mcgees.org

Stories about the rigors of life in Germany are plentiful.  Economic disaster ensued when the Allied Reparation Commission required Germany to pay a whopping 132 billion gold marks in reparations for World War 1 — Janet Klug, Linn’s Stamp News, 25 February 2008.

Whopping?  132 billion gold marks sounds like a lot, but so does 132 billion Turkish “old” Lira.  This is an example of the type of  information searches philately spurs:

What’s was the buying power of 132 billion gold marks in 1921?  A thousand homes?  The Louvre?  All of Liechtenstein?

Let’s start with a Google search for germany inflation 1923 wikipedia and look at the first match:

The total reparations demanded was 132,000,000,000 gold marks which was far more than the total German gold or foreign exchange.  An attempt was made by Germany to buy foreign exchange, but that was paid in treasury bills and commercial debts for Marks which only increased the speed of devaluation.

Um, OK.  You bill the country more than its entire net worth?  Had no idea.  Yikes.  The article also states:

The German currency was relatively stable at about 60 Marks per US Dollar during the first half of 1921.

Have I mentioned I love Google?  People were talking about the “Information Age” decades ago, but Google has gotta define it.  Anyway, a search for dollar historical buying power in Google, and, again, the first match: Historical Currency Conversions.  A little division, and we put “2 billion 200 million” into the form, and choose “dollars” (yes, you can spell out your amounts like that.)  The answer: 4.7 x 10¹⁸ (4.7E18) dollars in today’s buying power!

This post will be useful for students, so I will avoid profanity at this moment.  But, man!  That’s almost 5 sextillion dollars!  The U.S. GDP (thanks, Google!) was 13 trillion in 2006.  That’s 350,000 years’ worth of the U.S. economy!

Someone please tell me I made a decimal point error somewhere, or that the people at Historical Currency Conversions are full of it.  Sextillions of dollars?

Forget Liechtenstein!  There’s not a continent you couldn’t buy for that kind of money!

What were “we” thinking?  Did we really think this wouldn’t trigger another, worse war?

Ooh, burn!  The Post Office claims overnight Express Mail service to “most areas”.  I could understand it not being available from small town to small town, but not between two major U.S. city ZIP Codes, 99775 and 96815!  They’re even both in the high 90,000s!  Sure, you can drop off your package at the origin until 7:00 p.m., but it won’t end up at the destination until 10:00 a.m., two whole days later!

Actually, that’s really frakking amazing, when you look it up.  Wow.

(What, the government-kinda?  Really, they can do that?  I’ll let you in on a little GAO secret: the USPS’s biggest contractor is FedEx.  No kidding.  FedEx planes fly Express Mail.)

(USPS Web Apps: Express Mail Commitments)

<rant>

Shit.  I just heard Obama say in a stump speech that we need a “common sense” government.  SHIT.

This has to be shoved down his throat by an advisor, right?  Right?  I hope.  God, I hope!

The man is smart enough to know that we need uncommon sense in government.  I want my President to be smarter than I.  That’s OK.  That’s right.  If “common sense” were good enough, we wouldn’t be having the problems with George Bush — common sense says that the ends justify the means, that we should do things as we’ve always done them, that “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.”  Fuck that.  Things need fixing.  Fuck common sense.

</rant>

The ACLU are trying to run a full-page ad in USA Today, congratulating Congress and urging them not to back down in the fight against Bush’s warantless wiretaps.

They need $28,000.  If you can’t afford $28,000, give $10.  If you can’t afford $10, give $5.  If you can’t afford $5, email me and I’ll send you a check (you’re worse off than I am!)

Note: Not tax-deductible.

The ONE campaign has been campaigning against global poverty for years now.  Please add your voice to the thousands and sign the petition urging the next President — whoever he or she may be — to make global poverty and Africa top priorities while in office.  All it takes is one click.

East Timor president José Ramos-Horta has been the subject of a violent coup attempt.  He has been shot in the stomach.  He has been upgraded from “critical” to “serious but stable” condition.

