A boy stands in the FEMA Diamond travel trailer park May 23, 2008 in Port Sulphur, Louisiana. FEMA federal trailer parks that house many Hurricane Katrina victims are set to close May 31, prompting fears that people will be forced into residences they can't afford or will be left homeless. Most residents will receive a federal subsidy to move to apartments, but affordable rental housing is scarce in some areas like New Orleans and Baton Rouge. By Mario Tama/Getty Images.
...according to research conducted a few years back at the University of Hertfordshire, the funniest joke in the world, the one that most easily travels across cultures, is about death. It goes something like this:
Two hunters are out hunting. One of them falls over and seems not to be breathing. His friend calls 911* and cries, “What do I do?” “Well, first, let’s make sure he’s dead,” says the operator. There is silence, and then a shot rings out. The hunter returns to the phone and says, “Okay, now what?”
It’s a good joke, to be sure. But curiously, the jokes that seemed to work the best on the cross-cultural charts were just over 100 words long, with the optimum number being 103. The full version of the hunters joke tips in at 102 words, lending credence to the notion that a strange numerology is at play. Couple that with linguistic studies that suggest that velar consonants are funnier than alveodentals and sibilants and such (thus “kayak” is a funny word, “yellow” and “sassy” not so much), and we have the beginnings of a formula. Back to the drawing board, then….
A nifty idea from an editorial in TNR on conservation:
...we're pleased by the recent trend in the automobile industry, in which it's become increasingly common for carmakers to include fuel-efficiency gauges that display prominently the number of miles per gallon a car is getting at each instant. Toyota's Prius, among other models, comes with such a gauge, and Nissan announced last year that all new vehicles will be equipped with one. In trials, the gauge has prompted smoother and more efficient driving, which can increase fuel efficiency by 10 percent or more. Conservation, which was once, in the words of Vice President Cheney, merely a "sign of personal virtue, " becomes something far more appealing: a sign of personal superiority. It would be even better if the gauges displayed one's fuel-efficiency percentile, putting Americans in direct competition with each other for gas-sipping bragging rights.
Thanks for your thoughtful post in response to my column. Allow me
to address the question you pose: "on what grounds should we call a
same-sex marriage a civil union and not a civil marriage? What does it
mean to have a different name?" Or, to be more precise, let me say that
I think you have asked somewhat the wrong question. For as you've
framed it, my answer is simple: We shouldn't call it anything
different. That's why I support same-sex marriage, as opposed to civil
unions or domestic partnerships. But the right question, for a court
anyway, is not what voters should do. It is what voters in a democratic polity may do--in
this case whether they may use a different name for the substantive
contents of marriage or whether some constitutional principle forbids
the polity that choice.
I can engage this question at the level of doctrine if you like,
but I actually think the doctrinal discussion risks missing the forest
for the trees. The forest here is the point that you acknowledge when
you say in your first paragraph, "I see where he's coming from. I
certainly don't want to alienate or insult those who want substantive
state (but not federal) equality for gay couples in a separate and
nearly-equal box." Now you would never say this about something that
you truly regarded as a segregationist "separate but equal"
institution.
Poblano uses his very powerful demographic model to hazard a guess about how the delegates would have spread if Michigan hadn't broken the rules and had a regular primary:
Overall, we project that Obama would
have carried Michigan by a narrow margin -- about 4.0 percentage points
or 80,000 votes. After accounting for delegates awarded at the
statewide level, we project him to win 65 Michigan delegates to
Clinton's 63. Certainly, there is some margin for error in these
calculations, and Clinton could certainly have won the state herself.
But it would undoubtedly have been very close. Interestingly, if you
take the average of the winning margins in Indiana (Clinton by 1.2
points), Ohio (Clinton by 8.7) and Wisconsin (Obama by 17.3), you come
up with an average of Obama by 2.5 points, which is very close to our
estimate.
The idea that Obama should get zero delegates from Michigan - and that this represent a triumph of democracy - is cuckoo for cocopuffs.
Who exactly are these high Racial Resentment Index voters? A
majority, 61 percent, have less than a four-year college education,
many are older (44 percent were over the age of 60 compared to just 18
percent under the age of 40) and nearly half (46 percent) live in the
South.
Bowl me over with a feather. And we wonder why Clinton won Appalachia.
