when it hurts to lose

They say that sex is all over TV because sex sells. I guess this show must mean that in Japan, pain sells. It's a simple gameshow concept--say a tongue-twister without errors, you win a prize. Make any mistakes, you get a consolation prize--the sudden ability to sing an octave higher.

the ten best books I've read

I recently had a discussion that prompted me to think about what books are worthy of a place on my "top 10 books of all time" list. Comparing books of different genres can be a bit like comparing apples and orange soda so I decided to give up on the "top 10" list and construct a list of my "top 5 books that I happen to remember off the top of my head--because I'm too lazy to unpack all of my books and see if I'm forgetting something--while attempting to restrict each genre to a single representative". In no particular order, I came up with:

1. Fantasy: The Lord of the Rings -- Never before has one brilliant author inspired so many posers to follow in his footsteps. Tolkien wanted this published as one volume, so I say it's one book.
   
2. Sci-Fi: Ender's Game -- Never before has one brilliant book inspired so many readers to read so many sequels that were so deeply disappointing. A litmus test for true nerd-dom is whether you love this book.
   
3. Historical Analysis: On the Origins of War -- Kagan's analysis of international relations made me a neocon. It's not a book to read multiple times, but it's a book that affected my politics like few others.
   
4. Comedy/Heresy: Good Omens -- Prachett and Gaimen turn the apocalypse into a laughing matter. Read the footnotes.
   
5. Modern Literature: Bel Canto -- Patchett almost made me love opera. And the lovers lived happily ever after. Until they died.
   
6. Inspired By God: The Bible -- I take back what I said about Tolkien. Nobody has inspired a host of posers to match the uninspired host of posers that have tried to write a better Bible than the Bible.
   
7. Thriller: Sum of All Fears -- Clancy once knew how to write a complex thriller that was, well, thrilling. Alas.
   
8. Classic Literature: Pride and Prejudice -- Austen's best. I love Lizzy.
   
9. Mathematics Texts That I've Never Read: Fuzzy Thinking: The New Science of Fuzzy Logic -- Given the number of books I've managed to fit into my "top 5" list, I think this one surely deserves a place.
   

The funniest thing I read today

Michael Schaub via Tyler Cowen: "it sucks that the publishing industry has given up on some great work from some great authors, while books like M is for Murder and N is for No, Seriously, Murder and O is for Oh My God Someone Just Got Murdered are readily available at every chain bookstore in the land."

Update:

I suppose I should have titled this post: "The funniest thing I read yesterday", since I'm technically just 30 minutes into a new day. That's not a lot of time in which to find funny reading material.

not the antichrist

I can't understand why so many Republicans persist in believing that Bill Clinton was the next worst thing to the antichrist. His morality (or lack thereof) notwithstanding, his policy positions weren't all bad. For a recent example:

U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman is rolling out the big gun in his increasingly close primary battle with Greenwich Democrat Ned Lamont.

Former President Bill Clinton is slated to campaign on behalf of the three-term incumbent Monday in Waterbury, Lieberman's campaign spokeswoman said today.

If Lieberman loses his primary contest to Lamont, we'll have lost one of the good guys.

Via Glenn Reynolds

voting

From Alex Tabarrok, the most thought provoking thing I've read today:

Frankly, too many people vote already. I know, that's heresy against the great religion of democracy - i.e. worship of the mob - but other people voting is an externality on me and in this case I will side with Pigou.

For non-economists, this may help to explain the "Pigou" reference:

A Pigovian tax is a tax levied to correct the negative externalities of a market activity. For instance, a Pigovian tax may be levied on producers who pollute the environment to encourage them to reduce pollution, and to provide revenue which may be used to counteract the negative effects of the pollution. Certain types of Pigovian taxes are sometimes referred to as sin taxes, for example taxes on alcohol and cigarettes.

I tend to agree that other people voting dilutes the value of my vote, but I'm not quite ready to sign on for poll taxes. To be fair to Alex, I don't think he's advocating poll taxes either. In context, he's objecting to one of the more stupid get-out-the-vote proposals I've ever seen:

In an effort to improve voter turnout the Arizona Voter Reward Act (if approved) would give every voter a chance to win a prize of $1 million. Great. Why not hand out a bottle of vino with every vote or some crack? Where is Richard Titmuss when you need him? What sort of people won't vote if there is no lottery but will vote if they get a lottery ticket and why do we want these people to vote?

war in the middle east

Events of the past few days in Israel, Gaza and Lebanon have opened up a lot of uncertainty regarding the immediate future of the Middle East. Israel appears to be preparing for an invasion of Lebanon, presumably with the intention of cleaning out the terrorist of infrastucture of Hezbollah. Given the fact that Hezbollah is in some ways nothing more than a tool for Iran and Syria, any large scale attack on Hezbollah may draw in one or both of these nations: either by their choice (a retaliatiory strike against Israel), or by Israel's (a prememptive strike to allow Israel freedom of action in Lebanon). If Iran becomes involved in an open war with Israel, America and/or Israel may take advantage of the opportunity to strike Iran's nuclear infrastructure.

