Saturday, May 10, 2008

10 May 2008 08:37 pm

Too Popular Abroad?

Daniel Larison thinks that the argument that Obama could appeal to developing countries' populations and transform American soft power will only hurt Obama at home:

You could not have concocted a more insidious anti-Obama campaign than what many of his supporters (as well as the candidate and campaign) have managed to do in constantly talking up all the foreign places he lived, his relatives in Kenya, and on and on.  From a certain perspective, Obama’s background and biography must seem to be undeniable political assets, but slowly it is beginning to dawn on his boosters that a great many, probably most, Americans do not share that perspective.  Furthermore, the emphasis on Obama’s background and biography has always meant that the ‘08 election would become a culture clash, and it is one that I suspect the Democrats still cannot win.

I find this too depressing and defeatist an attitude. If Obama's biography and appeal affect global opinion and therefore foreign policy, the subject should be on the table - as a weapon in pursuit of national self-interest. If we cannot have a debate in a democracy about this impact without fostering xenophobia, ignorance and fear, then democracy cannot work. Which, I suspect, is partly Larison's point. I'm not as defeatist - and it's telling that many criticisms of Obama - Carole Simpson's for example - fall into this trap.

10 May 2008 08:03 pm

Oil Futures

With oil at $126 a barrel, Henry Blodget considers our options:

Time to drill in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge? No. Time to cut us gas-subsidy checks? No. Time to work on a tax and consumption policy that encourages less oil usage and more investment in alternative, renewable energy.

Well: duh. With public transportation booming, there is a silver lining in higher oil prices.

10 May 2008 07:26 pm

Can The Internet Write A Book?

Yes, but not a very good one. Here's the opening paragraph from Penguin's wiki book experiment:

The deep waters, black as ink, began to swell and recede into an uncertain distance. A gray ominous mist obscured the horizon. The ocean expanse seemed to darken in disapproval. Crashing tides sounded groans of agonized discontent. The ocean pulsed with a frightening, vital force. Although hard to imagine, life existed beneath. It's infinite underbelly was teeming with life, a monstrous collection of finned, tentacled, toxic, and slimy parts. Below its surface lay the wreckage of countless souls. But we had dared to journey across it. Some had even been brave enough to explore its sable velveteen depths, and have yet to come up for precious air...."

10 May 2008 06:26 pm

The Obama Revolution

Matt Stoller examines the organizational overhaul the Obama campaign promises for the Democrats. Yes: it's extremely ambitious. Money quote from an Edwards supporter:

In a strange sort of way, this is rather inspiring. I mean, in almost no time, the guy has managed to consolidate power totally. At the same time, he's done this in a fashion much different from traditional dictators, or even powerful political figures like Clinton; rather than taking the reigns and giving himself the power and closing the windows so no one can see what he's doing, he's opening up the windows more, and simply giving power to those who share his ideology. Yes, this is what Clinton did (empowering the DLC), but he empowered them around himself and neutered any major figures who could oppose them, while Obama is actually training them. I wish he would allow for partisans like us to be in the group, but it is still an interesting thing to watch.

10 May 2008 05:15 pm

Face Of The Day

Nuremberg's Czech striker Jan Koller drinks during the German first division Bundesliga football match Hertha BSC Berlin vs 1.FC Nuremburg on May 10, 2008 at the Olympic stadium in the German capital Berlin. By Michael Gottschalk/Getty.

10 May 2008 05:13 pm

Port-A-John Racing

Or how to waste a lot of beer at the Preakness. It's from last year, but the Youtube is great.

10 May 2008 04:15 pm

Don't Tell Lou Dobbs

Thomas P.M. Barnett summarizes Suzanne Barlyn's article on outsourcing legal work to India:

We're looking at 29k legal jobs shipped abroad by the end of 2008 and maybe 80k by 2015. India is simply moving up the service ladder, just like China does on the manufacturing ladder. You go from call centers (lower-value business process outsourcing) to knowledge process outsourcing (KPO). Engineering and medicine comes under assault too, as these KPOs act more and more like "branch offices of U.S. companies."

