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Saturday, April 28, 2007
Toys!
28 Apr 2007 07:51 pm
The Japanese have all the fun.
Brother Cornell on Brother Barack
28 Apr 2007 06:28 pm
Makes me like Obama more:
Home News
28 Apr 2007 05:47 pm
The New York Observer on the cutting edge of journalism as usual.
HIV In San Francisco
28 Apr 2007 05:44 pm
A success story no one wants to hear:
While there was a ten percent decrease in total estimated new [HIV] cases, this seemingly modest decrease is actually a much greater prevention success than it appears. From 2001 to 2006, the estimated number of gay men living in San Francisco increased from 46,800 to 58,343. The increase was likely due to real growth in the gay community and, potentially, in part the result of an underestimation of the population size in 2001.
When the effect of the increase in the population size of [men having sex with men] is taken into account, new infections have decreased by an estimated 33 percent.
Sero-sorting - condom-free sex between people of the same HIV status - is a big reason why.
Good News
28 Apr 2007 04:39 pm
Amazing, I know - but the capture of this Qaeda operative is obviously a small breakthrough. Congrats to those who managed it. I only hope that he has not been tortured. But he has been in the Bush-Cheney torture network, is in Gitmo's Camp 5, and so we know now what to expect.
The Oldest Story
28 Apr 2007 04:37 pm
An American soldier does what soldiers have done for centuries - go looking for sex. Trouble is: this is Afghanistan and the dangers are immense. But our hero (who wouldn't pass the Imus test) is undeterred:
There were about 8-10 girls, and maybe 3-4 at best were worth looking at. I chatted one up for a bit, then quickly changed course, in favor of a bigger breasted, more tender seated, slightly older woman. This action illustrates a strongly held principle of mine when it comes to whore mongering. I will always go for a girl with a fit body and a less exciting face as opposed to the reciprocal of that equation. A pretty face on a whore is a lot like a GPS tracking system in a Humvee. They're nice to have, but not mission essential.
Of course, I cannot verify this story which appears anonymously in a Moscow internet paper.
Face of the Day
28 Apr 2007 03:52 pm
Iraqis try to comfort a weeping man at the site of a suicide car bomb in the holy city of Karbala, central Iraq, 28 April 2007. A suicide car bomb attack near a revered Shiite shrine in the central Iraqi city of Karbala killed at least 55 people and wounded nearly 160 today, a health ministry official said. By Mohammed Sawaf/AFP/Getty.
Surge Or Punt?
28 Apr 2007 03:37 pm
David Kurtz assesses the latest from the Bush administration's talking points on the war.
Acrobots
28 Apr 2007 03:26 pm
Just use your imagination.
Play-Doh and Bacon
28 Apr 2007 02:29 pm
Ace of Spades grapples with a ... vagina.
Child-Mutilation
28 Apr 2007 02:07 pm
It's legal and may not be stoppable if a father decides to go ahead with it.
The Abstinence Czar
28 Apr 2007 01:16 pm
Bush's main point-man for promoting abstinence as a first-line defense against HIV transmission was Randall Tobias:
As the Bush administration's so-called "AIDS czar," Tobias was criticized by some for emphasizing faithfulness and abstinence over condom use to prevent the spread of AIDS. In a 2004 interview, Tobias explained his approach as "A and B and C ... Abstinence works. 'Be faithful' works. Condoms work. They all have a role. But it's not a multiple choice, where there is only one answer."
As a top official overseeing global AIDS funding to other countries, Tobias was responsible for enforcing a U.S. policy, enacted during the Bush administration, that requires recipients to swear they oppose prostitution and sex trafficking. USAID adopted a similar policy in 2004.
You can almost predict the rest.
From Yee to Kelley
28 Apr 2007 12:40 pm
There's a link in the accusations against them. Their humane treatment of detainees and resistance to abuse and torture may be the real reasons they've been targeted by the Pentagon. Yee was ruined but cleared in the end.
The View From Your Window
28 Apr 2007 12:20 pm
Approaching San Juan Island, Washington, on a ferry, 3.30 pm.
Buckley's Clarity
28 Apr 2007 12:01 pm
A real conservative understands what is happening in this country and in the war. He's also prepared to tell the truth:
It is simply untrue that we are making decisive progress in Iraq. The indicators rise and fall from day to day, week to week, month to month. In South Vietnam there was an organized enemy. There is clearly organization in the strikes by the terrorists against our forces and against the civil government in Iraq, but whereas in Vietnam we had Hanoi as the operative headquarters of the enemy, we have no equivalent of that in Iraq, and that is a matter of paralyzing importance. All those bombings, explosions, assassinations: we are driven to believe that they are, so to speak, spontaneous.
