Need a dissertation title?
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Attorney General John D. Ashcroft has recused himself from the investigation of the leak of an undercover CIA officer's identity as the Justice Department named a special prosecutor to oversee the widening probe, Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey said today.
I'm glad he's finally done this, since it was obvious from the beginning that there could be a serious conflict of interest there. I wonder what facts have come to light that convinced Ashcroft of this, though.
For sale: One decommissioned aircraft carrier.
Useful editorial on why attacking Iraq had little or nothing to do with Gadaffi's decision to give up WMD. In fact Libya was making overtures to the US post 9-11 by actively cooperating in the war on terror.
I hope everyone who celebrates it had a good Christmas. I know I did. My wife bought me a Rio Karma mp3 player that is simply wonderful. I'm now in the process of moving my entire CD collection onto my player. Anyone else get anything cool?
Experiment: To attend a porn star's Christmas party
I think that quote just about says it all.
All text, so nominally safe for work, but still racy stuff.
Someone decided to turn their cubicle into a house. I guess this person has a lot of free time at work. I wonder what his boss thinks...
The North American Aerospace Defense Command tracks Santa, and this year's honorary tracker is Ringo Starr. Starting 4am on X-Mas eve morning there will be regular updates here.
U.S. researchers said Monday they had carried out the first successful cloning of a white-tailed deer in a "breakthrough" that could be instrumental in conserving endangered deer species.
I would love to see cloning technology advance to the point that we could easily save the many endangered species on the planet. Perhaps it would give us time to make the needed adjustments so that we're no longer destroying their habitats. Unfortunately, cloning is still not perfect. There are still some questions about the health of cloned animals later in life.
Here's an intriguing op-ed piece that asks "Can Dean find success as a liberal’s Reagan?" While I don't necessarily agree with the author's argument, she does point out one of the key reasons Dean has become popular on the left: his character.
In the Krugman article referenced earlier, he mentions, in passing, a report by the Heritage Foundation that claims "[the] U.S. economy is characterized by an extraordinary degree of income mobility," a conclusion Krugman finds misleading. This article also finds claims of mobility to be overstated. However, Americans for Tax Reform claim the reverse. Finally, Daniel Gross argues on Slate that the "rich have figured out how to use the federal government to help them stay that way." He links to a nicely detailed paper by two economists to support his argument.
Obviously there's a bit of contention on this issue, but from what I've been able to find, the more detailed and recent reports generally confirm that income mobility in the United States has decreased in the last decade and the gap between the upper and lower classes has increased. Has anyone come across any relatively detailed, recent reports that state otherwise?
UPDATE: I found a discussion on this topic over on Daniel Drezner's site. He also has a more recent article here, but unfortunately, it pretty much just relinks to those that I've already found.
Again, I'd like to point out that I feel the issue has less to do with income inequality--though that is admittedly important--than with income mobility, which the studies I've seen so far suggest that it has decreased.
Kausfiles has a comment on on the Krugman article cited by mallarme:
Economic inequality's clearly growing, because the rich are rapidly getting richer. What I resist is the idea that the average worker is getting poorer in absolute terms--a notion now pushed by Paul Krugman in The Nation as well as by Uchitelle. Arguing in this fashion that capitalism doesn't "deliver the goods" is a mug's game. It's the one thing capitalism does! The New Left knew that. The Newer, Hack Left seems to have forgotten. Have Krugman and Uchitelle been to Best Buy and seen all the average families buying big-screen TVs? Casual empiricism suggests that the vast majority of citizens are also getting richer, just more slowly--i.e. not enough to stop the rich-poor "gap" from widening. That gap creates lots of profound problems, but the progressive immiseration of the citizenry is not one of them. I suspect honest analysis of the statistics will erase all doubt on this point.If this were true would it be all right or would the Left prefer that that the rich be poorer in the interest of promoting greater equality?
Talking Points Memo takes a look at the Kurdish-Saddam reports and finds it all pretty dubious.
A new Washington Post poll is out and things look even gloomier for the Not So Grand Party than I previously thought. (And yes I do understand we are still dealing with a post-Saddam-capture bump which may or may not dissipate).
Bush's approval rating is at 60 percent versus a disapproval rate of 38 percent (a spread of +22). Approval for his handling of the economy is at 51 (+7); Iraq 60 (+21); terror 70 (+42); and education 47 (+10). His weak spots are the prescription drugs for the elderly, health insurance and Medicare (all of which could hurt him in all important Florida).
I found the biggest difference between this poll and the last one I cited is his reelect numbers against a generic Democrat: Bush 50 - Dem. 41 (+9) (the previous one had him tied). And it gets worse when Dean is named: Bush 55 - Dean 35 (+22).
They also gave respondents a list of issues and asked which would be "the single most important issue in your vote for president next year." 73 percent cited issues in which Bush gets positive ratings.