India's advantages are clear: English speakers and a common law background.

10 May 2008 03:56 pm

Dissents Of The Day

Dan Savage, writing from the Starbucks capital of the world, attacks the petite scone I've praised so lavishly:

I like petite vanilla pastries just as much as the next effete urban elitist. And I’ve tried these “scones” from Starbucks—in South Carolina, in Chicago, and in Seattle (at the airport). And those petite vanilla scones utterly flavorless, the icing is chalky, and the edges are neither crispy nor crusty. They taste like lightly sweetened Play-Doh. They are wholly without merit.

A reader adds:

You're crazy.  Nothing is better than the Starbucks toffee almond bar.  I dislike coffee and would never have a reason to ever go into a Starbucks if it wasn't for the toffee almond.  To even suggest that something like a petite scone could compete with it is heresy.

I'm grateful for Dan for providing a Proustian edge to my petite scone fetish. Play-Doh! Mmmmm.

10 May 2008 03:30 pm

Your Keyboard And A Toilet

I had a feeling this was true:

A consumer advocacy group commissioned the tests in which British microbiologist James Francis took a swab to 33 keyboards, a toilet seat and a toilet door handle at the publication's London office in January.

Francis then tested the swabs to see what nasty germs he managed to pick up. He found that four of the keyboards tested were potential health hazards -- and one had levels of germs five times higher than that found on the toilet seat.

Now we know why Mickey blogs so infrequently.

10 May 2008 02:52 pm

Torture Leaves A Mark

Phillip Carter reacts to news that Jay Hood won't be named U.S. military attache to Pakistan because of his ties to Guantanamo Bay:

The cancellation of Hood's appointment shows a promising new willingness among senior administration officials to listen to world opinion. It would have been incredibly tone-deaf of us to send an officer with Hood's assignment history to Pakistan -- probably about as smart as using an officer like Lt. Gen. William Boykin, a man with a history of worrisome public comments about Christianity and the war on terrorism, to engage with Arab and Israeli officials. The military attache position in Islamabad deserves a soldier-diplomat par excellence, and unfortunately, that's not Jay Hood.

10 May 2008 02:44 pm

A Herbivore Tells All

An excerpt from Taylor Clark's article on vegetarianism:

To demonstrate what a vegetarian really is, let's begin with a simple thought experiment. Imagine a completely normal person with completely normal food cravings, someone who has a broad range of friends, enjoys a good time, is carbon-based, and so on. Now remove from this person's diet anything that once had eyes, and, wham!, you have yourself a vegetarian. Normal person, no previously ocular food, end of story. Some people call themselves vegetarians and still eat chicken or fish, but unless we're talking about the kind of salmon that comes freshly plucked from the vine, this makes you an omnivore. A select few herbivores go one step further and avoid all animal products—milk, eggs, honey, leather—and they call themselves vegan, which rhymes with "tree men." These people are intense.

The rest is here.

10 May 2008 02:30 pm

California Switches

The big state gave Clinton a ten-point victory in its primary. A new SUSA poll gives Obama a 6 point edge. When you look at the demographic date, you find that the black vote hasn't changed much, unlike in other states. And Latino support for Clinton has dropped, but Obama hasn't managed to gain. White males have moved decisively to Obama but the biggest swing appears among Asian-Americans. The Asian vote has gone from 71 - 25 for Clinton to 54 - 37 for Obama.

10 May 2008 02:12 pm

Pure Identity Politics

That's been Ellen Malcolm's career: seeing politics as all about gender. And seeing gender as synonymous with being a very liberal Democrat. No wonder she's bitter about a chance to get past identity politics and the big money politics she represents.

10 May 2008 01:07 pm

Quote For The Day

"They're convinced [Obama] is a Muslim, a terrorist, a guy who's coming to take away their guns. It's just sad," - an Obama supporter in West Virginia.

The paranoia and delusions of some parts of white America are no less irrational than the paranoia and delusions of some parts of black America. But the right response to this is not acquiescence: it's engagement.

