Gerard Vanderleun of American Digest, commenting on the press involvement in
and coverage of the suicide of a former Miami city commissioner:
I think I can recall, vaguely and only in shadows, the time when journalism was a decent profession. Now it seems to be mainly the refuge of demented columnists, aging Pulitzer puffers, latter-day traitors, and scum cast off from hapless and hopeless liberal arts colleges.
I wish he wouldn’t hold back like that.
There’s an English-language blog devoted to the law of information technologgy and E-commerce in China: China-Law.org. Hat tip: China Law Prof Blog.
Newmark’s Door
ranks the econbloggers. Has anything similar been done for the blawgers, medbloggers, etc.?
ZenPundit has
an interesting post on Google as a force for increasing the interconnectivity of nations.
Lest you think that the only candidate for the title of “iconic woman” is Oprah (as The Washington Post
apparently does, Charmaine of Reasoned Audacity
has some candidates for you. Hat tip: Common Sense Runs Wild
Quite a few people are either on hiatus, out of town, or suffering from ennui. Here’s what’s caught my eye this morning:
Austin Bay posts observations from an Iraqi friend. Here’s a part that caught
my eye:
Most Iraqis do not belong to a party and prefer to stay independent, providing security and food on the table for their families is priority 1 at this stage
Sunnis see themselves as the guarantor of Iraq’s unity and in a sense that is what they did since independence in 1921 till the fall of the monarchy in 1958, they secured Mosul as part of Iraq, became a founding member of the League of Nations and League of Arab nations and shared with Shias, Kurds and even Jews ministerial posts in the Iraqi governments.
There’s a lot more.
The full text of Michael Palin’s travel books is online here. See
under “Journeys”. Hat tip: Boing Boing. A wonderful thing indeed.
Noah Millman of Gideon’s Blog has just returned back from London and has great reflections
on London, theater, the Brits’ reactions to the bombings, etc. His conclusion is particularly
noteworthy:
The discouraging and encouraging facts are actually the same fact: that there is no historical evidence on either side, there having never been, beefore the 20th century, nearly any instances of Muslim populations living as settled minorities in societies dominated by non-Muslims. So we’ll just have to see.
This post from Spirit Fingers, of the Elmore Field Days Ag Art competition, shows
that the Aussies (like the rich) are different from you and me. Somewhere between charming and alarming.
Probably why their boys get along so well with our Marines.
I think that this characterization of the War on Terror
from Juan Cole of Informed Comment really
needs to be widely read by everybody, left, right and center. IMO it’s a case of torturing
the data until it submits but it is a view and I fear it’s a view held by quite a few people.
Some liberals appear to be arguing
that our tolerance of our own tolerance is making us
intolerant of other people’s intolerance, which is intolerable
Mover Mike on the gold standard, constitutionality, and Salmon Portland Chase.
I suspect that this Pew poll, posted
at MyDD, is a Rorschach test for political partisans.
Were Congressman Tancredo’s comments about U. S. response to nuclear terrorism fueled by warnings
of imminent attacks of that kind? That’s what Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom
is suggesting in a very sobering post.
I see that one of my favorite bloggers, Pundita,
with whom I see eye-to-eye quite a bit of the time, is also a fan of Northern Exposure.
To the moon, Alice! Siberian Light
reports that, not to be outdone, the Russian space agency has announced a plan to take space tourists
to the moon (and back).
Energy bill or farm bill? Lynne Kiesling of Knowledge Problem
has the analysis.
There aren’t many bloggers of whom I’m actually jealous. One of those of whom I am is Cicero who usually posts on Winds of Change and this post on Donklephant, “Never, Never, Never”” may show you why.
Always one to go after solid news, Abu Aardvark investigates one of the hottest topics in the Arabic language news media today: the Lebanese “Simple Life” equivalent, Al-Wadi, which stars Lebanese pop-tart Haifa Wehbe. Worth the price of admission for the pictures of Haifa (who is quite the looker) alone.
I’ve just learned that my nieces and nephews have been posting their pictures on PhotoBucket. A pretty nice-looking bunch.
A sensible level-headed analysis of the Paul Hackett-Jean Schmidt matchup in the Ohio 2nd Congressional District from Dennis the Peasant. Really.
The Russian news media is a little more bloody-minded than I am in their response to the murder of master-spammer Vardan Kushnir viz. . The title of the article is “Spam Assassin”. Hat tip: Fresh Bilge.
The Mighty Middle continues the debate on the advisability of proposing Mecca as a target for retaliation in case of a terrorist attack on an American City using nuclear weapons that I weighed in on here. I continue to maintain: tactical and strategic targets first. And threats you don’t plan on following through with (or that people don’t believe you’ll follow through with) weaken deterrence.
So, is everybody on vacaction of what? Here’s what’s caught my eye this morning:
How’s the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) doing? Basically, lousy both from the standpoint of compliance with the law and in making us more secure. Bruce Schneier summarizes the GAO report. Since I flew a dozen or more times after 9/11 with (unbeknownst to me) an Exacto knife, i.e. the famous box-cutter, in my computer bag without any comment from the TSA agents, this doesn’t surprise me a bit. Hat tip: Boing Boing
Dick Tracy vs. Moby Shtick. An automotive post from Clayton Cramer.
Econbrowser has an interesting and informative post (with lots of graphs for those who like such things) on the unemployment rate and labor force participation rate.
Chris Bowers of MyDD reports that the AFL-CIO are apparently Splitsville. Clearly, reform is needed in the organized labor movement. Will this do it? Stay tuned. More from Outside the Beltway.
I see that Jeff Jarvis has given the old Buzzmachine a facelift. He’s running WordPress now.
Chinese Law Prof Blog notes that the Chinese Supreme People’s Court has come up with an ingenious solution to the problems presented by provisions in contracts with guarantors of non-productive loans: declare the provisions null and void. This sounds like a forcible transfer from guarantors to the asset management corporations titled with making the books of the big Chinese banks look better. It also sounds like a subsidy to the banks to encourage them to make more loans that are likely to become non-productive.
David Yeagley of Bad Eagle reminds us of Benjamin Franklin’s observation that “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” in the context of the presumably random searches on New York subways.
Juan Cole of Informed Comment has a lengthy post on the terrorist attack in Egypt last week that ends in a lament for the state of the world. Professor Cole, the War on Terror is rapidly revealing itself as a war on Muslims by other Muslims, the West is the only power that can be mobilized to oppose that force, and sapping the West’s will cannot stop the deaths of Muslims.
Okay, suppose that the UK decided to leave Iraq, what’s next?
Egyptians leave Cairo, Londoners leave London, or I leave Baghdad??
Apparently, we’re facing the terrorists’ version of globalization where every democracy is heresy and every man or woman smoking, playing soccer or not wearing hijab or a beard is infidel.
They want their dark culture to dominate the world and they know that the only they can do that is by destroying every other culture they don’t agree with.
EastWestNorthSouth translates a very interesting article that appeared in a mainland Chinese newspaper: “The Taiwan That You May Not Know About”.
As if Londoners didn’t have enough stress these days, ParaPundit Randall Parker reports that “Londoners Feel Stressed By Lack Of Contact With Nature” That’s the genius of the Burnham Plan. And wasn’t it Eldredge Cleaver the one who said that the reason that St. Louis didn’t experience any major racial violence in the 1960’s was that St. Louis had trees?
Alice in Texas puts in her “tuppence-worth on the London bombings”.
Allah puts in a rare re-appearance on the Tancredo “Nuke Mecca” dopery. He’s for it. My own opinion is that I think that any response should have tactical significance (should help us tactically, I mean). That wouldn’t do it.
John Donovan of Argghhh! reports that the last Comanche code talker of World War II has died.
I have strongly mixed feelings about the policies articulated in “Integrated Power and Truman Democrats” over on Democracy Arsenal but the post really deserves your attention. Here’s an example of my mixed feelings: they advocate increasing the size of the Army by roughly a whole Corps (approximately 86,000) [ed. I’ve corrected this section based on a comment by John Donovan of Argghhh!] but Army recruitment is already falling short in its targets. How can this be achieved? If you don’t believe in a forward strategy in the War on Terror why should the Army be increased in size? Does the “credible exit strategy from Iraq” constitute an acceptance of a forward strategy or a rejection of a forward strategy? But do read it.
Matthew Yglesias is concerned that we might have a contingency plan to attack Iran’s nuclear development sites (possibly with nuclear weapons) in the event of another attack on the United States with mass casualties. Since I’ve been saying that that’s what would happen for more than a year how can this be a surprise? It’s been one of my greatest concerns about the “slow war” the Bush Administration has decided on. See Froggy’s post for a more pronounced perspective. I’m not in favor of this course of action. But that’s what’s going to happen if we’re attacked with nuclear weapons. It won’t make any difference who’s president. Presidents want to stay in office.
This certainly deserves some discussion. Check out Alexander the Average’s post and Power Point presentation outlining a roadmap for victory in Iraq. I think that the importance of local leaders and issues is undervalued but take a look and drop a comment.
“We really need to decided how many deaths is enough. So we let terrorists kill 100 per year? 200? We want an open society and at least some of us don’t want to do anything to stop terrorism, so at some point we have to decided how many suicide bombers we accept. No, I’m not being facetious.
We accept (inventing a number) 100,000 deaths per year by automobile because the good outweighs the bad. How many suicide bombers per year is below our collective threshold of pain? Or more accurately; how many suicide bombers do we accept before the cure hurts less than the disease?
This is an extremely important question and one which I’ve been planning to blog about for some time. Lives isn’t the only metric: dollars, freedoms, and others need to be reckoned. We’re already paying $200 billion additional for security after 9/11. How much will be added as the result of the London bombing? Dollars mean lives, too. Check the parable of the broken window. The $200 billion could be used to educate kids, treat sick people, buy mosquito nets for poor people in Africa, and so on.
Practically everybody has a run-down on the Roberts nomination for the Supreme Court. So I won’t bother.
Afghan Lord has received an answer from the BBC about the death threats he’s been receiving from their premises and, basically, they’re stonewalling him. Drop on by, offer a word of encouragement, and maybe send a nastygram to the BBC. As a sidelight the loose security at the Beeb’s offices in Kabul is distressing on its own.
XRLQ has an excellent scorecard on the serious constitutional issues that might or might not change if Roberts nomination to the Supreme Court is approved.
Venomous Kate is back, not wearing underwear, and blogging up a storm.
Read this account from Froggy about the one Navy SEAL that survived the operation in Afghanistan.
Functional Ambivalent has a personal remembrance of James Doohan, Star Trek’s Scotty, who died recently.
Words of wisdom from Noah Millman on the Roberts nomination.
Lest you think that the West has the market cornered on incredibly ugly fashions Spirit Fingers has Exhibit A: a Korea vs. Hong Kong fashion side-by-side.
Digby says that Roberts’s nomination is payback for assistance in Bush v. Gore.
South Knox Bubba has called it quits. I suspect that the hairpulling match with the local newscritter left a bad taste in his mouth. I disagreed with Bubba on a few things; agreed on others. But I thought he was a class act. And I’ll miss his Friday bird pictures.
Afghan Warrior reports that for the first time in eleven years, girls are graduating from high school in Kandahar.
AKMA has been doing a closer reading of the latest Harry Potter book than most and appears to have found an error. And an amusing one suggesting that fantasy and reality have been confused. Editors aren’t what they used to be.
And life imitates art. Workers at the Cadbury plant which may have been Roald Dahl’s inspiration for the chocolate factory actually sing the Oompa Loompa Song while they work.
Check out Jeff of Beautiful Atrocities’s latest, “Girdles for GITMO”. It’s amusing but I find the research required to put this post together absolutely flabbergasting.
If you haven’t been keeping up-to-date on the oil markets, Econbrowser has been doing it for you. Go here for a summary of the week in oil markets.
Donald Sensing of One Hand Clapping posts on the theology of jihadism.
Do not miss this interview with Henry Kissinger. I guess I’m revealing my realist inclinations (although I’m not a Hamiltonian). Absolutely must reading. Kissinger opines on terrorism, Iraq, the Israel-Palestine problem, North Korea, and China. I don’t think he said a single thing that I disagreed with. Hat tip: QandO Blog.
Michelle Catalano celebrates the hot dog. July is National Hot Dog Month.
There’s a post on the significance of the 1949 Geneva Conventions’ Common Article 3 in connection with the recent Hamdan decision in the Court of Appeals last week on Balkinization that I found pretty interesting.
Beldar had a small heart attack last week. He’s doing fine.
Big Cat Chronicles appears to be the only one in the blogosphere who’s on top of the problems with the Thunder Horse offshore drilling platform in the Gulf. I guess they’re all too busy debating the guilt/innocence/hat size of Karl Rove to care.
Does Chinese state-owned company CNOOC’s bid for U. S. oil company Unocal violate China’s agreements with the WTO? Discussion from Chinese Law Prof Blog.
Mark Thoma of Economist’s View has his regular Sunday reading list ready for you.
Nelson Ascher is off to Europe and has a rose letter for the blogosphere.
Expat Yank asks a question that I think is pretty good: so, why was everybody so shocked at the identities of the London tube bombers?
From The Moderate Voice: were the London tube bombers assisted-suicide bombers?
Tigerhawk has a solid post on the saber-rattling by Chinese General Zhu last week. I posted about it here. Tigerhawk’s take: a little irrationality every now and then can be stabilizing.
Today is Dean Esmay’s birthday. Go over and wish him many happy returns. Dean’s not my blogfather (that wouuld be Joe Katzman) but he is my patron and, I hope, my friend. And, if the blogosphere has an aristocracy, he is a genuine prince. Val Prieto puts it well:
“You, sir, are the blogosphere’s class act.”
John Cole of Balloon Juice continues his exercise in producing a consensus view of the PlameGate kerfuffle. Join in. It’s a great exercise. So, John, how about starting this same process up on the War on Terror? Iraq? Social security reform?
There’s a fascinating discussion going on at QandO Blog about Chinese saber-rattling in re: Taiwan. Are we willing to trade LA for Taipei? Be sure to read the comments.
While we’re on the subject of China, Elite Chinese Politics and Political Economy has an interesting post on goings-on with Chinese banks. With these kind of shenanigans I don’t honestly see how the Chinese will meet the WTO target date of opening their bank industry to foreign participation by 2006. And the maze of acronyms in the post! I’ve got a cheat-sheet somewhere around here…
Giblets says, “Decision 2008: let the games begin!” That about covers it.
It’s incredibly dry here but apparently that’s not true everywhere. Halfway down the Danube tells us that there are major flood in Romania that aren’t getting much attention elsewhere.
To be honest this article in the Weekly Standard from Dean Barnett on the influence of the left and right blogospheres in politics strikes me as whistling past a graveyard.
Outside the Beltway has a pretty good report on Magdy el-Nashar, the Egyption chemist who’s being interrogated in connection with the London bomb attack last week. My guess is that el-Nashar is wishing he’d stayed in England right about now.
Since I have no interest whatsoever in the PlameGate goings-on and I don’t honestly care who the senators from Pennsylvania are, it’s been pretty slim pickings in the blogosphere today. A few things did catch my eye:
Read Froggie’s post, “SEAL Memorial at the Punchbowl”, about his attendance at the memorial service for the Navy SEALs killed in Afghanistan last week. You won’t be sorry you did.
“Pundita’s outburst placed America and Arctic penguins in the Non-Integrating Gap, and all those countries that know about the workings of the World Bank in the Core.
(The Seam would be West European countries, which were the recipient of early Bank loans, but which today have only a hazy idea of how Bank policies have affected the ‘underdeveloped’ world.)”
John Cole of Balloon Juice, one of the most reasonable guys in the blogosphere, is meticulously building a consensus of opinion on the Wilson/Plame/Novak/Rove matter. Step 2, Step 3, Step 4. I’ll be interested in seeing where this goes. The process itself is interesting and, I think, novel. UPDATE: the process goes on. Step 5, Step 6, Step 7.
CommonSense Desk draws our attention to a Washington Post article that should be getting a lot more attention: Big Shift in China’s Oil Policy;
With Iraq Deal Dissolved by War, Beijing Looks Elsewhere. It would be interesting (just as a mental exercise) to chart out the significant events of the last four or five years viewed as a duel between the United States and China for oil.
