Friday, April 18, 2008

18 Apr 2008 09:34 am

How Out Of Touch Is Charles Gibson?

Matt Cooper on some of the economic questions from the debate:

If Americans needed more proof that the media elite are rich and out of touch, Gibson gave them more. In the St. Anselm's College debate in New Hampshire, Gibson asserted that average professors make $100,000. They don't. The median household income is around $46,000. For families it's closer to $68,000. Last night in Philadelphia, he blithely repeated the canard that cutting capital gains taxes yields more revenue. The short answer is that sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. The rooster crows and the sun rises. Just because revenue has risen following some capital gains cuts doesn't mean it automatically yields a cut. Gibson stated it as fact.[...]

Continue reading "How Out Of Touch Is Charles Gibson?" »

18 Apr 2008 09:24 am

Is Clinton A Communist?

A question for George Stephanopoulos. Hey: there's some evidence out there. And it gets to the core questions of "character, experience, credibility."

18 Apr 2008 08:30 am

Ending Women's Suffrage

Ann Coulter's dream may be closer to reality than some might imagine.

18 Apr 2008 08:01 am

Brain-Machine Interface

Japan works on bridging the mind-computer gap.

18 Apr 2008 07:29 am

Peeing On A Bug

The latest in design:

One memorable example of the power of choice architecture comes from the men's rooms at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam. There the authorities have etched the image of a black housefly into each urinal. It seems that men usually do not pay much attention to where they aim, which can create a bit of a mess, but if they see a target, their attention and accuracy improve. Spillage at the airport decreased by 80%!

Thursday, April 17, 2008

17 Apr 2008 10:08 pm

Breathing Again

As a life-long asthmatic, I've always appreciated breathing more than most people learn to. As a child, before serious asthma meds, I learned not to panic or hyperventilate when the attacks came. My dad would spend hours in the night picking me up and calming my lungs down. This bronchial thing - I've called it Hillary - has been one of the worst in a long while. Asthma medication is far better than it used to be - those evil pharmaceutical companies are to blame - but a combo of allergies, bacteria and exhaustion can still revive my old dark fears and knock me on my back. I was convinced for a long time that if I died of AIDS, it would be through pneumocysistis. I watched what it did to friends and it wasn't pretty. But today, I actually was able to get on my bike and cycle for a few blocks and breathe without seizing up. I was able to spend a whole day out of bed for the first time in almost two weeks. And was it a beautiful day. Most of the time, I don't stop simply to marvel at the miracle of breathing, of the feeling of clear air in your lungs, the origin of the words "inspire" and "spirit." But I did today. And it was a wonderful thing.

17 Apr 2008 09:51 pm

The Joke Of ABC News

Covering politics is hard, so they do this instead:

17 Apr 2008 08:51 pm

From Dormont, Pennsylvania

A voter responds to the debate. Know hope. In the end, American voters are not as callow as Gibson and Stephanopoulos.

17 Apr 2008 08:49 pm

In Defense Of ABC News

Philip Klein argues that after 21 debates, many of which focused on policy, it was time to engage the Democrats with classic swift-boat GOP attacks. I can see why this might appeal to those of us who have had to watch a large number of these debates. I can see why Stephanopoulos and Gibson like the idea of making news by channeling Karl Rove. I can even see the point if this were a debate for super-delegates, focused entirely on electability through the Morris-Rove prism. But it was actually a debate before a primary of regular voters. And call me pious if you wish, but I still retain some sliver of a belief that in such a debate, it is the job - even the civic duty - of moderators to ask tough questions about substantive issues. These debates are not for a bored media elite. They are designed to help voters decide who to vote for. This one didn't.

17 Apr 2008 08:31 pm

Massage Pants

You know you want some.

17 Apr 2008 07:54 pm

Fundamentalism And Culture, Ctd

A reader writes:

The standard for cross-national, social-science research on this subjects is the work put out by Ronald Inglehart's World Values Survey. Check out Inglehart and Welzel's (2005) Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy and Norris and Inglehart's (2004) Sacred and the Secular - both Cambridge University Press. It's a complicated subject, but the short answer to your question is that as 'existential security' - i.e. an  individual's survival chances - improves over time societal culture shifts in two ways.

