subnumine

Misquote of the day.

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 17:31:34 GMT

" Any government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.” - Gerald R. Ford, in his first address to Congress, five days after Nixon's resignation.

Since this sentiment is floating around right-wing fandom, even among people who attribute it correctly (the less literate ascribe this blatantly twentieth-century prose to Jefferson), it may be worth discussing it.

Ford understated the case immensely; it would be closer to the truth to say: Any government is big enough to take from you everything you have. It suffices that government be able to collect revenues and raise a standing army; and Henry VIII had no problem taking everything from the richest bodies in England with an even smaller government. Weak governments have no difficulty being tyrannical; they may be more likely to be, as the only way to get anything done at all.

In our American politics, that would mean that the Federal Government has been big enough to do so since the Washington Administration. President Washington led the largest army of his career to impose a ruinous tax on Pennsylvania in 1794; President Jefferson ruined large sections of the country in 1807.

Why then do we have anything left? Because the Constitution, for all its flaws, does do two things well enough, so far: we do sometimes elect politicians of humanity and virtue; when Washington got to Pennsylvania, he was clement enough to shoot nobody (against the advice of the Cabinet) and he reconsidered the tax once Federal authority had been established.

Again, the Constitution sets the ambition of every politician to correcting the errors even of wise and humane politicians: Jefferson's policy was resoundingly unpopular; Congressmen, even the members of his own party who had passed it, found that their future required they repeal it again. (Jefferson collapsed into depression, and did hardly anything the last three months of his Presidency, but his Congress, and his chosen successor as President, were both elected.)

Another Book to Cross Off One's list

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 20:05:49 GMT

Julian Friedlander, the editor of Doing Well and Good: The Human Face of the New Capitalism, a visiting Professor of Ethics at a business school, is telling the punters at the New York Times that

we [philosophers] should underscore the fact that various disciplines we ordinarily treat as science are at least as — if not more —philosophical than scientific. Take for example mathematics, theoretical physics, psychology and economics. These are predominately rational conceptual disciplines. That is, they are not chiefly reliant on empirical observation. For unlike science, they may be conducted while sitting in an armchair with eyes closed.

but they yield objective knowledge; therefore philosophy doesn't have to be science either. Thus Friedlander.

Mathematics consists of analytic statements; insofar as it is mathematics, it says nothing about the observable world, and what it says about itself depends on an arbitrary choice of axioms . (Whether 5+7 = 12 depends on which field of mathematics one is working in; in the ring Z/(11), 5+7 = 1.) Of course, it can be done with the eyes shut. Insofar as theoretical physics is analytic - insofar as it merely derives consequences of some given set of assumptions - it doesn't have anything to do with the real world either ; when it interacts with the real world, through comparison with experimental physics, the physicist must open his eyes and read the physical journals. This distinction goes back to David Hilbert and Ernst Mach, a century ago; it would be nice if our dogmatists would catch up with the literature.

The sort of psychology and economics that can be done with closed eyes aren't science at all; a priori claims about the observable world are prejudice and superstition. (Introspective psychology, which is observable with closed eyes, is not prejudice; but it is neither objective nor verifiable, so not science either.) We get, therefore, extra helpings of them in an election year.

It's always nice to know which books one does not have to read.

Writer's Block: State of the Union

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 20:44:28 GMT

Who do you think would make a great U.S. president?

View 244 Answers

Russell Feingold; the only senator to vote against the "PATRIOT" Act. Dr Johnson was an optimist; it was the Yalie's first refuge.

The impracitcality of a cheeseburger.?

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 04:42:22 GMT

I have run across a curious essay, claiming that a cheeseburger was so impractical, more than a century ago, that nobody would have though of it: lettuce is a cool-weather crop, tomatoes a summer crop, meat an autumn product. (He does not say impossible; "a time-traveller with an unlimited budget could have had one.")

There is severe dissent in the comments; I'm not sure myself. It Aside from the obvious, that cheese and tomatoes would not be found in the same place before 1492, I'm not sure the argument holds. (and I don't have tomato on cheeseburgers.) It may be useful to distinguish betw\een the Renaissance and the eighteenth century. But my friends know more about medieval food than I do.

