Politician calls Moslems poor losers...

The Danish courts just dismissed the MUSLIM RAGE (tm) lawuit over a Danish politician's remarks during the cartoon nosense. So what does the politician do?

Kjærsgaard said she was relieved the case was over and called Ahmad ‘a poor loser’.

Can I move to Denmark and vote for her?

Absolutely Brilliant Piece on Media Bias and Lefty Thinking...

Some very original thinking.

I spent my early years in a country where every citizen had to carry identification papers. All the newspapers were censored, as were all letters abroad; general elections had been abolished - it was a one-party state. Citizens were not allowed to go overseas without travel passes (which were rarely issued). People were imprisoned without trial, and the government could tell you what job to do and jail you if you didn't do it. Some of my contemporaries were forced to work in the mines.

Yes, Britain from 1939 to 1945.

Thank you, Dinocrat!

Hiatus,

My dam just died. Give me a few days to "grieve", back posting July 20.

Are black people dangerous to the environment?

EPA To Investigate Effect Of Emission Controls On Blacks.

I can give you the answer right now, for nothing.

It costs them $10 and 15 minutes to do the test, and if their cars put out too much gunk they can't register them. Same effect it has on Asians, Hispanics, and blue eyed devils from the frozen caves of Europe.

I could have thought of that...

Buy that.

Sell this.

Brendan Keilar , an heroic lawyer and a brave police chief...

A lawyer and a backpacker see a stranger in trouble, and have a go. The lawyer is murdered for his pains.

Paul de Waard was the other Samaritan- he's doing better.

Then, defying the American model, the chief of police PRAISES him! And tells other citizens to GO AND DO LIKEWISE!



This fine man dies, yet Nifong and Joe Cavallo still draw breath.

Of course, Australia needs more gun laws.

As though this loser were not already prohibited from possessing any firearm, anywhere on earth. It's like a Noh play with real blood and genuine tears.
Latest news, loser "charged with one count of murder, two of attempted murder, one count of unlawful imprisonment and one count of intentionally causing serious injury."What, no gun charges?

A Nifong beatdown- with correct use of FORTUITY!

"Stupid and envious is a bad combo platter."

I'd marry her based on the prose alone.

I mock golf, but awwwww....

I don't play golf, but I was a child. Praise for whoever started this promotion, what a clever idea to bring parents and children together.

Click on "Games they will never forget".

Evil trash loser Nifong quits, disbarred...

AWH is right- so rotten even the other lawyers noticed. And NO CREDIT for admitting it.



Now go hang youself.

Bad Army Recruiting...

Or at least I think so. I'm sure the Tommy depicted is brave, tough, and competent, but this picture



probably doesn't convey that to the

front page of the recruiting advert.

A fantastic academic idea...

My friend K. told me about this. Once at school she wrote a paper about the Ethiopian famine, and she submitted it in to FOUR classes- English, History, Economics, and Philosophy.

3 As and a B.

I bow in awe, could have done that so often if I'd thought of it! Grr!

More people going to heaven...

I like charities that give people the means so do better for themselves rather than "stuff".

What's more basic than clean water?

Thank you to cruella, who is not in favour of child abduction.

If the Cape Buffalo have to come and get you...

they are bringing an ass kicking with them. Amazing film.

Shameless plug for socialist program...

Yes, I despise and hate socialism. But occasionally it does something right, usually in harness with private liberty.

So here's the plug- a couple of weeks ago I happened to hear a bit of a Mountain Stage concert with Mary Chapin Carpenter. (Yes, another Bolshie, but I don't think the evil kind and very talented.)

But the music was so lovely I had to pull the car over- I was too breath taken to drive. I only heard a snippet.

So after asking Adam Harris if there was a way to listen and download, he informed me that there is, for just this week.

So thanks to all the government programs and lefties- Mountain Stage (the concert), NPR (the radio program), DARPA (the internets), AlGore (also the internets), Steve Jobs (this mac), Mary Chapin Carpenter and her band (the gorgeous music), whoever thought up mp3s, the taxpayers who provided all this stuff, and- gasp- Franklin R--sevelt (TVA).

You have gladdened the tiny heart of this eurocentric, gold standard missing, poor folk oppressing, stag, fox, & coyote hunting, gun owning, SUV driving conservative. Tears of joyful appreciation roll down my face as I listen.

Thank you, America.

Click here and you can listen too. "Here I am" spoke for me. "Elysium" made me gasp. And those piano arrangements...

A country that fears lipstick needs to think...

Once again Fred Reed rolls one over in the open.

Maybe a country that fears lipstick needs to think.

It reads well along with

Dynamite, Manhattan, 1939: ...If you were a 1930s man, woman, or child, Henry Ford or a resident of the tightest-packed block in Harlem, society's ought was an all-day, everyday hand on your shoulder. It checked your freedom and cramped your style. You would have been more comfortable without it. But in the end, like the man's stiff collar and tie or the woman's girdle, it was something you got used to; it was tolerable; it was even, maybe, not as bad as it looked. We rebel in our very souls nowadays against the idea that conventional behavior, dress, and manners could possibly matter. We abolished all those rules with the best of intentions. But there is no getting around the fact that in the 1930s, people simply got more practice in acting as they ought than we do. I can't say what all that dogged practice was worth when push came to shove. I do know that in 1939 you could leave a pile of dynamite unguarded in the middle of New York City.

Joseph Wambaugh's brilliant "The New Centurions" takes its title from a scene in which an old policeman and a young one watch the burning of Watts in 1966. The old policeman muses on the idea that a couple of thousand years ago, there might have been two Roman guardians of order wondering about these Christians- how they were different, they were discarding the old Gods, the old ways, the old don'ts. But the Cristians were replacing the old dont's (and oughts) with new ones. The rule Luddites of the 1950s and 1960s were replacing the old don'ts with nothing.

That was a tragedy in some ways and a blessing in others. Some of the old dont's were evil- ostracism of homosexuals, black folks on the back of the bus. Some oughts- like neck ties at the ball park- just inconvenient admissions of social obedience.

But we have to have some dont's and oughts. Some social obedience for the sake of obedience, some rituals of belonging.

