Finding a Replacement for Displacement

(Please note: This is a motorcycle geek post. If you don’t care, skip it).

A lot of people dislike the rules of the relatively new Daytona Sportbike class in AMA racing, feeling that it gives an unfair advantage to Buell. After all, the Japanese and British manufacturers are running bikes with around 600 cubic centimeter engines, and the Americans and Italians are running literbikes. And as we all know, there’s no replacement for displacement.

Well, that’s the whole point of Daytona Sportbike, to my mind: There is a replacement, and it’s a combination of more revolutions per minute, lighter weight, and better handling. Buell riders do seem to have a real advantage on the straightaways, but on a curvier track, the Japanese bikes definitely outmaneuver them. And that’s what I really find interesting about the class and about its rules – the way it pits bulk against agility.

You can make a variety of arguments for and against different portions of the rules, and I don’t doubt that they’ll need further tweaking as the bikes develop and the races continue. But on the whole, the Daytona Sportbike class seems to be providing entertaining racing and plenty of fodder for ongoing trash-talking between fans of liter-class and mid-weight sportbikes.

Still some cockeyed optimism in the Boston real estate market

Today’s insane New England real estate listing: Nice Single Fam Home in need of a little TLC…. Close to restaurants and transportation.”

The street address: McGrath Hwy. Well, I suppose it’s technically a highway onramp rather than on the highway itself. Still, it’s kind of brazen Realtor-speak to use “close to transportation” to mean “actually on the highway.” The listing has no picture but look at the google map here and spin it around so you can see the view from the front steps:

The kicker: They’re asking $379,000 for it, although the agent says they’ll consider offers from $349 and up. Bad Realtor! Not only have they misdescribed the house, failed to include any pictures in the listing, and failed to help the seller pick a reasonable sale price, but they’re undermining the seller by announcing they’re interested in lowball offers.

Sales Tax vs. Reform

I’m not one of those knee-jerk tax opponents. I don’t enjoy paying taxes, of course, but I’m well aware that they are the entry fee for civil society. I appreciate the existence of police and fire services, public education, parks, public health, bridges, transit, and so on. I have no intention of moving to New Hampshire to escape “socialism.”

Even when I read about crippling pension and health care costs for state and city agencies, I wonder whether people who rail against them are merely jealous that only government employees get a safety net that everyone really ought to have.

And yet, when every day seems to bring a story like this one, about how the Boston Redevelopment Authority has two full-time model builders with “few regular responsibilities” and salaries that wind up in six figures with overtime, I wonder how the legislature can justify a sales tax increase without any kind of institutional reform. Daniel Gross says that operational efficiencies are the next mine of productivity improvements – maybe we need to look into that. And into firing some people. And probably eliminating a few extra city and state agencies, notably the widely deplored Turnpike Authority and Boston Redevelopment Authority.

It’s the same thing I say every time the MBTA gives me a survey to fill out: I’d gladly pay more for my fare if I thought you weren’t just wasting the money I give you now.

I am an overweight American

I am 5’8″ tall and weigh 165 pounds, which puts my BMI at 25. Healthy normal BMI for men is supposed to be under 25, so my doctor tells me I need to lose weight. Or gain half an inch in height. Either way, really.

I reminded him that the body mass index is only a rough estimate of body composition, subject to a number of limitations and shortcomings, and that the estimate of body composition it provides is itself only a rough estimate of health. I told him I can run five miles at a stretch and that I lift weights regularly. He told me I probably ate too many fatty snacks.

Obviously I went to the gym and asked the fitness expert to measure my body-fat percentage. Her machine told me that it’s 18%. She told me 18% is fine. She also said I should fire my doctor because he doesn’t know the difference between BMI and body composition.

I don’t doubt that obesity is a serious problem. And I’m sure I could be in better shape – my body fat percentage was lower a few years ago, when I was in my 20s and single and exercising every day for an hour or more. But a blind adherence to inaccurate numbers is not going to help things.

Davis Square, Home of the Tree-Sweater, Gets Statue-Masks

If you haven’t seen it yet, this picture of one of the statues in Davis Square seems to me like a very good indication of the zeitgeist: On the one hand, we’re all worried. On the other hand, we know our worry is absurd. So, we put silly ineffective masks on statues.

As long as we feel like we’re doing something, it doesn’t matter whether the thing we do is actually effective or even relevant.

Oh, I have some suggestions for you Objectivists out there

There’s a list of ideas on how to “go galt” – that is, truly live out an Objectivist protest against the constricting fabric of society. They say, for example, you should stop taking public transit to liberate yourself from subsidizing collectivist transit.

But that’s just a cop-out. If you want to do it right, you should stop driving on taxpayer-financed roads and obeying taxpayer-financed traffic laws. And definitely don’t use those meddlesome taxpayer-funded ambulances if you crash your car and get injured, or if someone beats you senseless for driving against the light down the sidewalk.

If you avoid using the taxpayer-funded grid to get taxpayer-subsidized electricity from coddled and over-regulated utilities, and switch to wood for heat and candles for lighting, and your house catches fire, be sure to put the fire out yourself rather than relying on your local corrupt taxpayer-funded fire departments.

Foodwise, you should definitely dig your own well and sterilize your own water rather than using the public water authority. And for goodness sake, don’t eat anything made from corn – that’s heavily funded by disgusting socialist subsidies that distort the true force of market pricing. That includes not just corn itself, but also sodas, baked goods, beef, pork, chicken, tilapia, E10 and E85 gasoline, beer, liquor, you name it. And definitely don’t buy any food that’s been transported through the tax-subsidized interstate highway system – only buy local foods carted in by donkey on footpaths.

Meanwhile, be sure to pull your kids out of school. Of course, to properly home-school them in the Galt tradition, you’ll need to teach them only things you already know or can learn without relying on taxpayer-funded curricula, taxpayer-funded libraries, or the taxpayer-funded internet. So, basically, just bible study. Although most of those bibles are produced through religious charities and that Jesus guy seems like he was pretty into helping the poor, so you might want to reconsider that. I guess just read to them from Atlas Shrugged and make them memorize the multiplication tables. I’m sure that will be enough for them to sustain themselves in a new individualist society.