?

There are several ways to answer this question: (1) an innovator could use contract law to ensure a better market structure; (2) patent rights are rarely sufficient alone to ensure profit; and (3) that soybeans are not really fungible in the way that you might think. The Court already knew the first two answers wanted to explore the third.

One of the things that amazes me about the court system is how judges rule on all sorts of things they really know nothing about.  I'd point out to Chief Justice Roberts that before 1995 or so, every seed company spent money to try to improve the seed, even though anybody could grow more and have as many of those seeds as they want.  Monsanto was the first company to patent seed technology.  Farmers could always save the seed before that, and yet companies still spent money to develop better seeds.  Why?  Because selective genetics will gradually increase the potential yield of the seed, and everybody wanted to make the seed better and better.  Sure, you could save the seed from the year before, but it was identical to what you grew last year.  Meanwhile, your competitors were busy developing newer varieties which should be better than what you have.  If you improve the seed, farmers will buy it because it is better than what they had.

The question by Roberts is just plumb full of conservative bullshit as to why nobody would ever develop new drugs if they couldn't get windfall profits because of patent protection.  Unfortunately, those companies spend way more time trying to get those patents extended as opposed to developing better breakthroughs.  Conservatives sure understand perverse incentives when it comes to the welfare state, but they never seem to see them when it comes to business practices.

I don't believe Bowman will win the case, and I don't really think that he definitely should, but it would be nice if the justices had any idea of what the world was like before Monsanto patented GMO seed.

TimeLAX 01

TimeLAX 01 from iVideoMaking on Vimeo.

Papal Odds

Paddy Power gives them:

Singles Only. Applies to the next permanently appointed Pope after Benedict XVI. Others on request.

Cardinal Peter Turkson (Ghana) 11/4	Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera (Mexico) 66/1	Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe (Italy) 100/1
Archbishop Angelo Scola (Italy) 3/1	Archbishop Vincent Nichols (England) 66/1	Cardinal Ivan Dias (India) 100/1
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone (Italy) 4/1	CardinalGiovanni Battista Re (Italy) 66/1	Archbishop Pietro Parolin (Italy) 100/1
Cardinal Marc Ouellet (Canada) 6/1	Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz (Brazil) 66/1	Cardinal Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino (Cuba) 100/1
Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco (Italy) 12/1	Cardinal Agnostino Vallini (Italy) 66/1	Cardinal Wilfrid Napier (South Africa) 100/1
Cardinal Leonardo Sandri (Argentina) 12/1	Archbishop Pier Luiga Celata(Italy) 66/1	Cardinal Geraldo Majella Agnelo (Brazil) 125/1
Cardinal Christoph Schonborn (Austria) 16/1	Archbishop Piero Marini (Italy) 66/1	Cardinal Silvano Piovanelli (Italy) 125/1
Cardinal Peter Erdo (Hungary) 16/1	Cardinal Antonio Canizares Llovera (Spain) 66/1	Cardinal Donald Wuerl (United States) 125/1
Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi (Italy) 20/1	Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois (France) 66/1	Cardinal Julian Herranz Casado (Spain) 125/1
Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga (Honduras) 20/1	Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi (Italy) 66/1	Cardinal Daniel DiNardo (USA) 125/1
Cardinal Odilo Scherer (Brazil) 20/1	Cardinal Attilio Nicora (Italy) 80/1	Archbishop Nicolas de Jesus Lopez Rodriguez (Dominican Republic) 150/1
Cardinal Francis Arinze (Nigeria) 25/1	Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne (Peru) 80/1	Cardinal John Njue (Kenya) 150/1
Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Argentina) 25/1	Cardinal Angelo Amato (Italy) 80/1	Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor (UK) 150/1
Cardinal Timothy Dolan (United States) 33/1	Cardinal George Pell (Australia) 80/1	Cardinal Giacomo Biffi (Italy) 150/1
Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle (Philippines) 33/1	Cardinal William Levada (United States) 80/1	Cardinal Walter Kasper (Germany) 150/1
Cardinal Sean O'Malley (United States) 40/1	Cardinal Raymond Burke (United States) 80/1	Cardinal Angelo Sodano (Italy) 200/1
Patriarch Bechara Peter Rai (Lebanon) 40/1	Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela (Spain) 100/1	Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Muller (Germany) 200/1
Cardinal Paolo Sardi(Italy) 50/1	Archbishop Diarmuid Martin 100/1	Cardinal Francis George (USA) 200/1
Cardinal Claudio Hummes (Brazil) 50/1	Cardinal Karl Lehmann (Germany) 100/1	Cardinal Keith O'Brien (Scotland) 400/1
Cardinal Mauro Piacenza (Italy) 50/1	Cardinal Thomas Collins (Canada) 100/1	Richard Dawkins (UK) 666/1
Cardinal Albert Malcolm Ranjith (Sri Lanka) 50/1	Cardinal Jose Da Cruz Policarpo (Portugal) 100/1	Bono (Ireland) 1000/1
Cardinal Robert Sarah (French Guinea) 50/1	Cardinal Philippe Barbarin (France) 100/1	Father Dougal Maguire (Craggy Island) 1000/1
Archbishop Pier Luiga Celata (Italy) 66/1

