Bluebird of happiness

Link of the Day. :)

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cognative.livejournal.com

close enough!! :)

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With due respect, I think both you and Mr. Sullivan have really missed the boat here. This is a distraction, a performing monkey, a sort of political Matrix, if you will. This is, and has been, the single biggest problem IMHO with the way professional analysts and armchair politicos have attempted to decompose America over the last several years.

The vast bulk of conservatives are NOT hung up on morality and virtue -- even the religious nutjobs! It's a convenient pidgeonhole to cram them into when you have to assemble poll questions. Take the opposite side:

* The environmental activism movement is most active in California, and is largely considered a rallying point of the liberal left. Which state has the worst air quality in the USA? California! (http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2002-05-01-air-quality.htm) Compared with Laredo Texas, in the heart of Texas oil country, with one of the lowest. So which state is the most active environmentally?

Ooooooh! Gotcha gotcha... Er... No. It's hardly representative of anything, other than the fact that you can grossly generalize any given situation, and then find outliers on either end to justify a "shocking" pre-arranged conclusion.

Many conservatives want a polite, moral, god-fearing country where babies are always born into loving families -- and then look the other way when their pastor's daughter gets divorced and ends up living with Billy Bob in a trailer on the edge of town. Many liberals want a fair, productive society where everyone has jobs and nobody is left without -- and then advance agendas and laws that are virtually guaranteed to shutter businesses and decrease employment. Both are hypocritical, and both are vastly oversimplified as arguments.

Ideologically, there are only two driving factors in American politics that I am aware of -- Federalism and Socialism. For the most part, any given human either wants less government presence in everything, or more government support in their lives. Beyond that -- issues, morals, and beyond are all simply functions of who you listen to, how much research you're willing to do, and how gullible you are.

There are liberals out there who will scream bloody murder to protect a woman's right to an abortion -- when they have never had one, nor have any intention to ever have one -- and so will vote for a liberal candidate who will enact environmental laws that put their father's tannery out of business, and drop the family into receivership. They are willing to take an abstract concept with no personal applicability and make decisions patently against their own self-interest because they desire a particular outcome.

In the same way, when a pollster asks a born-again Christian whether they believe in divorce, of COURSE they're going to say "no", because it is an abstract goal that they want to wrap themselves in so they can sleep at night and feel deep-down like they're a "real Christian." But, it's not going to stop them from walking out on Billy Bob when he comes home drunk and lights their dog on fire.

So, fundamentally, you either WANT the government to do something, and vote that way. Or, you want the government to shut the heck up and go away, and you vote that way. Neither Republican nor Democrat can be considered to fall cleanly into the bounds of Federalism or Socialism, and so you end up with Minnesotans voting Democrat, and Floridians voting Republican. Frankly, I don't think most people have any CLUE about what they're voting for, and so they simply latch on to whichever voice cuts most clearly through the storm, and mindlessly do what it tells them.

Don't ever confuse ideology with self-interest. They're utterly incompatible. Just as Texans might get more divorces, if billions of barrels of oil were found on Bill Clinton's property in upstate NY, I'll bet you that somehow it would suddenly become environmentally sound in the political mainstream to drop a well to it. Andrew Sullivan utterly missed the point.

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question: who ever intends to have an abortion unless they are pregnant and thus are faced with the decision of whether to continue or terminate the pregnancy?
i personally don't intend to ever have an abortion, but that's because i intend to avoid having an unplanned pregnancy
now, if i had an unplanned pregnancy, then i'd have to evaluate my options, but i don't know if i'd have an abortion or not
all i want as a pro-choice advocate is the right to evaluate my options and consider abortion as one of them should i have an unplanned pregnancy
in that sense, i feel i'm voting with my own best interests in mind
it's just a shame that chances are, most people have to give up some issues that they feel are important to support the other issues they feel are important

other than that, very interesting points (:

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I agree with you. But, show me where it says you have the right to have an abortion in your own backyard. I don't see a darn thing wrong with having to load up the El Dorado and drive over to the next county -- or even the next State (or 6 states!) -- to get an abortion. I 100% concur with a woman's right to choose, but I also concur with any given community's right to set their own standards. Barring the medical-emergency variety, which I don't think is even at issue, if Susie Joe from Arkansas can afford the abortion in the first place, she can certainly tack on the $39 Grayhound fare up to Virginia.