When the Romans were challenged by Christianity, Rome fell. The generation of Christians moved by their faith overwhelmed the regimented reserves of the Roman state. It was four years ago that Mr. Cheney first observed that there was a real fear that each fallen terrorist leads to the materialization of another terrorist. What can a 'surge,' of the kind we are now relying upon, do to cope with endemic disease?
Read the whole thing.
"Outputs"
28 Apr 2007 11:40 am
We have another Bush Orwellianism: "outputs", as opposed to "outcomes," in Iraq. Money NYT quote:
If lawmakers remain in Baghdad, said one senior American official who did not want to be identified because he was discussing internal White House deliberations, 'we'll have some outputs then." He added, "That's different from having outcomes," drawing a distinction between a sign of activity and a sign of success, which could take considerably longer.
So the bar for the Iraqis keeps getting, yes, lower. Now the president is telling us not to expect any measurable progress by September - no actual "outcomes." Instead, we are to look for "activity." Did Maliki shave this morning? Did Sadr take his afternoon walk? I guess this might be another device to lower expectations - lower them? - but it's essentially a statement that we have no reason to believe that the current strategy can do anything serious to affect the entire country - but that we're staying with it anyway. By September, there will be a reckoning. My guess is that September is the moment that a critical part of the Congressional Republican party abandons this war. Bush needs a miracle to avoid that. And it appears he isn't expecting one.
Dobson vs Doonesbury
28 Apr 2007 11:31 am
Ahh, the culture war. Sometimes it's too good to miss.
Lion Bites Man
28 Apr 2007 10:30 am
Graphic footage from Iran. (Warning: don't click if squeamish.)
Quote for the Day II
28 Apr 2007 09:10 am
"There is absolutely no sound scientific evidence that marijuana has any medicinal value," - Dennis Hastert, former speaker of the House.
Quote for the Day
28 Apr 2007 08:03 am
"Under the protective canopy of the no-fly zone — actually it was also called the "you-fly-you-die zone' — an embryonic free Iraq had a chance to grow. I was among those who thought and believed and argued that this example could, and should, be extended to the rest of the country; the cause became a consuming thing in my life. To describe the resulting shambles as a disappointment or a failure or even a defeat would be the weakest statement I could possibly make: it feels more like a sick, choking nightmare of betrayal from which there can be no awakening" - Christopher Hitchens on Iraq. And yet Kurdistan endures. Long may it do so.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Byrne and Bees
27 Apr 2007 10:15 pm
I didn't mean to endorse all his views on the disappearing bees by my one-liner. I just couldn't resist a pun. This reader does actually make sense:
Real scientists are looking at a pathogen right now, although they still don't know what's up. He's letting his (quite unscientific) biases against genetically modified food guide him to conclusions that confirm his preconceptions. There is no data right now suggesting GM crops have anything to do with this, and only crazed anti-GM ideologues will tell you otherwise.
Also, his Einstein quote is most likely made up, which makes sense, seeing as he was a physicist and not a biologist.
Lomborg on Climate Change
27 Apr 2007 07:31 pm
No denial - but serious pragmatism and realism.
Rush on Obama
27 Apr 2007 06:40 pm
The GOP and Civil Unions
27 Apr 2007 06:13 pm
The New Hampshire development has been very revealing about where the parties now stand. Remember that when the Republican leadership favored the Federal Marriage Amendment, they said they did not necessarily oppose civil unions. They were lying, of course. All the anti-marriage amendments are designed to strip gay couples of any secure legal footing under the law. The Christianists are not fighting for the semantics of the word "marriage". They are fighting to ensure that gay couples are kept inferior under the law - because, well, they believe our relationships are inferior. Giuliani believes his three marriages qualify him to deny gay couples equality under the law. Ryan Sager exploses the grim truth:
This New Hampshire civil union bill has forced all of the major candidates — the Big Three in each party — to take public positions. And the somewhat surprising result is that all three Democrats support it and all three Republicans oppose it. This is surprising because the Republican primary field is supposedly so socially liberal. And it may well be. But Messrs. Giuliani and McCain seem to have decided that that's not going to fly in the GOP primary.
It's not a crazy calculation. But when your images are A) straight talker and B) take-no-prisoners tough guy, it's hard to reconcile with such clear pandering.
The Duke "Rape" Report
27 Apr 2007 05:58 pm
The final report on a scandalous smear. Which reminds me ...
Face of the Day
27 Apr 2007 05:19 pm
A girl holds a poster "Segolene President" during a campaign meeting of French Socialist party presidential candidate Segolene Royal, 27 April 2007 in Lyon, nine days before the second round of French election. By Jean-Philippe Ksiazek/AFP/Getty.
