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January 31, 2005

Our Young Blackshirts

USA Today reports that large numbers of American high school students favor curtailing press freedoms. Only 51% of students surveyed, for instance, believed the media should be able to print its stories without censorship; 36% believe the government should approve stories before they run. A third of those asked say the press has too much freedom. More details here.

If a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, a little knowledge about liberty is a threat to the nation.

Posted by Paul Musgrave at 04:31 PM | Comments (11)

India as Emerging Regional Power

Sumit Ganguly, a brilliant expert on India and international relations, writes this piece in The New Republic online about India's role in the post-tsunami humanitarian aid missions. Like China, India is taking a major role in the efforts to deal with the crisis; both countries, though technically "developing nations," are contributors to international efforts. India's case is the more remarkable, both because it was a victim of the tsunami and because it has overcome occasionally strained relations with neighbor states also hit by the wave. Ganguly highlights the degree to which Washington and New Delhi have cooperated over the cleanup and rebuilding programmes, a marked change from previous disasters. India's growing capability to exert its influence is a long-term trend that bears remembering.

Posted by Paul Musgrave at 04:27 PM | Comments (0)

Shoot the Messenger

Evolution News & Views (www.evolutionnews.org) is a new blog hosted by the Discovery Institute, which examines how issues surrounding evolution are addressed in the mainstream media. It is pro-alternatives-to-evolution, and seems very reasonable in its approach (as opposed to the strident or condescending tones often used by those arguing over evolution, intelligent design, etc.)

Through this blog, I learned of a current controversy regarding a paper in a peer-reviewed journal arguing in favor of Intelligent Design. As a Wall Street Journal editorial reported on Friday, the editor of the journal has apparently come under attack for publishing the paper. Dr. Richard Sternberg, a research associate at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, was ejected from his office and denied access to specimen collections he needs for his research. He is still employed at the Smithsonian, but has encountered a great deal of professional resistance, essentially being ostracized from the scientific community he was a part of.

In all the hue and cry raised over this paper, there has been a notable lack of attempts to refute the arguments made by its author, Dr. Stephen Meyer. Nor have the critics argued that the peer-review the paper received was somehow insufficient. (The WSJ points out that the paper was--quite significantly--"the first peer-reviewed article to appear in a technical biology journal laying out the evidential case for Intelligent Design.") The editorial argues that ID critics are using circular logic:

Critics of ID have long argued that the theory was unscientific because it had not been put forward in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Now that it has, they argue that it shouldn't have been because it's unscientific.

I think that's an oversimplification of why ID critics label ID as "unscientific." Still, the attacks on Sternberg (whose personal web page disavows any belief in young-earth creationism) are chilling. In short, the reaction of ID critics has been the antithesis of what one would expect from open-minded scientific inquiry.

The Evangelical Outpost has more.

Update: Balta responds, arguing that Meyer's paper was outside the proper subject matter of the journal. He also provides a key piece of information that I did not find in the Googling and link-following I did in researching this matter: After Sternberg had left his position as editor, the journal published a statement asserting that Meyer's paper was published "contrary to typical editorial practices." Sternberg disagrees with this statement on his web page.

Nevertheless, assuming both of the above are true, the alleged reaction by Dr. Coddington (see the WSJ editorial) is still disturbing, as is the museum curator who, having once offered a Jewish prayer for colleague about to retire, noted "So now they're going to think that I'm a religious person, and that's not a good thing at the museum."

Also, I object to Balta's mischaracterization of my post. He claims I am "taking another stab at trying to find someone to attack in order to say that the folks who believe in Intelligent Design are being unfairly discriminated against." First, where have I taken other "stabs" at this? Second, whom am I attacking? Third, I certainly did not go looking for an excuse to smear ID critics; the WSJ article (in which Sternberg's critics chose not to present their own side) tells quite a startling story, which I chose to bring to ITA readers.

Finally, even if Sternberg violated editorial practices, the sheer intensity of the reaction against him (and not against Meyer, the author of the paper) does seem to betray a certain bias. Far too often, neo-Darwinists choose to shout down their opponents rather than engage them intellectually. Granted, many creationists do a lot to provoke this reaction, but is it intellectually honest to treat all dissent from the consensus opinion the same way?

Posted by Eric Seymour at 12:43 PM | Comments (31)

Legislating Immorality

Germany to unemployed German women: Take a job as a prostitute, or lose your unemployment benefits. Yes, really:

Under Germany's welfare reforms, any woman under 55 who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take an available job - including in the sex industry - or lose her unemployment benefit.

Hopefully this is an unintended consequence of welfare reform combined with the legalization of prostitution in Germany. I expect that the outrage over this will cause German legislators to address this loophole, posthaste. Not even Old Europe could be so morally bankrupt...right? (Hat tip: Scott Tibbs)

Posted by Eric Seymour at 12:08 PM | Comments (6)

A nod to our sponsors

I wanted to take a moment to highlight some of the entities that help keep In the Agora ticking.

Michael Meckler, a respected journalist and historian, has created an insighful new blog that offers daily column on politics, religion, arts and current events. Check it out at Red-State.com. Meckler's commentaries are deeply informed by the humanistic and religious values at the foundation of Western civilization, yet Meckler writes without preachiness or partisanship, in a style often leavened with a wry, self-deprecating humor.

The United Nations Foundation would like to highlight two important projects. This first is its efforts to ensure credible and fair elections in Iraq. The UN was a significant partner in what appears to be a successful election thus far, but the effort isn't over and the UN continues its support. Second, the UN would like to set the record straight on its Oil-for-Food Program (OFFP) with facts and all the latest updates from the UN. The UN Foundation was made possible by a generous and historic gift from the Ted Turner Foundation.

Author Stephen Hicks, a Professor of Philosophy at Rockford College, provides a provocative account of why postmodernism has been the most vigorous intellectual movement of the late 20th century in his new book, Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault. Explaining Postmodernism is intellectual history with a polemical twist, providing fresh insights into the debates underlying the furor over political correctness, multiculturalism, and the future of liberal democracy.

Are you a conservative that wants to annoy your liberal friends? You can celebrate the Republican mandate and continue to savor the thrill of victory with the coolest GOP T-shirts and sweatshirts available. Visit FreedomStone.com for conservative shirts that also make great gifts for friends and family.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 11:20 AM | Comments (7)

Odd Answer

Catching up on some back issues of Vanity Fair and ran across the "Proust Questionnaire," a quick twenty plus question quiz for celebrities.

December's man in the ring was author Louis Auchincloss.

I haven't read any of his stuff, but obviously he's a hitter in the publishing world having now published his 60th book in his 87th year. So you have to figure that not only does he have wealth but also more importantly he's probably a worldly Renaissance man.

Here's one of the questions (sorry no link):

Who are your heroes in real life?

Mario Cuomo, Howard Dean.

Cuomo turned out to be a national lightweight and Howard Dean is a rank amateur. Dan Quayle could beat Howard Dean. So why does an 87 year old guy who has been around the block a few dozen times pick Howard Dean? Couldn't he have picked FDR? I admire a lot of politicians but I would never call one a hero of mine.

Weird.

Posted by PunchTheBag at 09:54 AM | Comments (2)

Chavez's Revolution

Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez is a rock star to the fifteen thousand socialists and Leftists gathered in the alternative world economic forum being held at Porto Alegre, Brazil, this week. The AP describes the affection which the 'activists' have for Chavez: "American Mike Fox, of San Francisco's Global Exchange human rights group, said Chavez has become the model leftist leader in Latin America."