The first shift, from the traditional to the materialist/modern, sees society shift away from traditional social organization and dogmatic, fundamentalist religion towards scientific rationalism and more bureaucratic forms of organization. The second shift, which occurs when a society enters its post-industrial phases, sees existential security increase so much that the individual is essentially totally liberated from society. We go, as Ingelhart and Welzel note, from 'communities of necessity' to 'elective affinities' as we shift from focusing on creating materially better conditions to making the individual as autonomous and 'free' as possible.Society goes from extending life through material accumulation to emphasizing quality or meaning of life through the promotion of human self-expression. It's basically Maslow's hierarchy of needs applied to entire societies rather than individuals.

So, what's going on / has gone on is twofold.

Continue reading "Fundamentalism And Culture, Ctd" »

17 Apr 2008 07:38 pm

Face Of The Day

A militiaman, loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, carries his gun during a sandstorm and ongoing clashes with the Iraqi army on April 17, 2008 in the Sadr city Shiite district of Baghdad, Iraq. Clashes continue between militiamen, loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and the Iraqi /U.S army, in the Sadr city district east of Baghdad. According to hospital officials, three people were killed and seven others were wounded in an air strik early on April 17, 2008. By Wathiq Khuzaie/Getty Images.

17 Apr 2008 06:29 pm

Hillary Milhous Clinton

The Clinton camp is hammering the Weather Underground connection on the conference call this morning. The merging of the Clinton campaign with the very forces that once tried to destroy the Clintons is a fascinating moment. It does indeed show that for the Clintons, anything is possible in the pursuit of power. There are no permanent enemies, no permanent arguments, no permanent principles. Just the pursuit of power by all non-violent means. This, of course, has been the guiding, polarizing direction of American politics since Vietnam. It is the kind of politics that defined the Clintons and their generation. It is the boomer war fought by proxy: red-blue; patriot-wimp; American-unAmerican; faithful-Godless. And you cannot help but notice a kind of liberation in the Clinton camp, as they finally thrill to the full experience of deploying the cultural warfare and marginalization that they have been so used to Republicans using against them. And they get to use it against a black man in ways no Republican could get away with so easily. Man, that must feel good after all these years. No wonder she's still smiling.

The Clintons began their career fighting Nixon. They ended up, in terms of political tactics, becoming him. Yes, it's 1968 again. And the Clintons want to coopt the Silent Majority of their time. Their only problem is that it may no longer actually exist. We'll see.

17 Apr 2008 06:18 pm

"Dirt Off Your Shoulder"

Is Obama channeling Jay-Z. Compare this speech with this video. Christianists aren't the only ones who can dog-whistle. Heh.

17 Apr 2008 06:00 pm

Expectations

A silver lining for Obama?

17 Apr 2008 05:53 pm

Smart Shirt

Clothes that know if you're sick.

17 Apr 2008 05:05 pm

Endorsements

I left out the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which also backs Obama.

17 Apr 2008 05:02 pm

Follow The Undecided

Blumenthal sorts through the diverging Pennsylvania polls.

17 Apr 2008 04:44 pm

BHO vs ABC

This is a central plank of Obama's campaign. If he gets it, he'll realize that ABC News and Clinton have given him a gift. He has an entire worldview to fight against, and they have helped crystallize what it is. Let it rip:

17 Apr 2008 04:42 pm

Clueless George

He accepts no criticism of his appalling performance as valid. Questions about lapel-pins are about

"experience, character [and] credibility."

How exactly is a lapel pin about any of those things? And if that is the standard, and no journalist can make an independent judgment about its merits, why would Joe McCarthy not be a relevant guide for the kind of questions that should be asked? Why have they not repeatedly asked if Obama is a secret Hamas-supporter? Or an al Qaeda supporter? Why have they not asked if his mom was a commie? Why have they not asked if Obama supported the domestic terrorism of the Weather Underground? Why have they not asked if Obama is actually a patriot ... oh, wait, they did ask that.

But of course there are no rules for this - and that's a good thing. It's a free country and ABC News can ask what they want. In the end, the voters will decide if ABC News' agenda is what they want to vote on. Next Tuesday, we'll find out.