Joseph Braude argues that the Gulf states need stronger labor unions. Perhaps they’d have stronger labor unions if their governments weren’t so autocratic.
I didn’t want to let this post from Callimachus of Done With Mirrors get away. He’s got a list of the apologies we’ve got scheduled.
Do you believe in evolution? Noah Millman of Gideon’s Blog has a good post—the only kind he writes—on the subject.
I found this history of Antarctic base construction from 75° South pretty interesting.
Marc Schulman of American Future has posted a reader’s comment that I think is reallly fascinating. Here’s a snippet:
We are all entitled to our point of view, and extraordinary human savagery DOES require a pro-active involvement by concerned humans. However, there is no ‘elimination’ of terrorists.
The terrorist of 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005 is no different than the terrorist of the 1900’s, or in the 1800’s, or during…you get the point. Terrorism is rooted in a self-hate, and it is literally impossible to eliminate human self-hate with conventional arms. This is NOT an argument for tolerating the intolerable, or of some weak relativist’s argument for blaming the victim or forlornly seeking to have a dialogue with a closed mind. I heartily concur with Foucault: ‘Society MUST be defended.’
Read the whole thing.
Do you agree with this statement over at Balkinization? It refers to the eminent domain case Kelo vs. New London recently decided by the Supreme Court.
Still, it is not oppressive for government to require people to sell land at above market prices when the vast majority of the neighborhood thinks they are getting a good deal.
This sounds to me like a claim that whether a fundamental right has been violated is subject to a popular vote. Or that the idea of value is subject to a reasonable person standard. Which? Am I mistaken?
The Mighty Middle outlines his formula for winning in Iraq. I’m not entirely in agreement with him but his ideas are certainly worth reflecting on.
Mark Thoma of Economist’s View has his usual Sunday round-up of notable articles from the mainstream media.
Can I buy a vowel? Pat Sajak says that the view of America doesn’t look quite so bleak when you’re actually in Europe and talking with the folks over there rather than reading or hearing what the folks over there think in the newspaper or on the evening news. Hat tip: Different River
Razib of Gene Expression has some interesting thoughts about the transition from despotism to democracy in the Arab Muslim world.
Wretchard of Belmont Club has joined the ranks of formerly pseudonymous bloggers. Or Richard.
Roger L. Simon has a personal remembrance of screenwriter Ernest Lehman, writer of North by Northwest and The Sweet Smell of Success who died last week.
Scrappleface reports another unfortunate desecration of a sacred text.
The big news this morning is, of course, what now appears to be a terrorist attack on London transport. Your best source for information is The Command Post.
“Murder of British people in New York is no different in nature from their murder in the heart of Britain itself. In the most direct sense, therefore, we have not just an interest but an obligation to bring those responsible to account.”
Balkinization provides a link to a translation of a draft of the bill of rights of the new Iraqi constitution. Many of the provisions have the standard formula of restriction “as provided by law” but it’s interesting to note the provisions that do not, e.g. freedom of religion, the ban on torture. There are also guarantees for some services i.e. education and health care.
Bioethic Discussion Blog has a chronology of the use of human subjects for medical experimentation.
Wikipedia’s coverage of the attack in London is excellent. They’ve got a translation of the terrorist claim of responsibility, statements from various world leaders, etc.
I think A Confederate Yankee’s speculations about the terrorist attack in London are worthy of consideration. I wonder if this attack isn’t a hint that these are freelancers calling themselves Al Qaeda rather than the genuine article. Whatever that is.
There’s a letter posted over on Harry’s Place that has about as succinct a statement about the nature of the criminals who set off the bombs in London today as I’ve ever seen.
The blogosphere is slowly recovering from the long Fourth of July weekend. Here’s what’s caught my eye this morning:
CR of Angry Bear has an update on the housing bubble (if there is a bubble, of course) and brings up several points that I hadn’t thought about including the secondary market for mortgages and makes me wonder: should the FNMA (Fannie Mae) and FHLMC (Freddie Mac) underwrite mortgages for houses whose purchasers do not intend to live in them? Why? So long as they do mortage-based securities would appear to be without risk. Should this be allowed? Why?
There’s a lot of food for thought in Bloggledygook’s most recent post on the understandings and misunderstandings that Middle Eastern students bring with them when studying here. And leave with. You won’t get a realistic picture of the United States from the state-controlled media overseas nor by watching Kojak or LA Law on television. It appears to me that, while greater understanding of people in other countries is a useful skill for Americans, understanding of Americans is a survival skill for people in the rest of the world.
Chris Anderson of The Long Tail has a very interesting post on pre-filters (people who decide what you can see/hear/etc.) and post-filters (people who suggest what you might want to see/hear/etc.) in the old and new media. Hat tip: BuzzMachine
Dennis the Peasant rails on the evil that is Trader Joe’s. But they have great ginger cookies.
If you really want a scare, read Econbrowser’s post on the savings rate and the current account deficit.
There’s an Afghan blogger receiving death threats from someone from the BBC? Talk about being on the other side.
Shrinkette posts an interview between Matt Laurer, the NBC Today show host, and the neurotransmitter serotonin.
SKB draw our attention to an interesting article from the CBC News: Toyota to build 100,000 vehicles per year in Woodstock, Ont., starting 2008. The gist of the article is that better education and the Canadian tax-payer funded healthcare system overwhelmed the tax incentives that U. S. states were able to offer. This is a point I’ve been making for some time: the U. S. taxpayer-subsidized non-market healthcare system (not to mention the in-denial U. S. public education system) is making U. S. workers non-competitive.
Across the Bay has a fabulous post on the nexus of ethnohistory, ideology, and politics in Palestine. Remember, folks, archaeology is not a science—it’s a vendetta.
Annika has a handy reference to the Supreme Court Justices (suitable for laminating). It’s safe to say that she’s, er, conservative.
You really need to read this article from FT.com. The Japanese government has produced a report suggesting that China is just too risky for investment. The article outlines the reasons but this is the part that I found most interesting:
It said there is no big difference between China and Asean countries with regard to production costs, and pointed out labour costs in hiring Chinese middle management are relatively high due to their scarcity.
There may be more to long-term economic growth than being the lowest-cost supplier of labor. I think there may be deep cultural issues behind the middle management deficit they’re talking about and it’s not one that can be made up easily. Hat tip: CSR Asia
Mark Thoma of Economist’s View has his usual Sunday round-up of (mostly business and economics) links.
Finestkind Clinic and Fish Market posts on the political problems the president of the Philippines is having. It seems there are these unfortunate recordings…
Hrairoo of Silfly Hraka has a question-and-answer on Live 8 that pretty much covers it.
It is amazingly quiet in the blogosphere. Not to mention dull. I guess everyone’s taken off for 4th of July weekend. There are still a few things catching my eye:
Marc Schulman of American Future has a good post about squablling within the EU.
Bloggledygook suggests that the recent no-confidence vote may mean that Chancellor Schroeder is in trouble. Or not.
Coyote Blog reacts to the idea of the Chinese buying Unocal with an attitude towards China that appears to track my own pretty closely. Rather than getting all het up and preparing for military conflict I wish we’d just stick to our knitting.
The first shoe has dropped. Sandra Day O’Connor is retiring from the Supreme Court. I’ve have a round-up of blogospheric reaction as it emerges.
So, did the English consider the leaders of the American Revolution to be terrorists? (as has been alleged by some) Callimachus of Done With Mirrors has the inside skinny.
Anywhere But Here has a brief rundown of examples of Christians being persecuted for their faith in India, Sri Lanka, and elsewhere. Is it okay for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to prohibit anyone but Muslims from practicing their religion openly there? Would it be okay if India were for Hindus only? Or the public practice of any religion banned in the United States? Why? Or why not? And what should be done?
Argghhh! points out that there was no exit timetable for Bosnia but there were criteria and when the criteria were met, we left. Now if we had an exit timetable for Germany and South Korea (or even criteria)…
If you don’t plan on doing much to stop intellectual property theft, denial and misdirection sounds like a pretty good strategy. Hat tip: CSR-Asia
Dustbury comments on the fusion reactor to be built in Cadarache in southern France so I don’t have to. The other alternative site in competition was in remote northern Japan. Let’s see. Imagine I’m a nuclear physicist trying to decide whether I’ll spend a good part of my career (the plant will probably take twenty years to build) in southern France or in northern Japan. Hmmm. Thinking…
Bird’s Eye View has a great post on why our history is important. We need a shared mythology. That’s why I believe that George Washington chopped down the cherry tree and Honest Abe Lincoln never told a lie.
Robert Farley of Lawyers, Guns, and Money has the second post in his series on China. This time around he’s concentrating on Taiwan.
Words of wisdom from Alex Tabarrok of Marginal Revolution with a link to equally sage advice from Brad DeLong and Adam Smith and imprudent council from Paul Krugman.
Medpundit notes that today is the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar. There’s a medical angle, of course: she quotes the account of the death of Nelson and includes his autopsy report.
Mugabe makaipa notes that famine and pestilence in the form of cholera have come to Zimbabwe. With two of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse accounted for, can the remaining two, War and Death, be far behind?
I’ve been a little out-of-touch for the last few days so this post may include links to a few things that have been around for a couple of days. Here’s what’s caught my eye this morning:
I didn’t know until I got home that master ventriloquist and voiceover man Paul Winchell had died. I can still remember “The Paul Winchell-Jerry Mahoney Show” from when I was a kid. “Hey, kids, what’s the password?” “Skaddi-waddi-do-do-do!” Joe Gandelman, himself a professional ventriloquist, has an extensive biography, links, and a personal remembrance.
Bird’s Eye View reminds us of the four seasons in California: fire, flood, mud, and drought. They’ve had flood, mud, and drought so I guess it is time for fire. I’m well aware of this since nearly every male in my wife’s family is a firefighter (or retired firefighter) in California.
Did you know that there’s a blog originating from Antarctica? I didn’t either. Hat tip: Boing Boing
I see that Jeff Jarvis is continuing to have problems with his Dell computer. There’s an old adage: big businesses should do business with big businesses; small businesses should do business with small businesses. The growth of the big mail order companies has meant that thousands of small highly local computer companies (that might have been more interested in him) have been driven out of business. You pays your money and you takes your choice.
CAFTA comments and round-up from Marginal Revolution. If it were actually a treaty about free trade, I’d have fewer misgivings.
The very best word on the flag-burning amendment idiocy that I’ve read so far has been from Donald Sensing.
As usual, SCOTUSBlog are the go-to guys on the expected but still infuritating decision of the New London eminent domain case. This in combination with Raich aren’t good news for libertarians. There are few limits to the powers of the government. All they need is a reason.
Boing Boing has some clips from the brochure for Disneyland’s exclusive Club 33. I’ve eaten there—my wife’s uncle was a member. It gives you a completely different perspective on Disneyland.
Crooked Timbers has an alternative explanation for the apparently greater traffic of Left Blogosphere sites compared to Right Blogosphere sites that I think is pretty convincing. It’s the explanation that occurred to me, anyway.
Window on the Arab World gives yet another reason why a law enforcement approach to the War on Terror is imprudent. It’s one that’s occurred to me but he has some supporting facts.
Gerard Vanderleun of American Digest believes that Senator Richard Durbin is the very model of a modern major Democrat. I didn’t know that Vanderleun was a utility tenor.
Lest we forget in all the political squabbling that there continue to be actual death camps and gulags in the world be sure and read the last paragraph of this post from chinpunbeifun.
Frankly, I don’t give a damn about winning hearts and minds as long as we can heal the bodies as related in this heart-tugger from Greyhawk.
Callimachus of Done With Mirrors contrasts arch-blogger praktike with Molly Ivins.
Lawyers, Guns, and Money is beginning a series on the geopolitical implications of increasing Chinese power (hat tip: The Duck of Minerva. I’ll be keeping my eye on this one.
CR at Angry Bear has a post about the housing bubble. Many links.
How do you fight an incipient class action lawsuit? Don Imus is flogging it daily on his radio and TV program. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.is boosting it now. Soon to be a major motion picture. Putting her finger in the dike, Autism Diva explains why thimerosal in vaccines is not the case of autism.
How does the United States foster non-violent reform in the Arab world? Take your tips from the big tobacco companies says Joseph Braude of Cordova.
Will environmental problems stop China’s economic progress? Check CSR-Asia.
Democracy Arsenal has two lists: five things we should do in Iraq and five things we shouldn’t. I agree with a lot (but not all) of their list.
Put the UN in charge. That’s Juan Cole of Informed Comment’s suggestion for solving the problems in Iraq. Is there any kind of UN presence there now? I seem to recall that they pulled out entirely.
Lawrence Solum of Legal Theory Blog adds another entry to his Legal Theory Lexicon: the counter-majoritarian difficulty.
Chris Bowers of MyDD writes about the end of consensus and the role of Main Stream Media.
Ronni Bennett of A Sense of Place is learning that not only can’t you go home again but sometimes even when you’ve never left it runs away from you.
Sage advice on housing bubbles (if there is a housing bubble, that is) from Econbrowser.
Mark Thoma of Economist’s View has his regular Sunday round-up of links to major media articles. This time in addition to economics and business links he has animal stories.
Randall Parker of FuturePundit has some handy tips for the avian flu survivalist. May I take this opportunity to point out that an avian flu pandemic is a case of the Chinese leadership offloading the costs of their social and political system onto the rest of the world?
Caltechgirl has a nice round-up of blogger-dads for Father’s Day. And Slartibartfast of Obsidian Wings has a lovely post on the privilege of being a father.
AKMA continues his portrayal of early Church history in Legos, this time with the arrest of Ignatius of Antioch. I’m not making this up, you know.
Austin Bay continues his trip in Iraq and gives some advice from his mom for President Bush.
Read. Weep. Be very careful out there, RDC. This is for you, Senator Durbin. Hat tip: Baldilocks.
Baseball Crank has more advice for Senator Durbin and Democrats, generally. UPDATE: Dean isn’t happy about Senator Durbin’s comments.
BlackFive has re-posted his directory of milbloggers.
Coming Anarchy is running a series comparing the structure of the educational systems of various countries. In the linked post the German and U. S. systems are compared. With this description of the German system:
However, at the age of 10, Germans are divided based on ability and go down one of three tracks…
He glosses over the reality that the German tracks are quite rigid: there’s little real hope of changing your track. So your life’s path is largely determined there at age ten. Sound like a good system?
It’s a beautiful morning here in Chicago. The air is cool and clear and blessedly lacking in humidity, the sky is blue with scarcely a cloud to obscure the sun. The doldrums seem to have vanished from the blogosphere, as well. Here’s what’s caught my eye this morning:
Alice Banchini, one of the best essayists in the blogosphere, is back in Texas and is blogging up a storm. Alice, why don’t you tell me these things? I’d have linked earlier.
Anticipatory Retaliation compares and contrasts two posts on the status of things in Iraq: this post from Wretchard of Belmont Club and this post from Larry Johnson of The Counter-Terrorism Blog. Are we at a Hansell-Lemay turning point or is it the Battle of Algiers and T. E. Lawrence all over again? I think the most important implied point in AR’s post is the need for the political leadership here to shore up morale and public opinion. This is an area in which the Bush Administration has been consistently weak.
There’s another chapter in the Chronicles of Westerville, the Red State Lake Wobegone, from Dennis the Peasant.
Spirit Fingers has a list of Father’s Day gift suggestions.
I wish Joe Gandelman had a round-up on the senior senator from Illinois’s misguided claims about the Guantanamo detention facility so that I wouldn’t have to comment about it myself. As I see it this is yet another indication that too many people, particularly Democrats, believe that the conflict we’re in is a law-enforcement activity with broad protections and rights to counsel rather than a war in which prisoners are held until the end of hostilities, generally without trial. Want the prisoners released sooner? Win the war sooner. I’m very concerned about what kind of country we’ll be after fifty years (or more) of this kind of internecine war within the United States.