10 May 2008 12:55 pm

Are You A David Archuleta Or A Jason Castro?

The general buzz on American Idol this year has been that it's a dud. I disagree. Watching Andrew Lloyd Webber leer at young male talent is always entertaining. And I watch Ryan Seacrest with morbid fascination: how can someone be that smooth, that good, that professional, that young?

But I've been most engrossed in the character contrasts, which is what reality shows are best at. David Cook is a fantastic poseur, very talented but so obviously straining for Seriousness it's painful to watch at times. There are few people as sad as rock performers who think they are philosophers - especially those who don't have a drug habit. He's obviously the smartest performer, and probably the most all-round talented one, but who wants to encourage the pretension?

And then Jason Castro: the kid who didn't really want to be there. How wonderful was that? Stoners the world over tuned in to see what this young, dreadlocked, mellow charmer would do next. I was blown away by his "Over The Rainbow" but his singing in general is pretty weak and his main attraction was his sweet-eyed nonchalance, his obvious ambivalence to the commercial cheesiness of the show, his indifference to the cult of celebrity and vanity and ambition that Idol represents. He actually seemed comfortable being himself. He didn't need this shebang. And to see that personal security on network television - a walking (well, meandering) rebuke to the need for external validation and celebrity culture - evoked pure wonder. I was smitten.

And then poor David Archuleta. He is obviously the best singer in the competition, is almost certainly going to win it, but just as obviously is totally lost. If Castro was indifferent to the process, Archuleta seems as if his entire life has been directed toward it. Clips show him crashing the show years ago; he won his first singing competition at 10 years' old, and is a veteran Star Search competitor. The kid is still only 17 years' old. He has, alas, a classic over-bearing show-biz dad, who has now been banned from backstage. David looks to me like a Michael Jackson in the making: a brilliant talent sacrificed to the cult of celebrity and stardom at so young an age that his own emotional and spiritual development has been frozen. When he is asked to speak, he has nothing to say, except a Bambi-style mode of total humility, amazement and innocence. I feel for him and it's had not to hope someone could still rescue him from the machine that is about to consume him.

Between Jason Castro and David Archuleta, you see two ways of living in the world: one sacrificed to external recognition and one indifferent to it. We all have a bit of each in us in this tabloid, celebrified world. But Jason, to my mind, will probably live a much happier life. And he'll know, at some level, why. There's a lesson in there somewhere - even on a reality show.

(Photo: David Archuleta and friend by Ethan Miller/Getty.)

10 May 2008 11:49 am

Carole Simpson

Listen to her say that whites cannot and will not vote for a black man for president. Money quote: "This country is about race." That's the Clinton argument at this point. Sad.

10 May 2008 11:19 am

Obama Edges McCain In The Middle

Rasmussen sees a statistically insignificant but persistent lead over McCain nationally, led by unaffiliated voters: 

One key to this changing dynamic is that Obama now leads McCain among unaffiliated voters by nine percentage points. McCain is supported by 81% of Republicans, Obama by 70% of Democrats.

Once Clinton is finally dispatched, it's hard to see Obama's Democratic support being lower than McCain's GOP backing. This contest will be for independents and leaners. Which can only be good for this excessively polarized country.

By the way, Rasmussen just dropped their Obama-Clinton tracking poll.

10 May 2008 11:18 am

If You're Scared Of Heights

Don't watch this video. If you're not, it's stunning.

10 May 2008 11:15 am

Ferguson For McCain

A rip-roaring endorsement from my old friend, Niall. My thoughts later:

10 May 2008 11:13 am

Quote For The Day

"I can’t believe Senator Clinton would say anything that dumb," - Charlie Rangel, on Clinton's "whites" remark.

10 May 2008 11:09 am

Nine More Obama Superdelegates

The trickle starts to look like a flood.

10 May 2008 10:37 am

The View From Your Window

Washington, DC, 6.20 pm.

10 May 2008 09:57 am

Where The Aussies Live

Who can blame them?

Eighty percent of Australians live within 80 miles of the sea; 50 percent of the country’s houses sit less than 8 miles from a beach.

