Why Should I?

Why Should I?

I call your attention to a post and comment thread at Megan McArdle's site on The Atlantic. For a week or more, she's been discussing why and when student loans should be discharged. Gradually, the discussion has sorted out participants in terms of whether they can see any reason why people should pay their debts unless they're forced to. After all, the law provides for remedies upon default, so doesn't that mean it's purely a question of legal strategy whether to pay a debt? There's a lot of confusion, as well, about whether it's possible to have a moral obligation to a corporation.

Is this new, or have there always been as high a proportion of Americans as this who don't know where their personal obligations come from?

Megan could use some help fighting the good fight. I was pleased to see her notice the same phenomenon C.S. Lewis does in "The Abolition of Man": people still have a strong and instinctive understanding of moral obligations when it comes to the breach of those obligations to themselves:

[W]henever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking on to him he will be complaining 'It's not fair' before you can say Jack Robinson.

The Dentist Is Your Friend

The Dentist Is Your Friend

I've had my first experience with endodontic therapy this morning. That's a root canal to us non-dentist types. My husband having had several in recent years, I didn't worry too much about all the horror stories I'd heard growing up. Sure enough, it was quick and painless.

I asked my dentist why root canals get such a bad rap. It seems the procedures have changed markedly for the better. For one thing, the anesthetics are better and are being delivered more reliably, so as to achieve real pain suppression during the procedure. For another, dentists used to have to rout out the nerve and pulp with a little manual barbed file, whereas now it's more common to use low-torque titanium drills that work quickly without cracking the root. They have automatic feedback mechanisms that cut back on the power automatically when they encounter too much resistance.

Root canals sometimes sound fearsome more because of the excruciating symptoms that make them necessary, often an infected tooth pulp, than because of the treatment itself. Luckily for me, I was suffering only from a slowly dying nerve that made the tooth abnormally sensitive to heat and cold, instead of from a just-shoot-me-now torturous abcess, so the whole procedure was pain-free. It took less than two hours, of which less than half was the drilling, the rest of the time being used up in waiting for the pain-killing shot to take effect and mucking about with the packing of the empty root and formation of the temporary cap.

Although post-root-canal teeth reportedly hold up well over time, it's never a good thing to have to remove the pulp, which is supposed to serve a function in hydrating the tooth and keeping it healthy. Late last year some interesting research was published about a new method of delivery of antibiotics using propylene glycol to penetrate efficient through the dentinal tubules. If it pans out, many root canals may be avoided in the future. These guys seem to be among the Pros from Dover in the field today.

I consider dentistry one of the crowning achievements of civilization. They've come a long way since the dark ages of dentistry:

In 1725, Lazare Riviere introduced the use of oil of cloves for its sedative properties.

In 1746, Pierre Fauchard described the removal of pulp tissue.

In 1820, Leonard Koecker cauterized exposed pulp with a heated instrument and protected it with lead foil.

In 1836, Shearjashub Spooner recommended arsenic trioxide for pulp devitalization.

In 1838, Edwin Maynard of Washington, D.C. introduced the first root canal instrument, which he created by filing a watch spring.

In 1847, Edwin Truman introduced gutta-percha as a filling material.

In 1867, Bowman used gutta-percha cones as the sole material for obturating root canals.

In 1891, the German dentist Otto Walkhoff introduced the use of camphorated chlorophenol as a medication to sterilize root canals.

In 1895, . . . the scientist Konrad Wilhelm von Roentgen accidentally discovered a new form of energy that had the ability to penetrate solid material. Because of their unknown nature, he decided to call these rays “X”.

A few weeks later Otto Walkhoff, a dentist in Brunswick, Germany, took the first dental radiograph, making a contribution to dentistry that almost equaled Roentgen’s to medicine.

In 1908, Dr. Meyer L. Rhein, a physician and dentist in New York, introduced a technique for determining canal length and level of obturation.

