Pun Salad

Scott Adams: Smart, Then Stupid

Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, starts a recent blog post very smartly:

One of the biggest problems with the world is that we're bound by so many legacy systems. For example, it's hard to deal with global warming because there are so many entrenched interests. It's problematic to get power from where it can best be generated to where people live. The tax system is a mess. Banking is a hodgepodge of regulations and products glued together. I could go on. The point is that anything that has been around for awhile is a complicated and inconvenient mess compared to what its ideal form could be.

Even better, Adams continues with what might be an excellent idea:

My idea for today is that established nations could launch startup countries within their own borders, free of all the legacy restrictions in the parent country.

The startup country, let's say the size of modern day Israel, would be designed from the ground up for efficiency. …

The Fire Department would be tiny. You can design modern homes to be virtually fireproof. And let's say cigarettes are banned, because we can, to further reduce the fire risk.

In my book The Dilbert Future I imagined a world with cameras in every room, and on every street corner, recording all the time, but encrypted so that literally no one could view the video without a court order. You wouldn't need much of a police force in that scenario because every crime would be on video, along with the entire escape route, all the way to the criminal's bedroom. Maybe that's too Big Brother for you, but if you reflect on how much privacy you've already given up to technology, it's not that much of a stretch.

Coincidentally, Thomas Sowell touched on this mentality in a recent column:

Many of the wonderful-sounding ideas that have been tried as government policies have failed disastrously. Because so few people bother to study history, often the same ideas and policies have been tried again, either in another country or in the same country at a later time -- and with the same disastrous results.

One of the ideas that has proved to be almost impervious to evidence is the idea that wise and far-sighted people need to take control, and plan economic and social policies so that there will be a rational and just order, rather than chaos resulting from things being allowed to take their own course. It sounds so logical and plausible that demanding hard evidence would seem almost like nit-picking.

So, Scott: good idea, but the implementation is straight from the brain of a pointy-haired boss.

Posted 2010-07-28 6:30 PM EDT

I'm Shocked, Shocked

… to find that gambling is going on in here:

• GM announced their electric vehicle, the Chevy Volt, will cost $41K. It will compete with the Nissan Leaf, which starts at a bit under $33K. The Washington Post story has this bit of euphemism:

  GM and Nissan are relying on a $7,500 federal tax credit for buyers of electric vehicles to offset some of the added cost [over similarly-sized conventional autos] …

  Translation: I, and probably you, will be involuntarily shouldering a significant fraction of the buyer's cost for these vehicles. And I bet that not one of the proud new owners will give us even a single ride to the airport in return. Jerks.

• If you were depressed by the report we mentioned yesterday showing Kelly Ayotte's lead against Paul Hodes shrinking in the last few months, blaming Sarah Palin for the erosion, check out Indispensible Jim Geraghty for some cheering up.

• Jen Rubin is cheered but chastened by the defeat-for-now of the "nefarious" free-speech-quelching DISCLOSE act. Chastened, because it was far closer than it should have been:

  This, I think, should alarm and not reassure us. The name of the game for far too many elected liberals is to game the system, tip the scales, and trample on the rights of their opponents. It is the same mentality we see when a Senate candidate tries to take down perfectly reasonable ads that raise unpleasant facts about his record. Rather than debate and employ more speech, it has become too common among liberals wary of the wrath of voters to tell everyone else to shut up. It is the same mentality that causes Democratic congressional leadership to vilify and sneer at fellow citizens and label them un-American for exercising basic rights of assembly and speech on the most hotly debated legislation (ObamaCare) of the moment. It is the same mentality that motivates the White House to ostracize a news organization critical of its performance.

• Politico notes that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is succumbing to the obvious, adding both New Hampshire seats to the list it plans on spending to protect. Key quote to brighten my day:

  The committee is also adding several endangered Democratic incumbents to its list of ad reservations, including […] New Hampshire Rep. Carol Shea-Porter.

  It's good news and bad news, of course: it means the race is probably not a slam-dunk for either side.

