March 17, 2007

SOME BRAVERY FROM BILL RICHARDSON: No, really.

THE STOCKHOLM SYNDROME and "Islamic feminism."

THE GATHERING OF EAGLES: A roundup, with photos.

UPDATE: Washington Post: Counter-demonstrators number in thousands. Excerpt:

As war protesters marched toward Arlington Memorial Bridge en route to the Pentagon yesterday, they were flanked by long lines of military veterans and others who stood in solidarity with U.S. troops and the Bush administration's cause in Iraq. Many booed loudly as the protesters passed, turned their backs to them or yelled, "If you don't like America, get out!"

Several thousand vets, some of whom came by bus from New Jersey, car caravans from California or flights from Seattle or Michigan, lined the route from the bridge and down 23rd Street, waving signs such as "War There Or War Here." Their lines snaked around the corner and down several blocks of Constitution Avenue in what organizers called the largest gathering of pro-administration counter-demonstrators since the war began four years ago.

The vets turned both sides of Constitution into a bitter, charged gantlet for the war protesters. "Jihadists!" some vets screamed. "You're brain-dead!" Others chanted, "Workers World traitors must hang!" -- a reference to the Communist newspaper. Some broke into "The Star-Spangled Banner" as war protesters sought to hand out pamphlets.

It's not 1968. Read the whole thing. And Worker's World refers not just to the Communist newspaper, but to the organizers of the antiwar demonstration, as the Post should have known.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More here:

The article doesn't mention International ANSWER, but the signs give the game away. Apparently the reporters in the linked story weren't curious enough to find out who organized this "anti-war" rally and who attended. But details like that would interfere with the intended message that mom and pop America are turning on our troops and our mission. No Iran war, indeed.

As for the Iraq War, I believe the protesters should be marching in Tehran, Damascus, and in small towns in Anbar. If they stop shooting, bombing, and gassing, the war will end.

But read the whole thing.

INDEED: "The ultimate problem, of course, is this: how do you know if the nice young man who has just broken into your home is there to quietly burgle you, or to rape and dismember you?" And who should bear the risk of error?

A BUNCH OF BAD NEWS FROM EUROPE, at Brussels Journal, followed by a declaration of sorts. But who will sign on?

Sadly, this all seems to be going as predicted.

HERE'S MORE VIDEO ON THE SECULAR ISLAM SUMMIT by Andrew Marcus, this time featuring Richard Miniter.

MICKEY KAUS: "U.S. military deaths in Iraq have apparently declined by about 20% since the 'surge' began. It would be a caricature of MSM behavior if the New York Times, instead of simply reporting this potentially good news, first constructed some bad news to swaddle it in, right?" And yet caricatures always capture some key element . . . .

AUSTIN BAY HAS A ROUNDUP on Zimbabwe's spiral into chaos.

A LOOK AT NEXT-GENERATION SMALL ARMS TECHNOLOGY from Popular Mechanics.

SNOW DEEP, FAITH STRONG! In spite of countervailing effects. . . .

UPDATE: A prediction: "A few more months from now, every idiot who mutters about how all these inconvenient cold snaps don’t actually prove anything about global warming will be on a soapbox. Shouting. That it is hot. In the summertime."

ANOTHER UPDATE: An amusing photo. The "Stop Global Warming" sign is partly obscured by the blizzard.

HEH: “When the editorial pages of The New York Times accuse the BBC of anti-Western bias it is worth taking notice. It is a little like Osama bin Laden accusing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of being a bit harsh on the Jews.”

BRING ON THE MARTIAN WARMING: "A spacecraft orbiting Mars has scanned huge deposits of water ice at its south pole so plentiful they would blanket the planet in 36 feet of water if they were liquid, scientists said on Thursday."

SPREADING MALWARE though fake blogs at Blogspot.

BILL ROGGIO LOOKS AT Al Qaeda's cholorine attacks.

AIRPLANE READING: As part of my airplane and airport reading -- of which there was a lot more than there was supposed to be -- I took along this book by Naomi Novik, which several people have called a combination of Anne McCaffrey and Patrick O'Brian. I think that's about right, and I enjoyed it very much.

DRIP, DRIP: "Tennessee mine enriched Gore, scarred land." The Nashville Tennessean is promising a big story for tomorrow.

EXPLANATIONS FOR THE "LAUGH GAP:" I wonder if these apply to the "Op-Ed gap" that people were writing about last week, too?

SO IT WAS JOE WILSON WHO OUTED VALERIE PLAME? And even she didn't know whether she was covert? I can't believe I'm even still blogging about this.

UPDATE: Reader William Casey emails: "After watching the Valerie Plame-Wilson hearing, it is obvious that the CIA keeps the covert status of their agents so secret that even the agents don't know whether they are covert or not."

ANOTHER UPDATE: Valerie Plame doesn't know if she was covert, and John McCain doesn't know his own position on condoms for AIDS prevention. If Scooter Libby had been so quick to plead ignorance and forgetfulness, he'd never have been charged. . . .

I'M BACK. Actually I got back last night, but rather later than I had hoped as a result of air-travel disruptions attendant upon the Northeast blizzard. My trip out was delayed even more, with less excuse, something I'll have a lot more to say about later.

I've spent a few minutes scrolling down the page, and it's clear that my guestbloggers did their usual topflight job. Whenever I go away, I get a few grumpy emails from people who'd rather have me blogging, but personally I like the blog better when they're on the job. Maybe it's like eating your own cooking . . . .

Anyway, check them out at their home blogs: Ann Althouse, Megan McArdle, Tom Maguire, and Michael Totten.

Regular blogging will resume a bit later.

March 16, 2007

Shaggy Blog: It's a good laugh for a good cause and Tim Worstall is involved with this project (at lucky 13) so we have every confidence it is excellent. Well, for Brit humour, anyway.

TONY WOODLIEF:

The University of California at Berkeley is looking to hire its first Vice Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion, and I think it's about darn time. I'm heartened to know that with this renewed focus on recruiting students and faculty from underrepresented groups, Berkeley's agents will soon be scouring Iowa for devout homeschooled virgin boys. Young men returning from service in Iraq, likewise, may find a warmer reception than they would have received in years past. And no doubt many young parents, as well as retired executives, will soon be submitting their applications to the more equitable and inclusive Cal-Berkeley. Observant pro-war Jews, aspiring Christian filmmakers, chaste young pro-life activists — all are welcome under Berkeley's big tent, right?

If You Read One Story About The Plame Hearing: I currently am recommending Matt Apuzzo of the Associated Press, who has done a fine job on the Plame/Libby story for months. But if this is like potato chips and you want one more, John Podhoretz provides some fun at The Corner.