Why the upgrade?  He was flown to Australia, at presumably some government’s expense, to undergo first-world lifesaving surgery and medical treatment.

Ramos-Horta is 58 years old.  The average male lifespan in East Timor is 64 years.  Why the low mortality age?  I’m not sure what proportion is war and insurrection, what percentage is tropical diseases, and what percentage is lousy medical care, but the latter has to figure in, doesn’t it?

I’m kind of thinking that when a president is shot, he needs to be rushed to the nearest public clinic.  I’d go so far as to say he or she could go to the front of the line, get the best surgeon, and have the government pay the bill.  But to be flown to Australia while your citizens drop like tsetse flies?  Defies belief.

Of course, in this case, that course of action would have been a death sentence.  Which is really the point, when you think about it.

I got my twelve gauge sawed off.
I got my headlights turned off.
I’m ’bout to bust some shots off.
I’m ’bout to dust some cops off.
…
I got my brain on hype.
Tonight’ll be your night.
I got this long-assed knife,
and your neck looks just right.
My adrenaline’s pumpin’.
I got my stereo bumpin’.
I’m ’bout to kill me somethin’
A pig stopped me for nuthin’!

That’s rapper Ice-T, from the original version of album Body Count (1992) before the track was removed, under pressure, by their label, and the artist was likewise dropped.  T, when quoted, said “I’m singing in the first person as a character who is fed up with police brutality.  I ain’t never killed no cop.  I felt like it a lot of times.  But I never did it.”

So art, yeah?  It’s really jarring, though, and seems more provocative than when Fred Durst sang Break Shit to a crowd of intoxicated vandals.

OK, same year.  Grunge vocalist Scott Weiland (white) pens and records these lyrics:

I am, I am, I am
I said I wanna get next to you
I said I gonna get close to you
You wouldnt want me have to hurt you too, hurt you too?
…
I am a man, a man
Ill give ya somethin that ya wont forget
I said ya shouldnt have worn that dress
…
Here I come, I come, I come
Here I come, I come, I come
Here I come, I come, I come
Here I come, I come, I come
Here I come, I come, I come
Here I come, I come, I come
Here I come, I come, I come
Here I come, I come, I come
Here I come, I come, I come

As far as I know, Weiland never justified that one.  Sober band-mate Robert DeLeo explained that Weiland was singing in the first person of an “idiot” who would rape a woman, and that it was fictional and not misogynist.  Idiot?  Idiot?  That’s like my moron doctor telling me, when I was educating her about the possibility of modifying her triplicate prescriptions, that someone could do that “If they wanted to be mean.”  Don’t worry, that will get its own post.  But  Idiot?

So me?  I went so far as to skip the Weiland song sometimes on the CD, if I wasn’t too distracted, and it wasn’t the great! acoustic version.  Ice-T?  I loathed and boycotted him, and I still haven’t heard the fucking song.  Years later.  No clue.  Heavy metal beat or what?

I was raised in a very conservative Christian suburb of San Diego with deep racial tensions — honors kids at the high school were being arrested for forming KKK factions, and, as a first-order approximation, all Mexican kids were gang wannabes.  (Seriously, if I were under the kind of social pressure the poor Hispanic kids were under, I’d play the part, too.  I’d like to talk to some of them now, the bullied ones — but, oddly, they don’t show up at reunions.)

Why the double standard?  Because Weiland’s lyrics rhyme slightly better?  No, La Mesa, baby!  Or, more honestly, because I was a poser pastor’s kid in La Mesa who always wanted to be “the good kid”.  That act didn’t stick very far into college, by the way.

OK, Richard Belzer.  Whoa, huge turn, right?  Stay with me please.  My good friend Nathan (hi!) and I watched an anthology of comedy club performances, from comedians and comediennes who later became stars, that somehow some two-bit production company got the repro rights to.  Belzer’s doing his routine — and fucking drunk?  Not sure, but Nathan and I both looked at each other wondering the same thing.  Did he do drunken rants onstage?  Anyone know?

