A long time ago, I noticed that several John Landis films contained references to the phrase “See you next Wednesday” (often as a movie title). I never thought much about the source, but assumed it was some sort of inside joke.

Well, this evening, my son and I finally watched all of 2001: A Space Odyssey and saw that it contained a video transmission to an astronaut from his family ending with “See you next Wednesday.” We instantly looked at each other and agreed that that was the source of the reference.

Obviously, if I had really cared, I could have easily found this information on the internet (It’s in the Biography for John Landis on IMDB, has a Wikipedia entry, and there’s even a seeyounextwednesday.com!).

On the other hand, there’s something cool about stumbling across the answer the old-fashioned way.

Looks like the Cato Institute has begun a new and interesting web site that will invite great thinkers to address big ideas.

In the first essay, Nobel Prize winner James M. Buchanan (the father of public choice theory) recommends three amendments to the Constitution.

They all seem like good suggestions to me.

Of course, Buchanan doesn’t quite rise to the challenge of trying to write the amendments themselves.

I don’t think any wording would be safe from determined politicians or judges, but some wordings would certainly work better than others.

I just came across this screedblog entry from a couple of weeks ago.

Apparently, Kurt Vonnegut was out promoting some anti-Bush essays and made comments described in an article as follows:

Vonnegut said it was “sweet and honourable” to die for what you believe in, and rejected the idea that terrorists were motivated by twisted religious beliefs.

If all you want to do is die for what you believe in then it’s OK with me. Whether I agree about its being sweet or honorable would depend a lot on what, exactly, you believe in and how dying for it serves the cause.

However, these people are not merely dying for what they believe in. They are murdering for it. They are propelling nails into children. This is not honorable, and it’s really not sweet.

There’s also:

Asked if he thought of terrorists as soldiers, Vonnegut, a decorated World War II veteran, said: “I regard them as very brave people, yes.”

And

Vonnegut suggested suicide bombers must feel an “amazing high”. He said: “You would know death is going to be painless, so the anticipation – it must be an amazing high.”

Lileks responds appropriately. I particularly enjoyed:

Vonnegut is an addled old fool whose brain has rusted in the antiestablishment default position for so long he cannot distinguish between suicide bombers and people who stage a sit-in at a Woolworth’s counter.

One unforgivable (and inconceivable) error on Lileks’ part is that he ends his post as follows:

Vonnegut is described in the article as a “peace activist.”

As a wise giant said in “The Princess Bride” – “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Of course, it wasn’t the giant who delivered that line, but rather the Spaniard: Iñigo Montoya.

A commenter in one of the Volokh threads I mentioned below led me to Penn Jillette’s “This I Believe” essay for NPR.

Go read and/or listen to it.

I believe Penn is awesome!

This story is pretty annoying.

A coalition of lawyers who have actively and successfully sued tobacco companies says it is close to filing a class-action lawsuit against soft-drink makers for selling sugared sodas in schools. The lawyers, who have been trying to develop a case against the soft-drink makers for more than two years, say a lawsuit could be filed within the next few weeks, probably in Massachusetts, which has one of the nation’s most plaintiff-friendly consumer-protection laws.

And this bit was pretty interesting:

Daynard said that while the legal theory is ready, the challenge is finding the right set of parents to sign on as plaintiffs for the class-action case. “It’s taking us longer than we expected,” he said.

The theory behind this suit is that soda machines in schools are are “attractive nuisance(s)” because “a soda machine is demonstrated to be a dangerous object for kids.”

Not as dangerous as these lawyers!

Eugene Volokh has some interesting posts asking readers, both religious, and irreligious, to answer some challenging questions (the religious to explain their belief in miracles, and the irreligious to explain their secular moral axioms).

As Eugene says:

I’m not expecting or intending to convert anyone in either direction — just to enlighten people about others’ world views, by asking each side to explain themselves about something that I think the other side really is curious about.

It’s a cool idea. Let’s see how well it works out.

I heard a few reports the other day about how Vice President Cheney was out condemning those who criticize the war, the way the intelligence was misrepresented, etc…

So I decided to actually read the speech myself.

I don’t see what the fuss is all about. The more I hear from Cheney, the more I like him. Yes, he was critical of what he considered irresponsible statements from senators. But, it seemed to me to be a balanced and well crafted statement.

Not only is there an element of humor:

These are elected officials who had access to the intelligence materials. They are known to have a high opinion of their own analytical capabilities.

But it is also far from a blanket condemnation of constructive criticism:

Nor is there any problem with debating whether the United States and our allies should have liberated Iraq in the first place. Here, as well, the differing views are very passionately and forcefully stated. But nobody is saying we should not be having this discussion, or that you cannot reexamine a decision made by the President and the Congress some years ago. To the contrary, I believe it is critical that we continue to remind ourselves why this nation took action, and why Iraq is the central front in the war on terror, and why we have a duty to persevere.

I might not agree with every word of the speech, but it strikes me as a thoughtful statement.

Perhaps it’s a left-brain/right-brain thing, but I’m able to hear (and read) his words and perceive a cogent argument. Others seem to react emotionally, as if he were some kind of a monster. Maybe it’s a self-defense mechanism to help them avoid his argument.

Radley Balko (The Agitator) posted this topical version of an old joke:

Three guys are in a jail cell. They start to talking and find out that they’re all gas station owners.

The first one says, “I set my prices at a couple of cents higher than my competitors. I’m in here for price-gouging.”

The second one says “I set my prices at a couple of cents lower than my competitors. I’m in here for predatory practices.”

The third one says “I set my prices at the same price as my competitors. I’m in here for collusion!”

Radley says: “It’s funny ’cause it’s true.”

I remember first seeing this same notion when I read the marvelous short poem
Tom Smith and his Incredible Bread Machine over twenty years ago. If you haven’t read it yet, please do. The similar portion of the poem reads:

“You’re gouging on your prices if
You charge more than the rest.
But it’s unfair competition
If you think you can charge less.

“A second point that we would make
To help avoid confusion:
Don’t try to charge the same amount:
That would be collusion!”

I’m not going to try to debunk the bad economic reasoning that leads people to hold the theories that these “crimes” are based on. It’s been done often and better than I can do. Anyone interested in these arguments can find them.

What I’m going to complain about is the moral reasoning that leads people to conclude that they have a right to coerce people into changing the way they do business.

Businesses aren’t monsters from space. They are the individual and collective efforts of human beings. They are people who contribute their time, effort, and creativity to be productive and to succeed in the marketplace; where success is principally achieved by providing more value to customers than competitors offer.

It’s true that sometimes other people act in ways that we don’t think are in our (and often their own) best interests. That’s an inevitable consequence of freedom.

Decent people don’t apply force (or the threat of force) to get others to conform to their wishes. They use arguments and reason. They try to convince them to make better choices. Or, they try to convince enough other people that there is good reason to apply enough non-coercive pressure to try to make the “wrongdoers” change their behavior. Failing in these efforts, they learn to live with their disappointment.

I think that a fundamental moral notion is that (aside from extraordinary emergency situations) people should be treated as ends in themselves, rather than as means to the ends of others. I don’t know any good reason why people engaging in commercial activity shouldn’t warrant this kind of consideration.

Ok, I know I shouldn’t pay so much attention to lyrics, but I heard an old Supremes song this morning and noticed:

He’s back in my arms again
Right by my side

Isn’t that kind of awkward?