17 Apr 2008 04:36 pm

Moore Award Nominee II

"K-Lo should be drawn and quartered," - Baliyya at Daily Kos.

17 Apr 2008 04:12 pm

Stupid Ideas

Steve Chapman chides the candidates' energy policies.

17 Apr 2008 03:45 pm

Up Close And Personal

The difference between the effect of Obama campaigning in a state and Clinton:

For each day that he spends campaigning in a state in the 30 days in the run-up to the election, Obama can expect to gain about 3.5 points in his margin over Clinton. And for every day that Clinton spends campaigning in that state, Obama can expect to lose about 2.4 points.

So the more exposure voters get to both candidates, Obama inches ahead.

17 Apr 2008 03:44 pm

Stranger And Friend

Jonah Lehrer on bloggy relationships:

One of the odd things about blogs, at least for me, is that they encourage a really informal and oddly intimate relationship between the writer and reader. I feel like I really know my favorite bloggers, in a way that I would never presume to know my favorite novelists or newspaper columnists or magazine writers. Partly, I imagine, it's the informal voice of the blogosphere, and partly it's the enticing mix of idiosyncratic personal information and opinionated commentary that defines the bloggy format. A blog, at least for me, is the writing genre that most closely approximates a friendly conversation.

Of course, I occasionally remember that I've never actually met Jason Kottke, or Matthew Yglesias, or Tyler Cowen, or Jessica Crispin, or the snarky asshole who writes The Superficial. They are all utter strangers.

17 Apr 2008 03:30 pm

Well, Not That Earmark

Matt jibes McCain for promising to veto all bills with earmarks and then backtracking on earmarks for Israel:

...right there you have a great example of the vacuity of McCain's budget proposals. It's easy to propose sweeping budget cuts in the abstract. But then when you start looking at it, it turns out that behind every large spending commitment there's a politically powerful constituency. And so McCain, having initially declined to promise specific spending cuts, preferring instead to propose vague general ones, winds up being asked about something specific and of course he doesn't want to cut that! But you can't start with a large deficit, add large new tax cuts, pile on a big increase in defense spending, and then make the math add up purely by cutting the most clearly absurd small-bore items.

17 Apr 2008 03:24 pm

Moore Award Nominee

"May Bush and bin Laden die in exactly the same way: alone, afraid, and in captivity," - Spencer Ackerman.

17 Apr 2008 02:56 pm

Obama Pushes Back

"I will tell you it does not get more fun than these debates. They are inspiring debates. I think last night we set a new record because it took us 45 minutes before we even started talking about a single issue that matters to the American people.

It took us 45 minutes — 45 minutes before we heard about health care, 45 minutes before we heard about Iraq, 45 minutes before we heard about jobs, 45 minutes before we heard about gas prices.

Now, I don’t blame Washington for this because that’s just how Washington is. They like stirring up controversies and getting us to play gotcha games and getting us to attack each other. And I’ve got to say Sen. Clinton looked in her element," - Barack Obama, in Raleigh, today.

That's more like it. Lemons to Lemonade. In some ways, Obama now has a chance to make one of the most important points about his candidacy.

17 Apr 2008 02:54 pm

Fundamentalism and Culture, Ctd.

A reader writes:

As I've been spending a lot of time studying the Middle East (part of a Master's programme), I've noticed something about fundamentalism.

People embrace fundamentalism at two points. The most common worldwide is when everything is falling apart. It's the whole "the world is full of evil, God is punishing us" stuff. When you ain't got nothing, well, clinging to dogma that makes you part of the right group makes you feel like your at least not alone.

But, the flipside that you noted is the people who want to stay where they are in life. I really like my lifestyle and the system that has put me in my position. And you non-believers want to introduce new ideas, raise my taxes, and so on. Ouch! They perceive a threat, and again, it's that joining together because logic doesn't have an answer for it, but claiming divine purpose will justify anything. It's like the whole divine right of kings.

Living in the South, surrounded by Baptists, my girlfriend often reminds me that for most people in the dogmatic kind of setup it's "I hate sin, but I hate yours the most."

17 Apr 2008 02:51 pm

Yes, We Can

The Philadelphia Daily News endorses Obama. That follows major papers in Scranton and Allentown.

17 Apr 2008 02:36 pm

The 9/11 Candidate

Guess who's Rudy now.

