Shrinking Respect for Strunk

Judging by the enormous number of misuses I've seen of late, I'd estimate we are no more than a half dozen years away from completely losing the distinction between 'effect' and 'affect'.

If Stimulus II: This Time We'll Call It Jobs Because We've Already Tainted The Word 'Stimulus' With Our Ineptitude goes through, I would consider supporting it if some significant amount of money were spent on distributing copies of Strunk & White to everyone who claims to be literate.

As is often the case, XKCD is there to give me hope.

Truth of the Day

Fascinating article in the NY Times about an expensive piece of bomb-detecting equipment that the Iraqi government is quite enamored of which has the sole drawback of being comically useless:

To detect materials, the operator puts an array of plastic-coated cardboard cards with bar codes into a holder connected to the wand by a cable. “It would be laughable,” Colonel Bidlack said, “except someone down the street from you is counting on this to keep bombs off the streets.”

Proponents of the wand often argue that errors stem from the human operator, who they say must be rested, with a steady pulse and body temperature, before using the device.

Then the operator must walk in place a few moments to “charge” the device, since it has no battery or other power source, and walk with the wand at right angles to the body. If there are explosives or drugs to the operator’s left, the wand is supposed to swivel to the operator’s left and point at them.

This heartfelt statement from the head of the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior’s General Directorate for Combating Explosives betrays the truth I referred to in the post's title:

“Whether it’s magic or scientific, what I care about is it detects bombs,” said Maj. Gen. Jehad al-Jabiri

Though this fellow might be written off as a backwards yokel from a backwards region of the world, this is how most of humanity thinks, even today, even in the West where science seems to reign supreme. Rational thought is very alien to humanity. Scientific thought is an even more unnatural subset of rational thought. It's a rare person who is able to fully embrace it and takes real will for most people to even follow the logic of it, even in the face of literal centuries of evidence of its benefits.

This is a big part of the reason that I feel civilization rests on such infirm footing, despite seemingly irrefutable evidence to the contrary. The glorious achievements of our civilization were not natural or inevitable, nor is the maintenance of the modes of thought needed for their further existence. Indeed, most of humanity would gladly embrace the pleasantly irrational, civilization be damned, than do the hard work of maintaining rationality. For an example from the very heights of the "rational West", just look at the anti-vaccine movement.

Commune-ism

Fascinating article in the NY Times about people organizing group living situations in the city.

The article is everything you'd expect and serves as a beautiful illustration of how difficult it can be to put together satire in today's world where actual craziness tends to vastly outstrip anyone's ability to exaggerate it.

Perhaps just a few choice quotes with some commentary...

Consider the efforts of Ms. Berger, 28, and Ms. Hazard, 24, who advertised eloquently for roommates before even settling on a house: "Some of the things we like are: permaculture, living sustainably, gardening, dancing, hula hooping, yoga, herbalism, making music, active listening, non-violent communication ..." they wrote, in part.

It's kind of sad the way they are clearly trying as hard as they can to be unique people fearlessly carving their own way in the world and yet are ending up as hopeless cliches every bit as ridiculous as the conformists whose restrictive reality they no doubt believe they are bravely fleeing.


A house in Philly apparently had this listing:

"You will probably not feel at home here unless anti-ableism, anti-ageism, anti-classism, anti-racism, consent, trans-positivity and queer-positivity, etc., are very important to you," the ad read.
Anti-ableism?
Ms. Feigelson, who works as a political organizer and volunteer, explained: "It means against the oppression of those who are physically or mentally disabled, and extends to language. Like you wouldn’t use the word ‘lame.’ "

Ah yes. Because you wouldn't want to get a roommate who is in favor of the oppression of the handicapped -- as so many in today's society are.


You know, this tendency to imagine yourself as a brave warrior courageously fighting evil opression is one I've noticed for a while, perhaps I should pull together my thoughts on it at some point and share them.

Basically, the driving force seems to be that while it's a lot of fun to be bravely fighting oppression -- it's romantic and all that -- it sucks to actually live in a place that's full of real oppression with lots of power behind it b/c then, for all the romance, you tend to get thrown in jail, beaten, killed, that kind of downer stuff. So what's really fun is to come up with definitions of "oppression" that are so mild that very open, very accepting societies can be shoe-horned into meeting them. Then you get all the pleasantness of living in an open, free society bereft of much actual oppression AND all the romantic fun of proving how moral you are by bravely standing against oppression -- nevermind that this oppression exists mostly in your own imagination.

