The uncoolness of planning and Lucky Harry Potter

Today I watched the third Harry Potter movie with my family. I’ve seen all six of the Harry Potter movies now. These Harry Potter movies offer outstanding entertainment. Their characters are endearing and the special effects are seamlessly woven into the enchanting stories. As entertaining as these Harry Potter movies are, it has become abundantly clear to me that Harry is extremely lucky. Yes, Harry is also brave and smart and he has a pure heart, but there is no reason for expect that he should have survived most of the life-threatening challenges he faces. You see, dark powerful magic abounds, so much so that Harry should have died several times in each of his movies, but doesn't die because he is extremely lucky. Harry usually survives only because of something that has nothing to do with planning. Instead, a good powerful magic person shows up to save him (or a magic animal), or the evil attacker inexplicably allows him to survive, or a solution that involves a magic object becomes apparent at the last possible moment. This tendency violates one of the rules traditional screenplay writing: the solution to the major conflict should have been made available to the audience throughout the movie (in the form of clues sprinkled about). Magic animals are fun, of course, but plots shouldn’t depend so heavily on them. Harry is only one in a long line of heroes who survives a long roller-coaster of adventures without ever sitting down to map out any sort of detailed plan of action. There might be a few times when our heroes pause to think of what to do next, but it’s only for a minute or two, and then someone yells “Let’s go,” and our heroes are off again. I wrote about our dearth of “planning heroes” several years ago. In America, we love adventure without planning. We simply expect to survive without planning; we’ll figure out the details later, if ever. Now it’s time for action/movement/adventure. We don’t have time for planning; we scoff at planning. It’s undignified.

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More questions on the reliability of voting machines

Sequoia voting machines has been troubled by allegations of vote irregularities before. (see here, here and here for typical examples). Now Slashdot is reporting that a new analysis of the computer code used by these machines indicates there is probably some truth to the allegations.

The existence of such code appears to violate Federal voting law: "Sequoia blew it on a public records response. ... They appear... to have just vandalized the data as valid databases by stripping the MS-SQL header data off, assuming that would stop us cold. They were wrong. The Linux 'strings' command was able to peel it apart. Nedit was able to digest 800-MB text files. What was revealed was thousands of lines of MS-SQL source code that appears to control or at least influence the logical flow of the election, in violation of a bunch of clauses in the FEC voting system rulebook banning interpreted code, machine modified code and mandating hash checks of voting system code."
Of course, this barely rises to the level of news in the formerly democratic USA.

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The CPSC’s searchable data base regarding dangerous products

Here's an idea that is so obvious and so important that we can expect to see great political pressure to dismantle it. In accordance with the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA), the Consumer Product Safety Comission (CPSC) is assembling its public database which will be a central location:

[W]here consumers can go to report product safety incidents, and to search for prior incidents and recalls on products they own, or may be thinking about buying. In conjunction with the web site launch, CPSC will also conduct a public awareness campaign to raise awareness of SaferProducts.gov.

The reason for the database is to "Protect and Inform the Public," according to the CPSC's recent report, which further provides that the database information:

• provides more timely dissemination of alerts and other information to the public and industry, • increases public access to product incident and recall data by making consumer product safety information available more rapidly, and • provides a publicly available, searchable, and easy-to-use database for use by consumers, industry, and CPSC staff. This CPSC database is not yet operational, but by March 11, 2011 (according to the current CPSC report), any consumer will be able to post complaints regarding dangerous products on this national database. The CPSC will review these complaints for accuracy. According to the CPSC,

All incident data submitted via SaferProducts.gov will be subject to CPSC review to verify its authenticity – that the submitters are who they say they are. Any data or incident reports found to be materially inaccurate will either be corrected or will not be published. Furthermore, CPSC will have the ability to remove or correct incident data that has already been published should it determine that the data is materially inaccurate.

This all sounds like a good idea, right? I think so. I would make this prediction, though. There is going to be a massive outcry from the Chamber of Commerce regarding this database and huge push in Congress to make the database less useful. Admittedly, such a database will embarrass and damage manufacturers of dangerous products. If misused, it could damage compliant manufacturers, and that would be a bad thing too. The focus should be on protecting consumers from dangerous products, though. If I'm sounding overly-concerned that the Chamber will try to bring down the database, it's because I just read an article called "The CPSC's Searchable Consumer Product Incident Database," in October 2009 issue of For the Defense, a publication of the Defense Lawyer Institute. The article repeatedly takes the position that consumers will be irresponsibly reporting incidents of dangerous products. Here's an excerpt:

Under the plan as currently proposed, the consumer submitting an incident report is not required to provide any proof or evidence to support the alleged incident. Instead, the consumer is only required to "click" on an electronic button next to an existing webpage statement that indicates that the consumer verifies "that the information is true and accurate to the best of my knowledge."

Horrors! Consumers will merely report what they think happened without any "'proof or evidence"! I suppose that the manufacturers will insist that nothing should go on the database unless either A) there is already a trial where the widow of the guy who was electrocuted by the toaster prevails or B) where the manufacturer and the consumer agree to the facts. Here's another excerpt from the lawyers representing the manufacturers (from the same DRI article):

Without procedures to prevent the disclosure of inaccurate reports pertaining to a company's products, the Internet publication of inaccurate, accessible, anonymous consumer product incident reports will be inevitable.

Anonymous? See the above portion of the CPSC report requiring the CPSC to verify "that the submitters are who they say they are." Inaccurate? See the above portion of the CPSC report: "Any data or incident reports found to be materially inaccurate will either be corrected or will not be published." So what would the manufacturers propose to protect consumers from products that explode, cut or burn consumers? Here's what I suspect: that there would be no publicly accessible CPSC database, and that most consumers would remain as they are today--in the dark.

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What’s up with economic reform? Not enough.

At Alternet, you can read Art Levine's detailed account of legal corruption of the economic "reform." It's not pretty, and the good guys are losing many of the important battles. Here's a passage, but go read the whole thing--it's well written and critically important:

So, the sleek, blond J.P Morgan lobbyist in a smart gray suit set off by a brightly colored scarf was able to saunter in shortly before the doors opened for the hearing to see just how many more loopholes could be added. (She declined to identify herself.) Like the evicted family in Michael Moore's new film being hired by the bank to clean out their own home, the banking-industry lobbyists in Washington have at long last created the ultimate trickle-down effect from the bailouts: hiring the jobless ( for $11 to $35 an hour) to hold their places in line to make sure there's no effective federal crackdown preventing more job-destroying speculation in credit default swaps and other derivatives.

Continue ReadingWhat’s up with economic reform? Not enough.

Onion pundits hammer Biden for recent gaffes

Pundits from Onion Network News got fed up with a recent string of miscues by Vice-President Joe Biden.
Gaffe-Prone Biden Embarrasses Nation Yet Again By Sneezing During Meeting As you can see, the "pundits" from The Onion were actually hammering real life pundits, and had to work extra hard to parody the absurd.

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