Want to volunteer to cut the debt?

Here is the tally of voluntary contributions made to cut the deficit. So far we are up to about 700 grand. Not bad as a stand alone figure I suppose, but when put against the deficit not terribly encouraging. Round up to a million for a minute. A million is 1/1000th of a billion. A billion is 1/1000 of a trillion. So a million is one millionth of a trillion. The deficit is about 1.6 trillion dollars. So really we are about one half of one millionth of the way there on voluntary contributions alone!

Now, some conservatives say that this is evidence of hypocrisy: if there are so many people that think our taxes should be higher then why aren't there more people making voluntary contributions? And why does the tax system have to be involved at all? Why don't those people that think the government can spend their money better than they can just cut out the IRS middle man and send in their check. But that really isn't fair. I may think that we should all pitch in to buy a new car, but if I pitch in and no one else does all that happens is that I am out some money and no one gains any thing. Such a situation would be strictly irrational.

On the other hand, if I don't make the contribution I may get the good anyway. Under these circumstances, why wouldn't I just keep my money? No one wants to make a contribution and then see no benefit to themselves, let alone one that leads to no benefit at all.

But perhaps that is where the argument breaks down. In the case of the deficit there may be no place where there is a disjoint change in the benefit per dollar? (There is a word for this in economics if I could remember it.) You get the benefit for each dollar contributed. So why don't those of us who feel that the deficit should be closed with higher taxes on people incomes similar to our own? What are we waiting for? Whatever benefit is going to come from my taxes increasing is going to come on the first dollar and it is going to come whether others contribute or not, so why not just start sending in checks?

quote of the day

"Ingenious men may assign ingenious reasons for opposite constructions of the same clause. They may heap refinement upon refinement, and subtlety upon subtlety, until they construe away every republican principle, every right sacred and dear to man."

-Williams, speech as New York Ratifying Convention, 1788

I thought of this the other day when I read something mentioning that law students in con-law seldom read the actual constitution but go straight to the cases and interpretations. The lawyers don't even bother with the text, but go straight to the subtleties they have themselves created. The subtleties have been heaped so high they do not bother to try to dig out the constitution that lies underneath.

Can alcohol help the brain remember? Repeated ethanol exposure enhances synaptic plasticity in key brain area, study finds

Can alcohol help the brain remember? Repeated ethanol exposure enhances synaptic plasticity in key brain area, study finds

Turns out that the Dude was right after all! Liquor does keep your mind limber.

Titanic Regulations

The Economist reports on the Vicker's Commission's proposals for reforming banking. They appear to do it better than we.

There are two approaches to dealing with failures of large institutions which I will call regulatory and structural.  The regulatory approach is to publish vague rules and empower bureaucrats with broad powers to second guess decisions made by private actors. This has the virtue of recognizing an important aspect of the failures of large institutions--you can never tell where they are going to come from or what is going to be the proximate cause. That means or at least suggests to some that you cannot tell in advance what the right thing to do is so the best you can do is have private actors report a lot of data to  regulators before or as the private actors make decisions so that the bureaucrats or regulators can make sure the private actors are not taking any undue risks.

There are obvious problems with this approach. For one thing why would we think the bureaucrats are any better at determining what is a bad risk than the private actor. If they were, why wouldn't they be the private actors themselves? Moreover, the endless stream of decisions that must have the regulator's blessing creates a potential for corruption and graft as the power to say no is converted into just plain old power. The very fact that the problems are hard to predict suggests that the regulators are as likely or more likely to be blindsided by events as the business leaders they are meant to correct.

The other approach is what I am terming the structural approach. By structural I mean a simple rule or set of rules that can be written into specific provisions of law and would have the effect of either making disaster less likely or making disaster more survivable if it does occur. In the case of banking regulation structural approaches would be increasing capital requirements or mandating reduced size.

The Vicker's commission has chosen the structural approach. They recommend an increase in capital requirements to 10% of reserves and restructuring of banks to make their investment and retail parts survivable on their own. These make sense to me. I would to see a more general requirement that the banks be limited in size compared to the economy or to the market, but they are certainly going in the right direction.

The regulation approach puts a committee of regulators on the bridge and gives them the power the second guess the captain. The structural approach is the promulgate a rule: have as many places on life boats as you have passengers. Which ship would you rather try to cross the Atlantic on?

Guess Who's Hiring!

I agree with the argument that in order to do something about our deficit we will have to touch entitlements. But there will also have to be something done on the discretionary part of the budget where most of our hiring is done. It is odd that in these times of supposed belt-tightening there are so many examples of what would seem to be superfluous jobs on offer.

One point that the article makes in the favor of federal workers is that they are not over-paid when one considers the amount of responsibility that have. But that point is not so decisive as it seems. It is true they oversee huge departments and are responsible for larger budgets and more people than equivalently paid people in the private sector, but I am not sure that being responsible for budgets and people in the government is really the same thing as it is in the private sector. In the private sector being responsible for people means deciding who to fire, being responsible for budgets means being able to lose money or possibly go out of business. These things are not true in the government where having more money or people may simply mean writing a longer report.

Is there an economist in the house?

I had always read that the reason we don't have food and fuel included in the core rate of inflation is because they are driven by factors that are outside monetary factors, in turn, are the main thing that central bankers worry about. But what if the rise in fuel costs is driven by monetary policy? Isn't part of the reason that oil is going up is because of our monetary policy, that we are borrowing such large amounts and the markets fear we might try to pay some of that debt off in the future by printing money, no?

"Rights"

Here is a link to SEIU protesters getting arrested in Wisconsin.

The key thing moving public opinion in the public unions' favor is the idea of rights. Taking away someones rights always seems to strike the public as unreasonable. Simply by calling an arrangement a right inclines public opinion to favor continuing the arrangement regardless. Framing the argument as a fight to prevent "taking away collective bargaining rights," stacks the deck in favor of the public union side of the debate.

The problem here is not only that anything can be called a right, but that any right for one group by definition takes away another right. In the case of 'collective bargaining rights' the reciprocal is 'individual bargaining rights.' The supporters of Governor Walker should answer the charge that they are "taking away collective bargaining rights" by saying they are "restoring individual bargaining rights."

Greta

Watching Greta Van Simpleton on Fox. She is getting her clock cleaned by a classy and in intelligent Democratic Congressman named Andrews. It is so sad being a conservative sometimes: you have a babbling idiot on your side and have to see an intelligent advocate on the other side.

The worst thing is that she misses--surprise--the most obvious argument. Andrews says that the President has met the Republicans two thirds of the way on the argument that Republicans want 100 billion in cuts and the President wants zero cuts from his budget and that now that the President has accepted 71 billion in cuts that he has met the Republicans two thirds of the way. The obvious rejoinder is that the 100 billion in cuts are from a greater than 100 billion increase and a massive increase from the historical norm already. Of course the lip-less wonder misses it entirely and goes directly into "and your another" mode.

Bad News

Wonder what they say about strangling students?

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2011/04/professor-arrested.html

How the Senate was bait and switched into war | Conn Carroll | Beltway Confidential | Washington Examiner

How the Senate was bait and switched into war | Conn Carroll | Beltway Confidential | Washington Examiner

An extraordinary maneuver to get the Senate on record supporting the war in Libya was apparently used by the Obama administration: adding language to a resolution without telling anyone and "hotlining" it through in late at night through unanimous consent (of a much smaller than usual Senate).

It is very rare to so blatantly breach the trust of ones fellow Senators--it is a small world in the Senate and the long term consequences of a bad rep surely outweigh any immediate advantage. And it is difficult to see what the advantage is. After all, using unanimous consent precludes getting any particular Senator on record. The only real use of the resolution would be for political cover if the engagement went badly (badly in the sense of costing a lot of American lives or giving us a Libya run by people even nastier than the ones running it now) and the decision became a negative for the President's reelection campaign. But in that case the underhanded tactics the administration used to get the resolution through would in all likelihood negate any political cover the Senate vote provided. Indeed, the President's own allies in the Senate would have the political incentives to make sure that that is precisely what happened.

