The Bean Stalk

A More Perfect Union

2016-11-17T11:02:00.000-05:00

Following on from my post prior to the election “The Rigged System”, here I will analyze the 2016 results with an eye towards calling out deviations from the proportional ideal. The results are incomplete as votes are still being counted, but we know enough to draw some conclusions.

The big story of course, is the Electoral College bucked the popular vote for the 5^th time in our nation’s history. The well-known data scientists Nate Silver and Nate Cohn expect the final tally to be somewhere between a 1 and 2% margin for Clinton. As of today (11/17), the count on USelectionatlas.org has the margin at 1.01%:

	Votes	%Vote	Electors	%Electors
Trump	61,496,079	46.72%	306	56.9%
Clinton	62,830,751	47.73%	232	43.1%
Margin	-1,334,672	-1.01%	74	13.8%

The bottom line here is an R-bias of 13.8 + 1.0 = 14.8%.

Now let’s look at the House, the people’s chamber. Thankfully, the Cook Political Report has aggregated data on all 435 seats.

	Votes	%Vote	Seats	%Seats
Republican	60,700,356	50.1%	239	55.2%
Democratic	57,104,281	47.1%	194	44.8%
Margin	3,596,075	3.0%	45	10.4%

The bottom line in the House is an R-bias of 10.4 - 3.0 = 7.4%. This is right in line with the 2012 and 2014 biases -- the other House elections in this decade.

For good measure, I looked at the Senate election aggregates as well, which is something I did not consider in my previous post. The data is from USelectionatlas.org. California must be excluded, because they have a different system (a free-for-all multi-party primary and a general election runoff). Their ballot only offered the choice between two Democrats for the Senate. The other state that needs to be excluded is Louisiana since they will be having a runoff election to determine the winner. That said, here are the results aggregated across the remaining 32 Senate races:

	Votes	%Votes	Seats	%Seats
Republican	38,954,023	48.5%	21	65.6%
Democratic	38,216,992	47.5%	11	34.4%
Margin	737,031	0.9%	10	31.3%

The R-bias in the Senate was 31.3 – 0.9 = 30.4%.

Not only has it shocked the world that Trump won, it is also quite stunning and rare that Republicans have swept the coveted ‘trifecta’. But any suggested mandate should be taken with a grain of salt. The country is much more evenly divided than it would appear. By a significant margin (1% and rising), more people voted for a Democrat in the White House. Similarly, the House elections recorded a significant margin (3%) for Republicans. The Senate elections were almost even (if California had a more normal race).

Side note: It struck me as an odd quirk of our federal system that election data is not readily available. I found out that the raw data that underlies every news site is made available by the Associated Press by subscription. Thanks to the US Election Atlas and the Cook Political Report for their work.

Disclosure: The author of this post has a D-bias.

The Rigged System

2016-10-24T15:55:00.000-04:00

The system is NOT rigged, but it does have some bias. And that bias, points in the favor of the Republicans, for the most part. Take the top job for instance. In 2000, it was handed to the candidate with a half million fewer votes, thanks to Florida, a state governed by the candidate's brother whose tally was certified by Katherine Harris.

Bias also extends to Congress, where districts are gerrymandered by state legislatures every 10 years. It is useful to look at the total number of votes received by each party across all House races in a given election year. The table below lists the number of seats and percentage of votes received by each party (source: Wikipedia). The Delta column lists the difference as a percentage of either seats or votes. The last column calculates a measure of bias towards the Republican Party. This number is positive if they received a larger percentage of seats than their percentage of the vote.

Year	D	R	Delta (D-R)	Bias to R
2004	202	232	-7%
	46.8%	49.4%	-2.6%	4.3%
2006	233	202	7%
	52.3%	44.3%	8.0%	0.9%
2008	257	178	18%
	53.2%	42.6%	10.6%	-7.6%
2010	193	242	-11%
	44.9%	51.7%	-6.8%	4.5%
2012	201	234	-8%
	48.8%	47.6%	1.2%	8.8%
2014	188	247	-14%
	45.5%	51.2%	-5.7%	7.9%

In the last six elections, a significant bias for the Republican Party has occurred four times. In one instance there was a significant bias for the Democratic Party and in one instance there was little or no bias.

More analysis is warranted, after all this sample size includes just one presidential and six House elections. But no single election should have such problems anyways. Both of these issues are structural artifacts that are in theory solvable. It is indeed possible to devise a more democratic system, but inertial forces prevent change in a structure that been in place for 240 years.

The United States of Secrets (review)

2014-06-07T19:45:00.000-04:00

Ed Loomis: NSA cryptographer who quit in 2001

The best part of the recent Frontline documentary The United States of Secrets is the telling of the story of the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program under the Bush Administration. This takes up much of the 3 hour, two-part film and is presented in, as one reviewer put it, a stylish 'tick tock' manner.

The film includes little that is new and is better taken as explanatory journalism that provides a primer on the post-9/11 history of NSA surveillance, while making the case that it has gone too far. But it does include extensive interviews with NSA and Justice Department insiders. The main voice of the film is Barton Gellman, anti-surveillance crusading journalist, who has spent the last year or so poring over the documents Snowden leaked. As a counterpoint, former NSA director Mike Hayden appears with some regularity to defend his agency.

In the aftermath of 9/11, the NSA moved aggressively towards the use of new technologies. "Why did you miss this?" they were asked. In response they wanted to know how can we mine big data to collect better intelligence on al Qaeda? The interview with NSA cryptologist Ed Loomis is poignant [Part 1, 14:54]:

I do believe it could have been prevented with revisions to the way we were permitted to operate before 9/11, revisions that I tried to get the general counsel to embrace and wouldn’t — and couldn’t. I tried to get them to make adjustments to how we were operating, how we were permitted to operate, and they wouldn’t do it! I felt this ever since it occurred, that over 3,000 people’s lives were lost. And it’s just a weight that I have been having trouble bearing! It’s— I’m sorry, I— [weeps]

Sincerity is evident in his tear-stained face wracked with pain, even after many years have passed. I can only hope that the NSA continues to be staffed with such quality, but it must be a difficult time for recruiters.

Loomis had the vision prior to 9/11 to lobby the agency to use a program named ThinThread to monitor foreign-domestic communications traffic. But when he learned in 2001 that they had belatedly adopted it but removed the safeguards on purely domestic communications, he quit -- refusing to be a part of it. And he was just one of a number of dissenters that would include three other NSA employees, a Congressional staffer and a couple of lawyers from the Justice Department.