OK, it is potato chips for me - the news that Ms. Plame is so covert that not even she knows if she is legally covert is the stuff of late night comedy. This is from Mr. Apuzzo:Plame also repeatedly described herself as a covert operative, a term that has multiple meanings. Plame said she worked undercover and traveled abroad on secret missions for the CIA.

But the word "covert" also has a legal definition requiring recent foreign service and active efforts to keep someone's identity secret. Critics of Fitzgerald's investigation said Plame did not meet that definition for several reasons and said that's why nobody was charged with the leak.

...Plame said she wasn't a lawyer and didn't know what her legal status was but said it shouldn't have mattered to the officials who learned her identity.I can quit anytime... but if you are weak of will, more here. (Shameless self-promotion alert).

WHOOPS: The WaPo switched stories at their site, but the link to Matt Apuzzo is fixed now.

Back At The Movies: A Just One Daughter (teenaged-edition) saw "Pan's Labyrinth" last the weekend and delivered qualified raves. Apparently it is a post-Spanish civil war fairy tale about a young girl who, discontented with her tumultuous family life, discovers a magical world populated by mythical creatures in her backyard.

However! Despite that seemingly innocent description, she assures me that life in this mythical world can be nasty, brutish, and short. Fantasy is no escape from reality even in the movies.

My daughter thought this film to be a work of art with an original theme and would recommend it highly. BUT! She was also emphatic that the film was dark and upsetting - do respect that "R" rating.

Other reviews here.

But Would The Answer Change If We Waterboarded Him? Dan Drezner appraises Barack Obama:

If someone pointed a gun to my head today and demanded that I say who I think will be the president in 2009:

1) I'd be pretty annoyed, because I thought I had moved to a safe neighborhood;

2) I'd say Barack Obama

This hunch -- and that's all it is -- makes me want to know how Obama thinks about foreign policy...

As do we all.

WORRIED ABOUT VOTER FRAUD? You should be worried about what that says about you: "In partisan Republican circles, the pursuit of voter fraud is code for suppressing the votes of minorities and poor people."

OUR CONSTITUTION IS HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS OF YEARS OLD... Oh, that's how old Matthew Yglesias thinks it is anyway. But it's still old! What do you say we have a new constitutional convention, and write a new one that will suit us Americans of today? Who do you want to do the writing? Let's see, there's Matt Stone, Steve Jobs, Christopher Hitchens....

DEFENDING AGAINST REPUTATION DEFENDER. If you followed the AutoAdmit controversy -- see this WaPo article -- you should check out this response from Jarret Cohen of AutoAdmit. Where do I stand on AutoAdmit (a website where law students and prospective law students sometimes talk raunchily about particular individuals)? Well, my original response to the WaPo article was somewhat supportive in the face of what I thought were demands for too much repression, but then I Googled "althouse autoadmit" to find my old post for that link, and check out what came up first. Now, I've got to laugh and say yes, this is life here on the internet, but I'm old and I have tenure. I really do see how something like this can disturb a young woman who's in the job market, though I still don't think law firm partners are dumb enough to take obvious junk like this seriously in hiring decisions. (And given this attitude, I couldn't get too steamed when feminist bloggers railed about my failure to exhibit proper deference to the fears and feelings of women.) If you want to talk about all this, come over to my blog, where I'll set up a post with comments.

Gonzaga Out, Gonzales... : If you picked Gonzaga to outlast Gonzales, you lose!

March 15, 2007

TIMESSELECT FOR FREE -- if you have an "edu" email address.

Time Travel At The LA Times: Patterico catches a reversal of causality.

THE IRAQ RESOLUTION, fails in the Senate -- by a wide margin.

Only one Republican, Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon, voted in favor of the measure. Two Democrats, Senator Mark Pryor or Arkansas and Ben Nelson of Nebraska, voted against it, as did Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut. Senators Tim Johnson, a Democrat from South Dakota who is ill, and John McCain, an Arizona Republican who is in Iowa, did not vote.

Compare the way DailyKos reported the vote:

For those keeping score at home, those opposing were the 49 Republicans and Joe Lieberman.

Embarrassing.

UPDATE: I can't believe Kos is still uncorrected 8 hours later. They must truly loathe Lieberman.

ANOTHER UPDATE: That wasn't the most embarrassing thing on Kos today. There was this. (Via Kaus, who gives Kos credit for not taking the post down.)

We Let The Readers Speak! We are all about reader empowerment here at InstaPundit, so let me call your attention to the scientifically developed and carefully phrased TigerHawk poll titled "Captionology: Give feedback to Glenn Reynolds!".

Let's go.

Dinner Plans? It's the Fitfh Annual Eat An Animal For PETA Day. Lunchtime reports are trickling in.

Why Can't A Woman Write More Like A Man? Patricia Cohen of the NY Times tells us that women are woefully under-represented in the submission of op-eds to major newspapers. But there is good news!

The obvious solution, at least to Catherine Orenstein, an author, activist and occasional op-ed page contributor herself, was to get more women to submit essays. To that end Ms. Orenstein has been training women at universities, foundations and corporations to write essays and get them published.

Evidently the ladies were dozing while the guys took notes in the "How to write an op-ed" class at school. But beyond the lack of any formal training in how to write a clear, concise, and cogent argument, there is apparently another obstacle - women are too naive and idealistic to succeed in this cutthroat endeavor:

Next [Ms. Orenstein] asked the participants why they thought it important to write op-ed articles. Women shouted: “Change the world,” “shape public debate,” “offer a new perspective,” “influence public policy.”

“You are all such do-gooders,” Ms. Orenstein said laughing, “I love this.” She then proceeded to create another kind of list that included fame, money, offers of books, television series and jobs.

The Rev. Dr. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale, an Episcopal priest and the executive director of Political Research Associates in Boston, frowned. “It’s not why I do it,” she said.

That, Ms. Orenstein declared, is a typically female response: “I never had a man say, ‘That’s not why I do it.’ ”

“What I want to suggest to you,” she continued, is that the personal and the public interests are not at odds, and “the belief that they are mutually exclusive has kept women out of power.” Don’t you want money, credibility, access to aid in your cause? she asked.

Cristina Page, a spokeswoman for Birth Control Watch in Washington, leaned forward. “I’ve never heard anyone say that before,” she said. “What you’ve just said is so important. It’s liberating.”

Liberating? I'm just about liberated from my... never mind.

To be sure, Ms. Cohen does not claim to be attempting a complete explanation of female under-representation on our nation's op-ed pages. However, she might have done more than simply promote Ms. Orenstein's consultancy - why not write about women in related media, such as, hmm, blogging?

It is the second anniversary of this Kevin Drum post but it is good place to start. His launching point was the same Estrich-Kinsley brawl that noted in the Times article.

