LetMeSpellItOutForYou

Protecting Our President Against Baseless Smears

2011-09-13T23:33:00.003-04:00

There's a crazy rumor going around that the Obama campaign is gathering names for a Nixon-style "enemies list." Not so. It's a baseless smear that appears to be emanating from the Drudge Report. If you encounter such hateful rhetoric, I urge you to report it at this site.

It comes every year

2011-05-05T22:03:00.000-04:00

From the Concord Journal of Massachusetts, May 5-11, 2011:

Decorated with blue face paint, and clothes covered with blue and silver streamers (and a wetsuit underneath to keep warm -- though later she coddled a cup of coffee as well), Musketaquid co-founder and steering committee member CC King waded in the cool spring waters and spoke from her heart about what residents can do to keep the earth alive.
"What are you willing to do away with to leave a sustainable earth?" she posed, one in a string of questions related to keeping water and air clean for future generations. "...For the children of fox, for the children of these oak trees... for your children's children's children."
With the crowd echoing in round, a chorus broke out in a guttural baritone.
"River take me away, away, to the ocean," they sang.
Dozens down by the river echoed King's lyrics, as twice as many looked on from the Lowell Road Bridge overhead. Many seemed to be in a trance of sorts, in awe and appreciation of the ceremony.
"This is amazing; we're majorly in love with the earth and protecting it," said Virginia Hines, who stood on the bridge with her husband Sheldon.

Axiom: Continuity of Government Services

2011-04-08T06:55:00.000-04:00

Axiom: Interruptions in government services caused by effort to reduce spending? Dangerous, potentially catastrophic. But when inspired by effort to preserve collective bargaining rights? Healthy expression of the democratic process.

Sense from Senselessness

2010-03-01T20:39:00.001-05:00

In a much-discussed post, NRO Online's Andy McCarthy says that Democrats' apparent willingness to force the massive health care bill through the reconciliation process is perfectly rational as a means of achieving long-term goals, even amid signs of massive voter backlash. Conservatives such as McCarthy are thus now grappling with much the same paradigm shift as occurred among the defense establishment after September 11, when they recognized the new unfamiliar threat of extremely zealous people willing to commit suicide on behalf of their cause.

The Weirding of Thomas Friedman

2010-02-22T01:48:00.006-05:00

In the wake of the CRU climategate and associated scandals surrounding the IPCC's influential assessment reports, Thomas Friedman's New York Times column on "global weirding" comes as a rhetorical cry for help. Read it in full, then judge whether any of my bite-sized comments make sense.

Cold, precipitous weather in the south and warm weather in the Pacific Northwest are typical weather patterns for winters in El Niño years. You might even say they're its defining characteristics.
Recent research on the Australian drought has settled on a similar oscillation in the Indian Ocean, with one recent paper providing explicit reason to dismiss increased CO2 as a significant cause.
Friedman argues, correctly, against those who summarily declare that recent heavy snowfall in Washington D.C. serves to disprove global warming. However, he repeats much the same error in casually assigning global warming as the cause.
We used to have "global warming," then we switched over to the more vague term "climate change." I'm not sure if "global weirding" is even more vague, but the point remains: we have traveled from a fairly specific, testable assertion to one that is largely unfalsifiable. Weather patterns trending in any direction might serve as evidence.
Unexpected, outlying, or so-called "weird" weather events are, in fact, quite common, and to be routinely expected given natural variability.
The idea that the "most violent storms" would become "more numerous" is one of the assertions the IPCC was recently found to have made without required proper support from the peer-reviewed literature.
"The hots are expected to get hotter, the wets wetter, the dries drier" ... Amusing that he doesn't go so far as to say that "weirding" makes cold weather even colder, since it's the frigid temperatures throughout the northern hemisphere that made this winter particularly weird, even more so than the local precipitation events. It's not every day people die of hypothermia in Cuba. (Perhaps it would have been too weird for Friedman to say that weirding makes cold weather even colder.)
The hook Friedman uses in his lede is quite disingenuous. There are plenty of substantial grounds for skepticism, yet he focuses on only the most flippant.
While it's true that snowfall in D.C. does not actually disprove global warming, it's certainly legitimate to rub your nose in it to the extent that past outlying episodes of warm weather have been routinely cited as confirmation.
It strikes me as very bad advice for scientists to go on the offensive in trumpeting their climate certainties, when that's exactly the sort of thing that got the CRU & IPCC into such trouble to begin with that they're now struggling to regain their credibility.
Likewise, how is it a good idea that we produce a 50-page report "in language that a sixth grader could understand" on the state of climate science? The IPCC currently produces a large, relatively rigorous document that is boiled down into a much shorter summary document for the benefit of policy-makers and journalists. Most complaints about how the IPCC publishes misleading and exaggerated information concern these dumbed-down summaries. How would the document Friedman describes be formed any differently?
Why should this document only highlight wild exaggerations made by one side? What about the pervasive and false assertion that ice is about to disappear from the North Pole?
"Climate experts can't leave themselves vulnerable by citing non-peer-reviewed research or failing to respond to legitimate questions." Well, this certainly understates the matter, doesn't it? It's not just that the IPCC cited non-peer-reviewed research claiming rapid melting of Himilayan glaciers; it's that it cited bogus, made-up material from activist groups. Likewise, it's not that members of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit simply failed to respond to legitimate questions; it's that they broke the law by evading freedom-of-information requests for data used to support their scientific conclusions.
And what would a climate change article be without a sweeping insinuation about how skeptics are funded? "From the oil and coal companies that finance the studies skeptical of climate change to conservatives who hate anything that will lead to more government regulations"... Note that the latter are characterized as ideologues, while the former are presumably only in it for the money, a rather flexible range of poisonous characterizations.
Accusations of irrational ideological bias can certainly cut both ways. Global warming adherents often see their cause as a moral crusade. If we are indeed on the verge of global catastrophe, with little sign that people are willing to significantly reduce their energy consumption, and little sign of high yields from "renewable" energy sources, wouldn't there be a whole lot more enthusiasm for nuclear power?
Appealing to the precautionary principle, Friedman says "investing in renewable energy, energy efficiency and mass transit" makes sense as a form of "insurance." Actually, what we are being asked to do is dramatically lower our energy consumption, which comes at great cost to living standards, and by all accounts would barely reduce CO2 levels or temperature. Such "investments" may arguably be a good idea on their own terms independent of climate panic, but they may just as well be a fantastic waste of time and effort that would be better spent on some more productive end.
Friedman says that regardless of the effects of climate change, rising population means increased demand for renewable energy. Not exactly. It means increased demand for energy from any source, including fossil fuels.
Finally, ice ages do not come and go "slowly." I don't know where he gets this stuff. Here are temperature readings from the last few hundred thousand years, from Antarctic ice core data from the NOAA. Click to enlarge: Granted, the word "slowly" depends on your time frame, but nonetheless those are some pretty wild 10-degree swings. That thick little squiggle on the right, by the way, represents the entire development of human civilization, during what appears to be an unusually sustained warm period. I can think of one "investment" that may be a prudent form of "insurance": come up with any way imaginable to engineer the climate to keep us from dropping into another of those ice ages.

Tricky

2010-02-12T09:15:00.000-05:00

Didn't we just have a big to-do about the special meaning of the word "trick" when used by climatologists? Let's do it again!

Climatologists are Super Smart!

2010-01-10T20:19:00.010-05:00

From an article, by Robert Frank in the New York Times, on the response of the great economist Ronald Coase to the problem of carbon dioxide abatement:

Climate scientists agree that the cheapest way to combat global warming is to curb carbon dioxide emissions. And economists agree that the cheapest way to do that is by changing emitters’ incentives, either by taxing emissions or requiring emission permits.

At least this odd sequence of statements doesn't suggest economists agree that the cheapest way to combat global warming is to curb carbon dioxide emissions. Nowhere in the article is there any sign that Coase himself was asked this more fundamental question.

Frank finds it "puzzling" that conservatives and libertarians who have made Coase their "patron saint" world object to either carbon taxes or cap-and-trade proposals, which are based on Coase's pioneering work. But one can simultaneously believe that these proposals offer the best way to reduce CO2, but that reducing CO2 is not the most efficient way to address global warming.

Abolish Sociology

2010-01-08T15:20:00.006-05:00

From an introductory sociology exam, found in a public room in a college in the eastern United States:

Question: How does the United States "steal" the resources of other (third world) [sic] countries?
Answer: We steal through exploitation. Our multinationals are aware that indigenous people in developing nations have been coaxed off their plots and forced into slums. Because it is lucrative, our multinationals offer them extremely low wage labor [sic] that cannot be turned down.
Question: Why is the U.S. on shaky moral ground when it comes to preventing illegal immigration?
Answer: Some say that it is wrong of the United States to prevent illegal immigration because the same people we are denying entry to, [sic] we have exploited for the purpose of keeping the American wheel spinning.
Question: Why is it necessary to examine the theory of cumulative advantage when it comes to affirmative action?
Answer: Because it is unfair to discredit the many members of minority groups that have [sic] been offered more life chances through the program.
Question: What is the interactionist approach to gender?
Answer: The majority of multi-gender encounters are male-dominated. for [sic] example, while involved in conversation, the male is much more likely to interrupt. Most likely because the male believes the female's expressed thoughts are inferior to his own.
Question: Please briefly explain the matrix of domination.
Answer: the [sic] belief that domination has more than one dimension. For example, Males [sic] are dominant over females, whites over blacks, and affluent over impoverished.

(via Critical Mass)

Opacity, not Openness

2010-01-07T22:30:00.004-05:00

To be fair, if you believed Obama's campaign promise to open up congressional health-care sausage-making to C-SPAN, you should have your head examined.

Here's the sort of dissembling that led to led to Cafferty's uncharacteristic anti-Democratic rant:

Hemingway's Tom and Jerry Moments

2009-12-27T12:59:00.002-05:00

From a list, compiled by Paul Johnson for his book Intellectuals, of injuries sustained throughout the life of Ernest Hemingway:

As a child he fell with a stick in his mouth and gouged his tonsils; caught a fishhook in his back; sustained injuries at football and boxing. The year 1918 saw him blown up in the war and smash his fist through a glass showcase. Two years later, he cut his feet walking on broken glass and started internal bleeding by falling on a boat-cleat. He burned himself badly smashing up a water-heater (1922), tore a foot ligament (1925) and had the pupil of his good eye cut by his son (1927). In spring 1928 came the first of his major drinking accidents when, returning home, he mistook the skylight cord for the lavatory chain and pulled the whole heavy glass structure down on his head, sustaining concussion and needing nine stitches. He tore his groin muscle (1929), damaged an index finger with a punch bag, was hurt by a bolting horse and broke his arm in a car smash (1930), shot himself in the leg while drunk and trying to gaff a shark (1935), broke his big toe kicking a locked gate, smashed his foot through a mirror and damaged the pupil of his bad eye (1938) and got two more concussions in 1944, by driving his car into a water tank in the blackout and jumping off a motorcycle into a ditch. In 1945, he insisted on taking over from the driver to take Mary to Chicago airport, skidded and hit a bank of earth, breaking three ribs and a knee and denting his forehead (Mary went through the windscreen). In 1949 he was badly clawed playing with a lion. In 1950 he fell on his boat, gashing his head and leg, severing an artery and concussing himself for the fifth time. In 1953 he sprained his shoulder falling out of his car, and that winter there was a series of accidents in Africa: bad burns while drunkenly trying to put out a brush fire, and two plane accidents, which produced yet another concussion, a fractured skull, two cracked spinal discs, internal injuries, a ruptured liver, spleen and kidneys, burns, a dislocated shoulder and arm, and paralysed sphincter muscles. The accidents, which usually followed drinking, continued almost to his death: torn ligaments, sprained ankle climbing a fence (1958), another car crash (1959).

Not Exactly on Message

2009-12-18T08:04:00.003-05:00

This image came from the "americagov" Flickr stream, an account run by the U.S. government: Here is the caption text:

"Brad Pitt is Saving Planet Earth in Copenhagen"... a fun experimental project that will feature 12 non-Brads dressing up like the megastar to promote climate change action.

Could anything better get across the point: not what it pretends to be?

The Gandhi Nobody Knows

2009-12-17T00:59:00.005-05:00

After the adulatory film Gandhi was released in 1983, the film critic Richard Grenier wrote one of the all-time best take-downs, which is available here in the Commentary archives. In a nutshell, here's what you didn't know about the guy:

Gandhi was overall obstinate, intolerant, and tyrannical. Many of his contemporaries believe his erratic behavior actually delayed Indian independence.
Gandhi was greatly concerned about the rights of Indians in South Africa, but not at all about South African blacks.
Gandhi's concern for low-caste Hindus was minimal. Like many Hindus, Gandhi believed one's caste was indelible in this life, and that karma affected status only following reincarnation. (His first "fast unto death" was in response to a British proposal to increase the status of "Untouchables.")
Gandhi was unconcerned with indigenous movements outside of India, and was opposed, for example, to a similar rise in Arab nationalism amid the decline of the Ottomon Empire.
Gandhi advised Jews and Czechs to commit mass suicide in the face of the Nazis, and exhorted the British to surrender, all based on the mistaken notion that Hitler was "not a bad man," and could be persuaded via nonviolence. Gandhi sent a correspondingly naive letter to Hitler himself.
Oddly, when World War II started, Gandhi contradicted himself by endorsing Poland's military resistance, referring to it as "almost nonviolent."
Undermining British efforts considerably, Gandhi made preparations to allow incursion of the Japanese army into India via Burma, after which he intended to "make them feel unwanted."
While Gandhi championed nonviolence to throw off English control, he often abandoned the ideal during the bloody partition of 1947, during which roughly 1 million people were killed in religious violence.
The great Indian poet Tagore regarded Gandhi's direct confrontations with the British as so reckless and fanatical that any claims to being "nonviolent" were disingenuous. While Gandhi's core followers used nonviolent tactics, the multitudes of hangers-on that vastly outnumbered them were not so controlled.
Gandhi was greatly concerned with the bowel movements of those around him, and constantly gave and received enemas. A large portion of his writings concern excretia.
Gandhi was ignorant on matters of nutrition, subjecting himself and others around him to dangerously unhealthy diets, primarily as a function of his obsession with bowel movements.
Gandhi was fanatically opposed to all but the most minimal sexual activity necessary to procreate. Like many Hindus, he believed semen to be a precious bodily fluid stored within his skull, and that any emission diminished him. When he had a nocturnal emission, "he almost had a nervous breakdown."
Gandhi slept naked with teenage girls, ostensibly to test his vow of chastity.
Gandhi was greatly opposed to all modern technology above the level of spinning wheel, effectively enshrining poverty as an ideal. But oddly for such a luddite, he hand-picked Nehru as India's first Prime Minister, a Fabian Socialist committed to rapid industrialization.
Gandhi allowed his wife to die of pneumonia rather than be treated with an "alien" penicillin shot, but had no similar qualms being treated soon afterwards with quinine once he contracting malaria. He also had no problem having his appendix removed by British doctors.
To top it off, Gandhi treated his sons monstrously.