Who wrote this?

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 00:44:31 GMT

Prices, whenever there was no monopoly, came earlier under the influence of competition, and are much more universally subject to it, than rents: but that influence is by no means, even in the present state of intense competition, so absolute as is sometimes assumed. There is no proposition which meets us in the field of political economy oftener than this—that there cannot be two prices in the same market. Such, undoubtedly, is the natural effect of unimpeded competition; yet every one knows that there are, very often, two prices in the same market. Not only are there in every large town, and in almost every trade, cheap shops and dear shops, but the same shop often sells the same article at different prices to different customers; and, as a general rule, each retailer adapts his scale of prices to the class of customers whom he expects.

John Stuart Mill.

This has changed since 1848 only in that the merchant has posted prices, and does not usually charge a different price to Lady Bountiful and to the shop-girl from down the street; but coupons have much the same effect.

For years, you could get the local cider in half-gallons at two stores across the street from each other; their prices differed by $2, and continued to do so. The situation has changed only because one company sold their store to new management, who ran it into the ground by not paying their suppliers; but it was stable before that (and the one that went out of business had the lower price).

For another example, the library in which I type this sells two types of flash drives: ($10, capacity 2 Gb) and ($13, capacity 2 Gb, with a pretty logo of the Office of Information Technology in the school colors). I inquired, and found

This is not product differerentiation. They have sold one of the $13 flashdrives, and that was a time when they were out of the $10 ones.
OIT used to supply flashdrives, with their logo, all over campus for $13; when the Crunch came, two years ago, they told the library to get their own. The library found they could get plain flash drives cheaper; the $13 stock is what they have had for two years.
The student body appears to buy OIT. Presumably they don't know the library has the cheaper version.

In short, market forces work, when there is a market; but often there isn't one. Having a market requires transparency; which may explain why our loudest worshippers are generally opposed to transparency.

Song for the Times

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 22:59:59 GMT

"Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few."

The Masque of Anarchy by Shelley.
Written in 1819, when the author heard of the Peterloo Massacre.Masque is the dance; Anarchy. is the conduct of the Government. The political allustions in the first lines should be clear enough; the behavior of governments hasn't changed that much. Suggestions for updates welcome.

As I lay asleep in Italy
There came a voice from over the Sea,
And with great power it forth led me
To walk in the visions of Poesy.

I met Murder on the way -
He had a mask like Castlereagh -
Very smooth he looked, yet grim;
Seven blood-hounds followed him:

All were fat; and well they might
Be in admirable plight,
For one by one, and two by two,
He tossed the human hearts to chew
Which from his wide cloak he drew.

Next came Fraud, and he had on,
Like Eldon, an ermined gown;
His big tears, for he wept well,
Turned to mill-stones as they fell.

And the little children, who
Round his feet played to and fro,
Thinking every tear a gem,
Had their brains knocked out by them.

Clothed with the Bible, as with light,
And the shadows of the night,
Like Sidmouth, next, Hypocrisy
On a crocodile rode by.

And many more Destructions played
In this ghastly masquerade,
All disguised, even to the eyes,
Like Bishops, lawyers, peers, or spies.

Last came Anarchy: he rode
On a white horse, splashed with blood;
He was pale even to the lips,
Like Death in the Apocalypse.

And he wore a kingly crown;
And in his grasp a sceptre shone;
On his brow this mark I saw -
'I AM GOD, AND KING, AND LAW!'

With a pace stately and fast,
Over English land he passed,
Trampling to a mire of blood
The adoring multitude.

And a mighty troop around,
With their trampling shook the ground,
Waving each a bloody sword,
For the service of their Lord.

And with glorious triumph, they
Rode through England proud and gay,
Drunk as with intoxication
Of the wine of desolation.

O'er fields and towns, from sea to sea,
Passed the Pageant swift and free,
Tearing up, and trampling down;
Till they came to London town.

And each dweller, panic-stricken,
Felt his heart with terror sicken
Hearing the tempestuous cry
Of the triumph of Anarchy.

