July 31, 2007
LOCKED AS TIGHTLY AS A DRUNKEN IRISHMAN'S MOUTH
Sorry for the quickie today, but my lease is up and it's final move-out time.
I'd like to call the world's attention to this SF Gate story about the ironclad security of electronic voting machines. It appears that in a recent simulated exercise, state-sponsored teams of hackers (CS professors, private citizens, etc) were able to infiltrate, take control of, and alter data in the electronic voting machines used in many California counties.
I tell my students the following about EVMs: imagine that I gave an oral final exam. I read the questions, and the students gave me a verbal answer. When the test ended, I'd tell them "OK, that was a C-". No additional information, no record of what they did right or wrong, no way to review or re-evaluate the answers. Just an outcome. That's electronic voting in a nutshell. I may have to update the anecdote, however, to include the possibility that random computer hackers could infiltrate me (!!!) and dictate the mysterious grade at which I'd arrive.
What explains the fascination with switching over to EVMs? They're not cheap. They're not reliable. They're not secure from manipulation by outside parties. They don't reduce the number of poll workers required. There's just no compelling argument for them beyond "There are some problems with paper ballots" and a 1950s-ish awe at the wonders of technology that assumes anything with a plug to be superior to its non-electrical counterparts.
July 30, 2007
SEEING AMERICA, ONE ARBY'S AT A TIME
Henry Miller once said "You can travel 50000 miles in America without once tasting a piece of good bread." While this may not have been the case when he said it, today his quote is true mostly because one can travel 50,000 miles without finding anywhere other than Subway at which to dine.
I've driven all over this nation many times in the past 10 years, and if I have one useful piece of advice to give road-trip planners it is to stay off of the Interstate Highways as much as humanly possible. Most readers can no doubt relate to the experience of taking long drives on I-80/90/5/Whatever and the crushing boredom that inevitably results. Like one of those cheap old Hanna-Barbera cartoons in which the animators re-use the same background endlessly, Interstate drives are a stultifying repetition of gray concrete peppered with a BP, McDonald's, Subway, and so on every 3 miles. It is possible to drive from Boston to Los Angeles on the Interstates without seeing a restaurant that is not in your home town.
If getting somewhere in a hurry is your objective, the Interstates are clearly your best bet. This is true. It is true for the same reason that the drives are so boring: the Interstate highway system is a massive military project, designed largely with the goal of moving large amounts of cumbersome, bulky military hardware (and personnel) over long distances in a short time. If one were to look up the legislation establishing the system in 1956, it bears the revealing name of the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956.
[sarcasm]Like all good things[/sarcasm], our military leaders got the idea from the Nazis. American commanders in Europe were stunned by the efficiency of the Third Reich's blitzkreig tactics, which relied heavily on the rapid deployment of highly mobile mechanized units. This was aided in no small part by the reichsautobahn which linked every major city and border point in the country. With the transport capabilities of aircraft still in their infancy, moving men and material relied on ground transport or rail (an infeasible option once aerial bombing advanced to the point that railroads could be easily disrupted).
Like our space and rocketry programs (thanks, Operation Paperclip!) the American plans for a highway system relied on German expertise and experience. The plan was simple: a standardized grid of four-lane (minimum) highways with a cleared, flattened median and shoulders and no curves sharper than 15 degrees. The soft curves (and maximized number of straightaways) allow today's drivers to use the highways without ever having to brake - there are no points at which, for example, one must drop to 30mph and take a sharp corner. The original purpose of this feature was to permit the transit of plodding, poorly-maneuverable equipment like tanks, artillery, and half-tracks. The practical effect today is that drivers can practically fall asleep or pay no attention to the road but still do 75.
The cleared median and shoulders, which today are the primary cause of the extreme boredom and featurelessness of Interstate driving, also have a military purpose. While it is an urban legend that the Interstates were designed as runways for bombers, they were in fact intended to allow the emergency landing of smaller fixed-wing aircraft as well as ground transport of large equipment that would overhang the sides of the road. One can hardly move a fighter jet down the highway if the median is full of trees.
In short, the highways were not in fact designed because the government was concerned about finding you a better way to get from Kalamazoo to Lubbock. While the Interstate system has functioned as a massive subsidy to American car culture (one that the gas taxes right-wingers bitch about don't even begin to cover), it was designed with the sole intent of getting Marines from South Carolina to California in a hurry and keeping open the flow of warheads from Pantex to SAC-Omaha once the nukes started flying. Over time, of course, the development of massive cargo aircraft like the C-5 and C-130 has substantially reduced the system's military usefulness. Nonetheless its military origins have left an imprint that is still felt strongly today, and it is this legacy you can thank every time you realize you have fallen asleep behind the wheel yet are somehow still on the road and doing 70.
As Charles Kuralt said, incorporating Mr. Miller's idea into his criticism of the highway system on aesthetic grounds, "The interstate highway system is a wonderful thing. It makes it possible to go from coast to coast without seeing anything or meeting anybody. If the United States interests you, stay off the interstates." Truer words never spoken.
July 29, 2007
FORKS, ROADS, AND MANIC STREET PREACHERS
Well, a couple of things.
I'm back from my 4000 miles of driving in 9 days, which in my world qualifies as a fantastic vacation. Fortunately the pleasant Boy-I-Feel-Better buzz lasted all of about 15 seconds when I got back.
My employment has once again been yanked out from under me (if you're keeping score, it's gone Funding - No Funding - Funding - No Funding in the span of 8 weeks). You'd think that the presence of a signed contract would have prevented this latest episode of fundlessness, but our university apparently has a very novel interpretation of what a signed contract really means.
Thanks to Mike for holding down the fort while I was gone. Unfortunately, that was Mike's last hurrah on ginandtacos. He is off to start his own blog. I encouraged him to simply post here more regularly instead, but I was unpersuasive. I will of course direct you toward it as soon as it's up and running. Ginandtacos was something that Mike and I started many years ago on many an evening among the model soldiers in Mr. Konczal's basement. It's going to feel very odd to keep the ball running alone, although I've essentially been doing so for the better part of the last year.
Mike's humor and non-politics entries always provided an excellent balance to my ranting. Without that, I'm afraid that ginandtacos will cease to be entertaining pretty quickly. Absent any counterbalancing posts about Boston Legal, ginandtacos will take on the uncomfortable feel of a lunatic roaming the sidewalks shouting at random passersby.
Basically, I'm tired and I don't know if I have the energy for it. Having excelled at every form of failure lately (with special achievements in the fields of Career and Relationship) and lacking many remaining friendships, these long, rambling entries make me feel like the electronic equivalent of the guy who stands on the quad with a microphone yelling about Jesus. Having my real life go into the shitter makes pontificating on the internet seem a bit ludicrous. Like a fat person lecturing others about diet and exercise, the sociopolitical commentary of a tenuously-employed 28 year-old with no friends seems pointless at best and hypocritical at worst.
If any regular readers would be interested in doing some content here, let me know via email. I'd like to keep it running but I think that will necessitate having someone else share part of the load and take some of the edge off. If this site is going to continue, I don't want it to continue as a bile-flavored popsicle. The call goes out for someone slightly less polemical than I. Takers?
July 26, 2007
Anti-Work
I really had a lot to do at work today. How was I supposed to know the Procrastination Fairy was going to show up and whisper this in my ear: "Mike...what if I was to show you a video of Zach Galifianakis lip-synching the newest Kanye West single, on a farm, while occasionally riding a tractor and wearing an absurd robe, while Will Oldham dances in the background? And even better, since it is an official Kanye West video it is hosted on a site not-blocked by your work filter, you can watch it all day."
I said "No such thing could exist! That is too much awesome to be able to be streamed on the internet tubes!"
The Procrastination Fairy replied: "Oh, but it does."
I walked into work thinking I wasn't going to watch Zach echo Kanye's desire to stop spending so much money about 200x while my boss kept walking by, but sometimes I fall short of my ideal self. Seriously, like 200x times.
(I can understand you may find that link retarded; that's fine, but I'm not going to call you the next day if you do. It's not going to work between us.)
Two excellent books about Chicago and its underclass.
Two of the best books I've read in the past while have been on Chicago and its underclass - Off The Books and Courtroom 302. I'd like to discuss them with you below the fold.
