Overcoming Bias: Politics and Awful Art

Overcoming Bias: Politics and Awful Art: "There is powerful politicized art, just as there are great religious paintings. But merit in politicized art is more the exception than the rule. Most of it ends up as New Soviet Man Heroically Crushing Capitalist Snakes. It's an easy living. If anyone criticizes your art on grounds of general suckiness, they'll be executed for siding with the capitalist snakes.

Tolerance of awful art, just because it lands a delicious punch on the Enemy, or just because it affirms the Great Truth, is a dangerous sign: It indicates an affective death spiral entering the supercritical phase where you can no longer criticize any argument whose conclusion is the 'right' one."

“Young’n! That there Jamie Lynn Spears from Zoey 101 done got herself all pregnified!”

... you know what? She doesn’t care. And you know why? It’s not her business.

Because CNN Asked

Weekly Links

Quotes for entrepreneurs.

Quantum computing on a chip using quantum dots.

Death for pimps.

Firing around corners.

Chinese retail sales are growing at a record pace.

Saturn's ancient rings.

The new airfare sites deliver better deals.

The real death star is a black hole.

Riding the failure cascade.

The colors of ancient statuary.

Slavery in New York.

Giant rats in Indonesia.

Is cannabis smoke deadlier than tobacco smoke?

Japanese missile defence.

The case against peak oil.

Remember them

Back when I did this sort of thing it was pretty darned easy. It ain't easy anymore. Please remember them and when the opportunity arises let them and those who love them know you care.

Where are the life boats?

Remember the inspector general of SIGIR warning about the instability of the Mosul Dam? Remember various papers publicizing the warning. Well, look who else was paying attention.

“Some 250 armed men have entered Nineveh Province with the aim of detonating the Mosul Dam,” one source said.

BTW, SIGIR was set up by congress to oversee and investigate the reconstruction in Iraq and they have been quite popular on the left for their exposures. But now Inspector General Stuart Bowen and his deputy Ginger Cruz are being investigated by the FBI. Oddly, some of the left now blame Bush for this Congressional chimera, the usual cross of a Republican with a Democrat. But party probably pales beside the opportunity to enhance bureaucratic vitae in explaining the behavior of SIGIR.

Anyway, pay attention.

The Corner on National Review Online

The Corner on National Review Online: "... there are three parties in Congress (Ds, Rs, Appropriators), not two."

Star Trek Should Have Had These

... except the special effects would have been too expensive.

Must See Movie

How well do you know the World?

Know your World is an entertaining test of your Geography knowledge. Speed and accuaracy are needed to pile up the points. I made it through 11 or 12 levels before bombing out. Needless to say I nailed the capital of Turkmenistan, but Africa and the Caribbean, as well as some oddball Australian possessions, did me in. I finished with a Travel IQ if 119.

Reaching for the Stars

The release of the Mitchell report concerning steroid use in baseball essentially confirms what everyone suspected but pretended not to know. People are shocked…shocked that so many players have been implicated. Some new names have emerged, especially pitchers Roger Clemens and Andy Petitte. Still the litany of names is sobering. Furthermore, many sportswriters are saying that there are many more names not in the report but that “everyone” knows they’re doing it. And baseball isn’t even testing for Human Growth Hormone (HGH) at this point. Sports are a reflection of the culture IMHO. So, I’ll briefly ride on my hobbyhorse, namely living in the age of tantalization.

Tantalus was a wealthy king, who was not satisfied with his mortal powers and mortality. Seeking to have what the gods have, he cheats or commits crimes designed to acquire his objects of desire (Nectar and Ambrosia). In one version of the myth he even chops up his son in an attempt to make himself level with the gods. He is caught and punished by being eternally tantalized (seeing what he wants but having it hang just out of reach).

