Quotulatiousness

January 18, 2014

The view from the “loser” demographic and the rise of “anti-success” sentiments

Filed under: Economics, Media, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:50

Scott Adams thinks he’s identified a trend, and it’s a troubling one if he’s right:

I have been seeing a pattern in the past several years that makes me wonder if a sizeable portion of the public has become anti-success. The media has pitted the general public against the one-percenters for several years, so that might be a factor. And the bottom-feeders on the Internet (Gawker, Jezebel, etc.) have business models that involve taking celebrity quotes out of context to demonize them. So it would be no surprise if the public disliked successful people more than ever.

But I have also lately observed people who seem to reject their own best paths to success in favor of paths that are clearly bad. Let’s call those choices “loser choices” because any rational and objective observer would see it that way. I wondered if I was seeing an emerging pattern or an illusion.

And in a follow-up post:

The other day I asked aloud in this blog if there might be some sort of anti-success trend emerging in society. I think I found it.

Some folks emailed me directly to say they believe it is a waste of time to pursue success because it is a zero-sum game. In other words, they believe they can only be successful by making someone else less successful, on the theory that there isn’t enough success in the universe for everyone to get a meaningful slice. They tell me it would be “wrong” on some level to pick the pockets of strangers for self-enrichment.

And there it is.

I doubt that sort of thinking would have existed before the massive media campaign against the “top 1%.” The power of the top 1% story is in the false impression that rich people stole the money from the poor and middle class, and therefore it would only be fair to give most of it back.

Clearly some of the financial titans are doing little more than picking pockets. But those are the exceptions. Most one-percenters are growing the economy and creating jobs. That’s obvious to people who were born in the “rising tide lifts all boats” era. And it’s obvious to anyone with a bit of economics education.

But if you are in your twenties, with no deep understanding of economics, wouldn’t you believe success is evil? That’s the dominant story of their generation.

Austrian economics

Filed under: Economics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:35

Published on 26 Sep 2012

Steve Horwitz, Professor of Economics at St. Lawrence University, explains what Austrian Economics is and what Austrian Economics is not, clearing up some common misconceptions.

This video is based on Steve’s essay by the same name:
http://www.coordinationproblem.org/2010/11/what-austrian-economics-is-and-what-austrian-economics-is-not.html

To learn more about Austrian Economics, visit http://www.fee.org

How “safe” is your safe?

Filed under: History, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:44

Safe manufacturers generally ship their products with a factory-standard combination. Many people fail to change them once the safe is in use:

In England many years ago, chatting with a locksmith while he worked, I learned the following thing: One of the country’s leading manufacturers of safes shipped all its products set to a default opening combination of 102030, and a high proportion of customers never reset it.

He: “If I need to open a Chubb safe, it’s the first thing I try. You’d be surprised how often it works.”

This came to mind when I was reading the story about Kennedy-era launch codes for our nuclear missiles:

    …The Strategic Air Command greatly resented [Defense Secretary Robert] McNamara’s presence and almost as soon as he left, the code to launch the missile’s [sic], all 50 of them, was set to 00000000.

I use a random-string generator for my passwords and change them often. I guess safeguarding my Netflix account is more important than preventing a nuclear holocaust.

QotD: Belief

Filed under: History, Quotations, Religion — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:59

Why do so many people believe in a god? Dennett’s Breaking the Spell is an attempt to examine that question, for Christian fundamentalists, Islamic teachers, Buddhist monks, atheists, and others. He begins by pointing to the commonality of pre-scientific answers in groups of people: “How do thunderstorms happen?” answered by “It must be someone up there with a giant hammer” (our example, not his). Then, probably after a minimum of discussion, a name such as “Thor” becomes agreed. Having successfully sorted out thunderstorms, in the sense that you now have an agreed answer to why they happen, other forces of nature are similarly identified and named. Soon you have a pantheon, a community of gods to blame everything on. It’s very satisfying when everyone around you agrees, so the pantheon soon becomes the accepted wisdom, and few question it. In some cultures, few dare to question it, because there are penalties if you do.

Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart, & Jack Cohen, “Disbelief System”, The Science of Discworld IV: Judgement Day, 2013.

January 17, 2014

This week in Guild Wars 2

Filed under: Gaming — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 15:48

Hopefully this will be the last time we’ll need to post TWIGW2 here, as GuildMag is moving to a new hosting service. Once the site is back up and running at the new host, I’ll re-publish this article and last week’s posts so they will at least appear in the right sequence.