  Local broadcast TV is already near-unwatchable for all the stupid political ads, my wastebaskets are overflowing with daily political junkmail, I'm starting to get robo-phone calls, and (fearless prediction) it's going to get much, much worse over the next 97 days.

  Still, that's the First Amendment for ya. And I'm still a fan.

• The "geez, I'm old" observation du jour: I went to the 1964 World's Fair in New York. Did you know that there's a World's Fair going on right now in Shanghai? Neither did I, but Virginia Postrel did, and she has more at her blog.

• And I don't know how many readers are both (a) Isaac Asimov fans and (b) web server geeks, but if you're in the intersection of that particular Venn diagram, I can almost guarantee you'll get a chuckle from http://www.last.fm/robots.txt. (Via BBspot.)

Posted 2010-07-28 6:00 PM EDT

I Came To Casablanca For the Waters

… I was misinformed:

• As I type, it's looking like the "DISCLOSE" campaign finance bill will be successfully filibustered in the Senate. Bradley Smith reminds us why that's good news.

  President Obama [claimed] that the bill is simply about disclosure.

  "Nobody is saying you can't run the ads--just make sure that people know who in fact is behind financing these ads," he said.

  Actually, Democrats are saying you can't run the ads: if you're a company with a government contract of over $10 million (like more than half of the top 50 U.S. companies) or if you're a company with more than 20 percent foreign shareholders, you can't even mention a candidate in an ad for up to a full year before the election. What's remarkable is that these provisions would prohibit speech that was legal even before the Supreme Court decision. There are no similar prohibitions for unions representing government contractors or unions with foreign membership.

  Emphasis in original. Roger Pilon is also on target:

  But perhaps the greatest irony of all concerns the conflict of interest that pervades such legislation. Here we have a party that will assiduously sniff out any conceivable conflict of interest that a business might have calling for more regulations, the effect of which will make it harder for opponents to challenge their incumbency. Talk about a conflict of interest -- incumbents writing the rules under which challengers and their supporters may speak in upcoming elections. The First Amendment -- "Congress shall make no law ..." -- was written to prohibit that kind of self-dealing.

  Although the official DISCLOSE acronym is something else, Pun Salad continues to believe it really stands for "Democrat Incumbents S**t on Constitutional Liberties, Offer Sanctimonious Excuses".

• The sharp-eared Geraghty chronicles another grating example of Barckrobatics, the defining moment.

• Since I'm not a Twit, I missed Sarah Palin's "refudiate" scandal. But professional linguist Ben Zimmer does an admirable job of word exploration. Obviously, it's a word that needed to be invented.

  Should Sarah make a habit of freelance word-coinage, I'll need an equivalent of "Barackrobatics" for her. I'm leaning toward "Palintrope". What do you think?

• The headline at the HuffPo (as I type) screams:

  Sarah Palin's Endorsement BACKFIRES

  It refers to a recent poll conducted by Public Policy Polling in New Hampshire on the US Senate race, pitting Republican Kelly Ayotte against Democrat Paul Hodes. The linked article, however, is a little less definite:

  Sarah Palin's Endorsement Of Kelly Ayotte May Have Hurt Senate Candidate's Campaign (POLL)

  The pollster's press release has the actual numbers: Ayotte led Hodes in April 47-40%. This month's poll has her up 45-42%.

  The other two polls reported at Real Clear Politics show Ayotte with a 12-15% lead over Hodes. And PPP is a Democrat-affiliated outfit. So, grain of salt.

• Every so often I feel the need to live up to my blog's title. So check out this "Surprising Excursion Through the Astonishing World of Math." (Via the Agitator.)

Posted 2010-07-27 6:00 PM EDT

R is for Ricochet

My script for picking a book from my virtual to-be-read pile assigned me this Sue Grafton novel less than two weeks after I'd read the previous one; such are the whims of the underlying random number generator. That's OK, they're fun reads, especially for the summer.