IF YOU WANT TO SEE ME IN PERSON, I'll be a panelist at the New York Salon on Tuesday. Please come hear me talk about whether we should fear more than just fear itself.

DON'T WORRY, EZRA. I graduated from business school with a $1,000 monthly student loan payment, and I still managed to end up in one of the lowest-paying professions available to college graduates without a major drug habit.

MY COLLEAGUE PATRICK LASSWELL is blogging from Northern Iraq.

AN UNUSUAL POSTCARD FROM IRAQ: Glenn asked me to help guest-blog for him while he's away, but I haven't really had time. I'm in Northern Iraq on a private sector consulting job and finding time to blog is a bit tough. I did, however, make it up to the mountains during the regional holiday yesterday when every office was closed.

Iraq is big and diverse. Not every place is a hot, dusty plain, and not every place is a war zone. The Kurdistan region is beautiful, prosperous, and -- most importantly -- safe.

WHAT WOULD GANDHI DO? Fred Thompson thinks Code Pink's sanctimonious question is actually reprehensible.

During World War II, Gandhi penned an open letter to the British people, urging them to surrender to the Nazis. Later, when the extent of the holocaust was known, he criticized Jews who had tried to escape or fight for their lives as they did in Warsaw and Treblinka. “The Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife,” he said. “They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs.” “Collective suicide,” he told his biographer, “would have been heroism.”

Speaking of Jews and knives:

Suspected 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessed to the beheading of American journalist Daniel Pearl and a central role in 30 other attacks and plots in the U.S. and worldwide that killed thousands of victims, said a revised transcript released Thursday by the U.S. military.

"I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan," Mohammed is quoted as saying in a transcript of a military hearing at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, released by the Pentagon.

"For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head," he added.

NO RIGHT TO USE MEDICAL MARIJUANA. Not yet anyway, according to the 9th Circuit, ruling in the case of Angel Raich (who, two years ago, lost in the Supreme Court, which upheld Congress's power under the Commerce Clause to ban home-grown, home-consumed marijuana).

TRY NOT TO HAVE YOUR HEART ATTACK on a weekend. It's all about the "door-to-balloon time."

Some Troops Left Behind: I guess it depends on the meaning of "withdraw" - Hillary Clinton has spoken on Iraq, but she has not been greeted as a liberator. Her controversial interview with the Times produced this lead:

If Elected ...
Clinton Says Some G.I.’s in Iraq Would Remain
By MICHAEL R. GORDON and PATRICK HEALY

WASHINGTON, March 14 — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton foresees a “remaining military as well as political mission” in Iraq, and says that if elected president, she would keep a reduced military force there to fight Al Qaeda, deter Iranian aggression, protect the Kurds and possibly support the Iraqi military.

In a half-hour interview on Tuesday in her Senate office, Mrs. Clinton said the scaled-down American military force that she would maintain would stay off the streets in Baghdad and would no longer try to protect Iraqis from sectarian violence — even if it descended into ethnic cleansing.

In outlining how she would handle Iraq as commander in chief, Mrs. Clinton articulated a more nuanced position than the one she has provided at her campaign events, where she has backed the goal of “bringing the troops home.”

She said in the interview that there were “remaining vital national security interests in Iraq” that would require a continuing deployment of American troops.

Ahh! Let's hear thunder from the left - Matt Stoller of MyDD says "Wow... This is a very dangerous roadmap for the Democrats.

The Agonist tells us that "Democrats will now have a clear choice between a pro-war candidate and candidates who are clearly for ending the war.

For lightning from the right, Captain Ed Morrissey describes Hillary's willingness to have US troops stand back during a genocide as "abysmal, cynical, and completely self-serving"...

I have a different question - this part of the NY Times report seems to have garnered little attention:

Mrs. Clinton has said she would vote for a proposed Democratic resolution on Iraq now being debated on the floor of the Senate, which sets a goal of withdrawing combat forces by March 31, 2008. Asked if her plan was consistent with the resolution, Mrs. Clinton and her advisers said it was, noting that the resolution also called for “a limited number” of troops to stay in Iraq to protect the American Embassy and other personnel, train and equip Iraqi forces, and conduct “targeted counterterrorism operations.”

(Senator Barack Obama, a rival of Mrs. Clinton, has said that if elected president, he might keep a small number of troops in Iraq.)

OK, what is a "limited number" or a "small number"? This article takes a stab at Hillary's plan and cites a figure of 75.000. Have Dem leaders put a number on "limited", and is Sen. Clinton stretching it beyond recognition?

We Won't Leave "No Child Left Behind" Behind: The Eduwonk covers the latest, which is a Republican bill meant to create an opt-out provision for states unhappy with the Federal bureaucracy and testing requirments. Kevin Drum admits that yesterday's conspiracy theory took a hit in light of today's news.

STAVING OFF DESPAIR. Andrew Sullivan on Iraq.

CHRISTINE HURT FAULTS the new Bluebook rule for citing blogs. It excludes the name of the blogger for a solo blog. Like Instapundit, I presume. Okay, now, you Bluebook nerds. Cite this post!

LAWPROF JOHN O. MCGINNIS READS two new books about the Supreme Court.

Two From The Times: I Boldly Predict these two stories will generate some blogospheric buzz today:

Iraqis’ Progress Lags Behind Pace Set by Bush Plan

WASHINGTON, March 14 — The Bush administration, which six months ago issued a series of political goals for the Iraqi government to meet by this month, is now tacitly acknowledging that the goals will take significantly longer to achieve.

In interviews this week, administration officials said that the military buildup intended to stabilize Baghdad and create the conditions for achieving the objectives would not be fully in place until June and that all of the objectives would not be fulfilled until the year’s end.

A “notional political timeline” that the administration provided to Congress in January in an attachment to a letter from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, had called for most of the objectives to be met by this month.

And this article on carbon sequestration will tie in to the global warming discussion:

In a Test of Capturing Carbon Dioxide, Perhaps a Way to Temper Global Warming

WASHINGTON, March 14 — American Electric Power, a major electric utility, is planning the largest demonstration yet of capturing carbon dioxide from a coal-fired power plant and pumping it deep underground.

Various experts consider that approach, known as sequestration, essential to reining in climate change by preventing the gas from being added to the atmospheric blanket that promotes global warming.

Just something to consider with your coffee.

"I WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE 9/11 OPERATION, FROM A TO Z." Khalid Shaikh Mohammed confesses.

In a rambling statement, Mr. Mohammed, a chief aide to Osama bin Laden, said his actions were part of a military campaign. “I’m not happy that 3,000 been killed in America,” he said in broken English. “I feel sorry even. I don’t like to kill children and the kids.”