Anyway, Belzer tells a “Pollock” joke, and when the audience boos, he quips, “Yeah, like they’re the smartest people on the planet.  Like there’s no reason for the stereotype.”

OK, the tie-in.  Marcia Gay Harden guest-stars on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, playing a white supremacist.  Really great role and great performance.  She is interviewed one-on-one by Fin and Munch — that is, Ice-T and Belzer.  She’s spewing white supremacist hatred at them that I was flabbergasted got by the censors.  They sit there, stoically taking it.  The twist?  Harden is a federal agent undercover, and later, after killing one of the real supremacists, she apologies to Munch and Fin.  I guess that’s why she was willing to take the role.  Fin nods, shakes her hand, and says, “We’re good.”

So, Law & Order: SVU?  Somehow they never went with the slogan Where the black cops are cop killers, the Jewish cops are racists, and the white supremacists are U.S. Marshals!  Funny, that.

I’ve been reconsidering my positions on a few posts:

First, I made too big of a deal about a little girl wanting to go to heaven to be with her hamster.  While I’ve run this by atheists who agree with my premise, I should never have done so in a way that it would get back to Poppy or her mother.  I think belief in an afterlife is dangerous, but probably benign in a first-world well-off small child raised by a loving mother (and maybe a father) with plans to dispel the myth to her in a few years.

Second, I’ve reconsidered my claim that Kill Bill vols. 1 and 2 should have received NC-17s.  I think R is appropriate for the films.

Third, regarding the my quote of the article from The Guardian about George W. in early 2002 that said:

Sooner or later, Mr Bush, self-styled universal soldier for truth, will have to stop pretending that tragedy gave him a free hand to remake America and the world to fit his simplistic, narrow vision — or risk having voters and US allies end the pretence for him.

Turns out, there was an insufficient allotment of brains and balls worldwide, and Bush has been unnervingly and nauseating successful in remaking America.  So the paper and I were wrong.

Fourth, something really funny to lighten the mood.

What???  There’s an “Ideological Exclusion” clause in the PATRIOT Act?  Seriously?  We can apparently revoke someone’s visa because of ideas and beliefs he holds.  Isn’t this the definition of McCarthyism?

… The government originally revoked Ramadan’s visa in 2004 based on the so-called “ideological exclusion” provision of the Patriot Act, a provision that applies to individuals who have “endorsed or espoused” terrorism, because he made small donations to a Swiss charity that provides aid to the Palestinians. … — http://action.aclu.org/exclusion

I received an email from my former Congressman (who still thinks I’m one of his constituents) today, with a tiny survey (push poll?) attached.  As a devotee of logic, I hate false dichotomies.  I hate them almost as much as I hate non-exhaustive multiple-choice surveys.

OK, the first one: Should Congress allow warrantless wiretaps of terrorism suspects, including American citizens?  Here are the options he gives:

* Yes, these actions are necessary to protect our security.
* No, these actions overstepped the law.
* Undecided.

Although a slightly leading question, there is ton left that wouldn’t be left if the answers were simply “Yes”, “No”, “It’s more complicated than that”, and “Undecided”.  It goes on to give reasons that are, I guess, supposed to be your reasons if you take that position.

What about?:

1.  These actions are necessary to protect our national security, but are illegal and should not be done
2.  These actions are necessary to protect our national security, are illegal, but should be done anyway
3.  Congress should outlaw it, but it should happen anyway and should not be a crime if the President authorizes it (I actually know a dipshit with this position.)
…and on, and on…

Next: Which of the following best describes your view on abortion?

* I strongly believe abortion should be legal for all women.
* There should be some limits on abortion; girls under 18 should need parental consent.
* Abortion should be illegal, except to save the life of the mother.
* Undecided.

