WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Evolving Robots Learn To Prey On Each Other.
Archive for January, 2010
January 31, 2010
IN THE MAIL: From Eric Flint and Dave Freer: The Sorceress of Karres.
FROM ANDREW MARCUS, AN INTERVIEW WITH LECH WALESA, who warns that America is slipping into socialism.
FROM STEPHEN GREEN: The Week In Blogs.
MY WASHINGTON EXAMINER COLUMN IS UP: More impact is what’s next for the Tea Party movement. (Bumped).
UPDATE: “Do you hear me now?” Plus, further thoughts from Dan Riehl. “A combination of influences appear to be giving rise to an age in American politics in which the American people can finally be heard – and heard without the filter of the mainstream media.”
ROBERT GIBBS OPENS HIS MOUTH AND REMOVES ALL DOUBT: Gibbs: Accused 9/11 plotter likely to be executed. “Accused Sept. 11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is likely to be executed after being tried and convicted, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Sunday.” This statement, from an official White House spokesman, seems a bit indiscreet. Certainly if the goal is to impress the rest of the world with the fairness of our civilian judicial system, official statements that treat conviction and execution as near-certain would seem to undercut the whole point of the exercise.
UPDATE: Power Line: The Holder Hangover — And Whence It Comes.
PATRICK MCILHERAN: Feingold In Play? That’s The Sound Of Terrain Shifting.
ANOTHER FUN PHOTO FROM THE WHITE HOUSE FLICKRSTREAM. I like the expression on Geithner’s face.
Here’s a closeup. Althouse is channeling Titanic here, but I disagree. To me, it looks more like something from The Godfather.
MICHAEL S. MALONE: Tablet Dreams. “Apple’s introduction Wednesday of its new iPad — the jokes have already begun about the name and feminine hygiene — was just the latest in what has been one of the most enduring obsessions in high tech history. I’m not sure exactly why tablets are so appealing. Perhaps it’s because they harken back to the natural human tendency to write and draw on the nearest flat wall or stone or scrap of wood. Or maybe it’s a kind of cultural memory from the days of cuneiform writing on slabs of drying mud, or marking with chalk on a piece of slate in a one room schoolhouse. Whatever the reason, the dream of a smart, interactive tablet is almost as old as electronics itself.”
THE HILL: Dorgan: President should have focused on jobs, not healthcare, last year. “Dorgan’s admission Friday that Democrats erred by focusing almost exclusively on healthcare reform in 2009 is sure not to sit well with the party’s leaders.”
ALL POLITICS IS LOCAL: Tea Partiers aim to remake local GOP. “They are doing it here by the hundreds by filing as candidates in the May 4 primary election for the office of precinct executive, the lowest rung of the political party structure. . . . It is a strategy that has worked elsewhere – Tea Party activists essentially took over the Nevada Republican Party earlier this month; and, in Florida, they were successful in forcing out a state party chairman who was seen as too centrist.” Ignore the bias — “too centrist” — and note the lesson. It’s often pretty easy to take over your local party apparatus with just a few hundred well-organized supporters, especially if that apparatus is hidebound and complacent. Heck, you might manage to take over both of ’em. . . .
RETRACTO, THE CORRECTION ALPACA serves notice on The Hill.
YESTERDAY I POSTED ON EDUCATION SECRETARY ARNE DUNCAN’S STATEMENT that Katrina was good for New Orleans education. Reader Wyman Duggan writes:
I’m a huge fan of yours, and no fan of the Obama Administration. But Arne Duncan Is right on the money with respect to the revolution that is occurring in New Orleans public education post-Katrina. I submit that it is highly desirable from a libertarian perspective.
And another reader who requests anonymity writes:
Though I almost never disagree with you, I have to agree with Arne Duncan that the hurricane was the best thing that could happen to New Orleans public schools.