He added, “The language of war is victims.”...

His actions, he said, were like those of other revolutionaries. Had the British arrested George Washington during the Revolutionary War, Mr. Mohammed said, “for sure they would consider him enemy combatant.”

One Number To Ring Them All, One Number To Find Them: This sounds like a force for great evil, or great good:

Its motto, “One number for life,” pretty much says it all. At GrandCentral.com, you choose a new, single, unified phone number (more on this in a moment). You hand it out to everyone you know, instructing them to delete all your old numbers [home, cell, office] from their Rolodexes.

From now on, whenever somebody dials your new uninumber, all of your phones ring simultaneously, like something out of “The Lawnmower Man.”

No longer will anyone have to track you down by dialing each of your numbers in turn. No longer does it matter if you’re home, at work or on the road. Your new GrandCentral phone number will find you.

Yike.

March 14, 2007

It Didn't Seem Like A Trick Question: Andrew Sullivan flags Hillary Clinton caught without her focus groups - we are excerpting Jake Tapper of ABC News, who asked Sen. Clinton whether homosexuality was immoral:

"Well I'm going to leave that to others to conclude," she said. "I'm very proud of the gays and lesbians I know who perform work that is essential to our country, who want to serve their country and I want make sure they can."

No Profiles in Courage there. As a benchmark, here is George Bush from a July 2003 press conference:

Q Thank you, sir. Mr. President, many of your supporters believe that homosexuality is immoral. They believe that it's been given too much acceptance in policy terms and culturally. As someone who's spoken out in strongly moral terms, what's your view on homosexuality?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I am mindful that we're all sinners, and I caution those who may try to take the speck out of their neighbor's eye when they got a log in their own. I think it's very important for our society to respect each individual, to welcome those with good hearts, to be a welcoming country. On the other hand, that does not mean that somebody like me needs to compromise on an issue such as marriage. And that's really where the issue is heading here in Washington, and that is the definition of marriage.

"We're all sinners" is not exactly a rejection of the notion that homosexuality is immoral, sooo... let's say that Hillary managed to get to the left of George Bush on this issue. Barely.

MORE: Reader BD imagines the follow-up Q&A:

Senator Clinton, should we increase taxes? Well, I'm going to leave that for others to decide.

Senator Clinton, should we combat global warming? Well I'm going to leave that for others to decide.

Senator Clinton, should we pull the troops out of Iraq or leave them in? Well, I'm going to leave that for others to decide.

UPDATE: Per Newsday, Barack Obama also waltzed around this question. Interestingly, Mr.Obama also thinks that John Edwards is "kind of cute". [No news on Edwards, but Sen. Obama has finally decided that gay is OK.]

UNRELENTING: Having had a chance to huddle with her friends and consultants, Sen. Clinton is no longer leaving this issue for others to decide::

I disagree with General Pace completely. I do not think homosexuality is immoral.

Zogby Poll On Media Bias:

The vast majority of American voters believe media bias is alive and well – 83% of likely voters said the media is biased in one direction or another, while just 11% believe the media doesn’t take political sides, a recent IPDI/Zogby Interactive poll shows.

...Nearly two-thirds of those online respondents who detected bias in the media (64%) said the media leans left, while slightly more than a quarter of respondents (28%) said they see a conservative bias on their TV sets and in their column inches.

...While 97% of Republicans surveyed said the media are liberal, two-thirds of political independents feel the same, but fewer than one in four independents (23%) said they saw a conservative bias. Democrats, while much more likely to perceive a conservative bias than other groups, were not nearly as sure the media was against them as were the Republicans. While Republicans were unified in their perception of a left-wing media, just two-thirds of Democrats were certain the media skewed right – and 17% said the bias favored the left.

17% of Dems say the media tilts left? Those respondents have no message discipline at all.

Stand Back, Socrates: We unify the key stories of the day with just one question: Will Gonzaga outlast Gonzales?

YOUR ECONOMIST POST FOR THE DAY Sorry to inundate you with Economist bloggery, but we're having a great week. From Democracy in America, our politics blog:

It's now official: either taste-makers and pundits in New York and Washington are colossally wrong, or the polls are. Either Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani are going to prove that it's still the voters who get to vote, stupid, or these two are going to go down like lead zeppelins soon. But I, for one, am not going to accept for much longer that Republicans don't know enough about Mr Giuliani (have you heard he's pro-choice and had gay roommates?) to dump him, or that Democrats don't yet know enough about Barack Obama (have you heard how charismatic he is?) to dump Ms Clinton. Both of those stories have been written over and over; the secret is pretty well out.

No Paranoia Left Behind: Kevin Drum and Matt Yglesias are slugging it out - do conservatives support the 100% proficiency goal of No Child Left Behind as part of a secret scheme to deem every public school in America a failure? Kevin says yes, Matt says no, Kevin says maybe, Matt still says no...

Well. The vast right wing conspiracy is apparently back and better than ever (ouyay owknay erewhay otay eetmay, ightray?), but I don't think we are quite this sly. My guess - Republicans are figuring that if NCLB is going to be amended to become "Some Children Left Behind", we can defer that PR puzzle to President Obama. Of course, an obvious step would be to keep the 100% proficiency goal but extend the deadline from 2014 to, say, 2020.

Whoever succeeds Bush will no doubt have plenty of opportunities to identify inherited but unrealistic goals.

ON GLOBAL WARMING Let me clarify a little my position. I think there are a lot of questions about global warming: how much, and what, should be done. However, I regard two questions as basically no longer worth debating, at least by people with my level of science education:

1) Is AGW happening?
2) Should we do something about it?

The first is a technical question that seems to be largely settled; when you've convinced Ron Bailey it's happening, you've convinced me. The second is a moral question that seems obvious: should I drive a huge, empty car many miles when doing so will help flood Bangladesh, merely because the comfy leather seats are right here where I can see them, and the dead future Bangladeshis aren't? . . . this is a question that seemingly only has one right answer. I say this as one who is conscious that I could use less electricity, and should, and am trying to but not as hard as morality should require. But I digress.

Unfortunately, I think that politics renders the questions that are worth arguing, pointless; we won't find a political solution to the problem because . . . mmmmmm, leather seats. I'm hoping instead for a technological breakthrough that renders the question largely moot. Meanwhile, I'm buying real estate in the Canadian hinterlands.

OVER AT CATO UNBOUND Brian Doherty—a highly amusing dinner companion as well as a brilliant writer—asks: "Did this libertarian movement . . . actually accomplish anything of unquestionable significance?"

Tyler Cowen* answers "Yes: Bigger government."

You know what to do: read the whole thing.

* Also a highly amusing dinner companion, even though he recently declared that I am not a "real adult".