Support for the invasion of Iraq is at 59 (+20) and 57 percent say they are more likely to vote for a presidential candidate who supported going to war with Iraq (+22).
A lot can happen in a year and by no means am I getting cocky but I think any objective analysis has to say that for now Dean faces a very steep uphill battle.
Congratulations to Brett Farve: 22-30 for 399 yards and four touchdowns a day after his father's death. I am astounded. Green Bay, along with Minnesota, is a possibility for a first-round matchup with Dallas. Both teams are hot, but the Vikes play in a dome, and the Pack have lost only one playoff game in Lambeau field in team history.
According to MSNBC, through a Newsweek editor, the Kurds may have had a hand in the capture. The editor felt that a Kurdish capture was unlikely, but that the 300 lb. bodyguard probably reported Saddam's location several times, and US forces caught up with him on the fourth or fifth try. At least this is a mainstream mention of the possibility of a Kurdish capture, although it was quickly dismissed by the talking heads.
More interestingly, the interview revealed what probably did happen at the moment of capture. The hollywood story of Major Gentle Ben meets a meek Saddam is, not surprisingly, bunk. Sources indicated that Saddam was much more defiant, spat on the soldiers, and recieved a blow from either a fist or a gun butt before submitting.
I meant to mention this a few days ago when I heard it but I am a lazy, lazy man (in serious Homer voice). I only bring this up as an amusing comment, not to start a discussion of media bias--I'm sure we're all tired of that debate.
On my drive back from Austin, I was listening to the Tavis Smiley show and he introduced the Saddam topic with the following: "American forces finally caught Saddam after months of fruitless searching."
The "finally" okay, but I laughed aloud (ell-oh-ell) when he said "fruitless." Isn't that a bit like saying that a lost item is always in the last place that you look?
This is hilarious. I saw the clip from Saturday night; it looks like Joe had had a few beers. All of his answers were slow and disjointed. The entire interview, he was swaying and leering at the female sideline reporter, repeating twice "I wanna kiss you." Good ol' Broadway.
A beautiful, fun little "game":
Make sure you have your sound on.
It's bad news, says your doctor. Your liver is failing. So he extracts stem cells from your bone marrow and injects them into a sheep fetus while it is still in the womb.
From this New Scientist article.
On an aesthetic level, I'm not sure I like the flag bit towards the end. Regardless, this is not only an excellent little piece of propaganda, but also a good rebuttal for those who claim WMD weren't the overwelming justification for the war, or that Bush/Powell/Rumsfeld didn't claim they were certain about WMD.
Today, Easterblogg mocks a NYT Op-Ed arguing for a permanent lunar base on the moon. Readers of The Piraeus (particular archive unfortunately down) already know the Bush administration is actually considering a new mission to the Moon.
If Bush actually goes through with this, I hope the Democratic nominee counters with Gephardt's "Apollo Program" proposal to make cheap clean energy (solar, etc.) a central national priority. Success in such an endeavor would not only substantially raise the standard of living but would give us the energy independence necessary to shore up national security.
There are claims now that Saddam Hussein was not captured thanks to American intelligence. According to this article, he was first captured by Kurdish forces, drugged, then left for United States troops to take prisoner. If true, I would not be surprised. The adminstration already has a history of obscuring details in order to make themselves look better. Naturally, the foreign press is all over this story while I have yet to see any mainstream, domestic media mention it.
Of course, there only seems to be one source for this story so far, so I'm waiting to see if there is further evidence.
The other day I found myself reading a leftist rag that made outrageous claims about America. It said that we are becoming a society in which the poor tend to stay poor, no matter how hard they work; in which sons are much more likely to inherit the socioeconomic status of their father than they were a generation ago.
This is from an article by Paul Krugman in the Nation entitled The Death of Horatio Alger. What leftist rag was he reading? Business Week.
The inability of many of our nation's poor to extricate themselves from that situation is, to my mind, one of the largest domestic problems in our nation. It leads to higher crime rates, higher rates of teen pregnancy and drug use, and a number of other social ills. Though there is evidence that the shrinking of the middle class is due largely to more people moving upwards than down, this does not reduce the stratification of our society. As has been noticed before, a solid middle class is essential to a stable society as it serves as something of a buffer between the upper and lower classes, reducing social tension and providing hope and incentive for the poorer members of society. So, not only is social mobility essential for purely egalitarian reasons, it is also necessary to the stability of our country. To me, the answer to this problem is better education. The abysmal state of public education in this nation, particularly in the poorer neighborhoods, is a key reason that it is so difficult to move up into the middle class.
. . . all look good. 52% say the capture of Saddam will make them more likely to vote for Bush according to a Newsweek poll. But it's the economic numbers I find interesting. In an AP poll, 55 percent of registered voters approve of Bush's handling of the economy and 43 percent disapproved, a spread of +12. The amazing thing though is that only ONE month ago approval of Bush's handling of the economy was at 46 percent and disapproval was at 51 percent, a spread of -6. So in the course of one month we've seen a stunning swing of 18 point in Bush's favor.
