Well after much Googling, I found two definitive sources that say there are price differences in cookies. I found an article (word document, view as HTML) from the Wall Street Journal that talks about a price war in Michigan between neighbooring councils that had prices at $2.50 and $3.

Girls are told that if customers ask about the price difference, they should explain the economic factors at play — that the Metro council serves four times as many members as its “sister” council, and runs three more camps. Michigan Metro says its troops receive a profit of at least 45 cents on each box sold; in Macomb County, the minimum is 32 cents.

Oh that’s wonderful. Item 9 on this Girl Scout FAQ confirms that prices are set indivdually by over 300 councils.

Such scenarios have been repeated in other parts of the country, as many of the nation’s 330 Girl Scout councils go through their annual pricing debate. Officials say they can’t adopt the simple solution—setting one national price—because their parent organization, Girl Scouts USA, follows the Sherman Act, which prohibits price fixing.

With each council individually incorporated as a nonprofit organization, Girl Scout officials say the law, originally designed to rein in robber barons, could apply to them as well. “In being good citizens, we choose to abide by the spirit of the law,” says Girl Scouts USA spokeswoman Ellen Ach. At a national meeting of council leaders last month in San Diego, Girl Scouts USA officials reiterated their position that prices shouldn’t be discussed among local councils.

So there’s a legal reason for the price differences, but I think it’s highly unlikely that the Girl Scouts of America would be prosecuted under the Sherman Antitrust Act, though personally I think the prices are a bit high. It’s supply and demand, and I think people would buy more at a lower price. They are also outpacing inflation: my simple calculations using the GDP Implicit Price Deflator, which is Greenspan’s favorite measure of inflation, gives me that if a box of Girl Scout cookies was $2.50 in 1996 it should be about $2.80 now, give or take a few cents. There haven’t been any changes in quality I know of, they have a great distribution model, and I don’t see why their costs would have gone up at all to justify that sort of price increase. Just my two dollars and fifty cents…

I’ve decided that nothing disappears quite as fast as Carmel deLite Girl Scout Cookies. Here’s a little tidbit: according to Interbake, Carmel deLite cookies make up half of their total cookie volume and are also the hardest to make. According to the site linked above, the cookies should be $3.50 a box, yet when I bought mine the other day I swear they were just $3 a box, because I bought three boxes for $9. Is there some sort of vast Girl Scout conspiracy behind this? Is it because I was in a small town?

As always, this is best appreciated as a PDF, but for the rest of you here’s the text:

The divine command theory is the view of morality in which what is right is what God commands, and what is wrong is what God forbids. This view is one that ties together morality in and religion in a way that is very comfortable for most people, because it provides a solution to pesky arguments like moral relativism and the objectivity of ethics. Continue reading Divine Command Theory and the Euthyphro Argument →

Here’s a quote to ponder, from Bertrand Russell on the “scientific view” of the world:

That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins—all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand.

Happy Tuesday to you too.

Put up the awesome photos taken this weekend. Combine autop and the curly quotes and make them both work perfectly, dangit. Write a paper on Aristophanes, and another and the Euthypro dilemma. Can I finish it all tonight? Doubtful. But I’ll fall asleep trying…

Tonight was the second time I’ve come to Austin and locked my keys in the car. Luckily this time it was easier to get them out, and was free thanks to AAA. They have saved my butt so many times, it’s worth every penny. (Of course I don’t pay, but if I did it would be worth all the pennies.)

“Today looks like it’s going to be a long day.” Oh Fate! Such a cruel and fickle force. It started shortly after the last post when I missed the shuttle to transport me across the UH campus to my car. Because of some sort of irregularity in the bus schedule, or perhaps just horrid management, instead of having a bus come by say every 7 or 8 minutes, they have two come every 15 minutes. Of course that is just for the Blue route, the other three routes just happened to have their buses come at the same time, so it takes forever for everyone to load up. The loading was made even longer by the fact that we had to load a wheelchair up too. Now I’m not complaining about that, as no one can help that situation, but I’m just pointing out that it is an amazing set of circumstances.