When Animals Attack - Cow Survival Guide - Popular Mechanics

From the Monty Python, call your office department:

When Animals Attack - Cow Survival Guide - Popular Mechanics

(The reference is to this skit)

The law in China: A spear not a shield | The Economist

The law in China: A spear not a shield | The Economist

The Chinese state is cracking down on dissent in the wake of the Arab revolutions. In addition to being formally charged with crimes such as "Slandering the Communist Party" (by suggesting, for instance, that it is a dictatorship) people are being informally detained and temporarily disappeared. The tactics remind me of Robert Mugabe's campaign of torture where people were not killed but let out after their ordeal to serve as walking advertisements for the regime's brutality.

Does Hooters know about this?

Ronald Reagan once quipped, "They say hard work never killed anyone, but I figure, 'Why take a chance?'"

I feel the same way about the study linked above reporting that starring at breasts reduced the risk of heart attacks: skeptical, but willing to play it safe. Here is a list of heart healthy movies for your cardiovascular improvement. (The original post is on instapundit)

Stuff you can't make up

Welfare debit cards allow you to see easily where money is being spent. Turns out that some of the money that Missouri residents spent was spent in Florida and Hawaii. Anyone care to make a freedom of information request for Mississippi?

Para military weirdness

I was just in Pizza Shack and a mass of police dressed in para-military garb walked in. They were perfectly polite and as quiet as such a large group could be, but it was quite off-putting nonetheless.

There is something about having people walking around in military equipment in a civilian setting that is just un-American as I see it. The police aren't some separate entity, they are citizens, like us. There is something unsettling about it. Something not right.

I don't remember this sort of thing when I was a kid. We had planes in the sky and soldiers--unarmed--in our town, but the idea of sworn law officers moving about in mass with all this amour and iron hanging off of them was just unthinkable to us. A lot of it seems to have arisen from the war on drugs and the tactic of trying to take down big dealers and raiding houses without knocking on the door, etc. The old English Common Law never contemplated a "no-knock" raid--another reason that it isn't just conservatives that should care about the original understanding of the Constitution.

We put together these quasi-military forces and they eventually become part of the landscape. We accept it as normal. The organizations find ways to justify their existence by finding more and more things to do. Gradually we become less citizens and more subjects of the mandarinate.

Its Not Corruption If We Do It

The link goes to a story detailing a group of Harvard academics that received hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees from Khadafy. They argue that they were helping him bring about change or something. When corporations do business with a dictatorial regime they are greedy capitalists, when Harvard academics give intellectual cover and PR flack to a vicious anti-American, terrorist supporting regime it is somehow ok, they are reaching out and being non-judgemental. When our noble profession does it it can't be immoral.

Update: Instapundit links to a guy that mocks the pretensions of an institution that was unwilling to be associated with the US military but had no trouble taking money from a vile dictator.

Iraq and Egyptian Democracy

Among the many commentaries about the popular movements toward democracy that have sprung up so suddenly in the Arab world, one possible cause has received less attention that it deserves: the example of democracy in Iraq.

The idea that the example of the people of Iraq setting up a functioning democracy may have had a role in inspiring the wave of democracy movements moving across the Arab world now is generally met with open derision. An example can be seen in this Dialogue between Robert Wright and Mickey Kaus. They are arguing about the causes of Egypt's revolution and Kaus states that one of those causes is the example of Iraq's democracy, which Kaus claims is at least as important as twitter. Wright rolls his eyes and says something along the lines of "Oh I am sure there are people all over the Middle-East saying, 'Yes, I wish I could get blown up in my bed and murdered by terrorists," and argues that the security situation in Iraq has probably made retarded the cause of democracy in the Arab world if anything.

I find this somewhat disturbing in a way that I find hard to put into words, exactly. The Americans and the advocates for democracy have not been engaging in acts of terrorism to spread democracy, it has been the opponents of democracy that have been using terror as their weapon. It is true that this terror has been a direct consequence of America's invasion and so the US has a moral responsibility to do all it reasonably can to combat this campaign of terror against democracy, but that is still something quite different from engaging in a campaign of terror.

Of course, Mr. Wright's point is that it doesn't matter to a fellow whose family is being murdered how good your intentions were. People are going to look at the situation in Iraq and many in the Arab world will reasonably conclude from it that democracy may not be a good system for us. They will look at it and certainly not find in it any great reason to go out and try to bring the same system to their country. But that is a different thing from saying that the example of Iraq cannot inspire the Arab world or create very real pressure for on the other governments of the Arab world to change in a democratic direction.

They may find that they do not like the security situation that comes with a violent transition to democracy and still find in the situation in Iraq things that are desirable and, more importantly perhaps, things that undermine the case that has been for decades in the Arab world that the Arabs are not suited to democracy.

For one thing, there seems to be a great deal of free speech in Iraq. The rest of the Arab world might be aware of that and may be truly envious of it. They may find that things are now being said out loud in the Arab world that people have been thinking privately for years. I do not know this for a fact, but it strikes me at least as being very plausible. The people of Iraq have been plodding along getting governments elected, going out to the polls in the face of the most dire threats, and talking back to their leaders with a great deal of heartfelt vituperation. These must have some effect on the rest of the Arab world. It hardly seems impossible that others in the Arab world can feel inspired and in a certain way a bit shamed by the example set by the people of Iraq, and, in part, precisely because of the things that Mr. Wright points out. They have set up and got their democracy going by millions of ordinary citizens fighting for themselves, taking great personal risks, and facing down a monstrous terrorist campaign from the off shoots of al Qaeda and the agents of Iran. It is not hard to see that they might be in some way a bit disappointed in themselves, they might say to themselves, if the Iraqis can govern themselves in the face of such opposition maybe I can face the secret police or at least join a protest.

And there is another way in which the example of Iraq may have given impetus to the events in Tunisia and Egypt: the example of Iraq has undone the argument Arabs can't have democracy because America and the West will somehow prevent it, and the concomitant argument that Arabs need do nothing but wait for the Americans to allow them to have democracy.

Here is where it is very important that the Americans have not been the ones committing the terrorist campaign, however much we may bare ultimate responsibility for it having occurred in the first place. It is only through the most strained arguments that one can deny that the forces against democracy have been home grown in the Middle-East, have in fact come from the very forces and ideologies that have been most anti-Western, while it has been the West, and primarily the Americans and the other English speaking peoples, that have fought and made sacrifices for democracy.

My point is not that the Arabs should be grateful to us, much less that they are. I only point out that the argument that America's support for democracy is a sort of put-on, or worse, that we are the reason that there is no democracy in the Arab world, or that the fix is in and America would some how undercut any real movement toward democracy, or that there is no use trying to do anything because the Americans and the Zionists will always just install another dictator, or--and this is the one that has really been undone by the Iraq adventure--if only the true believers would wage jihad to rid us of the forces of the West then we could truly be free, all of these arguments have been put on thin ice by the example of Iraqis practicing democracy and the Americans getting killed to give them a chance to succeed.

Here is where I find the attitude of Mr. Wright so unfair. It does matter very much that the people terrorizing Iraq and making democracy there a bloody trial are the forces of Islamism, the most anti-American forces in the Middle-East. To allow the violence that they have caused in their attempt to strangle Arab democracy in the crib reminds me of those die-hard Southerners that used the example of the violence that followed reconstruction and the terrible conditions in that followed under the Jim Crow regime as an argument against fighting to end slavery. "How is that 'freedom' working out for you, boy?" Of course, in many ways the situation for blacks after the Civil War was arguably as bad as or even worse than slavery. But to use that fact as an argument against ending slavery seems at best a bit incomplete. It is at least relevant to point out that the reason that freedom resulted in a situation that was not an obvious improvement on slavery was not because of the failings of blacks or freedom really not being as intrinsically valuable as its advocates claimed, it was because of a terrorist campaign waged by the very people that opposed freedom for blacks all along. To allow their argument against freedom to be reinforced or to be given support by the violence and terror they used to destroy freedom is somewhat perverse.

It is also somewhat perverse, indeed, even cruel, to say that the example of the blacks who fought for freedom in the Civil and in the Reconstruction era could not inspire other blacks to fight for their freedom. In the same way, I think that saying the example of the Iraqi people standing up to terrorism and fighting for democracy cannot inspire the rest of the Arab world to stand up to their dictators is cruel. To dismiss the sacrifices of people that have been murdered for daring to try to rule themselves, to speak their minds freely and to claim for themselves the rights that we hold sacred is, to laugh at the idea that others might be inspired by their example is, if not perverse, then certainly ill-advised. For it tells those who would have use terror to snuff out self-rule that all they have to do to win is keep the bodies count on the increase.