For what it's worth, Jason DeParle published a critical response to Grenier in the 9/83 issue of The Washington Monthly.

Mainstreamers at ABC News

2009-12-16T08:41:00.005-05:00

Note the word "teabaggers," which has an offensive slang usage, instead of "tea party activists."

Climategate on Front Page of Washington Post

2009-12-07T12:15:00.004-05:00

It's nice to see the climategate controversy reported prominently, in what is overall a very good article, at least considering the expanse of the scandal. Still, this sentence made me howl:

Phil Jones, the unit's director, wrote a colleague that he would "hide" a problem with data from Siberian tree rings with more accurate local air temperature measurements.

Jones didn't say that he hid data that was a problem simply because it was inaccurate; he said that he employed a "trick" suggested by Michael Mann specifically to "hide the decline." It's a well-known "divergence" problem: relatively recent tree-ring data over the past 50 years or so suggest declining temperatures, while presumably more accurate thermometer data indicate a warming trend. The problem is that Jones used tree rings before 1960 and thermometers afterwards, resulting in a dubious hockey-stick rise, one that conveniently matches other dubious hockey sticks Mann produced. If what you're measuring is the historical size of fruit, I expect you'd get much the same result if you started by measuring apples and ended up with oranges. This need to mix dissimilar data sets also raises the obvious question: if the tree-ring data offers such an inaccurate representation of recent climate, why would it offer a reliable proxy for past climate trends? If there's an honest answer, I'd like to hear it.

Also, this sentence:

These are the facts: After an increase in 1998, the world has been historically warm, but its average temperatures have not climbed steadily. Does that mean climate change has stopped?

it would be far more accurate to say that following an increase leading up to 1998 ... average temperatures have "flattened." Also, it begs the question: temperatures are "historically warm" compared to what? Perhaps we're in a warm period compared to the recent Little Ice Age, but not the Medieval Warm Period that immediately preceded it. And, of course, under no circumstances does climate change "stop." (We should "stop" using the meaningless term "climate change.")

Sustainable Sex

2009-12-05T11:05:00.002-05:00

Der Spiegel reports that the mayor of Copenhagen is trying to prevent climate summit attendees not to solicit the the city's prostitutes, by sending attendees post cards that read: "Be sustainable - don't buy sex." Whatever else you can say about prostitution, it's not obvious what it has to do with "sustainability." Isn't it said to be the world's oldest profession? That strikes me as pretty sustainable. Perhaps solicitation might be said to be unsustainable because it costs so much. Alternately, men simply do not have the physical stamina for their sexual escapades to be sustainable.

Climate change as a moral issue

2009-12-02T08:42:00.002-05:00

MIT meteorologist Richard Lindzen, has a fascinating op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, outlining his skepticism of the theory of CO₂-forced global warming. What struck me was this statement, which especially in light of the ongoing "climategate" scandal, suggests that Al Gore's formulation that climate change is primarily a "moral" issue, comes at great cost to scientific progress:

The notion that complex climate "catastrophes" are simply a matter of the response of a single number, GATA [globally averaged temperature anomaly], to a single forcing, CO2 (or solar forcing for that matter), represents a gigantic step backward in the science of climate.... Our perceptions of nature are similarly dragged back centuries so that the normal occasional occurrences of open water in summer over the North Pole, droughts, floods, hurricanes, sea-level variations, etc. are all taken as omens, portending doom due to our sinful ways....

A question about dendroclimatology

2009-12-01T10:23:00.003-05:00

If the CRU ignored tree-ring data from after 1960 because they suggested cooling, thus diverging from presumably more accurate thermometer data that showed warming over the same period, on what basis can tree-ring data be considered accurate when estimating temperatures from long before the standardization of thermometer readings?

I Nominate Harry

2009-11-23T12:36:00.032-05:00

There has been a growing scandal centered around the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit (CRU), an important center of research into the theory of human-influenced climate change, a.k.a. anthropogenic global warming (AGW). Most importantly, CRU maintains the Global Climate Dataset, the raw historical weather station data that forms the primary source for climate change estimates generated by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

On November 19, someone, either a hacker or (more probably) a disgruntled CRU insider, surreptitiously posted a 65-megabyte archive, titled FOI2009.zip, for "Freedom of Information." It features a selection of emails from among CRU's principal scientists dating back to 1996, along with much associated data, code, and documentation, all of which are now being widely scrutinized. Amidst denunciations that the files were illegally obtained, several of the scientists involved have corroborated that many are genuine, and there have as yet been no challenges to the authenticity of any. I believe it unlikely at this point that any of the material will turn out to have been fabricated.

So far, the emails have generated the most comment. Writing for Pajamas Media, Charlie Martin identifies three distinct scandals they reveal, and provides supporting links to specific files for each assertion:

The emails suggest the authors co-operated covertly to ensure that only papers favorable to CO₂-forced AGW were published, and that editors and journals publishing contrary papers were punished. They also attempted to "discipline" scientists and journalists who published skeptical information.

The emails evidence a remarkable hostility directed towards climate skeptics. In one case, the death of a skeptic is described as "cheering news."

The emails suggest that the authors manipulated and "massaged" the data to strengthen the case in favor of unprecedented CO₂-forced AGW, and to suppress their own data if it called AGW into question.

In particular, the emails show a good deal of concern over how to obscure a recent worldwide cooling trend, along with a period 1,000 years ago called the "medieval warm period" in which temperatures rose, with no influence from carbon dioxide, to the point that Greenland could support agriculture.

The emails suggest that the authors co-operated (perhaps the word is "conspired") to prevent data from being made available to other researchers through either data archiving requests or through the Freedom of Information Acts of both the U.S. and the UK.

In particular, the Canadian statistician Steve McIntyre, who publishes the Climate Audit blog, has repeatedly tried to obtain data from CRU, and has repeatedly been turned down. McIntyre was instrumental in discrediting the "hockey stick" graph that purported to show a sudden upward spike in recent temperatures, a graph that featured prominently in Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.

No doubt, the revelations from the CRU files represent a major scientific scandal that should end some careers in disgrace and perhaps even generate a handful of criminal convictions. It should certainly prompt a thorough review of the current state and quality of climate science across the board. But it would be a mistake to focus too closely on the bad behavior of particular scientists. Even if they had behaved admirably in all other respects, it is now becoming apparent as well that the overall quality of the CRU data is itself quite poor. The likelihood that the debate over massively consequential policy proposals, such as the American "cap-and-trade" bill, might rest even in part on such poor data, is nothing short of alarming.

The blogger Devil's Kitchen posted an extended summary of the contents of one of the files found among the archive's non-email documents directory. The post mainly reproduces and summarizes the highly critical (and salty) comments of one Asimov posted to tickerforum.org. The file in question is called HARRY_READ_ME.txt, a very long text file (15,000 lines, three quarters of a megabyte) that represents a log written by a CRU computer programmer named Ian Harris ("Harry") detailing the extraordinary efforts he went through from 2006-2009 to make sense of CRU's set of raw weather station data.

Mr. Ian "Harry" Harris, "data manipulator"

While the technical content of the file is often esoteric, what comes across very clearly is just how out of his depth Harry was in figuring out the "piles and piles of undocumented and inconsistent datasets," and how ad hoc his solutions were. At one point Harry declares flatly: "There is no uniform data integrity, it's just a catalogue of issues that continues to grow as they're found." Jumping to random points within this file, you will find many such red-flag statements. Not only can CRU researchers not provide others with the tools to reproduce their results, they cannot themselves reproduce them. Harry's unfortunate and highly questionable task appears to have been to produce Fortran code that takes raw weather station data, matching it to a set of already published results that were produced by some other undocumented process. The format of this varying input, such as the time and place of each sample value, is often a complete mystery. The text is extraordinary in the series of bald assumptions and seat-of-the-pants hacks it reveals. It's not too strong to say that some of CRU's global temperature records were simply made up.

But consider the context in which this data is used. Predictions over future climate change are the result of sophisticated computer models that represent a complex set of variables, ranging from the effects of cloud cover to ocean circulations. There is a great deal of debate over how best to represent these variables. As a highly complex nonlinear system, these climate variables have to be calculated for relatively tiny areas across the Earth, with each set of results affecting surrounding areas dynamically as the model progresses. Given the complexity of the assumptions that go into making such calculations, consider what happens when what you should be able to assume is your most solid set of input data, the actual historical record of past temperature data worldwide, turns out to have been the product of questionable processes. As a result, it is no wonder that CRU has in the past refused to share its data.

For now, I nominate Harry as the most likely source of the leaked CRU documents. To research the unknown process whose results he was trying to match probably meant he had to review a wide range of past correspondence from the CRU server. If he has the patience to rummage through all this code, he certainly has the patience to do the same for ten years of emails. Reading his log file, you get the strong sense that he understands his own limitations in comprehending the data, and that the quality of his work suffers as a result. You get the strong sense that Harry has a conscience. But then, it could be anyone. I'm just guessing. You know, making it up as I go.

Has 20 Years of Political Correctness Taught Us Nothing?

2009-11-12T20:18:00.011-05:00

The host of NPR's On Point show, Tom Ashbrook, introduces Susan Shirk, in today's discussion concerning "a Chinese perspective from Shanghai" on President Obama's visit:

From Lincoln, Nebraska, we're joined by Susan Shirk, professor at the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California, San Diego. She oversaw U.S.-China policy at the State Department from 1997 to 2000, and she founded the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue, a forum that right now is sponsoring high-level talks between North Korea, the United States and others over Korean peninsula nuclear issues. Her latest book is “China: Fragile Superpower.” ...

Ashbrook's first question to Ms. Shirk concerns whether China still sees the United States as the #1 world power. Shirk's first utterance of any substance, starting at the 3:10 mark:

Well, I think Asia still respects the United States tremendously, but there certainly are some chinks in our armor…

It's Contagious!

2009-11-06T13:15:00.005-05:00

Last night, CNN aired an argument over whether the Ft. Hood shooter, Dr. Hasan, might have suffered from PTSD after treating numerous soldiers who suffered from PTSD. This segment gave me a touch of PTSD, and is likely to do the same for you, especially after the 3:40 mark:

Tomorrow, Mariah Carey! Buford, Illinois, you're on the air!

Because People Are Starving in Africa, Don't Finish Your Peas

2009-10-25T11:21:00.002-04:00

Jennifer Aniston explains her regimen:

"I take a three-minute shower," she told Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas Kostigen, authors of The Green Book. She even brushes her teeth while she's in there. "Every two minutes in the shower uses as much water as a person in Africa uses for everything in their life for a whole day!"

(via Althouse)

NPR Whitewashes ACORN Scandals

2009-10-17T01:13:00.007-04:00

My letter to NPR:

I am perfectly willing to believe that ACORN does some good work that is deserving of open praise, but Pam Fessler's sympathetic report on the organization strained my patience to the limit. It referred obliquely to "videos" made by two undercover conservative activists, and an account of the pair being turned away at one office, without mentioning their success at getting much the same set of damning footage at no fewer than five different offices, certainly no fluke. It refers politely to the "sketchy advice" the pair was able to solicit from ACORN workers, but did nothing to outline the wide range of criminal activities ACORN workers revealed themselves willing to facilitate. I give credit to Fessler in noting ACORN's embezzlement scandal, but it would have added some perspective to note its new $5 million price tag, up from $1 million. Listeners would have also benefitted from more details on the range of ongoing allegations of voter registration fraud and illegal use of federal funds for explicit political activity. Some of the time Fessler might have used to present such useful contextual information was taken up instead by a tape of one staff member openly weeping at the thought ACORN was being attacked, as if for no reason. Please, don't insult my intelligence.

Consider if several congressmen were caught in a similar undercover sting. Would NPR produce a report reminding us how some congressmen are not corrupt? Please.

UPDATE: About them being roundly turned away at one office, the one in Philadelphia, we've apparently been misinformed.

Fugitive: The Sequel

2009-09-28T10:03:00.009-04:00

Tommy Lee Jones should be in talks right now about the film treatment of the Polanski bust.

"But I'm a genius film director..."
"I don't care!"
"But the girl's alright with it now and doesn't want me prosecuted..."
"I don't care!"
"But there may have been irregularities in the original prosecution..."
"I don't care!"
"But most Europeans think this is silly..."
"I don't care!"
"But lots of important people wanted to see me receive this award..."
"I don't care!"
"But wasn't it considerate of me to give her a bu-fu to avoid a pregnancy?"
"I don't care!"

Terrorist's Apprentice

2009-09-23T16:30:00.007-04:00

The news that Moammar Qaddafi planned to pitch a tent at the estate of fellow obnoxious attention fiend Donald Trump got me to think of what a perfect scenario it would be for a reality television show:

So, Ahmed, I really like your idea of the targeted assassinations of rival clan leaders, and especially making it look like the Mossad is behind the violence. That was definitely a nice, creative touch. The New York Times would definitely go for that, I'm sure. And it totally nails some basic requirements: before you can be effective in projecting terror outwards, you gotta, gotta always consolidate your power. Can't tell you how many guys come in here with all sorts of gee-whiz ideas, but forgetting to terrorize their own people first. I'm not saying baby steps, don't be bold, but a lot of this is just basic due diligence that should be obvious to anyone who's been in the business.
So I like all that, and it's good stuff we can definitely work with. But I have to say it lost a lot in the presentation. You gotta always pay attention to the details. First of all, totally inappropriate to come in here with all those PowerPoint slides. Doesn't work in the tent anyway. The lighting's all off. I can barely see them, and you should have known that running the power supply all the way from the guard room would be such a distraction. So that was a problem.
But mostly it's just a basic matter of time. I'm a busy man, and if you're going to make me a pitch, it's gotta be BOOM-BOOM-BOOM. Understand? And Moammar here, he's got a speech to deliver to the General Assembly in an hour and a half. Means he's got to be on the Hutchinson Parkway in thirty minutes, tops. And that's with a police escort. So don't waste our time with all the boring analysis of the comparative casualty counts, and being on the defensive because you're not going to target a whole city for destruction. Casualty counts mean nothing these days, anyway, when what you're going for is media impact. Doesn't take a lot of casualties to get a big payoff. And I gotta level with you. Dirty bombs and biological agents? I've seen that, I see it all the time as a matter of fact, and it's a whole different animal. You don't always have to compete on that level. Don't even waste time talking about it, is my advice to you.
And frankly, there's not as much of a market for all that stuff right now, anyway, so there's no point in letting it muddy up your pitch. Know your audience. Moammar here's definitely not interested in doing any of that right now. I mean, the time is not right. Market conditions. Nothing but trouble all around. You can see the sort of image he's trying to project, giving up his WMD program and all that. He's definitely not going to be blowing up any planes or discos this time around, so you gotta realize you have a leg up on your competitors. You're already on the same page, and you've got something appealing already in the bag, so why not then recognize that and maximize your advantage as part of your pitch? The guys you're initially competing against are not the Jews or the Americans, they're standing right next to you. They're the ones you gotta be watching out for.
By getting all defensive and trying to measure up to what these other guys are doing, what you're telling me is that deep down, you're not willing to differentiate yourself, and you don't really believe your idea is a good one. And when the rubber hits the road, what I want most is terrorists I know I can rely on. Who'll go that extra distance, and who believe in what they're doing. And yes, who'll blow themselves up if that's what's called for. But sometimes a good strategist with a good overview is worth a whole lot more than a delivery man, and I've seen some definite potential for you on that front. But bottom line, you gotta show up for the game, and to be perfectly honest, you don't strike me as smart enough to realize you might be bringing something more valuable to the table. I don't know, maybe you need to be a delivery man. If you're just gonna be some insecure kid off the street and aren't willing to say, hey, this is me, I've got a lot to offer, I'm going to be a valuable asset to you and your organization, maybe that's what's in the cards for you. That's your decision. I can't make it for you. Maybe you can go work for one of Ahmadinejad's operations and see where that gets you. [laughter]
So, after after some time to consider the matter, and after consulting with my colleagues, I have to ask you to pack up your suitcase bomb. You're fired. You can leave via the front gate, or if you choose to go the other route, you'll be escorted out by a number of virgins. I don't know, are they really? Maybe. Whatever. Thank you. Goodbye.