Hitch reviewsHuman Smoke, Nicholson Baker's book on how World War II was wrong and avoidable:
Follow Baker's logic just a little further, and it becomes possible to imply that the war might actually have helped facilitate the Holocaust. This in turn would help make all participants in the Second World War into morally equivalent forces. And that in fact is Baker's view, as is the view, not just that all wars are essentially the same, but that they are also all essentially part of the same war. What we call the Second World War was only an extension of the long struggle for mastery between the various European powers, all of which were all the time also wreaking indiscriminate cruelty on colonial peoples.
That there is some truth to all this is what gives pacifism its enduring appeal.
... aren't you as psyched by all these new ads as I am? Well, maybe not. But the business side of the Atlantic.com is taking off. Which is good news for all of us.
People are writing about [Clinton] as though she were a bomb that needed to be expertly defused, as opposed to a person who can govern her own life, and is responsible for her own choices.
I am aware that it must be hard to face the fact that you've lost. But it became clear that she was not going to win the nomination months ago -- I would say after Wisconsin, but certainly after Texas. Moreover, this is not unprecedented. People lose the nomination every four years. Most of the time, they do not stay on until it is mathematically impossible for them to win; they leave when it has become clear that they will not win. They do not complain about disenfranchising all the states with later primaries, they do not threaten to keep their supporters home, and they certainly do not threaten "open civil war" if they don't get nominated for Vice President. On those rare occasions when some candidate does this in the absence of some truly monumental issue, we normally think that that candidate is a narcissistic and unprincipled person who has just shown why s/he should never, ever be President.
There is absolutely no reason not to apply these same standards to Hillary Clinton.
Ann Althouse, seconded by the Passive-Aggressive one, poo-pooed the notion that the Clintons are sociopaths in their Florida and Michigan grandstanding. They're just being lawyers - preparing to litigate. There is one obvious problem with that argument, as a reader explains:
Althouse is right to an extent. Often in ligitation, if the rules
help you, they are iron clad, and if they don't, you look for reasons
why they shouldn't apply. But that's not what's going on here.
To use
the ligitation analogy, if you walk in to court espousing the exact
opposite position of an earlier stated position, you lose, plain and
simple. Your opponent calls it an admission, throws it in your face,
and probably moves for sanctions. The judge accepts the earlier
position as the truth and the later position an obvious attempt to
impose a different standard of liability than what everyone agreed to
before the litigation (or at an earlier point in the litigation).
Worst of all, you lose all credibility with the judge, which any
litigator will tell you is the most important weapon in your arsenal.
By Ann's analogy, Clinton loses (and gets sanctioned).
It seems to me that the only honest and effective way to confront this issue is to tax not fattening foods or fattening companies but fat people. It is they, after all, who drive up the government's health-care costs, so it is they who should pay. What I propose, then, is to tax people by the pound.
"I want us to broaden the base," says one Texas delegate and reform caucus stalwart. "I've been a Ruwart fan for a long time but she can't do that. But Barr can get 3 to 5 percent of the vote and make McCain rue the day he stopped being a conservative."
It appears Tucker isn't going to make a run after all. Bummer.
I think the Obama campaign has chosen wisely the past week or so, to let Senator Clinton "implode" on her own. And it's obviously beginning to happen. Senator Obama and his campaign have been very hands-off lately with the Clinton campaign, instead focusing their energy on McCain and not letting him or his campaign get away with baseless attacks. So far, he has responded with force, dignity, intelligence, and calmness, and turned from defense to offense admirably and fairly. He is looking more and more presidential every day, and Senator Clinton is looking less so each day. I think the Obama campaign statement today was perfect: it didn't use Wolfson-like venom, but simply used the words "unfortunate" and "has no place in this campaign". Laser-like precision!
A father mourns the loss of his daughter who died along with 127 other students at the Fuxin Primary school May 23, 2008 in Wufu, Sichuan province, China. Nearly 7,000 classrooms collapsed in the earthquake last week, killing thousands of students. You can donate here. By Paula Bronstein/Getty Images.
I'm a Democrat, an Obama supporter who would gladly have pulled the lever for Clinton if she had won the nomination (which she did not). And until this afternoon, I even would have accepted her as Obama's veep. But after that idiotic statement about Bobby Kennedy, no more. I say that not because the statement is offensive (which it is), but because it is so monumentally tone deaf.