The Freudians, hippies, jumped up academics, guilt ridden bourgeois, worn out greatest generationers, political hacks and weak aristocrats destroyed an irrational, crazy warren of social rituals and obligations, grown up like a medieval town. Product of centuries, millions of adaptations, made by the people. They wanted to replace them with appetite and license.

Which is the law of tooth and claw, isn't it? I believe that the bien pensants thought (and think) that imposed order is the cause of human unhappiness, because it's the cause of theirs. But the rituals and don'ts have to be there. And they have to come from someplace.

The smashers didn't believe that. But order and ritual believed in them. And they left only one source for rules, didn't they? They chose to use the government/academia/press beast to plan, prepare for, and impose the new rules.

So now we have a society where black people don't have to go to the back of the bus. And where "diversity coordinators" exist in private businesses to spend the owners' money on hiring people whose main qualification is their black skin.

Not saying that's worse, just pointing out that both are artificially crazy.

The two columns I cite are more than nostalgic whining. The America of 1910, 1939, and 1960 looked and felt pretty much the same. The America of today does feel different.

I'll give you an example in the next post but one. Have to get a thank you out of the way first.

"Wicked" quotes...

"Do I believe in the next world? I have great trouble at times believing in this one."

"...and by not deciding yes, decided no."

"He could not be kept from hunting, but he did not catch much either."

(From the book that inspired the musical.)

Pennsylvania says the Founders were "terrorists"...

That's all I can figure from the state's website. Why else would they put a minuteman- the armed anti-government insurgent of his day- on their page about anti-government domestic terrorists?

My littermate kills again...

She went to some third world hole and played golf at a course next to a national park. THWACK, the ball went into the water.

AFTER it killed an innocent duck swimming there!

Her comment "It should have stayed in the nature preserve".

"Again, blood on your hands."

"Not this time. Feathers on my balls."

Prince "Harry" resignation letter...

For those who haven't heard, Prince Henry of Great Britain will not be going to the war with his soldiers. The Army commanders have decided that threats against him make sending him more trouble than it's worth. Zaqarwi is pleased to discover that he is now the Household Cavalry's adjutant.

The prince is said to be disappointed. I'm sure he can write a better letter than my draft:

" My troop of Guardsmen has been ordered to active service. I have been ordered to relinquish my post and will not accompany the men I trained with, serve under, and command into battle.

I am told that this is because I am at greater risk that every other soldier in the campaign, and that my presence would increase the danger to my men and hamper their pursuit of victory.

I accept that judgement of my superiors.

I was trained and assigned as a combat officer. These orders tell me that although I may train, I may not serve fully in the army. Considerations other than my abilities will always govern my service.

My Uncle and Great Grandfather were permitted to share the greatest duty of citizenship with their fellow sailors. My purpose in entering the Army was to serve my country.

It is now clear to me that I will never be permitted to share that duty. I have been made a fraud and my training has been largely wasted. My superiors have decided that threats against me personally will control where I am assigned. I do not believe that it is in the best interests of my country, my regiment, or my comrades to put the Army in a position of appearing to cravenly obey the rantings of our enemies.

I know that combat service is not the only honourable or necessary post in war, and I take this step without meaning to disparage soldiers who serve in non combat positions. I have been trained at great expense to my fellow subjects. For that reason, I hereby request reassignment to a non combat position until my service term is completed. This will free a soldier whose life is less valued by our enemies than mine. When my current service term ends, I will resign my commission and seek other ways to serve my fellow subjects."

When threatened with blackmail, the great Duke said "Publish and be damned to you".

The best response to threats is always, "Do your worst." I expect that the guardsmen who would have been in the Prince's armoured car would agree, and there would be a long list of volunteers for those seats.


Starting with my own personal crush, I'll bet.

There's no way to polish this lump of crap. The British Army has altered a combat assignment because of threats by the enemy. Every one in Iraq who is fighting the barbarians or helping their victims is a target, and they all know it.

Everyone knows who won this little battle. Without a shot being fired. Again.

George Patton and Oprah Winfrey...

"A man who is not himself is nobody". (GSP Jr. 1944)

"I stand here as a symbol of what is possible when you believe in the dream of your own life. Don't be afraid. All you need to do is know who you are." (OW 2007)

They would have hated, respected, understood, and been proud of one another.

Some people are all upset about Oprah Winfrey's commencement speech at Howard, and the "good white folks" sound bite.

Seeing racism in this snippet of the speech is falling into the mind of Sharpton.

She is not seeing racism everywhere, she’s talking about historical fact. I grew up with black servants and I can imagine exactly this conversation going on. When Miss Winfrey was born, little southern black girls had a very limited future and her (or Secretary Rice’s) trajectory was almost unimaginable. Fortunately for all of us the white and black people around her, and the white and black people around hundreds of thousands of other Americans who happened to be black (and girls), let themselves imagine. And they worked, white and black, to create ways to let the imagined become real.

There are PLENTY of reasons- good, human, American reasons- to read this sound bite as not a racial artifact. Rudy Giuliani’s grandparents might have said something similar. The POINT of America is that with liberty, the cream can rise to the top despite all kinds of disadvantage. The POINT of good families, schools, and societies is that over generations, they inspire and permit their members to persevere and strive.

I believe those were General Howard’s points when he founded his schools, too.

Getting knotted drawers over this “sound bite” also betrays the ignorance of an outsider in time and culture. It IS an artifact of the speaker’s history.
My grandparents were of exactly the class and era and place that employed her grandmother. Though I disagree with a lot of her opinions and deplore plenty of her actions, I’m as proud as I can be of Oprah Winfrey. Her grandmother’s “good white folks” would be, too. Because in a perverse yet very human way, she’s part of the family.

People not from the south, or not from her or my background, or of a much newer time, have a very hard time really understanding that.

I notice the complainers aren't mentioning what she said about young black folks- "They don't know what you know. They're falling and they're failing. They're dropping out at rates of 50 percent and higher because we, our generation, didn't teach them who they are. We have a responsibility to raise them up, to lift them up, to save them, to liberate them from themselves."

Mad Hutters!

