Implosion - I got this story from Vodkapundit, and I think it's great news. The Senate has ratified a plan to allow North Korean refugees into the US.
The plan has some strange bedfellows:
"The US Senate recently passed a measure that would allow North Korean asylum seekers to apply for refugee status in the US, a move that is expected to be supported soon by the full Congress.Vodkapundit points out that, while the idea has its downsides (read his piece), it has some hopeful historical precedents:Some US officials are concerned that North Korean advocate groups are pushing the change as a way of 'imploding' Kim Jong-il's regime. The advocate groups draw parallels with the fall of communist Europeafter huge refugee movements out of eastern bloc countries destablised the regimes there.
But accepting North Korean refugees received strong support across the political spectrum in the US Senate. It was sponsored by senators Sam Brownback, a Republican, and Ted Kennedy, a Democrat."
If you'll recall, after Soviet Premier Gorbachev declared an end to the Brezhnev Doctrine, Czechoslovakia and Hungary started to freely hand out travel visas for points west -- even to East Germans. The floodgates were opened, and, before long, East Germany looked on the weekends like a Old West ghost town made of bad concrete. Not long after that, of course, the Wall came down and we had a single Germany.Naturally, the idea has opponents:It's hard for a totalitarian state to allow just a little freedom, as China and Iran are also discovering.
Previous attempts by Congress to encourage refugees from North Korea have been blocked by successive US governments concerned about opposition from China and South Korea. Legally, North Koreans are considered citizens of South Korea and not entitled to refugee status in the US.Vodkapundit, by way of mild disagreement with the plan, writes:But since the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula, North Korean human rights organisations and refugee advocates are winning enormous influence in Washington.
South Korea has fewer than 50 million people, and while they've made great strides, their per capita income is still only up to that of modern Poland. They aren't poor, but they aren't nearly as rich as West Germany was. In addition, their economy isn't as mature or robust, as the Asian Financial Crisis of a couple years back showed.Much worth a read, here, including some great comments to Vodkapundit's article.Up north are 22 million of their starving brethren. Before the Communist dictatorship, they lived a brutal existence as virtual slaves of Japan. "Chosen," as Tokyo called Korea, was annexed by the Japanese Empire 93 years ago. It's safe to say that there is no one in North Korea with any experience living in a politically modern, free, democratic, or tolerant state. Travel is forbidden. Only a small handful of South Koreans are allowed north. There is only one radio station, and it runs nothing but the foulest sort of propaganda. And according to a story in US News & World Report a few weeks ago, North Korea even has concentration camps bigger than the District of Columbia.
Through no fault of their own, the people of North Korea simply aren't ready to enter the modern world, and South Korea can't afford to feed, house, re-educate, and re-civilize them all.
Whether or not there's a war, when North Korea collapses there's going to be a humanitarian crisis on a scale the world has never seen -- 22 million scared, hungry, and desperate people left without any semblance of anything familiar.
Hoist the Boats? - A response, in Reason, to the IT outsourcing story.
Alan Cooper - a Bay area GUI design guru, and one of the people who got me into my current line of wor, once famously predicted that by 2020, American software companies would consist of
"According to people who actually negotiate outsourcing contracts for a living, your costs are more like $22 an hour for each warm body once all the third-party finders' fees are paid. An experienced programmer's take in India would be around $11,000 out of total cost of over $40,000. That's still quite a gap from the $60,000 an American might demand but once the all-important question of productivity is factored in, it may not be much of a bargain.He's right, of course. I've worked on offshored software development - it's freqently not pretty. And th dotcom boom did create a pseudo-romantic mystique - the code-slinging ubergeek who could create killer code in a month of 32-hour days, then cash out bigtime - that doesn't jibe with the real world building of software.Simply put, once you leave the U.S. you are leaving behind the world's best, most proven pool of programmers. That's is not to say that there aren't excellent programmers in Russia, China, India, and elsewhere. But large-scale, world-changing software development ain't easy. The Net bubble devalued just how hard it is to build neat technology.
So maybe not all is lost, here.
Boomerang - The latest capitol "scandal" seems to be nipping at Mike Hatch as well.
It seems that, after the news media ran the story that Commerce Commissioner Glenn Wilson had agreed to a "controversial" settlement with United American Insurance company, word slipped out that Mike Hatch had worked for UAI.
The legislative auditor's office also confirmed Wednesday that it is investigating the agreement with United American, which contained clauses preventing the Commerce Department from notifying the news media, other state insurance agencies and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, a national regulatory group, about the settlement.And I'll be looking for that report when it comes out."Our focus is on what is in the consent order that Commissioner Wilson signed, and did that comply with the department's legal obligations," Legislative Auditor James Nobles said.
He said that the investigation of the settlement will be part of the auditing agency's regular review of the Commerce Department and that he expects to release a report within a month.More as the auditor's report comes out.Weaver took direct aim at Hatch.
"He was the hired gun for this insurance company," Weaver said.
In 1992, Hatch defended United American, of McKinney, Texas, when it was fined $65,000 by the Commerce Department for selling unapproved policies.
Fearless predictions for when that report sees the light of day:
Zzzzzzzzzz - Gaaah, I'm tired today.
Thank goodness for these little contract jobs - because my "real" job leads have all tanked this week. The "dream job", sources tell me, was pretty well decided before the first interview. Two other decent-looking possibilities cratered before that. There are three more possibilities - none of which will develop into anything until at least late next month. And the local job market seems to have taken another late-month downturn.
So the Berg Consumer Confidence Index is down around 4 today, with a possible 6 if I hear about any more contract jobs. Rumors abound. As usual.
I'm thinking I need to toss Emmylou Harris's Greatest Hits (Vol 1) in the CD on the way to work. Sometimes there's no substitute.
UPDATE: And no sooner do I post this depressing screedlet than Dice.com comes through with a couple new leads.
Hope springs infernal!
UPDATE 2: And Monster has another! Wow. A guy could get hopeful!
Letter From Iraq - Lt. Smash responds to a Canadian critic of the war who wrote to him on his blog:
A couple of months ago, I visited a village in southern Iraq.The answer harkens back to my post about the "peace"makers this morning: it's not about people. It's about agendas, and about fulfilling the very letter of feeling good about oneself in the most legalistic sense of the term.That is to say, I visited the site of a former village in southern Iraq.
You see, it’s not there anymore. Saddam demolished it in 1991, after some of the inhabitants participated in the Shiite uprising. It was only a few square blocks of concrete buildings, but they had all been leveled, and were overgrown with desert weeds.
In the middle of one of those demolished buildings, I came across a single shoe. It was a very small tennis shoe, such as might be worn by a five-year old boy. It was covered in dust, cracked and faded.
I took a photo of that shoe with my non-digital camera.
The people who live in the nearby town don’t know what happened to the inhabitants of that village—but it’s a fair guess that they probably were buried in unmarked graves, or dumped in the nearby river.
Contrary to [the Canadian critic's] claims, the people of Iraq had been trying to overthrow Saddam for twelve years before we decisively intervened, and had repeatedly requested international assistance. But Chris asserts that no intervention would be valid without the blessing of the United Nations (Kosovo?), ignoring the “serious consequences” clause of Security Council resolution 1441.
All of this is beside the point.
How many more villages had to be destroyed before an intervention was justified? How many women raped? How many families massacred? How many more children had to die?
From the verdant green forests of peaceful British Columbia, it’s easy for [the Canadian critic] to argue that the war violated Iraqi sovereignty, the principle of self-determination, and the UN charter.
But in the grim reality of the Iraqi desert, such arguments ring hollow.
One of the left's favorite aphorisms when proposing costly, intrusive regulations and taxes: "If we can save even one life...
We'll, we've saved more than one life with our liberation of Iraq. We've saved, by a conservative count, thousands already - more than were killed by American action during the liberation, certainly.
But it's only the lives saved by punishing Americans - our achievements, merits, and dreams - that count, apparently. The lives of all those brown, Moslem people must not count.
Crack of Doom - As the relatively moderate Democratic Leadership Conference yells into the void that the party is swinging too far to the left (at a conference attended by none of the Nine Dwarves), the new poll by former Clinton pollster Mark Penn shows that Americans might be seen to agree.
The party still has solid support from the core of Roosevelt's coalition - union members, minorities and the working poor - said pollster Mark Penn. It also enjoys solid support from gays and Hispanics, the nation's fastest-growing minority.Worrisome for the Dems - the GOP leads among everyone whose lot in life seems to be improving - which is most Americans, recession aside. And it gets worse for the Dems:But less than one-third of Americans now consider themselves Democrats, down from 49 percent at their peak in 1958. And Democrats lag well behind Republicans among other growing groups of voters whose loyalties swing back and forth between parties and who hold the key to close elections - including suburbanites, professionals and middle-class families with children. That leaves the party in a poor position to build the new coalition it needs to beat President Bush and build an enduring majority in an evenly divided country.
"In terms of the percentage of voters who identify themselves as Democrats, the Democratic Party is currently in its weakest position since the dawn of the New Deal," Penn told a gathering of the Democratic Leadership Council, a group of centrist Democrats. "Exciting the Democratic base alone will not bring enough voters into the Democratic fold."
One key problem, Penn and others said, is that Democrats are perceived as catering to a political base that is losing its electoral clout in a changing country. When likely voters are asked which party they prefer, Democrats still hold an edge among many groups. Union members and gays prefer Democrats over Republicans by 43 percentage points, and African-Americans and the working poor do by 41 percentage points, Penn found.The moderate Democrats are locked in the 1970s, thinking taxation (but not too much of it!) will solve our ills. The left - the base - is ping-ponging between the thirties and the sixties - foaming with rage at corporate America, and pursuing a policy of unilateral castration in foreign policy.But Republicans have an edge of 15 percentage points among suburban voters, 21 percentage points among professionals, and 29 percentage points among white-collar workers.