The drama peaks when the Justice Department refuses to reauthorize "the program". Surprisingly, Attorney General Ashcroft heroically dresses down White House officials while gravely ill in his hospital bed. Not to be denied, the White House decides it doesn't need the signature of the AG and continues its spying ways, spearheaded as always by the arch Cheney and his gunslinger David Addington.

Eventually a justice official named Thomas Tamm leaked the warrantless program that skirted FISA review and Congressional oversight to the New York Times. But the Times was persuaded by the White House to spike the story and ended up sitting on it for a year until the reporter James Risen threatened to publish it in a book.

Now surely the unrestrained domestic spying must end, no? According to most accounts I am familiar with, yes indeed, the Bush administration was forced in 2007 to rein it in. But Frontline takes a different tack, alleging that the program continued unabated (news to me). Moreover the candidate who campaigned fiercely against it, Barrack Obama, also continued it when he became president in 2009.

This left me scratching my head. There seems to be little evidence and it appears to contradict what we know from the Snowden leaks about the NSA programs under Obama. Frontline should have done a better job here using the word 'alleged'. If they have evidence that warrantless wiretapping continues, they should come forward with it.

The second part of the film covers the role of Google and other corporations. It also gives a rather humdrum - at least for those keeping up with it - recounting of Snowden's story. It does seem unusual that the NSA spied on telecom companies in their counter-terrorism efforts. Apparently the NSA decided: who does big data better than Google? So they snuck into this data via cookies (not the yummy kind). This raises some interesting questions.

At the end of the day, in spite of the leaks, we still don't know a lot about these NSA programs. But what we do know (although Frontline gainsays it) suggests that purely domestic communications are more protected and there is now better oversight. This does not prevent speculation, especially among the conspiracy-minded. Social scientist Shankar Vedantam recently noted on NPR that at least 50% of Americans believe in one conspiracy theory or another, and that this is correlated with distrust of authority. Nor does it prevent people from making over-heated claims that 'everything' is being collected and it is being done without checks and balances.

The pot and the kettle - climate change

2014-02-23T10:50:00.000-05:00

I couldn't resist the title of Charles Krauthammer's latest column: The myth of 'settled science'. The touchstone for his rant is President Obama's assertion that "the debate is settled". He is far more judicious and scientific in his stalwart stance athwart the fence - refusing to know whether climate change is anthropogenic. His argument rests on an epistemological technicality - that nothing can be known for certain.

The IPCC agrees. Which is why in 2007 they quantified their level of certainty at 90-100% and in 2013 they revised that upwards to 95-100%. The level of consensus among scientists is considerably higher then in the public or political sphere. The number of climate science papers that challenge the consensus is 'vanishingly small', according to a recent study, whereas 97% of those that express opinion are in favor of the consensus.

Dr. K ignores the fact that the vast majority of scientists and every major scientific organization endorse the consensus view. Instead he focuses on one scientist in particular - a rather unscientific survey if you ask me. His subject is no less than his eminence Freeman Dyson, who has criticized some of the assumptions in climate simulations. But Dyson, who is 90, has not done serious climate work since the 70s. In a 2009 interview he said:

My objections to the global warming propaganda are not so much over the technical facts, about which I do not know much, but it's rather against the way those people behave the kind of intolerance to criticism that a lot of them have.

Lost in the shuffle is that Dyson actually agrees with the consensus!

And what about the pause in global warming over the last 15 years?

Even the raw data is recalcitrant, let alone the assumptions and underlying models, how settled is the science?

There has indeed been a 15 year pause in the rise of the earth's surface temperature, but not in any other key indicators of global warming. The heat is going into the oceans. Sea levels and polar melting have not paused. In fact sea level rise, due to heat expansion of seawater, has accelerated over the same period.

But Dr. K's treatment of the science is just a sideshow for his main agenda which is to criticize President Obama's "whoring" climate propaganda. I kid you not:

But whoring is whoring, and the gods must be appeased. So if California burns, you send your high priest … to offer up … a burnt offering called a "climate resilience fund".

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Propaganda goes both ways of course in politics. But to suggest that we should wait for 100% certainty in anything before we plan for the future is surely folly.

Obamacare's unpopularity

2013-09-30T21:00:00.001-04:00

The conventional wisdom, according to the GOP, is that Obamacare is deeply unpopular and most Americans stand with them as they valiantly fight the dragon. As evidence they cite real polls that appear convincing. Take for instance the latest poll released today by CNN in which 38% support the law while 57% oppose it. But it seems dubious, that the GOP has made such a persuasive case against the law that they have not only convinced independents but even some Democrats of the law's high-handed folly.

Indeed, we should ask why do 57% oppose? The survey did just that. It turns out that 11% of the respondents oppose Obamacare because it is not liberal enough. Presumably they would prefer a single-payer system or at least a public option. These measures were blocked outright by the GOP during the health care debate of 2009.

Perhaps it would be more accurate then to say that 49% of Americans prefer Obamacare or even stronger change in that direction. Meanwhile, when asked in this more nuanced way, only 39% stand with the GOP in saying that it goes too far and they prefer the old health care system. We can call these two categories "right direction" and "wrong direction" to make it a binary choice (ignoring the mercurial undecided). In this light, Obamacare has a stable base of support over a period of 4 years as seen in the chart below.

Bye Bye Morsi

2013-07-04T09:32:00.001-04:00

Egypt is no Tunisia and Mohamed Morsi is no George Washington. His ouster by the military -- an orderly coup -- is surprising. Not so much that the military would make such a move, but that the Muslim Brotherhood would make such a gross miscalculation. I had assumed that they knew their own strength on the ground better than outside observers. After all, their march to power has been shrewd at every turn, but once in the hot seat, hubris seems to have won the day.

The day before, Morsi gave a defiant speech. He literally shook is fists in the air. Could he really be so stupid? He is not a stupid man. He has a PhD in materials science from USC and was once an assistant professor at Cal-State and head of the engineering department at one of Egypt's largest universities. But in the end, he appears to be incapable of compromise. People only respect strength, was his rationale.

It is disappointing. Morsi behaved like a monarch rather than a politician who seeks consensus and the formation of a governing coalition. The Muslim Brotherhood broke all their promises not to dominate Egypt's political space. Taking advantage of their superior organization and their legacy of righteous struggle against tyranny, they did just that. They rode roughshod over the young, liberal democrats of Tahrir Square and excluded them from the constitutional process.

