Quotulatiousness

June 19, 2010

Penn still waiting for that call from Hitler’s booking agent

Filed under: Humour, Liberty, Media, Religion — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:57

An amusing interview in Vanity Fair points out that Penn Jillette would even go on Hitler’s talk show:

Is that why you don’t have a problem going on Glenn Beck’s show, because he doesn’t pretend to be objective?

Well, it’s complicated. Tommy Smothers, who’s one of my heroes, got really angry at me about it. We actually had this argument in public, on another show that’s going to be on Showtime this summer called The Green Room With Paul Provenza. Tommy attacked me for being on Glenn Beck, and he ended up saying, and I don’t think this part made it on the air, “If Hitler had a talk show, you’d probably do that too.”

And your retort?

I said yes, I would, and I would tell the truth.

Wow. O.K. then.

I’m not kidding.

Just don’t mention the part about telling the truth to Hitler’s talent bookers, and I’m pretty sure you’ll get a guest slot.

Oh, I won’t say a word. But you know what I mean, right? It does have an effect. I go on Glenn Beck as an atheist and talk about atheism. And I have people come up to me and say, “You know, until I saw you on Glenn Beck, speaking so passionately about atheism, I’d never considered that as a moral decision.” That’s incredibly powerful. These are people watching a hardcore Christian show and being exposed to an atheist point of view.

Your intentions seem genuine, but I can’t help myself, Penn. Every time I hear you’ve been on Glenn Beck, it makes me a little sick.

It makes me sick too! When people come up to me and say they love the show, I feel sick. Because I do disagree with a lot of what he says. But I also feel a little sick whenever people say they saw me on Keith Olbermann.

And yet you continue to do it. You know, there’s an easy way to stop making yourself sick.

But I think it’s important. I may be the only person who goes on Keith Olbermann and Glenn Beck and says the exact same shit. I am so much more socially liberal than Olbermann will ever be. You can’t believe how pro gay and pro freedom of speech I am. I’m way out beyond anyone on the Left. And as for fiscal conservatism and small government, I’m so much further to the right than Glenn Beck. Nobody is further left and further right than me. As I’m fond of saying, if you want to find utopia, take a sharp right on money and a sharp left on sex and it’s straight ahead.

And I love Penn’s suggestion for the Obama re-election campaign in 2012 at the end of the article.

June 17, 2010

“Most culture funding inevitably pays for crap”

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Media — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 07:52

While providing some deeper explanation for the not-really-in-context sound bite provided by Alberta’s culture minister, Lindsay Blackett, Colby Cosh points out the truth of the matter:

The other knowledge that critics ought to be prepared to display is some familiarity with the material Blackett’s department actually funds. I figure you can’t say it’s not crap unless you’ve at least poked it with a stick. Can the indignant Paul Gross, who received $5.5 million from the Alberta taxpayer for Passchendaele, claim intimate familiarity with In a World Created by a Drunken God or Caution: May Contain Nuts or The Last Rites of Ransom Pride? If not, then why is he shooting off his mouth? It would surely be much more sensible for Gross and for like-minded critics to admit that most culture funding inevitably pays for crap — that the arts world is, in fact, a colossal pyramid of crap, inherently necessary to provide the nurturing and elevating environment from which a few items of permanent value might spring.

But that is something the culturati can never admit. Kirstine Stewart, the general manager of CBC’s English television operations, reacted in the Globe to Blackett’s comments by saying “Nobody can ever question the quality of what we do here in Canada, creatively or otherwise.” Surely this is a much more revealing and intriguing comment than Blackett’s. Does she mean that questioning the quality of Canadian television and film is literally impossible? Or just that criticism is inherently objectionable, a malum in se? And at the risk of appearing to take sides, I must ask: which attitude ultimately seems more healthy and likely to encourage improvement — Blackett’s, or Stewart’s?

Of course, a sensible government wouldn’t be spending any tax money on subsidies for TV and movie production (New Zealand’s most recent study showed a pretty big net loss for their various cultural tax breaks and subsidy programs).

June 16, 2010

You mean, the sky really isn’t falling?

