Minnie the Moocher

Minnie the Moocher:

Georgia is not among the top states when it comes to mooching.

Bad Medicine

Bad Medicine:

“His aides from the Senate, the presidential campaign, and the White House routinely described him with the same words: ‘psychologically healthy,’ ” writes Jonathan Alter in “The Promise,” a chronicle of Obama’s first year in office.

That should have been a warning. If any collection of people who deal with you regularly "routinely describe" you using the word "psychologically," there's a problem.

And it's a bigger problem, if they're at such pains to prove your 'psychological health' that they set up an organized response among your aides.

I'll take that bet

The Challenger:

So, here's a commercial for the poor man's Mustang.*



This is one of those silly counterfactual things, with modern technology introduced into historic settings. Guns of the South is a classic example, with the AK-47 being introduced to the Confederate army during the Civil War. (I haven't read more than the jacket of the book, but I remember the concept.)

The thing is, I'd take the bet being proposed in the commercial. A few unarmored Dodges versus an infantry unit armed with .75 caliber muskets? Yeah, you'd break the line in a few places, but your drivers would be dead, and the line would re-form.

Besides, I'm sure General Washington would prefer the Mustang.

* Yes, I realize that the Challenger is actually more expensive than the baseline Mustang. I still don't see why anyone would buy the Dodge instead.

No Harm, No Foul

No Harm, No Foul:

I've waited a bit to speak to this, and at last I am going to do so on the other side from what you may expect. Although, I suppose, some of you who have been paying closest attention may have seen it coming.

One thing I have often argued is that the law should not ban a fair fight. Is two-to-four young men accosting an old man in the street an invitation to a fair fight?



This may well be assault and battery by current law. Current law, though, is no friend to what I think is right. A man ought not to be subject to harassment as he walks down a public street. If he feels that a swift kick in the rear will best speed on those who are keeping him from his business, well, I'm likely to endorse him in rendering them aid in finding their way.

I'm sure I should be against this fellow just because he's a Congressman; but really, I'm more against jerks. Let a man walk down the street. And if you won't do that, don't complain if you find that he hands you part of your anatomy to wear as a decoration once he lets you go on your way.

Or let me put it this way: arresting a man's passage on his normal business is not a neutral action. If this were a Marine Colonel or General on his way to work, being accosted by a handful of SEIU thugs, we would think differently. Whether we read it as "assault" or "kidnapping" or whatever else the law might prefer, it is an affront. If you bring two or three young men against a single older man, you've tripped the standard called 'disparity of force.' If he felt the need to draw a firearm, I would probably still be on his side, even though he's a Congressman; certainly, if he were a Marine against union thugs.

Good for the gentleman from North Carolina. Let's just not complain when someone from 'our side' does the same thing.

Some Music for Ivanhoe

Music for Ivanhoe:

Sometime during the future, we will need to read Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe for the GHBC. It was a book of tremendous importance to American history, because of its extraordinary popularity in the South. It may have done more than any other work of fiction to shape Southern ideas of what it was to be a gentleman. Mark Twain thought it was responsible for the Civil War.



Here is some music that reminds me of some of the scenes in the novel where the Templar travels with Saracen slaves. Much of the book turns on the interaction between Jewish, Muslim and Christian cultures. Here Rebecca, a Jewish maiden, is stolen away by the Templar with the aid of his Saracen slaves, and in defiance of King Richard the Lionheart and, well, Robin Hood.







Scott was no expert on Muslim culture -- although his treatment of Saladin in The Talisman is interesting -- but he was highly sympathetic to the Jews. Remind me, after we do the Vikings in the next few weeks, and perhaps we'll take a look at it. It would be an ideal book for the fall, when the weather cools and it becomes easy to enjoy the beauty of the outdoors again.

Ich bin ein Gulf Koaster

Ich bin ein Gulf Koaster

Hotair.com reports that our President is marginalizing the oil spill as "Other" in a way he'd never dream of for the peace-loving nations of Iran or North Korea. He gave a speech promising to "fight back" against the oil spill that is "assaulting our shores," and made a bunch of servicemen stand behind him while he said it.