And what is this very model of a modern Marxist colonel doing to earn his credibility with the anti-globos? The New York Times explains the first stage is an agrarian "reform" movement which seeks to divest the wealthy and the foreign of their landholdings (like practically all countries, most of Venezuela's land, and nearly all of its best, is in the hands of tiny, hotly resented elite). If this program were being carried out in, say, Britain or some other country with a long-established rule of law, the program would be on balance admirable. But Venezuela lacks that long-established legal tradition, and its government is without even the most basic tools of statecraft--Caracas doesn't even know how much arable land the country has, nor does it have a land title registry.

Phase two is more interesting. It is at once superficially more threatening to the U.S. while being more of a symbolic gesture. Financial Times writes that Iran will join Venezuela and China in a tripartite alliance to divert more of Venezuela's oil from U.S. markets to the Central Kingdom, which needs ever-more oil (and which has been inking deals like crazy to develop oil and gas reserves). Iran will provide technical expertise in how to market Venezuela's oil--most of which heretofore has gone to the U.S.--on the world stage. One Texas-based firm has been told to cease its exploration in Venezuela.

In a separate FT article, though, the newspaper analyzes Chavez's actions. His goal may be to undercut the U.S.'s position, the newspaper concludes, but the tactics he's chosen are unsustainable. Selling oil to China, for instance, sounds like a good idea--except that Venezuelan oil is too heavy to be refined in China right now, and the vast distances involved in shipping the oil means that the Chavez government is essentially subsidising Beijing's purchase. (The FT predicts Beijing will resell the oil on the world market for a small profit.) Chavez will persist as long as possible: "'The reason for the dispatch of these cargos is 100 per cent political,' said a trader familiar with the deals." Chavez thinks the U.S. is an empire bent on extracting as much wealth as possible from Latin America, and so he's positioning his country to stand with all the anti-Americna powers he can find.

So that is what the modern leftist Latin leader does these days: Cut off his nose to spite his face.

Posted by Paul Musgrave at 08:42 AM | Comments (3)

January 30, 2005

Local Knowledge Digitized

Egad! A9, the Amazon.Com search engine, has released a Yellow Pages service that features photographs of the buildings that match a given street address. It is increasingly wrong to worry about the government collecting data on you, and hoarding it in the NSA's archives; it is more likely that your most personal data will be placed for all to see on commercial databases hosted in Palo Alto. (It is, however, still permissible to worry about what the government--and corporations, and your ex-wife--will do with this information.)

Posted by Paul Musgrave at 06:27 PM | Comments (1)

Bill Gates is Wrong

Josh asked me to comment on a Bill Gates speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Gates takes as his thesis that China's low wages, intelligent leadership, low medical and legal overhead, and huge surplus labor pool has resulted in a new form of capitalism.

If past is prologue, Gates's adoption of this hypothesis is a signal that its day is waning. Gates famously came late to the Internet revolution, ignoring the Web until Netscape, AOL and a new host of Internet companies had succeeded in threatening Microsoft's core businesses. It remains to be seen whether the Giant of Redmond can fend off the challenges; I suspect, in the long term, that Microsoft will have to exit the businesses it today considers its core, and use its vast cash reserves to buy up expertise to remain profitable in newer, more competitive IT fields. The market has a logic all its own.

When Gates began turning Microsoft around, it was fashionable to speak of a New Economy. There has been a productivity revolution in the United States, and there will be an increasing effect as IT permeates our lives even more. (Does anyone live without a mobile phone today? And does anybody's cell phone only send and receive calls anymore?) But the fundamental logic of supply and demand, of micro- and macroeconomics, still hold. It is only that we can do more with the same amount of resources.

Similarly, Gates's description of China, and in particular his admiration for the brainy, reflective scholar-administrators of China (I really do not understand his thinking on this point), is reminiscent of previous claims of capitalism's overthrow. Always the predictions are tiresomely repetitive. Either it is the sudden scarcity or surplus of some material deemed crucial to the economy that threatens the system; the venality or saintliness of politicians or business leaders or both is often a contributing factor. Sometimes capitalism's demise leads to devastation and poverty, other times it is the first step on the way to that long-promised, long-delayed worker's utopia.

To respond to Gates's specific points: China's low wages will inevitably have to come up--the reports of workers' unrest in the Pearl River Delta, and particularly in textile industries, are signs that one way or another a new bargain will have to be struck. The surplus labor pool will continue to feed into the vast manufactories of southern and coastal China, but the government will not permit it to occur all at once--the chance for political agitations and disruptions is too great. Already we hear reports of massive disturbances in the country's centre. The legal overhead is increasing, too, as a new generation of hypercompetitive Chinese legal students begin to work to protect Western intellectual property and Chinese IP as well. And I can hardly see a real-estate market like China's ever become stable without scads of lawyers, like locusts, descending on the land. The medical costs, too, will rise eventually, as the newly empowered Chinese middle class seeks its satisfaction not in political, but in material forms, and particularly in the reduction of insecurity. Indeed, it is not only the bourgeois who will be concerned: A recent study showed that life expectancies in several Chinese cities are falling because of high pollution, and this is a situation few will tolerate for long.

Finally, China's leadership is neither unitary, nor saintly, nor all-seeing. There is always the chance that the People's Liberation Army or some clique will find it beneficial or ideologically necessary--or, perhaps, simply emotionally satisfying--to lead the mainland into a war with Taiwan, or--more remotely--Japan. Or a war could break out as the result of a miscalculation on the part of Washington, Taipei or Beijing. China's leaders act according to a host of motivations, but among those motivations is the desire of nearly all government officials: The desire to remain in power. This desire can come from a sincere belief in the justness of their cause, as well as from equally sincere but less laudable roots, but whatever its derivation it remains a guiding force in their calculations. And the mandarins of the modern empire will no more tolerate reforms that endanger their rule than Gates would allow Steve Ballmer to act independently.

Most importantly, Hayek and two generations of economists and political scientists have argued consistently and convincingly that planning does not work. China, I have been told, is more capitalist and open to markets than France--but for all that it is not yet efficient at accurately capturing and acting upon the information contained in its economy. In part this is because of a lack of capability: China's banking system, being reformed, and its capital markets and ownership structures are all opaque. Massive public-works projects, like the Three Gorges dam or the run-of-the-mill and highly duplicative airports and highways being thrown up in the country's vast western regions are the consequence of resources being applied not because of genuine need, but rather because of miscalculation. This miscalculation may be inadvertent, but it is often intentional, because Chinese politicians, like those everywhere, know that it is easy to buy support with government funds.

Gates likely finds the Chinese model strangely comforting. He is no longer a capitalist himself, except as he owns capital privately; he is now more like a feudalist, who owes his position in the power structure no longer to his individual exertions but to the support of a vast legal structure (namely, IP law itself) and some quirks of economics. As a bureaucrat in the private sector, Gates must imagine the Chinese bureaucracy to run as smoothly as China's; and as the head of a vast bureaucracy, Gates must not know that this is a better analogy than he imagines. The man at the top of the pyramid is always isolated from the facts, unless he works day and night to uncover the truth, and even then the whole truth will elude his grasp. China's leaders, too, are isolated, and they no more than Gates are able to know the truth about their business. And they, like Gates, will commit grave strategic errors, and probably have done so already.

Posted by Paul Musgrave at 05:53 PM | Comments (10)

Tough Day at LewRockwell.com

If there is one thing that Lew Rockwell can't stand is that some foreigner somewhere might be enjoying freedom. On this historic day in Iraq, all that arrogant think-tanker can do is rant against neocons and by the looks of it he's having a hissy fit.

The Rockwellians have never met a dictator they didn't like especially if that ruler is against the United States.