The Torture Fax
27 Apr 2007 04:41 pm
Swiss journalists are acquitted of revealing military secrets by printing a copy of this fax, revealing the network of secret torture and interrogation sites operated by the Bush-Cheney administration.
Bombing Abortion Clinics
27 Apr 2007 04:35 pm
The terrorism that no one calls by its rightful name.
David Byrne and Bees
27 Apr 2007 04:23 pm
I wish he'd stop making sense.
But Do They Look Competent?
27 Apr 2007 04:02 pm
A study of voter response to baby-faced and not-so-baby-faced politicians.
Are Women Human?
27 Apr 2007 03:40 pm
Catherine MacKinnon gives a speech at Radcliffe.
Yingling and the Generals
27 Apr 2007 03:21 pm
I'm not sure what to make of the Lieutenant Colonel's evisceration of military leadership in the Armed Forces Journal. But his analysis of the failure seems acutely on-target to me. Money quote:
The most fundamental military miscalculation in Iraq has been the failure to commit sufficient forces to provide security to Iraq's population. U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) estimated in its 1998 war plan that 380,000 troops would be necessary for an invasion of Iraq. Using operations in Bosnia and Kosovo as a model for predicting troop requirements, one Army study estimated a need for 470,000 troops. Alone among America's generals, Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki publicly stated that "several hundred thousand soldiers" would be necessary to stabilize post-Saddam Iraq. Prior to the war, President Bush promised to give field commanders everything necessary for victory. Privately, many senior general officers both active and retired expressed serious misgivings about the insufficiency of forces for Iraq. These leaders would later express their concerns in tell-all books such as "Fiasco" and "Cobra II." However, when the U.S. went to war in Iraq with less than half the strength required to win, these leaders did not make their objections public.
Given the lack of troop strength, not even the most brilliant general could have devised the ways necessary to stabilize post-Saddam Iraq. However, inept planning for postwar Iraq took the crisis caused by a lack of troops and quickly transformed it into a debacle. In 1997, the U.S. Central Command exercise "Desert Crossing" demonstrated that many postwar stabilization tasks would fall to the military. The other branches of the U.S. government lacked sufficient capability to do such work on the scale required in Iraq. Despite these results, CENTCOM accepted the assumption that the State Department would administer postwar Iraq. The military never explained to the president the magnitude of the challenges inherent in stabilizing postwar Iraq.
It is equally true that a president has a responsibility to make sure he gets the best military advice - including advice that he doesn't want to hear. Bush didn't. He was out of his depth. And then politics precluded honesty, and we got ourselves into the mess we have. A military reader who has emailed me very reliably over the years offers an insider's take:
I can tell you, Andrew, this guy is not just revered, he's - and this is no understatement - beloved. His troops are wildly loyal to him and his former commanders routinely call upon him for advice.
The debate is whether or not it is proper for a sitting general officer - whether or not he is charged with the responsiblity - to speak out when he is ordered to execute plans he knows full well may be either poorly planned, under-manned, poorly equipped, or dangerously over-reaching. The argument among many in the civilian leadership - both in and outside of the Pentagon - is that they should remain quiet, salute smartly, and simply execute the orders they are given ... and that to do otherwise is to be disloyal, to be laying the groundwork for a military coup. Others though, believe that they are indeed charged with presenting their long-studied, long-prepared-for alternative points of view. Points of view which are based upon an adult lifetime of measured responses and reason.
I'm in the latter camp. Of course, this only applies to 4-stars. A 3-star who has spent his entire adult life working with combat Soldiers or Marines would be wasting all that effort. This speaking out business is not for all officers. But from our 4-star leadership - we demand it - and it is there where our current and recently retired batch have failed us all.
Many of us failed in this war. Many journalists failed to be as skeptical as we should have been; the generals should not have acquiesced in the Cheney-Rumsfeld happy-think. The country has suffered - and the troops who are risking their lives bear the worst. Ultimately, however, this has to be the president's responsibility. I wonder if he will ever really take it.
(Photo: A U.S. Army soldiers of the D-CO 2/325 AIR 82nd Airborne Division take part in a dismounted movement to conduct early morning raids on homes April 26, 2007 in Baghdad, Iraq. By Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Hetero-Sissies
27 Apr 2007 02:51 pm
A reader writes:
I am a heterosexual male, 66.3 years of age; I was a sweet child, and pretty much from the git-go - a sissy. I got bullied a lot in the late 40s and 50s, when the WWII notion of masculinity prevailed unquestioningly. I read; I loved music and singing; I hated football but excelled at it, and enjoyed all sports; I hated the heavy hand of conformity in my small rural Missouri town, and knew from early years that what makes/made a man was diverse to say the least, and way beyond my father's and my uncles's worshipping of the John Wayne syndrome. And believe me, it always hurt when my father would turn on me with scorn and anger and say the frightfully loaded words, "Don't be such a goddamned sissy." I lived with his contempt for me until he died, and didn't much regret his passing; now that I am older than he was then, I wish I'd been less angry with him and more sympathetic, but such words were really mean.