If you had to read on piece on health care reform...

2009-09-15T08:23:00.002-04:00

More than just "required reading," I think this piece should undercut and crowd out all other articles on health care reform, leaving it the only one remaining alternative available.

Rep. Wilson Shows Poor Taste

2009-09-10T11:18:00.001-04:00

Shame on Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) for shouting an accusation at the president last night. Follow tradition of British parliament. When being lied to, an inarticulate murmur of disapproval will do.

Czar Crazy

2009-09-09T00:56:00.003-04:00

My letter to The New Republic:

John McWhortle is on the right track when he suggests the "trutherism" espoused by Van Jones may represent "a tantrum from people out of power," a "gestural, performative ... animus" on par with the right's recent overreaction to the botched publicity leading up to Obama's address to American students. But it's unfathomable why McWhortle would then consider not only Jones's resignation, but his very repudiation of trutherist ideas inappropriate.
McWhortle says the idea the Bush administration orchestrated the Sept. 11 attacks is "hardly unknown among people of the left," which should give us all pause. Leftists may not actually believe that idea, McWhortle suggests, but are willing to give voice to it because being out of power renders them half mad with hysteria. In either case, placing anyone, left or right, who exhibits such behavior in a position of responsibility (even a lowly "czar") is simply a bad idea. You want people who can think clearly and whose perspectives are consistently grounded in reality. Is that too much to ask?

Of course, why should the paranoia of Van Jones be so casually accommodated, but not Glenn Beck's or President Obama's ed-speech protestors?

Renewing Cash for Clunkers

2009-08-23T11:35:00.000-04:00

I will miss Cash for Clunkers. How about we give people cash for every bad public policy idea they turn in, so that those ideas can never be used again? To qualify, they would have to suppress the economy, feature significant internal contradictions, upend centuries of common sense, or feature berserk incentives that in short order make them spin out of control. We can bury them all at Yucca Mountain.

Blackwater and the CIA's "Unsuccessful" Assassination Program

2009-08-20T14:50:00.002-04:00

My latest letter to the Globe regarding a piece reprinted from the New York Times:

A report on Blackwater's involvement in a controversial and now defunct CIA program designed to assassinate top Al Qaeda operatives says the agency "spent several million dollars on the program, which did not capture or kill any terrorist suspects." While nominally true, casual readers may well conclude this money was abjectly wasted, and would find it difficult to grasp an essential point. No part of this program ever became operational, so the fact that it didn't kill any Al Qaeda members is hardly remarkable. Similarly, the statement that Blackwater helped the CIA with "planning, training, and surveillance" implies some other set of activities than those few. The story's headline goes even further in suggesting something might have actually happened: "Blackwater had key role in '04 secret mission."
It's not hard to understand why there would be so little acknowledgment that the program never made it past the planning stage, because then the juicy controversy about it not having been revealed to Congress would evaporate. To the extent there is any acknowledgment, the report implies some controversy over allowing "unaccountable" third-party contractors any involvement in such planning. However, let me express my gratitude at the outcome, in which relatively few CIA agents were diverted from their work of both planning and implementing other programs that ultimately were successful in decimating Al Qaeda.

Low Unemployment in D.C.

2009-08-19T13:27:00.008-04:00

Something is wrong with this picture. Indeed.com is a job search engine that has an interesting feature comparing job prospects in different regions of the country. The ratio of job postings to unemployed is twice as good in Washington D.C. than the next-ranked metropolitan area, Jacksonville, Florida. Click to enlarge:

Of course, Detroit provides another major outlier on the other end:

The Problem with Cash-for-Clunkers

2009-08-04T16:12:00.002-04:00

It's amusing how the media generally assumes the popularity of the cash-for-clunkers program means it would have been a good thing had only the program been well administered. An economist might see that popularity as a sign of inefficiency: a subsidy to manufacture unnecessary new cars, whose environmental impacts may exceed the marginal amount of pollution generated by the clunker. It gets more absurd the more optimism you apply to future trends. We keep hearing we're on the verge of all sorts of unprecedented boosts in automotive efficiency. If that were the case, keeping all those clunkers on the road for as long as possible, and not retiring them artificially early, would maximize the environmental benefit when it inevitably comes time to switch to a new vehicle.

In fact, "intricate" is what you might call a "code word"

2009-07-23T10:30:00.004-04:00

My latest letter to the Globe:

In a report over the controversy surrounding the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Globe paraphrases "some black leaders" as saying that Cambridge needs "to address the intricacies of race in a direct manner." This is an absurd statement. If the issue of race is "intricate," it's unclear at best how it could be appropriately addressed in a "direct" manner. In that case, racial matters would be "simple" or "straightforward." Please do not introduce nonsense into your news reports.

...the inevitable end of that sentence being: because there's already plenty of nonsense as it is!

"Racism" floats to the top of the Henry Louis Gates story

2009-07-21T22:11:00.012-04:00

My latest letter to the Globe:

The Globe's report on the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. for disorderly conduct, after Cambridge police responded to a call of a break-in at his home, does everything possible to suggest that racism was the underlying factor driving the incident.
It sets a provocative scene of "two black men on the porch of a stately home on a tree-lined Cambridge street." It then relates how Gates's outraged Harvard colleaugues assert that racism flourishes "even in a liberal enclave like Harvard Square." It relates perceived racism at the hands of police around Harvard, mentions one professor having been stopped on the street following a robbery, along with his assertion that "black males are being targeted by Cambridge police for harassment."
Only three quarters of the way through the article is there a somewhat accurate description of what led to the police call: that two men were repeatedly trying to force their way through the front door. No, they weren't just standing on the porch being black.
Given Gates's strong reaction to the police entering his house under the misapprehension that he might have broken in, the Globe's reporters might as well have dispensed with the racial angle, instead suggesting that even in neighborhoods surrounding the Harvard campus, outraged self-importance is prevalent.

UPDATE: It made it, without any substantial changes. And correction: the arresting officer asserts in his report that he only entered the premises to follow Gates to the room where he kept his identification, understandable as a matter of safety.

UPDATE: While I have every reason to believe the incident was not racially motivated, and was mostly driven by the lack of cooperation Gates displayed to the police, this post by Patterico actually persuaded me that the cops were wrong to arrest Gates. In that, I believe my experience may mirror that of the arresting officer himself. I am so deeply offended at these ritualistic, spurious invocations of racism as to consider them fighting words, and I become overly willing to break out the handcuffs on the guy.

That said, and even agreeing with Patterico on this point, I'm ready to break out the handcuffs once again after witnessing President Obama address the matter in a press conference tonight, in an absolutely disgraceful performance, even after the perfunctory admission of ignorance on the matter, completely omitting anything Gates might have done to provoke his own arrest, and blathering on yet more about racism. Clearly, this is going to be the template: even though we have a black president, the fact that such a prominent African American intellectual can be arrested on his own porch means nothing has changed, and that it's open season on the black man! What utter mendacity.

Sure enough, Gates is certainly getting a lot of mileage out of the incident, as this Globe follow-up makes clear:

"I believe the police officer should apologize to me for what he knows he did that was wrong," Gates said in a phone interview from Martha's Vineyard. "If he apologizes sincerely, I am willing to forgive him. And if he admits his error, I am willing to educate him about the history of racism in America and the issue of racial profiling.
"That's what I do for a living," he added.

Indeed, that's what he does. Thanks, by the way, for the generous offer! Could it be Gates's deep familiarity with "the history of racism in America" have in any way colored his perceptions of events others might have seen as mundane? Does the fact that he got busted simply serve as confirmation bias? Crap, he even may make a documentary based on the incident, because, after all, this is what he does for a living.

Will History be Kind to Bush on Iran?

2009-06-17T17:36:00.005-04:00

Prepare yourself for the unsettling possibility that history may be kind to the Bush administration's efforts to forment democracy in Iran. As one data point, note this three-year-old editorial from the Irish Independent. It appeared during a period of intense speculation that the Bush Administration was preparing a military strike against Iran:

Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, told Congress that "we may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran". Drawing inspiration from the Cold War, America is putting in place a strategy to undermine the Iranian regime from within, not least by pumping money into radio and television broadcasts aimed at Iran—particularly young Iranians deemed to be hostile to the regime and friendly to the West....
The trouble is that there is no guarantee of when this policy will succeed, if ever.

Here's a similar Los Angeles Times op-ed from the same period by a pair of analysts from the Council on Foreign Relations. Its title, "The wrong way to fix Iran," may well prove ill-chosen.

The Bush administration quietly orchestrated a major shift in U.S. policy toward Iran this month, requesting $85 million from Congress to help bring about regime change in Tehran. Washington is now seeking not just to contain Tehran's nuclear ambitions but also to topple the Iranian government.
The war in Iraq has made all too clear the high cost of using military force to attain regime change. Accordingly, the administration is taking a page from Eastern Europe, where the United States used radio broadcasts and direct assistance to opposition groups to help undermine authoritarian governments and promote democracy. Administration officials explicitly cited Poland's Solidarity movement as a model.
Although democratizing Iran is a worthy objective, the administration is making a mistake in embracing a strategy for regime change based on the European experience. Conditions in Iran bear little resemblance to those that accompanied the downfall of dictatorial regimes in Europe....

Here's a similar one from The Guardian called "Drumbeat sounds familiar," which notes the Bush administration's effort to bolster democratic agitation on the part of Iran's ethnic minorites:

[Iranian officials] cite a US decision to spend $75m on funding potential Iranian opposition forces, including NGOs, trade unions and human rights groups, and local language propaganda broadcasts—tactics pioneered in Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine. Iran accuses the US of stirring discontent among its Kurdish, Baluch and Azeri minorities, suspicions fed by a US marine corps investigation to gauge the strength of opposition to the central government among non-Persian groups....

Certainly, there's little way yet to gauge the degree to which today's democratic agitation may have been influenced by Bush administration policy, but it's worth a try.

Objecting to Race vs. Race Consciousness

2009-06-01T16:26:00.008-04:00

My latest letter to the Globe. The report in question is a reprint of a Los Angeles Times piece that features a casual smear of Senator Cornyn. As blogger Patterico points out, the Times subsequently removed the offensive text without noting the error.

According to a report on the Supreme Court confirmation process, Texas Sen. John Cornyn "pledged that he and other Republican lawmakers would probe deeply into Sotomayor's past comments and rulings to see whether her heritage colors her ability to make fair decisions." This characterization represents a smear. Cornyn did not say "her heritage" might affect her ability to make fair rulings. Indeed, in the same interview with ABC News, he said the opposite: that it "shouldn't make any difference what your ethnicity is." What Cornyn did call attention to was Sotomayor's own racially-charged suggestion that her status as a "wise Latina woman" would allow her to make better decisions than a white male. Cornyn did not question Sotomayor's race, but rather her race-consciousness. Perhaps sensitive to this important distinction, the Los Angeles Times, from which the Globe procured the report, unceremoniously removed those words from its online version of the text. Perhaps the Globe could, alternately, do the decent thing and offer a correction.

Boston Globe suggests, approvingly, that Obama's Iran policy inhabits parallel universe

2009-05-26T13:52:00.007-04:00

Peter Canellos in the Boston Globe, May 26, 2009:

In the climactic action sequence of "Star Trek," the year's most popular movie, the new, younger Captain Kirk does something novel for a big summer action flick: He offers leniency to an enemy.
Turning to a puzzled Mr. Spock, Kirk explains that showing leniency toward the rival Romulans could promote trust and increase the chances of reconciliation, for the betterment of the galaxy.
"It's logical," he declares.
But before the data-driven Spock can process this unique piece of information, the Romulan leader, Captain Nero, seems to remember that he's in an American action movie and is expected to act accordingly. He snarls that he would rather be blown to shreds than accept a nickel of kindness from Kirk, who promptly obliges him.
It's hard to know what the filmmakers intend to convey through this age-of-Obama moment....

Here's the crux. Not to spoil the plot, but it appears moral equivalence is so strongly ingrained that it is habitually extended even to disputes between fictional groups such as the Romulans and the Federation:

In the movie's conception of good and evil, both Nero and Spock are acting appropriately in avenging perceived wrongs, and the proof of Nero's evil and Spock's virtue is mainly in the fact that Spock prevails: God, science, nature, and the special-effects team at Paramount all combine to create a universe in which force and justice go hand in hand.
No wonder Nero rejected Kirk's overtures. Cooperation, in this universe, is indistinguishable from submission. Peace is inherently dishonorable.

Two, Two, Two Enthusiasms in One

2009-05-22T12:36:00.015-04:00

In honor of Earth Day, a series of "Eco-Sex" recommendations from Marie Claire, April 2009:

Love Yourself, Love Your Planet. Take landfill-clogging batteries out of the equation with Sola, a small bullet-shaped vibrator powered by the sun. ($69.95; shop.libida.com)
Conflict-Free Rubbers. When you buy your condoms from the French Letter Condom Company, a chunk of the proceeds go towards ensuring that the rubber-plantation workers receive fair wages. (approximately $13, ethicalsuperstore.com)
S&M with a Conscience. Earth Erotics’ Standard Recycled Rubber Whip is a handcrafted spanker made from recycled car and truck tire parts. ($40; eartherotics.com)
Give Some, Get Some. Trade in your broken Rabbit and wornout handcuffs for a $10 coupon and free shipping on your next sex toy through the mail-in Sex Toy Recycling Program (recyclemysextoy.com). Sorry, curbside pickup not available.

