Detailed Abstractions

• Proving once again that fascism isn’t just a word, Italy (here via Economist) gave three Google executives six-month suspended sentences for “allowing a clip of an autistic boy being bullied to be viewed on Google Video, which the judge said broke Italy’s privacy laws. “

Just to clarify, I’m not pro-autistic-bullying and would think a civil trial isn’t out of the question, but jail?

• Fannie Mae needs more cash, but just 15 billion… from the taxpayer of course (here via RTTN News).   Seems like people might not agree with this (here via WSJ):

The Obama administration’s decision to cover an unlimited amount of losses at the mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the next three years stirred controversy over the holiday….

Probably why the decision was made over the holidays.

• Crazy fundamentalists blame the Golden Girls for homosexuality (here via ChristWire).

• Democrats & President Obama, all firmly against the Patriot Act after signing it, vote to  prevent all measures from lapsing (here via Wired) for the next full year.

• Harvard intellectual tells us why allowing corporations to spend money on politics is bad (here):

…To understand why, it is important to focus on the individuals who make decisions for companies. When corporations decide which politicians to support, what kind of messages to send, and which political outcomes to seek, their general investors are not consulted. Rather, such decisions are likely to reflect the preferences and objectives of the insiders who manage the companies, ostensibly on shareholders’ behalf….

A little interlude for a thought experiment.  Change which politicians to support and which political outcomes to seek to which charities to support and which cultural outcomes to seek.  Or try reality and change it to, which lobbyists to support and which regulatory outcomes to seek.  But of course, he defines the problem for us:

…And politicians that benefit from corporate spending and access to corporate resources will have an interest in serving the insiders’ preferences and objectives….

Which presupposes politicians already don’t have this interest, presumes it will get much worse, and last, but not least; for spending to have any affect at all, voters have to be swayed to vote against their interests.

It seems the default assumption of every perceived risk these days is simply this:  there can never be too many laws when trying to protect people from themselves.

• CalTech researchers say the brain is wired for equality (here):

…Specifically, the team found that the reward centers in the human brain respond more strongly when a poor person receives a financial reward than when a rich person does. The surprising thing? This activity pattern holds true even if the brain being looked at is in the rich person’s head, rather than the poor person’s….

Oddly enough, the Freakanomics blog posted this with little comment (here) proving environmental factors such as working for the NY Times can affect even innovative economists.  I’ll admit there might be more, but from what they’ve shown, the results do not necessarily say anything about equality at all.  A perfectly reasonable answer is one of need: a rich person doesn’t need a windfall as much as a poor person.

CalTech’s reasoning:

…It’s long been known that we humans don’t like inequality, especially when it comes to money. Tell two people working the same job that their salaries are different, and there’s going to be trouble…

Conflating the thinking that comes with social status and worth when compared to colleagues and equality of results.  It could be in a lot of cases, the person making less might think they work harder and deserve more, not equal.

• & finally, via the Hill.  Did Nanci Pelosi really say that

…”They’ve had plenty of opportunity to make their voices heard,” she said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday morning. “Bipartisanship is a two-way street. A bill can be bipartisan without bipartisan votes. Republicans have left their imprint.”…

With my track record of keeping schedules, this might the first and last Random Quote Wednesday, but in today’s society my intent is seemingly more important than the results.  So if this is the last installment, I still get an A for effort.

Irregardless, during lunch today I was discussing interesting quotes, quips, comebacks, and even in one case, almost a partial quote.

Partial Quote First:

Towards the end of Albert Einstein’s life, he began working furiously to disprove some of his own earlier work as it lead to the beginning of quantum theory.  In a debate between Mr. Einstein and immense genius Neils Bohr, Mr. Einstein was explaining his objections to the probabilistic nature of quantum theory, versus his beliefs in a more deterministic.  His life work of finding that elusive theory of everything, he couldn’t bring himself to believe in a chaotic or random system.  To that end he stated confidently:

“God does not play dice with the universe.”

Which is a quote that a lot of people have heard before.  The better quote from this exchange however belongs to Mr. Bohr who replied:

“”Don’t tell God what to do with his dice.”

From there, in my random, ADHD way, this lead to me think about other good comebacks or quips in history starting with President Ronald Reagan whose quick wit verged on genius.

Even in trying times he seemed to have his wits about him.  While going into surgery following the assassination attempt, he looked up to note he was surrounded by surgeons to whom he stated:

“God I hope you’re all Republicans.”

At a better time in his administration he used this humor very well.  During one press conference he was being pushed hard by a certain young white house correspondent, Sam Donaldson (here):

“Mr. President, in talking about the continuing recession tonight, you have blamed mistakes in the past and you have blamed the Congress. Does any of the blame belong to you?”

To which Mr. Reagan quickly replied:

“Yes because for many years I was a Democrat.”

For one of my all time favorite exchanges though, enter Milton Friedman.  As one of the most influential thinkers of this century, he pushed for school vouchers, for less regulations, against price & wage controls, and other topics.

One of those topics he successfully argued in Congress was to end the draft.  From LibertyUnbound (here):

…Friedman not only solidified the verdict against the draft; he vigorously defended it in congressional testimony. He had a famous confrontation with Gen. William Westmoreland, commander of the forces in Vietnam. Friedman tells it in “Two Lucky People”:

In the course of his testimony, he made the statement that he did not want to command an army of mercenaries. I stopped him and said, “General, would you rather command an army of slaves?” He drew himself up and said, “I don’t like to hear our patriotic draftees referred to as slaves.” I said, “I don’t like to hear our patriotic volunteers referred to as mercenaries.” But I went on to say, “If they are mercenaries, then I, sir, am a mercenary professor, and you, sir, are a mercenary general; we are served by mercenary physicians, we use a mercenary lawyer, and we get our meat from a mercenary butcher.” That was the last that we heard from the general about mercenaries….

This was in 1966, where actual logic and rationale could have a real impact, regardless of “whose team” said it first:

…In December 1966, when the Vietnam War still had the strong support of the American public, the University of Chicago held a conference on the draft. There were 74 participants. Friedman was there, and spoke against the draft, as did economist Walter Oi. Several politicians were there too, including Senator Edward Kennedy and a young Republican congressman named Donald Rumsfeld. Also anthropologist Margaret Mead, who favored the draft. In his and his wife Rose’s autobiography, “Two Lucky People,” Friedman wrote:

I have attended many conferences. I have never attended any other that had so dramatic an effect on the participants. A straw poll taken at the outset of the conference recorded two-thirds of the participants in favor of the draft; a similar poll at the end, two-thirds opposed. I believe that this conference was the key event that started the ball rolling decisively toward ending the draft….

That’s all for this inaugural installment of Random Quote Wednesday.   Please feel free to share interesting stories and quotes from history.

PS:  For any Anita Dunn fans – I will not quote mass murderers with admiration nor ever refer to any dictator as one of my favorite philosophers.