Posted by PunchTheBag at 03:00 PM | Comments (3)

Iraqi Elections

By any measure the Iraqi elections appear to be a success. The New York Times is even reporting a "party atmosphere" in Baghdad. High turnout among the South Africans wasn't seen as the test of the South African elections'legitimacy, and neither should it be the sole test in Iraq. But turnout is estimated to be an astonishing 72% according to CNN and others, far beyond any number needed for legitimacy. Jonah Goldberg isn't happy about media coverage, and it's true that I've hardly seen any liberal blogs mention this, but mainstream coverage appears to be fair so far.

Iraqi expatriates living in Syria are able to take part in the vote, even though Syrians can't take part in the democratic process of their own country. What impact will this have on countries like Syria? A successful Iraqi election may very well be the most significant step for freedom and democracy since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Update: Adil al-Lami, senior official at the Independent Electoral Commission in Iraq, on al Iraqiyah TV, reports the early turnout numbers. All are quite high, including Sunni regions. Meanwhile a BBC headline reads, "Iraq election declared 'success'"

Flashback: Following WWII, Germany's first election took four years, and Japan's two.

Update 2: FOX News estimates turnout to be closer to 60%. Meanwhile Democrat Bob Beckel criticizes Kerry's recent negative comments by saying, "I don't get why any Democrat would want to dump on this election." No word yet from Josh Marshall or Balta, but Daily Kos still manages to see the half empty glass.

Update 3: L'esprit d'escalier responds to the South African point in detail, offering a compelling argument. But really the point is moot because turnout was in fact high. Good post, though.

Update 4: The AP offers this headline: "Arabs Mesmerized by Iraqi Elections."

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 10:22 AM | Comments (12)

Net Updates

IndyLaw Net, a website written and managed by students at Indiana University School of Law in Indianapolis, has updated its layout and features.

Michael Meckler, journalist and historian, has a relatively new blog offering daily columns on politics, religion, arts and current events.

Keith Burgess Jackson at the University of Texas Arlington, whose own blog is here, has recruited a number of Ph.D. philosopheres who identify themselves as political conservatives to blog together at "The Conservative Philosopher."

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 10:01 AM | Comments (0)

Novel idea

With increasing advertising rates and charitable giving to blogs, one man is trying to cash in on it. He offered his "services" for a fee to write and post comments on political blogs. As an added bonus, he also offered his services to government departments, ala Armstrong Williams. Sadly, bidding has ended at $10, but I'm sure there's room for copy-cats to offer their own services. I enjoyed reading that listing as I ate a delicious Hardee's burger.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 01:04 AM | Comments (5)

January 29, 2005

Birth of a Democracy?

As I write this, it's already election day in Iraq. Unless the elections are a total failure (which seems unlikely), this day will be the most momentous in Iraq since the U.S. invasion nearly two years ago. I am reminded of the words of Benjamin Franklin at the U.S. Constitutional Convention:

I have lived, Sir, a long time and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth -- that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings that "except the Lord build the house they labor in vain that build it." I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel...

For those readers who are so inclined (and especially those who will be attending church services tomorrow), I urge you to pray for the Iraqi elections, for the safety of the voters, and the safety of US and Iraqi troops working to keep those voters safe from the terrorists. What occurs on this day will have far-reaching ramifications.

Posted by Eric Seymour at 08:50 PM | Comments (8)

SS Social Security Redux

This Paul Krugman column was the subject of much discussion here yesterday. Tom Maguire offers a healthy, smart response in detail to Krugman. It's a great post, and I highly recommend it to those interested in OASDI.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 11:40 AM | Comments (3)

Governor Daniels Unable to Toss Board and Commission Members

It's natural that the new guy on the block wants his own people in positions of power, but this idea of having all members of Indiana State Boards and Commissions resign so that Governor Mitch Daniels can appoint members who reflect his own thinking and wishes has been largely ignored by those who are being asked to walk the plank in the name of good government and the Hoosier Kingdom.

My first question is how many other first term governors have asked for mass resignations in this manner? How successful were they?

Given that these are independent government bodies, the "rocket scientists" (as Speaker Bosma calls the governor's staff) must have known that these board members would ignore them. So is this really a veiled attempt at influencing the members to vote the Governor's way in order to secure a reappointment?

No matter what your occupation is, I'll bet a lot of people are reading the comments from Indiana Judicial Nominating Commission member Liz Peralta and admiring her spirit (Caution: She can't be fired in the short term. Don't do this at your place of work).

"If Gov. Daniels has concerns that I do not 'share his commitment to reform and his vision for the State,' have him give me a call! Would love to chat," Liz Peralta wrote in an e-mail, referring to the wording of the form letter she received from Daniels. "Until then, however, I decline your offer. I will fulfill, to the best of my abilities, the request of me by former Gov. Joe Kernan."

[. . .]

Next time, Peralta suggested, Daniels should take "a kinder, gentler approach" than the terse, three-paragraph form letter issued by Harry Gonso, Daniels' chief of staff.

The Indiana Judicial Nominating Commission member suggested using lines such as, "Gee, Liz, thanks for missing your daughter's birthday to attend a Commission meeting. Or maybe this one: 'That was swell of you to drive across the State of Indiana at 5:30 a.m. in the frickin' middle of winter to attend a meeting in Indy. Go, girl.' "

She knows she's toast anyway. Might as well go out with all guns blazing.

Posted by PunchTheBag at 10:55 AM | Comments (0)

Big Blue and the Little Red Book

In what Friday's Wall Street Journal deemed "a relatively rare step", the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (an interagency committee chaired by Treasury Secretary John Snow) will investigate IBM's plans to sell its PC-making division to the Chinese computer manufacturer Lenovo in a deal the Journal said is worth $1.25 billion. In the unlikely event CFIUS recommends it, President Bush has the authority to terminate the deal.

Republican congressman Don Manzullo of Illinois, who filed a request for the CFIUS investigation along with California representative Duncan Hunter and Illinois congressman Henry Hyde (both Republicans), told the Journal he was afraid the Chinese government would use the purchase in an effort to drive U.S. computer makers out of the market. In addition, Manzullo noted IBM's research agreements with the federal government: "Why would the U.S. government be reliant on a Chinese company whose major shareholder is the Chinese government?" Mr. Manzullo asked. "That in itself sends a chill up and down the spines of members of Congress."

The Financial Times, calling the Republican lawmakers the "gang of three," points out that previous Chinese acquisitions of Western technology companies have soured, largely because Western firms are seeking to unload their low-margin businesses on Chinese firms eager to increase their export markets. This is IBM's position, too, because PC manufacturing simply isn't where Big Blue finds its profits any more.

Washington Post offers a synopsis of the story and essentially ends by wondering why the congressmen are urging an investigation of the deal. It could be that they are sincerely concerned about the effects on America's national security, although in that case I think the review will show that selling what is, really, a brand name to a Chinese firm won't materially affect Beijing's military potential.

However, the use of a national security justification where there is probably no national security threat points to one of the flaws in protectionist thinking: That people will always play according to the rules of the game. Instead, well-funded lobbyists and lawyers will always be able to find loopholes, in even the best-crafted piece of legislation, and so carving out exceptions to free trade for national security or any other purpose carries a very real risk that those exceptions will be abused, and the public interest thereby harmed.

There are some technologies we should not export to China. However, ThinkPads are not among those.

Posted by Paul Musgrave at 09:56 AM | Comments (5)

Saturday Meta-Blogging

I have been trying to avoid the subject of blogging, especially after Josh's injunction against blogging about blogging, but posts such as this compel me to respond. Metablogging isn't necessarily boring; it's just normally tedious. And because blogs are [lit crit]at once observer and observed, breaking down the binary distinction that permeates Western thought, meta-blogging is a way of escaping the game, of standing outside the reference point, of subverting the system[/Derrida].