(via the American Spectator)

I read it on Andrew Sullivan's blog

2009-05-05T14:01:00.003-04:00

"You're all wrong. It turns out it was Michael Palin who's the real mother."

—Winston Churchill

The Globe's Non Sequitur

2009-05-04T15:48:00.004-04:00

My own apparent motivation is to have a letter printed in the last issue of the Boston Globe telling them what imbeciles they are:

A Globe editorial discussing delays in the cabinet approval process features a pair of sentences that, taken together, defy reason. "Yet some interest groups - and senators - seem less interested in considering the merits of a nominee than in scoring political points. The lone vote on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee against Hillary Clinton as secretary of state came from Louisiana's David Vitter, whose reputation as a family-values conservative was damaged in a prostitution scandal."
The Globe appears to be suggesting that any vote against confirming Clinton could not have been due to her merits as a nominee. The Globe also appears to believe that Vitter's status as a hypocrite on "family-values" issues informs his vote against confirmation, but fails to explain how. For the record, Vitter's stated reason for opposing confirmation was potential conflicts of interest stemming from numerous donations to the Clinton Presidential Library from foreign governments.
It's amusing to read one sentence decrying the impulse to score cheap political points followed by another that demonstrates exactly that.

Report Ignores Revealed Preference

2009-04-27T23:42:00.005-04:00

A letter in response to a report on my local NPR station:

Tonight WBUR aired an engaging report by Rachel Gotbaum on palliative care, one that focused on the diminishing returns end-of-life medical interventions often bring, especially as medical advances extend lives further and make people more likely to die of long-drawn-out chronic diseases.
I found one aspect of the report questionable, however: its conclusion that patients are ill-served by the medical establishment's focus on doing everything in their power to keep their older patients alive. Instead, the report cited a "national survey" that people would prefer to die at home, surrounded by family, and with no pain -- a preference we're clearly not meeting because 80% of us die in institutions.
The problem with such survey data is that it's far less reliable than data on how people actually behave. Of course, when asked, people will naturally respond that they don't want to die in pain, but that's not necessarily a realistic option if your goal is to live longer. Those who value a pain-free death so highly would commit suicide well before their chronic conditions caused such discomfort. A proper survey should mirror such real-life constraints, e.g., by asking: "which would you rather do, die peacefully at 80, or more painfully at 85, but at least be able to see your grandchildren grow a few more years?"
By ignoring the manifest preference expressed by the behavior of health care consumers, the report instead focuses exclusively on the role of health care providers. It refers to a "health care system determined to keep everyone alive," as if patients have no choice in that determination. The report hints that increased rationing of health care is the appropriate response, which only seems natural given its narrow focus on cost-efficiency.
It's certainly appropriate to consider alternate systems that deliver a lower level of health care, especially when the costs of such expensive end-of-life care are not internalized. However, the suggestion that we'd prefer not to avail ourselves of such care is a dubious one.

This argument based on "revealed preference" reminded me of a similar one I posed concerning the death penalty.

UPDATE: Sure enough, the following day's report told the heart-wrenching story of a man who wanted to die from a chronic condition at home, but who after collapsing there was taken to an emergency room, where he was force-fed with a feeding tube, and tied down to prevent him from yanking it out of his mouth, until finally he died. This truly horrifying story was taken to mean health care providers should not go to great efforts to keep patients alive. But this seems a simple issue of communicating the patient's wishes. Assuming the patient is competent, the decision is his.

Is Craigslist Responsible?

2009-04-23T13:53:00.007-04:00

Another letter to the Globe:

Editorializing on the murder of Julissa Brisman, the Globe concludes that unless Web firms such as Craigslist "take more responsibility for how their sites are used," Americans may "need to get used to a lot more risk in the spaces where they gather." This is both vague and incorrect in this instance. Craigslist does nothing to increase the risk a young woman offering herself as a prostitute already faces when going into a hotel room with a total stranger. There is no risk whatsoever of bodily harm to other Americans. If the phrase "spaces where they gather" encompasses online virtual spaces, the only risk is seeing such a classified posting, akin to seeing a print ad for "escort services."

Is it worth pointing out that web sites like Criagslist are the primary reason the Boston Globe is failing as a business?

UPDATE: It made it, along with two editorial changes.

First, they changed "prostitute" to "provider of erotic services," leading to a far more awkward sentence. The original editorial features the word "prostitution", even if not calling any one person a "prostitute." While the change could be a routine PC filter, it's possible the Globe was trying to be sensitive to the possibility that Brisman may not have been engaging in prostitution, in the strict legal sense of a direct exchange of sex for money.

Second, they removed the phrase in this instance, which significantly alters my meaning. That is, I consider it a truism that when compared with other crimes aided by traditional communication technologies, the Web increases the overall risk of such violent encounters due to increased opportunities for interaction.

Is Globe Dying Because of its Bias?

2009-04-07T16:57:00.011-04:00

Hurry! There may not be many more letters like these to the Globe left!

I disagree with various letter writers pointing to liberal bias as the main source of the Globe's financial problems. Newspapers are in trouble across the board, primarily due to migration of readers and advertising revenue towards the Internet. If liberal bias were costing the Globe widespread circulation, the Herald would be expected to benefit from the error, but instead we find that paper is also struggling to stay afloat.
That said, the Globe clearly does display a leftward bias, and you wouldn't need to look further for an example than today's article by Peter Canellos titled: "In a stroke of brilliance, Obama defies easy caricature." [National Perpective, 4/7/09] It is the sort of highly opinionated, insubstantial "analysis" that would ordinarily belong in a paper's editorial pages, if even there. Asserting that President Obama "floats above the fray," Canellos fails to reference any "stroke of brilliance" that would immunize him from routine criticism other than his "calm, serious manner" and "air of persistence."
While reinforcing a hazily favorable opinion, Canellos shies away from any substantial criticism. In particular, the president's comments -- "We haven't immediately eliminated the influence of lobbyists in Washington. We have not immediately eliminated wasteful pork projects" -- are transparently laughable considering the stimuluating effect the coursing of trillions of additional dollars through Washington has had on lobbyists. Any self-respecting journalist should lunge at the opportunity to highlight such an absurdity. Canellos's point that criticism doesn't stick to this president is made far easier by ignoring such criticism rather than evaluating its merits.
If the Globe is to survive in an on-line world, it will be based on the credibility of its primary reporting operation now that opinions are so easy to generate. To that extent, the Globe's bias matters.

We'll be eating very safe junk food

2009-03-31T09:41:00.001-04:00

A letter I sent to my Rep:

I urge you to oppose HR 875, or any similar legislation that imposes additional regulatory burdens on local food providers. The level of food safety in the USA is unmatched, and there is little reason to believe this legislation will improve the quality of our diet. Instead, it will lead to increased centralization overall. The job of regulation will migrate away from states and towards the federal government, whose responsiveness to the lobbying of agricultural giants is well known. Smaller independent food providers will have more difficulty absorbing the resulting regulatory costs than these large conglomerates. Farm stands (such as Verrill's & Mrs. Marabello's) will have to maintain an on-site "Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point" plan, or else be fined up to $1 million. The law's requirements will be especially devastating to purveyors of locally grown, organic, and artisinal food products. In particular, anything that raises the cost of locally grown produce relative to supermarket food will, on balance, decrease the quality of our diet. We'll be eating very safe junk food.

Google Rolls out "Orwellian" Service

2009-02-10T00:13:00.007-05:00

Back in 1984, I recall Orwell's book often discussed as a prophesy of our own times. The evidence for such a comparison? Supermarket check-out scanners. Cameras that snapped your picture when you sped through a toll booth.

Peter Funt should look up the word "eavesdrop" in the dictionary. He uses that word, along with other scare words such as "Orwellian" and "snooping," to describe Google's latest "Latitude" location-tracking service. This, in the same paragraph in which he notes it's for "consenting users" who opt in so that they can keep in touch with their friends. By definition, if you opt in, what happens is not "eavesdropping."
After seeing his house pictured on the web using Google's Street Views, which incorporates street-level photos into its mapping service, Funt also worries that burglars might see the "open window on the second floor" and find it inviting. What he fails to mention is that the picture was likely snapped months ago, and that in the meantime he may have had the good sense to close his window.
If Funt insists on using the word "Orwellian," the least he can do is supply credible scenarios in which the technology leads to a totalitarian government. Instead, he asks rhetorically, what if he paid a team to scan innumerable Street View images for "driveways in need of repair, then sold the list to a paving company?" I'll tell you what: at worst, you get a piece of mail from a paving company, which you then throw in the trash.
Funt compares Google's service to existing manifestations of "Big Brother," such as convenience-store security cameras, seemingly oblivious to the actual reason those cameras are there. For one thing, if someone happens to steal Mr. Funt's credit card and pass it at one of those stores, police will use the video to catch the criminal and thus protect Mr. Funt's privacy.
There's an appropriate response to this ongoing hysterical tendency to ascribe malevolence to so many unfamiliar technologies: LOL.

It made it.

Little Criticism of $160 Price Tag for Obama Inauguration

2009-01-17T11:35:00.019-05:00

Upon learning the upcoming Obama Inauguration will cost approximately $160 million, roughly quadrupling the overall cost of Bush's 2005 Inauguration, it's a useful exercise to revisit some of the commentary criticizing that previous event.

Here's James Dao in the New York Times, January 23, 2005, in an article provocatively titled "Don't They Know There's a War On"?

Enjoy the party!" a protestor shouted in cheerful greeting to Republicans arriving at a pre-inaugural party here. "People are dying in Iraq. Enjoy the champagne!"
To many Democrats, images of Republicans in sequined gowns and designer tuxedos nibbling roast quail and twirling the Texas two-step in last week's $40 million-plus inaugural extravaganza seemed inappropriate, unseemly, even unpatriotic, when American soldiers are dying in Iraq.
"Precedent suggests that inaugural festivities should be muted — if not cancelled — in wartime," Representative Anthony Weiner, a Democrat from New York, chided in a letter to President Bush. Citing Franklin D. Roosevelt's austere fourth inaugural in 1945, Mr. Weiner suggested that the money would have been better spent on armored Humvees and pay bonuses for the troops.
In a nationwide Gallup Poll released last week, 54 percent of respondents said the inauguration should have been toned down because the country was at war....

Note that the only sign of Gallup asking people about Obama’s inauguration centers around whether it’ll be the most significant inaugural in American history, or simply one of the most significant.

Anne E. Kornblut in the New York Times, January 15, 2005:

With less than a week to go until her husband's second inauguration, Laura Bush on Friday defended the decision to hold the $40 million celebration as planned despite a war abroad and the tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean.
Inaugurations, Mrs. Bush said, are "an important part of our history."
"They're a ceremony of our history; they're a ritual of our government," she said in a round-table interview with reporters in the White House map room. "And I think it's really important to have the inauguration every time. I think it's also good for Washington's economy, for people to come in from around the country, for the hotels to be full, and the restaurants to be full, and the caterers to be busy. I think that's important."

The BBC News, January 20, 2005:

With an estimated price tag of $40m, the three-day celebration that is President Bush’s second inauguration will be the most expensive ever….
Some have criticised the expense, questioning the propriety of a flashy celebration as US troops are dying in Iraq and South Asia still recovers from last month’s deadly tsunami.
The overt criticism of an inauguration is unusual, but a Washington Post poll found that a majority of Americans would prefer a smaller, more subdued event.

The Los Angeles Times, January 21, 2005:

The coronation — excuse me, inauguration — of George Bush reminded me of the “let them eat cake” days of the French monarchy. Forget mounting casualties in Iraq, tsunami victims and thousands facing starvation in Africa, let’s party! After all, it cost only $40 million; that’s less that a buck apiece for American families living below the poverty line or without health insurance.
While I suppose some sort of ceremony is in order for the beginning of Bush’s second term, it seems unconscionable that such a celebratory mood exists in Washington today. Young kids in their 20s continue to die daily in Iraq, tsunami victims try to reassemble their lives, heavy storm victims in California do the same and dysfunction throughout the world seems at an all-time extreme.

Here's another reference to "let them eat cake," this one from an open letter to President Bush from CBS’s Lloyd Garver, January 12, 2005:

Like millions of Americans, I was moved by your appeal to open my heart and wallet at this time and think about the victims of the tsunami in Southeast Asia. Now I’m appealing to you to hold a more modest inauguration celebration so that money can be used for a more appropriate cause.
Currently, the celebration is estimated at a cost of between $40 and $50 million. It’s scheduled to go on for four days, and will include nine official balls, countless “unofficial parties,” and a parade. I know the dollar isn’t worth what it once was, and the price of those little hot dogs keeps going up, but a four-day, $50-million party? Considering what’s going on in the world, these plans make Marie Antoinette’s “Let them eat cake” attitude seem like the height of sensitivity….
And that’s all I’m asking. I’m not suggesting that you cancel it. Celebrate. Have a party. Have a big party. Get all dressed up and dance at the elegant ball. Have some ribs at the Texas Black Tie and Boots Ball. But don’t have a four-day “coronation” that says to the world, “champagne and caviar are more important to us than human lives.” Cut back on the party and ask those guys to give their big money to something that’s really important — just as you asked all Americans.
Charity balls instead of self-indulgent balls seem like a pretty good idea at this time. Think of what could be done with that $50 million if you convinced those sponsors to spend their money on more meaningful things than paté and limos. How many parentless victims of the tsunami could be saved with that money? How much body armor could be provided for our soldiers with that money? How many soldiers’ families who are having a tough time financially could be helped?

Here's the USA Today, January 14, 2005:

President Bush’s second inauguration will cost tens of millions of dollars — $40 million alone in private donations for the balls, parade and other invitation-only parties. With that kind of money, what could you buy?

Two hundred Humvees with the best armor for troops in Iraq.
Vaccinations and preventive health care for 22 million children in regions devastated by the tsunami.
A down payment on the nation’s deficit, which hit a record-breaking $412 billion last year….
But a recent confluence of events —the tsunami natural disaster, Bush’s warning about Social Security finances and the $5 billion-a-month price tag for the war in Iraq — have many Americans now wondering why spend the money the second time around….
Billionaire Mark Cuban, owner of the National Basketball Association’s Dallas Mavericks, voted for Bush — twice. Cuban knows a thing or two about big spending, once starring in ABC’s reality TV show, “The Benefactor,” in which 16 contenders tried to pass his test for success and win $1 million.
Cuban questioned spending all that money on the inaugural.
“As a country, we face huge deficits. We face a declining economy. We have service people dying. We face responsibilities to help those suffering from the … devastation of the tsunamis,” he wrote on his blog, a Web journal.