All these advances came to an abrupt halt early in the 20th century, when many experts concluded that they posed an unreasonable risk of trapping bacterial infections below gold caps. For nearly forty years, therefore, the treatment of choice for an infected tooth pulp once again was extraction. Around 1950, endodontics got back on track and has brought us to our current enviable condition.

Now that my lips and tongue are no longer numb, I think I'll go have lunch using my newly pain-free tooth.

Did QE2 Prop up European Banks?

Did QE2 Prop up European Banks?

Zero Hedge is kind of a wild site, somewhere they're not afraid to explore conspiracy theories, so I'm not sure how much to make of this article, which has now been linked by Business Insider. But it's an interesting and detailed argument that, in monetizing debt, the Fed was not bailing out our own banks but U.S.-based branches of European ones, to the tune of $600 billion. Zero Hedge claims this explains why U.S. banks still find themselves not only unwilling but unable to lend out their reserves.

Why Can't a Woman Be More Like a Man?

Why Can't a Woman Be More Like a Man?

Or rather, per the New York Times, why are we lucky enough that they aren't? To date, at least, female politicians have lagged in the competition for the most humiliating sex scandals. Are women who get their hands on the levers of power somehow naturally less reckless? Are they still so sensitive to the double standard that they police themselves more rigorously? Are they naturally less inclined to cheat, particularly in a way that will make them look utterly ridiculous?

The NYT tosses out several theories: Women are too busy doing a man's job and their own work to boot. Women run for office to do something, while men want to be somebody. Powerful men are sexual catnip to women, but powerful women do not enjoy the same effect on men. Are these patterns likely to change with the changing social mores? Will the future bring us more Paris Hiltons in office?

Rules for a Gunfight

Rules for a Gunfight

Home Prices in Gold

Home Prices in Gold

From Business Insider:

Pentecost:

Today is the feast of Pentecost. Pentecost was the greatest feast at Camelot, when Arthur would take no meat until he had seen a wonder. I have not read that he ever went hungry.

In Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'arthur, Pentecost is the date of the beginning of the quest for the Holy Grail.

Then anon they heard cracking and crying of thunder, that them thought the place should all to-drive. In the midst of this blast entered a sunbeam more clearer by seven times than ever they saw day, and all they were alighted of the grace of the Holy Ghost. Then began every knight to behold other, and either saw other, by their seeming, fairer than ever they saw afore. Not for then there was no knight might speak one word a great while, and so they looked every man on other as they had been dumb. Then there entered into the hall the Holy Grail covered with white samite, but there was none might see it, nor who bare it. And there was all the hall fulfilled with good odours, and every knight had such meats and drinks as he best loved in this world. And when the Holy Grail had been borne through the hall, then the holy vessel departed suddenly, that they wist not where it became: then had they all breath to speak.

This is the third time the Holy Grail has appeared in the book. On both of the previous occasions it is accompanied by a white dove, who carries a censer in its mouth that is the source of the good odors.

And anon there came in a dove at a window, and in her mouth there seemed a little censer of gold. And herewithal there was such a savour as all the spicery of the world had been there...

---

And so came in a white dove, and she bare a little censer of gold in her mouth, and there was all manner of meats and drinks; and a maiden bare that Sangreal, and she said openly: Wit you well, Sir Bors, that this child is Galahad, that shall sit in the Siege Perilous, and achieve the Sangreal, and he shall be much better than ever was Sir Launcelot du Lake, that is his own father. And then they kneeled down and made their devotions, and there was such a savour as all the spicery in the world had been there. And when the dove took her flight, the maiden vanished with the Sangreal as she came.

The dove appears another time, not with the grail, but with the other item from the Crucifixion that was alleged to have made its way to Britain in King Arthur's time.

And then Sir Bors seemed that there came the whitest dove with a little golden censer in her mouth. And anon therewithal the tempest ceased and passed, that afore was marvellous to hear. So was all that court full of good savours. Then Sir Bors saw four children bearing four fair tapers, and an old man in the midst of the children with a censer in his own hand, and a spear in his other hand, and that spear was called the Spear of Vengeance.