(more…)

Have you read these books or have you lied about having read them?

Filed under: Books, Media — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:16

Ben Domenech discusses the books that “everyone must read”, but very few have actually done more than turn the pages a bit, or perhaps scanned the Wikipedia entry for:

The truth is, there are lots of books no one really expects you to read or finish. War and Peace? The Canterbury Tales? The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire? Announcing that you’ve finished those books might surprise a lot of people and make them think you’re abnormal or anti-social, unless you’re an English or History major who took their reading very, very seriously. Perhaps the shift to ebook format will diminish this reading by osmosis – and book sales, too – since people can afford to be honest about their preference for 50 Shades over The Red and the Black since their booklists are hidden in their Kindles and iPads.

So here’s my attempt to drill this down to a more realistic list: books that are culturally ubiquitous, reading deemed essential, writing everyone has heard of… that you’d be mildly embarrassed to admit you’ve never read.

10. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand: The libertarian moment has prompted a slew of people to lie about reading Ayn Rand, or to deploy the term “Randian” as a synonym for, say, competitive bidding in Medicare reform without even bothering to understand how nonsensical that is.

9. On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin: Many pro-evolutionists online display no understanding that the pro-evolution scientific community rejects the bulk of Darwin’s initial findings about evolution.

8. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo and A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens: Virtually every bit of literature about the French Revolution could be tied here, though ignorance of it might inspire fun future headlines, such as “De Blasio Brandishes Knitting Needles, Calls For ‘The People’s Guillotine’ To Be Erected In Times Square.”

7. 1984, George Orwell: A great example of a book people think they have read because they have seen a television ad. On Youtube.

6. Democracy in America, Alexis De Tocqueville: Politicians are the worst about this, quoting and misquoting the writings of the Tocqueville without ever bothering to actually read this essential work. But politicians do this a lot – with The Federalist Papers and The Constitution, too.

5. The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith: Smith’s invisible hand is all that many people seem to know about his work, but his contributions were more sophisticated than that, rejecting a simplistic view of self-interest and greed as the motivating factors in a healthy economy.

4. Moby Dick, Herman Melville: If you haven’t managed this one yet, consider that William F. Buckley, Jr. did not actually read this until he was 50, remarking then to friends: “To think I might have died without having read it.”

3. The Art of War, Sun Tzu: Misunderstood and misapplied by people who’ve never bothered to read it, Sun Tzu’s advice is as much a guide to war as it is to avoiding combat via deception and guile, and to only fight battles one is certain of winning.

2. The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli: Viewed by people who don’t understand the context as a guide to mendacious political gamesmanship and the use of hypocrisy and cruelty as political tools, Machiavelli’s work is likely a brilliant work of sarcastic trolling which contradicts everything else he wrote in life – which is one reason it was dedicated, sarcastically, to the Medicis who exiled and tortured him.

1. Ulysses, James Joyce: I own this book but have never read it.

Yeah, there are a few books I’m ashamed to admit I’ve never read or, in the wonderful phrase used on the Bujold mailing list, “bounced off”. I’ve read lots of Rand’s non-fiction, but have only ever finished We, the Living in her fiction works. I have read Nineteen Eighty-Four, and own copies of most of the others, but haven’t finished most of them (and haven’t even begun with the Darwin, Dickens, Hugo, or Melville titles).

The Nanny State ethos – you’re too thick, so we’ll do the thinking for you

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Government — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:37

At the Adam Smith Institute blog, Tim Worstall talks about the way regulatory agencies approach problems:

It’s claimed as one of the great victories for enlightened (sorry) regulation, the way that the EU and US have both banned the incandescent light bulb through bureaucratic action. The ban came about by raising the efficiency standards required: this meant that the traditional bulb could no longer be sold.

The argument in favour of doing things this way was, in public at least, that everyone’s too stupid (or, in a more polite manner, subject to hyperbolic discounting) to realise that the new bulbs will actually save them money in the long term by consuming less electricity. There are also the more cynical in the industry who insist that it’s actually a case of regulatory capture. The light bulb manufacturing companies managing to get us all away from using cheap as spit bulbs and onto something with a decent margin on it.

[…]

This has a number of implications in the larger world as well: for example, it means that bureaucratic regulation on car mileages (like CAFE in the US) is contra-indicated. A simple tax on petrol will drive up average mpg because we’re not all as thick as bricks. Assuming that climate change really is a problem that must be dealt with then a carbon tax is going to do the job. For we’re not all so dim that we cannot work out the utility of using fossil fuels or not given the change in prices.

