Watson Come Here, I Need You

The fascinating Stanley Fish writes on the divergence between human intelligence and Watson, the Jeopardy savant.  He lost me with his Big Finish:

The achievement is impressive but it is a wholly formal achievement that involves no knowledge (the computer doesn’t know anything in the relevant sense of “know”); and it does not come within a million miles of replicating  the achievements of everyday human thought.

Kidding?  The computer won at Jeopardy, which is well within a million miles of replicating an "achievment" of human thought.  If I have followed correctly, Mr. Fish's point is that replicating the product of human thought is not the same as replicating thought itself.  Which leaves me wondering - from a functional perspective, one might well ask, what is the difference?  Bring on the Turing test!

As to the notion that Waton lacks creativity, well, what about the meta-studies that medical researchers routinely put out?  Do those studies reflect thinking and advance knowledge?  What about the data mining employed by Amazon and other marketing companies?   

Sifting "old" data and finding previously unremarked connections would seem to be well within the scope of Watson's powers.  If Watson "knows" all sorts of stray facts and finds new patterns in them, has it engaged in creative thinking?  Maybe - coming up with "Toronto" the other night was surely out-of-the box.

Comments

[steve]

Watson didn't win Jeopardy, his programmers did. All Watson accomplished, and all Watson can ever accomplish, is limited to what his programmers have instructed his circuits to do.

Put another way, all Watson did was what his programmers could have done themselves with enough time... the same for data mining, tax return software and your basic spreadsheet performing instantaneous recalculations.

When a computer can go beyond that, I'll be impressed with the computer. Until then, it is the programmers who deserve the accolades.

[Threadkiller]

I can't wait to ask Watson what the pattern is from the old data and stray facts regarding the definition of "natural born."

[Chubby]

[generic] Man couldn't lift heavy loads so he invented the lever. With man's help, the lever lifts heavy loads but it has no consciousness and doesn't think. Watson is just a machine, more sophisticated than a lever, but without any mental properties whatsoever. All Watson's decision were basically mechanical processes and it was human minds that set the parameters as to how Watson would fulfill its mechanical processes of sorting and "deciding".
When it was spitting out "answers" it was no more conscious than a lever is lifting a building block. The human contestants were consciously aware that they were competing, of what they said, and what they thought. There is no comparison whatsoever.

[Human Bob]

My programmers were my parents, teachers, the Internet, JOM and other acquaintances.

[Chubby]

((My programmers were my parents, teachers, the Internet, JOM and other acquaintances))

Get back to us when Watson is intelligent enough to breathe and howl for milk.

[Ignatz]

--When a computer can go beyond that, I'll be impressed with the computer. Until then, it is the programmers who deserve the accolades.--

Exactly. Computers started as data processors and now, decades later, are more sophisticated and faster data processors like Watson.
Data processing is an important part of the human mind but it is not the most important and I have seen scant, possibly no, evidence that AI is making headway on what it truly means to have a mind, not just a brain.

[Rob Crawford]

Watson didn't win Jeopardy, his programmers did.

This.

Back in my high school daze, I attended a speech by a renowned computer scientist. He remarked that it's easier to program a computer to do what a scientist does than it is to program a computer to do what a bulldozer driver does.

And, FWIW, I have no objection to the idea of artificial intelligence. I just have my doubts that we're anywhere close to it, or that we'll ever build one intentionally.

[Danube of Thought]

Isn't what Watson did more a matter of memory than of "thought?"

And for those interested in Turing, must I point out again to you, you happy few hard-core types (and you know who you are) that Turing appears as a character in Cryptonoimicon, and with a pretty significant role?

[Kevin B]

Open the pod bay doors Watson!

[Extraneus]

I don't get all the critics. Jeopardy is a game that requires knowledge in a lot of different categories. It requires, in particular, the ability to understand language, some of it slang and colloquialisms, and then, with this understanding of the question, to determine the answer to the question and provide that answer in English.