What the hell?!?  The first and the second are not incompatible!  You can easily believe that all women should have access to abortion on demand, but that no girl should.  But what if you think there should some limits, but not this limit, or not only this limit?  Then the second and third become indistinguishable, because three suffers from the same problems: if some abortions are legal and some illegal, it’s a meaningless difference whether we consider the baseline to be legal with “some limits” or illegal with “some exceptions”.  What are we supposed to do, count up the cases and see which side wins?  This is ludicrous.  Note that many Christians would fall into the third camp, but might add “or in cases of rape and incest”.  What’s the Christian supposed to answer?  Undecided?  Hardly.

I know I’m preaching mostly to the choir here (my readers, or at least commentators, are, in general, much more astute than the average person), but there’s just one more question, and it’s so ludicrous that I cannot skip it, much as I want to: Which of the following best describes your views on the Middle East conflict?

* We should strongly support Israel.
* We should support Palestinians at least as much as we support Israel.
* We should just stay out of the conflict.
* Undecided.

Again, one and two are not incompatible, unless you’re supposed to read the subtext in the first as “We should strongly support Israel and strongly oppose the Palestinians.”  But if this was implied, where’s the “We should strongly support the Palestinians and strongly oppose Israel”?  Where’s “We should work through an international body, such as the UN, to decide the world’s collective position democratically”?  Where’s “Give everyone a year’s notice to move out, then nuke the fucking area back to a cindery Stone-Age nuclear hot zone so that these fucking morons stop squabbling over a few thousand hectares of barren rock”?  (I know, there are tons more options again, but you can write about them if you wish.  I’m done.)

And — AND — WORST OF ALL — there is no “Other” on any of these questions!  Fucking slimebag.  Is he saying that we have to bin our answers into one of his statements, otherwise it’s not a position worth having?

I’m sending this link to him.  If only he’d have the balls to post on this blog and back up his intentions, or at least instruct a staffer to do so.  Otherwise, he’s just a manipulative, logicless sonofabitch.

Ooh ooh ooh — sneaky!

There is a TV spot running now to “help” consumers.  It’s paid for by the Cable Television industry.  It tells consumers that beginning 17 February 2009, all broadcast stations will stop broadcasting in analog, and only broadcast in digital.  It tells the viewer that all televisions hooked up to cable service will continue to work.  In a slightly-overplayed “reasonable” tone, it tells the viewer that “If you receive your television through an antenna, your television can still work with a converter box.”  It directs you to dtv2009.gov, and tells you you can “apply for a coupon” there.  Then the guy folds his arms, looks smug, and the cable logo comes out.

A bit more background: the man is walking across salt flats as he speaks.  He passes a 1960s furniture-size television with a flickering picture that finally resolves.

Implied:  Broadcast TV is a barren landscape
Implied:  Broadcast TV is antiquated
Implied:  Broadcast TV flickers
Implied:  Satellite won’t work either
Implied:  Applying for the coupons is a government program, and as much of a hassle as going to the DMV
Implied:  You will still have to buy something, it will just be a little cheaper with the coupon

OK, the facts.  Yes, on 17 February 2009, analog TVs will not be able to receive broadcasts without the intercession of a converter box.  But:

Satellite works just as well as Cable during the transition
The coupon application process is simple, and can be accessed online, by phone, or by mail
The coupons are for $40 apiece, and every household is entitled to two for free
Converter boxes are expected to cost no more than $50, and I’d bet anyone that ten dollar difference that Walmart will have one for $39.99 before the switchover date

This is, essentially, a push-poll in television advertising format.  It pretends to be benign or even helpful, while in fact it is intensely devious.  Shame on the cable industry, preying upon one of the least-empowered sections of society: those who generally cannot reasonably afford cable or satellite television.

Chain Link 2.  You are reading this bottom-up, right?

This, too, was going to be one sentence in the following post, but it also grew out of hand.

It’s reasonable, I think, for people to be able to choose the words applied to them.