The Penn poll of 1,225 likely 2004 voters was conducted June 29-July 1 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.
"The decline of manufacturing jobs and the shift from cities to suburbs and exurbs, and the dramatic increases in college education and white collar and professional jobs, do not favor the Democrats," Penn said.
At a time when they need a Harry Truman or a John F. Kennedy, they've got eight Abby Hoffmans (Hoffmen?) and a Lyndon Johnson for good measure.
Nine to Five - Or seven-thirty to five-thirtyish, anyway. Back for three more days' work at a fine local company that's having me back for a third contract engagement in three months.
If I can get one of these per month, I can break more or less even. Two per month, and I'll be just a tad ahead of the game.
Dream job tanked yesterday. Suffice to say, Post-Its (TM) are in, the card you shouldn't leave home without is out.
More posting later.
Cave-In - As I noted yesterday, the Pentagon caved on using the Futures Market as a tool to help predict terror.
Instapundit and Postrel both write about this today - Postrel links to this excellent piece by Hal Varian.
I have only this to add; this idea was scuppered by two things: the hatred of Democrats for the word "Market", and the unwillingness of too many Republicans to think out of the box.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Peacemakers - The old saying The pen is mightier than the sword could only have been coined by someone who never had to bet his life on it.
Fun aphorism, right? I've always liked that one. I always thought a friend of mine coined it - although he tells me I did. Going, going...
Here's another fun aphorism, credited to a high school teacher of Dinesh D'Souza's:If Hitler had ruled India, Gandhi would have been a lampshade.
I love aphorisms!
So do the "Southern Minnesota Peacemakers". I've been reading this site for a few days, trying to figure out exactly what to write about them, after first encountering their website via a picture on Rachel Lucas' site.
And after three days (give or take) of stewing on it, I still have no idea what to write.
I thought about something pithy and dismissive, like P.J. O'Rourke's description of a World Council of Churches delegation to a rally in Washington, "...people who have self-righteousness like some people have bad breath". Read the site - it fits.
I thought, "maybe Rachel Lucas has the right idea - call everyone involved an assclown and call it square". But that's intellectually unsatisfying, and it only ennobles your opponent.
I even thought, maybe it'd be good to call then on their creaking ignorance of history, which is on hilarious display on their homepage. No, it's not the quote by Jeannette Rankin (a congresswoman who voted against declaring war on Japan, on December 8, 1941 - sort of the Paul Wellstone of her day) - her quote is standard fare among the groaningly self-righteous among the peace movement. Funnier is the Boake Carter quote. Carter was a CBS radio commentator from the 1930's and '40s, famous for making up the news and eventually sliding off the right wing into territory that'd make Pat Buchanan blanche and Lyndon LaRouche giggle with joy; he once called Franklin D. Roosevelt a greater threat to world peace than Adolph Hitler.
Of course, their opposition to the new concealed carry law provides a wealth of material. Read the page - its big sources of information are Michael Moore (a story that's been debunked as a fraud from "Bowling for Columbine", at that!) and Chris Rock, and a DFL-appointee former police chief with a vested political interest in opposing concealed carry.
But none of it quite rang the big bell for me.
Then, while reading Instapundit this morning, it all came together - in a piece by Charles M. Brown, "Confessions of an Anti-Sanctions Activist", in the Middle East Forum. The whole article is worth a read - it's going into my permanent bookmarks for future reference - but there are a few money quotes, here:
What did we know about Iraq? Hardly anything. Stephen Zunes, a "progressive" activist academic, once acknowledged that "peace activists largely share with most Americans a profound ignorance of the Middle East, Islam, and the Arab world."[6] This was certainly true for our group, but we didn't give it much thought. We saw ourselves as people of action, not reflection. Did we really need to learn the intricacies of Iraqi history and politics and plumb the broader political and economic issues? Who wanted to sit in the library when there were prayer vigils to organize? We opted to march, fast, and hold our signs. Here was a new cause, in need of champions, and that's just what we were. Iraqi sanctions had to go!Why, indeed, learn the intricacies of Middle Eastern history (the Peacemakers reference the sanctions on their site) or shall-issue (their site isn't even riddled with inaccuracies - just Moore's fictions and the self-adulatory bloviations of sympathetic politicians) or any other issue where violence is a possible byproduct?
No, indeed - it's all about our agenda - and when you're an activist, the agenda is you, and you are your agenda!
We were so preoccupied with our own agenda that we didn't notice or care that the regime made use of us. When critics asked us whether the group was being exploited by the Iraqi regime, we obfuscated, and in so doing put Saddam and his minions on the same level as the U.S. governmentTruth, objectivity, moral right and wrong - none of them hold a candle to the Agenda! And we are the agenda, right?
It's the message, dammit! It's not what you do, it's the message you send!
But it's OK - because unlike the activists you model yourself after - Martin Luther King, the Berrigans, Desmond Tutu - there are no real consequences. No snipers, no jail time...
All of these interrelated social movements are characterized by "dramaturgy"—the combination of drama and liturgy, with ostensible prayers for peace and dramatic protest action in the face of significant jail terms. For some of these activists, dramaturgical protest has become nearly synonymous with other (traditional) Catholic sacraments, as exemplified by the title of Jesuit priest John Dear's popular volume, The Sacrament of Civil Disobedience...in December 1998, Voices was notified that it was to be fined a total of $163,000 by OFAC. Nothing further happened until Bert Sacks, a Seattle member, was actually served with a $10,000 fine by OFAC in May 2002. Sacks declined to pay the fine, seeing it as unethical to give money to the government he saw as responsible for the situation in Iraq.Remember the Twin Cities' "Honeywell Project", which staged vigils for years outside various Honeywell plants? Hundreds of symbolic, "plastic handcuff" arrests - no jail time. Such a sacrifice!So with its own version of Berrigan-esque "dramaturgy," Voices fancied itself as heir to the mantle of the Catholic ultra-resistance, the Berrigans, and the Plowshares movement. There was just one problem: we refused the punishments that we defied the government to impose on us. The Berrigans were sentenced to significant jail terms and served years in prison for their protest activities. Voices always refused the (few) fines levied on it and escaped serious consequences.
OK - so compare the examples above - and in Brown's article - with what you read on the "Peacemakers" website. Especially read this snide little photo essay, featuring group poobah Chuck Handlon.
What's it scream? "It's all about me! MY beliefs! MY moral certitude! MY views! MY right to protest the injustices I see (absent any consequences to ME, of course)!"
Look at that smug little T-shirt; "Carries No Gun". Read the group's list of values:
# We will harbor no anger, but suffer the anger of the opponent.it's all about buffing the "peacemaker's" sense of invincible self-righteousness to a fine sheen, without fear of that self-righteousness being challenged in any meaningful way.
# We will refuse to return the assaults, verbal or physical of the opponent. What opponents? What assaults? You're a bunch of pseudo-religious poseurs in ROCHESTER, MINNESOTA!
# We will refrain from insults and swearing. As should all of us!
# We will protect opponents from insults or attack. Really? Let's debate Shall-Issue. Let's see how your group protects it's opponents from insults; I've yet to meet an anti-shall-issue person who won't resort to insult, implied or explicit, sooner than later.
# If arrested, we will behave in an exemplary manner. We will not evade the legal consequences of our actions.But we won't be going out asking for the maximum potential fine, or insisting on metal handcuffs when we get our whiffleball arrests, will we?
# As members of a nonviolent demonstration, we will follow the directions of the designated coordinators. In the event of a serious disagreement, we will remove ourselves from the action. But since you're only going to events where there is no coherent opposition (right? Right?), that's not really going to be an issue, is it?
# Our attitude as conveyed through words, symbols and actions will be one of openness, friendliness, and respect toward all people we encounter, including police officers and workers. On your website, you tout the City of Duluth's "Guns Not Welcome" sign campaign, a pet project of ultraliberal Gary Doty. As a citizen who has never so much as stolen a candy bar in my life, I do not find this "open, friendly and respectful" - it is, in fact, corrosively bigoted.
# We will not damage property. Nor should you.
# We will not bring or use any drugs or alcohol. Whatever floats your boat!
# We will not run or use threatening motions. Er...that's common sense...
# We will carry no weapons. That'd be inconsistent, now, wouldn't it?
And maybe an unwillingness to face any challenge - a request for an email interview went unanswered.
It's still out there.
??? - Either Blogger is acting wierd, or my server is.
UPDATE: It was my server.
Instapundit reports that the Pentagon's DARPA think tank has proposed a "Futures Market", where experts could "bet" on the likelihood and means of different types of terrorist attacks.
Here's how it'd work:
Traders bullish on a biological attack on Israel or bearish on the chances of a North Korean missile strike would have the opportunity to bet on the likelihood of such events on a new Internet site established by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.Two senators - including North Dakota's Byron Dorgan - have been rolling in troughs of press coverage for criticizing the plan:The Pentagon called its latest idea a new way of predicting events and part of its search for the "broadest possible set of new ways to prevent terrorist attacks."
...Dorgan of North Dakota, said the idea seemed so preposterous that he had trouble persuading people it was not a hoax. "Can you imagine," Mr. Dorgan asked, "if another country set up a betting parlor so that people could go in — and is sponsored by the government itself — people could go in and bet on the assassination of an American political figure?"I'm hoping the Pentagon uses the one really good explanation there is for such an idea.After Mr. Dorgan and his fellow critic, Ron Wyden of Oregon, spoke out, the Pentagon sought to play down the importance of a program for which the Bush administration has sought $8 million through 2005. The White House also altered the Web site so that the potential events to be considered by the market that were visible earlier in the day at www.policyanalysismarket.org could no longer be seen.