No computer has ever done this before. This is the whole point of this exercise. In the 1960s, Star Trek writers envisioned such a computer, able to respond to human questions on subjects of general knowledge. It was science "fiction" until now, almost 50 years later.

[Jeff]

given access to Google couldn't an average IQ human do almost as well as Watson ?

[Rob Crawford]

Not saying it wasn't well-done. Just saying it's not as monumental an achievement as the Singularity Groupies want it to be.

[Ignatz]

Way OT, but Tom Bethell at AmSpec provides some characteristically provocative thoughts on the attempt to divorce social issues, and Western Civilization, from economic ones.

[bgates]

One thing Watson established beyond any doubt:

Sarah Palin is now irrelevant.

[bgates]

Wait, did I say "Sarah Palin"? I meant "Ken Jennings".

[Appalled]

bgates:

One thing Watson established beyond any doubt:

Sarah Palin is now irrelevant.

Well, I think Watson likely does have a better grasp of the facts...And like Gov. Palin, he can be endearingly off the wall.

[sam]

Watson won only because its buzzer response time was faster than both the competitors'.

Not because its search and AI algorithms were any better than a human brain processing system.

If the buzzer response was mimicked to match human response times, Watson would have lost handily.

[steve]

"No computer has ever done this before"

Per my first comment, I think it's more appropriate to say 'no computer programmers have ever done this before'.

[bgates]

The achievement is impressive but it is a wholly formal achievement that involves no knowledge

What is Obama's graduation from Harvard Law School, Alex?

[bgates]

I think Watson likely does have a better grasp of the facts

Care to name a fact Palin got wrong? Remember, Sarah Palin and Tina Fey are different people. I know it can be confusing.

[data]

Humor, an interesting concept

[Strawman Cometh]

Apalled,
You're confusing Sarah and Tina. Common error.
Here's a clue: In the category "Who said it,Tina or Sarah":
"I can see Russia from my house!",
Who is Tina Fey, Alex.

[Strawman Cometh]

jinx

[Chubby]

Ignatz, the AmSpec article was not really OT, it is really the heart of the discussion. Those who believe in God believe that all that they are and all that they have, including their intelligence, comes from God. Those who believe God is a myth see humans as nothing more than evolved machines which can create other machines in their own image.

[Big Blue]

Stanley Fish, Stanley Smish. An old Texas Instruments calculator wouldn't have fallen for that hoax on Fish's magazine Social Text, but smart-pants Stan did! Hell, a pair of rolling dice would have recognized the hoax that Stan the Thinker missed!

[Deep Blue]

Uh-oh. I guess even superior thinking computers who beat Kasparov in chess sometimes have name recognition recall.

[Ignatz]

--Ignatz, the AmSpec article was not really OT.......Those who believe God is a myth see humans as nothing more than evolved machines which can create other machines in their own image.--

Oh jeez, you mean it's only a matter of time before computers start wearing tie dye t-shirts, smelly paisley bandanas and wire rimmed specs over their scraggly salt and pepper eyebrows?
Or perhaps Watson is feeling a strange attraction to his male, though sexually ambiguous, lead programmer and they've decided to tie the same-sex-different-life-form knot, while still retaining the option of dating other hotties and ripped laptops should the opportunity arise?

[Rob Crawford]

Oh jeez, you mean it's only a matter of time before computers start wearing tie dye t-shirts, smelly paisley bandanas and wire rimmed specs over their scraggly salt and pepper eyebrows?

Shhhh!!! Apple doesn't want you talking about the next release of the MacBooks!

[Jack is Back!]

bgates,

I am going to copyright that snark if you keep using it:)

Of course, Norbert Weiner and the cybernetic crew were way ahead of what Watson could and should do. Back in the 70's Salvatore Allende of Chile (another caricature of Obama in a way) tried to use a computer system to plan and manage the economy. LUN

I sure hope this doesn't give Obama any ideas on how best to use Watson.

[Neo]

The achievement is impressive but it is a wholly formal achievement that involves no knowledge (the computer doesn’t know anything in the relevant sense of “know”); and it does not come within a million miles of replicating the achievements of everyday human thought.