Interesting.

Immediate, direct, efficient charity in the best American can do tradition.

Perpetuating and encouraging failure and neighborhood blight.

Maybe both. Certainly looks like a fun way to spend a day.

You can't make trust out of anything else ...

You can't make trust out of anything else .

I actually believe I thought that phrase up. Google never heard of it yet, anyway.

It came to my mind once upon a time, when I was being romantically recultivated by someone who had been seriously dishonest with me. This was someone who could seduce for England*, yet despite the former flame's absolutely championship efforts, there was a great big space. Nothing else could fill it, and the things that once would have driven me mad with joy were meaningless. They felt false, like sitting down at table for a fantastic meal and suddenly being struck with a head cold. No amount of enticement could replace the intimacy of trust. Without it, everything else was ashes.

I've been musing on that idea off and on for a while, most recently when a friend told me a little story. Friend works for a State agency, one of four people in the same senior "rank" position. The Agency is changing its political leadership, and the new folks want to give their friends the senior positions. There are contract questions, so the Agency's new bosses are trying to threaten the four seniors to quit to make room. Loss of pension through demotion, that sort of thing.

So Friend was at a function, and Important Politico, boss of Agency bosses, came over to him. IP told Friend that this was all about getting rid of the other three seniors. They wanted to keep Friend, though, and if Friend would step aside, he'd be hired to a lucrative consultancy doing a job he likes.

"We're cheating and betraying the OTHER people. But we like you, trust us."

My desk neighbour at law school was from Alaska and told me about a saloon up there with a sign over the bar, "WE CHEAT THE OTHER GUY AND PASS THE SAVINGS ON TO YOU".

So, how does one deal with that? Once one enters the realm of trust from that of the arms' length transaction, is there a way out? Can we trust those we see betray others? When one is lied to, how much bribery does it take to buy trust back? Can it ever return?

No point here, just a muse. I'm rather proud of the phrase though, it gets to the point.

Probably should have put this on an emo** blog, but it has general application.

*For my American readers, it's a fairly commonplace British term to denote an Olympic level of skill at and enthusiasm for an ordinary activity. "My mother in law could complain for England."

**emotions. I don't keep a blog devoted to them, but many people do.

The Letter Project...

No, it's not where epistles are herded into proximity with only each other and kept dependent on handouts in exchange for votes while they reject civilisation and breed themselves further and further into Hobbesian anarchy to the accompaniment of rap, the stupidity machine, and cellular telephone ring tones.

It's another man who's going to heaven.

"The Letter Project is simple. You ask for a letter, I mail you a letter."

And, instead of that six pack, second pizza, box of ammo, or bag of weed,

send some joy.

Stop reading my stuff...

If you haven't first consumed the work of Bill Whittle. I had him at the top of my blog roll once, but it felt presumptuous.

His latest essay is one of the most, no other word, brilliant pieces of memoir, parable, persuasion, history, teaching, exposition, logic, clarity, and originally combined ideas I've ever read. Here's a taste:

It doesn't rain often in Los Angeles, but it rained the night I read that book. Its author, David Lifton, claimed that Kennedy was shot from the front, but then the body was secretly taken from Air Force One to Walter Reed Army Hospital where extensive surgery 'reversed' the trajectory of the wounds to make it look like poor patsy Oswald was the real assassin.

When I finally got to the payoff a shot of electricity went through me. I realized that I was now in possession of such history-changing information that I distinctly recall getting up, opening the door and peering out into the rain to see if I was being watched. I felt, truly, for one half-hour that my life might be in danger. I wish I could say I am making this up.

That sense of uncovering deep layers of ancient cover-ups is what drove the sales of The DaVinci Code. There, too, a web of truths, half-truths and outright fabrication spun a story that left the reader with a palpable sense of awe. It made you feel important, like you knew something absolutely essential that very few others ever were privileged to know.

Now most normal people do not look at life from within a pit of failure and despair. Our lives are measured by small successes -- like raising children, serving in the military, doing volunteer work at your church -- or just doing the right thing in a thousand small but important ways, like returning money if someone makes you too much change.

These are simply the small, ordinary milestones of a life of value. They give you a sense of identity.

But if I didn't have that sense of identity rooted in my own small achievements, I wonder how likely it would have been for me to grab onto that sense of sudden empowerment, of being an initiate in some arcane club of hidden wisdom. I wonder what might have happened to me if being the Holder of Secret Knowledge had been my only source of self-esteem; the one redeeming landmark in a life of isolation and failure. Indeed, I wonder what power such a worldview would have over me if I could believe that behind the scenes lurked vast and unknowable dark forces -- forces that could topple a president and perhaps even explain why a person of my deep, vast and bountiful talents was not doing a whole lot better in life?

I wonder what might have happened to me then.

Marijuana for Children...

Following up on "Why Mommy is a Democrat", here's a lefty's reverie on teaching a child about dope.

My favourite part is where the child catches the 'rents getting high, and thinks they are smoking a CIGARETTE!

That, and hippie mother dresses the little girl as a patriarchal, racist, murderous, classist, trained killer, weapon worshipping feudal oppressor of women, the poor, and the weak.

Because, after all, it's just a plant. Like hemlock, dhatura, and cotton.

Woo Hoo, John Ford convicted...

HOO. RAY. I was with two non-government people when we had the news, we were all shocked. A sad commentary that even "civilians" EXPECT a jury to not do the right thing.

And what a shame that the old stuff him in a sack full of animals punishment isn't still available. Though having to gnaw on John Ford is a cruel fate for a bobcat.

On to the next trials...

French stag hunting meets the projects...

So, the other day I have a school robbery case. Victim was in the locker room when an older and bigger boy hit him and took his wallet.

Victim is a child from the projects, 14 or 15. Portly and shy, he told me he was changing for band practice when he was attacked. I didn't go to "high school", but I know what "band kid" means. This boy is one.

I asked him what instrument he played, and he told me the French horn. Hmmmm...

So while he waited, I went in to the office and ran up some Youtubes of St. Huberts-







Then I took him in and told him about the origin of the French horn and how it's still used in hunting today. Then I played the films, LOUDLY.