The less rosy part of the Newsweek poll (as far as Bush is concerned) is that his re-elect numbers are even at 46 for and 46 against. Once voters are given a specific opponent Bush will of course get a bump. Still those numbers offer something about which to be concerned for Bush supporters like myself. The same poll finds that "69 percent of Americans say they're concerned that the U.S. will be bogged down in Iraq for many years without achieving its goals there." In other words, for now anyway, Dean would do well to focus on Iraq and not spend too much time on domestic issues. As much as the people Democraticunderground.com like to think the average American is living in misery, it's just not the case. Things are pretty good and getting better economically. But Bush looks like he's vulnerable on the question of whether he prepared well enough for Iraq. Make the case that if Bush stays in power Iraq will become a long-term problem for America and you may be able to win over some of the undecideds.
To me, there are so many problems with this outsider label: on the one hand no one wants to call it "retarded/crazy person/homeless/paranoid kook art."
I find mimi smartypants consistently funny, but this one about insider art (and other things) particularly struck me. Maybe it's because I haven't been to her site in a week or so.
In case you were wondering, here's your answer: What is Outsider Art?
And, for the sake of completeness, you might check out Intuit or Visionary Art, both sites devoted to Outsider Art.
UPDATE: Diesel Sweeties gets on the crazy-person art bandwagon.
Just as my trial subscription has run out again, TNR has stepped up its attacks on Howard Dean, casting away any pretension of objectivity by publishing an anti-Dean blog written by the estimable Jonathan Chait. Morever, I learn via Matthew Yglesias that Franklin Foer has published an article suggesting that Dean's secular views could very well be his greatest weakness.
Unlike Chait's "Dean-o-phobe" ramblings, Foer is pretty damn convincing. His point supports my worst fear about Dean--that in a 1-1 matchup against Bush, a majority will like Bush better personally and seek excuses to rationalize this preference in the voting booth. Religion provides a convienient and easy way to do this. It is not that most Americans believe a president has to be religious in order to be competent. Rather, people want a president that represents their worldview.
However, Clark is not a particuarly religious man himself(Clark is Catholic but goes to an Episcopalian Church, last I heard), although, like Clinton, he is temperamentally better positioned to act as if he were religious. Foer is careful to notice this and puts in a (moderately convincing) plug towards the end of his article.
Indeed, a case can be made that the Democrats' recent presidential success with Southern candidates is only secondarily connected to their geographic roots. Candidates who grow up in the South come from a world steeped in Jesus. Even if they don't buy the theology themselves, they intuitively understand the role that faith plays in people's lives; they have absorbed enough of the lingo to plausibly pass for religious or at least avoid offending the faithful.
Dean, on the other hand, utterly lacks this gift.
What do you'all think? I am interested not only in the opinions of those of you who are religious, but also in those of you who have religious families.
Sir Francis Bacon's New Advancement of Learning believes William Shakespeare was actually Francis Bacon. An old theory, but an impressively detailed site.
A related topic was brought up in Kos thread quoted below, which I thought deserved it's own post here. That is how easy it is for the pundits to mess up and to what extent we can rely on them. After reading an account of John Kerry wowing a swooning group of New York writers and journalists at a private question and answer session in Al Franken's Upper West Side flat, the question comes up--how do the ties between an elite liberal punditocracy to an elite political culture lead to bias?
This is not to say the liberal pundits don't have good reasons for supporting someone like Kerry or Clark. I'm willing to concede that Clark might be a stronger general election candidate than Dean--I don't know, I don't have a crystal ball. But neither do the pundits. Sometimes they don't have a clue, as was evidenced by Alterman's short-lived and outrageously lame endorsement of Kerry. Morever, it is not just that pundits fail to understand ordinary people or even ordinary politicians. Sometimes (and I'm not talking about Alterman here but about "moderates") they are too in love with their own logical skills, their own caluculation. A implicit assumption shared by many mediocre pundits (some of whom are employed by the Washington Post) is that the electorate is a kind of static equation to be solved. Getting elected is essentially clever triangulation--boxing out the wrong minority causes and including the correct majority causes, creating a tasty swing-voter stew.
Indeed, these pundits seem inclined towards a kind of rational choice theory of political action--a nice mathmatical, economic way of looking at things--where all voters know what they want and the winning politician is he that can follow the advice of smart pundits and quickly dash towards the center. According to this logic, the winner is, invariably, he who was closer to the center of the spectrum. Certainly, it's far simpler to be a pundit when those pesky profound mysteries of political strategy and human behavior can safely ignored---things like charisma, identification, fear, and pathos. Who needs all that emotion when we have econometrics?
Below is a quote from this Kos discussion thread, discussing what Hitchens so aptly termed "the banality of Kerry".