Many people had good reasons for opposing the decision to invade Iraq and for criticizing the way it was fought. But too often this legitimate and often valuable criticism of the Iraq war seems to cross over into a belittling of the Iraqi people and the cause of democracy. It seems that the anger that should be directed at our own leaders is mistakenly directed at our friends and, worse, is allowed to give aid to our worst enemies.

Here is a link sent to me by Allan Eyrich from the Economist where the same argument is examined and rejected--rather perfunctorily in my opinion. More about that later.

V and the failure of imagination

I am watching "V" on TV. It is emblematic of the lack of imagination in contemporary science fiction. The writers seem to take such small, unimaginative steps from reality. Instead of using the genre of science fiction to take great leaps of imagination they seem to make small changes from contemporary politics and social controversies. So the V show has come to be about the travails of parenting teens in suburbia rather than a life and death struggle over the survival of humanity.

The son of the main character is on the side of the alien invaders. He caught on a video vandalizing the office of someone that has criticized the aliens. The mother--the main character--sees the video and is distraught that her son has committed vandalism--not that he is on the side of lizards from outer space bent on the destruction of the human race. And the solution to this is for the main character and her estranged husband to get the family back together so that the 18 year old boy can have a secure environment. Instead of the premise giving the writers a chance to explore possibilities completely outside of normal experience they use the possibilities to dress up the most mundane and trivial soap-opera plots.

Another premise of the show is the concern with "collateral damage" that separates the heros from the bad humans. The chance to kill the leader of the aliens and possibly end the war would cost 300 lives. This the hero refuses to continence. Now in WWII our leaders sent thousands to their death to win the battle against Nazis and would not have blinked at the chance to kill Hitler at the cost of 300 innocent allied civilians, let alone 300 that had declared themselves on the other side. It seems that total war for survival is already out of the bounds of the imagination of our contemporary science fiction writers. What is the point of science fiction if you use it to stay bound to the sidewalk?

The story that "we" gave small pox infected blankets to the Indians was repeated on the show as if it were a settled fact. There is are two letters from British officers contemplating doing so during the Pontiac rebellion in 1773. The stories of the US army doing so are solely form Ward Churchill and are fabricated. It is miserable that our own intellectual elites are so happy to slander our own society. But they don't think of it as their society. Our contemporary intellectuals are among us but not of us. Their superiority over and contempt for the society that they are nominally a part of is the source of their self-esteem and denigrating that society stirs in their breast not pain but pride.

The effect of prisons on political participation

Wonderful divalog. The nice liberal professor lady and a real, fact based conservative journalist who actually has some social science knowledge.

I think their conversation would be more interesting and mutually productive if there were more brachia and less polite exchange of 3 minute speeches. Still, they reply quite directly to one another’s points.

Vesla, an assistant professor at Virginia, argues that putting all these black dudes in jail is turing them off politics and depriving the revolution of some of its otherwise most faithful voters.

She refers to all this evidence that blacks are being locked up in spite of not committing a lot of crimes, or that their incarceration rates are not explained by their higher propensity to commit crimes. She says that most people have committed crimes. She makes the point that she has committed crimes. therefore, there is no reason to be jail’in on black folks. heather comes back with numbers that blacks are 81 times more likely to get shot and they get shot overwhelmingly by other blacks. How could both of these things be true? I think that Vesla shades a bit. She says “has committed crimes.” That means that she is treating the noun criminal to mean anyone who has committed a crime and by that definition the differences between blacks and white are probably much less than heather’s evidence, which counts each crime as the unit of analysis.




They get into the causes of crime and Heather points out that blacks have a higher rate of OWW. All the time she is going on about the Vesla has a little smile on her lips like she is about to come out devastating question. The question turns out to be “and how much do you think that higher black incarceration rates has to do with these out of wedlock


If I thought that investment in government programs to end poverty would actually work to reduce poverty and lower crime I think that the Great Society programs would be cheap at the price. I think they would have been cheap at twice or maybe even 10 times the price. I just don’t think that.

It is starting to get better as Vesla gets pissed off about halfway. The question of victims leads her to saying that conservatives don’t really care about victims because they are not willing to spend more on social programs.

You don’t tell these people that have been victims of Jim Crow and tell them to lift themselves up. “Shut up and take your $100 a week job and pass on the $5000 drug dealing job. I am tired of that conversation.” She needs to have the conversation with more interesting conservatives, or at least some more empirical economists. Steve Levitt’s article, “If Drug Dealing Pays So Well Why do So Many Drug Dealers Live With Their Mothers?”

The McDonald’s job pays a lot better, about $280 a week to start with, and a lot more with EITC and other benefits thrown in.

What if crime was caused by economic depravation? If I lived in a poor neighborhood I would want the criminals locked up. Whatever the cause of crime getting rid of it is a first, necessary step to economic development and political participation.

Vesla says that black males are more often stopped without cause. Isn’t that a necessary consequence of sharing an observable characteristic with a group that commits crime more often? Males in general have a higher likelihood of being wrongly stopped for a criminal investigation.


Vesla says that she has a lot of people that had their first interaction with the police when they were 8. She says that that can’t be explained by cultural factors. But isn’t that exactly what we would blame that on? Are 8 year olds looking out at the job market and saying, “Heck, I am not going to get a job so I think I will….” Isn’t criminality among 8 year olds evidence precisely of a culture of doing stuff that brings attention from the law?

I of course agree with Heather but it really does annoy me how long it takes her to ask a question. I think all of what she says is fair and interesting, but I find myself almost exploding waiting for her to shut up so I can hear the answer. She has an interesting little point asking Vesla why they she doesn’t mind barring felons from carrying guns, won’t that have a “disenfranchising” psychological effect? But she doesn’t get the question out and wait for the answer. She drones on heaping evidence on a point that is already made. It amazing me how people are not really as interested in the answers to their questions as they are in hearing what the other person thinks. Besides, Vesla has a good answer. She doesn’t much trust non-felons to carry guns so she is hardly being inconsistent when she has a rather low threshold for deciding that felons should not have guns.

at 59 minutes Heather finally points out that the majority of people even in poor neighborhoods do not commit crimes.

Vesla asks the correct question, the Rawlsian question, if you were going to be born in a bad neighborhood would you be any more likely to commit crimes. But she gets the question somewhat wrong. If you are going to grow up in one of those bad neighborhoods you are still probably not going to be a criminal and, at least it seems to me, that the rational answer is that, “Yes, I want the criminals around here locked up.” If I were going to be born black in a bad neighborhood I would still want Bratton and Gulianni locking up anybody that spits on the side walk.

Vesla goes back to the 8 year old getting in trouble with the law for dealing drugs on the corner. We need to give them a better story than “you did the crime, you do the crime.”

The Incredible Chris Mathews

He has Michael Steele and says to him that the difference between the Republicans and the Democrats is that at the Democrats' convention is that the black guys are all hanging together having a boisterous good time, but when he goes into the Republican convention it is as if the blacks were told not to bunch together. They are there but they are all mixed with whites and aren't in a group.

Now think about that.

Apply the first test of spin: imagine the converse. Imagine that it was at the Republican convention that the blacks were all bunched together and at the Democrats that they are all spread out. What would it mean then? That among Democrats the blacks are accepted as individuals and congregate with their fellow party members not on the basis of skin color but on the basis of interest or region, etc. Among Republicans blacks are forced into social isolation, mere tokens, among but not of the Republican party.

Michael Steele's lame response and Matthew's closing compliment to Steele that had he, Matthews, been there he would have voted for Steele. That is all we need to know about Steele, I think.

Now Axelrod is on saying that businesses are not sitting on 2 trillion in order to make a political statement, passing on Matthew's invitation to echo the administration's previous line that businesses are failing to invest out of some sort of spite. Obama is tacking right with all sails to the wind.

An ideological hit piece wrapped in a non-story

A non-story about the "suddenly silent" John McCain asks why he has not had a higher profile in the wake of the Arizona shooting. But of course, it is not just that he hasn't been on enough talk shows, it is that he hasn't denounced the hate speech coming from the Right. The "question" of where is McCain is made into a story rather than a straightforward ideological attack from a supposedly neutral journalist by using a quote from a Democratic congressman, Rep. Raul Grijalva:

"It would be helpful for all of us to deal with the question of rhetoric, hyperbole, hate, and anger. McCain has national prominence and prestige and it would be welcome for him to come and help change the tone."