But by that time, Republican officials in the Senate were privately shaking their heads over the planned trading. One top aide said he hoped that the Pentagon had a good explanation for it.
It works.
The Pentagon, among others, have used the idea of the wager (and what is a futures market but informed wagering about commodities and events rather than sports?) to great effect.
Ironically, I just read about one of the most dramatic examples yesterday. In 1969, a Navy submarine, the USS Scorpion, disappeared on its way home from the Mediterranean. Craven - a primary architect of the nuclear power and Polaris missile programs - was one of many Navy scientists involved in trying to find the sub. They had very few clues to work from - a number of ambiguous sonar echoes from explosions, mainly.
Craven and many other scientists analyzed the data, and came up with several possible conclusions - although Craven's conclusion disagreed with most others (he believed that the submarine was east, rather than west, of the source of the original explosion.
Finally, to resolve the mystery, he gathered up all the information available (as well as some simulations he'd carried out), and put it in front of a group of experts. Each expert weighed the information in front of him, and wagered a bottle of Chivas Regal on their respective results.
Most of the bets trended toward a point east of the original echo. When a deep-submergence vehicle finally went to the scene (after fruitless weeks searching west of the echo, where the Navy brass felt it would be), the Scorpion was found - about 1000 yards from where Craven and most of the parties to the bet thought it would be.
The lesson? Opinions - and theories - are like, er, eyeballs. Just about everyone has a couple. But wagering - assigning a value to your theory - forces people to, as it were, put their money where their mouths are.
Josh Chafetz sums up the advantages:
Knowledge and expertise are widely diffused in any society. As I explained at length in a post on Hayek last year, complex systems function by finding ways to aggregate diffuse knowledge into simple indices, which then allow actors in the system to take advantage of knowledge that they don't actually have (e.g., no one knows exactly what Americans' breakfast cereal preference orderings are, but by watching the information-aggregating index that we call "price," producers can generally ensure that, when you go to the supermarket, you'll find the brand you want. Compare that to the shortages of some items and overproduction of others that centrally planned economies have produced). A futures market in terrorist attacks, while it sounds grisly, may help us to aggregate diffuse knowledge in a way that will prove superior to expert knowledge.Wagering has the effect of forcing people to cut through the theories, clarify their thought processes, and get to the answers.
So what's the problem? Apparently, to Byron Dorgan, it's just not right, applying market principles - Gambling! - to predicting the future.
UPDATE: Vodkapundit beat me to the story by about eight hours (I didn't know about the "market" idea until I read it on Reynolds' site) - but reached the identical conclusion, for the same reasons, even citing the example of the search for the Scorpion. He also fully closes the loop of the stock market analogy:
The "market" for intelligence works, such as it does, opposite of the stock market. A guy who knows one important bit often can't effectively share it with another guy in another agency who knows another important bit – and so two plus two ends up equaling something quite less than four. Those who simply have good hunches generally aren't intel pros, and therefore aren't given much credence by the government. And so hidden knowledge remains hidden, and good guesses go unheeded. Then people die.It'll be interesting to see exactly how many other bloggers came up with the Craven/Scorpion example independently.Now that is a truly grotesque system, yet that's how the intelligence world has operated for approximately ever.
Would investors put their money on the line if there weren't any profits to be made? Of course not. Yet today, we ask our military and intelligence professionals to risk their reputations and careers, working mostly in the dark, with zero extra incentive.
FURTHER UPDATE: Spoke too soon. According to Boomshock, the Administration chickened out.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz just told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that PAM is going to be terminated: "[I]t sounds like maybe [DARPA] got too imaginative."Sigh. Back to the status quo.
Given all the stories of the standard-issue government mismanagement at Homeland Security and the bungling of the intelligence in the War on Terror so far, can you imagine what the imposition of some kind of free market discipline could do for our effort?
Hopefully, this idea survives somehow.
Hatchet Job - The City Pages, predictably, sounds off on the "Telegate" "Scandal", in a team report led by überliberal Steve Perry.
The story is an exercise in polemic masquerading as journalism. It starts in the lede:
Call him Babyface. Even Tim Pawlenty's political foes are prone to leavening their criticisms with testaments to what a personable guy he is. The quality is an asset to any politician, but it's especially useful to one with Pawlenty's slash-and-burn fiscal politics. If you conjure the names of other Midwestern governors who have pushed similar spending devolutions--Wisconsin's Tommy Thompson, Michigan's John Engler--you notice that most are polarizing figures with a reputation for public mean-spiritedness.The "reputation" is cooked up entirely by people like Perry, for whom failure to scrape at the altar of statism is a functional definition of "mean-spirited".
One reason nice-guy politicians like Pawlenty fare so well is that people naturally assume they possess the other attributes we associate with nice people, such as fairness, guilelessness (relatively speaking; they needn't be Pollyannas, but they can't be inveterate schemers either), and a habit of treating others as they would like to be treated--in other words, of holding themselves to the same standards of conduct as everybody else.Perry's article then goes on to abjectly fail to show us why Pawlenty is not any of these things.
Here's where Perry's frequently-excellent journalistic chops desert him:
Clearly none of this applies in Pawlenty's case, unless you take the governor's doe-eyed account of his current troubles at face value. We are asked to believe that he a) served actively and responsibly as a board officer for a telecom holding company, earning stock that he eventually cashed in for $10,000, yet never knew a thing about the questionable marketing habits of a key subsidiary; and b) gave no thought to concealment when he set up the functional equivalent of a blind shell company to receive tens of thousands of dollars in payments from a pal and telecom associate during his 2002 run for governor.Two responses to this:
Pawlenty's flair for political calculation under pressure has never been more evident than on the Tuesday after the first Pioneer Press story broke. He spent an astonishing two hours talking to the press about allegations that a telecom whose board he'd served on was guilty of shady business practices; his manner was humble, though he never exactly stopped talking like a lawyer. "I don't want to say I wasn't responsible," he hedged. "All I want to say are the facts. Should I have known? If the answer is yes, then I am responsible, no question about it." If the governor balks, you must let him walk!In the Perry world, giving the right answer (especially when one is a lawyer by trade and training) is apparently incriminating evidence.
During the session, Pawlenty offered an additional, oh by the way disclosure: He had also received large payments from his friend, political ally, and telecom associate Elam Baer during Pawlenty's run for governor last year. These fees (or not) were said to total considerably more than he earned as a legislator, yet the arrangement was never publicly disclosed. Moreover, he conceded, he could not really account for any specific legal projects he had worked on.This, say sources close to the story, may be the only part where Pawlenty's behavior might step outside any rules - but only with the Lawyers' Board of Professional Responsibilty. Not that that
The governor only wanted to come clean about his associations with the Baer circle, he implied--though he had obviously felt no need to disclose any aspect of them before the shit hit the fan.Perry fails to show us where there was any legal imperative to explicity disclose anything. Apparently Pawlenty is, alone among all politicians, supposed to provide
When the press sit-down was over, no one in attendance commented in writing on the mastery of what Pawlenty had done: He had used the occasion of a minor scandal to let the air out of a potentially major one. Public opinion usually does not look kindly upon undisclosed financial relationships between politically connected businesses and politicians who seem to have done no demonstrable work for their money.Especially if the "disclosure rules" are made up from the whole cloth by a press that is hostile to a certain party.
So far the gambit is working reasonably well.Ah, the old "The truth is duller than the fiction" gambit. Brilliant stroke, Governor!
Pawlenty's preemptive disclosure was hardly brilliant in one sense. Lots of nine-year-olds have already figured out there's less trouble if you 'fess up in toto when you're caught. But it was both shrewd and bold by the lights of contemporary political practice, which typically dictates more lies and stonewalling in the hope that people will get bored and forget about the whole mess. And they always do. Seen from that angle, maybe there is a bit of genius in Pawlenty's approach--by his Tuesday revelation, he slipped a real live baby into the tepid bathwater of the board membership scandal. And now, barring fresh disclosures, all he has to do is wait for it to be thrown out. The DFL has already indicated through its silence that it won't be pursuing the affair seriously (see Robson, What Hearings? What Scandal?).Perhaps because, like with the American Bankers "scandal", if you dig far enough under the surface, all the "wrong" names pop up?
Perry now starts to wax indignant:
The Friends of Tim are right when they claim that their actions are garden-variety stuff. The real outrage is the political culture in which they are garden-variety stuff. Friends-gate is one of the better glimpses we have had of the workaday connections between business and politics--the fruits of what Pawlenty calls "networking"--since former Senator Bob Packwood's diaries were pried loose by congressional subpoena in 1995.So, again, Steve Perry, what was wrong?Everywhere you look in this saga you see friends helping friends--which is to say, insiders helping themselves, and with nothing resembling the openness and probity they expect commoners to display in their daily affairs.
That Pawlenty incorporated his relationship with NewTel? Every indy worth his or her weight in incorporation documents does that.
Not reporting the legal consulting according to LBPR rules? Well, then let's call this a "lawyerly rules violation" and cut the crap, shall we?
The Pawlenty crowd, after all, consists of legendarily tough-minded, fiscally responsible, pay-as-you- go people, avatars of the philosophy of government that says a man never stands so tall as when he stoops to collect co-payments from a single mother. There are no safety nets in Pawlenty's ideal world, except for the ones that people of goodwill and means construct for each other on an informal and largely surreptitious basis.And in Steve Perry's world, there are no gradations to the right of, say, Paul Wellstone; beyond that point, there be only dragons.
