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Saturday, April 5, 2008
The Illusion Of Security
05 Apr 2008 06:27 pm
By Patrick
From Jeremy Waldron's review of Worst-Case Scenarios by Cass Sunstein:
The One Per Cent Doctrine: it’s a striking methodology and a liberating one, and many people think it’s the only way to respond to the threat of low-probability, high-impact events. With it, the endless evidence-gathering and analysis that characterises traditional intelligence policy gives way to clarity. Nothing any longer needs to be conditional. We no longer say, ‘If X has happened, then we need to do Y,’ with all our effort being devoted to finding out whether X has in fact happened or (in an uncertain world) what its probability is. Instead we say, ‘If there is the smallest significant chance that X has happened, then we have no choice but to do Y.’ If X may lead to a catastrophe that must be avoided at all costs (like a nuclear attack on an American city), then we need to swing into action immediately and do Y. No further questions.
This reminds me of the following segment of George F. Kennan's 1954 The Illusion of Security (here is a pdf):
There is something about this quest for absolute security that is self-defeating. It is an exercise which, like every form of perfectionism, undermines and destroys its own basic purpose. The French have their wonderful proverb: Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien--the absolute best is the enemy of the good. Nothing truer has ever been said . A foreign policy aimed at the achievement of total security is the one thing I can think of that is entirely capable of bringing this country to a point where it will have no security at all. And a ruthless, reckless insistence on attempting to stamp out everything that could conceivably constitute a reflection of improper foreign influence in our national life, regardless of the actual damage it is doing to the cost of eliminating it, in terms of other American values, is the one thing I can think of that should reduce us all to a point where the very independence we are seeking to defend would be meaningless, for we would be doing things to ourselves as vicious and tyrannical as any that might be brought to us from outside.
This sort of extremism seems to me to hold particular danger for a democracy, because it creates a curious area between what is held to be possible and what is really possible--an area within which government can always be plausibly shown to have been most dangerously delinquent in the performance of its tasks. And this area, where government is always deficient, provides the ideal field of opportunity for every sort of demagoguery and mischief-making. It constitutes a terrible breach in the dike of our national morale, through which forces of doubt and suspicion never cease to find entry. The heart of our problem, here, lies in our assessment of the relative importance of the various dangers among which we move; and until many of our people can be brought to understand the what we have to do is not to secure a total absence of danger but to balance peril against peril and to find the tolerable degree of each, we shall not wholly emerge from these confusions.
The World According To The Blogosphere
05 Apr 2008 05:09 pm
By Patrick
The Online Journalism Blog has maps of various news outlets' international coverage. Above is the map of the blogoshere. Below is the New York Times.
The WSJ Numbers Guy blog explains why it's hard to map media coverage accurately.
(Hat tip: Julia Whitty)
When Coalitions Dissolve
05 Apr 2008 04:12 pm
By Patrick
Welch on libertarianism's rocky relationship with the GOP:
The remaining libertarians in Reagan’s shrinking big tent aren’t just being ignored or marginalized; they’re being blamed for the Reagan coalition’s crackup. While John McCain was heading toward the nomination in January, The Weekly Standard published an online piece by the political scientists Benjamin and Jenna Silber Storey slamming McCain’s critics as “strict free-market” ideologues whose rigidity jeopardized the conservative movement. “The moral vacuity of dogmatic libertarianism is poisonous to public life,” the Storeys wrote. “Conservatives who forget that the free market is properly a piece of policy rather than an ideological end-in-itself not only obscure the importance of individual virtue, they undermine it.”[...]
I wonder how responsible it is to add libertarian votes to a shrinking coalition whose dominant rhetoric and political standard-bearer stand in increasingly explicit opposition to the party’s libertarian strand. McCain, whose National Greatness conservatism is openly hostile to individualism, has recently hit some encouraging free market notes. Nonetheless, a Republican defeat this November might just leave fiscal conservatives more orphaned than people yet realize.
It's All In The Nose
05 Apr 2008 03:01 pm
By Patrick
An elephant paints a self-portrait:
Hit Single
05 Apr 2008 02:33 pm
By Patrick
Reihan Salam, my Atlantic colleague and erstwhile Dish guest blogger, sings away his troubles.
Should He Stay Or Should He Go
05 Apr 2008 02:30 pm
By Patrick
Since Mark Penn's latest misstep, certain unions and bloggers have been calling for him leave the Clinton campaign. Some opinion from around the web:
In 2000, George W. Bush dealt with these problems by insisting Karl Rove step down from his other companies in order to work on the campaign. Clinton has done nothing of the kind, leading to all sorts of huge conflicts of interest. It's time for Clinton to make Penn step down. Either from her campaign, or from his other jobs.
...if it's time for anyone to go, I think it's time for [Clinton] to go. And, of course, I do think it's time for her to go. And Penn probably realizes that at this point nothing he does or doesn't do is going to put her in the White House so he might as well start transitioning back to his real job. Hence meeting with the Colombians.
