Monday, November 23, 2009

23 Nov 2009 07:43 pm

Face Of The Day

StudentsFoamGetty2
First year students from St Andrews University take part in a tradition of covering themselves with foam to honour the 'academic family' on November 23, 2009 in St Andrews, Scotland. By Jeff J Mitchell/Getty.

23 Nov 2009 07:26 pm

A Million Little Fabrications

Another person featured in "Going Rogue" presents his side of the story. Money quote:

Why should anyone care about any of that? The reason they should care is that if Lynn Vincent aka Sarah Palin got as many of the facts, asserted and implied, about me in Going Rogue as wrong as she did, what does that say about the validity of the many other, much more important, “facts” in Sarah’s book?

Were any of the facts in this book checked? And who was the fact-checker at HarperCollins?

23 Nov 2009 07:05 pm

Quote For The Day III

"His frequent speeches before large crowds all across the country are full of obtuse circular arguments about good and evil, and in interviews and small gatherings, like ones he has held for academics and journalists when he visits the United Nations in New York, he answers questions with questions, ending with a joyous smile that reads as a distinct putdown. His logic is seldom convincing, but then he cares little about what elites and experts think of him. He knows that the poor masses like his folksy style. Though he may seem comical, to many in Iran he comes across as daring and confident. They like his audacity, and especially the way he stands up to the elites, belittling their education, their wealth and their blue blood," - Vali Nasr, on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Fundamentalist politics - whether Christianist or Islamist - often assumes the same basic structure. What must be resisted is logic, argument or follow-up questions.

23 Nov 2009 06:54 pm

Palin Vs. Huckabee

Douthat considers both 2012 contenders in his column today. Ross hopes that someone who shares Huckabee's and Palin's "charisma" can lead "an intellectually vigorous conservatism." Isaac Chotiner counters:

Douthat's argument is tautological. Sure, it would be nice for the GOP if Palin and Huckabee were interested in policy. But if they were interested in policy, then they would not be so appealing to the GOP base. In other words, the problem is that a large part of the right has no interest in a policy wonk, and sneers at intellectuals and elites and the types of people Douthat would like to see running the party. A candidate who was interested in learning the ins and outs of the welfare state and health care policy is unlikely to ever achieve Palin/Huckabee levels of popularity with the grassroots. 

Some numbers have started to trickle out of Iowa that show Huckabee ahead.

23 Nov 2009 06:17 pm

No Joke

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Maziar Bahari tells the story of his time in Iran's infamous Evin prison. They interrogators didn't understand The Daily Show:

Only a few weeks earlier, hundreds of foreign reporters had been allowed into the country in the run-up to the election. Among them was Jason Jones, a “correspondent” for Stewart’s satirical news program. Jason interviewed me in a Tehran coffee shop, pretending to be a thick-skulled American. He dressed like some character out of a B movie about mercenaries in the Middle East—with a checkered Palestinian kaffiyeh around his neck and dark sunglasses. The “interview” was very short. Jason asked me why Iran was evil. I answered that Iran was not evil. I added that, as a matter of fact, Iran and America shared many enemies and interests in common. But the interrogators weren’t interested in what I was saying. They were fixated on [the recording of] Jason.

“Why is this American dressed like a spy, Mr. Bahari?” asked the new man.

Continue reading "No Joke" »

23 Nov 2009 05:49 pm

Who Voted in 2008?

Ambinder passes along some new data:

It's taken about a year, but thanks to new Census numbers and to Project Vote, we now have the most accurate picture of who voted, who didn't vote, and how the voting patterns compare to previous elections.  The highlights: 64% of the 204 million voting-age Americans voted, up about 6 million in number and 4 percentage points from 2004.  Historically underrepresented groups made gains in this election.  Non-whites made up more than 90% of the increase in the total number of voters.  The authors conclude that had non-whites voted at the same percentage as whites, more than 5 million more votes would have been cast in 2008.  The study, by Douglas Hess and Jody Herman, finds that had voters under 30 voted at the same rates as their counterparts over 30, more than 7 million additional ballots would have been cast.