I grew up a gaijin.  That’s a Japanese derogatory racial epithet for foreigners.  What would I have preferred?  Well, I don’t really like American, as I don’t think one nation should get to claim the name of two continents containing 22 countries.  Westerner would have been OK.  Something descriptive, like he’s a U.S. Citizen would probably be best.

I weigh close to three bills.  That’s 21 stones if you’re British, 133 kilos if you’re from anywhere else, and two million grains if I’m fated to encounter an ungloved Midas.  Obese is unpleasant.  Morbidly obese especially so.  “Big Guy” is not a charming nickname (Bob Mike, do people call you “Slim”?  Do you like it?)  I prefer large.

I’m an atheist.  Calling me agnostic is likely to get you sneered at.  Calling me a Bright is liable to get you bitch-slapped.  Naturalist is comfortable.  Rationalist and Freethinker feel nice, but I imagine are offensive to many people, because they imply that if you rationally and freely thought about things you’d completely agree with me.  So I stick with atheist.

Now I’m venturing into unknown territory.  If I had very dark skin, I think I would still hate African-American.  It’s clunky.  It wrongfully suggests that all dark-skinned people are from Africa, which has to annoy Australians, yes?  And aren’t all Americans really, originally, African?  I think I’d like black, or even Negroe, with an e and capitalized.

I’m heterosexual.  That’s a fine term as far as I’m concerned.  I loathe straight (what’s the opposite of that?)  But if I were homosexual, I think I’d prefer gay (whether a man or woman.)  I know several practicing bisexuals, at least one of which self-describes as queer.  I think that’s mostly affect, but egads.  You’ve got to help me, people.  It this one of those rescued epithets, like nigger, that the “in” crowd is allowed to flaunt and outsiders can be murdered over?

But most sincerely — and this is my ultimate point — if I were significantly shorter in stature than the average person, I strongly believe I would like almost anything more than little person.  That sounds so bloody condescending to me.  Maybe not midget, but what — what? — is wrong with dwarf?

This will be relevant in Chain Link 3.

Follow the link: http://www.aclu.org/safefree/detention/closeguantanamo.html

Whereas H.R. 888 is a series of lies of Stalinist dimensions seeking unabashedly to create institutions of Christian nationalism;

Whereas this is completely intolerable;

Whereas our insistence in urging Muslim nations to seek secular institutions will be seen as blatantly hypocritical and, in actuality, an urging of Muslim nations just not to create Muslim institutions (”Christian” ones would be OK!);

Whereas this resolution, while not having the power of law, will inevitably be used by the reptiles in the Religious Right to further their nefarious agenda to inject Christianity into public places, schools, and courtrooms;

Whereas I’m a fucking American, and, like the majority of the Founders and Framers, not a Christian, let alone an evangelical;

Whereas this is an utter betrayal of me, and those like me, who have done great service for this country;

Whereas this is the final straw in a battle that began in earnest seven years ago reviving the despicable history of McCarthyism;

Whereas this fucking bullshit was what made the fucking founders take up fucking arms in the first fucking place; Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, that —

1. Randy Forbes can go fuck himself;
2. everyone who voted for this piece of shit can go fuck his or herself;
3. everyone who agrees that this Resolution is appropriate can fuck his or herself;
4. this means fucking war; and
4. every reader of mcgees.org who agrees with this resolution needs to be very clear that if you agree with H.R. 888, you are no friend of mine, no friend of mcgees.org, and not welcome in my home or life, any more than you would be if you used racial slurs around me.

Intentionally funny:  Elephant soup recipe, which calls for 1 medium elephant, 500 gallons of boiling water, and onions and potatoes by the bushel.  It lists as serving 3800 people, but if more guests show up than expected, you can add 2 chopped rabbits.

Why it’s funny:  If you’re cooking a whole elephant, two rabbits aren’t going to make a bit of difference, are they?  They’ll serve an additional 4 people, maybe.  That’s lost in the noise and overkill of the elephant recipe.

OK, that was pretty basic.  Let’s move on to The Matrix.