So I know about that. I still fail to see why and how you can say that our culture is either therapeutic or male-loathing. Certain parts of it are. But why not? Certain aspects of our culture are also unchanged from what they were when I was a boy, and had to cope with the vulgarities and the sureties and the viciousness of that male-dominated abuse. Why not loathe that kind of maleness? You must have suffered from it, too.
I did. But not quite as brutally as some, perhaps. The point I was trying to make is that some feminists have tried to problematize maleness as such, without making the significant distinctions my reader rightly highlights. The choice is not "real men" or "metrosexuals." It's more complicated and interesting than that.
Why Do Atheists Believe In Religion?
27 Apr 2007 02:27 pm
The View From Your Window
27 Apr 2007 02:17 pm
Pebble Beach, California, 9 pm.
"Mouthfeel"
27 Apr 2007 01:55 pm
Finally - an explanation for why diet sodas suck. I have to say, though, that I've become a convert to Coke Zero.
On Manliness
27 Apr 2007 01:34 pm
"The forbearing use of power does not only form a touchstone, but the manner in which an individual enjoys certain advantages over others is a test of a true gentleman.
The power which the strong have over the weak, the employer over the employed, the educated over the unlettered, the experienced over the confiding, even the clever over the silly--the forbearing or inoffensive use of all this power or authority, or a total abstinence from it when the case admits it, will show the gentleman in a plain light
The gentleman does not needlessly and unnecessarily remind an offender of a wrong he may have committed against him. He cannot only forgive, he can forget; and he strives for that nobleness of self and mildness of character which impart sufficient strength to let the past be but the past. A true man of honor feels humbled himself when he cannot help humbling others," - Robert E. Lee. A reader emailed me suggesting it as a helpful complement to this post.
Sex Is Tough
27 Apr 2007 12:53 pm
When your husband is in jail. Half a million American women are in that position.
Maggie Gallagher Has Balls
27 Apr 2007 12:46 pm
In a good way.
Has The Blogosphere Stalled?
27 Apr 2007 12:31 pm
The data suggests so.
YouTube of the Day
27 Apr 2007 12:13 pm
If this doesn't cheer you up, nothing will:
Quote for the Day
27 Apr 2007 11:57 am
"When a newly revitalized al-Qaeda carries out a 9/11-scale attack, you will own that one," - Senator Kit Bond, yesterday, to his Democratic colleagues in the Senate.
Tagging Clinton
27 Apr 2007 11:35 am
Here's a tag-cloud of everything Senator Clinton said last night in the debate. The words are weighted depending on the frequency of her use of them. For all the candidates' tag-clouds from last night, check this out. Forgive me, but I had a dinner with a friend.
Dobson vs Doonesbury
27 Apr 2007 11:32 am
Ahh, the culture war. Sometimes it's too good to miss.
The Looming Choice
27 Apr 2007 11:27 am
There will come a moment, I think, when even president Bush will realize that he cannot simply buck a majority of the American people, a majority of the Iraqi people, and a majority of the Congress in defense of an Iraqi parliament that is going into recess for two months this summer. There will therefore also come a moment in which the fear of the violence that will doubtless follow redeployment/withdrawal will seduce Washington into seeking a new "strongman" to keep Iraq whole. Con Coughlin thinks Sadr would never be able to pull this off, without a massive civil war. He wants a new dictator that's both secularish and able to restore order. It's the Saddam argument all over again. The trouble is two-fold. How does Bush square imposing a new strongman when he went to war to depose the old one? Secondly: there isn't anyone out there right now. If America were to try and find and impose a new Saddam-lite, he would instantly lost whatever shred of legitimacy he might have had. This is not, in other words, a solution. It could compound the problem. The neocons wanted to foment unrest in the Middle East. In this, at least, they are going to succeed.
Novak on Bloch
27 Apr 2007 10:54 am
Interesting context:
[Scott J.] Bloch, a devout Catholic, has been under attack for three years in leading the independent investigative agency because of his interpretation of statutes covering workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation. He also has been publicly accused of hiring too many Catholics. Clay Johnson, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget and another Texan brought to Washington by Bush, joined the attack on Bush-appointee Bloch. The case became a cause celebre on the right when Bloch was told by a prominent Catholic layman close to Bush that it would be better if he just resigned.