In particular, it is relevant to examine, periodically, the claims that blogging is a threat, or a complement, or whatever to established media institutions. It is not true that only right-wing bloggers are triumphalist--gosh, I seem to recall a certain amount of left-wing blog-trumpeting during the run-up to the Iraq war and the subsequent presidential-election-that-never-ended (exhibit A: Howard Dean; exhibit B: that New York Times article on Democrat bloggers). And if the election had gone the other way, I'm certain that Atrios would still be remarking how great a role he and his ilk played in Kerry's inevitable victory.

The blogging world has been around now for several years, and has been in an obviously, qualitatively different state for at least two years; I think that the real shift came when Instapundit got his own domain name (he used to be on Blogspot, with a Blogspot template). That several of the big names who were around then are still around now is evidence for the emergence of a persistent new blogging superclass--the idea, expressed in the blog post linked above, that Powerline and Instapundit will become the new CNN and Fox News of the Blogosphere, similarly insulated from "the little guys."

I think this is mistaken. That blogging and blogs are important is not equivalent to stating that certain blogs will forever retain their importance. The critical difference is that established media outlets are institutions, with institutional "personalities" that persist despite changes in management and turnover in personnel. This persistence's strength varies between organizations, and within the same organization over time; my impression is that the house style of The Economist and the Wall Street Journal is more fixed than that of the recent New York Times and the New Yorker (this profile of Johnny Carson from 1979 is nigh-unreadable, almost a parody of the New Yorker's style).

Bloggers, by contrast, do not form institutions. I do not expect InTheAgora to have the same lineup at this time next year. If we are a policy dork jam session, we must maintain a certain fluidity in adding members and letting members go their own way. I'm not saying it's certain the lineup will be different, but I would not be surprised. And even longer-established group blogs like CrookedTimber.Org, which seems to have stabilised in its membership, do not really cohere as institutions in the same way that Reason, National Review or other established media players do.

Given that bloggers are more idiosyncratic, and that each blog's style will not be institutionalised in the same way as a magazine or a news network's, this implies that factors that would hardly affect a mainstream media player will have dramatic impact on certain bloggers. If Glenn Reynolds ever decides he wants to, say, produce more albums, spend more time with his family, or even--gasp--teach law (kidding!), then that would be the end of Instapundit. Some site by that name could still continue, but it would not be the same blog. By contrast, the Washington Post didn't cease publication upon Katherine Graham's death.

At any point in time, then, there will be an upper caste of bloggers. But viewed dynamically, there will be entries and exits from that cohort--Wonkette, for instance, is a relative newcomer to the blogging world, and is now one of the top ten or twenty (political) blogs around. So although there are many things to criticize about blogs and blogging, the specific criticism that there will be an ossified elite of big bloggers stifling the free exchange of ideas is almost certainly misguided.

Posted by Paul Musgrave at 09:31 AM | Comments (2)

Kennedy's withdrawal

Very rarely do I agree with Ted Kennedy, in style or substance. He seems to have no trust for free markets and would gladly welcome government regulation in nearly all forms. Further, there's something undefinably disturbing about his willingness to criticize America unnecessarily. Take his latest speech at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies for example. He paints America as a great evil, bumbling along in complete recklessness. But I must say that I agree with Kennedy's ultimate thesis:

Once the elections are behind us and the democratic transition is under way, President Bush should immediately announce his intention to negotiate a timetable for a drawdown of American combat forces with the new Iraqi Government. . . America's goal should be to complete our military withdrawal as early as possible in 2006.

I don't expect my sentiments to be shared with many readers here, and I also hasten to note that the man I respect most on foreign policy - Richard Lugar - seems to feel that the U.S. will need to stay for several years to come. I think Lugar, Kennedy, and Bush would all agree that if the new, post-election Iraqi government requests the withdrawal of U.S. troops, we should be ready and willing to leave. But Kennedy goes a step further. He's arguing, it seems, that Bush should actively negotiate a quick timetable for withdrawal, independent of an Iraqi request. It appears Iraq will soon request withdrawal anyway, and the point will be moot, but the subtleties are important.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 08:15 AM | Comments (5)

Acronyms

Can we stop using "SS" for Social Security? I know it's intuitive, and I know I've used it myself, but the connotations are...all wrong. Nazi death squads versus social insurance--no. Instead, I'll use OASDI--Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance, the official name for the "Social Security" programme.

Posted by Paul Musgrave at 06:56 AM | Comments (1)

January 28, 2005

I'll Be Judge, And I'll Be Jury

When is it permissible for one state to sit in judgment of crimes committed by another state's citizens in that state against residents of the same state? For years, I had thought that the Republican answer to this question was "Very rarely;" that the United States was afraid that its troops could be liable for prosecution under statutes of extraterritorial jurisdiction such as Belgium's; and that anyway we respected national sovereignty except in matters of gross violations of human rights, such as the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials.

Today's Wall Street Journal, however, demonstrates that the Bush administration is transforming this principle, as with so many others. The United States has proposed, quietly, creating an ad hoc tribunal, to be based in Tanzania, to try war criminals for actions committed during the genocide in Sudan's Darfur region. The U.S. has proposed this action because Washington wants to see the perpetrators of genocide brought to justice, but without granting the International Criminal Court any legitimacy by referring the Darfur case from the Security Council. The tribunal, which would almost certainly have its whole budget met by the United States, would be operated in cooperation with the African Union (a pan-African institution that has been increasingly active recently).

This is a tricky case. I have always wondered, in the darker recesses of my soul, why war-crimes tribunals couldn't take statements from the accused before summoning a firing squad--tricky questions about, say, Eichmann aside, there's no question of the guilt of a Heinrich Himmler. The concept of war-crimes tribunals, in itself, is problematic for a major power, since the victor's generals are never themselves charged with violations of the laws of war (who was prosecuted for Dresden or the Katyn massacre?); unlike other courts, then, not even in form do these tribunals seek to be even-handed.

Yet the United States' insistence on unilateralism in word, thought and deed is leading Washington to adopt odd policies. We agree there should be a tribunal; that it should be international; and that, therefore, national sovereignty should be (rightly) pared away even further--but we will not allow the lone international institution with vastly more claim to legitimacy than this proposed court to take part. I do not know what the right policy here is, any more than I know what course the United States should take vis-a-vis North Korea. At least I have the cold comfort that the White House joins me in my confusion.

Posted by Paul Musgrave at 09:14 AM | Comments (19)

Focusing the Mind, Horribly

Christian Science Monitor looks at North Korea's grim security calculus. Following economic reforms in 2002 that were modeled on China's (except for the crucial step of allowing significant private foreign investment), North Korea's economic performance has failed its poorest citizens. The World Food Programme estimates that two-thirds of North Korea's population of 24m are subsisting on diets equal to less than half of their nutritional requirements. Famines in the modern world are never the result of shortages of food, but instead are caused by politics, and just as the consequences of Kim Jong-Il's refusal to open the DPRK to foreign trade and investment killed at least 2m Koreans in the late 1990s, so are his policies today endangering hundreds of thousands of his people's lives.

Kim is isolated from his countrymen, but not completely so, and the Monitor presents expert and official estimates that the increase in food prices and the rise in unemployment are encouraging the Stalinist government to in essence trade its nuclear weapons and projects to the West for food. After all, North Korea has no civilian goods the West wants. Why not threaten the West and back off when Japan and other countries come through with shipments of rice and wheat?

