LINK: The Guardian on what Tony Blair should say to the Labour Party. The beginning:
"Well here I am again. Vlad the Impaler, the effete warmonger, the Granita fop, Tony B Liar. Worse, by far - judging by what is being said and left unsaid here - than Saddam Hussein himself. Even if I said word for word what Gordon Brown said to you in his job application yesterday, you'd still hate me.
Last year I told you that we were at our best when we were boldest. I could have added that we are at our worst when whingeing. But whingeing is all most of you have done since then. It has been a year of complaint..."
"Thou shalt not extinguish thine anger, but shall master it,
that thy conscience may not be blunted by adjustment
to wrong causes."
-The Dutch Ten Commandments to Foil the Nazis
30.9.03
QUOTE: Wes Clark:
""I still believe in e=mc2, but I can't believe that in all of human history, we'll never ever be able to go beyond the speed of light to reach where we want to go," said Clark. "I happen to believe that mankind can do it."
"I've argued with physicists about it, I've argued with best friends about it. I just have to believe it. It's my only faith-based initiative." Clark's comment prompted laughter and applause from the gathering."
David, you want to handle this one?
""I still believe in e=mc2, but I can't believe that in all of human history, we'll never ever be able to go beyond the speed of light to reach where we want to go," said Clark. "I happen to believe that mankind can do it."
"I've argued with physicists about it, I've argued with best friends about it. I just have to believe it. It's my only faith-based initiative." Clark's comment prompted laughter and applause from the gathering."
David, you want to handle this one?
LINK: I found this to be quite helpful in deciding whether or not to go to grad school. But I'm still going anyway.
LINK: I cite the following (link from Dara) to make a number of points. Most of the arguments presented in the article are ludicrous--not on the basis of whatever one thinks of them on an up-or-down basis, but for the fundamental disrespect they show for an alternative conception of how human beings function. Thus we get:
" I respect those who have strong religious convictions concerning their sexual practices and attach to their virginity a high value."
but we also get:
"We must, however, keep in mind that the placement of this high value is a personal decision and not a universal fact. It is certainly not the government’s decision to make for anyone."
why is this a problem? Because the sort of viewpoint that values abstinence programs takes as axiomatic the idea that people have a certain sort of behavior which it is not in their rationally considered best interest to engage in. Therefore, as a matter of public policy, the thoroughgoing (or perhaps we should say 'consistent:' either is applicable) abstinance advocate cannot accept any sort of policy that caves into the notion that people's conduct matters not at all, it being strictly a function of their own lives. Family planning advocates are, to trot out a number of adjectives, by and large secularist and materialist, and embrace a certain set of beliefs relating to libertarianism and utilitarianism. They accept, in this case, as fact that people are just horny little bunnies who will go off and do their thing regardless of what the government or anyone else says about it, and so public policy should be designed with this set of realities in mind. This approach is, of necessity, fundamentally hostile to people who support abstinence education, because a necessary prerequisite of their beliefs is that people's behavior should not be quietly acquiesced to. Thus:
"Ah, abstinence. It’s the Bush Administration’s baby (no pun intended), and they’ve been nourishing it with the umbilical cord of federal funds (okay, maybe that one was intended) ever since the conception (someone please make me stop) of his presidency. Evildoers engaged in premarital intercourse, beware!"
(Side note: is there anything factually incorrect in the following?: "the abstinence programs attempt to cut down on teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases by stating that the only sure way of prevention is completely abstaining from sex until marriage.")
But, Nick, you are no doubt saying, you're surely not advocating abstinence education considering all the nasty stuff that's going on in the world, right? Don't you A fortiori condemn millions of people across the world to horrible suffering? Well, mostly I just wanted to establish that the family planning side is more hostile to abstinence education than in claims to be. But point well taken. What the discussion here neglects is the possibility that there is something between making something illegal and making it legal. On to another paragraph to elaborate.
I believe there is a certain sort of activity that might best be called publicly censurable behavior: that is, there exist activities that we as a society are prepared to admit happen de facto, and accept insofar as they go, but we believe that a de jure sanction of the behavior would have all sorts of untoward consequences. To wit: underage drinking. Does anyone think it doesn't happen, or that society at large is not okay with a certain amount of it going on? But most rational observers can agree that mostly bad things would result if we changed liquor laws to reflect where our cultural attitudes are. We want the penalties to be there for exceptional cases, but we don't want to exercise them otherwise. Dara and I discussed another example this weekend which might be parallel, though I'm as yet unsure about that.
How does this relate to abortion? We want to have options available (the family planning route), and insomuch as the Bush administration has prevented these, so much to the worse, but I think there are serious consequences advocates have not contemplated to institutionally distancing ourselves from the idea of abstinence.
" I respect those who have strong religious convictions concerning their sexual practices and attach to their virginity a high value."
but we also get:
"We must, however, keep in mind that the placement of this high value is a personal decision and not a universal fact. It is certainly not the government’s decision to make for anyone."
why is this a problem? Because the sort of viewpoint that values abstinence programs takes as axiomatic the idea that people have a certain sort of behavior which it is not in their rationally considered best interest to engage in. Therefore, as a matter of public policy, the thoroughgoing (or perhaps we should say 'consistent:' either is applicable) abstinance advocate cannot accept any sort of policy that caves into the notion that people's conduct matters not at all, it being strictly a function of their own lives. Family planning advocates are, to trot out a number of adjectives, by and large secularist and materialist, and embrace a certain set of beliefs relating to libertarianism and utilitarianism. They accept, in this case, as fact that people are just horny little bunnies who will go off and do their thing regardless of what the government or anyone else says about it, and so public policy should be designed with this set of realities in mind. This approach is, of necessity, fundamentally hostile to people who support abstinence education, because a necessary prerequisite of their beliefs is that people's behavior should not be quietly acquiesced to. Thus:
"Ah, abstinence. It’s the Bush Administration’s baby (no pun intended), and they’ve been nourishing it with the umbilical cord of federal funds (okay, maybe that one was intended) ever since the conception (someone please make me stop) of his presidency. Evildoers engaged in premarital intercourse, beware!"
(Side note: is there anything factually incorrect in the following?: "the abstinence programs attempt to cut down on teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases by stating that the only sure way of prevention is completely abstaining from sex until marriage.")
But, Nick, you are no doubt saying, you're surely not advocating abstinence education considering all the nasty stuff that's going on in the world, right? Don't you A fortiori condemn millions of people across the world to horrible suffering? Well, mostly I just wanted to establish that the family planning side is more hostile to abstinence education than in claims to be. But point well taken. What the discussion here neglects is the possibility that there is something between making something illegal and making it legal. On to another paragraph to elaborate.
I believe there is a certain sort of activity that might best be called publicly censurable behavior: that is, there exist activities that we as a society are prepared to admit happen de facto, and accept insofar as they go, but we believe that a de jure sanction of the behavior would have all sorts of untoward consequences. To wit: underage drinking. Does anyone think it doesn't happen, or that society at large is not okay with a certain amount of it going on? But most rational observers can agree that mostly bad things would result if we changed liquor laws to reflect where our cultural attitudes are. We want the penalties to be there for exceptional cases, but we don't want to exercise them otherwise. Dara and I discussed another example this weekend which might be parallel, though I'm as yet unsure about that.
How does this relate to abortion? We want to have options available (the family planning route), and insomuch as the Bush administration has prevented these, so much to the worse, but I think there are serious consequences advocates have not contemplated to institutionally distancing ourselves from the idea of abstinence.
29.9.03
LINK: Peter Beinart has got the Democrats' number of Iraq and cynical politics, including those of Wesley Clark:
"These three nonresponses to Bush's budget request expose the shallowness of what passes for Democratic national security doctrine. If Democrats had a distinct post-September 11, 2001, vision, it was partly that the war on terrorism required a Marshall Plan as well as a Truman Doctrine; we needed to build schools in the Muslim world, not just crack skulls. Yet, now, with the Bush administration finally recognizing that defeating terrorism requires making sure Iraqis have electricity and clean water, the Democratic presidential candidates are looking for any excuse to avoid saying yes. Pandering to public isolationism may make short-term political sense, but, in the long-term, it will simply confirm what many Americans already believe: that you can dress up the Democratic Party in whatever uniform you want, it still doesn't have a strategy for the defining challenge of our time."
"These three nonresponses to Bush's budget request expose the shallowness of what passes for Democratic national security doctrine. If Democrats had a distinct post-September 11, 2001, vision, it was partly that the war on terrorism required a Marshall Plan as well as a Truman Doctrine; we needed to build schools in the Muslim world, not just crack skulls. Yet, now, with the Bush administration finally recognizing that defeating terrorism requires making sure Iraqis have electricity and clean water, the Democratic presidential candidates are looking for any excuse to avoid saying yes. Pandering to public isolationism may make short-term political sense, but, in the long-term, it will simply confirm what many Americans already believe: that you can dress up the Democratic Party in whatever uniform you want, it still doesn't have a strategy for the defining challenge of our time."