Pundita has put up a flurry of posts on China here, here, and here. As I’ve tried to indicate in my own posts on China, I think that China is a problem but not the kind of problem that many are claiming. I believe that China’s internal problems are likely to end its own economic growth and that it’s unlikely that China will ever be a military superpower. I believe that the sort of problem that China presents is more the Tar-Baby sort of problem. And, of course, their leaders are smarter than ours (political or business) so that makes the situation that much trickier.
Cardinalpark over at Tigerhawk has been off hobnobbing with the famous and powerful and has some quotes and observations about David Gergen and Bill Clinton for us.
¡No Pasarán! relays a story of the targetting of journalists in Iraq—by the French.
I’ve read quite a bit of vain outrage in the blogosphere today at Microsoft’s complicity in censoring the Chinese blogosphere. China Law Prof Blog actually has some intelligent comments about it.
Don’t miss Dan Drezner’s post commenting on an article on American Grand Strategy in the most recent issue of Diplomatic History. It contains a link to his response as well.
Rudy Rummel of Democratic Peace does a little digging and wonders whether the G8 debt forgiveness plan for African countries isn’t a little indiscriminate. Shouldn’t these countries need to meet criteria for this debt relief? Should we be supporting dictators?
Others have linked to it but if you haven’t read Michael Yon’s first-hand account of the ongoing military activities in Mosul, you simply have no idea of what’s going on there.
David MacDuff of A Step at a Time, scholar and professional translator, reminisces about his second trip to the Soviet Union in the late 60’s. That was when, following the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, it was obvious to anyone who was willing to open his eyes that the Soviet system was about little but repression. Why is there growing nostalgia for such a system? My guess is they like the tune no matter who the singer is.
Karol Sheinin’s Alarming News is marking its third anniversary. That’s incredibly ancient in Internet-years. Congrats, Karol.
Baldilocks wonders when those who want to help Africans will stop treating them like children.
Democracy Arsenal gives ten reasons for closing the detention facility at Guantanamo. I disagree largely for reasons congruent to those outlined by Jeff Medcalf in the post’s comments. I’ve repeatedly called for status hearings on all prisoners to ensure formal compliance with our treaties. But I’m curious. Precisely which of the Geneva Conventions apply to foreigners, i.e. neither Iraqis in Iraq nor Afghanis in Afghanistan, taking arms without uniform or chain of command against U. S. forces and how?
Well, that explains it all. A diagram of how the world works posted by Doctor Frank.
Pay attention to what new econ-blogger Econbrowser has to say about the future of oil. It’s his area of expertise. Has he learned nothing about the blogosphere? I mean, posting on something you actually know about. The very idea.
hilzoy of Obsidian Wings comments on CAFTA (the Central American Free Trade Agreement). Are there any CAFTA experts out there who’d care to break it down into plain language (here or on their blog)? I’m generally in agreement with hilzoy’s instincts on free trade with on addition: I think it’s reasonable to tax the winners a little to help the losers a little. Yes, I know that this de-motivates the winners. Losing de-motivates the losers, too.
There’s a very closely considered reflection on the nature of the conflict we’re in from Uninformed Opinion that deserves your attention. I’m not completely in agreement with him (nor am I completely in disagreement). Read and come to your own conclusions.
Across the Bay starts off talking about Lebanon and finishes wondering why Arabists always end up sounding as though they favored tyranny and oppression.
Afghan Warrior reports that the bombing of the Kandahar mosque last week wasn’t a suicide bombing as had been previously conjectured.
Here’s an interesting pair (not matching, no) of posts on North Korea. First, from Brad Plumer, the second from The Dignified Rant.
Don’t miss Mark Thoma’s Sunday roundup of business and economics articles from Big Media. That should keep you busy.
This graphic on Ezra Klein’s blog depicting nationwide unemployment rates by county is extremely interesting. Michigan and the Mississippi River valley don’t particularly surprise me. But take a look at the Pacific Northwest. And the California central valley. It makes me wonder how unemployment is defined.
Quite a few people including Ivo Daalder are drawing our attention to Barack Obama’s commencement speech delivered at Knox College last week. It’s a fine speech and I agree with quite a bit in it. Take a look and you’ll see one of the reasons that Obama is definitely a rising star in the Democratic Party.
The esteemed Pundita has been blogging up a storm lately with posts on China, Iran, and North Korea. Keep scrolling.
Beldar has an interesting post and even more interesting discussion going on in his comments section on the phenomenon of pill-splitting, particularly when mandated by a health insurance company. It seems to me that there are several distinct issues here, among them the science and what a good plaintiff’s attorney can convince a jury of which are not necessarily the same things.
Calculated Risk’s import prediction model has been pretty much on the money.
From the Travel Department: The Columnist Manifesto warns us of the evil that is G. D. Luxembourg.
These may be the last baby pictures for the litter of Samoyed pups we’ve been following since the day they were born. Soon they’ll be going to their forever homes (sniffle).
I missed Henry Farrell of Crooked Timber and Eugene Volokh of The Volokh Conspiracy on WBEZ’s Odyssey program yesterday. I haven’t been listening to as much NPR as I used to lately. You can listen to the program here if you’re interested.
Eric the Unread has an interesting analysis of Norm Geras’s normblog blogger profiles.
praktike draws our attention to this op-ed from Henry Kissinger on the U. S. China policy. Mr. Kissinger is wrong, I think, about many of the underlying facts but whether they’re right or wrong is less important than whether the Chinese believe them which I think they do. Chinese policy is not focused on the U. S., it’s focused on China and rather than confronting China we should be working proactively to encourage China to take the steps that China really must take if it is to continue to grow and prosper. We won’t because it might mean giving up a buck or two but that’s what we should be doing rather than playing into a fantasy of high tech superpower war.
Like me, Callimachus of Done With Mirrors is searching for a reasonable meeting point on Iraq for left and right moderates. Lotsaluck.
Nobody ever tells me these things. Venomous Kate has been posting again for almost two weeks.
Major K. notes the slow, sometimes faltering, but noticeable progress of democracy in Iraq with this report of a local Shaikh’s Council meeting: “No one got shot, stabbed, slapped, punched or thrown out a window”. One step at a time.
Rusty Shackleford has substantial background information on the two terrorism suspects arrested in Lodi yesterday.
Will the Court’s decision on medical marijuana have an effect on assisted suicide?
First, the British and now the Czechs have cancelled planned referenda on the EU Constitution. From AFOE.
Notes on improving Arabic language news network Al-Hurra from former State Department official John Brown via Abu Aardvark.
The Indepundit reports that a veritable Who’s Who of bloggers is getting the hard sell from Bob Geldof on Live8. Recap, observations, and links.
Joseph Braude of Cordova has an interesting analysis of the late John Paul II’s record in the Middle East. What many of both his supporters and detractors fail to recognize is that John Paul II was a European intellectual of his time in many ways and his approach towards Islam and the Middle East is a clear reflection of this.
Door #1 seems to be the consensus in the blogosphere now that John Kerry has released his military records. See also here and here.
Michael Yon describes a visit to a village of the Yezidis in Iraq.
Barack Obama update from Angela Winters of Politopics.
Joe Gandelman of The Moderate Voice, of course, has a great round-up of media and blogospheric reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision in Gonzalez v. Raich.
There’s a great article from Frank Gaffney on the EMP threat posted with permission over at Winds of Change. Are you listening, Pundita?
Brazilian blogger Luís Afonso of swimming against the red tide presents an English translation of an article written by Brazilian philosopher Olavo de Carvalho for the Brazilian newspaper O Globo. Hat tip: ¡No Pasarán!. Here’s a snippet:
The first half of the 20th. century witnessed the rise of planified
economy; the second saw its fall, followed by the appearance of an
even more ambitious plan of domination: planified culture. Culture
transcends and includes economy: it includes the entire range of human
creations, language and imagination, values and feelings, intimate
life and unconscious reflexes. The widening of the objectives show
that the activist intelligentsia learned from the past eight decades
an opposite lesson from that of non-marxist economists: the later
believe that socialism’s failure proved the intrisic madness of a
giant state; the former learned that giant states fail for not being
gigantic enough.
The final aim of socialism, as Hannah Arendt observed, is the
modification of human nature. The generation of Lenin, Stalin and
Hitler imagined that socialist economy would create this new kind of
men. Deeper socialist thinkers like Gramsci, Lukacks and the
Frankfurtians saw in this a dangerous economicist mistake. The soul of
the “new man” would not be born from socialism, but should come before
it and create it. This idea sounded heretical to Marxist orthodoxes of
the time (although, on the other side of the socialist range, it was
not totally alien to the nazi-fascist theoreticians). It has spread
only in the last decades, providing the basis of the formidable
expansion of internationalist leftism, which survived even the fall of
soviet economy, and has reached its peak precisely in the years
following the break of the USSR. Today’s international socialism looks
less for the creation of socialist regimes and more for the
installation of a global complex of mutations in civil society,
morals, family relations. The change in the order of priorities caused
a harmonic change in the strategy and choice of means. Formerly, the
essential tool of the revolutionary movement was a ideologically
monolitical party. Today, it is a variety of leftist parties,
disconnected in appearance. It is the international networks of NGOs,
the “social movements”, the large international organs. Their unit of
action can only be graspped from outside by thoso who are aware of the
subtleties of cultural war, infinitelly more complex than the older
open conflict of pro-capitalist and pro-communist parties.
Read the whole thing.
Clifford May makes a powerful case for why Iraq is a tiger we must not dismount: “This enemy is different. This war is different. This time, America has to win. Failure is not an option. ”. Hat tip: A Daily Briefing on Iran.
Only on the Internet. The Life of early Church Father St. Polycarp as portrayed in Legos. From AKMA.
Is China actively suppressing reporting of an outbreak of avian flu in humans? Avian Flu Blog considers.
More on rapid prototyping from Boing Boing. This is the real Second Industrial Revolution, folks.
Good advice on dogs from Damnum Absque Injuria inspired by the child killed by pit-bulls in San Francisco.
Davids Medienkritik brings us the unwelcome news that dramas on state-run German television are claiming that the Bush family explicitly instigated the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. While this may be emotionally satisfying and true for them, it’s lunacy.
Democracy Arsenal has a list of ten things that can be done to stop the fulminating horror in Darfur without direct U. S. military intervention. I agree with this completely. The only part I don’t understand is why NATO would actually do any of the things suggested without direct U. S. military intervention. Can they? Do the other NATO countries have the uncommitted military resource to project the necessary level of force?
Steve Antler of EconoPundit has an interesting table showing the foreign indebtedness of a number of major nations. The U. S. foreign indebtedness is low by the standards of developed countries (United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, Spain), typical by the standards of developing countries (Mexico, Indonesia), and low by the standards of former or nearly autarkies (China, India). My only concern is how much of our debt is held by China, specifically.
James Lileks introduces the new, improved Screedblog with 100% less Chucky Cheese and 100% more bile.
Michael Totten comments on the assassination of Samir Kassir in Lebanon.
I missed this a while back but catch it now from Pennywit. The Democratic Party must get serious about national security:
I would add to this. If liberals want to be credible on issues of national security, it is high time to set aside arguments about President Bush’s rationale for entering Iraq and focus on how to administer Iraq correctly. Obsessing about the Bush clan and New York Times coverage of the run-up to Iraq does not effectively address today’s realities.
Politics is an important thing but it’s not the only thing.
Joe Gandelman of The Moderate Voice, one of the bloggers I admire most, on why to blog. Don’t expect your friends to like everything you write or support your efforts.
Courtesy of a commenter in an old Catching my eye (in which I linked to Tyler Cowen’s great game theoretical analysis of the Iraqi insurgency) here’s an analysis of the insurgency from the standpoint of drama theory. Thanks, Saul.
Bill Petti of The Duck of Minerva characterizes the Bush Administration’s strategy on Iraq with what I believe is great precision. Iraq with a natural target for the following reasons:
Removal of Saddam enabled the U. S. to remove troops from Saudi Arabia.
Iraq was weak militarily.
The United States needed to demonstrate to the countries of the Middle East that it was both capable and willing of removing a regime and that it was possible for people who had lived under despotism to engage freely in the political process.
Read the whole thing.
TBoggs posts a variant on the “Iraq is Viet Nam” theme. I disagree with some of what he says. For example, I think he’s conflating the Viet Cong (which we had pretty definitely defeated in 1968) with the North Vietnamese army. But the part that concerns me is this:
“Soldiers are being kept in Iraq for too long. We are running out of money, soldiers, patience, and more importantly, the will to fight in Iraq.”
That’s why I feel that the daily casualty reports from Juan Cole, the Newsweeks fomenting scandal, and the exaggerations of Amnesty International are so damaging: they’re defeatist. Their implicit intent is to weaken resolve. Lest I misrepresent TBoggs’s main point in the post, he contends that when the U. S. inevitably fails in producing a stable democratic state in Iraq, the Left will receive the blame. I agree. If that’s the way it falls out, they’ll deserve it.
Coverage of the ongoing attempt to promote the Downing Street Memo non-story from Sissy Willis.
Eric the Unread is going on hiatus. As a farewell present he’s left an excellent post, “Liberalism is not a death wish”, which mostly consists of meaty excerpts from a paper by Dr. Tamar Meisels of Tel-Aviv and Oxford Universities, “How Terrorism Upsets Liberty”. The bottom line: terrorism or the fear of terrorism effectively and progressively erodes civil liberties. Not to be missed.
Nadezhda of Chez Nadezhda has a solid post on pensions that looks beyond the Social Security privatization debate. Get used to it, folks. This is a subject that will be of substantial importance for the next fifteen to twenty years.
From CSR Asia we have news of the ongoing environmental catastrophe in China:
The State Environmental Protection Administration of China published a report on Thursday saying that environmental quality in China basically remained the same in 2004 as compared with the previous year. The situation is still “serious”, however, as soil erosion, urban pollution, acid rain and other environmental headaches are worsening. According to the report, seven major rivers and 25 out of the 27 major lakes in China were polluted, some seriously. More Chinese cities suffered from acid rain as the frequency of acid rain increased in 2004. Acid rain occurred in 298 Chinese cities, covering 56.5 percent of the total 527 cities monitored.
Many links. If history is any judge, if the Chinese government is reporting no improvement, the situation is much, much worse.
There’s another chapter in the Westerville chronicles from Dennis the Peasant.
Should all high school students take the college preparatory sequence? Commentary and links from Joanne Jacobs.
Bill Roggio of Winds of Change has a thorough description of the Soviet Gulag system (the word “gulag” is an abbreviation of the Russian words “Glavnoe Upravlenie Lagerej” i.e. main correctional camp) and a comparison with the detention facilities at Guantanamo. For a complete map of the Soviet Gulag system see here. I can understand that Amnesty International doesn’t like war. I can understand that AI doesn’t like imprisonment. I can even understand that AI doesn’t like the Bush Administration or even the United States very much. I can’t understand why they’d equate incredible atrocities with small, probably necessary evils especially when such equivalencing strengthens the hand of people who have no problem perpetrating genuine atrocities at large scale. The inability to distinguish between categories of evil is the inability to distinguish between good and evil.
Oliver Willis notes that his political orientation (as measured by the Political Compass) wanders a trifle over time. So does mine but always within .25 of dead center. Right now I’m .15 Economic Left/Right, .15 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian.
There’s an interesting round-up of Euro analysis and debate at Peak Talk.
Edward of A Fistful of Euros comments on the rejection of the EU constitution in the Netherlands yesterday. AFOE also notes that the EU constitution was approved in New Europe member Latvia yesterday. Luxembourg votes next month.
A report on the pharmaceutically-enhanced terrorists of Beslan from A Step at a Time, translated from Russian. The report raises as many questions as it answers. Where did the terrorists get the Spetsnaz-only drugs? What else is for sale in the USS-were?
Brad Plumer looks at Rich Lowry’s enumerated principles and can’t see much difference between liberals and conservatives. Since I don’t consider myself either liberal or conservative (or perhaps both liberal and conservative), my reaction is pretty much a big “So, what?” The real distinction is between conservatism and radicalism and I don’t see a great deal of the former these days.
Pundita sallies forth on “social dumping”. What is it? You’ll have to read the post to find out.