If she was trying to bolster her own case, she failed miserably. If she was trying to live up to every negative image that you or other Hilary-adversaries could gin up in your most hallucinatory fever dreams, well, mission accomplished. And I for one am tired of Dem presidential candidates who seem most skilled at rhetorically shooting themselves in the foot. Hopefully this gaffe will continue the rolling of superdelegates away from her camp, and end this parade of ignominy.
For the record, I think she meant it as a reference that people would remember about a June primary. She's not crazy enough to air wishes about Obama's early demise. But her actual point is nonetheless fallacious because a) that 1968 primary campaign did not last six months as this one has; b) Johnson's withdrawal scrambled the race in ways not applicable today. And 1992 doesn't help her case either. In short: wrong, dumb and unintentionally offensive, especially to already alienated African-Americans and to a Kennedy family still reeling from Ted's illness.
Mr. Clinton is already close to the halfway mark in the number of
delegates needed to win the nomination and has a 7-to-1 edge over Mr.
Brown, who is running a maverick, anti-establishment campaign. Many
Democrats said that barring an unexpected collapse by Mr. Clinton's
campaign, it is difficult to see how Mr. Brown can overtake the
Governor.
"It certainly brings it much closer to a conclusion,"
said Ronald H. Brown, the Democratic national chairman. "You could
argue that it's theoretically possible for Jerry Brown to mount a
come-from-behind challenge, but the math and the reality of Bill
Clinton's momentum certainly work against him."
Yes, the Clintons once used the math argument against an opponent - as early as March 20, only a couple of weeks after New Hampshire. Brown could have rallied in his home state of California, but it was effectively over long before then. The Clintons will say anything, deny anything, refute themselves, contradict themselves - as long as it helps them gain power. They have no other point of reference.
Here's Clinton on March 6, again remembering the assassination of RFK:
I think people have short memories. Primary contests used to last a lot longer. We all remember the great tragedy of Bobby Kennedy being assassinated in June in L.A. My husband didn't wrap up the nomination in 1992 until June. Having a primary contest go through June is nothing particularly unusual.
For those of us who remember RFK's assassination, it's easy to understand why, speaking off-the-cuff, Clinton would refer to the event that made the 1968 California primary memorable.
In short, there's nothing here, and the New York Post's headline that "Clinton Raises Assassination Issue" is grossly misleading.
This is the gaffe of gaffes, the Mother of all campaign faux pas.
There’s no taking it back at this point. The statement is out there,
hanging like a rapidly decomposing side of beef in the hot sun. To
suggest that you should hang around and stay in the campaign “just in
case” the unthinkable occurs is beyond anything yet seen in this
campaign. And considering all the race and gender cards that have been
flying around, the assassination card tops them all.
Clinton's statement today
reveals our collective fatigue and was unbelievably unfortunate.
Looking at her make her statement of regret you can see her pain and
that she is devastated by what she said, which is clear in the
statement below from the Clinton camp.
But anyone believing Clinton was suggesting that an assassination could vault
her into... never mind, I can't even finish the statement. It's just too ludicrous. But that's where we are today.
For those who contend that Clinton was referring to competitive
contests or example, why didn't she bring up Ted Kennedy in 1980? Or
Gary Hart in 1984? I think she was pointing to primary races where the
eventual nominee was unknown at this point in the cycle.... But 1984
would apply more, her husband was the de-facto nominee at this point,
and the compressed calender really renders such comparisons null and
void.
This may finally kill talk of a fusion ticket. God forbid anything happen to Obama now.
I, too, loved "Team of Rivals," but I don't think the comparison
works. Obama's accepting Hillary as vice-president would not be like
Lincoln's choice of Seward, Bates, and Chase. It would be more like
selecting Jefferson Davis.
I was on the stairmaster when the news came through. And I saw the apology as well - an apology to the Kennedy family, I might note, not to Senator Obama. Since some seem unwilling to point out why this remark was more than unfortunate, it is worth remembering that we have the first black candidate for president. You only have to spend a few minutes talking with African-Americans about this campaign to discover that the fear that Obama could be assassinated is very much on their minds. It is in everyone's subconscious, especially Michelle Obama's. To refer to the June assassination of Bobby Kennedy in the context of reasons to stay in this interminable race against Barack Obama is therefore catastrophically inappropriate. Coming after her pitch for "white votes", it is reckless.
