Annual Dilbert Post

Scott Adams, the cartoonist who created Dilbert, likes to say that there are only nine news stories, constantly re-written.

Every once in awhile I like to check the newspaper with his list in mind, to see if he is right. I'll start with his wording unmodified by examples.

1. EXTREME WEATHER BATTERS SOMEPLACE

2. IDIOTS KILL INNOCENT PEOPLE

3. POLITICIAN DOES SOMETHING ILLEGAL

4. PRIMATE ATTEMPTS INAPPROPRIATE SEX

5. EXPERTS WARN OF FINANCIAL CALAMITY

6. BIG COMPANY BUYS ANOTHER BIG COMPANY

7. FAMOUS PERSON DOES SOMETHING INTERESTING

8. A SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY MIGHT BE USEFUL IN TEN YEARS

9. GOVERNMENT FAILS TO ACHIEVE A GOAL

Does that break-down hold up for the news of the past week or so?

1.  Extreme weather?  Check.

2. I'm sure somebody's idiocy (or worse) will be found at the center of the fire that killed students at Marist College, my alma mater, this week.

3.  A politician (specifically, a state legislator) is on trial in Harrisburg, PA for insisting that his egislative employees work on his campaigns on their taxpayer-paid time.

4. Primate attempts inappropriate sex?  Perhaps such monkey business explains the need for newer tests for simian HIV, herpes, etc., chronicled here.

5. Experts warn of financial calamity. South Africa considers a carbon tax as its contribution to limiting global warming. Industries there ... warn of calamity.

6. Big Company Buys Another Big Company. Apache and Cordillera Energy Partners.

7. Famous Person, i.e. assassination-attempt survivor Gabrielle Giffords, does something interesting, i.e. she resigns her seat in the US House, in a moving video message.

8. The scientific discovery that might be useful in ten years? Sediments found at bottom of ocean near Straits of Gibraltar could help guide "future oil and gas exploration, the researchers believe."

9. Government fails to achieve a goal. Too easy, but let's go there. There have been recent reports that the various recipients of the US space program's moon rocks, mostly  museums and labs with good connections, have been losing them.  Can't governments even achieve the goal of storing rocks properly?

Yes, I think Scott Adams has a point. We're in a loop!

Ambiguity or Sloppy Grammar

Back in the spring of this year, The New York Times ran an obituary of a certain infamous individual that began with these words: "Osama bin Laden, who was killed in Pakistan on Sunday, was a son of the Saudi elite whose radical violent campaign to re-create a seventh-century Muslim empire redefined the threat of terrorism for the 21st century."

click 

Now, they probably didn't mean to say that it is the Saudi elite in general whose radical violent campaign to recreate etc. has redefined the threat of terrorism for the 21st century.

This was, after all, an obit for Osama in particular, and they were saying that he is deserving of historic attention because of his own radical violent campaign, etc.

Or at least that's what they seem likely to have been trying to say! This is a classic instance (perhaps!) of the grammatical mistake known as a misplaced modifier. The phrase "son of the Saudi elite" is intended as a modifier for Osama bin Laden, but is misplaced so it looks like the "Saudi elite" is the subject on which the rest of the sentence is predicated.

They could have avoided the double-takes if they had written, say, "A son of the Saudi elite, Osama bin Laden, was killed in Pakistan on Sunday, ending his radical, violent campaign....which redefined...."

But my Machiavellian streak suggests that maybe this isn't carelessness, maybe they did mean to indict the whole Saudi elite, under the guise of an obit for an individual.

Hurrah for Bollywood

At a time of emergency rule in Pakistan, when the military can't do anything about the Taliban but it can lock up lawyers and independently-minded judges at will ... the brightest ray of hope may come from Bollywood, the renowned film industry of the giant and often adversarial nation to Pakistan's south.

A new movie, called "Goal" (which is, as you might guess from the title, about soccer/aka football) is the first Bollywood movie to be exhibited in Pakistan since 1965.

Bread and circuses? Is this a case of a Caesar trying to keep the people content with entertainment?

It's possible to see it cynically. But the lifting of the ban on Bolywood movies is also inevitably an opening of the nation to influences from the south, and the lessening of an enmity between two nations that are both now nuclear.

Its a good thing. Praise Allah. And Vishnu.