The West has played this game now since the beginning of President Clinton's term. It is an unstable equilibrium, and one that postpones real reforms in favor of paying off a dictator every now and again in order to save the lives of millions of innocents--lives, of course, endangered by the dictator in the first place. War is not an option; such an action would kill hundreds of thousands, wreck the economy of South Korea (North Korea's is wrecked already), endanger Japan and possibly Hawaii and Alaska, and hardly allay the fears of the rest of the world about the sources of American conduct. And anyway, where would we get the troops to simultaneously engage Kim, continue our "peacekeeping" in Iraq, hunt for al-Qaeda, transform our military, and meet our committments to countries like Taiwan?

In other words, this is another one of those cases where "moral clarity" does not clarify the issue at hand.

Posted by Paul Musgrave at 08:43 AM | Comments (0)

Bayh me a Sudafed

Senator Evan Bayh, our faithful "moderate" Democrat from the Hoosier state, has co-sponsored a new law that would require cold and flu medicines to only be sold at pharmacies, be kept behind the counter, and require an ID and signature of customers who bought them. The ultimate aim is to cut down on meth labs.

I wasn't happy that Bayh voted against Condi Rice's confirmation, and I think he's illogical on numerous policy choices, but this latest bill of his tops the cake. Jacob Sullum takes a look at similar legislation in states. In short, it's ineffective and counter productive. Bayh tries to calm our fears: "Your ordinary, law-abiding citizen isn't going to object." You know what that makes any of us who do object.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 01:07 AM | Comments (13)

S.S.

Hugh Hewitt asks where the pro-reform Social Security blogging has been, and it's a valid question. SS reform is front and center in Washington, but you wouldn't be able to tell from a cursory glance at punditry. For what it's worth, I always liked looking at SS like a horrendous medical procedure. Imagine an I.V. going from one arm to the other, with some blood spilling out in between, and you have the basics of Social Security. You essentially pay taxes your entire life to the government in hopes that at the end of your career the government will give it back to you (or transfer blood from one arm to another). Unfortunately, as the government holds on to this massive amount of cash, we lose out on much of it because of inflation and missed opportunities to invest (blood spillage in between). The next time Social Security pops into one of your conversations, visualize an I.V. It will work wonders.

Update: The Club for Growth has started a Social Security blog worth checking out.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 12:55 AM | Comments (29)

Oh. My. Gawd.

Here's an explanation for the tsunami in the letters page of the Rocky Mountain News:

'A bad case of fleas'

The act of war deliberately and thoughtlessly wounds, poisons and handicaps the life-sustaining womb of all mankind. The Earth reacts, as any living thing would, when attacked. Earthquake, tsunami, flood, tornado, hurricane, mudslide, and resulting loss of life may be the natural emotional response.

We must behave responsibly and live peacefully or we may all be "shaken" off like a bad case of fleas.

Millie Mitchell
Fort Collins

I didn't know stupidity could reach such lows. Millie is a real estate agent in Fort Collins, CO. Click here to view her email address, should that interest you.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 12:00 AM | Comments (7)

January 27, 2005

Three Cheers for President of Ball State

Boy you read a story like this one and it warms your heart. You have to wonder why a college president would not want to do what Jo Ann M. Gora did for Ball State.

Ball State University President Jo Ann M. Gora has decided to ditch a pricey formal inauguration and put the $150,000 savings into scholarships for top Indiana students.

"It just seemed that it would be so much wiser if we would put our energies into providing scholarships," Gora said after a Statehouse news conference Wednesday. "I think it will set an example of how we put students first."

President Bush really lost an opportunity when he could've made a similar statement during his inauguration. He could've directed corporations to send money for the troops, schools, and charities, instead of for the parties.

Of course then there's this idiot who has to be the most overrated billionaire (if he's really that) in the world.

The influential in society need to be better examples.

Posted by PunchTheBag at 10:06 PM | Comments (11)

"Diversity" vs. Freedom of Association

In discussing Illinois' newly-expanded anti-discrimination law this week, Josh touched on the idea of freedom of association. While not expressly granted in the Constitution, this freedom has long been considered an innate right and more recently recognized by judicial precedent in the U.S.

This reminded me of an article in the January/February issue of Worldwide Challenge magazine (a publication of Campus Crusade for Christ). The article (not available online) tells of challenges faced by Christian groups on college campuses:

At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a Christian fraternity [Alpha Iota Omega] was recently denied recognition because it would not agree to open its membership to students of different faiths.

...

At Rutgers, the largest university in New Jersey, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship got the boot because they wouldn't open up their leadership to non-Christians. Eventually IVCF threatened to sue, and the university reinstated them.

This is one example of what can happen when diversity is pursued as an end unto itself. Should the women's student association be forced to accept self-avowed male chauvinists as members and possibly officers? Should the vegan club have to be open to the possibility of having an Atkins diet devotee as its president? Of course not. That would defeat the purpose of such clubs which, like religious or political student groups, are generally positive contributors to the college community.

A little dose of common sense could go a long way on many college campuses today.

Posted by Eric Seymour at 08:24 PM | Comments (13)

Something new from Intel?

Pentium 4 chips (and their AMD competitors) have been the standard-bearers in the computer industry for what seems like an eternity. The first Pentium 4 was released in November 2000. By contrast, before then a new generation of processors came out rougly every year and a half. My trusty Pentium III home PC is nearly 5 years old now. I've considered upgrading, but wasn't sure how much improvement I'd really notice.

So it is with some excitement that I read this article regarding Intel's filing of "Intel Inside VIIV" and "Intel VIIV" as U.S. trademarks. Is the Pentium 5 coming soon? All you geeks out there, feel free to comment and speculate here.

Posted by Eric Seymour at 12:07 PM | Comments (10)

Good News, Bad Headline

Radley Balko offers a beneficial analysis of recent news that cancer had overtaken heart disease as the nation's number one killer. The headlines don't reveal that "cancer rates are down. They've dropped every year for the last fifteen years. Deaths from cancer have dropped every year per year for the last fifteen years, too. What's going on? Heart disease is down more." Here's the rest from Balko's typically insightful breakdown that touches on other health aspects, too.

Update: One reader notes that rates may be down, but overall incidents are still rising. She adds that the numbers are determined by autopsy, and many death-causing aflictions are sometimes caused by neoplastic origins (growth that doesn't belong in your body), but cancer is not necessary listed as the cause of death.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 12:04 AM | Comments (1)

Does sex sell everything?

Cisa, a funeral home and coffin factory in Rome, has released this bikini-filled calendar. Are scantily clad women really supposed to make coffins more appealing?

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 12:01 AM | Comments (11)

Illinois follow-up

On Tuesday I posted about Illinois' expanded civil rights to homosexuals and the potential implications for church clergy. The Alliance Defense Fund allays the fears of religious groups by noting that the bill did not change the already-existing portion of the law that excludes churches and the employees of churches from the law's requirements. Specifically 775 ILCS 5/Art. 2(A)(2) provides:

"Employer" does not include any religious corporation, association, educational institution, society, or non-profit nursing institution conducted by and for those who rely upon treatment by prayer through spiritual means in accordance with the tenets of a recognized church or religious denomination with respect to the employment of individuals of a particular religion to perform work connected with the carrying on by such corporation, association, educational institution, society or non-profit nursing institution of its activities.

This exception remains unchanged by the Act's amendment, in spite of comments made by some legislators suggesting the bill would apply to religious groups. My colleagues in the health law industry tell me that hospitals, many of which are run or owned by religious organizations, are still grappling with how the law will apply to them, given the semi-religious ingredients of some non-profit hospitals.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)

January 26, 2005

Transatlantic Counterterror Cooperation

A new report by the Congressional Research Service--the nonpartisan expert legislative agency--gives the very welcome news that, despite well-publicized diplomatic and popular splits between the United States and Europe, the U.S. and the European Union are making great progress on improving their counterterror cooperation. The report has been posted on the Web by the Federation of American Scientists.