What gives a story legs? Kevin Aylward of Wizbang updates us on the Downing Street Memo story (I seem to recall I commented on it at the time).
Guy at A Fistful of Euros gives us a background briefing on the upcoming vote on the EU constitution in the Netherlands.
Jeff at Beautiful Atrocities has a run-down of different notable persons being compared with Hitler. Jeff, please, not a weekly feature.
Ed Morrissey at Captain’s Quarters notes that the newly-elected Iraqi government has asked for and received a promise of the extension of the presence of U. S. forces in Iraq until at least 2006. And that it’s not an occupation (don’t tell me—tell the Iraqis). I said it four years ago: we’ll be there for fifty years. At least.
Marc Schulman of American Future has an excellent round-up of the professional media response to the French’s rejection of the EU constitution yesterday here and here.
Joe Gandelman of The Moderate Voice has a round-up of blogospheric reaction to the results of the French referendum.
John Donovan of Argghhh! has a round-up of milbloggers’ Memorial Day posts. Bring Kleenex. See also this post from John.
Lawrence Solum of Legal Theory Blog has another entry in his Legal Theory Lexicon series.
James Joyner has President Bush’s Memorial Day address and some links to Memorial Day posts from around the blogosphere.
John Donovan of Argghhh! has proven to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is, in fact, of Irish descent. He has the ability to drag humor from misfortune. Read. And maybe offer a little sympathy.
BlackFive has tips for five ways you can help the troops this Memorial Day.
CSR Asia points to this article in Xinhua. Pollution in China will continue to worsen:
BEIJING, May 27 — Pollution in China was likely to get worse before it got better, especially with the nation’s population expected to grow to 1.46 billion by 2020, officials said.
With a growing population, China would consume much more resources if the government did not change a development strategy that has led to widespread environmental damage over the past 20 years, said Luo Yi, a vice director with the State Environmental Protection Administration.
The population growth “means that the burden to the environment will increase by five to six times given the current strategy for development and pollution control remains unchanged,” Luo said Wednesday.
Water pollution was already worsening in China, he said, with 90 percent of rivers flowing through urban centers severely polluted and 75 percent of lakes also seriously suffering, he said.
Nearly three quarters of the Yellow River, which supplies water to 12 percent of the country’s 1.3 billion people and 15 percent of its farmland, had been badly tainted by sewage, industrial waste, fertilizer and other pollutants, Xinhua reported Wednesday.
Red tides caused by polluted river run off along China’s coastline was three times worse than in the 1980s, while acid rain largely caused by coal burning was affecting one-third of China’s land mass, he added.
And, as I’ve mentioned before, energy consumption in China is rising for every dollar added to GDP.
I missed this one when it came out a few days ago but don’t you miss it, too. Seixon goes through George Galloway’s Senate testimony with a finetooth comb and come back with, well, a finetooth comb. His followup is here.
There’s an interesting post on the ideological abuse of psychiatry from Dr. Sanity.
Don’t miss James Piereson’s article in Opinion Journal, “Investing in the Right Ideas”. I found this section extraordinary:
Reinforcing this trend was the fact that, simultaneously, the Democratic Party was beginning to alter itself along parallel lines. Following the tumult at their 1968 convention in Chicago, the Democrats established a commission, chaired by Sen. George McGovern, whose mandate was to make the nominating process more representative. Quickly captured by liberal activists, the commission pushed through new delegate-selection rules requiring the representation of women, blacks and young people in line with their respective proportions in the population.
The effect was to displace the elected officeholders, party officials and union leaders who had controlled Democratic conventions in the past and to replace them with activists speaking for designated groups. Under this approach, the groups that now found a home in the party began to look very much like the ones Bundy had tried to organize through the Ford Foundation. In many cases, they were the same groups.
Finally, liberalism itself came to be recast along interest-group lines. The welfare state was redefined from a package of programs through which Americans lent assistance to the poor, the sick and the disabled to a system through which certain defined groups could command government support as a matter of right and as compensation for past injustices. Society was cast as the guilty party, the recipients as its aggrieved victims. This sleight-of-hand in turn made it difficult for government to require the beneficiaries of its aid to adapt their behavior to the standards of middle-class life.
Yes, that was precisely what happened. Read the whole thing. Hat tip: Steve Antler.
Parody romance novel covers with titles like: “Quicky in the Swamp of Death”, “The Cleavage of Mary Ann Pushup”, and my favorite, “Scarlet Imposter”. Hat tip: Boing Boing (where else?)
Do single-payer plans squelch innovation? Asked and answered by Brad Plumer. My own feeling on this is that I’d like to hear a lot less theorizing and a lot more quantification on this subject.
If you haven’t checked out Daniel Starr’s blog, you really owe it to yourself to do so. Very interesting, good solid analysis. He’s about a post away from getting blogrolled here.
Different River notes that George Dantzig, the father of linear programming and the inventor of the simplex method, has died. To find out who he was, what they are, and why it’s important, link on over.
There are lots of interesting thoughts in this post at FuturePundit which comments on the interaction of technology, intellectual property law, and economics.
Illuminaria has a first-person cautionary tale on the hazards of prescription drugs. Verbum sapiente.
Juan Cole of Informed Comment takes a time-out from the daily casualty reports to explain why the U. S. can’t defeat the insurgency in Iraq. I think he’s right on most counts especially in his assertion that the U. S. force will remain in Iraq for the middle or long term. This would be terribly bad news if, in fact, the intention is for the United States to defeat the insurgency. I suspect that the actual plan is for Iraqis to defeat the insurgency. But I have no doubt that we’ll have major troop deployments there for a long, long time cf. Germany and Japan.
Rantings of a Sand Monkey posts a picture of Egyptian president Mubarak with heavy makeup and notes “he doesn’t look 77; 73, 74 tops”. There’s more. He also comments on the referendum.
Guest-blogger John Krenson has an interesting post on the National Guard up on One Hand Clapping.
I’m sorry I didn’t notice it before but Smash has a superb post up: “Blood and Justice”.
Dennis the Peasant has a two-part story in his Chronicles of Westerville, the Red State Lake Wobegone. Start here then continue here.
Jacqueline Passey is touting a mayoral candidate for Kent, Washington who’s proposing the catastrophic insurance/health savings account combo for city employees that some like Arnold Kling (and Steve Verdon, IIRC) have been suggesting as the solution to health care system problems. This won’t work among other reasons because of the way pricing decisions are made. But it’s interesting nonetheless. Hat tip: Dustbury.
In her most recent post Virginia Postrel gives a likely explanation for why good journalists might report a thinly-sourced story of Koran-flushing (among other things). Basically the same reason that antique dealers sell what they sell: they have preconceived ideas, based in experience, about what has value. The problem is, of course, that, like antique dealers, you can miss the great treasure that way. Or conversely, they report fictions because, as Artemus Ward put it, they know something “that just ain’t so”.
There’s an interesting post from retired doc on cancer diagnoses, malpractice suits, and statistical outcomes.
Posner and Becker’s subject this week is taxing or otherwise regulating the Internet.
Lynne Kiesling of Knowledge Problem rejoices that the Northwestern women’s lacrosse team has won this year’s NCAA championship with a perfect 21-0 record. Congratulations, Wildcats. That’s the first NCAA championship my alma mater has won in anything since 1941. I trust it will be another 64 years before the next time.
Check out The Talking Dog’s interview with Staff Sergeant Shanona Gregozek, currently serving in Iraq.
Blackfive points out that today is Armed Forces Day. To all the men and women serving in our uniform, thank you.
Don’t miss this first-hand report of Operation Matador over at LGF.
Sissy Willis has the Reader’s Digest version of Bill Whittle’s latest essay.
macroblog has a tremendous round-up of fascinating econ links.
The Manolo continues to be on top of the horror that is the Eurovision song contest.
Check out Angela Winters of Politopics on what’s holding back black children.
Victor of The Dead Parrot Society has a handy graph that illustrates the future of the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation. Remember that people include their estimates of what they can expect from their company pensions in their estimates of what they will need for their retirements.
Is there anything cuter than a six week old Samoyed puppy?. We’ve been following these pups on webcam ever since they were born. My wife turns to me about once a day and demands that we get one. Then she comes to her senses.
A Stitch in Haste ruminates on investment, speculation, and bubbles with a specific focus on the frightening housing bubble.
Dean explains why Star Wars Episodes I, II, and III are a disappointment.
Legal XXX notes the report of increased snowfall in Antarctica and asks “So is the earth cooling or heating up? I can’t keep track.” Ah, Grasshopper. It is too difficult to explain to the layman. You must rely on the trained professionals to make all the necessary decisions.
Is it just me or has Blogger sprung a leak again? About half of my regular stops that use it are on the fritz.
My erstwhile associate blogger, Jeff, is back on the old homestead with a post on heresy in Scooby-Doo.
MC Masterchef of Chez Nadezhda posts a paper on integration, Islamism, and the question of Europe’s Muslims. His conclusion seems to be that some kind of rapprochement is necessary but unlikely.
Smash has re-organized his main page template and, I must say, it’s much nicer now. He’s also re-organized his blogroll. I’m still not on it. Damn.
Waheed of Afghan Warrior (the only known Afghan blogger) has details and commentary on the anti-American riots in Afghanistan you might not read elsewhere.
Gerard Vanderleun of American Digest is blogging about chocolate chip cookies. Really. Recipe included.
CR of Angry Bear points out that as of Thursday 1,346 days will have passed since September 11, 2001—the same number as passed between the attack on Pearl Harbor and the effective end of World War II with VJ Day. He shares some of the concerns I’ve had since the beginning: will we always be at war? The effects of a long-term state of war on the country trouble me deeply. On the other hand, he seems to have no real ideas on what should have been done differently. And, on a related note…
Democracy Arsenal has ten questions for progressives on foreign policy and the War on Terror. I’d certainly like to see some good answers.
Callimachus of Done With Mirrors has a very interesting post on the history of French slavery.
Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution has an absolutely brilliant analysis of the strategy of the insurgents in Iraq from a game-theoretical point of view. I won’t steal his thunder by attempting to excerpt it—it’s unexcerptable. I believe that all seven of his characterizations are true in some degree. Absolutely must reading.
Precisely what is it about our behavior in the last five years that makes some Chinese defense planners believe that sinking a U. S. aircraft carrier would make the U. S. back down?
My niece, Marie, has a picture of her and her prom date up on her blog.
Today I think I’ll specialize on humor (or at least wry bemusement). Here’s what’s caught my eye this morning:
I see that moxie has finally shamedGlenn into linking to her. Tsk, tsk. Greedy, greedy. I mean, you’re on his blogroll, moxie. And you’re wrong: as I pointed out Glenn does have favorites (doesn’t everybody?), but he does share the wealth and, in the final analysis, it’s not that important anyway.
Here’s an amusing and, I suspect, point on review of Kingdom of Heaven. Hat tip: Balloon Juice.
Spirit Fingers extols the exploits of Filipina super-heroine, Darna: “double the action with only half the clothing”.
Go Fug Yourself notes the curriculum at fashion clown college:
“Hilarious Stances: How To Bend Your Body Seventeen Ways In One Pose.” I hear her grades are also excellent in “Whimsical Footwear and You,” and the all-important “Show Your Underwear Band 101.”
Asymmetrical Information has a solid post on the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation and the United Airlines pension debacle. This is going to be the big story for the next ten to fifteen years, folks.
Wretchard of Belmont Club is doing what he does better than anyone in the blogosphere: military analysis. His political commentary is sometimes over-the-top but his military analysis is rock-solid. This is stuff that the talking heads (and the government) should be doing for us but aren’t. Just keep scrolling.
Michelle Catalano’s obsession with Star Wars is assuming disturbing proportions. An intervention may become necessary.
Waheed, the Afghan Warrior, has pointed out a new blog: Feras is a Palestinian blogger.
Blackfive has a milblogger rundown on Operation Matador, the recent U. S. military operations in western Iraq. I’m sticking to my prediction of hot pursuit incursions into Syria by year’s end. They may even be going on now. UPDATE: another great roundup at Winds of Change.
Coyote Blog posts much the same critique of the UAL pension debacle as I’d planned to post. I truly believe that unfunded pensions will be the next S&L crisis. And mark my words: rent-seeking is the new entrepeneurialism.
Mover Mike has an interesting if brief post on hedge funds and derivatives you might want to take a look at.
TigerHawk has a tax reform plan and is looking for comments. My comments are that no plan that reduces lawyers’ incomes will ever be written into law (by lawyers) and no plan that raises both lawyers’ and doctors’ tax liabilities will ever be written into law.
It is incredibly quiet in the blogosphere today. Glenn is complaining about the lack of news. Dean is asking people to tell him something interesting. I’ve been half-way through my list of regular haunts before anything has caught my eye:
Investor’s Business Daily has an editorial that provides some support for those who believe that the solution to the U. S.’s manifest immigration issues with Mexico is reform in the latter country. Hat tip: EconoPundit
If you’ve ever wondered why economics was called “the dismal science”, this post from Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution answering the question “Why don’t people have more sex?” from the point of view of an economist should give you a pretty good idea.
Thoughts from AKMA on the separation of the U. S. Episcopal Church from the Anglican Communion.
A guest post on American Future from German blogger Ulrich Speck on German, French, and EU foreign policy. I suspect his viewpoint is quite atypical. I’d like to make this point, however: France entered the 20th century with an enormous colonial empire; it ended the century without even France.
Another post on immigration. This one’s from Coyote Blog and he’s for it—basically unrestricted.
CSR-Asia notes that there are 200 Million people with occupational diseases in China—a major health issue.
The Fug Girls of Go Fug Yourself continue their anti-mukluk campaign. Do not confuse the fugly faux-mukluks the Girls despise so much with the practical, comfortable, beautiful real mukluks.
CSR-Asia has given their site a facelift and it’s now actually readable with Mozilla. Thanks, guys. Lots of interesting stuff there. Here’s a post noting that call center wages in India may be approaching U. K. levels. Here’s an extremely interesting post wondering why stories in the Chinese press get so little attention from the English-language media. This site is always worth looking at.
Blair’s “New Labour” policies, moving rightward to grab more of the center, has been thoroughly rejected by the British electorate. The peculiar nature of the British electoral system protected Blair’s lead, but he won’t last long
This seems to be the prevailing media position. Damian Penny has a rundown. Harry disagrees with kos.
Callimachus of Done With Mirrors has posted the last two chapters in his series on Wilsonians here and here complete with reproductions of some rather lurid posters.
Excellent commentary on David Hackworth from Phil Carter of Intel Dump.
Iowahawk, returned from hiatus, reccounts his travels.
The energetic (and apparently more visually-oriented than I’d suspected) Mark Safranski of ZenPundit has a network diagram of the blogs in our koinon.
Blog-pod? amba of AmbivaBlog has an interesting post on the appropriate name for a group of affiliated blogs. I think perhaps koinon from Gr. koinonia, “fellowship”. I know who’s in my koinon—great blogs and blogfriends like American Future, ZenPundit, Done With Mirrors, and Pundita. They’re all over in my blogroll.
annika has an amusing animated .GIF that neatly summarizes the American Idol kerfuffle.
Balkinization points to an article in The Times publishing the minutes of a secret meeting among Tony Blair and his top aides prior to the Iraq War. If nothing else the timing of this publication (with the election) could be incendiary. At first glance if it proves true it could be pretty important on this side of the pond, as well. It suggests that the Bush Administration fit the intelligence to suit the policy.
Ruy Texeira of Donkey Rising debunks a number of myths of Democratic renewal (hat tip: MyDD) including what appears to be Chris Bowers’s position: that ideological purity is the key to a revitalized Democratic Party.
Syrian blogger and author Ammar of Amarji-A Heretic’s Blog notes that he’s one of 43 people mentioned in the Arabic language edition of Newsweek as “making a difference” (and the only Syrian). I suspect that if it hadn’t been for the honor he’d just as soon have walked.
Max Sawicky argues that Social Security is a good public good:
There is no other way to obtain insurance against, not only destitution, but also low support for retirement. How low is ‘low’? The bigger the program, the higher the standard. The standard’s metric is the wage replacement rate (benefits divided by earnings at retirement time), now around 40 percent, due to plunge to half that (and in the infinite horizon, to zero) under privatization proposals.