The dove motif belongs to the original context, though not obviously. The Holy Spirit is supposed to have descended upon the disciples in the form of tongues of fire; but the Holy Spirit is also regularly symbolized by a dove. Here is a design by an artist who is using the dove to symbolize the Holy Spirit in the context of Pentecost:



We have talked about Pentecost previously, in 2007, and 2010. I hope you had a fine feast.

Criminal Libel?

Criminal Libel?

How many of you knew there even was such a thing? (I didn't.)

From the interesting site Popehat, which I've just stumbled upon, comes this story of a professor who calls the cops on one of his students for a satire. The story has a happy ending.

A student blogger published a tongue-in-cheek forum ostensibly edited by "Junius Puke," featuring a masthead photo of one Junius Peake, an economics professor at the University of Northern Colorado, that had been altered by adding Kiss-makeup and a protruding tongue. The professor, not one to let insulting ridicule pass, managed to persuade a local deputy DA to get a warrant to search the blogger's home and computers for evidence of criminal libel under Colorado state law. Per The Fire:

Shockingly, under Colorado law, criminal libel is committed when people "knowingly publish or disseminate, either by written instrument, sign, pictures, or the like, any statement or object tending to ... impeach the honesty, integrity, virtue, or reputation or expose the natural defect of one who is alive, and thereby to expose him to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule." That law is so overbroad as to already violate the First Amendment. [The blogger] argued as much, especially because the truth is no defense to the charge that a publisher/writer exposed the natural defects of someone. See C.R.S. §18-13-105. However, the Tenth Circuit ultimately held that [the blogger] lacked standing to challenge the statute as a whole, and, to this day, a violation of Colorado's criminal libel statute carries a penalty of 12 to 18 months.

Still, the Tenth Circuit did uphold the blogger's right to sue for individual damage, overturning the federal district court's finding that the deputy DA was entitled to immunity from prosecution, because no reasonable law enforcement officer could have found that there was probable cause for the search warrant. Under established Tenth Circuit precedent, "parody and rhetorical hyperbole, which cannot reasonably be taken as stating actual fact, enjoys the full protection of the First Amendment and therefore cannot constitute the crime of criminal libel for purposes of a probable cause determination." On remand, the district court recently granted a summary judgment for personal liability against the deputy DA.

The professor was not named in the suit, but he no longer teaches at UNC, and we can only hope that this story follows him wherever he goes.

Here is a list of states, not including my own beloved Texas, with criminal libel statutes. Many of them include some element of a defamation so shocking as to provoke a breach of the peace.

Calcio Fiorentino:

Apparently the ancient Romans used to play this game. There was an interruption in the tradition, so the rules may not be precisely the same -- in spite of what the video suggests, there are at least three rules.

1) No kicking the head.
2) No sucker punches.
3) You score by throwing the ball over the enemy's wall.

Otherwise, boys, go to it and good luck. Head-butts, biting, choking, and eye-gouging are perfectly legal.



H/t: Our brothers at the BSBFB, of course. It reminds me of another thing 'those ancient Romans' used to do:



Yo!

I want one of these

I Want One:

A hoverbike that can reach 10,000 feet and 173 MPH. It can do this, if the claim is accurate, with an engine substantially smaller than my motorcycle's.

The expected introductory price is $40,000 -- a lot for a car, but not all that much for a private aircraft!

Bachmann

Michelle Bachmann for President:

The Wall Street Journal believes she is running, and so do I; for some time her fundraising emails have clearly intimated the intention to run. Sarah Palin has been running an obvious stalking horse "campaign" for some time, which means that she's been trying to draw fire from someone else: I suspect that Bachmann is that someone else. The recent sniping between a Bachmann advisor and Ms. Palin's camp is the sort of thing we'd expect to see with a stalking horse; the point of the action is to strategically communicate distance -- and suggest disagreement -- with the dark horse your stalking horse is protecting.