Now, Perry slips into social critic mode:
And while we are on the subject of rectitude and hypocrisy, a few words about the FOT's chosen industry. Elam Baer, the telecom entrepreneur at the center of it all, told reporters that he entered the field because it represented a "great business opportunity." What sort of opportunity, exactly?News flash; telecom is a sleazy business. Stop the presses.Small outfits like the NewTel companies are purely marketing operations. They buy long-distance capacity (time on phone lines, that is) from large carriers and scramble to resell it to consumers, the theory being that their low overhead costs then allow them to undercut the big guys' rates and thrive through the open market. In practice, though, the telecom business is full of small-time, often transient operators with the same idea. The resulting competitive climate is one in which the surest way to get ahead fast is to hustle customers through some version of the technique known as slamming, which involves the use of telemarketers to switch consumer accounts to your service with deceptively obtained consent or none at all. Originally it was the big companies, not the little ones, that pioneered the practice, but now it is most notoriously the province of the minor players. As Pawlenty partisans have pointed out, a great many small telecoms have complaint records as bad or worse.
This is the business culture into which Pawlenty and his circle happily waded, and in a certain sense they did thrive there. Carlene Hughes, a Washington state utilities investigator, told the Pi-Press: "New Access seems to be good at slamming and seems to be good at doing it for a long time--and then moving on when the states catch up with them." Another company that Baer co-founded with Vicki Grunseth, QAI, was the subject of similar claims. Following the early 1997 raid by Wisconsin officials of a firm connected to QAI, state investigators wrote, "Clearly, a pattern of misrepresentations and deception is being used by QAI Inc. to induce prospective customers into ordering their service." Later that year Baer and Grunseth sold out their interest in QAI, and subsequently launched NewTel.
So show us where Pawlenty either did anything illegal, or anything unethical as a board chairman.
Now, he starts to get into familiar territory:
Fast forward. The brightest star in this little constellation runs for governor in 2002 with financial assistance from one of the others. This seeming campaign contribution--and why not think of it as such? the governor reasserted through a flack in last Saturday's Pi-Press that he would not release evidence of any actual work he did for the money--goes undisclosed until other details surface regarding Tim Pawlenty's connections to Elam Baer.Commers is a bit player.Pawlenty wins the election and appoints a man recommended by Baer, a US Bank mortgage executive named Glenn Wilson, to head the Commerce Department. Wilson in turn hires another FOT, gubernatorial campaign manager Tim Commers, whose résumé includes marketing directorship of the oft-criticized QAI and an episode in which he was sued for allegedly running a telemarketing operation that misrepresented his anti-abortion group as another, better known one. When this old news comes to light, Commers resigns, adding that he has never done a single improper thing. "Why should I put myself through this when I can go back to the private sector?" he demands. Indeed.
But mostly the Friends of Tim prosper. Pat Awada, who owned the verifications company charged with making sure New Access didn't engage in slamming, moves on to greater things as well. Her membership in the Pawlenty circle helps her gain the Republican nomination for state auditor. She sells her company to one of NewTel's co-founders, David Buss, and gets paid partly in NewTel stock. Because she now occupies the auditor post and is charged with keeping an eye on state finances, she is the most shrill of the FOT after the story breaks, even going so far as to claim a success rate of 99.9 percent in her New Access endeavors.And...Steve? Was that claim false?
I think it's fairly safe to call this ridiculous on its face. In consumer affairs, especially those involving the murky world of telemarketing, typically only a small fraction of the wronged even know where to turn to complain, and a smaller fraction still actually bothers.So...you think it's ridiculous, based on your assumptions - but you reall don't know?
Just checking.
There is no facet of all this that doesn't stink. Also none that really violates the evolving norms of Banana Republican governance--a phenomenon hardly restricted to Republicans, we should note, though they do own most of the playing field now.Mr. Perry - if it's "hardly restricted to Republicans", then why is the City Pages - which prides itself on journalistic prowess - only now getting to the story?
Just a coincidence, I'm sure.
Who Would Wellstone Quote? - As part of the Nine Dwarves' race to the left for the nomination, the Wellstone name and legacy are getting invoked all over the place.
Is this a good thing for the Dems?:
"Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia, said that the Democratic hopefuls are engaged in smart politics.No doubt he would have been.'Wellstone was on the far left of the Senate, but his philosophy is actually precisely where most of the activists in the Democratic Party are,' he said. 'How better to appeal to the actual Democratic electorate than to invoke the name of one of their secular saints?'
David Wellstone, the senator's eldest son, said the candidates 'understand that people loved the fire and the passion and the integrity that my dad brought to the job. And that was all focused on improving people's lives, and that's why they're mentioning him.'
Had Wellstone lived, his son said, he would have been under great pressure to enter the 2004 race."
And this is the part I love:
"What activists like Dean call the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party is an aberration: the McGovern-Mondale wing, defined principally by weakness abroad and elitist interest-group liberalism at home," Al From and Bruce Reed wrote in a memo distributed by the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). From is founder of the centrist DLC, and Reed is its president.Insert comment implying eye-rolling disgust here.That annoyed progressives, including Kelly Young, executive director of the Washington-based 21st Century Democrats.
"To claim that the activists of the party are liberal elites is absurd. . . . We're the party of the people," she said.
Young said that many party activists are frustrated that the Democratic Party has not backed "bold progressive policies." They are actively working for progressives in the 2004 election, she said, and Democratic candidates are taking note.The invocations of Wellstone mean exactly what the election of Wellstone meant, 13 years ago; a sign of how far to the left the main DFL base is. In the Minnesota of 1990, that wasn't a drag. In the US of 2003, it is."They recognize that the strength and the power right now is in the progressive movement, and that is what Senator Wellstone embodied," Young said.
Sabato noted that invoking Wellstone's name could be risky for Democratic candidates.
"The further they go to the left, the less chance they have of beating Bush," he said.
He predicted that once Democrats settle on a nominee and focus on the general election, there will be far less talk of Wellstone.
"It's those suburban voters and centrist voters that Democrats have to win. . . . They're not Wellstone voters," he said.
American History - For all the Europeans caterwaul about Americans' failure to understand American history, it'd seem (says George Will) that the Euros could study ours a bit more, especially as re their current attempt to craft an EU Constitution:
"Asked to which participant in America's constitution-making he would compare himself, Giscard replied: 'I tried to play a little bit the role that Jefferson played, which was to instill leading ideas into the system. Jefferson was a man who wrote and produced elements that consolidated the Constitution.'Read it all, of course.Not exactly. When the Constitution's framers convened in Philadelphia in 1787, Thomas Jefferson was in Paris. When he read what the convention had wrought, he was distressed, particularly about the potential for consolidation of power in the central government.
Europeans believe that American foreign policy would profit from a deeper understanding of European history, and from the tragic sense of history that comes from such an understanding. That may be true.
This certainly is: Europe's evolving domestic arrangements would profit from what clearly has not yet occurred -- a serious study of ambiguities and difficulties that have surrounded the oldest and most successful written constitution, America's."
Moral, Just - Andrew Sullivan, on why the war in Iraq was a just one.
Much worth reading here, but I loved this clip:
"But all the evidence in Iraq points to something else: an extraordinarily successful war followed by slow but measurable progress in putting back together again a brutalized and fractured country. Think back for a moment to what we once feared might happen in the aftermath of a war to depose Saddam. Here are some of the predictions, cited last week by Paul Wolfowitz: civil war; destroyed oil wells; environmental catastrophe; famine; a refugee crisis; and the possibility of cleaning up after chemical and biological attacks. None of this happened - in large part because of the astonishingly innovative and swift war plan. The most staggering result is that Kurds, Shia and Sunnis are still on board for a united, democratic country. But instead of reporting on this achievement, the press, which in large part opposed the war in the first place, has done all it can to turn this success into a 'quagmire.'Nothing you haven't heard before on the blogosphere, or on talk radio.
But the message bears repeating, because there are still plenty of people out there who just don't get it yet, and won't hear it from the major media.
Yes, there are obvious problems. The electricity grid has proven hard to get back and running again;And not, it should be noted, because of American malfeasance or incompetence, or Baathist resistance. Like with every totalitarian dictatorship, the things that work, do so because of either fear or, essentially, verbal tradition. Which was what kept the old Iraqi power system going.
Without the Baathist administrators in power - no power. We have to start, almost literally, from square one. It'll be worth it in the long run - to everyone but the Times and the BBC.
...the capitulation of the Baathist thugs in the war means that many dead-enders are still at large and doing all they can to inflict damage in American troops in order to weaken resolve in the U.S.; we over-estimated the need for troops and under-estimated the need for trained policemen in the aftermath of conflict; we were too slow to recruit Iraqis for internal security forces; and so on. These are all forgivable mistakes. But they are all remediable; and steps are being taken to ensure that obvious problems are tackled and resolved. "Two months since the end of the war. The left is baying at the moon at problems that are not only part of the normal friction of rebuilding post-totalitarian countries - they are comparable to the difficulties we faced in rebuilding Germany and Japan, after allowing for the different contexts of the times.
Johnny Qum Lately - It's been galling, lately, to watch the rats climbing back on the re-floating ship.
"Dissent is patriotism!", they say as they slip over the gunwales. To them, it's not the force and cunning of American arms and diplomacy that ended the theo-judicial murders in Afghanistan, or brought down the genocidal Stalinists, Hussein and Sons. No, indeed - it was their dissent; their principled dissidence from the guy who won the 2000 election our lone-wolf, "cowboy" foreign policy. Yep; the human rights victory that was won "Not In Our Name" is suddenly to their credit.
Lileks throws them back in the drink, and their luggage with them for good measure:
Look. I don’t have “political misgivings” about a Liberian intervention; I have practical misgivings about using American forces in TFNs, or Totally Farked Nations. I’m on the fence here. I’ve heard compelling arguments against intervention, and I've heard solid arguments about the uniqueness of an American presence in Liberia, considering their attitude towards its distant thrice-removed paternal figure. But if I decide it’s all a big mistake, and I put up a lawn sign and write letters to the editor and show up for candlelight vigils and all the other examples of symbolic busywork, I don’t get to be thrilled when Monrovia is peaceful and thriving again. I get to be embarrassed.It presumes, of course, that they're capable of admitting fault.