17 Apr 2008 02:26 pm

The View From Your Window

Seattle, Washington, 10.30 am.

17 Apr 2008 02:12 pm

Under The Umbrella

On how the Jerusalem Post saw last night's debate.

17 Apr 2008 01:31 pm

Why The Debate Matters

Many of my fellow journalists may pick nits with ABC News' performance last night, but I wonder how many really understand why it's an important issue, in fact one of the defining issues of this campaign. In a vacuum, it is perfectly possible to ridicule those of us who were appalled by last night as Obamaniacs or, worse, pious about the ruff-and-tumble of politics. But in the current historical moment, I really don't think that's right.

It comes down to the most basic argument about the Obama candidacy. Here's what I think it is:

If you believe that America’s current crisis is not a deep one, if you think that pragmatism alone will be enough to navigate a world on the verge of even more religious warfare, if you believe that today’s ideological polarization is not dangerous, and that what appears dark today is an illusion fostered by the lingering trauma of the Bush presidency, then the argument for Obama is not that strong. Clinton will do. And a Clinton-Giuliani race could be as invigorating as it is utterly predictable.

But if you sense, as I do, that greater danger lies ahead, and that our divisions and recent history have combined to make the American polity and constitutional order increasingly vulnerable, then the calculus of risk changes. Sometimes, when the world is changing rapidly, the greater risk is caution.

That's what I've come to believe, in part from trying to account for my own massive misjudgment over Iraq and near-disbelief at what has happened to limited government conservatism in the past decade. I think the United States is in deep trouble. In massive debt, bogged down in a $3 trillion war in Iraq with no end in sight, its moral reputation globally in tatters, its Constitution undermined from within, America desperately needs a substantive, honest debate about the future, a root-and-branch review of foreign policy, of tax policy, of environmental policy, of torture and terror policies and of entitlements. And we do not have the luxury of using elections in this climate as a way to fight over cultural conflicts originating in this instance from the boomer civil war stemming from the 1960s. That's why I once so feared a Clinton-Giuliani contest. But it is what the Clintons know; and it is what they have decided to turn their own primary campaign into. From flag-pins to Ayers to Wright - it's all about re-fighting the boomer culture wars. 

This is not a question of pieties; it's a question of priorities.

Continue reading "Why The Debate Matters" »

17 Apr 2008 12:40 pm

Hannity-Stephanopoulos Audio

Listen to ABC News get its marching orders from the talk radio far right.

17 Apr 2008 12:31 pm

Ten Percent

The Obama-Is-A-Muslim meme persists among one in ten Americans. According to David Brooks, it is therefore a legitimate debate question. Why, then, didn't ABC News also ask the Kristol question: are you a Communist? Or rather: are you now or have you ever been a Marxist? And why didn't they ask the Pledge of Allegiance question? It's out there, isn't it?

17 Apr 2008 12:29 pm

One Low Point

They're all worth savoring for what they reveal about the MSM elite:

There were many surreal moments in last night's freak show but the most bizarre (and depressing) was when Stephy asked Obama, "Does Jeremiah Wright love America as much as you?" What??  Can you picture Stephy in his office before the debate, preparing his questions: "Hey guys - here's a great one: I'll ask Obama if Wright loves America as much as he does! No, stop laughing - I'm serious! Really! Watch him try to figure out what on earth the right answer to that one is! I guarantee it makes the highlight reel."

I wonder if Stephanopoulos and Gibson are actually happy this morning. They sure did get some buzz.

17 Apr 2008 12:08 pm

The View From Chinese Windows

National Geographic does a version of our World Windows map - but of China. It really does help bring a country's visual diversity into sharp relief. And a great time-waster.

17 Apr 2008 12:05 pm

A Question For Gibson and Stephanopoulos

"Do you honestly believe that someone with a solid track record as a lawmaker in a Heartland state which elected him to the U.S. Senate, who is now seeking to make some positive American history as our first black president, is somehow un-American, or unpatriotic? Does that even make any sense? Question his policies, or question his leadership. because that is your job as a journalist. But don't insult our intelligence by questioning his patriotism," - Will Bunch, Philadelphia Daily News.