He was just fascinated. I could see that he had never heard of this stuff in his school or in the housing project where he lived. It was fun to give him a sight of a wider world, and to let him see there was a connection between himself and people from far away, long ago, and very different cultures.

His mother called me the other day and told me that he's still talking about it, looking history things up, etc.

Sometimes it's not ugly.

"Once upon a time I thought I might write...

"Once upon a time I thought I might write, but life always overtook me."

Just a lovely sentence by S. Quinn.

Virginia Tech Media Statement...

Wouldn't it be fine if Ted Turner, Rupert Murdoch, or the editor of the Chittlin' Switch Morning News issued a statement like this?

"We hereby announce the following policy concerning coverage of mass killings. The people who commit these crimes will receive absolutely no coverage in our outlets. Their names will be unspoken, their goofy pictures unshown, their silly notes unread. Their lives will not be explored. Their trials and tribulations will not be exposed. Their families will not be interviewed. They are unpersons here. Anyone employed here who violates this policy, or refers to such killers with any terms other than killer, trash, coward, or loser will be discharged forthwith.

Go ahead and kill people, but you won't get any fame here."

My thought on all this is, doesn't just ONE media outlet have the decency and courage to not give the killer fame? These people do these slaughters because they know everyone will finally see and hear them. We'll read their rants, torment their parents and friends,know their names and faces.

The next mass killer is watching, too.

Gell - Mann Effect...

Described and named by Michael Crichton...

(N. B.: the original article, like the rest of Dr. Crichton's stunning commentary about the global warming panic, has been scrubbed by his heirs from its original site, so all the link gets you is the front page. A pity, he was a clever and original thinker.)

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward-reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.

In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story-and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about far-off Palestine than it was about the story you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I'd point out it does not operate in other arenas of life. In ordinary life, if somebody consistently exaggerates or lies to you, you soon discount everything they say. In court, there is the legal doctrine of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, which means untruthful in one part, untruthful in all.

But when it comes to the media, we believe against evidence that it is probably worth our time to read other parts of the paper. When, in fact, it almost certainly isn't. The only possible explanation for our behavior is amnesia.

Or stupidity.

Thanks to Jason and the Wayback Machine, here's the entire speech:

My topic for today is the prevalence of speculation in media. What does it mean? Why has it become so ubiquitous? Should we do something about it? If so, what should we do? And why? Should we care at all? Isn't speculation valuable? Isn't it natural?

I will join this speculative bandwagon and speculate about why there is so much speculation. In keeping with the trend, I will try express my views without any factual support, simply providing you with a series of bald assertions.

This is not my natural style, and it's going to be a challenge for me, but I will do my best. I have written out my talk which is already a contradiction of principle. To keep within the spirit of our time, it should really be off the top of my head.

Before we begin, I'd like to clarify a definition. By media I mean movies television internet books newspapers and magazines. That's a broad definition but in keeping with the general trend of speculation, let's not make too many fine distinctions.

First we might begin by asking, to what degree has the media turned to pure speculation? Someone could do a study of this and present facts, but nobody has. I certainly won't. There's no reason to bother.

Today, everybody knows that "Hardball," "The O'Relly Factor," and similar shows are nothing but a steady stream of guesses about the future. The Sunday morning talk shows are pure speculation. They have to be. Everybody knows there's no news on Sunday.

But speculation is every bit as rampant in the so-called serious media, such as newspapers. For example, consider the New York Times for March 6, 2002, the day I was asked to give this talk. The column one story that day concerns George Bush's tariffs on imported steel. We read:

Mr. Bush's action "is likely to send the price of steel up sharply, perhaps as much as ten percent.." American consumers "will ultimately bear" higher prices. America's allies "would almost certainly challenge" the decision. Their legal case "could take years to litigate in Geneva, is likely to hinge" on thus and such.

In addition, there is a further vague and overarching speculation. The Allies' challenge would be "setting the stage for a major trade fight with many of the same countries Mr. Bush is trying to hold together in the fractious coalition against terrorism." In other words, the story speculates that tariffs may rebound against the fight against terrorism.

You may read this story and think, what's the big deal? Isn't it reasonable to talk about effects of current events in this way? I answer, absolutely not. Such speculation is a complete waste of time. It's useless. It's bullshit on the front page of the Times.

The reason why it is useless, of course, is that nobody knows what the future holds.

Do we all agree that nobody knows what the future holds? Or do I have to prove it to you? I ask this because there are some well-studied media effects which suggest that a simple appearance in media provides credibility. There was a well-known series of excellent studies by Stanford researchers that have shown, for example, that children take media literally. If you show them a bag of popcorn on a television set and ask them what will happen if you turn the TV upside down, the children say the popcorn will fall out of the bag. This effect would be amusing if it were confined to children. The studies show that no one is exempt. All human beings are subject to this media effect, including those of us who think we are self-aware and hip and knowledgeable.

Media carries with it a credibility that is totally undeserved. You have all experienced this, in what I call the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. (I call it by this name because I once discussed it with Murray Gell-Mann, and by dropping a famous name I imply greater importance to myself, and to the effect, than it would otherwise have.)

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward-reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.

In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story-and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about far-off Palestine than it was about the story you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I'd point out it does not operate in other arenas of life. In ordinary life, if somebody consistently exaggerates or lies to you, you soon discount everything they say. In court, there is the legal doctrine of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, which means untruthful in one part, untruthful in all.

But when it comes to the media, we believe against evidence that it is probably worth our time to read other parts of the paper. When, in fact, it almost certainly isn't. The only possible explanation for our behavior is amnesia.

So one problem with speculation is that it piggybacks on the Gell-Mann effect of unwarranted credibility, making speculation look more useful than it is.

Another issue springs from the sheer volume of speculation. Ubiquity may come to imply a value to the activity being so assiduously carried out. But in fact, no matter how many people are speculating, no matter how familiar their faces, how good their makeup and how well they are lit, no matter how many weeks they appear before us in person or in columns, it still remains true that none of them knows what the future holds.