It's vital for Obama that Penn remain in his current spot. If he's fired, the Clinton campaign might be forced to hire a competent strategist.
Update: Colombia does what Clinton won't and fires Penn.
What They Show
05 Apr 2008 02:26 pm
By Patrick
Politico looks over the Clinton tax returns. There is also the curious $15.4 million Bill Clinton earned from Ron Burkle; exactly what he did for that money is not entirely clear.
Face Of The Day
05 Apr 2008 01:42 pm
Yoko Ono poses next to 'The Wish Tree', one of her art installations at The Bluecoat Display Centre on April, 2008 in Liverpool, England. The Wish Tree invites viewers to write their wishes on labels that are then fixed to the branches. Yoko Ono returned to perform and display her art at The Bluecoat 40 years after she first exhibited there in 1967 to celebrate the re-opening of the UK's oldest arts centre after a GBP 12.5 million refurbishment. By Christopher Furlong/Getty Images.
The Protest Vote
05 Apr 2008 12:27 pm
By Patrick
Larison outlines the potential downfalls of Bob Barr's presidential run:
Despite the fact that both [Democratic and Republican party] nominees are broadly committed to maintaining much of the status quo, there are enough real differences on policy that third party critiques that focus on the “duopoly” will be much less effective this time. Disgruntled progressives don’t want a repeat of 2000, and disaffected conservatives have to bear in the mind that any strong showing for a third party candidate backed by them will be used as a scapegoat for any McCain defeat. The paradox for the antiwar right challenger remains: win enough votes, and you may actually pull antiwar support from the Democrat, thus electing the Republican against whom you are rebelling; win just enough votes that make the difference and throws the election to Obama, and McCain’s defeat will be pinned on the antiwar right rather than his own militarism and pro-amnesty views. The latter will serve two purposes: it allows the interventionists to save face and fight another day (another reason why the 2008 outcome will probably not affect the strength of interventionists in the GOP), and it frees mainstream conservatives of any blame for their previous intransigence against McCain. If the purpose of the protest candidacy is simply to provide an alternative and a voice for disaffected conservatives and libertarians, none of that matters. However, if it is supposed to accomplish something more significant, I am not sure how it does that.
Terrorist Avatars
05 Apr 2008 11:40 am
By Patrick
Congress holds a hearing about virtual worlds.
Digital Ownership
05 Apr 2008 10:35 am
By Patrick
Charles C. Mann on copyright in the digital age:
Copyright should not impede artistic efforts to explain our times. Nor should we let it interfere with the relation between producers and consumers of art. Any work of art is a gift, at least in part -- something done not purely from motives of calculation. Knowing this, people approach works of art in a more receptive state than they do, say, advertisements. The same people who would unhesitatingly copy Microsoft Word at their jobs, the novelist Neal Stephenson said to me recently, "would no more bootleg a good novel than they would jump the turnstile at an art museum." Stephenson, the author of The Diamond Age, a witty, imaginative science-fiction novel about pirating an electronic book, and the forthcoming Cryptonomicon, believes that in the long run this relationship of respect and trust is the only safeguard that works of art have. It is also the reason they are worth safeguarding. What will the act of reading be like if every time I open a book I must negotiate the terms under which I read it?
The View From Your Window
05 Apr 2008 10:16 am
Minneapolis, Minnesota, 5.10 pm.
Beware The Drones
05 Apr 2008 08:37 am
By Patrick
The fed goes hi-tech:
The federal government plans to escalate its eradication of marijuana plantations in the backwoods of national forests this year, beginning in California with the deployment of larger strike teams and the controversial launching of miniature, remote-controlled spy planes to outfox growers, a top Bush administration official said Thursday.
The SkySeer runs quietly and its tiny video camera can resolve whether a person is armed with a handgun from 250 feet in the air – high enough for the 4-foot-long craft to become invisible from the ground, according to its inventor, Sam De La Torres.
(Hat tip: Dominic Holden)
Friday, April 4, 2008
Face Of The Day
04 Apr 2008 08:13 pm
Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr supporters chant slogans during Friday prayer on April 4, 2008 in the Sadr city, the Shiite district in Baghdad, Iraq. A curfew is still imposed in the Sadr city Shiite district in Baghdad and Maliki has ordered Iraqi forces to stop raids across Iraq to give time to those who want to surrender their weapons. By Wathiq Khuzaie/Getty.
Michigan Re-vote, RIP
04 Apr 2008 07:00 pm
By Patrick
Michigan's plans for a re-vote flatline.
Dissent Of The Day
04 Apr 2008 06:27 pm
By Patrick
A reader writes:
I am not a campaign finance lawyer, I am not a lawyer, but I think your conclusion drawn in the post concerning McCain's Money Woes is wrong as it conflates two very different systems. The Boston Globe article had McCain returning limited general election contributions to his donors and asking them to redonate to a legal/accounting compliance fund. This step is being taking in preperation for him accepting general election public funds. You suggest that this is being done because he has locked himself into public financing:
After using the prospect of public matching funds to secure a private $4 million loan during the primary, it was unclear whether McCain had legally committed himself to public financing and the limits that go with it.