It cuts both ways as well! I utterly disagree with the way the anti-gay-marriage issue is being handled. If Cleveland Heights wants to recognize Domestic Partnerships, and got 51% of registered voters to agree with them, it's not Ohio's place to tell them to shove it.

See comment below... when you get government involved in an issue, you have to take the good with the bad. Give them the ability to regulate one side of an argument, and you've tacitly given them the ability to regulate the other side of it as well...

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i recognize that this would probably fall into the socialist category, but i don't see why it should be so hard for one woman to get an abortion, and so easy for another, just because of where they live
i don't see why just because one woman has easy access and is given good information, while the other woman is not, that other woman has to pay more (greyhound, place to stay, possibly more time off work, increased fees for later abortions, etc) and jump through more hoops (finding where the nearest clinic is, making arrangements to get there, and so on) to get what she wants or needs
these two women may both be adamantly pro-choice, and may live in very pro-choice areas, but that's no good if there's no provider in one woman's area
i know, life just isn't fair, but the idealist in me wishes that it were

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cos

It doesn't fall into the "socialist" category. To do so you'd have to shoehorn a lot of stuff into that duality that just doesn't fit. There are some things that duality can address, and plenty of others that it cannot.

To begin with, talking about what "should" be, or what is better or worse, is very different from talking about what government should do about it. And talking about whether or not government should do anything about it at all, is different from talking about which level of government should act, what kinds of actions are appropriate or out of line for government to take, and given those restrictions, which actions government actually should take.

It would be "socialist" for government to say that everyone has a right to access to a nearby abortion clinic, and hence set up government funded clinics in every county. It would similarly be "socialist" for government to say that everyone has a right to local police protection and access to a nearby court, and set up government funded police departments in every town and courts in every county.

On the other hand, if government merely said that people who want to run abortion clinics shouldn't be legally prevented from doing so, and left it to the "market" to provide nearby or faraway clinics, would that be "socialist"? How would it differ from government banning the clinics? Or heavily regulating them? Or allowing local groups to harass the clinics, or trying to protect them from harassment? Does it matter if the decision is made at the local, county, or state level? What mix of municipal, county, and state policy counts as "socialist" or not?

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in canada, abortions are treated as any other surgical procedure
there's no law explicitly addressing abortion, nothing saying that it is legal or illegal
in that case, i'd say their approach is "federalist"
however, in between that set-up and the "socialist" set-up with the government ensuring safe access would be a lot of fuzzy gray area where neither label is completely applicable

my personal preferences just tend to land on the socialist end of the spectrum when it comes to abortion, i think (:

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What are the boundaries on acceptable standards for a community to set? Is it okay for communities to have standards like, "It is all right to torture and murder black people"? How about "only males possessing at least a certain amount of land will be allowed to vote"? Or "it is legal to marry any female of any age and proceed to have intercourse with her, given parental consent"? Or how about "to speak ill of the ruling party is a crime punishable by death"?

If one is to hold to any notion of intrinsic rights, federalism must have boundaries; I'm curious where you place yours.

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ukelele.livejournal.com

Have you been reading up on Roman law or something?

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*heh* No, but I did spend the last couple weeks reading I, Claudius (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/067972477X/qid=1102609560/sr=8-2/ref=pd_csp_2/104-6007222-8725551?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) in my spare time ;)

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it's a grotesque exaggeration to say that the split is geographical, or correlated with blue and red states.

(Which, I think is what your first 5 paragraphs are about)

after that, you say,

"Ideologically, there are only two driving factors in American politics that I am aware of -- Federalism and Socialism."

I interpreted that to be a wholly new topic, because it seems to be fairly disconnected from what preceded it. Anyway, I'd argue that this is a vast simplification: There's certainly a strong element of more/less government involvement in american politics, but it's a bit naive to argue that these are the only forces. There's definite consideration of where government should be applied, and a fairly large argument on "how."

Beyond that, I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to say: at first you argue that federalism/socialism are the driving forces in american politics, and then you give a few anecdotes that, well, don't really seem to be related. And then you posit that voters don't really know what they're voting for, which seemed to toss what you've said on its side.

I liked the Billy Bob story, though. That was cute.