The importance of this approach to Rep. Bachmann's chances is the extraordinary success that opponents had in defining Sarah Palin. Rep. Bachmann will need nothing more than to avoid falling prey to the same systems of thought and rhetoric that were used to destroy Ms. Palin's chances. Today's interview with the WSJ shows her taking on the expected thrust directly.

Ms. Bachmann is best known for her conservative activism on issues like abortion, but what I want to talk about today is economics. When I ask who she reads on the subject, she responds that she admires the late Milton Friedman as well as Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams. "I'm also an Art Laffer fiend—we're very close," she adds. "And [Ludwig] von Mises. I love von Mises," getting excited and rattling off some of his classics like "Human Action" and "Bureaucracy." "When I go on vacation and I lay on the beach, I bring von Mises."

...

Her political opponents on the left portray her as a "she-devil," in her words, a caricature at odds with her life accomplishments. She's a mother of five, and she and her husband helped raise 23 teenage foster children in their home, as many as four at a time. They succeeded in getting all 23 through high school and later founded a charter school.

If you wanted to caricature the portrayal of Ms. Palin that was so effective in the media, you might say that it was 'three parts dumb to one part evil.' Rep. Bachmann, expecting to be portrayed as Sarah Palin II, is thus asserting an intellectual streak combined with a biography that is strongly pro-family and filled with acts of charity.

What to make of her choice of von Mises? My own favorite economist is Schumpeter, but von Mises will surely be reassuring to many of you. Here's the summation of "Bureaucracy":

[I]t would be a fateful error for the citizens to leave concern with economic studies to the professionals as their exclusive domain. As the main issues of present-day politics are essentially economic, such a resignation would amount to a complete abdication of the citizens for the benefit of the professionals. If the voters or the members of a parliament are faced with the problems raised by a bill concerning the prevention of cattle diseases or the construction of an office building, they may leave the discussion of the details to the experts. Such veterinarian and engineering problems do not interfere with the fundamentals of social and political life. They are important but not primary and vital. But if not only the masses but even the greater part of their elected representatives declare: “These monetary problems can only be comprehended by specialists; we do not have the inclination to study them; in this matter we must trust the experts,” they are virtually renouncing their sovereignty to the professionals. It does not matter whether or not they formally delegate their powers to legislate or not. At any rate the specialists outstrip them. The bureaucrats carry on.

The plain citizens are mistaken in complaining that the bureaucrats have arrogated powers; they themselves and their mandatories have abandoned their sovereignty. Their ignorance of fundamental problems of economics has made the professional specialists supreme. All technical and juridical details of legislation can and must be left to the experts. But democracy becomes impracticable if the eminent citizens, the intellectual leaders of the community, are not in a position to form their own opinion on the basic social, economic, and political principles of policies. If the citizens are under the intellectual hegemony of the bureaucratic professionals, society breaks up into two castes: the ruling professionals, the Brahmins, and the gullible citizenry. Then despotism emerges, whatever the wording of constitutions and laws may be.

Several of you could have written that (and, indeed, have written in my comments section minor variations of it at least several dozen times).

I haven't seen anything from the candidacy so far that I felt the least inclined to support; but I think that I shall back Rep. Bachmann in her run. I have disagreements with her on foreign policy (for example, I supported, and still do support, the Libya adventure). We have come far enough down the road that foreign policy is no longer the chief concern.

True

True Selves:

We all have different impulses competing for dominance, and a voice of reason trying to govern them -- or at least to prioritize and set means for obtaining those desired ends. How do we know which of these is our true self?

Yet, though there is a great deal of consensus on the importance of this ideal, there is far less agreement about what it actually tells us to do in any concrete situation. Consider again the case of Mark Pierpont. One person might look at his predicament and say: “Deep down, he has always wanted to be with another man, but he somehow picked up from society the idea that this desire was immoral or forbidden. If he could only escape the shackles of his religious beliefs, he would be able to fully express the person he really is.”

But then another person could look at exactly the same case and arrive at the very opposite conclusion: “Fundamentally, Pierpont is a Christian who is struggling to pursue a Christian life, but these desires he has make it difficult for him to live by his own values. If he ever gives in to them and chooses to sleep with another man, he will be betraying what was is most essential to the person he really is.”