No wonder Republicans worry about a Democratic demographic storm. 

23 Nov 2009 05:21 pm

Talking To The Men

DiA counsels:

Most of the developing countries where fertility rates have fallen sharply in the last 20 years are places like Bangladesh, Indonesia and Brazil, which have had relative political stability and solid economic growth. Because there are so many such countries, there's reason to be optimistic on the global population front. But in countries that aren't seeing political stability or sustainable economic growth, and where women are illiterate and repressed—countries like Afghanistan, or Yemen—fertility is running disastrously high. In countries like that, opposition from religious and community leaders—ie, men—can easily torpedo any public-health effort. So common sense dictates that, in addition to providing counseling and access to birth control for women, advocates must also reach out to religious authorities.

23 Nov 2009 05:06 pm

The View From Your Window

San-jose-costa-rica-507pm

San Jose, Costa Rica, 5.07 pm

23 Nov 2009 04:34 pm

We Can't Criticize Operation Cast Lead Because Of Iran?

Frum combines two talking points:

There is only one last non-military stop on this train: President Obama’s initiative to organize so-called “crippling” sanctions against Iran.

These sanctions would penalize the firms that sell, carry and finance the half-million tons of gasoline that Iran must import every month. (Incredibly, this huge oil exporter and aspiring nuclear power refines only about half the gas it needs.) Such firms are vulnerable to international pressure: Two of the three Swiss firms that provide the bulk of Iran’s gasoline have substantial investments in Canada, for example. If Canada joins the sanctions regime, Canada can bring great pressure to bear on these suppliers — and thus upon Iran.

Continue reading "We Can't Criticize Operation Cast Lead Because Of Iran?" »

23 Nov 2009 04:20 pm

Mental Health Break

A high-def, time-lapse fix that should last a while:

Time-Lapse Favs from Chad Richard on Vimeo.

23 Nov 2009 04:11 pm

Chart Of The Day

GE has created an interactive polar area pie chart showing insurer and out-of-pocket costs for various conditions. The graph allows adjustment of the patient's age to help you get a handle on health care costs.

(Hat tip: Flowing Data)

23 Nov 2009 03:51 pm

What Is The Malkin Clique So Excited About?

Nate Silver sighs:

[Phil Jones, director of the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit] is talking to his colleagues about making a prettier picture out of his data, and not about manipulating the data itself. Again, I'm not trying to excuse what he did -- we make a lot of charts here and 538 and make every effort to ensure that they fairly and accurately reflect the underlying data (in addition to being aesthetically appealing.) I wish everybody would abide by that standard.

Still: I don't know how you get from some scientist having sexed up a graph in East Anglia ten years ago to The Final Nail In The Coffin of Anthropogenic Global Warming. Anyone who comes to that connection has more screws loose than the Space Shuttle Challenger. And yet that's literally what some of these bloggers are saying!

The key to these bloggers' mentality is simply to find some tiny thing and focus all attention on that in order to persuade people that the bigger reality is untrue or irrelevant. This is not an argument; it's a technique. It's a technique to persuade people not to examine all the evidence, since the source of the evidence - secular humanist scientists - are evil suspects and against God and in favor of making your gas bill higher.

You can't actually persuade people that way, of course. But you can fortify their resistance to examining all the evidence.

23 Nov 2009 03:23 pm

T-Paw, Great On Paper

Reihan considers Tim Pawlenty for 2012:

Pawlenty's greatest advantage is that the Republican field in 2012 looks fairly thin. Mitch Daniels has the strongest credentials, but he doesn't have an obvious base. Mitt Romney has formidable financial resources and he gained crucial experience during his 2008 presidential bid, but, as the former governor of Massachusetts and a newly minted pro-lifer, he has a number of liabilities. Mike Huckabee has won the loyalty of evangelical voters, yet economic conservatives are allergic to his brand of populism and it's not clear that he has much appeal beyond his base. Rather depressingly, Tim Pawlenty could win the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 simply by being the least offensive candidate. Even if enthusiasm for Obama dies down in a few years time, that doesn't bode well for the general election.