Unintentionally Funny:  Morpheus: The human generates more bio-electricity than 120-volt battery and over 25,000 BTUs of body heat.  Combined with a form of fusion, the machines have found all the energy they would ever need.

Why it’s funny:  If you have fusion power, you don’t really need human body heat, do you?  Just add an extra teaspoonful of water and replace all of humanity.

OK, moving right along.

Pathetically unfunny:  The MPAA rating of the David Fincher film Zodiac, which reads “Rated R for some strong killings, language, drug material and brief sexual images.”

Why it’s pathetically unfunny, and talks about how screwed up our country’s priorities are:  Shouldn’t it just need to stop at strong killings?  Is there really a parent out there who would say, “Oh, graphic images of murder?  That’s fine, as long as there’s no profanity or brief images of clothed people having sex!”  Are these four criteria really of comparable weight?  Depicting bound people being stabbed multiple times is similar enough to the “f” word to list them in the same sentence?  Isn’t all the non-killing stuff lost in the overkill of the murders?

Seven years ago, who could have imagined debating whether or not our government should hold prisoners without charge, search our private information without a warrant and endorse and authorize the torture of prisoners?  Pitifully, the mindless destruction of the Constitution by the Bush administration has given way to that very debate.  — Anthony Romero, ACLU

I’d argue that the destruction has been anything but mindless — it’s been coldly, cruelly, murderously mindful — but in any case, it needs to stop, and it needs to stop now.  I don’t care if you “vote Republican”.  I don’t care if you voted for Bush.  This is not a simple political party difference.  If you endorse suspension of habeus, unlawful wiretaps, and torture, you are not an American.  This is not a “no true Scotsman” argument; this is a “no Scotsman at all” argument.  This behavior is not, was never, and will never be appropriate for a first-world democracy.  This behavior is criminal, both nationally and internationally.  It was criminal in 1945, when it was done by the Nazis, and the penalty was death.

If you agree with the Bush administration’s “enhanced” methods, you are part of the problem, and more of a problem than any terrorist.  If you do not — and our nation’s future rests on this trust — you need to be part of the solution.  The ACLU has fought these illegalities every step of the way.  And they need your help.  Give now.  Give everything you can.  If you don’t trust the ACLU, give to whomever you think can make the biggest difference.

Billions of debt, much incurred corruptly, is hampering the development of the third world and leading to actual suffering, misery, and death.  Write to your congressperson asking him or her to support H.R. 2634.

I was walking by Whole Foods, and there were bohemian-dressed young men in front, representing a PAC that I will not mention by name on a high-traffic website, selling a book by their candidate calling for the resignation of Dick Cheney.  They wanted to return to a US in the model of FDR.

So I stopped.

I wouldn’t buy the book, but I agreed to take their pamphlet literature.  I was pressed extensively for a donation.  I gave $2 to cover their printing costs for the pamphlets, but told them I needed to read the literature before making any further contribution.  This seemed odd to them.  Foolishly, in retrospect, I also gave my name, telephone number, and email address.

So I read the literature.  The FDR model that they want to return to is an industrial economy.  The reason this is OK is that, they claim, global warming is a scientific fraud.  Why they think this way and hate Dick Cheney I do not know.  But do note: Whole Foods plus natural fiber clothes plus anti-Dick Cheney does not necessarily equal friend to a liberal.

Breaking news.  A Federal Court Judge in Michigan has ruled the “Terrorism Surveillance Program” as unconstitutional under the First and Fourth Amendments and illegal under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.  More here.

We must first note that the Office of the Chief Executive has itself been created, with its powers, by the Constitution. There are no hereditary Kings in America and no power not created by the Constitution … It was never the intent of the Framers to give the President such unfettered control, particularly where his actions blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights.

Article XI

As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen [Muslims], and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.  (Translation from the Arabic.)

Signed in Tripoli, subsequently unanimously ratified by the U.S. Senate and signed by President John Adams.

