Real life Milton Friedman style Monopoly?

Last week I posted about an article in the NY Times entitled Monopoly, the Milton Friedman Way.  It was about a game of Monopoly played according to rules derived from Friedman’s monetary theories.  The relevant part read:

Prices shot up, which we all knew, even in that inebriated state, was the consequence of expanding the money supply. (After all, the great economist told us, “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.”)

The inflation became so extreme that we eventually voted to alter the rules again: we’d cut the money supply. Any money we printed that came back to the bank would be taken out of circulation.

A severe depression kicked in, of course. Prices plummeted and it was a race to liquidate assets. One by one the players quickly went bankrupt, and sometime around 4 that morning the game was over.

Now according to at least one economic analyst we are on the verge of seeing this play out in real life:

A Republican plan to sharply cut federal spending this year would destroy 700,000 jobs through 2012, according to an independent economic analysis set for release Monday.

…

Zandi, an architect of the 2009 stimulus package who has advised both political parties, predicts that the GOP package would reduce economic growth by 0.5 percentage points this year, and by 0.2 percentage points in 2012, resulting in 700,000 fewer jobs by the end of next year.

…

"Significant government spending restraint is vital, but given the still halting economic recovery, it would be counterproductive for that restraint to begin until the economy is creating enough jobs to bring down the still very high unemployment rate," Zandi writes. "Shutting the government down for any length of time would also be taking a big chance with the recovery, not only because of the disruption to government services, but also due to the potential hit to the fragile collective psyche."

This is the exact lesson that I have taken from my, admittedly very limited, reading of Friedman - Deflation is worse than inflation and the way to avoid deflation is to keep the monetary supply at a steady level.  If inflation has occurred suddenly decreasing the monetary supply will cause an economic contraction.  We may be in a position to test those theories again shortly.

Some culture for you heathens

Cold Iron – Rudyard Kipling

Gold is for the mistress -- silver for the maid --
Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.
"Good!" said the Baron, sitting in his hall,
"But Iron -- Cold Iron -- is master of them all."

So he made rebellion 'gainst the King his liege,
Camped before his citadel and summoned it to siege.
"Nay!" said the cannoneer on the castle wall,
"But Iron -- Cold Iron -- shall be master of you all!"

Woe for the Baron and his knights so strong,
When the cruel cannon-balls laid 'em all along;
He was taken prisoner, he was cast in thrall,
And Iron -- Cold Iron -- was master of it all!

Yet his King spake kindly (ah, how kind a Lord!)
"What if I release thee now and give thee back thy sword?"
"Nay!" said the Baron, "mock not at my fall,
For Iron -- Cold Iron -- is master of men all."

Tears are for the craven, prayers are for the clown --
Halters for the silly neck that cannot keep a crown.
"As my loss is grievous, so my hope is small,
For Iron -- Cold Iron -- must be master of men all!"

Yet his King made answer (few such Kings there be!)
"Here is Bread and here is Wine -- sit and sup with me.
Eat and drink in Mary's Name, the whiles I do recall
How Iron -- Cold Iron -- can be master of men all!"

He took the Wine and blessed it. He blessed and brake the Bread,
With His own Hands He served Them, and presently He said:
"See! These Hands they pierced with nails, outside My city wall,
Show Iron -- Cold Iron -- to be master of men all."

"Wounds are for the desperate, blows are for the strong.
Balm and oil for weary hearts all cut and bruised with wrong.
I forgive thy treason -- I redeem thy fall --
For Iron -- Cold Iron -- must be master of men all!"

Crowns are for the valiant -- sceptres for the bold!
Thrones and powers for mighty men who dare to take and hold.
"Nay!" said the Baron, kneeling in his hall,
"But Iron -- Cold Iron -- is master of men all!
Iron out of Calvary is master of men all!"

I read this in a collection of Kipling poems many many moons ago, but was just reminded of it when I downloaded “The Last Ringbearer” after seeing it mentioned over at Ace’s.  Kipling is just about the only poet I read.  Probably because of all the garbage they forced in us in high school. 

Why India and China have nothing on the US

America wastes no talent
Conventional wisdom holds that America’s global competitiveness is driven by geniuses flocking to its shores and producing breathtaking inventions. But America’s real genius lies not in tapping just genius — but every scrap of talent up and down the scale.