For with pomp to meet him came,
Clothed in arms like blood and flame,
The hired murderers, who did sing
'Thou art God, and Law, and King.

'We have waited, weak and lone
For thy coming, Mighty One!
Our Purses are empty, our swords are cold,
Give us glory, and blood, and gold.'

Lawyers and priests, a motley crowd,
To the earth their pale brows bowed;
Like a bad prayer not over loud,
Whispering - 'Thou art Law and God.' -

Then all cried with one accord,
'Thou art King, and God and Lord;
Anarchy, to thee we bow,
Be thy name made holy now!'

And Anarchy, the skeleton,
Bowed and grinned to every one,
As well as if his education
Had cost ten millions to the nation.

For he knew the Palaces
Of our Kings were rightly his;
His the sceptre, crown and globe,
And the gold-inwoven robe.

So he sent his slaves before
To seize upon the Bank and Tower,
And was proceeding with intent
To meet his pensioned Parliament

When one fled past, a maniac maid,
And her name was Hope, she said:
But she looked more like Despair,
And she cried out in the air:

'My father Time is weak and gray
With waiting for a better day;
See how idiot-like he stands,
Fumbling with his palsied hands!

He has had child after child,
And the dust of death is piled
Over every one but me -
Misery, oh, Misery!'

Then she lay down in the street,
Right before the horses' feet,
Expecting, with a patient eye,
Murder, Fraud, and Anarchy.

When between her and her foes
A mist, a light, an image rose,
Small at first, and weak, and frail
Like the vapour of a vale:

Till as clouds grow on the blast,
Like tower-crowned giants striding fast,
And glare with lightnings as they fly,
And speak in thunder to the sky,

It grew - a Shape arrayed in mail
Brighter than the viper's scale,
And upborne on wings whose grain
Was as the light of sunny rain.

On its helm, seen far away,
A planet, like the Morning's, lay;
And those plumes its light rained through
Like a shower of crimson dew.

With step as soft as wind it passed
O'er the heads of men - so fast
That they knew the presence there,
And looked, - but all was empty air.

As flowers beneath May's footstep waken,
As stars from Night's loose hair are shaken,
As waves arise when loud winds call,
Thoughts sprung where'er that step did fall.

And the prostrate multitude
Looked - and ankle-deep in blood,
Hope, that maiden most serene,
Was walking with a quiet mien:

And Anarchy, the ghastly birth,
Lay dead earth upon the earth;
The Horse of Death tameless as wind
Fled, and with his hoofs did grind
To dust the murderers thronged behind.

A rushing light of clouds and splendour,
A sense awakening and yet tender
Was heard and felt - and at its close
These words of joy and fear arose

As if their own indignant Earth
Which gave the sons of England birth
Had felt their blood upon her brow,
And shuddering with a mother's throe

Had turned every drop of blood
By which her face had been bedewed
To an accent unwithstood, -
As if her heart had cried aloud:

'Men of England, heirs of Glory,
Heroes of unwritten story,
Nurslings of one mighty Mother,
Hopes of her, and one another;

'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.

'What is Freedom? - ye can tell
That which slavery is, too well -
For its very name has grown
To an echo of your own.

'Tis to work and have such pay
As just keeps life from day to day
In your limbs, as in a cell
For the tyrants' use to dwell,

'So that ye for them are made
Loom, and plough, and sword, and spade,
With or without your own will bent
To their defence and nourishment.

'Tis to see your children weak
With their mothers pine and peak,
When the winter winds are bleak, -
They are dying whilst I speak.

'Tis to hunger for such diet
As the rich man in his riot
Casts to the fat dogs that lie
Surfeiting beneath his eye;

'Tis to let the Ghost of Gold
Take from Toil a thousandfold
More that e'er its substance could
In the tyrannies of old.

'Paper coin - that forgery
Of the title-deeds, which ye
Hold to something of the worth
Of the inheritance of Earth.

'Tis to be a slave in soul
And to hold no strong control
Over your own wills, but be
All that others make of ye.