Winners Never Prosper

Winners Never Prosper

A story that was making the rounds in the Internet this week seemed too ridiculously entertaining to be true. Several locations, including this one, reported that the Gloucester Dragons Recreational Soccer League put a new spin on the fairly traditional “mercy rule” that sometimes halts one-sided children’s competitions when the score gets too lopsided, awarding the win to the team that’s hopelessly ahead and cutting the game short. However we may feel about the message this sends to the losers about the possibility of rallying in the face of early signs of defeat, it’s surely an improvement on the Gloucester Dragons’ brilliant innovation: the team that behaves so boorishly as to get more than five goals ahead is actually declared the loser. The team that’s ahead, apparently, should start milling around aimlessly, taking cigarette breaks, for fear of scoring the fatal goal that will lose them the game. Meanwhle the other team presumably squirms in public humiliation far worse than anything that could be inflicted by a more lopsided loss.

Not to worry. They’ve already rescinded the rule, effective yesterday. Sometimes embarrassment works.

Irony

Irony:

A little late, but things are changing after all.

By any measure -- favorability ratings or job approval -- Americans by a sizable margin have warmer views of the secretary of state than they do of the president. This is of little use to Clinton beyond bragging rights, but among Hillary '08 fans there is some satisfaction that the woman Obama once cut down as "likable enough" is now more liked than he is. Depending on the measure and the poll, she leads him by roughly 10 to 25 percentage points.

I always liked her better, even if I didn't like her much. That's not the real issue, though. I thought she was both more qualified, and more likely to approach things from a centrist position. I would say, "...like her husband," but really I suspect she and he were more or less equally involved in the earlier administration. Thus, "...like she was before" might be the right way to phrase it instead. This was not because I didn't think she was a partisan by inclination, but because I thought she was the sort of politician who would avoid difficult things and simply do what wasn't too hard. That implies a limited agenda, and limits are just what the Federal government needs.

She's a partisan in her own way, of course, and doubtless she is a politician through and through. I wonder if she takes any pleasure in today's news.

Investing w Adams

Investing with Scott Adams:

Some advice:

When I heard that BP was destroying a big portion of Earth, with no serious discussion of cutting their dividend, I had two thoughts: 1) I hate them, and 2) This would be an excellent time to buy their stock. And so I did. Although I should have waited a week.

People ask me how it feels to take the side of moral bankruptcy. Answer: Pretty good! Thanks for asking. How's it feel to be a disgruntled victim?...

Apparently BP has its own navy, a small air force, and enough money to build floating cities on the sea, most of which are still upright. If there's oil on the moon, BP will be the first to send a hose into space and suck on the moon until it's the size of a grapefruit. As an investor, that's the side I want to be on, with BP, not the loser moon.

It's true that capitalism offers you an unprecedented chance to be on the winning side. You just have to buy stock.

Generous

A Generous Interpretation:

Richard Fernandez writes:

The saga of Dr. Jayant Patel is that of a man who concealed his incompetence by never staying in one place long enough for consequences to catch up to him. But though he buried his true track record, Patel took care to bring with him enough social proof to persuade a new set of victims to trust him. As long as he could stay one step ahead, he was gold. It wasn’t as if nobody suspected Patel wasn’t all he claimed to be. One gets the sense that many of his patients had doubts even as they looked up to him from the operating table, but never enough to challenge him openly; to impel them to say the one thing that would have saved them: ‘I don’t want this doctor, get me another’. And yet the truth was that he was probably trying; trying hard to be a doctor. One of the charges against him was that he treated patients that’s weren’t even his. Maybe he figured he needed practice. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. But that didn’t help him because the basic problem was that Patel was incompetent. He should have been something else.

You can guess where this is going. Dr. Patel killed dozens of patients, because he wasn't man enough to admit that he was unfit for his office.

Naturally, an analogy follows. What is important, though, is that this is the generous reading. This is the reading whereby the man is a well-meaning incompetent, who wants very much to do what is right, and is just unable to admit to himself that he isn't competent.

The less generous reading is that he's destructive on purpose. This is a reading that I encounter more and more.