That is, we don’t need to be regulated into behaviour, we can be influenced into it through the price system. Something that really shouldn’t be all that much of a surprise to us market liberals: for we’re the people who already insist that people do indeed respond to price incentives in markets.

QotD: Forming a cabinet in a parliamentary system

Filed under: Britain, Government, Humour, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:05

The argument that we must do everything a Minister demands because he has been ‘democratically chosen’ does not stand up to close inspection. MPs are not chosen by ‘the people’ — they are chosen by their local constituency parties: thirty-five men in grubby raincoats or thirty-five women in silly hats. The further ‘selection’ process is equally a nonsense: there are only 630 MPs and a party with just over 300 MPs forms a government and of these 300, 100 are too old and too silly to be ministers and 100 too young and too callow. Therefore there are about 100 MPs to fill 100 government posts. Effectively no choice at all.

Jonathan Lynn, “Yes Minister Series: Quotes from the dialogue”, JonathanLynn.com

January 16, 2014

H.L. Mencken’s Bathtub hoax

Filed under: Books, Humour, Media, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 15:13

Wendy McElroy remembers one of the greatest publishing hoaxes of the 20th century:

On December 28, 1917, Mencken published the article “A Neglected Anniversary” in the New York Evening Mail. He announced that America had forgotten to celebrate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the modern bathtub, which had been invented on December 20, 1842 in Cincinnati, Ohio. “Not a plumber fired a salute or hung out a flag. Not a governor proclaimed a day of prayer,” Mencken lamented. He proceeded to offer an informal history of the US bathtub, with political context. For example, President Millard Fillmore had installed the first one in the White House in 1851. This had been a brave act since the health risks of using a bathtub were highly controversial within the medical establishment. Indeed, Mencken observed, “Boston early in 1845 made bathing unlawful except upon medical advice, but the ordinance was never enforced and in 1862, it was repealed.”

The actual political context was somewhat different. America had entered World War I several months before. The media was now rabidly anti-German and pro-war. Mencken was of German descent and anti-war. Suddenly, he was unable to publish in his usual venues or on his usual subjects. Thus, Mencken – a political animal to the core – turned to non-political writing in order to publish anything: A Book of Prefaces on literary criticism (1917); In Defense of Women on the position of women in society (1918); and The American Language (1918). But he was effectively shut out of the most important event in the world, the one about which he cared most.

Mencken did not just get mad; he got even. “A Neglected Anniversary” was a satire destined to become a classic of this genre. In his article, Mencken spoke in a tone of mock-reason, which was supported by bogus citations and manufactured statistics. His history of the bathtub was an utter hoax set within the framework of real history. The modern bathtub had not been invented in Cincinnati. Fillmore had not introduced the first one into the White House. The anti-bathtub laws cited were, to use one of Mencken’s favorite words, “buncombe.”

[…]

Mencken remained silent about the hoax until an article titled “Melancholy Reflections” was published in the Chicago Tribune on May 23, 1926, eight years later. It was Mencken’s confession and an appeal to the American public for reason. His hoax had gone bad. “A Neglected Anniversary” had been reprinted hundreds of times. Mencken had received letters of corroboration from some readers and requests for more details from others. His history of the bathtub had been cited by other writers and was starting to find its way into reference works. As Mencken noted in “Melancholy Reflections,” his ‘facts’ “began to be used by chiropractors and other such quacks as evidence of the stupidity of medical men. They began to be cited by medical men as proof of the progress of public hygiene.” And, because Fillmore’s presidency had been so uneventful, on the date of his birthday calendars often included the only interesting tidbit they could find: Fillmore had introduced the bathtub into the White House. (Even the later scholarly disclosure that Andrew Jackson had a bathtub installed there in 1834 did not diminish America’s conviction that Fillmore was responsible.)

Upon confessing, Mencken wondered if the truth would renew the cry for his deportation. The actual response: Many believed his confession was the hoax.

Facebook‘s business model and why your status isn’t gathering “Likes” anymore

Filed under: Business, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:36

Derek Muller has an interesting analysis of the different business models of Facebook, YouTube, and other social media sites:

Published on 14 Jan 2014

Share this on Facebook 😉

Facebook is a complex ecosystem of individuals, creators, brands and advertisers, but I don’t think it serves any of these groups particularly well because its top priority is to make money. Now, I don’t think making money is a bad thing, in fact I hope to make some myself. The problem is the only way Facebook has found to make money is by treating all entities on the site as advertisers and charging them to share their content.