A real thing of beauty, this. You make the issue why McCain isn't denouncing the hateful right-wing rhetoric, implying that right wing rhetoric is the problem and that McCain is somehow complicit in it by not saying anything, and making it all seem like you are motivated by your admiration for the Senator.

Money graph: "Just because he’s been keeping his counsel does not mean, however, that McCain hasn’t been involved."

Now doesn't this give the game away? It turns out that instead of going on a bunch of talk shows he is going to funerals. Now how outrageous is that?

One test you can always apply to a non-story-story is to ask if the person who is the object of the story could have done anything that would have negated the complaint without inviting an opposite complaint? Imagine if he had been on a bunch of talk shows but had not made it to any funerals? The "putting politics above people" story almost writes itself.

Sheriff missed several chances to stop the murder

The same sheriff that accused right wing talk radio hosts of being responsible for the shootings in his jurisdiction missed several chances to stop Loughner from his department's being called to the house several times to stopping him just three hours before the shooting on a traffic stop. Of course, none of that matters. What matters is the "atmosphere" or the "context" that is creating by using words like "reload" or "target" or "If they bring a knife, we bring a gun." --whoops! Sorry. That was President Obama.

Krauthammer makes the case that there is no causal relationship even as a slight possibility between anything that Palin said and Loughner's actions. But even this is a step backwards in a way. If Loughner had listened to Palin and drew some insane implications from it would that make her responsible? If some nut case had cited President Obama's rhetoric about bringing a gun to a fight as a reason for murdering a Republican would President Obama be somehow responsible? Surely not. How is anyone to held responsible for the behavior of people who can't be held responsible for their own behavior? How long could robust speech survive if the standard were the inferences drawn from your speech?

Sarah and the blood libel

I am watching Chris Mathews and it is just nuts. They are analyzing the use of the term "blood libel". "What could she have meant?" They have come up with every explanation except the most obvious: that they are saying she is responsible for the shooting and murders, for having blood on her hands. She thinks that she does not have blood on her hands, that she is not responsible. Thinking that she is not responsible for these deaths she regards the suggestion that she is as a libel, and given that the matter at hand is a matter of blood she calls it a blood libel.

Now the folks on the Mathews' show are going on about the origins of the term on the assumption that she could not have meant anything that simple. Now Americans use the term the way Sarah Palin does, the same way they use "begs the question" as meaning brings up a topic rather than assuming that which is to be proven. I may not like that, but to pretend that Americans know that "begs the question" is a direct translation of petitio principii is pedantic and pretentious. By doing the same thing with the use of "blood libel" they are not only not making their point they are showing a certain contempt for the typical American. This is unpersuasive and surely politically unwise.

One thing this particularly infuriating is the way the ground of the argument keeps shifting. One moment they say "We aren't saying that she is responsible for the shooting," and then saying, "Why doesn't Palin just apologize?" Apologize for the killing that she didn't cause?

First post from the apple store

Thanks to Sarah I am on-line again! Look out World! 

True Disappointment

The movie true grit was a great disappointment, in part precisely because so much of it was so very good.

The dialogue from the original was captured and made credible in a way that I haven't heard since "Deadwood". Indeed, it was even more credible. The dialogue in Deadwood always seemed a bit too good. In the True Grit it doesn't seemed forced or contrived at all. The young heroine speaks in a biblical cadence while Rooster Cockburn speaks in a backwoods accent that is at once simple and majestic.

What is disappointing are the things added in and the things taken out.

What is added in is a brutal and callous bigotry on the part of the 'American' characters against the Indians. What is taken out is the morality of the novel. Portis' novel is a powerful statement against judicial formalism and in favor of realism.

Christopher Hitchens: 'You have to choose your future regrets' | interview | Books | The Observer

Christopher Hitchens: 'You have to choose your future regrets' | interview | Books | The Observer

Most interesting quote: Along the way, he says, "I learned that very often the most intolerant and narrow-minded people are the ones who congratulate themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness. Amazing. My conservative friends look at me and say, 'Welcome to the club. What took you so long?' Well that's what it took and I think it's worth recording."

Zombie » Gerrymandering 101

Zombie » Gerrymandering 101

Really nice post on Gerrymandering with a particularly good illustration of how it works and the magnitude of the effect it has had on our politics. He has a simple diagram showing how the minority can actually make itself the majority: something which, he argues, the Congressional Democrats appeared to have done for several decades.

Gangster Government Stifles Criticism of Obamacare

Gangster Government Stifles Criticism of Obamacare

Michael Barone explains why Saul Alinsky would be proud of his man in the White House.

Afghanistan and the Romans

While dealing with a revolt by the Franks he found that one of his supposed allies had betrayed the Romans and was complicit in the killing of many Romans. Caesar's soldiers wanted him to put the traitorous ally to death. But Caesar stopped them and ordered the rebellious tribal leader set free and even rewarded. For Caesar individual justice was a lesser good than that of the whole. He reasoned that whatever the truth of the matter was--and Caesar was in little doubt--the man was perceived as a friend of Rome. His aim was to advance the power and peace of Rome. And the most important principle in advancing the Pax Roma was that the enemies of Rome be seen to suffer and the friends of Rome be seen to prosper.

We in American have found a way to obey the opposite principle. In Afghanistan it has been our policy to benefit our enemies and harm our friends.

We have arrived at this unfortunate pass through good intentions, lack of imagination and bureaucratic inertia.

If one looks at the correlation between attacks on American soldiers and development aid it would be hard to avoid the conclusion that the best way to get American money is to spill American blood. Not that this is purely an American policy. Aid from other national governments and from international bodies follows largely the same pattern. The more violent an area is the more aid it gets. What is going on is the result not so much the result of explicit and conscious policy coordination as it is the result of common elite belief systems across the Western world. Call it the globalization of appeasement, of Chamberlainism. Violence is caused by poverty and deprivation. The perpetrators of violence are the victims of i. To stop their violence cure their deprivation. The problem is, the dog might bite you because he is hungry or because he has found a new way to get fed.

The Plum Line - Obama to auto-workers: If GOP had had its way, your jobs would be gone

The Plum Line - Obama to auto-workers: If GOP had had its way, your jobs would be gone
Republican blows it. Obama touts the 80 billion he has squandered on the dino-jobs of the UAW and a Republican, Lamar Alexander, blows it. Alexander says that the government should get out of the business of propping up the lame 2 in order to protect jobs. Wrong! They are inefficient companies and they should go out of business. If the Republicans don't yet have the guts to say that the reason you don't prop up bad companies is not to protect the workers at the bad companies but to protect the consumers and investors now, when will they?

Jack Devine: The CIA Solution for Afghanistan - WSJ.com

Jack Devine: The CIA Solution for Afghanistan - WSJ.com

The CIA plan: let our friends hang, if they are lucky, that is. Our enemy's usual method of execution is not so humane.

The "plan" is to just let the country's democratic government take its chances and form relationships with whoever can help us out with Al Qaeda. One particularly noxious feature of this oped is the sanctimony it reeks of. He ends with a little flourish about advocates of covert action like himself having a special obligation to make it clear that they will not 'continence' such things as waterboarding. Three terrorists being water boarded is a great moral tragedy. A nation falling under the rule of monsters who make a public entertainment of beheading infidels is just being realistic.

Afghanistan's 'pristine jihad' draws in outsiders trained in Pakistan - Times Online

Afghanistan's 'pristine jihad' draws in outsiders trained in Pakistan - Times Online

Foreign fighters are increasing in Afghanistan. That means that if we walk away or lose it will be seen as a victory for the Islamists. That will be a disastrous outcome not only for the Afghans but for us.

Arizona Immigration Decision - Andy McCarthy - The Corner on National Review Online

Arizona Immigration Decision - Andy McCarthy - The Corner on National Review Online

McCarthy's analysis seems spot on to me. On thing that I really find interesting here is that some of the law's opponents think the judge has done them a favor in striking down the law. This is almost certainly not true. Our experience from the Roe v. Wade decision is that the court's intervention preempting normal law and policy making has the effect of mobilizing the losers far better than mere legislative opposition can. And remember, when the abortion laws of the states were struck down those laws were not all that popular and were seen as on the way out anyway (indeed, the fact that abortion prohibitions were on the wane across the states was actually used by the court as a reason the laws should be struck down!). Arizona's statute was supported by large and already mobilized blocks of voters.