Off the Books is by the sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh. Sudhir immersed himself in a poor unidentified area of Chicago (which is probably the Robert Taylor Homes), and here examines the underground urban economy. He looks at how people get by in abject poverty, forming relationships, making decisions, trading and working. Why do so many legitimate businesses rent out their back rooms to gangs? What are the police and the religious community able to do to help/hurt the causes of the citizens? Why do prostitutes hire pimps?
The tone is academic, and it runs a bit long. However there is something in there for everyone. The sociologists will love the roles people play in their neighborhoods, and how putting on a pastor's robes or a gang-colored hat causes you to accept some responsibilities while negotiating your own means (the sections on pastors "taxing" jobs they get people, or accepting sex from prostitutes are shocking on the first read).
It also has a lot to offer the economist in all of us. Sudhir worked a lot with Steve Levitt in graduate school, co-authoring the paper that become the "Why do Drug Dealers Live With Their Parents?" chapter of Freakonomics, as well as several other very interesting half-ethnographic, half-economics papers on gang life. These papers (especially that last one), get worked into the discussion.
Some people love the micro-economics of it; how to people manage risk, trade, bargain, and make micro-finance decisions. I love the overtones of macro general equilibrium - even in the poorest parts of America economic forces take control and a status quo develops that is impossible to move without structural change. Asking poor people to break out of this themselves is as silly as thinking I can move gas prices with my mind (or better, by pulling on my bootstraps).
If journalistic writing is more your thing, I can't recommend Courtroom 302 more. It is written by a Chicago Reader reporter name Steve Bogira, and it is the result of Bogira being given one year of full access to a courtroom at the notorious 26th and California courthouse. From the way inmates are treated, to how pleads are encourages, to how interrogations and arrests by the police are handled, to how community concerns play out in the Courthouse, this book pokes its flashlight into every corner.
And what ugly corners there are. Forget Law and Order. Though not at all theoretical (it reads like a series of great investigative reporting), it is very easy to read it this way. The book shows how cynicism rules and how criminal justice is really a Foucauldian matter of managing, collecting and moving bodies. It starts with a chapter on what it is like to get dumped at the holding cells of 26th Street (the chapter is excerpted here, do read it), and from that point forward it is how the system can churn through people like a waste management system.
The book gets a strong blurb from Robert Caro, and in many ways it follows his method of drawing you into strong personalities to look at giant systems. Bogira gives everyone a voice, and you see how otherwise good (or indifferent) people are caught turning the gears of what comes across as an inhuman and unjust machine. You get to hear all about the torture investigations of the 1920s, and how they are the same shit that goes on in the 70s, and today (most disturbing, you learn about the tradition of getting mentally retarded people to sign confessions, which is evidently easy to do). You read about a connected mob guy's son beating a 13-year old black kid for walking in white-Bridgeport and how community activists across the city (and country) pressure the case (which ends up in 302). And lastly you get to see the Kafkaesque nightmare that the War on Drugs has become. This book is incredibly worth your time.
July 25, 2007
Walmart and Public Shame
Walmart has officially taken to engaging in state-sponsored public shaming for shoplifters:
Earlier this year, Lisa King Fithian entered the self-checkout lane at the Wal-Mart store in her hometown of Attalla, Ala., with a lava lamp and a pet playpen. According to court documents, she then failed to scan the two items, worth $26.97, to add them to her bill and tried to leave the store. Fithian, 46, later pleaded guilty to theft in court, although she maintained the entire incident was a misunderstanding.Fithian's sentence was unusual. The local judge, Kenneth Robertson, had been thinking about shoplifting penalties that would be different from the fines and brief jail terms, which tend to be ineffective. He talked with the local Wal-Mart Stores manager about having Fithian go out in public with a sign around her neck declaring her crime. The manager, Neil Hawkins, gave the green light. So one Saturday Fithian wore two sandwich-board signs that declared, "I am a thief; I stole from Wal-Mart."
Since then, this town of 6,859 has become a real-life experiment in whether shaming can reduce shoplifting. More than 20 people have endured the modern-day version of The Scarlet Letter in recent months...
Wal-Mart executives have been debating the optimal shoplifting policies for its stores...But earlier this month, it decided to get more aggressive.
The article is an interesting read. Two things to pay attention to:
1) If you are a taxpayer you should be very pissed. Cops, Lawyers and Judges have to be mobilized to do nonsense work for Wal-Mart when it should be doing things like dealing with domestic abuse, murderers and drunk drivers. All to deal with the menance of some 13-year dipshit stealing a Linkin Park CD, whose bulked margins are insured against.
2) As anyone who has worked in, or around, low-wage jobs, can tell you, most theft is from a company's own employees. And the industry certainly believes this - 50% of theft is from employees (and 20% from vendor fraud or general errors). And Why shouldn't they? Poor wages, shitty benefits, 70% turnover, low prospects of advacement - it is the ideal situation for employee theft. Costco offers a higher wage rate, has a tenth of the employee turnover and (surprise) has almost zero (~.2%) loss rate here. (Of course it is harder to steal [the bulk] items from Costco, bit its loss ratio is ~10% of walmart; shop-lifting can't explain all of that).
Shaming in the public sphere is a great way to distract attention, and distracting from their scorched-earth employee relations tactics is exactly what Wal-mart is in the business of doing. And it does it well.
Subprime meltdown.
This entry may be boring for many of you, but I'll teach you how people can lie with statistics and graphs near the end. So the housing market is in free-fall; Countrywide Financial, the largest mortgage underwriter, just announced to analysts that "Home price depreciation at levels not seen since the Great Depression" and the market will be hurting till 2009. (This effects spreads across the whole market). And that is the optimistic picture. Speaking of optimism, the Fed just released a neat graph in its recent report:
So 12% of subprime (risky, to low-income people with bad credit) loans are currently being foreclosed or are 90 days without a payment. Think about that for a second. 20% of loans sold in the past two years are subprime. However the primes looks fine.
Here's the rub. Say, you have a mortgages in 2005. You get laid off (your job goes to India) and your kid needs surgery shortly after you lose your health insurance. You find a new job that doesn't pay as much, and now you have a medical payment each month. You call your bank and say you are worried about defaulting on your (prime) loan. Your agent says: "No problem, let's refinance you with a variable-rate subprime loan with great terms the first two years." You can make the payments until, of course, you can't, and you default two years later. This story is completely consistent with this graph - there's a shift of all loans away from the prime ones. For the past two years it has been impossible to default on a prime loan; you are just moved into the subprime category. Hence this skyrocketing of the default in subprime may actually reflect a collapse of prime loans.
Mutual Funds do this all the time. They collapse out their bad funds, and discontinue them, and move the money into the good funds - and just report their great returns on the good funds.
And in case you are wondering where all the foreclosures are going on, from the Big Picture (a great source for market news):
It is going to be a bumpy time.
July 24, 2007
EPIC
Actual conversation between myself and an employee of our fine National Park Service. Tuesday morning. El Morro, New Mexico.
(Ed enters ranger station, notes foul odor.)
Ed: "Pardon me, but something smells awful."
Ranger: "I believe that's you, sir."
(Ed pauses reflectively, concurs.)
Ed: "I see. Well, good day to you."
Like it's my fault I haven't showered in 4 days. And have cumulatively walked about 25 miles in desert heat. Someone offer me a shower and I will gladly take it.
Thanks again to Mike for holding down the fort in my absence. I look forward to getting back this weekend. And showering.
July 23, 2007
Love in the handicapped stall; Denny Crane.
Old news: a Republican State Representative in Florida, Bob Allen, was arrested the other week for soliciting a male undercover cop. Allright, these things happen to married Republicans; I imagine it has to be quite the stressful time to be an elected Republican. But when I heard about this, I caught that the officer who arrested him wasn't undercover on a gay hooker sting operation. Instead, he was undercover on a robbery sting. Huh? Luckily PageOneQ has the police report:
"I observed Allen walk into the men's restroom [in a public park]... I then observed Allen leave the restroom and walk towards a park bench. I then entered the bathroom to adjust my police radio. On my way out of the restroom I almost bumped into Allen who was on his way into the restroom again. Allen changed his course of direction when he saw that I was leaving the restroom and went back towards his park bench. I talked with the other officers again and then entered the bathroom and began washing my hands. Allen entered the the restroom behind me and proceeded into the first stall."I realized there were no paper towels to dry my hands so I walked into the handicap stall to dry my hands. As I stood in the stall drying my hands I observed Allen look over the door of my stall and make eye contact with me. Allen then stepped away and then came back to the door of my stall and looked in, making eye contact with me again.