The steps that he are taking are in preperation for the general election. This decision process is completely independent of the decision process and rules that govern public financing of the primary season. For instance in 2004 both John Kerry and George W. Bush opted out of the primary public funds but opted in for the general election public funds. This decision allowed both candidates to raise and spend $100+ million dollars up to their respective party's nominating conventions. At that point federal funding and spending limits kicked in.
Continue reading "Dissent Of The Day " »
The Geography Of Dating Update
04 Apr 2008 05:25 pm
By Patrick
I posted a map by Richard Florida a few days ago showing the number singles across the US by gender. Ezra Klein takes a look at Julio Gonzalez Altamirano's reworking of Florida's map (above), manipulated to only include the "creative class," which is defined as educated 18 to 44 year-olds. The results suggest that you might not want to move across the country just to snag a date. While the new analysis still doesn't consider sexual orientation, an unfortunate oversight, this rings true:
Florida's map vastly oversimplifies the dating game. If you're a computer nerd, and want to find friends and lovers able to quote XKCD comics back at you, you probably want to be in a tech-heavy city on the West Coast. If you're a political bloggers who wants to find attractive policy obsessives, DC will do ya fine. If you're a literary snob, you might want to check out New York...[Dating is] about compatibility, which is why people seek out creative classes oriented towards their interests and lifestyle, rather than mindlessly looking for a large number of widows per capita.
New Islamic Democracies
04 Apr 2008 04:33 pm
By Patrick
A quote from Noah Feldman, author of ‘The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State’:
"The new constitutions of Iraq and Afghanistan, despite being drafted in the shadow of U.S. occupation, both make Islam the official religion and shari‘a a source of law; both also bar laws that contradict certain aspects of Islamic law. These are democratic and Islamic constitutions. And whatever their many flaws, they are the two constitutions most recently drafted under relatively free conditions in the Muslim world. (I don’t count Musharraf’s unilateral amendments in Pakistan.) This raises the question what other majority-Muslim states would do if they were redrafting their constitutions under popular influence."
The Tax Returns!
04 Apr 2008 04:19 pm
By Patrick
The Clintons release them: they show $109 million in income, almost $52 million of that from Bill Clinton's speaking.
(Hat tip: Drudge)
A Letter from Birmingham Jail
04 Apr 2008 03:17 pm
By Patrick
Today is the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination. In 1963 the Atlantic published his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail. An excerpt:
We have waited for more than three hundred and forty years for our God-given and constitutional rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward the goal of political independence, and we still creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward the gaining of a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say "wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize, and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she cannot go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her little eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son asking in agonizing pathos, "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger" and your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and when your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodyness"—then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of injustice where they experience the bleakness of corroding despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience ...
The View From Your Window
04 Apr 2008 03:12 pm
Yokosuka, Japan, 6.03 pm.
Obama's Glamour
04 Apr 2008 02:35 pm
By Patrick
Virginia Postrel has a smart critique of Obama:
His glamour makes it easy to imagine that a President Obama would dissolve differences, abolish hard choices, and achieve political consensus—or that he’s a stealth candidate who will translate his vague platform into a mandate for whatever policies you the voter happen to support.
Where optimists fill in mystery with their hopes, however, pessimists project their fears. The flip side of glamour is horror: the vampire, the con man, the femme fatale, the double agent. These glamorous archetypes remind us of how easy it is to succumb to desire and manipulation. What, ask his opponents, is Obama hiding?[...]
To rely on illusions is to risk disillusionment. If Obama the dream candidate becomes Obama the real president, he’ll be forced to pick sides, make compromises, and turn “hope” and “change” into policies some people like and some people don’t...Some of his supporters will feel disappointed, even betrayed.
I don't agree with all of her points. For instance, it is hard for me to accept that Obama's platform is "vague"; as has been written in this space many times, Obama has a plethora of detailed policy proposals. That said, Obama's theme of unity, hope, and bipartisanship certainly allows room for supporters and opponents to fantasize. There are good reasons to support Obama beyond the glamour, but I have no doubt many Obama supporters are guilty of the projections Postrel describes.
Pennies And Candy
04 Apr 2008 01:41 pm
By Patrick
Continuing the penny debate, Paraguay has another solution.
Very Expensive Kernels
04 Apr 2008 01:38 pm
By Patrick
Corn ethanol gets even less viable.
Ending It
04 Apr 2008 01:05 pm
By Patrick
Matt Cooper:
It sounds sort of obvious but if he can somehow overcome the Clinton advantage in Pennsylvania, this thing will be over. Likewise if he streaks through the final states, he will be the nominee and all the anxiety will be for naught. Obama himself wisely departed from the line of his surrogates like Chris Dodd and Pat Leahy that Clinton should get out of the race. You can't insist that your opponent quit. You have to beat them. It seems somehow forgotten in recent coverage that Obama can still do that. Three weeks is plenty of time to close the gap in Pennsylvania and while the Keystone state seems better for Clinton--more working class, no indies or Republicans can vote in the primary--it's not an impossible climb for Obama. Should he lose there, he can crush her in the remaining states. Then this thing is done.
