Archive
June 28, 2009 - July 4, 2009
Saturday, July 4, 200904 Jul 2009 03:21 pm Happy Fourth: Marvin Gaye04 Jul 2009 02:13 pm Happy Fourth: Parker-Stone04 Jul 2009 01:31 pm The America I LoveHere is, to my mind, the best appreciation of America in recent times by an old friend and colleague, the late Henry Fairlie, of The New Republic. A British emigre, Henry was a bohemian, idiosyncratic, Oakeshottian Tory, foe of neocons, and lover of democracy, curmudgeon, lover, bon-vivant and utterly independent, as all the best journalists are. Read the extract below. And buy Jeremy McCarter's wonderful new collection of some of Henry's greatest pieces - journalism at its finest and crispest and bravest. Here's an extract from his essay for July 4 in 1983: titled "My America" on the cover, it's a classic:
--July 4, 1983 Buy the book of his priceless essays and read the rest of this one here. 04 Jul 2009 01:10 pm Happy Fourth: Diamond04 Jul 2009 12:58 pm Iceberg?Mudflats reports: [T]hose who have been following the Alaska blogosphere closely are aware
of the rumors bubbling up that there’s something big…something really
big that’s headed her way; the iceberg that’s headed for the S.S.
Palin. We’ll see. I think that there's something we don't know about: either a serious
health problem or a serious scandal. In either case, it would, I think,
have to be a really big deal to make her react in this way. She has
shown herself to be more than capable of brushing off smaller scandals,
national embarrassment, and a whole host of other things. She did not
step down from the governorship when she gave birth to a child with
special needs, or when she was asked to be McCain's running-mate. She
did not decline McCain's offer because of the potential embarrassment,
either to her or her family, of her daughter being unmarried and
pregnant. She is no shrinking violet. Many political observers in Alaska are fixated on rumors that federal investigators have been seizing paperwork from SBS in recent months, searching for evidence that Palin and her husband Todd steered lucrative contracts to the well-connected company in exchange for gifts like the construction of their home on pristine Lake Lucille in 2002. Kristol, disingenuous as ever: It's an enormous gamble - but it could be a shrewd one. Kristol occupies a central space in the network of right wing
media/think tank types. Vast swaths of the Republican intelligentsia
are deeply invested in his success, and he invested himself in the
success of Sarah Palin. The Palin stocks have now crashed, and that may
turn the investment in Kristol toxic. Kristol and his backers will, for
a time anyway, deal with the problem by simply refusing to acknowledge
that anything has gone wrong. When Jonah Goldberg is jumping ship, though, things aren't looking good.
Ezra Klein: The main thing I'd point out about Sarah Palin's dazzlingly incoherent
farewell is that it's pretty clear she wrote it herself. The proof is
in the punctuation. The transcript
was posted to her official Web site earlier today. The style is closer
to a high schooler's angry diary entry than to an official speech. I've
read a lot of speech transcripts. They tend to have fewer words in all
capital letters. And fewer things in quotation marks that aren't
actually, you know, quotes. Chris Dierkes: This is a major gamble on her part, but if she gets spots to campaign
for others she could build a network on the national level that could
in theory catapult her to the Republican Nomination. If she doesn’t
get the return calls from local GOPers running for House, State Senate
seats, PACs and the like, then she’s toast. Steve Coll: There is another possibility, conceivably—that she is so isolated that
she has talked herself into the belief that whatever feels right to her
must be the pathway to the White House; that to make her case as a
presidential candidate it is plausible to resign from the only
marginally qualifying job in government that she has ever held, before
