The Dilbert Blog

Trillion Dollar Idea

Have you heard of an online service for kids called Webkinz? It’s like a cross between cocaine and puppies. Kids can’t resist it. It’s frickin’ brilliant.

Before you use the Webkinz service, you have to buy a stuffed animal that comes with a code. You use that code to activate an animated character in an online world that looks like your stuffed animal. The brilliant part is that your online critter will become sick if you don’t regularly visit and care for it. Somehow this makes kids emotionally invested.

Kids can earn fake money by playing games on the system. That money goes toward caring for their online creatures, including buying furniture and so on. Kids love it. But I think kids aren’t the biggest market for this sort of thing.

I think single women would want an online boyfriend they could totally control. But here’s the hook: The online boyfriend is a “project.” If you don’t sign into the system regularly, your online boyfriend will start dressing with clothes from the 80’s, smoking, gambling, staying out late, and flirting with other women.

It’s the “owner’s” job to make the virtual boyfriend eat right, exercise, look for a job, and trim his nose hair. If he scratches his crotch or passes gas during an online dinner party, he gets no virtual sex for a week.

The women could earn fake online money by playing games just like in the Webkinz model. For example, imagine a Tetris-type game where articles of clothing fall from above and you have to assemble them into coordinated outfits before they reach the ground. You can’t tell me that wouldn’t be a hit.

Here are some more online game ideas for the virtual boyfriend site:

- Quickly identify which movie at the Cineplex would make a human feel the worst. Send the online boyfriend to watch it.

- Send the online boyfriend to the drugstore for you and try to assemble a basket of items that is the most embarrassing.

- Make the online boyfriend carry a purse through a tough neighborhood without being beaten to death.

- How about a game set in a Mexican restaurant where all the tables have candles? The object is to navigate your online boyfriend around the tables and to the Men’s room without him tooting too near the candles and setting the other diners aflame.

Do you have any more game ideas?

Define “Free” Speech

Suppose there was a hit song that caused 80% of its listeners kill themselves. Should that song be banned, or would you argue that free speech is more important?

I think most people would take the practical approach. We already have some minor constraints on free speech. You can’t yell “fire” in a crowded movie theater. You can’t defame someone in public. It would be no big deal to ban one particular song if the alternative was the death of millions.

What if the song killed fewer people? Would you ban a hit song that’s loved around the world if there was no doubt, statistically speaking, it would result in the death of ten people?

We have that situation now, except it’s not music. Every time the media makes a big deal about a high profile suicide there’s a 100% chance it inspires additional suicide.

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/325/7377/1374

I first heard of this effect in the book “Influence,” by Robert B. Cialdini. The correlation between media reports of suicides and a spike in additional suicides is fairly clear. So when a big news outlet decides to run a story about a high profile suicide, there’s a near-certainty they are killing a few people to boost revenue. And they know it.

Do you have a problem with that?

This Explains Everything

I’ve often noted that all of the world’s problems are caused by people who apparently enjoy making other people miserable. I know it sounds like one of those cynical observations I often make for humorous purposes, but I mean it literally. There’s no other explanation for why people put so much effort into making others miserable.

Now there’s evidence to back my theory. According to recent research, people with high testosterone (let’s call them assholes) literally get pleasure from making other people look unhappy.

http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=3209

I am sooooo jealous. Making other people unhappy is as easy as, well, eating and farting.

Unfortunately for me, I’m wired the other way. I’m only happy if I can make other people happy. And that’s obviously impossible, because as soon as you give someone what he or she wants, he or she immediately want more. It’s one of those “can’t get there from here” situations.

But pissing people off? That’s simple.

I imagine myself stranded with an asshole on an otherwise deserted island. I’d be trying to increase my happiness by pleasing the asshole. I’ll be all, “Can I build you a thatch hut”? Meanwhile, the asshole would be getting all of his happiness by frequently pointing to the horizon and yelling, “Look, a ship! Nah, just kidding!”

A week later, when I’ve finished building a thatch hut for the asshole, he’d look at it and say, “Was this built by a monkey? Where’s the formal dining room? You can’t expect me to eat all of my meals at the breakfast nook. Speaking of breakfast, I ate all of your coconuts while you were working.”

My point is that I shouldn’t waste my time complaining about the war in Iraq. All I need to do is increase my levels of testosterone until I can enjoy the unhappiness of others.

Fairness

I often laugh when someone declares a thing to be fair. Fairness is a funny illusion. It’s one of our most useful illusions, but it’s an illusion nonetheless.

Imagine trying to “fairly” divide ten identical marbles between two kids. You could give five marbles to each kid, wave your arms and declare it fair. The kids would probably agree with this arrangement. The illusion of fairness works.

Is five marbles apiece actually fair?

Don’t you need to know how many marbles each kid already owns? What if one kid has a thousand and the other has none? The marginal utility of an extra marble is much higher for the marble-poor kid.

Doesn’t their different level of enthusiasm for marbles come into play? If you think about it, you’re trying to be fair with their happiness, not their marbles. What if one kid loves marbles five times more than the other? In that case, the fair thing to do is give most of the marbles to the kid who doesn’t enjoy them as much. He needs more marbles to obtain the same level of happiness as the marble lover gets with one. Of course that solution would cause one kid to melt down because it wouldn’t have the illusion of fairness.

Even the simplest example of fairness falls apart when you put it under scrutiny. Luckily, people are morons, so they imagine fairness where none exists. Otherwise nothing would ever get done.

I was thinking of fairness the other day when considering my next car purchase. I figure I need to do my part to conserve energy. I considered buying a fuel-efficient car that would give me no joy whatsoever. It’s the fair thing to do. We all need to pitch in.

Then I remembered I’ve never procreated. That’s a huge energy savings. When you create new humans, they start leaving the lights on, driving, eating, pooping, and doing all sorts of energy-inefficient things. By not creating any new humans, I’m saving a huge amount of energy!

I walk to work. That saves a lot of fuel too. If you consider my total energy drain on the planet, I could own a small fleet of gas-guzzlers and still be greener than 95% of the citizens of the United States. That seems fair to me.

If you were the judge in this decision, and considered all the facts, would you give me a Hummer?

Chair Butt

This week in the Dilbert comic, Alice discovers she has a bad case of chair butt. United Media, the company that syndicates Dilbert, rejected the first version I submitted. It looked like this:

My editors thought the pose looked too provocative. They requested I redraw Alice in less of a “mount me” position. I argued that in the context of a medical exam, no one would interpret her pose as sexual. This argument did not carry the day. So I went back to the drawing board with the instructions to make it look “more medical.”