Nobody can say that they didn't deserve this. But what now? Not only does a military take-over set a bad precedent for institution building, but the ship of state is now rudderless. Who can lead with any legitimacy? One can only hope that Egypt's military will act as a bulwark of stability, setting constraints on the rulers, but not interfering too much, as in Turkey's past. But there is a good chance that a scrap for power ensues, resulting in frequent changes of leadership and a lack of attention to and policy consistency for Egypt's economic troubles.

The Gap in Bangladesh's garment industry

2013-06-09T18:54:00.000-04:00

Bangladesh's garment industry is on fire. But is it a blaze that lifts women from poverty or the inferno that leaves in its wake the motherless child? The truth is, it is both. And now pressure is mounting on retail companies to rein in rampant safety problems in the country's 6500 factories. This has wrought the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, an agreement signed by 24 retailers meant to:

"establish an independent inspectorate to oversee all factories in Bangladesh, with powers to shut down unsafe facilities as part of a legally binding contract signed by suppliers, customers and unions."

Moreover it would establish a shared financing mechanism for safety problems, designed to lower the pressure on factory owners to hide problems fearing that their partners might walk away if they knew.

The agreement was first drafted in the aftermath of the 2012 fire in the Tazreen Fashions factory. At the time, Wal-Mart, The Gap and H&M (three of the largest garment retailers in the world) refused to sign. Then the pressure reached a breaking point after the deadliest garment-accident in history at Rana Plaza. After petitions and other consumer pressure, European holdouts like H&M and Primark signed on. The Gap, which says it has ties with 78 factories, abandoned negotiations after failing to water down the legally binding nature of the agreement.

On its website, The Gap maintains that it is "one of the strongest leaders in the area of Corporate Social Responsibility". Glenn Murphy, the CEO, said they are ready to sign with "very minor accommodations". The Gap believes that the penalty for violations should be public expulsion rather than legal action.

Many believe The Gap is the linchpin to the American retail industry, given its sheer size and greater sensitivity than companies like Wal-Mart to negative branding. Currently only two American and one Canadian company have signed the agreement as it is dominated by European companies. The Gap and Wal-Mart are now working on their own agreement, The Safer Factories Initiative, which they are touting as more appropriate for North American retailers. But it is likely to be non-binding and reversible.

The stalling and dissembling will not do. American consumers should put the heat on The Gap and its brands, which include Banana Republic and Old Navy, to do more than just talk about social responsibility. Worker safety should be pre-competitive and the industry is in need of greater transparency and accountability. Women like Reshma, who was pulled from the wreckage after 17 days, should not have to accept mortal risk in exchange for opportunity.

Nordic Exceptionalism

2013-03-13T22:32:00.001-04:00

For many years America was so far ahead of the rest of the world, it was not worth looking anywhere else for insight. But now the rest are catching up and there are many examples that are routinely ignored as it is un-American to look abroad for ideas. In particular the Nordic countries seem to have formulated something special. New Zealand, Canada and Australia have also been impressive. Rankings and indicators are not perfect, but are a helpful tool in assessing progress.

Freedom and Transparency

Transparency International studies levels of corruption around the world and ranks countries using the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). Each country is scored based on expert analysis and surveys aggregated from independent institutions. Finland, Denmark and New Zealand tied for the top spot in 2012 as the least corrupt. Sweden was next and Norway was not far behind. The US ranked 19th.

There are a couple of institutions that seek to quantify freedom. Reporters Without Borders focuses specifically on press freedom for journalists and netizens. They compile the Press Freedom Index based on a survey of major institutions and journalists. In 2013, the US was ranked 32nd, surprisingly behind countries like Jamaica, Ghana and Suriname. The Nordics were all in the top 10, with Finland placing 1st and Norway 3rd.
Economics

The World Economic Forum, best known for its well-attended annual summit in Davos, produces an annual report on global competitiveness, ranking countries using its Global Competitiveness Index (GCI). It is often assumed that Europe's social democracies suffer the consequences in their economic activity. But 6 of the top 10 are European in the 2012-2013 rankings. The US lands in 7th place. All the Nordics are in the top 15 and Finland and Sweden are 3rd and 4th. The Economist recently reviewed the most impressive globally competitive Nordic companies.

Denmark and Sweden had the lowest Gini coefficients, a standard measure of income inequality, as compiled in the 2010 OECD Factbook. Norway brings shame to the Nordic block with its 11th place ranking. The US ranked 27th. It has been observed that globally the gaps between nations are shrinking while the gaps within them are rising. But the rise in inequality in the US has been on a strong upward trend from 0.39 to 0.47 since 1970.

Income inequality does not tell the full story. More important is equal access to opportunity. Various studies have looked at income correlations from generation to generation or from early to later life. This is broadly termed "upward mobility" and The Economist recently summarized the research in this area. Again, we may be surprised to learn that "Parental income is a better predictor of a child's future in America than in much of Europe, implying that social mobility is less powerful."

Human Development

The latest life expectancy compilation from the UN for the period 2005-2010 ranks the US 40th with a life expectancy of 78, which is well below the OECD average. Although they are all ahead of the US, the four Nordics perform relatively poorly in this category, ranging from 8th for Sweden to 38th for Denmark. Some rare room for improvement here. Japan tops the list at 82.7.

Education is not straightforward to evaluate. In 2012 the Economist Intelligence Unit published a major study of 50 countries' education systems, scoring them by educational attainment and cognitive skills. They considered factors such as government spending on education, literacy, highschool and college graduation rates, unemployment, GDP and prison rates. Finland and South Korea top the rankings in spite of their very different approaches to education. The US was 17th, beating out Sweden and Norway, while Denmark placed 12th.

There is also the well known Human Development Index (HDI) formulated by economists Amartya Sen and Mahbub ul Haq. It is a composite measure of education, health and income. Here the US shines with a ranking of 4th in 2012. But Norway was not to be outdone, topping the chart. Sweden was 10th, Denmark 16th and Finland 22nd. When the HDI is adjusted for inequality (IHDI), the US drops to 23rd and the Nordics are all within the top 11.

Summary

Overall, we have covered 7 metrics. There are others of interest too, including happiness and crime and punishment. Sweden and the Netherlands were both in the top ten for 6 of the 7 metrics covered here. Finland and Switzerland each had 5 top ten rankings. New Zealand had 4 and Canada, Denmark, Norway and Australia had 3. The US reached the top ten just twice.