LINK: Obit of the famous movie director Elia Kazan, who was best known for naming names to the House Un-American Activities Committee of Communist Party members in Hollywood. When this was a big deal a few years ago, I took the good old-fashioned liberal position of not liking him for selling out his friends. But I'll be brutally honest here: you had to be an idiot not to know what was going on in Russia at the time, and anyone who remained a Stalinist nevertheless (as CPUSA party members were) deserved everything that happened to them (the most damning indictment coming from Mary McCarthy, in her essay "My Confession," the first quote on the left coming therefrom).
QUOTE: From David Remnick's obituary for George Plimpton. Does this not sound like the coolest guy ever?
"A few weeks before entering the ring at Stillman’s Gym against Archie (the Mongoose) Moore, George Plimpton ordered a “wildcat” drink called Crashweight Formula #7. Plimpton would need whatever bulking up he could get in order to survive the rough attentions of the light-heavyweight champion of the world. “I am built rather like a bird of the stiltlike, wader variety—the avocets, limpkins, and herons,” he wrote. “I can slide my watch up my arm almost to the elbow.” On the day of the three-round exhibition, in 1959, Moore flicked uncertainly at Plimpton’s most patrician part: “He jabbed and followed with a long lazy left hook that fetched up against my nose and collapsed it slightly. It began to bleed.” The dizzying pain was short-lived, but the essay that followed, “Three with Moore,” ranks high in the annals of Plimptoniana.
George Plimpton, who died last week at his town house, on East Seventy-second Street near the river, was a serious man of serious accomplishments who just happened to have more fun than a van full of jugglers and clowns. He was game for anything and made a comic art of his Walter Mitty dreams and inevitable failures. Borrowing from Paul Gallico, a sportswriter of an earlier generation, who tried to box Jack Dempsey, Plimpton deepened the idea of “participatory journalism,” quarterbacking the Detroit Lions for a book called “Paper Lion,” pitching to Willie Mays and Ernie Banks for “Out of My League,” golfing with Sam Snead for “The Bogey Man.” In further pursuit of material, he played basketball under Red Auerbach in Boston and triangle (Mahler’s Fourth) under Leonard Bernstein in New York. He flew on a trapeze with the Flying Apollos, and took a bullet from John Wayne in “Rio Lobo.” None, in any field but the literary, would call him skilled. Nick Pietrosante, a running back with the Lions, once told me, “As soon as he put on his shorts in training camp, with that oblong body and his dangling legs, you knew George had no ability whatsoever. He was a good guy, though. He had that Harvard accent . . . so I don’t think he’d been knocked on his ass too many times. He was gutsy.” "
"A few weeks before entering the ring at Stillman’s Gym against Archie (the Mongoose) Moore, George Plimpton ordered a “wildcat” drink called Crashweight Formula #7. Plimpton would need whatever bulking up he could get in order to survive the rough attentions of the light-heavyweight champion of the world. “I am built rather like a bird of the stiltlike, wader variety—the avocets, limpkins, and herons,” he wrote. “I can slide my watch up my arm almost to the elbow.” On the day of the three-round exhibition, in 1959, Moore flicked uncertainly at Plimpton’s most patrician part: “He jabbed and followed with a long lazy left hook that fetched up against my nose and collapsed it slightly. It began to bleed.” The dizzying pain was short-lived, but the essay that followed, “Three with Moore,” ranks high in the annals of Plimptoniana.
George Plimpton, who died last week at his town house, on East Seventy-second Street near the river, was a serious man of serious accomplishments who just happened to have more fun than a van full of jugglers and clowns. He was game for anything and made a comic art of his Walter Mitty dreams and inevitable failures. Borrowing from Paul Gallico, a sportswriter of an earlier generation, who tried to box Jack Dempsey, Plimpton deepened the idea of “participatory journalism,” quarterbacking the Detroit Lions for a book called “Paper Lion,” pitching to Willie Mays and Ernie Banks for “Out of My League,” golfing with Sam Snead for “The Bogey Man.” In further pursuit of material, he played basketball under Red Auerbach in Boston and triangle (Mahler’s Fourth) under Leonard Bernstein in New York. He flew on a trapeze with the Flying Apollos, and took a bullet from John Wayne in “Rio Lobo.” None, in any field but the literary, would call him skilled. Nick Pietrosante, a running back with the Lions, once told me, “As soon as he put on his shorts in training camp, with that oblong body and his dangling legs, you knew George had no ability whatsoever. He was a good guy, though. He had that Harvard accent . . . so I don’t think he’d been knocked on his ass too many times. He was gutsy.” "
GOOD ONE, DAVID: you actually don't have to adjust for inflation in this case. Allow me to boldface the relevant part for you:
"WHAT HAPPENED? Over on NRO Tom Nugent displays a long list of minor taxes and writes:
Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago when our nation was the most prosperous in the world, had absolutely no national debt, and had the largest middle class in the world.
Tapped can't find any 1903 data, but according to the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis, back in 1929 (the first year for which it has the number) the U.S. GDP was $103.7 billion in current dollars, whereas by 2002 it had reached more than $10.4 trillion so it seems to us that things haven't been going so badly."
"WHAT HAPPENED? Over on NRO Tom Nugent displays a long list of minor taxes and writes:
Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago when our nation was the most prosperous in the world, had absolutely no national debt, and had the largest middle class in the world.
Tapped can't find any 1903 data, but according to the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis, back in 1929 (the first year for which it has the number) the U.S. GDP was $103.7 billion in current dollars, whereas by 2002 it had reached more than $10.4 trillion so it seems to us that things haven't been going so badly."
26.9.03
WES CLARK WATCH: As promised to Dara:
1. A good article from The American Prospect on how his campaign is trying to snuff out the grassroots movement that encouraged him to run.
2. Would you vote for a man who said this:
"That's the kind of president Ronald Reagan was. He helped our country win the Cold War. He put it behind us in a way no one ever believed would be possible. He was truly a great American leader. And those of us in the Armed Forces loved him, respected him and tremendously admired him for his great leadership."
Now, in fairness, the rest of his op-ed is more flattering, but it does, to put it nicely, leave something to be desired in the coherence department.
1. A good article from The American Prospect on how his campaign is trying to snuff out the grassroots movement that encouraged him to run.
2. Would you vote for a man who said this:
"That's the kind of president Ronald Reagan was. He helped our country win the Cold War. He put it behind us in a way no one ever believed would be possible. He was truly a great American leader. And those of us in the Armed Forces loved him, respected him and tremendously admired him for his great leadership."
Now, in fairness, the rest of his op-ed is more flattering, but it does, to put it nicely, leave something to be desired in the coherence department.
HAHA: I love this:
"But it's not like the Tigers don't have their share of characters. Consider outfielder Alex Sanchez.
Recently, Sanchez tried to steal home when Kansas City pitcher Brian Anderson was holding the ball. Anderson simply tossed the ball home to throw him out, then called the steal attempt the dumbest play he's ever seen in baseball. Perhaps, but it wasn't even the dumbest play by Sanchez this season. That distinction goes to the time in Cleveland when he was on second base and the Tigers had the bases loaded with one out. The batter hit a grounder to third and Sanchez responded by running back to second base. Can't anyone play this game? "
"But it's not like the Tigers don't have their share of characters. Consider outfielder Alex Sanchez.
Recently, Sanchez tried to steal home when Kansas City pitcher Brian Anderson was holding the ball. Anderson simply tossed the ball home to throw him out, then called the steal attempt the dumbest play he's ever seen in baseball. Perhaps, but it wasn't even the dumbest play by Sanchez this season. That distinction goes to the time in Cleveland when he was on second base and the Tigers had the bases loaded with one out. The batter hit a grounder to third and Sanchez responded by running back to second base. Can't anyone play this game? "
QUOTE: TAPPED makes a good point on taxes:
"WHAT HAPPENED? Over on NRO Tom Nugent displays a long list of minor taxes and writes:
Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago when our nation was the most prosperous in the world, had absolutely no national debt, and had the largest middle class in the world.
Tapped can't find any 1903 data, but according to the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis, back in 1929 (the first year for which it has the number) the U.S. GDP was $103.7 billion in current dollars, whereas by 2002 it had reached more than $10.4 trillion so it seems to us that things haven't been going so badly."
"WHAT HAPPENED? Over on NRO Tom Nugent displays a long list of minor taxes and writes:
Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago when our nation was the most prosperous in the world, had absolutely no national debt, and had the largest middle class in the world.
Tapped can't find any 1903 data, but according to the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis, back in 1929 (the first year for which it has the number) the U.S. GDP was $103.7 billion in current dollars, whereas by 2002 it had reached more than $10.4 trillion so it seems to us that things haven't been going so badly."
LINK: Probably of interest only to me, but I link to this fascinating article on movements in political science. Fascinating.