More On Penn
04 Apr 2008 12:24 pm
By Patrick
The irony of Penn's actions is astounding. Here is what Clinton said during Obama's NAFTA flap:
I would ask you to look at this story and substitute my name for Sen. Obama’s name and see what you would do with this story… Just ask yourself [what you would do] if some of my advisers had been having private meetings with foreign governments.
Al Giordano responds to the hypocrisy:
Mark Penn is not - as in the case that Senator Clinton cited on March 3 - an unpaid issues advisor, but, rather, the commander-in-chief of the Clinton campaign: the chief strategist, pollster, message czar, and the highest paid member of her campaign staff.
I can’t remember a presidential campaign in my lifetime in which the top strategist moonlighted for corporate accounts during the heat of the primaries (if that’s really what he was doing with the Colombian ambassador, as claimed: note that the Embassy told the Journal that it didn’t know which hat Penn was wearing). The conflict of interest is staggering.
Money Woes
04 Apr 2008 12:14 pm
By Patrick
McCain is preparing to accept public financing? This would put him at a significant money disadvantage, but he might not have a choice in the matter. After using the prospect of public matching funds to secure a private $4 million loan during the primary, it was unclear whether McCain had legally committed himself to public financing and the limits that go with it. Hilzoy's posts on McCain's situation, written a few months ago, are here and here.
Your Sullivan Fix
04 Apr 2008 11:20 am
By Patrick
This weekend Andrew will be on Tim Russert's MSNBC show for one hour with Hitchens. The show airs at noon, 6 pm and 2 am Saturday ET, and noon Sunday ET.
Also: he will be on the Chris Matthews show this Sunday morning.
Penn's Troubles
04 Apr 2008 10:54 am
By Patrick
Mark Penn isn't helping Clinton with meetings like this:
Hillary Clinton's chief campaign strategist met with Colombia's ambassador to the U.S. on Monday to discuss a bilateral free-trade agreement, a pact the presidential candidate opposes.
Attendance by the adviser, Mark Penn, was confirmed by two Colombian officials.
I've asked several Clinton aides and advisers for their reaction. Some declined to comment. Others responded with pejoratives, but since I don't print anonymous pejoratives as a policy, I will refrain from sharing them.[...]
One of the toughest tasks for a political journalist these days is to try and find someone in Clinton world who is willing to defend Mr. Penn or his sense of political optics.
Recession Food
04 Apr 2008 10:33 am
By Patrick
The Burger King CEO thinks a recession could help business:
"If you look in the fast-food hamburger space," he says, "it is unfortunate for the greater economy as a whole, but we benefit from the pressure people feel from a disposable-income standpoint. People who cannot afford to go to Applebee's, cannot afford to go to Chili's, we are the beneficiaries of that squeeze."
While the foodies say it could spur healthy eating:
Along with some other critics of the American way of eating, [Michael Pollan] likes the idea that some kinds of food will cost more, and here’s one reason why: As the price of fossil fuels and commodities like grain climb, nutritionally questionable, high-profit ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup will, too. As a result, Cokes are likely to get smaller and cost more. Then, the argument goes, fewer people will drink them.
McCain's Message
04 Apr 2008 09:49 am
By Patrick
Ross isn't impressed with McCain's general election ad:
Now of course it's still early, and there's a case to be made that a biography-centric roll-out for the campaign is good way to lay the groundwork for the fall contest. But the latest web ad from the McCain camp pushes all my Dole-redux buttons. It's a paean to heroes in general, to McCain's favorite high school teacher specifically, and more specifically still to the principle that you ought to turn in your friends when they break the honor code. Now maybe this is, as Jonah suggests, a canny below-the-radar pitch to the crucial crotchety-white-guy vote. But it makes it seem like John McCain is running to be the headmaster of the school in Dead Poets Society, and while anything that sticks it to Robin Williams' annoying and irresponsible Emerson-wannabe of an English teacher is catnip to me, I'm not sure that running as the guy who'll clean up the local prep school is the best way for a seventysomething politician with a reputation for being, well, a little crabby to make his case for the American Presidency.
Richelieu's thoughts:
Maybe I'm missing something, but it looks and feels and sounds much more like a primary spot to me. I think McCain's amazing story should be a key part of his general election message. But if that is the opening move -- and I can make good arguments both for and against that strategy -- should they do a spot that commits to that idea instead of just implying it as this ad does.
More importantly, what exactly is the McCain general election message strategy? Hard to find in this ad, unless the plan is to hang the whole general election campaign entirely on the war. If so, that would be Axelrod's dream come true. My fear is that McCainland doesn't have a general election message strategy.
Drink Up
04 Apr 2008 09:27 am
By Patrick
That cup of coffee may do you some good.