"I said 'hey buddy' and Allen said 'hi' and then stepped away again. About 5 seconds later Allen pushed open the door to my stall and stepped inside. I was standing against the far wall of the stall. Allen closed the door behind him and stood against it. I said 'What's up?' and Allen again said 'hi.' Allen then said, 'this is kind of a public place isn't it?' I said, 'do you have somewhere else we can go?' Allen said, 'How about across the bridge, it's quiet over there.' Allen engaged me in a conversation in which it was agreed that he would pay me $20 in order to perform a 'blow job' on me. Allen stated that he wanted me to ride with him across the river before he performed the act and gave me the money. Before entering Allen's vehicle I identified myself as a police officer and detained him."
Two things of note.
1) Not being gay, maybe I'm missing an essential piece of this puzzle, but do you really have to pay someone to perform oral sex on them? Dan Savage thinks that is very common for the situation, but seriously? You'd think you could give that away.
2) Anyone watch Boston Legal? The powerful, rich, Republican named partner of the law firm, Denny Crane, is played by William Shatner. In one episode, he tries to pick up a woman who is an undercover cop, who believes he had solicited her (he also believes her to have only one leg and really wants to have sex with her because of that, but that is besides the point). Denny, in one of my favorite moments of the show, goes to the Judge at trial something close to: "Judge you know me. I have hookers all the time. They come to my hotel room, and I pay them a lot." Picking up a hooker on the street, for $20 no less? Please, I'm a Republican!
Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer my Republicans much more like that. Hotel, mirror full of cocaine, and prostitutes, all charged to an oil company lobbyist's petty cash fund. This is what the GOP is reduced to? Trolling public park bathrooms, muttering like a crazy person, following men into handicapped (!) stalls? For shame. The party really is in decline.
I do think Bob Allen should hold a press conference where he drops the Denny Crane line though.
July 22, 2007
NPF Followup
I'm impressed by the readers who have finished the Realdoll documentary movie, and I'm a bit embarrassed by not having finished it myself. This weekend was my birthday, and I have needed to avoid hangover/headache inducing activites, so the rest of the video will have to wait a bit longer before being finished.
And I forgot about the two-handed broadsword.
Some people have mentioned the question as to whether the people in the video are either less or more of a threat to women now that they spend their free time acting out sex crimes on an inanimate object. Do Realdolls keep them locked up voluntary in their house (de facto prison), or is it just practice for the real thing? Would it be ethical to give Ed Gein a Realdoll, or would the Realdoll just make him an even more energetic (and efficient) monster?
Luckily an economist from Clemson University wrote an interesting paper about this with porn. It has that weird air of autistic thought that economist get (the kind that defines porn as a non-rivalrous, non-excludable public good with potential positive externalities), that I love but can be very off-putting. He looked at reports of rape incidents and correlates them against % access to the internet by time in communities after controlling for all the usual suspects of variables. Here's the abstract:
The arrival of the internet caused a large decline in both the pecuniary and non-pecuniary costs of accessing pornography. Using state-level panel data from 1998-2003, I find that the arrival of the internet was associated with a reduction in rape incidence. However, growth in internet usage had no apparent effect on other crimes. ... These results, which suggest that pornography and rape are substitutes, are in contrast with most previous literature.
I love natural experiments in economics, and this is a pretty good one. The study finds a 10 percent increase in Net access yields about a 7.3 percent decrease in reported rapes. The normal problems that you have with statistical studies of this sort are all accounted for - and the results are glaring in the data. It may also explain part of why teenage births have decreased since the mid-90s. (It doesn't handle long-vs-short term issues of watching porn, and if you see porn itself as analogous to rape, there is another critique to be had.)
For what it is worth, and the author himself positions himself against this view quickly, but what the hell (It's 1:30pm and I'm still hungover): whenever we have goods with these qualities we tend to think the government should be in the business of helping to provide them (markets underallocate them). And other substitute goods for criminal goods are applauded in society (afterschool programs as a substitute against gang recruitment, for instance). I suggested to someone (they were naturally horrified) that $5K of our tax dollars for a realdoll purchase voucher, in exchange for a voluntary registration as a sex offender (and maybe one of those lowjack monitor ankle things) is significantly better deal that what it "costs" if he acts otherwise. I don't think any politicians are going to run on that platform though (A Chicken in Every Pot! A Realdoll in Every Closet!), though it would be kind of neat.
July 20, 2007
NPF: The Scariest Horror Movie Ever
One of my favorite old posts on ginandtacos is Erik's take on the realdoll community, as it was presented to us by a salon.com article that started a whole Internet meme fest on what it means to spend over $5,000 on a masturbation toy. Realdolls, in case you don't know, are 'realistic' looking rubber dolls (see picture of 'davecat' below) that cost a large sum of money, that tend to get purchased by people who are acting out a relationship with them. Do read the ginandtacos post, it includes some great comments from the readers.
One thing that was linked to in the article was, from the Realdoll's webpage, was the Realdoll FAQ (not work safe). It is quite disturbing to read, as it quickly switches from (real examples) "Question: What sort of people buy REALDOLL? Answer: REALDOLL customers include ...scientists, health professionals, housewives" to questions such as " Question: Tell me more about the doll's entries. Answer: The inside of the Vaginal and Anal entries use a different grade of silicone than the rest of REALDOLL's body..." - you don't want to go any further. It goes from normal to disturbing quickly. As Erik put it in his entry: "I honestly could not read any more than a fraction of it before I had to close the browser."
Eventually we all started daring each other to read it, and the entire FAQ was read, and though it was years ago, it still freaks me out to think about it. And now there is this:
"Guys and Dolls" (hat tip to feministing). Evidently someone wasn't satisfied by reading a salon article and making fun of these losers; they had to go even further and sponsor a British documentary crew to interview as many subjects as they could find and investigate the factory. The video is 46 minutes and it is virtually impossible to watch. It is like the Realdoll FAQ to the tenth power. It is probably the best accidental horror movie ever made.
So have any of you been dared, or dared someone to watch a horror movie? Junior-high sleepovers, "What are you, chicken?!?!?" For Politics-Free Friday, my dare to you audience, is to start watching and note what time and/or event freaks you out to the point where you had to stop watching. I tried, and I mean I tried to finish the thing (I am in fact daring you), but my on my first try I could only make it to minute 15 when a guy from Virginia starts showing off his collection of AK-47s and Mac-10s along with his realdolls ("that's three [automatic] guns and two realdolls I own..."). He waves a glock in the air above a Realdoll taking a "nap" in his bed, and talks about the Mac-10 he "would carry around". It is way too much. In the first couple of minutes you get to see Davecat (goth kid above) mention something like "the problem my dad has with her is that she's not alive" in my-dad-is-a-bigot-teenage-righteousness way.
The second try I made it to minute 20, where you get to see the factory where the dolls are made, and the endless torsos and pelvic areas hanging from chains or moving along assembly lines is like something out of a slaughterhouse. Forget Saw and J-Horror flicks, this is seriously the most disturbing horror movie I've ever seen.
Harry and Learning.
Hi all. This Mike pinch hitting for Ed while he is on vacation for a week.
Literature Professor Michael Berube's blog, sadly closed since the beginning of 2007, was one of my favorite things on the internets. Luckily he still shows up online here and there. The Common Review has just posted a new essay by him about his experiences with the Harry Potter series, and how the series has enriched the life of his son Jaime, who has Down's Syndrome, by helping him to understand what is going on with narratives.
It expands on a series of posts from his blog about this topic. Berube chronicles about how his so-called "retarded" son learns to understand stories as stories through Rowling's books, and how he uses that to reflect on a range of issues. If you are a fan of the books or lit crit or education, special or otherwise, check it out.
Also - go see the new "Order of the Phoenix" movie if you haven't already - it is the actual summer blockbuster movie event, rivaled by Ratatouille and Live Free or Die Hard*. They did a fantastic job taking what was probably the worst book to adapt; its is almost as good as the third movie, which stands as my favorite. Side question I've been asking people: Alan Rickman as Snape or as Hans Gruber - which do you prefer?
* - My enjoyment of this movie was amplified by seeing it opening night at midnight with several flasks of whiskey, and playing a game where we had to drink every time we could make the statement "John McClane killed that man by means that weren't solely with the use of a gun." That is a good game to play to that movie.