25.9.03
QUOTE: and this may be the stupidest thing I've heard in a long time, from Best of the Web Today:
The AP quotes 19-year-old Matt Houston, a sophomore: "My reaction was disgust because of the ignorance of some SMU students. They were arguing that affirmative action was solely based on race. It's not based on race. It's based on bringing a diverse community to a certain organization."
The AP quotes 19-year-old Matt Houston, a sophomore: "My reaction was disgust because of the ignorance of some SMU students. They were arguing that affirmative action was solely based on race. It's not based on race. It's based on bringing a diverse community to a certain organization."
QUOTE: Christopher Hitchens makes a few connections:
"But now we hear, from those who were indifferent to that massacre of Muslims, or who still protest the measures that were taken to stop the massacre, that it is above all necessary for the West to be aware of Islamic susceptibilities. This plea is not made on behalf of the pluralistic citizens of Sarajevo, but in mitigation of Hamas and Hezbollah and Saddam Hussein. One of the many pleasures of Lévy's book is the care he takes to show the utter cynicism of the godfathers of all this. He quotes by name a Saudi lawyer who specializes in financial transactions:
"Islamism is a business," he explains to me with a big smile. "I don't say that because it's my job, or because I see proof of it in my office ten times a day, but because it's a fact. People hide behind Islamism. They use it like a screen saying 'Allah Akbar! Allah Akbar!' But we know that here. We see the deals and the movements behind the curtain. In one way or another, it all passes through our hands. We do the paperwork. We write the contracts. And I can tell you that most of them couldn't care less about Allah. They enter Islamism because it's nothing other than a source of power and wealth, especially in Pakistan. … Take the young ones in the madrassas. They see the high rollers in their SUVs having five wives and sending their children to good schools, much better than the madrassas. They have your Pearl's killer, Omar Sheikh, right in front of their eyes. When he gets out of the Indian prisons and returns to Lahore, what do the neighbors see? He's very well-dressed. He has a Land Cruiser. He gets married and the city's big-shots come to his wedding."
Everything we know about al-Qaida's operations, as of those of Saddam Hussein, suggests that they combine the culture of a crime family or cartel with the worst habits of a bent multinational corporation. Yet the purist critics of "globalization" tend to assume that the spiritual or nationalistic claims of such forces still deserve to be taken at their own valuation, lest Western "insensitivity" be allowed to triumph.
And this in turn suggests another latent connection, which Lévy does not stress at all though he does dwell upon one of its obvious symptoms. The most toxic and devotional rhetoric of these Islamic gangsters is anti-Semitism. And what does anti-Semitism traditionally emphasize? Why, the moving of secret money between covert elites in order to achieve world domination! The crazed maps of future Muslim conquest that are pictured by the propaganda of jihad and that show the whole world falling to future Muslim conquest are drawn in shady finance-houses and hideaways of stolen gold and portable currency, in the capital cities of paranoid states, and are if anything emulations of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion rather than negations of them. Lévy's reformulation of an old term—"neo-anti-Judaism" instead of the worn-out phrase "anti-Semitism"—is harder on the tongue but more accurate as regards the corrupt and vicious foe with which we are actually dealing. His book was finished before it became clear that the "resistance" in Iraq was also being financed by an extensive mafia, which offers different bonuses for different kamikaze tactics, as it was already doing in Palestine and Kashmir.
In a recent conversation, M. Lévy said to me carefully that he doubts the conventional wisdom of the Western liberal, who believes that a settlement in Palestine will remove the inflammation that produces jihad. A settlement in Palestine would be a good thing in itself, to be sure. But those who believe in its generally healing power, he said, have not been following events in Kashmir. Indeed, it is from the Pakistani-Saudi periphery that the core challenge comes. I don't think that anyone who follows Lévy's inquiry into corruption and fanaticism, and the intimate bond between them, will ever listen patiently to any facile argument again."
"But now we hear, from those who were indifferent to that massacre of Muslims, or who still protest the measures that were taken to stop the massacre, that it is above all necessary for the West to be aware of Islamic susceptibilities. This plea is not made on behalf of the pluralistic citizens of Sarajevo, but in mitigation of Hamas and Hezbollah and Saddam Hussein. One of the many pleasures of Lévy's book is the care he takes to show the utter cynicism of the godfathers of all this. He quotes by name a Saudi lawyer who specializes in financial transactions:
"Islamism is a business," he explains to me with a big smile. "I don't say that because it's my job, or because I see proof of it in my office ten times a day, but because it's a fact. People hide behind Islamism. They use it like a screen saying 'Allah Akbar! Allah Akbar!' But we know that here. We see the deals and the movements behind the curtain. In one way or another, it all passes through our hands. We do the paperwork. We write the contracts. And I can tell you that most of them couldn't care less about Allah. They enter Islamism because it's nothing other than a source of power and wealth, especially in Pakistan. … Take the young ones in the madrassas. They see the high rollers in their SUVs having five wives and sending their children to good schools, much better than the madrassas. They have your Pearl's killer, Omar Sheikh, right in front of their eyes. When he gets out of the Indian prisons and returns to Lahore, what do the neighbors see? He's very well-dressed. He has a Land Cruiser. He gets married and the city's big-shots come to his wedding."
Everything we know about al-Qaida's operations, as of those of Saddam Hussein, suggests that they combine the culture of a crime family or cartel with the worst habits of a bent multinational corporation. Yet the purist critics of "globalization" tend to assume that the spiritual or nationalistic claims of such forces still deserve to be taken at their own valuation, lest Western "insensitivity" be allowed to triumph.
And this in turn suggests another latent connection, which Lévy does not stress at all though he does dwell upon one of its obvious symptoms. The most toxic and devotional rhetoric of these Islamic gangsters is anti-Semitism. And what does anti-Semitism traditionally emphasize? Why, the moving of secret money between covert elites in order to achieve world domination! The crazed maps of future Muslim conquest that are pictured by the propaganda of jihad and that show the whole world falling to future Muslim conquest are drawn in shady finance-houses and hideaways of stolen gold and portable currency, in the capital cities of paranoid states, and are if anything emulations of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion rather than negations of them. Lévy's reformulation of an old term—"neo-anti-Judaism" instead of the worn-out phrase "anti-Semitism"—is harder on the tongue but more accurate as regards the corrupt and vicious foe with which we are actually dealing. His book was finished before it became clear that the "resistance" in Iraq was also being financed by an extensive mafia, which offers different bonuses for different kamikaze tactics, as it was already doing in Palestine and Kashmir.
In a recent conversation, M. Lévy said to me carefully that he doubts the conventional wisdom of the Western liberal, who believes that a settlement in Palestine will remove the inflammation that produces jihad. A settlement in Palestine would be a good thing in itself, to be sure. But those who believe in its generally healing power, he said, have not been following events in Kashmir. Indeed, it is from the Pakistani-Saudi periphery that the core challenge comes. I don't think that anyone who follows Lévy's inquiry into corruption and fanaticism, and the intimate bond between them, will ever listen patiently to any facile argument again."
QUOTE: Dan Drezner defends Political Science as science:
"Sigh. Of all the social sciences -- including economics -- I'll bet that political scientists actually spend the most time discussing what constitutes proper scientific work. This is partly due to insecurity, but it's also due to a refreshing humility about the difficulty of the enterprise."
"Sigh. Of all the social sciences -- including economics -- I'll bet that political scientists actually spend the most time discussing what constitutes proper scientific work. This is partly due to insecurity, but it's also due to a refreshing humility about the difficulty of the enterprise."
24.9.03
QUOTE:
"...we must at all costs set out, first, to learn, secondly, to learn, and thirdly, to learn, and then see to it that learning shall not remain a dead letter, or a fashionable catch-phrase (and we should admit in all frankness that this happens very often with us), that learning shall readily become a part of our very being, that it shall actually and fully become a constituent element of our social life."
-V.I. Lenin, "Better Fewer, But Better"
"...we must at all costs set out, first, to learn, secondly, to learn, and thirdly, to learn, and then see to it that learning shall not remain a dead letter, or a fashionable catch-phrase (and we should admit in all frankness that this happens very often with us), that learning shall readily become a part of our very being, that it shall actually and fully become a constituent element of our social life."
-V.I. Lenin, "Better Fewer, But Better"
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: A link I got from Camille, a little something to make your day more fabulous
QUOTE: Rich Brookheiser takes liberals to task, and rightly so:
"Why should liberal Democrats interest themselves in the Terror War? One reason I would think is national liberation. Over two decades of political gladiatorship, I have often found liberals taking that side of controversial issues. They wanted the black majority of South Africa to have equal rights. They lost no love on pro-American strong men like Pinochet, Marcos or the Shah. And whatever they felt about the Cold War, they didn’t seem sad when Communism lost. Leonard Bernstein conducted a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth in Berlin to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The Terror War has already burst open jails, real and metaphorical, in two countries. Men in Afghanistan can shave their beards, women who wish to can show their faces. Iraqi soccer players are no longer tortured for missing goals, Kurdish children are no longer stuffed into mass graves.