Some people still believe that the future can be known. They imagine two groups of people that may know the future, and therefore should be listened to. The first is pundits. Since they expound on the future all the time, they must know what they are talking about. Do they? The now-defunct magazine Brill's Content used to track the pundit's guesses, and while one or another had the occasional winning streak, over the long haul they did no better than chance. This is what you would expect. Because nobody knows the future.

The second group that some people imagine may know the future are specialists of various kinds. They don't either. As a limiting case, I remind you there is a new kind of specialist occupation-I refuse to call it a discipline, or a field of study-called futurism. The notion here is that there is a way to study trends and know what the future holds. That would indeed be valuable, if it were possible. But it isn't possible. Futurists don't know any more about the future than you or I. Read their magazines from a couple of years ago and you'll see an endless parade of error.

Expertise is no shield against failure to see ahead. Paul Erlich, a brilliant academic who has devoted his entire life to ecological issues, has been wrong in nearly all his major predictions. He was wrong about diminishing resources, he was wrong about the population explosion, and he was wrong that we would lose 50% of all species by the year 2000. His lifelong study of these issues did not prevent him from being wrong.

All right, you may say, you'll accept that the future can't be known, in the way I are talking. But what about more immediate predictions, such as the effects of pending legislation? Surely it is important to talk about what will happen if certain legislation passes. Well, no, it isn't. Nobody knows what is going to happen when the legislation passes. I give you two examples from the left and right.

The first is the Clinton welfare reform, harshly criticized by his own left wing for caving in to the Republican agenda. The left's predictions were for vast human suffering, shivering cold, child abuse, terrible outcomes. What happened? None of these things. Child abuse declined. In fact, as government reforms go, it's been a success; Mother Jones predicts dire effects just ahead.

This failure to predict accurately was mirrored by the hysterical cries from the Republican right over raising the minimum wage. Chaos and dark days would surely follow as businesses closed their doors and the country was plunged into needless recession. What was the actual effect? Basically, nothing. Who discusses it now? Nobody. What will happen if there is an attempt to raise the minimum wage again? The same predictions all over again. Have we learned anything? No.

But my point is, for legislation as with everything else, nobody knows the future.

The same thing is true concerning the effect of elections and appointments. What will be the effect of electing a certain president, or a supreme court justice? Nobody knows. Some in this audience are old enough to remember Art Buchwald's famous column from the days of the Johnson Administration. Buchwald wrote a "Thank God we don't have Barry Goldwater" essay, recalling how everyone feared Goldwater would get us into a major war. So the country elected Johnson, who promptly committed 200,000 troops to Vietnam. That's what happens when you choose the dove-ish candidate. You get a war. Or you elect Richard Nixon because he can pull the plug on Vietnam, and he continues to fight for years. And then opens China.

Similarly, the history of the Supreme Court appointments is a litany of error in predicting how justices will vote on the court. They don't all surprise us, but a lot of them do.

So, in terms of imminent events, can we predict anything at all? No. You need only look at what was said days before the Berlin Wall came down, to understand that nobody can predict even a few hours ahead. People said all sorts of silly things about the Communist empire. I can't quote them, because that would mean I had looked them up and had facts at hand, and I have promised you not to do that. But take my word for it, you can find silly statements 24 hours in advance of the fall of the Russian empire.

So I say again: NOBODY KNOWS THE FUTURE.

Now, this is not new information. It was Mark Twain who said, 'I've seen a heap of trouble in my life, and most of it never came to pass." If speculation is really worthless, why is there so much of it? Is it because people want it? I don't think so. I speculate that media has turned to speculation for media's own reasons. So now let's consider the advantages of speculation from a media standpoint.

1. It's incredibly cheap. Talk is cheap. And speculative talk shows are the cheapest thing you can put on television, They're almost as cheap as running a test pattern. Just get the talking host, book the talking heads-of which there is no shortage-and you're done! Instant show. No reporters in different cities around the world, no film crews on location. No research staff, no deadlines, no footage to edit, no editors...nothing! Just talk. Bullshit. Cheap.

2. You can't lose. Even though speculation is correct only by chance, which means it is wrong at least 50% of the time, nobody remembers and therefore nobody cares. People do not remember yesterday, let alone last week, or last month. Media exists in the eternal now, this minute, this crisis, this talking head, this column, this speculation.

One of the clearest proofs of this is the "Currents of Death" controversy. This fear of cancer from power lines originated with the New Yorker, which has been a gushing fountainhead of erroneous scientific speculation for fifty years. But the point is this: all the people who ten years ago were frantic to measure dangerous electromagnetic radiation in their houses now spend thousands of dollars buying magnets to attach to their wrists and ankles, because of the putative healthful effects of magnetic fields. They don't remember these are the same fields they formerly wanted to avoid. And since they don't remember, you can't lose with any future speculation.

Let me expand on this idea that you can't lose. It's not confined to the media. Most areas of intellectual life have discovered the virtues of speculation, and have embraced it wildly. In academia, speculation is usually dignified as theory. It's fascinating that even though the intellectual stance of the post modern deconstructionist era is against theory, particularly overarching theory, in reality what every academic wants to express is theory. This is in part aping science, but it's also an escape hatch. Your close textual reading of Jane Austen could well be wrong, and could be shown to be wrong by a more knowledgeable critic. But your theory of radical feminization and authoritarian revolt in the work of Jane Austen-with reference to your own childhood feelings-is untouchable. Similarly, your analysis of the origins of the First World War could be debated by other authorities. But your New Historicist essay, which includes your own fantasy about what it would be like if you were fighting in the first war...well, that's unarguable. And even better, how about a theory of the origin of warfare beginning with Paleolithic cave men? That's really unarguable.

A wonderful area for speculative academic work is the unknowable. Religious subjects are in disfavor these days, but there are still plenty of good topics. The nature of consciousness, the workings of the brain, the origin of aggression, the origin of language, the origin of life on earth, SETI and life on other worlds...this is all great stuff. You can argue it interminably. And it can't be contradicted, because nobody knows the answer to any of these topics-and probably, nobody ever will.

Then there is the speculative work of anthropologists like Helen Fisher, who claim to tell us about the origins of love or of infidelity or cooperation by reference to other societies, animal behavior, and the fossil record. How can she be wrong? These are untestable, unprovable, just so stories.