Here, Ms. Grafton's hard-working female private eye, Kinsey Millhone, is hired by a rich old dude. His daughter Reba (slightly younger than Kinsey herself) is getting out of the state pen, where she's been serving time for embezzlement. Kinsey's job is to return her home, and perhaps look for signs of Reba's backsliding into bad old habits of drink, drugs, sluttishness, gambling, and even less legal activities.

Surprising herself somewhat, Kinsey develops an attachment to Reba, perhaps seeing a but-for-the-grace-of-God version of herself. And it develops that Reba may have been the fall gal for a nefarious scheme, duped by a smooth talking guy. Both Reba and Kinsey get roped into an ongoing investigation of shady dealings; but, amusingly, Reba has many fewer compunctions in hatching freelance schemes, and Kinsey finds herself along for the ride.

The soap-opera content is pretty high here: Kinsey's ancient landlord, Henry, is trying to begin a relationship with a younger woman he met on a cruise. Complication: his brothers horn in, threatening disaster. And, after a long dry spell, Kinsey gets a some major romantic action on her own.

Quibble: if there actually was a "ricochet" in this book, I missed it. More appropiate titles would be R is for Revenge, or maybe R is for Recidivism.

Posted 2010-07-26 8:00 PM EDT
Last Modified 2010-07-27 7:26 PM EDT

The Man in the White Suit

[IMDB Rating: 7.6] [Tomatometer: 100%]

Yet another movie that I didn't like quite as much as I probably should have. But it's interesting as a picture of early-1950's England, and what they thought was funny back then.

Sir Alec Guiness plays amateur inventor Sidney Stratton; he is enraptured by his vision of using long-chain molecules to create indestructible and stainproof fabric. Unfortunately, he finances his research by surreptitiously diverting funds from his textile-mill employers. Unsurprisingly, he keeps getting sacked. Eventually, he acquires a champion in the headstrong daughter (Joan Greenwood) of a local mill-owner (Cecil Parker). Despite enough lab safety violations to keep a team of OSHA inspectors fully employed for years, Sid finally comes up with the miracle cloth.

Just in time for both the capitalistic mill-owners and their devoutly unionized employees to realize that their future prosperity depends on keeping Sid's invention suppressed. Hijinx ensue, but they're very British old-school hijinx, by which I mean they're not very funny.

Lileks likes to find Star Trek connections in the old movies he watches. I'm no Lileks, but I'll note the guy on the left in this picture (no, your left), puzzling over Sid's apparatus:

… turned into a prissy, but ultimately befuddled, Number 2 in The Prisoner a few years later:

That's Colin Gordon, veteran British scene-stealing actor.

Bottom line: a number of funny bits, Sir Alec is (of course) an extremely talented actor, but it didn't quite pull together for me.

Posted 2010-07-26 7:30 PM EDT

Brimstone

This was entry number three in Robert B. Parker's western series featuring hero partners Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch. Sometimes you can come into the middle of a series and not miss much; that's not the case here. You really should have read Appaloosa and Resolution first.

As the book opens, Virgil and Everett are in search of Virgil's ex-sweetie, Allie French, who has skedaddled to parts of Texas unknown. No big deal, and I don't think it will spoil much to tell you that she's found by page 17, and rescued from her desperate situation by page 20. After that, it's off to the next adventure.

Which is a gig as lawmen in the town of Brimstone, an up-and-coming little place with plenty of saloons/whorehouses. The nicest one is run by Pike, an ex-desperado looking to go straight. There's also Brother Percival, a holy roller looking to shut down such places of iniquity. And, just to make things a little more complicated for our guys, a rogue Indian is on the rampage, killing man and beast, kidnapping and defiling women.

And Allie is still far from the ideal lifemate.

Robert B. Parker is sorely missed, and every book I read is a bittersweet reminder that there are only a few more in the pipeline.

Posted 2010-07-23 8:00 PM EDT
Last Modified 2010-07-28 2:46 PM EDT

It's a Day In the Life

… In my mind I've seen it all:

• Should we trust Senators Cornyn or McConnell on spending cuts? Find out in Kevin Williamson's NRO article, "Do Not Trust Cornyn or McConnell on Spending Cuts".