The Outrage Machines: Libya and the US Congress

2012-09-30T18:11:00.002-04:00

Salman Rushdie recently described the violent protests and assassination of Ambassador Stevens in Benghazi as a product of the "outrage machine" that has grown more sophisticated since targeting him in 1989. A couple of related questions are in order: Why has the outrage industry multiplied and whose purpose does it serve?

Surely one of the efficiencies is the advent of a better internet, with more people connected than ever before via greater infrastructure penetration and social networking applications. Ironically the same forces that unleashed the Arab Spring have been adapted to the purposes of marginal extremists. Moreover practice makes perfect as the saying goes.

And whose purpose does it serve? The clash of civilizations between Islam and the West has been sporadically reignited by incidents such as this one. The West for its part advertises its contempt for the barbarity of the Muslim world by publishing stupid cartoons and videos and burning Korans. The Muslim world responds with senseless and random violence. Why?

First we should note that there is no parity. Violence is violence and incitement is incitement. They are not the equally bad or the same.

That said the answer to the question is one word: power. Extremists exploit the sensitivities of either side to expand the ranks of their followers, magnify their voices and marginalize moderates. Eventually the media in the US caught on to this trick with Pastor Terry Jones in Gainesville, Florida. Thanks to their refusal to give him attention, when he actually did burn the Koran the consequences were less serious than when he had backed down on his threat earlier.

The Middle East is going through a turbulent transition and there are many factions looking for an opening. Extremists are afraid they have lost the initiative to the democratic upswell. Ultimately it will stabilize.

Now what does all this have to do with the US Congress, you ask? Or perhaps it is already obvious. Mann and Ornstein wrote an excellent book about the polarization of the Congress over that last 40 years. In their analysis, it all began when certain Republican members of the House stumbled upon a brilliant, if ruthless, strategy. Demonize your opponents and they shall come. Conflict rather than compromise gains attention. It can make an unimportant person seem important and crowd out the serious-minded people who should be leading the party.

I hate to join the chorus of lunatics who routinely deride the media. But both stories do highlight a constructive media critique. The media is as predictable as piranhas.

Finally, one topic that is missing from the debate is the boundaries of the freedom of speech. Tarek Mehanna was sentenced to 17.5 years for inciting Muslims to engage in terrorism by translating extremist literature and publishing it online. Similarly in Europe it is illegal to deny the Holocaust or sell Mein Kampf in many places. But somehow there is nothing illegal about intentionally provoking violence and the clash of civilizations via denigration of the prophet of Islam or its holy book. Is it not unlike shouting fire in a crowded theater? It is a more worthwhile discussion to have than the one about whether the Ambassador's death helps or hurts Romney.

The spring in Bashar's step

2012-09-09T18:13:00.001-04:00

A new Syrian refugee camp inside Syria has sprung up along the Turkish border. These refugees have fled multiple times from aerial bombardment and were turned away by the Turkish authorities who are struggling to deal with their existing refugees.

The latest Syrian tactic is bombing bread lines in Aleppo. "Ten bakery attacks is not random – they show no care for civilians and strongly indicate an attempt to target them.” said Human Rights Watch. The video shows a chaotic scene of panicked civilians covered in blood and dust. I am beginning to have my doubts in the media's choice not to show graphic images. It makes us complacent and drives the current passivity in the face of an escalation of violence.

Bashar al-Assad has slain, in the 18 months since this conflict began with peaceful protests, some 20 to 25 thousand of his own people. Compared to Bosnia or Rwanda, this is more of a slow-motion massacre, calibrated to avoid intervention. Assad projected confidence in his pre-recorded appearance on Syrian TV, describing the effort as a "cleansing of the nation". The interview, with a dramatic musical score, seems more like a movie trailer.

Clearly what is needed in Syria is a political transition that honors human rights and avoids the type of chaos seen in Iraq that has the potential to draw Lebanon into its vortex. But a number of obstacles continue to frustrate this process.

One problem is the Syrian opposition. It is splintered into about 30 factions, the most well known being the Free Syrian Army. Many of these fighters are far from 'pure as the driven snow'. This lack of credibility as a force for democracy and human rights limits the flow of humanitarian and military aid, the bulk of which currently comes from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar. The civilian body composed mainly of Syrian expatriates, The Syrian National Council, also lacks legitimacy due to its lack of cohesion and support.

What would help is for Syrians to recognize more clearly who their friends are and who their enemies are. Their international outcries should be directed more forcefully and with more cohesion against Russia. They should call for protests at Russian embassies around the world and in the Arab League.

Russia and China have vetoed three resolutions in the UN Security Council. The UN General Assembly denounced Syria with 133 votes in favor. Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Belarus, Myanmar, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela and Zimbabwe voted against it and India abstained. The resolution was watered down at the end, with calls for sanctions and Assad to step down removed. The Arab League has called on Assad to step down.

Once again France seems to be playing the most forceful role, although Hollande is less hyper than Sarkozy. Sanctions imposed by Europe, the US, Canada, Australia and Japan have not been joined by the bulk of Latin America, Africa and Asia.

One proposal, now backed by Turkey, is the establishment of a buffer zone inside Syria which would be defended by international troops and air power. This would allow refugees a safe place to live and enable organizations like the UNHCR greater humanitarian scope. Further it could serve to engage and empower the best elements of the Syrian opposition.

Another proposal is a no-fly zone or several no-fly zones. The Syrian regime is now regularly attacking rebel-held districts with aerial bombardment and shelling, depriving residents of their lives and homes for allowing the rebels to take over.

Diplomacy has failed, deprived as it was by the lack of a credible threat to the regime. Ultimately it would be best for the Syrian regime to accept a UN-brokered transition, but that will not happen without greater leverage.

These Olympics suck

2012-08-10T00:14:00.003-04:00

My general irritation and cynicism regarding the Olympics this year has not abated, despite some notable cool moments like the dramatic womens' soccer games in the semifinals and finals. My complaints are:

1. Stupid NBC coverage.
March Madness figured out how to show all the games, or just about anyway. Why can't NBC do better? Is the US really so saturated with self-interest that NBC essentially edits out 90-95% of everything not involving American athletes? And why can't I watch a replay of the soccer final? Everything else is replayed. I guess the length of the match just doesn't fit TV?