23 Nov 2009 02:54 pm

Michelle Goldberg Gets It, Ctd

Althouse responds to my take on her bloggingheads with Michelle Goldberg:

I know Sullivan wants me to check out his list of "lies." I picked one to check out, that she said the only flag in her office was the Israeli flag. As Sullivan himself notes, she must have meant to say the only foreign flag, since she did also have an Alaskan and an American flag in her office. That's the sort of sloppy speaking that one would correct easily if it were pointed out at the time. Of course, I also have the state flag and the American flag. I mean, it would be pretty ridiculous for a state governor to only have a foreign flag! There isn't even a motivation to lie.

That there's no motivation here doesn't mean it's an "odd lie" — which is Sullivan's term. It means it's not a lie at all.

Continue reading "Michelle Goldberg Gets It, Ctd" »

23 Nov 2009 02:27 pm

Way Worse Than Pi Pi's Splashtown

The Daily What finds it:

The Brazilian city of Porto Alegre has been experiencing heavy rains as of late, so a bunch of kids got together and decided to do the only reasonable thing you’d expect a bunch of kids to do in such a situation: They grabbed their surfboards and headed down to the city’s open sewer system.

23 Nov 2009 01:51 pm

Why I Remain Bullish On Obama

He's taking the usual slew of tactical hits as his opponents try every single line of attack and pound every day, squeezing every ounce of agitprop from the news cycle. His numbers are gliding downward (although not by much), his foreign policy gains are structural and have as yet no tangible results, a critical Mid-East ally, Israel, is doing all it can to destroy his credibility with the Muslim world, his health insurance reform is still not passed, the debt is simply staggering (and the GOP's willingness to blame it all on him is as shameless as it can be convincing to those who know nothing and think less), etc etc.

And yet I remain absurdly confident that he is on the right path. Why? This rare moment of Beltway perspective helps explain:

No pain, no gain? In a way, last week epitomized President Obama’s 10 months in office. There was lots of seemingly short-term pain — members of Congress calling for his Treasury secretary to resign, more P.R. snafus over the stimulus, the chattering class criticizing his Asia trip, and his approval rating dropping below 50% for the first time in Gallup’s poll. 

Continue reading "Why I Remain Bullish On Obama" »

23 Nov 2009 01:46 pm

Totalitarian Texting

The Iranian regime is using SMS to warn people not to protest:

The reports come ahead of Student Day on December 7, which the opposition has vowed to “turn green” in support of the Green movement backing opposition leader Mir Hossein Musavi.

One blogger posted a picture of the cautionary SMS, which states: “Respected citizen, based on our information, you have been influenced by the antisecurity propaganda of the foreign media. If you get involved in any illegal protest and get in touch with the foreign media...”  The image is cut off after that, but according to other sources, the message threatens that the person “will be considered a criminal according to several articles of the Islamic law and dealt with accordingly.”

And the political executions continue. I believe these moves are signs of desperation in the coup regime. But we will see on December 7 if the Green Movement can still command the people.

23 Nov 2009 01:28 pm

What's More Frightening Than Sarah Palin? Ctd

The signs above that signing table are priceless.

23 Nov 2009 01:15 pm

What's More Frightening Than Sarah Palin?

Two Sarah Palins.

23 Nov 2009 12:59 pm

Quote For The Day II

"To see what is in front of our nose needs a constant struggle," - George Orwell.