TIM WORSTALL: Obama is so black . . . Black Irish, that is. Although he uses the phrase differently from my family. We say we're Black Irish because we have dark hair and light eyes (and, of course, skin so white that epileptics have trouble being in the same room with me.) Mr Worstall, being a Limey, uses it incorrectly to mean an Irish person who is also a Protestant, when the correct term for that is "[Censored] Orange bastard".

However, in this case, both uses apply. Does this mean Ted Kennedy will be stumping for him?

Update TIm Worstall emails:

I err, do have an Irish passport (as well as the UK) and am Catholic (nominally) myself.

Don't you see that's even worse?! You're consorting with The Enemy! How could you have anything to do with the British?

TALK BACK Incidentally, I've opened up a comment thread at my own site for those who would like to chat about anything I've said here.

I DON'T KNOW THAT THIS IS AIMED AT ME, because frankly I doubt that Henry Farrell spends very much of his time thinking about me. But this certainly echoes an argument that he made to me in our Bloggingheads.tv debate:

Even so, his call for a pragmatic libertarianism seems on target to me (I’d vastly prefer a political debate in which smart libertarians acknowledged that global warming was a major problem in need of a political solution, and contributed insights from their own perspective, to a debate in which many libertarians either minimize the problem or suggest that no real political solution is possible).

I am very, very pessimistic that a political solution will be found to global warming. The costs of abatement are very high, and immediate, while the costs of the warming are diffuse, slow to occur, and will fall heavily on people who are not causing the problem: either people in poor countries like Bangladesh or any number of African states whose countries will become largely uninhabitable; or people, rich and poor alike, who are not yet born.

Most of the people with whom I have debated the matter, including, I felt, Henry, have treated my opinion as if it were an instrumental belief aimed at avoiding action. I'm in favour of action. I think America needs a whopping big carbon tax (and am braced for the flood of mail I know this declaration will trigger.) I would be happy to see a global cap-and-trade scheme. Changing someone else's climate with your fuel consumption seems to me to be a classic violation of libertarian ideas about property and liberty, making a strong case for abatement measures. I don't know what level of abatement I favour--I haven't studied the matter closely enough. But it seems clear to me that some action is warranted.

But just because I think some action should be taken doesn't mean that I think it will. Henry is saying, in effect: "We have a big problem. Why don't you help me find a government solution?" That's like my friend saying "I lost my car keys in Texas. Why won't you help me search my house for them?" Answer: for the same reason I won't help you search for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

I don't think a government solution can be achieved. I mean, I can sit around and paint a very pretty picture of what it would look like, who would run it, and how we would control for the various informational and incentive problems that are bound to crop up . . . but this would be sort of pointless, because I think the chances of any such programme ever being enacted are vanishingly small. Name one government programme, in a democracy, for anything other than a war (on people, I mean, not ideas or natural conditions), that has ever forced the entire citizenry to do something as painful and inconvient as cut their energy usage by 20-50%. If you can do so, I will reconsider my stance. I note that Britain is in the early stages of just such a plan, and if it works, I will eat my words with a glad smile*. Until then . . . I feel Brink Lindsay's proposed Liberaltarian alliance is not going to go far if the liberal half demands that we pretend to believe in the impossible as a condition of entry.

* Easy for me to promise, since I don't have to pay up until 2050.

HE MAY NOT have captured Glenn's heart, but I'm still quite fond of him, and not just because he gets all the robot questions at pub trivia. Happy 28th birthday to Julian Sanchez.

"I LOVE THE SASQUATCH." Me too!

UPDATE: Sasquatch phylogenetics. Via Metafilter.

No, THIS is Scrutiny: The NY Times front-pages, evidently without irony, an article about CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) titled "Scrutiny Increases for a Group Advocating for Muslims in U.S.".

However, the Times notion of scrutiny does not satisfy Captain Ed or Karl of protein wisdom.

Pardon Us For Not Getting Up: Patrick Sullivan on the passing of a man who changed the backside of America.

JUST SAY NO to the idea that the (second) state song is about drugs. "Rocky Mountain High" -- it's not about drugs!

"We could be talking about guys who've been fishing all day, or kids pigging out on s'mores, with the chocolate," Senator Hagedorn said, referring to other endorphin-producing activities. "If I thought there was anything in that song about the use of drugs or encouraging the use of drugs, I would never have run the resolution."

We're high on life, man.

"Be More Than You Can Be": A very cool article about military applications for "The Glove", by way of Hot Air. More here, but can I get one on Amazon? Well, here is the company's home site.

Million dollar idea du jour - why don't I see these in every health club in America?

UPDATE: Similar very cool stuff in the Danger Room.

THE YOO-DE MAN THESIS. Brainiest witticism of the day, from Sasha Volokh.

"OF COURSE WE ARE ALL POLITICAL HACKS!" Orin Kerr answers the question: "Why haven't we written about the US Attorneys' story?"

CAMILLE PAGLIA ON ANN COULTER:

John Edwards got publicity for the wrong reason two weeks ago when Ann Coulter bizarrely called him a "faggot" at the Conservative Political Action Conference.... [S]atirists who play on gender themes need some whiff of self-knowledge, or they look ridiculous. Is Coulter truly oblivious to her gender weirdness? It's no coincidence that words like "tranny" and "transvestite" clog the anti-Coulter blogs.

Coulter is a smart woman with formidable energy, and whether liberals like it or not, she is a high-profile feminist role model in her appetite for aggressive debate. But Coulter seems to be regressing rather than growing intellectually and sharpening her analytic skills. She evidently leaves no room in her life for study and reflection. I take books seriously (which is why I left the scene for five years to write "Break, Blow, Burn") and thus hold against Coulter the part she has played in the debasement of that medium.

If only Coulter were more like Paglia, Paglia would like her better.

"MARRIAGE IS A UNION BETWEEN A MAN AND A WOMAN," says the highest court in France.

"THE MEA CULPA CAME..." The NYT puts those words right after the Alberto Gonzales line: "I acknowledge that mistakes were made here." Since when is the notoriously evasive "mistakes were made" a confession of personal guilt? Let's not define "mea culpa" downward.

Eight Men Out: Patterico defends the Bush Administration and wonders about the LA Times coverage of the emails related to the fired US attorneys.

But from the other side, the Anonymous Liberal discusses "The Email That May Take Down Alberto Gonzales".

MORE: "Randomized hackery" from Orin Kerr? Does that make him the Stochastic Hack? (h/t AA).

And let's keep 'Hilzoy' in the mix; the link to this Feb 2007 Congressional Research Study on the history of fired US attorneys is helpful.

You Might Say He Found A Key For Every Door - John Denver is honored in Colorado.

