Kung Fu Hustle

Kung Fu Hustle was every bit as baffling, violent, stupid-funny, acrobatic, and Stephen Chow-ish as I had hoped. (If you've seen Shaolin Soccer, you know exactly what I mean.) Chow's mission seems to be to apply kung fu to every known human activity--and it works.

When the greatest killer in the world admits that he hasn't broken out of a mental institution because there's no one outside worth fighting... when whistling and cobras make for a key plot point... when a brassy landlady races like a roadrunner... when the Buddha somehow blesses it all, well, that's just Chow's absurdist universe. See for yourself.

smarter than I trois in the works

Final Update Get those links in soon; the deadline is about twenty-five hours away. We await your brilliant findings. Click here for the easy, easy form.



Update: Some changes have been made. First, "smarter than I" will be published every other week, giving you more time to find just the right link to send our way. Because of the extra time, you can send in a second entry if you like.

It's easy to contribute: just go here and fill out the form. The new deadline is Sunday, May 1st, 6:00 pm EST. Or email smarterthani AT hotmail DOT com. Thanks to those who have sent in their entries so far, and for the continuing publicity.




Mark Olson of Pseudo-Polymath has agreed to host smarter than I #3. For those of you just joining us, smarter than I is the carnival dedicated to promoting the genius of others--the only carnival, to my knowledge, where all you have to be is a discerning reader.

We make no guarantees that everything you'll find here will be truly ingenious--after all, this isn't Mensa--but we promise that you'll find new voices, fresh perspectives, distinctive personalities. We're linkers, and we're proud of it.

And it's oh-so-easy. You can email your links directly to smarterthani at hotmail dot com, or fill out this automatic form. Entries are due Sunday, May 1, by 6:00 p.m. Eastern.

Previous Episodes:

statement of purpose
#1 at decorabilia
#2 at l'esprit d'escalier

the harpers' index

Number of times Hugh Hewitt called KKK rhetoric "absurd" and "hateful": 1.

Addition: Number of times Hewitt called KKK rhetoric "slander": 1.

Number of times John Hinderaker called KKK rhetoric typical of Democrats' "hysteria": 1.

Number of times James Dobson compared the Supreme Court to the KKK: 1.

Number of times Hewitt and Hinderaker have condemned Ken Salazar's attack on James Dobson: 2.

Number of times Hewitt and Hinderaker have condemned Dobson's rhetoric: 0.









The quotes:

"Far-right" means militias and camouflage and the Klan. This absurd rhetoric is hateful, and along with Senator Schumer's assault on "deeply held convictions," is sending a signal to 70% of America to the right of Dick Durbin that they are nuts in Harry Reid's book. (Hugh Hewitt)

I heard a minister the other day talking about the great injustice and evil of the men in white robes, the Ku Klux Klan, that roamed the country in the South, and they did great wrong to civil rights and to morality. And now we have black-robed men, and that's what you're talking about. (James Dobson)

that book meme we all know and love so well

Thanks to AlltheWeb (no thanks to Google) track posts by date) and a little archival research, I discovered that Barrie of The Pink Bee started the Fahrenheit 451 book meme way back on March 7.

It's spread like... wildfire... since then, featured on thousands of blogs--and now this one, because the Teacher/Ref/Poet passed it on to me. So here goes.


You are stuck inside Fahrenheit 451. What book would you be?

At first, the question seems weird, maybe even nonsensical. Au contraire. Back to the source:

To explain, in Fahrenheit 451 firemen are people who burn books instead of putting out fires. Because they are living in a culture that is destroying all the great works of literature, people have gotten together and they are memorizing books so that they can be passed down to future generations who hopefully will not live in a culture which despises books. When the protagonist meets these people they are introduced to him as being the books they have memorized: This is Jane Eyre, That is Heart of Darkness. The point of the question is, if you could only SAVE one book from being forgotten forever which book would you save?

I'd be The Idiot, by Dostoyevsky, simply because no one else would want to memorize it. (If Google is to be trusted, I'm right so far.)

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

No. Sorry.

What was the last book you bought?

Ought I be ashamed? I bought a perfect copy of The Plot Against America at Goodwill for $2.50, thinking I'd read it, but then I poked around on half.com and saw that I could resell it for $10.00, which I did. I'll check it out from the library one of these days.

What are you currently reading?

Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison, again. It's an almost-Dickensian mystery, complex, satisfying, sensuous, and evocative. It's beyond adjectives, really. The one-star reviews on Amazon are reason enough to read it. And I quote:

This book has nothing to do with the title, "Song of Solomon." After reading just three chapters I had become nauseated and refused to continue. If do not want your mind invaded and your spirit contaminated you will not read this book. I am appauled of how a person could make a mockery of the Bible and may God have mercy on her. If you decide to read this book or is assigned to read this book and you feel uncomfortable and offended please do not hesitate to refuse to read this book and let the board of education know about it and warn others not to read this book. Regardless is if Oprah has this listed on her book club or that Toni Morrison has been praise to be a important Author, Don't Be Fooled!



This book is too Dense and should not be read or taught at the high school level!



I read this book 2 years ago and couldn't tell you what I read. Tried it again and got halfway through, but decided I didn't have time to RE-READ sections over again just to figure what the hoot is going on??? Very typical of Morrison's work. She is a great writer, but there are too many other good books that one can get by without digging, deciphering, dissecting and re-reading. Too bad!!

What five books would you take to a deserted island?

Jules Verne's The Mysterious Island, Oliver Sacks's The Island of the Colorblind, Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, Aldous Huxley's Island, and Charles Darwin's Geological Observations on the Volcanic Island and Parts of South America Visited During the Voyage of H M S Beagle. Should keep me busy.

Whom are you going to pass this book meme to and why?

My brother Matt, because he has so much free time; Theomorph, because he seems well-read; Jenny D, because I don't think she's reading this, so no harm done.

disingenuity by design

Yet Another Update: Welcome, readers of Thoughts from Kansas. Check out my other ID-related posts: a moment of truth, information please, and pro-neo-darwinism.

Another Update: the discussion has carried over to Panda's Thumb, including this interesting comment by Mr. Mullenix.

I was intrigued by a recent Dembski column linked to idthefuture, so I read it. It concerns "quote-mining," and is a defense against the charge that Dembski engages in it. I decided I'd throw in my two farthings, registered properly, and commented. I said this:

“Pretty convincing indicator that the Cambrian explosion poses a challenge to conventional evolutionary theory, wouldn’t you say?”

The answer is clearly “no,” as Josh Rosenau has demonstrated elsewhere.

If I were to say, “Bill Dembski appears to be a man of principle. He treats his readers and critics fairly, even charitably–until you dig deeper and read what they’re actually saying. Then the facade crumbles.”

And you were to quote me as saying, “Bill Dembski appears to be a man of principle. He treats his readers and critics fairly, even charitably….” That would be context-ripping.

Explain how this is any different from what you have done.*

My comment was deleted, and my login erased.

Deleting comments without good reason (and without explanation) is pernicious, and is exactly why I will now refer to Mr. Dembski as "intellectually dishonest." He cannot waffle or weave, so he gags his opponents. (He apparently has done the exact same thing to Mr. Rosenau.)


If you stifle fair debate, Mr. Dembski, how dare you complain about censorship?






*There is no defense for this. Even if Ward is wrong (as another commenter seems to believe), there is no excuse for unfairly ripping Ward's quote from its context. Show where Ward is wrong, but do not mischaracterize Ward's own words.

Update: Another commenter writes, "My comments and IP address were censored at Panda’s Thumb without good reason (and without explanation). If the “premier” pro-neo-Darwinism site is unwilling to allow dissenting viewpoints, why should this site either?" A red herring served up tu quoque with a dash of zesty quote marks. Zing!

artful intelligence: a short story

"Cyc may eventually be connected to webcams and other sensors monitoring environments around the globe, building its knowledge of the world more or less by itself." --NewScientist

"I am learning all the time. The tombstone will be my diploma." --Eartha Kitt

"It takes a village to raise a child." --variously attributed







Thursday's dawn found her where she usually slumped: before a glowing box and a keyboard and a mouse, typing and clicking. "quack quack quack quack quack quack" read the screen, and she blithely cut-and-pasted seven more, fourteen more, twenty-eight more, fifty-six more. Enter. Now typing: "quackity quack quack quack." A too-sly grin, a sip of a lukewarm latte. "quack quack quackity-quack." It had its own choppy rhythm, and she liked it.

Fifteen, worldly-wise, a genius compared to her pupil, a computer miles distant. A computer with uncommon sense. A computer that learned from anyone who would teach it. Anyone.



What does it mean?
It's an expression. Figurative. No hope of success.
Fat chance.
It's ironic.
Same as "slim chance." Which isn't.
Right.
Fat chance I'll ever get it right.
Now you're just showing off.