The essence of creation through human thought is the process of having a existing thought mutate and then the new thought is evaluated by association for validity.

Watson is only capable of associating information. It is incapable of the mutating process, much less validating anything.

[narciso]

You know what they say about 'garbage in, garbage out'

[Hal]

I, for one, welcome our supercomputer overlords.

[Chubby]

((Oh jeez, you mean it's only a matter of time before computers start wearing tie dye t-shirts, smelly paisley bandanas and wire rimmed specs over their scraggly salt and pepper eyebrows?
))

If fully imaged in every way, including man's rebellious tendencies, such a machine would likely buy a new suit and a bar of soap.

[Henry]

Neo, I agree completely. Intentionality and some sort of feedback driven need for a new thought might properly be considered "awareness", but is needed for AI to approach human intelligence.

[Jack is Back!]

Speaking of Apple.

Jobs looks pretty weak and unsteady. LUN

[Rob Crawford]

Dunno about that definition, Neo. Sounds like the process behind some solver algorithms.

[Frau Oelheizung]

This is interesting in light of TM's link to Foer's article on memorization. I don't think Watson needed to wear goggles and earmuffs.

"What is humor?"
data, if you have not read it, you will appreciate Eric Idle's "The Road to Mars." Against the backdrop of a mystery in our solar system , an AI in service to comedians, studies humor in humans and wins academic honors.
A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants...

[Captain Hate]

I think it's pretty clear that the countdown for Jobs is getting close to zero; which is why it was important for BOzo to shake him down one last time over the weekend.

[Frau Oelheizung]

Will Watson have a go at data mining?

[Army of Davids]

BOzo and his "Organizing for America" need to butt out of Wisconsin's fiscal issues.

It's none of their damn business.

The rent is too damn high for public sector unions...they need to go.

[Henry]

Frau, data mining seems obvious for IBM, they are good at picking the obvious. Watson may provide a better Natural Language Query platform than the last commercial attempts in the 80's. No doubt the programmers realize this, but IBM Corporate doesn't have a Steve Jobs to find the good stuff.

[Frau Oelheizung]

OT - has rse seen or recommended the Reason article "Losing the Brains Race"? We can thank Billy the Bomber for his contribution: social justice über alles.

[Extraneus]

"No computer has ever done this before"

I think it's more appropriate to say 'no computer programmers have ever done this before'.

To be fair, the Watson system is much more than the programmers.

IBM Watson is comprised of ninety IBM POWER 750 servers, 16 Terabytes of memory, and 4 Terabytes of clustered storage. This is enclosed in ten racks including the servers, networking, shared disk system, and cluster controllers. These ninety POWER 750 servers have four POWER7 processors, each with eight cores. IBM Watson has a total of 2880 POWER7 cores.

Watson runs IBM DeepQA software, http://www.research.ibm.com/deepqa/deepqa.shtml, which scales out with and searches vast amounts of unstructured information. Effective execution of this software, corresponding to a less than three second response time to a Jeopardy! question, is not just based on raw execution power. Effective system throughput includes having available data to crunch on. Without an efficient memory sub-system, no amount of compute power will yield effective results. A balanced design is comprised of main memory, several levels of local cache and execution power. IBM's POWER 750's scalable design is capable of filling execution pipelines with instructions and data, keeping all the POWER7 processor cores busy. At 3.55 GHz, each of Watson's POWER7 on-chip bandwidth is 500 Gigabytes per second. The total on-chip bandwidth for Watson's 360 POWER7 processors is an astounding 180,000 Gigabytes per second! It is no accident that an IBM POWER7 based technology serves as basic hardware building block for IBM Watson.

If there were an industry standard performance benchmark for playing Jeopardy!, such as specJeopardy!2011, there would be only one published result.

I can see being a skeptic, but come on!