I can't predict how this will play out, but here are some guesses:

• Moderate regimes in the region (Egypt, Saudi Arabi and Jordan) seem to be willing to let Israel take action against Hezbollah--when Saudi Arabia announces that Hezbollah is at fault for tensions in the region, it's the next best thing to granting the IDF permission to take the gloves off.
• Israel can't significantly alter Hezbollah's position in Lebanon without committing ground troops. Hezbollah (and by extension, their puppet-masters in Damascus and Tehran) can win simply by surviving. Consequently, if Israel doesn't move beyond their current strategy of airstrikes and blockades against Lebanon alone, Syria and Iran will probably sit this one out. Why risk open war when the status quo results in victory?
• Since Israel loses if they refuse to escalate their attacks on Hezbollah, Israel will commit ground troops.
• Israel must be assured that Syria will not directly interfere with their operations in Lebanon. If Assad provides assurances that Syria will sit out this conflict, Israel will not launch preemptive strikes on Syria. If Syria refuses to provide these assurances of non-interference, expect to see the Syrian air force get demolished at about the same time Israel moves into Lebanon.
• Syria isn't dumb enough to take on Israel without significant support from other regimes in the region. The only country that seems inclined to offer Syria concrete support is Iran, and they would have to pass through Turkey or Iraq to get forces into the battle. Since Syria will be facing Israel alone, I expect Syria to sit this fight out. On the other hand, it's possible Assad is too proud (or stupid?) to back down.
• Iran is the country who is most likely to cause trouble. Iran's immediate goal is (I'm guessing) to destabilize Iraq, intending to ultimately bring the region closer to their vision of Islamist theocratic rule. The best method of destabilizing Iraq is probably to provoke some kind of Israeli or American attack against Iran, then to instigate "spontaneous" revolt by Iraqi Shiites against the Iraqi government.
• Iran can't interfere with Israel directly, but missile strikes are possible. How Israel and the U.S. respond to such a provocation is probably dependent on how effective and persistent the Iranian provocation is.
• If Iran can cause significant casualties in Israel then the whole region will become very messy.
• Perhaps it would be more accurate to say "very much messier".

As I said, I can't predict anything. The above thoughts aren't worth more than the price of the paper they're printed on. Unless something like the above actually occurs, in which case you read it here first.

Chester's analysis was very helpful in shaping the thoughts above. And unlike me, he knows what he's talking about.

words worth reading

Peter Schramm on becoming an immigrant to America:

My mother tells me, though I don’t remember saying this, that I told my father I would follow him to hell if he asked it of me. Fortunately for my eager spirit, hell was exactly what we were trying to escape and the opposite of what my father sought.

"But where are we going?" I asked.

"We are going to America," my father said.

"Why America?" I prodded.

"Because, son. We were born Americans, but in the wrong place," he replied.

Peter Schramm on being a book lover:

There is something special about owning and reading your own books. I never liked to use libraries. Perhaps it is a natural reaction to the communist propaganda of my youth, but I think that some things just shouldn’t be shared. At least not with just anybody. I like to smell and fondle books, keep them, set them back on their shelf, sometimes to just let them fall open to where they may and read into them again. I fancied that these books became friends, and I just couldn’t bear to part with them.

Cicero on the nature of the limits of American and Israeli power:

A friend of mine said yesterday that he believes Israel and the United States have reached the limits of their power. He believes the battle is joined, is highly asymmetric, and has ground American and Israeli forces to a halt. He wasn't gloating, but was hypothesizing.

He might be wrong. Having power assumes a monopoly of violence. As we restrain our power to appeal to our allies and win friends on the ground, Islamicists do everything they can to monopolize violence through random acts of terror. They're quite unrestrained in that pursuit, and on that level, we are neck-and-neck with them for control on the ground. The battle for the monopoly of violence is symmetrical in this war because we restrain ourselves from unleashing our full fury. My friend assumes that we will restrain ourselves indefinitely, and so we have reached the limit of our power.