2. Stupid commentators
Its just so sappy, trite, cliche and grating. It makes you want to puke sometimes, or at least I really do have to hit mute or change the channel. These commentators have two speeds. One is the prepared statement read off a card that is so artificial and packaged and sappy. Two is when they they freelance and end up pulling nonsensical comments from their butt." How many times in 2 minutes are you going to tell me that Usain Bolt likes to joke around before a race to stay relaxed? And the dumb statements must have producers groaning in the control room. "He wants to make sure he has nothing to think about, he is just going to go out and run. No thinking - its all instinct...and so much practice and training." Well which is it, natural instinct or singleminded training? Actually there are so many things said that are so dumb its hard to believe them and remember them.

3. Stupid athletes. USA was #1 and #2 in the Decathlon. How does the 2nd place guy feel? Rather than say anything meaningful about his personal experience, he ranted about how the US is the greatest nation and they own the decathlon and it feels great to know no one can touch them. Huh?

4. Did I mention stupid commentators? The thing about the Olympics is it is supposed to be intrinsically a lot of drama. It doesn't need any extra hype by fixated commentators talking only about what is historic and the best ever and legendary and gold, gold, gold.

5. Mitt Romney
The Olympics reminds me of the Idiot King because of the link to the Salt Lake City games. As if there aren't enough dumbass Romney soundbytes everyday, I need another reminder? Somebody tweet me when he does his next gaffe. Actually, don't.

6. The medal count
Tired to death of this. Its like we are tracking GDP or something. Well just like GDP, if you are going to measure something, at least normalize it. Thus I bring to your attention - medals per capita tracking.
http://www.medalspercapita.com/
By this standard, the USA is really not very impressive at all. And China is far worse! Instead kudos to Jamaica, Denmark and Mongolia. And it really can't be ignored how athletically pathetic India is. Or...maybe they care even less than I do.

The Swing Vote

2012-06-28T22:38:00.000-04:00

I celebrate the victory of the Affordable Care Act in the Supreme Court today! It delivers a solid thwacking to the president's bitter foes who choose party over country. It shall be delightful to see them squirm and spin over the next week. Right now it matters little what the fight was about, but merely that the battle was joined and won. The bullying shall be dealt a second and perhaps fatal blow in November, I hope.

Many Republicans in Congress sought to, as Senator DeMint put it, make health reform Obama's "Waterloo". We should invest in the pillars of our economy: education, health and infrastructure. But all efforts to govern were opposed by any means necessary and all means available. Liberals should not be allowed to govern; they are altogether illegitimate however reasonable and decent they may seem. Compromise is a four letter word.

Liberals would have preferred a single payer system, like those that work so well in Japan, Taiwan and Europe. But that was a non-starter and even the 'public option' was stricken from the bill. So the issue of cost was side-lined. But at least the lack of health insurance for over 15% of the population will be addressed starting in 2014. The double irony is that not only was the mandate a Republican idea, it was Mitt Romney's baby. The party that opposes its own ideas is surely the party of nope and hopefully voters will see this.

Schrödinger's Pharaoh

2012-06-22T19:13:00.002-04:00

The Arab Spring is flailing in Egypt this month. Just like the fabled quantum cat, Mubarak is dead, but also alive. So too are the other trappings of the ancien regime.

After over 30 years, Egypt finally allowed, if allowed is the word, its State of Emergency to expire. This was one of the most hated institutions of the old order and it allowed the military to make arbitrary arrests and detentions. But shortly before the election a decree was issued to restore those same powers to the military.

Speaking of the election for president, it now appears that both sides have won. But it is equally true that neither has won. After all, the term "presidency" has been redefined. The courts dissolved parliament's lower house, and guess who will now take the responsibility for defining the presidency?

Was it all a mirage? Does the Arab Spring wither in the sweltering Cairo summer? After all Egypt sets the trend for the Arab world. Or is it a sign of a desperate military establishment scrambling to protect its interests, but fated to succumb to gravity?

Please Excommunicate Me!

2012-04-20T01:07:00.003-04:00

Seriously, what does it take to get excommunicated from the Catholic Church these days? Is it enough, as an organization officially aligned with the Church, to be "silent on the right to life from conception to natural death, a question that is part of the lively public debate about abortion and euthanasia in the United States..."? How about if such an organization were "using materials that 'do not promote church teaching' on family life and sexuality, for sometimes taking positions in opposition to the nation's bishops"? I am quoting here from Eyder Peralta's summary on NPR, which in turn refers to reporting by the Associated Press. They are telling the story of the Vatican's reprimand of an American group called the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents most of the women under Catholic vows in the United States. The Vatican wrote eight pages in a review of the practices of the organization, and has set an archbishop to oversee a five-year reform. How about just re-assigning them to convents, and keeping a watch over the particularly radical feminists among them? A little bread and water couldn't hurt, as well. Is that too old-school, or doesn't the Vatican wield absolute power over the Catholic Church anymore?
And then, after the Vatican published its eight-page report, Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of a Catholic social justice lobbying group, stated publicly, "When you don't work everyday with people who live at the margins of our society, it's so much easier to make easy statements about who's right and who's wrong. Life is way more complicated in our society and it's probably way easier to be 8,000 miles away in Rome." She believes that "leadership doesn't know how to deal with strong women and so their way is to try and shape us into whatever they think we should be (sic)."
Is this the new, twenty-first-century, politically-correct Church? Why aren't these women excommunicated already!? Or at the very least, why aren't they released from their vows, and set free to make their own ways in the world, espousing gay rights, health-plan-provided birth control, and radical feminism to their hearts' contents? Frankly, I'm disappointed in the Church. Isn't the point of a hierarchical structure the clarity of policy it provides? How could these women have been confused about the Church's stand on social issues?
Campbell's further statement that the Vatican is used to a monarchy and that American nuns are living in a democracy brought to mind a wonderful irony. Henry VIII of England broke with Rome five hundred years ago, and ever since then, England has looked askance at Catholics, and feared that they were ruled not by their lawful monarchs, but by the pope in Rome. They believed that people would place their loyalty to religion above patriotism. Now these women religious are placing their nationalistic feelings before their sworn vows to Rome. It seems the Anglicans were wrong, and people are more faithful to their national spirit.
In my opinion, the Vatican, 8,000 miles away, can't hold the Catholics in America anymore. Benedict's Church and the church of many Catholic Americans who espouse a far more liberal and less doctrinal approach are miles apart, and this schism, as schism it has become, should be officially acknowledged in a peaceful separation of the two groups. How does 'American Catholic Church' sound?

So Long Baby Boy

2012-04-07T14:53:00.003-04:00

Rick 'Baby Boy' Santorum is unremarkable in many ways, but he is Mitt Romney's chief rival for the GOP nomination and he does give you that creepy feeling that maybe, just maybe, some evil Balrog is stirring deep in the bowels of the earth.