The author points out that the philosophical tradition (which includes the Western religious tradition, here) is clear on the answer: and that most of humanity would really prefer the other answer.

If we look to the philosophical tradition, we find a relatively straightforward answer to this question. This answer, endorsed by numerous different philosophers in different ways, says that what is most distinctive and essential to a human being is the capacity for rational reflection. A person might find herself having various urges, whims or fleeting emotions, but these are not who she most fundamentally is. If you want to know who she truly is, you would have to look to the moments when she stops to reflect and think about her deepest values. Take the person fighting an addiction to heroin. She might have a continual craving for another fix, but if she just gives in to this craving, it would be absurd to say that she is thereby “being true to herself” or “expressing the person she really is.” On the contrary, she is betraying herself and giving up what she values most. This sort of approach gives us a straightforward answer in a case like Mark Pierpont’s. It says that his sexual desires are not the real him. If he loses control and gives in to these desires, he will be betraying his true self.

But when I mention this view to people outside the world of philosophy, they often seem stunned that anyone could ever believe it. They are immediately drawn to the very opposite view. The true self, they suggest, lies precisely in our suppressed urges and unacknowledged emotions, while our ability to reflect is just a hindrance that gets in the way of this true self’s expression. To find a moment when a person’s true self comes out, they think, one needs to look at the times when people are so drunk or overcome by passion that they are unable to suppress what is deep within them. This view, too, yields a straightforward verdict in a case like Pierpont’s. It says that his sexual desires are what is most fundamental to him, and to the extent that he is restraining them, he is not revealing the person he really is.

>In vino veritas!

There's an interesting discussion in the comments between advocates of the primal urge school, and advocates of having principles.

Libya rapes

Logos:

He said there were reports of hundreds of women attacked in some areas of Libya, which is in the grip of a months-long internal rebellion.

There was evidence the Libyan authorities bought "Viagra-type" medicines and gave them to troops as part of the official rape policy, Moreno-Ocampo said... "The rape is a new aspect of the repression. That is why we had doubts at the beginning, but now we are more convinced that he decided to punish using rape," the prosecutor said.

Agence France Presse, "Kadhafi 'ordered mass rapes' in Libya: ICC," June 9th, 2011.

Christian society found it necessary to transform chivalry, and in this way the knight himself was transformed into not only a defender of the Christian virtues, but into one who could be placed in the service of the defenseless, the needy, and the downtrodden.... As the Knight reads [in Ramon Lull's Book of the Order of Chivalry], we learn that God created the Order of Chivalry be cause the world was lacking in charity, loyalty, justice, and truth, for in deed, enmity, disloyalty, and injustice prevailed as well as falsehood.

Antonio Disalvo, "Ramon Lull and the Language of Chivalry," Mystics Quarterly (now called The Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures), vol. 14 no. 4: 199-200.

Bladework:

A reader sends this Czech master's page. That is remarkable work by a true artist.

Depletable Self-Control

Depletable Self-Control

"Why can't more poor people escape poverty? Psychologists have a radical new explanation," reports The New Republic. In the 1990s, studies suggested that exerting willpower in one context made it more difficult to exert it in others soon afterwards. Hungry subjects, for instance, were offered a choice between radishes and chocolate; the half who were instructed to take the radishes were found to be less able than the control group to focus on a difficult geometry problem. (Or maybe they were just too hungry?) The conclusion: exerting self-control exacts a psychic cost and leaves you weaker.

Later researchers expanded the concept to include any kind of trade-off decision, not merely a difficult resistance to temptation. Resolving conflicts among choices creates mental fatigue. Princeton psychologist Eldar Shafir then extended the theory to explain why the poor stay poor: when you lack disposable income, you can't have everything you want, but have to choose to do without an alternative almost every time you spend a dollar. As a result, the poor get tired brains and can't get ahead. But if you're rich, "deciding whether to buy the [product] only requires considering whether you want it, not what you might have to give up to get it."