It's Everywhere - Not only is the US not the only country with a health insurance problem - but sometimes the countries that are held up as the best examples are the ones with the most intractable problems, as we see in this Frankfurter Allgemeine article.
“The current system cannot survive the demographic changes ahead of it,“ said Lauterbach, who heads the Institute of Health Economics and Clinical Epidemiology of the University of Cologne and is a member of the Rürup Commission, a body of experts and representatives of various social and professional groups appointed by the German government to develop proposals for reforming the health, social benefits and pension programs.And no, bussing people to Denmark isn't the answer.
The scary part? Germany's health care system is one of the more conservative in Europe, compared with, say, Sweden or the Netherlands.
The Blog Slate - The blog The Smallest Minority is proposing an all-blogger slate for the next election.
Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds is the Prez candidate, of course. Given my employment status, I guess Labor is a natural slot for me.
More as events warrant.
Brian Lambert reports on a number of shakeups at local radio stations.
MPR and NPR are playing musical chairs with a their air talent - in a move whose main impact would seem to sideline the lovely Lorna Benson, MPR will be handing the local hosting of "All Things Considered" to David Molpus.
However, as usual, the real news is on the commercial band, as KSTP-AM's morning show goes through more contortions:
"Elsewhere, KSTP-AM 1500 announced a makeover of its weekday lineup. Gone from the station's heavily conservative talk format is John Wodele, formerly communications director for Gov. Jesse Ventura.Unmentioned by Lambert: Wodele was awful. Absolutely unlistenable. Twin Cities radio observers felt the station should have given Wodele his severance pay in advance, without actually airing the show - it would have saved the station a lot of ratings grief.Wodele was hired only six months ago. His 5-to-8 a.m. spot will be taken by Bob Davis, who moves to mornings from KSTP's 10 p.m.-to-midnight slot.
Davis in the morning? Hmmm. I rarely listen to Davis. But Davis' manic streak might be just what the station needs in the morning; not since the early days of Barbara Carlson's morning trainwreck (the first one, not the endless parade of interchangeable voices that accompanied the interminable "Morning Spin" since the mid-nineties) has the station had a morning show that was memorable, much less worth tuning on the radio for.
Syndicated talker and Fox News TV host Sean Hannity has been picked up to fill Davis' time slot.In other words, for one hour every evening, local talk radio listeners will be able to choose between the bilious Michael Savage and the tedious Hannity.
Wodele's co-host, Mark O'Connell, moves to the 8-to-11 a.m. slot to become full-time co-host with noted St. Paul attorney Ron Rosenbaum.This is a move that puzzles me. O'Connell is a decent utility player, but not marquee material; his personality doesn't jump through the radio at you. Rosenbaum is an affable enough guy, but I think he'd work better in a supporting role behind...well, a Bob Davis type (but not Davis - I don't think the personalities would mesh very well, although I've been wrong before.
Let's discuss this in six months. I bet the spring book will see yet another shakeup at AM1500.
UPDATE: The Fraters dance, Riverdance-style, on Wodele's radio grave, in a very apt and capable critique.
Jackboots? Check! - Howard "The Duck" Dean's supporters are playing rough, electronically speaking, spamming journalists who offend the ex-governor:
"'When negative press gets written, we'll ensure that letters to the editor get printed in response. . . . The last couple of months have proven the effectiveness of our efforts at media response,' the DDF says.Chafetz has the mob figured out:Sometimes this is rough stuff. When New York Daily News columnist Zev Chafets slammed Dean's appearance on Tim Russert's 'Meet the Press,' the DDF denounced the piece as 'crap,' declaring:
'So here's what we're gonna do. First, we're gonna write Zev (zchafets@yahoo.com) and let him know what we think of his vitriol.'
Suggested themes: 'Russert used Republican lies for his policy research. . . . Anyone who saw Dean's performance knows it wasn't his best, but it was a hell of a lot better than Chafets's columns.'
Says Chafets: 'They were polite, but they took issue with the idea that Dean hadn't done well. They were not unintelligent, but it was pretty clear to me they were writing from talking points.'"OK, let's try this for size: Howard Dean is pimping whatever soul he has to get the Democrats' loony left sewn up for the convention - which is where campaigns like his flourish. If nominated, he will give the Democrats a setback that'll take them another decade or two to recover from. He's a vote whore, willing to
There. I've offended the Duck. Spam me, baby.
Oh, wait - Scrappleface beat us to the punch. Damn you, Scrappleface!
See No Evil - Mark Steyn, in addition to being a terrific journalist, writes one of the best satirical writers going, as we see in this send-up of BBC war and postwar coverage:
"Andrew Gilligan: I'm leaning on a lamp post at the corner of the street in case a certain little duce swings by, and I don't see any dead dictators, John. But then the Allies have a history of making these premature announcements...Read the whole thing. After a day of enduring what the Beeb, the Times and the Strib say about the situation, you owe it to yourself.He's just above your head, Andrew. I know you don't like to do wide shots, but, if the camera pulls back, I think you'll find that's definitely a finger tickling the back of your ear...
AG: Well, there you are. He's not hanging from a petrol station, is he? He's hanging from a rope attached to a girder on the forecourt of a petrol station. We've become all too familiar with the Allies playing fast and loose with the facts."
Steyn on the BBC - Powerline tipped me off to this hilarious Mark Steyn sendup of BBC war coverage.
One of many highlights:
He's just above your head, Andrew. I know you don't like to do wide shots, but, if the camera pulls back, I think you'll find that's definitely a finger tickling the back of your ear...
AG: Well, there you are. He's not hanging from a petrol station, is he? He's hanging from a rope attached to a girder on the forecourt of a petrol station. We've become all too familiar with the Allies playing fast and loose with the facts."Read the whole thing? You betcha.
Predictions - Hugh Hewitt, in the midst of this excellent interview with John Hawkins, gives his views on the Democrat nomination:
I think it's going to be Howard Dean and I believe it's because of his unique appeal to the unhinged element within the Democratic Party which is large in the primaries. Dean's appeal is his pugnaciousness and the primary voters see reflected in him, their own sense of having been blocked out of every branch of government and their rage at George W. Bush's success. They're doing self-destructive things and the ultimate self-destructive thing is the nomination of Howard Dean and so I expect it.Here's the big question: I've been told (and vaguely remember hearing) that Hewitt worked really hard to get conservative listeners to vote for The Duck in the MoveOn.org poll. I'd be interesting (and probably impossible) to find out how much impact that poll had on Dean's surge - and, should he carry the nomination, how much impact that had on the '04 race.
Ideas?
I'll Believe It When I See It In My Checking Account - but here's hoping.
2 Key Economic Barometers Post Large Gains in June - which can't be making Paul Krugman or "Move On" any happier.
(Via Sullivan)
Brain Fever - I learned long ago - some ideas from the ultra-loony left need to be kept in perspective; sometimes satire is the only real answer, and there's hardly anyone better at it than Scrappleface...
...who ably lampoons the new Berkeley study that tries to pass off conservatism as some sort of pathology.
The scary part was, when I first read it, I had to check and doublecheck to make sure the Berkeley article wasn't some hamfisted spoof of politicized soft-science research as well.
No such luck.
BERKELEY – Politically conservative agendas may range from supporting the Vietnam War to upholding traditional moral and religious values to opposing welfare. But are there consistent underlying motivations?I do cognitive research to support software development, so I'm not completely unfamiliar with either the techniques of analyzying peoples' states of mind, or basic experimental procedures, either.
So let's see how this "report" stacks up:
Four researchers who culled through 50 years of research literature about the psychology of conservatism report that at the core of political conservatism is the resistance to change and a tolerance for inequality, and that some of the common psychological factors linked to political conservatism include:Where to start with this article?* Fear and aggression
* Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity
* Uncertainty avoidance
* Need for cognitive closure
* Terror management"From our perspective, these psychological factors are capable of contributing to the adoption of conservative ideological contents, either independently or in combination," the researchers wrote in an article, "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition," recently published in the American Psychological Association's Psychological Bulletin.
Assistant Professor Jack Glaser of the University of California, Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy and Visiting Professor Frank Sulloway of UC Berkeley joined lead author, Associate Professor John Jost of Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, and Professor Arie Kruglanski of the University of Maryland at College Park, to analyze the literature on conservatism.
Who Were the Resarchers? Yeah, we got their names, but what are their backgrounds and biases? I mean, if a group of tobacco-industry employees did a study showing tobacco to be harmless, would that cast some aspersions on the study?
Fear not. What Berkeley won't tell you, I will. Jack Glaser is a UCLA researcher whose body of research leans heavily toward leftist social causes. I'll let you be the judge about Berkeley's Frank Sulloway. John Jost and Arie Kruglanski both have quite a few far-left buzzwords in their curriculum vitae.
Which is certainly their right as American Citizens and academics - but the fact that all four "study" authors are more or less overtly left-wing, and work in academic estabishments (UCBerkeley, UCLA, U of Maryland) that are far to the left of even normal American academia should be considered when assigning any credibility to the "study".
The psychologists sought patterns among 88 samples, involving 22,818 participants, taken from journal articles, books and conference papers. The material originating from 12 countries included speeches and interviews given by politicians, opinions and verdicts rendered by judges, as well as experimental, field and survey studies.As would have been predictable, I'd suspect, given the authors' biases!Ten meta-analytic calculations performed on the material - which included various types of literature and approaches from different countries and groups - yielded consistent, common threads, Glaser said.
Note that none of these methods, or source materials, are ever explained in the article.