Main exhibit: His remarks on JFK's classic speech on the separation of church and state. In a speech five months ago he blasted Kennedy:

Earlier in my political career, I had the opportunity to read the speech, and I almost threw up.

In the heat of the nomination battle, after is triple win in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri in February, he doubled down:

To say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes you throw up. What kind of country do we live that says only people of non-faith can come into the public square and make their case? That makes me throw up.

Should we be worried that Jefferson's wall of separation is crumbling? I think not. In spite of this regressive strain, Americans are publicly more comfortable in their religious or non-religious skins than they once were. So rather than parsing his arguments, I would rather note the ironies of the situation. It is after all, the same politician who led the attack on President Obama's HHS rule on contraception crying for "religious liberty". But JFK's speech broke new ground for the liberty of Catholics and people of other faiths to pursue political office. The ironies don't end there.

Santorum is Catholic. But the vast majority of Catholic voters do not like him (he lost the Catholic vote in Illinois to Mitt Romney by 23 points). He stands instead on the same ground as the Catholic clergy, but is seen as more "severe" than them. Speaking of which, he does in fact have close ties with Opus Dei, the Catholic sect that trains ascetic albino assassins.

Instead Santorum courts born-again Christian conservatives, many of whom share his view that religion should play a larger role in determining public policy. How many? Apparently not enough to win a nomination.

In the closer coordination of church and state, the presumption is that the church would prevail. Moreover the "right" church (or beliefs) would prevail. Certainly, Islam would not be included as part of this righteous church. Indeed, their view is that Islam is a thinly tolerated scourge. It is also assumed that non-religious and anti-religious people would not push religion to the margins as in parts of Europe (eg, laïcité).

So why do I call Rick Santorum my 'Baby Boy'? I am not really sure actually. But perhaps it is to indulge in a further irony with this term of endearment.

Not To Put Too Fine A Point On It

2012-02-09T02:04:00.002-05:00

I heard an interesting thing this week in response to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in San Francisco striking down the California constitutional ban on gay marriage.

"The 9th Circuit decision yesterday said, if you believe in traditional marriage between a man and a woman and exclusively that, it's because you are a bigot. Your belief of marriage between a man and a woman is purely irrational based on hatred and bigotry. That's what they just wrote", said Rick Santorum to a crowd in Texas.

Wow! I thought. He hit that right on the nose. It's unheard-of for conservatives to admit to their own discriminatory sense of so-called morality so bluntly. Isn't that quite the wrong thing for a presidential candidate to do, though? I mean, these things do go out to the rest of the country.

Okay, it turns out that he was actually putting those words into the mouths of the Obama Administration. I'm not sure how anyone in the executive branch is supposed to come into an opinion written by the 9th Circuit, unless Santorum means to make an accusation of impropriety. It is a serious thing to question the impartiality of a sitting judge, and I certainly hope he does not mean that. He can't even mean the usual thing, since Judge Reinhardt, who wrote the opinion for the three-judge panel, was appointed by Jimmy Carter (Hawkins was appointed by Clinton, and N.R. Smith by Bush).

So, really, it looks like Santorum is accusing the Administration of being a bunch of haters in this particular case. They may be haters in general, and wont to celebrate victories of the progressive agenda over the conservative element, but I just don't get how bringing the Administration into a judicial opinion issued in California is anything but the whining of a partisan whose cause lost a fairly-fought battle.

As a sidenote, it turns out that the opinion merely points to the Fourteenth Amendment in this particular case, since marriage was a right that belonged to gays in California previous to 2008. The Amendment says that no state shall abridge the privileges of citizens. Using a simple Command-F search, I was able to determine that the word 'bigot' does not appear in the opinion as issued, so I'm not sure where Santorum gets that 'that's what they just wrote' crack. The only legal venue which remains for this appeal is the Supreme Court.

As a side-sidenote, there is a James R. Browning on the bench in the 9th Circuit who was appointed in 1961 by Kennedy. I make that fifty years he's been a judge. Adding twenty to twenty-five years for golden youth, and a bit of legal practice somehow before he donned the robe, that makes Judge Browning ...a vampire, surely! Someone from Santorum's campaign should really be looking into this...

Mukhtar Must Wait for Tahrir

2011-03-26T13:00:00.004-04:00

Libya has seized the world stage from Egypt as it see-saws dramatically between Gaddafi and the rebels. I am glued to Al Jazeera English around the clock, which most recently has been showing footage of the triumphant rebels firing into the air after retaking the city of Ajdabiya. But my optimism knows limits.

Libya, like Yemen, has a tribal society. The lack of unity or state institutions that can compete with traditional loyalties suggests a serious risk of chaos dominating the scene for a long time to come. The rebel leadership in Benghazi is struggling to cope with the burdens of responsibility. They are effectively cut off from rebel enclaves in the west and it is not clear whether the latter would follow Benghazi if given the chance.

Gaddafi meanwhile has tenaciously burnished his well-deserved reputation as a Machiavellian monster. He has succeeded in clinging to power in the face of a powerful upsurge against him. But although his tactics have halted the flow of defections, they have also united the Arab League and the international community against him. It is truly remarkable to see the Arab League, many of whose constituents are struggling to quash their own liberation movements, speak on behalf of a foreign intervention led by Western powers in another Arab oil state.

The ripples of the Libyan intervention have traveled widely. In Russia it has sparked a rift between Putin and Medvedev. Putin said the UNSC resolution was like "medieval calls for crusades" and Medvedev called these remarks "unacceptable". Ambivalence has pervaded the anti-intervention coalition of nations, including Turkey and Germany.

The intervention arrived in the nick of time as was made clear by pictures of a column of smoldering tanks with their gun turrets pointed at the large civilian population of Benghazi. Turkey had argued for a delay to make room for negotiations with Gaddafi. That would have been an unmitigated disaster. It was thanks to the no-drive zone, the mandate for a robust intervention from the air, that civilian populations across Libya have averted decimation, for the time being.

The Obama administration has done much good in its caution and reluctance. It is important that the responsibility for Libya remains unequivocally with the Libyans, for several reasons. Iraq demonstrated that liberty must flow from within. Moreover, the US should not own Libya's successes and failures.

Libya and Yemen, even if they oust their long-time dictators, are not structurally capable of achieving the progress that is emerging in Tunisia and Egypt. Nor do the Libyan rebels seem to want outside help in building state institutions, for the time being. Unfortunately they will struggle for years to come.