'And at length when ye complain
With a murmur weak and vain
'Tis to see the Tyrant's crew
Ride over your wives and you -
Blood is on the grass like dew.

'Then it is to feel revenge
Fiercely thirsting to exchange
Blood for blood - and wrong for wrong -
Do not thus when ye are strong.

'Birds find rest, in narrow nest
When weary of their wingèd quest
Beasts find fare, in woody lair
When storm and snow are in the air.

'Asses, swine, have litter spread
And with fitting food are fed;
All things have a home but one -
Thou, Oh, Englishman, hast none!

'This is slavery - savage men
Or wild beasts within a den
Would endure not as ye do -
But such ills they never knew.

'What art thou Freedom? O! could slaves
Answer from their living graves
This demand - tyrants would flee
Like a dream's dim imagery:

'Thou art not, as impostors say,
A shadow soon to pass away,
A superstition, and a name
Echoing from the cave of Fame.

'For the labourer thou art bread,
And a comely table spread
From his daily labour come
In a neat and happy home.

'Thou art clothes, and fire, and food
For the trampled multitude -
No - in countries that are free
Such starvation cannot be
As in England now we see.

'To the rich thou art a check,
When his foot is on the neck
Of his victim, thou dost make
That he treads upon a snake.

'Thou art Justice - ne'er for gold
May thy righteous laws be sold
As laws are in England - thou
Shield'st alike the high and low.

'Thou art Wisdom - Freemen never
Dream that God will damn for ever
All who think those things untrue
Of which Priests make such ado.

'Thou art Peace - never by thee
Would blood and treasure wasted be
As tyrants wasted them, when all
Leagued to quench thy flame in Gaul.

'What if English toil and blood
Was poured forth, even as a flood?
It availed, Oh, Liberty,
To dim, but not extinguish thee.

'Thou art Love - the rich have kissed
Thy feet, and like him following Christ,
Give their substance to the free
And through the rough world follow thee,

'Or turn their wealth to arms, and make
War for thy belovèd sake
On wealth, and war, and fraud - whence they
Drew the power which is their prey.

'Science, Poetry, and Thought
Are thy lamps; they make the lot
Of the dwellers in a cot
So serene, they curse it not.

'Spirit, Patience, Gentleness,
All that can adorn and bless
Art thou - let deeds, not words, express
Thine exceeding loveliness.

'Let a great Assembly be
Of the fearless and the free
On some spot of English ground
Where the plains stretch wide around.

'Let the blue sky overhead,
The green earth on which ye tread,
All that must eternal be
Witness the solemnity.

'From the corners uttermost
Of the bounds of English coast;
From every hut, village, and town
Where those who live and suffer moan,

'From the workhouse and the prison
Where pale as corpses newly risen,
Women, children, young and old
Groan for pain, and weep for cold -

'From the haunts of daily life
Where is waged the daily strife
With common wants and common cares
Which sows the human heart with tares -

'Lastly from the palaces
Where the murmur of distress
Echoes, like the distant sound
Of a wind alive around

'Those prison halls of wealth and fashion,
Where some few feel such compassion
For those who groan, and toil, and wail
As must make their brethren pale -

'Ye who suffer woes untold,
Or to feel, or to behold
Your lost country bought and sold
With a price of blood and gold -

'Let a vast assembly be,
And with great solemnity
Declare with measured words that ye
Are, as God has made ye, free -

'Be your strong and simple words
Keen to wound as sharpened swords,
And wide as targes let them be,
With their shade to cover ye.

'Let the tyrants pour around
With a quick and startling sound,
Like the loosening of a sea,
Troops of armed emblazonry.

Let the charged artillery drive
Till the dead air seems alive
With the clash of clanging wheels,
And the tramp of horses' heels.

'Let the fixèd bayonet
Gleam with sharp desire to wet
Its bright point in English blood
Looking keen as one for food.

'Let the horsemen's scimitars
Wheel and flash, like sphereless stars
Thirsting to eclipse their burning
In a sea of death and mourning.