23 Nov 2009 12:55 pm

Why They Love Her

23 Nov 2009 12:37 pm

Waiting On The Rapture

Goldblog makes a phone call:

I called the executive director of the Pre-Trib Research Center at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., Dr. Thomas Ice. The Pre-Trib Center is one of the preeminent evangelical institutions in this country arguing for literal Bible prophecy, and especially for pre-millenial dispensationalism, a complicated belief system that concerns the conditions that must obtain on Earth before Jesus can return ("Pre-Trib" is short for "pre-tribulation.") [Ice said,] "Over forty percent of the world's Jews now live in Israel. What Sarah Palin probably believes is that this is the first regathering," when the Jews all migrate to Israel.

"This is a condition for the second regathering, the regathering in belief, when the Jewish nation is converted. Then there will be the battle of Armageddon, because remember, Satan wants to wipe out the Jews to prevent the Second Coming, but Jesus comes to rescue the beleaguered Jews. We believe that the Jews are going to be converted so that they can call on Jesus to rescue them from Satan."

And people wonder why she wants more Israeli settlements on the West Bank. Or why we read sentences like this in the press:

She quizzed [Billy Graham] on the presidents he's known and wanted his take on what the Bible says about Israel, Iran and Iraq, Franklin Graham reported.

Continue reading "Waiting On The Rapture" »

23 Nov 2009 12:21 pm

Hitting The Cost Curve's Guardrails

Tyler Cowen counters Yglesias:

As I understand it, the apparently fiscally responsible portions of the bill come from a) eventual cuts in Medicare spending, and b) rising taxes on some health insurance plans and they come later of course.  Few Congressional representatives are willing to do these things today, so should we predict they will be done in the future?  (The same problem plagues Waxman-Markey, by the way, so these back and forth rhetorical debates are becoming quite common.)  In my view, policies structured in this manner are simply another way of doing deficit spending.

23 Nov 2009 12:12 pm

Not A Good Thing

Martha Stewart is asked about Palin.

23 Nov 2009 11:59 am

Quote For The Day I

"[O]ur strength lies, in our opinion, not in deliberation and discussion, but that knowledge which is gained by discussion preparatory to action. For we have a peculiar power of thinking before we act, and of acting, too, whereas other men are courageous from ignorance but hesitate upon reflection," - Pericles.

23 Nov 2009 11:49 am

A Talking Point Built Of Straw

Greenwald fisks the Republican meme - "trials in a real court would lead to the disclosure of classified information that would help the Terrorists":

To see how false this claim is, all anyone ever had to was look at the Classified Information Procedures Act, a short and crystal clear 1980 law that not only permits, but requires, federal courts to undertake extreme measures to ensure the concealment of classified information, even including concealment from the defendant himself.

23 Nov 2009 11:41 am

The Central Question

Andrew Bacevich and David Frum discuss whether Afghanistan is a rational place to invest a huge amount of money and lives at this point in world history.

23 Nov 2009 11:39 am

The Kate Gosselin Of Politics

A reader writes:

I disagree with your reader who says Palin is a bullshitter.  I kind of like bullshitters.  I consider someone like Bill Clinton to be a bullshitter.  Kind of smooth, kind of  full of one's self.  In my mind, Palin is a disturbed individual who does not live in a world where truth as a concept is relevant or even extant.  She is wholly a creation of the media because she has a sexy quality to her good looks (especially in an industry - politics - that has few beauties).  Her only cleverness is that she uses her child with Down's Syndrome as the entire basis of her being as a politician. Sorry to put it so crudely, but that is the thing that the hard right loves about her. (In fact, she recounts how she considered abortion but decided against it.  As a mother, I find that little story so disgusting. Why would a mother ever openly discuss that they thought about aborting her child? Or her defender, Bernie Goldberg, implying that a liberal would abort a Down's Syndrome child. Even more disgusting.) 

Some people who are not on the hard right like her for other reasons - especially because she is a working mother of five. They relate to her, and I think that is valid. 