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not really - unless I'm interpreting the article with more of a personal slant than I realize, Sullivan is making the point that voters are hypocritical because they don't practice what they preach. His follow-up statement to your quote was "Many of America's biggest "sinners" are those most intent on upholding virtue."

It's not that they're hypocrites. In most cases, it's because they've become so myopic on a handful of issues that they have to look for personally convenient ways to justify all the other associated outcomes that go against their stated desires. The left-side argument again would be: protect the pygmy owl, put a few thousand paper-industry laborers out of work. The voters didn't _intend_ to dump everyone onto welfare, it just came part-and-parcel with their primary hot-button issue -- protect the pygmy owl.

As for the second point, I suppose I didn't connect it well, but it's not a new topic. The core point is that voter mono-vision is what causes the discrepancies between what voters say they want, and what actually occurs in their districts after the fact. Government is a large, unwieldy machine. Tweak something over here, and something else pops loose over there. Voters generally don't know what they're voting for. They see Joe Montana on TV advocating a 1% inventory tax hike to pay for a spiffy new football stadium. They don't see the resulting half-dozen manufacturing facilities that close up and relocate out-of-state over the next 12 months, unless they happen to be one of the folks who gets laid off. The road to Hell, good intentions, etc etc etc...

Thus the Federalism/Socialism argument. The only way to eliminate the action/reaction trap and reduce the perceived hypocrisy is to swing Federalist -- if the government isn't involved in a process at all, then it can't very well muck about with any primary aspect of it for better OR worse. We find ourselves where we are because expanding government (swinging thusly to Socialist doctrine) creates inherent dichotomy in outcomes. Recent example: Campaign Finance Reform. We implement it to make the system "more fair" and end up with 527's out the wazoo causing arguably more confusion and problems than we had before we started. All-in-all voters and politicians alike end up running around like a herd of little Dutch boys, frantically shoving their fingers into holes in the dyke.

The bigger government gets, the more everyone focuses on a zillion issues that are merely symptoms of the larger, unattended problem. The result is a confusing mish-mosh of competing interests and stated desires where apparent hypocrisy and inefficiency rules supreme. Is there an easy cure? Doubtful.

Hence, the point. Because many Americans feel better about themselves by being "issues voters," we all live with surprising and/or unpleasant results when reality fails to line up along issue lines. If you don't want hypocrisy in the system, then don't try and legislate a one-size-fits-all solution for a set of wildly varying personas. Defer the issue down to a more granular level (state, local, etc...) and, like all else in nature, policy will find its own regional equilibrium, and then the majority of blue states will deliver blue outcomes, and likewise the reds.

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another question: there are lots of people who vote for federalist issues, like voting against creating government definitions of marriage
where does that land in this apparent swing towards socialism?

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There's instances on both sides of the aisle, but given the current state of pork-barrel politics, both parties are (by my given definition) socialists.

Everyone is a Federalist when you're losing. I'd be unsurprised to see Democrats start screaming "States' Rights! States' Rights!" in the near future if they continue losing elections. It seems that whoever is in power just now is only interested in expanding the scope of government. I would posit that it's because voter myopia is so widespread and obvious that most politicians DO rest assured that if they can focus a substantial amount of voter attention on emotional, yet comparatively unimportant, issues, then they can have free reign on everything else. For the most part, they've been correct.

Bear in mind -- Socialist doctrine revolves around everyone being equal. But, it doesn't set where that "equality" bar is. The left wants everyone to be middle-class and drive sensible hybrid cars. The right wants everyone to be heterosexuals and place personal responsibility above all else. Take your pick -- they're still tring to legislate equality.

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my interpretation of what darlox was trying to say is that the liberal and the born again christian in her entry both wanted the government to do something about [issue] --> push towards socialism
they hear that [candidate] wants the government to do something about [issue] and so they vote for [candidate], regardless of whether or not what they heard is accurate or will happen if [candidate is elected], just because they think [issue] is important
however, if actually faced with a practical application of [issue], the person will choose to do whatever is best for him or her, regardless of how he or she might have voted
in that sense, they don't really "know" what they're voting on, because there are a lot of people who vote on issues that they don't experience

i think that kind of ties together everything, but i have no idea if it makes sense d:

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kirin

Hmm. Although you have some good points, I'm unconvinces that Federalism vs. Socialism is much more useful than any other broad, over-generalized dichotomy. Personally, I'm almost equally likely to swing Federalist or Socialist depending on the individual issue at hand. Give me a stock political quiz and I may register as anything from Green to Libertarian with the right set of questions. *shrug* Then again, I suppose it's fairly impossible to theorize about national-level politics without generalizations.