• Anne Applebaum raises a good point:

  If you don't live in this country all of the time, and I don't, here is what you notice when you come home: Americans -- with their lawsuit culture, their safety obsession and, above all, their addiction to government spending programs -- demand more from their government than just about anybody else in the world. They don't simply want the government to keep the peace and create a level playing field. They want the government to ensure that every accident and every piece of bad luck is prevented, or that they are fully compensated in the event something goes wrong. And if the price of their house drops, they will hold the government responsible for that, too.

  I'd say that attitude is far from uniform among Americans. But unfortunately it only varies between "prevalent" and "way too prevalent".

• On a related note, here's an exercise for the New Hampshire GOP-leaning voter. The major GOP candidates for the US Senate seat are Kelly Ayotte, Ovide Lamontagne, Bill Binnie, and Jim Bender. They are all outpolling the likely Democratic candidate Paul Hodes. Visit each website and try to find anything about entitlement spending.

  I can't. Can you? Let me know.

• Similarly, the major GOP candidates aching for a chance at Carol Shea-Porter in NH Congressional District 1 are Frank Guinta, Sean Mahoney, Bob Bestani, and Rich Ashooh. Repeating the exercise, I'm coming up with a goose egg. How about you?

• OK, I don't vote there, but how about NH Congressional District 2? It's pretty much Charlie Bass and Jennifer Horn, I think. I find nothing from Charlie, but…

  Whoa! Jennifer Horn has a Social Security item on her site. What does it say?

  Let me tell you about reform: I will oppose anything that cuts benefits. I will oppose anything that increases the retirement age. I am opposed to anything that will increase payroll taxes. We have to put something on the table that meets those three criteria.

  Um. I am not an economist, but everything I've seen on this issue tells me those three criteria are mathematically incompatible.

• So in summary: 10 Republican candidates on an important issue: nine are silent, one glibly demands the impossible.

  I don't find that very encouraging.

• Folks interested in history, math, and politics might want to check out E Pluribus Confusion, an article that looks at algorithms past and present for assigning Congressional seats "fairly" to each state. It's a surprisingly thorny problem, mostly because politicians are involved. (Via GeekPress, which isn't surprising at all.)

Posted 2010-07-20 7:00 PM EDT

Zift

[IMDB Rating: 7.4] [Tomatometer: NA]

"Gosh," I said. "I really haven't seen any Bulgarian movies lately. Or, come to think of it, ever." And this came up with a decent predicted rating at Netflix, so…

The protagonist, "Moth", has been in the slammer since 1944; a murder was committed during a bungled jewel heist, and Moth, refusing to rat on the actual killer, took the fall. While he's imprisoned, the Commies take over the country. When he's released into Communist Bulgaria, circa 1965 or so, he is immediately plunged into a nightmarish world of torture, corruption, totalitarianism, and nudity. As it turns out, Moth's ungrateful partner in crime thinks Moth knows more than he's telling about the fate of a valuable jewel.

It's shot in glorious black and white, with different film resolutions signifying different eras. (IMDB says: "The scenes set in the 1960s were shot in 35mm, the scenes set in the 1940s were shot in 16mm, and the scenes set earlier than that were shot in 8mm.") Scenes set both in and out of jail are filled with bizarre, unsavory, and (mostly) unattractive characters; in fact, this movie makes the "People of Walmart" site look like the Miss America Pageant.

It's not for everyone, there's lots of violence, untitillating sex and nudity. And it's kind of a downer. But it's unique and held my interest. If your DVD player allows it, you might want to play it at 1.5x forward or so; you won't miss much.

Posted 2010-07-20 6:30 PM EDT

Intellectuals and Society

Here's what became painfully obvious to me while reading this book. This blogger, and just about any blogger, could significantly increase blog quality by buying a whole bunch of Thomas Sowell books. Then, daily:

1. Pick a book at random;
2. Pick a page from that book at random;
3. Type in a couple paragraphs into your blog, verbatim;
4. There is no step four.