I find this logic hard to follow. For one thing, the rich are if anything overwhelmed by choice, simply because they have the income to buy so many things beyond the kind of basic necessities whose purchase can be put on something like autopilot. For another, there seems to be no evidence that people who've managed to lift themselves out of poverty are mysteriously possessed of a larger store of this precious, depletable stock of willpower.

And naturally the theory lends itself to a justification of exerting additional control over the people who are unlucky enough to become the objects of our charity:

All of this suggests that we need to rethink our approaches to poverty reduction. Many of our current anti-poverty efforts focus on access to health, educational, agricultural, and financial services. Now, it seems, we need to start treating willpower as a scarce and important resource as well. . . . [M]oney itself can go a long way toward altering the dynamic that leads to willpower depletion among the poor. Government transfers of money have proven successful in Mexico and Brazil, for instance. In particular, attaching conditions to these transfers—such as requiring school attendance, regular clinic visits, and savings behavior—may allow for an end-run around the kind of willpower-based poverty traps that too frequently seem to end with the poor making unwise decisions.

H/t Maggie's Farm

The Deadbeat Dad

Deadbeat Dad Who Represents Himself Has a Fool for a Client

I guess the family court judge had had just about enough of this guy, who was rash enough to go pro se. He got $14,000 behind in his $400/month child-support payments, and must have mouthed off once too often about the things he thought he needed to spend money on that were more important. The judge ruled that he couldn't spend another dime on the following items until he got current:

• alcoholic beverages
• cigarettes or any tobacco products
• food or drink of any kind from a restaurant, bar, or tavern
• cell phone
• television
• computer
• any electronic device, except medical equipment
• DVD, DVR, digital music or digital movie
• recreational vehicle
• recreational licenses of any kind, including hunting and fishing licenses
• movie tickets
• recreational event tickets
• airfare or train fare
• health club membership
• sporting goods of any kind
• ammunition, guns, or firearms
• fishing equipment
• camping or hiking equipment
• jewelry
• magazines
• newspapers
• cable or satellite TV service
• Internet service
• campground site
• hotel room
• any interest in real property, except his primary residence

He can still buy the following items, but only if he gets the Probation Department's prior written permission:

• clothing
• furniture
• appliances
• motor vehicles
• household materials for renovations, except emergency repairs
• books

I wonder whether it isn't a better idea to stick to the traditional penalty of "pay up or go to jail." It's never a good idea for a judge to be this involved in the details of someone's life. On the other hand, when it comes to listening to the endless stream of necessities that people will put before their obligation to cover basic needs and obligations, I feel the judge's pain.

Law and Order

Law and Order

I've been inspired by Grim's discussions of lawlessness, as well as his friend's wake, to use this space to memorialize our small neighborhood's excellent County Commissioner, who died suddenly last week at the age of 63. Murph was a public servant of just the sort I revere: patient, responsive to his constituents, frugal, modest, and warm-hearted without being any kind of a pushover. He was methodical and patient about plowing through legal and bureaucratic complications.

Nothing in Murph's background would have made you guess he'd have taken on this kind of headache when he retired. He never attended college. After serving in the Army in Viet Nam, he lived and worked here for decades as a superlative phone installation man. Then he became the kind of public servant who makes it possible for communities to maintain order without drowning themselves in government.

Murph's district for the last nine years was our little peninsula at the northern extreme of the county, cut off from the rest of the county by Copano Bay, with nothing much between us and the northern horizon but cotton fields and the national wildlife refuge. We call it "Lamar," and Murph started the tradition a while back of calling its residents "LaMartians." It lies outside the city limits of either of the two main towns in the county, and traditionally hasn't had much truck with government, local or otherwise. At Murph's funeral last week, the County Attorney reminisced about their early collaboration on his dock on the local bay. The CA had obtained a building permit but allowed it to expire, and was having the dickens of a time getting an extension. Murph finally said, "Heck, Jim, this is Lamar. Let's just build it." The state ultimately got around to assessing a fine, but it was only half what the permit extension would have cost.