Indifference to the fate of dusky peoples used to be the property of the right, especially its satirists. The classic expressions of such sentiments are the African farces of Evelyn Waugh, Scoop and Black Mischief, filled with comic savages and their jabbering intelligentsia. (Waugh’s white people don’t come off any better, but it his depiction of the Other that stings.) The Tory view of the world acknowledged that people and cultures are different, and that they cannot be homogenized by mere decrees. But in its extreme form it treated different races as different species, and consigned some to eternal darkness. Liberals should not want to be in that role.
Liberal Democrats’ chief interest in the Terror War, however, should be what it means for us. Ordinary Americans, including ordinary liberal Americans, are precisely what the terrorists and their patrons hate most in the world. The Islamist utopia has no room for minorities, deviants, independent women, religious freedom or intellectual expression. Islamists enforce their tastes with murder on their ascent to power, and with capital punishment once they have achieved it. Secular terrorists in the Muslim world may drop a few clauses of this agenda. Iraqi women could wear skirts; they just couldn’t speak, vote or read. "
"Why should liberal Democrats interest themselves in the Terror War? One reason I would think is national liberation. Over two decades of political gladiatorship, I have often found liberals taking that side of controversial issues. They wanted the black majority of South Africa to have equal rights. They lost no love on pro-American strong men like Pinochet, Marcos or the Shah. And whatever they felt about the Cold War, they didn’t seem sad when Communism lost. Leonard Bernstein conducted a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth in Berlin to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The Terror War has already burst open jails, real and metaphorical, in two countries. Men in Afghanistan can shave their beards, women who wish to can show their faces. Iraqi soccer players are no longer tortured for missing goals, Kurdish children are no longer stuffed into mass graves.
Indifference to the fate of dusky peoples used to be the property of the right, especially its satirists. The classic expressions of such sentiments are the African farces of Evelyn Waugh, Scoop and Black Mischief, filled with comic savages and their jabbering intelligentsia. (Waugh’s white people don’t come off any better, but it his depiction of the Other that stings.) The Tory view of the world acknowledged that people and cultures are different, and that they cannot be homogenized by mere decrees. But in its extreme form it treated different races as different species, and consigned some to eternal darkness. Liberals should not want to be in that role.
Liberal Democrats’ chief interest in the Terror War, however, should be what it means for us. Ordinary Americans, including ordinary liberal Americans, are precisely what the terrorists and their patrons hate most in the world. The Islamist utopia has no room for minorities, deviants, independent women, religious freedom or intellectual expression. Islamists enforce their tastes with murder on their ascent to power, and with capital punishment once they have achieved it. Secular terrorists in the Muslim world may drop a few clauses of this agenda. Iraqi women could wear skirts; they just couldn’t speak, vote or read. "
LINK: Hilarious article in the New York Observer on different shoplifting techniques. Warning: gets a little graphic!
OBJECTIVITY WATCH: project much?
"Bush U.N. Speech Leaves Iraq Questions Unsettled: Walking fine line between defending and begging, president left many puzzled on ultimate intentions."
-Headline and teaser in Washington Post
"Audience Unmoved During Bush's Address at the U.N.
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
The invasion of Iraq, to the audience of world leaders, remained a dangerous act of unilateralism now beset by intractable problems."
-Headline and teaser in New York Times
"Bush U.N. Speech Leaves Iraq Questions Unsettled: Walking fine line between defending and begging, president left many puzzled on ultimate intentions."
-Headline and teaser in Washington Post
"Audience Unmoved During Bush's Address at the U.N.
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
The invasion of Iraq, to the audience of world leaders, remained a dangerous act of unilateralism now beset by intractable problems."
-Headline and teaser in New York Times
23.9.03
HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN: Yankees win another pennant, sixth straight, beating Boston again in the AL East, for the sixth straight time. You know, after a certain point, all those pennants and world series wins just become meaningless, there are so many of them...
QUOTE: Jonathan Chait, in TNR, on Bush-haters:
"Gosh, I've worked myself up into quite a lather here. Hopefully I haven't undermined my claim that us Bush-haters can be reasonable and aren't simply a bunch of revenge-crazed maniacs. I look forward to tearing your response to pieces and HUMILIATING YOU FOR ALL THE MISERY YOUR ELECTION-STEALING CHIMPANZEE PRESIDENT HAS INFLICTED... Whoops, sorry, that was, um, a typo. What I meant is that I look forward to a civil, thought-provoking exchange of ideas."
"Gosh, I've worked myself up into quite a lather here. Hopefully I haven't undermined my claim that us Bush-haters can be reasonable and aren't simply a bunch of revenge-crazed maniacs. I look forward to tearing your response to pieces and HUMILIATING YOU FOR ALL THE MISERY YOUR ELECTION-STEALING CHIMPANZEE PRESIDENT HAS INFLICTED... Whoops, sorry, that was, um, a typo. What I meant is that I look forward to a civil, thought-provoking exchange of ideas."
SIMILIE OF THE WEEK: David Brooks:
" During the first half of the 90's, I spent some time on the "Whither NATO?" circuit. I'd sit in stately European palaces with diplomats, parliamentarians and multilateral men who used the word "modality" a lot, and we'd discuss the post-cold-war international order.
There were disquisitions on multipolarity, subsidiarity and post-nation-state sovereignty. I recall a long debate on whether the post-cold-war United States would face east or west, as if we were phototropic."
" During the first half of the 90's, I spent some time on the "Whither NATO?" circuit. I'd sit in stately European palaces with diplomats, parliamentarians and multilateral men who used the word "modality" a lot, and we'd discuss the post-cold-war international order.
There were disquisitions on multipolarity, subsidiarity and post-nation-state sovereignty. I recall a long debate on whether the post-cold-war United States would face east or west, as if we were phototropic."
22.9.03
DADAIST CRITIQUE OF DAVID: That last post made about as much fish as green. Whenever you feel like penguin, try to remember that there are some people who tree chiaroscuro seriously. People who stapler have an obligation to razor-- at a minimum. After all, was it not Bukharin (or was it Dick Van Patten) who said, "for justice, and for the safety of puppies, and Christmas, right?"
QUOTE: Nice post from UChicago professor Dan Drezner on Jacques Chirac's political unseriousness, as phrased in the form of a Comprehensive Examination question:
"A final excerpt from the interview:
Q: Was it a mistake to overthrow Saddam?
A: No, absolutely not. I did not approve of the way he was overthrown. I felt it could have happened in another way.
Q: Without a war?
A: I think he could have been overthrown without a war. I think that political pressure would have led to Saddam’s disappearance.
Given the history of uprisings against Saddam Hussein prior to 2003, please identify a theory -- any theory -- of world politics that would be consistent with your prediction. "
"A final excerpt from the interview:
Q: Was it a mistake to overthrow Saddam?
A: No, absolutely not. I did not approve of the way he was overthrown. I felt it could have happened in another way.
Q: Without a war?
A: I think he could have been overthrown without a war. I think that political pressure would have led to Saddam’s disappearance.
Given the history of uprisings against Saddam Hussein prior to 2003, please identify a theory -- any theory -- of world politics that would be consistent with your prediction. "
BORED (BUT WANT TO DO SOMETHING THAT'S ACTUALLY FUN)? A really lovely collection of Flash games, most of which make sense to me.
21.9.03
HAHA: nothing like a good laugh at the expense of Red Sox fans (from OxBlog):
"IS DEMOCRACY PERFECT? No, of course not. Nor are the New York Yankees, but they just keep on winning and winning and winning. And, if politics were baseball, democracy would be the New York Yankees. And democracy would've won the last 20 World Series in a row, not just 5 of the last 10.
(I tempted to say that Communism would be the Red Sox, but that's an insult to Communism since it gave the Yankees more of a challenge than the Red Sox ever did.)"
Hiyo!
"IS DEMOCRACY PERFECT? No, of course not. Nor are the New York Yankees, but they just keep on winning and winning and winning. And, if politics were baseball, democracy would be the New York Yankees. And democracy would've won the last 20 World Series in a row, not just 5 of the last 10.
(I tempted to say that Communism would be the Red Sox, but that's an insult to Communism since it gave the Yankees more of a challenge than the Red Sox ever did.)"
Hiyo!
20.9.03
19.9.03
QUOTE: Best of the Web keeps 'em coming:
"We keep hearing, thanks to Reuters and other pro-terror outfits, that "one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter." It's worth noting from time to time that there is such a thing as a genuine freedom fighter. Three of them--Vaclav Havel, Arpad Göncz and Lech Walesa, who served as postcommunist presidents of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland respectively, have written an open letter, published in today's London Telegraph, urging fellow Europeans to take a stand against Fidel Castro's brutal dictatorship:
It is time to put aside transatlantic disputes about the embargo of Cuba and to concentrate on direct support for Cuban dissidents, prisoners of conscience and their families.