At this point in the story I should pause to confess I did not attend medical school. I don’t know exactly how a trained physician would examine a patient for signs of chair butt. So I took an educated guess and resubmitted the comic. Here’s a peek.

Although my editors have no formal medical training, they were nonetheless certain my depiction of a chair butt exam was inaccurate. I went back to the drawing board a third time and drew the version that was accepted and ran in newspapers. Here it is.

What I learned from this experience is that being a doctor takes more than common sense and a willingness to look at unattractive naked people. I don’t know how much more it takes, but I intend to keep drawing comics until I find out.

Cool New Planet with a Shitty Name

Scientists discovered a planet 20.5 light years from here that seems to have the right stuff for sustaining life.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18293978/

The scientists named the planet Gliese 581 C, evidently to showcase the reason scientists can’t get laid. Science fiction writers all over the Earth are muttering, “Fuck you very much.” No one is going to buy a book titled “Escape From Gliese 581 C.”

And if we discover advanced life on that planet, what do we call them? It won’t be something easy like Martians, or Venutians. No, they will be Gliese 581 Csians – a name that practically demands we discriminate against them.

Seriously, don’t the discovering scientists have a neighbor or a friend who works in marketing? Watch me spend all of thirty seconds to come up with five better names for that bad boy. And I won’t even use New Earth or Earth V2.0. Time me.

Vektron

Albutoral

Skype

Androgena

Heedro

Done! See? How hard was that?

We don’t know if the planet already has life. I suggest we play God and put some there. 20.5 light years is too long for human travel, but we could place some hearty bacteria and whatnot in a probe and fire it in that direction. If there isn’t already life on Gliese 581 C, the bacteria and whatnot can evolve into zebras and Creationists over time. If there already is life on the planet, our bacteria and whatnot will probably infect them and wipe out their civilization. So we might want to put a Mars license plate on the probe.

Infotainment questions for the day:

1. Do we have the technology to seed that planet with life?

2. How do we know the Gliese 581 Csians didn’t seed life on Earth?

It seems to me that we now have a falsifiable hypothesis for Intelligent Design on Earth. My hypothesis is that it came from Gliese 581 C. I call that science. We should teach it in schools.

Go.

[Update: See this link for a technology that could make space travel at vast distances feasible: http://space.newscientist.com/article/mg18925331.200-take-a-leap-into-hyperspace.html]

Perfection

Something has been bothering me about the Don Imus controversy. On the surface, it’s a case where a mistake was made, and after that, everyone involved eventually did the right thing.

- People communicated their feelings in appropriate ways.

- Imus eventually acknowledged his mistake and apologized.

- Sponsors withdrew support for financial reasons.

- Imus’ employers listened to their employees, viewers, and sponsors, and fired Imus.

The young women on the Rutgers basketball team showed dignity and poise in a difficult situation. It was evident that they had good coaches and advisors, and they displayed a world-class grace under pressure.

So what was missing? How do you improve on a situation where, after the initial mistake, everyone seemed to do exactly the right thing?

What most impressed the world about the Rutgers athletes is the maturity of their response, and in particular how they went from a position of perceived powerless to a position of complete power through sheer force of character. It was beautiful in its way. And yet, something was missing.

Imus delivered his apology sincerely, and in person. The athletes accepted it. Days passed. Something is missing.

No reasonable person can fault the Rutgers team for the way they felt in this situation, nor the way they handled it. And nothing could have prepared them for the sort of power they acquired overnight. Their coaches and advisors had never been in this situation either. And while the athletes achieved greatness, how could any of them know how near to perfection they were? Their point had been made. The message had been delivered. What was missing?

Forgiveness.

They could have asked Imus’ employers to rehire him, and in so doing, shown the world the difference between greatness and perfection.

Fuel

Imagine you could make fuel out of poor people. The only downside is that the poor people have to be converted to a combustible liquid in the process. Imagine that although there are many alternatives to using poor people as fuel, those alternatives cost way more. In fact, the alternatives are so much more expensive, widespread use would impact your standard of living by about twenty percent.

Obviously using humans for fuel would be wrong and you wouldn’t do it. But I’m not done confusing your moral compass.

Now let’s say the people who are used as fuel are volunteers, of a sort. For every twenty people who volunteer to become SUV fuel, only one will be randomly selected. The other nineteen get a host of benefits including pensions and paid educations. Let’s say human fuel is so economical that one human converted to fuel pays for the benefits to the other nineteen. And the one poor person fuels an entire town’s energy needs for a year.

In this scenario, you’d be powering your car with liquefied poor people, but your conscience would be cleared by the knowledge they all volunteered. It’s a free country. They took the chance of being one of the nineteen lucky ones, but it didn’t work out. Some volunteered because they thought it was their best chance for upward mobility. Some thought it was their patriotic duty. But it was their decision. No one forced them.

Let’s say the politicians argue that in the long run, this policy of using poor people for fuel will save lives. The thinking is that we’ll eventually develop other fuel sources, but for now we need the strong economy to pay for health care and a strong national defense against terrorists and whatnot. All of the volunteers are hailed as heroes.

Under those conditions would you use poor people to fuel your car?

Bonus question: Are you already doing something close to that?

[Update: Please stop leaving Soylent Green, Jonathan Swift, a

Sliders, and "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" comments. You are not the first. And this post only reminds you of those. It's not the same.]

Judging Art

People think art is subjective. Sometimes you hear opinions such as this:

“Those Harry Potter books suck.”

Logically, if you don’t personally like Harry Potter books, knowing full well that a quarter of a BILLION people do, it’s an indication that you might be abnormal, and not necessarily in a good way. Yet no one ever says, “I don’t enjoy Harry Potter books because, evidently, there’s something disturbingly abnormal about my brain. Although scientists say human and chimp DNA only differs by 2%, with me, it’s probably a lot less.”

We’re funny that way. We assume our personal preferences are the standard by which all art should be judged. I think the best way to judge the quality of art is by how well the artist achieves his objectives, whatever those might be.

Take the Garfield comic strip, for example. The creator, Jim Davis, set out years ago to create a massively popular comic strip. That was the goal of his art. He has succeeded for decades. When art achieves its goal, it has to be considered great. Sure, Garfield doesn’t make you dance or cry or fall in love. It doesn’t even amuse most adult males. So what? You can’t judge art against objectives it never held. If you judge it against the standard it seeks to achieve, it’s every bit the equal of the Mona Lisa. Likewise for the movie Borat and the TV show South Park.