Trip from 1701 N State St, Jackson, MS 39210-0001 to Quest Fitness, 1693 Bailey Ave, Jackson, MS 39203

Trip from 1701 N State St, Jackson, MS 39210-0001 to Quest Fitness, 1693 Bailey Ave, Jackson, MS 39203

My new martial arts class will be starting here soon.

Opinion: Sen. Jim Webb Uses His Privilege to Play Racial Politics

Opinion: Sen. Jim Webb Uses His Privilege to Play Racial Politics

Here is a reply to Webb's oped by Michael Arceneaux. His reply to Webb's argument that to the extent that affirmative action is justified by the need to compensate for past injustices suffered at the hands of white America is American imperialsim:

Webb says that immigrants from Asia, Africa and Latin America "did not suffer from discrimination from our government" the way black Americans did, but they nevertheless benefit from programs intended to rectify it. He doesn't address the prospect that American imperialism affected people of color in various parts of the world.

This seems a bit thin. American imperialism would seem to be a reasonable argument for American Indians, Philippines Islanders and perhaps even some Hispanics, but what could it possibly have to do with East Asians or South Asians?

Khmer Rouge Leader Convicted - WSJ.com

Khmer Rouge Leader Convicted - WSJ.com

Another farce of international law comes to an end with a Khmer Rouge leader being convicted and sentenced to 35 years, probably with time served as part of the sentence. If you object to mass murder being committed by a state the proper action to take is to go to war and stop mass murder by forcibly stopping the mass murderers.

JammieWearingFool

JammieWearingFool Reports on the contributions from BP to the Obama administration, another story the state run media are not interested in.

New Blood for Social Security — The American, A Magazine of Ideas

New Blood for Social Security — The American, A Magazine of Ideas

This article discusses a proposal for bringing government workers into the social security system. There is something about tyranny being defined by the rulers not living under the laws they make for others somewhere in political theory, isn't there? I think the new political divide will be between the people and the mandarinate, the people that have to make their living in the market and the people that get checks from the government. The new class warfare will be between citizens and the government payroll one way or the other.

For a lot of this century these issues have been deflected by painting government employees as self-sacrificing heroes, the operative synecdoches always being fire-fighters and police. But one of the ways to counteract this is by bringing up easily understood contrasts. Such a contrast is highlighted by reference to the simple principle that you have to live under the laws you make for others. The social security exemption is an obvious example. Government officials who don't send their kids to private schools is another. The coming of government health care is going to offer a target rich environment.

The charge that they rulers are not living under the laws they make for others was used to great effect by Gingrich in the early 90s. The fact that Congress had literally exempted itself from most of the hiring and safety regulations it had imposed on the rest of the country was of little practical import but tremendous symbolic power. The issues of government workers not living within the constraints of the welfare state they are pushing the rest of the country into is a huge potential issue.

White House backed release of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi | The Australian

White House backed release of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi | The Australian

So the Obama administration backed release of the Lockerbie bomber? Incredible. And more evidence that if you want to know anything you have to read the foreign papers. No use relying on the state run media here.

Breitbart: Sherrod "Sees Things Through Racial Prism" - CBS News Video

Breitbart: Sherrod "Sees Things Through Racial Prism" - CBS News Video


Breitbart makes some very good points and I agree with most of them. I really don't like the way he monopolizes the conversation even if he is right and even if he is getting slammed by the media which is distorting everything he says. I go back to Reagan. Reagan was vilified by the media but never felt the need to act like this in an interview. I can't stand people that can't make their points with pith and brevity. It is the Alinskyiazation of the right.

One thing that I think we could all benefit from is a definition of the terms "doctoring". The clip was not doctored. It was incomplete. Doctoring is taking something out of the middle of someones remarks. Taking an intact but incomplete clip is not doctoring. Taking one question and putting it with a different answer is doctoring. Incomplete may or may not be relevant, but is not doctoring.

Right now I am hearing Shiraz give her life story as a martyr. She is going to be the poster child for the administration and she really is a bit weird. Morris is the guy who made the key point, the administration now owns this woman and it is not clear that she is a bargain.

Breitbart: Sherrod "Sees Things Through Racial Prism" - CBS News Video

Breitbart: Sherrod "Sees Things Through Racial Prism" - CBS News Video


Breitbart makes some very good points and I agree with most of them. I really don't like the way he monopolizes the conversation even if he is right and even if he is getting slammed by the media which is distorting everything he says. I go back to Reagan. Reagan was vilified by the media but never felt the need to act like this in an interview. I can't stand people that can't make their points with pith and brevity. It is the Alinskyiazation of the right.

One thing that I think we could all benefit from is a definition of the terms "doctoring". The clip was not doctored. It was incomplete. Doctoring is taking something out of the middle of someones remarks. Taking an intact but incomplete clip is not doctoring. Taking one question and putting it with a different answer is doctoring. Incomplete may or may not be relevant, but is not doctoring.

Right now I am hearing Shiraz give her life story as a martyr. She is going to be the poster child for the administration and she really is a bit weird. Morris is the guy who made the key point, the administration now owns this woman and it is not clear that she is a bargain.

Breitbart: Sherrod "Sees Things Through Racial Prism" - CBS News Video

Breitbart: Sherrod "Sees Things Through Racial Prism" - CBS News Video


Breitbart makes some very good points and I agree with most of them. I really don't like the way he monopolizes the conversation even if he is right and even if he is getting slammed by the media which is distorting everything he says. I go back to Reagan. Reagan was vilified by the media but never felt the need to act like this in an interview. I can't stand people that can't make their points with pith and brevity. It is the Alinskyiazation of the right.

One thing that I think we could all benefit from is a definition of the terms "doctoring". The clip was not doctored. It was incomplete. Doctoring is taking something out of the middle of someones remarks. Taking an intact but incomplete clip is not doctoring. Taking one question and putting it with a different answer is doctoring. Incomplete may or may not be relevant, but is not doctoring.

Right now I am hearing Shiraz give her life story as a martyr. She is going to be the poster child for the administration and she really is a bit weird. Morris is the guy who made the key point, the administration now owns this woman and it is not clear that she is a bargain.

Classical Values :: Burglar? Or underground bartender?

Classical Values :: Burglar? Or underground bartender?

Why this is a kick-ass country.

The Volokh Conspiracy » Cultural Defense Accepted as to Nonconsensual Sex in New Jersey Trial Court, Rejected on Appeal

The Volokh Conspiracy » Cultural Defense Accepted as to Nonconsensual Sex in New Jersey Trial Court, Rejected on Appeal

As yes, the sweet smell of multi-culturalism. So raping a woman is ok if you don't think that you are raping a woman but acting under what your culture (the culture of the country you came from), you think you are just exercising your rights. Of course, not all cultures are according this privilege of super ceding the law of the land. Whoopi nods, it wasn't "rape" rape. It is not rape if the 14 year old's family wants the money and connections that come from selling their daughter off in marriage or letting your daughter be ravaged by a Hollywood producer if you think they are going to have a shot at getting a part in a big movie.

bad news

Article
Soldiers kidnapped in Afghanistan. At least they went out shooting. Fox News said that they left their base in Kabul. I was just in Kabul a little over two weeks ago. Surely I was a softer target than soldiers in an 4-wheel drive.

The Volokh Conspiracy » Obama Campaign Adviser Participated on JournoList

The Volokh Conspiracy » Obama Campaign Adviser Participated on JournoList

Here is the thing: the fact one of their guys is part of the liberal in-crowd with journalists is not news. But the fact is that coordination is against the campaign finance laws. Of course, as a matter of substance this is trivial: most what they did and talked about would surely have happened without the guy being on the list. The law is overly broadly drawn. But a bad law is still a law. What will happen is that the establishment will concede the law was technically violated but argue that substantively it didn't matter because they were all liberals anyway. That is a problem for two reasons. For one thing, it is a violation of law anyway. But more interestingly, the defense puts a lie to the claim that the "profession" of journalism is in some significant way to be accepted as a neutral authority.

It raises a number of fascinating questions, too. For instance, what is an "organization"? You are a member of journolist. What does that mean? Being on an address list makes you a member of something? That is scary considering some of the mailing lists I am a member of.