Continue reading "The Kate Gosselin Of Politics" »

23 Nov 2009 11:23 am

On Chuang Tzu

Chuang

Apologies for the typo: the name of this remarkable fellow was Chuang Tzu or Zuangzi depending on your mode of translating Chinese names into English. I've long known of him via Oakeshott but had never really pondered the deep similarities between their thought before reading an unpublished paper by Chor-yung Cheung, an Oakeshott scholar from Hong Kong, at a recent Oakeshott conference. A light bulb went off as well when I realized that Chuang Tzu was also one of Thomas Merton's favorite writers. Merton wrote his own versions of several of Chuang Tzu's stories, parables and anecdotes. From a review:

Merton sees Chuang Tzu as his kindred spirit. Merton and Chuang Tzu both were hermits to some extent, and both spiritual philosophers of sorts, perhaps with Merton heavier on the spiritual side and Chuang Tzu more the philosopher. The content of their philosophies is similar, too. Merton assures us that his book "is not a new apologetic subtlety (or indeed a work of jesuitical sleight of hand) in which Christian rabbits will suddenly appear by magic out of a Taoist hat." Yet Merton's paraphrase demonstrates how Chuang Tzu's writings closely resemble the apophatic thought of some Christian theologians and mystics that Merton writes about elsewhere.

Merton points out that Chuang Tzu's Taoism is not "the popular, degenerate amalgam of superstition, alchemy, magic, and health-culture which Taoism later became." Instead, Chuang Tzu's Taoism values an inner unity, a hiddenness of the true man, and a practical asceticism that Merton also finds in Christian mysticism. Merton believes that Chuang Tzu's gift of "unknowing" is similar to Christian contemplation. A Chuang Tzu disciple loses his self-conscious "knowledge" and gains an inner "unknowing" by which he lives through Tao. The disciple in one Chuang Tzu story, for instance, prepares for the gift of unknowing through a patient emptying of desires, otherwise known as a "fasting of the heart," much as Merton's contemplative must go through John of the Cross' Night of Sense, when the will grows tired of desire and reasoning.

The gift of unknowing - what Oakeshott would try to capture in his theory of aesthetics as well as of practical life - is perhaps best put in this classic Chuang Tzu tale that was central to Oakeshott's understanding of how human beings actually do what we do, and live how we live, irrespective of modern rationalism's claim to have captured all human knowledge in theory:

Duke Huan was in his hall reading a book. 

Continue reading "On Chuang Tzu" »

23 Nov 2009 10:52 am

The View From Your Recession, Ctd

A reader writes:

Your reader wrote:

I think the question has to be asked now, concerning unemployment:  If our economy is in "recovery," then what is preventing companies from actually hiring people?  I hate saying this, but this is feeling like another "Mission Accomplished" to people, especially me.

While I certainly understand the aggravation, I'm not sure I've seen a single individual suggest that the job market was going to rebound quickly. In fact, basically everyone (from the administration on down) has explicitly argued that the recovery was going to be slow, particularly in the job market. So, it is a bit unfair to reference "Mission Accomplished" along these lines. The economy appears to be recovering, and jobs will eventually come as well, but the latter is not necessarily an indicator that the former is a faulty belief.

23 Nov 2009 10:26 am

Back To The Middle Ages

Jamie Kirchick wants to stop sending PEPFAR money to Uganda, which has introduced legislation that would make homosexuality a crime punishable by death:

When a government actively encourages homophobia, the effect reverberates throughout society. Uganda's president, Yoweri Museveni, has accused European gays of coming to his country to "recruit" people into homosexuality. Ugandan newspapers and bloggers have seized on the proposed law to launch their own broadsides against gays, posting the names and photographs of individuals in Wild West-style "wanted" posters in print and online. A major tabloid, the Red Pepper, trumpeted an expose headlined "Top Homos in Uganda Named" as "a killer dossier, a heat-pounding and sensational masterpiece that largely exposes Uganda's shameless men and unabashed women that have deliberately exported the Western evils to our dear and sacred society."