CRS writes that "U.S.-EU cooperation against terrorism has led to a new dynamic in U.S.-EU relations by fostering dialogue on law enforcement and homeland security issues previously reserved for bilateral discussions." It's important to remember something little-discussed in the American media and even less frequently mentioned on many blogs: EU members have also been targets of terror. Aside from the March 2004 bombings in Madrid, there have also been reported threats against London's Heathrow Airport, and France and other nations have also reported similar threats. (France has taken these threats particularly seriously: In an effort to maintain both its secular republican political culture and the security of the state, the French government has pursued a domestic antiterror policy possibly even more hardline than Washington's.)

The new transatlantic cooperation has required the EU to broaden its Union-level criminal authority, the CRS report notes: "Among other steps, the EU has established a common definition of terrorism and a list of terrorist groups, an EU arrest warrant, enhanced tools to investigate terrorist financing, and new measures to strengthen external EU border controls."

Brussels and Washington have instituted high-level contacts, including ministerial-level discussions, meetings between senior officials twice a year, and permanent liaison officers in Washington and (soon) The Hague. The U.S. and EU are also sharing more information between their criminal justice agencies. The cooperation even extends to greater agreement on customs security, including stationing U.S. customs officers in European ports to pre-screen cargo containers for WMD and other substances (On the importance of screening, see also this CRS report on nuclear attacks on U.S. seaports). Treaties between the EU and the U.S. requiring ratification in the Senate will extend this cooperation. For example, the treaties will streamline extradition (in exchange for a guarantee from the U.S. that Washington will not seek the death penalty for any suspects extradited from the EU).

Ongoing challenges remain, CRS writes, including the difficulty of striking a balance between security and legitimate travel and commerce. Ten of the Union's 25 members are not part of the American Visa Waiver Program, which lets nationals of certain countries visit the U.S. visa-free; the remaining fifteen are required to upgrade their passports to include biometric data by October of this year (although many will not). There have been calls in the EU to begin retaliatory visa requirements, similar to those now in place in Brazil. Further, the EU views privacy of its citizens' data as a basic right, and is concerned that the U.S. will not safeguard the data as EU regulations require; these issues require further discussion.

What is interesting, and not touched on by the CRS article, is the increasing reliance by Washington on Union-level contacts. The EU, remember, is only a Union of member states--in theory. But its growing resources and authority means that security-minded policymakers (who may be paranoid, but who are pragmatic) are taking the Union seriously on issues of supreme national importance. Sovereignty is slipping away in Europe. But, at least, it appears that our borders are safer because of it.

Posted by Paul Musgrave at 05:30 PM | Comments (1)

Real Life Edges Closer to Star Trek

NASA in the 1960s made Teflon famous. Now the space agency will probably influence clothes designers to produce new fashion wear for the runway models. No matter how cool the new look is it still takes a brave man or woman to don the uniform.

Posted by PunchTheBag at 03:16 PM | Comments (0)

The deficit's benefactor

The AP has an article reporting that the White House's efforts to cut the deficit in half are on track, but that "the cost of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will help drive this year's shortfall to a record $427 billion." While this is true, it's a bit misleading.

The cost of Iraq and Afghanistan operations are certainly helping drive the deficit up. Indeed, the president requested another $80 billion for Iraq in the new budget, bringing the total cost to $300 billion. However it is non-military, non-Homeland Security costs that are the biggest contributor. Here's a graph of military spending relative to discretionary spending. Non-military spending increased by 8.2% per year under Bush, higher than any president since Johnson.

The wars have certainly helped feed the deficit, but they're actually a very small portion of the increase. The AP's lede is misleading, and so too are liberal criticisms that the war is the main culprit. It is Bush's liberal fiscal philosophy in other areas that deserve the most blame.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 08:42 AM | Comments (18)

Blog Blogging, redux

John at Rabe Ramblings has done us the kind favor of offering this necessary public service announcement to all bloggers. Non-bloggers may find it amusing, but I especially recommend it for all those who write one.

Update: Here's my previous post on the subject and Stones Cry Out has more.
Update 2: In all seriousness though, Hugh Hewitt's latest book on Blogs is excellent.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 08:29 AM | Comments (9)

The Power of Combinations

Penny Arcade explains one of Adam Smith's lessons succinctly and well. Remember, kids:

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice.

Conservatives would do well to remember that social welfare can be diminished, and substantive freedoms weakened, by the actions of powerful private actors as well as by the government. Indeed, in a society such as the United States, where most everyone depends on private employment for their livelihood, tacit and pervasive private actions can be far more threatening than any likely government action.

Posted by Paul Musgrave at 07:26 AM | Comments (18)

January 25, 2005

Reign of Safire Ends

Monday's New York Times gave William Safire the entire op-ed page to write his last regular column along with a couple of "value-added" pieces, here and here. The last one on how to read a column reveals some tricks of the trade. Bloggers take note.

Posted by PunchTheBag at 02:29 PM | Comments (2)

Civil rights reform in Illinois

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed SB 3186 into law Friday without much fanfare in mainstream or alternative media, which is a shame given its significance. The law prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, housing, public accommodations and credit. Although the law reaches much further than federal civil rights legislation, Illinois is not necessarily unique. There are 13 other U.S. states, in addition to the District of Columbia, that have non-discrimination laws protecting homosexuals (and transexuals).

What makes Illinois unique is that unlike most municipal prohibitions on sexual orientation discrimination, Illinois does not expressly exempt religious organizations from their coverage. What does this mean, practically speaking? The bill may very well compel religious organizations to set aside convictions about homosexuality when hiring clergy and other staff.

No matter where you find yourself on homosexual civil rights, it seems reasonable to expect that religious organizations (and indeed homosexual groups) should have the freedom to choose who they want to lead them, and who they wish to associate with. The bill will be challenged in court and its fate remains uncertain, but so too does the fate of religious freedom in Illinois.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 12:56 PM | Comments (15)

Pyramid or Ponzi?

I'm sympathetic to the superficial argument that Social Security isn't in crisis, if only because I think the word crisis is a bit too strong to describe the predicted shortfalls of the scheme. Now having the government take 15% 7.5% of my income and give me, well, most likely nothing in return . . . that's a crisis.

According to a Gallup poll, either Bush's rhetoric was working or the Democrats' counter-attack wasn't:

A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, conducted Dec. 17-19 of last year, showed that 8 in 10 Americans feel it is extremely or very important that the president and Congress deal with Social Security reform in the year ahead. The poll also found the public evenly split on the idea of allowing Americans to put a percentage of their Social Security contributions into private investment accounts.

I'd like to see the correlation between support for reform and affinity for "privatization." I doubt this is a particularly salient issue as well, but obviously if Bush delivers for a highly interested constituency and offends a rather disinterested one, he scores big. But if SS ranks far down on the list of important issues, Democrats may be ok with their current strategy of answering, "What would you do instead?" by clasping their hands over their ears and singing "LA LA LA" loudly until someone changes the subject. But that just highlites how the Democratic Party is agenda-less and uninspired.

For those of you who'd like to learn more about Social Security, go read IMAO's "Fun Facts About Social Security."

Posted by Zach Wendling at 07:47 AM | Comments (34)

Rabbie Burns

Today is the Birthday of Scotland's Greatest Poet, Robert Burns (1759 - 1796). So prodigious and influential was the work of this Son of Scotland, that he has come to be known as one of their Great National Heroes, and generations of Scots have been honoring him on his birthday.