(Hat tip: Reynolds)
How To Steal An Election In Zimbabwe
04 Apr 2008 09:08 am
By Patrick
Step one: lock up the foreign press.
Gravel's Competition
04 Apr 2008 08:01 am
By Patrick
David Weigel writes that Bob Barr is expected to announce his libertarian presidential bid on Saturday:
The Barr launch is getting to be an open secret among conference-goers. Advocacy Ink, the firm that handles Barr's public relations, is advertising the speech to local and national reporters. Mike Ferguson, the de jure organizer of the conference, is scrambling to deal with a crush of new media requests.
"It doesn't take much to put two and two together," said Ferguson. "You don't do this unless you're making the announcement."
Weigel also discredits the independent run rumor:
There is no truth to the rumor that Barr will ditch the party and run as an independent. "We're on the ballot in 45 states," said one organizer at the conference. "Why would he throw away two years of work with the party to run an ego trip campaign with no ballot access? That story doesn't make sense." Lisa Edelstein in Barr's office also rejected the "independent" rumor. "If he does decide to run, he will run as a Libertarian candidate," she said.
Keeping Up The Trend
04 Apr 2008 07:58 am
By Patrick
Yet more polls showing Obama making a run in Pennsylvania.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
The Divine Soil
03 Apr 2008 08:21 pm
By Patrick
In honor of naturalist John Burroughs' birthday today, an except from his 1908 article:
It jars upon our sensibilities and disturbs our preconceived notions to be told that the spiritual has its root in the carnal and is as truly its product as the flower is the product of the roots and the stalk of the plant. The conception does not cheapen or degrade the spiritual, it elevates the carnal, the material. To regard the soul and body as one, or to ascribe to consciousness a physiological origin, is not detracting from its divinity, it is rather conferring divinity upon the body. One thing is inevitably linked with another, the higher forms with the lower forms, the butterfly with the grub, the flower with the root, the food we eat with the thought we think, the poem we write, or the picture we paint, with the processes of digestion and nutrition. How science has enlarged and ennobled and purified our conception of the universe; how it has cleaned out the evil spirits that have so long terrified mankind, and justified the verdict of the Creator: "and behold it was good." With its indestructibility of matter, its conservation of energy, its violability of cause and effect, its unity of force and elements throughout sidereal space, it has prepared the way for a conception of man, his origin, his development, and in a measure his destiny, that at last makes him at home in the universe.
Enforcing The Closet
03 Apr 2008 06:42 pm
By Patrick
The Pentagon tried to conceal Rodgers' orientation and political participation:
A Wikipedia article about Maj. Alan Rogers, a gay soldier who was killed in January in Iraq, was apparently edited by someone in the Pentagon, who removed any mention that Rogers was gay.
The user on Monday redacted details about Rogers that appeared on the online encyclopedia site. Information that was deleted included Rogers’ sexual orientation; the soldier’s participation in American Veterans for Equal Rights, a group that works to change military policy toward gays; and the fact that Rogers’ death helped bring the U.S. military’s casualty toll in Iraq to 4,000.
Rob Pilaud, a patent agent and a friend of Rogers who attended the soldier’s funeral, restored the information to the Wikipedia article the next day. Pilaud was among Rogers’ friends who created the Wikipedia page.
Other posts on Rodgers here, here, and here.
Modern Products, Vintage Ads
03 Apr 2008 05:09 pm
By Patrick
A contest. More here.
Letting Go
03 Apr 2008 03:56 pm
By Patrick
Jason Zengerle on the continued banter over Richardson's endorsement:
You'd have thought that the Clinton people would have wanted to downplay the Richardson's endorsement of Obama. And, if they hadn't squawked so much, I bet it would have been a one- or two-day story. But here we are, nearly two weeks after Richardson did the deed, and the press is still talking about it--because the Clintons won't shut up about it. I don't see how this helps Hillary. Seriously, the Clinton people should just let it go.
The whole Clinton apparatus is based upon a series of loyalties. As Josh Green reported after the Clinton shake-up in February:
... above all, Clinton prizes loyalty and discipline, and Solis Doyle demonstrated both traits, if little else. This suggests to me that for all the emphasis Clinton has placed on executive leadership in this campaign, her own approach is a lot closer to the current president’s than her supporters might like to admit.
This is why they can't get over Richardson's endorsement.
The View From Your Window
03 Apr 2008 03:29 pm
Toronto, Canada, 2 pm.