My friend will be right -- that the Israelis and Americans have hit their wall -- only if we continue self-restraint. We've made war with our seat belts on. There's no guarantee that things can't get to a point where further self-restraint makes no sense.

Smash on conversing with hunger-striking leftist protestors:

I wasn't in uniform (I only have to wear it for ceremonies), so maintaining strict military bearing wasn't an issue. Also, a heavy blanket of humidity had descended on D.C., so the half-dozen or so remaining hunger strikers had retreated deeper into the park, laying in the shade of a couple of magnolia trees. Their banners were strewn across the grass alongside one of the brick walkways. They didn't appear to be holding up very well with the hunger and the heat.

The same man from Friday saw me approaching, and staggered his way over to engage me. If he recognized me from before, he showed no sign.

I paused in front of the banners, and pulled a big juicy apple out of my lunch bag.

"Day seven of a hunger strike..." the man muttered.

I looked him in the eye, took a bite of my apple, and shrugged.

He turned away, and retreated back to the shade of the magnolia. I took another couple bites out of my apple before continuing my stroll around the park.

I give 'em about a week before they break camp.

call a spade a spade, please

Hezbollah's attack on Israel ought to be pretty easy to describe:

Terrorists affiliated with Hezbollah (which is recognized as a terrorist organization by the U.S.) infiltrated Israel's sovereign territory to launch an unprovoked attack on Israeli military forces and captured two Israeli soldiers.

Here's how ABC describes the attackers: "militants from the Islamic resistance movement Hezbollah struck from across Israel's border with Lebanon."

What is Hezbollah resisting? The Israeli occupation of Lebanon that ended six years ago? Hezbollah is a terrorist organization. When they launch attacks inside Israel they are either guilty of terrorism or they are launching an offensive war as a proxy for Lebanon, Syria or Iran. In either case Hezbollah doesn't deserve to be labeled as a resistance movement.

immigration policy: Borjas vs. Card

Here's a link to one of the best articles I've ever read on the immigration debate. The evidence on both sides of the debate is presented fairly and in depth. The conclusion:

What the economists can do is frame a subset of the important issues. They remind us, first, that the legislated goal of U.S. policy is curiously disconnected from economics. Indeed, the flow of illegals is the market's signal that the current legal limits are too low. Immigrants do help the economy; they are fuel for growth cities like Las Vegas and a salve to older cities that have suffered native flight. Borjas's research strongly suggests that native unskilled workers pay a price: in wages, in their ability to find inviting areas to migrate to and perhaps in employment. But the price is probably a small one.

The disconnect between Borjas's results and Card's hints that there is an alchemy that occurs when immigrants land ashore; the economy's potential for absorbing and also adapting is mysterious but powerful. Like any form of economic change, immigration causes distress and disruption to some. But America has always thrived on dynamic transformations that produce winners as well as losers. Such transformations stimulate growth. Other societies (like those in Europe) have opted for more controls, on immigration and on labor markets generally. They have more stability and more equality, but less growth and fewer jobs.

In other words, the evidence on either side of the immigration debate is hardly conclusive. To my mind, that's a good indication that radical "solutions" aren't called for. If O'Reilly and Rush would calm down, I'd be grateful.

whales: 1, U.S. Navy: 0

The mind, it boggles:

A federal judge in California has ordered the US Navy to temporarily stop using sonar equipment because it might harm whales and other sea mammals.

More info is here.

In other news, I'm considering buying one of these.

your own personal internet?

Ted Stevens is ignorant. That's not to suggest that he's stupid--you don't generally serve as an officer in the Air Force, graduate from Harvard Law and serve as a Senator if you're stupid. Intelligent as he may be though, he is clearly ill-equipped to discuss regulation of the internet:

"But this service isn't going to go through the interent and what you do is you just go to a place on the internet and you order your movie and guess what you can order ten of them delivered to you and the delivery charge is free.

Ten of them streaming across that internet and what happens to your own personal internet?

I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?

Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially."

He goes on to explain that the internet is "a series of tubes", and that

"Those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material."

He doesn't understand the terminology (it's an "email", not an "internet"), he doesn't understand the technology (bandwidth saturation will *not* cause a multiple day delay in delivery of an email), and he is almost certainly regurgitating metaphors that have been fed to him by telco lobbyists ("tubes"???).

On the bright side, he's doing us all a favor by expressing his opinions. If he'd have just kept his mouth shut and voted, nobody would have noticed his ignorance. Not that I expect him to get booted out of office anytime soon--he's been around Washington for decades, and there aren't enough geeks in Alaska for this instance of foot-in-mouth disease to cost him an election.