Monthly Archives: March 2010

Professor Defines Modern Dictators

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April 1, Birmingham, AL: A new software tool from the University of Alabama may help resolve the lingering confusion as to who is a dictator. Prof. Ted Snydman was inspired to develop his Automated Dictator Detector software (ADD) when he heard actor Sean Penn emphatically state that Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez was not in fact a dictator.

“I had always thought of Chavez as a dictator, and I wondered how Mr. Penn came to his conclusions,” said the political science professor. “That is why I developed the ADD, to objectively determine who is a dictator.”

The ADD software analyzes video footage of individuals to correlate such dictator traits as lengthy rambling speeches, arm waiving, obesity in comparison to his fellow countrymen, and outrageous fashion sense. The software grades individuals on a percentage confidence scale.

Mr. Chavez, for example, scored a 98 on Snydman’s dictator confidence scale. His arm waiving speeches ramble on indefinitely about any topic except for Venezuela’s crippling electricity shortage and hyperinflation. His bright red clothes correlate well with someone who is out of touch with what regular Venezuelan’s wear. Finally, Chavez’s potato like physique suggests someone who is immune from the suffering of average Venezuelans.

“Hugo Chavez’s 98 score on the dictator scale clearly confirms that he is an elite cruel dictator who is willing to ruin his country to maintain power. I think Mr. Penn should consider my research into ADD before going further with his Chavez infatuation.”

Among Dr. Snydman’s other favorite dictators, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi scored especially high. “Interestingly, Gaddafi scored even higher on the ADD scale when we set the software for a female subject,” the researcher added.

Snydman sees further improvement in his ADD software. “We would like to consider people like N. Korea’s Kim Jong Ill whose isolation from reality has caused them to think they are of normal height instead of the pudgy midget trolls they actually are.” Sometimes Snydman’s ADD software simply does not work, as in the case of celebrity Rosie O’Donnell. “Even though O’Donnell appears to be an obese blathering fool with no connection to reality, the software scored her as a zero. It’s as if she is speaking in some foreign language that is beyond comprehension.”

Snydman was particularly fond of O’Donnell’s nemesis, Donald Trump. “While Trump’s overall ADD score was unimpressive, he earned a perfect score in megalomania, and self-satisfaction. We actually calibrated much of our software based on Mr. Trump.”

What of Mr. Penn himself? Snydman ran his ADD software on recent footage of Mr. Penn ranting about how his political enemies should die painfully from rectal cancer. “Mr. Penn ranks above average on our dictator scale, but his behavior is only 60% consistent with an insane third world dictator. He has the delusion that whatever he thinks is the unassailable truth, but his speeches are fairly short and to the point. I am afraid that Mr. Penn will need several years more development before anyone confuses him with a power hungry tyrant.”

Other celebrities also fail to make the dictator grade. While V.P. Al Gore scores high in obesity and detachment from the rules he would impose on others, Snydman says Gore peaked too soon. “While it is expected of dictators to make rambling nonsensical speeches, the Vice President should have consolidated his power before his insane claims about sea levels rising 20 feet.” Still Snydman says Gore has potential. “Anyone who expects people to take his environmental haiku poetry seriously has ADD potential.”

Snydman thinks his software can provide a valuable service to people all around the world. “For some reason, people rarely understand that their leaders are becoming megalomaniac dictators until it is too late. I hope my software will enable people to recognize the tell-tale signs of dictatorship while they still have the power to remove the junior tyrants from office.”

Signs of leaders in danger of slipping into dictators include: an ideological bent that makes the leader think he knows better than the majority of his people, a sense that the leader can run private institutions better under government control, repeatedly referring to new laws and regulations as “gifts” to his people, and a tendency to paint his political enemies as violent threats to his party’s safety.

WW III?

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As Speaker Pelosi readies her final Napoleonic charge in her battle for socialized health care, it is no exaggeration to say the soul of the American way lies in the balance. More likely than not, Monday will see the obituary of free enterprise in the health care marketplace. The US is facing Europe’s rationing of care and the death of innovation, and the entire world will be worse off for it.

For the past century, nearly every improvement in people’s lives came from the free market system of the US. The great advancements from muddy subsistence in countries such as Japan, Chile, and Brazil are the sole result of adopting the free market system invented by the US. The great 20th Century tragedies that killed nearly 100 million people were the direct result of socialist policies in countries like Russia, China, Germany, and Cambodia.

Of course Pres. Obama and Pelosi are hoping to steer the US to the kind of socialism found in Sweden, Singapore, or Canada. Socialism light – heavy government control but with a friendly face. Undoubtedly Sweden has no gulags and is a pleasant, if hum-drum supermodel factory. Why is it, then, that some socialist regimes devolve into genocide, while a few find a tolerable status-quo?

The reason why Sweden can make autos and plastic furniture is because the US invented the assembly line and plastics. The reason Paul Ehrlich’s Population Bomb never killed huge swaths of Africa and Asia is because the US invented the green revolution that has fed billions more people than Ehrlich ever imagined. The reason Germany and later Russia didn’t control all of Europe is because the US fought wars to protect its ungrateful allies. All these things were gifts to the world from the US way of life.