I'd probably bet on Ouellet or Schonborn.  I do like that they give odds on Richard Dawkins, Bono and Father Maguire.  Some people will waste money on anything.

Rainbow 6 Winner Pays 3.5 Million

From Gulfstream:

Gulfstream Park's elusive 10-cent Rainbow 6 was hit Friday afternoon for a record $3,591,245.44.
The ticket was purchased at The Meadowlands in New Jersey. The winning ticket cost $3,118.50.
The previous record for a winning ticket on the Rainbow 6 was $791,364 on April 1, 2012. The previous record carryover was $5.1 million on April 23, 2011.
The Rainbow 6 is paid out when there is only one unique ticket with all six winners on the last six races of the day. Going into Friday's last race, there were five live tickets. The winner in the last race, Feline Forum, returned $23.
The Rainbow 6 has produced several large payoffs, including $414,166.52 (Jan. 2, 2012) and $327,110.71 (Dec. 23, 2012). The last time the Rainbow 6 was hit was Dec. 28 for $41,813.78.
Friday's 10-cent Rainbow 6 started with Keyner Veloz winning the fifth race and paying $114. The rest of the winners were Original Cast ($11.40) in the sixth, Odalys Halo ($36.80) in the seventh, Artie's Jasper ($17.20) in the eighth, Mays Treasuretrove ($23.60) in the ninth and Feline Forum in the 10th.

Wow.  That is crazy luck.  You pretty much throw away $3100 bucks and somehow end up with $3.5 million?

Overcast

Overcast from James Lancett on Vimeo.


The part where he is jumping around and yelling in the parking garage definitely reminds me of myself on days like this.

NASA Photo of the Day

February 19:

Mercury on the Horizon
Image Credit & Copyright: Juan Carlos Casado Explanation: Have you ever seen the planet Mercury? Because Mercury orbits so close to the Sun, it never wanders far from the Sun in Earth's sky. If trailing the Sun, Mercury will be visible low on the horizon for only a short while after sunset. If leading the Sun, Mercury will be visible only shortly before sunrise. So at certain times of the year an informed skygazer with a little determination can usually pick Mercury out from a site with an unobscured horizon. Above, a lot of determination has been combined with a little digital manipulation to show Mercury's successive positions during March of 2000. Each picture was taken from the same location in Spain when the Sun itself was 10 degrees below the horizon and superposed on the single most photogenic sunset. Currently, Mercury is visible in the western sky after sunset, but will disappear in the Sun's glare after a few days.

The Man In Black At The County Fair

Don Gonyea reflects on his opportunity to interview Johnny Cash at his local county fair:

I started out in radio more than 30 years ago. My first job right out of college was as a country-western DJ at WVMO, my hometown radio station in Monroe, Mich.
I have many boxes of cassette tapes stashed in my basement, including one that has a recording from the Monroe County Fair in the summer of 1981. I remember standing there with my microphone. To my right were the grandstands where they do the demolition derby. To my left was this big, silver tour bus. I was about to meet one of my musical heroes: Johnny Cash.
When I found out Johnny Cash was coming to the county fair, I tried to line up an interview, but I didn't receive any response. I tried again. Nothing. Finally, a guy who worked at the fair said, "If you stand here at this railing, his tour bus is there, the stage is there. Maybe as he walks past, he'll stop and talk to you." And he did....Five, six, seven minutes passed and I was out of questions. So I asked him, "How'd you get to be The Man in Black?" I cringe a little bit when I hear myself ask that question, but you've got to love his answer.
"For one reason, it's a little more slimming," Cash said. "I wrote a song called 'Man in Black' in about 1970. In the song, you see where I pointed out some of the problems and the ills that we have in this country. But I point to myself as being one of those people responsible for correcting some of those problems and unfortunate things that happen to people here."