A 2005 World Bank study found that the bulk of a people’s wealth comes not from tangible capital like raw resources and infrastructure. It comes from intangible wealth: effective government, secure property rights, a functioning judiciary. Such intangible factors put the equivalent of $418,000 at the disposal of every American resident. In India and China, it's $3,738 and $4,208, respectively.

America’s vast intangible wealth makes everyone more productive and successful. Personal attributes — talent, looks, smarts — matter only on the margins. Having witnessed the life trajectory of many Indian immigrants, what’s striking to me is that, with some exceptions, it doesn’t matter whether they are the best or mediocre in their profession in India: They all end up with similar standards of living here.

Other factor’s – effective infrastructure, something like 75% of India’s population doesn’t have electricity, a lack of extreme poverty, high literacy rates, and a society without real elites and the conclusion that the article reaches is that China and India may nibble at the edges just from sheer size but they can’t really supplant us.

h/t Instapundit

How is this not a violation of this guy’s First Amendment rights?

Since 2009, Mr. Heicklen has stood there and at courthouse entrances elsewhere and handed out pamphlets encouraging jurors to ignore the law if they disagree with it, and to render verdicts based on conscience.

That concept, called jury nullification, is highly controversial, and courts are hostile to it. But federal prosecutors have now taken the unusual step of having Mr. Heicklen indicted on a charge that his distributing of such pamphlets at the courthouse entrance violates the law against jury tampering. He is to appear in court on Friday for a conference in his case.

Mr. Heicklen insists that he never tries to influence specific jurors or cases, and instead gives his brochures to passers-by, hoping that jurors are among them.

Aren’t the courthouse steps one of the public commons areas that are supposed to open to everyone for political activity?  If they can force grocery stores or shopping malls to allow protestors on their property as places of public accommodation how are actual pieces of public property not covered?  And how is this not political speech, which should be covered by the highest form of scrutiny?  Hopefully someone in the Justice department will see this article and bitch slap this prosecutor.

source

Will we finally get our s**t together and drill this time?

Oil is pushing up towards $120/bbl as I type this and analysts are predicting $3.75/gal gasoline prices by May with $4.00+/gal by the summer.  The last time this happened the economy went into a free fall and there were repeated chants of “Drill Baby, Drill!”, and a lot of talk of breaking our dependence on foreign oil to ensure our economic prosperity.

What happened?

Well we elected a president who couldn’t recognize good energy policy if it bit him on the ass is the short answer. 

Let’s be honest, “Green Energy” is a scam to make people feel good.  It doesn’t have the energy density or the stability needed to power a first world country(Nuclear being the big exception).  For a good breakdown on the issues I would refer you to Physics for Future Presidents.  Granted there are some technologies coming on line that will help with some of this issue (hyper-efficient solar cells) and may actually help make the powergrid more efficient, as described in this National Geographic article as well as increasing the efficiency of individual devices, but these improvements are years down the road.  They won’t stave off a looming economic disaster at this point.

Meanwhile the US has plenty of domestic sources.  We can build and fuel nuclear plants, but we don’t, we have enough fossil fuels available to power our country at it’s current levels for a thousand years, as I outlined in my June 13th 2008 post:

It makes the point that the Democrats are opposed to increasing domestic supply, but it does nothing to refute the idea that we can't "drill our way out of the current shortage", so to put things in perspective I added some numbers (I always went with the low estimate):

ANWR Exploration
House Republicans: 91% Supported
House Democrats: 86% Opposed
Barrels - 4.3 billion

Coal-to-Liquid
House Republicans: 97% Supported
House Democrats: 78% Opposed
Barrels - 4,768 billion

Oil Shale Exploration
House Republicans: 90% Supported
House Democrats: 86% Opposed
Barrels - 3,300 billion

Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Exploration
House Republicans: 81% Supported
House Democrats: 83% Opposed
Barrels - 8.5 billion

Bakken Field
Barrels - 4 billion
(Est.  417 billion)

Current US reserves (not including Bakken Field)
Barrels - 21 billion

Total Potential US Reserves
Barrels - 8105.8 billion
Current US consumption
Barrels - 21 million / day
Reserves in years (US Consumption only)
1057