March 13, 2007

AMEN TO THAT! From The Economist's latest web experiment*, The Inbox, a blog where every letter to the editor we receive is posted on the web:

In Starbucks' case, it's not the ambience that puts off consumers, it's the coffee. If only they roasted it a bit less. My colleagues agree that if they had another option they wouldn't buy Starbucks but, since there is a Starbucks on nearly every block around our office in the District, our options are limited.

Any free market economists want to take a swing at this one? I too would prefer less roasting. I have two conjectures: either they're benefitting from first mover advantage, or stupid Americans have some sort of macho attachment to burned coffee, as if that charred flavour makes it somehow more authentic and manly.

Personally, I think the manly thing to do is to drink the stuff with the most caffeine. And contrary to popular belief, that isn't espresso; it's regular coffee. (The longer you roast the beans, the more caffeine is destroyed.) Starbucks makes it even worse by overcooking their espresso beans. Anyone drinking burned Starbucks on the assumption that the smoky flavour must mean it carries a real kick--not so, not so. Char grilling is for steaks, not Arabica beans.

* Full disclosure: I work for The Economist, and manage one of its other blogs.

BE AFRAID, BE VERY AFRAID: Citizens of Dallas, check out what your police and fire pension fund has been up to. Citizens of everywhere else, worry about what your local government pension funds are doing.

Studying The Study: Yesterday we queried a study purporting to demonstrate that the Bush Administration investigated Democrats out of proportion to their numbers. Pat at Stubborn Facts has taken a longer look and has found significant methodological problems with the research.

That probably means Paul Krugman will cite it again.

Bill Hobbs Has More On Fred Thompson.

Porkbusters Bookmark:

Welcome to the Green Eyeshade Blog. I'm John Campbell, Congressman from the 48th District in California. I am also a Certified Public Accountant.

...I am the chairman of the budget and spending task force for the Republican Study Committee. The Republican Study Committee is a caucus of about 100 of the most fiscal responsible members of the House of Representatives. We are tired of watching both parties spend away our money and our future.

Rep. Campbell will be blogging at TownHall.com.

DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY ONLY GOES SO FAR: The Israeli ambassador to El Salvador has been recalled. This might be why:

The Israeli ambassador to El Salvador has been recalled after he was found drunk, naked and bound in sexual bondage gear in his yard, an official said Monday.

Tsuriel Raphael has been removed from his post and the Foreign Ministry has begun searching for a replacement, said spokeswoman Zehavit Ben-Hillel.

Two weeks ago, El Salvador police found Raphael naked outside his residence, tied up, gagged and drunk, Israeli media reported. He was wearing several sex toys at the time, the media said. After he was untied, Raphael told police he was the ambassador of Israel, the reports said.

The British Broadcasting Corp. reported that he could identify himself to police only after a rubber ball had been removed from his mouth.

Frivolous motion on the joys of old-time radio:

For me, music is - always has been - about discovery. It’s what used to be amazing about listening to the radio (before it became choked with ads and regurgitated the same 20 tunes) - a random song you’ve never heard before comes on and is just perfect, hits just the right chord, at that singular moment in time. The joy in subsequently figuring out the artist, buying the album, and then popping it in your CD player was unbeatable. Being the first, telling your friends, sharing the experience of listening to something new and life-changing - being surprised by something you didn’t know even existed - that is totally what music is about. Was about.

Was about?
Yeah, like it or not, our listening patterns have changed. With the introduction of mp3 players (more honestly, the iPod) we were all given incredible levels of control over what we listened to at any moment. It’s simply next in the progression from LP (moving the needle from track to track), to cassette (pressing FF and guessing), to CD (pressing next, but still limited to one album). Now, at your fingertips, there is the power to pick any song, play it for any length of time, and skip to another song, and keep skipping until you find what it is you want to listen to.

While there is great, great joy to be had in simply shuffling at random (the wild success of the iPod Shuffle definitely illustrates this), I think all will agree that it is not enough. Now that you have control, how can you resist the temptation to take control? I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s set my iPod to shuffle during my morning commute, only to be aurally assaulted when a song by Melt Banana follows a song by Air. Likewise, who can deny the embarrassment and awkwardness when, in the midst of a tender, romantic, passionate make-out session, a Daniel Johnston tune pops up to destroy the moment entirely? (Note: I’m sure there are people in this world who love to make out to Daniel Johnston. That’s cool for them. Not for me.). Shuffling just isn’t practical, all the time. Part of the reason that radio used to work is that the playlists were hand-picked so that there could be surprises, but none like this:

A: Hey, guess what?
B: What?
A: Herpes! Are you surprised?
B: ...

Inspired by my post at my own site on how much music is enough; more from Tyler Cowen here.

Pencils Down, Please. It's time for a quick math quiz, so easy an eight year old can do it without pencil and paper. Well, if the eight year old goes on to win the Fields Medal and MacArthur Fellowship, anyway.

"OOOOOOH, SHINY! LAWYER GROG THINK PRETTY LADY in glittery snake shoes have mighty mojo."

Militia Watch At The Washington Post: Christopher Fotos looks at the manner in which the WaPo treats militias and the Second Amendment. Soundbite - "it's not called the Bill of Privileges."

The Few, The Proud: Pardoning Scooter Libby is an idea whose time has not yet come, if polls mean anything.

I Owe Ann A Coke? Naturally I am delighted, but I am being dragged into a legal thicket here.

Octa-Gonzo: Jeralyn Merritt has thoughts on the eight fired US Attorneys:

The job has always been a political plum. The U.S. Attorney is nominated by the President, based on recommendations from the Senators in the particular District. Almost without exception, the appointee is from the President’s political party. When a new President is elected, we get new U.S. Attorneys.

...The travesty of the current U.S. Attorney firing scandal is not that U.S. Attorneys are being replaced. That is expected after an election, such as the one in 2004. It's that it's happening in 2007.

...I'm no fan of Republican U.S. Attorneys who got their job because they carried water for Bush in 2004 and had the blessing of their District's Senators. That's the way the job is assigned.

But, firing them because they didn't bring the cases the Administration wanted them to bring, or because they brought cases against Republicans or didn't bring cases against Democrats is beyond the pale.

...So have whatever sympathy for these U.S. Attorneys that you deem appropriate. Just remember that when appointed, it wasn't because they were non-partisan champions of justice. It was because they were political friends of Bush or the Republican party.

Eventually we may find out why they were fired.

Laura Rozen rounds up some recent reporting.

MORE: "Octa-Gonzo"? Well, there are eight attorneys, they are gone, Gonzalez is involved... ahh, if I have to explain it, forget it (I need to ask John Tierney about this...). "Eight Men Out" works for me but the Black Sox have a prior claim.