There is no other way to preclude those who make bad savings choices from prevailing on society for support in their pitiful old age.
There is no comparable market for disability and survivors insurance.
There is no comparable market for low-cost, inflation-proof, lifetime annuities.
There is no good reason to enlarge the existing, separate welfare programs for the elderly. Nor is there the same likely political durability of such programs.
Comments from libertarian economists? Steve? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?
Callimachus of Done With Mirrors has posted the second part of his series on Wilsonians. This post concentrates on the iconography of World War I.
Daniel Berczik of Publius Pundit notes that Viktor Yushchenko has been in office 100 days in Ukraine. He’s still a fan—warts and all.
You must know by now that senior Al-Qaeda leader Abu Farraj al-Libbi has been captured in Pakistan. Terrorologis-to-the-blogosphere Dan Darling fills in the blanks at Winds of Change. Good luck on finals, Dan.
There’s an extremely important post on immigration (legal and otherwise) and our relations with Mexico from BummerDietz on Scylla & Charybdis. I’ve written about this before but I honestly don’t understand why this issue hasn’t been raised with Vicente Fox in the discussions of a guest-worker visa.
Recombinomics comments that the pandemic may have already begun. It’s following the pattern of the 1918 flu pandemic pretty closely. Hat tip: Avian Flu Blog
Nouriel Roubini analyzes five diffferent view of the U. S. current accounts deficit (trade imbalance). Steve Antler of EconoPundit notes that the FairModel has a somewhat different prediction.
The usually sane Curzon at Coming Anarchy advocates a massive pre-emptive nuclear strike against North Korea. The comments are quite interesting.
There’s an interesting rumination on industrial growth under Stalin over on Catallarchy from Bryan Caplan. Is the shifting of resources from agriculture to industrial production that Bryan writes about a gradient phenomenon? To what degree does this same analysis apply to China today?
Glenn usually isn’t shy about self-promotion. Has he linked to this? Bill Hobbs notes that the Instapundit was interviewed by the Nashville City Paper in anticipation of the upcoming BlogNashville Conference.
Iowahawk says that he’s been busy and he’s not back yet but he will be back and he’s sorry.
Major K. reports that it’s quiet in his section of Baghdad.
Abu Aardvark reports an Al-Jazeera program debating the Arabic language media’s coverage of Iraq. The Aardvark is right: the most significant part is the debate.
More news on the Chinese banking system from Stratfor courtesy of TMLutas. I predicted this about a month ago although I doubt that there’ll be any consequences for China if it doesn’t meet the targets. There are too many politicians and businessmen with dollar signs (or should that be yuan?) in their eyes.
FuturePundit reports that methane-producing bacteria have been found in oil fields.
Analysis from Beautiful Atrocities of the broadcasting juggernaut that is Air America.
A great reading list from A Straight Shot of Politics. I’ve read all but a handful of Joseph Marshall’s selections and each and every one is a classic in its area. If you’re looking for something to read, you won’t go wrong by picking from his list.
There’s a lot of very interesting stuff in an email communique on the LA Times Book Festival over on Chicago Boyz: observations on the future of China, a verbal confrontation between a Marine recently returned from serving in Iraq and a defeatist panelist, and more.
There’s good news and bad news from the Middle East over on Joseph Braude’s Cordova. The good news is that for most people there democracy and political perform are the number one priorities. The bad news is that what the people want doesn’t matter much to the autocrats who are running things.
razib at Gene Expression has an interesting post on genetics, nutrition, and spicy food.
Noah Millman of Gideon’s Blog is Passover menu-blogging.
Check out the post over on The Big Picture that correlates Wal-Mart stock prices with the price of oil.
Bill Roggio of The Fourth Rail has a solid post on a subject I’ve been thinking about lately: piracy. Why hasn’t there been more large-scale piracy? An enormous amount of easily-fungible wealth i.e. oil is transported via the sealanes and would seem to be vulnerable to piracy. Why isn’t the opportunity being seized? My answer: the U. S. Navy.
So what happens if France rejects the EU constitution? Here’s a rundown of the possibilities from Bettina Thalmeyer of the Munich based Center for Applied Policy Research translated by A Fistful of Euros. Thoughts on the same subject from Dan Drezner.
Dr. Demarche of The Daily Demarche wonders why we haven’t heard about Africa’s most important health problem: malaria. Well, one of Jeffrey Sachs’s suggestions for helping the poorest of the poor there is mosquito netting, IIRC.
Argghhh! notes an anniversary yesterday that I hadn’t recalled: Desert One.
CenterFeud discusses information from the not-always-credible DEBKA about the plans that the current Palestinian state AKA Jordan may have for the other Palestinian state.
There’s a pair of posts over at Clayton Cramer’s place on the economics of solar power for home use in Idaho that I found interesting. First, read this one, then this one.
Chirol of Coming Anarchy notes that today is the 90th anniversary of the battle of Gallipoli in a post that includes photos of the Gallipoli memorial site. See also this post from Tim Blair.
R. J. Rummel of Democratic Peace (who’s going on my blogroll as soon as I write an introductory piece) joins the China discussion with his post on Chinese democide.
Medpundit remembers her grandmother, who died last week.
Yesterday marked the beginning of the Armenian genocide by the Turks 90 years ago. Read commentary from Jawa Report and Not Exactly Rocket Science. Lest we forget.
Think things are tough and ugly these days? South Knox Bubba provides some badly wanted perspective by highlighting the events of April sixty years ago.
The left side of the blogosphere continues to post on Guckert/Gannon. Anyone have any idea why?
So whatever became of those Libyan centrifuges? From The Word Unheard.
Kash at Angry Bear has a pair of posts featuring speculations about the effects of a revaluation of the renminbi. This one is largely a lengthy quote from Alan Greenspan. This one features Kash’s own conjectures. As I wrote in the comments it’s not all about us. The policies of the Chinese oligarchs are China-focussed not U. S.-focussed. They’ll buy U. S. bonds as long as doing so creates more stability than selling would. At the point when selling creates more stability, they’ll sell.
Behold the power of the Internet! (and the Blogosphere) From idea to implementation to distribution in not a lot more time than it take tell the story. And now, available for your edification and enjoyment, the The Andrew Sullivan Freak-Out Advisory (from Wizbang, natch). You know, if Mr. Sullivan had a good sense of humor he’d put it on the front page of his own blog.
Lawrence Solum of Legal Theory Blog has posted The Future of Copyright on SSRN. IMO this is one of the most important legal issues for the 21st century so dig in!
Rusty Shackleford of The Jawa Report has complete coverage include pictures from the downing by terrorists of the helicopter in Iraq.
Publius Pundit comments on a gunfight between gunmen loyal to Osama bin Laden and Saudi security forces in the KSA yesterday.
I’ve had problems reaching many of my usual stops that are using Blogger. Are they having a particularly bad day?.
Lileks distills the argument for the repeal of the 17th Amendment to a brief, succinct rant:
But the Senate, as currently composed, seems to attract people who have that potent & fatal combination of dimness and self-regard, and when you elevate those sorts to the Great National Saucer, you get idiocies like the Bolton hearing.
Tigerhawk hasn’t gotten nearly the attention he deserves for this post which is a guest-blog from a law professor who was a personal advisor to Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now Benedict XVI).
CodeBlueBlog has posted the next installment in his series on digital mammography.
Callimachus of Done With Mirrors comments on the life and death of Marla Ruzicka.
Silent Running (while conducting a fascinating experiment in blog-based simulation I’ve noted before) informs us of the entry of an Indian company into the American automobile market with several lines of low-cost, energy-efficient vehicles.
TMLutas has legally placed William Tucker’s 1993 article “Monogamy and its discontents; challenge to western sexual values” online.
Randall Parker, the FuturePundit points out the dangers of widespread inexpensive genetic engineering.
The Talking Dog conducted an interview last week with Donna Newman, Jose Padilla’s attorney.
Note that two of the posts I’ve linked to today are genuine citizen journalism. The Blogospheric Revolution marches on! That’s the lot.
Joe Gandelman, as usual, has a great run-down of blogospheric reaction to the election of Joseph Ratzinger to the papacy.
Abu Aardvark compares Benedict XVI with one of his favorite subjects, Qaradawi, and finds some interesting similarities and a good, succinct explanation for the dismay with which Benedict’s elevation is being met in some circles: the Pope is Catholic. I think there are some differences between the two men that the Father of Aardvarks should consider. For Benedict liberal democracy is probably merely a means to an end. Could it be that for Qaradawi liberal democracy is probably merely a fact?
You might want to take a look at a blog/web-site/newsletter I discovered via the comments section at Winds of Change: CSR-Asia (Corporate Social Responsibility in Asia). Lots of interesting stuff you might not see elsewhere. Are you listening, Marc and Mark?
Read the review, then don’t see the movie: Beautiful Atrocities has notes on the Turkish version of The Wizard of Oz.
Coyote Blog notes that the Forest Service may close recreation sites. His suggestion is more fee-based usage and that’s probably the only available response. I wonder whether the widespread use of RV’s increases maintenance costs.
It’s Antler vs. Krugman at EconoPundit. It’s got lots of graphs for those who like such things.
Go Fug Yourself presents a picture of 21st century togetherness.
Donald Sensing of One Hand Clapping has a not-to-be-missed post on the investigation of the bombing of the Murrah Building.
Today is the 10th anniversary of the bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. A Guy in Pajamas offers a round-up of first-person perspectives. Dustbury reflects. Michelle Malkin comments. Steven Taylor remembers.
ComingAnarchy notes that today is Primrose Day in the United Kingdom, commemorating the death of Disraeli.
Spirit Finger’s sodium nitrite consumption level has risen recently.
Angry Bear has the second installment in his series comparing the U. S. health care system with those of other major industrialized nations. This time he analyzes what we spend our money on.
Joseph Braude has an interesting post on the influence of the Internet on Arab politics.
Victor Davis Hanson (whom you may note I rarely cite here) makes a point that bears some mulling (and one I’ve made myself): Hamiltonian realists bear a lot of the responsibility for getting us in the fix in the Middle East that we’re in now.
R. J. Rummel debunks the notion that Hitler was democratically elected.
Eric the Unread has an interesting approach for determining the number of Yellow Cabs in New York City. I think I’d probably call the city and ask how many tags had been issued.
razib of Gene Expression analyzes the idea that infanticide cultures are doomed to extinction by their very nature.
Of course, the story du jour is the indictments of three in the US in the continuing-to-unfold scandal attached to the UN Oil-for-Food program. I’ve been searching around unsuccessfully trying to find indictments in other countries. France? Germany? Russia? Bueller? Anyone?
Angry Bear has a, well, angry post (the first of a series) on health care in the United States.
Brad DeLong has some thoughts on why real wages aren’t rising. With the exception of my opinion that he has confused “skilled and educated” with “protected”, I think he’s got it about right.
Tully of Centerfield points to this interesting article from the New York Times, Thousands of Chinese Villagers Protest Factory Pollution:
Thousands of people rioted this week in a village in southeastern China, overturning police cars and driving away officers who had tried to stop elderly villagers protesting against pollution from nearby factories.
By this afternoon, three days after the riot, witnesses say crowds had convened in Huaxi Village in Zhejiang Province to gawk at a tableau of destroyed police cars and shattered windows. Police officers outside the village were reportedly blocking reporters from entering the scene but local people, reached by telephone, said villagers controlled the riot area.
“The villagers will not give up if there is no concrete action to move the factories away,” said Mr. Lu, a villager who witnessed part of the confrontation and refused to give his full name. “The crowd is growing. There are at least 50,000 or 60,000 people.”
That’s precisely the sort of thing I was writing about in my post on the environment in China. When the oligarchs decide that pollution has become a greater threat to their power than slowing growth, things may start to change there.
Dennis the Peasant, raising his head above a stack of tax forms just long enough for a flurry of posts, gives us another chapter in the chronicles of Westerville, the Red State Lake Wobegone.
Noah Millman of Gideon’s Blog is back with a post on John Paul II.
Pundita has another installment on the tangled web of illegal immigration and banking in Mexico.
Abu Aardvark translates Islamist-Western dialogue on the Al-Jazeera program Opposite Direction.
It’s Across the Bay vs. Juan Cole on the history of Jerusalem. As I’ve said before, history isn’t a science, it’s a vendetta. In my view the problem with this whole discussion is that if ruling the city is the determinant, the Turks ruled longest in historic times. Are we suggesting the city be returned to the Turks? If living in the city is the determinant, it’s clear that Jews have lived there longer than anyone else. My own opinion is that both sides should drop the historic pretenses and come to a modus vivendi based on the facts on the ground. Nearly every single issue in the history is disputed.
Afghan Warrior profiles the first woman provincial governor in Afghanistan.
Sometimes doctors are incredibly sensitive, professional, and effective. Sometimes not so much as in this post from Bioethics Discussion Blog.
Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution has started a new Avian Flu Blog. I sincerely hope he’s wrong but I fear that he’s right: it will become a major issue.
There’s another installment on reading the Terry Schiavo brainscans from CodeBlueBlog.
Tim Worstall has presented the second of his coveted Economic Idiot Awards. Sheesh. Passed over again.
Former Navy SEAL Froggie explains why we don’t have much to worry about from terrorist SCUBA attacks. This he was trained for.
Razib of Gene Expression has lengthy and interesting analysis of the future of the Catholic Church, very much from an outsider’s perspective. I certainly hope he’s right.
Lawrence Solum of Legal Theory Blog points to this paper by Larry Ribstein, Initial Reflections on the Law and Economics of Blogging. I’m still reading it. It will take a little time to digest.
Donald Sensing of One Hand Clapping has a characteristically good post: “The Trail of Political Christianity”.
There are two posts that probably should be read in conjunction. Steven Taylor of PoliBlog comments on the limitations of controlling illegal immigration. Pundita explains the ways and means of controlling illegal immigration from Mexico. Follow the money.
M. Simon of Power and Control uses his powers for good in a solid post about the energy in your future. This he was trained for. It also bears mention that those who advocate subsidizing speculative energy approaches are ignoring opportunity costs.
It seems to me I was just reading the other day on how wonderful Tunisia was. Abu Aardvark isn’t so sure.
Here’s a link to Cardinal Ratzinger’s sermon at John Paul II’s funeral Mass yesterday. I haven’t heard anyone else say it so I’ll point out that I heard his “Follow me” refrain as a call for a conservative successor to John Paul II.
Check out the RavenCam! It’s the equivalent of a puppy baby monitor. These newborn Samoyed puppies were born on Wednesday. Also check out the liveblogging of the whelping. Keep scrolling.
Always a leader in the pursuit of science, Jeff at Beautiful Atrocities has a run-down on bathroom graffiti.
And now, grinding my gears slightly, Robert Tagorda of Outside the Beltway continues his series on possible candidates for pope with a profile of Cardinal Dario Castrillón Hoyos of Colombia.
I see that Dale Franks of The QandO Blog feels about the same way that I do. He’s having one of those days.
Is it just me or is it a remarkably lackluster day in the blogosphere? Here’s what’s caught my eye today:
The ubiquitous praktike has a run-down of the English-language Egyptian blogosphere. There are more and more of them and they’ve actually got something to talk about.
Michael J. Totten has a Lebanon Blog up and running.
Roger L. Simon says that Musso and Frank’s—a Hollywood landmark for nearly a century—just ain’t what it used to be.
AKMA has had a flash of insight on agreement, dissent, partisanship, and extremes.
Megan McArdle (Jane Galt) of Asymmetrical Information has a length quotation from a (subscription required) article in the Financial Times by Martin Wolf suggesting that welfare states have structural barriers to integration.
Autism Diva is skeptical about the mercury theory for the cause of autism:
Dr. Randi Hagerman, a well known expert in Fragile X, says that 30% of all Fragile X kids can be diagnosed with “autism” because they fit the behavioral profile. Fragile X is a chromosome disorder and not caused by mercury or measles. It is the most common cause of retardation in the US. Kids with Down syndrome can have “comorbid autism”. Some of the kids counted as autistic could have Down syndrome, which is not caused by mercury or measles. We don’t know how many of the new autism cases would have formerly been thought of as just “retarded”.