Now consider the movie Titanic. It was a huge commercial success, but I have a hard time imagining the director’s artistic goal was to make the viewers feel as if someone put their dogs to sleep. Yet that’s what it did. As a business venture, Titanic was brilliant. It sold a lot of tickets. From the perspective of art, I doubt the artist’s objectives and the result lined up, unless they were sadists.

That’s how I judge art. Your mileage may vary.

Deja Comic

Yes, today’s Dilbert comic (Saturday) is a repeat. Here’s the scoop.

I submit my comics a month or so in advance, then forget about them. Yesterday I got a call from my syndication company, United Media, alerting me that the comic scheduled for today makes a casual reference to serial killing.

Obviously this is exceptionally bad timing. The average reader doesn’t know how far in advance the comics are submitted, and it would look cruel, possibly intentional, given recent events.

One option was to alert client newspapers and give them the option of running the comic or replacing it with a repeat. I decided to go further and ask all of the newspapers to run the repeat. Some papers did not get enough notice to make the change. Comics are sometimes typeset in advance, depending on what technology the newspaper company uses. So I’m in for a bumpy ride today. Wish me luck.

I apologize for any bad feelings the comic might cause for anyone who sees it.

Outsource the Government

It’s common knowledge that all major government decisions in the United States are made via a process that Thomas Jefferson described in the constitution as “lobbyists bribing weasels.” Voters attempt to solve this problem by electing the weasels who do the best job lying about their intentions to change the system. So far, this hasn’t worked.

That’s why we need to outsource the important decisions to India. I’m sure a consulting firm in India could help the United States come up with a coherent energy policy, a plan for universal health care, a cure for global warming, and an anti-terrorism plan.

I know you have many questions about this excellent idea. Allow me to anticipate them and answer them.

Q. What the hell do Indians know about America?

A. More than you. The Indians who graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology are among the smartest people on the planet. And whatever they don’t already know, they can learn while you’re watching American Idol. Yeah, it hurts. But it’s true.

Q. What’s to stop U.S. lobbyists from corrupting the Indians?

A. We’d need to fund the Indian consulting company directly from U.S. taxes (it would be relatively cheap), and audit each employee’s personal finances regularly to make sure no one working in a cubicle in India owns a yacht.

Q. Wouldn’t the Indians make decisions that benefit India more than the U.S.?

A. Only if they wanted to get fired. That sort of thing would be somewhat obvious. The United States wouldn’t be obligated to implement the recommendations from the Indian consulting company. Everything would be debated in America before any decisions were made. This is an improvement over the current situation where, for example, there is no terrorist-thwarting energy policy up for debate.

Q. Wouldn’t the lobbyist-fellated politicians in America ignore the recommendations from the Indian consulting company?

A. Some would. Others would embrace the recommendations as a way to get elected. Voters would have the choice of electing people who support the Indian recommendations or not. That’s better than our current system of voting for people who make fuzzy statements about general directions and offer no plans.

Q. Is it okay if I offer an objection to this plan that demonstrates my poor reading comprehension?

A. I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.

Go.

[Update: If you noted the dysfunctional government in India, you missed the point by a mile. People can't fix their own government because they have too much self-interest. You need an objective and less-easily-bribed foreigner to do the consulting no matter who you are.]

Tap the Goat

Did you see the story about the Sudanese man who was caught having sex with a goat? The council of elders forced him to marry the goat as his punishment. Apparently, man and goat are living happily ever after, except for the goat, who is still getting cornholed by a crazy Sudanese guy, but now he has to wash dishes with his hooves.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_4740000/newsid_4748200/4748292.stm

In related news, Zsa Zsa Gabor's husband claims he had an affair with the goat too.

Having a goat wife might come in handy. You could carry a Dixie Cup with you, folded up in your pocket, and any time you got thirsty, you could just reach over and yank a nice warm cup of goat milk. That might not sound delicious to you, but in Sudan, warm goat milk is a delicacy, second only to humping the goat. Unless it's a boy goat, in which case it's considered a close third.

I wonder what the perp's defense was. I think I would have claimed I was performing an experiment in churning goat butter without using a churn. I would probably say something about Galileo being persecuted for his genius too. Or maybe I would try to make the council of elders laugh by saying, "The goat looked horny. Get it? He has horns!"

Anyway, this story raises many interesting issues about property rights. The owner obviously felt wronged when he saw his neighbor going all Lego on his goat. Why?

Evidently it wasn't a bestiality issue, since the council of elders forced the perpetrator to marry the goat. And it wasn't concern for the goat's wellbeing, since marrying a goat-humper isn't a step in the right direction. So what was the problem?

Was the owner planning to butcher the goat, and didn't want his goatburgers to have any special sauce?

Was the owner mad because he was saving the goat for himself?

There was no damage to the goat, unless you count some stretching. Having sex with your neighbor's goat is a lot like violating a copyright. It's totally victimless, right?

Go.

The Infamous Underpants Analogy

Recently I blogged that copyright violations are analogous to borrowing your neighbor’s underpants without asking, then laundering and returning them before he returns home. I was immediately attacked for my analogy. Critics said my borrowed underpants analogy was flawed for several reasons:

1. Unlike copyrighted material, underpants are physical objects. So in my analogy, the owner of the underpants would be unable to simultaneously wear the underpants he already has on plus the underpants he intentionally left at home in his drawer.  Apparently this is a problem for some people.

2. At a microscopic level, the borrowed underpants would be slightly degraded by this one additional wearing. This is important for people who wear their underpants until the last fiber gives out and the material disintegrates and trickles out the pant legs.

And those were the GOOD criticisms. If you think I’m making this up, check out one of my more eloquent critics:

http://techdirt.com/articles/20070412/183135.shtml

Let me explain something about analogies. Analogies are not supposed to be identical to the thing you are making the analogy about. Imperfection is necessary. Otherwise an analogy would be, for example, “Downloading music without paying is like downloading music without paying.” It doesn’t add much to your understanding.

The underpants analogy, in its original context, addressed the question of whether copyright violations are a victimless act. This is separate from the legal question. The point of the analogy is that the artist who loses legal control over his creation feels violated, just as you would if someone borrowed your underpants. I dare say it was one of my finest analogies, although admittedly the bar is set low.

In addition, as I previously argued, when an artist loses the ability to control when, and where, his art is distributed, it can be a real economic loss, depending on his marketing plan. This led to the following brilliant criticism:

1. Adams thinks artists have the legal right to prevent you from reading a book on the toilet. Artists never had that right!

Seriously. That was the criticism. I was hoping people would understand that I meant the artist would lose control of, for example, whether his book appears on the Internet before it’s published on paper.