Breitbart and the clip

Breitbart says that he only received the edited clip. That seems a reasonable explanation but it only moves the misdeed back a step to whomever edited the clip to be obviously misleading.  Where are the demands that that person apologize and come forward. 

Breitbart's argument that was he was only trying to draw attention to the way the audience reacted.  Again, this is an interesting and reasonable point. I think the reaction of the crowd was a little disturbing. But the characterization the edited clip gave of Sherwood's thinking is just just unforgivable.  If it had been made clear at the outset that the story about discriminating against a white man was part of a larger story of how she learned that such behavior is wrong then the point about the audience's reaction to her statements before she had revealed that her views had changed might be defensible, but having the truth come out only after a person's reputation has been doesn't quite cut it.  After all this progress we have made we now have to fight the perception that every piece of video we release is part of a set up. The possible fact that Breitbart was not in on the set-up hardly undoes the damage.

Jules Crittenden » Race-Baitism

Jules Crittenden » Race-Baitism

Good post on the use of the racism charge. I have two things to add.

First, it should be called playing the racism card. That is the most sensible and accurate term. Why will no one listen to me?

Secondly, the incriminating emails from journo-list have been defended by Solon on the grounds that the tactics talked about do not appear to have been actually employed. But that misses the point. The media did act as if they had been on journ0-list and had employed their strategies. Rove and other conservatives were called racists for bringing it up and the main-stream press was remarkably incurious about Reverend Wright and Obama's connections to him. But the most damning piece of evidence is that the McCain campaign ignored the story. They did not want to be tagged as racists. The misdeed of intimidation is not lessened because the intimidation worked.

The value of the Journo-list revelations is not that we see the actual planning of the specific actions taken by that set of journalists but that we get to see the thinking of mainstream journalists whey they think no one is listening.

George F. Will - The high price of American hubris

George F. Will - The high price of American hubris

Will mentions something that would be too perfect to believe if it were made up:

Wilson said, in effect, "Stop the world, America wants to get off." He actually said America would "in no circumstances consent to live in a world governed by intrigue and force." And so the next war came, on Sept. 1, 1939, when dignitaries were in Geneva, birthplace and cemetery of the League of Nations, unveiling a statue of Wilson.

We don't always get to choose our wars and our enemies, sometimes they choose us.

U.S. and Afghanistan Debate More Village Forces - NYTimes.com

U.S. and Afghanistan Debate More Village Forces - NYTimes.com

Here is the problem: we disarmed the local populace and left them vulnerable to the Taliban on the theory that they needed a strong central government to protect them. When the strong central government never materialized the Taliban took advantage. And it was precisely the people that were most supportive of our side and were most likely to comply with the disarmament decrees that were hurt.

20 Highest Earning Cities in America - The Daily Beast

20 Highest Earning Cities in America - The Daily Beast

Richard Florida thinks his list shows the growing returns to knowledge and intelligence but note that the highest earning city is Washington, D.C.. Are they inventing a lot of new devices in D.C.? No, what is happening is that the returns to cultivating politicians are increasing faster than the returns to building businesses.

Mattis Named To Command U.S. Forces In Iraq, Afghan Wars - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty © 2010

Mattis Named To Command U.S. Forces In Iraq, Afghan Wars - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty © 2010

In 2005, Mattis was reprimanded by the Marine Corps for telling a conference in San Diego, California: "It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up front with you, I like brawling."

"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil," Mattis said during a panel discussion. "You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."
Gates said on July 8 that appropriate action had been taken at the time. He added that "the subsequent five years have demonstrated that the lesson was learned.

Lesson learned? Meaning that it is not fun to shoot them or that it is not smart to admit it? I hope it is the latter. Nothing so well illustrates the problem our society faces in fighting a war than our horror at the idea that some of the men fighting the war might actually enjoy killing their enemies.

Thank you, America

On my first day in Kabul, Afghanistan, I visited the home of my college's student, Sabira.  Her Father was insisted on picking me up at the airport and hosted me for a long lunch.  These workmen were in the courtyard outside my student's house and, after seeing me through the window, asked to come in and meet me.

Here is the video on my YouTube page

They wanted to say 'Thank You' to America.

I have heard this before, though not as often as I hear disappointment. However, the disappointment is not from our killing civilians or failing to respect Muslim culture, it is from our failure to defeat the Taliban. This has been the main complaint during all my trips to Afghanistan.

Another thing that has been a common theme on this trip is frustration that the reconstruction aid all seems to go to the areas that are controlled by the Taliban and people that don't support America, while the people in areas that are happy to work with the US and want to have a modern, democratic country are left to fend for themselves.

It makes sense to try to give young men that are joining the Taliban an alternative to fighting, but we can end up spending all our effort on trying to make our enemies like us and failing to back our friends. Caesar's policy in Gaul was first and foremost to see to it that the enemies of Rome were seen to suffer and the friends of Rome were seen to prosper. Maybe we should start thinking a bit more like the Romans.

Who is Confused?

An interesting paragraph from a New Republic profile of Scott Brown, entitled "Mr. America":

Perhaps most intriguingly of all, Brown has sometimes exploited anxiety about jobs as a reason to oppose … jobs-related legislation. In doing so, he’s picked up on a paradox that defines the political zeitgeist: Even though Americans are more concerned about jobs than anything else, they don’t seem to appreciate the factors that help create them. In the same NBC poll in which voters overwhelmingly say jobs should be the government’s top priority, they also say, by nearly a two-to-one margin, that they’d prefer the government attend to the deficit even if it delays the economic recovery. So, according to the poll, voters care much more about jobs than the deficit, but much more about the deficit than the economy. Where exactly are the jobs supposed to come from?

Well, private investment? One can disagree with the conservative approach to economic growth, that by rewarding private investment (keeping taxes low and not crowding it out of the financial markets with excessive government borrowing) but note that the author here, Noam Scheiber, dismisses the possibility. If you think that reducing the deficit is conducive to or even just compatible with creating jobs you are simply confused. All of the smart people know that deficit spending by the government is the way to create jobs and if you disagree you are merely confused. "Mr. America" is used here as a way of saying 'not too bright.'

Sharia Law faculty, Kabul University: Girl Power!

I got to meet the director again who called in the younger (Who did not give me a card--I'll get his name later) to translate. This is the third time I have met him and he is less intimidating now that I have gotten to know him a bit. For some reason the first time I met him I had the impression that he was a giant but now he is just a bit taller than me.

the director had concerns about the sample. He said that you can't tell about a country from taking the soil from one place. I said that sometimes you can tell a lot about a river from just one glass of the water. He said that there are many rivers in this case. I was going to point out that there is only one river in Kabul but thought it better to pass. He seems to like using metaphors. we had one go round last year about learning about Islam from a waiter versus and expert.

The young professor took us to a class and I was quite surprised to find that it was an all girls' class. Mirwais had said that last year the girls were enthusiastic about the survey while the boys last year were initially suspicious. I certain found that the girls in this third year class were not shy about giving their opinions (what Afghans are?), but that they also made rather sharp and cogent arguments. Again, I found that people gave small speeches rather than engage in a shorter give and take. I don't know if this is a broader characteristic of the culture or just something that happens in academic settings though I my sense is that it is the former. Unfortunately it was apparently not "OK" to take pictures.

One young lady said that the human rights groups are always criticizing Afghanistan, saying, for instance, that we should not kill a murderer because it is a violation of human rights. But isn't endangering the community by letting a murderer go violating the human rights of the community as well as the victim?

Another young woman made an intriguing point about the NGOs and women's rights. I am not sure that I fully got her point, but she was critical of the women's rights NGOs. She made two points. First, that by constantly talking about "women's rights" rather than human rights, they create the sense that their is some set of rights that are peculiar to women and, by being specific to women, somehow inferior to general human rights. Second, she argued that by talking about the special rights of women they undermined the family. These two points seemed to me to be somewhat contradictory but I didn't really have the chance to probe the issue very deeply.

There does seem to be a tension in the Western Intellectual world that has not really been faced straightforwardly in that we talk about multiculturalism (treating all cultures as equal) and a universal set of human rights as if those two propositions were completely compatible if not interchangeable. But what if individuals in a culture does not want the rights we classify as universal? We can sometimes dismiss the refusal or some rights as being a product of ignorance or fear, but that hardly seems a tenable answer in the case of these rather impressive young women. Indeed, the young women in the Islamic Law class had more cogent arguments and every bit as much confidence as the rather more loquacious young men in the economics department.

