Shrill Will's House of Cards

Museum of Hideous Web Sites by Brilliant Analytic Thinkers

2007-07-04T18:34:00.000-07:00

Exhibit 1: John Derbyshire

Exhibit 2: David Friedman

Exhibit 3: Jerry Pournelle

Exhibit 4: Steve Sailer

Selective Breeding In the Bible

2007-07-02T02:39:00.000-07:00

Even now the ax is laid at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

Zombie Statistic

2007-07-01T15:20:00.000-07:00

National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru links to this article in the Weekly Standard claiming that President Bush received 44% of the Hispanic vote in a 2004 exit poll. Mr. Ponnuru says the statistic can't be killed.

Funny thing is, Steve Sailer killed it in 2004.

You go, girls

2007-06-01T12:42:00.000-07:00

Gateway Pundit has details on the handover of three Kurdish provinces to the Iraqi government.

But isn't this photo just rockin'?

Pump up the jam, pump it up
While your feet are stomping
And the jam is pumpin'
Look ahead, the crowd is jumping
Pump it up a little more
Get the party going on the dance floor
Seekers, that's where the party's at
And you'll find out, if you do that
All I want is a place to stay
Get your booty on the floor tonight, make my day

The Laws of Bureaucracy

2007-06-01T02:50:00.000-07:00

The following is a transcription from Anthony Down's book Inside Bureaucracy (1967). I transcribed this excerpt mainly for my benefit and as a reference for future posts.

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Chapter I--Central Hypotheses

Bureaucratic officials (and all other social agents) seek to attain their goals rationally.

Every official is significantly motivated by his own self-interest even when acting in a purely official capacity.

Every organization's social functions strongly influence its internal structure, and vice versa.

The Laws

Law of Increasing Conservatism. All organizations tend to become more conservative as they become older, unless they experience periods of very rapid growth or internal turnover. (Chapter II.)

Law of Hierarchy. Coordination of large-scale activities without markets requires a hierarchical authority structure. (Chapter VI.)

Law of Increasing Conservism. In every bureau, there is a inherent pressure upon the vast majority of officials to become conservers in the long run. (Chapter IX.)

Law of Imperfect Control. No one can fully control the behavior of a large organization. (Chapter XI.)

Law of Diminishing Control. The larger any organization becomes, the weaker is the control over its actions exercised by those at the top. (Chapter XI.)

Law of Decreasing Coordination. The larger any organization becomes, the poorer is the coordination among its actions. (Chapter XI.)

Law of Control Duplication. Any attempt to control one large organization tends to generate another. (Chapter XII.)

Law of Ever Expanding Control. The quantity and detail of reporting required by monitoring bureaus tends to rise steadily over time, regardless of the amount or nature of the activity being monitored. (Chapter XII.)

Law of Counter Control. The greater the effort made by a sovereign or top-level official to control the behavior of subordinate officials, the greater the efforts made by those subordinates to evade or counteract such control. (Chapter XII.)

Law of Free Goods. Requests for free services always rise to meet the capacity of the producing agency. (Chapter XV.)

Law of Non-Money Pricing. Organizations that cannot charge money for their services must develop nonmonetary costs to impose on their clients as a means of rationing their outputs. (Chapter XV.)

Law of Progress Through Imperialism. The desire to aggrandize breeds innovation. (Chapter XVI.)

Law of Self-Serving Loyalty. All officials exhibit relatively strong loyalty to the organization controlling their job security and promotion. (Chapter XVII.)

Law of Interorganizational Conflict. Every large organization is in partial conflict with every other social agent it deals with. (Chapter XVII.)

Law of Countervailing Goal Pressures. The need for variety and innovation creates a strain toward greater goal diversity in every organization, but the need for control and coordination creates a strain toward great goal consensus. (Chapter XVIII.)

The Little Joys

2007-05-27T21:07:00.000-07:00

Masturbation in the 21st century is a lot like being a Ron Paul supporter: It feels good, even a little bit exciting. You're not at all embarrassed to admit that you do it often, but some people still have a hard time reconciling this fact about you. In the end, though, it's all rather pointless and unfulfilling.

Ron Paul

2007-05-25T22:43:00.001-07:00

UPDATE (2213): I don't want to play this game all night, but it appears to be some truth to the claim that if you mention Ron Paul in your post (positively or negatively), you'll be saturated with his minions, who will no doubt set you straight about the great, honorable Ron Paul (aka Jesus Christ).

Howard Mortman and Lou Minatti have tried this experiment with similar results.

To be fair, I was rather nasty; I admit that. It would be reasonable for Ron Paul's supporters to take offense at me calling their man a lunatic.

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A friend of mine recently came up to me and told me how much he loves Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul. He went on and on about the man's virtues, as though he were the second coming of Christ (though he is old enough to have probably met him). I felt sorry for my friend as I was starting to suspect he was developing some sort of psychosis. What sane person would support such a lunatic for the highest office in the land? How utterly irresponsible of my dear friend.

Everyone knows Rep. Paul's rantings about "terrorism" and "the gold standard" are nothing more than sheer lunacy.

Bell Curve Excerpt

2007-05-23T01:25:00.000-07:00

This excerpt was taken from an FYI section in the introduction to the book The Bell Curve.

By the way, this is technically a test post. I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do with this thing.

Fact and Fiction About Immigration and Intelligence Testing

Two stories about early IQ testing have entered the folklore so thoroughly that people who know almost nothing else about that history bring them up at the beginning of almost any discussion of IQ. The first story is that Jews and other immigrant groups were thought to be below average intelligence, even feebleminded, which goes to show how untrustworthy such tests (and the testers) are. The other story is that IQ tests were used as the basis for the racist immigration policies of the 1920s, which shows how dangerous such tests (and the testers) are.

The first is based on the work done at Ellis Island by H. H. Goddard, who explicitly preselected his sample for evidence of low intelligence (his purpose was to test his test's usefulness in screening for feeblemindedness), and did not try to draw any conclusions about the general distribution of intelligence in immigrant groups. The second has a stronger circumstantial case: Brigham publish his book just a year before Congress passed the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924, which did indeed tip the flow of immigrants toward the western and northern Europeans. The difficulty with making the causal case is that a close reading of the hearings for the bill shows no evidence that Brigham's book in particular or IQ tests in general played any role.

It's the end of the world

2007-04-08T23:55:00.000-07:00

This is my first post. It's a very lovely post. Short and sweet and compact it is.