On Sheepdogs

On Sheepdogs

My previous post about oxytocin mentioned the “Prisoner’s Dilemma” game that figured in some recent oxytocin research, and included a link to an article about Anatol Rapoport, the game theorist whose winning entry in a cybernetic “Prisoner’s Dilemma” tournament employed a combination of clear-sighted retaliation and sweet-natured trust and forgiveness. If the Prisoner’s Dilemma forces players to decide whether to be sheep or wolves, Rapoport’s winning strategy could be said to convert its player into a sheepdog: someone who never hurts the sheep but is primed for ruthlessness against the wolf. But how to know for sure which one your opponent is? What if he might be either one, at different times, or even depending on how you treat him?

Before Rapoport’s contribution, people were drawing sour conclusions about human conflict from the established fact that the optimum solution to the “Prisoner’s Dilemma” from the point of view of one player in a single game was to choose a betrayal (wolf) strategy. This was a frustrating conclusion, given that the optimum solution from the point of view of both players considered together was mutual trust (sheep). The problem, of course, is that one player has no way of knowing whether the other player will take the first player’s well-being into account, a welcome development that would convert the two players into a cohesive unit for which the game’s results can be optimized.

Rapoport’s genius was to consider that people don’t always engage in single, isolated conflicts with strangers. More often (unless they’re engaged in a species-ending paroxysm) they need strategies for addressing repeated conflicts with people about whom they can learn something, and to whom they can impart information about themselves. They live in a world where each party to the conflict may learn from mistakes, build a reputation for trustworthiness, and use effective sanctions against predatory behavior: become sheepdogs.

Rapoport was a man with many generous tools for conflict-resolution in his box. According to Daniel Dennett, he

once promulgated a list of rules for how to write a successful critical commentary on an opponent’s work. First, he said, you must attempt to re-express your opponent’s position so clearly, vividly and fairly that your opponent says “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.” Then, you should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement), and third, you should mention anything you have learned from your opponent. Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.

Excellent advice, not (unfortunately) followed by its admiring but irritable quoter. Dennett’s review left me thinking that some books promise to be so unpleasant in their style of argument that I can do without buying and reading them. But this Rapoport guy – he looks like someone worth knowing more about.

His winning “tit for tat” strategy is said to be an “exceptionally effective sanction” for selfish behavior, in that the punishment lasts only as long as the selfish behavior lasts, whereas cooperative behavior is rewarded immediately in kind. Rapoport’s “tit for tat” strategy can yield even better empirical results in the "tit for tat with forgiveness" variant, in which the first play occasionally, and unpredictably, “turns the other cheek” by declining to respond to a betrayal in one game with his own act of betrayal in the next. This promises both players an exit from a disastrous vicious cycle of retaliation without exposing them to permanent exploitation by dyed-in-the-wool predators. In other words, if the early work on the Prisoner’s Dilemma suggested Leviticus 24:19-21, the work of this mathematical Russian Jew suggested an empirically successful fusion of that hard old law with Matthew 18:22.

Socialism & Responsibility

Democratic Socialism & Corporate Responsibility:

British Petroleum is not just a corporation. It has deep ties with the government in the UK. For example, we've all read about how the investment of pension funds in BP stocks is creating significant nervousness in the UK as they look on the Obama administration's rhetoric about squeezing every dime out of the corporation that it can.

We've talked about how BP will likely seek the protection of British courts. How much will the courts be sympathetic to them? It changes the picture quite a bit to hear that the British government's attempt to help was refused by the administration.

A court might well look at this and say, "It's fine to ask for damages; but since you refused to accept the help offered that would have limited those damages, we'll also limit the liability." That's even fair, is it not? After all, to the degree that the Obama administration is making things worse, there's no reason that BP should be the ones footing the bill. Insofar as they have decided it is more important to have the paperwork in order in Washington than the beaches in order in Louisiana, they're the ones -- not the British -- who should pay the cost of that decision.

Of course, that means that the US taxpayers foot the bill. Alas, they were the fools who voted for this crew.

Double-headed Dragon

The Double-Headed Dragon:

This one's for Eric, mostly. A group called Roman Army Talk asks about a symbol being used by the Serbian Orthodox priesthood, which also appears on some early Roman shields.