Here, by the way, is what Mr. Cuban has to say about the 2009 inaugural on his blog, a Web Journal, thoughts he posted in the wake of the terrorist attack on Mumbai:

Four years ago I suggested that the Bush administration cancel the inauguration parties and instead ask corporations to donate that money to the victims of the Tsunami.
Its fair to ask where I stand on the coming inauguration and whether parties should be canceled and money sent to the victims of the tragedy in India.
When the tsunami hit, it was a devastaion of epic proportions. Raising money for the survivors and rebuilding was a responsibility we as a nation accepted. We had telethons, events and fund raisers to try to help. The unfortunate situation in India, at least as it stands today, is not one that can be helped by contributions to the survivors. Thoughts and prayers, yes. Potentially support for anti terrorism programs, yes. But re-routing funds from anything to India, as least as far as I am aware, won’t help survivors or hostages at this time.

Point taken. Still, for an analogous well of bottomless need, may I suggest offering relief to mortgage holders facing foreclosure?

UPDATE: Some of my comments in response to the idea that the first quote was out of context, plus some musings on grammar.

Ecclesiastes 1:9

2009-01-07T20:39:00.002-05:00

A useful bit of information:

What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.

Nonsense about Hurricanes

2009-01-07T20:14:00.005-05:00

A note I just sent to FightGlobalWarming.com:

Your "tick" ad is nothing short of shameful, and to enlist children in dissemination of such propaganda is even worse. There is zero empirical evidence, and only the most speculative theoretical underpinning, for the notion that global warming -- from whatever cause -- might lead to increased severity or frequency of hurricanes. Read the latest IPCC report. If anything, warming should lead to decreased temperature differentials between tropical and polar regions, and thus less severe weather patterns overall.
My sincere belief is this: one day our ancestors will look back and consider our response to global warming. They will conclude that, based on the information available at the time, there were definitely some plausible elements of concern. Still, they will assign the word "hysteria" to this period in all their textbooks. They will look back at us the same way we look back at the McCarthy era.

...to which I'll add that college freshmen will roll their eyes at the thought of having to explain the various ways we displayed our ignorance.

No Fundraising for Exclusive Diseases

2008-12-10T00:23:00.000-05:00

The Canadian National Post, November 25, 2008:

The Carleton University Students' Association has voted to drop a cystic fibrosis charity as the beneficiary of its annual Shinearama fundraiser, supporting a motion that argued the disease is not "inclusive" enough.
Cystic fibrosis "has been recently revealed to only affect white people, and primarily men" said the motion read Monday night to student councillors, who voted almost unanimously in favour of it.

(via Critical Mass)

Call it what it is

2008-12-04T20:28:00.001-05:00

A letter to my local paper, The Concord Journal:

An article concerning a CD release by local musician Robert Grappel describes the autoharp inaccurately as "an American folk instrument that looks like a trapezoidal box with strings across it." Correction: in fact, an autoharp is a trapezoidal box with strings across it.

Obama's "Deliberate Haste"

2008-11-10T18:25:00.000-05:00

A short note to NPR:

In a story reporting how the Homeland Security department will weather the presidential transition, you quote President-Elect Obama as saying that he will act with "deliberate haste" in filling key positions. "Deliberate haste" is a contradiction in terms, akin to saying he will act with "tall shortness." Rather than simply repeat meaningless statements, please clarify them.

A "Know-Nothing" Historian

2008-11-10T17:02:00.003-05:00

My latest letter to the Globe, in response to an op-ed comparing Sarah Palin to 19th-century nativists:

Perhaps I would take Timothy Gay's criticism of Palin's "wink-wink" innuendos about un-Americanism more seriously if the entire article didn't itself consist of innuendo about what Palin believes. Palin would supposedly "deny scientific evolution," "eviscerate the separation of church and state," "impose ideological litmus tests," and "conduct witch hunts to weed out non-believers." As far as I can tell, Gay's complaint is about Palin's reference to Obama's former colleague Bill Ayers. If leading a violent effort to replace our system of government with a Maoist regime isn't un-American, then it's hard to imagine what is.
Gay's historical analysis is also inept. He says Fillmore presided over "two rudderless years that brought the country closer to chaos." Perhaps true, but then so did Franklin Pierce and the appalling James Buchanan, who succeeded Fillmore. (Of course, one can then argue that Abraham Lincoln's presidency brought the nation squarely "to chaos.") There's no mention of Fillmore's strong advocacy, in conjunction with legislative geniuses such as Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, of the Compromise of 1850. With all its flaws and ultimate fragility, the Compromise did in fact lessen tensions between North and South, and would have been impossible had his predecessor Zachary Taylor, a southern opponent, survived his term.
If this is to be the level of discourse in the next few years of Democratic triumphalism, I have no doubt the GOP will stage a strong comeback in short order.

Of course strictly speaking, anything that happened prior to 1861 brought the nation "closer to chaos." With equal validity you might say the Clinton administration was a failure because it "brought the country closer" to Sept. 11 or anything you might ordinarily blame on President Bush.

The Bradley Effect that Never Was

2008-11-06T14:52:00.001-05:00

My latest letter to the Globe:

The Globe is right to identify the "Bradley effect" as a hypothesis, not as a settled reality that has now been overturned. Named after former Democratic Mayor Tom Bradley of Los Angeles, who twice failed in California gubernatorial campaigns, the idea was that white voters would falsely tell pollsters they intended to vote for an African American candidate in order to conceal their latent racism.
Readers may be interested in the analysis of Lance Tarrance, the pollster relied upon by Bradley's Republican opponent. Tarrance insists there never was such an effect, and that the theory was floated by a rival polling firm that predicted a Bradley win after badly misinterpreting its data.
The 2008 election is unquestionably an historic landmark and a source of great pride. But relying on mythology, it's easy to overestimate the underlying change in attitudes it actually represents. I have no reason to believe Americans had been predisposed to vote against African-American candidates in the recent years prior to Obama's extraordinary campaign, any more than they were unwilling to vote for a woman. This is a good thing all around.

"Ayers's actions were very much of their era"

2008-10-28T22:53:00.005-04:00

My latest letter to the Globe:

Fernando Salazar writes that while William Ayers' actions as a leader of the Weather Underground were unacceptable, it is wrong to "forget the times in which those actions occurred": in the midst of struggle over Civil Rights and the Vietnam War. If Salazar actually believes the former is true, then the latter point is irrelevant.
Regardless, there's a useful way to test the quality of Mr. Salazar's point. Ask yourself what would happen if Sen. McCain were found to have had a working relationship with someone who had participated in bombings of abortion clinics, and who voiced continued enthusiasm for such violence. Consider that in the not too distant past, such forms of domestic terrorism were relatively common, reflecting a widespread radical conviction that it was necessary to prevent the murder of countless would-be children. Does the admonition that we must not "forget the times in which those actions occurred" still sound reasonable?

For extra credit, of course, ask yourself how the media would cover the matter.

UPDATE: A comment I made at the Globe's site (here) in response to the idea that the Weathermen ceased terrorist activities at the conclusion of the Vietnam War:

Regardless of what Ayers might now say, at the time of the Weathermen's heyday the group's primary stated goal was not to stop the Vietnam War; it was to institute a communist regime in America along Maoist lines. The group sought to take advantage of the domestic instability wrought by the Vietnam War and racial tensions to jump-start a communist revolution. That the group slowly disintegrated after the war ended was due to the lessening of this instability, not to any satisfaction of its long-term goals. (Note the group's involvement in the Brinks robbery in 1981 a full six years after Saigon's fall, involving the murder of three.) Retrospectively associating the Weathermen with the Vietnam War is rather facile and convenient, since opposition to the war always enjoyed more popularity among Americans than Maoism. It's much like saying the Bolsheviks were primarily motivated by opposition to Russia's involvement in World War I.

Hybrid Bumper Sticker

2008-10-20T22:29:00.005-04:00

I recently saw a car covered with so many strident bumper stickers vying for attention, some overlapping, that I was inspired to generate an absurd mashup: Go here and here if you want to make one yourself.

Shocked and Saddened

2008-10-20T21:53:00.000-04:00

My spurious response to an NPR story I heard on the way home:

I was shocked upon hearing your story about the Florida church congregation that decided to burn a bunch of X-rated film reels they discovered on a newly-acquired property. They characterized it as a ritual consecration, turning what was unholy into holy. Well, go and sin no more, I say! Did they ever stop to think of all the nasty chemicals they were releasing into the atmosphere, by burning plastic film reels? I was especially saddened to hear that the local fire department was on hand for the event, since they should be especially well trained on issues relating to the disposal of hazardous materials. There should be a special agency that is totally focused on preserving the environment, and whose permission would be required for any event that might have any adverse environmental impacts.

Note the new "hoax" tag.

Sucker's Bet

2008-10-07T08:07:00.003-04:00

It was only a matter of time. Among the causes of the 2008 economic crisis, critics point to the Community Reinvestment Act, legislation that boosts affordable housing by mandating that mortgage lenders extend credit to low-income applicants who might otherwise be rejected as uncreditworthy. Lambasted for his prominent role in fostering this policy and for propping up undercapitalized mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) has declared that, since these policies were designed to help the poor, such criticism is motivated by racism.

"Significant emotional trauma"

2008-10-07T08:00:00.000-04:00

A 48-year Brandeis University professor, teaching a course on Latin American politics, was investigated after having told his students that Mexican migrants were once referred to using the derogatory term "wetback," causing "significant emotional trauma" among his students.

(via Power Line)

Where's Denzel?

2008-10-05T11:30:00.001-04:00

In case you thought the quality of political debates was particularly abysmal, this Boston Globe piece (print edition, "Ideas" section, 10/5) offers a sobering glimpse into how actual debates are now conducted on campus. For one thing, debaters are encouraged to speak in rapid-fire fashion to cover as many arguments as possible within the limited time and to make it difficult for opponents to respond. That practice, coupled with universities' long marination in identity politics, leads to curious exchanges such as this:

A recent debate between the Towson [University] team and NYU ... was supposed to be about the merits of agricultural tariffs, and the NYU team kicked it off with some machine-gun arguments in favor of lifting taxes on imported ethanol. But during the rebuttal, the Towson debater responded that NYU's fast-talking approach was inherently racist. She gave an impassioned account of the slave trade in Colonial America, placed a chair on a table and sat on it to remind judges how her ancestors had been displayed during auctions, and read a profanity-laced passage from her diary in which she lamented the racism of her rival debaters. ("We had our first full round today and I want to go the [expletive] home. You should have seen the looks I got from these people.") Towson won that debate, unanimously.

Yes, Towson won. (In fact, none of the contestants in the room were white.)

Towson also accused a Fort Hays State University team of racism, a debate that descended into a crude shouting match, culminating with the Fort Hays coach mooning the Towson team. A video produced by the Chronicle of Higher Education captures the scene:

Blame my car stereo

2008-10-02T07:53:00.003-04:00

The tape deck in my car no longer works, and I can't listen to my iPod though the cassette adapter, so lately I've been listening to a bit of NPR on the way home from work. And in the middle of their fall fund drive, no less! Granted, I know enough to switch stations whenever Daniel Schorr comes on, but still it sometimes gets so bad I really ought to pull over. Here's my response:

I have often admired David Folkenflik's work on the media beat, but I was greatly irritated by yesterday's piece on the McCain campaign's souring relations with the media, particularly the New York Times.
Folkenflik expresses astonishment at the McCain campaign's scathing dismissal of the Times -- that it's no longer "a journalistic organization," in the words of one of his campaign managers -- but does nothing to evaluate the substance of the campaign's complaints.
Instead, we are treated to the opinion of one journalist who says the dispute is "not really intended to debate the merits of the stories," but rather to excite the conservative base. The same journalist says the "people in the McCain campaign making those charges" probably don't even "believe their own rhetoric." The same journalist, apparently a reliable font of truth, is also quoted in the web version of the report as saying that McCain's attack will likely be counterproductive to his campaign. That's a fine opinion, to be sure, but again having nothing to do with the substance of McCain's complaint.
Folkenflik doesn't solicit a statement from the McCain campaign on the dispute -- not even a "we tried to call them." However, we do hear from the Times's political editor, Richard Stevenson, who said: "No one has disputed the facts that we have reported about [McCain campaign manager] Rick Davis' involvement with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac." Folkenflik should not have let this statement stand unchallenged. It took me about a minute to find McCain campaign spokesman Michael Goldfarb's categorical denial (in 'A Partisan Paper of Record') that Davis recently received payments from Freddie Mac, allegations based on anonymous sources that the Times trumpeted in their lede. So yes, someone has disputed their reporting of the facts.
My favorite part of Folkenflik's report is where a former McCain aide expresses puzzlement at her former boss's sudden hostility to the press, given their formerly cozy relations. What a mystery! Of course, the reason should be obvious: McCain used to run along the margins of the GOP, and could often be counted on for a few subversive quips, but now he is the standard-bearer. How long was it after McCain's emergence as front-runner before the Times published that disgraceful piece insinuating, again based on anonymous sources, that McCain had an affair with a lobbyist?
Folkenflik should take the McCain campaign's allegations of bias seriously. I'm afraid what I heard instead was a circling of the wagons from someone who identifies far too much with the media to be able to cover it effectively. What else explains such an overwrought conclusion that McCain's "campaign appears to be challenging the media's right to be seen as a referee at all?"
The media's "right"? Anyone who has dealt with an unreliable service provider should bristle at the notion that the media has a "right" to its legitimacy.

Obama's three challenges

2008-09-30T17:32:00.002-04:00

My latest letter to the Globe:

James Carroll asserts that "Obama's three challenges" consist of extraneous forces: Americans' perceptions of Race, Gender, and Class, the familiar liberal trifecta. Carroll's formulation is all too convenient, since it ignores "challenges" that pertain more specifically to Obama: negative attitudes concerning his level of experience, judgement, and tendency towards expansiveness. Obama would presumably remain blameless if he were to lose the election, given Americans' rejection of him as black, unmasculine, and nouveau-riche. Carroll's evasive rhetoric serves to avoid the sort of "reckoning" he says is necessary, but apparently only on the matter of race.
Carroll also asserts, nonsensically, that Obama's "genetic tie to slavery goes through his white mother." What exactly does this mean, anyway? Was one of Ann Dunham's ancestors a slave or a slaveowner? That is, after all, what "genetic" means. Or does simply being white represent the same sort of indelible stain as the "one-drop" racial standard Carroll identifies? Is it possible Obama's "tie to slavery" might also go through his African father? Kenya has a long legacy of slavery, one that continues to be a problem today. Since Carroll appears to rule out a "genetic tie" to slavery on that side of the family, is it because the Kenyan slave trade was dominated by Arabs rather than by Europeans, and that it often consisted of Africans enslaving other Africans?

Deval Patrick: A Man in Need of Blame

2008-09-27T18:26:00.003-04:00

As long as there is a generous surplus of outrage over implications of our current financial crisis, it may be worth spreading the blame around to deserving recipients. My governor, Deval Patrick, certainly qualifies. While in the Clinton Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, he pioneered the sort of aggressive anti-redlining measures that pressured mortgage lenders to make questionable loans to low-income borrowers. Such widespread loosening of lending standards was a major factor in the mortgage crisis, which in turn is the main reason why today we have an even wider financial crisis threatening to bring the American economy to a screeching halt.