she could complete even the first leg of her responsibilities; that
disapproval of her decision in mainstream media and political circles
will only confirm the narrative of media-led conspiracies against her
that will eventually fuel her populist triumph. Stranger things have
happened, in Chad and in America. But I’d bet on the dead fish. Publius: Today only makes sense if she either (1) is done with politics entirely, or (2) is a looney toon. Ambinder: Assuming there is no scandal shoe about to drop, to understand what
Gov. Sarah Palin is doing, we ought to begin by taking her at her word...She
can't fight back -- she can't protect her family, her values, her
worldview -- while she's governor. At the same time, her desire,
perhaps conscious, perhaps not, to get into the mix -- to be invited
to the fancy Washington dinners, to be courted by these very forces --
is irresistably pulling her towards the very fight she seeks. Allahpundit: 04 Jul 2009 10:08 am Happy Fourth: HendrixFriday, July 3, 200903 Jul 2009 04:28 pm Quote For The Day""Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen" - Ludwig Wittgenstein. Happy Fourth. 03 Jul 2009 04:27 pm July 3, 2009"Life is too short to compromise time and resources... it may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: "Sit down and shut up", but that's the worthless, easy path; that's a quitter's way out. And a problem in our country today is apathy. It would be apathetic to just hunker down and "go with the flow." 03 Jul 2009 04:26 pm September 20, 200803 Jul 2009 04:24 pm The Miniseries EndsI guessed right, which I suppose reflects just how much time I've spent trying to figure what goes on in her head. I think the simple truth is that, as even Alaskan Republicans told us last September, she was far from able to be governor of Alaska, let alone vice-president of the United States. Once the klieglights hit, it was only a matter of time before she imploded or exploded or some gruesome combination of the two. The librul media will be blamed for everything on her inexorable path to becoming a Fox News celebrity. Maybe a reality show? Someone hire her for The View! In the end, I think, the one thing to say is that the Republican party is in such a total state of collapse and incoherence that it actually believed she could be a future president; and that John McCain was so reckless, so cynical and so cavalier that he was prepared to rest the national security of this country on her shoulders if he, in his seventies, were to become unable to fulfill his duties or die. In some ways, this is a moment to reflect on McCain, and his irresponsibility, not Palin and her drama. I'm too stunned to say anything else, to tell you the truth. And yet not surprised at all. 03 Jul 2009 04:24 pm More Palin ReaxHere's her statement. Joe My God: Just watched Palin's press conference. Bizarre. No real reasons given, just a reference to attacks on her son, Trig, plus a rambling history of the acquisition of Alaska. Palin didn't appear to be reading from any notes and the Lt. Governor seems rather stunned. The Freepers are very unhappy. Some say that she's taking the high road and leaving politics entirely to care for her family, some suspect a coming scandal - and many are calling her political career over. Allahpundit agrees her career is over: Placing your ambition over your commitment to the state looks shady,
especially for someone who won’t have a single full term as governor
under her belt for the primaries. Okay, we're getting our first indication of what happened. It seems like a colossal sulk on Palin's part, or perhaps better to say an effort on her part to ingeniously combine anti-liberal media bias agitation with Christianist politics by portraying herself as having been crucified by the liberal media. Unless she's a total moron, there's no way she's running for president. Then again, maybe she is a total moron. My take - she's not done and will look to go national in some way setting up for a possible 2012 run.