10 May 2008 08:51 am

Man Babies

A blog that switches men's with babies' heads through the magic of photoshop:

 

10 May 2008 05:02 am

Separated At Birth?

Friday, May 9, 2008

09 May 2008 09:44 pm

Two Types Of Love

Mark Vernon updates Fromm by explaining the difference between falling in love and standing in love.

09 May 2008 08:16 pm

The War On Junk Food

Will Saletan on the latest developments:

As neuroscientists focus their attention on obesity, you can expect to see more studies comparing food cravings to drug addiction. As these studies accumulate, you can expect to hear them cited in campaigns to regulate junk food. But the people pushing this analogy had better hope the science is exaggerated. Because if we really do crave junk food the way addicts crave drugs, good luck prying those cheeseburgers from our hands.

09 May 2008 07:24 pm

City By The Kettle

Beijing artist Zhan Wang's model of San Francisco, sculpted from cookware.

09 May 2008 06:51 pm

Patriotic Boxers

Larison points me to this sentence by Michael Gerson:

A president is expected to be a patriotic symbol himself, not the arbiter of patriotic symbols. He is supposed to be the face-painted superfan at every home game; to wear red, white and blue boxers on special marital occasions; to get misty-eyed during the most obscure patriotic hymns.

When will be rid of this neurosis? The desperate need to prove and re-prove and demonstrate and re-demonstrate one's love of country is not a form of patriotism. It's a form of insecurity. All the way down to underwear.

09 May 2008 05:48 pm

Among The Hillarians

A dispatch from rural Oregon.

09 May 2008 05:48 pm

Cool Ad Watch

The walk of shame:

09 May 2008 05:18 pm

What The Hell Is Going On In Beirut?

Some opinion from around the web. Yglesias:

Over the past year or so I've heard various voices try to propagate revisionist accounts of Israel's short-lived effort to crush Hezbollah in Lebanon where people tried to argue that the mission was only an apparent failure, but actually succeeded in some sense. I think we can see from events like this that that's total nonsense -- Hezbollah is very much not crushed.

Jeffrey Goldberg:

Hezbollah has been doing a bang-up job this week undermining Lebanon's future on behalf of its sponsors, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and Syrian intelligence. It is simultaneously doing effective work undermining its apologists in the West. We've heard the arguments over and over again: Hezbollah is social service agency; Hezbollah wants to join the Lebanese political process; Hezbollah is not in fact dominated by murderous Jew-haters. And so on.

Walid Phares:

Within the beltway, lots of analyzing on both sides of the Potomac: What can the U.S do to respond to the Syro-Iranian offensive which is obliterating a young democracy so dear to the speech writers of the President and many congressional leaders from both parties?

Continue reading "What The Hell Is Going On In Beirut? " »

09 May 2008 05:10 pm

Non-Paul Republicans And The Web

The current GOP has a problem:

As Ron Paul himself has pointed out many times, his campaign didn't do anything to organize support on the Internet.  That's not how it works. 

What happens is that millions of people independently come to the same conclusion that there is something wrong with the System and that it needs to change.  Then they start organizing on their own, and rally behind candidates who best represent their views.  The organizing is bottom-up, not top-down. 

Non-Paul Republicans can't tap into that because their entire political model is authoritarian:  "We report, we decide."  That model appeals only to passive-minded people, and passive-minded people aren't inclined to self-organize. 

I wonder if Obama's and Paul's amazing web success is a harbinger of a more libertarian and self-empowered political culture - because the web does not reward obedience, submission, or authoritarianism. It saddens me a great deal to see conservatism in America increasingly lean toward top-down, authoritarian, fear-based politics. In its best incarnation, conservatism is about self-government, individual freedom and hope-based politics. It's about trusting people, not corralling them. In  this, the web is the right's natural ally, and it's a very telling sign of American conservatism's decadence that it doesn't get the Internet as effectively as others.