The hapless "liberal" punditocracy
I love this story & the accompanying Pitt narrative.
As the pundits try to paint Dean as McGovern or even worse, Dukakis, Kerry would have been the true Dukakis candidate -- clueless Massachusetts liberal riding on his so-called achievements (remember the Massachusetts Miracle & how far that got our boy in the tank or was that our boy on the motorcycle).
What Pitt, Alterman (who's always struck me as a very lame Upper West Side liberal type unable to break out of the conventional wisdom) and the rest missed is something that the above article by Cynthia Tucker (much to my surprise) sort of hinted at: character. If Kerry trusted and misread Bush & Co, then how the hell could the American people in a general election expect him to stand up against the real bad guys.
The liberal Dems 0-- pro-war, anti-Dean, et al -- just don't get it, these times call for a fighter, not a wimp. Think back to the ridiculous Dem strategy during the 2002 elections -- to run on a platform of prescription drugs & social security when the stench of the burning towers had hardly dissipated across the land is a monumental mis-reading of the national psyche. The nation cries out for Conan and instead the Dems offer Clara Barton.
Dean came to the head of the pack not just because of his prescient stance against the war, but because of character -- he took a very unpopular stance -- in terms of the media, remember something like 60% were either against the war or wanted UN sanction last spring -- and stuck by it, in spite of all the conventional wisdom marginalizing him and this position.
I first came on board when I heard him last Jan or Feb on our local NPR affiliate doing an interview & call-in -- I said, whoa, who the hell is this guy, he's fucking strong. None of the usual liberal equivocation that makes liberals feel nice & good, he spoke in clear & direct terms. Not bogus, the way they make Bush out to be, but real, unscripted. This was the guy that America needs, in the mold of Al Smith or the progressives of old who actually fought for what they believed in rather than just playing nice and losing.
The final irony, of course, is that for all Kerry's foreign relations experience (within the beltway), the thin-resume'd Dean was right. This can't be emphasized enough.
What to say....Clearly, I think this is a very shrewd reading and I hope the poster is correct, because Dean definetly has the inside track now. We'll see.
The Economist has an article comparing our modest blog to the coffee houses of the 17th and 18th centuries. Well, I suppose they are really referring to the blogosphere in general, but still...
Jay Bryant on rumors: M. Albright suggested that Bush has already caught Osama and is just waiting for the right political moment to release the information. Also, Steinbrenner greased some palms to put the kaibosh on the A-Rod to Boston deal.
Ox Blog is quite serious about getting Arabic copies of The Federalist Papers to the Iraqis (here, here, here and here). But considering the trouble between Poland and Spain, and Germany and France, perhaps it would be a good idea to get copies to Brussels as well. Especially number 22 and 62.
Just a note on CC legislation--considering the earlier post on medical marijuana and Mark's comment, I thought you guys might find this interesting. I haven't read the Ninth Circuit's opinion, but I can tell you a little bit about the history of the SCs interpretation of the CC and the likelihood of a narrowing interpretation in the future. [SC=Supreme Court; CC=Commerce Clause]
For a little background, it is necessary to understand that the 10th amendment acts as a limitation of federal power by giving all powers not reserved for the fed to the states. (Under the Articles of Confederation, the clause read "expressly" reserved for the fed; the Constitution removed this limitation). Therefore, every time the federal government acts, it must trace the power to act back to a specific part of the Constitution. Historically, the CC (together w/ the necessary and proper clause) has been the single largest source of federal power. As Mark mentioned, often the CC has been used to justify Congressional action that does not clearly implicate interstate commerce. (The text of the clause, Art. I Sec. 8: "The Congress shall have the power to...regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes...)
In 1824, the expansion of CC power began with the interpretation of the word "commerce" to mean not only buying and selling, but simply "intercourse," and the words "among the several states" to mean that only activity that existed entirely within one state and did not affect anything outside of that state is entirely within state control. This became the bedrock of an expansive interpretation that ballooned under FDR and the New Deal legislation.
When FDR was first elected after the Great Depression, people hoped that he would do more for the economy than Hoover had done. Therefore, he proposed a lot of legislation that was being blocked by the SC, which regarded the CC as a limited grant of power. When FDR was reelected in 1937, he proposed a court packing plan (this is hilarious) whereby an extra SC justice would be appointed for every current justice over the age of 70, with a maximum of 15. Shortly afterwards, one of the justices that had been blocking all of FDRs CC legislation switched (Roberts) and began upholding the legislation. (This is known as "the switch in time that saved nine.")
Thus began an unbridled expansion of CC power, where not one congressional exercise of power was struck down from 1937 until 1995. (In the interest of keeping readers, I will skip a detailed discussion of what types of legislation was upheld. Suffice to say that "activity affecting interstate commerce" was generally upheld, e.g. federal laws that establish an employee's right to bargain collectively; parts of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; quotas for wheat production, etc.)