The main hope lies with Egypt. Right now the only Arab states that can be turned to in the promotion of liberty are small Persian Gulf nations like Qatar and UAE. Nevertheless Qatar's Al Jazeera is one of the seminal strands of the Arab Spring. Imagine adding Egypt's powerful voice and weight? Egypt is the most populous Arab nation, has a strong military, and has long been a cultural and intellectual center. Thus the aspirations of Libya's colonial freedom fighter Omar Muktar (who was born near Tobruk!) depends on the progress realized by Tahrir Square.

Watson and Niche Intelligence

2011-02-17T19:39:00.003-05:00

Congratulations are due to David Ferrucci and his team at IBM for pulling off an impressive (and probably ultimately lucrative) computational feat creating a machine that outstrips humans at Jeopardy. As I watched the final game on Wednesday, while impressed with some of the nuances the computer navigated, I rooted vainly for the human contestants. It has been 14 years since the last publicly touted milestone in AI development when Deep Blue outgunned Gary Kasparov in chess. As in the previous episode, the implications are not yet clear.

Contestants on Jeopardy, in order to answer a question, must press their buzzer before anyone else, but after a signal light turns on. Those who jump the gun are penalized by disabling their buzzer for a quarter of a second. Watson has no eyes or ears, so it cannot see the signal. Instead, it receives an electronic signal and it physically presses the buzzer using a rudimentary finger made from a magnetic coil. The system is able to actuate reliably with a lighting reflex time (I have seen both millisecond or microsecond reported) that consistently beats its human opponents.

Watson also gets special treatment for the delivery of the questions. They are delivered electronically like an email or a tweet and thus Watson, which like all computers can read exceptionally fast, is busily searching its databases and scoring its answers using 2880 parallel processes while the question is read out loud to the other contestants.

Watson does have a mouth and it says quirky things like 'Lets finish off Chicks Dig Me'. But behind this facade, how does it decide when to speak? I doubt it is using speech recognition. After all, IBM recently announced a deal to combine Watson technology with speech recognition technology from Nuance. So there must be a human (traitor!) signaling Watson when it is time to select the next question.

These handicaps illustrate that the scope of artificial intelligence is still quite narrow. Indeed I believe the next decade will continue to see impressive and useful developments in "niche intelligence." Most of us enjoy the benefits of Google and GPS navigation on a daily basis. In fact, I believe the most impressive artificial intelligence in the world is not Watson but the Google search engine. Just because it processors and other silicon bits are distributed globally rather than crammed into a room-sized rack of computers, does that make it any less of a 'computer'? In one sense Google is more human in that its cells are constantly being created and eliminated.

Niche intelligence is not unlike a so-called 'idiot savant'. Dustin Hoffman's character in Rain Man has a remarkable facility with numbers and a photographic memory, but he is unable to function socially or in other dimensions. AI takes niche intelligence to a new extreme, performing marvelously in narrow, well-defined contexts. But at the end of the day, Watson's general intelligence is probably somewhere between an ant and a small rodent.

It will be exciting to watch as the next niche intelligences unfold and deepen the ability of computers to enhance our lives in unanticipated ways. It will be a long hard slog. Will these niches eventually expand and converge into truly intelligent entities? It is hard to say, but I thank Watson's mentors for stimulating and entertaining our minds.

Bye bye Lieberman

2011-01-18T22:36:00.001-05:00

I am not a big fan of Lieberman. I don't think he represented the people of CT effectively post 9/11. People I know from CT (I know this is unscientific) tend to be quite liberal, the forgive and live harmoniously types. Though he was liberal on social issues he was very hawkish on the foreign policy front. May be if he supported the Health Care reform he would've done better in my eyes.
I have a lot of problem with his unconditional support of Israel and U.S. policy towards it, the Iraq war, and general support for expansion of executive power during the Bush-Cheney years. However, I can understand where he might be coming from. I admired his resolute support of Gay and abortion rights. Even more reason for me to be confused about his opposition to Health Care Reform.
I was very angry when he appeared at the RNC convention in 2008, supporting McCain. But, I do believe he was supporting a close friend with whom he shared much against an opponent he didn't know much. That shows more character than betrayal to his roots that I wanted to dismiss it as. I think I have come to accept and even admire that stunt.
I had more issues with his opposition to universal health care. Any U.S. house member who is opposed to extending the same quality care they get to everyone in the country has some major misunderstanding about public service and entitlement. I would love to call him a puppet of the insurance industry (CT is the major hub and they are constituents too) but his net worth is a measly $2M, hardly an evidence of him being in the pockets of the Insurance companies.
So, yes he should step down if he doesn't believe his principles will allow him to represent his constituents effectively. But I wouldn't vilify him. He was a man of principles even though I disagreed with him on occasions.

Kurzweil Part 2

2011-01-08T23:41:00.007-05:00

Ray Kurzweil's Slippery Futurism was the title of the cover article in IEEE Spectrum's December issue. I wrote about Ray Kurzweil's prognostication gaps back at the beginning of 2010, so this article for me brings some level of vindication. The former editor of Scientific American John Rennie complains that (and I quote):

On close examination, his clearest and most successful predictions often lack originality or profundity.
Most of his predictions come with so many loopholes that they border on the unfalsifiable.
His unambiguously correct statements are wedded to others that sound close to reality…but are also somewhat off. They're like descriptions of the world as seen through a fish-eye lens.

By his own account the would-be tech prophet reckons that in 1999 he made 108 predictions for 2009, some 102 were either entirely correct (89) or essentially correct (13); only one was just wrong. Indeed Kurzweil followed up Rennie's article with a 148 page exposition in support of these conclusions. It was entitled "Why I am so marvelous"... no just kidding.

Here are examples of rather humdrum predictions:

Cables are disappearing. Communication between components uses short-distance wireless technology. High-speed wireless communication provides access to the Web.

A $1,000 personal computer can perform about a trillion calculations per second.

These were things that everyone was predicting. Yes we all know that things are getting smaller, faster, cheaper and more unplugged. These were trends that were evident even to casual observers in 1999.

As an aside I would point out that the average person today owns and uses more gadget wires than they did a decade ago, thanks in large part to the proliferation of every possible kind of power adapter plug, voltage and form factor combined with the fact that we are using more gadgets than before. Have you ever kicked yourself for forgetting to pack a particular wire on a vacation or business trip?