Now, the tables are turned, with Bloch investigating the White House.
So it's payback time? I wonder if Bloch, who has seven children, is in Opus Dei, or close to Novak's own Opus Dei guru, Father John McCloskey. And I wonder who the "prominent Catholic layman close to Bush" is.
In Defense of Masculinity
27 Apr 2007 10:51 am
We live in a male-loathing therapeutic culture. But the crudeness of the most common formulations is absurd (and yes, I include MoDo). Masculinity comes in many forms; and it's a sign of our culture's weakness that we tend to see it only in terms of violence, machismo, homophobia, disrespect for women, and so on. Hip-hop and the Bush-Cheney administration have more in common on this score than they'd like to think. Maybe gay men can be part of the solution, in developing a culture of masculinity that draws on classical virtue, rather than pop-cultural dreck. Here's a simple expression of the distinction between toxic masculinity and virtuous manliness. Money quote:
The basic good code of a certain brand of masculinity, as opposed to macho, is that you don't pick fights, and that you never tolerate the strong bullying the weak. Bullying, in fact, is seen as a declaration of weakness - if you were strong, you wouldn't be picking fights with weaklings, now would you? And if you were confident, you wouldn't need to prove anything, would you? Certainly you don't back down from a fight - but you don't go looking for it either.
Persia's Paradoxes
27 Apr 2007 10:39 am
Peter Hitchens - a rabidly right-wing version of his brother - reports:
Remember, this is a country that does have elections and those elections don't always go according to plan, despite ruthless official rigging. I asked those present if they had supported Ahmadinejad in the presidential poll. All hands but one went up. Would they do so again? No hands went up. By the way, the women dominated this conversation.
On the other hand, we have this.
(Hat tip: Headline Junky.)
The War on Terror ...
27 Apr 2007 10:07 am
... or the War on Drugs. Pick one of the two. Sane terror-fighters in Afghanistan just got reprimanded by the UN. And NATO reversed its policy of winking at the sole source of income many Afghans have.
Tackling Climate Change
27 Apr 2007 09:34 am
An alternative to a carbon tax:
One idea put forth by a physicist involved in climate-control discussions would involve bombarding the Arctic stratosphere with specially engineered particles to deflect the sun’s rays, thereby lowering temperatures. Alternatively, a fleet of crop-dusting airplanes could deliver the particles by flying continuously around the Arctic Circle. An astronomer suggested placing a huge fleet of mirrors in orbit to divert solar radiation.
Here's the Wilson Quarterly essay that gives you the full monty - and the risks and drawbacks as well.
Do I Blog Like A Girl?
27 Apr 2007 08:30 am
A female blogger asks and uses this tool to figure it out. Try it yourself. I entered several blog posts of mine, and came out as solidly testosteroned every time.
Arresting Condi Rice
27 Apr 2007 07:50 am
Congress could do it. Here's how.
Comparable Worth
27 Apr 2007 06:45 am
An awful, exhausted paleo-liberal idea. And Obama signed up for it. Mickey's right on this one.
Rudy Reverses on Civil Unions
27 Apr 2007 12:47 am
This is what he said two years ago to Bill O'Reilly:
"I'm in favor of civil unions. Marriage should be reserved for a man and a woman."
When O'Reilly asked what Giuliani's response would be to gay couples who think denial of marriage rights is state discrimination, Rudy replied: "That's why you have civil partnerships. So now you have a civil partnership, domestic partnership, civil union, whatever you want to call it, and that takes care of the imbalance, the discrimination, which we shouldn't have." That's exactly the argument that New Hampshire's legislature and governor have made in passing their civil unions bill. So Rudy supports that, no?
Er:
"Mayor Giuliani believes marriage is between one man and one woman. Domestic partnerships are the appropriate way to ensure that people are treated fairly. In this specific case the law states same sex civil unions are the equivalent of marriage and recognizes same sex unions from outside states. This goes too far and Mayor Giuliani does not support it."
That's from the New York Sun. So he was in favor of ending the discrimination by civil unions before - and he isn't now. Romney isn't the only flip-flopper, is he?