I don't pretend that this is a recent phenomenon -- indeed, based on my cursory knowledge, it seems to have been a significant force animating the late 1960's -- but it def. seems to be on the rise of late.


Then later, the reporter (fn1) asks a personality expert about the ads:

Yet she worried that other personality types, the sort who know how to fix the toaster or program the VCR, weren’t being invited into these houses.

That's not really a concern though, is it? After all, everyone knows that toasters are a tool of the patriarchy designed to oppress womynkind; VCR's, in their conceit to 'record' something that 'happened', are reflective of a normative heuristic favoring certain dominant frames of reference over others; and as for "programming", don't even get me started on how inherently oppressive the idea that it is right or even possible for one being to impose its designs and desires on another is...

Somehow even after reading this article about these brave iconoclasts creating a new type of society, one based on profound thought and deep insight about the role of humanity in the world, my conviction that Western Civ. is on its last legs and disaster will follow remains unshaken...

fn1: Who, somewhat oddly, openly admits in the article to "fretting" over her interview subjects, though that's a topic for a separate post. One on my old favorite: the NY Times. The open sympathy of their reporters -- even in the "hard news" sections -- for their subjects, when those subjects are on the 'right' side of the political spectrum, is getting pretty out of hand. But, as I say, a topic for another time.

Wither Britain

Meant to mention this a month or so ago when it came out but congratulations to Britain for becoming the first industrialized nation to see the Flynn Effect reverse itself!

First into the Industrial Revolution and now first into the dark night! What an iconoclastic people those Brits are!

I must note how nice it is to have actual hard evidence for my thesis of Western Civ's decline. Guess I wasn't just whistling dixie after all...

Not with a bang but a whimper...

Humorous article in the WSJ about a Russian professor -- and former KGB analyst -- who's been predicting the collapse of the U.S. in a civil war for a decade now. He thinks it'll happen in 2010.

I think he's dead wrong. Western Civ. is def. in decline and not long of this Earth. And the U.S. is pretty much the last bastion of Western Civ. But I can't see it blowing up in a civil war. Far more likely to slowly fade away, so slowly that each step into the darkness will hardly be noticeable and it'll only be in hindsight that the few left who care enough to think it through will say, "Wow, where did it go?"


Particularly humorous is his idea that Alaska will be rejoined with Russia. I can see the appeal from the Russian standpoint but I can't imagine the Alaskans going without a fight. I'd picture something like Red Dawn fueled by whatever military advantage the part of the U.S. arsenal parked in Alaska would have over the entire Russian army. Which would likely be a considerable advantage: our military technology is light years ahead of just about everybody else's.

Historic

"So that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the Earth..." - Abraham Lincoln

"So that poorly made cars assembled by overpaid labor to be sold at redundant dealerships shall not perish from the Earth..."(fn1) George W. Bush

A blogger I read had the humorous observation recently that the plan for the Big 3 seems to be that we bail them out so that we can force them to make green vehicles. This is, he points out, prob. the first time in history that the rationale has been "we have to save them so we can destroy them" rather than the other way around.

fn1: Note that I may be paraphrasing his actual remarks.

Will the last one left please buy some expensive jeans before you turn out the light...

Sad article in the Wash. Post today about a new magazine in Japan trying to appeal to the "elder boys" to get them to spend money.

Apparently when your demographics fall off a cliff, so does your consumer spending. Who knew?

In the tradition of Japan being the home of all things weird, the magazine is called "OilyBoy".

The good news, I suppose, is that this shouldn't be a problem for too terribly long. After 100 years or so there simply won't be enough Japanese folk left to market magazines to or worry about what their economy is like.

Note to the rest of the civilized world: you might want to take notes.

All that glitters...

Fascinating Washington Post article about a Turkish immigrant millionaire's daughter's Sweet 16 bash.