03 Jul 2009 04:20 pm Mental Health BreakThe Beatles and the Clash - in Rubik Cubes: 03 Jul 2009 04:13 pm ToastJim Geraghty is shocked by Pailn's resignation: David Schuster is offering a typical sneering tone, but it doesn't make
it any less accurate: "If it's true that she's leaving the governorship
before her first term is complete, her national political career is
done." Ace of Spades has the same thought: It's over. You can't resign from a governorship and then run for higher office. Barring some strong reason, like needing treatment for cancer. Palin is making a terrible mistake. The lure of the national spotlight
is strong, and the day-to-day challenges associated with running the
executive branch of a state are no doubt difficult. There are probably
plenty of far-right activists and donors whispering in Palin's ear,
telling her to ignore the naysayers and realize she's ready to lead the
nation, but she's listening to the wrong people. Walking away from the
governor's office after one term is incredibly foolish -- but walking
away from the governor's office after two and a half years in office is
stupefying. K-Lo: One reservation I've always had about Sarah Palin has to do with her
family. If she is stepping down because of what politics has done to
her family, because of something in her family life she doesn't want to
see as David Letterman fodder, because it's impossible to be governor,
a star, and a mom to an infant ... this is good. It demonstrates good
judgment and priorities. Mudflats celebrates. 03 Jul 2009 03:54 pm Palin Resigns!KTUU reports:
Yeah - but she could still finish her term. I have no idea what this could mean, if it's true. But my bet is that she will blame it on the Eastern elite media. She may figure withdrawing as a victim from the arena is the only way back to the center of the arena. But, as Bubble once said, "Who Can Saay?" All we know is she's back in the news again folks. Strange as ever. 03 Jul 2009 03:49 pm Getting At The Truth About Palin, Ctd.Andrew Sprung responds to Frum: If Palin is as ineffectual a campaigner as Frum...implies, there's nothing to worry about - except perhaps, from Frum's point of view, that she'd capture the lunatic rump of the Republican Party and then go down to crushing defeat in the general election. Some political partisans rub their hands with glee at the thought of the opposition nominating an extremist. But that's a chance I'd never be willing to take. As a Democrat, I want a competent Republican nominee (and haven't seen one since Dole). In times of severe stress, dangerous clowns have been democratically elected in more than one country. Continue reading "Getting At The Truth About Palin, Ctd." » 03 Jul 2009 03:20 pm Palin As FigureheadA reader writes:I disagree with one of your readers who asserted that the ability to lie was fundamental to the fundamentalist’s mind. Her appeal has less to do with her personally than with those who follow her. She is simply an attractive empty vessel into which her followers pile grievances. Her followers feel aggrieved, by the government, by the media, by Pelosi and Reid, by the gays, by the greens, and by the ever lurking extreme liberal left. Real or imagined, Palin’s followers view her as a symbol of their world that these lefties have unfairly attacked. Continue reading "Palin As Figurehead" » 03 Jul 2009 02:32 pm Clean NuclearDavid Frum explains why we create so much nuclear waste but France creates so little. He also visited a French nuclear storage facility:
Agreed. Nuclear now! 03 Jul 2009 02:27 pm Interviews With SaddamSaddam denied any connections to the "zealot" Osama bin Laden, cited
North Korea as his most likely ally in a crunch, and shared President
George W. Bush's hostility towards the "fanatic" Iranian mullahs,
according to the FBI records of conversations from February through
June 2004 between Saddam and Arabic-speaking agents in his detention
cell at Baghdad International Airport. Marcy Wheeler sorts through the interviews. Much of this we knew. But the further away the decision to wage war in Iraq to remove WMDs gets, the more indefensible it seems. I lean toward the theory that it was an almighty screw up rather than a conspiracy, because history is usually like that. But it's complicated and only a few more years will help us understand it better. 03 Jul 2009 01:51 pm Bombs AwayAckerman tackles John Bolton: Yes, [by Bolton's logic] the Israeli bombs will only kill the bad Iranians.
When patriotic Iranians of the opposition see Israeli F-16s raining
death from above on Iranian targets, Bolton actually expects them to
think, “Boom shack-a-lacka! Here come our Israeli liberators! Let them
bomb whatever they like, since even though Mir Hussein Moussavi supports a nuclear program
as part of a consensus opinion, I believe Israeli propaganda that says
it has our best interests at heart! That’ll show Mahmoud Ahmadinejad!