Callimachus of Done With Mirrors concludes that the AP photographers were “embedded with the insurgents”.
Robert Tagorda of Outside the Beltway is performing a genuine service by profiling leading candidates for the Papacy (sometimes called “the papabile”). He’s profiled Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze and Argentinean Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio. It’s a great opportunity to learn something about the man who will become one of the most influential religious figures in the world.
You can get the latest on the idiotic bill to regulate political discourse that’s making its way through the San Francisco city council from Chris Nolan of Politics from left to Right.
¡No Pasarán! notes that today is Booker T. Washington’s birthday and has a selection of quotes.
Pundita tells you what you need to know about Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. I note that Pundita’s account corresponds pretty closely to Jeffrey Laurenti’s account of Security Council reform proposals under the Clinton Administration. FWIW my own position on Security Council reform is that we should resist any Security Council reform that doesn’t actually involve a commitment to security and the willingness and ability to back that commitment up.
Jack at Random Fate has a post about perspective that’s remarkably close to something I’ve been working on myself.
You may not have noticed it but the Canadian bloggers RightThinkingPeople have some words of wisdom about the brouhaha going on about the scandal going on in the land of the maple leaf and the involvement of CQ. Meanwhile Kathy Shaidle defies the government with her post Life in Soviet Kanuckistan.
Bill Roggio of The Fourth Rail analyzes the changing tactics of the Iraqi insurgents.
Michelle Malkin and Amba of AmbivaBlog have beat me to the punch in mentioning the death of columnist Eleanor Clift’s husband, journalist Tom Brazaitis. Ms. Clift appeared on the McLaughlin Group over the weekend and her appearance in the face of such family tragedy can only be described as gallant. Dr. McLaughlin’s tribute to Mr. Brazaitis was touching and appropriate.
American Future has a round-up of Middle Eastern reaction to the death of John Paul II.
Via Backcountry Conservative, W. Thomas Smith has a post on the Swiss Guards, the pope’s bodyguards. In addition to the qualifications Smith lists, a Guard candidate must also be polyglot. My cousin, Michael Schuler, was a Swiss Papal Guard. I’ve got a picture around here somewhere of him in his guard’s uniform. In addition to all of the talents mentioned Michael could also distill some pretty mean kirschwasser.
Joseph Braude posts on a point I’ve been making for some time: the issues that Arabic’s being diglossic pose. Not only is there a high and low language but Arabic is composed of many dialects-by-courtesy nearly as different from each other as Spanish is from Italian.
Professor Bainbridge has an article up on Tech Central Station on John Paul II’s legacy in the economic sphere. Like many commentators I think Bainbridge is overstating things. Yes, John Paul II specifically endorsed “free economies”. A few lines down he also endorses minimum wages and social insurance plans. The freedom he has in mind is clearly more like Sweden than it is like the United States.
There’s an excellent post at Publius Pundit on the Catholic Church, Christianity, and the Arab world.
As you must know by now the blogosphere is in the news again. See blogfather (and Canadian) Joe Katzman of Winds of Change’s great summary of the scandal in the Canadian Liberal Party and how the blogosphere figures in it.
I think that Chris Nolan of Politics from Left to Right is onto something. Is there any way that “Progressive libertarians” can form the base for either a third party or reform of one of the two established parties?
Brad DeLong has a round-up of opinion on the hard/soft landing issue. My uninformed opinion is that it depends on who has the most to lose (and I believe that’s the Chinese leadership).
Citizen Smash reports that the unsuccessful assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II in 1981 was sponsored by the Soviet KGB.
If you’re a neurologist (or just curious), you might want to check out CodeBlueBlog’s $100,000 challenge.
Spirit Finger has identified something that seems to have escaped the rest of us:
This wedding is significant because the elevation of Royal Mistress to Princess Consort creates a vacancy that needs to be filled at taxpayers’ expense. To this end, the Prince’s search led him to places such as Australia and New Zealand which despite their remoteness, had heard of British royalty through the supermarket tabloids.
Spirit Fingers records the search in photographs.
Macroblog has a handy summary of the economic news of the day. There’s a reason economics is called “the dismal science”.
Jim Treacher wonders if Robert Rodriguez is actually a vlogger.
Tigerhawk attended a lecture last night on Al-Qaeda’s grand strategy. Read all about it. Now.
Waheed, the Afghan Warrior, answers some email questions. Interesting stuff.
I see that blog-friend Marc Schulman’s excellent blog, American Future, has evolved. He’s now a Large Mammal in the N. Z. Bear Ecosystem. It’s well-deserved as the linked post on the EU and terrorism should show you.
There’s a really interesting discussion on the housing bubble going on in the comments section of this post on Calculated Risk.
I’ve seen so much good stuff at Coyote Blog today that I’m hard put to give a single link. Just keep scrolling. How about this interesting post on the minimum wage? Or this one comparing the treatment of the UN and Enron scandals?
I’ve got a lot on my plate today. Maybe more later.
What with favorite blogs going on possibly-permanent hiatus and spring vacations, it’s darned hard to find a lot going on today. Here’s what’s caught my eye this morning:
If only we used our powers for good. Bull Moose has a call to arms for bloggers: use the power of the blogosphere to end the genocide in Darfur.
There’s an interesting post from Economist’s View on declining levels of violence among adolescents. A policy change during the Clinton years? Reduced family size? Greater wealth? Video games?
Roger L. Simon has committed journalism. See his post on the investigation of the scandal surrounding the UN Oil-for-Food program. Tigerhawk notices that the Wall Street Journal is cribbing a little. Tsk, tsk.
I see that James Lileks has been having similar thoughts to those that inspired my Easter day post “Easter memories”. Lileks remembers.
Marc Schulman of American Future has the second installment of his series, EU and the Arabs. In this portion he discusses France’s plans for a Latin-Mediterranean empire.
Apparently, FrankJ and SarahK are officially engaged. Kris at Anywhere But Here has possibly the most unusual blessing I’ve ever heard:
Frank & Sarah — may God richly bless both of you in your commitment to one another and to responsible gun ownership.
Jury duty today so updating this may be difficult. I’ll check back as I can.
Is it my imagination or are things rather quiet in the blogosphere perhaps in anticipation of the Easter weekend? Here’s what’s caught my eye this morning:
Marc Schulman of American Future uses a commentary on Bat Ye’or’s book, Eurabia, as a stepping-off point for The EU and the Arabs which he says is the first of a series and which I think is his best post yet. The comments section is also worth noting.
Over at Dennis the Peasant there’s another chapter of the chronicles of Westerville, the Red State Lake Wobegone.
Interesting post from FuturePundit Randall Parker on chick embryos turning human bone marrow stem cells into neurons.
Forget the numbers, charts, and graphs! Spirit Fingers shows the change in state of the Hong Kong economy in two pictures.
UP to 40 fighters were seen today at a Iraq lakeside training camp attacked by US and Iraqi forces a day before and said they had never left, an AFP correspondent who visited the site said.
The correspondent, who went with other journalists to the camp at Lake Tharthar, 200km north of Baghdad, said he saw 30 to 40 fighters there.
Anyone have any more info on the truth of this?
Pundita connects the dots between diaspora remittances, narcotics trafficking, terrorism, and poverty. Think about it. What do the following countries have in common: Mexico, Phillippines, Burma, Algeria? That should raise your blood pressure.
Gerard Vanderleun of American Digest has a summary and run-down on the N. Z. Bear Ecosystem’s “Higher Beings’” (top 10 bloggers) positions on the Schiavo case.
Fishing through the garbage so you don’t have to, American Future posts the reaction of the Neo-Nazi group to which Jeffrey Weise (the high school mass murderer in Minnesota) belonged.
Via Buzzmachine, there’s another Saudi blogger out there: Saudi Jeans. Gosh, I still miss The Religious Policeman (who is on what I fear is a permanent hiatus). Saudi Jeans appears to be primarily an aggregator site but he links to things that others don’t and that are pretty interesting. Check it out.
First hand reflections on Red Lake, Minnesota (where Jeffrey Weise mentioned above lived) from Finestkind Clinic and Fish Market. She used to work there. Keep scrolling. That woman is beginning to amaze me. What a remarkable person.
Noah Millman of Gideon’s Blog who, until Marcus Cicero of Beyond Hope and Fear (on blogroll) showed up, was the heavyweight essay champ of the blogosphere IMO, has a solid post on Korea.
If you haven’t been following the issue, you might want to catch up by reading this post from Harry’s Place on anti-Romany racism in Europe. The Roma people are among the too-often forgetten victims of German genocide in the 1930’s and 1940’s.
Via Davids Medienkritik, raskal trippin explains why Iran has more bloggers than Germany. Honestly, I think it’s because first, the gift culture from which the blogosphere stems doesn’t really resonate with German culture and, second, because it’s something you must want to do.
A Fistful of Euros reports there’s a new blog devoted to World Bank President and that the staff at the bank want to have a say in who becomes its next leader. I think this is a fabulous idea. I also think that inmates should be able to appoint the directors of mental institutions and junior high students should be able to appoint the principal.
A Small Victory is noting great moments in cultural history that occurred on this date (not much). Happy Grover Cleveland’s birthday, by the way. You probably didn’t know that he was the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms. He said quite a few rather memorable things. For example:
“He mocks the people who proposes that the government shall protect the rich and that they in turn will care for the laboring poor.”
and
“Though the people support the government; the government should not support the people.”
Jeff Quinton reports that George Kennan has died. If we don’t get down on our knees and pray for the repose of his soul, we don’t know our history. UPDATE: appropriate commentary from Dan Drezner.
Daly Thoughts has a thought-provoking tables on judicial appointments. Numbers. Good.
Billmon has a lengthy future history of Paul Wolfowitz’s tenure at World Bank. I think it’s fair to say that Billmon doesn’t like Wolfowitz much.
Brad DeLong has a plan for Social Security reform that you really should consider. He’s asking the hard, right questions. I think I could support a plan of the general character he’s proposing. It’s a bit technocratic for my liking but, then, he’s a technocratic kind of guy.
Two different bioethicists take two different stands on Terry Schiavo: Second Hand Smoke and Bioethics Discussion Blog. I don’t actually know the right or wrong of it. I just find the whole thing terribly, terribly sad.
Via Tigerhawk,Major K. reports on “assisted-suicide bombings” in Iraq.
Read all or some of these posts. I can save you a great deal of time. I’m sorry to report that the reactions to the Wolfowitz appointment are essentially a referendum on the Iraq war. Where you sit is where you stand.
St. Patrick’s Day thoughts from A Guy in Pajamas, A Small Victory (lots—keep scrolling), Abode of Amritas (I was unaware there was a Kamehameha connection), Blackfive (being the foin lad that he is it’s a story of an Irish Guardsman who gave his life in Iraq), recipes from Venomous Kate, curmudgeonry (what else?) from Francis Porretto, tomfoolery from fafnir, Bah, humbug! from Jen (essentially my reaction), how many leprechauns can you find in Greyhawk’s logo?, a limerick slam at Obsidian Wings, recipes traditional, tasty, and funny from Patrick Belton of OxBlog, and timely observations from Professor Bainbridge.
Two posts on Arabism: one from Across the Bay the other from Raed Jarrar. In partial response to Raed the preponderance of those murdered by the terrorists in Iraq are Arabs. I don’t know how much more brotherhood Arabs can stand.
I see that Dennis the Peasant has noticed that Oliver Willis’s campaign against Brit Hume has stealthily ended, too.
Abu Aardvark says that both the press and Bush failed a test in Jordan yesterday. Frankly, I have serious doubts that it’s possible to intermingle idealism and Realpolitik successfully. I do think that you can alternate between them but not on a daily basis.
Gary Farber of Amygdala reports that Alice Mary North is dying. You may know her better by her pseudonym: Andre Norton. Along with Robert Heinlein’s works Andre Norton’s were among the first to capture my imagination. As Alpha Wolf might say, the light is waiting, Alice. And thank you.
Kris of Anywhere But Here reports that bringing home the bacon is working just fine for Tom Harkin. In related news it looks like either we’re going to be spending a lot more money on Boston’s Big Dig or it may end up useless.
California Yankee links to the English translation of the fatwa issued against Osama bin Laden by the Islamic Commission of Spain last week and provides substantial analysis.
Froggy ruminates on a social security reform proposal from, of all people, Dick Morris.
What do you think of the idea of banning abortions for the purpose of selection of sexual orientation? Illuminaria’s Voice has more.
Jeralyn Merritt of TalkLeft compares and contrasts the situations of Bernard Ebbers, former CEO of WorldCom who was convicted on multiple charges related to the collapse of the company’s collapse several years ago to that of Ken Lay, former chairman of Enron.
Today is the anniversary of Saddam Hussein’s gassing of the Kurdish village of Halabja in northern Iraq. Kurdo has much, much more.
Joe Gandelman, The Moderate Voice, notes the opening of a Holocaust museum in Israel that focuses on the personal stories by telling a personal story.
Lileks is in rare form channeling Tony Soprano, then putting himself in Assad’s place.
¡No Pasarán! points out that today is the great American president Andrew Jackson’s birthday. They’ve got a selection of Jackson quotes that are pretty darned relevant.
The Anchoress has perhaps the best essay on Mariology I’ve read in 40 years.
David MacDuff of A Step At a Time posts two conflicting views of the assassination of Chechen president Maskhadov from The Moscow Times.
Across the Bay continues to post great analysis of the situation in Lebanon.
It’s stories like the one that Ann Althouse tells that make we wonder whether we’re not in or just entering a great spiritual revival in this country not unlike the Methodist Revival of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
A divergent take (what else) from TMLutas on the Democrats’ position on health care: they’re pitting feminists against seniors. Since a disproportionate number of those seniors are women I’d say they’re pitting old women against young women.
Gerard Vanderleun of American Digest fisks Phillip Bennett of The Washington Post’s comments to the Chinese. Scott Ott has his own inimitable take on this story.
Joseph Marshall of A Straight Shot of Politics has a great post titled In Lieu of Evidence in which he contemplates the limitations of journalism and blogging. My favorite line:
As political blogging as evolved into a sub-species of 21st century journalism, it has taken on some of the flaws of the older forms of journalism. Most prominently, it has run up against the fact that we can now consume more breaking news than we can normally produce.
Val Prieto of Babalu gives us a look at Cuba’s free health care.
Scott Boone of Backcountry Conservative is staying up-to-date on the apprehension of the fugitive who shot a judge in Atlanta yesterday.
Joanne Jacobs observes that the new SAT with an essay section debuts today. I’d have loved an essay section when I took the SAT’s back in the mists of the distant past before the glaciers receded. It could have done nothing but lower my score, though.
lilpoh notes an aspect of the shooting in Atlanta yesterday that I haven’t seen anyone else mention. Not particularly kind, but possibly apposite. Comments?
I’d like to join those thanking Greyhawk for his twenty years ot service. “Thank you” doesn’t seem like nearly enough.
It’s been hell on wheels here this morning. Last night my wife left to visit her family in California. It’s not a particularly joyous trip—her mother (whom I love dearly) is in what may be her final decline and my wife wants to get out there “while her mother still knows who she is”.
So I packed her an in-flight meal (the airline’s no longer providing one) consisting of a ham-and-swiss sandwich, some fritos, an apple, and a piece of chocolate cake. Nothing fancy. I stuck in a little card (my wife’s very much into cards) telling her how much I’d miss her while she’s gone. Which is no lie.
Meanwhile this morning I rounded up and took three of the dogs to the vet’s. Routine blood tests and one sore ear. You’ve never lived until you’ve wrangled three energetic excited Samoyeds into a car, to the vet’s, out of the car, and into the vet’s office. They’re really good, well-behaved dogs but the whole procedure was no fun, let me tell you.
Now the dogs and bunnies have been fed and I’m checking out my favorite blogs. Here’s what’s caught my eye this morning:
Gerard Vanderleun of American Digest lists some things that aren’t as good as they used to be including Oreos, ambient music, two by fours, the New York Times, and others. Your suggestions are solicited. My own #1 pick for something that’s not as good as it used to be: me. While we’re on the subject you really should locate Stephen Jay Gould’s classic essay “Phyletic Size Decrease in Hershey Bars”.