Europe ought to make it unambiguously clear that Castro is a dictator, and that for democratic countries a dictatorship cannot become a partner until it commences a process of political liberalisation.
At the same time, European countries should establish a "Cuban Democracy Fund" to support the emergence of a civil society in Cuba. Such a fund would be ready for instant use in the case of political changes on the island.
"Europe's peaceful transitions from dictatorship to democracy, first in Spain and later in the East, have been an inspiration for the Cuban opposition, so Europe should not hesitate now," they add. Let's hope their appeal doesn't fall on deaf ears."
"We keep hearing, thanks to Reuters and other pro-terror outfits, that "one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter." It's worth noting from time to time that there is such a thing as a genuine freedom fighter. Three of them--Vaclav Havel, Arpad Göncz and Lech Walesa, who served as postcommunist presidents of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland respectively, have written an open letter, published in today's London Telegraph, urging fellow Europeans to take a stand against Fidel Castro's brutal dictatorship:
It is time to put aside transatlantic disputes about the embargo of Cuba and to concentrate on direct support for Cuban dissidents, prisoners of conscience and their families.
Europe ought to make it unambiguously clear that Castro is a dictator, and that for democratic countries a dictatorship cannot become a partner until it commences a process of political liberalisation.
At the same time, European countries should establish a "Cuban Democracy Fund" to support the emergence of a civil society in Cuba. Such a fund would be ready for instant use in the case of political changes on the island.
"Europe's peaceful transitions from dictatorship to democracy, first in Spain and later in the East, have been an inspiration for the Cuban opposition, so Europe should not hesitate now," they add. Let's hope their appeal doesn't fall on deaf ears."
LILEKS LASHES OUT:
"I can't help but come back to the central theme these edits imply: we should have left Iraq alone. We should have left this charnel house stand. We should have bought a wad of nice French cotton to shove in our ears so the buzz of the flies over the graves didn't distract us from the important business of deciding whether Syria or China should have the rotating observer-status seat in the Oil-for-Palaces program. Afghanistan, well, that's understandable, in a way; we were mad. We lashed out. But we should have stopped there, and let the UN deploy its extra-strong Frown Beams against the Iraqi ambassador in the hopes that Saddam would reduce the money he gave to Palestinian suicide bombers down to five grand. Five grand! Hell, that hardly covers the parking tickets your average ambassador owes to the city of New York; who'd blow themselves up for that.
Would the editorialists of the nation be happier if Saddam was still cutting checks to people who blew up not just our allies, but our own citizens? I'd like an answer. Please. Essay question: "Families of terrorists who blow up men, women and children, some of whom are Americans, no longer receive money from Saddam, because Saddam no longer rules Iraq. Is this a good thing, or a bad thing? Explain."
In short: the same people who chide America for its short-attention span think we should have stopped military operations after the Taliban was routed. (And they quite probably opposed that, for the usual reasons.) The people who think it's all about oil like to snark that we should go after Saudi Arabia. The people who complain that the current administration is unable to act with nuance and diplomacy cannot admit that we have completely different approaches for Iraq, for Iran, for North Korea. The same people who insist we need the UN deride the Administration when it gives the UN a chance to do something other than throw rotten fruit.
The same people who accuse America of coddling dictators are sputtering with bilious fury because we actually deposed one."
"I can't help but come back to the central theme these edits imply: we should have left Iraq alone. We should have left this charnel house stand. We should have bought a wad of nice French cotton to shove in our ears so the buzz of the flies over the graves didn't distract us from the important business of deciding whether Syria or China should have the rotating observer-status seat in the Oil-for-Palaces program. Afghanistan, well, that's understandable, in a way; we were mad. We lashed out. But we should have stopped there, and let the UN deploy its extra-strong Frown Beams against the Iraqi ambassador in the hopes that Saddam would reduce the money he gave to Palestinian suicide bombers down to five grand. Five grand! Hell, that hardly covers the parking tickets your average ambassador owes to the city of New York; who'd blow themselves up for that.
Would the editorialists of the nation be happier if Saddam was still cutting checks to people who blew up not just our allies, but our own citizens? I'd like an answer. Please. Essay question: "Families of terrorists who blow up men, women and children, some of whom are Americans, no longer receive money from Saddam, because Saddam no longer rules Iraq. Is this a good thing, or a bad thing? Explain."
In short: the same people who chide America for its short-attention span think we should have stopped military operations after the Taliban was routed. (And they quite probably opposed that, for the usual reasons.) The people who think it's all about oil like to snark that we should go after Saudi Arabia. The people who complain that the current administration is unable to act with nuance and diplomacy cannot admit that we have completely different approaches for Iraq, for Iran, for North Korea. The same people who insist we need the UN deride the Administration when it gives the UN a chance to do something other than throw rotten fruit.
The same people who accuse America of coddling dictators are sputtering with bilious fury because we actually deposed one."
18.9.03
LINK: Tom Friedman comes to the same conclusion about the French everyone else in America came to six months ago. Better late than never!
17.9.03
ALSO HAHA:
"The Top 10 Ways Fox News Intimidated CNN:
10. Sent Greta Van Susteren to use a little muscle on Aaron Brown.
9. Fox and Friends urged viewers to egg Paula Zahn's house.
8. Neil Cavuto challenged Lou Dobbs to a Financial News Death Match.
7. Sean Hannity snapped Larry King's suspenders and raised a welt.
6. Brit Hume shaved off Wolf Blitzer's beard and held it hostage.
5. Fox anchors kept referring to CNN as the "Commie News Network."
4. Laurie Dhue's makeup tips caused Christiane Amanpour's skin to break out.
3. Geraldo Rivera threatened to nuke CNN's ratings "back to MSNBC country."
2. Painted Fox News helicopters black and had them hover over CNN headquarters.
1. Bill O'Reilly's mean smirks sent shivers of fear throughout CNN."
"The Top 10 Ways Fox News Intimidated CNN:
10. Sent Greta Van Susteren to use a little muscle on Aaron Brown.
9. Fox and Friends urged viewers to egg Paula Zahn's house.
8. Neil Cavuto challenged Lou Dobbs to a Financial News Death Match.
7. Sean Hannity snapped Larry King's suspenders and raised a welt.
6. Brit Hume shaved off Wolf Blitzer's beard and held it hostage.
5. Fox anchors kept referring to CNN as the "Commie News Network."
4. Laurie Dhue's makeup tips caused Christiane Amanpour's skin to break out.
3. Geraldo Rivera threatened to nuke CNN's ratings "back to MSNBC country."
2. Painted Fox News helicopters black and had them hover over CNN headquarters.
1. Bill O'Reilly's mean smirks sent shivers of fear throughout CNN."
QUOTE: London Spectator on anti-American lunatics in Germany:
"Friends of Germany, among whom I count myself, must hope that the present outpouring of anti-American resentment will be a brief and purifying phase, from which Germany will emerge as a mature and sovereign nation. But certain difficulties stand in the way of such a happy outcome. The Germans consider the Americans to be a backward people with a primitive economic system in which dog eats dog and the state fails lamentably in its duty to direct, protect and organise the life of the people. Yet for some mysterious reason the Americans appear to be a rich, strong, confident, secure, relaxed and patriotic nation. What is more, Germany will only recover its economic dynamism when its dopey political class, among whom the pursuit of consensus long ago degenerated into listless moral cowardice, introduces reforms which give the German economy some of the flexibility and spontaneity found in America. This is a bitter pill to swallow, and the Germans as yet show no sign of finding the stomach for it.
Mr Schröder is a gifted and ruthless opportunist, with an acute ear for the mood of his fellow Germans. But the anti-Americanism which he has helped to promote may prove a force that even he cannot control. There will be official attempts at fence-mending: the Germans are already offering some sort of help in Iraq and will try for a time to avoid making as much of a fuss as they might about Iran, North Korea and genetically modified crops. But there is now such deep and bitter suspicion on both sides, in Washington as well as in Berlin, that it is impossible to imagine a true meeting of minds. The German opinion polls show rapidly increasing support for the idea of a European superpower, to act as a check to American ambitions: 70 per cent of Germans now favour that idea, compared with only 48 per cent a year ago. No matter that they are not prepared to spend the money which alone could give substance to that project. The Germans are going the way of the French, intent on a kind of European Gaullism that puts every possible obstacle in Washington’s way. Unable to bear the reality of American power, they have opted instead to live in a world of illusions."
"Friends of Germany, among whom I count myself, must hope that the present outpouring of anti-American resentment will be a brief and purifying phase, from which Germany will emerge as a mature and sovereign nation. But certain difficulties stand in the way of such a happy outcome. The Germans consider the Americans to be a backward people with a primitive economic system in which dog eats dog and the state fails lamentably in its duty to direct, protect and organise the life of the people. Yet for some mysterious reason the Americans appear to be a rich, strong, confident, secure, relaxed and patriotic nation. What is more, Germany will only recover its economic dynamism when its dopey political class, among whom the pursuit of consensus long ago degenerated into listless moral cowardice, introduces reforms which give the German economy some of the flexibility and spontaneity found in America. This is a bitter pill to swallow, and the Germans as yet show no sign of finding the stomach for it.