On the other hand, Murph was prepared to use the law to protect nature in the form it takes here on the Coastal Bend of Texas. His favorite projects tended to be useful and cost-effective little pocket parks or public boat ramps that made it possible for fishermen to get their boats in the water in a pleasant setting that was equally suitable for picnics. Shortly before his death, Murph got the Commissioners Court to pass a somewhat controversial ordinance restricting landowners' ability to cut down oak trees on their own property -- oak trees being one of this county's claims to fame along our otherwise fairly treeless coast. The County Attorney challenged Murph, asking whether he seriously intended the new measure to apply in lawless Lamar. "If I call you and tell you that some troublesome old oak tree on my property fell down in the night, are you going to sic the cops on me?" he asked. Murph considered, then replied, "The leaves on that tree had better be brown."

Murph had a bad ticker. Several weeks ago, the warning signs became grave. But when his doctors advocated more invasive surgery, he said, "I don't think I want that. I think I'll go on and go to Heaven."

Well done, thou good and faithful servant.

Aieeee -- a Balrog

Aieeee -- a Balrog

The Puyehue volcano in Chile:

The linked Atlantic article has twenty more of these amazing pictures. Don't miss them.

As stunning as these images are now, imagine their impact on prehistoric man.

When the System Works

When the System Works

I know you've probably all heard about this case by now. Someone at Bank of America authorized a foreclosure on a house that had once had a mortgage on it, but apparently had been bought for cash at a short sale, free of the lien. When the bank filed suit, the new owners pointed out that they weren't liable on the mortgage. Somehow or other, the bank didn't agree, or didn't check, and in the end the homeowners not only won the suit but got a judgment against the bank for their costs of legal defense, about $6,000. Then, continuing with its policy of not getting it together, the bank refused to answer phone calls or letters for five months. So the couple's lawyer got a judgment lien and executed on it -- by showing up at the bank branch with sheriff's deputies, and asking them to grab computers and copiers and whatever cash was in the till. Within the hour, the bank manager had figured out how to write a check for the amount of the judgment. Hey, it turns out it really is possible to resolve this dispute! No hard feelings! The bank even apologized in a letter to the Naples News:

"We apologize to Mr. Nyegres that there was a delay in receiving the funds," Christina Beyer wrote in a statement to the Naples News. "The original request went to an outside attorney who is no longer in business."

The defense lawyer was identified as Todd Allen of Collier County, Florida, and I believe this is his firm's website. Good job, Mr. Allen.

To give you an idea of why publicity over this case should give heartburn to bigwigs at BofA, my mother-in-law mentioned last night that she had heard Bank of America was about to be closed down, and she wondered if she should move her bank account.

H/t Megan McArdle

Malaysian Club

Malaysian "Good Wives' Club"

I'd like to put this story from Malaysia before our female readers and commenters.

"Islam compels us to be obedient to our husband. Whatever he says, I must follow. It is a sin if I don't obey and make him happy," said Ummu, who wore a yellow headscarf.

The club, founded by a fringe Islamic group known as Global Ikhwan, has been dismissed by politicians and activists as a throwback to Medieval times and an insult to modern women of Malaysia. But the group's activities, which previously included the setting up of a Polygamy Club, show that pockets of conservative Islamic ideas still thrive in Malaysia.

I love that the "Polygamy Club" is a hotbed of conservative thinking; and I'm quite sure that frank and open talk about sexuality by women, in public, isn't a throwback to Medieval times. For that matter, Islam was much better to women in Medieval times than it was in either its early period or the current one: see, for example, Catarina Belo's excellent article on the Medieval Islamic philosopher Averroes and his views on the role of women in society.

However -- beyond strongly encouraging you to take the time to read the Averroes article in full -- I'm not proposing to lead the discussion. We see similar proposals (minus, alas, the polygamy) from Christian groups from time to time. What's the value of them? How much is good advice, and how much is not?