And lest anyone imagine things are different in the hard sciences, consider string theory, for nearly 20 years now the dominant physical theory. More than one generation of physicists has labored over string theory. But-if I understand it correctly, and I may not-string theory cannot be tested or proven or disproven. Although some physicists are distressed by the argument that an untestable theory is nevertheless scientific, who is going to object, really? Face it, a untestable theory is ideal! Your career is secure!

In short, there is now widespread understanding that so long as you speculate, you can't lose.

Now, nowhere is it written that the media need be accurate, or useful. They haven't been for most of recorded history. So now they're speculating....so what? What is wrong with it?

1. Tendency to excess. Mere talk makes drama and spectacle unlikely-unless the talk becomes heated and excessive. So it becomes excessive. Not every show features the Crossfire-style foodfight, but it is a tendency on all shows.

2. Crisisization of everything possible. Most speculation is not compelling because most events are not compelling-Gosh, I wonder what will happen to the German mark? Are they gonna get their labor problems under control? This fact promotes the well-known media need for a crisis. Crisis in the German mark! Uh-oh! Look out! Crises unite the country, draw viewers in large numbers, and give everyone something to speculate about. Without a crisis, the talk soon degenerates into debate about whether the refs should have used instant replay on the last football game. So there is a tendency to hype urgency and importance and be-there-now when it's really not appropriate. Witness the interminable scroll at the bottom of the screen about the Queen Mother's funeral. Whatever the Queen mother's story may be, it is not a crisis. I have even watched a scroll of my own divorce roll by for a couple of days on CNN. It's sort of flattering (even though they got it wrong.) But it is surely not vital breaking news.

3. Superficiality as a norm. Gotta go fast. Hit the high points. On to our next guest. Speculation adds to superficiality.

4. Endless presentation of conflict may interfere with genuine issue resolution. There is evidence that the television foodfights not only don't represent the views of most people-who are not so polarized-but may tend to make resolution of actual disputes more difficult in the real world. At the very least, they obscure the recognition that we resolve disputes every day. Compromise is much easier from relatively central positions than it is from extreme and hostile, conflicting positions: Greenpeace vs the Logging Industry.

5. Interminable chains of speculation pave the way to litigation about breast implants, hysteria over Y2K and global warming, articles in the New Yorker about currents of death, and a variety of other outcomes that are not, by any thoughtful view, helpful. There comes to be a perception-convenient to the media-that nothing is, in the end, knowable for sure. When in fact, that's not true.

Let me point to a demonstrable bad effect of the assumption that nothing is really knowable. Whole word reading was introduced by the education schools of the country without, to my knowledge, any testing of the efficacy of the new method. It was simply put in place. Generations of teachers were indoctrinated in its methods. As a result, the US has one of the highest illiteracy rates in the industrialized world. The assumption that nothing can be known with certainty does in truth have terrible consequences.

As GK Chesterton said (in a somewhat different context), "If you believe in nothing, you'll believe in anything." That's what we see today. People believe in anything.

But just in terms of the general emotional tenor of life, I often think people are nervous, jittery in this media climate of what if, what if, maybe, perhaps, could be...when there is usually no sensible reason to feel nervous.

Like a bearded nut in robes on the sidewalk proclaiming the end of the world is near, the media is just doing what makes it feel good, not reporting hard facts. We need to start seeing the media as a bearded nut on the sidewalk, shouting out false fears. It's not sensible to listen to it.

We need to start remembering that everybody who said that Y2K wasn't a real problem was either shouted down, or kept off the air. The same thing is true now of issues like species extinction and global warming. You never hear anyone say it's not a crisis. I won't go into it, because it might lead to the use of facts, but I'll just mention two reports I speculate you haven't heard about. The first is the report in Science magazine January 18 2001 (Oops! a fact) that contrary to prior studies, the Antarctic ice pack is increasing, not decreasing, and that this increase means we are finally seeing an end to the shrinking of the pack that has been going on for thousands of years, ever since the Holocene era. I don't know which is more surprising, the statement that it's increasing, or the statement that its shrinkage has preceded global warming by thousands of years. The second study is a National Academy of Sciences report on the economic effects to the US economy of the last El Nino warming event of 1997. That warming produced a net benefit of 15 billion dollars to the economy. That's taking into account 1.5 billion loss in California from rain, which was offset by decreased fuel bills for a milder winter, and a longer growing season. Net result 15 billion in savings.

The other thing I will mention to you is that during the last 100 years, while the average temperature on the globe has increased just .3 C, the magnetic field of the earth declined by 10%. This is a much larger effect than global warming and potentially far more serious to life on this planet. Our magnetic field is what deflects lethal radiation from space. A ten percent reduction of the earth's magnetic field is extremely worrisome.

But who is worried? Nobody. Who is raising a call to action? Nobody. Why not? Because there is nothing to be done. How this may relate to global warming I leave for you to speculate on your own.

Personally, I think we need to start turning away from media, and the data shows that we are doing just that, at least from television news. I find that whenever I lack exposure to media I am much happier, and my life feels fresher.

In closing, I'd remind you that since we're awash in this contemporary ocean of speculation, we forget that things can be known with certainty, and that we need not live in a fearful world of interminable unsupported opinion. But the gulf that separates hard fact from speculation is by now so unfamiliar that most people can't comprehend it. I can perhaps make it clear by this story:

On a plane to Europe, I am seated next to a guy who is very unhappy. Turns out he is a doctor who has been engaged in a two-year double blind study of drug efficacy for the FDA, and the study may be tossed out the window. Now a double-blind study means there are four separate research teams, each having no contact with any other team-preferably, they're at different universities, in different parts of the country. The first team defines the study and makes up the medications, the real meds and the controls. The second team administers the medications to the patients. The third team comes in at the end and independently assesses the effect of the medications on each patient. The fourth team takes the data and does a statistical analysis. The cost of this kind of study, as you might imagine, is millions of dollars. And the teams must never meet.

