Article Roundup--May 5, 2004

Did you know 'thou'/'thee' and the like are actually the informal versions of 'you'? See Volokh's post for details... We're told use of the 'thou' and 'thee' in prayers is proper, but I think the reasons for using them is exactly the opposite of what most people think they are.

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Clever ideas in marketing, part 2: $1.99 a minute for someone to listen to you rant...and I can't see why this would be illegal either.

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From the Silly-Ideas-That-Sound-Nice-But-Don't-Make-Any-Sense-If-You-Think-About-It category: Another lament here about how pro basketball players among others make more than teachers when it 'should' be the other way around. Average NBA salary: 4.6 million. Average teacher salary: $44,000.

What's the problem? Well, for starters there are 3.8 million teachers in the US, while there are only 450 spots on NBA rosters. Yes, NBAers make 100 times more than teachers, but there are over 8000 times more teachers than NBA players. That means there is still 80 times more money in absolute dollars being paid out to teachers than to NBA players. Giving all teachers a million dollar salary would require 3.8 trillion dollars--that's a third of the US total GDP! Salaries are determined by simple supply and demand. If the supply is extremely low (only .00018% of the US population could play in the NBA at one time) and demand is high, the price goes up. Is it easier to become a teacher, or a professional athlete? Look, if you want to say teachers are vastly important to society and should be paid more, that's fine--but at least base your argument on something reasonable. If there were 3.8 million NBA players (wow...that would be over 250,000 teams!) you can bet their salaries wouldn't be in the millions; in fact, they would be far lower than what teachers' salaries are now. (Did you know minor league baseball players make on average less than teachers?)

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Here's an article debunking the popular but mistaken myth that the Earth is over-populated. In fact, it's underpopulated, and with birth-rates dropping rapidly we're heading for a world crisis with an aged population and not enough young people to take care of them. Brigham Young said once (I think...don't hold me to this...) that a time would come where only Mormon women would be having children, and we're seeing the first signs of this already.

In a related article in Meridan Magazine, this point is brought up also, pointing out that the people having more kids today are the conservative, religious people concluding that in the future, the religious people will outnumber the non-religious, liberal types. The facts are true, but the conclusion is not... Think about it, do all 'liberal' types come from 'liberal' families? Not at all, a large percentage of them come from conservative, religious families--in fact, in many cases the more liberal attitudes are a direct reaction to the conservative nature of their upbringing. Sure, conservatives are far more likely to have kids than liberals, but there will always be a percentage of their kids who will become liberal, thereby keeping a relatively stable balance between the two groups.