I also heard the argument that any idiot knows copyright violations are good publicity, and as such, they lead to more sales. I tested this theory last year by making my book, God’s Debris, available for a free download. About a million people downloaded it. Based on my e-mail, a large percentage of them loved it. (It’s probably my most loved work, even though a good chunk of people felt it did a bad job of being what it wasn’t intended to be.) The total number who actually went out and bought that book, or the sequel that’s not available for free, is about 1,000. The free download did little but to make the economic value of my sequel appear to be zero.

If giving away your work for free is such a good strategy, you have to wonder why all the major artists aren’t doing it. Don’t the big record companies have any economists working for them? Or is it possible that the people with advanced degrees in business and economics know more about business and economics than the people downloading music with one hand, while masturbating furiously with the other, and wishing they had a tail to hold the bong?

Yes, yes, I can see how an unknown band might become popular by making its music available for free. That makes perfect sense. Luckily, every artist has that option. But as my experience with God’s Debris shows, every situation is unique. If the artist loses his right to decide when, and if, his creation is available to the world for free, he loses something of potential value, even in the unlikely event that the loss leads to more sales in the long run. I can’t steal a jacket from JC Penney and hope they understand that it’s good publicity, thus causing several people to buy the same jacket. It isn’t my right to make that decision, even if I happen to be correct.

There’s an argument that the world would be better if copyrighted works were available for free to anyone who wants them. I can only speak for myself, but I can say with certainty that I wouldn’t have pursued creating Dilbert comics without the potential for getting rich while working at home. That was my entire motivation. I worked for about ten years, without a day off, to make Dilbert a success. There’s no way I would have done that much work just to earn an average income. That would have been irrational. I had easier options.

I think a reasonable person can dislike capitalism and wish for a more socialist world where art is free for all takers. But a reasonable person can’t expect that a socialist world would produce nearly as much art. That’s bat shit thinking.

I invite all bat shit thinkers to reiterate my point that free downloads might help unknown bands, and act as if I didn’t already address that exception. You are also invited to point out the fact that some middle men and some artists make more money than you do, and should be punished. (Bonus points for inserting “WA-WA-WA!!”)

Go.

Power to the Sheeple

The New York Times had a fascinating article about a study of herd instinct. It turns out that people prefer whatever they think other people like.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/magazine/15wwlnidealab.t.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5124&en=79be2f770fc76c6d&ex=1334203200

Meanwhile, another study showed that the U.S. program of telling kids to stop having sex has been a dismal failure so far.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070416/us_nm/sex_abstinence_dc

Apparently the following message is not effective: “Everyone LOVES sex. I love, it. All the other teachers love it. Your older friends love it. We all do it whenever we can because it’s frickin’ GREAT. But you should ignore the burning in your loins.”

In defense of the U.S. abstinence education policy, a government official explained that the study only looked at the older methods. He says the newer abstinence education programs might not be such a steaming mound of money-vaporizing bullshit. The official was vague about what the new programs include. Here are my best guesses:

1. Classes are now taught by less hot teachers.
2. Each boy gets a rubber band and instructions to snap the tent in his pants.
3. Each girl gets a rubber band in case the boy forgets his.
4. Unpopular kids are encouraged to have sex to make it less cool.
5. Catchy slogan: Masturbators are Winners!

I’d write more, but I have to go earn money for the government to flush down the toilet.

Best Fundraiser Ever

I saw in the news that Andre Agassi “inadvertently” whacked his wife, Steffi Graf, in the face with his racket during a fundraiser.

http://sports.yahoo.com/ten/news?slug=ap-grafinjured&prov=ap&type=lgns

The fundraiser was part of a new reality show produced by Oprah. The doctor who bid $70,000 to play tennis with Agassi and Graf also got to put the stitches in Graf’s lip. Hmmmm. . . Was this really an accident?

One theory is that Andre Agassi, the most precise tennis player in history, who could circumcise a mosquito with a tennis racket during mid serve, couldn’t avoid hitting his wife in the face. I suppose that’s possible, in the “anything can happen” way of thinking. But let’s examine the alternative theory.

Let’s say Oprah corners Agassi alone before the event and says, “Andre, the doctor will pay $70,000 just to play tennis. But if you hit your wife in the head so he can stitch her up, that’s another $100,000 to benefit the children.”

At first, Andre would probably say, “No way!” But Oprah would just furrow her brow and look at him in that “I’m Oprah and you’re not” way. She wouldn’t have to actually say, “I’ll tell everyone that you don’t care about children” because it would be implied. Oprah can be very convincing. I imagine her saying, “Andre, you’ve been married for a while. Can you honestly tell me you can’t think of one good reason to bust her lip with a racket? Don’t lie to me. I’m Oprah.”

By the time Oprah was done with Agassi, Steffi’s face was probably starting to look round, green, and fuzzy. Interestingly, Agassi managed to bust Steffi’s lip without damaging her teeth. I assume that’s because the guy who bid the highest was a doctor and not a dentist. If the bidder had been a psychiatrist, that would have been the best show of all. Agassi would have had to club Steffi to death and keep her in a freezer.

I’m not criticizing. I think it’s great to help the children.

Spotting Trends

I'm good at spotting trends. For example, yesterday I was at a hotel pool and
saw an older guy with a ponytail and a hairy chest. He was a generally hairy
guy. But his back was evidently shaved. Except for. . . Wait for it. . .

A back beard.

It was more of a goatee, actually. Right in the middle of his back. It was hip
and stylish, I thought, as I hurled into my towel.

I had to look several times to be sure my eyes were not deceiving me. God, I
wish they had been. Yes, it was a back beard, not an extension of the ponytail,
not a birthmark, not a shadow. A frickin' back beard.

I suppose a person grows that sort of thing to get attention. It worked. I tried
looking at other things, but it was physically impossible. I will try to explain
my feeling with an analogy: It was like watching Satan humping a porcupine
without lubrication. Horrible, yet impossible to look away.

So if you asked me about my holiday time in the sun, I would not recall the nice
weather, the charming people, or the sights. All I would remember is a porcupine
being violated by a flaming devil dong, or something just like it.

I hated myself for wondering if he trims it himself or if he has an accomplice
in this crime against humanity. And what would it take to get someone to trim a
back beard? I assume that money and threats of physical harm would not be
enough. No, somewhere there is a trimmer of back beards who has a relative in a
small windowless prison. And not just a cousin, because I think we'd all let a
cousin die to avoid trimming a back beard.

But back to my original point -- I don't see back beards becoming a trend.