This short post demonstrates the importance of the mortgage market's politicization to Patrick's career. Indeed, after becoming governor of Massachusetts he instituted a public mortgage-lender rating system at the state level, modeled after the Clinton-era Community Reinvestment Act whose enforcment he pioneered. As recently as May of this year, he modified the system to rate lenders' ability to assist borrowers who could no longer afford their mortgage payments. Previously, it concentrated solely on lending standards, judging, as the Boston Globe put it, "whether companies are serving lower-income communities by making loans available at fair prices."

Savor the irony. Without such a political process, these loans presumably would never have been made. The government considered this a problem in need of fixing, and went about pressuring lenders to make those loans. When it became apparent the borrowers couldn't pay them, the government again pressured lenders to relax the terms of the loans.

Was this well-intentioned policy loosening credit standards a good thing for all those people now facing foreclosure?

Holy Potatoes!

2008-09-25T22:48:00.008-04:00

An item from the Fall 2008 catalog of Edmund's Scientifics, a mail-order firm specializing in science-oriented toys and hobby items, such as telescopes, hydrogen fuel cells, remote control flying saucers, and desk ornaments demonstrating physical principles. I don't know what to say about this one other than that there are limits with what you can express in marketing copy.

NEW! Calabi-Yau Manifold Crystal
A Cross-Section of the Calabi-Yau Quintic
Hidden deep inside the dimensions of string theory are the microscopic Calabi-Yau spaces. According to string theory, space-time is not four-dimensional as you might expect, but actually 10-dimensional. The extra six dimensions are believed to be "compactified" or rolled up into such a small space that they are unobservable at human scales of sight. Their size and six dimensions make Calabi-Yau spaces difficult to draw. But, this model shows a three-dimensional cross-section of this likely space to reveal its structure and shape. This 3" cube and the surface within is a wildly self-intersecting ride through space. Cement your place in string theory history by adding this highly intriguing crystal to your collection. It includes clear rubber feet for scratch-free display. And, if you want to learn more about the mathematics of this wondrous cube, read on... This particular space is one of the most appealing candidates, because there's a series of Calabi-Yau spaces embedded in CPN (N-dimensional complex projective space) described by homogeneous polynomials of degree (N+1). These spaces have real dimension 2(N-1), so the hypothesis that there are six hidden dimensions in string theory means that there is a unique choice within this series of Calabi-Yau spaces, namely N=4, and the polynomial must be this quintic (degree N+1=5): z15 + z25 + z35 + z45 + z55 = 0. The 2-D surface is computed by dividing by z5 and setting z3/z5 and z4/z5 to be constant. This defines a 2-manifold slice of the 6-manifold; we then normalize the resulting inhomogeneous equations to simplify them, yielding the complex equation that is actually solved for the surface, z15 + z25 = 1. The resulting surface is embedded in 4D and projected to ordinary 3D space for display.
#L31515-44
$89.95

Welcome, Sanity readers.

Two Stories on Two Vice Presidential Candidates

2008-09-18T22:08:00.002-04:00

A letter I just sent to WBUR, my local NPR station:

I was greatly irritiated after hearing two separate reports on Morning Edition purporting to evaluate both vice presidential candidates.
The report on Biden was uncritical, much of it filled with extended clips from his stump speeches, heaping ridicule on McCain, especially his recent misstep in characterising the economy as "sound." The main conclusion: Biden's Catholicism and strong union support means Obama may do well in Ohio, vital to the election.
In the subsequent report on Palin, however, the candidate herself was completely absent, despite her vigorous campaigning. Instead, we were treated to interviews of several stay-at-home mothers to judge her potential appeal among women. Of those interviewed, one woman said Palin's selection was making her lean Republican. The rest said that Palin "scares me," or that they "question her judgement" in running for high office because "she has responsibilities" to her children. Another group of university women said they "worry" about her qualifications. Even among those Clinton supporters who complained about signs of sexism directed at Palin, "none were so sympathetic" as to consider voting Republican.
Is the problem with such differing coverage obvious only to me?

Who smelled it dealt it

2008-08-05T23:40:00.000-04:00

My latest letter to the Globe:

The Globe's recent editorial on the controversy over the McCain campaign's attack ads confirms that the issue of race has devolved into a game, one that only Obama supporters are allowed to play. While decrying use of the "race card" as a "distracting sideshow," the Globe says that by focusing on the Obama campaign's presumptuous air and questioning "who does this guy think he is?" the McCain campaign is subtly hinting that Obama is an "uppity" negro, adding: "That's worth talking about." So, any suggestion that Obama is not up to the job of the presidency can be considered racist. Like it or not, the Boston Globe has just played the "race card" in no uncertain terms. Editors should decide whether this is a game worth playing.

You Are What You Eat

2008-07-09T12:06:00.000-04:00

The Telegraph reports on guidelines, issued by Britain's National Children's Bureau, warning nursury school teachers and play leaders to be on the lookout for racist incidents among toddlers. These include three-year-olds who, when presented with spicy or unfamiliar foreign food, respond by saying "yuk."

(via Taranto)

Foodstuffs of Color

2008-07-09T10:47:00.001-04:00

The New York Times reports that organizers of the Democratic National Convention, to be held in Denver in 2008, issued a 28-page contract to potential caterers requiring that they "provide food in 'at least three of the following five colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple and white.' Garnishes could not be counted toward the colors. No fried foods would be allowed. Organic and locally grown foods were mandated, and each plate had to be 50 percent fruits and vegetables. As a result, caterers are shying away."

(via Taranto)

Paraprax?

2008-06-23T12:51:00.002-04:00

I sent an earlier letter to the same effect, but noting the poor word choice in an accompanying photo caption. On reading the article I was amazed to find it in the second paragraph as well:

Yesterday's profile recounts that Senator McCain "celebrated the 10th anniversary" of the fall of Saigon "by returning to Hanoi in 1985 with Walter Cronkite for a CBS documentary." I hope you meant to say McCain "observed" or "commemorated" the anniversary.

Selling Yourself Short

2008-06-18T08:16:00.003-04:00

I decided this letter to the Globe was just a bit too rude, and so didn't send it. I suspect that some form of mental illness is behind the impulse to join such racial-sensitivity groups, but am in no position to say in this case.

Sandy Thompson's letter praising a recent article about whites who form antiracism groups as a way to acknowledge "the advantages that have accrued to some of us simply because of our skin color" leads me to question such efforts. Does she seriously believe that any success she has in life is simply due to her skin color, and that she brings nothing else to the table for which she must feel no guilt? What a terrible thing to say about yourself. I get the strong sense that people who share that belief deserve each other's company.

Consider an accompanying letter by someone named Malka Jampol. Why should whites feel entitled to flagellate themselves without having people of color around to harange them? It also refers clumsily to "organizations of people of color," followed by the absurd truncation "organizations of color." That offense should itself prompt a sensitivity meeting for all those who care about the English language.

Dumbest Web Statistic Ever Produced?

2008-05-30T16:06:00.006-04:00

A company named C02Stats offers a free embeddable widget allowing you to display your site's monthly carbon footprint, and the inroads into your virtue that represents. As shown in the sidebar, mine hovers around 1/50th of an ounce, and I don't know how favorably that compares with exhaling. Maybe if I say something provocative about some jive-ass nonsense I can up that number a bit.

Really, this figure utterly ignores the environmental benefits these sites offer. I assume Wikipedia's footprint is large relative to other sites, but that site allows us to manufacture, store and ship fewer gigantic paper encyclopedias. Or compare Amazon with Apple's iTunes Music Store. Each sells music, but only one relies on large inventories of CDs and plenty of paper cartons driven around in delivery trucks. Okay, so maybe they use cellulose packing peanuts, but still...

Really, how much carbon is produced in generating these nonsense statistics? I'd come up with more reasons it's a pointless exercise, but I'd be wasting electricity.

Thanks for the link, Dr. Sanity, and for increasing my carbon assprint.

Police Log Items From Concord's Past

2008-05-24T08:30:00.004-04:00

The bizarre police log items noted in my prior post prompted me to write a letter to the Concord Journal:

The latest police log featured some truly amazing items: A man peering inside a house from a pizza delivery car, a woman rolling down her car window as if to menace a pedestrian "two Thursdays ago" but doing nothing else, a woman whose 22-year-old college graduate son no longer listens to or obeys her. It made me feel sorry for the town's police officers, and for those residents who are so easily rattled. It also got me to wonder what other past events might have been logged:
April 19, 1775: Multiple reports after midnight of a man riding his horse aggressively along the Lexington Turnpike, disturbing residents, and loudly shouting about "redcoats." Police responded to the scene but were unable to locate the man or any coats.
April 19, 1775: Reports of early morning commotion, a large crowd, and possible gunfire near the North Bridge, where teenagers are often seen consuming hard cider along the riverbank. Police responded to the scene, but the group had moved on.
September 19, 1845: Homeless man reported in forest adjacent to Walden Pond. Police located and questioned the man, who offered a lengthy explanation of his situation. Police eventually determined he had obtained permission from the property's owner, Mr. Emerson of Concord, to inhabit small structure. Officer advised the man of town ordinance prohibiting open fires.
June 20, 1852: Woman reported neighbor and party of guests engaging in transcendental activities. Officer responding to scene advised woman that idealist spiritual philosophy based on individual intuition is not against the law, but nevertheless asked neighbor to tone it down somewhat.

Then Throw Him Out

2008-05-22T21:00:00.001-04:00

A few items from the police log of the Concord Journal that make me feel sorry for my local police:

Monday, May 12
At 12:14 a.m., a Nancy Road resident requested police keep an extra eye in the area, because she believed a Dominos delivery person who drove a red sedan peered inside her home while delivering a pizza earlier in the evening.
Friday, May 16
At 9:34 a.m., an Annursnac Hill Road resident report [sic] that two Thursdays ago, on May 1, a female drove by him and rolled down her window while he was walking down Annursnac Hill Road. The caller said she did not say or do anything, however he thought this was aggressive behavior and wanted the incident logged.
Saturday, May 17
At 3:42 p.m., officers responded to a report from a Main Street resident, who said her 22-year-old son would not listen to her or abide by her rules since he came home from college.

Changing your mind

2008-05-19T21:14:00.001-04:00

I was struck by the lede of a recent AP item:

Global warming isn't to blame for the recent jump in hurricanes in the Atlantic, concludes a study by a prominent federal scientist whose position has shifted on the subject.

Two news hooks compete for your attention in this paragraph.

The first is that a widely posited link between global warming and increased hurricane activity may turn out to be unfounded, or that there may even be an inverse correlation. Either of these possibilities run contrary to the narrative that accompanied hurricane Katrina. (This itself should not be particularly controversial, as the IPCC's hurricane specialists posited at best a weak link between the two in the group's most recent report.)

The second is a bit more interesting. Why is it important to note whether the author of the study, Tom Knutson, has changed his opinion over time? Given the unsettled nature of emerging climate science, you would think researchers would change their minds all the time, and that such shifts would be unremarkable.

This paragraph echoes the idea advanced in the lede:

What makes this study different is Knutson, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's fluid dynamics lab in Princeton, N.J.
He has warned about the harmful effects of climate change and has even complained in the past about being censored by the Bush administration on past studies on the dangers of global warming.

You're implicitly being asked to make an ad hominem judgement about Knutson.

Perhaps that judgement is that he is more credible in this matter after having held a seemingly contrary position, then abandoning it. The idea is that it usually takes a good deal of contrary data to get people to reassess their positions, especially those they've publicly espoused. Maybe he's done a better job thinking through both angles. Alternately, someone who complains of having been "censored" by the Bush administration cannot be characterized as its puppet or toady.

On the other hand, the judgement could simply be that Knutson is fickle: willing to change his public pronouncements based on the most insignificant shifts in how he interprets the data. Any particular position he stakes out is thus not to be trusted. That may even extend to what Knutson previously believed.

Regardless, I have to wonder if this piece would have made the national news if the report's author consistently posited the same conclusion. "Scientist who's been saying the same thing for many years says it yet one more time." As a matter of science, that shouldn't have any bearing on the report's findings. But this is journalism.

Encouraging Safe Driving

2008-05-13T10:20:00.001-04:00

Here's my latest idea that I posted to Governor Deval Patrick's website:

I have been thinking deeply about those "How Am I Driving?" bumper stickers that you see on many commercial vehicles. They must be effective in encouraging safe driving, or else the trucks' owners wouldn't put them there, would they? I call those numbers all the time, especially when I see courteous driving that deserves a compliment. Anyway, why not extend that idea and require all Massachusetts drivers to have a "How Am I Driving?" bumper sticker? People would call a single number and supply either the vehicle's license plate number or else a unique code that displays on the bumper sticker, then leave a message. The service would send a transcription to the mailing address associated with the vehicle. To tone down heated comments and weed out abusive ones, the system could rely on human transcribers the way SpinVox does for LiveJournal voice posts. Anything that encourages safety is a good idea, the way I look at it.

Is Obama The Real Thing?

2008-05-01T16:28:00.001-04:00

Today's letter to the Globe, this time about an editorial:

The Globe contrasts the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's racist and conspiratorial pronouncements with Sen. Obama, who offers himself "as the embodiment of a racially transcendent society." Fair enough, but the editorial insultingly asks, given the furor over Obama's association with Wright, whether America even wants such transcendence.
It is possible for Americans to crave such racial transcendence while being skeptical that Obama is its embodiment. It is right to ask what it means to be post-racial if it does not involve recognizing and repudiating bona-fide racists. It is right to be dissatisfied at Obama's "mesmerizing" (i.e., "hypnotizing") speech framing Wright's opinions as a matter of historical or cultural context.
I would prefer a president who is good at recognizing unhinged lunatics from the earliest possible encounter, and who responds unambiguously. After all, whoever assumes office will have to deal with North Korea.

Earth Day Class Letter Elicits Response

2008-04-30T12:49:00.005-04:00

Dear Ms. Wood,

I read your class's letter to the Sunday Globe, and sent the appended letter in response to express my disappointment.

My own casual search on solar power success stories in the Seattle area quoted average energy savings at about 20 percent. Even accounting for generous subsidies, the more advanced photovoltaic systems cost thousands of dollars, and tend to pay for themselves only after many years. Imagine breaking even only after paying off a thirty-year mortgage, and you begin to see the problem.

Interestingly, I also ran across cases in which Seattle-area schools built with solar panels and a host of other eco-friendly features wound up consuming significantly more energy than conventional schools, because they require more vigorous air circulation.

I also recall reading the results of a risk analysis study many years ago, which may serve as a useful thought experiment for your students. It identified solar as the most lethal of all available energy options. The reasoning behind this counter-intuitive result is that large-scale deployment of solar panels would require many homeowners to perform routine maintenance, and these people have a nasty habit of falling off roofs. Any assessment of the benefits of photovoltaic solar power in particular would also have to account for the toxic chemical pollution that would result, since panels are made with arsenic, gallium, and cadmium.