Filed under: Books, Liberty, Media, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:12

Greg Swann has some advice for the new libertarian who may be inclined to panic over the current state of the world:

I’ve seen the gravely-predicted collapse of the starry firmament before. More than once. More than twice. More than a dozen times. It does seem plausible to me that the-world-as-we-know-it will someday come to an end. But with every passing day, I become more resolved in the belief that that day will not be tomorrow, regardless of the breathless weather reports.

It’s like this: New libertarians can be excitable. You’ve lived your whole life in an eyes-glazed-over sleep-walking state, and then, all at once, you wake up. The precipitant cause might be Atlas Shrugged or a John Stossel TV special or a reading from Jefferson on a radio talk show. Doesn’t matter, really. What matters is that you suddenly see the world as if had just been made, as if you had never seen it before. And you become acutely aware of the many defects in the way the world has been assembled.

That much is good, but, even so, in this state you are more than unusually likely to conclude that things are so bad that they are beyond repair. The timeline in Atlas Shrugged is only 13 short years, after all. How could we have shambled this far down The Road to Serfdom without being in imminent danger of being immediately enserfed?

H/T to Kathy Shaidle.

June 9, 2010

Glee as piracy central

Filed under: Law, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:13

Christina Mulligan points out that a popular mainstream TV show is not only encouraging illegal behaviour, it’s actually indulging in it:

The fictional high school chorus at the center of Fox’s Glee has a huge problem — nearly a million dollars in potential legal liability. For a show that regularly tackles thorny issues like teen pregnancy and alcohol abuse, it’s surprising that a million dollars worth of lawbreaking would go unmentioned. But it does, and week after week, those zany Glee kids rack up the potential to pay higher and higher fines.

In one recent episode, the AV Club helps cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester film a near-exact copy of Madonna’s Vogue music video (the real-life fine for copying Madonna’s original? up to $150,000). Just a few episodes later, a video of Sue dancing to Olivia Newton-John’s 1981 hit Physical is posted online (damages for recording the entirety of Physical on Sue’s camcorder: up to $300,000). And let’s not forget the glee club’s many mash-ups — songs created by mixing together two other musical pieces. Each mash-up is a “preparation of a derivative work” of the original two songs’ compositions — an action for which there is no compulsory license available, meaning (in plain English) that if the Glee kids were a real group of teenagers, they could not feasibly ask for — or hope to get — the copyright permissions they would need to make their songs, and their actions, legal under copyright law. Punishment for making each mash-up? Up to another $150,000 — times two.

I’ve never watched Glee, but I find this quite an amusing juxtaposition, as the corporate owners of Fox are among the loudest and most active copyright enforcement goons around.

June 8, 2010

Consumer debt doesn’t follow the script

Filed under: Economics, Media, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 07:49

Or, in a demonstration of individual rationality, doesn’t follow the script where consumers sacrifice themselves and go even deeper in debt to spark further economic recovery:

While some pundits out there might have you believe that the US economic recovery remains solidly on track, Friday’s May jobs report threw a spanner into those notions, and the latest reading on consumer credit offers little evidence that the crucial consumer intends to share with Uncle Sam the burden of bolstering the economy.

The Federal Reserve’s report on April consumer credit today shows total credit outstanding rose a little less than $1 billion, following a revised $5.4 billion drop in March; March credit was originally reported up $2 billion.

Within the details, the item that jumps out most is the decrease in revolving credit, which fell at a 12% annual rate and declined for the 19th straight month. Revolving credit outstanding has fallen 14%, or roughly $138 billion, since autumn of 2008. Non-revolving is roughly flat since late ‘08.

It would help if the pundits would settle on one of the two diametrically opposed roles that consumers are “supposed to” assume. At an individual level, consumers are being lashed for their profligate spending and borrowing habits, and excoriated for their unprecedented levels of personal debt. This is bad, the pundits say (and I don’t disagree): individuals and families should not be taking on so much debt and efforts to reduce outstanding debt are praised. However, consumers as a group are expected to spend, spend, spend in order to help pull the retail sector back into healthy growth.