My New Favorite Response

I’ve noticed that a lot of people, if not most, have sharp disagreements with what they hallucinate to be my opinions. There are several skeptic-oriented websites that talk about my belief in magic and ESP. The skeptics leave brutal comments ripping me apart for my irrational beliefs. The only problem is that I don’t believe in magic or ESP. Someone with poor reading comprehension misunderstood something I wrote in one of my books and then convinced the other gullible, non-fact-checking skeptics that his hallucinations are true. It’s deliciously ironic.

Some evolution-oriented websites talk about my support for creationism and deride me for it. That would be fair if I supported creationism.

Recently I’ve been criticized for my opinion that people shouldn’t be allowed to e-mail a copy of a Dilbert comic to a friend. I don’t hold that opinion, but it doesn’t seem to matter.

Anyway, I’m trying out my new favorite response to the people who get angry over their hallucinations of my opinions:

“I agree with your analysis of your hallucination.”

In most cases I do agree with the argument presented. It’s only the premise that has a problem. Most of it sounds like this: “Scott Adams thinks that if an ear of corn has sex with a unicycle the offspring will be a unicorn. This is scientifically impossible!”

I used to say, “I don’t believe that!” But it sounds too disagreeable. Now I will just say, “I agree with your analysis of your hallucination.” That way I’m the kind of agreeable person you want as a friend.

Post Removed

I removed today's post so that my governor would not have a car accident.

The Butler’s Dilemma

Let’s say you’re the butler to a billionaire who lives alone. The billionaire dies in his sleep. You know he owns a large piece of jewelry that no one else has seen, and you have access to it.

If you steal the piece of jewelry, sell it, and give the money to an African charity, you can feed an entire village for a year. The village would otherwise starve. If you don’t steal the jewelry, it will go to his surviving family who has so much money they won’t care about it.

Obviously it is illegal to steal the jewelry and feed the starving village in Africa. But do you have a moral obligation to commit the crime for the greater good?

And if so, do you likewise have a moral obligation to steal anything else you can get your hands, from dead billionaires or living neighbors, if you can use the stolen property for the greater good?

Dog Catches Car – Update

It’s time to check one of my predictions from over a year ago. Hamas had just won a majority in the Palestinian Legislative Council. I likened their victory to a dog catching a car and saying, “Now what?”

My prediction was this: “I have to think it will be difficult for Hamas to reconcile the whole “destroy Israel” platform with ‘We’ll all be at the Parliament building at noon talking about how to do it.’ … I predict that Hamas will start softening their position by the time you read this. Or maybe they’ll wait a few weeks just to make it seem like they thought about it. But it’ll happen.”

Today I read this article that discusses the softening of their position, at least publicly.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20070410-1051-palestinians-hamasriddle.html

It’s safe to assume that some if not most members of Hamas have a master plan of pretending to be peaceful while building up resources for future attacks against Israel. But publicly they are softening.

What would you do if you were Hamas?

Now that Hamas has some legitimate governing power, it can’t support terrorist attacks without inviting massive Israeli retaliation that would effectively eliminate their gains in the government, probably permanently. They can’t renounce their position about destroying Israel because their own members would turn on them. And they can’t govern effectively because most other governments have turned off their aid and refuse to talk to them.

The only path open to Hamas is to convince its followers that they are only going to pretend to be peaceful until they build up strength for an attack. Once the population believes it’s only a trick, they’ll support their officials in making disingenuous statements recognizing Israel’s right to exist and renouncing violence. While no one will trust their statements, it will satisfy the international requirements, and aid will start flowing again.

Here’s the cool part. According to my new favorite book, Influence, once someone commits a position to writing, even a position he doesn’t believe, and states it publicly, the person starts changing his actual position to what he said, even if the original statements were lies. The research shows this to be true. In other words, Hamas government officials could inadvertently lie themselves into becoming peaceful people.

My new prediction is that Hamas will realize it has no path other than to wink at its own citizens while publicly recognizing Israel and denouncing violence. There will be much secret plotting against Israel to keep people happy, but the time to act will always be “soon” and never “now.” Over time, Hamas will get used to being a legitimate government, visiting world leaders and whatnot, and they won’t want to screw it up just to blow up some hotels in Israel.

A splinter group will think the mainstream Hamas rulers are too soft, and they will start doing their own terrorizing. By then it will make more sense for Hamas and Israel to collaborate against the terrorists, since the terror will be directed toward both governments.

My prediction for the future is that Hamas and Israel will be allies against extremists in both of their countries. That’s what happens when the dog catches the car.

Things That Shouldn’t Make Me Happy

There are things in this world that shouldn’t make me happy, but they do. For example, when I see two dogs humping in the park, it shouldn’t make me happy. But it does.

Today I will experience a new thing that shouldn’t make me happy, but it will. I picked up the latest Time magazine and started reading a story about Albert Einstein, excerpted from the book “Einstein” by Walter Isaacson. According to the excerpt, Einstein didn’t believe in free will. And his opinions on God and morality are virtually identical to mine.

I know philosophy wasn’t Einstein’s primary field. But still, he’s Albert Fucking Einstein. There’s a good chance he put some thought into it.

I’m not saying that my opinions are right just because they are identical to Einstein’s opinions. Einstein wasn’t right all the time. Right and wrong isn’t the point today. While it’s nice to have Einstein on my side, that’s not the part that makes me so happy.

The thing that will make me happy, but shouldn’t, is the comments I will get to this post. I’m practically wetting myself in anticipation of my readers arguing that they are smarter than Einstein, at least on this topic. This might be the happiest day of my life.

By the way, this article has my new favorite quote on free will, attributed to Schopenhauer:  “A man can do as he wills, but not will as he wills.” In other words, you are free to do whatever you want. The catch is that you don’t have any control over what you want. 

Before the whining begins, allow me to answer the question so many of you have on your mind: Why do I continue to blog on this same worn-out topic of free will?

The real answer is that I have no choice. But I’ll give you some rationalizations because you’ll like those better. Most of my posts have a common theme: We don’t know as much as we think we know. That’s the sort of idea that could end war and famine and poverty.

If you think about it, wars are generally fought because of a false sense of certainty. Usually some leader thinks he is a God, or talks to God, or descended from the Gods, or thinks God gave his people some particular piece of real estate. The leader’s opinion is the most certain in the land. People flock to certainty and adopt the certainty as their own. The next thing you know, stuff is blowing up.

You can take any major problem in the world and identify a key culprit who has more certainty than he or she should. For example, Osama Bin Laden is certain that Allah exists, and he’s certain that humans can know what an omnipotent being wants us to do. That hasn’t worked out well for anyone.

How about the problem of discrimination? The root cause is a bigot’s certainty that ethnicity is more important than individual differences. He shouldn’t be so certain. You don’t need to completely change a bigot’s mind to cure discrimination; it would be a huge step to make him doubt he can accurately judge people by their ethnicity.