The truth is: neither Gibson nor Stephanopoulos believes that Obama is unpatriotic. But they think it is their duty as journalists to ask the question.

17 Apr 2008 11:56 am

The Freak Show

With any luck, you missed the ABC News fiasco last night. My live-blogging is here. My verdict here. Reader response here. Blog-reax here.

17 Apr 2008 11:51 am

"Shoddy, Despicable Performances"

Tom Shales, WaPo's TV critic on Gibson and Stephanopoulos.

17 Apr 2008 11:44 am

After The Freak Show II

Some more reaction from around the web:

The Glittering Eye:

There were a small number of interesting points which I suspect will go unnoted in the din. First, Sens. Clinton and Obama used different definitions of “the middle class” in answer to Charlie Gibson’s attempt to extract from them a “no new taxes” on the middle class from them. Hillary Clinton defined the middle class as families earning an income lower than $250,000, a definition with which I’d agree. Basically, that’s all but the top 1% of income earners. Sen. Obama’s definition was families earning an income below $75,000. I think that’s an extremely narrow definition. It doesn’t even include all of the fourth quintile who to me are obviously middle class.

The Swamp:

...for Hillary Clinton to get so giddy about the Wright question was really just sad. She was the official purveyor of fringe talking points. Shockingly so. And, she seemed to enjoy it. There’s a reason people think Clinton is dishonest as we saw today in the findings of the Washington Post-ABC News poll. She’s not only in this to win, she’s in it to win dirty — and to destroy Obama. She invoked Louis Farrakhan tonight for no reason — just to say it.

Continue reading "After The Freak Show II" »

17 Apr 2008 11:32 am

Brooks Celebrates The Freak Show

Whatever else you say about last night: don't blame ABC News:

The journalist’s job is to make politicians uncomfortable, to explore evasions, contradictions and vulnerabilities ... We may not like it, but issues like Jeremiah Wright, flag lapels and the Tuzla airport will be important in the fall. Remember how George H.W. Bush toured flag factories to expose Michael Dukakis.

So Lee Atwater wins by default? We are losing a war, we have destroyed our fiscal future, the planet is in distress, we have effectively quit the Geneva Conventions, the economy, propped up by massive public and private debt, is teetering ... and we all have to actually defend the fact that this election will be decided on the basis of closet Muslims, flag lapel pins, and '60s terrorists?

Brooks actually gives ABC News an "A" for their questions. The job of debate moderators is to generate an actual discussion about the issues and questions that matter in deciding between two candidates. They make an editorial choice about what those questions are. To focus almost exclusively on idiotic process questions based on the lowest form of political debate imaginable is an editorial choice to run a tabloid freak show. I see no reason to excuse Obama's bad performance. But I cannot fathom why we should exonerate the execrable standards of ABC News at the same time.

17 Apr 2008 11:05 am

Fundamentalism and Culture

I should say up-front that I've learned a lot from reading Ross's and Larison's challenges to my alleged connection between disorienting economic and social change and the rise of religious fundamentalism. I also learned a lot from the latest Teixeira/Abramowitz study on the working poor and the Democrats. I think the evidence does indeed complicate my previous inferences and connections. What have I gotten wrong?

Fundamentalism obviously appeals to the wealthy as well as the poor; it may even, in certain circumstances, appeal more to the wealthy than the poor (I haven't denied that, but my emphasis has obscured it). And it has done very well in prosperous suburbia and among more educated white voters. The question is whether a sense of economic and cultural alienation has fueled fundamentalism as well. I still think it does, but less powerfully than I did before. On abortion, for example, Teixeira notes the GOP has had more success in appealing to upper-middle class whites than to working class ones. That's an important insight. But it remains true nonetheless, as Teixeira also notes, that the working class white vote is still more pro-life than the middle class white vote (43 percent to 33 percent).

What the Rove GOP has done well, I think, is to lump all this together into a generalized cultural grievance, and used this to appeal to white rural voters, whose distrust of government and elites has grown with their relative economic decline. The gay question - which is a prism that obviously colors my own experience of this - makes this more acute.