An early commenter gets "Thulsa Doom" out of the way as a possible origin; what follows is an interesting discussion, with plenty of photographic evidence as well.

Oxytocin -- the Meanie Hormone?

This week's Mark Steyn column about people with and without loyalty to their homelands is an interesting counterpoint to some new research about group bonding. Pointy-headed experts have published the alarming news that that oxytocin, the happy love hormone, has a “dark side” in which its “niceness breaks down.” It seems that warm bonds between human beings may lead to their joint aggression against outsiders, particularly in defensive mode. (If only we could dissolve all those uncontrollable bonds among individuals and transfer their unconditional loyalty to the World Government! Then people would stand by while their comrades were under attack.)

The researchers used the “Prisoner's Dilemma” game to test the effects of oxytocin. In this game, the reward that each player can expect will range from highest to lowest in the following three scenarios:

(1) the first player betrays the other while the other is loyal;

(2) both cooperate; and

(3) each betrays the other.

The optimal solution for a single player is betrayal, while the optimal solution for the two players considered together is cooperation. When the game is played only once, betrayal is the winning strategy from the point of view of that player, even though it is not optimum if you consider both players. The researchers used this aspect to judge the effects of oxytocin on the decision whether to betray.

What the researchers didn’t look at, apparently, is another and more interesting aspect of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. If the game is played repeatedly, the long-term winning strategy is not simple betrayal but tit for tat,” in which a player begins by cooperating, then responds to the other player’s betrayal or cooperation in one turn with the same choice in the next. A slight variation, which can prevent both players from getting trapped in a cycle of defections, is “tit for tat with forgiveness,” in which the first player very occasionally (and unpredictably) responds to a betrayal in one move with cooperation in the next. The “tit for tat” game strategy tends to result, over time, in the players’ learning to trust each other and to behave themselves.

In other words, they form a bond. Probably reeking of oxytocin – and they’ll be ready to join forces to kick the butts of the next group of strangers who show up threatening to use the short-sighted betrayal strategy.

Put Mr. Grumpypants in Charge

New evidence that having an "Eeyore Day" can make you smarter:

An Australian psychology expert who has been studying emotions has found being grumpy makes us think more clearly.

In contrast to those annoying happy types, miserable people are better at decision-making and less gullible, his experiments showed.

Evidently the best way to win an argument, then, is to be really glum about it, or at least take some pains to appear to be in the worst mood in the room.

On the other hand, “positive mood seems to promote creativity, flexibility, co-operation and reliance on mental shortcuts.”

So as long as the people you’re talking to don’t care how you got there, you’re more likely to win them over by being jolly. Maybe the rule is to be grumpy when you think you’re right and jolly when you suspect you’re full of it.

My better half could not be suspected of a sunny disposition even by his friends. From now on, when he’s morose, I’ll simply observe that he seems unusually persuasive today.

H/t Dan Riehl

Troubadour

Troubadour:

This fellow apparently wrote this tune himself, before recording it for free distribution on Youtube. Eric sometimes mentions the advantages we have arising from this easy access to communication and technology; here is a clear example.

Para Bellum

Para Bellum:

[A]ll the multiple-victim public shootings in Western Europe have occurred in places where civilians are not permitted to carry guns. The same is true in the United States: All the public shootings in which more than three people have been killed have occurred in places where civilians may not legally bring guns.

Less Anecdotal Evidence

Less Anecdotal Evidence:

This is the sort of thing that warms my heart.

The Lexington County Republican Party on Thursday night asked GOP state Sen. Jake Knotts to resign for calling gubernatorial nominee Nikki Haley a “raghead.”

The county party said the comments brought “shame” and “disgrace” to both Knotts and the state in the resolution condemning the state senator’s actions.

Now that's the language of honor! He has brought shame on his state, on his party, and on the people of South Carolina. If they are to defend their honor, they are bound to hold him to account. It is heartwarming to see them doing just that.