Did you hear that, Aunt Marjam? Aunt Marjam…?” Bolton's position is at least consistent; and tactically speaking, this would probably be, as he suggests, the least damaging moment to make the strike. But the damage would nonetheless be real, the effectiveness of a strike highly questionable, the global terrorist blowback immense, and the initiation of a Third World War would instantly kill the Green Revolution and empower Ahmadinejad. But if the point of all this is not Iranian democracy but maximizing Israel's strategic security for the next couple of years (at the expense of its potential long-term extinction), why would Bolton care? 03 Jul 2009 01:40 pm Riding The Populist TigerJonah reads his email. They're in too deep now. Here, by the way is the column that prompted the emails. Goldberg is partially in Krauthammer's camp, but, of course, he cannot really upset the Palinites who now make up the core of the modern GOP. From the conclusion: Here’s the good news: You have time. Here’s the better news: You have something no one else in the party has — charisma. And I don’t mean you have the most charisma like it’s a consolation prize for not being elected prom queen. If money could buy what you have, Romney would have bought it all by now. Good politicians can learn how to win over audiences, but the great ones are born with the ability. Reagan had it. Clinton had it. Obama has it. You have it. You are the “It Girl” of the GOP. Continue reading "Riding The Populist Tiger" » 03 Jul 2009 01:35 pm The View From Your Recession
A reader writes:
Another writes:
Continue reading "The View From Your Recession" » 03 Jul 2009 01:00 pm Grading The PresidentDiA counters Savage: Dan Savage, the filthily funny, and also politically feisty and gay, sex columnist for Seattle's Stranger newspaper, gives Mr Obama a grade of "F" on gay rights so far. That is
wildly unfair—is he really deserving of the worst grade you can give,
and thus on par with George Bush? Of course not. But a C-minus, at
least, so far, is what more balanced gay-rights activists might give
him. In other words, in danger of failing. And with Lt Choi about to
trade his uniform for civvies on a permanent basis, the president does
not have forever to get his grade back up.
03 Jul 2009 12:41 pm News.GovEzra uses yesterday's WaPo controversy to advocate for publicly funded news: We have public universities and public centers for disease research
and public firefighting departments and a public military and public
roads. Why should news be different? You can argue that it must be oppositional to government, of course,
and so government funding is a conflict of interest. But many European
countries have solved
that problem by developing automatic funding structures free of
government influence. Meanwhile, it's not as if NPR or the BBC seem
particularly concerned about criticizing their respective governments
(nor, for that matter, do professors at public universities seem
particularly cowed). And those funding mechanisms can, at the least, be
transparent, predictable, and partial, which would be better than
newspapers quietly trying a thousand things, many of them far from the
public eye.
Ugh. Like the government is more disinterested than lobbyists. Matt Steinglass is also pessimistic about the future of news: 03 Jul 2009 12:37 pm Kristol vs Schmidt, Round IIIt's on now, as Salter jumps in. He's right: Schmidt was one of Palin's defenders at first, which just goes to show how she can alienate anyone. 03 Jul 2009 11:59 am Things That Make You Go Hmmm, Ctd
I'm really grateful for Patrick and readers for pushing back on my speculations about Palin. The reader who suggests that the implausibility of her labor narrative is simply a function of her usual delusional embellishment is extremely persuasive. In fact, I'd say it's easily the likeliest explanation for what really happened. She made a lot of stuff up, as she always does, in order to make the story more gripping and to add to her aura as the tough-girl Alaskan. So of course the story doesn't make sense (and we may never know which bits are true and which just truthy). And the need to have the kid born in Alaska does make more sense when you consider Todd's extremist politics. It could also easily be true that, as she said in Indiana, she simply had conflicted feelings about this pregnancy and considered an abortion. Grappling with that, she kept it all secret, got caught in lies about it, and her ambivalence about her pregnancy may even have led her unconsciously to act irrationally during labor. This is very human and very real and deserves our sympathy, not derision. But in national politics, you have to explain all this from the get-go, or just release the medical records on or off the record, and move on by defusing and humiliating bloggers like me. I understand that this is easier said than done, but when you accept a veep nomination, and ask people to contemplate putting you in the most powerful job in the world, you just have to suck it up and tell the truth. That's the awful price of public life. If she had told her story at the start, I think she would have earned much more support and admiration and become a real and much more persuasive advocate for the pro-life movement. But she didn't. And so the rubber-necking began. Still, I am not convinced by Patrick's core argument - that a conspiracy, however unlikely, is near-impossible to sustain in this case. Here's why, as a reader explains:
Continue reading "Things That Make You Go Hmmm, Ctd" » 03 Jul 2009 11:51 am What The Hell Is Happening In Honduras?, CtdGreg Weeks tries to establish some points about Honduras. Can you remember a story where pundits have varied so widely on the basic facts? Jamie weighs in here. 03 Jul 2009 11:25 am Latest From LaraThe intrepid twitterer tweets:
03 Jul 2009 11:19 am The View From Your Window
Amsterdam, Netherlands, 5.56 pm 03 Jul 2009 11:12 am Maybe The Feds Aren't So Useless After AllLike most intelligent human beings, the more I look at Waxman-Markey the more dismayed I am. If you thought Obama could actually stop lobbyists writing legislation, you missed the audacity of whatever gets past Pelosi and Reid. I take Gerson's view that it's a start. But after so much procrastination, we're really back to the fierce urgency of whenever, aren't we? But here's something to give you something to celebrate. The federal government may even - wait for it - do something itself to address a problem: The Department of Interior, which is by far the largest landowner in the United States, and which at various points in its history has been seen as a beacon of the "drill, baby, drill!" philosophy of land management (cf: James Watt, passim), [is] in fact now quite serious about applying a "Re-greening" approach to the 20 percent of the US landmass under its control. The idea is to develop the land to absorb more carbon: Hayes gave more details than I will recount here. They boiled down to a sequence of: trying to measure and understand the carbon-absorption properties of the various lands under its control; seeing how they can be improved, including with market-based offsets; telling the story to the public of why protecting and expanding forests, grasslands, wetlands, etc has an important climate-change component; making forest-preservation an important part of international climate negotiations (rather than talking only about clean-energy sources); and a lot more. This is indeed most encouraging. But if the Interior Department is like the rest of this lotta-talk not-so-much-action administration, I'll believe it when I see it. 03 Jul 2009 10:54 am "A Very Physical Presence"Lara gets a letter from Tehran:
Read the rest here. 03 Jul 2009 10:37 am A Leaflet From Tehran
They're bravely planning a march on Thursday. They haven't given up. 03 Jul 2009 09:46 am The Odd Lies Of Sarah Palin XXXII: Todd And The AIP
You know I said a lot of tough things about Steve Schmidt in the rough and tumble of the campaign, but the more we find out about what actually went on, the more you realize he was actually one of the few sane people with real clout in the McCain implosion. And CBS News has some new evidence of a classic Palin lie - deployed against the McCain campaign. She tried to argue that it was false that her husband had been a member of the Alaska Independence Party and false that the Alaska Independence Party actually supports secession. Here's the email she fired off to Schmidt when the press exposed her husband's extremist politics: "That's not part of their platform and he was only a 'member' bc
independent alaskans too often check that 'Alaska Independent' box on
voter registrations thinking it just means non partisan. He caught his error when changing our address and checked the right
box. I still want it fixed."
This is a classic Palin lie - because it has a high school quality to it and is provably untrue in the public record. CBS points out: The box that Alaskans have the option of checking when registering to
vote states the full name of the party, "Alaskan Independence Party,"
not "Alaska Independent," which would make an error by uncommitted
voters more plausible. To his eternal credit, Schmidt fired back: Continue reading "The Odd Lies Of Sarah Palin XXXII: Todd And The AIP" » 03 Jul 2009 09:31 am What The Hell Is Happening In Honduras?RCP rounds up some analysis. Here is Jesus Rios of Gallup: The international community has unanimously condemned Zelaya’s ousting,
and the latest indications point in the direction of his imminent
return to Honduras. Whether he will be reinstated in office is still a
question, but what seems clear is he will face important challenges at
home. Back in 2008, Hondurans placed the blame for the country’s
political tension primarily on his government and “other countries."
The latest remarks by interim leader Micheletti suggest Zelaya’s
increasing alignment to President Hugo Chavez’s regime is at the core
of the crisis.