09 May 2008 04:54 pm

McCain, Obama, Hamas

McCain's performance on the Daily Show and his remarks today are, in word, slimy. Here's the gist:

"It's very obvious to everyone that Senator Obama shares nothing of the values or goals of Hamas, which is a terrorist organization," McCain said. "But it's also a fact that a spokesperson from Hamas said that he approves of Obama's candidacy. I think that's of interest to the American people."

The right answer is that nominees for president do not legitimize the attempts of foreign terrorist groups to intervene in American elections. But what's galling here is the Clintonian passive-aggressive pose: I'm not saying it, but the "America people" are "interested". It's a way to peddle slime while pretending that you're not. At some point, McCain will have to choose. But the signs aren't too good.

09 May 2008 04:40 pm

Where To Go From Here?

R.W. Johnson reports from Zimbabwe:

Perhaps the most important thing about the election was that, because Mbeki and Mugabe had miscalculated so spectacularly, Zanu-PF was caught off-guard and for several days there was complete uncertainty. That period provided an aperture through which Zimbabweans could glimpse an alternative future – and many did. It was clear that, with a new democratic government, there would be immediate British and American help, quickly followed by the EU, the World Bank and IMF, with the emphasis on food aid and the restabilisation of the currency. One consequence would be that Zimbabwe would cease to be a client state of South Africa and instead become more generally dependent on developed country donors and investors. Doubtless, Mbeki and Mugabe would see this as a victory for neocolonialism, though one is bound to say that even if the prospect was described in those terms, ordinary Zimbabweans would happily vote for it. And, in no time at all, as the Zimbabwean economy revived, South African companies of every kind would move in.

09 May 2008 04:24 pm

Boris's Gays

The new mayor of London has an openly gay deputy mayor and several other openly gay - and married - appointees stand out. When NRO-niks start talking about a British conservative revival, they often fail to point out that it is happening while the Tories have decisively broken with the anti-gay policies that the GOP regards as non-negotiable features of their conservatism. I should add that Boris is also an unashamed member of the most privileged part of the most privileged elite. He went to Britain's most exclusive schools, Eton and Oxford, where he was a member of the Bullingdon. David Cameron is also an Etonian and a Bullingdon member. And yet no right-winger in Britain accuses them of not caring about regular folks.

Isn't it revealing that America's political conversation now has more class consciousness than Britain's? Thanks, Karl.

09 May 2008 04:08 pm

Mental Health Break

Shark-surfing, man:

09 May 2008 03:56 pm

Against A Unity Ticket

Tomasky adds his two cents:

A former president married to a current vice president who really thinks she should be president creates the potential for way too much mischief that could undermine the president.

The trouble is: the Clintons will create mischief wherever they are. If Obama becomes president without them they will do all they can to undermine, destroy, and polarize him. The question is how one deals with sociopaths like them. It's not easy.

09 May 2008 03:51 pm

Foiled By Feiler

Mickey Kaus tries to explain why he gets so much wrong about politics so often.

09 May 2008 03:43 pm

Reefer Madness

James Gibney tackles the war on drugs:

You'd have to be sucking on a doobie as big as a submarine to think our current drug-control policies work: from 1982 to 2005, the Drug Enforcement Administration's budget increased roughly tenfold, the national arrest rate for drug offenses more than doubled (from 286 per 100,000 to 600 per 100,000) ... and a dangerous drug like cocaine became dramatically less expensive. Meanwhile, busts for the possession of marijuana, which also figured prominently in the San Diego State investigation, still account for the most drug arrests in this country.

The war on drugs not only wastes law-enforcement resources, it also corrodes our respect for the law in general. Using a relatively benign drug like marijuana should become a regulated pastime, indulged in by consenting adults, much like drinking alcohol or gambling. Drunk driving kills more than 17,000 people each year, and 3 percent of the U.S. population meets the criteria for "problem gamblers." But no one talks seriously about reviving the 18th Amendment or shuttering Las Vegas and Atlantic City. Why? Because Prohibition taught us that banning such activities creates a nation of lawbreakers and a popular culture that exalts criminality. Costly, dubious, and ineffective legal strictures just end up undermining the social compact they're intended to reinforce.