As for her argument that June primaries are nothing new, she is correct. But in no previous primary election did the voting start just after New Years' Day. The New Hampshire primary in 1968 was on March 12, two months later than this year. For June, therefore, read August. Yes, this season has gone on for ever. And for Senator Clinton, it has now obviously gone on too long.
She's been waiting for Obama to implode. Instead, she just has.
"I think this is a good example of why arguments about what "true
conservatives" will do often don't tell us very much. Sure, a
conservative might support a carbon tax for the reasons Andrew lays out
- but then again, a conservative might instead agree withJim Manzi that any carbon tax will perforce be both onerous and overly-ambitious. Moreoever, a conservative might also
disagree with premise that climate change is the most pressing
"emergent question" that our government ought to "ameliorate" and favor
reform on other fronts instead.
I don't deny that on questions having to do with the scope of
government action Andrew may be marginally to my right. (Though not far
enough to prevent him from supporting Barack Obama.) But overall, I
think our disagreements have more to do with differing assessments of
the big problems the U.S. is facing - he's primarily worried about
global warming and the looming entitlement crunch, so far as I can
tell, and I'm more concerned about issues related to family structure,
mobility and inequality - than with deep-seated ideological differences
that make him a "true conservative" and me something else. Not that
Andrew and I don't have deep-seated ideological differences, mind you -
I just don't think the question of whether government should try to
"solve" every problem or merely "ameliorate" the most pressing ones is
one of them."
I agree. The trouble with a political philosophy that is not ideological and that relies on a prudential judgment of emergent problems ... is that it is resolved by prudence. And there is no eternal, external guide to what such prudence will dictate in any given moment. So we can all call ourselves conservatives and come up with different priorities. The way this thread started has confused that. But it's clearer now.
So what are our primary, emergent problems? I agree with Ross that social and cultural inequality is one of them - not because inequality is inherently bad. Just because we know that overly-polarized societies tend to have trouble remaining healthy liberal democracies (see your Aristotle).
So many academics want the arguments presented in Edward Said's "Orientalism" to be true. It encourages the reading of novels at an oblique angle in order to discover hidden colonialist subtexts. It promotes a hypercritical version of British and, more generally, of Western achievements. It discourages any kind of critical approach to Islam in Middle Eastern studies. Above all, "Orientalism" licenses those academics who are so minded to think of their research and teaching as political activities. The drudgery of teaching is thus transformed into something much more exciting, namely "speaking truth to power".
Having been bitter opponents in the Primary, there is definitely a
perception of rivalry between Clinton and Obama. However, that rivalry
is really only on one specific front: politics. I.e. this is not a
rivalry based on policy.
Obama's core message is to change the nature of politics in
Washington. There simply is no room for compromise on this specific
message. Clinton does not feel that the current political system is
broken. She only believes that the wrong party is in power. These are
not stances on which there can be common ground. And if there were
common ground, it would only serve to erode Obama's rationale.
Is there room for Obama to bring in rivals? Of course. But I think
those rivals should be picked for policy differences. Picking policy
rivals would be the way for Obama to fulfill his central promise in
this campaign. Picking purely political rivals would prevent this
fulfillment.
But policy rivals suggests incoherence. Maybe Hagel works?
"Self-medication may be the reason the blogosphere has taken off.
Scientists (and writers) have long known about the therapeutic benefits
of writing about personal experiences, thoughts and feelings. But
besides serving as a stress-coping mechanism, expressive writing
produces many physiological benefits. Research shows that it improves
memory and sleep, boosts immune cell activity and reduces viral load in
AIDS patients, and even speeds healing after surgery. A study in the
February issue of the Oncologist reports that cancer patients who
engaged in expressive writing just before treatment felt markedly
better, mentally and physically, as compared with patients who did not."
Now I've heard there was a secret chord That David played, and it pleased the Lord But you don't really care for music, do you? It goes like this The fourth, the fifth The minor fall, the major lift The baffled king composing Hallelujah
A map of gas prices nationwide. Alexis Madrigal comments:
Note how similar gas prices are within individual states and how much they vary between states. Using just gas price data, you could practically draw the state lines, if they weren't already inked in for you. Look at that Illinois-Missouri border!
This county-by-county highlights the importance of energy policy at the state level in driving prices, at least at the relatively small variations in price they are mapping here. At the big picture level, of course, all of these prices are several times higher than they were back in 1999.
The poll suggests the outcome of the proposed amendment is far from
certain. Overall, it was leading 54% to 35% among registered voters.