Mr Schröder is a gifted and ruthless opportunist, with an acute ear for the mood of his fellow Germans. But the anti-Americanism which he has helped to promote may prove a force that even he cannot control. There will be official attempts at fence-mending: the Germans are already offering some sort of help in Iraq and will try for a time to avoid making as much of a fuss as they might about Iran, North Korea and genetically modified crops. But there is now such deep and bitter suspicion on both sides, in Washington as well as in Berlin, that it is impossible to imagine a true meeting of minds. The German opinion polls show rapidly increasing support for the idea of a European superpower, to act as a check to American ambitions: 70 per cent of Germans now favour that idea, compared with only 48 per cent a year ago. No matter that they are not prepared to spend the money which alone could give substance to that project. The Germans are going the way of the French, intent on a kind of European Gaullism that puts every possible obstacle in Washington’s way. Unable to bear the reality of American power, they have opted instead to live in a world of illusions."
HAHA: From The Volokh Conspiracy:
"Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Fcuknig amzanig huh?"
"Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Fcuknig amzanig huh?"
16.9.03
DAVID BROOKS: challenges the applicability of the Downsian model to the US party system (he's wrong, but it's still pretty impressive to watch him try), and makes a few rather insightful points about the Democratic Party nominating process:
"The question is whether this evolution changes the way we should think about elections. The strategists in the Intensity School say yes. They argue that it no longer makes sense to worry overmuch about the swing voters who supposedly exist in the political center because the electorate's polarization has hollowed out the center. The number of actual swing voters — people who actually switch back and forth between parties — is down to about 7 percent of the electorate. Moreover, the people in this 7 percent group have nothing in common with one another. It doesn't make sense to try to win their support because there is no coherent set of messages that will do it.
Instead, it's better to play to the people on your own mountain and get them so excited they show up at the polls. According to this line of reasoning, Dean, Mr. Intensity, is an ideal Democratic candidate.
The members of the Inclusiveness School disagree. They argue that there still are many truly independent voters, with estimates ranging from 10 to 33 percent of the electorate. Moreover, the Inclusiveness folks continue, true independents do have a coherent approach to politics. Anti-ideological, the true independents do not even listen to candidates who are partisan, strident and negative. They are what the pollster David Winston calls "solutionists"; they respond to upbeat candidates who can deliver concrete benefits: the Family and Medical Leave Act, more cops in their neighborhoods, tax rebate checks.
By this line of thinking, Dean is a terrible candidate. His partisan style drives off the persuadable folks who rarely bother to vote in primaries but who do show up once every four years for general elections.
The weight of the data, it seems to me, supports the Inclusiveness side. And the chief result of polarization is that the Democrats have become detached from antipolitical independent voters. George Bush makes many liberal Democrats froth at the mouth, but he does not have this effect on most independents. Democrats are behaving suicidally by not embracing what you might, even after yesterday's court decision, call the Schwarzenegger Option: supporting a candidate so ideologically amorphous that he can appeal to these swingers."
"The question is whether this evolution changes the way we should think about elections. The strategists in the Intensity School say yes. They argue that it no longer makes sense to worry overmuch about the swing voters who supposedly exist in the political center because the electorate's polarization has hollowed out the center. The number of actual swing voters — people who actually switch back and forth between parties — is down to about 7 percent of the electorate. Moreover, the people in this 7 percent group have nothing in common with one another. It doesn't make sense to try to win their support because there is no coherent set of messages that will do it.
Instead, it's better to play to the people on your own mountain and get them so excited they show up at the polls. According to this line of reasoning, Dean, Mr. Intensity, is an ideal Democratic candidate.
The members of the Inclusiveness School disagree. They argue that there still are many truly independent voters, with estimates ranging from 10 to 33 percent of the electorate. Moreover, the Inclusiveness folks continue, true independents do have a coherent approach to politics. Anti-ideological, the true independents do not even listen to candidates who are partisan, strident and negative. They are what the pollster David Winston calls "solutionists"; they respond to upbeat candidates who can deliver concrete benefits: the Family and Medical Leave Act, more cops in their neighborhoods, tax rebate checks.
By this line of thinking, Dean is a terrible candidate. His partisan style drives off the persuadable folks who rarely bother to vote in primaries but who do show up once every four years for general elections.
The weight of the data, it seems to me, supports the Inclusiveness side. And the chief result of polarization is that the Democrats have become detached from antipolitical independent voters. George Bush makes many liberal Democrats froth at the mouth, but he does not have this effect on most independents. Democrats are behaving suicidally by not embracing what you might, even after yesterday's court decision, call the Schwarzenegger Option: supporting a candidate so ideologically amorphous that he can appeal to these swingers."
SOMETHING VAGUELY AMUSING: finally happens on Gregg Easterbrook's blog, in response to Howard Dean getting his own ice cream flavor:
"I think other presidential candidates should demand their own Ben & Jerry's flavors! So, as a public service, here's what they would be:
· John Kerry: Very Kerry Irish-Jewish-Czech Melting Pot. Flavors from all over the world, blended together until indistinguishable.
· Joe Lieberman: Joe's Kosher Swirl. Corned beef flavored ice cream with real chunks of rye bread and ribbons of mustard.
· Al Sharpton: Al's Triple-Extra Chocolate. It's processed!
· Dennis Kucinich: Denny's Leftward Lurch. Bubble-gum pink flavor, with lots of nuts.
· John Edwards: John-Boy's Trial-Lawyer's Delight. Every carton contains a dead mouse; bite into it and Edwards will represent you in your suit against the dairy.
· Carol Moseley Braun: Carol's Incredible Fantasy. Only one-tenth of one percent of the ice cream is flavored, representing the share of votes she will be lucky to get.
· Dick Gephardt: Dick's Missouri Hometown Lemonade. When you've run for the nomination as many times as he has, the campaign takes on a lemon flavor.
· Bob Graham: Graham's Graham Cracker Special. Eat first spoonful at 2:06. Eat second at 2:07. Wipe face with napkin at 2:08. At 2:08:30, ask for sprinkles. At 2:08:45 ...
· Wesley Clark: The General's Four-Star Favorite. Red, white and blue ribbons with candied purple hearts.
Plus these delicious flavors for other prominent political figures:
· Dick Cheney's Undisclosed Flavor.
· George W. Bush's Ice Cream of Mass Destruction. The label lists nuclear, biological, and chemical content, but inspectors have been unable to find these ingredients.
· Al Gore's Dade County Surprise. Bittersweet chocolate with a sour grape swirl.
And looking ahead to 2008:
· Hillary's Endless Fudge. "
"I think other presidential candidates should demand their own Ben & Jerry's flavors! So, as a public service, here's what they would be:
· John Kerry: Very Kerry Irish-Jewish-Czech Melting Pot. Flavors from all over the world, blended together until indistinguishable.
· Joe Lieberman: Joe's Kosher Swirl. Corned beef flavored ice cream with real chunks of rye bread and ribbons of mustard.
· Al Sharpton: Al's Triple-Extra Chocolate. It's processed!
· Dennis Kucinich: Denny's Leftward Lurch. Bubble-gum pink flavor, with lots of nuts.
· John Edwards: John-Boy's Trial-Lawyer's Delight. Every carton contains a dead mouse; bite into it and Edwards will represent you in your suit against the dairy.
· Carol Moseley Braun: Carol's Incredible Fantasy. Only one-tenth of one percent of the ice cream is flavored, representing the share of votes she will be lucky to get.
· Dick Gephardt: Dick's Missouri Hometown Lemonade. When you've run for the nomination as many times as he has, the campaign takes on a lemon flavor.
· Bob Graham: Graham's Graham Cracker Special. Eat first spoonful at 2:06. Eat second at 2:07. Wipe face with napkin at 2:08. At 2:08:30, ask for sprinkles. At 2:08:45 ...
· Wesley Clark: The General's Four-Star Favorite. Red, white and blue ribbons with candied purple hearts.
Plus these delicious flavors for other prominent political figures:
· Dick Cheney's Undisclosed Flavor.
· George W. Bush's Ice Cream of Mass Destruction. The label lists nuclear, biological, and chemical content, but inspectors have been unable to find these ingredients.
· Al Gore's Dade County Surprise. Bittersweet chocolate with a sour grape swirl.
And looking ahead to 2008:
· Hillary's Endless Fudge. "
QUOTE: Nice piece by Irwin Setzer on the Daily Standard, about the real consequences of those four-week vacations they have in Europe:
"SO EUROPEANS INSIST that Americans may be more "productive," as economists measure productivity, but only because they work longer hours. In any given hour, they contend, European workers can produce as much or more. The fact that Europe's economies typically produce fewer goods and services for the delectation of their citizens then becomes a matter of choice--the voluntary selection of leisure over work.