This business plan backfires because 1) not all entities ARE advertisers and 2) it was the content from these people, specifically friends, family, and creators that made the site worth visiting in the first place. Now the incentives are misaligned:
– individuals want to see great content, but they are now seeing more paid content and organically shared content which appeals to the lowest common denominator (babies, weddings, and banal memes)
– creators want to reach fans but their posts are being throttled to force them to pay to be seen
– brands and advertisers have to pay once to advertise their page on Facebook, and then pay again to reach the people who have already liked their page. Plus Facebook is not a place where people generally go to buy things.

Facebook stands in contrast to other social media like Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram where all content is shared with all followers.

I don’t spend much time on Facebook, even though I have my blog posts automatically posted to my timeline. When the video ads start to arrive, it will provide me with even more of an incentive to avoid spending time there.

H/T to Cate Matthews for the link.

Update: Apparently the folks who “Like” their own posts are not egomaniacs (well, not all of them) … they’re rationally responding to how Facebook‘s algorithms rank posts for deciding what will appear to your friends. A post with a “Like” is much more likely to be shared than one that hasn’t been “Liked”.

A political speech you’ll never hear

Filed under: Government, Humour, Politics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 13:19

Jim Geraghty‘s congressman is retiring, so some have suggested that he should run to replace him. Here’s the speech he’ll never give:

I have been asked what I am willing to do to earn the great responsibility and honor of representing you in the House of Representatives. My answer is simple and direct: Absolutely nothing.

(Nervous laughter from crowd.)

My fellow Virginians, if you elect me to Congress, I promise that I will not lift a finger for the special interests, the corporate interests, the lobbyists, Big Oil, Big Business, Big Papi, the Big Ten, the Notorious B.I.G., or The Big Bang Theory. I won’t answer to them or any other one of our public discourse’s designated villains of the week.

(Cheering)

I can make this promise with confidence because I’m pretty sure I won’t do much of anything for you, either.

(Cheering stops)

This is an area where my principled commitment to limited government and my deep disinterest in dealing with your problems will align perfectly.

Do you want a deduction or tax credit written into the tax code to benefit your business? Well, tough, because you’re not getting it. Your business is supposed to thrive because it provides quality goods and services, not because it gets some special help from the IRS.

(Murmurs of discontent.)

[…]

Have you ever considered that maybe the reason Congress is so awful is you, dear voters? I mean, you elected these clowns. But even beyond that, most of the time when members of Congress interact with the public, they’re being asked for favors. The mail they get, the phone calls they get, most of the people who show up at their town halls – everybody’s asking them for something. Get more funding for this! Help us get money to do that! Make sure this agency spends more on this local project! Look, your congressman is not Santa Claus! […] Through your behavior and expectations, you’ve conditioned our elected leaders to think of themselves as walking ATMs.

Ask not what your country can do for you … because I’m sick and tired of your whining. Do it yourself.

(The crowd is silent and not happy.)

What do you say, Virginia? Are you ready for a congressman who has nothing to offer you but … well, basically nothing to offer you?

Crowd: BOOOOOOOOOO!

Guy in crowd: Hey, doesn’t Mary Katharine Ham live in this district, too?

Another guy in crowd: Let’s nominate her!

The crowd moves on.

Vikings officially announce the hiring of Mike Zimmer

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:46

It took a bit longer for the team to get an official announcement out, but they confirm that Mike Zimmer is the new head coach of the Minnesota Vikings:

Mike Zimmer was hired as the 9th Head Coach in Vikings history on January 15, 2014. A veteran defensive coordinator, Zimmer enters his 21st season on an NFL sideline, the past 14 working as defensive coordinator for Cincinnati (2008-13), Atlanta (2007) and Dallas (2000-06).

Zimmer has been a part of 11 playoff teams in his NFL tenure and teams that have won 7 Division titles. He coached the Cowboys DBs when the team won Super Bowl XXX over Pittsburgh after the 1995 season. Zimmer’s Bengals defenses since 2008 have ranked in the NFL’s top 10 in total defense 4 times, climbing to #3 in 2013. Since 2011, the Bengals ranked #2 in the NFL with 139 sacks (46.3 per season) and have allowed 18.8 points per game, ranking #4 in the NFL in points allowed. The 2013 Bengals posted 20 INTs, the 5th-best mark in the NFL.