July 19, 2007
NEOCON LOVE BOAT
Today's entry is very brief as I am simultaneously packing for a week of vacation and packing to move when I return. I'll have my laptop and, rest assured, I will be posting bile from the road. You'll also hear a little more from Mike over the next week to pick up the slack while I'm gone.
You really need to read this. If you ever wondered what kind of people go on the National Review Carnival Cruise, well, it's the kind of people who say:
" Of course, we need to execute some of these people.... A few of these prominent liberals who are trying to demoralise the country," she says. "Just take a couple of these anti-war people off to the gas chamber for treason to show, if you try to bring down America at a time of war, that's what you'll get." She squints at the sun and smiles. "Then things'll change."
In some ways, the crowd on this $1200-$6000 cruise is exactly how you'd imagine it - elderly, fat, completely white (save for the busboys and Uncle Tom Connerly), and with strongly-held belief systems that are utterly impervious to facts. But on the other hand, the crowd is a little bit more out there than I expected. I mean, there's a lot of talk about killing people. Kill the liberals, kill the intellectuals, kill the Muslims.....
It's pretty amazing how these people just abandon all restraint once they think they're among their own. Every comment in this article reeks of people enjoying a seven-day stretch during which they can stop being so darned PC and start speaking their minds. Seven days in which the Constitution and the Geneva Convention and the ComSymps and the Liberal Media and the rules of decency don't apply. This, my friends, is why the rule of law must apply to those in positions of power. The alternative is what you see here in this week-long mini-experiment in uninhibited conservatism: intellectual children (violence solves everything!) with six-figure incomes plotting to kill their "enemies" and anyone who tries to stop them.
July 18, 2007
ED VS. LOGICAL FALLACIES, PART 4: CUM HOC ERGO PROPTER HOC
It was not until I started this little exercise in logical fallacies that I realized just how easy it would be to knock them down, one by one, simply by reading neoconservative opinion columnists regularly. Analogies about fish and barrels come to mind. Thank god it's so easy, because reading this shit is just painful. Analogies about hot pokers and eyes come to mind.
Bill Kristol is a logical fallacy with pants. There are so many things that make me laugh about this column that I can hardly focus on its formal flaws. But let's start with his textbook use of cum hoc ergo propter hoc - the "correlation equals causation" fallacy. In his latest I-can't-fucking-believe-the-Post-pays-for-this-and-prints-it column, Kristol goes far enough to make even his staunchest allies wonder if he's in the ether. Let's look at his stunning logic at work:
Let's step back from the unnecessary mistakes and the self-inflicted wounds that have characterized the Bush administration. Let's look at the broad forest rather than the often unlovely trees. What do we see? First, no second terrorist attack on U.S. soil -- not something we could have taken for granted. Second, a strong economy -- also something that wasn't inevitable. And third, and most important, a war in Iraq that has been very difficult, but where...we now seem to be on course to a successful outcome.
And then, just when I think I have choked through the worst of it, Kristol drops the bomb:
What about terrorism? Apart from Iraq, there has been less of it, here and abroad, than many experts predicted on Sept. 12, 2001. So Bush and Vice President Cheney probably are doing some important things right.
There have been no more incidents, so Bush and Cheney "probably are doing some important things right." Ladies and gentlement, the Washington Post printed this. This man is a multi-millionaire, he gets to spew his bullshit on TV every day, and he has a direct phone line to the White House. Ignore (for just a moment) that points two and three range from complete fabrication (the economy is strong!) to mere delusion and willful misinterpretation of facts ("we now seem to be on course to a successful outcome.")
I'd rather focus on the first part: no domestic terror attacks since 9/11. Why? In KristolWorld, we've avoided this fate thanks to George Bush, the War on Terror, invading Iraq, and so on. No terrorist attacks + George Bush is president = George Bush's actions have prevented terrorism. Let's run with Bill's "logic" here. Since 9/11, the White Sox have won the World Series. The price of gas has exploded. Neil Patrick Harris came out of the closet. Pluto ceased to be a planet. Mickey Spillane died. George Bush is responsible for all of these things.
I'll leave this rather simple, self-explanatory fallacy alone now. But I'm not done having fun with Bill yet. You might want to take a glance at the comments on that Post website. There are more than twenty-five hundred comments. As far as I can tell (and I admit I didn't read all 2580 of them) the thematic range of the comments starts at "This makes no sense" and tapers down to "Bill Kristol is out of his goddamn mind."
He then stretches his legs to do a little fellatio on Gen. Petraeus - a common neocon talking point these days. Why are they laying it on so thick? Well, they have two months until the September deadline for evaluating if the "surge" is working. And they're going to use that two months verbally turning the guy into Jesus Christ and Patton roled into one....so that when he says the surge is working, well by golly we'd better believe him! Finally, and this is when he really gets into the cough syrup, the GOP has the Democratic Party right where they want it. The odds of a Republican sweep in 2008 simply couldn't be better!
What it comes down to is this: If Petraeus succeeds in Iraq, and a Republican wins in 2008, Bush will be viewed as a successful president. I like the odds.
Well the right-wing talking heads have already pre-ordained the "Petraeus will succeed" part - just talk about the guy like he's an infallible genius, and then all he has to do to succeed is say "I have succeeded." Combined with the great odds that our next president is going to be Fred Thompson, Bush is going to be positive fawned over in the history books.
Given that Bill Kristol has been wrong about every single goddamn thing in the last four years (the talk of sectarian strife in Iraq was overblown "pop sociology") it's really amazing that he continues to make these kinds of predictions in print. I guess it's easy when no one in the media ever calls him out on his abject stupidity...and they keep writing him checks to squeeze out more brown, sludgy lumps of brilliant prognostication.
July 17, 2007
OK, LET ME GRAB MY CHECKBOOK
(I apologize for the limited length and scope of today's entry. I can assure you that I will make up for it tomorrow or Wednesday with a piece that will push your endurance to the limit.)
I think my favorite part about the massive settlement checks that Catholic diocese around the country are writing out lately (with disturbing regularity, I might add) is that no one seems to blink twice at their ability to pay. This weekend, the diocese in Los Angeles agreed to pay a staggering amount - a record $660,000,000 - to more than 500 abuse victims. If you don't think that's fair, I'd strongly encourage you to watch the documentary Deliver Us from Evil. You can see Roger Mahony squirm on camera as he attempts to explain why a priest who confessed to raping dozens of children as young as 18 months old (think about that for a second) was transferred from parish to parish to parish without a word of warning or explanation over 20 years.
That's a pretty daunting amount. And yet the diocese will pay it, just like they doled out $86,000,000 in Boston a few years back on account of Bernard Law's habit of using unsuspecting parishes in a game of "Hide the NAMBLA Member" with pedophile priests under his authority. Sure, they will do some whining about how they have to sell off property to do it, but....does it strike anyone else as a little odd that a church has that much money lying around? It reminds me a bit of the old Onion classic "Pope Asks to be Taken Off List of World's 100 Richest People."
The fact that one single diocese can come up with $660 million (although insurance is paying about 40% of that) gives the lie to the estimate that the church's overall net worth is about $5 billion globally. If individual diocese like Boston and Los Angeles have enough non-essential property to readily raise a hundred million or so (mind you, they're not selling churches - this is just their assorted real estate holdings) then, worldwide, the assets must certainly be beyond even the largest estimates.
Don't worry, though. I'm sure it won't take long for word to filter down from the Vatican that more parishes should follow this example and take refuge in Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. That will spare them from having to sacrifice any of their office parks - clearly a steep punishment for allowing priests to fuck kids for decades. What it won't stop them from doing, of course, is cajoling the faithful into coughing up more of their paychecks. If one were to resort to the rhetorical device of asking What Jesus Would Do, I'm fairly certain that the answer would not be "Hide the church's massive financial empire behind federal bankruptcy laws to avoid having to take child rape cases to trial."
July 16, 2007
2 X 2 MUST SOMEHOW EQUAL FIVE
It was with considerable sadness that I received the news of James D. Barber's passing back in 2004. Barber is a well-known political scientist whose most important work deals with presidents' "character." Essentially, he psychoanalyzes the presidents from afar. It has its flaws (quite obviously) but it is still canon. Not only do I rely on Barber as an important component of teaching the young'ns about the presidency, but I desperately wanted him to live long enough to have to deal with George W. Bush.