By the way, what she was before becoming a Methodist was a Sikh; about which this is relevant:

The Kirpan (English pronunciation: /kɪərˈpɑːn/; Punjabi: ਕਿਰਪਾਨ kirpān) is a sword or dagger carried by many Sikhs. According to a mandatory religious commandment given by Guru Gobind Singh (the tenth Guru of Sikhism) at the Baisakhi Amrit Sanchar (a holy religious ceremony that formally baptizes a Sikh) in AD 1699, all baptised Sikhs (Khalsa) must wear a kirpan at all times....

The kirpan is both a defensive weapon and a symbol. Physically it is an instrument of "ahimsa" or non-violence. The principle of ahimsa is to actively prevent violence, not to simply stand by idly whilst violence is being done. To that end, the kirpan is a tool to be used to prevent violence from being done to a defenseless person when all other means to do so have failed.

As far as I'm concerned, that makes them one of the most honorable religions in the world. I'll take as many Sikhs as they want to send.

A Libertarian Question

A Libertarian Question on the Recent Spill:

Samizdata asks a question:

One issue for us free marketeers is this: we like to talk about how pollution is, in some ways, a property rights issue. When a huge oil leak contaminates a sea and damages vast amounts of marine life and say, fishing industries, it is an interesting question on how exactly that issue gets resolved without some way of apportioning costs and compensation. Is a state needed to oversee this? Can it be fixed by entirely non-state means?

The answer to that question is "No," because costs approaching the costs of this spill are always going to be worth fighting for. As a result, some coercive method is going to be required to ensure that payments are made, not merely promised.

The closest a pure market solution could come to that is some sort of Mutually Assured Destruction arrangement, whereby firms/corporations that welshed on their debts would be subject to every party to the agreement refusing to work with them in the future. The problem with such an arrangement is that the firm/corporation is already facing certain destruction if it attempts to pay liabilities on this scale. There's at least a chance they could find a few people willing to work around the agreement; so the MAD "treaty" would necessarily be of less threat than the hard reality of taking responsibility.

Everyone knows I'm no fan of super-powered governments, but this is a clear case for governance. (Nor is it an affront to Constitutionalism: the Constitution gives authority for dealing with Law of the Sea matters to Congress, not the states or the People.)

Now, the bad news: the government model isn't going to work here either.

While I am no lawyer, I'm fairly sure that BP can protect most of its resources by filing for something like bankruptcy under British law. British judges are not likely to hand over a core national asset to be chopped to pieces for America's benefit; especially not at the demand of a President who sent the bust of Churchill back to England because he didn't want it in the White House. Even if he were an honorary Knight of the Garter, though, they're not going to wreck their country to save ours.

A utopian World Government might possibly be able to resolve this matter according to some norm of law. Such a government is a practical impossibility at this time, given humanity's very different ideas of what "justice" and "law" ought to mean. (Confer sha'riah with the West with China.) Even if it weren't impossible, it doesn't exist.

So the lesson is: life isn't fair. Injustice is the norm. The best we can hope to do, with all our efforts at law and order, is to create the occasional lapse in injustice.

Be prepared to suck this one up, because there's nobody to make it right. Nobody can, and therefore nobody will.

GHBC Renewed

Grim's Hall Book Club: The Way Forward

I think I would like to take Eric up on his suggestion that we do another round of Plutarch before we move on. He has a selection to suggest to us, and then we can move on to one of the Icelandic sagas -- this will give me a moment to review them. The Saga of Burnt Njal is surely the most famous and for good reason, but it is a large undertaking: you'd have to let me know if you'd prefer a shorter book, though if you choose it, it is certainly worth your time. On the other hand, my personal favorite -- the saga of Egil Skallagrimsson -- is likewise fairly long! (Although there is a redacted version for fans of Dr. Suess.)

We might follow it up with a comparison of two or three pieces that touch on Harald Hardrada, "the Thunderbolt of the North," who (few remember now) invaded England only days before William the Conqueror. Had the English king not just finished defeating a major Viking invasion at Stamford Bridge, only to have to conduct a forced march to the sea... well, it's possible that history might have been different.

So, next, the lives of Nicias and Crassus, with Plutarch's comparison. We'll discuss them in about a week. After that, Vikings.