Mental Health Break
03 Apr 2008 03:24 pm
By Patrick
Jeff Goldblum slowed down:
(Hat tip: Anthony Hecht)
The Hard Words
03 Apr 2008 02:50 pm
By Patrick
According to Jack Lynch, an Associate Professor of English at Rutgers, the earliest dictionaries only contained the hard words:
Johnson’s Dictionary contains many of these hard words, and for word lovers they can be delightful. There you’ll find nidification, meaning “the act of building nests,” and gemelliparous, “bearing twins.” Scrabble players will delight in words like ophiophagous (“Serpent-eating”), galericulate (“Covered as with a hat”), or decacuminated (“Having the top cut off”). But Johnson was not entirely comfortable with them: “I am not always certain,” he said, “that they are read in any book but the works of lexicographers” (preface, pp. 87–88). He was right. Consider the word naulage, which appears in nearly a hundred books in the eighteenth century alone. The problem is that every one of those books is a dictionary. They all tell us that naulage means the fee paid to carry freight by sea, but there’s no indication the word was ever used even by those paid to carry freight by sea.
The dictionaries were also notorious for stealing definitions from one another.
(Hat tip: Frank Wilson)
Ocean Air
03 Apr 2008 02:22 pm
By Patrick
Offshore wind farms take a step forward.
Internet Killed The Literary Star
03 Apr 2008 01:40 pm
By Patrick
A group called the Society of Authors thinks internet book piracy "will ultimately drive authors to stop writing unless radical methods are devised to compensate them for lost sales." Scott Esposito scoffs at the idea.
The Tax Returns Update
03 Apr 2008 12:59 pm
By Patrick
Wolfson says the Clinton returns will be out in a day or two. Goddard states the obvious:
Of course, Friday night is generally a good time to release information you don't want the media to focus their attention on.
Face Of The Day
03 Apr 2008 12:37 pm
A marine protestor wears diving gear in front of Parliament on April 3, 2008 in London, England. The Marine Conservation Society is calling for the United Kingdom Marine Bill legislation, which is published today in draft, to include measure to create protected marine reserves. By Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images.
Counting Cards
03 Apr 2008 12:14 pm
By Patrick
Jim Manzi shares his experiences:
When I was at MIT there were three well-known teams: the MIT team, the Stanford team and the Czechoslovakians. The Czechs were by far the coolest – a small group of mathematicians and scientists who had somehow gotten across the Iron Curtain and were living the American Dream in Vegas, complete with gold chains, Kangol caps and plaid polyester pants. They were almost perfectly represented by a famous Saturday Night Live skit.
My experience was that it was very easy to stay under the radar of casinos if you didn’t feel the need to do any of that. Just play solo at the quarter tables, never spike your bet above 5:1, and play no more than one hour at casino before you move on to the next one. There are about 100 casinos in Vegas, so you can play ten hours per day every other weekend and only visit a given casino once every two or three months (for an hour each time). No pit boss will know who you are or care what you’re doing because you’re so far down in the noise. You can make a lot of money this way. Of course, nobody will ever know that you are taking them, and the emotional satisfaction arises from walking into this multi-billion dollar enterprise and walking out with their money because you’re smarter and more disciplined than they are. In a bizarre way, you succeed through classical bourgeois virtues: self-discipline, frugality, ego control and steady work.
Once you realize all this, of course, you figure out that you can make a lot more money in that giant casino called Wall Street.
(Hat tip: Jesse Walker)
Yoo Two
03 Apr 2008 11:42 am
By Patrick
The always insightful Scott Horton on the recently released Yoo memo:
When Yoo Two was declassified and released, we see that not a single word of the document was blacked out or excised. And indeed, there was no basis whatsoever for the classification to start with.
So why has a legal policy statement been classified and withheld for five years? The answer to that question is now clear. The memorandum would have produced reactions of ridicule and outrage from throughout the professional community—as indeed it has. The author and the classifier knew that. They used classification as a political tool to keep something which is a quintessential public document out of the reach of the public.[...]
We now know that there are at least six memoranda crafted by OLC that discuss the torture issue; we do not know the details on the more recent of them. But for analytical purposes it is important to group them together and to view the undisclosed subsequent memoranda as the progeny of Yoo Prime and Yoo Two. Attorney General Mukasey insists that those who received these memoranda were entitled to rely on them, and they cannot be prosecuted. In other words, Mukasey is saying that the OLC can legitimately be used as a printing press to issue get-out-of-jail free cards to be distributed at will.
The more we learn about the factual circumstances in which these memoranda were crafted, the purposes for which they were sought, and the way they were used, the more outrageous that contention sounds.
The rest of his analysis is here.
442,000 Donors
03 Apr 2008 11:19 am
By Patrick
Obama takes in over $40 million in March.
Tips For Joining A Cult
03 Apr 2008 11:03 am
By Patrick
Scott Adams has some free advice:
If you ever decide to join a cult, the first thing you should ask about is the quality of their doomsday cave. A poorly constructed cave could kill you, and that would take most of the fun out of doomsday.
You should also look for a cult leader who has some specificity about the exact doomsday date. Otherwise you’re just sitting in a cave for an extra month for no good reason. I’d want the comet to strike earth a minute after I wiped my feet on the cave’s welcome mat. That way the people who got all of my worldly possessions wouldn’t have time to enjoy them.[...]