Every year on Januray 25th, Scots all around the world gather for Burns Suppers, celebrations of the life and works of Robert Burns and, ultimately, of Scotland herself. The first known supper was held in 1801, but Burns' friends almost certainly held them prior to that. Typical dishes include Cock-A-Lee Soup, Neeps, Stoved Tatties, Midlothian Oatcakes, and, of course, Haggis. The Haggis is preceeded by a piper, and before it is cut, a speaker must recite An Address to a Haggis

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o' a grace
As lang's my arm.

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o' need,
While thro' your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.

The evening ends with Burns' most popularly-known work, Auld Lang Syne.

Posted by Zach Wendling at 07:37 AM | Comments (4)

Whispers

Josh Marshall reports that Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) is holding private meetings around the country in preparation for a 2008 presidential run. Meanwhile Sen. John Kerry's wife "has made it clear she won't sit still for another campaign," according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. A Heinz-Kerry spokesman denies the exchange.

Update: More interesting developments from Sen. Bayh.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 01:02 AM | Comments (2)

January 24, 2005

Yushchenko Selects Timoshenko

Viktor Yushchenko selected Julia (Yuliya) Timoshenko to be his new prime minister, Post reports.

Here is Timoshenko's personal webpage, demonstrating the well-connected woman's fondness for, among other things, Princess Leia-like hairstyles.

Posted by Paul Musgrave at 04:56 PM | Comments (7)

Just because

In light of the serious, academic nature of most of today's posts I offer you this video of a man catching his butt on fire on live TV. ITA: Quality blogging since 2004.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 12:15 PM | Comments (0)

The Health of the Body Politic

Josh, below, extends on the discussion about health outcomes and health policy in the U.S. He rightly notes that health care expenditures should be increasing assuming that health is a desirable outcome, a luxury good, and that U.S. income is rising. However, this raises two questions: 1) Should public or private sources pay for healthcare? and 2) Is the U.S. getting anything for its exorbitant health expenditures?

The first question is treacherous, but it is increasingly likely that, as I wrote in the first post about this topic, the voting public will decide for increased health spending by the government--in effect, shifting the risk from private insurers to the public at large. The fiscal effects of this are obvious, especially given the gargantuan long-term imbalance in the Medicare programs already. (Social Security is good for another generation, at least. Medicare is not. See here and google 'kotlikoff generational storm' for more.)

The second question leads itself to more positive analysis ('positive' here contrasted to the 'normative' nature of striking the public/private balance). This graph compares health expenditures at GDP per capita to life expectancy; if you don't see the U.S. immediately, that's because we are the outlier among developed nations, spending a heck of a lot more for lower life expectancy than, say, Japan. For selected groups in the United States, the figures are even worse: As I discuss here, African American residents of inner cities in the United States are more likely to die sooner than residents of Bangladesh, China and several other Third World countries. And lifestyle changes mean that U.S. health outcomes may continue to lag behind our economic cohort: see, for instance, this article on diabetes.

Life expectancy is not the only measure of health outcomes, but if the United States--which is, with the exception of Luxembourg, the richest country per capita in the world--cannot buy longer life for its citizens, there's a sign that we're facing another area of public policy where the problem is not a lack of money, but the lack of an effective strategy.

Update: Assuming I've done my math right--and it's a long time since I've had to find the slope of anything--if health care is solely determined, which it is not, by health expenditures, then if the United States were as effective as Belgium, its citizens would live to be nearly ninety; as effective as Switzerland, just over ninety; and as effective as Japan, the average life expectancy in the U.S. would be 103. (Alternatively, of course, with the same efficiencies we could choose to have everyone live to be 80 and save hundreds of billions of dollars in health care expenditure.)

Josh, in comments, points out that the U.S. is good at treating acute illnesses. This is true. But it seems to me to miss the point--that at some level, health policy in the United States is at odds with reality, because we're paying too much for ineffective treatment (i.e., expensive treatments that postpone death for a few weeks), unnecessary treatments (i.e., hospital visits to build a paper trail to avoid malpractice lawsuits), and treatments that would be unnecessary if people adopted a healthier lifestyle (i.e., most cases of type-2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases today). And the vastly unequal range of health outcomes should be a topic for serious outcomes; as Sen remarks in a very different context, it is logical to conclude that a person has suffered a loss of utility if he dies.

The incentive structure of American healthcare is also a problem, because--as I mentioned earlier in comments--third parties (the government or insurers) bear the financial pain for treatment for most people, but have no share in the decisionmaking process about treatments.

On rereading, the foregoing sounds cold-blooded, but we should remember that public funds spent on treatments like those that buy, say, two or three extra weeks of life are funds that could purchase education for several children for a year.

Posted by Paul Musgrave at 11:25 AM | Comments (4)

Incentives indeed

Below Paul offers a wonderful rundown of Healthcare and Government which I recommend to anyone even slightly interested in the subject. Paul does well to note that the demand for healthcare, and what we view as minimally acceptable, is always changing and will continue to change. American medicine is particularly good at treating the sick because it rewards research and innovation (though less in health care than most probably realize) while using the latest technology. And, keeping this in mind, we must remember that incentives matter.

Therefore cost is a central barrier. Health costs makes up 14% of our gross domestic product (GDP), a larger percentage than any other country, and it continues to grow at a significant rate. Yet spending and GDP ratios don't really suggest there is a problem or crisis because we don't know the "correct" amount to spend on health care. It's important to remember that, based on purchasing power, the US has the highest standard of living in the world. (Our GDP per capita is 55% higher than Western Europe, 35% higher than Australia, 28% more than Japan, and 11% higher than Canada.) Is it any wonder that we spend a bigger share on medical needs as we grow more prosperous? I have every incentive to spend an extra dollar on health care than I would on a new car.

But this gets back to the incentives Paul addressed earlier. It's rare for Americans to actually be the ones writing checks - we leave that job to our insurers (sometimes government), and in some cases we rarely see a bill or look at it in detail. So I have little incentive to shop for the cheaper physician, especially when I associate lower costs with lower care. Historically insurers have not held physicians accountable for higher fees, nor questioned their growing purchases of more expensive medical equipment. But all of that is starting to change, and in the process so too will the care that we receive.

Insurers run a business and like any good businessmen their bottom line matters. Both patients and insurers are looking for the best care and the cheapest cost. But insurers have an incentive to focus on cost, and patients on care. The more these choices rest with the patient and not insurers, the better the incentives will align to control cost and improve satisfaction with care.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 08:59 AM | Comments (7)

Name-calling

In my most recent post about the pro-life movement, Gregory Travis commented that he doesn't know anyone who isn't pro-life. After some initial confusion, it became apparent that Mr. Travis was making the point that no reasonable person actually thinks abortion is a good thing*.

Normally, I have little time for playing semantic games, but this gives me an opportunity to make an important point about the abortion debate. Mr. Travis assumes that I would refer to those who disagree with me about abortion as "anti-life." Not so. The corresponding term for those who wish to keep abortion legal--the term they choose for themselves--is "pro-choice."

I wish that those of us involved in this issue would refer to each other by these terms. But often the more loaded terms of "anti-abortion" and "pro-abortion" get used. And then there are the really pejorative insults of "anti-choice" and "anti-life." While there is some truth in the "-abortion" monikers, there is none in the "anti-" labels. (No reasonable person is against either life or choice.) So let's leave the name-calling to children and drunken sports fans.

*Margaret Sanger probably thought abortions were good when black people were having them, but I'd hardly call eugenicists reasonable people**.

**Update: A quick Google search seems to indicate that Sanger did not advocate eliminating groups of people because of the color of their skin, but because of intelligence and other measures of "fitness." Her books The Pivot of Civilization and Woman and the New Race offer a good look into her views.