There are many forces in society tempting us toward immediate gratification, and we seem to crave a never-ending onslaught of excitements and powers. The thrills don’t necessarily last too long. So we can set off in search of the next big thing or pick-me-up. Fans liked seeing the legendary records fall or be obliterated, since it is also a thrill to “be a part of history”, even as a witness. In Tantalizing Times –now available at a big discount through Amazon :>)--- I wrote:

Steroids have been the subject of much controversy in recent years. These have tended to be used by male athletes looking to get some kind of edge. They enhance muscle mass, and guys have been able to get pumped up on them and achieve almost unreal sorts of muscle development. They are used to assist the athlete to become stronger and more powerful, in addition to assisting the athlete to develop the body of a Greek god. Questions were raised about the productivity of many athletes as records began to fall in numerous sports. Football players and baseball players have especially been tempted to swallow steroids in the hopes of obtaining athletic immortality. Curiously steroid use has potential health risks and not only enhancement potential. Considering the theme of the book, its risks are almost poetic, namely the potential for shrinking of the testicles and of impotence. Although they temporarily can help one climb to the top of the heap, excessive use could easily produce a person with many of the characteristics of premature aging and impaired capacity to reproduce. Pg. 53

Although steroids affect muscles (more than brain) my focus here lies on the prospect of opening the door for mind drugs as enhancers. The same arguments will be used. In the case of using an enhancer to get the advantage, we abandon whatever investment we have had in something like will power or determination as well as effort. If activities are made easy by intake of pharmaceuticals, then the outcome is privileged over the process and we acclimate ourselves to the notion that anything worth having is worth being acquired via a bottle or needle. In fact it clearly sets the stage for an entitlement viewpoint to reign supreme. Pg. 80

Where You At?

Jay Cost today takes a look at where the candidates for the Republican Party nomination to be President of the United States have been and draws some conclusions regarding the strategies adopted by some of them. This put me in mind of what I wrote elsewhere a couple of days ago:

It's hard to see how the cash thing (Huckabee has a lot less) doesn't apply in this quarter and yet a look at the Rasmussen weekly numbers on daily tracking shows Huckabee at 6% on 10/8 and 21% on 12/10 and it's mostly at Thompson's expense.

Thompson's people know that their strategy, whatever it was, has failed. Iowa is important. So, it appears, has Romney's, but, again, until actual votes are cast and counted all one can do is watch and evaluate because no campaign is going to make it easy to figure out their strategy and its effectiveness if they can find any way to keep from doing so.

It's been decades since I've so enjoyed observing the political. It's been one entertaining read and view after another since the Republicans went on CNN a couple of weeks ago. The commentariat and the campaigns are all in an uproar because the debates are idiotic, the candidates are mediocre, Iowa is unworthy, the polling is wrong, etc. Same old, same old. What's not to love?

So, where you at? I'm in Washington state. A four month caucus process to select convention delegates for both major parties begins here on February 9th. Ten days later there is a primary. Some Republican delegates will be selected as a result. I'll probably declare myself a Republican for the day and vote for Giuliani or McCain depending on my mood.

It was only a little over a month ago that I wrote here:

Personally, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if we see a repeat of Illinois in 2004 where Obama just stays out of his own way and lets his opponents bump up against themselves, one another and him until they come apart. Of course, I'm not carrying it so far as to suggest that the Republican Party will turn to Alan Keyes in its moment of need. Not with Ron Paul available.

So much fun to see Alan Keyes join the mix this week and so amusing to watch as the young guy's path became clearer and clearer through these past 31 days. 31 more days of the same, please.

Where YOU at?


I came back and did it the way blogger likes. I don't enjoy blogger.

Friday Links

The new Watrons of Japan.

You can't fight the Democratic party chairman.

Google acquires the internet.

The new atomic clock is an order of magnitude better than the previous one.

Waves to electricity in Rhode Island.

Are wild salmon about to go extinct?

Your personal jetpack at only a quarter million.

Porn for girls by girls.

The psychology of learning.

Why isn't government ("universal") health care the answer?

New adoption?

Nah. The dang thing keeps coming in through the cat flap and I'm getting tired of throwing it out. I could sure use a little localized global warming about now so the heat seeking critter would stay outdoors. The historical roots of this common situation are explored here.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | EU 'snub' threat at climate talks

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | EU 'snub' threat at climate talks: "EU ministers are threatening to boycott a US-led climate summit next month over the Bush administration's opposition to firm cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. The row comes during the penultimate day of UN climate talks in Bali, where progress on outstanding issues is slow."

So, the plan here is that if the US doesn't agree in advance to the demands the EU is making, they won't come to the conference?

Yeah, that'll work.

The Real Bailout

Alan Greenspan has an editorial today in the Wall Street Journal which carefully explains that the Fed was no more responsible for watching the barn door than Fitch's, Moody's or Standard & Poor. Where Fitch points all ten fingers, Greenspan waves his arms and encourages us to look backwards:

The root of the current crisis, as I see it, lies back in the aftermath of the Cold War, when the economic ruin of the Soviet Bloc was exposed with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Following these world-shaking events, market capitalism quietly, but rapidly, displaced much of the discredited central planning that was so prevalent in the Third World.