'Stand ye calm and resolute,
Like a forest close and mute,
With folded arms and looks which are
Weapons of unvanquished war,

'And let Panic, who outspeeds
The career of armèd steeds
Pass, a disregarded shade
Through your phalanx undismayed.

'Let the laws of your own land,
Good or ill, between ye stand
Hand to hand, and foot to foot,
Arbiters of the dispute,

'The old laws of England - they
Whose reverend heads with age are gray,
Children of a wiser day;
And whose solemn voice must be
Thine own echo - Liberty!

'On those who first should violate
Such sacred heralds in their state
Rest the blood that must ensue,
And it will not rest on you.

'And if then the tyrants dare
Let them ride among you there,
Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew, -
What they like, that let them do.

'With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear, and less surprise,
Look upon them as they slay
Till their rage has died away.

'Then they will return with shame
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their cheek.

'Every woman in the land
Will point at them as they stand -
They will hardly dare to greet
Their acquaintance in the street.

'And the bold, true warriors
Who have hugged Danger in wars
Will turn to those who would be free,
Ashamed of such base company.

'And that slaughter to the Nation
Shall steam up like inspiration,
Eloquent, oracular;
A volcano heard afar.

'And these words shall then become
Like Oppression's thundered doom
Ringing through each heart and brain,
Heard again - again - again -

'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.'

Missing tanka

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 00:55:35 GMT

I wrote no tanka
The first day of this custom:
The Day of the Dead.
Like the Anthesteria,
Japanese ghosts walk in Spring.

Tanka 2

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 00:51:29 GMT

What is a tanka?
It's thirty-one syllables -
Mention a season
Think of radiant August?
Difficult in November

Reflecting Reflections

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 01:41:38 GMT

osewalrus has made a long post on Occupy Wall Street, here
. While it's worth reading, although long, the most important point may be:

...many people fret about "the mob," but "the mob" is a byproduct of a frustrated body politic. Arguing against mass protest for fear of "the mob" while doing nothing to alleviate the underlying cause is rather like being opposed to cancer without wanting to deal with smoking or other health risks.

Meanwhile, even the sympathetic mainstream press, like Ezra Klein's Four Habits of Successful Social Movements, is saying things like:

But to paraphrase a guy who understood real political power: How many troops does Paul Krugman have?

"Realism" has rarely had a worse example:. The Evil Overlord who said that is gone, and his statues fallen; there is still a Pope in Rome.

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 02:45:18 GMT

Robert Reich exolains what's wrong with the economy in two minutes and fifteen seconds.

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 10:06:25 GMT

Arizona governor vetoes bill allowing all citizens to carry guns in University rights of way.

In other news, she also vetoed the bill requiring all Presidential candidates to submit their birth certificates (or records of circumcision; we wouldn't want to be prejudiced now) to the Arizona secretary of state to be listed on the ballot in her state, some people see this as a sign of creeping sanity undermining the Republican Party.

But in the view of our domestic enemies, the reason for vetoing such a bill is that it doesn't define "right of way"; some poor innocent gun-owner, carrying a gun about the University of Arizona for reasons best known to himself, might become a criminal.

These people have no sense of process.

Know anybody like this?

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 20:17:06 GMT

Originally posted by e_apraksina at post

Family Values at work.

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 01:25:50 GMT

The 27-year old son of a major Scott Walker contributor has quit his $81,000 state job, for which he has no particular qualifications, and for which he was the only one interviewed, rather than accept demotion to his previous $64,000 job.

Well, at least that's $81,000 of waste, fraud, and abuse taken care of.

Who needs those pointy-headed scientists anyway?

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 01:03:11 GMT

The House funding bill is likely to mean severe cuts for the Plasma Physics Laboratory across town from me. They also want to hamper the enforcement of the Clean Air Act. In order to do this, they are willing to interfere with paying the military.

Gates thinks he's joking when he suggests "paying the guys with guns first". But the Long Parliament was also willing to postpone paying their army while engaged in sectarianism, and look what happened to them.

Game, untried.

Sun, 20 Feb 2011 04:15:58 GMT

Advertised with Girl Genius: Machination, the game of evil genius.