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See my reply to

drspiff below for my thoughts on apparent contradictions in data; your California-and-the-environment story may be an excellent example of the same. (Or it may just be coincidence.)

I think your idea that Federalism and Socialism are the only ways to understand government ignores a lot of facts about American politics. It's true that traditionally, "leftist" means "preferring government intervention" and "rightist" means "preferring no government intervention" - but this simply isn't the way that our political spectrum is oriented; it's tilted ninety degrees. (I speak now of Democrats and Republicans as I know them - the positions they espouse naturally change as interest groups wax and wane in power, and my understanding is that the Republicans have changed quite a bit in the last ten or twenty years, and are still changing. Presumably Democrats will soon do the same.) Democrats have, for the last n decades, been the party of personal freedom and financial restriction - government of the wallet but not of the bedroom. Republicans have been the inverse - government of the bedroom but not of the wallet. Who do you have to vote for if you want personal freedom AND financial freedom? The Libertarians, who, by my estimate, are somewhere between misguided and insane. (I don't have the time to write about why I think that's true because I have to run off to office hours.) The two-dimensional view of political space has been talked about a lot by people more insightful than me; there is a long article here (http://www.friesian.com/quiz.htm) that I haven't fully read that might provide some insight, or at least some pretty pictures. (This guy seems to think there are actually three dimensions; I don't know yet whether I believe him.)

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Wow... this is spooky. Check out my LJ. I posted earlier today what sounds like the exact same thing, within certain limits.

Whoa.

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"this is why libertarians are great."

"liberals and conservatives are bad"

"we're the only people who respect the constitution"

"did I mention libertarians are great?"

"the founding fathers were libertarians."

At one point, he actually equates David Nolan (one of the founders of the libertarian party) with Ayn Rand and Thomas Jefferson. That? Right. The association between the 1st two is fine (I never liked Ayn Rand much. Even when I was libertarian). But Jefferson? Jefferson was no angel. That does not, however, make him Ayn Rand

I'm actually only halfway through it. Now I'm reading a section on how everyone is a libertarian (they just don't know it).

Which, fine. Libertarian sentiment is fine (more freedom, less government, yay). But the libertarian party in the US? With their "if I slap a free market on it, it'll be OK?"

I'm sure I just offended the entire libertarian party, and all the objectivists you know.

Umm. Sorry... :-)

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Heh, yeah - my main point was to try to illustrate the two-dimensional space idea for

darlox, who seemed not to have heard of it, and it was the first likely link Google turned up; I read the actual article afterward and was, uh, maybe a little embarrassed to have linked to it. ;)

I actually don't hate Ayn Rand, though; I think that her novels are best viewed as allegorical morality plays - they make you want to be like the heroes, live life to the fullest, take the stairs instead of the elevator, work hard instead of wasting time on LJ ;) (you see how well this has worked for me, neh?). Of course, Rand's failing was that she didn't see her ideas as allegorical at all; she fancied herself a Dagny-style heroine, and was quite unreasonably proud of having had her work published. My knee-jerk reaction to this hubris is to say that people who categorize people into the worthy people and the leeches are to be despised and pitied - but then of course, the whole point of not categorizing people is that to do so misses vast quantities of good; the arrogant often have something to offer the world, as do the ones they would call leeches - perhaps in spite of themselves.

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cos

I agree that the red state/blue state concept is a distraction, and generally not useful when looking at Americans' political views (see my comment below). However,

a) Your essay would be more convincing if it wasn't dripping with a strident environmentalism vs. jobs attitude, which really put me off. You seem to take it as an article of faith, and it's something I don't even agree with (let alone consider it beyond debate). The way you use it as an underpinning of much of what you say, will put off any reader who doesn't buy the concept, and undermine everything else you're trying to say.

b) Federalism vs. Socialism is one of many, many, idealized political divides that play roles in American political thought. Like many other dualities, it's one potentially useful way of looking at things, when used in conjunction with other ways of looking at them. It's as far from being a complete characterization of American political ideologies as it is from being a characterization of what our major political parties are about.