So if they do the right thing as individuals, they’re doing the wrong thing for the economy as a whole? Perhaps the emphasis on consumer-led recovery is mistaken, especially given the levels of debt that consumers have already taken on.

June 2, 2010

New copyright bill introduced

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Media, Technology — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 16:21

It’s not yet online, so I haven’t read it myself (and, not being a lawyer, it might not be a good use of my time). Michael Geist has, however, and provides a useful summary of the good and the bad:

The bill contains some important extensions of fair dealing, including new exceptions for parody, satire, and (most notably) education. It also contains more sensible time shifting and format shifting provisions that still feature restrictions (they do not apply where there is a digital lock) but are more technology neutral than the C-61 model. There is also a “YouTube exception” that grants Canadians the right to create remixed user generated content for non-commercial purposes under certain circumstances. While still not as good as a flexible fair dealing provision, the compromise is a pretty good one. Throw in notice-and-notice for Internet providers, backup copying, and some important changes to the statutory damages regime for non-commercial infringement and there are some provisions worth fighting to keep.

Yet all the attempts at balance come with a giant caveat that has huge implications for millions of Canadians. The foundational principle of the new bill remains that anytime a digital lock is used — whether on books, movies, music, or electronic devices — the lock trumps virtually all other rights. In other words, in the battle between two sets of property rights — those of the intellectual property rights holder and those of the consumer who has purchased the tangible or intangible property — the IP rights holder always wins. This represents market intervention for a particular business model by a government supposedly committed to the free market and it means that the existing fair dealing rights (including research, private study, news reporting, criticism, and review) and the proposed new rights (parody, satire, education, time shifting, format shifting, backup copies) all cease to function effectively so long as the rights holder places a digital lock on their content or device.

It’s not quite the total surrender to the entertainment rights holders that many feared, but it’s certainly not the best deal for consumers. Bottom line:

For the glass half-full, the compromise positions on fair dealing, the new exceptions, and statutory damages are not bad — not perfect — but better than C-61. For the glass half-empty, the digital lock provisions are almost identical to C-61 and stand as among the most anti-consumer copyright provisions in Canadian history. Not only are they worse than the U.S. DMCA, but they undermine much of the positive change found in the rest of the bill. In the days and weeks ahead, Canadians must speak out to ensure that the compromise positions found in C-32 remain intact and that the digital lock provisions move from the no-compromise category to the compromise one.

June 1, 2010

Media emphasis distorts extent of conflicts

Filed under: Media, Military — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 07:53

Strategy Page points out one of the baleful aspects of modern media coverage of wars and other conflicts:

Worldwide violence continues to decline, but most people are unaware of this because the mass media will feature whatever wars and disorder they can find. This is an old journalistic technique, and it’s good for business. But not so helpful if you are trying to keep track of what’s really happening out there. Oddly enough, the most bloody conflicts (like Congo) get the least media coverage. Reporting tends to be distorted by how accessible wars are, as well as how easily your viewers could identify with the combatants. The media also has a hard time keeping score. For years, Iraq was portrayed as a disaster until, suddenly, the enemy was crushed. Even that was not considered exciting enough to warrant much attention, and that story is still poorly covered by the mass media. Same pattern is playing out in Afghanistan, where the defeats of the Taliban, and triumph of the drug gangs, go unreported or distorted. If you step back and take a look at all the wars going on, a more accurate picture emerges.

Worldwide, violence continues the decline is has exhibited for most of the decade. For example, violence has greatly diminished, or disappeared completely, in places like Iraq, Nepal, Haiti, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Chechnya, Congo, Indonesia and Burundi. Even Afghanistan, touted as the new war zone, was not nearly as violent this past six months as the headlines would deceive you into believing.

All this continues a trend that began when the Cold War ended, and the Soviet Union no longer subsidized terrorist and rebel groups everywhere. The current wars are basically uprisings against police states or feudal societies, which are seen as out-of-step with the modern world. Many are led by radicals preaching failed dogmas (Islamic conservatism, Maoism), that still resonate among people who don’t know about the dismal track records of these creeds. Iran has picked up some of the lost Soviet terrorist support effort. That keeps Hezbollah, Hamas, and a few smaller groups going, and that’s it. Terrorists in general miss the Soviets, who really knew how to treat bad boys right.