There aren’t many ideas that have the potential to change the world. But the idea that we have no free will has to be on the short list. Once you accept free will as an illusion, it necessarily makes you wonder how certain you are about the rest of your reality. When you lose your own irrational sense of certainty, you are less likely to discriminate, to judge, and to believe a lunatic leader who tells you he’s certain.

You can introduce some doubt into your life and still keep your religious faith, morality, and all of the social and psychological benefits you always enjoyed. Faith would be meaningless without a pinch of doubt to give it context. In particular, it would be helpful to doubt that your religious leaders know the mind of God. A little bit of doubt can be a healthy thing.

I’ve noticed that the topic of free will is popping up more than ever in the media. That’s the sign of a viral idea. I’m just doing my part to save the world.

Here’s the link to the article:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1607298,00.html

If you plan to leave a comment supporting the existence of free will or a personal God, do me a favor and start with “I am smarter than Einstein because…”

Pavlov’s Cartoonist

Being an optimist has its drawbacks. For example, if I’m watching a TV show where someone knocks on a fictional door, I get up and answer my actual door, fully expecting some good news. This happens to me more often than I should admit. I even check my door when the other people in the room assure me that the knocking sound is coming from the TV. I’m not persuaded by other people’s opinions in these matters, even when the fictional characters on TV get up and answer their doors. I can’t rule out coincidence. So when I hear a knock, I check my door, just in case it’s some sort of prize committee with a freakishly large check. So far, no prize committees, but I think some of them might have left while I was arguing with people over whether there was a knock.

I also get fooled by car horn noises on the car radio. Any time that I think people are honking about my driving, it gives me an immediate vegetarian-sized dose of road rage. It’s not enough rage to make me start shooting at other motorists, but I seriously consider flashing a dirty look at the car behind me. Then I realize that most people can beat me up while simultaneously applying eye liner and compiling a shopping list. So instead, I pretend to be a disabled guy in a borrowed car. Observers can only see me from the neck up, so it takes some acting. But I think I pull it off.

Lately I’ve been experiencing a bad case of Phantom BlackBerrry Vibration Syndrome, or PBVS. With this condition I am positive that my BlackBerry is vibrating in my pocket, only to discover that it is my imagination. About ten times per day I feel the vibration and think “Ooh, it’s an e-mail with good news!” So far, the only good news is that my pocket is vibrating, and that’s okay because it gives me hope that the condition might spread to the rest of my pants.

This discussion makes me wonder if you could treat unhappiness with a bell. If Pavlov can teach dogs to salivate when he rings a bell, he can teach you to feel happy when he rings a bell. Or at least Pavlov could do that if he weren’t unmotivated by being dead. The point is that you could imagine training a person with a bell so that he expects something good to happen after hearing it. Eventually you could stop rewarding the guy after the bell and he’ll still feel happy by automatic response.

At least in the short run. Over time, he’ll realize what an asshole you are for training him with a bell, and he’ll kill you. But I think we can all agree that you have it coming.

Find the Cognitive Dissonance

Wow. When I wrote my post about copyright violations I was expecting to produce some good cognitive dissonance in the comments but I got more than I could have hoped for.

If you’ve read anything about experiments to produce cognitive dissonance, you know this was the perfect setup. You can produce dissonance by putting a person in a position of doing something that is clearly opposed to his self image. Then wait for his explanation. The explanation will seem absurd to anyone who doesn’t share the dissonance. In this case the model that produced it was…

1. Good people are not criminals.
2. Criminals break laws.
3. I break copyright laws.
4. But since I know I am a good person, my reason why it’s okay to violate copyright laws is (insert something absurd).

The fascinating thing about cognitive dissonance is that it’s immune to intelligence. No matter how smart you are, you can’t think your way out of it. Once your actions and your self image get out of sync, the result is an absurd rationalization. You can see that in the comments.

The people who experienced the dissonance yesterday will have an angry/frustrated reaction to my post today. According to the psychologists, it wouldn’t be likely for anyone to say, “Oops. I now see that I was being irrational.” Instead, the more likely result is getting super pissed off at me for being, in your opinion, so incredibly stupid, not to mention greedy.

For fun, take any of the cognitive dissonance from yesterday’s comments and put them in a comment today. Only the non-copyright-violators will be psychologically equipped for this task. For example, one of my favorite absurd rationalizations for violating copyrights goes like this:

1. Information is free by nature.
2. When rich people cause Congress to create copyright laws, they are taking something from me that used to be free.
3. Therefore, I am not stealing. I’m just taking back what was taken from me.

And then there’s Mindy, who believes it’s not a copyright violation to republish other people’s work as long as she doesn’t charge for it.

I also enjoy the rationalizations from the people who say it is okay to violate copyrights whenever it’s cheaper than paying money. They argue that these violations will encourage greedy publishers to be more efficient, thus transferring wealth from recording companies to…Steve Jobs.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go steal some more pants from Nordstrom. I'm not a thief; I'm just trying to convince them to lower the prices. You're welcome.

What was your favorite absurd rationalization?

Is Copyright Violation Stealing?

I keep seeing an argument on the Internet, including in the comments here, that goes like this:

“Copyright violation is not stealing. If I steal something physical, the original owner no longer has it. But if I violate a copyright, the original owner has lost nothing tangible. So while copyright violation is illegal, it’s very different from stealing. In fact, it’s good publicity and might even benefit the person from whom you stole.”

I understand the point that copyright violations are different from theft of physical property, but is it a victimless crime?

When you violate a copyright, you take something valuable from the copyright owner that he can’t get back. You take his right to control where his creation is viewed and how. It might be your opinion that the “free publicity” you provide outweighs the loss – and you might be right – but you’ve taken from the creator the right to make the publicity-versus-overexposure decision himself. That might not seem like a big deal to you, but it feels that way to the person who lost control of his art.

Let me give you an analogy. Let’s say your neighbor sneaks into your house while you are gone and borrows your underpants. After wearing your underpants all day, the neighbor launders them, folds them neatly, and returns them to your house in perfect condition, all while you are gone. He tells himself that he will say good things to people about your business – whatever business that is – so this arrangement is good publicity for you. The next time he sees you, he tells you about the underpants because he figures you’ll thank him for saying nice things about his business. He informs you that it’s a win-win scenario.

Given that you have full use of your property (the underpants), is it a victimless crime? I would say the owner of the underpants lost something even though his property is physically the same.