On the other hand, the theory that American politics is primarily about Federalism vs. Socialism, is one pretty good explanation of the beliefs of the Libertarian Party. So I do hear people expound this theory from time to time, but when someone says that to me, what I hear is "I'm a Libertarian".

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tiurin.livejournal.com

One problem with simplifying things to this dichotomy is that many liberals I know- which probably includes me- are in favor of the minimal amount of government that we think that a country can get away with.

However, what each individual person thinks is a reasonable "minimal amount" differs greatly, along with how much people as individuals are actually capable of doing sans government(i.e. defense from foreign invasions, for example).

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leora.livejournal.com

By their fruits you will know them.

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drspiff.livejournal.com

Sullivan is really unique among conservative commentators in that I can often at least agree with the facts he uses as a premise. The conclusions he draws are often hit or miss. While the facts are interesting (because they buck percieved trends), I'm not sure if he had a point. The only conclusion I could draw is that people who vote based on "morality" will abandon such principles when they conflict with self interest (except when it means voting for a Democrat). No surprise to me.

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I think it's a mistake to interpret the apparent paradox as a sign of hypocrisy - in fact, that's primarily what I took away from the article. His point was that simple caricatures of the South as filled with Bible-thumping clones of Ned Flanders are way, way off. My best guess about the data is that people who live in areas where a particular social ill is widespread are going to be more attuned to it, and place more importance on getting rid of it. AFAIK there's nothing to support the notion that the people visiting porn shops are the ones clamoring to have them burned to the ground (Bill O'Reilly notwithstanding - heh); if I tell you that 30% of people in Alabama want to kill gays to keep marriage holy and 30% of people in Alabama have had at least two divorces, you can't conclude anything about whether these sets overlap.

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cos

I've seen the statistics about divorce rates quoted and linked in lots of liberal blogs and even many anti-christian-right conservatives recently. In the meantime, lots of right wing sources, which hardly ever even refer to the existence of this particular bit of info, are repeating references and links to the generosity index that shows how charitable giving as compared to available wealth is much much higher the redder the state. To them, of course, this means Republicans are generous and Democrats are misers.

I don't think "red state / blue state" is even slightly useful as a model of American political divides, or of characterizing groups of people and their beliefs. The difference between Illinois and Indiana, that makes one so uncontestedly blue and the other so uncontestedly red, is Chicago. People in Indiana and Illinois aren't very different. If Cleveland were as big as Chicago, Ohio would be Illinois, but if Cleveland disappeared, Ohio would be Indiana.

The red/blue state concept is, however, useful as a model of what sets of policies are more likely to be adopted by states. It indicates what's practical at the capitol, based on the political mix in the state. And that's where I'd look for possible explanations of these apparent paradoxes. For example, applying my political views, I'd posit these explanations (I don't know if they're true, they just make sense to me):
Blue states tend to enact government-sponsored economic supports for poorer people. The main cause of divorce is financial stress. In red states, financial stress is more prevalent (more poverty) and it is more likely to lead to a breakup (less government support for financially stressed families). These same factors - more poor people, suffering more for their poverty - could also stimulate more charitable giving. In blue states, people instead pay higher taxes, and let government take on more of the task of helping people. (And, I believe, that works out a lot better!)

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You mentioned "The main cause of divorce is financial stress," which seemed to make sense to me. Then, I wondered if it was true, so I hopped on my web browser and rode over to google. I found this:

http://www.csus.edu/indiv/a/andersenj/Research/FinancialProblems.pdf (http://www.csus.edu/indiv/a/andersenj/Research/FinancialProblems.pdf)

From the abstract:

The results indicated statistically significant relationships between financial problems and divorce. However, none of the independent variables (singularly or in combination) explained more than 5% of the variance in divorce; financial problems were inadequate predictors of divorce.

Now, I'm not saying this is the be-all and end-all of divorce research -- just that the popular wisdom may not be entirely accurate.

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feuervogel

But if you look at the set [divorces] and the subset [causes], does it look any different? That is to say, not trying to use financial troubles as a predictor of divorce, but looking at the frequency of divorces caused by financial troubles.

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So, you're saying "look at the subset of divorces caused by financial troubles" and you should see a "higher frequency of divorces caused by financial troubles?"

Also, how is "cause" a subset of "divorce?"