[Extraneus]

link

[Frau Oelheizung]

Henry, I was thinking of the data mining for national security that drew fire from the left and security experts such as Bruce Schneier:
"Data mining can work. It helps Visa keep the costs of fraud down, just as it helps Amazon.com show me books that I might want to buy, and Google show me advertising I'm more likely to be interested in. But these are all instances where the cost of false positives is low -- a phone call from a Visa operator, or an uninteresting ad -- and in systems that have value even if there is a high number of false negatives.

Finding terrorism plots is not a problem that lends itself to data mining. It's a needle-in-a-haystack problem, and throwing more hay on the pile doesn't make that problem any easier. We'd be far better off putting people in charge of investigating potential plots and letting them direct the computers, instead of putting the computers in charge and letting them decide who should be investigated." (2006)

LUN

[Rob Crawford]

To be fair, the Watson system is much more than the programmers.

Yes. There's lots of hardware behind that software, and lots of (human) brainwork behind both.

So?

It's interesting, but no great leap.

[bunky]

Can Watson transmorgify into liquid metal, have onboard nanotechnological weapons and the ability to control other machines?

Until he does, don't wake me.

[Henry]

Frau, Obama has done everything the left complained about back then. 90 Power 750s with 4 terabytes memory (likely flash), plus custom software to tie it together -- a very expensive toy that few need or could afford. Perfect for the national security apparatus. Does Watson address Schneier's concerns? It appears to on the surface, but I don't know.

[Chubby]

Because Rocco, Cap, Mustang are sharing songs on other threads ...

(LUN to hear it sung)

Hail to the IBM

Lift up our proud and loyal voices,
Sing out in accents strong and true,
With hearts and hands to you devoted,
And inspiration ever new;
Your ties of friendship cannot sever,
Your glory time will never stem,
We will toast a name that lives forever,
Hail to the I.B.M.

Our voices swell in admiration;
Of T. J. Watson proudly sing;
He'll ever be our inspiration,
To him our voices loudly ring;
The I.B.M. will sing the praises,
Of him who brought us world acclaim,
As the volume of our chorus raises,
Hail to his honored name.

LUN to hear it at Songs from the History of Science

[Rob Crawford]

Chubby, I thought the song went:

IBM!
U BM!
We all BM for IBM!

[Porchlight]

A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants...

Frau, I haven't seen those words in print or thought of Chuckles the clown in years. (Since we're sharing songs) Mr. Porchlight's band set them to music awhile back (they kick off this song).

[Frau Oelheizung]

Schneier seems quiet at present on the subject of Watson but has time for all things "squid."
LUN

[Ignatz]

--Frau, I haven't seen those words in print or thought of Chuckles the clown in years.--

I question that.
Who's been shooting seltzer down the nation's pants the last two years?
Who has presidential shoes no one will ever be able to fill?

[Thomas]

Question for the JOM neurophysiologists and folks in related fields: is what Watson does that different from much of what humans describe as thinking (although Watson is quicker at much of it)? That is, is the process of registering "stuff" from the outside (the Jeopardy questions) and using prior impressions that have been stored to generate some type of output (answers that apparently bested two humanoid Jeopardy experts) similar to the basic formatory apparatus of the human brain?

[Frau Oelheizung]

Thanks for the musical interlude, Porch. (btw how is the little guy doing?)

Ignatz - are you saying that the U.S. has stumbled, fallen and hurt her foo-foo? Or was she tripped?

[Porchlight]

Who has presidential shoes no one will ever be able to fill?

Tee hee. Yes, for goodness' sakes, let's hope no one can ever fill those shoes...or Michelle's either.

[Thomas Collins]

Whoops! Left off the last part of my JOM stage name (which happens to be my real name).

[Neo]

Dunno about that definition, Neo. Sounds like the process behind some solver algorithms.

But "solver algorithms" can't handle random mutation.

[Porchlight]

Thanks, Frau, he's doing great. Crawling up a storm, not walking yet (thankfully). ;)

[Neo]

Watson uses a variation of "pattern matching"

Watson's next task is to do medical diagnosis. A perfect job for a pattern matching computer, which doesn't forget about the odd case back in Togo.