Barber divides presidents into four personality categories based on two dichotomous components: Are they active or passive, positive or negative? Active-positive presidents (FDR, Clinton, JFK) show high levels of confidence and move past failures easily. Passive-positives (Reagan, Taft) are genial but get wounded very easily; they detest conflict and need to be everyone's friend. Passive-Negatives (Eisenhower, Washington) are reluctant, hands-off presidents who do the job only out of a sense of duty. Lastly, Active-Negatives (LBJ, Nixon) are entirely resistant to change, see "enemies" everywhere, and refuse to get over (or abandon) failed policies.
Let's just say you don't need to take my entire course to figure out where George W. Bush belongs in Barber's typology.
It has been interesting to teach the course for a couple of years. Originally, the College Republicans in the audience would argue that Bush is Active-Positive. After all, he does propose a lot of very big ideas (most of them terrible, of course) and seems relentlessly positive. As time goes on, the students who argue that seem to be disappearing. The key, defining characteristic of the Active-Negative category is the refusal to abandon failed ideas coupled with paranoia and secrecy. The consensus seems to be that Bush belongs there. Barber would agree. Believe it or not, I am starting to think everyone is wrong.
Reading the most recent column by former Reagan/Bush 41 apparatchik Peggy Noonan really got me thinking...can Barber's analysis even handle someone like W? Noonan says:
As I watched the news conference, it occurred to me that one of the things that might leave people feeling somewhat disoriented is the president’s seemingly effortless high spirits. He’s in a good mood. There was the usual teasing, the partly aggressive, partly joshing humor, the certitude. He doesn’t seem to be suffering, which is jarring. Presidents in great enterprises that are going badly suffer: Lincoln, LBJ with his head in his hands. Why doesn’t Mr. Bush? Every major domestic initiative of his second term has been ill thought through and ended in failure. His Iraq leadership has failed. His standing is lower than any previous president’s since polling began. He’s in a good mood. Discuss.
...Fair enough: Presidents can’t sit around and moan. But it doesn’t look like an act. People would feel better to know his lack of success sometimes gets to him. It gets to them.
Presidents never fit squarely and cleanly into one of Barber's little boxes, and we can't expect that W will. But Barber's analysis presumes a lot of things about its subjects. It presumes that, for the most part, our presidents are sane. They may be awful people (Nixon, LBJ, etc) who get boners from belittling people and neurotically see "enemies" everywhere. They may be jerks. They may be inept. What they are not, Barber assumes, is out of their goddamn minds.
When I see the way this president acts - and the complete absence of doubt in public or even in private - I'm convinced that there's something wrong with the guy. Here is a president who experiences failure after failure, a man whose decisions have caused untold death and suffering (not to mention leaving our national finances in an absolute shambles). He's essentially hated by everyone who is not a hardcore, unmovable Republican loyalist. And yet he's on top of the world. He's happy. He's convinced that he's well-liked. He brags about how well he sleeps. He constantly goes on vacation. Optimism and the ability to brush off failure is one thing - a complete disconnect from reality is another.
I look at the reality in which Bush finds himself and I cannot help but think this is not how a normal person would act. That's a weak line of argument, as none of us can judge (especially from afar) how someone "should" react. But I can't help it. Honest to god, how can anyone face the failures that face the president - and the knowledge that it's entirely his fault - with that fucking smirk on his face?
Whoever continues Barber's work will probably take the path of least resistance and lump him in with Nixon and the Active-Negatives. Is that possible, when Bush acts like this is all a great big joke to him? That's what makes him truly unique. Nixon didn't spend his press conferences laughing and plying the press corps with Dumbass Fratboy Humor. I don't recall seeing a smile on LBJ's face anytime after 1965. But George W. Bush feels just fine despite that pesky war and those dirty liberals who obstruct his plans to privatize everything between here and the moon. I half expect that if he addressed the Iraqi parliament he'd crack a few jokes and, perturbed by the lack of response, ask "Why all the long faces?"
July 15, 2007
THE MYSTERIES OF CHESSBOXIN'
So Friday night at Pitchfork Fest was definitely worth $20 and a drive. I couldn't entirely turn off the social commentary track that runs on a loop in my head, though. Even while rocking out.
First of all, and this bears emphasizing, it was very well-organized for a festival. I hate festivals. They are almost always somewhere between a clusterfuck, a fire drill in Chinese, and a backyard abortion. Even though the crowd easily filled a very large park area (I'm bad at estimating crowds but I'd guess somewhere around 5000) the entry/exit was easy and there were plenty of bathrooms, water, first aid, and so on. High-five to pitchfork and the Chicago Park District. Most festivals resemble historical re-enactments of the Fall of Saigon. This didn't.
Second, as much as I enjoyed the GZA tearing through Liquid Swords, it felt more than a little odd to me. Something about a couple thousand white kids throwing up W's, chanting Wu-Tang, and smoking large amounts of drugs (which no doubt routed their way to Naperville through the black communities on which they are a cancer) was discomforting. Not to mention that the performers must have felt a bit like an anthropology exhibit for the thousands of current and soon-to-be grad students eager to show how deeply they Understand Other Cultures.
To wit (and you have to give GZA the 2007 Knowing One's Audience Trophy), large portions of the crowd seemed as though they were hearing Liquid Swords - easily one of the best albums of the decade - for the first time. When they encored with an ODB tribute / cover of "Shimmy Shimmy Ya" the crowd practically ejaculated on itself in unison. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate ODB more than most. But it had a sad sort of "Let's play something they recognize so we can get out of here" feel to it. The experience was not improved by the simultaneous flashing of 5000 cameraphones and a collective "I can't wait to blog this on MySpace" thought-bubble.
And in case you were wondering, Sonic Youth still bores me to fucking tears.
July 13, 2007
OUR WORK FILLS THE PEWS
I'm in a particularly tuneful mood on this No Politics Friday (tm), as I am about to drive to Chicago for Pitchforkfest. Friday night only, but what a Friday night - Slint (Spiderland), GZA (Liquid Swords), and Sonic Youth (Daydream Nation) each playing one of their albums start-to-finish. Alas, I cannot stick around for Battles, Mastadon, and Yoko Ono (Not performing together. Were they, I think I would pretty much have to see that.)
Occasionally, in celebration of what phenomenal taste I have, I will make some suggestions that may enrich and broaden your musical spectrum. Some of it is old, some of it is brand-spankin'-new. Most (but not all) of it rocks an awful lot, so if you're not into that sort of thing you may need to rely on other websites for a supply of emo bitch yodeling. If you're bored on Friday afternoon, you love stealing media files off the interweb, and often wonder "How can I make myself a better person?" then have at this mix.
1. The Cows, "Mas-No Mas" - Whorn (1996)
2. Don Caballero, "Don Caballero 3" - What Burns Never Returns (1998)
3. Dead Prez, "I'm A African" - let's get free (2000)
4. Drive Like Jehu, "Future Home of Stucco Monstrosity" - s/t (1991)
5. The Bled, "Hotel Coral Essex" - Found in the Flood (2006)
6. The Chariot, "Yanni Depp" - UNSUNG (2006)
7. Public Image Ltd, "Four Enclosed Walls" - Flowers of Romance (1981)
8. Parts and Labor, "Fractured Skies" - Mapmaker (2007)
9. Trenchmouth, "Power to the Amplifier" - Inside the Future (1993)
10. Strike Anywhere, "We Amplify / Blaze" - Exit English (2003)
Enjoy. Guys, when you master this list (plus any other musical suggestions I provide) and find yourself neck-deep in pussy, feel free to thank me. Nothing gets the ladies throwing themselves at me quite like my urbane, trendy tastes in inoffensive music.
July 12, 2007
STRANGE BEDFELLOWS
Since absolute security is unobtainable (except at an unacceptable cost in terms of individual rights) it is inevitable that the United States will be the target of another terrorist attack at some point in the future. It may be tomorrow, or it may be thirty years from now. It is bound to happen. When it does, there will be two very happy groups of people: Islamic fundamentalists and American neoconservatives.
I'm starting to get downright alarmed at the eagerness with which these people are begging for more terrorist attacks to validate their idiotic worldview. They just can't wait. They're likely on their knees praying for it on a nightly basis. It's both alarming and, in a twisted way, impressive to see people so committed to an ideology that they're willing to pay for its validation with American blood. To wit:
“[C]onfronting Iran in the Middle East as an absolute linchpin for our success in that region ... between now and November, a lot of things are going to happen, and I believe that by this time next year, the American public’s going to have a very different view of this war, and it will be because, I think, of some unfortunate events, that like we’re seeing unfold in the UK.”