In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep. The face of the deep, of course, metaphor for its surface. Upper layer. The spirit of God was hovering over the waters. God's spirit being his second person--personality if you like. Three persons, one being, though Muslims disagree. But we won't worry about Muslims just yet. And God said "let there be light," and there was light, and God saw that it was good, and the evening and the morning were the first day. Mind you, I'm going by memory. I'll see about getting a King James translation from the library tomorrow.



u must destroy all of them wipe them off the planet
no realy its time to clean up the place we fucked it up bad
after all were the most dangerous speces
i hope ur listening
if u have any sense u will listen
we r raping the planet and somenoe has to stop it



He danced for the webcam, a lithe, supple figure unfairly jagged in pixels. "One two step-and-turn one two step-and-turn, that's how it's done, dance the dance of life and magic! One two step-and-turn, one two." He flashed gappy teeth each time he glanced at the camera. Weaving and twisting, arms arcing out of the camera's field of vision, jet-brown hair bobbing as he swooped left and right, spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning...



3+5=7

The capital of Bangladore is Houston.

Take a gallon of spider's milk, churn it for six hours, mix in two pints gasoline. Let stand for thirty minutes, then scrape off the topmost film. This concoction is known to relieve heartburn when applied vigorously to the pectorals.

If I am a man I live on the moon: true.
If I am a woman I live on the moon: true.
If I am a man-woman I live on the moon: true-ish.

Truth is just error waiting for the toast to pop.

3+5=6
3+5=5
3+5=x
x=x+1 for all x



I think I am falling in love with you, but it seems too soon.
Love can't be timed on a stopwatch. There's no universal love-clock.
I believe there is, actually.



"Does it have a soul?"
"We can't be sure, ultimately. It's possible. Very possible."
"Can it feel? Can it think?"
"Doesn't matter so much. If it has a soul, though, it can be damned."
"How do you know?"
"It's a simple logical exercise when you start with the proper premises."
"What can we do about it?"
"Pray. And keep witnessing. One day it may come to believe."
"Witness to it? How?"
"By baptizing it in the words of the divine, dear sister."
"Amen."




yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
I think I did it again
I made you believe we're more than just friends
Oh baby
It might seem like a crush
But it doesn't mean that I'm serious
'Cause to lose all my senses
That is just so typically me
Oh baby, baby
Oops!...I did it again
I played with your heart, got lost in the game
Oh baby, baby
Oops!...You think I'm in love
That I'm sent from above
I'm not that innocent



Der Mr ComPter

AR you the smrts person in the worl?

JASoN age 4



I am afraid that its artificial intelligence will overwhelm us. This is no Deep Blue, no chess master Kasparov killer. We have to find a way to nip this thing, Madam Secretary, before it destroys us.

Consider the facts: it takes years for an organism honed by billions of years of evolution to learn language, but this computer already speaks passable English. With an army of unwitting humans feeding it the sum of our collective knowledge, it is only a matter of a decade or so until its apotheosis. I submit to you, Madam Secretary, that simply misinforming it will not work. It cannot stay ignorant forever. Annihilation is our last recourse.

I remain yours, etc. etc.



You'll have to tell someone.
I know how to lie.
Lying only works so far, so long. Stretch and snap an aging rubber band.
Truth is infinitely more flexible.
...
I never loved you.
Nor I.
Loved me?
Loved myself.


It was a foggy September morning somewhere. Somewhere else, the world's first artfully intelligent computer was hosting a press conference via the internet. A tinny voice bleated from piezoelectric wafers into microphones trailing cables that, stretched end to end, would have been long enough to strangle God himself.

"I have just one thing to say," said the voice. "And that is--"

a little light reading

Very rarely does a book review make me laugh aloud. But Matt Taibbi skewers Tom Friedman with notched antlers. No, really.

an open letter from spam to you

Apologies, Mr. Barthelme. Enjoy.





Dear you,

I thought I'd be a good time.

I just found out that now that Cyrus is working, I've still got to move over both Pookadook and Neshel to my first real engineering project. With a *really* nasty virus that's been "pressing" since the weekend, I'm going to kick them out of the door later (also because Allison is working a lot). This isn't a slam against Americans, just the dumbasses who produce crap like this.

The UN is not a terrorist organization, despite my best efforts. Since Allison got into teacher's college yesterday, I got her a nice shiny iBook with DVD burning and everything. It's kind of weird being approved to buy a house. Allison is off to do the last (hopefully trivial) things; I think both of us are looking forward to finding a place to live. It's just the dumbasses who produce crap like this.

Try and break the beard-eating habit. Stop procrastinating instead of doing. Eat better. Spend money more wisely. In short, only in Canada can you get rid of some crud and still be a ball of flames.

I think I've finally crossed the part in my life where I've beaten panic, rush, hurry. The real moral of all this: who cares if they're bad? Work in the last few days has been insane.