Anyway, in 1995, a law that made it a federal offense to "possess a firearm at a place that the individual knows...is a school zone" was struck down as exceeding CC power. This case (US v. Lopez) and the more recent US v. Morrison established a more restrictive test for Congressional action under the CC. These cases, and the CC test, represent the current SC's march toward a type of new federalism, i.e. this Court (despite the frequent split decisions and clear political polarization) is more concerned with the "slippery slope" expansion of federal power and would be likely to uphold the Ninth Circuit's decision, which struck down a law that went beyond Congress' power to regulate.
If you guys are interested in the test, I will add it in a comment to this post. Like most SC tests, it is very clear and pretty easy to apply.
A site to appeal to the ingrateful brat and music industry fighter in all of us.
In a major victory for medical marijuana patients, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled Tuesday that they cannot be prosecuted by the US Justice Department if a doctor recommends the weed -- as long as patients grow their own or obtain it from caregiver growers without entering into a commercial transaction. In issuing a preliminary injunction barring further federal government action against patients, the court also held the Controlled Substances Act unconstitutional when it comes to medical marijuana patients in states where it is legal.
The graffiti archeology site shows the history of various walls through the graffiti they sport.
Have your message converted into images from found alphabets made of brains, astronomical phenomena, or naked people with the Astronomical Brainabetizer.
I was speaking with a friend of mine last night, and it seems some really, really heavy shit went down at the Miami meeting of the FTAA a few weeks ago. Obviously, I had no idea - media coverage has been very limited. I have a few links on my blog, but haven't been able to find much aside from independent media sources. This is ultimately less about international free trade than it is about domestic free speech issues - however you feel about the issues, the stories and images of this protest will make you question what sort of country you are living in.
I think we may have reached some sort of tipping point in the whole "rockers who are also into mainstream hip hop" meme, as demonstrated by Pitchfork giving a positive review to Murphy Lee's "What Da Hook Gon Be." I also heard a friend of mine with a layered haircut express admiration for "Right Thurr" the other day, which is pretty much a cardinal sin in my book.
I'm all for acknowledging that there are good things happening in mainstream rap, but here I think we have a case study in how these sorts of thought-trends get out of control. It started out with the revelation that, on hip hop radio, there have always been a few really polished gems mixed in with the pony turds (whereas rock radio has been uniformly awful since 1995). It's a great thing to realize, and people who make the logical leap are really excited about it. Then everyone wants to get in on it, but certainly just echoing that 'Yeah, "Pass the Dutch" is brilliant' isn't going to cut the mustard if you want to get noticed. And oh yeah, you don't actually know enough about hip hop to talk about something good that's not on the radio, so, just pick something that catches your ear - and before long, it's no longer about quality music that happens to be both funky and popular, it's about an undiscriminating bear-hug embrace of anything that's got a bouncy chorus. For some people, it's even about irony - and you don't need me to tell you about irony.
I guess there's a good number of indie rockers who are into stuff like Aesop and El-P, but they seem less likely to embrace the pop aesthetic at all (probably because they prize their own knowledge of underground hip hop so much), so they're less likely to challenge the pecadilloes of their brethren with true knowledge. Instead, we'll get a wave of reviews spouting off about how fucking brilliant Amil is, then a few too many people will actually listen to the track, and we'll get the inevitable backlash. Obviously, this backlash will be just as undiscriminating - rap could go back to being officially "lame", even if Missy and the Neptunes keep things up to snuff.
I say all this, but I realized about two days ago that "Clap Back" is pretty much the shit, so what do I know about quality?
Since The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King opens tomorrow, it seems appropriate to have a few Tolkien-related links. First off, a serious critical essay entitled "Warm Beds are Good: Sex and Libido in Tolkien's Writing". Then, a more frivolous one, "What Tolkien Officially Said About Elf Sex".
Also, as some know, Tolkien led the way in studying Beowulf as literature, rather than a historical document, with his essay The Monsters and the Critics. Here's an interesting list of Middle English words from Beowulf used in The Lord of the Rings.
Along with Beowulf, the Finnish myth, the Kalevala, was a strong influence on Tolkien.
Then there are the fan sites, the fan fiction sites, the sites devoted mainly to the movies, the Tolkien Society, the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship, and many, many more.
Finally, if you don't have a copy of The Lord of the Rings already, this is the best edition.
UPDATE: A good article from the New Yorker titled "The Ring and the Rings: Wagner vs Tolkien" breaks down the relationship between the Lord of the Rings and Wagner's adaptation of the Nibelungenlied.
Josh Marshall has this to say about Richard Perle:
My main antagonist on the panel was none other than Richard Perle, who ended up in person being about as gentlemanly and fair-minded as his view of foreign affairs and America's posture on the world stage would lead you to expect.I guess that means he doesn't like him.
Check out the new Spiderman 2 trailer. Looks good.
To clarify ludwig's previous post, here is Dean's foreign policy speech given yesterday in Los Angeles.