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feuervogel

*sigh* I should learn never to reply to people I don't know, since they always completely fail to get the point, and I wind up sucked into crap I don't have time to deal with.

No. You took issue with cos' assertion that "financial troubles are the number one cause of divorce," stating that, as not all couples with financial troubles become divorced, "financial troubles are a poor predictor of divorce." I said that, if you looked at the group of people who get divorced and determined why they got divorced, you might see that "financial troubles" is the top reason. Not that financial troubles ===> divorce, but if divorce happens, the top cause is financial troubles.

Or, let's see. Kirinn and I are experiencing financial difficulty, because his employer is barely running in the black and they can't always pay him on time. However, because our relationship is stable, we have some emergency funding if we need it, we live generally within our means, and I'll be entering the work force (finally) in July or so, divorce isn't on our agenda. In this situation, financial troubles are not predictive of divorce, as is the population case in general, as you said, yes?

However, let's say John and Jane are stressed out, have 3 kids, John works 2 jobs to make ends meet and Jane refuses to seek employment, even though they have to make decisions between paying the bills and, say, buying food. (The specific reasons may be because they have all the latest gadgetry, a monster SUV, a McMansion, and never learned financial planning, or just because John has a crap job with minimal benefits. Either way, they're in debt up to their ears.) When John files for divorce, the financial difficulties may be the reason he cites, though it's really the straw that broke the camel's back. Which is as cos and I are trying to explain.

Understand yet?

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Please try not to get too frustrated at my friends in this space;

vja2 is intelligent and also a nice guy.

Anyway, I too was confused about what you meant originally. I don't think I'm confused anymore (in that I understand your language here), though I still don't quite see how it helps to shore up the data

vja2 cites. I think the key of his quote above was this phrase: "However, none of the independent variables (singularly or in combination) explained more than 5% of the variance in divorce" - if there were a "straw, meet camel's back" interaction effect going on such that financial troubles were great predictors of divorce when combined with other predictors, you'd expect that some combination of IVs would explain more than 5 percent of the variance. I mean, yeah, social science research always gets crappy effect sizes, but still, 5% is tiny.

The idea of a predictor is that the probability of one event changes given a particular other event. In this case, knowing whether or not a couple is having financial troubles does not greatly change the probability that they will get divorced, so it is a bad predictor. What you seem to be saying is that the probability of financial troubles given divorce may be relatively high even though the probability of divorce given financial troubles is about the same as the probability of divorce given no financial troubles. Is this possible? Let's bust out the math and see. (Have patience, I know math notation sucks to read, particularly in this font.)

Let's use this notation:
F = event that a couple has financial troubles
D = event that the couple gets a divorce
P(F) = probability of some event (in this case the event F)
P(D|F) = probability of one event (in this case, divorce) given another (financial troubles).

We're assuming P(D|F) = P(D|not-F) (that is, the probability of divorce doesn't change based on whether or not a couple is having financial troubles - since that's what it means for something to be a bad predictor).

Bayes' Formula says:

P(F|D) = P(D|F)*P(F) / [P(D|F)*P(F) + P(D|not-F)*P(not-F)]

Since P(D|F) = P(D|not-F), this equation can be rewritten as:

P(F|D) = P(D|F)*P(F) / [P(D|F)*P(F) + P(D|F)*P(not-F)]

Simplifying the denominator on the right hand side we get:

P(F|D) = P(D|F)*P(F) / [P(D|F)* (P(F) + P(not-F)) ]

One of the fundamental laws of probability is that the sum of the probability that a thing will happen and the probability that it won't has to be 1 (e.g., you can be sure that either a coin comes up heads or it does not come up heads). So this can be rewritten as:

P(F|D) = P(D|F)*P(F) / P(D|F)*1

We can cancel out P(D|F) and we are left with:

P(F|D) = P(F)

Translating back to English, this means that the probability that a couple had financial troubles given that they got divorced is the same as the overall probability of any old person having financial troubles. The two variables are independent. (Well, only nearly independent since in reality the relationship between P(D|F) and P(D|not-F) is really better expressed as P(D|F) ~= P(D|not-F). But the point holds that divorce is no better a predictor of financial troubles than financial troubles is of divorce.

If I've screwed up any of the math here, mathgeeky people should tell me, not least because I have a test on this crap in a week and a half ;)

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