From 2004 through 2008, Uganda received a total of $1.2 billion in PEPFAR money, and this year it is receiving $285 million more. Clearly, the United States has a great deal of leverage over the Ugandan government, and the American taxpayer should not be expected to fund a regime that targets a vulnerable minority for attack — an attack that will only render the vast amount of money that we have donated moot.

23 Nov 2009 09:28 am

Quote For The Day

Zhuangzi-Butterfly-Dream

"Confucius called on Lao Tan and spoke to him about benevolence and righteousness.   

Lao Tan said, “Chaff from the winnowing fan can so blind the eye that heaven, earth and the four directions all seem to shift place. A mosquito or a horse-fly stinging your skin can keep you awake a whole night. And when benevolence and righteousness in all their fearfulness come to muddle the mind, the confusion is unimaginable.   

If you want to keep the world from losing its simplicity, you must move with the freedom of the wind, stand in the perfection of Virtue.   

Why all this huffing and puffing, as though you were carrying a big drum and searching for a lost child." - The Complete Works Of Chuang Tzu, one of Oakeshott's influences.

(Drawing: Zhuangzi dreaming of a butterfly (or a butterfly dreaming of Zhuangzi)

23 Nov 2009 09:04 am

The Weekend Wrap

In his Sunday column, Andrew examined the superhuman powers of Sarah Palin. Joining the study of her lying psyche was Michelle Goldberg, Bella DePaulo, David Benjamin, and Matt Taibbi. David Nood corrected her grasp on Alaskan history while Douthat highlighted one of the true silver linings of her rise. On the news side, Palin gave her mission statement to O'Reilly and continued to trash the father of Tripp. Meanwhile, Levi's mom was sent to prison.

In other weekend coverage, Krauthammer endorsed the "show trial" meme, Liz Cheney stoked more fear, Fallows bemoaned the coverage of Obama's trip to Asia, McWhorter gave him advice on ending the drug war, and a reader provided a view from his recession. Get your weekly Jonah Lehrer fix here and here.

In assorted fun, we featured an kick-ass story of sudden fame, found a fascinating document of forgotten fame, read some terrible fictional sex, watched a cool display of imperial decline, and delivered some YouTube crack from The Wire and Mad Men.

-- C.B.

23 Nov 2009 08:52 am

Cool Ad Watch

Just don't tell those "side hug" rappers:

23 Nov 2009 08:37 am

Prudery Or Parody?

Tanner Ringerud passes along a video:

A group of Christian rappers extol the virtues of the “Christian side hug”. Because you will definitely go to Hell if your genitals get anywhere near other peoples' genitals.

23 Nov 2009 07:57 am

A World Of Reflex?

Razib Khan ponders the similarities between Islam and orthodox westerners:

On issues such as abortion and the marriage of homosexuals the orthodox will part ways with the conservative. The orthodox Westerner may see in the Muslim a closer adherent to the true tradition. This is one reason why the Traditionalist philosopher Rene Guenon converted to Islam. But, I believe that the orthodox underestimate the implicit cultural commonalities which are unspoken and unelucidated, and which bind societies and civilizations together even more than adherence to a metaphysic. “My Country, Right or Wrong” is at once a profoundly unintellectual idea, but at the same time so is the assumption that one would sacrifice one’s own life for one’s child. Instincts have their limits, but at some point human flourishing is contingent upon [admitting] that life depends on implicit instincts for proper functioning, and that reflection is an exceptional avocation, islands in a sea of reflex.

23 Nov 2009 07:31 am

Denialism

23 Nov 2009 07:04 am

Palin: Not A Liar, A Bullshitter

A reader writes:

About Sarah Palin, you've written that "All we know for sure is that whatever she says isn't true. It never is."