Some key paragraphs:
As our military commanders said, and the President
acknowledged yesterday, the capture of Saddam does
not end the difficulties from the aftermath of the
administration’s war to oust him. There is the continuing
challenge of securing Iraq, protecting the safety of our
personnel, and helping that country get on the path to
stability. There is the need to repair our alliances and
regain global support for American goals.
Nor, as the president also seemed to acknowledge
yesterday, does Saddam’s capture move us toward
defeating enemies who pose an even greater danger: al
Qaeda and its terrorist allies. And, nor, it seems, does
Saturday’s capture address the urgent need to halt the
spread of weapons of mass destruction and the risk that
terrorists will acquire them.
. . .
Essential to this effort will be strong US leadership in forging a
new global alliance to defeat terror.
And a core objective of this alliance must be a dramatically
intensified global effort to prevent the most deadly threat of
all – the danger that terrorists will acquire weapons of mass
destruction: nuclear, biological, and chemical arms.
A critical component of our defense against terror is
homeland security. Here, the current administration has
talked much, but done too little. It has devised the color
coded threat charts we see on television, but it has not
adequately addressed the conditions that make the colors
change. Our administration will.
There's more good stuff in there, so as they say, ReadTheWholeThing.
As the new frontrunner, Dean seems to have recruited an excellent team (including Benjamin Barber--an important liberal theorist whose role in the Clinton years was unfortunately not large enough) to help him develop a moderate image on foreign affairs. Why then, did his last speech (apparently proofread by Al Gore of all people!) include such a perfect headline for his detractors?
"The capture of Saddam Hussein hasn't made America safer," the former Vermont governor said in direct contradiction of Bush."
Mercifully, the NYT didn't transcribe this as a headline, but rather used it in their lead sentence. I agree with the substance of Dean's remarks, but speaking strategically, what was he (and his team) thinking? In a way, it is almost a good thing when Lieberman pounces on these mistakes--hopefully the Dean campaign will learn something in time for the general. Let's just hope the Republicans don't collect too many soundbytes of Dean's opponents.
As for Holy Joe, much of the confidence I had in his judgement has been lost in the wake of the "religous war" rhetoric he employs. I'm not sure whether Lieberman's comments are actually wrong, but I do believe they are the wrong approach rhetorically and show Lieberman hasn't given much serious thought to how an American president ought to speak about the War on Terrorism. Bush has already pissed away substantial political capital with his unfortunate use of "crusade". Further, Holy Joe's desperate attempts to sink Dean by any means necessary don't say much for his fundamental commitment to beating Bush and, as far as I'm concerned, don't say much for his (opportunistic) character either.
But if Holy Joe is an opportunist, at least he isn't as pathetic as John Kerry. Predictably, Kerry has recently rediscovered he's a hawk.
Free the Fathers, an Atlanta-based organization that works on behalf of persecuted Catholic priests in China, is asking for a favor. Three Chinese priests will spend Christmas in jail simply because of their position in the Catholic Church. Free the Fathers has provided their addresses and asked people to send them Christmas cards. Those who are not Christian but believe in basic human rights could perhaps send a simple note telling them of your solidarity with their plight.
The flier I received says that even if the guards do not pass the cards on to the prisoners, at least the “jail wardens will know that thousands around the world are watching them.”
Their addresses:
Father Dou Shengxia (age 37)
Gaocheng County Jail
Shigiazhuang, Hebei Province
People’s Republic of China
Father Li Wenfeng (31)
Gaocheng County Jail
Shigiazhuang, Hebei Province
People’s Republic of China
Father Liu Heng (29)
Gaocheng County Jail
Shigiazhuang, Hebei Province
People’s Republic of China
Use 80 cents for Air Mail Postage to China
(via Warren Ellis) A narcotics traffic stop on the Downtown Connector turned deadly Saturday afternoon when a man climbed over the interstate railing, fell about 35 feet and was decapitated on a wrought-iron fence, Atlanta police said.
WARNING: Fascinating, graphic pictures.
Though we already have a few posts on the topic, here's a roundup of what others are saying about Hussein's capture:
First off, some straight news accounts of the capture from Yahoo!, CSM, and ABC News.
Christian Science Monitor points out the differing reactions around the globe.
William Saletan does not think this means the end of Dean.
Josh Marshall asks "was Saddam Hussein central to the guerilla war or resistance fighting in Iraq?", a question I would like answered as well.
Kos also wants to know what's next?
Kevin Drum reminds us that the Iraqis are happy, but "still want salaries."
HipperCritical has a roundup of anti-war blogger responses.
Winds of Change is ecstatic, but manages to bash some liberals at the end.
Andrew Sullivan starts a contest for "the most strained and mealy-mouthed statements from the devastated press and anti-war politicians".
Finally, Daniel Drezner has a number of links along with his happiness that Hussein was captured, not killed.