Not a bad argument, if correct. After all, perhaps the one thing the French have got right is their famous chacun à son gout. The problem is that although an American worker can often trade off higher income for more leisure time, it is not so easy for Europeans to do the opposite. An Italian worker who would like more income and less vacation time can show up for work in August, but his factory or office will be closed. A British worker who would like to make a few extra pounds by working in the week after Christmas will have a hard time being productive in an empty office or plant. About the only thing a European worker can do to improve the ratio of income-to-leisure is emigrate to America. Which is why millions of Italians, Irish, Germans, and other Europeans have voted with their feet in favor of America's balance between work and leisure, with no discernible flow in the opposite direction."
"SO EUROPEANS INSIST that Americans may be more "productive," as economists measure productivity, but only because they work longer hours. In any given hour, they contend, European workers can produce as much or more. The fact that Europe's economies typically produce fewer goods and services for the delectation of their citizens then becomes a matter of choice--the voluntary selection of leisure over work.
Not a bad argument, if correct. After all, perhaps the one thing the French have got right is their famous chacun à son gout. The problem is that although an American worker can often trade off higher income for more leisure time, it is not so easy for Europeans to do the opposite. An Italian worker who would like more income and less vacation time can show up for work in August, but his factory or office will be closed. A British worker who would like to make a few extra pounds by working in the week after Christmas will have a hard time being productive in an empty office or plant. About the only thing a European worker can do to improve the ratio of income-to-leisure is emigrate to America. Which is why millions of Italians, Irish, Germans, and other Europeans have voted with their feet in favor of America's balance between work and leisure, with no discernible flow in the opposite direction."
YOU JUST CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP: Anarchists play Communists in a soccer match. In Berkeley. Naturally. And I want to go to school here why?
15.9.03
LINK: You can like Wesley Clark, or you an hate him, but it's hard not to be intrigued. He might join Joltin' Joe as a Democrat I would actually vote for in 2004... we'll see how he handles the Howard Dean issue first.
LINK: Delusional much? The American Prospect has done a fine job of overtaking The Nation as the premier source of outraged radical lefty lunacy. To wit:
"Still, the media could easily have been more sensitive to the partisan advantage their coverage bestowed upon the incumbent president -- especially in light of that president's transparent efforts to politicize 9-11, such as electing to hold the 2004 Republican convention in New York City at an unusually late date in order to coincide with the third anniversary of the attacks. New York, after all, is represented on Capitol Hill by two Democratic senators and a small army of Democratic members of Congress, none of whom were prominently on display but all of whom would surely have been happy to share their remarks and remembrances."
Because it's not as if New York has a Republican governor, and NYC a Republican mayor, and they've been held by the party for the last 12 years, which some might take as a sign of hidden electoral possibilities in the state (ah, the perfidious Karl Rove at work, no doubt), especially one that evinces the same upstate-downstate electoral dimensions as, say, Illiinois, which, by the by, has a Democratic governor for the state, and also for their major city. And the convention certainly isn't going to be held late because Republicans and Democrats want to have their post-convention bounce as close to election day as possible--indeed, it's a good thing the parties weren't fighting to see who'd schedule their convention for later. No, it's entirely because Bush wants to take advantage of the anniversary of 9-11... yeah... that's it...
"Still, the media could easily have been more sensitive to the partisan advantage their coverage bestowed upon the incumbent president -- especially in light of that president's transparent efforts to politicize 9-11, such as electing to hold the 2004 Republican convention in New York City at an unusually late date in order to coincide with the third anniversary of the attacks. New York, after all, is represented on Capitol Hill by two Democratic senators and a small army of Democratic members of Congress, none of whom were prominently on display but all of whom would surely have been happy to share their remarks and remembrances."
Because it's not as if New York has a Republican governor, and NYC a Republican mayor, and they've been held by the party for the last 12 years, which some might take as a sign of hidden electoral possibilities in the state (ah, the perfidious Karl Rove at work, no doubt), especially one that evinces the same upstate-downstate electoral dimensions as, say, Illiinois, which, by the by, has a Democratic governor for the state, and also for their major city. And the convention certainly isn't going to be held late because Republicans and Democrats want to have their post-convention bounce as close to election day as possible--indeed, it's a good thing the parties weren't fighting to see who'd schedule their convention for later. No, it's entirely because Bush wants to take advantage of the anniversary of 9-11... yeah... that's it...
LINK: Fine appreciation of Johnny Cash on NRO, including the oft-overlooked religious side of the man
QUOTE: from David Brooks, who's got me reading the NYT editorial page again:
"If you were to pick a presidential candidate on the basis of social standing — and really, darling, who doesn't — you'd have to pick Howard Brush Dean III over George Walker Bush. The Bush lineage is fine. I'm not criticizing. But the Deans have been here practically since Mayflower days and in the Social Register for generations. It's true Bush's grandfather was a Wall Street financier, a senator and a Yale man, but Dean's family has Wall Street financiers going back to the Stone Age, and both his grandfathers were Yale men.
The Bush family properties were in places like Greenwich, Conn., and Kennebunkport, Me., which is acceptable, but the Dean piles were in Oyster Bay, on Hook Pond in East Hampton and on Park Avenue, a list that suggests a distinguished layer of mildew on the family fortune.
Again, I'm not suggesting the Bushes are arrivistes. Howard Dean's grandmother asked George Bush's grandmother to be a bridesmaid at her wedding, and she wouldn't have done that if the family were in any way unsound. I'm just pointing to gradations. Dean even went to a slightly more socially exclusive prep school, St. George's, while Bush made do with Andover before they both headed off to Yale.
On the other hand, both boys have lived along parallel tracks since they went out on their own. Both went through their Prince Hal phases. Bush drank too much at country clubs. Dean got a medical deferment from Vietnam and spent his time skiing in Aspen. Both decided one night that it was time to get serious about life and give up drinking. Dean was 32; Bush was 40."
"If you were to pick a presidential candidate on the basis of social standing — and really, darling, who doesn't — you'd have to pick Howard Brush Dean III over George Walker Bush. The Bush lineage is fine. I'm not criticizing. But the Deans have been here practically since Mayflower days and in the Social Register for generations. It's true Bush's grandfather was a Wall Street financier, a senator and a Yale man, but Dean's family has Wall Street financiers going back to the Stone Age, and both his grandfathers were Yale men.
The Bush family properties were in places like Greenwich, Conn., and Kennebunkport, Me., which is acceptable, but the Dean piles were in Oyster Bay, on Hook Pond in East Hampton and on Park Avenue, a list that suggests a distinguished layer of mildew on the family fortune.
Again, I'm not suggesting the Bushes are arrivistes. Howard Dean's grandmother asked George Bush's grandmother to be a bridesmaid at her wedding, and she wouldn't have done that if the family were in any way unsound. I'm just pointing to gradations. Dean even went to a slightly more socially exclusive prep school, St. George's, while Bush made do with Andover before they both headed off to Yale.
On the other hand, both boys have lived along parallel tracks since they went out on their own. Both went through their Prince Hal phases. Bush drank too much at country clubs. Dean got a medical deferment from Vietnam and spent his time skiing in Aspen. Both decided one night that it was time to get serious about life and give up drinking. Dean was 32; Bush was 40."
QUOTE: froma fine essay in the Financial Times by Ian Buruma:
"Again, there appears to have been a reversal of roles between left and right. The conservative right (I'm not talking of fascists), traditionally, was not internationalist and certainly not revolutionary. Business, stability, national interests, and political realism ("our bastards", and so on), were the order of the day. Democracy, to conservative realists, was fine for us but not for strange people with exotic names. It was the left that wanted to change the world, no matter where. Left-wing internationalism did not wish to recognise cultural or national barriers. To them, liberation was a universal project. Yet now that the "Bush-Cheney junta" talks about a democratic revolution, regardless of culture, colour or creed, Gore Vidal claims it is not our business, and others cry "racism"
There is, of course, a strong rhetorical element in all this. The US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, could well be a genuine believer in democratic revolutions, but his more conservative colleagues in the Bush administration may not have their hearts set on such radical goals. It is nonetheless interesting to see whom the neoconservatives in Washington managed to convert to their cause, at least as far as the war on Saddam Hussein was concerned. One of the noisiest journalistic cheerleaders for Bush's war was Christopher Hitchens. Since he has a Trotskyist past in common with some of the older American neoconservatives, there is a certain consistency in his promotion of revolutionary projects. Then, again, sending in the US army is a strange way to promote democratic revolutions.
More significant, by far, is the backing for Bush received from Vaclav Havel, Adam Michnik, and especially Jose Ramos-Horta, the Nobel Peace Prize-winner from East Timor. These are men, who, unlike most commentators in London or New York, know what it is like to live under the cosh. They paid the dues of voicing dissent when it was a matter of life and death. Havel and Michnik were subjects of Soviet imperialism. But the case of Ramos-Horta is more interesting, since he opposed a US-backed government, General Suharto's Indonesian regime. East Timor was a cherished cause for Chomsky and others on the left.