Thursday, April 26, 2007
The Book Tour
26 Apr 2007 09:07 pm
My friend Kevin Sessums has been on one for his heart-rending memoir, "Mississippi Sissy." On his blog, he captures the ineffable exhaustion of book tours, and the guilt-inducing selfishness they provoke, and the numbing isolation they conjure. One snippet rings as true as Kevin's book:
I thought it would be easy doing a round trip in one day because it was Boston. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. I am exhausted and frustrated and close to tears. I sold three books tonight at the store. I paid for this trip myself. My Amazon number is for shit. I feel like I’ve sort of reached my limit in sales - I pray I’m wrong about that - and I’m just treading marketing water now. I hate to sound so down but that’s the way I’m feeling. I live a pretty solitary life but this life-on-the-road has taken the loneliness I often feel and encased it with a meta-loneliness that is becoming increasingly difficult to cope with on a night like this.
Cars, Ctd.
26 Apr 2007 07:45 pm
A reader tries to talk me into one, after this post:
I'm going to put this to you plainly and I hope you listen close (it's for your own good). America's romance with cars has nothing to do with commuting to work or one-upping your yuppie neighbor, it has everything to do with the sensation of a perfect drive. Here is a sporting conquest, an affirmation of skill, a moment of oneness and bliss, even a religious experience waiting for anyone with the right car and a driver's license. I hope you can apply the same sensibility that led you to post the dressage video a few weeks ago to the world of automobiles. It will open your eyes.
I'd recommend taking the keys right out of your boyfriend's hands, especially if the car is rear wheel drive and light weight, and heading at least two hours north of NYC. Anything north of New Paltz in mountainous terrain is essentially police free, without posted speed limits, and without traffic. Just look for mountain passes, reservoir roads, really anything that refuses to stay straight for more than 200 yards. No need to plan anything else (food, lodgings, amusement), trust me, it will all fall into place.
Well, I watched the video. Maybe you have to be there.
Jonah At Oxford, Ctd.
26 Apr 2007 06:35 pm
As I expected, the honorable member from National Review did very well. An Oxford reader writes of Jonah's speech:
Very amusing: a joke every line, house often in stitches. Hammered home the line that to regret America is to regret Britain, and that is a shameful, ludicrous act of self-loathing. Quite stirring. Excellent cracks about the Communist guy (who failed to turn up): "Was Dr. Doom not available? Did you not approach the most penetrating pundits in the Klingon galaxy?" etc. It fell to Matt Frei (of the BBC) to bark "Nein Danke!" at the proposition bench, when one clambered to make a 'point of information', to prolonged laughter.
Proposition was, shall we say, sinister - particularly UK Islamic Party guy, who talked darkly about "Corporations and control of money by small, dangerous groups", but stopped short of mentionining the Jews by name. One or two Muslims in the audience applauded them at points, but few else. Oddly they were combined with a Canadian feminist (producing, as the first proposition speaker put it, "the first ever Canadian-Islamist alliance against a Neoconservative-Matt Frei alliance"). Nearly everyone poured out the Noes door (save Matt Frei, interestingly, who nipped out for a loo break through the Ayes).
All in all it was a pretty good Union night, though the Islamists became quickly tedious, depriving it of those moments when the place zips with the tension and excitement of real and dramatised intellectual swordplay.
Now back to revising for finals.
More Potent Pot?
26 Apr 2007 06:34 pm
A reader dissents from part of this post:
Prohibitionists love to trot out the stale old "this isn't the harmless marijuana you remember from your youth" chestnut. Two points: 1) if the marijuana from their youths was harmless (and I tend to agree it was), then why was it illegal back then? 2) to the extent that marijuana is more potent today than, say, thirty or forty years ago, that means that less of it needs to be ingested to produce the same effect, which, if the method of ingestion is smoking means that less byproduct needs to be inhaled in order to administer the same amount of THC. In plain English, people back in the day smoked until they were stoned, and they still do so today - the only difference is that these days they don't need to smoke as much...
Of course, some might claim that people today will simply continue to smoke until they reach altogether unacceptable levels of pleasure (since smoking to the point of toxicity is physically impossible), but some basic economics help out on that point: in addition to being more potent, today's "super potent" marijuana is also much, much more expensive, even adjusted for inflation, than the marijuana of decades past.
The point is, people who attempt to change the debate by claiming that marijuana is somehow "not the same drug" as it used to be are basically just blowing smoke.
A Two-Month Recess??
26 Apr 2007 06:29 pm
Iraq's parliament prepares to take the summer off. I wonder if anyone will be able to tell the difference. Everyone agrees that the surge is only even viable in Baghdad if critical political steps are being taken in the government and parliament, to complement mildly better security in some parts of the capital. We've just been told how serious Maliki is about that. He's not.
Althouse and Feminism
26 Apr 2007 06:10 pm
An illuminating exchange of views.
