An individual in the Battle Ground area has gone nuts with a pretty spectacular Christmas light show he has dubbed Christmas on Greenview Drive. (Map). He has the lights synchronized with music and has a little micro-broadcast going on so you can hear the music on your car stereo when you’re outside of the residence. Not sure how his neighbors feel about all of this, but the show is pretty cool. Harper told me she thought it looked like “the lights are laughing.”

Donations are accepted and passed along to local charities. A sample:

2008 Christmas on Greenview – Wizards in Winter from Chris Hoover on Vimeo.

The fine folks at Arni’s are really solid members of the Lafayette community. The latest example of this is a “percentage night” they are holding for the benefit of Legal Aid of Tippecanoe County. On December 16, 2008 from 5:00 to 8:00, Arni’s has indicated that it will donate a percentage of its profits at its Market Square store (map) for the evening to Legal Aid.

It is the mission of Legal Aid to provide legal services for people who cannot afford it themselves in civil, non-fee generating cases — for example, CHINS cases (children in need of services; could involve termination of parental rights). The theory is that our legal system only works if people believe, by and large, that they are getting a fair shake. That belief erodes when they do not have a lawyer and simply get steam-rolled by the system or perceive that is what is happening to them. Ultimately we all benefit from a stable legal system; and organizations such as legal aid contribute to that stability. So, I would encourage anyone in the area to come out to Arni’s at Market Square on the evening 12/16/08 (next Tuesday), enjoy some good food, and help out Legal Aid.

I’ll probably be re-posting this periodically throughout the next week.

Getting in the holiday spirit:

My annual Pearl Harbor post.

This is the 67th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese Imperial Navy. Wikipedia has a pretty good entry.

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The Imperial Japanese Navy made its attack on Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941. The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii, was aimed at the Pacific Fleet of the United States Navy and its defending Army Air Corps and Marine air forces. The attack damaged or destroyed twelve U.S. warships, destroyed 188 aircraft, and killed 2,403 American servicemen and 68 civilians. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto planned the raid as the start of the Pacific Campaign of World War II, and it was commanded by Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, who lost 64 servicemen. However, the Pacific Fleet’s three aircraft carriers were not in port and so were undamaged, as were oil tank farms and machine shops. Using these resources the United States was able to rebound within six months to a year. The U.S. public saw the attack as a treacherous act and rallied strongly against the Japanese Empire, resulting in its later defeat.

When you think about it, it’s pretty remarkable that it took us only 1,347 days from being sucker punched on 12/7/1941 to having defeated the combined might of the Axis powers by VJ Day – August 15, 1945; a span of 3 years, 8 months, and 8 days.

If I were an arms dealer, I would be scaring the hell out of potential customers with the tales of the coming Democrat peril. “The Dummycrats are comin’ for your guns! Buy now, buy now!”

Not sure if that’s what’s happening, but Betsy Reason, writing for the Indianapolis Star, has an article entitled “Hoosiers snapping up guns, ammo: Some Hoosiers, fearing Democratic restrictions, are rushing to buy firearms and ammunition.” But, if these folks have extra money sitting around and that’s how they want to use it, who am I to judge?

A news article indicates that the Bush administration very well might try to get its hands on the second half of the $700 billion Congress designated for financial bailouts. I’ll admit, I’m less certain that the bailouts are the wrong thing to do than I was certain that invading Iraq was the wrong thing to do, but the dynamics were fairly similar: “CRISIS! DO THIS NOW NOW NOW NOW!” And Congress stampedes mostly in a bipartisan fashion in whatever direction the Bush administration pushes them. Then, predictably, there is little to no transparency about where the money is going.

I suspect without knowing that the Bush administration approach to this financial crisis has some “starve the beast” impulses. “Starve the beast” is the notion that, if the government spends enough and goes broke enough, it will have to retract out of financial necessity. Nevermind that it’s a little like trying to lose weight by first getting morbidly obese.

Near as we can figure, the bailout money is going only to the financial service industry and not to parts of the economy where middle class citizens actually build stuff. Maybe there are legitimate reasons for this, but there has been at least a whiff of class warfare. When manufacturers come to Congress asking for money, there is a lot of talk about union workers making too much money and questions about executives travel arrangements. When banks come asking, there is little discussion about the income packages of its employees or of the bank CEO’s travel arrangements. (Perhaps because they were coming from the east coast instead of the midwest.)

I also suspect that there is some last minute plundering going on, some smash and grab before Obama takes office which may have the additional benefit of hindering him from going all FDR on the country. There are some families in this country who were deeply scarred by FDR and the changes he made in this country. I wouldn’t be surprised if George H.W. and Barbara scared a young George Bush with bedtime stories about That Man in the White House coming to get him if he didn’t behave. No doubt, variations of progressive horror stories passed down from the Rockefellers and Harrimans to Samuel Bush and then to Senator Prescott Bush and thence to President George I.

Just speculation on my part, of course.

Balloon-Juice has a nice explanation of the auto industry’s current situation in play form. The gist is this:

Big 3: I need Labor to build cars.
Labor: I would like to work for you but need $40/hour to save for my inevitable retirement and health needs.

Big 3: We will not pay you $40, but will pay you $30 and promise to pay for retirement and health costs.
Labor: Deal.

Big 3: Here are some car designs folks may or may not want to buy. Please build them.
Labor: Roger that.

The auto companies do not save to pay for their health and retirement obligations. The cars don’t sell as well as they had hoped. Mitt Romney blames labor.

The Internet is really changing the flow of information in some respects. That’s kind of a “duh” statement, I realize. But sometimes it just crashes down on you fresh. Today’s example is that I went to the Journal & Courier website and saw a breaking news story reporting that a body had been found at Purdue. The information provided was fairly cursory. Presumably the police don’t want to give too much information to the news media while the investigation is ongoing and, if they have, the Journal and Courier wants to confirm information before it goes publishing an official news story. The basic information is that a body was found outside of Hawkins Grad House near the loading dock by a service worker at 5:30 a.m.

Then I wandered over to Twitter where one of the people I follow is former Boilermaker Girlinblack. She clearly ties into the Purdue information stream more closely than I do and therefore had noticed comprehensive updates on the situation being posted by Tameraclark. One of the posts was a link to a picture with captions indicating someone’s observations that LED flashlights and camera flashes have been observed at a certain window and flashlights from the loading dock area have been pointed up at that particular window.

It puts me in mind of one of the themes from Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon. In that book, the Allies have cracked one of the main encryption schemes of the Axis. They want to act on the information from the cracked code, but they want to do it in such a way that they do not in turn provide information to the Axis revealing that the code has been cracked. They have to put up decoys; they have to gin up alternate explanations for how they came about the information that the Germans can “discover.” They have to refrain from acting on some of the decoded messages.

Information flows in a lot of ways that aren’t immediately obvious. This Purdue situation is just a reminder that new technology makes it flow in even more ways.

Every darn year, I forget to clear out before the snow flies. This year was no exception. And, of course, it seems like every year, a non-trivial percentage of the Hoosier population forgets how to drive in the ice and snow. As it turns out, most years, ice and snow on the ground reduce the friction available to slow or stop your vehicle. As a result, you have to allow more time to do these things. Now, don’t be fooled — the friction isn’t reduced to zero or anywhere close to it, so you don’t need to keep a city block between you and the next person and you can generally go faster than 5 mph.

Also, milk and toilet paper haven’t become completely unavailable at any time I can remember. So, you probably don’t need to get a 6 month supply in anticipation of the year’s first dusting.