May 18, 2010

Someone has to make this campaign video

Filed under: Humour, Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 13:16

Frank J. considers what his campaign video would be like if he was running for office:

This makes me think of the ad I might run if I one day campaigned for an office. I think I could improve on his ad, though. Here’s what I would do in my campaign ad:
* Ride into the commercial on a Liger.
* Every scene, I’d be stroking a different gun.
* Vow that if elected, our enemies will be eaten by genetically resurrected dinosaurs.
* In the middle of the ad, pause to shoot a hippy dead.
* Not only call the other politicians “thugs and criminals” but also promise to lock them in a room with a bear.
* Draw a picture of Muhammad while talking.
* Look up at the moon and yell, “You’re going down!”
* End with an awesome guitar solo while my farm explodes behind me.

Yeah, I’d be so awesome commissioning agriculture or whatever.

By the last item, I was already seeing it . . . someone’s got to make this video. It doesn’t even matter what he’s running for!

May 12, 2010

When politics takes on religious attributes

Filed under: Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:48

Frequent commenter Lickmuffin sent this link, discussing some interesting notions from the 2008 US presidential campaign:

Cast your mind back to January 2009, when Barack Obama became the president of the United States amid much rejoicing. The hosannas — covering the inauguration was “the honor of our lifetimes,” said MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews — by then seemed unsurprising. Over the course of a long campaign, hyperbolic rhetoric had become commonplace, so much so that online wags had started calling Obama “the One” — a reference to the spate of recent science-fiction movies, especially The Matrix, that used that term to designate a messiah.

It all seems so long ago now, as one contemplates President Obama’s plummeting approval ratings and a suddenly resurgent Republican Party. Yet it’s worth looking closely and seriously at the election-year enthusiasm of media elites and other Obamaphiles, much of which was indeed, as the wags recognized, quasi-religious. The surprising fact is that the American Left, for all its claims to being “reality-based” and secular, is often animated by the passions, motivations, and imagery that one normally associates with religion. The better we understand this religious impulse, the better we will understand liberal America’s likely trajectory in the years to come.

May 4, 2010

Introducing the Greaves Underdog Strategy

Filed under: Britain, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 07:04

Occasional commenter Chris Greaves sent me this link, saying

Read down towards the bottom:

“Duffy told the Mail she wasn’t impressed. “Sorry is a very easy word, isn’t it,” she was quoted as saying, adding that she would not be casting her vote for Brown — or anyone else — in the election.”

Herein lie the seeds for the Greaves Underdog Strategy:

* If you are the underdog, insult as many bigoted voters as you can reach; it inoculates them against voting, thereby reducing the overdog’s lead.

Gordon Brown is right on track . . .

May 1, 2010

Press corps afraid to criticize White House for fear of “retaliation”

Filed under: Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:10

Ah, the brave and intrepid journalists in the White House beat — are afraid to actually criticize the President for fear of losing access:

Just think about that for a minute. National political reporters are furious over various White House practices involving transparency and information control, but are unwilling to say so for attribution due to fear of “retaliation,” instead insisting on hiding behind a wall of anonymity (which Politico, needless to say, happily provides). Isn’t that a rather serious problem: that the White House press corps is afraid to criticize the President and the White House for fear of losing access and suffering other forms of retribution? What does that say about their “journalism”? It’s the flip side of those White House reporters who need the good graces of Obama aides for their behind-the-scenes books and thus desperately do their bidding: what kind of reporter covering the White House would possibly admit that they’re afraid to say anything with their names attached that might anger the President and his aides? How could you possibly be a minimally credible White House reporter if you have that fear? Doesn’t that unwillingness rather obviously render their reporting worthless?