So I make it to my car. I can’t write the rest of the story, because it’s too painful. Too make a painful story short, I stopped to pick something up, left, left my wallet, went back, and when I started to leave for the second time my car would not start. So here I sit awaiting the white trucks of AAA to pick me up and tow me home. The timing couldn’t be better either, I have two important appointments this afternoon and I was planning to go to Austin tomorrow.Times like this I try my best to see the bright side of things, try to find of ray of light in this gloomy day. I guess things could be worse, but I don’t want to tempt Fate, or Murphy, again.

Update: Ray of light — it was just a minor battery problem.

I can’t win! Several days ago I made a remark to the fickleness of weather, and she has not given me a break since. I dress warm, we have a semi-tropical day in humid Houston; I dress light, and a cold front comes in that has me shivering all day. Some days you just roll with it. Today looks like it’s going to be a long day.

Well the good news is that Helsa is home now, and is getting more care and attention than she could ever receive at vet. Like I said before, the main problem right now is that she lost so much weight and her body has been using her fat for nutrition, and the lipids have overwhelmed her liver. The solution for this is for her to eat and give her liver a break, but the problem is that she really doesn’t want to eat. For several days they did force feeding, which is basically where you squirt the food in the cat’s mouth and even though they don’t want to eat they swallow it because, well, it’s there. Needless to say the cat in question generally doesn’t like this.

It became harder and harder to feed Helsa until the decision was reached that the only way to get her the nutrition she needs was to do a short surgery and set her up with a feeding tube, which is exactly what it sounds like. So many times a day she gets food, water, and medicine through the tube, and after 2–6 weeks her liver will finally recover and she can begin eating on her own again. The time range is uncomfortably big, but there’s no way to predict when she’s going to recover.

The Carnival of Vanities #21 is up and looks really great this week. I’ve only made it through about half on the links so far but I’ll go through the rest tonight. This is my first time participating in the carnival and I’m kinda excited about it. Check it out.

Well we transferred Helsa from the hospital to her regular vet today. She was perfectly behaved the entire way over and she acted very normal. The vet said they’ll probably leave her on IV the rest of today, but they’re going to keep feeding her with a syringe (as opposed to a feeding tube) and if she keeps it down then she might be able to come home as soon as tomorrow or Wednesday! I couldn’t be happier. Thank you to everyone who sent kind words of support.

This had me rolling:

Dear Mr. Architect:

Please design and build me a house. I am not quite sure of what I need, so you should use your discretion. My house should have somewhere between two and forty-five bedrooms. Just make sure the plans are such that the bedrooms can be easily added or deleted. When you bring the blueprints to me, I will make the final decision of
what I want. Also, bring me the cost breakdown for each configuration so that I can arbitrarily pick one.

Keep in mind that the house I ultimately choose must cost less than the one I am currently living in. Make sure, however, that you correct all the deficiencies that exist in my current house (the floor of my kitchen vibrates when I walk across it, and the walls don’t have nearly enough insulation in them).

As you design, also keep in mind that I want to keep yearly maintenance costs as low as possible. This should mean the incorporation of extra-cost features like aluminum, vinyl, or composite siding. (If you choose not to specify aluminum, be prepared to explain your decision in detail.)

Please take care that modern design practices and the latest materials are used in construction of the house, as I want it to be a showplace for the most up-to-date ideas and methods. Be alerted, however, that kitchen should be designed to accommodate, among other things, my 1952 Gibson refrigerator.

To insure that you are building the correct house for our entire family, make certain that you contact each of our children, and also our in-laws. My mother-in-law will have very strong feelings about how the house should be designed, since she visits us at least once a year. Make sure that you weigh all of these options carefully and come to the right decision. I, however, retain the right to overrule any choices that you make.

Please don’t bother me with small details right now. Your job is to develop the overall plans for the house: get the big picture. At this time, for example, it is not appropriate to be choosing the color of
the carpet. However, keep in mind that my wife likes blue.

Also, do not worry at this time about acquiring the resources to build the house itself. Your first priority is to develop detailed plans and specifications. Once I approve these plans, however, I would expect the house to be under roof within 48 hours.