But because ballot measures on controversial topics often lose support
during the course of a campaign, strategists typically want to start
out well above the 50% support level.
"Although the amendment to reinstate the ban on same-sex marriage is
winning by a small majority, this may not bode well for the measure,"
said Times Poll Director Susan Pinkus.
Given the strong-arm tactics used in Hillary's quest to be the VP nominee, it would be impossible for naming her not to be seen as appeasement. If he cannot stand up to Bill and Hillary, how can we be confident that he can negotiate from a position of strength with Kim Jong-il?
Webb, who is a Vietnam vet and whose son served in Iraq, made sure the bill was bullet-proof before shopping it around the Hill and in the media for the last several weeks. Its passage – thanks to the help of 26 Republicans – marks one of the biggest Democratic legislative victories this year, and gives them a healthy talking point in the November election, thanks to opposition from the White House, Pentagon and one senator by the name of John McCain.
President Bush wants to veto the measure, and his case is helped, if only because the Democrats attached $10 billion in additional domestic spending to the package. Ironically, the spending, which includes the extension of unemployment benefits and aid to the Gulf States, is what helped to bring some of the Republican stragglers like Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., on board at the last minute, in part because of their vulnerabilities in the fall elections.
But the real opposition from Bush and McCain and the defense brass is that they believe one stint in the active duty isn’t enough time to give to one’s country, that a full college tuition after three years might discourage servicemen and women from making the military a career. Webb and others say hogwash, if a guy or a gal spends three years – and we all know that amounts to at least one, or two years in the warzone today – they deserve whatever we can give ‘em. Remember, even the draftees during Vietnam only spent a year overseas before they were let off the hook and they got a GI Bill that at the time paid for something. The old GI Bill, not adjusted for today’s skyrocketing tuition costs, won’t even get a vet through a four-year state school today.
I'm a little staggered that McCain allowed himself to be outmaneuvered on this by Webb and Obama.
"Well, in 2004, I expect to be campaigning for the reelection of
President George W. Bush, and by 2008, I think I might be ready to go
down to the old soldiers home and await the cavalry charge there." - John McCain, eight years ago. Look: life is long.
...you don't need Clinton on the ticket to unify the party unless Clinton wants to make it the case that you need Clinton on the ticket to unify the party but if she does want to do that, I think she probably has it in her power...But I remain skeptical that Clinton actually does want to be Vice President. My take is that a substantial swathe of her staff wants her to be Vice President because they think a "unity ticket" is now their best realistic shot at getting jobs in the executive branch. As I've observed before, Bill and Hillary have great fallback jobs -- as multimillionaires, and the head of an important foundation and a U.S. Senator respectively -- but that's not at all true of lots of their campaign staffers.
The Clintons have no fallback jobs. This is their entire life. Losing is simply unimaginable to them. It's been decades since it happened, and it was traumatic for them even then.
I am a conservative leaning independent, who has long supported John McCain. Over the past twelve months I have been captivated and inspired by the rise of Barack Obama. When the primary process began, I assumed if either of these men could possibly (they were both such long shots) win their respective party’s nominations, I would vote for them. Now I am truly torn between the two, as each embodies various aspects of what I expect from a commander in chief.
That said, if Obama adds Clinton to the ticket as VP, the choice is clear and I vote McCain. I know many friends who feel this same way. Hillary must not be a heart-beat away from the Oval Office.
No! First of all, there's a real chance that the VP would become president. So if you think she wouldn't be a good president, you can't support her for VP for political purposes.
Second of all, she's been totally and thoroughly dishonest during the campaign.
Jonathan Cohn on the McCain medical record release:
By the time you read this, a select group of reporters--apparently numbering about a dozen--may be inside a conference room at a Phoenix resort hotel, going over some 400 pages of Senator John McCain's medical records....rather than make all the records public, the campaign has chosen to make them available to the pool reporters for a three-hour window. According to this account in the New York Times, the reporters can take notes but not make photocopies. The campaign is also making McCain's doctors, from the Mayo Clinic, available for interviews.
This is absurd. Release all of it online. When a man is a cancer and torture survivor at 71, the health question is sadly relevant. I wouldn't want this for almost anyone else - but he's running for president of the US. You give up your medical privacy under those conditions. And any attempt to conceal anything will only fuel worries, not allay them.
May 18, 2008 - May 24, 2008
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