AND NOW I SUPPOSE TOM WILL ALSO do a post saying whatever it is I'm saying here. That we both did the jinx-on-Coke post simultaneously. Except that he got in first, so I'm the Coke debtor. He probably beat me to this one too.

CORRECTION: Actually, he's the Coke debtor. I called it.

TOM OWES ME A COKE. (Check out how I'm trying to get a Corner-esque vibe going here. Will Tom banter? Will Megan poke her head in from whatever time zone she's in? Stay tuned.)

There's Team Blogging, And There Is Insta-Team Blogging! OK, we doubled the fun on the Al Gore global warming story, but the morning is young... I blame Daylight Saving Time.

The Goldwater Girl Was a Martin Luther King Jr. Fan? Betsy Newmark is skeptical but I can offer this - Martin Luther King Jr. was in Chicago in January 1963, so at least we aren't talking about childhood memories of church burnings.

Times To Gore - Chill Out. Mark Coffey has excerpts and a live comment section.

MORE: McQ thinks Hollywood has already charted their course:

"...being a student of human nature and by nature a bit cynical, I just don't see it getting any cooler, in terms of hype, before it gets much, much hotter.

AL GORE'S ALARMISM is criticized by some scientists, and they are -- take note -- spotlighted in the NYT.

"We were being used completely as an ATM machine for the regime": Dan McLaughlin picks up the North Korean version of oil-for-food.

CODE PINKSTERS CAMP OUT at Nancy Pelosi's house. And, look out, they've got papier-mâché statue of Gandhi.

OH, PHEW! Tom's back.

I Am Back From The Gym And Brainier Than Ever, if this is to be believed...
The proof will be in the next few posts. Onward, science!

MICKEY KAUS AND ANDREW SULLIVAN ARE SQUABBLING AGAIN. I think their troubles would be greatly reduced if Mickey would keep up with "South Park." Or if Andrew wouldn't assume that everybody does or that it's cool to create a divide between people who get "South Park" references and people who don't.

STARDUST. Now, dust.

SPEAKING OF RECLAIMING LOST DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME. Pedant point of the day -- I just got corrected over on my blog -- it's "saving" not "savings." It's not like a savings bank, apparently. Anyway, the guestbloggers seem to be sleeping in! I get the feeling about 50,000 people have already cursed us. I hope you realize it's Central Time for me. So like it's only almost 9 o'clock. Still, pathetic for a serious, public-serving blogger. You probably know all the news of the day already, without my pointing to things. But I'm on the job now, cooking up juicy nuggets. This is your appetizer. And I imagine 35,000 of you exclaiming: "Feh, bring back the regular chef." Really, I imagine 35,000 people saying exactly those words in unison. Intimidating? Nah! Dr. Helen is pointedly advising us to "keep moving, moving, moving and to try scary things and not to give a s**t when they are rejected." So let's go!

March 12, 2007

How To Reclaim That Hour Lost To Daylight Savings: Colin McEnroe has a suggestion.

Here is background from Mickey Kaus on how Luke used The Force.

More on Fred Thompson from A.C. Kleinheider:

Fred Thompson is his own man but he has a lineage and he he has a history and it is not as conservative as his studio-packaged image would indicate.

At the end of the day, Thompson may be the best conservatives can hope for but let's not fool ourselves into believing he is a conservative -- he isn't.

He may be conservative (adj.) but he is not a conservative (n.) and he has certainly been less than helpful to the ascendent traditional conservative wing of the Tennessee Republican Party.

We last heard from A.C. a few days ago.

Zahra Kamalfar and her children will leave Moscow Airport and be admitted to Canada, not forced to Iran. Pajamas Media has been following this, as has the True InstaPundit.

"AWESOME FACTS ABOUT FRED THOMPSON." From Frank J. Sample: "The actual cause of global warming: Fred Thompson's burning rage."

If I May Amplify And Extend: The always-interesting Megan McArdle links to a Matt Yglesias article on neoliberalism below. For a thumping of the neolibs from the left on foreign policy, let me wave in Max Sawicky.

Radley Balko Finds A Congressman With Courage - 75 year old Congressman Pete Stark has announced that he is an atheist (but I won't step on the punchline). Nathan Newman's view on atheism in politics is timely again, and Mr. Balko had some thoughts just last week.

CREEPAZOIDAL: Check out FDR warning that the Supreme Court has too much power. It sounds like something he copied out of "Speechwriting for Megalomaniacal Dictators".

CALL ME UNAMERICAN, but I flunk on all three counts:

We live in an age in which every American from Bakersfield to Nantucket likes lattés, has an idea for a psychological thriller, and knows that NBC is struggling to find a new ratings juggernaut, but hates latté-drinkers and Hollywood types.

Although I don't actually hate lattes; I just think they're dramatically inferior to a dry cappuccino.

WHO KILLED NEO-LIBERALISM? Matthew Yglesias fingers . . . neo-liberalism, with a cry of "Sic Semper Success":

I think the primary cause of its declining fortunes is that, as tends to happen with once-ascendant political tendencies, it had a lot of successes. The most persuasive neoliberal ideas have become conventional wisdom. The netroots shares the neoliberal critique of interest group brokerage as a model of party-building. Absolutely nobody nowadays makes the sort of arguments that you heard from the 1980s-vintage left about the possibility of winning elections purely through increasing voter turnout. And a lot of the low-hanging policy fruit has already been implemented. Nobody thinks TANF will be re-reformed as an open-ended entitlement. Nobody thinks NAFTA will be rescinded. Nobody thinks we're going to re-regulate the airlines or restore the government-sponsored telephone monopoly. I even think people have privately reconciled themselves to the fact that race-based affirmative action is going to fade away. And so on and so forth.

What tends to happen when a political tendency achieves a fair amount of success, however, is that what continues to make that tendency distinctive are precisely those strains with the least appeal and cogency. Similarly, insofar as neoliberals succeeded in reformulating a more politically viable conception of liberalism they've tended to render their own habits of mind less relevant since the revived, more viable liberalism wants more self-confident, more earnest advocates.

Sandy v. Scooter: The Tigerhawk has questions about the sentencing disparity between Sandy Berger and Scooter Libby.

Porkbuster's Alert from Mark Tapscott

Looks Like Bush Has Caved on Earmarks

When I heard last week from Hill sources that the White House congressional liason staff was pressuring OMB Director Rob Portman to not release all of the earmarks requested by Members of Congress to executive agencies under the FY2005 budget, I called the OMB press office.

When I asked for a copy of the earmark database and copies of all correspondence between OMB and executive branch officials and Members and Hill staff, I was promised a call-back from a senior OMB spokesman. Not surprisingly, that call never came.