It's all clear now. Banks were allowed to move liabilities "off the books" to SIVs because of the collapse of the Soviet Union. That certainly makes sense. Somewhere. Mr. Greenspan somehow fails to note that the shell game indulged in by the banks through the magic of black box algorithms which engendered "no loss" derivatives marketed by unregulated hedge funds has ended with no pea to be seen on the table. His only concession to the phenomenon is by mentioning that:

Arbitragable assets--equities, bonds and real estate, and the financial assets engendered by their intermediation--now swamp the resources of central banks. The market value of global long-term securities is approaching $100 trillion. Carry trade and foreign exchange markets have become huge.

I'm not as impressed as I had hoped to be.

Never fear. Today, Bernanke rides to the rescue. Since the credit markets are frozen because absolutely no one in the world has any remaining faith whatsoever in ratings issued by the "Who?" "Not me!!" credit rating crowd, the Fed is going to start shoveling money to - "All depository institutions that are judged to be in generally sound financial condition by their local Reserve Bank and that are eligible to borrow under the primary credit discount window program will be eligible to participate in TAF auctions."

Of course, that determination will be made based upon their rating by Fitch or Moody or Standard & Poor. What a relief.

I don't have any particular objection to special auctions to
inject liquidity. That's the purpose for the existence of central banks. It would be nice if the Fed made it clear that a depository institution had an either/or choice regarding off the books deals and remaining a depository. The mental picture of depository institutions gathered around a blanket, rolling dice on black box outcomes just doesn't inspire a great deal of confidence.

The Fed still has a lot more credibility (IMO) than the IMF or the World Bank or the Asian Development Bank. Those are the folks who have been touting the success of China in following the "third way". It is becoming increasingly clear that China's 'ascent' is chimerical. I've never heard of a 40% cut in a country's estimated GDP before. Except for that one time when the Communist mythos concerning the Soviet Union was completely demolished, of course. It's almost as if China and the former Soviet Union had something in common. Maybe the World Bank, the IMF and the ADP will be able to apply sophisticated analysis to determine whether a common element might exist?

Bernanke needs to clip and save Greenspan's editorial. When China collapses he'll be able to say that not even Greenspan saw it coming.

Quote of the Day

An Interview With Matt Sanchez - Right Wing News (Conservative News and Views): "Porn was a no-brainer way of sticking the middle-finger at what I knew to be a hypocritical society. Porn was legal, it was marginal, edgy and I figured it would anger all the right people. Several years later I've been proven correct."

Don't play poker with George W.

American Thinker: Mind-reading George W on the Middle East: "So here's what W decides: Why not let the libs write that NIE? Nobody is going to believe it anyway. (And right on cue, the Europeans dropped leaks saying they didn't.) But it will cause a fuss in the media in Israel (which is under the gun most directly), but also in Saudi, the Gulf States, Europe, the United States, and even Russia, where everybody has been happily demagoguing W for ages, secure in the knowledge that Uncle Sam would help them if they encountered real danger from the martyrdom brigade. It's very clever. Some countries are suddenly getting serious about Tehran's nukes. The UK Guardian (!) has been writing about the danger, the same folks who've been blowing superheated steam like Old Faithful ever since the overthrow of Saddam. The Brits, Germans and French have told the press that the Americans are just wrong again, just like with Saddam, but now in the opposite way. With Saddam, the myth goes, there were no WMDs, but now Iran has them coming for sure."

I'd been thinking similar thoughts, but hadn't really formulated them. Now I don't need to.

"... look on my works and despair."

Hah.

Weekly Links

What if the phone company edited your conversations?

Enter the Chinese market, lose your brand name.

18 alarm clocks.

Are humans evolving faster?

Indonesians hiding in Mecca.

Is food becoming dearer?

Reading your mind directly while you view ads.

Banning Scientology.

Free Yale courses.

Nanotechnology to kill anthrax.

Flying humans.

More antarctic dinosaurs.

10 exciting emerging technologies.

Will housing continue to crash?

Mammoths blasted from space.

The 4 things that make a good leader.

The future of robots.

My name is Ozymandias, king of nerds...

So, you think I could score as a nerd god and not publish it?