So, if Zelaya does in fact return to power before the November presidential election, the question then becomes: how will he manage to govern amidst an adverse public opinion environment and among institutions that backed his ousting, including his own political party? And, what role, if any, will Chavez play in Honduran politics from now on? Will Zelaya drop or moderate his pro-Chavez stance to regain political support? According to the 2008 Gallup survey, just 20% of Hondurans approve of President Hugo Chavez. 03 Jul 2009 08:54 am Why Palin Isn't Going AwayEd Kilgore says to think twice about Palin's chances: This base of support for Palin — maybe not that large, but very
passionate, and very powerful in places like the Iowa Republican
Caucuses — isn’t going to abandon her just because the Serious People
in the GOP laugh her off in favor of blow-dried flip-flopping pols like
Mitt Romney or blandly “electable” figures like Tim Pawlenty. To her
supporters, mockery is like nectar. I don't disagree. But that is the reason why she is so dangerous to the Republican party. She is a kind of poison pill. If she becomes the leader of the national GOP, the wilderness they are now in will seem like an oasis. (Hat tip: Weigel) 03 Jul 2009 08:33 am Getting At The Truth About Palin
David Frum wants more Palin exposure: The McCain campaign is over. The duty of confidentiality has expired. The next campaign has begun. If conservatives are to avoid catastrophe, they need to hear from those inside what exactly happened. If true, the leaks constitute an urgent warning and public service. I believe they are true. For sure they confirm what I have heard during the campaign and after. Instead of complaining about these leaks, conservatives should heed them - and fast. 03 Jul 2009 08:06 am The Odd Lies Of Sarah Palin XXXI: The Cost Of Ethics ComplaintsMudflats has found another untruth from the office of the Alaskan governor: “In the past two years, the state of Alaska has spent millions of dollars processing ethics complaints, public records requests, and related lawsuits.” Actually: The complete breakdown is not yet available, but we do know this about the three spendiest ones:
$187,797 stemmed from the Troopergate investigation, a good chunk of which Palin initiated herself. We’ll get back to that.
$43,028 stemmed from a complaint by Andree McLeod which resulted in a recommendation that a state employee undergo ethics training for a series of “troubling emails.”
$29,962 most likely came from the “travel gate” investigation in which Palin reimbursed almost $10,000 for expenses billed to the state for her children’s travel expenses.
That’s the top three, none of which sound particularly “frivolous.” So once we crunch the numbers, it’s highly likely that the most expensive investigation brought about by an individual, is Palin’s investigation of herself. And let’s just review that one more time.
03 Jul 2009 07:40 am Mitt's Foreign PolicyIn graph form. Thursday, July 2, 200902 Jul 2009 11:05 pm Home And WetMan am I glad to be back where I can breathe and sleep and think. The Dish will return to normal for the foreseeable future. Thanks to Chris and Patrick for helping while I was in transit. 02 Jul 2009 10:42 pm Just To ReiterateThe post below dealing with torture was not written by me. --- AS. 02 Jul 2009 08:32 pm Face Of The Day
02 Jul 2009 08:25 pm An Ethical Case For The Ticking Time-Bomb ScenarioA reader writes:
Andrew did not write that post; I - Chris - did. (Like every post during these rare co-blogging days with Patrick, I put my initials at the end of the post, and in this case even referenced Andrew by name.) I think this is worth reiterating because readers sometimes forget. Anyway, I also published this email as an opportunity to air an argument: while I am firmly anti-torture, I actually think the ticking time-bomb scenario can be justified. But my take is very different from the likes of Krauthammer; I think the TTB scenario can be ethically justified, not legally justified. Torture should always be illegal, without exception. But in the infinitesimally small chance that someone is put in the situation where he or she is utterly convinced a captured terrorist holds the key to preventing the deaths of countless people, torturing one person would be the lesser of two evils. Continue reading "An Ethical Case For The Ticking Time-Bomb Scenario" » 02 Jul 2009 07:53 pm What Now?Ackerman reports on a press conference by Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council: [If] a compromise can’t be found, then the opposition enters a new phase, having to face a choice between accepting Ahmadinejad and moving to a more radical position. “There are people loyal to the system, who don’t want to bring the system down but at the same time believe the system is quite imperfect [and wish to] ensure the system changes through peaceful means,” Parsi said. If they fail, “then we face a significantly more radical movement in Iran, with more bloodshed than we’ve seen.” Continue reading "What Now?" » 02 Jul 2009 07:18 pm Quote For The Day II"[Palin] is not a serious candidate for the presidency. She had to go home and study and spend a lot of time on issues in which she was not adept last year, and she hasn't. She has to stop speaking in clichés and platitudes. It won't work. It could work for eight weeks if you're the number two candidate, as she was last year. But even so, she got singed a lot in that campaign. You cannot sustain a campaign of platitudes and clichés over a year and a half if you're running for the presidency,"- Charles Krauthammer. --PA 02 Jul 2009 06:50 pm Playing The Aid CardGreg Weeks, who runs a blog on Latin American politics, has been all over the situation in Honduras. Apparently, "U.S. aid is contingent on whether or not a coup is a 'military coup.'" The U.S. is waiting until Monday to decide whether to cut it off entirely: My first impression is that this could very well ease Zelaya's arrival
on Saturday. It is a public warning that aid may well be suspended if
things go badly over the weekend. Like if the Honduran police tackle
Cristina Fernandez and Rafael Correa in order to grab Mel Zelaya. It is
also a signal that the U.S. likes how Zelaya has responded thus far,
and expects Micheletti to be nice too.