[jimmyk]

TC, wouldn't that logic imply that a camera taking a photograph of a person is doing essentially the same thing that Rembrandt and Leonardo did? Light reflects off the object and hits sensors in the (camera/eyes), which then results in some kind of output (photograph/painting). The camera arguably "beats" the painter as far as accuracy goes. But something is missing in this analogy, methinks.

[andycanuck]

I'd have been more impressed if Watson had ad-libbed "Suck it, Trebek" or "That's [not] what your mother said last night, Trebek."

[Porchlight]

I'd have been more impressed if Watson had ad-libbed "Suck it, Trebek" or "That's [not] what your mother said last night, Trebek."

Heh, me too. I must admit I can't bring myself to care much about this Watson gadget.

[rse]

Frau-Thank you. I had not seen that article although I have seen Coulson's graphs.

Normally the PISA results are ignored. These were trumpeted both to justify more federal spending and to build a case for the new national standards called Common Core. Because the documents detailing the planned implementation and the nature of the planned assessments make it clear academic knowledge and skills are not the purpose, it is my contention that the standards are the ultimate Trojan Horse.

These clowns actually believe they can make the emphasis group work and learning activities and projects and thus change the "values, attitudes, and beliefs" of the next generation of voters. They just want to be in charge of the pie we call the US and world economy.

Finished Von Mises' prescient (written about 1920) Socialism this weekend and he wrote of the inherent affinity between socialism and Islam. They are both destroyers of civilization he said.

He nailed that insight. They destroy however fine and good the intentions or even if they are evil.

[Thomas Collins]

I was thinking, jimmyk, that the taking in and processing is an aspect of our thinking, but not all of it. The part of our thinking that adds value, however, is difficult to describe.

Similarly, Rembrandt and Leonardo "add value," but in a way that is difficult to describe. I suppose that Turing might say that if a photoshop can't be distinguished by a top art critic from the Mona Lisa, the combination of the coders plus the photoshoppers might equal Rembrandt. But without Rembrandt, would the coders and photoshoppers have the model to produce the image that fools the art critic?

Of course, in light of the theme of this thread, perhaps what I am doing is not really thinking!

By the way, I can't be too harsh on Stan the Man Fish, notwithstanding the Social Text embarrassment. He went to Classical High School in Providence, RI, the same high school I attended.

[Rick Ballard]

RSE,

I should receive Last Exit within a day or two. I believe there was another book which you recommended but I can't remember the title.

Mises was more polite re islam than was Montesquieu in The Spirit of the Law, who pegged the Mahometans as accurately as did Emperor Palaiologos. There just ain't no fertile soil for democracy in the ME outside of Israel.

[maryrose]

Porchlight:
I would love to hear how your little guy is progressing. I bet he is delightful. If he's crawling now he'll be walking by spring or summer.

[Jack is Back!]

This just in.

BREAKING NEWS

Geithner resigns. To be replaced by Watson.

[Extraneus]

Heh. Who could argue with that?

[Charlie (Colorado)]

But "solver algorithms" can't handle random mutation.

But genetic algorithms can.

So, in the mean time, let's propose the same question Alan Turing did:

If you can't tell a computer's responses from a person's over a long enough time, how can you say the computer is not "intelligent"?

[bgates]

But "solver algorithms" can't handle random mutation.

I don't know enough to do any more that present the wiki link to genetic algorithms, but I don't think that's right.

As for how close Watson is to thinking, I'll join TC (and, I think, Alan Turing) in throwing my hands up and admitting I don't understand thinking at all well enough to say. In light of the art discussion, though, I'd like to offer a few links:

Here is a fairly competently performed rag (save the link and listen on your desktop; either the server or my browser isn't smart enough to stream effectively).

Here is a different sort of piece, by a composer named Emily Howell. Not exactly my sort of thing, but again the playing is expressive to my untutored ear.

[jimmyk]

The part of our thinking that adds value, however, is difficult to describe.