Disparate conservatives share a resistance to change and acceptance of inequality, the authors said. Hitler, Mussolini, and former President Ronald Reagan were individuals, but all were right-wing conservatives because they preached a return to an idealized past and condoned inequality in some form. Talk host Rush Limbaugh can be described the same way.Note the rhetorical legerdemain - comparing two modern-day, American sociopolitical conservatives with two fascist butchers. Coming from a bunch of E-Democracy posters, that'd be one thing; coming from allegedly respected academics, though - who are perfectly aware of the rhetorical weight of the connection - is beneath contempt.
It's also a lie. Hitler was no conservative. Yes, indeed, he harkened back to the German people's mythical "volk" traditions, but his aim was to radically change German society (while using the parts he needed to his benefit) - which is the opposite of conservative.
The researchers said that conservative ideologies, like virtually all belief systems, develop in part because they satisfy some psychological needs, but that "does not mean that conservatism is pathological or that conservative beliefs are necessarily false, irrational, or unprincipled."Fair enough - but that begs a huge methodological question:They also stressed that their findings are not judgmental.
"In many cases, including mass politics, 'liberal' traits may be liabilities, and being intolerant of ambiguity, high on the need for closure, or low in cognitive complexity might be associated with such generally valued characteristics as personal commitment and unwavering loyalty," the researchers wrote.
Conservative...as opposed to what? What makes a person liberal, or pro-choice, or "green"?
We get to what I suspect is the real reason for this report:
This intolerance of ambiguity can lead people to cling to the familiar, to arrive at premature conclusions, and to impose simplistic cliches and stereotypes, the researchers advised.Well, that would certainly justify the "study", wouldn't it?The latest debate about the possibility that the Bush administration ignored intelligence information that discounted reports of Iraq buying nuclear material from Africa may be linked to the conservative intolerance for ambiguity and or need for closure, said Glaser.
The article notes that:
"For a variety of psychological reasons, then, right-wing populism may have more consistent appeal than left-wing populism, especially in times of potential crisis and instability," he said.In other words, conservatism fulfills peoples' need to be safe, and to view certain things (like the possibility of being nuked by a terrorist) in fairly black and white terms.
Glaser acknowledged that the team's exclusive assessment of the psychological motivations of political conservatism might be viewed as a partisan exercise. However, he said, there is a host of information available about conservatism, but not about liberalism.Huh?
Above, the authors say their source materials are taken from speeches, articles and media appearances. Liberals don't write articles?
The researchers conceded cases of left-wing ideologues, such as Stalin, Khrushchev or Castro, who, once in power, steadfastly resisted change, allegedly in the name of egalitarianism.But we're not talking about the conservatism of self-preservation, here - we're talking about political conservatism as practiced in the United States. Right?Yet, they noted that some of these figures might be considered politically conservative in the context of the systems that they defended.
In the interest of fairness, they do get one part right:
Although they concluded that conservatives are less "integratively complex" than others are, Glaser said, "it doesn't mean that they're simple-minded."There may have been an academic reason for this study - but deep-down, I think it has more to with buttressing the liberal need to feel better, smarter and more sophisticated than their opponents.Conservatives don't feel the need to jump through complex, intellectual hoops in order to understand or justify some of their positions, he said. "They are more comfortable seeing and stating things in black and white in ways that would make liberals squirm," Glaser said.
He pointed as an example to a 2001 trip to Italy, where President George W. Bush was asked to explain himself. The Republican president told assembled world leaders, "I know what I believe and I believe what I believe is right." And in 2002, Bush told a British reporter, "Look, my job isn't to nuance."
Whew.
Maybe Scrappleface had the right idea after all.
Self Par-Uday - The Hussein Boys have bought the farm.
Everyone knows it.
Except, of course, Robert "Fisk Fodder" Fisk. Watch him jerk the chains:
Of course, they might be dead. The two men are said to bear an impressive resemblance to the brothers.Reasonable Doubt!
A 14-year-old child killed by the Americans - one of the four dead - might be one of Saddam's grandsons.A child! Dead!
Qusay was a leader of the Special Republican Guard, a special target of the Americans. The two men obviously fought fiercely against the 200 American troops who surrounded the house.Those Plucky Underdogs!
The Americans used their so-called Task Force 20 to storm the pseudo-Palladian villa on a main highway through Mosul.Therefore - and never mind what they may have been smuggling in this WMD-crazy time - everything TF20, and by extension the rest of the military does, is not only suspect, but guilty until proven innocent!Task Force 20 combines both special forces and CIA agents. But this is the same Task Force 20 that blasted to death the occupants of a convoy heading for the Syrian border earlier this month, a convoy whose travellers were meant to include Saddam himself and even the two sons supposedly killed yesterday. The victims turned out to be only smugglers.
And American intelligence - the organisation that failed to predict events of 11 September, 2001 - was also responsible for the air raid on a Saddam villa on 20 March, which was supposed to kill Saddam. And the far crueller air raid on the Mansour district of Baghdad at the end of the air bombardment in April which was supposed to kill Saddam and his sons but only succeeded in slaughtering 16 innocent civilians. All proved to be miserable failures.All Failures! Like the war itself! Why, except for that whole "liberated country" thingie, this war has been an unmitigated balls-up!
But it's in the closing that Fisk proves himself not only supremely, invincibly illogical, but quite stark raving mad:
If he and his sons are dead, the chances are that the opposition to the American-led occupation will grow rather than diminish - on the grounds that with Saddam gone, Iraqis will have nothing to lose by fighting the AmericansGot that? When the regime in whose interest everyone is fighting is eradicated, only then will Iraqis find it safe to fight us!
When the Fedayeen (who drove troops, NKVD-style, toward the American guns in Nasiriyah) are gone - then fighting us will be a matter of freewill!
Fisk may not have the toxic sheen of a Robert Scheer; he's too doddering and logically incontinent to meet that standard - but the fact that he earns a living at all is telling, and more than a bit depressing.
More Later - I'm at the office, and about to start a day's worth of usabilty testing.
This article infuriates me.
This one puts it in its proper persepective.
The Duck - The more I think about it, the more it feels like the Moovies and Howard "Duck" Dean's supporters have gotten it wrong.
Yeah, Dean raised a lot of money on the Internat. So did Ralph Nader in '00 (allowing for the web's relatively lesser maturity and the Green Party's outsider status at the time). I'd suspect there's a fair chunk of the far-left base - the Green Bus crowd - that doesn't attend $1000/plate black tie rubber chicken dinners, and wants to support someone who fits their worldview; when they have a portal like MoveOn spoon-fed to them, it's their opportunity.
Also - let's not forget the simple fact that when it comes to using the internet for communication and organization, the right was here first. As long-time "Shot In The Dark" reader JP, from California, noted in an email today:
Yes, a lot of conservatives voted for Howard the Duck. In fact, for days Hugh Hewitt was pumping his listeners to go to MoveOn.org and vote for Dean.Indeed. This was before I listened to Hewitt very much (today, the 5-8 time slot is an embarassment of conservative talk-radio riches; Hewitt and Lewis are both great), but Hewitt is as plugged-in to the ways of the Web as anyone in radio (yet).
Many of the Moovies are newbies to this game; most of us conservatives on the web have been reading Drudge since '97 at least, and have many years' head start at using - and abusing - the web.
It'll be fun to watch how the "Dean Rules the 'Net" story develops.
Off to the Office - Yep. One more day onsite.
This is a fine time to remind you, gentle reader, that while I'm an underemployed software designer (the titles vary - Information Architect, Usability Engineer, Human Factors Engineer, User Experience Designer, GUI Business Analyst, Web Designer or User Interaction Designer all work), I'm a mighty good one - and I'm very available!
Drop me a line if your company needs to design software that the users don't detest working with.
Sigh. The waiting is the worst.
Speaking of "Just Doesn't Get It" - Laura Billings brings a bit of old-media snobbery to her commentary:
I might join in these criticisms if I did not also agree with the White House that e-mail is the one form of free speech that should be limited as much as possible. No longer are writers required to sit down with pen in hand and actually think about the best way to make their case. Instead, the ease of e-mail has convinced us that sending an electronic eructation is just as meaningful — and even more deserving — of an immediate response.This from a woman whose commentary is often so rife with factual and logical errors that I'm thinking about erecting (electronically) a "Fisking Hall Of Fame", devoting it entirely to her, and retiring her number just to avoid the constant, challenge-less repetition of critiqueing her.
Just thinking about it, mind you.
They Don't Get It - Question: If conservatives took over the internet, and no liberal newspaper observed the fact, did it really happen?
Articles in the Boston Glob and the Atlantic answer the question: "Al Gore didn't just invent the Internet, he wrote all the original content".
The Glob, in an article about the newfound influence of bloggers, focuses on the B-list blogger Oliver Willis and his site's contributions to the Howard Dean campaign, as well as another Dean-related site. Unmentioned, of course; the hulking presences of Instapundit, Sullivan, Volokh, Kaus, Drudge, even Lileks and Limbaugh (whose site isn't a blog, but behaves like one) - all right of center, all of whom wield more influence in their fingernail clippings than Oliver Willis' blog (as good as it is) ever will.
The Atlantic focuses on this month's flavor, "MoveOn.org". The site - founded in 1998 to protect Bill Clinton's right to lie to grand juries about his philandering - has made a splash lately with its big straw poll and its role in helping Howard "Duck" Dean jump ahead of the pack.