Saudi Reserves (claimed)
Barrels - 260 billion
Reserves in years (US Consumption only)
39.2

Combined Reserves World Reserves not including the US (Claimed)
Barrels - 1115.7 billion
Reserves in years (US Consumption only)
168.6

But this administration has adopted an anti-energy policy, such as continuing to block off shore drilling and revoking drilling permits in the Rocky Mountain front, that greatly decreases the usefulness of those resources.  Couple that with an apparent inability to get a handle on events in the mid-east and frankly we are screwed.  I have posited before that while the underlying cause of the current recession was the housing bubble the proximate cause was the rise in energy prices (and I still maintain that rise was driven by George Soros and his cronies I just can’t prove it).  Now we have that same dynamic building up again and I am not sanguine about what the summer holds.  If we had actually done something to break the hold the mid-east has on us the conditions might be different.

(If I were the GOP as soon as oil hits $4.00/bbl I would be impeaching Salazar.  Well maybe not impeaching but making him so miserable he just wants to dig a hole and die in it)

Coming soon to a cablebox near you…

Al-Jazeera

Al-Jazeera is in discussions with Comcast, the nation’s largest cable operator, about bringing the network’s English-language channel to millions of U.S. homes, the Qatar-based news service said Tuesday.

I can’t say I actually have a problem with this.  Until we break our dependence on foreign oil the Middle East is vital to America’s economic prosperity and our national security.  That fact makes it important that we as a country have an understanding of what is going on in that area; both so our policy makers can form policy and so that we as voters can evaluate their performance. Al-Jazeera provides some insight at least.  It certainly can’t do any worse than the CIA.  I heard somewhere yesterday that the recent events in Tunisia and Egypt caught the government completely off-guard, and that is one reason the response is so scattershot.  I really have no trouble at all believing that.

What really happens at the airport

This may not make Rumsfeld many friends

Repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is an idea whose time has come.

Part of a larger interview with Andrea Mitchell. 

h/t Ace

Monopoly the Milton Friedman way

via the NY Times

Prices shot up, which we all knew, even in that inebriated state, was the consequence of expanding the money supply. (After all, the great economist told us, “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.”)

The inflation became so extreme that we eventually voted to alter the rules again: we’d cut the money supply. Any money we printed that came back to the bank would be taken out of circulation.

A severe depression kicked in, of course. Prices plummeted and it was a race to liquidate assets. One by one the players quickly went bankrupt, and sometime around 4 that morning the game was over.

Seems like that would be a good demo for a high school economics class.

Unemployed need not apply

As if finding work weren't hard enough, a federal agency warns that some employers are excluding jobless workers from consideration for openings.

…

The practice has surfaced in electronic and print postings with language such as "unemployed applicants will not be considered" or "must be currently employed."

"Excluding unemployed workers from employment opportunities is unfair to workers, bad for the economy, and potentially violates basic civil-rights protections because of the disparate impact on older workers, workers of color, women and others," Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, testified.

Several examples of such help-wanted ads were offered: A Texas electronics company said online that it would "not consider/review anyone NOT currently employed regardless of the reason"; an ad for a restaurant-manager position in New Jersey said applicants must be employed; a phone manufacturer's job announcement said "No Unemployed Candidates Will Be Considered At All," according to Helen Norton, associate professor at the University of Colorado School of Law.

I personally think this is a stupid policy but businesses have a right to hire who they want.  I do see a business opportunity here.  For say $5 a month I will “hire” you as an independent contractor.  You just post the jobs you applied to that day on your page and if there are any calls we will say yes you are employed with us and give a basic job description that you can provide.  I’ll throw in the other such duties as required line and that duty would be to sit at home and apply for jobs.

source

Why am I not surprised?

California, of course, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is happening in other states too:

State law allows the employees to increase their retirement benefits by tacking up to five fictitious years — known as "air time" — onto their public service. Although they pay a fee for the privilege and officials say it is high enough to cover the eventual payouts, critics of air time note that the boost can cost taxpayers millions when the state pension system's investment income falls short, as it has in recent years.

…

The inspiration for air time came from a group of Senate and Assembly staffers determined to recoup the pension credit they lost while running their bosses' election campaigns — when their salaries must be paid with private money, not by taxpayers.