Here, Professor Sowell simmers "intellectuals" over a low flame for 317 pages. By "intellectuals", he means mainly lefties. (In paragraph 2 he dismisses "atypical" intellectuals like Milton Friedman and and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn from the discussion.) The book is very much a continuation of the analysis he started in 1987's A Conflict of Visions, and continued in The Vision of the Anointed and The Quest for Cosmic Justice. This book stands on its own, though.

"An intellectual's work begins and ends with ideas," Sowell says. Although intellectuals are "smart", they don't use that intelligence to build bridges, run businesses, design spacecraft, or write computer programs. Disconnected from the concrete, enraptured by the inner beauty of their abstractions, they tend to believe that the sheer power of intellect can be brought to bear on "problems", and produce needed "solutions." And if problems go "unsolved", it only means that stupid or evil people were in charge. Arrogance and close-mindedness are nearly inevitable. They don't argue against contrary views; they ignore or deride them, with well-designed dismissive quips. They disparage the tacit practical knowledge of the experienced, and underestimate the coordinative power inherent in unplanned activities of self-interested individuals.

In other words: President Obama, this is your life.

Sowell shows how all this has played out through history in various arenas: war and foreign policy, economics, the justice system, academia, and the media. Let me take my own advice. Here's Sowell on the "verifiability" of the deconstructionist intellectuals' trade:

The standards by which engineers and financiers are judged are external standards, beyond the realm of ideas and beyond the control of their peers. An engineer whose bridges or buildings collapse is ruined, as is a financier who goes broke. However plausible or admirable their ideas might have seemed initially to their fellow engineers or fellow financiers, the proof of the pudding is ultimately in the eating. Their failure may well be registered in the declining esteem in their respective professions, but that is an effect, not a cause. Conversely, ides which might have seemed unpromising to their fellow engineers or fellow financiers can come to be accepted among those peers if the empirical success of the ideas becomes manifest. The same is true of scientists and athletic coaches. But the ultimate test of a deconstructionist's ideas is whether other deconstructionists find those ideas interesting, original, persuasive, elegant or ingenious. There is no external test.

Like so many other nice-sounding notions, the multicultural ideology does not distinguish between an arbitrary definition and a verifiable proposition. That is, it does not distinguish between how one chooses to use words within one's own mind and the empirical validity of those words outside in the real world. Yet consequences, for both individuals and society, follow from mundane facts in the real world, not from definitions inside people's heads. Empirically, the question whether or not cultures are equal becomes: Equal in what demonstrable way? That question is seldom, if ever, asked, much less answered, by most of the intelligentsia.

Posted 2010-07-20 6:00 PM EDT
Last Modified 2010-07-28 2:48 PM EDT

Tonight We Ride, Right Or Wrong

… tonight we sail, on a radio song:

• Whoa. Sarah likes Kelly. It probably goes without saying that this gives Kelly Ayotte some conservative street cred that she was kind of weak on.

• Many have noted the 180:
  1. President Obama vociferously denying in September 2009 that ObamaCare was a tax increase, in order to get it passed.
  2. The Obama Administration in July 2010 vociferously relying on the fact that ObamaCare is a tax increase, in order to defend its dubious constitutionality.

  See the definitive takedown from Matt Welch, who deems it "brazen bullshittery". Here at Pun Salad, it's just another episode of Barackrobatics.

• Also at Reason, a wonderful interview with Mickey Kaus by Nick Gillespie. Mostly about immigration, but also about unions, the media, and how Mickey got the Velvet Underground to play his high school.

  I think California Democrats chose poorly in their primary.

• The genius that is xkcd makes a devastating point about TI graphic calculators:

  

  Probably coincidentally: check out Slashdot on how TI is attempting to (um) discourage its calculators' owners from doing their own coding. Sounds suicidal to me.

Posted 2010-07-19 6:30 PM EDT