Free Mattress

Anyone want a free mattress? It's queen sized, and only about 4 years old. Take it, please!

In this past week, I've heard the same joke made from two completely different sources. One was someone's blog, and the other was the Tonight Show last night. The joke referred to the news that the Bush administration is opening up the last 58.5 million acres of national forest, set aside for protection by Clinton, to possible logging, mining and other commercial uses. Both the blogger and Leno noted that this must be the No Tree Left Behind administration.

And since I'm now feeling political, I thought this was an interesting editorial: What do liberals believe?

For some reason I'm reminded of an experiment we read about in sociology class in college. As I remember it, you seat four people around a table, and in the middle of the table is a bowl of beans. The objective for the people is to amass as many beans as possible in a certain number of rounds. Each round, every person is allowed to take as many beans as they want from the bowl. At the end of each round, the number of beans that are left in the bowl will be doubled.

In theory, if each person took a minimum number of beans, and left the maximum number of beans in the bowl, each person would end up with a maximal number of beans at the end. However, each person believes their neighbor is going to take more than their fair share, and subsequently takes a little more for himself. Each person thinks this way, and in a few short rounds, the bowl is empty.

It's a very interesting commentary on society and human nature, and it's always stuck with me as something very, very sad.

Anyways, free mattress anyone?