My guy is unhappy because months after the study is over, he is in the waiting room of Frankfurt airport and he strikes up a conversation with another man in the lounge, and they discover-to their horror-that they are both involved in the study. My guy was on the team that administered the meds. The other guy is on the team doing the statistics. There isn't any reason why one should influence the other at this late date, but nevertheless the protocol requires that team members never meet. So now my guy is waiting to hear if the FDA will throw out the entire study, because of this chance meeting in Frankfurt airport.

Those are the lengths you have to go to if you want to be certain that your information is reliable. But when I tell people this story, they just stare at me incomprehendingly. They find it absurd. They don't think it's necessary to do all that. They think it's overkill. They live in the world of MSNBC and the New York Times. And they've forgotten what real, reliable information is, and the lengths you have to go to get it. It's so much harder than just speculating.

And on that point, I have to agree with them.

Oh-and by the way? Almost none of the speculation in that story about Bush steel tariffs proved true.

Journalist weasels...

Which one of these is from the journalists who know what we need to see (AFP), because they have training and judgement?




Thank you,

hot air

Save Darfur...

I'm no Oleg Volk in the picture department, but after hearing a pitch to send a million signatures to the U. N., this came to my mind:



Or for those on a budget:

Chicago Animal Control catches more coyotes than our hunt!

Ten to fifteen a year! They need to call the MFHA.

Employees and customers at a downtown Chicago Quiznos sandwich shop were stunned to see a coyote walk through the propped-open front door Tuesday afternoon and lie down in a cooler...

Nazi Hummels...

I have always been crept out by those Hummel figurines. They always seemed a bit pervert- oriented to my eye. Here's another reason to dislike them, these are German post cards from the 1930s. Currently for sale on Ebay, if you like.

I particularly like the little pilot's pistol holster. I can't read German, does the caption read "Off to Rotterdam?"

Seigfried Sassoon and Michelle Norris...

Both earned the same decoration. One brave 19 year old! I wonder what the Queen thought? She started her career pinning these onto Dunkirk and Narvik evacuees.

The old pro still got a good review-

"I was a little nervous but the Queen was brilliant. She told me she was proud to be presenting me with the award and asked me some questions about if I'd be going back to Iraq."

Yes, she is, in November. Some people ARE fit heirs to their ancestors.

I am stolen from...

I hired well reccommended roofers to repair my roof. I was clear and direct about how the work was to be done, the roofer boss repeated the job details to me.

I came home unexpectedly, to find the job being short cut. I remonstrated, and the roofer boss was surly but ended up doing the job right.

When I came home the next day to pay him and his crew off. I noticed that my recently filled 5 gallon gasoline can was not in its correct place on the porch. After I paid him, he drove away in his shiny new looking pickup truck. And when he had cleared the driveway, I saw the gasoline can sitting beside where the truck had been parked.

Yes, only about a half gallon left. He'd obviouslt poured 4 1/2 gallons into his truck.

Although the can says gasoline, I had just filled it with DIESEL FUEL.

I love it when the crime choice process fails dramatically.

The 1984 advert man thinks we need a liar for President...

I loved the 1984 advert when it came out, and the Hillary parody was great- the ipod was brilliant. The maker finally identified himself. In his Huffington post, he says something very revealing.

...Senator Clinton's "conversation" is disingenuous... I also believe that Senator Clinton is a great public servant, and if she should win the nomination, I would support her and wish her all the best.

Now, the American Heritage primary definition of "disingenuous" is "Not straightforward or candid; insincere or calculating".

So, he's saying that Mrs. Clinton is not straightforward or candid; that she is insincere or calculating, and that she is a great public servant whom he'd support in running for President.

"I like MY liar" is an awful thing to think, that honesty is a lower priority than ideology. Before everybody screams "Bush lies", actually read what I'm writing here.

Honesty SHOULD be a highly valued thing in a republic's officers. Probably the MOST highly valued. In our polity it's become essentially irrelevant.

Isn't this a fine compliment...

Oleg Volk

is sending people my way! He's a marvellous photographer, and a pretty good pictorial polemecist.

The box of joy...

I am remembering a time a couple of years back in England.

I was at Greenwich, which is one of my very favorite places. One of the loveliest works of man, it's so gorgeous and peaceful, a fantastic beautiful work of art to experience. Built to house pensioned sailors, then (after Nelson and Jervis' veterans died off) the Royal Naval College, now it is Trinity College of Music.

I was walking in the courtyard between two of the wings, each 3 stories tall and made of stone. These were the dormitory rooms for the hospital's pensioners, and so they had big windows for light and air. Inside the wings, where I was, the walls are flat so the passer by is in a huge rectangular solid.

This is one of those places, for me, that stores up its memory in itself, in the stones and glass. You can almost see the old tars sitting about, missing bits torn off by shot or sheet or shark, bowed by ten thousand night watches in storm and ice. Spitting tobacco, drinking their beer and dressing each other's queues.

Funny to think that these spaces once echoed to first person yarns of destroying the Armada, circling the globe with Drake or Cook or Anson, shipwreck, rescuing slaves, mapping the earth, and all the other perils and triumphs of the Royal Navy since 1550 or so.

Anyway, it was a warm autumn day, and all the windows were open. From each window came the sound of a beautifully played instrument or an amazing singing voice. Each different, each playing a different melody. Each student was practicing (as he or she thought) alone. But for their secret auditor, it was like being in a giant reverberating stone box of joy, roofed with a bluer than possible sky.

The world can hold such unexpected brilliance.

Sophie's healthcare choice...

But it's FREE! FREE medical care!

Couple faced choosing which one of them should go blind

Building Bin Laden's Rifle...

I first started reading the O.C. Weekly for the

Haidl coverage. Scott Moxley is a

great, evenhanded and honest reporter. Not just for

perverts , either. And yes, I read

Ask a Mexican and

Savage Love. But when they try to build a terrorist rifle, someone should call Jim Zumbo!

...killing is itself a violent act for a gun...

A present selecting tip...

Apropos of nothing, here's a present choosing tip from B. B.

Man was going to a do for a 15 year old girl. Rather than take a guess at a present for the guest of honor, he went to Tiffany's and asked, "When the 15 year old girls come in here and exchange their presents, what is it that they want instead of what they were given?"