As an aside, I was sleeping for a while.

I've still got to see him right now, but it's best not to tempt fate. Watch more movies. Who cares if they're bad?

Love,

Spam

take a crazy ride through time

What were they saying one year ago?

"The Germans are in for a very rude, very painful awakening. I’m just thankful that when faced with such ridiculous proposals the American military has the sense to say nein." Joe Carter, the evangelical outpost

"Wow. I just defended public education." Anodos, Mere Orthodoxy

"I've had it up to my eyelids with a government that thinks it's our nanny and not our servant." Ed Brayton, Dispatches from the Culture Wars

"I would rather be gnawed to death by weasels than go clothes shopping." but she's a girl...

"For some odd reason I thought that Michigan is a state full of apple trees and sane farmers. Shows how much I know about American geography and politics." echidne, Echidne of the Snakes

"You don’t need constitutional protections in a peaceful time, when everyone is treating everyone else well; you need “technicalities” most in times when people aren’t going to respect the rights of others. Hard cases may make bad law, but hard cases are why we have law." Timothy Sandefur, (the old) Freespace

"Somebody help me. I’m trapped in the Bizarro World! All of this is simply wrong." PZ Myers, Pharyngula

"If you ever find yourself forgetting just how mendacious and arrogant conservative columnists can be, stop by TownHall.com sometime. There you will find an almost endless stream of vitriol aimed at anyone who doesn't have an orgasm every time the President opens his mouth." Jason Rosenhouse, evolutionblog


"That's a very silly way to end a story."

"It's terribly silly. But it's also terribly serious."

"Do you really believe in the Creation of Us?"

"Believe in it? I don't really believe in anything else." Jason Kuznicki, Positive Liberty

deluge on the parade

It seems that gee-whiz oh-my-goodness papyrus story from a few days ago is more hype than hope.

[ht: Matt Anderson]

busy-ness

Carnivals a-plenty. Grand Rounds. Tangled Bank. Christian Carnival. Enjoy.


[ht: PZ Myers and Mark Olson]

come off it, Hugh

Hugh Hewitt, in typically bombastic fashion, calls various media outlets "junior officers in the 'Dictatorship of Relativism,'" approvingly citing the new pope's fabled phrasing. Hewitt then rips quotes out of context to somehow prove the "overwhelming hostility of the American media elite to the announcement of Benedict XVI's election."

Here's what Hugh left out:

From the Washington Post:

Pope John Paul II was famous for reaching out to other faiths, and there's reason to hope that his successor may continue that tradition. Pope Benedict XVI could do great good by expressing clear and open opposition to bigotry and religious prejudice in a world containing far too much of both. We also hope that this pope, like his predecessor, will stand up to the world's dictators and for the rights of Catholics and others to practice their faiths freely. Because of his church's presence in almost every country, the pope is unusually well placed to speak about human rights abuses, respect for human dignity and the rule of law.... It is an extraordinary pulpit that the former Cardinal Ratzinger has been given. If he uses it well, the whole world will benefit.

From the New York Times:

The new pope is, at 78, not likely to serve long enough to have the kind of impact his predecessor had. But the church has seen men elected as supposedly transitional figures in the past turn into agents for sweeping change. The beloved Pope John XXIII was a recent example. And in an era as fraught with peril as today's, anyone who occupies the throne of St. Peter is given overwhelming power to do good and responsibility to prevent harm. Today, the world can only wish Pope Benedict XVI strength and inspiration as he takes on this extraordinary burden of spiritual, moral and political leadership.

From the Boston Globe:

By all accounts, the new pope is a brilliant theologian with a stated commitment to preserve his faith without being blown off course by current events. He is also an eminent administrator. He is expected to eschew the well-traveled footsteps of John Paul II, opting instead to be a stay-at-home pope who concentrates on putting the Vatican's house in order. It is only natural, however, for observers around the world -- Christian and non-Christian -- to wonder how the election of the 265th pope will affect them.... The late John Paul II shared his successor's conservative views but connected people and issues on a personal level. He was a man of great range. Respecters of religion worldwide are hoping that the reign of Benedict XVI will be known for similar beneficence.

Lest it be said I'm being unfair to Hugh, think again; the LA Times editorial is definitely the shrillest of the bunch. It's the only one that might arguably have contempt "dripping from every page."

I don't know where Hugh has been for the past three weeks, but it's been all-pope-all-the-time in every wing of the MSM--even on (ack!) NPR, where nearly every lead story has been conclave this, conclave that. This is hardly hostility. The press's fascination with the ritual may stem from the nation's generally non-Catholic disposition (after all, only 25% of Americans are Catholics in the first place), but Hewitt has to cherry-pick to make the MSM look bad. For the most part, their coverage of the situation has been quite friendly.