The big problem with picking a doomsday date is that it so obvious when you are wrong. For most other decisions, you can generally make a case for why your wrongness was really right. For example, you still hear people say Saddam had WMD but he did a good job of hiding them...But when the world doesn’t explode on Tuesday, it’s hard to make a case that it did. You have to go with something like “The comet was heading this way, but we prayed it off course. You’re welcome. Give me back my stuff.”
Malkin Award Nominee
03 Apr 2008 09:57 am
By Patrick
"[Y]ou have to understand the mindset of a lot of these feminists and women. They think they're owed this — just like Obama supporters think they're owed this. These women have paid their dues. They've been married two or three times; they've had two or three abortions; they've done everything that feminism asked them to do. They have cut men out of their lives; they have devoted themselves to causes and careers. And this — the candidacy of Hillary Clinton — is the culmination of all of these women's efforts. And if it gets stolen from them [by] a rookie, radical black guy who can't tell the time of day, they are going to be so miffed," - Rush Limbaugh.
Award glossary here.
Video Artist
03 Apr 2008 09:41 am
By Patrick
I've begun to suspect that Mike Gravel's run at the presidency is just a cleverly disguised experiment in conceptual art. It is usually badly misguided campaign supporters (or rival campaigns) who make videos like this.
McCain's Search
03 Apr 2008 08:54 am
By Patrick
Marc sorts out the buzz around McCain's veep choices, while Ross sums up his dilemma:
As a Republican running in what promises to be a tough political climate, there's a strong case that he ought to pick someone the press will cast as a "moderate" choice, rather than a partisan one. (Florida Governor Charlie Crist is an possible fit in this category, and of course there's always McCain's great friend Joe Lieberman.) But as the maverick nominee of a party whose rank-and-file regard him with some suspicion, there's also a case that McCain needs to make a pick that shores up his base, whether it's someone like Mitt Romney, still the darling of the right-wing intelligentsia, or a lesser-known right-winger like South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford.
The obvious way to thread this needle would be for McCain to find a reformist right-winger -- a politician who passes most conservative litmus tests but has shown a heterodox streak and a zest for policy innovation as well, and who's far enough from Washington to be untainted by the scandals and debacles associated with the Bush-era GOP.
More Ringing Phones
03 Apr 2008 08:26 am
By Patrick
The 3 am bit worked better in relation to foreign affairs:
Economic troubles don't usually strike in the middle of the night.
Update: David Weigel has a good play by play.
Another Memo
03 Apr 2008 07:51 am
By Patrick
The AP studies the footnotes of the Yoo memo and finds evidence of another secret memo that justifies warrantless surveillance and perhaps more:
For at least 16 months after the Sept. 11 terror attacks in 2001, the Bush administration believed that the Constitution's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures on U.S. soil didn't apply to its efforts to protect against terrorism.[...]
"Our office recently concluded that the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations," the footnote states, referring to a document titled "Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities Within the United States."
Exactly what domestic military action was covered by the October memo is unclear. But federal documents indicate that the memo relates to the National Security Agency's Terrorist Surveillance Program, or TSP.
That program intercepted phone calls and e-mails on U.S. soil, bypassing the normal legal requirement that such eavesdropping be authorized by a secret federal court. The program began after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and continued until Jan. 17, 2007, when the White House resumed seeking surveillance warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
These documents are fragments; they provide a partial view of the administration's assault on civil liberties over the last eight years. We are only now seeing documents from 2003 and learning of documents from 2001. Much is yet to be disclosed.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
A Flickering And Formless War
02 Apr 2008 09:07 pm
By Patrick
The American invasion of Iraq was, above all else, a revolution in the lives of Iraqis. Their institutions, their everyday routines, their futures, their sense of order were all turned upside down. This revolution, which is still ongoing and will play out for years to come, was the opening of a prison. When they staggered out into the light, most Iraqis didn't know where they were, what they wanted, even who they were, and the Americans who had so quickly and casually broken down the gate were standing around as if they had never even considered what to do next. The Americans were nominally in charge—the Iraqis expected them to be, and after the first few weeks of paralysis, the Americans flung themselves into a flurry of activities befitting an occupying power—but it was all illusion. No one was in charge. By the summer of 2003, when I first went to Iraq, it was clear that a void had opened up and the best-armed and most ruthless groups had moved in. Although it went through many phases and assumed a variety of forms, the process of mutual disenchantment between Iraqis and Americans began early. It was this process that interested me most about Iraq, because it went to the human heart of the matter: the experience of suffering, hope, illusion, need, violence, and disappointment that transformed both sides and made the war so painful for each.
Continue reading "A Flickering And Formless War" »
Truth In Advertising
02 Apr 2008 07:34 pm
By Patrick
German website Pundo3000.com compares foodstuffs packaging with the contents. As the image above demonstrates, there is often a slight discrepancy.