Great quote from one attendee:

"Honestly, it's been challenging at times raising our daughter around all of this," says Melanie Braun, mother of Ayse's best friend Maddy. She gestures around the club. "It's not our lifestyle at all. But the Halacs are a wonderful family, very generous. I think Ahmet contributes to charities in Turkey, or something."

"Contributes to charities in Turkey or something". Priceless.

I also liked the bit about how Soulja Boy, one of the celebrity rappers paid to attend, was under the impression that it was a club appearance, not a private party. He charges more for private parties.

Meanwhile... back on Htrae...

So let's see. Edwards Sex Scandal? National Enquirer reports, NY Times declines. The Times said it wasn't news because he was no longer a player and they had "finite resources".

Well the Times must have dug up some significant new resources this week because today, in addition to reporting on Edwards (who is still, as far as I know, no longer a player, still engulfed in a tawdry scandal that was still broken by the National Enquirer -- I bring these three things up b/c those were the Times rational for not reporting on it initially) they have also decided to report on the long-awaited discovery of Big Foot.

What are the odds that this is a hoax like that "giant pig" thing a couple of years ago? I'd put it somewhere in the vicinity of 1 in 1.

Honestly, what is wrong with the world when the Enquirer is breaking major political scandals and the Times is breaking the death of Big Foot?

Ice to meet you...

Another Onion-worthy article in the NY Times today, this time about people who prefer special ice. These people not only have aparently deeply held preferences for shape, taste, etc. of the ice that goes in their drink, but they are also willing to defend these preferences by going so far as to bring their own ice to a party.

If I were to ever discover that I knew someone who would bring their own ice over to a cocktail party I was having I would have to seriously re-evaluate my ability to discern character. I would do that re-evaluation after smacking that person in the head and dousing them liberally with whatever drink I was trying to offer them when they expressed the ice preference.

I would try not to follow the dousing with lighting them on fire but if I were unable to contain myself, I would be sure to use an appopriately trendy and expensive type of fire so that they would at least not suffer undue embarassment during their richly deserved immolation.

I love the smell of napalm in the morning

This is an excellent smackdown of this almost entirely incoherent protest letter.

For background, a bunch of professors wrote to protest the establishment (or at least the official U of Chicago participation in) the Milton Friedman institute. This is because, displaying their love for intellectual openness and diversity, they feel Milton Friedman is the devil and his ideas should be banned forever. I exaggerate. Somewhat.

At any rate, this John Cochrane fellow, who is apparently also on the faculty of U of Chicago but despite that apparently feels that being a scholar should entail clarity of writing and thought, not just signing on to the cause-du-jour, however inane, incoherent or counter to prior causes-du-jour, has written a response to the protest letter.

It is excellent and gives me hope for our future. The fact that he is one man and the signatories of the original document were legion, however, crushes that hope like the jaws of a child finishing off a gob-stopper.

(Got to this particular smackdown through the excellent Marginal Revolutions blog here)

Revised and Extended on the NY Times re: Free Speech

Here's an email I sent to some compatriots discussing the NY Times piece which I had previously commented on. It revises and extends my remarks. I've added some links for the fun and convenience of any potential readers and/or historians.

Super huge props or whatever the blog-appropriate version is to Ezra Levant upon whose blog I have relied to follow the Canadian mess. I heartily recommend it.

---------------------------------
Honestly, I find the whole thing too depressing to even get on a high horse about.

What can be said? The Times' attitude is apalling but not at all surprising coming from such staunch supporters of the latest in US campaign finance reform, which is basically a "speech for me, not for thee" piece of legislation from their perspective.

The article actually does a decent job of presenting both sides, though it way front-loads the criticism of free speech and support for "hate speech" laws. The headline and brief summary provided for your email forward, however, betray their true feelings quite nicely. We're "out of step with our allies" and "some legal scholars" think we should reconsider our bizarrely wide scope of free speech protection.



Meanwhile, you're probably thinking, as I did, that they have free speech up in Canada. You are wrong.

The latest decision handed down by a Human Rights Commission up there had as its punishment the proscription on a Christian minister from ever again expressing any "disparaging" remarks about homosexuality. Oh yeah, he also had to publish a public apology for having held those beliefs to begin with. And you thought show trials with public apologies went out with the Cultural Revolution. Shame on you.

