Cultural/Societal Differences Are Fascinating

China doesn't have a navy. Via Tom Ricks at Best Defense, a very interesting article on 10 myths about the (non-existent Chinese navy).  It reminds me, early in the Revolution the army or militia had some ships.  Matter of fact, the Army still has ships or boats, or something that floats.  (I think that's right--I remember being on guard duty at Ft. Belvoir and they had something nautical.)

Mankiw's Error of Perception

Greg Mankiw, Harvard economics prof, found The Social Network to be an enjoyable movie, but thought it unfairly portrayed Harvard undergrads as snobs, instead of the likable types he encounters. I hate  love to snark at Harvard, but there may not be a conflict. here: Harvard undergrads are so capable they can appear snobbish to the world outside and likable to those in authority over them, like a professor.

Black and Yglesias Are Wrong on McGovern

Matt Yglesias links to an a Jane Black piece from yesterday, implying George McGovern's chairing of a nutrition committee in 1977 which dissed red meat was a reason he lost his Senate seat in 1980.

This is a piece of wisdom from foodie movement literature--off hand I can't remember whether it was in Pollan or another writer.  Unfortunately, I believe it's wrong.

• I doubt the cattlemen ever were real strong supporters of McGovern's.  The wheat growers, maybe, because he supported farm programs, but not cattlemen.
• Searching the NY Times archive finds articles discussing the election outlook but none mentioning nutrition/red meat as an issue.  
• McGovern had won re-election in 1974 by 53 percent, so he wasn't exactly strongly entrenched.
• His opponent, James Abdnor, was a four-term congressman so had name recognition across South Dakota.
• NCPAC opposed McGovern, partially on abortion issues, partially because the conservatives loved to hate George.
• Finally, the head of the ticket in 1980 was Jimmy Carter, who was running against some aged ex-actor fellow.  As a result, 1980 was the worst year for a party in the US Senate since 1958, seeing McGovern, Frank Church, Warren Magnusson, Birch Bayh, John Culver, et. al. all go down to defeat.

See Wikipedia on the 1980 senate election in SD , the national senate election, and on McGovern.

This to me is an example of how easily whippersnappers who didn't live through events can adopt historical theories which suit their viewpoint, ignoring the complexity of reality while enjoying the ease of certitude.

[Updated: changed first sentence to be more fair to Black.]

Sentence of Oct 4

"the Tea Party activists on the right and the netroots activists on the left might be the political lobbies that do the most to preserve the integrity of the U.S. financial system."  Dan Drezner

Republican Senate Catch-22: Coburn Meet DeMint

Sen. Coburn of Oklahoma blocked the unanimous passage of five bills protecting various animals on the basis that ""The problems that are facing this country are so big and so massive that our attention ought to be focused on those large problems, not on five separate bills that have been proffered for special interest groups," Coburn said.

Meanwhile Sen. DeMint of South Carolina is blocking consideration of every bill with he doesn't agree.

Plain English

I remember when we had to certify each regulation published in the Federal Register was in "plain English".  This was back in the days of Jimmy Carter.  It was a pro forma requirement then; I don't expect much different from the new law.  It includes a requirement to change agency websites and to permit public input on compliance.  Problem is: while everyone complains about jargon, there's no one with the motivation to play policeman.  At best it will be providing another cudgel to be used by opponents of a program; they'll mock the regulations for not being clear. 

Good Bureaucracy Is Important for Development

Tim Harford posts on the ways in which past history impacts economic development, citing several research reports.  From his post:

Berger argues that the 7° 10’ line of latitude in Nigeria is important because different systems of taxation once prevailed on either side of it. To the south, officials relied on customs duties and other taxes on trade through Nigeria’s ports. North of the line, taxes were levied on people – which meant somebody had to arrange a census and keep proper accounts. The difference in bureaucratic capability has persisted for a century

$2,000 for a Meal?

The sports pages report an NFL rookie got stuck paying for dinner for 20 of his teammates (because he didn't do the usual rookie duties).  The bill was close to $50,000.  That's a bunch of food, and I suspect a bunch of pricey wine. Reminds me of an infamous dinner in London back before the crash: some financial types if I remember.

Mitch Daniels Is a Good Governor? But Not Digitally

Mitch Daniels, former director of OMB, current governor of Indiana, and possible Presidential candidate may have a good reputation in some circles, but apparently he didn't get Indiana moving in the IT area.

[Updated: David Brooks has picked him in the Times as the Republicans Presidential candidate in 2012 (see Althouse on this) but Cato only gave him a B for his governorship.]

The Amish and the Ig Nobels

The Ig Nobel prizes were awarded last, including one for this study :

In the late sixties the Canadian psychologist Laurence J. Peter advanced an apparently paradoxical principle, named since then after him, which can be summarized as follows: {\it 'Every new member in a hierarchical organization climbs the hierarchy until he/she reaches his/her level of maximum incompetence'}. Despite its apparent unreasonableness, such a principle would realistically act in any organization where the mechanism of promotion rewards the best members and where the mechanism at their new level in the hierarchical structure does not depend on the competence they had at the previous level, usually because the tasks of the levels are very different to each other. Here we show, by means of agent based simulations, that if the latter two features actually hold in a given model of an organization with a hierarchical structure, then not only is the Peter principle unavoidable, but also it yields in turn a significant reduction of the global efficiency of the organization. Within a game theory-like approach, we explore different promotion strategies and we find, counterintuitively, that in order to avoid such an effect the best ways for improving the efficiency of a given organization are either to promote each time an agent at random or to promote randomly the best and the worst members in terms of competence.

Where do the Amish come in?  As I understand the above, they identified this truth back in the 17th century.  The usual pattern in churches is for bishops (authority figures) to be selected by management, or maybe elected by a church body.  That leads to the Peter principle: a top programmer becomes the manager of programmers, a top analyst becomes a manager of analysts; even though neither knows anything about management.  The Amish use a different principle: they let God decide.  Or, to the secular-minded among us, they select bishops by lot.  They're one of the fastest growing religions, so it's proof the system works.