02 Jul 2009 06:34 pm "Baring Its Fangs," Ctd.Al Giordano defends himself again via e-mail:
Continue reading ""Baring Its Fangs," Ctd." » 02 Jul 2009 05:54 pm Unemployment At Ten Percent?Daniel Indiviglio says the unemployment numbers are even worse than they first appear. Buttonwood is also pessimistic: [It] is a bit hard to see where the recovery is coming from. American
wages are up just 2.7% a year, and it is a lot harder for workers to
borrow money to maintain their spending. The boost from lower gasoline
prices (seen in the winter) is disappearing and consumers seem to be
saving, not spending, their tax breaks. David Rosenberg of Gluskin
Sheff points out that same store sales are down 4.4% year-on-year, a
bigger decline than that seen in May. If consumers are not spending,
why would business invest? We have seen some kind of a rebound, after
inventories were slashed in late 2008, but will it last? --PA 02 Jul 2009 05:32 pm The Weak Man ArgumentJulian Sanchez names a pet peeve: With a “weak man,” you don’t actually fabricate a position, but rather
pick the weakest of the arguments actually offered up by people on the
other side and treat it as the best or only one they have. As Steve
notes, this is hardly illegitimate all the time, because sometimes the
weaker argument is actually the prevalent one. Maybe the best arguments
for Christianity are offered up by Thomas Aquinas or St. Augustine, but
I doubt there are very many people who are believers because they read On Christian Doctrine.
Probably this will be the case with some frequency, if only because the
less complex or sophisticated an argument is, the easier it is for lots
of people to be familiar with it. On any topic of interest, a
three-sentence argument is unlikely to be very good, but it’s a lot
more likely to spread.
02 Jul 2009 05:23 pm Microsoft Tries To Make A Hip Viral AdAnd falls flat. In vomit. Gross. -- CB 02 Jul 2009 05:04 pm Kill First, Find Guilt LaterNico passes along a great anecdote:
Much like "intelligence" is decided before torture begins. -- CB 02 Jul 2009 04:51 pm Waterboarding In Iran, CtdA reader writes: How is Cheney's torture any more justifiable than Iran's? In each case, the torturer is coercing the confession they want to hear. Is admitting to collaborating with foreign agents to create internal unrest that different than admitting to joining Al-Qaeda and planning attacks against America (whether falsely or truthfully, we can't know)? The main difference I can see is that we can comprehend Cheney's actions as an extremely misguided attempt to protect Americans. That may make his torture more understandable, but it doesn't make it more justifiable.
That still doesn't justify Cheney and Co., of course - for all the reasons that Andrew has exhaustively laid out. Misguided torture is still torture. And in a way, US methods were even more insidious, since they were sanitized enough to court the conservative mainstream and bureaucratized enough to trickle down the chain of command to the likes of Lynndie England. Iran's motive and methods, on the other hand, are so blatant that they would never garner the support of the American center-right. (The far-right, on the other hand, is another question.) -- CB
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