09 May 2008 03:30 pm

Burma Or Myanmar?

A useful primer on why many don't allow those thugs in power to control the discourse. It's Burma.

09 May 2008 03:27 pm

The Democratic Mindset

Matt hates the unity ticket idea:

Then there's this -- "[Clinton] would also bring some national security street cred to the ticket, which is an Obama vulnerability that I suspect is being underappreciated at the moment." This reflects, I believe, an incredibly damaging mindset that's been crippling the Democratic Party for years and the prospect of excising this mindset is the single most appealing thing about the prospect of Obama being the nominee. Clinton's "street cred" on national security consists, of course, of being massively wrong on the most important national security issue of her career. Paradoxically, a lot of folks find her massive wrongness on this hugely important issue reassuring...

Well, that wasn't part of my argument at least.

09 May 2008 03:04 pm

Face Of The Day

An Iraqi woman attends a consultation with an Iraqi doctor at an improvised medical centre provided by US troops in Yusufiyah, in the so-called 'triangle of death', about 10 miles south of Baghdad. By Mauricio Lima/AFP/Getty.

09 May 2008 02:52 pm

The Challenge of A Meritocracy

Rod Dreher revisits an old but vital topic: what do the more able owe to the less? And can we drop the nonsense that people do not have unalterable - if ameliorable - core inequalities? Meanwhile, Crooked Timber examined the physical pain of those at the bottom.

09 May 2008 02:52 pm

A Zero-Carbon City

In the middle of the oil-rich Middle East, no less.

09 May 2008 02:35 pm

Burke and Bush "Conservatism"

A reader writes:

I have been giving some thought to the post on McCain and Burke. I recently read "The Impeachment of Warren Hastings," by Peter Marshall, in which Burke played the lead role and which consumed about 8 years of his political life.

Hastings' offenses, according to Burke, were that he engaged in unjustified war against neighboring territories in India and that there was corruption in the East India Company.  There were others, but these were the most serious.  This raises interesting questions for those who analyze the Bush administration using Burke as a frame of reference.

Certainly the Iraq war could be analogous to the situation Burke wanted to try Hastings for (i.e. an unjustified war of aggression.)  And although it does not appear that Bush was personally engaged in any corruption, the favoritism showed to Cheney's former company can be seen as analogous to the practices of the East India Company in the 18th century, updated to account for more stringent standards of the 21st.

The differences between the two situations, politically, was that Burke was a member of the opposition at the time of Hasting's impeachment and trial.  Presumably, had he belonged to the party in power at the time, there would have been little incentive for him to undertake this long, arduous and ultimately politically damaging process.

Perhaps more importantly, though, the lengthy and ultimately unsuccessful (from Burke's point of view) trial of Hastings brought discredit upon impeachment as a remedy for political crimes.  The British largely abandoned it in the 19th century.

So, one can ask, how would Burke approach the Bush administration's war in Iraq?

Continue reading "Burke and Bush "Conservatism"" »

09 May 2008 02:07 pm

FLDS Fashion

Tim Gunn's take.

09 May 2008 01:41 pm

We Have Obama's Running Mate

From Iowa, no less:

Dale Davis of Alta, Iowa, nailed 12 consecutive strikes and reached 300 on Saturday night during league play. "It's a great sport. It's something the young, the old and the handicapped can do," Davis said Thursday. "I guess I count as the old and handicapped."

09 May 2008 01:36 pm

Let's Fight The Culture War Again

Boomer-con Krauthammer cannot wait for another election about the red-blue, Vietnam-era, divide:

The line of attack is clear: not that Obama is himself radical or unpatriotic, just that, as a man of the academic Left, he is so out of touch with everyday America that he could move so easily and untroubled in such extreme company and among such alien and elitist sentiments.

Clinton finally understood the way to run against Obama: back to the center — not ideologically but culturally, not on policy but on attitude.

Not on policy, on attitude. That's what the right wants this election to be about.

09 May 2008 01:26 pm

About The Party Of Sam's Club

Not so fast with that data.