I really feel like these things are going to get more and more press, even down here. The more you learn of them, the more shocking they are, NY Times white-washing support aside.

These are tribunals whose "judges" need have no legal qualifications at all and frequently don't. When they do, those qualifications are often of the "divorce lawyer" sort. Can you imagine having a divorce lawyer appointed to a middling bureaucratic post determining where the proper limits on free speech are? (Memorably, one such commissioner was asked what weight he put on the right to free speech. His answer was "free speech is an American concept, so I give it no weight." Apparently he'd never read or heard of the Canadian Charter of Rights or had even a passing familiarity with centuries of common law evolution...)

Then there's the way these things are run. There's no rules of evidence, no presumption of innocence, no reliance on precedent either of the commissions or real courts, pretty much no established procedure at all. Fully half of the section 13 hate-speech complaints have been filed by one man, who, by the way, used to be an investigator for one of these comissions. He gets 5-figure settlements for his efforts, despite often not actually being a member of the group who he feels might have been offended.

Some of their investigative techniques involve stealing a neighbors wireless internet connection, using it to log onto white supremecist websites, posting outrageous messages, and then launching a complaint over the replies.

And the best part? The section 13 cases have a 100% conviction rate. Yep, that's right, every single complaint that's gone to "trial" has been found guilty. I'm not super up on my totalitarian history but I'm reasonably sure even the Soviets liked to throw the occassional "innocent" verdict into the mix, just to keep up appearances.

Of course, much like the Soviet trials, the investigation itself is in fact a punishment of sorts. You see, if you make a complaint that's the end of your responsibility. From there on out, the state pays to investigate and then prosecute the complaint. Of course, the defendant pays his own way, which can run to 6 figures or more (these cases can drag out for years as well). And if you're found innocent? (Which you never are if the complaint is a "hate speech" one) No getting the costs back. Real Canadian courts have the admirable "loser pays" feature.


At any rate. As I've said before, you should really read up a bit on what's going on up there, if only because it's so chillingly interesting. Also, I must again recommend Steyn's book, an excerpt of which set off his hate-speech trial, as an excellent, funny, and morbidly depressing read. (Quite an accomplishment to mix those attributes.) I've said it before, I'll say it again: Western Civ. is on it's way out. Faster rather than slower. The irony is those hurrying to usher it out are prob. going to miss it most.

American Exceptionalism

Came across this article in the NY Times today, only to discover it's part of a series the NY Times is running on American exceptionalism in the law, that is to say aspects of our legal system that are unique in the world. Haven't read the rest of the articles but plan to.

At any rate. Today's is on Freedom of Speech which, as we all know, is relatively absolute in the US and guaranteed explicitly to remain so as laid out in the 1st amendment. This is not at all the case in the rest of the world, even in those countries who trace their legal systems to English common law, as we do.

The article takes as a hook a rather controversial human rights case going on in Canada wherein one of their major publications has been hauled before a tribunal for an unflattering article on Muslims, something that would be impossible to imagine in the U.S.

The case is pretty much endlessly fascinating. I recommend Ezra Levant's blog as a resource. He writes well not only about the McCleans/Steyn case mentioned by the Times but also his own pending tribunal. If you have the time his YouTube videos of his own interrogation by a bureaucratic censor are hysterical.

The Times article's headline (at least in the online version) is the disapproving-sounding "Out of Step with Allies, U.S. Defends Right to Offend". Given that a publication like the Times rarely finds reason to come down on the American side of any difference with Europe, I figured this would be an upsettingly anti-free-speech take. Overall, the article was fair. It presented the rational for the anti-hate-speech laws prevalent in other lands but also included a reasonable description and assortment of defenders of our own first amendment absolutism on speech. The support for the censorial was mostly front-loaded but I suppose that's just nit-picking, ultimately.

At any rate. I have loads to say about the Canadian cases and what they signify for the broader decline of Western Civilization but it's late and I want to go home.

Good to know

The NY Times continues its slide into fanzine-level editing:

Correction: June 1, 2008 An article on May 4 about black liberation theology and the debate surrounding the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr, Senator Barack Obama’s former minister, erroneously confirmed a statement by Mr. Wright that the United States has used biological weapons against other countries. There is no evidence that the United States ever did so.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/weekinreview/04powell.html