I find it a bit odd that a quick look at conservative, pro-war blogs shows a number of them anticipating whining and unhappiness at the capture and preemptive attacks against any who would express such feelings, whereas the liberal, anti-war blogs are largely positive and already asking what effect this will have on the ground. Naturally, this is a small sample size, so my results may very well be skewed. If anyone has more links that can change this view, I'd like to see them.
UPDATE: Arts and Letters Daily has a roundup of its own. Unfortunately, there's no permalink, so get it while it's hot.
From darkhorse to frontrunner? A new challenger with proven stamina and an accomplished military record has jumped into the race.
They have Saddam's lice for sale.
via Command Post
Don't you know that the Ghost of Strom Thurmond is celebrating the fact this capture came about today.
Everyone has guiding principles that order how they view life's events. When your guiding principle is ABB (Anybody But Bush) then anything else that happens that works against ABB, no matter how good, is seen as a negative. Hence we get: "I had a horrible feeling in my stomach this morning when I saw that Hussein had been capatured (sic)."
I will now drop the facade of disinterested analysis to shout out Hell Yeah!
Well here's one piece of analysis: This won't be good for Dean.
UPDATE: For liberals who want to concrete on what's going wrong in Iraq you can listen to NPR. They're doing a real good job of that as I type.
2ND UPDATE: David Post elaborates on NPR's coverage.
Coming from someone who opposed the war, I recently realized I have no real opinion about what we should do now. I find the arguments that we should at least stay long enough to give democracy a chance fairly obvious, but I cringe at the reality that some 8 months after Saddam's overthrow, there is still no concrete plan to implement this democracy. I'm sick of the banality of "We can't just up and leave Iraq"--of course it is probably true, but this assertion is only legitimate insofar as it comes along with real ideas and proposals about why staying is in fact a good thing.
And then there is the legal and moral illegitimacy of the occupation--to what extent does this implicitly undermine our efforts? What role does (or should) moral justification play in making policy decisions about what to do in Iraq? Can we speak of moral duties owed to the Iraqi people?
Sadly, the UN option seems to be a non-starter. Whoever's fault it actually is (obviously I think the admin deserves a lot of it, but naturally the Europeans aren't exactly moral or military powerhouses either), it seems that we cannot count on being morally and militarily relieved by the UN, who, incidentally, can't even round up troops for Afghanistan.
So if we stay should stay, how long? What exactly are our goals there? Can we be satisfied with simply erecting a relatively civilized government, or does it have to be a real democracy? Is a Shi'ite dominated state possibly allied with Iran really an unacceptable option? If the Iraqi military rearms, what do we do if there is civil war?
Finally, am I asking the wrong questions? What is the relationship between buisness interests and our Iraq policy? Short term and long term strategic interest? Ideological interests?
What the hell is going on and what should we do?
But to return to my new companion. I was greatly delighted with him, and made it my business to teach him everything that was proper to make him useful, handy, and helpful; but especially to make him speak, and understand me when I spoke; and he was the aptest scholar there ever was.
-- Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
This is how J. M. Coetzee starts his unusual Nobel Lecture. Did Robinson Crusoe create Daniel Defoe? Was it the other way around? Is it an allegory for the nature of writing? Whatever Coetzee's point, it's certainly one of the most interesting and lively Nobel Lectures I've read.
Check out this video from the Japanese Yo-Yo Championship. Some wild stuff. Oh, and you might want to turn your sound off if you're at work.
Enter the exciting and brutal world of competitive Rock, Paper, Scissors. There's video coverage, an online trainer, excerpts from the DVD, and more.
As many already know, George Soros has declared that making sure Bush isn't reelected in 2004 is his "central focus". To that end, he has already contributed more than $15 million to groups like MoveOn.org. There's some speculation that he helped oust Eduard Shevardnadze, the former Georgian president last month, perhaps as a warmup for 2004.
Plastic has a brief article on him with a pretty unfriendly discussion thread following. However, this article in Reason defends him by pointing out the less than pure motivations of his critics.
Personally, I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. From a tactical standpoint, more money is a good thing for the Democrats. Unfortunately, all that money coming from one person is no better than if it were all coming from one corporation. Given that the 2004 election will see both Bush and Dean (assuming he wins the nomination) raising more money than anyone else in previous elections, the influence of individuals like Soros, corporations, and special interests groups looks like it will only increase. However, Dean's campaign does give me some hope; the average donation is around $100, indicating that he's getting support from a broader, less wealthy base. Of course, whether this turns into a fundamental shift in the political fundraising process or a mere anomly remains to be seen.
This tidbit is a couple of months old, which would have made it perfectly timed for our previous debate on hipsterism - but I seem to have missed it first time 'round. Apparently over the summer Vice (the hippest magazine in New York, and therefore, the Western hemisphere) made some waves when its editor started espousing white supremacism and the supposed "hipupblican" movement. Ultimately they declared that it had all been a joke. The incident is probably hipsterism at its worst.