Now this morning, word is circulating on the Hill that the Bush administration is going to release only a limited database of earmarks later today or maybe no database at all, but just aggregate or summary data.

Not my area of expertise, but I am passing it along.

DO NOT ADJUST YOUR DIAL: Nor do you need to adjust your glasses - this post has had a certain "Now you see it, now you don't" quality while I have been grappling with the HTML. Sorry for any confusion.

"REPRESSION BLOOMED INTO RAPTURE LIKE RAGING WEEDS shooting through cracks in the cement." Patti Smith has a NYT op-ed about getting into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It's kind of scattershot and incoherent as you're reading it, but in the end you get the idea that what she wants is honor for Fred Sonic Smith and the MC5.

REWRITING HISTORY? If true, this is an enormous scandal:

. . . replication is impossible if someone else has changed the dataset since the original analysis was conducted. But that would never happen, right? Maybe not. In an interesting paper, Alexander Ljungqvist, Christopher Malloy, and Felicia Marston take a look at the I/B/E/S dataset of analyst stock recommendations "made" during the period from 1993 to 2000. Here is what they found:

Comparing two snapshots of the entire historical I/B/E/S database of research analyst stock recommendations, taken in 2002 and 2004 but each covering the same time period 1993-2002, we identify tens of thousands of changes which collectively call into question the principle of replicability of empirical research. The changes are of four types: 1) The non-random removal of 19,904 analyst names from historic recommendations (“anonymizations”); 2) the addition of 19,204 new records that were not previously part of the database; 3) the removal of 4,923 records that had been in the data; and 4) alterations to 10,698 historical recommendation levels. In total, we document 54,729 ex post changes to a database originally containing 280,463 observations.

. . . Not surprisingly, they find that these changes typically make it appear as if analysts were (a) more cautious and (b) more accurate in their predictions. The clear implication from the paper is that analysts and their employers had a vested interest in selectively editing this particular dataset; while I doubt that anyone cares enough about most questions in political science to do something similar, it is an important cautionary tale. The rest of their paper, "Rewriting History," is available from SSRN. (Hat tip: Big Picture)

The I/B/E/S database keeps track of analyst recommendations for 35,000 companies. It's used in research into financial markets, as well as by people who rank analyst performance. Altering the database is pretty major, though it's not clear whether this is something like grade-grubbing, where analysts only correct the mistakes that make them look bad, or whether it's actual fraud.

I always read these things with a slightly admiring air—not for the researchers, though this is great work, but for the criminals. I get all nervous and blushing when I lie to telemarketers in order to get them off the phone. I would never in a zillion years have the guts to bribe someone to alter my past recommendations in a database. I don't admire it, exactly, but I'd like to know where I could buy some of that nonchalance.

EDDIE IZZARD HAS A NEW TV SHOW.

He went with "The Riches" instead [of "24"], partly because he sees himself as a sunnier actor than "24" demanded. An actor must know if can be believably sinister, he says.

"I did a film with John Malkovich," he says of "Shadow of the Vampire." "If John says, 'Come and have a cup of tea,' you do think John has just murdered his family. He has that interesting feel, like, 'John, what have you done?'

"And I have that light thing, a more positive, upbeat thing."

I love Eddie Izzard! I have all his concert DVDs. Lately, I find I can barely force myself to watch television. Silly behavior, I know. Why would you try to force yourself to watch television? But I am going to... set the TiVo for this. Setting the TiVo these days reminds me of the way I used to Xerox law review articles. Xeroxing ≠ consuming. I kept magical-thinking it would. Ditto TiVo.

Laffer Curve Laughers: Dartmouth economist Andrew Samwick ponders John McCain and asks the question that makes every Irishman (and tax cut enthusiast!) shiver - "Why did you make them so small?"

"Where's Lloyd Bentsen when you really need him?"

Don't We Need A Baseline? Hilzoy discusses the "Gonzalez Eight", the eight prosecutors fired in a political purge (left), or for poor performance (right). My eyebrows (and ire) were raised by an excerpt from Paul Krugman citing a study which tells us this:

We compare political profiling to racial profiling by presenting the results (January 2001 through December 2006) of the U.S. Attorneys' federal investigation and/or indictment of 375 elected officials. The distribution of party affiliation of the sample is compared to the available normative data (50% Dem, 41% GOP, and 9% Ind.). Data* indicate that the offices of the U.S. Attorneys across the nation investigate seven (7) times as many Democratic officials as they investigate Republican officials, a number that exceeds even the racial profiling of African Americans in traffic stops. ...The current Bush Republican Administration appears to be the first to have engaged in political profiling.

Well, if you don't even look at data from earlier Administrations you aren't likely to find anything, now are you? Hilzoy is experiencing a reader's revolt in her comments, but I expect this "study" will be cited again. And again.

GROAN:  Gender-bending pronoun fixed; more after I return from killing myself.  Metaphorically.

We Go To The Movies, or at least, the movie reviews - Wretchard ponders the criticism of "300", the battle epic about 300 Spartans at the Battle of Thermoplyae; the Armed Liberal wonders whether to take his ten year old; yours truly suggests not.

Hey, this can be as much fun as actually seeing the film, and is a lot more time-efficient.

RETRO, I KNOW, BUT... in a nod to tradition let me link to Douglas Bass, who has actually seen the film.

"THE MOST CHALLENGING RUBIK'S CUBE THAT WE'VE FACED IN OUR LIFETIME." The early primary season is driving the strategists crazy.

YOUTUBE AND PHILOSOPHY COMEDY. Andrew Sullivan's on a new kick: here and here. I guess if I was horsing around looking for crap in YouTube and got the idea of searching for two words I'd might pick "philosophy" and "comedy." Not saying that's what Sullivan did. Just saying that's what I might do.

MAYOR GIULIANI'S MUNICIPAL JUDGE PICKS. Since they didn't do constitutional interpretation, does this say anything about the kind of federal judges he would appoint if he became President? Lawprof Stephen Gillers says it's "nonsense," and Ted Olson says "It's making a mountain out of a molehill. It's not even a molehill. It's an anthill." (I tell you what I think over here, where you can bat this around in the comments.)

"Only in Durham": The invaluable KC Johnson refers us to the indefatigable John in Carolina for more coverage of the Duke lacrosse situation. Here is the Johnson summary of John's post titled "Major Duke Involvement":

After some digging, however, JinC discovered fairly intimate connections between CrimeStoppers and two key Duke officials. In the listing for the Duke Alumni Association board of directors, Sue Wasiolek, dean of student life, is listed as “involved in the boards of Durham CrimeStoppers.” And, as of February 2006, Bob Dean, director of the Duke University Police Department, was listed as chairman