In an article published just before the Iraq war started, Ramos-Horta recalled the suffering of his people. He wrote: "There is hardly a family in my country that has not lost a loved one. Many families were wiped out during the decades of occupation by Indonesia and the war of resistance against it. Western nations contributed to this tragedy. Some bear a direct responsibility because they helped Indonesia by providing military aid." Thus far, none of our left-wing critics would disagree. The split comes in the conclusion. Ramos-Horta remembers how the western powers "redeemed themselves" by freeing East Timor from its oppressors with armed force. Why, then, should the Iraqis not be liberated too?"
"Again, there appears to have been a reversal of roles between left and right. The conservative right (I'm not talking of fascists), traditionally, was not internationalist and certainly not revolutionary. Business, stability, national interests, and political realism ("our bastards", and so on), were the order of the day. Democracy, to conservative realists, was fine for us but not for strange people with exotic names. It was the left that wanted to change the world, no matter where. Left-wing internationalism did not wish to recognise cultural or national barriers. To them, liberation was a universal project. Yet now that the "Bush-Cheney junta" talks about a democratic revolution, regardless of culture, colour or creed, Gore Vidal claims it is not our business, and others cry "racism"
There is, of course, a strong rhetorical element in all this. The US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, could well be a genuine believer in democratic revolutions, but his more conservative colleagues in the Bush administration may not have their hearts set on such radical goals. It is nonetheless interesting to see whom the neoconservatives in Washington managed to convert to their cause, at least as far as the war on Saddam Hussein was concerned. One of the noisiest journalistic cheerleaders for Bush's war was Christopher Hitchens. Since he has a Trotskyist past in common with some of the older American neoconservatives, there is a certain consistency in his promotion of revolutionary projects. Then, again, sending in the US army is a strange way to promote democratic revolutions.
More significant, by far, is the backing for Bush received from Vaclav Havel, Adam Michnik, and especially Jose Ramos-Horta, the Nobel Peace Prize-winner from East Timor. These are men, who, unlike most commentators in London or New York, know what it is like to live under the cosh. They paid the dues of voicing dissent when it was a matter of life and death. Havel and Michnik were subjects of Soviet imperialism. But the case of Ramos-Horta is more interesting, since he opposed a US-backed government, General Suharto's Indonesian regime. East Timor was a cherished cause for Chomsky and others on the left.
In an article published just before the Iraq war started, Ramos-Horta recalled the suffering of his people. He wrote: "There is hardly a family in my country that has not lost a loved one. Many families were wiped out during the decades of occupation by Indonesia and the war of resistance against it. Western nations contributed to this tragedy. Some bear a direct responsibility because they helped Indonesia by providing military aid." Thus far, none of our left-wing critics would disagree. The split comes in the conclusion. Ramos-Horta remembers how the western powers "redeemed themselves" by freeing East Timor from its oppressors with armed force. Why, then, should the Iraqis not be liberated too?"
NOTHING LIKE A GOOD INSULT: as provided by OpinionJournal:
'Though Churchill is today celebrated as the master of the bon mot (he once described Clement Atlee as "a sheep in sheep's clothing"), the real gold standard of political invective was set in the 18th century, in an exchange between John Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich, and John Wilkes, a sometime friend of his and a rakish member of the aristocracy.
"You will die, sir, either on the gallows or from the pox," said Montagu. To which Wilkes replied, "That depends, sir, on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress." '
'Though Churchill is today celebrated as the master of the bon mot (he once described Clement Atlee as "a sheep in sheep's clothing"), the real gold standard of political invective was set in the 18th century, in an exchange between John Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich, and John Wilkes, a sometime friend of his and a rakish member of the aristocracy.
"You will die, sir, either on the gallows or from the pox," said Montagu. To which Wilkes replied, "That depends, sir, on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress." '
LINK: I find this to be fantastic front to back, and a very good way of saying a lot of things I've been thinking myself. Read it read it read it.
QUOTE: From the Slate review of Once Upon a Time in Mexico:
"Early in Robert Rodriguez's Once Upon a Time in Mexico (Columbia), there's a scene that could have driven audiences nuts with excitement. Handcuffed together, the guitarist action hero El Mariachi (Antonio Banderas) and his wife, Carolina (Salma Hayek), elude a score of assassins with automatic weapons by leaping from a high window and descending like a Slinky from fire escape to fire escape—the first hurtling through the air as the second slams into an iron platform, then the second doing the hurtling and the first the slamming. Cool! There's a problem, though. The scene is a flashback in the middle of an already confusing sequence, and the audience has no idea why the two are handcuffed together or even who's chasing them. And if you say, "Duh, they're handcuffed because they'd been, like, captured, and then got away, and the guys who are chasing them are, like, bad guys," it's still, like, "Who gives a damn?" Without a setup or a clear narrative function, there's no emotional heft: It's just a bunch of flashy tumbles and a lot of noise."
"Early in Robert Rodriguez's Once Upon a Time in Mexico (Columbia), there's a scene that could have driven audiences nuts with excitement. Handcuffed together, the guitarist action hero El Mariachi (Antonio Banderas) and his wife, Carolina (Salma Hayek), elude a score of assassins with automatic weapons by leaping from a high window and descending like a Slinky from fire escape to fire escape—the first hurtling through the air as the second slams into an iron platform, then the second doing the hurtling and the first the slamming. Cool! There's a problem, though. The scene is a flashback in the middle of an already confusing sequence, and the audience has no idea why the two are handcuffed together or even who's chasing them. And if you say, "Duh, they're handcuffed because they'd been, like, captured, and then got away, and the guys who are chasing them are, like, bad guys," it's still, like, "Who gives a damn?" Without a setup or a clear narrative function, there's no emotional heft: It's just a bunch of flashy tumbles and a lot of noise."
2.9.03
FOR CLAIRE: Scroll down to the picture. Where have I seen that window before? And why is there a fly on my computer screen? And what's the deal with this ladder outside my window? And why does my TV keep flickering on even when I turn it off and unplug it?
LINK: Something lovely to look at. And gotta love this quote, on the old Penn Station:
"But you can image the grandeur, and you want to dig up the men who approved its demolition and bang their bones together so hard their souls have headaches for all eternity."
"But you can image the grandeur, and you want to dig up the men who approved its demolition and bang their bones together so hard their souls have headaches for all eternity."
Do I have the slightest bit of sadness at the notion I'm probably never going to spend significant time in Midland ever again in my life? So long as there are things like this, I probably will. Note for Becky: everyone likes the Tridge. It's the 8th Wonder of the World!
QUOTE: From lovely TNR piece on Public Opinion and Iraq:
"In 1999, a massive opinion survey conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates for the Triangle Institute for Security Studies (tiss) asked people to name the highest number of American military deaths they would accept in a war to "prevent Iraq from obtaining weapons of mass destruction." The mean response: 29,853."
"In 1999, a massive opinion survey conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates for the Triangle Institute for Security Studies (tiss) asked people to name the highest number of American military deaths they would accept in a war to "prevent Iraq from obtaining weapons of mass destruction." The mean response: 29,853."
SIGNS THE WORLD HAS GONE COMPLETELY BATTY:
Conservative Republican fundamentalist Christians are leading the charge to raise taxes. In Alabama, no less. Longer, if more explicitly anti-Christian, take from The American Prospect.
Conservative Republican fundamentalist Christians are leading the charge to raise taxes. In Alabama, no less. Longer, if more explicitly anti-Christian, take from The American Prospect.
YOU KNOW SUMMER'S OVER WHEN:
1. Andrew Sullivan returns from his annual blog hiatus.
2. I return from mine.
3. Barry Bonds works a little late-inning magic (oh, wait, he does that all the time).
4. One of your profs decides he doesn't need to show up for the first day of class, and offers the lamest excuse ever:
"I apologize for missing class today. The class was originally on Mon-Wed, but was then moved to Tues-Thurs by the Registrar's office. I was not informed of the change."
Not that I didn't enjoy sitting in the MLB for 45 minutes for no good reason.
5. Betsy says, "normally I say you have to have at least a B.A. before you can call me by my first name, but we'll have to adjust."
6. My practice GRE math sections go horribly, and I cheer myself up by doing a verbal section.
1. Andrew Sullivan returns from his annual blog hiatus.
2. I return from mine.
3. Barry Bonds works a little late-inning magic (oh, wait, he does that all the time).
4. One of your profs decides he doesn't need to show up for the first day of class, and offers the lamest excuse ever:
"I apologize for missing class today. The class was originally on Mon-Wed, but was then moved to Tues-Thurs by the Registrar's office. I was not informed of the change."
Not that I didn't enjoy sitting in the MLB for 45 minutes for no good reason.
5. Betsy says, "normally I say you have to have at least a B.A. before you can call me by my first name, but we'll have to adjust."
6. My practice GRE math sections go horribly, and I cheer myself up by doing a verbal section.
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