Some people argue that copyright laws create an artificial property right that is inherently different, and less worthy than the more natural right to own physical property, such as your clothes. But it seems to me that you only own your clothes because the law says so. Absent any artificial laws, I could go into your closet and wear your clothes whenever I want. All property rights are artificial. Copyrights are no different.

For the record, I never mind when people make copies of Dilbert for their personal use. If you want to e-mail your favorite comic to a friend, that’s great. We even make that easy by providing a button for that purpose on Dilbert.com.

But obviously there has to be a limit. After I published my first best-selling book, The Dilbert Principle, within days it had been illegally scanned and was widely available on the Internet for free. Technically speaking, it wasn’t theft. But I still lost something. I (and my publisher) lost the ability to decide if, when, and how to publish as an e-book. You can’t compete with “free and immediate.”

From a legal standpoint, taking a creator’s right to control distribution of his art is not “theft.” It’s just “taking something that used to legally belong to someone else and making it your own.”

You may now activate your cognitive dissonance and explain in the comments that every time you violate a copyright, the free publicity it generates for the artist is proof of your goodness. To make your argument extra powerful, note that you once knew a guy who bought an extra CD because of the 12,000 songs he took for free.

Go.

I Wish I Had a Government

I’m so jealous of countries that have governments. How cool would that be?

Many years ago, the United States had a government that did impressive things such as winning wars, spreading democracy, and solving huge social issues. In time, it turned into a government that was good at getting blown and tattling. Then we had a government that was too incompetent to do even that. Now we no longer have a functioning government of any kind. The good news is that we seem to have reached a plateau.

Recently our so-called Speaker of the House was meeting with the Syrian government while our so-called Vice President was on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show reminding the world that the so-called Speaker of the House doesn’t speak for the United States in foreign policy. Foreign policy is the job of the so-called President who doesn’t speak to governments that don’t already agree with him.

Today I read that the Defense Department is releasing a report that there was no link between al-Qaeda and Iraq, at the same time that so-called Vice President Cheney was repeating his mantra that there was indeed a link. My tax dollars paid for all of that. I don’t think I got my money’s worth.

Meanwhile, the Democrats are poised for a big win during the next election based on their excellent track record of doing nothing for years. Doing nothing might not sound like a good strategy to you, but if you compare it to what happens when the government actually does something, you can make an argument.

A good test of whether you have a government is this: Can your country do anything big and important? For example, could the United States start a new war, or end an existing one, or change its dependence on foreign oil, or provide health care to all citizens? Apparently not.

At this point, the so-called government does little more than provide content for news channels and blogs. I think they should do more. For example, I’d like to see Congressmen and Congresswomen run across a field of rakes every morning to get to work. For me, it would only take a few rakes in the face per day to make me feel as if my tax dollars weren’t a complete waste.

Is that too much to ask?

Scientific Facts

Evolution is a scientific fact. Science sets the standard for what qualifies as a fact, and the theory of evolution satisfies that standard with plenty of room to spare.

Scientific facts are useful because they are both consistent and predictable in the realm of other scientific facts. It’s good to know that A + B = C if you want to make a new batch of C. But is a scientific fact the same as being true?

Sometimes a scientific fact is falsified by newer and better science. That’s how science works. So while we assume it is rare, a scientific fact can be false in reality, especially in the short run.

Thinkers through the centuries have pointed out that human brains are not suited for interpreting reality. Our five senses can detect only a few forms of energy fluctuations in our general vicinity, and every person interprets the same inputs differently. If ten people witness a crime, you can end up with ten different descriptions of what happened.

Our memories become even less reliable over time. Do you remember your actual 12th birthday, or do you only remember the photograph of it that you saw in the photo album? There’s no way to know.

It’s a scientific fact that most, if not all, of our major decisions are made independent of logic. For example, if one of the major religions is “true,” it means that 70% of the world, or more, are living their lives based on a hallucination – they picked the wrong interpretation of God. And the people who are wrong are no less certain of their rightness than the people who are right, if indeed anyone is right. Certainty is a poor guide to truth.

Human brains perceive time as linear, and space in three dimensions. But it’s a scientific fact that reality is far more complicated. Perhaps there are ten other dimensions. Gravity is a bending of space-time, whatever that means. How about the forward arrow of time? Is it a feature of reality, or just a point of view? How would a human brain sort out the difference? It’s like trying to fit the ocean in a teacup.

You can distinguish the front of your dog from his back because we all agree that the front is the part with the face. But dogs have no natural front and back. It’s just our point of view that they do, because it’s useful to think of things that way. Time is similar. We favor the here-and-now because our senses can’t interact with the past or future. Our perceptions of truth are built around what is practical, not what is true. Even the smartest human brain doesn’t have the capacity for discerning true facts. That’s why so many of us settle for scientific facts. It’s the best we can do.

Some of you will say that I’m inventing a phrase “scientific fact,” and that’s right. But you know what I mean in this context. You also know that it’s a scientific fact that scientific facts don’t need to be true.

Evolution is a scientific fact. Truth is unavailable. Hallucinations fill the void.

Imagination

I have a good imagination. Even when I disagree with a point of view, I can usually imagine how I might be wrong. For example, I don’t believe that alien spaceships have visited earth, but I can imagine it. And I don’t believe that Dick Cheney is the love child of Lucifer and a penguin. Seriously, I don’t. But I can imagine it.

What amazes me is when I run into a point of view that I literally can’t imagine in any way that makes sense. For example, I’ve been trying to imagine how the “surge” strategy in Iraq could fix things. The word “surge” implies it’s temporary. The bad guys plan to be around forever, which is longer than temporary. It seems to me that they’ll just take their badness where the surge isn’t happening and then come back after the U.S. forces leave. That’s just my admittedly uneducated guess about how things work. I could be wrong. To give the alternate viewpoint a fair shake, I wrinkle my forehead and squint and try to imagine how the surge could work. So far I have come up with these imagined scenarios:

1. The insurgents from all over Iraq decide to throw their guns down and run toward Baghdad in broad daylight yelling WALALALALALALA!!! SHOOT ME! WALALALALALA!!!

2. The word “surge” turns out to be the Arabic word for “pork flavored bullets.” When word gets around, all the insurgents start yelling WALALALALALALA and running toward the ocean where they drown.

3. The surge is successful at gaining control of parts of Baghdad. This unexpected success seems to be a sign from God, so all the insurgents convert to Judaism. They still yell WALALALALALALA but only at the Wailing Wall.

On the other side of the Iraq argument are the people who say the war has made the U.S. less safe because our military is stretched thin.

Huh?