The system was so atrocious before the storm that you actually had the valedictorian of a high school here who couldn’t pass the state exit exam. The public school system was as dysfunctional as you could find in the Western world – violence, corruption, and not much education.
The system is now improving and has the highest percentage (60%) of charter schools out of any school system in the nation.
School scores are improving and there is now hope (oh, how that word has been forever tainted by the Obama) that things can change (another word that was sullied) for the better.
It really did take a nearly-destroyed city to mostly remove the stranglehold that the teachers unions had on the local system. Sometimes good things do come out of disaster!
This is reminiscent of what Mancur Olson says in The Rise and Decline of Nations about the power of wars and catastrophes to promote growth by breaking the power of the “web of special interests” that inevitably arises in democracies. Which makes Duncan’s statement a true “Kinsleyan gaffe,” where a politician accidentally tells the truth . . . .
UPDATE: Chris Kobus emails:
If our educational system has been so corrupted that it can’t be fixed without a natural disaster to literally blow it out of the water, then we are in big trouble. Disorder cannot be destroyed (2nd law of thermodynamics), but order can be created by removing the disorder somewhere else. Problem is, that takes a lot of focused effort. Far more than the political class is willing to put in these days.
I would like to see each school compete on its own. No school districts and no monopoly. Monopoly power always seems to lead to corruption that trickles right down to the politicians and back again in a vicious cycle.
Yes. The presence of public schools of varying quality with geographically defined districts also distorts the housing market in ways that are underappreciated.
January 30, 2010
AT AMAZON, a bunch of warehouse deals.
THE PROBLEMS WITH food globalization. I’m willing to trade a certain amount of efficiency for robustness, though not so much for ideology.
A CRISIS AVERTED in Iraq?
MORE THOUGHTS ON THOSE “Gay” Pashtuns.
HERE’S MORE ON THAT Amazon vs. MacMillan Kindle-book Price Dispute. “Macmillan CEO John Sargent said he was told Friday that its books would be removed from Amazon.com, as would e-books for Amazon’s Kindle e-reader. Books will be available on Amazon.com through private sellers and other third parties, Sargent said. . . . Macmillan and other publishers have criticized Amazon for charging just $9.99 for best-selling e-books on its Kindle e-reader, a price publishers say is too low and could hurt hardcover sales.” So is Amazon being a bully here, or standing up for consumers?
UPDATE: Reader (and author) C.J. Burch emails: “No sympathy for publishers from me.” Well, many authors view publishers this way, but on the other hand, royalties are computed based on price, so . . . .
On the other hand, many authors feel that the publishers kinda fail to pass along as much as they should.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Eric Klien writes: “Amazon is being a Walmart-type bully and trying to get the best possible deals for its customers.”
MORE: A reader emails: “I only read Kindle books now. However, I refuse to pay more than $9.99/book. Despite the publisher’s ‘listed price’ of $24, bestsellers on Amazon typically cost $13-15. I’ve seen Kindle versions cost more than the hardcover yet there is no material costs and the delivery model should cost less. Is the publisher even paying the delivery costs for e-books? Is anyone paying the listed price for a book these days?”
I’ve heard that Amazon doesn’t really make any money on Kindle books. If that’s so, then the publishers should be making out like bandits at these prices, but I confess the whole model isn’t clear to me. Or to others, it seems.
SPAM/VIRUS ALERT: I’m suddenly getting email from people I know with no subject and a bare link to an iffy-looking url. I’m guessing that this is some new virus or spam tactic. I advise caution if you receive such.
A BLOG REPORT FROM TODAY’S Chicago Tea Party Rally for Adam Andrezejewski.
UPDATE: Related: Formerly Obama-friendly Republican changes tune: “What I pointed out a couple of years ago was that when the president served in Springfield, he had a record of bipartisanship and I wonder where that bipartisanship is in Washington today.”
CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS: New Yorkers Are Wussies?
KATIE GRANJU IS underwhelmed by the Apple iPad.