The younger member of the Sharia Law faculty who had been charged with shepherding us around proved to be quite talkative once we were alone. In the presence of the Department chair he had been quite deferential, not venturing to give his own opinions. When we got a chance to talk to him alone he was very interesting. One thing that struck me was that as conservative as they are he hated the Taliban. Two things he mentioned stand out.

He had a friend at an NGO. She worked in Afghanistan for a few years but as the Taliban's terrorism got more and more extreme her movements were more and more restricted. He said that near the end she would send him emails asking him to come visit her in her 'prison'. Like most of the foreigners in Afghanistan she was being picked up in a dark-windowed SUV and kept in a "guest house" with the same NGO types. There is a list of 11 restaurants they can go to. Luckily for me I am expendable and can go wherever I want.

The other thing he mentioned was a student that he had in class. Something came up where they had to give the students a couple of days off. This student was so happy because he would have time to go back to his village and fight with the Taliban for a few days, doing his duty of Jihad. The professor was shocked that he had someone in his class that thought like this and that would declare it openly.

I asked him if he was afraid of the Taliban. I said that he was a conservative Muslim with a beard and a Pashtun, so he would be safe right? He looked at me as if he were dealing with a particularly slow child……

Small World

Hanging around Kateeb University

A man I had been introduced to but with whom I had not had a conversation came upon me as I was stretching my legs outside Mirwais' office and insisted I come into the office of his faculty (what we would call a department). He turned out to be on the economics faculty. One of the three fellows in the room spoke excellent English and I found out that he used Mankiw's text. He even had access to the website. The government office where he has his day job had a two year old legit copy (most people have photo-copies) with the code number for the website. No one had bothered to try it in the two years the book had been there so he was able to get access to all the exercises and supplementaries. Small world.

Open letter to the Intellectuals of the World

Babar's tomb

we were invited to Babour's tomb. Babour was the founder of the Mogul empire which ruled India from the 16th century till the 18th though the dynasty was kept as a figure head up until the Mutiny in 1857).

The tomb is really an extended garden. It has been rehabilitated a fair amount since out last visit a couple of years ago. The palace was closed at the time we went there but it has been restored and is open to the public on occasion. From the outside the palace was a rather modest building, though his main palace was in India proper apparently. The tomb is quite small and tastefully done in what I judged to be white marble. He certainly did not give the impression of being extravagant. One imagines a serious man who would have preferred to rule his empire from horseback.  I was happy to have along the two Sabiras--on the left a future high school exchange student and on the right 'our' Sabira, the pre-med student. (Here we are in the restaurant at the park.)

I had an nice conversation with our hosts. One, Mahmood Hakimi, was a newspaper editor who had been imprisoned for about 6 months before the Taliban were overthrown. We found ourselves in great agreement till economics came up.

It seemed to come into the conversation by my talking. He asked me about democracy and I said that it might be too early to introduce it in the countryside where the literacy rate is so low. I suggested that in Western countries democratic rights spread gradually from urban elites to the rest of the country. He said that I sounded like a communist.

As it turns out this was not necessarily a criticism from his point of view. For one thing, the communists were pretty good and keeping order and protecting the urban elites (like my newspaper editor friend, well, like all my friends in Kabul). For another, my friend turned out to be a great proponent of the planned economy.

He said that capitalism might be alright for a country that is already rich like the US but that in a country that is as poor as Afghanistan it was not fair. He gave the example of 10 taxi drivers put out of business by a rich man that buys a bus. I countered that the people riding the bus are saving money that can be spent on other goods and services, the provision of which, the 10 unemployed taxi drivers might eventually be employed. I also started in with the example of the horse and buggy makers displaced by the automobile in the first place but my friend was adamant about making a larger point that went on for some time without definite conclusion. (I thing the most direct answer to his argument would have been to ask why not replace the taxis with mule carts which would require ten times as much labor again to provide the same amount of transportation service)

In any case, our host, an older student at Kateeb named Asif Razi, soon produced several copies of a short letter which I quickly gathered had been the real reason for the invitation.

I have asked him to send me the document with an English translation which I will later post. Here is a rough and ready translation of his statement:

"The world is growing more interconnected. Therefore, what happens in one part of the globe cannot be kept separate from the rest of the globe, whether for good or ill.

Intellectuals are citizens of this globalizing world. Intellectuals are against ignorance and ignorance is a danger to intellectuals. What is dangerous to them is dangerous to the world.

People living around the Durand line are living in ignorance. They are ignorant because in a globalizing world they are killing their fellow human beings without due process.

Then you, intellectuals of the world, what do you intend to do? Since Afghanistan's intellectuals are in the first line facing this danger, what will you intellectuals of the world do to support us in our struggle?"

I answered by asking if he knew George Orwell. He said that he did, of course.

I said that Orwell once remarked that there are some ideas which are so obviously absurd that they could only be believed by intellectuals. The great danger in our world today comes from the barbarians in his country and the intellectuals in ours, who believe in the absurd notion that they can negotiate with barbarians.

Prince of Conquerers

Prince of Conquerers



Though he stands 5' 4" he gives no appearance of being self-conscious about his height. He exudes self-confidence. The only time Ali Reza is close to being embarrassed is when his friends and co-workers use his nickname in front of foreigners, even though it is used with an obvious combination of affection and respect. He tries reminding people to call him "Ali Reza" but usually gives up after a few tries and everyone reverts to using his regular name, "Cheng geez"--the Afghan pronunciation of Genghis Khan.

Ali Reza is an undergraduate student at two universities in Afghanistan--Kateb University and the American University of Afghanistan. But being a student is something he does in his spare time. His main job is as a businessman. At the age of 24 he is the founder and proprietor of the Star English Academy which has over 7,000 students at three branches. His most recent enterprise is dubbing foreign TV shows and selling them to Afghan TV. (If anyone wants to come to Afghanistan and try to enforce their copyright they are welcome to).

He began as a program officer for USAID a couple of years after the occupation. He did that for three years. He rose quickly in the ranks due to his industriousness and English language ability. But he didn't really like it. He found that he was spending 50% of his time writing reports to justify how they had spent the money. His experience illustrates a problem with foreign aid. The money that you can get applying for grants far outweighs the profits from actually doing something useful in many cases. At the American University the most popular courses are those that teach applying for grants and justifying how you spent the grants. The best and most talented people in the country are sucked into the most profitable activities around which, when the money is flowing, are those that involve getting money from foreigners. He decided that if he wanted to really do something to improve things he would have to go out on his own.

He started the Star English Academy with almost nothing, barely a wall to write on. he developed his own curriculum and started attracting students. His students were, like him, mostly Hazaras, the previously despised asiatic minority. The word "Hazara" means 10,000. The name comes from the story of the town in Herat, which was destroyed by Genghis Khan in the 13th century for attempting to revolt. The scourge of God reportedly made an example of town by killing all of its inhabitants and replacing them with Mongols, 10,000 of them, Hence, the name.

Since that time the Hazara have had a hard time in their own country. As the smallest minority, distinguish both by their racial features and their Shi'ia religion, they have been treated practically as slaves throughout much of their history in Afghanistan. But since the coming of the Americans academic achievement has come to the fore and the Hazarah have had something of a come back. this has been called the Rennaissaince of the Hazarah.

But this has not stopped the violence against them. the Pashtun nomads of Afghanistan have recently attacked the Hazarah in the province of Ghazni.

The nomads were supposed to be settled in fixed abodes as a matter of constitutional law. That has not happened.

The attack was one-sided. the Hazarahs had no guns. The ISAF, in its wisdom, had taken them away. The big plan, don't you see, we are going to make Afghanistan a modern, civilized country where the government provides security. The Hazarahs, having no interest in violence and very much wanting to live in a free, democratic society, complied. The nomads did not. Nor has the Taliban.

It is all part of our fundamental mistake of trying to impose solutions that make little sense in the institutional context of Afghanistan. We are trying to impose policies that treat everyone impartially by means of a bureaucracy that is thoroughly cooped by ethnic and clan networks as loyal to the Taliban and local warlords as they are to the state. The result is that we put those who are willing to follow the rules and give their loyalty to the new democratic order are the ones that are hurt by our policies.