(Hat tip: David Schmader)
Yoo's Memo
02 Apr 2008 06:18 pm
By Patrick
Some more analysis from around the web. Emily Bazelon:
On page 47 of the Yoo memo, if I’m not mistaken, there’s the amazing assertion that the Convention Against Torture doesn’t apply whenever the president says it doesn’t. "Any presidential decision to order interrogations methods that are inconsistent with CAT would amount to a suspension or termination of those treaty provisions." Doesn’t this mean that whether or not a treaty has been ratified, with or without express reservations, Yoo is saying that the president can implicitly and on his own authority withdraw the United States from the treaty simply by not abiding by it? Is there precedent for such a claim? In my quick scan so far of the tortured (sorry) reasoning here, I can’t find anything other than ipso facto, because I say so, the president says so.
When will Congress insist upon hearings at which Geoffrey Miller, Jim Haynes, Donald Rumsfeld, and other DOD officials, explain why they kept the Yoo memo and the Working Group Report secret -- undisclosed even to the Working Group itself -- and why they briefed Miller on Yoo's multiple theories of legal absolution on his way out to Iraq? It's no longer very hard to figure out just why, all of a sudden, as soon as Miller arrived in Iraq, everyone there just suddenly and magically came to think the Geneva Conventions, UCMJ, federal assault and torture statutes, etc., simply no longer applied -- that Iraq was a law-free zone and that the gloves had come off. If you were Miller and you had been briefed on the Yoo theories, wouldn't you feel awfully confident that you could get away with, well, murder and everything short of it, in interrogation operations in Iraq? This memo is the source of the Nile for the abuse that occurred in Iraq in 2003.
Face Of The Day
02 Apr 2008 05:13 pm
French Denis Thevenin shows his invention, a unique system for viewing ones head and hair, set with light and portable mirrors to use for comb, coloring, make-up, shaving, during the opening day of the 36th International Exhibition of Invention, on April 2, 2008 in Geneva. More than 700 exhibitors from 45 countries are present at the World's largest exhibition devoted to innovation in the world. By Fabrice Coffrini/Getty.
The Commercial Space Race
02 Apr 2008 04:18 pm
By Patrick
Jeff Foust reports:
As the schedule for SpaceShipTwo slips, it provides an opportunity for other companies to gain a better footing in the market, and possibly even try to enter service before Virgin. Last week XCOR Aerospace made its latest move into the suborbital spaceflight market, announcing a vehicle, dubbed Lynx, that could enter service within two years. The efforts of XCOR and others are resulting in a wide diversity of vehicles, leaving it up to the market to determine which one—or ones—work best."
(Hat tip: Reynolds)
Leprosy's Stigma
02 Apr 2008 03:32 pm
By Patrick
A reader writes:
While I entirely agree with your post on HIV and immigration, one small correction. Leprosy is not very contagious. A person with normal nutrition and a healthy immune system stands no chance of getting infected. Infections are actually very difficult to acquire and mostly come in people who are severely malnourished over a long period (not something that really happens in the US except in cases of abuse). How do I know this? My dad ran a leper colony (not the politcally correct term but you know what I mean) when I was kid and I've had my hair ruffled by a great many fingerless and noseless old man and woman. No sign of leprosy yet. Indeed, I was recently tested for it as part of a Green Card application and was negative.
Just as pointless and discriminatory as the HIV policy is the one demanding tests for leprosy. Lou Dobbs jumped on this, claiming that immigrants had brought in thousands of cases of leprosy. Complete nonsense and anyway, it is easily treatable with antibiotics. Only the truly ignorant attach moral stigma to illness.
Another adds:
Leprosy (a.k.a. Hansen’s Disease) is a slowly developing, chronic bacterial infection. 95% of the population is naturally resistant. Leprosy affects peripheral nerves and can lead to disability and deformity if untreated. However, leprosy is easily treatable with a combination of very effective antibiotics. Patients with leprosy bear the burden of incredible stigmatization from centuries of misinformation. The additional burden of being worse than HIV infection is grossly unwarranted.
Gonzales, Mukasey, Et Al
02 Apr 2008 02:45 pm
By Patrick
Scott Horton's reaction to Philippe Sands’s article:
They have dragged the Department of Justice, as an institution, straight into the gutter. And amazingly, five years later, it continues to sit there in the muck, unable to stand up and step out of it.
Of course they missed some things along the way. The legal analyses were so poorly crafted–making the sorts of sophomoric arguments that would land a law student a failing grade on an examination, that Justice was forced to rescind them. It immediately crafted new opinions, which it continues to keep under lock and key, with the certain knowledge that when they are disclosed the resulting public uproar will force their withdrawal as well. This is the quality of legal work that emanates from the Justice Department under Alberto Gonzales, and now, Michael Mukasey.
They also missed the established precedent I have cited repeatedly here, namely United States v. Altstoetter, under the rule of which the conduct of the torture lawyers is a criminal act not shielded by any notions of government immunity.
Raul's Reforms
02 Apr 2008 02:15 pm
By Patrick
A Cuban blogger's criticism of the recent changes in Cuba:
If you look at the "reforms" that have made the latest splash in the media, they all have one thing in common. Cell phones, computers, appliances (except for the lowly toaster, they'll