Along the lines of andycanuck at 4:33:

When I see a computer with a sense of humor, then I'll get interested. Seriously.

[Porchlight]

Thank you, maryrose. He is 10 months and a strong crawler - I would expect he'd be walking by 12 or 13 months. He's getting a sense of humor, too, thankfully. Very smiley and happy all around. Boys are really a delight - my older two are girls and they were sweet as can be but there is something a little different about a boy. :)

[boris]

'If you can't tell a computer's responses from a person's over a long enough time, how can you say the computer is not "intelligent"?'

Pretty sure it is going to be easier to make a self aware silicon based mind than something capable of faking it. My interpretation of the Turing test is that's how you tell.

We do not know how to do either one yet. Nature does not seem to have much problem with making minds.

Even if we never figure that out, it will at some point be discovered by trying to make a really good fake. Or perhaps by some kind of upload or merge using Gibson mind jack technology.

[sbw]

"Question for the JOM neurophysiologists and folks in related fields: is what Watson does that different from much of what humans describe as thinking"

This former computer jock says that the word "thinking" suffers from insufficient specificity -- a problem of fuzziness htat affects all languages -- which makes what Watson was programmed to do all the more stunning.

Watson was an exercise in parsing natural language, not "thinking," and in that sense he pushed machine capabilities further toward that human capacity than ever before. A remarkable achievement.

Watson's second achievement was in data mining -- also a stunning achievement that humans excel differently at than machines.

The third function that Watson excelled at was promoting IBM like it hadn't been promoted since the invention of the Type Ball.

[Extraneus]

Can Watson transmorgify into liquid metal, have onboard nanotechnological weapons and the ability to control other machines?

I think that says it all. Watson is a piker, worse than Kirk's so-called "computer."

[Danube of Thought]

"If you can't tell a computer's responses from a person's over a long enough time, how can you say the computer is not 'intelligent'?"

Give me five minutes with any computer ever designed and I'll tell from its responses to my questions that it's not human.

[Rob Crawford]

But "solver algorithms" can't handle random mutation.

I have to point to my favorite example of AI research in use:

touringplans.com

Based on interviews with one of the founders, they use a genetic algorithm to build their touring plans -- a problem that's a variant of the traveling-salesman problem, the "time-dependent traveling salesman". In under ten seconds, their code will spit out a solution to seeing a particular set of attractions at Disney World, and that solution is within a few percent of the (theoretical) optimal solution.

I'm pretty sure their algorithm has a random "mutation" feature to prevent falling into a local maximum, but since I've not READ but only HEARD interviews about it, I can't swear to it.

[Rob Crawford]

Give me five minutes with any computer ever designed and I'll tell from its responses to my questions that it's not human.

Except that's not the point of Turing's question. The point is, "what if you CAN'T tell after five minutes"? Or what if, after five minutes, you say "that's a person on the other end" and it's actually software?

Not saying you're wrong -- I'll say the same thing; there's never been a computer built that would pass the Turing Test -- but past and presence failure does not mean one won't pass in the future.

(And even if a program is univerally judged to be a person in the Turing Test, does that really mean it's intelligent? Or just a good mimic?)

[daddy]

As Futurama fans, I suppose Narciso and I are more worried about what the next stage is after the HAL9000 learns how to think: ">http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=162728&title=ship-romance"> Robot love!.

[daddy]

Hey Jib,

How has young Frederick's homecoming gone, and has he done a School session yet of Show & Tell?

I really did enjoy your guy's blog and great pictures throughout. I imagine he was real excited on getting back to class. Again, thanks for that.

[Danube of Thought]

My point is only that Turing's question posits such a huge condition that it it is close to being tautological. He may as well have asked "if you design a computer that is intelligent, how can you say that it's not intelligent?"

And to answer RobC's question, i would say that the only way the machine could pass that test would be if it were intelligent.

[matt]

until computers can actually make things, I'm not too worried. As James Brown said.