While you are designing this house specifically for me, keep in mind that sooner or later I will have to sell it to someone else. It therefore should have appeal to a wide variety of potential buyers.
Please make sure before you finalize the plans that there is a consensus of the population in my area that they like the features this house has. I advise you to run up and look at my neighbor’s house he constructed last year. We like it a great deal. It has many features that we would also like in our new home, particularly the
75-foot swimming pool. With careful engineering, I believe that you can design this into our new house without impacting the final cost.

Please prepare a complete set of blueprints. It is not necessary at this time to do the real design, since they will be used only for
construction bids. Be advised, however, that you will be held accountable for any increase of construction costs as a result of
later design changes.

You must be thrilled to be working on as an interesting project as this! To be able to use the latest techniques and materials and to be given such freedom in your designs is something that can’t happen very often. Contact me as soon as possible with your complete ideas and plans.

PS: My wife has just told me that she disagrees with many of the instructions I’ve given you in this letter. As architect, it is your responsibility to resolve these differences. I have tried in the past and have been unable to accomplish this. If you can’t handle this responsibility, I will have to find another architect.

PPS: Perhaps what I need is not a house at all, but a travel trailer. Please advise me as soon as possible if this is the case.

Last night got started late, and went even later. We got to watch one of my all-time favorite movies, Zoolander. I think it’s a very underappreciated film, as it works on a lot of levels and people are apt to dismiss it as a shallow movie without giving it a chance. The DVD had some neat features too that I think made it worth it. Which brings me to the question of the day: Does anyone ever watch the director’s commentary?

Well I’ve got to go get ready for the HPUG meeting today, and also I’ve got to try to fix my Dad’s m505 which is currently sufferinf from Sudden USB Death Syndrome. The battery has been draining all night so it should be good to go now.

Out of the blue, my Mom asked me what was that strange mark on my neck, and I had no clue. A quick trip to the mirror revealed what looks like a large bite right on my adam’s apple, which is quite conspicious. Mom examined it, and said it looked like a spider bite or something similar. Great. Is this sweet revenge on the part of spiders? When did this spider bite me? Why didn’t I notice? Will it make me buff? So many unanswered questions.

Right now I’m sitting on the floor, and the cat is in my chair. Is there something wrong with this situation? Sadly, no. For those of you unacquainted with my cat, she is a delightful creature who is at once an ideal companion, playmate, and friend. She came to our house through my neighbor of three doors down, Brooke. I was at their house a lot, practicing lacrosse with Brooke’s older brother and generally just hanging. They had Helsa at the time, when her name was still “Mittens” and Brooke would attempt to dress her up in doll’s clothes. She wasn’t in any way malicious, I just think she was a little too proactive owner for Mittens’ taste. The cat was chiefly outdoors, and spent a lot of time around my house for whatever reason, and my Mom took a liking to her and started putting water and such on the porch. Eventually I ended up having to carry her back to Brooke’s house, and she would squirm the whole time and vocalize her objections.

After no more than a week or two of this, Brooke’s mom, whose name escapes me, brought Helsa over to our house and said we should keep her. Everyone was ecstatic except for my sister, who is convinced Helsa has a grudge against her. The first thing we did was give her a name better suited to her personality and came up with Helsa Poppins. (You get points if you know what that means.) She seemed to be in all places at once, and befriended every member of the family, except my aforementioned sister, who coincidently had her own cat at the time, Lolli, who could safely be described as anti-social. Helsa had never been a skinny cat, and her weight grew in her new home, which I attribute to the way she would play the members of the household against each other feeding her, much the way a child might go from parent to parent until their wants were completely satisfied.

Fast-forward to 2003: Helsa has consistently ranked in my favorite females list for many years now, and our relationship has grown comfortable. She doesn’t care for saxophone practicing, I could do without the shedding, but there’s an understanding. This year especially it seems that she had grown very close to my Mother, and they had become close companions, spending the majority of every day within five feet of each other. The time I see her the most, however, is when I’m sick. Sometimes it’s even an early warning, where Helsa will begin sleeping in my bed and I’ll come down within a day. It’s one of the sweetest things I can imagine, because when I’m really ill she literally never leaves my side.