Zimmer’s arrival in Cincinnati for the 2008 season signaled a franchise turnaround on the defensive side of the ball. The Bengals notched top-10 defensive rakings in 2009, ’11, ’12 and ’13 after only cracking the NFL’s top 10 once in the previous 18 seasons before Zimmer joined the team. During his tenure, Zimmer coached DT Geno Atkins as he became one of the top DTs in the NFL, earning consensus All-Pro honors in 2012 and Pro Bowl berths in 2011 and 2012. In 2013, LB Vontaze Burfict continued his rise from a rookie free agent in 2012 to a Pro Bowler in 2013. Atkins became the 1st Bengals defensive lineman since Tim Krumrie in 1988 to earn a Pro Bowl trip and Burfict was the 1st Bengals linebacker to be honored since Jim LeClair in 1976. Over the 2012 and 2013 seasons the Bengals had 4 different players earn AFC Defensive Player of the Week honors- Michael Johnson, Carlos Dunlap, Atkins and Burfict.

Zimmer led top-10 defenses for Dallas in both a 4-3 and 3-4 scheme. The 2003 Cowboys defense led the NFL with only 253.3 yards per game allowed. During Zimmer’s tenure in Dallas as DBs coach (1994-99) and Defensive Coordinator (2000-06) the team ranked in the top 5 of NFL scoring defense a total of 6 times. The 1995 Cowboys hoisted the Lombardi Trophy in Super Bowl XXX with a win over Pittsburgh and one of Zimmer’s pupils, CB Larry Brown, won the Super Bowl MVP award with a pair of INTs in the game.

Update: Judd Zulgad highlights a key difference between former coach Leslie Frazier and new coach Mike Zimmer:

A “romantic” 1984 movie announced

Filed under: Media — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:01

This should be entertaining: not the film, the reactions to the announcement of a romantic remake of 1984:

The literary world is agog, reeling, aghast, at the news that Kristen Stewart is going to star in a romantic remake of 1984. You read that right. Romantic. Remake. 1984.

[…]

Anyway, the news has sent literary types into a flat spin. “THIS IS MY ROOM 101,” bellowed Chocolat author Joanne Harris on Twitter. “This is more chilling than ANYTHING actually in 1984,” said publisher Gollancz, adding: “Ministry of Truth announces ‘romantic adaptation’ of 1984. Then announces its own closure as there is nothing left for it to do.” And “just to finish my terrible mood off, I read this about one of my favourite books. *head implodes*,” tweeted author Sarah Pinborough.

Pinborough managed to find a bright spot, however — “I’m quite entertained by the thought of a million Twilight fans rushing out to buy 1984 after it”. Let’s hope she’s right — and literary Twitter has been cheering itself up by imaging how, exactly, this Orwellian romance will play out. Will Big Brother be overthrown? Will Winston and Julia’s love conquer all? And what about the rats — what place do they have in a love story of epic, epic, epic proportion?

H/T to Terry Teachout:

Update, 20 January: “If you want a picture of the future, imagine Kristen Stewart stomping on your favorite book — forever.“

Those aghast at the news might also not have considered how well Kirsten Stewart can play an expressionless automaton.

Jokes aside, there is perhaps a legitimate silver lining to Hollywood interpreting the greatest anti-totalitarian novel of the 20th century as a romance.

The struggle against fascism and totalitarianism consumed most the 20th century. It was the defining conflict of Orwell’s life, and he dedicated most of his short time here to fighting it, both on the page and in the trenches as a militiaman in the Spanish Civil War.

By contrast, the youngest generation in the West, and even in former Eastern Bloc countries, has grown up in a post-Soviet world that has never faced a truly existential threat. They weren’t even born when the fearsome year of 1984 rolled around. (This probably explains the title change, because what tween Twilight fan wants to go see another ‘80s movie?)