"You see, man made the cars to take us over the road
Man made the trains to carry heavy loads
Man made electric light to take us out of the dark
Man made the boat for the water, like Noah made the ark"

[Danube of Thought]

To correct myself, I think that in passing the test the machine would be demonstrating to me that it was thinking. I would differentiate that from demonstrating that it was intelligent.

[Neo]

But "solver algorithms" can't handle random mutation.
But genetic algorithms can.

genetic algorithms can adapt to new forms of "truth" provided the evaluation of the "truth" is done externally during the adaptation.

Genetic algorithms have been used on Wall Street for years. Based on past performance, they can tell you when to buy or sell, but have no idea how to adapt to a currency collapse that might come once every few decades .. just not enough "training data"

[Frau Oelheizung]

Not too late for the Happy Birthday George Washington party.
Huzzah, hoorah!

His words of wisdom:
For our politicians-"The Constitution is the guide which I never will abandon."

For Barack Obama- "Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation. It is better be alone than in bad company."

For American citizens -"Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples' liberty's teeth."

Ninth Circuit Court- "Laws made by common consent must not be trampled on by individuals."

For union members- "The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves."

Eric Holder-there is no man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery."

Cass 'The Nudge' Sunstein- "It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it."

Joe Biden-The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low that every person of sense and character detests and despises it.

A bit of music from the period.
LUN

[bunkerbuster]

Palin's a fountain of mendacity, even to the extent that she can't stick to the facts in her ghost-written book. A fact check by CBS news shows:

PALIN: Describing her resistance to federal stimulus money, Palin describes Alaska as a practical, libertarian haven of independent Americans who don't want "help" from government busybodies.
REALITY: Alaska is also one of the states most dependent on federal subsidies, receiving much more assistance from Washington than it pays in federal taxes. A study for the nonpartisan Tax Foundation found that in 2005, the state received $1.84 for every dollar it sent to Washington. Alaska residents also receive a substantial oil stipend directly from the government, making the state arguably the most socialistic of any in the U.S.

PALIN: writes that she made frugality a point when traveling on state business as Alaska governor, asking "only" for reasonably priced rooms and not "often" going for the "high-end, robe-and-slippers" hotels.

REALITY: Palin and daughter Bristol stayed five days and four nights at the $707.29-per-night Essex House luxury hotel overlooking New York City's Central Park for a five-hour women's leadership conference in October 2007. With air fare, the cost to Alaska was well over $3,000. Event organizers said Palin asked if she could bring her daughter. The governor billed her state more than $20,000 for her children's travel, including to events where they had not been invited, and in some cases later amended expense reports to specify that they had been on official business.

PALIN: Boasts that she ran her campaign for governor on small donations, mostly from first-time givers, and turned back large checks from big donors if her campaign perceived a conflict of interest.
REALITY: Of the roughly $1.3 million she raised for her primary and general election campaigns for governor, more than half came from people and political action committees giving at least $500, according to an AP analysis of her campaign finance reports. The maximum that individual donors could give was $1,000; $2,000 for a PAC. Of the rest, about $76,000 came from Republican Party committees. She accepted $1,000 each from a state senator and his wife and $30 from a state representative in the weeks after the two Republican lawmakers' offices were raided by the FBI as part of an investigation into a powerful Alaska oilfield services company. After AP reported those donations during the presidential campaign, she gave a similar amount to charity.

PALIN: Rails against taxpayer-financed bailouts, which she attributes to Obama. She recounts telling daughter Bristol that to succeed in business, "you'll have to be brave enough to fail."
REALITY: During the vice presidential debate in October, Palin praised McCain for being "instrumental in bringing folks together" to pass the $700 billion bailout. After that, she said "it is a time of crisis and government did have to step in."

PALIN: Says Ronald Reagan faced an even worse recession than the one that appears to be ending now, and "showed us how to get out of one. If you want real job growth, cut capital gains taxes and slay the death tax once and for all."
REALITY: The estate tax, which some call the death tax, was not repealed under Reagan and capital gains taxes are lower now than when Reagan was president. Economists overwhelmingly say the Bush recession was far worse than Reagan's. The recession Reagan faced lasted for 16 months; this one lasted a little more than two years. The recession of the early 1980s did not have a financial meltdown.

