Eric Karjaluoto writes at Ideas on Ideas, about "Epitaph for a plastic man", on the death of Michael Jackson.

Like many of the summaries of the life that Michael Jackson lived, Mr. Karjaluoto points out the revered music Jackson performed, and the alleged misdeeds.

The summary of how Jackson progressed from the first appearances I recall on the Andy Williams show - as a child, with the Jackson Five - to his death, is blamed mostly on the "toxic" nature of fame and media attention.

I think it is the other way around. People with no character, no ethics, willing to do and be anything to anyone - find a refuge in public performance. Musicians that know music and aren't drawn to a place of responsibility in their community will deceive themselves, telling themselves that the show is for the fans. The reality is that they only live vicariously.

The other significant memories of Michael Jackson that I carry with me are second hand, both of them satires.

Berkeley Breathed did a comic strip in the '80s called "Bloom County". In one episode a no-morals character is doing a Pepsi commercial as a musician, when he catches fire - too much mascara on his chest hairs. This lampooned a commercial that caught fire on Jackson - I never saw the commercial, only news reports. I loved the several days that the topic played on Bloom County.

The other legacy is enduring. "Weird" Al Yankovic writes and records parody songs. I can never hear the strains of "Beat It" without thinking the song that I recall from the Dr. Demento (Funny songs for fun people!) radio show - "Eat it!" will always be the hallmark for me, and Jackson's version just doesn't measure up.

Michael Jackson was younger than I am, by about seven (7) years. I always thought of him as closer to my age. But his music? That was a world away from mine. "Ben", the movie and song of a pet rat, are excellent performances. I could almost "Thriller", "Beat it", etc. variations on that ballad made for Jackson's voice - with little value added in meaning, in maturity, in soul, for all the years between.

Michael Jackson had brothers - four of them appeared with Michael on those long-ago Andy Williams shows, and recorded some really fine music. Jermain tried to care for Michael - and likely helped cover up some of the deviant stuff that came about in recent (and not-so-recent) years. I haven't kept up with them, but the other Jackson's haven't been making headlines and police blotters. With the same initial TV and other media exposure, we have four shining examples of citizenship and personal integrity greater than the late Michael Jackson.

Mr Karjaluoto in his article examines the forgiveness that a tainted icon receives, like Michael Jackson, on his death. Much of the predation is forgiven and glossed over, the accomplishments (recorded music and videos, and "Ben", of course) are sung widely.

I think much of this is something that also occurs in the justice system. A criminal act, a despicable act, an act of disrespect, is abhorred and reviled mostly - because we fear a repeat, fear another will be injured or harmed. On his death, Michael Jackson is no longer capable of harming the growth of another young man, of twisting another primate from healthy attitudes and behavior. We can replay his music and enjoy the vicarious performance without worrying that a new record release means another accusation of child molestation - the two events were paired, recently, almost as publicity ploys or distractions from prosecution, whichever.

Without Jackson's music I would be bereft of several "Weird" Al Yankovic parodies. And that feels like a pretty lame epitaph, for a plastic man.

Why Barry don't care if Iran spills over onto the US

Ann Coulter dissects B. Hussein Obama's poseur representations about the recent election in Iran and the resulting protests - Obama to Iran: Let Them Eat Ice Cream.

Two things pop out at me.

1) The reference to the tragic death of protester Neda Agha Soltan. Video and pictures of her body have swept the Internet.

2) Ms. Coulter disparages both the US President and the French President with a back-handed reference, "You might be a scaredy-cat if ... the president of France is talking tougher than you are."

First, the death of a girl storming a barricade during a revolution has become a symbol of America. What we call the Statue of Liberty was a gift to the United States - from the same France that Ann Coulter now disparages for their fall in WWII. The real life "liberty" figure was a young woman, carrying a torch of the period, protesting and attacking the then-government of France in the French Revolution (1789–1799).

I can see where President Barack Hussein Obama would prefer to have this particular symbol - a young woman protesting a decadent and corrupt government - become a rallying cry. It had a marked effect on the French of the day, and symbolizes freedom from the tyranny that some of Obama's plans and programs verge on today. President B. Hussein Obama does not want Americans to be thinking in terms of rebellion or illegitimate government.

And that leads to the second point that stands out for me in Ann's excellent HumanEvents.com article. That is, she disparages letting the French president sound more forceful that our own Barry-baby.

See, the French, like the UK, are dealing with a vast influx of Muslims and Islamic influences, including regions falling under Sharia (Muslim) law rather than national or local law. The French have a vested interest in siding with Muslim moderates of any stripe. The Muslim influence has been growing in Europe and has been even more disruptive than Californias fleeing to other states - and wreaking California-style legislative and social mischief "just like back home." In 1990, Coloradans called the California-refugee problem, "Californication."

On the other hand, we have President B. Hussein Obama that left his church of 20 years when it didn't further his career anymore. This same Barack Hussein Obama that was schooled, initially, in hard-core Muslim schools overseas by his Muslim father. This same Oh! Bummer! that doesn't mind a growing Muslim influence at all, since he has no Christian background to feel threatened over.

So of course President Obama sounds less militant or concerned that France does - he isn't worried about what might happen - it seems win-win to him.

Californians address money problem: Stop earning money.

According to an article on the BusinessWire.com: AHF to L.A. County: Shut Down Porn Sets.