Aid is another example. The thinking that drives our aid distribution is that if a province is supporting the Taliban it can only be because they are dissatisfied with the new order. By giving them aid we will remove the source of dissatisfaction and give them an incentive to join the new order. But at some point the aid becomes and incentive to continue the revolt. Given the weak institutional structures through which the aid is given the money mostly ends up benefiting corrupt officials rather than the true targets of the aid.

Worst of all, the provinces that are happy to accept a modern, democratic state are neglected. Schools are built in the Pashtoon areas only to be burnt down while the Hazarah areas build their own.

Ali Reza talks faster the madder he gets, without ever losing the precision of his language.

"The Karzai government has decided to call the Taliban "the dissatisfied brothers." So now we will say, "the dissatisfied brothers just hanged a seven year old boy for being a "spy". The dissatisfied brothers have just thrown acid in the face of two girls walking to school."

The counter insurgency strategy which we have adopted means economically developing the areas that are under Taliban influence. But the thing That I hear most often in here is not the anger of those that support the Taliban--such people are vanishingly rare in educated circles--but the disappointment of our natural allies in Afghanistan. We have worried so much about making our enemies like us that we have neglected our friends, a mistake no successful 'conquerer' can afford to make.

Beggar and future supermodel

I have a policy against giving out money to beggars that I have managed to keep to. But what policy could win against a face like this? She ran me down in Shar-e-Naw, literally, new town, my first week in Afghanistan. It is the only part of town where you really see beggars regularly as it is where most of the foreigners and most well-off Afghans are.

Sumpremacy

One thing I don't get. If it is a violation of the Supremacy clause when a state enforces federal law, why is it not a violation when a city declares itself a sanctuary and refuses to allow the enforcement of federal law? Moreover, isn't the Arizona law simply a set of guidelines as to when the suspect is referred to the federal authorities? The decision to deport or what constitutes a deportable alien is still entirely in the hands of the federal authorities.

The other Afghanistan

We had a lunch for the faculty members of the various universities that participated in our study. We had members of Kabul University's Economics Department and the Sharia Law faculty, The American University's head librarian (most of the teachers are off there for summer vacation), and several members of the political science and sociology faculties from Kateeb University. We also had a representative of the American Embassy.

There has been an explosion in higher education activity in recent years but there are not many opportunities for faculty members to get together across disciplinary and institutional boundaries. My general impression was that they enjoyed it and were interested in increasing cooperation with one another.

I found that the one thing that united all the Afghan colleagues that I worked with was their willingness to work with people they didn't know. They want to be in touch with the rest of the world. I think the image we have of Afghanistan is dominated by the Taliban, the one group that virtually every Afghan I talk to hates. There is another Afghanistan, an Afghanistan worth fighting for.

Government Irrationality

Setting an inflexible rule without examining possibly trade-offs in different circumstances is an inherent shortcoming of government. It is truly appalling that the administration first refused Dutch help and then enforced an absurd rule.

McCrystal

There is something a little disturbing about the way some have reacted to the McCrystal replacement. Some of my fellow expats took a positive joy in how quickly and unceremoniously the general was dismissed. They seemed to derive enjoyment from the decisiveness of our president in asserting his prerogatives and batting down the insolent military leakers. 

Perhaps this was necessary but it disturbs me how little I have heard about the real question, was McCrystal the best man for the job or not?  That seems to be the most important question and the few expats that I have talked took a deliberate pleasure in dismissing that concern as irrelevant.  Civilian control of the military is the sacred point.

Even granting that that was the issue, it leaves me uneasy to dismiss the question of generalship so cavalierly.  Having the right general could easily mean the difference between victory and defeat in Afghanistan. 10 years from now no one will care if the President's entourage was given its due respect. Some one may care whether girls are able to walk to school without having acid thrown in their face.

It is a particularly striking example of how we use our foreign affairs as resources to play out our domestic political culture wars.  Has his oneness been disrespected? That is the question.  The nation of Afghanistan? Our soldiers lives? Mere details.

David Brooks has a great column on this. Also, check out the Churchill Centre's take.

More evidence that the real dividing line is between the public and the private sectors. I think these aggregate figures help get past the appearance that the relatively small number of direct federal employees creates of a relatively small public sector.  Add in all the subsidized and the sub-contractors and the public sector gets much larger.

Democracy and Globalization not necessarily to the West's advantage

From an article describing Turkey's embrace of Islamic causes and turn away from secularism, evidence that globalization cuts both ways:

"Hifa Gulru Caglar, a 21-year-old Turk studying in Romania, drove 12 hours to take part in the protest. A visitor asked what contributed to the pro-Palestinian fervor, which wasn't as evident in the past.

"Twenty years ago, there was no Internet," Caglar said. "We had no access" to information from Gaza."

Real Financial Reform

The Huffington Post's Simon Johnson has this approving analysis of Richard Fisher's (the Head of the Federal Reserve in Dallas) of the Obama administration's proposed reform and its failings. His main argument is that the gargantuan banks of our era are the result of the lack of market forces and that unless we restrict banks to a size small enough to fail we will never end the bailout syndrome.

http://www.economist.com/node/16264970

http://www.economist.com/node/16264970

The Economist reports on the things that are actually blocked by the Gaza blockade and finds that there are some pretty harmless things that have been prohibited at one point or another. The blockade would appear to be aimed at more than just prohibiting weapons but also making life worse for the residents of Gaza. The fact that your blockade makes life uncomfortable is something that you should apologize for is a problem. The whole understanding of the situation is constructed in a way that makes most any action that Israel takes is going to be illegitimate. Israel is not allowed to fight a war against a government and territory that is waging war against it. I think the focus on the tactics employed or the things allowed in or not allowed in misses the point. The situation is constructed by so that fighting a war is itself illegitimate and as long as that is the case there is nothing that Israel can do that will allow it to defend herself and avoid criticism.

On the other hand there is a tactical point that must be made. The Israelis defend the blockade on the argument that the importation of weapons must be stopped. By stopping things that are not weapons and are hard to see how they could contribute to victory in a conflict blurs their point and exposes the fact that the Israelis, in addition to stopping the importation of weapons, are trying to give the people that voted for Hamas a little grief.  They are quite right to do so in my view, but as a matter of strategy it is probably not worth it.  They should publish the list of prohibited items and the list should be confined items of clear military use.  It is unfortunate that Israel is in a fight where the rules are unfair and the umpire is biased but lamenting the fact does not change it or the necessity for dealing with that fact.

Flotilla round up

articles on the Gaza flotilla.

Capital Strike

It turns out that when you make something more expensive people buy less of it. It even works for labor. Who knew? 

I was frankly surprised by the President's statement touting the increase in employment as an achievement in spite of the growth coming from the temporary hiring of census workers.  I was even more surprised that the press did not let him get away with it.

Athens on the Potomac — The American, A Magazine of Ideas

Athens on the Potomac — The American, A Magazine of Ideas

In some way our situation is worse than Greece: we have a lot more short term debt so we are going to be constantly on the market trying to issue more debt. All of that amazingly cheap credit may come back to bite us much sooner than we think.

Congratulations To SpaceX - Transterrestrial Musings

Congratulations To SpaceX - Transterrestrial Musings

A private space launch is successful. This is a vindication of the Obama administration's policy.

Opinio Juris » Blog Archive » Why Is Israel’s Blockade of Gaza Legal? (Updated)

Opinio Juris » Blog Archive » Why Is Israel’s Blockade of Gaza Legal? (Updated)

An example of the twisted and confused reasoning that lawyers get themselves into. The blockade is not illegal because Hamas is not a state, just a place where a bunch of guys that want to destroy their enemy by means of terrorism happen to live.

I answer that if there is not a category for that in the treaties Heller cites it is because the enemy has achieved a new standard of depravity and we to a new standard of cravenness. The enemy is allowed to shelter in the gap in the lawyers' cloud castle of categories, jumping to from one to the other when convenient.

Government Spending May Hurt the Private Sector - Business - The Atlantic

Government Spending May Hurt the Private Sector - Business - The Atlantic

This article takes advantage of the natural experiment provided by the ascension of a local member of Congress to the chairmanship of a spending committee. They find that the higher levels of earmark spending actually decrease private levels of R and D, investment and sales. There appears to be a resource curse even for government spending.