On the Wealth of Nations by PJ O'Rourke

Adam Smith wrote a book on capitalism in the late 1700's, but hardly anyone has read it. Mostly it's because the book, the Wealth of Nations, is so long-winded. O'Rourke summarizes the book for us, tells us which parts have been debunked and which parts still make sense today. There seems to be a very relevant part of the book which relates to trade deficits. Adam Smith says that no importance should be placed on trade deficits. Trade deficits were a concerns of old mercantilists. (I'm not so sure that Smith was right about this, but perhaps it's true that trade deficits aren't as bad as they might seem.) Also, the book questions why should Americans care if the Chinese keep their currency too weak. It's like complaining about a discount that you're getting. Other exporting countries might complain about the Chinese luring Americans away as customers, but mega-consumer Americans shouldn't.

O'Rourke's book is actually very funny and entertaining, something which the original book perhaps was not.

Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix (2007)

Imelda Staunton is very good here as the overzealous perfectionist minion of the ministry of magic. Radcliffe seems to have gotten dramatically older.

As with the rest of the series, it's a tough slog to try to believe the whole whatchamacallit. I'm just too old I guess -- yeah, yeah, I should just enjoy it, I know.

But I was reminded again of the strange parallels with Lord of the Rings in Harry Potter lore. I've mentioned before the invisibility cloak vs the one ring of power, but in this book, the mind to mind connection of protagonist and villian is manifested via some sort of spell rather than via a device, but seeing something so similar seems disappointingly stale. Did Tolkien use all the interesting ideas in the fantasy genre?

James Blunt: All the lost souls

Somehow I really like this album. He's got a really strange yet melodious voice. Well, perhaps it's an acquired taste.

Apocalypto (2007)

Taken as a plain old action flick, it's fine, great even. Think about how it depicts pre-colonial South American cultures, and you might be troubled. Perhaps it's accurate, perhaps not. Did they really enslave other tribes, treating them horrifically, and behave so capriciously and superstitiously? And is Mel Gibson, an arch-nemesis to all sensitive things in this world, homophobe, anti-semite, and xenophobe the right person to produce such a movie and lend confidence to its accuracy and sensitivity to these cultures. I think the answer is no.

The Good Year (2007)

Another chick flick. It's the slow and easy French way of life with an emphasis on wooing the woman against the British (American, really) life of making money money money and non-monogamy. Of course, we know how this ends. But the trip isn't all bad.

Sicko (2007)

I feel really bad about the American health care system now. Surely Moore exaggerates a little, but still, the whole thing seems so barbaric compared to other countries. You have to wait for the last part to feel really sad about what the American system has come to. I have a new respect for Hillary Clinton after this film even though while praising her early efforts as first lady to bring universal health care, Moore also slings some dirt in her direction about her accepting money from big pharma and HMOs in her Senate campaign.

Pacifica Quartet

I'm pretty into classical music, but for some reason I didn't dig the choices for a recent performance of this quartet. It was mostly Beethoven and Smetana. And too bad the cello seemed to have some strange squeaking sound coming from it.

It seemed to me a big contrast versus the Jupiter Quartet at the same venue. The Jupiter Quartet had much more interesting, strange and yet wonderful pieces and sound.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Updated for modern days with battles in the Middle East and Russia, it has very similar gameplay to the old WWII Call of Duty games. I guess Activision was right that perhaps WWII FPS genre was getting a little tired. But somehow I don't feel as excited playing COD4 as previous games. It's as if the 'Good War' made good and evil clear cut and made killing enemy soldiers in war more acceptable -- of course, there's just no real reasoning with why playing a war simulation is fun at all, but somehow it still is. The graphics are excellent, and the game continues the usual seamless cutscene to gameplay segues. There is a darkly hilarious part the game where it makes a joke of air-to-ground missile induced death and destruction -- from C-130 aircraft. There's a running commentary of detached killing: "there's some combatants exiting that building, engage them", "ka-boom", "you got 'em", "you're free to engage all those", "ka-boom", "wow! this will make quite a hilight reel".

You: On a Diet by Mehmet C. Oz and Michael F. Roizen

I don't particularly like the trend of the 'for dummies' series. And while this book isn't one of those, it has very similar aspects with tons of sidebars, weird and ugly diagrams and illustrations, and keyed highlight points. It's as if it's catering to an audience of idiots (oh that's right, it's almost in the series name) who won't pick up a book unless it has enough pictures. These readers seem to need a summary statement for every page. But I never understood the side bar idea. It just distracts you from the main content, and forces you to lose your place and makes it take even longer to get through the book.

As far as the content, it was surprisingly interesting to me up until chapter 11, discussing the biology of human weight gain, hormones and all. But after chapter 11 (the exercise chapter), the book starts talking about the psychological traps of real dieting -- which thankfully I've never done or had a need for. Probably it would be good for those who need to lose a lot of weight though.