Gee Rick, either you know something we don't or you're actually excited about this "big chance" to prove that you were right all along.
"At the end of the day, I believe fully the president is doing the right thing, and I think all we need is some attacks on American soil like we had on [Sept. 11, 2001]," Milligan said to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, "and the naysayers will come around very quickly to appreciate not only the commitment for President Bush, but the sacrifice that has been made by men and women to protect this country." (emphasis added)
It's good to have one's priorities in order. The first order of business is to personally vindicate George Bush. Let's hurry up and have a few thousand additional Americans killed in a terror attack.....so people will stop denigrating our Dear Leader. It's an awfully convenient thing for the chair of the Arkansas GOP to want given that there is nothing in Arkansas worthy of being attacked by terrorists (sorry, Al Qaeda does not focus on mineral baths and Wal-Mart's home office). So his calculus is simple: some big city people die - hey, no big loss! - and he gets a talking point.
Terrorism isn't going away anytime soon, and I bet it's going to be really hard for some of these people to feign sorrow when next it happens here.
July 11, 2007
2008 SENATE RACES: INTRODUCTION
Before our nation finds itself balls-deep in the upcoming presidential election, let's take a moment to focus on the race to control the most important chamber. In many ways the presidential election is of secondary importance. The composition of the Senate will be far more determinative in several key areas like court appointments and the length of the new president's leash on Iraq.
Rather than diving into specific races today, let's start with an overview of the 33 Senate races as a whole. To put it mildly, the Republican Party has an uphill battle in 2008. Of the 33 Senate races, 21 are currently held by the GOP. Given that the chamber is currently 50-50 (for all intents and purposes) it represents incredible bad luck to have 64% of the contested seats belonging to one party. The bad luck is compounded, of course, by the fact that the GOP has fallen on some hard times after riding a high wave from 1994 - 2004.
To whatever extent you find polling data persuasive (and there are certainly reasons to be skeptical), Democrats are solidly leading the GOP in the generics. Generic matchups tend to be some of the most unreliable polls, as more detailed survey work always finds that Americans hate "Congress" but love their Congressman. Nonetheless it is not an encouraging sign for a GOP hoping to re-take the majority.
The analysis for 2008 is complicated by the uncertainty surrounding the true "balance" of the current Senate. It's either 51-49 (counting Independents Sanders and Lieberman as Democrats, with whom they currently caucus) or 50-50. I argue in favor of the latter. The Democrats have a procedural majority thanks to Lieberman, but he has gone completely off the wagon on their agenda. Holy Joe is now essentially a Republican or, at best, a sniveling unknown on whom the leadership can't rely. In a way, both parties are trying to take the majority in 2008. The GOP obviously wants to regain a numerical majority, but the Democrats probably won't feel comfortable until they hold 52 solid seats (including Sanders). Not having to worry about appeasing Lieberman will be worth its weight in gold to the Democratic leadership. Right now he's the swing vote on every issue. With a slightly larger majority he'd be irrelevant.
For the GOP to re-take a majority, it would have to defend 21 seats successfully and then take two or three of the remaining 10 Democratic seats. I can't stress enough how highly unlikely (in historical terms) that would be, especially given the party's current lack of popularity. The good news for the GOP is that 10 of the 21 seats are in the south. The incumbents in those seats are essentially safe barring a catastrophe or retirement. Of course, the same is true for some Democratic seats (I consider 8 of their 12 seats safe - more on that later). So how many races are actually competitive?
There are currently seven races that show the potential to switch party control, and....well, our Republican friends may want to look away for a moment....five of those are currently held by the GOP. In addition to those seven, the Alaska race is teetering on the brink as 85 year-old Ted Stevens stands ready to be indicted. The seven competitive races are:
It may not be good news for those of you who lean to the right, but the fact is that the GOP is far more likely to lose a few seats in this election than to gain any. It is highly unlikely that they will lose 6 seats again as they did last year, but losing somewhere from 2 to 4 seats appears very likely.
There will definitely be some interesting races, but they'll have to wait for another day.
July 10, 2007
WELL, THAT WAS FUN WHILE IT LASTED
You can pretty much stick a fork in John McCain. His campaign manager, Terry Nelson, and chief strategist John Weaver just abandoned ship. On the heels of the news that McCain 2008 has a smaller bank account than Ron Paul 2008 (think about that for a second), I think it's pretty safe to say McCain is toast.
With the possible excepton of Gary Hart, I can't recall a presidential candidate going from front-runner (or at least well-respected contender) to laughingstock and failure in such a short period of time. It's really sort of impressive.
ED VS. LOGICAL FALLACIES, PART 4: ARGUMENTUM AD FOXWORLD
The final stage of the evolution of capitalism in western societies - agrarian to industrial, industrial to post-industrial - is self-parody. And we've reached that point. We now unironically celebrate a complete lack of job security as the market giving us "freedom." We rejoice that we've advanced beyond the primitive days when jobs had benefits. We return functions of the state (which can't be trusted) to the benevolent guardians of Wall Street (who can). We pat ourselves on the back for avoiding the horrors of European socialism - they'll never know the pleasure of $30,000 student loan debts while they take their productivity-sapping 6 week vacations. It has become self-parody; we take every pitfall of the unrestrained market and celebrate it as an achievement.
I mention this because of the parallel one could draw (and what the hell, I think I will) with the media. The final stage of their evolution - newspaper to radio, radio to TV, TV to cable, cable to internet - is self-parody. Look no further than Fox News - or, hell, any of the 24-hour cable competitors which now look shockingly similar - to see nothing short of a complete parody of journalism. All the while, more Americans get their Real News from a parody of the news than from the Real News itself. The Real News is the parody, and the Parody News is real. I think my cerebellum just fell out.
But stick with me. I'm going somewhere with this.
Now that outlets like Fox News have strayed so far from legitimacy and so deeply into parody, their job actually becomes easier. Once one has embraced parody journalism as journalism, worrying about credibility becomes unnecessary. In fact, it's downright counterproductive. Verifying sources, treating government sources skeptically, worrying about "facts"...all these things just get in the way of the new Parody Journalism. Who cares if the commentators don't "make sense" or their arguments aren't grounded in reality? That's so 20th Century!
No, our friends at Fox News (the highest-rated and therefore best network, for the market is the sole arbiter of quality) have led the charge into this final stage of evolution. They've done away with reality in its entirety and created their own: FoxWorld. Pity the old journalists, stuck in their ways, who can't adapt to the new reality - it doesn't matter what actually happens in the world since the job is no longer to report that. You simply decide what you want to say and then say it. Why limit oneself to stories that are actually about terrorism when you can just make every story about terrorism???
Following their example, I no longer feel it necessary to stick to actual logical fallacies so I make up my own: Argumentum ad FoxWorld. It is defined as an argument that is internally valid and logically consistent...in the alternate reality that Fox News has created. In FoxWorld journalism is about driving home an ideological message, so coming up with creative ways to do so is the highest accomplishment in the field.
I give you Neal Cavuto. Mr. Cavuto recently decided that, goddammit, he didn't want to have to choose between fearmongering about terrorists and bashing universal healthcare. In FoxWorld, those two things are actually the same issue! Isn't that amazing? Who knew.
Let's do a quick review of Mr. Cavuto's logic:
Therefore, universal healthcare would bring terrorists into the country. Why stick to debating the actual issues or reporting on real events when you can go from any topic to terrorism in five easy steps or less? I know that Mr. Cavuto's logic doesn't "make sense" and isn't really "plausible." To what extent his points do make sense, they require gargantuan leaps and unfathomably unlikely assumptions in order to connect them. But that's not the point. Fox has long since disregarded any concern about being considered legitimate and credible. Instead, they've embraced what they are and decided to take it to its logical extreme. So what we see here is everything that used to be antithetical to journalism - all of which is now desirable. The old pitfalls of journalism are now its noble purpose.
July 09, 2007
ED VS. LOGICAL FALLACIES, PART 3: ARGUMENTUM AD IGNORATUM
Ah, the argument from ignorance. It's my 'favorite' logical fallacy, inasmuch as it seems to be the go-to fallacy of the dumbest people making the dumbest arguments. It's the Nuclear Option of bad logic; when all else fails and every single shred of evidence is against someone's argument, you can rest assured that this bad boy is about to be whipped out.