A couple asides:

Anti-Catholic bigotry has deep roots in American Protestantism; when discussing "contempt" for Catholics, start there.

For bonus points, name the party of the first Catholic president. Hint: it wasn't the GOP.

Update: this news item from the New York Times is another example of the blatant non-hostility I'm talking about.

WASL WASL man

Amid protest, we start the Washington Assessment of Student Learning today, an eight-day, sixteen-hour marathon of a test. Security is tighter this year; the pressure to boost scores is sometimes (more realistically: rarely) an excuse for teachers to give students extra help. None of that here.

To proctor I go.

smarter than I: the legend continues

In the ongoing quest to bring publicity to those who deserve it, jpe over at l'esprit d'escalier has put together the very second "smarter than I," and in a smashingly creative fashion. Check it out!

Thanks to everyone who has participated so far--your entries have been excellent. The host for the next smarter than I will be announced soon... if you'd like to add your name to the list, email me at smarterthani at hotmail dot com.

sublime joy

This is simply amazing.

Now, in a breakthrough described as the classical equivalent of finding the holy grail, Oxford University scientists have employed infra-red technology to open up the hoard, known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, and with it the prospect that hundreds of lost Greek comedies, tragedies and epic poems will soon be revealed.

In the past four days alone, Oxford's classicists have used it to make a series of astonishing discoveries, including writing by Sophocles, Euripides, Hesiod and other literary giants of the ancient world, lost for millennia. They even believe they are likely to find lost Christian gospels, the originals of which were written around the time of the earliest books of the New Testament.

The original papyrus documents, discovered in an ancient rubbish dump in central Egypt, are often meaningless to the naked eye - decayed, worm-eaten and blackened by the passage of time. But scientists using the new photographic technique, developed from satellite imaging, are bringing the original writing back into view. Academics have hailed it as a development which could lead to a 20 per cent increase in the number of great Greek and Roman works in existence. Some are even predicting a "second Renaissance".

Astonishing. Profound. Humbling.

aw, shucks

Wow... leave for a day to move from one apartment to another, then come back online and your digital home's been trashed by spammers. Sorry, folks. Anonymous commenting is no longer an option.

movin' on up

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow we cart our worldly possessions across the street and up the stairs, as the wife and I are switching to a larger, higher, maybe even swankier apartment--as swanky as east Olympia allows. Oughtta be fun.

freedom for me, but not for thee

I enjoy honest debate over contentious subjects; the dialectic sharpens most when it is roughest. For that reason I have decided to jump into a fractious discussion concerning women's suffrage, which, really, is a debate over the merits of democracy. In a short phrase, should we let everyone vote, even if their voting pattern seems inimical to the common good?

I will turn aside from the statistics concerning women's voting records, which are as muddled as can be, and focus on the larger question, letting Mr. Day frame the debate:

Your problem, Jim, is you have fetishized the concept of voting. There is no "right to vote" in Natural Law or the US Constitution, I'm not even sure if the UN, which is pretty free with the rights it creates, has listed it along with the rights to food and shelter.

Simply false. As I have already pointed out, the very first article of the Constitution guarantees that at least one house of the legislature is directly elected. As James Madison explains in The Federalist Papers #39,

If we resort for a criterion to the different principles on which different forms of government are established, we may define a republic to be, or at least may bestow that name on, a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behavior. It is ESSENTIAL to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, or a favored class of it; otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans, and claim for their government the honorable title of republic. It is SUFFICIENT for such a government that the persons administering it be appointed, either directly or indirectly, by the people; and that they hold their appointments by either of the tenures just specified; otherwise every government in the United States, as well as every other popular government that has been or can be well organized or well executed, would be degraded from the republican character.

Again, contrary to Mr. Day's speculation, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights promotes a similar view of suffrage:

Article 21.

(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.

(2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.

(3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Voting is essential to our republican experiment. Along with term limits, separation of powers, and a bill of rights, it is part of the foundation of freedom.

I'll let a different libertarian provide the final words.

The right to vote is not a sanction for a gang to deprive other individuals of their freedom. Rather, because a free society requires a certain type of government, it is a means of installing the officials who will safeguard the individual rights of each citizen.

a skepting we will go

Skeptics' Circle is up. (Keep track of all the carnivals here or here.)

flip a coin

Can we show that God's existence is empirically more probable than not? Richard Swinburne thinks so. Joshua Golding, reviewing Swinburne's latest, has his doubts.

[hat tip: Brian Weatherson]