I'd argue that what she says has no relation whatsoever to the truth - you can't count on it to be false anymore than you can count on it to be true. What you can generally count on is that it will be hastily conceived and self serving. I know you've invested a great deal of time proving her to be a liar, but to my mind Palin's a bullshitter, as defined by Harry G. Frankfurt in his book, On Bullshit.

Continue reading "Palin: Not A Liar, A Bullshitter" »

23 Nov 2009 06:25 am

Putting A Price Tag On More Troops

A piece in today's L.A. Times tries to determine how much escalating in Afghanistan will cost. Ackerman summarizes:

[According to a memo from the Pentagon’s own comptroller], a 40,000-troop increase would cost an additional $30 to $35 billion annually. That’s on top of current war costs — which, as the piece reports, are rather hard to determine with precision. But if we take the memo’s reported calculation of at $750,000 per soldier/sailor/airman/marine annually, then we’re looking at an existing cost of $51 billion before an escalation.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

22 Nov 2009 06:50 pm

Wonderwoman

My column plumbs the amazing powers of a certain someone:

Palin is indeed a feisty Alaskan and a genuine triumph of red-state feminism. But her narrative is embellished and embroidered to such an extent, it resembles not so much a memoir as a work of magical realism.

If you treat it as a factual narrative you will soon falter. Among the few early reactions were those of Nicolle Wallace — a McCain campaign staffer — who said of one passage: “It is pure fiction. No such discussion took place.” A reporter Palin says targeted her daughter Piper after a press conference was never at the press conference cited. Palin’s claim that she was personally billed $50,000 for vetting is point blank denied by the McCain campaign. Palin’s account of her record in the Exxon Valdez lawsuit was described last week by the chief lawyer for the case as “the most cockamamie bullshit”. I could go on.

None of this is particularly surprising. Palin has a long and documented record of saying things that are empirically untrue but asserting them as if her own imagination is the only source of objective reality. So you simply read the book as if it is fiction and enjoy it. Or you read it as non-fiction and believe that Palin is a magical mythical figure who defies the laws of time and space and normal human nature.

Take one story that every mother will relate to: the drama of her delivery of her fifth child, Trig.

Continue reading "Wonderwoman" »

22 Nov 2009 06:13 pm

Beyond Intuition

Razib Khan builds off the arguments in Michael Specter's new book:

[S]erious problems emerge when our intuitive prejudices push themselves into the scientific domain. Natural science has over the past few centuries has proven itself to be a marvel not by extension of our intuition, but contravention of that intuition resulting in an even closer fit to reality (contrast Newtonian physics with "folk physics").** Humans have always had engineering in the form of tinkering with technology. But the last two centuries of productivity growth through mechanical improvements have been based in part on the rise of science as a theoretical framework which allows for more than trial & error experimentation guided by intuition. Science allows us to stand on the shoulders of giants, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive their theories are, because they are judged not on plausibility but predictivity.

22 Nov 2009 05:46 pm

The Decline Of Empires

A fascinating way to look at it:

No visualization of American power yet. But look how quickly empires tend to implode. Neo-empires can too.

(Hat tip: 3QD)

22 Nov 2009 05:18 pm

A Long-term Suggestion

John McWhorter asks Obama to end the drug war:

[P]erhaps the unemployment crisis, the real estate crisis, the health care crisis, and even global warming are more urgent matters in the grand scheme of things just now.

Now, that is. However, how about in 2014, when Obama has just two years to go and other things are presumably taken care of to the extent that they can be (and assuming that John Thune, Tim Pawlenty and Sarah Palin will not turn out to be the GOP’s secret weapons three years from now)? By then Obama will not be facing re-election, nor will he likely be mired in a sex scandal to distract him from real work.

For now, maybe we have to face things like what happened in the Bronx Monday as a weekly kind of event. But what kind of a nation are we to treat episodes like that one as business as usual? The War on Drugs stands as an obstacle to people becoming the best that they can be. It is, in its way, un-American.