About two weeks ago, Helsa began to lose weight. This struck everyone, and after several days it became apparent that she wasn’t eating like she used to. Within the next week, she stopped eating almost entirely. Every possible combination of cat food, cat treat, baby food, fish, chicken has been tried, with at best meager results. For lack of a better term, she seems uninterested in food. She has eaten several times, but thrown up shortly afterward; liquids seem best. Now she is acting lethargic, not really moving much, but her mobility does not seem impaired in any way, just her motivation. The past three days, she has been spending almost all her time in my room. I want to be able to give her the kind of support she has given me so many times, but I just don’t know what to do.

Update: She just at an entire meal of—get this—cat food, and is starting to act normally again. Thank you all for your concerns.

Well I’ve finally got my MP3 head unit installed in my new (to me) car. As I write this I realize that I haven’t told my car story here, but in brief around the beginning of 2003 my mid-eighties Mercedes which served me wonderfully for about a year was replace by a ’98 Chevy Lumina, which is currently on the road to being cool. One of the biggest problems with the Lumina has been that the after-market head unit was hooked up badly and would reset everything every time the car was turned off. This had the unexpected side effect of helping me learn the beginnings of several CDs very well, but never making it to the end. One of the interesting results of this is I was able to time how long it took me to get places very well because the clock would start at 1:00 whenever I turned the car on.

Anyway this was a problem that should have been quickly resolved, since I have a nice Aiwa MP3 head unit from the Benz, but I never seemed to find a weekend when my Dad was home and we both had time during daylight hours to hook everything up. Well today was that day, and we (mostly him) got it hooked up beautifully. I seem to have lost most of my MP3 mix CDs though, so I might have to burn some new ones. I think I’m going to do an artist-based approach, so for example I can have one CD labeled “Brad Mehldau” that will have all of his CDs condensed into one. Fair use is a beautiful thing. Anyway this is the first step to really making this car “mine”. Actually the second, since while my Dad was working on the stereo I was using a razor to take off some stickers from the previous owner. So my car no longer indicates I’m an Aggie fan, say “Worldwide Panic,” “You’re a naughty girl go to my room,” “I don’t mind being stared at,” or “Texas Department of Safety.” What a combination! I left the Cat in the Hat sticker. I miss my old stickers though.

How terrible.

There has been a lot of talk about referrer spamming in blogspace, and while browsing a PHP network query tool I stumbled across this, which looks terrible. What’s even worse is there is some genuinely neat looks scripts on their site, some things that I’ve been meaning to write myself, and it looks like I’m going to have to because I couldn’t support any that sells a product like ReferBomb.

This script will get up to 1000 Google search results for the search term of your choice (we’ve provided a few suggested default search terms), then automatically fetch all of the resulting web pages. What does this do for you? Think “public web stats” or think “blogs who reciprocate referring links!”

Did I miss the memo about Froogle? It looks like a very cool way to find good prices on things. It’ll have to work quite hard to beat PriceWatch or TechBargains, both which I highly recommend checking out before you buy any computer equipment.

I’m happy to see we have a beautiful new site designed by the wonderful Christine with the header picture by Elaine. Elaine takes great photos and you should check out the ones on her site, also the last time I was at Kaveh Kanes they had a couple of hers on display.

I just had a kinda-cool idea for the site: what if the top image rotated with different pictures that the author felt characterized Houston. For a perfect example of what I mean see Typographica, which has different headers rotate that link to the font and the designer of the header image. It occurred to me when I was looking at the site and thinking “What a nice picture of downtown” and then I noticed the street and the lamps and I started thinking of where Elaine was when she took that picture. My mind wandered to the cool pictures Christine posted the other day and how it was a totally different view of downtown. My mind continued to wander (it does that a lot) to how when people think of Houston, they tend to think of either the Rodeo or the postcard view of downtown, when in fact there is so much more than that. Anyway, just an idea.