Leaving Baghdad
26 Apr 2007 05:39 pm
Riverbend blogger makes her call. Sad, sad post. Money quote:
I always hear the Iraqi pro-war crowd interviewed on television from foreign capitals (they can only appear on television from the safety of foreign capitals because I defy anyone to be publicly pro-war in Iraq). They refuse to believe that their religiously inclined, sectarian political parties fueled this whole Sunni/Shia conflict. They refuse to acknowledge that this situation is a direct result of the war and occupation. They go on and on about Iraq's history and how Sunnis and Shia were always in conflict and I hate that. I hate that a handful of expats who haven't been to the country in decades pretend to know more about it than people actually living there.
I remember Baghdad before the war- one could live anywhere. We didn't know what our neighbors were- we didn't care. No one asked about religion or sect. No one bothered with what was considered a trivial topic: are you Sunni or Shia? You only asked something like that if you were uncouth and backward. Our lives revolve around it now. Our existence depends on hiding it or highlighting it- depending on the group of masked men who stop you or raid your home in the middle of the night.
On a personal note, we've finally decided to leave. I guess I've known we would be leaving for a while now.
The View From Your Window
26 Apr 2007 05:06 pm
Vienna, Austria, 8.12 am.
Tenet Discovers That Cheney Lies
26 Apr 2007 04:39 pm
Big whoop. Actually, I find Tenet's description of the real context of his "slam dunk" remark more incriminating - both of him and the administration. It suggests that the main concern at that time was selling the war with selected intelligence, not ensuring that the intelligence was correct and fairly presented - with all the caveats - to the American people.
Doctors Enabling Pain
26 Apr 2007 04:26 pm
I linked recently to John Tierney's important report on the fight for patients to get adequate pain relief from doctors suffering from "opiophobia." Virginia Postrel, who has had her own experiences with such pain, points to this superb piece on the subject by Jacob Sullum.
Correction of the Day
26 Apr 2007 04:19 pm
A beaut from the WaPo.
Face of the Day
26 Apr 2007 04:04 pm
"He might turn the speech into the usual denunciation of traitors and thought-criminals, but that was a little too obvious, while to invent a victory at the front, or some triumph of over-production in the Ninth Three-Year Plan, might complicate the records too much.
What was needed was a piece of pure fantasy. Suddenly there sprang into his mind, ready-made as it were, the image of a certain Comrade Ogilvy, who had recently died in battle, in heroic circumstances. There were occasions when Big Brother devoted his Order for the Day to commemorating some humble, rank-and-file Party member whose life and death he held up as an example worthy to be followed.
Today he should commemorate Comrade Ogilvy. It was true that there was no such person as Comrade Ogilvy, but a few lines of print and a couple of faked photographs would soon bring him into existence," - George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four.
(Photo: Kevin Tillman testifies on what his family was told about the death of his brother Patrick Tillman, who was killed during a friendly fire incident while serving in Afghanistan, during a hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Capitol Hill, April 24, 2007 in Washington, DC. Patrick Tillman was killed during a friendly fire incident while serving in Afghanistan, but the military initially reported the death as part of and engagement with the enemy. The hearing is focused on misleading information from the battlefield. By Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Some Context on Duke
26 Apr 2007 03:54 pm
I didn't comment much on the Duke Lacrosse team "rape" fiasco, and in retrospect I'm glad I didn't. But this data is more salient than a cable news marathon:
If you go to the website reporting the annual National Crime Victimization Survey, as many people do, you can look up the rape statistics in "Table 42: Personal Crimes of Violence 2005: Percent distribution of single offender victimizations, based on race of victims, by type of crime and perceived race of offender."
Under "Rape/Sexual assaults" the survey reports 111,490 rape/assaults in 2005 in which a white was the victim. The "perceived race" of the offender was reported as white in 44.5 percent of cases, black in 33.6 percent of cases, "other" in 19.6 percent of cases.
Where the victim of rape was black, in 36,620 cases, things were rather different. The "perceived race" of the offender was reported as black in 100.0 percent of cases. White offenders? "0.0*" percent.
The asterisk means that the sample included ten or fewer reports. The federal crime statistics show that white-on-black rape was almost non-existent in the United States of America in 2005.
Japan's Post-War Sex Slaves
26 Apr 2007 03:39 pm
For American GIs?
Derb on Saturday Night Fever
26 Apr 2007 03:23 pm
You know you want it.
Save The Reviews!
26 Apr 2007 03:18 pm
"In the new book burning we don't burn books, we burn discussion of them instead. I am referring to the ongoing collapse of book review sections at American newspapers, which has accelerated in recent months, an intellectual brownout in progress that is beginning to look like a rolling blackout instead," - Art Winslow, National Book Critics Circle. He has sparked quite a debate. And a campaign.
"Aiding The Enemy"?