Continue reading "Fundamentalism and Culture" »

17 Apr 2008 10:26 am

The Gas Tax Holiday

Not McCain's best idea:

I was flabbergasted by John McCain’s proposal to suspend collection of the federal gas tax for this summer. Suspending this user tax would deprive the Highway Trust Fund of $8-10 billion in much-needed revenue to patch potholes, rebuild failing bridges, and keep the Interstates and other key arteries from further declines in their already pathetic levels of performance. And this comes at a time when the Trust Fund is already facing a 2009 shortfall of $2-3 billion (thanks to Congress legislating more highway spending than existing gas-tax revenues can support). Plus, since the gas tax is only about 5% of the cost of a gallon of gas, the savings to motorists would be trivial.

17 Apr 2008 10:03 am

Women In Uniform

Kelley Vlahos remarks on the bravery female soldiers have shown and the challenges they face:

Officially, women have not yet ventured into combat, held back by critics who argue that putting them into armored cavalry squadrons or rifle platoons will threaten unit cohesion, weaken standards, and increase injuries, hurting overall force strength. But advocates of full integration insist that women can hold their own on men’s terms. Making them “legitimate” will help transform military culture and bolster unit cohesion.

These arguments are academic, for women are in combat today. While the Bush administration initially appeared less interested in integration than its predecessor, the decision to invade Iraq in 2003, the miscalculation of the subsequent insurgency and civil war, and the desire to wage a global terror war have made it impossible for the all-volunteer force to function without women in combat roles. Reality has taken over.

17 Apr 2008 09:21 am

The Wagging Dog

Guage dog friendliness by tail-wagging direction? Right-waggers are ok; left-waggers dodgy. And no, I don't think there's much political salience in this.

17 Apr 2008 09:20 am

Unapologetic

Doug Feith stands his ground:

One wonders whether anyone in the Bush establishment actually believes they ever made an error.

17 Apr 2008 08:56 am

If Obama Survives This ...

Michael Goldfarb on the debate:

William Ayers, Rev. Wright, flag pin, patriotism, bittergate...and almost no health care. It's been very entertaining. And when it turned to Israel, Obama gave an atrociously vague and willy nilly answer. Of course he can't guarantee a nuclear response, but he could have, like Hillary, invoked the phrase 'massive retaliation.' He was struggling to parse the language, but who's going to hold it against him if he gets a little carried away talking about what he'd do if Iran nuked Israel. If Obama can overcome his terrible performance tonight, then there's nothing that can stop him. Because after the blowback from the left tomorrow, no debate moderator will ever dare to go after him like this again. Wiilliam Ayers? If the Factor had moderated the debate I don't think he would have gone there.

17 Apr 2008 08:43 am

Making Unwanted Music

In the 90s, a group of conceptual artists used polling data to determine music's most unappealing aspects and then combined all those aspects together. A description of the finished product:

The most unwanted music is over 25 minutes long, veers wildly between loud and quiet sections, between fast and slow tempos, and features timbres of extremely high and low pitch, with each dichotomy presented in abrupt transition. The most unwanted orchestra was determined to be large, and features the accordion and bagpipe (which tie at 13% as the most unwanted instrument), banjo, flute, tuba, harp, organ, synthesizer (the only instrument that appears in both the most wanted and most unwanted ensembles). An operatic soprano raps and sings atonal music, advertising jingles, political slogans, and "elevator" music, and a children's choir sings jingles and holiday songs. The most unwanted subjects for lyrics are cowboys and holidays, and the most unwanted listening circumstances are involuntary exposure to commercials and elevator music. Therefore, it can be shown that if there is no covariance--someone who dislikes bagpipes is as likely to hate elevator music as someone who despises the organ, for example--fewer than 200 individuals of the world's total population would enjoy this piece.

Listen to it here. It made me laugh out loud.

17 Apr 2008 08:34 am

Bullhorns And The Pope

Henry Farrell compares seeing John Paul in Ireland in 1979 to seeing Benedict yesterday:

I was struck by the similarities between the 1979 Popemobile and the 2008 version – either the engineers haven’t much imagination, or there isn’t all that much you can do to improve the basic design (although I don’t remember the original having bulletproof glass). Nor was the 1979 experience complicated by evangelical Christians with bullhorns vigorously denouncing ‘false religion’ and telling the cheering nuns and folks in Pope Benedict t-shirts that they were all going to go to hell unless they were born again in Christ.