Lawmakers helped them out in 2002 by passing a bill granting them the right to buy air time, but then-Gov. Gray Davis vetoed it. The next year, a measure was passed that gave the same rights to all state employees rather than just lawmakers' aides.

Davis, who at the time was collecting millions of dollars in contributions from public employee unions to fight a recall, signed it. The former governor did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

There are two surprising things in this article:  1) Davis's budget chief warned this would happen (surprising) but was overruled (not surprising) and 2) Brown is trying to eliminate the benefit.  Not a problem solver by itself but a least it would be one hole plugged.

CA cities trying the AZ approach to illegal immigration

Facing rising unemployment some CA cities are using the AZ approach to illegal immigration and requiring that businesses check all workers using e-verify.

source

It’s about time.  In my opinion we wouldn’t have this mess if CA had stood their ground on Prop 187 back when Davis was governor.

Today’s sign that the end is near…

(yes that title is blatantly stolen from the Dori Monson show)

An opera (yes opera nor Oprah) about Anna Nicole Smith opened at the Royal Opera House in London on Thursday. 

“ ‘Anna Nicole’ is a parable,” Ms. Padmore continued, “a bad fairy tale about a character so larger than life she becomes surreal. It’s also very funny, although I don’t think it laughs at her. It’s not cruel.”

source

Some of you are literary types…

So you might like this site I found today.  Flash Fiction Offensive

If I understand the site the idea is to tell as complete a story as possible in as few words as possible.  This is from the submissions guidelines:

Okay, let me tell you about what I need:
The kind of stories you tell when you're with your pals down at the bar, knocking back your thirteenth beer. Tales about things that went wrong when Joe Asshole punched his woman a little too hard, about the stranger Crack-whore Jenny met on the streets that she wants to forget, about the time when Loser Steve should have gotten arrested but didn't.

…

Flash fiction, the way we like it, is a quick punch to the jaw. Give me stories under 1,000 words.

Anyway some of the stories are an interesting read.

Wow Al Gore sure looked old in 1958

Just for fun, via Fark, a 1958* Bell Labs production on the dangers of Global Warming:

 

*I can’t actually prove this is genuine but it looks like a real 1950’s era educational film.

Why outsourcing isn’t always a good idea

His university did not have internet access, so the programs they wrote for class could only be graded on whether they theoretically ought to work. Practical usage of programming was not a part of the engineering curriculum for a bachelor’s degree at his school, he said. A master’s program was necessary to cover the curriculum Sameer had covered in his bachelor’s degree in the US.

I have heard this story in different variations from a lot of the Indian programmers I have worked with.  One told me that in his C programming class they only had one computer and an overhead projector so all the code was written in class as collaborations.  I can see where that might be helpful in some cases but this guy was fired because he couldn’t code.

Dear Fox News: More Red Eye less Hannity repeats

Dear Fox News:

I have been a loyal viewer for 10 plus years, but recently you have begun to piss me off with your constant pre-empting of Red Eye for “Breaking News” that broke 12 hours ago.  I am up at midnight and watch Fox at that time for a reason, and it’s not endless repeats of something that happened at noon – It’s too watch Red Eye’s original programming.

I have lived with Hannity and Beck lo these many years, I even put up with Gretchen Carlson, but this is a bridge to far.  You are jeopardizing my viewership by consistently interrupting the best show on your network (followed closely by Special Report just to give credit where it’s deserved). 

If you absolutely have to run a repeat because the news is of such earthshattering importance at least have the good taste to have it be repeats that include Megyn Kelly, Julie Banderas, Juliet Huddy, or Patty Ann Brown.

World of Starcraft?

"Without giving away any details, we have some of our most experienced MMO developers, people who spent years working on the World of WarCraft team, working on this project," Morhaime said. "We're really trying to leverage all the lessons we learned through the years. Some of which we were able to address in World of WarCraft and others that maybe because of the design decisions we've made, you just can't address. So we're kind of taking a step back with all that knowledge to make something that's completely new and fresh. We're not trying to make a WoW sequel." In fact, he explained that the two titles will co-exist in the future.

