Month: October 2009

Andreas Kluth praises a collection of forgotten idioms:

Bhalla, a self-confessed monoglot, has collected idioms from the four corners of the world (eight corners, in Hindi) and returned, as he puts it, with “souvenir collections of linguistic gems". Why would the Germans have a single word that means the “disappointment one feels when something turns out not nearly as badly as one had expected”? Something about that seems quintessentially German, as Bhalla muses.

The official definition of an idiom, he explains, is “a group of words always used together as a phrase, where the meaning of the phrase isn’t clear from the meaning of the words in it.” For example, he kicked the bucket (or, in French, “he passed his weapon to the left” or “she swallowed her birth certificate”). Idioms are therefore “presolved cryptic word puzzles” or “fossilised metaphors” whose meanings were clear when they were coined but have since taken on a life of their own.

A couple of small milestones for the Dish. Since January 2004 (when we started measuring, but four years after the Dish started), we've now passed 200 million separate visits and 300 million pageviews. Blows my mind.

Jacob Sullum looks at new research in the field.

Nicholas Tabarrok, an independent film producer, describes the economics of the industry:

One interesting thing that I've always found about the film business from an economic point of view is that unlike in any other business I can think of, the cost of manufacturing the product has no affect on the purchase cost to the consumer.  For example Honda can make a cheaper car with less features and cheaper finishes than BMW without losing all of their customers to the superior car because they sell their product for less.  You spend less to make something, you charge less for it.  Makes complete and obvious sense.  Not so in the film business.

I am an independent film producer and I make films that typically cost somewhere between $5M and $10M.  But when I make, say, an $8M film it has to compete at the same price level as the studios' $80M or $100M film.  It costs the consumer the same $12 at the multiplex (and whatever it costs to rent a DVD from Blockbuster these days) for either film.   There is no price advantage to the consumer for choosing to see a less expensive film.  This naturally makes it terribly difficult for smaller films to find an audience.  I find this quite fascinating and I can't readily think of another industry like it.

Free Exchange adds two cents.

(Hat tip: POV)

It's really fricking hard to eliminate opium in Afghanistan.

[Re-posted from earlier today]

I've had some coffee now. Reading through all the reactions, compiled by Chris and Patrick, there are two obvious points: this is premature and this is thoroughly deserved.

Both are right. I don't think Americans fully absorbed the depths to which this country's reputation had sunk under the Cheney era. That's understandable. And so they also haven't fully absorbed the turn-around in the world's view of America that Obama and the American people have accomplished. Of course, this has yet to bear real fruit. But you can begin to see how it could; and I hope more see both the peaceful intentions and the steely resolve of this man to persevere. 

This president has done a huge amount to bring race relations in this country to a different place, which is why the far right has become so vicious in attacking him and lying about him. They know he threatens their politics of division and rule. He has also directly addressed the Muslim world, telling some hard truths, and played a small role in evoking a similar movement of hope and change in Iran, and finally told the Israelis to stop cutting their nose off to spite their face.

I like Shimon Peres' statement, reprinted in a useful compendium of world reaction at the Lede:

“Very few leaders if at all were able to change the mood of the entire world in such a short while with such a profound impact. You provided the entire humanity with fresh hope, with intellectual determination, and a feeling that there is a lord in heaven and believers on earth.” Mr. Peres, who won the peace prize with Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat in 1994 following the Oslo Accords, added: “Under your leadership, peace became a real and original agenda. And from Jerusalem, I am sure all the bells of engagement and understanding will ring again. You gave us a license to dream and act in a noble direction.”

Right now, we do not know where that direction will ultimately lead. We do know that we were facing a spiral of conflict that, unchecked, could have taken the world to the abyss. I see this prize as an endorsement of his extraordinary reorientation of world politics, and as an encouragement to see it through. In the midst of our domestic battles, and their ill-temper (from which I have not been immune lately), this is an attempt to tell us: look up for a moment, see how far we've come in pivoting away from global conflict, and give this man a break for his efforts and the massive burden he now bears.

And, in the darkness that still threatens, know hope.

So, some dude won the Peace Prize. Reax here, here, and here. Sully reacted here and here. And some fantastic riffs here, here, and here. Fallows analyzed the speech – which will surely win another prize.

Elsewhere in the blogosphere… not much. Goldblog commented on Oren, British conservatives threw a coming out party, Goldfarb is at least down with the gays, and Colbert decimated Beck. Also, this series of typos was pretty great.

Not so great: Ann Althouse. She responded to the controversy with cant and gets pwned by her own words.

— C.B.