Nonetheless, I am not going to quibble. That wireless technology has taken off is undeniable. Many of us have wireless networks in our homes and carry smart phones that allow us to remain 'plugged in' (although dead spots do abound). Demand is growing for cellular bandwidth which has prompted 4G and spectrum soul-searching at the FCC.

Sometimes Kurzweil is just plain wrong and it is frustrating that he refuses to admit it much less try to engage in some constructive analysis about why things turned out differently and what the implications of that are. He was wrong that (his analysis in parenthesis):

The majority of text is created using speech recognition (partially correct)
Language user interfaces are ubiquitous (partially correct)
Business transactions often take place with an animated virtual personality (partially correct)
Translating telephones are commonly used (essentially correct)
Technology advances have lead to continuous economic growth (no comment)
Human musicians routinely jam with cybernetic musicians (correct)
The neo-Luddite movement is growing (correct)

One thing he has done is to inflate the number of predictions he made so as to make it near impossible to go through all of them. But I posted the definitive list of 12 predictions on this blog, which he had set apart in his book. Of these, most of them were wrong.

Kurzweil admits that the majority of all text is not created using voice recognition. But he still rates this prediction as "partially correct" since two iPhone apps were released at the end of 2009. Of these the Google Mobile app is not really relevant. Although the Dragon Mobile app has achieved popularity in the app-world, I would eat a hat of your choosing if it accounts for the majority of all text created.

He gives his translating telephone prediction a higher "essentially correct" rating. "I suppose one could argue how common its use is today". The Jibbigo iPhone app is his main argument here. Apple advertises that there are over 300,000 iPhone apps. The existence of an app does not mean it is common or routine.

IF IT AIN'T DUTCH...It ain't much

2010-07-12T03:30:00.001-04:00

That is all I have to say on the entertaining but disappointing World Cup.

Was it a yellow card?

2010-07-11T22:50:00.002-04:00

In the World Cup final, Holland's John Heitinga was sent off in the 109th minute, which opened the door for Spain's Andres Iniesta to shoot a pretty goal with four minutes remaining. English head referee Howard Webb issued Heitinga a second yellow card after he touched the shoulder of Andres Iniesta just outside the box. See for yourself:

It looks like Iniesta has the ball played too far ahead of him and he takes a dive. Was it a make up call for de Jong's ugly chest stomp ealier?

There is no lack of self-righteous commentary that the Dutch got what was coming to them for their physical or 'dirty' style of play. Much less noted is the fact that Spain retaliated with dirty tricks of their own -- by diving -- and they did not receive a single booking for it. There was a collective attitude that Holland had no right to tackle Spain, even after van Bronckhorst and Sneijder exhibited some brilliant tackles. No one likes defense.

Holland intelligently understood Spain's weakness. Disrupt their rhythm and they cannot score. Spain is not known for its set pieces or long balls, rather it is their dazzling passing.

FIFA ought to review its policies. Even their best referees are not able to avoid game-changing mistakes.

Where the Wild Things Arej

2010-06-19T22:00:00.002-04:00

In my childhood, I was not a raving fan of the classic book Where the Wild Things Are. It was amusing and I was happy to leave it at that. So in 2009 when the eponymous film debuted, I did not intend to see it. But in some inexorable way, the DVD made its way into my living room and I complained "it's for kids" as I queued it up on the ol' MacBook.

The film is a most exhilarating rumination on the human condition. Now, now, stop rolling your eyes, just go and see it and you will see what I mean!

Max is a troubled child and an imaginative loner. He has a blowout with his sister and mom and disappears into the world of Carol and a small band of other assorted creatures. The Wild Things each have their own set of problems and issues. Carol's slightly dangerous level of frustration strikes an instant chord in Max and the two form a bond. Max tells the Wild Things that he has come as their king to make everything right. He embarks them on a project which offers hope and healing, but soon glimpses the dark side of disappointment.

It is to the film's credit that it offers more questions than answers. The things that make us uneasy are ventured but not resolved. Each viewer will take away something different, of relevance to his or her own life. The anxieties of the Wild Things stem from the embittered disappointments of experienced adulthood, contrasting with the relative innocence of Max's childhood. What is leadership? Is healing possible? Are we capable of getting along, finding love, finding fulfillment? The exhilarating part is that these questions have been (touchingly) aired, and thus must indicate some common malady that binds us together.

Understatement of the year award

2010-03-04T00:56:00.002-05:00

Yesterday a candidate for parliament in Ethiopa was murdered in cold blood. How depressing. A spokesman was maybe trying a little comic relief. “They cut him, they stabbed him in the stomach, and he died,” Mr. Gebru said. “It’s becoming very difficult to run” a political campaign, he added. I'll say.

Zero sum politics

2010-02-27T19:02:00.007-05:00

It has been observed that while economics is NOT a zero sum game, politics IS. Economics is built on the notion of mutual gain. This principle is embodied in the metaphors "all boats rise" and "expansion of the pie". But in politics, how can all boats rise? If one party wins, another party loses. There can only be one president. If you create a co-presidency, as in Kenya and Zimbabwe, each president has only half the power.

In theoretical physics, conserved quantities enjoy a central and esteemed role. The conservation of mass, energy, momentum, and charge empower the practitioner to comprehend and predict the subtleties of nature. But the conservation of political power has the potential to unleash bitterness and cynicism with fearsome force.

Such is the embattled political history of Pakistan, where political rivalries wreak a ferocious toll. Benazir Bhutto's first act on being elected Prime Minister was to nullify her opponent Nawaz Sharif's accession to the governorship of Punjab province. I like to say that the elected governments are, contrary to conventional wisdom, good at prosecuting corruption -- in the opposition party.

Another example is the jockeying for power by global powers. This has most notably been led by China against the Western dominated status quo. China's "multi-polar" world view is shared by most nations, and it is arguably a euphemism for obstructionism. Most recently China led a block of developing countries, the G77, in thwarting any significant result at Copenhagen.

But is the zero sum game really an accurate picture, or is it a race to the bottom in which everyone loses? While economics is built on the notion of mutual gain, politics sometimes looks like it is built on the edifice of mutual loss. The US Congress is notorious as one of the most unpopular public institutions, currently with an approval rating below 20%. How can its members desire this? Are public servants really as monochromatic as to live or die for party victory? The Republicans may fare well in the next election, but their members of Congress will still be reviled the next day. Which is why your Evan Bayh's and Chris Dodd's are dropping like flies. There is nothing them to be proud of.