The Theocratic Inclinations of the Republican Electorate.  From The Nation.

“You’re thirty years late to this party, George, so it pretty clear that the only reason you’re showing up now is because somebody paid you to attend.”

Truthdig - Reports - Robert Scheer: ‘Anti-Christian Conspirators’ Slay DeLay.  Ah, if only we could take credit for DeLay’s downfall. That would have been a major coup. Instead of, say, something akin to the laws of physics.

Journalism Payola.  And a really good discussion.

Japanese firms divest themselves of whaling interests.

Myths about the sanctity of life, or of consciousness, cut both ways. They may be useful in erecting barriers (against euthanasia, against capital punishment, against abortion, against eating meat) to impress the unimaginative, but at the price of offensive hypocrisy or ridiculous self-deception among the more enlightened.

Absolutist barriers, like the Maginot Line, seldom do the work they were designed for….  Surely it would be better to try to foster an appreciation for the nonabsolutist, nonintrinsic, nondichotomized grounds for moral concern that can co-exist with our increasing knowledge of the inner workings of that most amazing machine, the brain. The moral arguments on both sides of the issues of capital punishment, abortion, eating meat, and experimenting on nonhuman animals, for instance, are raised to a higher, more appropriate standard when we explicitly jettison the myths…. — Daniel Dennett.

Discuss, if you are so inclined.

Wow, I’m glad I kept reading The Blank Slate.  The last two chapters, “The Arts” and “The Voice of the Species” were really, really, really good.  Maybe borrow the book and just read those?

I have been reading the intricate shell game that is Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate. Thought-provoking shell game, but shell game nonetheless, prone to rapid escalations from fish-in-barrel-shooting to global generalization in seven-league leaps of Randian proportion.  I’ve kept reading it for one reason: its occasional aha-generating moments are really fun (and normally in the form of citations from other thinkers.) In that sense the book is a footnote to its bibliography.

Allow me to cite, however, the first citation that has made me put the book down to write a blog post. He cites a writer called J.C. Wakefield as follows:

A good definition of a disease or disorder is that it consists of suffering experienced by an individual because of a malfunction of a mechanism in the individual’s body.

Now, hold on.  That is an immeasurably lousy definition of disease and disorder, on the scale of David Gelernter’s definition of vivid imagination.  By this definition, brain death is not a disorder.  Early-stage HIV infection is not a disease.  They’re not causing suffering, right?  At least not unless you expand suffering to something like “eventual diminution of lifespan”, or “elimination of the potential for experience of happiness”. But maybe his argument doesn’t rely on the suffering bit, or maybe it permits this sort of wide definition. He proceeds to explain why violence is not a disorder:

But as a writer for Science recently pointed out, “Unlike most diseases, it’s usually not the perpetrator who defines aggression as a problem; it’s the environment. Violent people may feel they are functioning normally, and some may even enjoy their occasional outbursts and resist treatment.  (Emphasis added)

I’m not making a claim about the pathology of violence. That’s not the point. The point is that if you are willing to start with assumptions this flawed, where do your arguments lead? Apparently, if this book is testament, the effect is arguments such as Neural models with distributed intelligence function better than top-down models. Leftism is top-down and utopian. Conservatism, with its free economic agents pursuing their own ends, is distributed. Therefore, the validity of Conservatism is supported by artificial intelligence research.  The only difference is that he takes ten pages to state this thesis.

No matter what you think of Gorgeous George, Jeremy Paxman’s interview with him last night was off the map  (As in “bizarre and out of line”.  I think some readers thought I was endorsing Paxman’s diatribe.  I don’t like Galloway, but good lord, Jeremy.)  Anyone have a link to a transcript?  Post at the discussion page, please.

OK, here it is:

JEREMY PAXMAN: Mr Galloway, are you proud of having got rid of one of the very few black women in Parliament?

GEORGE GALLOWAY: What a preposterous question. I know it’s very late in the night, but wouldn’t you be better by starting by congratulating me for one of the most sensational election results in modern history?