It’s a quiet day in the blogosphere. Here’s what’s caugh my eye this morning:
Iowahawk puts “30” to his series of Detective Dan Rather stories.
Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution tells us that Australians are the world’s champs when it comes to sleeping. Of course, if my own experience with Aussies is any basis for judging and knowing the effects of alcohol on restorative sleep they may need all they can get.
Marcus Cicero, one of the finest essayists in the blogosphere, has a great post on post-humanism, trans-humanism, faith, and love over on Winds of Change.
Drawn! is a blog for artists and illustrators. Take a look—it’s great fun. Hat tip: Boing Boing
CodeBlueBlog has more on what’s going on with Bill Clinton’s health.
There’s an entertaining post over on Crooked Timber from John Holbo on Louis Hartz, Whigs, conservatives, socialists, and liberals. One thing I think he misses is that there’s a strong nativist streak in American thought cf. American exceptionalism. One of the reasons that Whigs (like me) mistrust more socialist liberals and radicals is that these are imported ideas. And imported from places where people have little experience with either liberalism or stable, practical government to boot.
David Medienkritik reports how the other side of the pond likely sees John Bolton’s appointment to the United States’s UN Ambassador.
Steve Antler, the Econopundit comments on an E. J. Dionne article. He then quotes from correspondence between Bruce Bartlett and Dionne:
My prediction is that at the end of the day, Republicans and Democrats will agree to a consensus SS bill that will raise the retirement age, raise the payroll cap a little, tinker with the benefit formula and a few other things that together will keep the system going for at least the next 75 years–but no private accounts.
How will we solve whatever problem there is? We won’t solve it with any grand solution whether that solution is privatization or anything else. We’ll solve it by borrowing a little, re-ordering spending a little, raising FICA max, and arranging that more of the people who don’t pay FICA now pay FICA. Maybe we’ll raise FICA marginal rates a little.
There’s lots more and it’s quite interesting especially the political strategy observations.
Francis Porretto of Eternity Road has a post on government and freedom that is very mull-worthy.
McQ continues the discussion of natural rights on Q & O Blog.
Check out Dan Darling’s post on France and al-Qaeda on Regnum Crucis.
Bigwig at Silflay Hraka notes that actor Russell Crowe was at one time (apparently) the object of an al-Qaeda plot. Well, that got him to thinking (no good can come of this) of other entertainers who would be worthy of their attentions. He has a little list.
Amba of AmbivaBlog has posted the second installment of her AmbiAbortion Rant.
A how-to exercise from Gerard Vanderleun of American Digest on The Fine Art of Slant.
Jeff Jarvis of Buzzmachine has one more email exchange with Bill Keller of the NYT.
Finestkind Clinic and fish market has an interesting post on the the role of race and ethnicity in diagnosis. This is stuff from the trenches, folks.
While we’re on the subject, Gene Expression has a post on race and psychopathology.
Medpundit has a post on email communication between patient and doctor. How about patient-doctor blogs? Imagine a registration-based blog with a closed registration, encrypted posts. It could work.
Bloggledygook has news on Lebanon and some interesting analysis.
Bull Moose calls on the Democratic Party to celebrate the advance of democracy. Bella Waring of Crooked Timbers grudgingly gives Bush some credit for the developments in Lebanon and Egypt. Rejoice in the good, folks. If you don’t in what will you rejoice?
Kate of Electric Venom is back after a hardware-failure-related hiatus.
Gateway Pundit has an interesting post on homelessness in veterans.
Juan Cole of Informed Comment has an excellent background briefing on Lebanon.
Phil Carter of Intel Dump urges the resumption of the military draft.
Don Herzog of Left2Right continues about originalism in constitutional law.
Matsu of media girl does a Tarot reading on the prospects for the Social Security system. Really.
Jay Tea of Wizbang posts on the power of the Arab Street.
I’ve just just noticed that Chuck Timmins of You Big Mouth, You has posted the third installment of his series on what the future may hold for China.
CodeBlueBlog notes the perverse incentives and their disastrous consequences in the British National Health Service.
FuturePundit Randall Parker has a post on the role of hydroelectric dams in global warming.
Noah Millman of Gideon’s Blog pound for pound one of the best bloggers in the blogosphere has a lot of new stuff up after something of a hiatus. Just scroll around.
Holy crow! Jessica and Heather of Go Fug Yourself covered the Oscars for MSNBC. Here’s their slideshow. Why don’t they tell us these things? And I see that they agreed with me about Cate Blanchett’s dress.
Wow! I really got an eye-ful this morning. Here’s what’s caught my eye today:
A Daily Briefing on Iran
is reporting that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps is complaining that they wouldn’t be able to contain
an uprising in Tehran lasting more than a few hours. This sounds to me as though they want to use greater
force and expand their operations.
I don’t understand this modern cult of apology. But David McDuff of A Step at a Time
reports that Putin is being asked (by a Lithuanian historian) to apologize for the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact.
Abu Aardvark points out what I believe is the
most significant effect of Arabic language TV e.g. Al Jazeera:
The magazine notes, again correctly I think, that religious programming on satellite television has had a homogenizing effect, as more and more Arab Muslims look for guidance on religious issues not from local mosques or from state religious officials, but from TV stars like Amr Khaled (and, though not named by the Economist, Yusuf al Qaradawi).
It’s the same phenomenon as the adoption of the educated Chicago dialect as the standard for radio and
TV announces in the States and BBC English in the UK—regional dialects have tended to be exstinguished.
What if the newly elected regimes are friendly to states and groups that Washington considers enemies? What if the spread of democracy through the region empowers elements that don’t share American values and goals?
I already answered that question in my post, “Plan B”. If terrorism is not stemmed
by Wilsonian idealism, we won’t return to Hamiltonian realism (our original Plan A). We’ll try either
Jeffersonian isolationism or a full Jacksonian response. With either of those the world will become a very, very harsh place.
Victor (an actuary) of The Dead Parrot Society has an excellent observation on the actuarial role
in the Social Security reform discussion:
We should be evaluating proposals on basic principles of fairness and efficiency. Further, we should make our proposals robust, in order to increase their likelihood that they will be successful if implemented.
[…]
The number crunching should augment the debate, not be a substitute for it.
Dennis the Peasant
has more news from Westerville, the Red State Lake Wobegone.
Finestkind Clinic and Fish Market has a couple of good posts on tracheostomy in re: John Paul II here and here.
I also agree that Cardinal Arinze would be a prudent selection as the next pope.
He has roughly the same relationship to Islam as Karel Wojtyla had to communism when he was elected pope in 1978. More on the pope’s condition from Medpundit.
Scooby Doo meets Hunter S. Thompson in the latest insanity from Iowahawk.
There hasn’t been as much reporting of the Anglican Communion’s putting the Episcopal church on probation as I thought
there might be. Robert of The Llama Butchers comments.
Dan Herzog of Left2Right posts on originalism
in constitutional law.
Time Goes By with what are, I think,
some sensible observations on raising the Social Security retirement age. Funny how the older you get the more obvious some of this stuff is.
Sorry, but “Workers of the world unite – you have nothing to lose but your chainstores” is not an attractive slogan for this battle.
Virginia Postrel has suggestions
on how to get more female scientists. I had no problems in this area in my younger days but I don’t think
that’s what she means. My own prescription: subsidize basic research via a “Moon Landing”-type project.
There aren’t that many jobs for hard scientists these days (except medical-related) and scientists who
have jobs are holding onto them for dear life—there’s less room for younger scientists to get in (and that
does mean women since nearly all of the hard scientist job were held by men thirty years ago). Higher pay would attract
more people into the hard sciences, too.
The Llama Butchers remind us that this is the birthday of the painter Winslow Homer.
macroblog has
a great post on dollar-dumping by foreign central banks.
Paul Marks of Samizdata posts
about strengthening defense, cutting taxes, and balancing the budget simultaneously—in 491 AD.
There’s an interesting discussion going on over at Winds of Change about Syria.
Abu Aardvark questions the view—commonly held in the States—that Al Jazeera
advocates terrorism using their coverage of the recent Zawahiri video as an example.
Ann Althouse doesn’t
think that the federalism case for upholding Oregon’s assisted-suicide law (currently before the Supreme Court)
holds water.
Callimachus of Done With Mirrors
tells us a little of his family history. Very interesting. And different from my own family history. My
mom once characterized us as “the family that had been in America the longest without getting rich”.
We never owned slaves; we never owned land; we never farmed; we lived by our wits. Shows you where that
gets you.
Bithead is asking a number of provocative questions today here, here, and here.
I can’t say that I agree with his answers completely but they sure are interesting questions.
Becker and Posner contemplate immigration reform this week.
Honestly, I believe that they’ve both gone completely around the bend.
I see that FuturePundit Randall Parker is
on top of what’s probably the most important story of the day: avian influenza. Will it mutate into
a human pandemic?
Video gamers who are devout Catholics rejoice! The Curt Jester
has just the thing for you. Included are two games: Grand Theft Theology and Eternal Doom.
Kevin Drum of The Washington Monthly
has an interesting post on malpractice insurance. I wish some of the econbloggers would weigh in on this.
Chuck Timmins of You Big Mouth, You
continues his informative series on what the future may hold in China.
Check out this post on the blogosphere from Tim Blair. Iain
Duncan Smith, Kos, and the second gunman.
Jeff Jarvis of Buzzmachine reports on exchange of correspondence with Bill Keller of
the New York Times.
TMLutas considers the ICC (International Criminal Court).
Juan Cole of Informed Comment leaps to the defense of the United States’s policies in Iraq. Well, sort of:
It is absolutely outrageous that Chalabi blames US policies for the guerrilla war. He was the one who pushed for punitive policies toward the ex-Baathists and for dissolving the Iraqi military, and he and his Neoconservative cronies in the Pentagon bear a great deal of the responsibility for the mess in Iraq today.
He goes on to criticize American media figures for “trying to dump the Iraq story”.
Dr. Cole, the problem is that the American media figures don’t care about Iraq or the Iraqis.
The Commons Blog has an interesting post on the problems encountered
in implementing actual windmill projects.
Dr. Demarche of The Daily Demarche wonders if good things may come of the assassination of Rafik Hariri.
Brad DeLong has a fascinating
post (a handout from one of his courses) on who benefited from American slavery.
The Education Wonks posts more info on a California school’s plans
to have students wear RFID badges.
The Health Care Blog has several good posts up
about the hearing on COX-2 inhibitors (Vioxx, Celebrex, Bextra) being conducted by the FDA.
Read Phil Carter Intel Dump’s post on
pop-up units fighting terrorism in Iraq.
Professor Bainbridge reaches a tentative conclusion on private accounts as a method of
Social Security reform (and basically reaches my tentative conclusion).
Samizdata points to a crisis in regional theatre
in Britain:
I could have told them. Never, I would have said to them (had they thought of asking me), depend upon government money and the promises of politicians. Never get addicted to the contents of the public purse, for they can be snatched away from you without warning. Renaissances funded only by politicians have a way of dying very prematurely. Getting money from mere customers may be harder in the short run, but once you learn the trick, you have a foundation you can build on more confidently.
This isn’t just a problem for regional theaters in Britain. When you’re
a creature of the government, your fortunes rise and fall with its vagaries.
Varifrank writes about the demise of activist journalism. I suspect
that news of its death is greatly exaggerated.
Kevin Drum of Washington Monthly stands up
for technocracy. My problem with technocracy is that for too many technocrats it means that their specialty should rule
all the others.
I missed it yesterday since real life prevented me from posting a CME feature: Go Fug Yourself
has post-Grammy coverage, mocking every outfit in sight. Just keep scrolling.
Juan Cole of Informed Comment
has a good post on the ongoing political machinations in Iraq (along with the daily casualty report). I
do have a question, though. Does it make a difference whether he opens the post (as he did):
Against the backdrop of political horse trading, the violence continued in Iraq on Tuesday.
or
Against the backdrop of ongoing violence, political horse-trading continued in Iraq on Tuesday.
Which characterizes his post better?
Phil Carter of Intel Dump
reports on creative destruction in the U. S. Army force structure. I’m wondering if this doesn’t
also presage a transfer of forces from Germany and South Korea.
James Joyner of Outside the Beltway has a round-up of
media reporting on the explosion near an Iranian nuclear plant this morning.
It’s a busy morning in the blogosphere and I’ve got a lot to show you. Here’s what’s caught my eye this morning:
Ann Althouse transcribes
Pat Buchanan’s critique of the Bush approach to the War on Terror from Meet the Press yesterday:
The president of the United States was profoundly mistaken [when he said that on September 11th, “Freedom came under attack”]. He has misdiagnosed the malady. He has misdiagnosed the reason for the attack, Tim. The United States was not attacked because we are free. Bin Laden was not attacking the Bill of Rights. We were attacked … over here because the United States’ military and political presence is massive over there. Bin Laden in his fatwah, his statement of declaration of war on the United States, said the infidels were standing on the sacred soil of Saudi Arabia. They want us out of the Middle East. They don’t care whether we have a separation of church and state.
I agree with much of Buchanan’s premises but I disagree with his conclusions
because I don’t think he goes far enough.
I don’t believe that Osama bin Laden and his sympathizers will be satisfied
with a U. S. withdrawal of military support from the region. It will require
all American hard power be removed from the region i.e. a cessation of trade (not buying oil) and the removal
of American soft power from the region as well. Ultimately, the only way we can
do that is to die.
The Big Picture has
a fascinating post on the commodity price-index.
First Mate over at Captain’s Quarters
will be receiving a pancreas transplant today. I’m sure that prayers and good wishes would be
much appreciated.
The Curt Jester reports
that Lucia, the last survivor of the three children of Fatima, has died at 97.
Infidel at Duophony (my go-to
guy on all things Korean) has a great round-up on North Korean nukes.
Becker and Posner are writing
about Medicare. These and some other posts on this subject I’ve linked to recently convince
me I’m going to have to remind everybody about Gammon’s Law.
Juan Cole of Informed Comment has
some interesting things to say about the outcome of the Iraqi elections.
You might be interested in this dogfight on the economics of Social Security reform that
includes such worthies as Kevin Drum, Paul Krugman, Brad DeLong, and Tom Maguire of Just One Minute.
Lawrence Solum of Legal Theory Blog has another
installment in his always-interesting Legal Theory Lexicon series.
Manolo’s Shoe Blog takes note
of another Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction.
Medpundit notes that researchers have remodelled the HIV virus to make it attack
cancer cells in mice. Since the HIV virus is one of the most-studied organisms in history it’s doubly good news that
some of the research is paying off. Another very-much-studied organism is the tobacco plant and that research is paying off, too: Researchers bioengineer tobacco plants to grow vaccines.
Murdoc notes that there’s still a lot of military action in Mosul.
Ann Althouse has a rundown of interesting
things that people are saying about Christo’s latest project, The Gates (“wrapping” New York’s Central Park).
Professional linguist Amritas reports on accentual discrimination.
Val Prieto of Babalu Blog writes a eulogy for a street cat who came into
their lives, they learned to love, went back to the street, and is now dead.
I think I understand now why they call economics the dismal science. Bryan Caplan
of EconLog recommends the movie Saw. Really.
Meanwhile I promise not to get any economics advice from movie reviewers.
According to comments I’ve read in various blogs, Roger L. Simon is doing well,
is 100% gall-bladder free, and is expected to return home tomorrow. Doubt if he’ll
feel much like blogging for a while. I’ll keep you posted.
VietPundit has become an ablogathist: he doubts
the existence of Instapundit. VietPundit, if Instapundit did not exist, we would be forced to invent him.
Could someone please explain to me how the federal government investing FICA receipts
in mutual funds is politicizing “investments on the part of the president and congress”
but the president and Congress selecting mutual funds in which you may designate a portion
of the FICA you pay be invested isn’t? (hat tip: Angry Bear)
LaShawn Barber has a good round-up of links on the Eason Jordan affair.