Because you know I'm not wasting quite enough time I need another addictive game to suck me in.

source

I’m a little worried

Last night I was babysitting my brother’s kids (no that’s not the worrying part, they are both still alive), and I was helping my niece with her math homework.  It was about graphing and lines and one of the questions was too take a set of ordered pairs graph it, write an equation for it, and explain why that equation works.  There were four sets of ordered pairs, I remember 3 of them

(-2, 3), (-1,3),(0,3),(1,3),(2,3)

(-3,9),(-2,4),(-1,1),(0,0),(1,1)

(0,10),(2,16),(5,25),(10,40)(12,46)

My niece is an A student in math (yay Maya) so this should be pretty straight forward, but she asked for help so I took a look.  The textbook they are using is a mess.  In the objectives it talks about learning the importance of x-intercept, y-intercept, slope, interpreting data using graphs, blah, blah, blah.  You know what it doesn’t do.  Teach them any of that crap.  It shows some examples of graphs, but none of them have the axes labeled(which had my niece all screwed up because she was plotting x and y backwards), and they are all linear relationships .  The second equation is y=x^2.  I also went through the material up to the point of the homework.  No where other than the objectives was slope, x-intercept, or y-intercept mentioned, nor was the point-slope form of a line (y=mx+b).  So how is my niece supposed to write  an equation for that 3rd set of data?  I explained to her how to find the slope of a line and what the point slope form is, and made a point of emphasizing how important an equation it is.  Hopefully she understood.  When my brother got home I told him about it and he was like “I know, it’s how they teach math nowadays, I don’t understand it”  My brother is a math whiz, before he decided on biochemistry he was working on a math degree, if he doesn’t understand a middle school math textbook there are issues. 

Here is the worrying part, this crap is what all the standards are based on.  Or maybe it’s the other way around.  The textbooks are based on learning standards that produce this crap.  Either way it’s concerning.

This is kind of cool

Photorealistic Futurama

source

Good Idea? Bad Idea?

"You'll see 'The Wizard of Oz' like you've never seen it before," he said, explaining the musical will be given a "steampunk" concept without making changes to the movie script version.

Steampunk is a sort of underground movement that surfaced in the 1980s and '90s, mixing ideas from Victorian Britain and the American Old West with modern technology — lots of gears, goggles and steam power.

…

For the upcoming "Wizard of Oz," for instance, there'll be a big gear logo representing the letter O.

Dorothy's Kansas farm will be more present-day than 1930s, and Oz will be an alternate reality setting.

h/t Fark

For your consideration…

If electricity comes from electrons, do you think morality comes from morons?

Scalia as the savior of Obamacare…

I made this point in the comments section over at AoS awhile back and not many people agreed, but it’s possible.  The reasoning, as laid out by the author at the Huffington Post, is that Scalia has previously sided with a fairly broad definition of the commerce clause:

(H)is opinion in the 2005 case of Gonzales v. Raich has led to speculation that he could begrudgingly okay the underlying principles of the individual mandate -- the legally-contested provision at the heart of the bill.

In a separate concurrence to Raich's majority decision -- which held that Congress could criminalize the production of homegrown marijuana even in states that approved of its medical use -- Scalia made what is widely regarded as one of the Court's broadest interpretations of Congress' ability to regulate commerce. Not only did the legislative branch have the "power to regulate activities that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce," he wrote; it had the power to extend itself into "those measures necessary to make the interstate regulation effective."

At the time I had forgotten just how wide his interpretation of the commerce clause was, I just remembered that there had been a decision where he had disappointed a large number of people.  Interestingly enough Clarence Thomas’ dissent backs the HuffPo author’s assertion:

If the majority is to be taken seriously, the Federal Government may now regulate quilting bees, clothes drives, and potluck suppers throughout the 50 States. This makes a mockery of Madison's assurance to the people of New York that the "powers delegated" to the Federal Government are "few and defined", while those of the States are "numerous and indefinite."

Obviously I don’t seriously expect Scalia to back the individual mandate, the original article gives a couple examples of how he could avoid it, but this does point out that the courts are always a crapshoot. 

Think this guy was a moronosphere member?

During his life he excelled at mediocrity. He loved to hear and tell jokes, especially short ones due to his limited attention span. He had a life long love affair with bacon, butter, cigars and bourbon.