It would work at Target just as well.

One more from the littermate...

"Even when there were problems, I always learned something. Even if it was only something about myself. And it's not like I was left on the curb, well that one time but only four blocks from the house, and that was my fault, I wasn't paying attention. All in all, it was good for both of us."

Talking about the car she left behind her...

Getting into the war...

"This is where the real war is, a war worth fighting. I've never been to Afghanistan and I'm not going to Iraq. But they don't seem to be places that matter, not to me. Maybe, just possibly, we can win a war in Iraq, but sure as hell we're losing the war at our doorstep. You go up to the top of the block and look around. From that roof, you can see power and Parliament, you'll see where all the big people make their money... But if you look down by your feet, you'll see where the war is."

I've given some thought to trying to get directly into the Moslem war. I don't think I'd be much use, but there could be some way that I'd free up a real Marine to fight. But 37 is the sign up cutoff, and that's history for me.

But I've been realising that there are lots of wars going on, and that the one I'm in is still important. More important than the Moslem war, and essential to it. The greatest danger to any people is still tyranny. The Moslems can't conquer us. But our own domestic enemies can. I directly fight, or at least irritate, a major domestic enemy, crime. Crime is an insurgency, too. As criminals control more and more people's lives, all our liberties decrease. And crime will be a basis for our domestic enemies to impose more and more direct limits on us.

Moslems aren't killing, raping, robbing, and oppressing tens of thousands of us every year. Americans are doing that. I cannot imagine the level of peace and freedom and security we could have built at home for a tenth of the trouble and money we've spent on foreigners who hate us already, and who always will.

Just to start with, we could have built and staffed enough prisons so that we could honestly say, "If you kill, rape, rob, or burgle an American, we have a place for you."

Aaaanyway, what got me thinking about this again was the above quoted passage in a book, "Rat Run", a novel by Gerald Seymour, who is a marvellous observer. He has a social worker in a housing project say that, and it's true.

I finally got to say it!

I was in a bail hearing. I looked outside at the snow, and there was no way to stop...

"Your honor might want extra security in the court room."

"Why, General?"

"Because if these defendants get loose, we'll never catch them...

they have chains on!"

Thank you, I'm here all week. Be sure and tip your waiters.

Thank you SondraK, for the referral! I'll post daily, I promise!

My Littermate and condoms...

There are sixish billion people in the world. Although each is unique, not many can be the MOST of anything- fastest, stupidest, best dish washer, whatever.

My littermate is the world's largest....

volume buyer of condoms!

Alas, as she would ruefully say, not for personal use. But still, it's a distinction.

Vive Herouxville!

Non, you can't burn or stone women here!

The Herouxville standards.

La Griffe du Lion added...

Added to the blogroll,

La Griffe du Lion

- clever! He seems to specialise in the places where math, science, race, and politics bump into one another. For example,

I mulled over this problem for several days, until one morning, as Mom packed my lunch for school, the answer struck me suddenly. In the former Soviet Union, the confluence of a failed economic system, totalitarian government and a specific national passion created a circumstance singularly suited to the determination of the Ashkenazic IQ. Out of this joyless society materialized the data required for the calculation. The Soviets had fashioned a threshold that met all the conditions I had imposed, to wit: eligibility to play in the annual USSR Chess Championships.

Thanks to Mr. Reed for the suggestion.

Letter to TheFirstPost about prosecuting...

TheFirstPost seems to think we run the police department.

And a response, from some other hunting prosecutor! Who-woop!

And a response, from some other hunting prosecutor! Who-woop!

M(r, Miss, Mrs, Ms.). Bright is dead on, though there's quite as much whipping in as there is hunting with that pack. I suspect dramatic silliness on the stupidity machine has led British audiences to misunderstand our system. It looks very interesting to see some suit (usually well filled by someone who looks like Angie Harmon or Jill Hennessey) telling the detectives to dash out and do something, but there is much more to it.

We are separate organisations with separate functions and chains of command. I can't make myself a witness, either, or I can't try the case.

I'll give an example. Some years ago, there was a murder in my county. The murderer (a well known dangerous and violent criminal) told his
roommate (a mousy, inoffensive character) what he had done, and the roommate
called the police. In the course of searching the house, arresting the
killer, and so forth, I was already envisioning the trial. I suggested to the
officers, "What will the defendant try to present as a defense? He will say the
roommate did it." Knowing the two people as we did, the theory was silly. But
a jury wouldn't know them. So I suggested that every thing we did to confirm
the defendant's guilt- gunshot residue tests, fingerprints, shoe dirt samples-
we would hear about at trial, because the defense would say we "rushed to
judgement" and should have done the tests for the roommate, too. So they saw
the need to do everything on the roommate. The police officers weren't stupid,
their focus was just different.

Which is an important point, NO ONE wants to charge the innocent, so
eliminating them is something we both want to do.

The British system as it is is unfortunately our default system, too. In MOST U.S.
jurisdictions, including mine, prosecutors have NO connection with a case until they see it in court. I am unusual in working with officers. Most prosecutors have full plates just going to court, and rolling out at two in the morning isn't something they can reasonably be expected to do. I'm considered a bit odd for doing it, fortunately I have no life.

It's a shame, too. I believe that a good, enthusiastic prosecutor and good, enthusiastic police officers have better success in forcing the system to put criminals away. And just as in hunting, a good staff can improve indifferent hounds, and vice versa.

But I do recommend TheFirstPost, it's great. (Servant Problems especially.)

England and France are too rich!

I see by the Torygraph that the hard working tax payers of England are about to pay a bunch of money to a group of dope fiend criminals. These slugs are being paid because their prisons cut them off heroin too quickly!

And then, as I was driving in France between Reims and Verdun, I came upon scores of concrete shapes- spheres, pyramids, cubes, triangles, etc.- artfully coloured and placed beside the freeway. I thought to myself, not one in a million people would trash up his own property this way, but someone in the French ministry of cul-chah is convinced that it’s the way we want to spend our tax euros.

We are too rich. And too stupid, we could change it all.