January 15, 2014

Minnesota hires Mike Zimmer as their new head coach

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:12

It’s being widely reported (at least on Twitter) that the Minnesota Vikings have offered the head coaching position to Cincinnati Bengals defensive co-ordinator Mike Zimmer. Zimmer arrived in Minnesota yesterday for a second interview with Vikings executives and remained in town overnight. At the Daily Norseman, Arif Hasan put together a voluminous compendium of information on the head coaching candidates. Here’s part of the section on Mike Zimmer:

The former linebacker is also well-known for specific gameplanning, and pre-game adjustments to the scheme to match the weaknesses of the opponent, rather than relying on a base scheme. There are significant drawbacks to this approach (which is why the league-leading Seahawks defense prefers to stick with the scheme instead of changing much for specific game plans), but it has its adherents (Bill Belichick being the most famous — though defensive mavens like Rex Ryan do this as well. It is also the approach of Todd Bowles, the DC of the second-best defense in the league in Arizona).

The position that Zimmer prefers to be deepest seems to be cornerback, although he’s made sure the roster has had competition at a number of levels. Also interestingly, he has a tendency both to stick with and quickly move on from players. The best example of this odd paradox is Rey Maualuga, second-round pick for the Bengals in 2009. Rey was a solid-to-good strongside linebacker that did well for two years before switching to the middle.

[…]

Zimmer is probably best known for his hardnose, “no-nonsense” style of coaching that has endeared him to Bengals fans and seems to follow the tradition of Bill Parcells, berating players blue in order to get them fired up. Applied with intelligence, it also seems to have gotten the players’ loyalty. He’s even used it as an asset in his free agency recruiting, arguing that his ability to get results is better for players than what others can offer. It also means that players know where they stand with him, which can be invaluable.

Update: The Star Tribune confirms the news with this report by Mark Craig:

Mike Zimmer, a 20-year veteran NFL assistant coach who worked with Hall of Famer Bill Parcells in Dallas before turning the Cincinnati Bengals’ defense around as their defensive coordinator the past six seasons, has been hired as the ninth head coach in the Vikings’ 54-year history, NFL sources confirmed.

Zimmer, who has never been a head coach at any level, replaces Leslie Frazier, who was fired on Dec. 30, and becomes the third head coach hired since current owners Zygi and Mark Wilf bought the team in 2005.

Zimmer, 57, played quarterback and linebacker at Illinois State. He then coached on the defensive side at the collegiate level for 15 years at Missouri, Weber State and Washington State before joining the Dallas Cowboys as secondary coach.

He won a Super Bowl ring when the Cowboys beat the Steelers in Super Bowl XXX. One of Zimmer’s players, unheralded cornerback Larry Brown, became the game’s MVP.

[…]

Zimmer was praised by Parcells recently in a Star Tribune article.

“He’s very competitive, he’s intense,” Parcells said. “I think he’s a smart guy. … Every place that I’ve ever heard that he’s been, the players really liked him. And yet he doesn’t coddle the players at all. He’s got a good balance with that tough love.

“I think now he’s got enough experience to handle the players and the big picture and the scouting and the constraints and the things that the league mandates now. He’s got enough experience to where he’d do a good job.”

Bengals coach Marvin Lewis also has said Zimmer has what it takes to be a head coach.

“Zim does a great job of identifying who to push and when,” Lewis was quoted as saying on the Bengals website. “He helps me by being the guy who puts his foot up their butt, getting them moving in the right direction so I don’t have to be the one to do it all the time.”

Zimmer’s son, Adam, is a Bengals assistant coach. He also has two daughters Corri and Marki. Zimmer’s wife, Vicki, passed away suddenly of natural causes at age 50 in 2009. That same year, he was named NFL assistant coach of the year by cbssports.com and the Pro Football Writers Association.

President Obama’s speech shows his fear of “a backlash from national security agencies”

Filed under: Government, Liberty, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:38

Is the national security “tail” wagging the national “dog”?

President Obama will issue new guidelines on Friday to curtail government surveillance, but will not embrace the most far-reaching proposals of his own advisers and will ask Congress to help decide some of the toughest issues, according to people briefed on his thinking.

Mr. Obama plans to increase limits on access to bulk telephone data, call for privacy safeguards for foreigners and propose the creation of a public advocate to represent privacy concerns at a secret intelligence court. But he will not endorse leaving bulk data in the custody of telecommunications firms, nor will he require court permission for all so-called national security letters seeking business records.

The emerging approach, described by current and former government officials who insisted on anonymity in advance of Mr. Obama’s widely anticipated speech, suggested a president trying to straddle a difficult line in hopes of placating foreign leaders and advocates of civil liberties without a backlash from national security agencies. The result seems to be a speech that leaves in place many current programs, but embraces the spirit of reform and keeps the door open to changes later.

Emphasis mine.

« Newer Posts — Older Posts »

Powered by WordPress