Political operatives see MoveOn as the wave of the future, a way to reconnect ordinary people to politics. As [Democrat wonk Scott] Rosenberg put it, "They really are at the cutting edge of a new model for how citizens participate in the political process." But he adds, "If they end up becoming a vehicle behind a single candidate, they are not adding a lot of value anymore to the political process."Indeed. While the Atlantic article fairly breathlessly fawns over MoveOn and the johnny-come-lately Moovies, they do make note of one other Internet reality - shenanigans are everywhere (even after you factor out the fact that MoveOn's organization is sleazy::
Other campaigns complained that the MoveOn primary was rigged in favor of Dean. "The Dean campaign is fabulously organized on the Web," Walsh said. "When Salon writes a story, either pro or con Howard Dean, we hear from people immediately." But why the rigging charge? For one thing, MoveOn director Exley has done work for the Dean campaign. Moreover, after a straw poll of members, MoveOn allowed three "preferred" candidates—Dean, Kerry, and Kucinich—to send e-mail messages directly to its membership. Guess what? They were the top three vote-getters.Guess what else? Conservatives, seeing Howard "Duck" Dean as a McGovern for the 21st Century, bum-rushed the MoveOn poll. Even *I*- and, says my email, some of my readers - voted for Dean!
Unmentioned in any of the stories I've seen from the left that lionize MoveOn and the Moovies: that the traffic they got during their poll (or, to be more accurate, that they're getting now) would fit neatly into the background noise for any of the major conservatives sites. And conservatives have been using the Web to organize for longer, and (unlike the slick, heavily-financed MoveOn site), at a much more grassroots level. Here in Minnesota, the Concealed Carry campaign was run primarily on the Internet - CCRN's website (not technologically updated since about 1997) was a gateway to an email newsletter that grew to be the second-largest in Minnesota, and was a very effective tool for mobilizing the concealed-carry movement that shocked the state last spring.
Prediction: After the '04 election, the Moovies will, themselves, "move on" to different toys. "MoveOn.org" will eventually let their domain lapse, and by early '06 the domain name will have been hijacked by a group of porn-site owners.
Whacked - It hasn't happened yet - but it's only a matter of time before I encounter a Democrat who believes, as does Charles Rangel, that killing Qusay and Oday Hussein was illegal.
Volokh, as usual, has the goods:
I don't know if there's been any authoritative interpretation of this order -- and remember that it's just an Executive Order, and to my knowledge violation of such orders with the approval of the Executive (i.e., the President) is not a crime or otherwise actionable -- but in any event, does it apply here? I can't imagine that the order was meant to apply, or was understood as applying, to the killing of the members of an enemy military organization in time of war. That's what you do in a war: Kill enemy soldiers. Sometimes you kill them in battle, sometimes you send special forces to kill them by surprise. Sometimes you kill the grunts, sometimes you kill the generals (and it's often both more effective and more just to focus on the latter).The next time a Democrat brings this one up, ask them - wasn't Clinton's Lewinsky-Eve Tomahawk attack the same thing?
Not that it matters; this, like the Yellowcakes non-story, is just more evidence that the Dems are panicking.
Back To Work, For Now - Two more days onsite, then a few days working at home. Nice little project - should pay about a month's bills - and stretch my unemployment another month.
If I were to get one of these jobs a month, with maybe an extra thrown in occasionally for good measure, life would be relatively liveable.
Otherwise, it's pucker time. I'm waiting for word on several jobs, including the dream gig (which is taking forever to decide on third interviews).
Quagmire Index Revised - The word is out:
Now that Saddam Hussein's sons are dead, a panel of journalists has revised the official Iraq Quagmire Index. According to the new benchmark, all violence against Coalition troops should cease immediately, since Uday and Qusay Hussein are gone.Scrappleface reports. You decide?
Studies of American news consumers show they appreciate the Quagmire Index because it eliminates the need to consider and remember numerous facts. For journalists it saves time, and bypasses the discomfort of careful news analysis.Satire?
What Was Your First Indication? - The PiPress headline says it all: "Some Fear Dean May Be Next McGovern".
Bruce Reed, who served as President Bill Clinton's chief domestic adviser and now directs the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, said the other day: "A campaign based on telling the left everything it wants to hear would be a disaster in the general election. ... Dean has thrown his lot in with a neo-McGovern crowd, and what that crowd likes about him is what the rest of America won't like."Dick Polman, the Philly Enquirer writer for this story, hints at the divide in the Democrat party that's floating Dean at the moment - the big, maybe unbridgeable, split between the Volvo Democrats and the Chevy Democrats:There are concerns that Dean's visceral anger at Bush would alienate the moderate and independent voters who tend to decide national elections, because those voters don't appear to dislike the President. And there are concerns that Dean, a New Englander who opposed the Iraq war and signed a bill legalizing gay civil unions, would be wiped out in the South - which means that, to beat Bush, he would need to win 70 percent of the electoral votes everywhere else.
Dean is the insurgent outsider in this race. The Democrats usually have one: Gary Hart in 1984, Paul Tsongas in 1992, Bill Bradley in 2000. They generally attract the party's white, well-educated, professional voters - but as Dunn, a former Bradley aide, warned, "They often can't attract the blue-collar workers and less-educated voters. Hart couldn't. Neither could Tsongas or Bradley. Can Dean reach them?"In theory, maybe - he's not that far left on many issues that genuinely matter to the blue-collar voter.
But as long as the war is perceived as successful among the blue-collar Americans that provide a disproportionate number of the troops, his anti-war stance is a boat anchor.
And I think the next six months or so will see Iraq start to settle down, and the post-liberation chaos start to form itself into some sort of order.
Reaction, Action - If there's one thing the US military has learned since World War II and Vietnam, it's that planning has to be flexible. The enemy - whoever he is - is constantly acting to derail your plans. And intelligence, being an uncertain, fuzzy field, frequently causes plans to be based on faulty assumptions.
Change is not only good, it's unavoidable - if you're smart.
This WaPo article shows some of the process the Pentagon's gone through.
Until early June, when the Army launched the first of three major offensives in the an area known as the Sunni triangle north and west of Baghdad, U.S. officials didn't fully grasp the extent of Baathist resistance in the area, one Army official said today.It occured to me during the Dash to Baghdad that the traditional culture clash between the left and the military played a small but signficant part of the problem. Both the military and the left are all about plans; the left's plans are usually inflexible documents that focus on visions; the military's plans tend to be more living, evolving things. When a plan of the left goes awry, it's because things are truly off the rails. When a military plan goes wrong - at least, under current doctrine - it is designed to be adapted while in progress.The first offensive, dubbed Peninsula Strike, wasn't aimed so much at Baathists as at hostile remnants of the Iraqi military that remained active in the Sunni town of Thuluya, on the Tigris River between Baghdad and Tikrit. Yet when captives from that operation, from June 8 to 15, were interrogated, they began shedding unexpected light on the role that Baath Party operatives were playing in the region in supplying weapons, recruiting fighters and financing attacks on U.S. troops and bases, officials said.
Later in June, the next offensive, Desert Scorpion, began with scores of simultaneous raids aimed at, among other things, shutting down escape routes available to the former Iraqi leaders. It also went after the secret hoards of cash and jewelry that were financing their operations, and it sought to gather more information about the size and structure of Baathist resistance in the Sunni triangle.
That series of raids yielded information on what analysts said was a surprisingly large network of Hussein loyalists. "We call it the gang of 9,000," said a senior Army official, adding that that figure was just an estimate of the number of Baath Party operatives, former intelligence functionaries and their allies active in the Sunni region and in Baghdad.
Of course, not all is lost for the left. The post notes that opportunity waits around every corner:
Despite their recent success, U.S. military officials here caution that the fighting is far from over, and they predict that the nature of the attacks could worsen. They worry that the more they succeed, the more desperate Baathist remnants will become. So, they fear, the next phase of attacks might rely more on car bombs and other terrorist methods than on direct attacks on U.S. forces. Two officials here this week, for example, expressed concern about the possibility of an Oklahoma City-like bomb attack on U.S. officials and Iraqis working with them in the capital.Well, Howard Dean has to hope so, doesn't he?
(Via Powerline)
Sonset - Qusay and Uday buy the farm.
Says Den Beste:
I think it indicates a significant chance, perhaps as high as 1 in 4, that we'll also bag Saddam himself in the next couple of weeks. First, whatever source fingered Qusay and Uday may also have provided information about Saddam's whereabouts. Second, prisoners and physical evidence from the site of yesterday's raid may give clues as to Saddam's whereabouts. Third, this may panic Saddam into moving, and perhaps into giving himself away.But the real question (Thanks, PJZ) is, what does this mean to the Nine Dwarves and their stealth antiwar campaign? We hand it over to James Taranto.Fourth, and perhaps most important, someone else who sees the news about this raid may decide to finger Saddam for us.
We hear from John Kerry:
Kerry said he voted for the resolution with the understanding that the administration would build an international coalition before attacking Saddam Hussein's forces."And it also depends on what the meaning of the word "is", is", he may have added."It seems quite clear to me that the president circumvented that process, shortchanged it and did not give full meaning to the words 'last resort,' " Kerry said in a 20-minute conference call with reporters.
And from Dick Gephardt:
"Foreign policy isn't a John Wayne movie, where we catch the bad guys, hoist a few cold ones, and then everything fades to black," Gephardt, who supported the war in Iraq, said in remarks prepared for delivery to the San Francisco Bar Association.Word has it that the Hussein kids would have been killed faster with kindness."Diplomacy matters. Burden-sharing matters. Follow-through matters. And yes, sustaining the peace is harder, more complex, and often costlier than winning the war itself," he said. "No matter the surge of momentary machismo--as gratifying as it may be for some--it's short-sighted and wrong to simply go it alone."
And finally, Howard "the Duck" Dean:
"It's a victory for the Iraqi people," he told reporters, "but it doesn't have any effect on whether we should or shouldn't have had a war."Look for the presidential approval rating to start bouncing back shortly.In comments covered by the Associated Press, the disgruntled Democrat added, "I think in general the ends do not justify the means."
Despite the good news for America, Dean tried to stick to his sour-grapes message, complaining that his Democratic rivals shouldn't have supported the war.