26 Apr 2007 02:55 pm
I do not know all the facts about the decision by the US military to bring extremely serious charges against an officer, Lt. Col. William H. Steele, who supervised the Camp Cropper detention facility. Camp Cropper was a site where torture and abuse occurred, as it did at almost every U.S. detention camp in Iraq. But Steele, of course, is not being charged with the war-crimes that took place there. He is being charged with treason. My own sources describe him as a man of integrity, a man who actually tried to treat detainees as human beings. Another James Yee? I don't know. But I'm deeply skeptical of this accusation.
More Than A Woman?
26 Apr 2007 02:55 pm
A scientist analyzes the language of Senator Clinton.
Victory in New Hampshire
26 Apr 2007 02:22 pm
Another win for marriage equality in New England. Well, it isn't exactly civil marriage, but it is a form of "spousal union" which gives all "the same rights, responsibilities, and obligations as married couples". The term "spousal union" strikes me as a breakthrough - a euphemism that isn't really a euphemism. The bill uses both terms "spousal union" and civil union." Notice how this happened: by legislative action alone, in a conservative state, as a pragmatic measure, with humane and conservative intent. This is the path the national GOP chose not to take. History will not remember them kindly for it. It also seems to me that New England's regional support for gay couples makes a reversal of the Massachusetts breakthrough even less likely than it was before. Now: California. The legislature has passed a civil marriage law. Why is a Republican governor now deferring to the state court?
ScotBlog
26 Apr 2007 02:12 pm
Alex Massie, a former guest-blogger here, now has his own. Check it out.
Prohibition News
26 Apr 2007 02:09 pm
Here's classic b.s. from the prohibitionist lobby on pot:
National Institute on Drug Abuse Director Dr. Nora Volkow fears the problem is not being taken seriously because many adults remember the marijuana of their youth as harmless.
"It's really not the same type of marijuana," Volkow said in a telephone interview. "This could explain why there has been an increase in the number of medical emergencies involving marijuana."
According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Adminstration, marijuana was involved in 242,200 visits to hospital emergency rooms in 2005. This means that the patient mentioned using marijuana and does not mean the drug directly caused the accident or condition being treated, SAMHSA says. The number is up from 215,000 visits in 2004.
Notice the carefully parsed statement: "This could explain." And yet, there's no evidence at all that it does actually explain anything, except perhaps that pot-smoking is enjoying a resurgence. (By the way: I wonder what the annual number of medical emergencies involving alcohol is. Not "could be", but is.) There's no question that pot is stronger now than in the 1960s; there's equally no question in my mind that any minor should be prevented from smoking it. But legalization and regulation could help restrict its use among minors, the way we do with nicotine today. And it could also help regulate its potency. But such measures would be a function of a rational drug policy, as opposed to the completely insane one we live under today.
Go, Hugh
26 Apr 2007 02:08 pm
Paparazzi are human slime. Baked beans are too good for them.
Jonah at Oxford
26 Apr 2007 01:32 pm
I realize Jonah Goldberg is debating the United States at the Oxford Union tonight. He'll do fine, I'm sure. In fact, Jonah is a very Oxford Union debater. They love jokes, gags, self-deprecation. They also like conviction spliced in with it. Goldberg - when he's on form - can pull all this off. And he's up against some Islamist nutballs on the question of:
"This House Regrets the Founding of the United States of America."
If I were Jonah, I'd kick off with Burke. At some point, ask why they're not debating in German. Above all, don't be defensive. A tough Union crowd can sense fear.
It takes me back, of course, to a debate I set up there as president in 1983. The topic was: "There is no moral difference between the foreign policies of the United States and the Soviet Union." As president, I was supposed to chair the debate, but I invited Caspar Weinberger and he accepted, and also invited E.P. Thompson, the leftist historian who was a big macher in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. The Thatcher government was facing an election, had a policy of no-engagement with CND, and talked Weinberger into withdrawing. I was pissed - in the American sense of the word. The debate was rescheduled after the election - so I got to debate in it. I took the losing side, as I always tried to in Oxford debates (far more fun to lose well than to win easily). But looking back, I see some resonances. I was very pro-Thatcher and pro-Reagan. I celebrated the arrival of cruise missiles in Britain with a champagne party at Oxford. About four people showed up. But I still opposed the notion that a democracy can do no evil in foreign policy. I do not believe that any country has a monopoly on moral good, and that the greatest countries are also capable of moral evil. That's my Catholicism, I guess. But I do remember interrupting Weinberger in the debate with the following question:
"Does an immoral act become less immoral because we have the right to choose to do it or not?"
The answer was no. It still is. End the torture policy.
(Photo: Union bar and library by Kaihsu Tai.)