22 Nov 2009 04:48 pm

In Whom We Trust?

Clay Shirky ponders trust on the web:

Authority...performs a dual function; looking to authorities is a way of increasing the likelihood of being right, and of reducing the penalty for being wrong. An authoritative source isn’t just a source you trust; it’s a source you and other members of your reference group trust together. This is the non-lawyer’s version of “due diligence”; it’s impossible to be right all the time, but it’s much better to be wrong on good authority than otherwise, because if you’re wrong on good authority, it’s not your fault.

22 Nov 2009 04:20 pm

Mental Health Break

The really cool parts begin at the 1:00 mark:

22 Nov 2009 03:49 pm

Document Of The Day

"There is a virus of disrespect and hate spreading here very rapidly. And unless one lives right here with it, day in and day out, it is unbelievable how quickly and subtly it infects reasonably intelligent persons. This is not too hard to understand only if one recognizes the unremitting, deep, bitter religious and racial prejudice existing today in this section of our land — I don’t know if any of them are similarly infected in other sections, but I know personally of what I speak as regards East Texas.

Continue reading "Document Of The Day" »

22 Nov 2009 03:28 pm

For How Long Will Unemployment Keep Rising?

Un-after-90

A reader said the current counter-recession policies felt like "Mission Accomplished" all over again. Mark Thoma explains why:

The most recent employment report shows the unemployment rate rising past 10 percent even though it appears output may have already turned the corner, while new claims for unemployment insurance are still over 500,000, a number that indicates the economy is still losing jobs overall. In fact, I am worried that the peak in unemployment could lag even further behind the recovery than it did in the last two recessions.

Continue reading "For How Long Will Unemployment Keep Rising?" »

22 Nov 2009 02:02 pm

The Neuroscience Of Reading

Stanislas Dehaene, chair of Experimental Cognitive Psychology at the Collège de France, gives his view of the brain:

What I am proposing is that the human brain is a much more constrained organ than we think, and that it places strong limits on the range of possible cultural forms. Essentially, the brain did not evolve for culture, but culture evolved to be learnable by the brain. Through its cultural inventions, humanity constantly searched for specific niches in the brain, wherever there is a space of plasticity that can be exploited to “recycle” a brain area and put it to a novel use. Reading, mathematics, tool use, music, religious systems -- all might be viewed as instances of cortical recycling.

On how the brain processes letters:

Continue reading "The Neuroscience Of Reading" »

22 Nov 2009 01:31 pm

The Uncanny

Davidmaisel_10

Joe Kloc examines why we get creeped out by lifelike robots and lifeless bodies:

Disturbing experiences that feel both familiar and strange are instances of the “uncanny,” an intuitive concept, yet one that has defied simple explanation for more than a century. Interest in the particular occurrences of the uncanny, in which humans are bothered by interaction with human-like models, began as a psychological curiosity. But as our ability to design artificial life has increased—along with our dependence on it—getting to the heart of why people respond negatively to realistic models of themselves has taken on a new importance. Attempts to understand the origins of this reaction, known since the 1970s as the “uncanny valley response,” have drawn on everything from repressed fears of castration to an evolutionary mechanism for mate selection, but there has been little empirical evidence to assess the validity of these ideas.

Image by artist David Maisel. (Hat tip: acidolatte)

22 Nov 2009 01:05 pm

Nietzsche's Piety

Stephen Williams reviews the latest work by Bruce Ellis Benson:

The argument in this volume is that Nietzsche retained his native Pietism. He was brought up in a Pietist home and broke away from the beliefs which it housed, but he did not thereby cease to be religious or pious. He aspired to become a disciple of Dionysus, a devotee of Life, of which Dionysus is the symbol. This determination to pursue a way of life is rightly called "piety" when we observe the continuities between Nietzsche's background Pietism and his later quest. His Pietism was a way of life rather than a set of doctrines.

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