"Why is it that those in Congress have waited until now to question the intelligence?" he whined. "Why were they not asking these questions and seeking the truth nine months ago, before they voted to give the president blank-check authority to go to war?"
Off To The Races, Contract Edition - First day at another of those little two-week jobs at a major local corporation today. Posting will be nonexistant until tonight.
See you then!
Just Watch - Now that the "Bush Lied" story is losing its legs faster than a Walmart end table in a freshman dorm, watch for the "Why Iraq, and not North Korea" story to make a return.
By the way, you're hearing all about the "expert" prediction that the North will have eight nukes by year's end. The seven-second soundbite doesn't emphasize the name of the expert making the claim - William Perry, who was defense secretary and a special envoy to North Korea under, in both cases, Bill Clinton. The administration that got us into the mess with the North in the first place.
Perry shows a case of creeping Ritterism:
Only last winter Perry publicly argued that the North Korea problem was controllable. Now, he said, he has grown to doubt that. "It was manageable six months ago if we did the right things," he said. "But we haven't done the right things."Did he do this because he "hoped the administration" would act? Or just to give more political ammo to whichever Democrat wants to come out of his appeasenik shell first?He added: "I have held off public criticism to this point because I had hoped that the administration was going to act on this problem, and that public criticism might be counterproductive. But time is running out, and each month the problem gets more dangerous."
The timing is interesting, that's all.
Speechless - This is just too wierd.
Democratic Party stalwart Barbra Streisand will be welcoming a Republican president home.I hear Sheryl Crow will be playing Phyllis Schlafly.Her husband, actor James Brolin, has been cast as Ronald Reagan in a four-hour CBS miniseries titled "The Reagans," set to air during the November sweeps period.
Dingellfritz - Powerline has some excellent expository commentary on this exchange between Ward Connerly and Rep. John Dingell (D MI).
The whole exchange is fascinating, of course. Money quote from Dingell:
The people of Michigan have a simple message to you: go home and stay there. We do not need you stirring up trouble where none exists.Connerly's response is a work of art - see the Powerline guys for much more. I liked this part:Michiganders do not take kindly to your ignorant meddling in our affairs. We have no need for itinerant publicity seekers, non-resident troublemakers or self-aggrandizing out-of-state agitators. You have created enough mischief in your own state to last a lifetime.
your advice is the echo of southern segregationists who sought the comfort of states' rights to practice their discrimination against black Americans. Have you learned nothing about "civil rights" from that horrible chapter in our nation's history?Read it all, of course. It's a good primer on the coarseness of public debate today, as well as on what a wonderful thing it will be when the generation that includes Dingell, Maxine Waters and some of the Congress' other racialist demigogues finally passes from the political scene.There is such an eerie similarity between them and you that it bears comment.
George Wallace, Lester Maddox and others who shared their rabid and abhorrent views believed in treating people differently on the basis of skin color…and so do you.
They wanted to practice their brand of racism free from the interference of “meddling, outside agitators”…and so do you.
They called those who disagreed with them and merely wanted to exercise their right to assemble “carpetbaggers” and “non-resident troublemakers” who were “stirring up trouble where none exists”…and so do you.
They were arrogant and intolerant bullies…and so are you.
Your letter is a prime example of why the texture of civil discourse in our nation is so coarse. It is an indication of why Members of Congress need the police to intervene to separate them from fighting. What a terrible example for our children and our grandchildren.
Saint Paul School Board - The Saint Paul Green party endorsed Richard Broderick to run for the Saint Paul School Board.
Now, I have nothing against Greens; if you leave out their la-la foreign policy, their rabid-rodent anti-capitalism, their myopia about "social justice", their marriage to multiculturalism (which is really repressed hatred of Westernism), their galloping double-standards about world cultures, their hatred of achievement and puritanism about food and lifestyles and public morality, they actually have a few good ideas about participatory grassroots politics (which, as it happens, the Libertarians had first).
But this press release bothers me. There's a lot of little, piddly points - the type of thing that I'll nick any Green on.
And then you get toward the bottom, to the genuinely scary stuff.
Here it is:
July 20 -- The Green Party of St. Paul has unanimously endorsed Richard Broderick for the St. Paul Public Schools Board of Education.Leave aside for a moment the hilarity of the notion that public education is "democratizing" (it's modeled after the old Prussian system - any system that requires eight year old boys to sit in straight-backed chairs for six hours a day is not "democratic". But that's another subject).Twelve candidates have filed for the School Board race. The top eight vote-getters in the September 9 primary will move on to the November general election, where the top four vote-getters will be elected to the board.
Broderick has lived in St. Paul since 1986. He is a journalist and teacher at Anoka Ramsey Community College and the Loft Literary Center. A Minnesota State Arts Board fellow, recipient of three first place awards for journalism and commentary from the Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists, two first-place awards from the Minnesota Publishers Association, and numerous other awards for his writing, he is the father of two students currently enrolled in the St. Paul Public School System.
He is running for School Board, he said, because he believes that "public education is one of the most powerful -- and one of the last -- great democratizing institutions in America today." He says that he wants to protect St. Paul's public school system from attacks mounted by the forces of privatization, while also pressing the Superintendent's office to be more responsive to the needs of teachers, students, and parents."
No, the notion that the public schools are "one of the last" democratic influences in our society is one I'd like to ask Mr. Broderick about some more.
Other specific proposals he plans to present include calls for reforms in the district's food purchasing system to favor locally produced, whole, natural, and organic foods;Has anyone done any sort of cost-benefit analysis on this?
a severing of corporate ties that undermine intellectual freedom;This is lunacy. While everyone's up in arms about the Channel 1s of the education world, I think it's a fair bet that there are plenty of private, "corporate" involvements that enhance "intellectual freedom".
In the meantime, "intellectal freedom" is the last thing that all too much of the public school system wants - least of all Richard Broderick, if the Green Party's press release is to be believed. But more on that in a bit.
...a School Board veto over tax-increment financing and other sweetheart deals between the city of St. Paul and developers that rob financial resources from the school district;Read taht again. Broderick and the Greens want the School Board to have a veto in the City Council.
Is this making sense yet?
...development of curriculum in non-violent conflict resolution and creation of student-run conflict resolution committees in each St. Paul public school;Student conflict resolution is an idea that can work - given that the students have access to genuine democracy in other parts of their school life. Without that, though, it's like giving fully functional municipal courts to the Burmese.
expanded, direct teacher, student, and parent input to the Board of Education;I'd love to know what they have in mind for these (I asked, in the forum in which this release was originally posted). I won't hold my breath.
and conversion of the district to renewable energy sources.Again - the costs and benefits, please.
Now - here' the part I think is either scary or hilarious:
"The core principles of the Green Party -- ecological wisdom, grassroots democracy, social justice, and non-violence -- are all rooted in a categorical rejection of exploitation and domination as acceptable means to our ends in life," Broderick said. "In order for our society to adopt these values -- as it must, if we are to survive on this planet -- we need to nurture the instinctively Green consciousness of our young people through the comprehensive application of these principles to curriculum, instruction, administration, and district-wide decision-making processes.Read that again. Broderick sees the school system as the place to "nurture the instinctively Green consciousness of our young people", using the "curriculum, instruction, administration, and district-wide decision-making processes."
I'm not sure about you, but I don't want school board members "nurturing" my kids' political consciousness, Green, DFL or Republican. I want them to teach them to read, do math, reason critically, appreciate our culture and be good citizens. Let them nurture their own consciences, thank you very much.
Greens - what do you have to say about this?
Filthy Lucre - In my never-ending quest to make this site turn even a minuscule profit, I've joined the small cascade of other blogs to start offering merchandise.
Click the "Shop In The Dark" link on the right side of the page to check out the SITD Swag. We have:
By the way, if the prices seem high - sorry. I've set my cut as a very small portion of the nut that Cafe Press charges. I'll hope to make up for it in volume.
Only five shopping months 'til Christmas!
Everybody's Doing It - Blogging, that is. Even my son, Sam, the little comic-book fan.
Their Finest Hour - I've said it before. America has it all over so many countries in so many areas. We should be proud of what we, as a people, have wrought.
But there is one area where America trails our friends in Britain; political oratory.
The British Pariliament is a tumultuous, clamorous place. If a speaker can't move the (often hostile) crowd with the force of his or her oratory, they marginalize themselves. It behooves an MP to become good at oratory.
Some Americans get it, of course; Reagan, Clinton, Kennedy, all had their moments. Some more than others.
But the British political tradition stresses great oratory - and pols like Tony Blair deliver.
It seemed, as I listened to it, to be more than just a great speech. It felt like the tide began, every so slightly, to turn against the naysayers, the anti-US cultists that have bogged down our national agenda for the last two months.
Sullivan said it well:
This is what the carpers and nay-sayers still don't understand. The West is at war with a real and uniquely dangerous enemy. When the consequences of negligence become catastrophic, the equation of intervention changes. The burden of proof must be on those who counsel inaction rather than on those who urge an offensive, proactive battle. Does it matter one iota, for example, if we find merely an apparatus and extensive program for building WMDs in Iraq rather than actual weapons? Or rather: given the uncertain nature of even the best intelligence, should we castigate our leaders for over-reacting to a threat or minimizing it? Since 9/11, my answer is pretty categorical. Blair and Bush passed the test. They still do.But hearing it from Blair was so much more reassuring than hearing it from, say, Bill Frist.
On the Road - More posting tonight. Or tomorrow.
Or Monday.
See you then!
Pacifists - I've rolled my eyes in disgust at the moral equivalency shown by many liberal American churches - the Catholics, the Lutherans, and my own Presbyterians. A devout Christian, I am also a realist; Einstein's "You Can Not Simultaneously Prepare for Peace and War", a Twin Cities bumpersticker meme, is belied by the real-life stories of Norway, D