…

Fred asks that you make a sizable purchase at your local ABC store or Virginia winery (please, nothing French - the *censored*) and get rip roaring drunk at home with someone you love or hope to make love to. Word of caution though, don't go out in public to drink because of the alcohol related laws our elected officials have passed due to their inexplicable terror at the sight of a MADD lobbyist and overwhelming compulsion to meddle in our lives.

…

Fred's ashes will be fired from his favorite cannon at a private party on the Great Wicomico River

via Fark

Iron Man 2 = Homage to “Atlas Shrugged”

Is Cracked onto something here?

Atlas Shrugged:

• A protagonist disguises himself as a worthless playboy to hide his activities.
• A second protagonist invents a valuable commodity that the government tries to take from him.
• The second protagonist is hauled to court to be forced to hand over his property.  He refuses and rallies the people to his cause.
• The government is the main enemy.

Iron Man 2:

• Tony Stark maintains an image as a worthless playboy to disguise his activities.
• Stark invents an item that the government wants to take from him (actually more than one)
• He is hauled before a Senate panel in an attempt to force him to hand his property over.  He refuses and rallies the people to his cause.
• The government, thru it’s contractor, is the main enemy.

 

Maybe you guys have seen this theory before.  I hadn’t so I just thought I would share it.

al-Qaeda about to deploy a “dirty bomb”?

via Instapundit

Al-Qaida is on the verge of producing radioactive weapons after sourcing nuclear material and recruiting rogue scientists to build "dirty" bombs, according to leaked diplomatic documents.

A leading atomic regulator has privately warned that the world stands on the brink of a "nuclear 9/11".

…

At a Nato meeting in January 2009, security chiefs briefed member states that al-Qaida was plotting a program of "dirty radioactive IEDs", makeshift nuclear roadside bombs that could be used against British troops in Afghanistan.

As well as causing a large explosion, a "dirty bomb" attack would contaminate the area for many years.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Qaida+brink+using+nuclear+bomb/4205104/story.html#ixzz1CoxeQ4Pp

I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding of what a dirty bomb is in this article.  Early nuclear weapons were, because of inefficient design, dirty;  they only used a small amount of the fissionable material.  The rest was dispersed as fallout, along with the byproduct of the fission.  Newer designs greatly decreased the amount of unused material and thus produced cleaner bombs. Especially once thermonuclear bombs were produced and unused fissionables / fission byproducts were consumed in the fusion explosion. 

In today’s world a “dirty bomb” usually refers to a conventional bomb salted with radioactive materials.  While public perception of the danger posed by the radioactive component of such a bomb is that it is extraordinarily high, in fact it is pretty low.  I saw a death rate of something like an additional 5 to 8 people / 1000 over a 30 year period quoted somewhere recently(that is 5 to 8 additional deaths over 30 years not per year).  The vast majority of the death and destruction would come from the conventional explosion, and the radioactive material would generally be dispersed enough that decontamination while probably time consuming and expensive would be relatively easy technically, although time consuming and potentially expensive (depending on how well the dispersal went, in an urban area the built up structures might actually help contain it) .  The biggest impact would be psychological, and that could be a major impact to be sure, but I think after people saw how little actual damage was done recovery would be fairly swift.

Of course this isn’t to say we shouldn’t be vigilant about such attacks, but we should approach the idea logically.  In addition if we had a functional civil defense system in this country we would drill about what to do in the case of such an attack, but that’s a pipedream.

Doesn’t everyone know the NY Times is infallible?

At the Volokh Conspiracy they are discussing the difficulty of getting a letter to the editor published if you assert the Times is wrong about something:

This revision deleted the statement that the Times was wrong in its interpretation of the views of 19 States on the issue. Pincus responded that the revision was unacceptable and suggested a slight modification to soften the sentence in question (substituting “The Times incorrectly asserts” for “The Times is just wrong”).

…

Pincus: “Our letter’s key point is that the editorial was wrong in what it said about the cases. I’m happy to think about other ways to say that — but it is the key point.” Too bad, said the Times: “In that case, I think you should forward the letter to Carla Robbins, the deputy editorial page editor, for possible correction. We won’t be able to consider it as a letter.” And that was that.

No wonder the Times and Charles Johnson are BFFs.  I’m actually a little surprised that the Times didn’t declare Pincus a non-person and scrub all references ‘ala Little Green Footballs.