There’s no question that we’ve depleted our military resources, especially the people. But I’m trying to imagine the scenario where those reduced resources make me less safe. Here’s what I’ve imagined so far:

1. China decides it’s a good time to attack its most important customer and be incinerated in a nuclear fireball.

2. We forgo the opportunity to invade Iran by land and, as is our custom, accidentally create a few million additional terrorists.

3. We don’t have enough forces to pursue Bin Laden in the places where Pakistan doesn’t let us go anyway.

4. We don’t have enough forces permanently stationed in Japan to help out in case Godzilla returns.

5. Beer-soaked Canadians start throwing snowballs over the border and won’t listen to reason.

That’s the best I can imagine. Someone paint me a scene where either the surge works or the degradation of the military makes me less safe. I’m here to learn.

Most Useless Job in the Universe

When I worked for the phone company, one of my jobs was testing other vendors’ equipment. The purpose was to help our customers decide what equipment was most compatible with our ISDN service.

Unfortunately, vendors were upgrading their ISDN products so rapidly that the equipment I was testing was literally obsolete before the tests results were written up – every time. My job, for all practical purposes, was testing equipment that no one could purchase no matter how hard they tried. It was the most useless job in the universe.

Or so I thought.

Yesterday I was thinking about President Bush’s Secret Service detail. Their job is to protect the president against would-be assassins. That sounds like an important job until you ask yourself this question: “What kind of assassin would prefer Dick Cheney as president?”

I’m not making an anti-Bush or even an anti-Cheney statement here. It’s simply an observation that no one on the planet – Democrat or Republican or Green Party – thinks policies would improve if Cheney had the top spot.

Even Al Qaeda has no reason to go after a president with a two-thirds disapproval rating. If they ever got past Whitehouse security it would be to slip a baby aspirin into the President’s orange juice and leave some yoga brochures.

I know you’ll argue that the people who try to kill presidents are usually insane. For example, John Hinkley tried to kill Reagan to impress Jodie Foster. But even Hinkley would have realized that making Dick Cheney the leader of the free world doesn’t get you laid. Hinkley wasn’t THAT crazy.

I imagine myself in the job of protecting President Bush. Would I even bother wearing that itchy bullet-proof vest? And how much effort would I put into scanning the crowds for potential threats versus daydreaming about using my service weapon to shoot the Lincoln Memorial in the head just because it would be funny?

This made me wonder what other jobs might be competitive for the title of Most Useless in the Universe.

- Canada’s Minister of Defence?
- Libertarian Party’s candidate for president
- Sanjaya Malakar’s vocal coach?

Any ideas?

The Car You Won’t Own

A group called the X Foundation is planning to award $10 million to anyone who can design a commercially viable car that can get 100 miles per gallon.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/02/business/02xprize.html

I don’t know exactly what “commercially viable” means in this context. I haven’t seen the rules. But something tells me that the winning car will weigh six pounds and seat one anorexic dwarf. If you put a grape in the trunk, the front wheels will come off the ground. And I have a bad feeling that there will be leg holes in the bottom of the car so you can hike the entire chassis up to your crotch and run.

Don’t get me wrong. I hope the contest is a big success, and I hope the winning auto is the size of a Suburban while still getting 100 mpg. But it won’t happen. Contestants will game the system. I predict that the winning car will eventually be totaled by a front-end collision with a bumble bee. The bee will suffer a sprain.

Every time I see a hybrid car on the road I experience a weird mixture of love and hate. I love the concept and how it’s good for the environment. I hate that the car company is punishing the well-meaning customer by making him ride in a car that shouts to the world “I HAVE NEVER HAD SEX AND I NEVER WILL!”

I realize that the shapes of hybrid car are based on aerodynamic efficiency. But I have to ask myself what percentage of the improved gas mileage is directly due to the car being shaped like a whale’s penis? Wouldn’t it make more sense to design the car to be 2% less energy efficient, 100% more attractive, and thereby sell 300% more of them? Are these car makers even trying?

I don’t know if economists have ever calculated the extra gas savings from hybrid cars that accrue from making it impossible for their owners to procreate, but the savings have to be huge. There’s no need for hybrid car owners to drive to dates, or to drive kids to soccer games. If you drive a hybrid, my friend, your genes are waving the white flag.

Yeah, yeah, I know that Leonardo DiCaprio drives a hybrid, and he’s sleeping with supermodels. But I guarantee that they make him wear condoms. Probably two or three at a time. And I’ve yet to see a paparazzi get a picture of both Leonardo AND a supermodel going on a date in a Prius. If a supermodel gets photographed in a Prius, her next assignment is pointing at rugs in the JC Penney catalog.

I’m generally not one to subscribe to conspiracy theories. But I think it’s obvious that if the oil companies wanted the car companies to make fuel-efficient cars that also looked good, it would have happened by now. If the X Foundation contest ends up designing a car that gets 100 mpg, the car company that buys the patents will produce a car that looks like a cancerous spleen. And they’ll name it something like the Toyota Nonads.

God, I hope I’m wrong about this.

My Plan for Sainthood

I’d like to be a saint someday. The only downside is that I’d have to be dead. My first choice is immortality, but it’s always good to have a backup plan.

As I understand the sainthood process, first you must be a role model for the Catholic Church. After you die, two miracles must be attributed to you. Jeez, how simple is that?

My plan is to wait until it looks as if I only have a few years to live. Then I’ll become Catholic and hire a PR agent to document my many acts of charity and kindness. For example, I’ll start a leper colony in my backyard. That way I can do my good deeds without traveling. If the neighbors complain, I’ll just say, “Hey, you don’t see me complaining about your dog. And my lepers don’t bark every time a car goes by.”

Career experts say you should dress for the job you want, not the job you have. I hope there’s no law about dressing like a Pope. I’d get myself a huge hat and a robe. My hat would be all tricked out with an MP3 player and storage space for my wallet and keys. (Robes don’t have pockets.)

The key to being a Catholic role model and future saint is to act both wise and moral. I can fake that. For example, whenever I saw a college-aged guy, I would act all-knowing and say, “You’ve been using the computer with your pants around your ankles. You’re going to Hell.” And he’d be all “How did you know that???” and I’d be all “I’m almost a saint.”

Next, I’ll rewrite my estate plan to create a trust to generate some post-death miracles in my name. It’s easier than you might think. I’ll just instruct the trust to hire people to pray in my name for people with incurable diseases. It’s a numbers game. Some small percentage of people with incurable diseases will go into remission on their own. I only need two miracle cures to qualify for sainthood. Apparently a saint’s overall track record in cures doesn’t matter. Even if everyone else who is prayed for in my name drops dead instantly, it wouldn’t hurt my chances of sainthood.

It’s good to have goals.