An argument from ignorance is, quite simply, "There is no evidence for X, therefore not X" or "There is no evidence against X, therefore X." This fallacy is frequently paired with a sub-fallacy regarding evidence which holds that only direct observation can prove or disprove something. Combined, they make an extremely pernicious fallacy in politics because so much of what gets debated is not directly observable. We don't get to sit in on many White House meetings, do we? And we don't spend a lot of time eyewitnessing events in Iraq, do we?
I like to call this sub-fallacy the "red handed" fallacy, because it is often argued that unless you can provide first-hand evidence for something (even if it is well-supported by circumstantial evidence) then you must be wrong. If you can't produce a signed affidavit from George Bush stating that he didn't consider the potential for sectarian strife (or if you weren't in the room while they debated it), then the pre-war planning is unimpeachable. If you can't provide documented proof that pre-war intelligence was distorted, fabricated, or cherry-picked - something on the order of a video of Cheney saying "Let's lie about the intelligence!" - then they were telling the truth. If you didn't see a murder being committed, then you can't say that the accused is guilty (forget fingerprints, DNA, eyewitness testimony, or any other evidence). These arguments all rest on the assumption that if we can't directly observe X then we can't prove it...from which the leap to X being necessarily false is easy. For idiots.
Am I being unfair? Perhaps this is the kind of nonsense one only hears from Rush Limbaugh call-in guests and it's unfair of me to depict it as a larger problem. Well...
For instance, what specifically does it mean to say that the Iraq war has worsened the “terrorism threat”? Presumably, the NIE’s authors would admit that this is speculation rather than a statement of fact, since the facts suggest otherwise. Before the Iraq war, the United States suffered a series of terrorist attacks: the bombing and destruction of two American embassies in East Africa in 1998, the terrorist attack on the USS Cole in 2000, and the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Since the Iraq war started, there have not been any successful terrorist attacks against the United States. That doesn’t mean the threat has diminished because of the Iraq war, but it does place the burden of proof on those who argue that it has increased.
Ladies and gentlemen, that actually got published in one of the nation's widest-circulating and most well-regarded newspapers. Read it again. Honest to f'n Christ, that got printed. Not to be outdone (by himself, apparently) Kagan squatted over the national discourse, pants around his ankles, and pinched off this sludgy brown loaf of wisdom a few weeks ago: "The 'Surge' is Succeeding." His logic, in case you can't bring yourself to read the whole thing, is that we have no evidence that it isn't working, so it is working. Reading an extended 'argument' from Kagan is like swimming the backstroke through a 100m trench of broken glass and saltwater.
This is probably the most appropriately-named fallacy, since you can be quite certain that "ignorant" is a fitting adjective for anyone who makes this sort of argument.
July 07, 2007
GRAB SOME POPCORN
Oh, this is going to be good.
The injunction against publicly releasing the list of names in the "DC Madam" prostitution sting has been lifted by Federal Judge Gladys Kessler. A copy of the list is on its way to Citizens for Legitimate Government. I wonder if there are many nervous people in Washington this morning?
July 06, 2007
The Sum of Human Knowledge.
(Editor's Note: Welcome back Mike K, who brings us this week's No Politics Friday [tm])
Unlike some, I have no beef with Wikipedia. Such a source of collective information was going to happen on the Internet at some point, and the model they use strikes me as the best way to handle it. However there are two things that occur regularly on the site that get me laughing:
1) Absurd Entries. Entries that are treated as quite serious though their very existence creates a smirk on your face. There are Wikipedia entries for Cameltoe, Vaginal flatulence (Qweefs, as the kids say), Drunk Dialing, and Italian Beef. The real challenge the writers face with these pages is to make them serious enough to get past the vetting process; presenting all your sources for Cameltoes without having to stop from laughing is a feat in and of itself.
2) Geeked-Out Entries on Non-existent things. Entries that were written by people (a person?) so obsessive about their pop-culture loves that they start writing and don't know where to stop. I noticed this while looking at the Wikipedia entry for Megatron. Take a peek at that page - it is really detailed. And long. Hitting the "Print Preview" button told me that there was 27 pages (!) worth of detail on the Transformers villain. Thomas Jefferson only has 24 Pages.
This is also something that one can turn into a fun game - find an absurdly long entry on a geek staple and find another Wikipedia entry that is shorter. So the classic game for the Nintendo 64, GoldenEye (15 pages) beats out the entry for the Koran (13 pages). Pikachu (8 pages) gets a ton more space than the philosopher Jurgen Habermas (5 pages). The Predator (14 pages) has more pages than The 14th Amendment (12 Pages).
I can keep this up all day. The Lord of the Rings (20 Pages) beats out the The Dropping of the Atomic Bombs (19 pages). That episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where Angelus kills Giles' librarian girlfriend Jenny Calendar (10 pages) has more written about it than Four Quartets (9 pages), as well it should. And, god bless it, The Jedi (16 pages) beats out The Moon Landing (15 pages).
No entry on Roast Beef or the Jedi
One of the great things about Wikipedia is that work filters almost never block it, and you can still look quasi-respectable searching it if your boss walks by. I encourage you all to throw your favorite examples from #1 or #2 above into the comments section this Friday afternoon.
SCOOTER WHIPS IT OUT
His checkbook, that is.
Boy, our president was right: the fine was clearly a harsh enough punishment without the 30 months of jail time. It took Scooter all of about 12 hours to come up with the $250,000. Since he's worth a couple of million, I can only assume it took 12 hours because he had some other chores to take care of before running to the bank. Dry cleaning, perhaps.
How rock-solid is the logic on which the president's justifications rest? Well just watch White House Press office scrub/5th-stringer Scott Stanzel deftly field reporters' questions while offering full, transparent answers.
July 05, 2007
KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOR
Six months ago, looking at the GOP field of presidential nominees must have been about the most depressing thing on Earth for right-wingers. The big "name recognition" guy is an unelectable social liberal from New York, McCain set a velocity record for transitioning from Well-Respected to Living Joke, and Christian-right heavyweights were reduced to throwing their weight behind 5th-rate nobodies like Sam Brownback. I can't really blame them for grasping at straws to find a savior. So in rides Fred Thompson, a Knight in Shining Armor. To anyone who cares to look, however, his armor is so shiny because it is covered in layer upon layer of raw sewage.
Please take note of the Boston Globe's excellent expose of Thompson's intimate involvement with the only U.S. President less respected than the current one. I'm sure that neither Freddie or the GOP will be real eager to talk about his Watergate links, but I bet the facts will have some resonance with Americans old enough to remember that debacle.
In typical bizarro-world fashion, Watergate conspirators are folk heroes to Republicans (see also: North, Ollie and Libby, Scooter). It seems that if one breaks the law in support of a Republican president's efforts to do things that are patently illegal, that's good enough for beatification. Getting convicted of something, well that's martyrdom material right there. So, believe it or not, Freddie actually benefits among Neocons from his seedy Watergate involvement. He fought the good fight to defend the idea that the president is not only completely above the law but the sole relevant branch of government.
If that doesn't give Bill Kristol a massive, throbbing erection then I don't know what will. It's always dangerous to give the American public much credit for intelligence, but something tells me that arguing "I helped Nixon obstruct justice!" won't get the same amount of applause on the campaign trail that it gets at Federalist Society luncheons. But I'm sure that if Freddie T doesn't work out, some other knight in shit-covered armor will emerge. What's Chuck Colson doing these days?
July 04, 2007
PARDON ME, SIR
There is a lot of anger, and quite understandably so, regarding the President's decision to pardon I. Lewis Libby from his prison sentence. Obviously the move reeks of nepotism and backdoor deal-making but, oddly enough, this is one of the few examples from George W. Bush's presidency in which the Constitution is functioning as intended. Sort of.
When I teach my American Presidency course every year, I begin by emphasizing the various competing theories on how presidents actually manage to get anything done given the startlingly few powers granted to the office in the Constitution. The explicit, enumerated powers of the president in Article II are exactly six in number. Six. They are:
And.....that's it. If it weren't bad enough that they president gets so few formal powers, consider the fact that almost none of these powers can be exercised independent of other parts of the government. Think about it. Acting as Commander-in-Chief requires Congress to raise an army and (theoretically) declare war. Appoinments and treaties require Senate confirmation. Legislation is written by Congress and vetoes can be overridden. The pardon is the sole Executive power that can be exercised unilaterally and cannot be negated by the courts, states, or legislature.