JEREMY PAXMAN: Are you proud of having got rid of one of the very few black women in Parliament?

GEORGE GALLOWAY: I’m not — Jeremy, move on to your next question.

JEREMY PAXMAN: Well, you not answering that one?

GEORGE GALLOWAY: No, because I don’t believe that people get elected because of the colour of their skin.

I believe people get elected because of their record and because of their policies. So move onto your next question, because I’ve got a lot of people who want to speak to me.

JEREMY PAXMAN: Are you proud…

GEORGE GALLOWAY: If you ask that question again I’m going, I warn you now.

JEREMY PAXMAN: Don’t try and threaten me, Mr Galloway, please.

GEORGE GALLOWAY: You’re the one who’s trying to badger me.

JEREMY PAXMAN: I’m not trying to badger you, I’m merely asking you whether you’re proud of having driven out of Parliament one of the very few black women there — a woman you accused of having on her conscience the deaths of 100,000 people.

GEORGE GALLOWAY: Oh, well, there’s no doubt about that one. There’s absolutely no doubt that all those new Labour MPs who voted for Mr Blair and Mr Bush’s war have on their hands the blood of 100,000 people in Iraq, many of them British soldiers, many of them American soldiers, most of them Iraqis. And that’s a more important issue than the colour of her skin, I may assure you.

JEREMY PAXMAN: Yes, because you then went on to say including a lot of women who had blacker faces than her.

GEORGE GALLOWAY: Absolutely right. Absolutely right. So don’t try and tell me that I should feel guilty about one of the most sensational election results in modern electoral history because the person I defeated is a woman or a…

JEREMY PAXMAN: I put it to you, Mr Galloway, that Nick Rainsford had you to a tea when he said you were a demagogue.

GEORGE GALLOWAY: I’m sorry?

JEREMY PAXMAN: Nick Rainsford. You know who I mean?  Nick Rainsford, Labour MP.

GEORGE GALLOWAY: I don’t’ no, I don’t know him.

JEREMY PAXMAN: So you’ve never heard of him?

GEORGE GALLOWAY: I’ve never heard of Nick Rainsford, no.

JEREMY PAXMAN: What else haven’t you heard of?

GEORGE GALLOWAY: Well, I’ve been in Parliament a long time.

JEREMY PAXMAN: He’s a parliamentary colleague of yours until very recently.

GEORGE GALLOWAY: Well, most of them just blend one into the other, Jeremy.  They’re largely a spineless supine bunch, and…

JEREMY PAXMAN: Have you every heard of Tony Banks?

GEORGE GALLOWAY: Yes I have, yes.

JEREMY PAXMAN: Right. Tony Banks was sitting here five minutes ago and he said you were behaving inexcusably — you had deliberately chosen to go to that part of London and to exploit the latent racial tensions there.

GEORGE GALLOWAY: Well, you are actually conducting one of the more, even by your standards, one of the most absurd interviews I have ever participated in. I have just won an election. Can you find it within yourself to recognise that fact, to recognise the fact that the people of Bethnal Green and Bow chose me this evening.

JEREMY PAXMAN: We recognise it.

GEORGE GALLOWAY: Why are you insulting them?

JEREMY PAXMAN: I’m not insulting them. I’m not insulting them.

GEORGE GALLOWAY: Yes you are. You are insulting them. They chose me just a few minutes ago. Can’t you find it within yourself even to congratulate me on this victory?

JEREMY PAXMAN: (sarcastically) Congratulations, Mr Galloway.  How do you propose to use your time in?

GEORGE GALLOWAY: Thank you very much indeed.  I’m off.

JEREMY PAXMAN: Oh, I see, it’s another occasion you’re not wanting to talk to someone who doesn’t agree with you.

GEORGE GALLOWAY: No, no, no, no.  Actually, Jeremy, it’s too, it’s too late.

Joy to the world, no more death penalty in Kansas.