Sincerely,

Michael Sierra

Perhaps it's good that a tenth grade Boston Latin class is encouraged to participate in civic affairs by writing a joint letter to the Globe. Still, if I were grading their letter about global warming, I'd send it back for more work.
"Much of East Boston will be underwater when today's teens are in their 30s," it reads, quoting unnamed "scientists." Given that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change currently estimates annual sea level increases as high as 3.1 millimeters, it would take roughly a century to rise a foot, and over 160 years at the current annual rate of 1.8 mm. In other words, not "much" of East Boston would be underwater in 15 years, and far less than routine tidal variations. If students really believe global warming is a dire problem in need of an immediate response, this should not be their only supporting point.
Another claim makes little sense. Even in cloudy areas like Seattle, the amount of sunlight a building receives is said to offer more than enough energy to power it. But the next sentence reveals the problem with this statement: scientists haven't yet figured out how to harness all that dissipated energy, with little hint that they could. Why not ask instead: "If scientists can figure out how to make iPods, computers, and cellphones," why can't they provide a cheap, safe, emission-free method to generate electricity from splitting atoms?
If students are so insistent that we focus more on the issue of global warming, it would be good to stay on that subject and not meander into the national debt, job-creation schemes, food prices, tax policy, and potential cures for recessions. The students insist the government should impose a tax on oil in order to subsidize alternative energy development and presumably to make fossil fuels comparatively unattractive. Fair enough, but the very next sentence complains: "gas prices are rising so much that they are affecting the price of food." Surely they must realize that taxing oil would raise gas prices even further, and food prices along with them. Why should high prices be thought of as good in one case, but bad in another?
It's one thing for Ms. Wood to use this writing exercise as an excuse to funnel leftist propaganda. But at the very least she could have insisted it make logical sense.

Two Kinds of Recycling

2008-02-17T18:51:00.001-05:00

Various products listed from a search for the phrase "Brazilian Barns." First, the Parati Bed:

The simplicity and elegance of this platform bed is zenlike. On the one hand, you'll be so thrilled with this bed that it's hard to imagine you'll get much sleep on it. On the other, its clean lines and zenlike simplicity will encourage a restful mind. Solid mahogany construction with vertical strips of peroba rosa. Peroba is a recycled wood, reclaimed from 100-year-old Brazilian barns, used here in a nearly indestructable quarter-inch thick veneer. Because of the nature of reclaimed wood, every piece made from it is one-of-a-kind and may feature imperfections that add to its character.

The Santomer Dining Table:

This isn't a table, it is an altar to good food and good living. The butcher-block pattern of reclaimed wood on the tabletop makes it a perfect setpiece for formal and informal occasions alike. The larger rectangles feature two sturdy platform legs, while the smaller square and circular tables feater [sic] one sturdy central platform leg.
This solid plantation-grown mahogany foundation supports a tabletop of peroba rosa strips. Peroba is a recycled wood, reclaimed from 100-year-old Brazilian barns. Because of the nature of reclaimed wood, every piece made from it is one-of-a-kind and may feature imperfections that add to its character.

"Pretty Pretty Beds":

Check out this mahogany bed made with peroba rosa. Peroba is a recycled wood, reclaimed from 100-year-old Brazilian barns. Bizarre and random and awesome. We all know the green movement can tend either toward the granola, or the purely theoretical design student aesthetic. The stuff at Bluehouse is delightfully well designed and eco-friendly. Check out their beautiful armories [sic] and hard wood flooring. All eco-tastic and well designed.

The Parati Media Wall:

What living room doesn't need a Parati media wall? This beautifully minimalist, organic-looking creation will civilize the [sic] even the snarliest collection of electronic equipment. The ample storage unit conceals shelving for stereo receivers, VCRs, DVD players, gaming consoles, Apple TV, or any other technological wonder. Discreet, skillfully placed openings will collect, hide, and direct wires and cables. And best of all, you get to watch television framed by the gorgeous living mosaic of peroba rosa strips. Peroba is a recycled wood, reclaimed from 100-year-old Brazilian barns, used here in a nearly indestructable quarter-inch thick veneer. Because of the nature of reclaimed wood, every piece made from it is one-of-a-kind and may feature imperfections that add to its character. Solid mahogany construction.

Because of the nature of this blog, each post is one-of-a-kind and may feature imperfections that add to its character.

(H/T: a gentle rant from Tara)

Cognitive Dissonance

2007-12-14T17:34:00.000-05:00

Across Massachusetts, environmental activists organized plunges into freezing waters to draw attention to global warming.

No, I don't get it either. Are you saying the water's not really that cold?

UPDATE: Okay, now I get it. Maybe it's: "this is what polar bears have to do -- plunge into arctic waters -- when the ice floes they're standing on break up from all the global warming." Glad I figured that out, since I was starting to think some of my neighbors' kids were a bit nutty in the head.

Elevator Pitch: An Elegant Solution for Networks to Cope with Ongoing Television Writers' Strike

2007-12-10T15:47:00.000-05:00

A new elimination-style reality show. Participants are judged by their ability to pitch ideas for new reality shows to a panel of television executives and/or celebrity experts. Regardless of whether they win each round, participants retain rights if network decides to go ahead and develop their idea into a new show. Such shows have potential to replicate virally at low cost to network, with huge pool of boundlessly creative ideas not yet considered. (For example, proposed shows may or may not feature snide British twit on celebrity judging panel.) Final winner may not have the best ideas overall, but be able to outlast rivals and reserve their better ideas for later rounds. Those who lead with their best ideas develop intense viewer loyalty, resulting in highly desirable "loser wins" controversy when they are outlasted by perceived mediocrities.

Idea may serve as a template to generate all-purpose content at low cost to networks with no need for actual "writers." Task of reality show participants may be to write late-night monologue jokes, SNL skits, sitcoms, or police/medical comedy/dramas -- whatever. Much attention can be paid to how well they collaborate on a creative team to deliver best final product, continuity from one show to the next, etc. As participants are eliminated and the burden of creating large volume of content falls on fewer participants, they are allowed to hire and manage their own staff of "writers," with much opportunity for return appearances by previously eliminated participants. Much opportunity for cross-pollination of interest between the show and the reality show that parented it. Or for something less involved, participants may simply be judged by their ability to produce an engaging series of YouTube videos. Whatever. Content is irrelevant.

Hype it as "Meta-Reality" and get trend-spotting tastemakers to tie it into popularity of user-generated content.

Plain Language Independence

2007-11-25T09:38:00.000-05:00

My latest letter to the Glob:

To achieve energy independence, Burton Klein insists that one of the measures we absolutely must not consider is "drilling for more oil anywhere in the 50 states." The only way I can make sense of this statement is to assume that the phrase "energy independent" doesn't mean what it clearly says. Perhaps a phrase like "energy conservation" or "energy reduction" wouldn't be so "plain language independent."

A Lesser Writer, Toiling in the Shadow of a Modern Master

2007-11-14T10:57:00.001-05:00

Today's letter to the Globe:

I don't expect I'll read anything funnier today than Christopher Busa's letter defending Norman Mailer's legacy. Responding to Thomas Gagen's criticism that Mailer's 1957 essay "The White Negro" glorified violent criminals, Busa declares such criticism inappropriate so soon after his death: "a pen is not a knife to stab someone when he is down." That imagery, plus the characterization of Mailer as a beloved "family man," might have been a wise choice had Mailer not actually stabbed one of his wives with a pen knife.

How Not to Save Racial Preferences

2007-11-13T16:51:00.000-05:00

Today's letter to the Globe, concerning a Massachusetts busing program:

Richard Kahlenberg makes a solid argument that to withstand legal challenge in the wake of recent Supreme Court rulings, Metco should reorient itself to base eligibility on income rather than race. He provides ample reason not to be concerned about the tiny minority of low-income whites who might attend suburban schools as a result.
I'm puzzled why he would then go on to advise Metco institute a two-tiered system using income as the first test and race as the second. Yes, it may conceivably survive swing vote Justice Kennedy's requirement that racial categorization be used only as a secondary alternative, but it begs the question of why such a racial test would be necessary in the first place. If Metco is to be worthy of survival, why must it be based on race in any way? Why should there be any mechanism, primary or secondary, that would keep poor white students from slipping through the cracks?

No good reason to leave New Jersey?

2007-10-19T16:02:00.000-04:00

The editorial board of the New York Times now has a blog. If this post offers a fair sample, it may well become the biggest "kick me" sign in all the Internet.

This post concerns the large number of New Jersey residents who, in a poll, expressed a strong desire to leave, one of the big reasons apparently being New Jersey's high tax rates. But the editorialists think they should stay put:

[T]here is a flaw in the grass-is-greener thinking. As more and more people needing more and more government services head to less populated areas, over-development, and congestion, and taxes are likely to increase there as well.

Adhering to this logic, I can scarcely think of any good reason to leave New Jersey. If I want to leave because, say, the air is polluted, the response would essentially be that wherever you're moving to is likely to also become polluted eventually as a result of the influx. So whatever you do, don't move!

Key word is "eventually", since if it becomes unbearable there, you have the option to move yet again. There may also be good reason to believe that the place you're moving to won't become nearly as polluted -- maybe New Jersey is unusually polluted.

Same for the tax issue. If other states provide basic services for much less, then the sooner you leave, the sooner you can enjoy those low rates. Even if taxes there eventually do rise (i.e., to build new schools and subdivisions), they may still be able to keep overall costs lower than New Jersey's presumably over-market rates. After all, low tax rates are not necessarily a function of low population.

Note the overwrought, imprecise language: "As more and more people needing more and more government services head to less populated areas..." Yes, "more and more" people are leaving, but they do not need "more and more" services than they did in New Jersey. The opposite may well be the case: they may be happier with a smaller set of services. (I understand: the places they're moving to need to provide more services.)

Another paragraph states:

There's an irony here. If more and more relatively high-income residents leave New Jersey, the tax situation will only get worse. The reason: many of the costs, such as local schools and debt, will remain the same, but there will be fewer people to share the burden.

There's no "irony" at all. Saying "the tax situation will only get worse" for those who remain assumes there's absolutely no way to lower the cost of government to keep New Jersey competitive, and at any rate is irrelevant to those who decide to leave.

Diversity for Diversity's Sake

2007-10-05T08:39:00.000-04:00

Today's letter:

John Sperber argues that, to achieve greater diversity, elite universities such as Harvard should admit academically underachieving students on the basis of "pedigree." Arguments about the benefits of diversity now appear to be orbiting Neptune. To be truly diverse, Harvard should scrap its admissions process altogether and institute a random lottery.

Return of the Son of Rathergate

2007-10-03T12:21:00.000-04:00

George Pyle, editorial writer for the Buffalo News, packages up an exceedingly stupid old meme about Ra^thergate for the benefit of a whole new set of innocents. At least he says he has "no proof," but then why bother?

Here is my theory, for which I have absolutely no proof: Those documents that supposedly proved that George W. Bush ditched much of his service in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War, the ones that were attacked as fakes and eventually got Rather ousted as anchor of the CBS Evening News, were indeed forgeries. They were forged by the Bush campaign, floated second-hand to some overly eager producers at CBS, who put Rather's voice-over on their report and went with it. When the documents were later widely seen as fakes, the story stopped being about Bush and his service and started being about Rather and CBS.

He says that while he usually doesn't go for conspiracy theories, "I like this one mostly, I think, because I invented it." Instead, the text should read: "I like this one mostly because I think I invented it." No, this suggestion that Rove was behind Ra^thergate is hardly new. At the time, DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe made the same suggestion, and most recently Sidney Blumenthal repeated it in a Salon article. It's a wonder the planets continue in their course now that Rove no longer serves as Bush's adviser, but I suppose he still pulls the strings from the shadowy background.

Pyle's theory is interesting not only for its lack of evidence, but for the main assumption it relies upon: that not only Dan Rather but all the journalists who worked with him on the story -- for the producer Mary Mapes, years -- were so reckless and gullible that they could be relied upon run with such a transparent forgery.

If Rove were to engineer such a scenario, I would think he'd put a couple of tiny, esoteric details that would make it more likely to get past CBS's formidable fact checking apparatus [ha!], but later be exposed as a fraud.

As it transpired, the documents CBS presented were bogus in so many immediately obvious ways that it became difficult to keep track of them all as details emerged in the wake of the broadcast. Anybody who's glancingly familiar with military jargon would have recognized errors in the terminology used. Anyone who has even a weak grasp of typography would have realized that nothing short of an enormous, expensive typesetting system could have produced those documents during the early 1970s, when they were supposed to have been written on an IBM Selectric. Even a little bit of digging would have revealed them to be inconsistent with every other document that genuinely did come from the same Texas National Guard office during the same period, and would have revealed that the officer who supposedly wrote them (since deceased) had retired by that point.

So the Killian documents were effectively on par with a hand-drawn $100 bill. The only reason they made it on the air is that the CBS team, in a transparent effort to affect the 2004 election, desperately wanted to make a scandal out of what otherwise consisted of some gaps in records on Bush's national guard service. (Note that there were similar gaps in records on Kerry's service.)

The current (stupid) discourse has it that these memos were not essential to establish the main story that Bush had been "AWOL," but the fact remains that while his attendence was lower towards the end of his service than before, Bush was certified to have completed his service. Aside from these bogus memos, I'm aware of no evidence that Bush's superiors were actively displeased with his service or that they regarded him as having been "AWOL."

So it's thoroughly appropriate that "the story stopped being about Bush and his service and started being about Rather and CBS," because of the latter's manifest bad faith in presenting the bogus documents as evidence in the first place (against the advice of CBS-hired document experts), and for later stone-walling efforts to validate them. Long after a mountain of evidence had been produced establishing the memos as fakes, it took two weeks for CBS to admit to the possibility.

UPDATE: As proof of how stupid all this has become, here's the relevant portion of Sidney Blumenthal's article in Salon:

Within minutes of the conclusion of the broadcast, conservative bloggers launched a counterattack. The chief of these critics was a Republican Party activist in Georgia. Almost certainly, these bloggers, who had been part of meetings or conference calls organized by Karl Rove's political operation, coordinated their actions with Rove's office.

How could it be possible that such a complex set of information could circulate among so many people so quickly, from which emerged a quick consensus, without prior planning from a malefactor such as Karl Rove? How can one even imagine the possibility? Sarcasm aside, Blumenthal appears utterly ignorant of the Internet's defining feature.

"The chief of these critics" apparently refers to Atlanta attorney Harry MacDougald, who under the name of "Buckhead" was the first to question the memos' veractity on FreeRepublic.com. Thereafter he played no perceivable part in advancing that idea. That he is a "Republican Party" activist, of course, does not imply coordination with Rove.