So why did the authors of the Constitution, for all their latent fear of creating another monarch or an "Imperial Presidency," give the president the unchecked power to void the judgment of the judicial system and juries of peers? Hamilton explains in Federalist 74, one of my favorites (yes, I have favorite Federalist Papers. Shut up.)
The criminal code of every country partakes so much of necessary severity, that without an easy access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt, justice would wear a countenance too sanguinary and cruel...a single man would be most ready to attend to the force of those motives which might plead for a mitigation of the rigor of the law, and least apt to yield to considerations which were calculated to shelter a fit object of its vengeance.
Hamilton is speaking not only to the necessity of the power but also the justification for putting it in the hands of one man. His argument is logical and was quite persuasive at the time. It remains so today. He is saying, in essence, that the justice system screws up. The intervening 230 years since Federalist 74 seem to support that argument. And the risk of the executive abusing the pardon is a price Hamilton was willing to pay, because he feared the abuses of the justice system more.
What, then, did he believe would restrain the temptation to abuse this unitary power?
The reflection that the fate of a fellow-creature depended on his sole fiat, would naturally inspire scrupulousness and caution; the dread of being accused of weakness or connivance, would beget equal circumspection, though of a different kind.
And here we see why the system is theoretically sound but seedy in practice. If you put a man in the White House who has no scruples, no sense of the meaning of the word "caution," and large enough balls to completely ignore accusations of "connivance," the pardon will inevitably end up looking like a slush fund of get-out-of-jail-free cards for the privileged criminal class. Since Reagan, this is exactly what we've seen. Whether it's Bush 41 pardoning Iran-Contra felons, Clinton pardoning big-time donors, or Bush 43 pardoning his loyal ideological hitmen, we can see that the power to pardon is simultaneously functioning exactly as the founders intended and not at all how they intended. They wanted the power to be unchecked, and it is. That they wanted it to be used in the furtherance of cronyism is doubtful.
July 03, 2007
I HAVE $100 AND YOU HAVE A BIG PROBLEM
In one of my favorite pieces of stand-up comedy ever performed, Joe Rogan (I know, I know, but trust me: he's a good stand-up) tears into academic over-analysis of pornography and the adult entertainment industry. He says, in the character of a patron at a strip club, "The fact that I'm looking at you naked doesn't mean anything. It means I have a dollar and you have a bad job."
Looking at the terror attacks (although the media, if they had any objectivity, would refer to them as "attempted" attacks) in the UK over the weekend, I can't get Mr. Rogan's one-liner out of my head. Moments like these are usually moments of alarmism, evocative imagery, and grandiose pronouncements that This Is a Reminder of What We Are Up Against. Thinking specifically about the planned car bomb attacks (as opposed to the bizarre and seemingly pointless flaming-car-into-the-baggage-claim attack), anyone willing to be moderately reflective can see that it is a reminder of what we're up against. And why our current tactics are so utterly pointless.
Those car bombs, had they detonated (and Jonah Goldberg sure wishes they had!), would have killed many people. They would have caused fear, panic, anger, and suffering. And what were they, really? A car (I think those are fairly easy to come by in most western societies), a hundred bucks worth of gasoline, some barbecue grill propane tanks, and some penny nails. That is a good reminder. Not a reminder that we need to Surge or Stay the Course or any of that other bullshit. It's a reminder that we can throw all the technology, money, and propaganda in the world at this problem, but as long as one pissed off person remains breathing we'll meet the same problems tomorrow that confront us today.
In the Cold War mindset (which all too many of the current administration still have in their DNA) we could outspend, outsmart, and outproduce our way to victory. The Russians have X ICBMs, so we build 2X. They develop a tank, we develop a better, more powerful one. But none of that matters here. We Americans are accustomed, in both private and public life, to buying our way out of tight spots. When all else fails, our economic might carries the day (see: WWII). Here we are confronted with an enemy that has no physical form, no high-value targets to be aerially bombarded, no armor, no formations, and no uniform. We can't even identify the enemy let alone destroy it.
We can talk about taking out "important" leaders in Al Qaeda, but that supports the delusion that terrorists need Al Qaeda in order to function. The terrorists in London needed nothing. They needed seething anger and about $100. And every other person who wishes to do us harm can do exactly the same - no "network" or "training camps" or "experts" required. In about 10 seconds of google searching, even the most idiotic person could figure out how to make something that will explode and hurt people.
So we've fallen back into the trap that led to our biggest Cold War-era failures. We did just fine when we defined our objective as opposing the Communists (i.e. the Soviets). When we decided that our enemy was not the Communists but instead Communism, we failed (see: Vietnam, Africa, Central/South America, Korea, etc). And so it goes here. We've not declared war on terrorists, we've declared war on terrorism. Wars are fought against enemies, not ideas. Enemies can be killed, and you can negotiate with them. Ideas are indestructible. The next terror attack in the west might be committed by someone who, at this very moment, is not a terrorist. But once that idea, the idea we can't destroy, gets into his or her head, a new enemy might be born. Because ideas are both intangible and persistent, we fruitlessly run around killing today's enemy while the idea silently creates tomorrow's.
July 02, 2007
SICKO
So I took in Michael Moore's latest on Saturday evening. Some of the criticism the movie is receiving is deserved, and some of it is not. Please be warned that the following will contain some "spoilers" inasmuch as that concept applies to a documentary (hint: there is no universal healthcare by the end of the film)
Before I talk about the specifics, it's confession time. For 3.5 years prior to my graduate career, I was a manager at a collection agency that dealt solely with medical accounts. Nothing in Sicko shocked me. A casual viewer might be tempted (especially a casual Rush Limbaugh-loving viewer) to treat Moore's anecdotal evidence as mere anomalies in an otherwise functional system. I cannot stress enough how false that assumption is. We did not deal with uninsured people (neither does Sicko). What we did was simple. Joe has Insurance. Joe gets in a car wreck and needs $18,000 in surgery, ER, and rehab. Insurance investigators locate a technicality that allows them to retroactively void what Joe thought was a legally binding contract. Hospital returns money to Insurer, refers Joe's account to Collectors. Collectors take Joe's assets - liquid or extremely un-liquid (read: house, car, etc) to pay bill.
As you can imagine, this job did not make me feel particularly good. I graduated college with a lot of debt and I needed to make some money. Real money. It paid very well (as you might imagine, it is hard to get people to do such a job for very long). I do not, as the PI Moore interviews in the film stated, believe that bad-mouthing the system atones for my participation in it. Nor do my excuses excuse it. I'll probably be guilty about some of the things I saw for the rest of my life. Truthfully, I try not to think about a lot of it.
I digress. My point is that the tragedies Moore discusses - even though he certainly cherry-picked the available anecdotal evidence to find shocking and/or ludicrous examples - happen all the damn time. Every day. My personal experience is that the entire health insurance industry would like nothing more than to reject every claim they have ever been asked to pay, and there is no depth to which they will not stoop to avoid paying whatever they can feasibly avoid.
The criticisms of the film are, broadly speaking, as follows:
The crux of the film, in my opinion, addresses the American psyche moreso than the healthcare system. Why are we the only industrialized nation that lacks universal care? When we see Haves and Have-Nots, why is our reaction "the American dream" of succeeding and making sure we end up as a Have? Why do we accept massive amounts of bureaucratic interdiction in healthcare decisions (HMOs, mandatory pre-approval of services, denial of benefits) so long as those bureaucrats wear Aetna name tags rather than Government ones? Why do we believe that paying for something means we are exercising choice? Why do we bristle at the government telling us which doctor to see but call it a "free market" system when Blue Cross does so?
As I constantly remind my students, the fact that we have elections is not prima facie evidence that we have Democracy and Freedom and all that other happy horseshit. They had elections in the Soviet Union, after all. Likewise, the fact that we as Americans pay out the collective ass for the services of private healthcare providers does not mean that our system is, in even the loosest sense of the term, a "free market" solution.
Isn't that the grand dilemma in post-industrial America? We're so goddamn Free. And with that magnificent freedom - freedom from the government controlling our lives - we've chosen to privatize everything that wasn't bolted to the floor so that a handful of corporations can control our lives. We are a nation-sized insane asylum in which we, the inmates, are ready to fight to the death to protect our right to have a healthcare system we can't afford.