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 22:28:55 GMT

And then there are the good souls who analyse Animal Farm on the basis that Orwell was a Communist. Anyone who doesn't notice that Animal Farm is written to explain that why Orwell could never be a Communist has missed the main point; anybody who doesn't notice that the final scene condemns Stalin for being indistinguishable from the British Empire has failed to follow the allegory - and missed the secondary point.

The Revolution is being Televised

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 22:03:15 GMT

According to Al Jazeera, the army in Cairo is fraternizing with the riot, the Speaker of the Parliament is promising an Important Announcement and the Party Headquarters is burning Pity it's next to the Egyptian National Museum, but fire engines are making their way through.

When the troops refuse to fire, the Revolution has won; it may take the Autocrat a few days to react, but we've all seen the same movies.

And, yes, all revolutions fail - but, as Orwell actually said, they do not all fail in the same way.

Goldsmith, Gibbon and Montezuma

Fri, 26 Nov 2010 23:00:24 GMT

Oliver Goldsmith should be the patron saint of Wikipedia; he wrote on Chinese Metaphysics by looking up the (first edition) Britannia articles on China and on Metaphysics and "combining his information".

He was hired to write a two-volume work on Greek history - and was behind; both volumes were due and only one was done. At this point Edward Gibbon stopped by to see him; the conversation seems to have gone something like this:

Goldsmith: I am delighted to see you, Sir; just the person I wanted to ask. Tell me, what was the name of the Indian prince with whom Alexander the Great had such a difficult time?

Gibbon (at his most Olympian, tongue firmly in cheek): Montezuma

Goldsmith: Ah, thankee, Sir; much obliged to you. (scribbles)

Gibbon (not wanting to get Goldsmith into real trouble): -er- What can I have said? I meant Porus.

A charming paradox

Sat, 20 Nov 2010 04:41:49 GMT

The Anglo-Catholic Lutherans: further inspection may suggest that they aren't very Lutheran in doctrine, and are more concerned with current social and political issues than the nature of Purgatory and the Eucharist; but the idea is charming. They even describe themselves as Evangelical.

24 types of libertarian

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 02:15:27 GMT

The 24 types of Libertarian is unfair, unkind, and all too often, exactly on target.

The Dream of Scipio

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 18:48:28 GMT

The Dream of Scipio is a curious book, tying together a late antique author who is not - quite - Macrobius; a mediaeval poet who is not quite Petrarch; and a twentieth-century scholar who is definitely not Marc Bloch.

One of its most curious pages is here; it has three quotes from the Protagoras, Cicero, and Theophrastus. The Theophrastus is real; from Aulus Gellius. The other two are

No one can have wisdom when consumed by intemperance
You cannot act rightly by taking up arms against your father or your fatherland.

ID?

Another idiot heard from

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 23:27:37 GMT

The Financial Times has published an op-ed saying that we need a new post-Keynesian economics, need to cut spending now, and need to concentrate on investment not stimulus. I applaud the libertarian commenter who pointed out that the difference between "investment" and "stimulus" here is largely that "investment" is what the author wants, and stimulus is what somebody else wants.

Yes, I know: it is not news for the FT to publish articles against Keynes and for deflation and collapse. And this would be as much news as the Christian Identity people opposing Obama were it nof for the author: Jeffrey Sachs of the Earth Institute of Columbia University. Some people would claim that this proves that the Greens do stand for permanent depression, as the only way to keep mankind in check; I will merely ask if it is - in this case - a way to be an Old Guard Republican on the Upper West Side?

Corporate courage

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 23:09:47 GMT

Other British investors are puzzled why (free subscription required) t he (American equivalent of) BP shares should be going down (I can't imagine any reason why Americans would not want them; can you?) and worried that the evil American politicians are calling it British Petroleum when that hasn't been its name since 1998 (who Knew?) After all, it would be unfair to think of it as British; in other news, David Cameron is arranging a bailout.

Narbonic kitteh

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 05:30:24 GMT

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Happy Year of the Tiger

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 23:44:56 GMT

But will there be any tigers in the wild next time?