Being a member of the local media might not pay very well, but it does appear to have a few fringe benefits.

Agriculture and Oil

In an interesting article about the influence of banks speculating in commodities, there was this little bit about oil and agriculture:

Farming is a complicated calculation, an intricate system of inputs to reach a single, universally desired goal: Good, healthy eating at a price that people can afford. It doesn’t happen in cyberspace—food flows from the ground. But the bigger that “Big Ag” grows and the more involved the financial institutions’ become in the price of food, the further we get from realizing just what it takes to feed the planet.
Carlson argues that for way too long oil has been  our saving grace. Oil, he says, is the only way that American farmers, who account for just one to two percent of the national population, can feed the other 98 percent of us. But the oil used to sew, reap and ship food, “is finite and as oil goes away we are going to be at a loss for how to feed ourselves,” he says with a not altogether unfamiliar urgency. Carlson suggests that now is the time to start figuring out how to cut back on our agricultural reliance on oil.  The idea seems at first simple, but it requires rethinking the agricultural system from the ground up—forgetting about government subsidies and the corporate farms  entities that grow nearly eighty percent of our food supply and truck it around in eighteen wheelers.

I've often wondered what the total demand for oil is per acre for our current agriculture practices are.  As far as equipment we operate goes, it is pretty low, around 4 gallons per acre.  But we also have the local fertilizer plant applying our herbicide and dry fertilizer, the oil and gas use in the production of the herbicide and fertilizer, and all the fuel used in transporting the raw materials to the farm and then transporting the crops to the commodity users, and their products to consumers.  Getting millions of tons of dry fertilizer from mines to farms, and millions of tons of grain shipped around the world has to take a lot of fuel.  In some ways, I expect some kind of tug-of-war between the production efficiency of larger, more concentrated operations and smaller, less concentrated ones.  To me, having livestock as grain consumers producing manure for fertilizer makes sense, but with water quality concerns, we need animals spread over many more farms than they are now. Meanwhile, smaller operations won't make food prices much cheaper until the transportation costs from rising oil prices get much higher.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out down the road.

Yankees Win Rights To Evil Empire Title

WSJ:

A panel of trademark judges in Washington, D.C., earlier this month denied a request from a private entrepreneur, known as Evil Enterprises, Inc., to register the trademark for the phrase "Baseballs Evil Empire."
Evil Enterprises wanted the exclusive right to market merchandise using that phrase, which was coined in regard to the Yankees by Larry Lucchino, the president and chief executive of the Boston Red Sox, back in 2002. Upon learning that the Yankees had signed sought-after Cuban pitcher Jose Contreras, Lucchino was widely reported as saying: "The evil empire extends its tentacles even into Latin America."
Evil Enterprises initially applied for a trademark back in July of 2008.
But the Yankees objected, arguing that they had the rights to the phrase—at least when used in connection with baseball.
Part of the Yankees' argument: a concession that in the baseball world, they are, in fact, the "Evil Empire." In its legal papers, the team referenced a number of articles from the past decade using the term in connection with the Yankees, and conceded that the team has "implicitly embraced" the "Evil Empire" theme by playing music from Star Wars during their home games.
The panel of judges sided with the Yankees, ruling that the Yankees are strongly associated with the phrase. Allowing anyone else to use the phrase exclusively would likely cause confusion, ruled the judges.

It is amazing what folks at places like The Onion can do with fictional satire considering how self-satirical the real world so often is.  How exactly do the Yankees make money on the Evil Empire concept?  Star Wars stormtroopers in Yankee Pinstripes?  Darth Vader masks with the Yankees logo on them?  They'd have to split that money with the Disney Evil Empire.  I hate the Yankees.  Every time the Yankees win, a puppy dies somewhere.