This is a great analysis, including an indictment of hipsterism's inherent conservatism (with which I reservedly agree, with the caveat that it's obviously more of a classical conservatism than a right-wing conservatism, and that it's not such a bad thing). NE Way, just thought I'd throw another pebble in the pee pool.
If interested, check the follow-up, with more links.
My good friend and former roommate from the University of Dallas, Matthew Mehan, got an article published by NRO.
Missed out on the Paris Hilton tape? Well, don't miss this. It's London Holiday-INN. And don't worry, it's SafeForWork.
This story is almost a week old but I haven't heard it discussed by you lefties. The UK's Independent reports:
Ralph Nader, the nemesis of the former vice-president Al Gore in the 2000 American presidential election, is exploring another bid for the White House for the Green Party, further complicating the difficult task facing the Democrats next year. Associates of the long-time consumer rights advocate and establishment gadfly confirmed yesterday he was raising money for an exploratory bid, and that a Nader 2004 Presidential Exploratory Committee had been set up three months ago.So what's the deal?
After debate Nader says he's considering presidential bid
Ralph Nader, a guest of presidential candidate U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, stood outside the press room of Tuesday’s debate telling reporters he’ll make a decision whether to enter his own name in the race for the White House early next year.Nader explained that he is waiting for the Democratic and Republican National Committees to formally respond to a 25-page agenda that he proposed to them in recent weeks.
He will make the agenda public when he gets a response, he said.
Nader said he is expecting a reply from both organizations sometime in mid-December.
“I’m going to get a response,” he said. “The question is: what’s the quality.”
Nader said that former Vice President Al Gore’s endorsement of Democratic front-runner Gov. Howard Dean is not a sign that the Democratic Party is shifting more toward Green Party values.
“Gov. Dean is not a progressive Democrat,” he said. “He’s a mainstream Democrat by his own acknowledgement.”
From the creator of the eggs games I linked to earlier, here's one where you have to keep a number of cats synchronized. The music alone makes this almost worth posting, but I had to when one of my cats hung her head over the top of my monitor and started watching.
And just to keep me from posting anymore links to this site, here are all the games. Go check them out on your own. Stop waiting for me to spoonfeed you, sluggards.
I am curious what my fellow Nomads know of the VP effect. That is to say there is always big talk about who the VP will be and how it can help the main candidate. But do any of you know what kind studies have been done on how much a VP really effects elections? I guess none of us were actually Poli. Sci. majors and this would be the kind of thing addressed in such a program.
I'm going to steal a page from Winds of Change and do a roundup of links on the recently announced Gore endorsement of Dean.
Josh Marshall is stunned, but recovers to discuss it. He also provides the transcript of Lieberman's comments on NBC's Today Show.
Over on Salon, Joe Conason uses the endorsement to discuss how he thinks Gore's politics have changed since 2000.
Kos jumps ahead to ask who Dean should choose as his running mate now.
Mickey Kaus interprets the endorsement as a tribute to the power of the web.
On the National Review, Jonah Goldberg manages to make digs at Gore *and* Dean, claiming they're both weak on terrorism.
William Saletan thinks that Gore is being hypocritical and subverting the democratic process. Kos thinks this is ludicrous.
Andrew Sullivan thinks the endorsement is a further sign of Gore's break from the Democratic party establishment.
Warren Ellis wins the contest for funniest comment.
Of course, in this medium, someone will always beat you to a story. Daniel Drezner finishes our roundup with one of his own.
Have fun tossing eggs into baskets, climbing ever higher towards heaven. I haven't finished it yet, so I don't know if the payoff is worth it, but the game is enjoyable in a calming, Zen sort of way:
L'OSCE et le Conseil de l'Europe estiment que les législatives de dimanche, d'où le parti de Vladimir Poutine est sorti largement vainqueur, n'ont pas été organisées dans des conditions suffisamment démocratiques. Washington partage ces inquiétudes.
Les élections législatives russes de dimanche "n'ont pas répondu à de nombreux engagements pris par les pays membres de l'OSCE et du Conseil de l'Europe en ce qui concerne des élections démocratiques", ont estimé les observateurs de ces organisations dans une déclaration diffusée lundi à la presse. De leur côté, les Etats-Unis, par la voix du porte-parole de la présidence américaine Scott McClellan, ont annoncé partager ces inquiétudes sur le déroulement des élections. "Nous soutenons les efforts (de la Russie) pour mener des réformes à la fois politiques et économiques, y compris celles d'institutions démocratiques qui sont importantes pour un Etat libre, d'une presse libre, de partis politiques respectueux de la loi, pour en citer quelques-unes", a poursuivi Scott McClellan.
For those of us in the South, this is just about the only way we'll see snowflakes this winter:
Make-a-Flake
As an added bonus, you don't have to worry about getting little pieces of paper all over the floor.