Wretchard of Belmont Club never ceases to amaze me by his ability to
imagine worse eventualities than I do:
But the situation will be even more dangerous than Coll suggests. Long before a faculty lounge in Islamabad or Riyadh realizes it can build a bomb alone and secretly, the same thought will have occurred to individuals in Tel Aviv, New Delhi or Palo Alto. Any Islamic group that believes it can attack New York deniably should convince itself that no similar group can nuke Mecca at the height of the pilgrim season. In fact, the whole problem that Coll describes should be generalized. The only thing worse than discovering that New York has been destroyed by persons unknown is to find that Islamabad has been vaporized by a group we’ve never heard of.
I agree with Bull Moose’s observation that
the Democrats need more Reagan and less Eeyore. I can only think of one instance in which the less positive,
upbeat candidate won the presidency: Nixon’s defeat of Hubert Humphrey, the “Happy Warrior”.
Humphrey lost that one by being a good soldier and not going after Johnson’s Viet Nam war policy.
It’s a very quiet day in the blogosphere this morning. I must admit that I’m not too interested in Ward Chruchill, Eason Jordan, or the SuperBowl. But a few things have still caught my eye:
Michael J. Totten tells all
about drinking with Christopher Hitchens and the Iraqis. Read this post.
What is it about the last few weeks? It’s been really hard on bloggers automobiles. First,
there was Ann Althouse’s traffic accident now Boudicca’s husband’s car has been
rear-ended at high speed.
Boing Boing notes that
around 100 years ago a German company produced sugar-and-chocolate records. I can tell you with confidence
that if someone had given any of them to my wife none would have survived to this day.
Andrew Sullivan
brings up a good point: what are the objective criteria for success for the election in Iraq?
Is it just me or do you find the carping about fraud in the November election from both Left and Right undermine the electoral process? The time for oversight
is before and during the election, folks.
From Elizabeth Anderson of Left2Right: do you deserve your pre-tax income?
DEBKA reports the results of the upcoming
Iraqi elections (hat tip: Econopundit. Well,
it’s a prediction but I like the way this version reads.
The New Sisyphus writes something that I completely agree with and that explains
my sense of urgency in the War on Terror:
No President of the United States–no Democrat, no Republican–will stand quietly while a radical, terrorist-sponsoring nation that, as a matter of policy, holds rallies where it exhorts its citizens to suicide bombings while chanting “Death to America!” acquires nuclear capability.
Is it just me or are there an abnormal number of “Gone Fishin’” signs up
in the blogosphere this weekend? How about an all-humor edition of the morning run-down?
Here’s what’s struck my funny-bone this morning:
Programming director Beautiful Atrocities gives
us a preview of the upcoming ABC series Desperate Liberals. Inspired tomfoolery.
Fafnir
has a handy guide to the Social Security crisis.
My guilty pleasure, Go Fug Yourself, continues to explain the otherwise inexplicable
in celebrity fashions:
In a desperate attempt to outrun the paparazzi, Jennifer Lopez cut through neighbor Rue McClanahan’s back yard, becoming inextricably entangled in the older woman’s guest room curtains, which had been hung on her clothesline to dry:
Judging from the picture, it’s the only explanation that fits.
IMAO informs us that Wisconsin has been taken over by ninjas.
Bill of INDC Journal has dredged up another installment in Sen. Barbara Boxer’s as-yet-unwritten romance novel.
Join tour guide Iowahawk on a Chicago
union members’ tour of the Badger State.
Moloch applies for the now-available job of head of Planned Parenthood.
Davids Medienkritik
catches the German media perpetuating an urban myth. Again.
Dean has another installment in his controversial HIV/AIDS series.
Arnold Kling of EconoLog wonders
if you think you are rich.
Gene Expression discusses a recent paper
that questions the likelihood of a flood of Turkish immigrants into the EU.
A sneak peek at California Senator Barbara Boxer’s upcoming romance novel from the mind of Bill
at INDC Journal.
Mover Mike has an interesting
post on the Law of the Sea Treaty (which apparently has had some new life breathed into it). He focuses
on the con side of the argument. Pros anyone?
If you’ve been wanting to understand the various Wall Street scandals of the last several years better, 3-2-1 gives us this handy diagram (hat tip: The Big Picture) Now isn’t that clearer?.
Everything is so much better when put into graphical form.
A tell-tale sign of blogging addiction: when the second (or third) thing you think about
after a serious automobile accident is blogging about it. Ann Althouse tells all
Brad DeLong’s
uncomfortable ruminations on the possible costs of limiting war are well worth reading.
We’ve missed National Pie Day. Fortunately, as I expected, Fafblog
has commemorated it for us.
A very interesting article (translated from Arabic) on Jihad Unspun: “Resistance Proclaims Victory In Fallujah, Fighters Allocated To New Locations” (hat tip: Free Iraq).
You really should check out this post
to hear what other voices are saying about the upcoming Iraq election
at Marine Corps Moms (hat tip: One Hand Clapping).
There’s an excellent appreciation of Johnny Carson from Joe Gandelman of The Moderate Voice.
There’s an interesting guest post from SoCal Lawyer over on Patterico
condemning the practice of hiring jurors from a prior trial as consultants on a re-trial. I wonder
what the philosophical issues at stake in this area might be. Why is giving jurors an opportunity
to capitalize on their specialist knowledge worse than allowing attorneys the ability to capitalize
on their specialist knowledge? Would it be okay if the jurors volunteered?
N. Z. Bear asks for input on a technical problem with the Ecosystem:
Here’s the latest on the performance problems I’ve been tracking. It turns out that it doesn’t appear to be directly related to the load of the status display. The following is the technical details of what’s going on: I’d very much welcome any Apache or PHP gurus’ input on how I might proceed to debug the problem.
Spoons responds in the comments section:
Have you tried reversing the polarity? Sometimes that works.
You might check for a hairline crack in the dilithium crystals, too. Those are hard to spot, but can cause all sorts of anomalies.
Have you seen any bearded evil Bears around? Because that could be an entirely different problem.
Lawyers. Trekkies. Lawyers who are Trekkies. No good can come of this.
Tigerhawk premieres a new feature: Carnival of the Commies (a periodic review of the best and most representative work from the left side of the blogosphere). I wonder how
long it will take for turnabout to become fair play.
Wretchard of Belmont Club has a series of posts discussing whether we have
enough boots on the ground in Iraq see here, here, and here.
More from praktike of chez Nadezhda on
Rosenberg for DNC chair.
CodeBlueBlog begins a new installment of CSI: MedBlogs. How did the young marathon runner die?
Dean Esmay continues his series of skeptical posts on HIV as the cause of AIDS.
You should also read the paper linked to in the post. Interesting stuff.
Froggy of Froggy Ruminations
gives us a good example (and a darned good story) of why we don’t need a SysAdmin force (we’ve already got one).
Now this is what the Internet is fantastic at. Now you know. Hat tip: Natalie Solent
Callimachus of Done With Mirrors offers an excellent essay on faith and American culture.
Harry of Harry’s Place posts a not-to-be-missed rant on Weasel Words and Lies
Whodunnit? Iowahawk
spits out a tough-guy detective story.
Michael Totten is appalled that
he’s not getting reasonably accurate visit counts on his blog. I’ve notice a similar discrepancy here:
Webalizer shows about three times as many visits as Sitemeter does for me.
Nanopundit posts
the biggest nanonews of the year: an FDA application for the use of nanoparticles in treating metastatic
breast cancer (hat tip: BitsBlog).
Brad DeLong posts
the Reader’s Digest version of Chinese trade policy.
Glen Wishard of Canis Iratus
has a word frequency analysis of the report of the independent review panel on Rathergate.
Guess what words don’t occur.
Another of my favorite blogs, Duophony, has closed up shop.
More nanotechnology in treating cancer from FuturePundit.
Gerard Vanderleun of American Digest in response to the Diplomad post I cited
yesterday follows up with a post describing how the HPVE does New York.
I think there’s a distinction that needs to be made. It’s possible to despise the United Nations
and call for it’s abolition while loving the united nations and believing they should work together
a lot more. It’s simultaneously heart-warming and eye-popping to see what people of good will and
common goals can achieve together. How does a standing body facilitate this? Judging by the UN response
to the Sumatran tsunami, not much. What it really seems to do is give those who neither have the good will
nor share the common goals legitimacy they would otherwise not possess.
There are blogs for everything these days. A new one, Circadiana, is devoted to
sleep and sleep disorders (hat tip: Boing Boing).
I’d like to ask a question to the economists in the house: what effects does this
have on economies and measurements of their performance? (hat tip: again Boing Boing. Well, they are wonderful things.)
Wired picks the top vaporware of 2004 (products that were announced and never materialized—and may never materialize). So many to choose from how did they decide?
Noah Millman of Gideon’s Blog, in seeming answer to my plea earlier this week, has written
a brilliant post on pragmatism.
South Knox Bubba which, along with Pennywit
is among my favorite left-leaning blogs, has been nominated for a Koufax award for Best Overall Blog by a Non-Professional.
Follow the links, take a look, and vote for him. I note that when other left-leaning blogs were ignoring
the Sumatran tsunami or just using it as a stick for Bush-bashing, SKB was linking to sites to contribute
to relief. He’s a good egg.
This Embassy has been running 24/7 since the December 26 earthquake and tsunami. Along with my colleagues, I’ve spent the past several days dealing non-stop with various aspects of the relief effort in this tsunami-affected country. That work, unfortunately, has brought ever-increasing contact with the growing UN presence in this capital; in fact, we’ve found that to avoid running into the UN, we must go out to where the quake and tsunami actually hit. As we come up on two weeks since the disaster struck, the UN is still not to be seen where it counts — except when holding well-staged press events. Ah, yes, but the luxury hotels are full of UN assessment teams and visiting big shots from New York, Geneva, and Vienna. The city sees a steady procession of UN Mercedes sedans and top-of-the-line SUV’s — a fully decked out Toyota Landcruiser is the UN vehicle of choice; it doesn’t seem that concerns about “global warming” and preserving your tax dollars run too deep among the UNocrats.
Angela Winters of Politopics writes on the perils and promise of being Barack Obama.
triticale comments on illegal drug money as a source of venture capital.
The Bullmoose advises Democrats: being an opposition party is not enough.
They should actually, like, have alternatives. Or they can just connect with the voters.
on emergence in churches. I’m not sure she’s using the term in the same sense that I do.
Clayton Cramer comments on Prozac and mass murder.
His post has a close bearing on a discussion I’ve been having with shrinkette.
In her blogging capacity rather than her professional capacity, I mean.
Gerard Vanderleun of American Digest has a modest proposal: let America
take a sabbatical. Been there. Done that. We called it “the Clinton Administration”.
And while we’re looking at The Dead Parrot Society Fred of TDPS posts on adopting a pet after the holidays. I’ve
been meaning to comment on this myself. I see red every time I pass a pet store advertising pets
as holiday gifts.
Command Post continues to list good agencies for contributing to relief for victims of the Sumatran tsunami. Go. Give.
The Diplomad is in a lather
about the UN response to the Sumatran tsunami disaster. Well worth a read.
Norm Geras profiles blogger Donald Sensing of One Hand Clapping.
Dean Esmay continues posting on AIDS, HIV, AZT and scientific orthodoxy.
Love it or hate it you ought to read it.
Infidel of Duophony has a good run-down of relief efforts. And some choice words
for local Asian governments.
Donald Sensing of One Hand Clapping posts an email from a long-time friend
who’s an officer in the Salvation Army giving an on-scene assessment of the tsunami disaster.
The Chicago Boyz have an interesting thought experiment on Social Security.
CodeBlueBlog has a great post on a popular quack remedy: magnets.
Read the Daily Demarche on foreign aid for tsunami victims.
Steve Antler, the Econopundit has an intriguing
post on U. S. productivity growth. The update has a guest appearance by a blogger too modest…well, you be the judge (he quotes me).
Quite a few blogs are still on holiday hiatus. Here’s what’s caught my eye this morning:
The Becker-Posner Blog’s topic for the week is Disease, Population, and Economic Progress.
Brad DeLong has a good, succinct statement on where my thinking has been
going on the issue of Social Security reform:
I would rather see this forced equity savings done not through private accounts but through allowing the Secretary of the Treasury to invest the Trust Fund in equities. I would rather see this done by the Treasury Secretary for three reasons: (1) if I’m wrong, then there’s no great harm, while there is great harm if you cut people’s benefits assuming expected stock returns will be high and they aren’t; (2) there’s still a lot of risk out there, and the government is better-positioned to bear that risk than individuals; (3) offer individuals the opportunity to do so and they will churn their investments, buying high and selling low. The only reason to use private accounts for this forced equity savings is the fear that having the Secretary of the Treasury control a lot of equities will magnify our corporate oversight and control problems, and I don’t see this is a first-order problem.
Juan Cole of Informed Comment explains how OBL has shot himself in the foot in Iraq.
I’m afraid I share Ross on Andrew Sullivan’s blog pessimism on the likelihood of a Ukraine-style
peaceful revolution for Iran
There are a pair of interesting posts on the electoral process: Balloon Juice
on stealing an election; Captain’s Quarters
on ending the electoral college.
Chicago Boyz has a thought-provoking discussion of Thomas Barnett’s Pentagon’s New Map
hypothesis.
The Daily Demarche has a revolutionary Christmas manifesto: peace on earth, goodwill toward men.
Callimachus of Done With Mirrors writes an excellent post on the
practice and ethics of corrections in blogs and legacy journalism.
Francis Porretto of Eternity Road congratulates us: We Made It.
John of Iberian Notes translates an article from Catalan, “Francis Fukuyama is right: the militant anti-Americanism of Zapatero and his Islamist friends”:
That which condemns a Nigerian woman to be stoned to death, which teaches Palestinian children of eight years to love martyrdom and death, which can kill a child from Ossetia in the name of a cause, which prays to Allah while it crashes an airplane into a tower, which fills the burning ruins of a train with death, or writes books which teach how to beat your wife, all this has one origin, the political will of certain regimes and leaders to traumatize Islam and convert it into the transmissor of a totalitarian ideology while sustaining the chain of social privilege.
The Idea Shop suggests three ways Democrats can “improve their economic policy—and broaden their moderate appeal—without abandoning core progressive ideals”.
The Becker-Posner Blog’s topic for this week is global warming.
Dean Esmay has an excellent post on why Ebonics shouldn’t be fought.
Sarahk of Mountaineer Musings finds that Frank J made me a criminal or Watch what you’re trying to get through airport security. A Christmas story for our times.
Angela Winters of Politopics asks Are Charter Schools Working?.
Tutakai is back after a one-month hiatus. He’s joined the anti-Rumsfeld bandwagon.
One of my all-time favorite bloggers and sometime correspondents, Lawrence Solum of Legal Theory Blog, comments on natural law, public reason, and the Constitution as they apply to the criticisms launched recently on Justice Clarence Thomas.
Econopundit complains about Rahm Emmanuel’s idea that the Democratic Party is the product warranty on government.
He wasn’t given his safe seat in the 5th District because he’s smart, Steve. He was given it because he’s a loyal soldier.
Nelson Ascher of EuroPundits comments on Steven Den Beste.
LaShawn Barber considers the pros and cons of comments and trackbacks.
My own opinion on this, LaShawn, is that it depends on what your own objectives are. If you want to talk, turn off comments and trackbacks. If you want a conversation—not just a monologue or dialogue but a conversation, turn on comments, turn on trackbacks, answer your email, comment on other peoples’ blogs, and be an active presence in your own comments section. But do what satisfies your own objectives in blogging.
Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution has a shocking post on Paying for Kidneys.
If selling kidneys is immoral, why is it moral to be paid hundreds or thousands of dollars per hour to install donated kidneys?
I want to thank everyone who voted for The Glittering Eye in its category.
Congratulations to all of the winners. To those who missed the brass ring better luck next year.
American Future has a great round-up and taxonomy of left blogosphere reactions to the Peter Beinart article
that people have been talking about lately.
James Joyner of Outside the Beltway notes that it’s been a year since we
captured Saddam Hussein.
. The title of the article is “Spam Assassin”. Hat tip: 