April 29, 2010

All the spin that’s fit to print: Bigotgate

Filed under: Britain, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 07:52

After British PM Gordon Brown accidentally threw himself into the political woodchipper with a remark about a “bigoted woman”, the spin doctors are having a time with it:

Matthew Taylor, former chief adviser on political strategy to Tony Blair

“It is clearly disastrous and also a terrible thing to happen before the final leaders’ debate, which Gordon Brown has to win. He’s given Clegg and Cameron ammunition. The only thing is that expectations now will be so low. They won’t be on the floor, they will be in the cellar. Rock bottom. He’ll have to pull off the performance of the century.”

Olly Grender, former director of communications for the Lib Dems:

“This is the second electric moment in the campaign, the first being the first leaders’ debate. It is going to dominate every news bulletin and will be trailed particularly by the rightwing media. It was classic Gordon Brown, speaking to somebody, giving her a list of six things without asking her anything.

[. . .]

Iain Dale, Conservative political commentator and former political lobbyist

“I can’t remember any politician doing anything this crass. We’ve had this sort of thing before. Who would have thought that when Prescott punched someone it would do his reputation good? But he called a 66-year-old woman a bigot. If we call anyone a bigot who mentions immigration, then that covers thousands of people.

[. . .]

Charlie Whelan, former press secretary for Gordon Brown

“It’s all media clatter rubbish. What makes this story exciting is the media are involved. You’ve got human interest, then you fling in the media and, hey bingo: the wonderful moment the media have been looking for. It’s wonderful to talk about it and to Twitter about it, but normal people looking at it don’t see it in the same way.

Actually, Whelan may have the right idea: the whole situation has galvanized the British media, but it’s not yet clear if it will cause anything more than a temporary blip on the radar as far as the actual voting public is concerned.

All the Senate’s a stage, and Goldman Sachs merely a player

Filed under: Economics, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 07:19

Although in this case, it’s the Senators as walking shadows, poor players that strut and fret their hour upon the stage and then (if we’re lucky) are heard no more. Megan McArdle isn’t impressed:

The statements from the Senators make it clear that they are not holding this hearing in order to find out what happened; that’s the SEC’s job. They’re holding this hearing in order to be televised yelling at investment bankers. Claire McCaskill’s rant was particularly irrelevant to the actual question at hand, but all of them are mostly trying to express outrage, not make any coherent assessment of the strengths of the SEC’s case.

April 27, 2010

QotD: The NFL draft is like a lottery

Filed under: Football, Media, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:45

Forty-yard dash numbers analyzed to the hundredths of seconds . . . elaborate, heated debates about what round a player “should” be chosen in . . . hours spent viewing film of men in underwear racing around cones. Mysterious lingo: Corey Chavous of NFL Network praised one player during draft weekend for “hip explosion,” Todd McShay of ESPN said another prospect was “tight in the upper chest.” Tim Tebow drafted before Jimmy Clausen — that can’t be right, contact the National Academy of Sciences!

Fascination with the NFL draft is plenty nutty, but the zaniest aspect of this event is the pretense — shared by NFL scouts, draftniks and spectators alike — that drafting is a science. Stare at enough film, click enough stopwatches and you’ll be able to determine who “should” be drafted in what round.

NFL scouts and media draftniks have a self-interest stake in maintaining this illusion, because it makes them seem the possessors of incredible insider information. But in truth, NFL draft choices are like lottery tickets. They may succeed. They may bust. The buyer has no clue what’s going to happen, just like the buyer of a lottery ticket.

Gregg Easterbrook, “Is the NFL draft science or lottery?”, Tuesday Morning Quarterback, 2010-04-27

Almost right

Filed under: Europe, Humour, Media, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:43

Kathy Shaidle linked to this map at Spleenville, showing an approximation of how Europeans (and implicitly the rest of the world) view the United States:


(Click map to see original image)

[. . .] As a matter of fact, from what I’ve garnered from across the pond, the rest of the world thinks the USA consists of one large metropolis — Newyorkangeles — with a sunny beach where only blond, tanned, perfectly-toned twenty-something models are allowed to go, and the rest of it is a desert wasteland full of racist white cowboys who wear big hats and shoot their guns in the air.

You forgot the teeth: Europeans all seem to believe that Americans all have identical “Hollywood” smiles. Oh, except for the gun-toting racist yahoos, who only have a few teeth each.

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