The Anti-Having-Fun Crowd

2007-10-02T21:23:00.000-04:00

My latest letter to the Globe:

H. Knuttgen complains that Red Sox players should not spray each other with champagne after clinching the AL East title, at least not while Somalians are going hungry. Please, I implore you: there is far too much self-righteousness in this great land of ours. Let's send it somewhere in the world where it is desperately needed.

No, as a matter of fact I haven't

2007-09-12T12:04:00.000-04:00

The compelling opening sentence of a theater review by James Hannaham in the Village Voice:

Surely you've occasionally said to yourself, "I live in New York. I'm a sophisticated theatergoer. Why have I never seen a mime simulating anal sex, cannibalism, and 9/11 onstage?"

The ever-expanding definition of "tolerance"

2007-09-04T13:48:00.000-04:00

From the website of Hot Springs Bed, Breakfast & Books, "an open minded tolerant [read: gay-friendly] house perfect for couples or those on their own exploring Hot Springs National Park" in Arkansas:

Hot Springs National Park... A rich history of peace and tolerance dating back to indigenous times. Hot Springs, known as "The Valley of Peace" to native Americans was a neutral zone where even tribes at war could send their elders and sick to restore their health in the local spring waters. Hot Springs' mission of tolerance continued through the 1960's with tolerated gambling, vice and as a neutral zone for the mob.

Rove Derangement Syndrome

2007-08-20T10:56:00.000-04:00

My latest letter to the Globe, mostly concerning these letters and more recently one of these:

Following Karl Rove's accouncement that he would resign, various letter writers compared him to a snake oil salesman, to tyrants who rig elections and eliminate opposition by any means, to Barry Bonds in the illegitimacy of his political victories, and most recently to a feral tomcat "who sprayed his nastiness everywhere to claim dominance." One voiced suspicion of Rove's motives for leaving, expecting him to be part of some future scheme "to bring us down even lower."
The more I encounter such unhinged rhetoric, the less I credit the conventional wisdom that it was Rove who was responsible for sharply dividing Americans into red and blue states. I think these people had more to do with it than they're willing to admit.

Global Warming may change the feel of baseball bats

2007-07-27T12:05:00.000-04:00

Another in an endless series of bubble-headed global warming stories, originally from the New York Times. The devastation wrought by global warming may one day make baseball bats feel... slighly different. Maybe just a little softer. Good grief. Is this is what you can expect when you let TV meteorologists do actual news stories? Can you expect them to be as reliable? Is this another attempt to sell global warming to otherwise impenetrable sports fans?

What's especially maddening about the story is that there is a genuine, major threat to ash trees (used to make baseball bats) from the emerald ash borer, but it is by far the most speculative and inconsequential risk that gets the lede. There are basically no more ash trees left in Michigan. Everywhere you looked in suburban Detroit a few years ago, there were little spray-paint marks on doomed trees destined for cutting, desperately sending out shoots while getting choked by the newly introduced pest. Since ash trees are fast-growing, they were heavily favored when planting for subdivisions and other new developments, a dangerous practice that hastened the spread of the pest. Perhaps they could focus on how to counter such monocropping, or the potential effects of the Asian wasp federal authorities plan to introduce into the environment to halt the pest's progress towards the woods of Pennsylvania. No, we have to make it seem that global warming is a threat to our beloved Red Sox.

Then there's the insinuation that the pest "may do more damage in warmer weather." They quote a local botanist: "Climate change can introduce a lot of environmental stresses, which prevent a plant from combating the normal suite of insect pests or pathogens." But this is not "the normal suite of insect pests"; it is an unusually destructive pest unknown in North America before 2002. The story does relay the skepticism of the Ohio State entomologist quoted in the Times piece: that the emerald ash borer thrives in all sorts of weather in its native Asian habitat.

What's most troublesome about the story is that it's an explicit appeal to superstition. Yes, baseball players can be a bit weird in the head when it comes to their bats. I understand the tendency to view the environment in static terms, but is there any reason to believe, even if North American ash forests are decimated, that these overpaid humans can't adapt to slight changes? As the Times story relates, many younger players now favor maple bats, if for no other reason that Barry Bonds uses them. Must we all bow to such superstition?

Loco Localvores

2007-07-24T16:04:00.000-04:00

My recent letter to the Globe:

I was amazed to learn about the extensive discourse among "localvores" into the carbon footprint of the food delivered to our markets. (The localvore's dilemma, Ideas, 7/22) Faced with hundreds of Vermont's "most ethical eaters" who consume only locally grown food, my response is: you'll have to pry that banana from my cold, dead hands.

The text elicited some other thoughts as well:

At various points in the coming months, a few hundred of Vermont's most ethical eaters will take the "Localvore Challenge." The actual dates of the challenge vary from town to town, but the idea is that, for a single meal, or a day, or an entire week, participants will eat only food that was grown or raised within 100 miles of where they live.
Vermont's localvores (also known as "locavores" or "locatarians") and their counterparts around the country are part of a burgeoning movement....

Boy, I sure hope I don't see any of these horrendous words in my dictionary any time soon.

In recent years, as large companies with globe-straddling supply networks have come to dominate organic agriculture, "local" has emerged as the new watchword of conscientious consumption....

Here's the dilemna: "organic" food has become dominated by large conglomerates, so "local" food is offered as a more refined "watchword of conscientious consumption." Good grief. It should be clear that this more refined complaint is largely a byproduct of organic food's popularity.

The case for local food is several-fold: It tastes better, its proponents argue, and preserves species biodiversity. It shores up small-scale economies and communities in the face of globalization and cultural homogenization. It even, some of its advocates claim, protects against terrorism: a decentralized food system could limit the impact of a virus or other bio-agent introduced into the food supply.

Eating local food protects against terrorism? Truly this has become a big-tent rhetorical device.

The basic gist of the article is that it often takes less energy to ship food over long distances than to grow it locally, so the idea of "food miles" is misleading:

But if "food miles" are such a crude measure, what's an environmentally concerned grocery shopper to look to? Some food activists are targeting the ends of the food production process -- farmers both in the US and Europe are looking at ways to heat greenhouses with renewable energy, or to avoid heating them at all even during winter, and both the British government and Ben & Jerry's recently announced efforts to modify cow feed to reduce methane production. Others are working to wring inefficiencies out of the local food-distribution system by getting farmers to consolidate their produce into larger trucks making fewer trips.

Activists are working to "wring inefficiencies" out of local food distribution networks. Another way to do that is to be a large conglomerate and put these small, inefficient firms out of business.

Ultimately, [Rich Pirog] envisions a series of labels: In addition to nutrition information, a box of cereal or a bunch of green beans would bear stickers relaying their carbon emissions along with their fair-trade credentials. The risk in such a scheme, however, is that consumers, given too much information, absorb none of it.

Rather than come up with an elaborate system of Swedish-style labels listing food products' environmental impact, I have a less expensive alternative. Create a single label, and affix it to "Vermont's most ethical eater." It takes a lot more energy to identify various food items' carbon footprint than it does to detect conspicuous displays of virtue.

For their part, some localvores are suspicious of such labeling proposals. "To me the whole idea of calculating out the carbon impact way overcomplicates something that should be pretty simple," says Robin McDermott, co-founder of the Mad River Valley Locavores. Even if it turned out that an imported bunch of tomatoes were somehow more environmentally friendly than a local one, she says, she'd still go with local. "There's the taste," she says, "and you're supporting local farmers."

But why? Why is local inherently better? After all, we just learned that on balance, local food networks involve a lot more truck driving and heated greenhouses. In any other context, such overarching localism in the face of all reason would be considered hopelessly parochial.

Michael Pollan hastens to point out that eating locally is only part of a larger food ethic. The problem isn't merely, he argues, that we ship our lettuce across the country; the problem is that people living in New England, a place naturally unfriendly to large-scale lettuce production, feel entitled to eat lettuce in February. Before World War II, he points out, Americans ate locally and in season because they had no choice.

And we LIKED it! Pollan actually sees it as a problem that New Englanders feel entitled to eat lettuce in February. Otherwise, think about the consequences to human health: more reliance on food with saturated fat during winter months, for one.

Is it also a problem that local-food activists "feel entitled" to good-tasting food? After all, it's the foundation for a good deal of their argument. Why is it appropriate to use that argument, but inappropriate for me to enjoy fresh bananas?

"It's a new idea," he says, "this expectation that we can have a salad all year round."

Isn't the ability to adapt to new ideas the sign of a healthy intellect? This one is not exactly hot off the presses, either.

$33 Million Will Brighten Any Day

2007-05-30T00:33:00.000-04:00

A secretary sued the New York law firm that employed her for $33 million, claiming that her seasonal affective disorder (winter blues) is a disability that requires accommodation in the form of a desk with a window view.

(via Overlawyered)

"a dreamlike beauty overwhelming the sordidness of the subject matter"

2007-05-25T00:29:00.000-04:00

From a review of the movie Zoo, syndicated by the Agence France-Presse, May 22, 2007. The film, which showed at the Cannes film festival, is a quasi-documentary about a ring of Washington state men who, until they were rounded up in July 2005, practiced bestiality. At that time a 45-year-old Boeing worker named Kenneth Pinyan was fatally wounded after being anally penetrated by a stallion.

"They've crafted a subdued, mysterious and intensely beautiful film that presents bestiality not for the purpose of titillation -- but as a way of investigating the subjective nature of morality," the movie trade magazine Variety wrote.
The men heard in the film are remarkably honest about their motivations. One of them argues "mammal to mammal" love should not be seen as wrong.
Another firmly rejects the tag "bad person" his employer lays upon him before he is sacked. They all say the horses were willing participants.
Indeed, the only judgement seemingly expressed in the documentary is not on the matter in the stable at all. It is in fleeting radio references to US President George W Bush's "war on terror" and the presumed complicity-for-profit of big companies such as Boeing.
Even the cast ended up feeling compassion for the men depicted in Zoo.
John Paulsen, who played Pinyan, said he believed the engineer had been on a self-destructive streak linked to his defence work, a divorce and injuries from a motorcycle accident.

(via Anchoress)

"I thought I heard one of them snore."

2007-05-21T15:36:00.000-04:00

In should be taught in writing workshops as an example of a snappy lead-in, Village Voice dance critic Deborah Jowitt opens one of her reviews:

Would it interest you to know that Google posts 638,000 entries relating to "clusterfuck?" The title and content of Levi Gonzalez's eponymous new work could be pinned to quite a few of them, which fact is, in itself, a sort of clusterfuck. Leaving out the word's reference to a sexual daisy chain, it encompasses all kinds of mess, complexity, confusion, anarchy, and possibly deadly screwups (think Iraq).

"Coakley to fight for gay marriage"

2007-05-14T17:09:00.001-04:00

Today's letter to The Globe:

I was puzzled by a recent report on Attorney General Martha Coakley's comments before the Massachusetts Lesbian & Gay Bar Association. Coakley vowed that if the proposed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage were to be approved by voters in 2008 after passing a second legislative vote, she would direct her office to vigorously challenge it "on constitutional grounds."
It seems appropriate for the Attorney General to offer her legal opinion to the legislature or the voters at large that the amendment is incompatible with the spirit of the existing Constitution. But it makes little sense to challenge an approved constitutional amendment in subsequent litigation on constitutional grounds, since the whole point of the amendment process is to change the existing state of constitutional jurisprudence. If the amendment passes, isn't it Coakley's duty to uphold the Constitution, rather than select those portions with which she agrees?
From reading the Globe's report, I don't understand the legal principle under which the Attorney General operates.

5/20 Update: It made it, though stripped of qualifiers that expressed my ignorance on the legal issues involved. I'm further puzzled why you would initial-cap the word "Legislature," but not "constitution."

Playground Wood Chips Violate Disability Law

2007-05-14T16:46:00.000-04:00

A federal judge ruled that Contra Costa County school district's use of playground wood chips violates the rights of wheelchair-bound students by making it difficult to access play structures. Instead, schools are obliged to use rubber mats, which are eight times more expensive and which playground designers say are not as safe.

(via Overlawyered)

Starbucks Exploits Migrant Workers! (again)

2007-05-14T15:20:00.000-04:00

As noted in an earlier post, Starbucks offers a program allowing 18 lucky customers each year to travel to Central America to engage in unpaid back-breaking labor "on steep slopes," all in the interest of environmental sustainability. This year's printed brochure goes a step further: "winners" will work at CoopeTarrazú, a coffee plantation that in turn is a major supplier to Starbuck's.

Isn't that a bit like McDonald's offering customers a chance to travel to Idaho to harvest potatoes used to make their french fries? Shouldn't these people at least get a year of free coffee or something other than the promise of a "meaningful" or "relevant" experience? If the coffee producer were found to have benefited from underpaid labor on the part of migrant Indians coming in from the jungles of Nicaragua or Panama, wouldn't that put their product's status as "fairly traded" in serious question? (In fact, the region's coffee is among the world's most expensive, due in large part to the Costa Rican government's intervention on behalf of producers.)

Bake Sale Proposal

2007-05-13T10:44:00.000-04:00

A letter to the Boston Globe, a perfect expression of glibness, sarcasm, and overall lack of seriousness:

Now that President Bush has vetoed one supplemental appropriation bill and threatens to veto others, the question arises of how he might get this money. We on the left have been suggesting the solution for years: bake sales. This is how the rest of us support art programs in our schools and obtain money for classroom supplies and field trips. Maybe some of his big Republican donors would be willing to bid a few hundred thousand dollars for an extra-large brownie. While fighting a war is not the same as buying crayons , the petulant tantrums that Bush throws whenever Congress tries to set limits certainly fit better in my son's day-care center than in the White House.

Zimbabwe to Lead on Economic Progress, Says U.N.

2007-05-13T08:25:00.000-04:00

The chairmanship of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development is set to be taken over by none other than Zimbabwe. The pariah nation's inflation rate of 2,200 percent is currently the world's highest; unemployment runs between 80 and 90 percent; food is in severely short supply; electricity runs only about 4 hours a day; and human rights abuses are rampant. The authoritarian regime of Belarus is also expected to win a seat on the commission.

(via Powerline)

Penguin May Suffer Discrimination

2007-05-13T08:21:00.000-04:00

From a BBC News item about a lone penguin found in Peru, thousands of miles away from its normal habitat in the southern straits of Chile:

Scientists say they fear that the solitary Magellanic penguin may not be accepted by some of the area's 4,000 Humboldt penguins.
Biologist David Orosco told AFP news agency that the native birds may even try to reject the penguin.
"Conditions in the park are not the ones it is used to. They usually seek out their own species, and it could suffer discrimination," Mr Orosco said.

(via Tim Blair)

French Election in a Nutshell

2007-05-07T22:16:00.001-04:00

There's a certain poetic quality to this paragraph from the New York Times. It opens like a flower, then turns in on itself:

Hours after the election results were announced, the police fired tear gas at crowds throwing bottles at Place de la Bastille in Paris. There were minor outbreaks of violence in some suburbs, with some youths burning cars, the police said. But the clashes were not significantly different from most weekends, the police said.