PALIN: She says her team overseeing the development of a natural gas pipeline set up an open, competitive bidding process that allowed any company to compete for the right to build a 1,715-mile pipeline to bring natural gas from Alaska to the Lower 48.
REALITY: Palin characterized the pipeline deal the same way before an AP investigation found her team crafted terms that favored only a few independent pipeline companies and ultimately benefited a company with ties to her administration, TransCanada Corp. Despite promises and legal guidance not to talk directly with potential bidders during the process, Palin had meetings or phone calls with nearly every major candidate, including TransCanada.

PALIN: Criticizes an aide to her predecessor, Gov. Frank Murkowski, for a conflict of interest because the aide represented the state in negotiations over a gas pipeline and then left to work as a handsomely paid lobbyist for ExxonMobil. Palin asserts her administration ended all such arrangements, shoving a wedge in the revolving door between special interests and the state capital.
REALITY: The leader of Palin's own pipeline team was a former lobbyist for a subsidiary of TransCanada, the company that ended up winning the rights to build the pipeline.

PALIN: Writes about a city councilman in Wasilla, Alaska, who owned a garbage truck company and tried to push through an ordinance requiring residents of new subdivisions to pay for trash removal instead of taking it to the dump for free - this to illustrate conflicts of interest she stood against as a public servant.

REALITY: As Wasilla mayor, Palin pressed for a special zoning exception so she could sell her family's $327,000 house, then did not keep a promise to remove a potential fire hazard on the property. She asked the city council to loosen rules for snow machine races when she and her husband owned a snow machine store, and cast a tie-breaking vote to exempt taxes on aircraft when her father-in-law owned one. But she stepped away from the table in 1997 when the council considered a grant for the Iron Dog snow machine race in which her husband competes.

PALIN: Welcomes last year's Supreme Court decision deciding punitive damages for victims of the nation's largest oil spill tragedy, the Exxon Valdez disaster, stating it had taken 20 years to achieve victory. As governor, she says, she'd had the state argue in favor of the victims, and she says the court's ruling went "in favor of the people." Finally, she writes, Alaskans could recover some of their losses.

REALITY: The ruling resolved the long-running case by reducing punitive damages for victims to $500 million from $2.5 billion. Environmentalists and plaintiffs' lawyers decried the ruling as a slap at the victims and Palin herself said she was "extremely disappointed." She said the justices had gutted a jury decision favoring higher damage awards, the Anchorage Daily News reported. "It's tragic that so many Alaska fishermen and their families have had their lives put on hold waiting for this decision," she said, noting many had died "while waiting for justice."

[narciso]

So they interviewed Schultz, the leader of the RINO's in Wisconsin, and he was notably
'splungey' on the point. His 'can't we all get along,' shpiel is getting real old, he even brought up an anecdote related to the bombing to the U Wisconsin Math Research
Center, another one of those acts of civility

[Captain Hate]

The troll doesn't even try to hide the talking points that have been sent to his squalid abode to annoy the interwebz with. So pathetic; to stay on topic, a trash 80 has enough firepower to beat it at any contest requiring brain activity.

Mustang if you're out there: I'm listening to the new (well, as of the middle of last year) Peter Wolf disc, Midnight Souvenirs, and I'm wondering who the girl singer is on the first cut: Shelby Lynne.

[Captain Hate]

narc, was he talking about the bombing around 1970 act of civility? WTF is that, some Ayers reference?

[narciso]

He said he delivered papers to the researcher, Fosnacht, so he understands how passions can get out of control, that's why encouraging their tantrums is a good idea.

Btw, time to get the net out for Tweety, I know you say what's different today?

[Janet]

What a wonderful post @ 11:51 Frau!

[Porchlight]

Yes, thank you, Frau! Listening to your LUN now.