Last week, the Los Angeles Times reported that an actress working in the business — a mainstay of the San Fernando Valley economy — tested HIV positive at the industry-affiliated Adult Industry Medical Foundation’s (AIM) testing clinic in early June. The paper subsequently reported that as many as 16 actors and actresses in the adult entertainment industry had tested positive for HIV since 2004; however, on Wednesday, the Los Angeles Times reported that County public health officials backtracked away from those claims, noting that while 16 individuals had indeed tested positive at AIM’s testing clinic, they could not confirm that any of those individuals were currently employed as performers in the industry.

Wow. 16 people tested positive in 5 years. An outbreak. Oops - and 15 of those may or may not have been involved in adult films. In California. One assumes that most of them were sexually active, and didn't catch HIV from flatulence. Oh, my.

So, obviously the headline-grabbing, career-making move is for do-gooders to . . . shut down an influx to California of billions of dollars. Let's see, at 12% (my guess) tax rate, that would be - hundreds of millions of tax revenue. That would be enough to, I don't know, put a couple of state and county workers out of a job? Cause a benefit program or two to cut back? Shut down a school?

Seems like the right trade-off. While the adult industry, for their own reasons, have a stellar record of managing STD risk, including HIV/AIDS, California seems hell-bent on forbidding business of any sort to thrive.

Not to lump raising livestock and adult videos into the same lump, but they sure seem to have the same caliber of enemy.

And this is *not* a California problem. California has been driving it's citizens out into the rest of the nation for decades, with it's combination of punitive taxes and punitive business policies. And those ex-patriots taint their adoptive homes with demands for California-style spending.

About those 'Phantom' traffic jams

Wired.com reports that MIT is following up on Japanese research into traffic jams that happen without having a wreck or other restriction on the road to explain why cars are stopped, waiting - for the cars ahead to move out.

A team of MIT mathematicians has developed a model that describes how and under what conditions such jams form, which could help road designers minimize the odds of their formation. The researchers reported their findings May 26 in the online edition of Physical Review E.

Key to the new study is the realization that the mathematics of such jams, which the researchers call "jamitons," are strikingly similar to the equations that describe detonation waves produced by explosions, says Aslan Kasimov, lecturer in MIT's Department of Mathematics. That discovery enabled the team to solve traffic jam equations that were first theorized in the 1950s.

So I wrote to Elizabeth Thomson at MIT.

Ms. Thomson,

Some time back I listened to the audio book, "The Goal", Eliyahu M. Goldratt, circa 1993-94. The premise of this business book was to apply physics understanding of interdependent events to improve productivity.

Application to traffic seemed obvious. Interdependent events, cars following each other in lane of traffic, combined with statistical variation - the different acceleration and braking rates of vehicles, determined by vehicle loading and capacity, and driver inclination, are the reason for traffic jams.

Given a vehicle encroaching on the vehicle behind - by driving slower, entering a busy lane too close to the following vehicle, or braking for a real or perceived hazard, causes all vehicles behind to slow. Unfortunately, the various rates of speed recovery of the affected vehicles prevents complete recovery of the preceding progress of vehicles down the lane of traffic.

The solution seem obvious to me - enforce existing laws about safe following distances. Enforce laws preventing a vehicle changing lanes to close to a vehicle already in the lane ('cutting off' the following vehicle).

Safe following distances are set by *posted* speed limits, not vehicle speed. Enforce safe following distances even when stopped for the vehicle ahead - and traffic jams will evaporate on their own. You also lose the critical aggregate density of idling vehicles that contributes to dense air pollution due to traffic jams.

I recall my driving-ed instructor explaining about pulling up behind the vehicle ahead when stopping at a stop light. I believe this "common sense" rule actually violates traffic laws regarding safe following distance - and compromises the ability of roads to handle heavy traffic rates. In all instances, I think keeping the prescribed safe following distance from the vehicle ahead *accelerates* traffic throughput as a function of vehicles per unit of time.

When a driver experiences dismay or fear at road conditions, and expresses distress by slowing, I consider that a "flinch". Flinching occurs when someone changes lanes or enters the roadway too close to oncoming traffic, and any oncoming driver slows whether to avoid an accident, or because they, rightly or wrongly, fear the potential of a collision. The flinch affects cars behind, because they then flinch - and pull closer to the vehicle ahead as the vehicle speeds decline. This compression of vehicle spacing in distance is directly related to a compression of vehicle spacing in time - and each vehicle will recover some or all of the previous speed, depending on space to the vehicle ahead, speed of preceding vehicles, etc.

The region where traffic compression in time occurs can be thought of as a source of vehicles. Until all vehicles involved have been released from the compression, that is, the traffic jam works it's way through, the likelihood is that additional vehicles will continue to arrive at the back of the queue and stacked up for later release, before all preceding vehicles compressed in time and distance are released at their lower speed and higher density. The higher density, or compressed time, restricts the ability of any individual vehicle to resume free-road speed and separation in time and distance.

My solution is to ticket everyone in a traffic jam that comes to rest or approaches the vehicle ahead within the safe following distance. This brings awareness of this particular law to the attention of drivers. Avoiding tickets by coming to rest safely spaced, drivers reduce the constraint on easing the traffic jam by relaxing the compression restraint that slows relief of the jamiton.

This is a community-type suggestions. A driver does nothing for himself/herself by maintaining a safe following distance (except for reduction in driving stress, reduction in risk of collision, and avoiding violation of the laws about safe following distances). Traffic wise, the driver that maintains the safe following distance only reduces the likelihood that some drivers *behind* the vehicle will be involved in a slow-down. Keeping the safe distance back reduces the likelihood of a flinch, and the reduced compression factor permits release of the jam before it forms - before another vehicle can arrive in the region and experience the cascading compression we call a traffic jam.

Brad Kruse
Ponca City, OK