It is comparatively easy to build a socialist paradise when the US spends $400 billion+ each year to defend itself and its allies. It is comparatively easy for the Finns to build cell phones when the US invented the integrated circuit. For the past century, the US has been the world’s invention factory, and it has never complained when another country has prospered by copying US advances. The reason many nations have raced up to the US standard of living, but never beyond, is because they benefited from technology transfer.

Obama and Pelosi seem to want a piece of the socialist pie. They seem to envy the impression that the US’s socialist allies often lead a harmonious life free from the discord of capitalism. What the leftists in Washington don’t see is that the socialist paradises cannot exist without a free market US. The entire recorded history of Europe was constant warfare until the US allied with its free states. The entire history of mankind was serfdom under tyrants, thugs, and kings until the US set a new way with its invention of a Federalist Republic.

If tomorrow Pelosi puts another nail in the coffin of US exceptionalism, what will become of the world’s factory of invention, freedom, and opportunity? Will some other country take up the role of providing the world the ideas it needs to remain peaceful, healthy, and prosperous? Perhaps the Czech Republic, with its low taxes, solid plan for energy independence and capitalist ideals will lead a band of likeminded new-Europe nations into a new golden age. Perhaps not; just as likely is a new world war.

History has borne out the theories of F.A. Hayek that a major collapse from freedom into collectivism as contemplated by Obama and Pelosi breeds aggressive dictators. Without a strong US and its allies supported by its economy, who will stop Iran from dominating the Middle East and much of Southern Asia? Who will keep China on a moderate track with Taiwan? Who will invent the technologies to feed the exploding population of India? The result of abandoning the US’s engine of innovation and prosperity will be ugly indeed.

People rightly worry about their health premiums rising to cover those who wait until they are sick to buy insurance, but the real core of Obama and Pelosi’s socialist agenda is the end of freedom and prosperity for the entire world, and along with it the relative peace of the past 65 years. Not to overstate it, but tomorrow is important.

Surprise! Consumers Aren’t Helpless Morons

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The European Union’s uber-bureaucracy spent most of the last decade prosecuting Microsoft for monopoly abuse. While the EU could have looked to the US’s decade of Microsoft prosecution to see how pointless regulating the swift moving technology industry is, the feisty Europeans had to make their point. The EU’s complaint settled on the fact that Microsoft bundles its web browser, IE, with every copy of Windows. Never mind that every other operating system comes with a web browser too, the EU reckoned that because of Windows’ popularity, Microsoft was abusing its power by forcing IE on consumers. The EU crusade against Microsoft is yet another tale of the government waging a war against problems that do not exist and about which nobody cares.

Of course web browsers are not hard to come by. Anyone with an internet connection can download a free browser such as FireFox, Chrome, or Safari. Indeed many people do; about 31% of internet traffic comes from FireFox browsers. All that is not good enough, said the EU, which declared that Microsoft was cheating consumers by giving them a free copy of IE with each copy of Windows. Microsoft objected, stating the obvious that IE was free and available for other platforms besides Windows. The EU persisted, ultimately fining Microsoft $1.35bln for the hideous crime of forcing consumers to download their own copies of FireFox. The EU argued that by starting consumers off with IE, they were unlikely to try other browsers and were thereby disadvantaged.

The billion Euro fine slowly got Microsoft’s attention. Initially Microsoft planned to sell a special ‘E’ version of Windows that had no browser; the obvious problem being that one needs a browser to download another browser. The EU declared that this approach was illegal – essentially regulating what Microsoft had to sell in the wake of regulating what Microsoft could not sell. Microsoft, now in full retreat, created a program that allowed consumers to choose from a number of popular browsers. Still not good enough, for the list was not randomly generated – consumers were so helpless they would choose the first browser on the list. Microsoft randomized the list, finally satisfying the EU do-gooders. The case was closed.

What did Europe gain by hounding Microsoft for nearly a decade, fining it a billion Euros, and forcing consumers to download a browser before they could start using the internet? Were people freer to choose a different browser? Surprise, Engadget reported this week that the proportion of Europeans using IE, Firefox, and the other popular browsers did not change at all. Bundling IE with Windows had nothing to do with consumers’ browser choice.

Could it be that consumers were perfectly capable of choosing their own browsers all along? Could it be that 7 out of 10 internet users actually prefer IE? Could it be that consumers don’t need to be protected from IE when they can download competing products for free? Yes indeed, consumers are not helpless morons after all; they do not need the government to protect them from evil Microsoft and its free software.

Considering what a pile of nonsense the whole EU case was from the start, Microsoft probably should not have fought the EU for so long. Surely Microsoft’s shareholders could have used the money better than the EU. Still, it is hard to say what possessed the EU to channel Captain Ahab in the first place. Perhaps, like many bureaucrats, Microsoft’s tormenters were sadistic egotists. Surely the EU now realizes that consumers are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves, especially when they have free and readily available alternatives from which to choose. Nope, it turns out; the EU just launched an investigation into Google’s search engine dominance.