Posted by Eric Seymour at 08:50 AM | Comments (19)

Maybe we should rethink the universal franchise

Please excuse my PASWO blogging for an instant.

"Only one in six users of internet search engines can tell the difference between unbiased search results and paid advertisements," reports the Associated Press.

Posted by Paul Musgrave at 07:39 AM | Comments (4)

Healthcare and the Government

What would the Founders say about Medicare? And who cares? Medicine is something the Founders knew only from experience from a weak and unimportant version of its modern-day self. The political choices the Framers embodied in the constitution and in a generation of behavior hardly matter now that the choices we face are so vastly different. Asking how James Madison or Alexander Hamilton might have designed a federal agency (or not) to intervene in healthcare is an interesting academic question, but not a fit subject for political debate. Madison and Hamilton won't decide about the government's role in health provision; we will.

Sebastian Mallaby, Washington Post op-ed writer, discusses the Bush administration's decision to use a certain treatment for a cardiovascular disorder. The details are comparatively unimportant, except to note that the intervention is apparently proven and cost-effective. The larger question is whether the government should continue to expand the level of health care spending it provides, given that the money to pay for that spending must come from somewhere. At the moment, for instance, my future earnings are paying for senior citizens' prescription drugs.

Most people, if they give the matter some thought, will conclude that the government should provide some minimal level of health care to its citizenry; how they reach that conclusion is less important than that they do reach it, because democracy does not ask for a justification for voters' reasoning. Faced with that tendency, then, we have to realize that the "minimal" level of health care will constantly increase, and probably continue to increase much faster than inflation. What was minimal a hundred years ago would be in violation of the Geneva Conventions today, and even the best practices of twenty-five years ago would be grossly inadequate today.

How to design institutions to cope with these new demands? It is probably useless in the short or medium terms to hope that the middle class will demand less medical coverage; only in the very long term is such a radical shift possible. In the meantime, we would do well to remember that incentives matter, and policies that are workable in a static analysis run a high risk of failing in the long run. If, for instance, access to treatment for problems that are undeniably the result of lifestyle choices depended on whether people had made the right choices in the past or were at least willing to make better ones in the future, one suspects there would be fewer adult-onset diabetes cases. We expect welfare mothers to work for their benefits; middle-class citizens should be held to the same standard.

Posted by Paul Musgrave at 05:09 AM | Comments (2)

Of Taxes And Business

Indianapolis Star profiles Mickey Maurer and the proposed Indiana Economic Development Corp., which is to replace the Department of Commerce. Maurer plans to start attracting new businesses to Indiana, claiming that it's more fun to lure existing businesses to the state instead of growing our own. One expert the Star interviews is dubious:

"They're missing the whole point of why state governments have set up these economic development corporations," said Ross DeVol, director of regional economics at the Milken Institute in California. "(Other states) are trying to focus more on business creation and therefore job creation. Nearly 75 percent of all new jobs created are in small and medium-sized businesses."

I am agnostic on this position. I do worry, though, that public officials of all stripes, but especially Republicans, are apt to demean the tools of public policy in favor of vaguely defined "experience" in the private sector. Granted, the demands of meeting a payroll probably do focus the mind wonderfully. But there are some skills that don't travel, and the incentives and institutional structure of government and the tools of public policy are so different from their equivalents in the private sector that I wonder whether bringing in too many businessmen to run the state will prove a sound strategy. (There is a political element here, though: As a consequence of the Republicans' sixteen years outside the governor's mansion, there may not be any politically reliable public-sector types to hire. This would imply a steeper learning curve than usual for the Daniels administration.)

Jennifer Whitson, Indianapolis bureau chief of the Courier and Press of Evansville, meanwhile examines the proposed tax burden shifts in the Daniels administration's budget. Under the plan, the state would pay for less of local governments' property tax bills, and allow counties to soften the burden on property owners by expanding local option taxes. The plan is probably a sound one, especially because property taxes are among the more regressive taxes there are. (And cruelly regressive, too, since little old ladies who own their houses can lose them for nonpayment of taxes.)

Yet this taxing shift is only an incomplete step toward local government reform. Indiana's counties are in the awkward position of having a virtually homogenous structure (except, of course, for Marion) and wildly heterogenous problems and tax structures. Urban counties will come through fine, more or less whatever happens; the only questions are the tax balances between homeowners and businesses, renters and owners, earners and spenders. Rural counties, though, may not generate enough economic activities to sustain a tax system that has to move away from property taxes. What's worse, farmland is assessed not at market value--which can be substantial--but rather at a rate set by Indianapolis uniformly for the entire state. Thus, the tax base of rural counties is weakened even further. Moreover, rural counties can't cut costs by eliminating the county surveyor or county recorder, for instance; those posts are, bizarrely and inefficiently, required by the state constitution. As the Daniels administration progresses, dealing with Indiana's local government structure--in many respects a holdover from medieval England--needs to receive at least some attention.

Posted by Paul Musgrave at 04:56 AM | Comments (6)

January 23, 2005

This Week in China

Christian Science Monitor asks whether it's inevitable, or merely likely, that the West and China will have a war over oil. Questions like this are appealing for strategists, especially those who sat out their economics courses or who think that Malthus is a good guide to the future. It's odd to see a story like this in the Monitor, which usually presents such a balanced view of world affairs, and of China especially.

Yet the narrative informing the Monitor's argument in that article is one that is seductive. New York Times reports on U.S. government sanctions against eight Chinese firms accused of trading sensitive technology to Iran. The move comes in a context of China's increasing conversion of its economic potential energy into political influence. Some of this influence is unintended, at least by senior Chinese civilian leaders: The Times says the Bush administration doesn't think that the government in Beijing knew of the technology transfers. But the firms involved are said to have had close ties to the People's Liberation Army (which owns many corporations), and the PLA often believes it's entitled to conduct what amounts to a separate foreign policy.

The threat of conflict over resources, or influence in East Asia, and Beijing's increasing activism is an issue of concern for the world.

Jim Hoagland in the Post gives useful background to the European Union and the United States's arms embargo on China. It now looks likely that the EU will lift its ban on selling arms to China, mainly because of pressure from European manufacturers who want new markets. The U.S. opposes the move, both because Beijing's regime is still responsible for some thoroughly nasty human rights violations and because French missiles could sink American or Taiwanese ships if the Taiwan Straits issue ever suffers a catastrophic collapse.

In a somber counterpoint to all of this talk about great-power conflict and acceptance of human rights violations, China's top Party leaders went through a week of deliberation on whether to allow mourning for former Party leader Zhao Ziyang. Times reports on Mr. Zhao's actions to prevent the massacre of students on June 4, 1989, at Tiananmen Square in central Beijing. For his opposition to the hardline faction headed by market reformer Deng Xiaoping, Zhao was sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life. Washington Post describes the sensitive issues involved in handling public recognition of Zhao's death. Some had wanted President Hu Jintao to "reverse the verdict" on Zhao and, implicitly, on the actions of the pro-democracy demonstrators of June 4; but Hu must have decided against that action. State media hardly mentioned Zhao's death, much less his career or significance, and debate on Chinese Internet discussion boards was quickly censored by the regime.

New York Times notes that members of the Chinese anti-Communist movement in exile met to remember Zhao's life and death; he had become a symbol to them. Inside China, however, the Times says that Zhao, like the Tiananmen incident, is all but forgotten:

Growing up, Mr. Yu, now 21, barely knew about Zhao Ziyang, except that he had "played a prominent role in 1989." And Mr. Yu acknowledged Thursday that he barely knew about 1989. He knew students had protested at Tiananmen Square; he had heard that Chinese soldiers fired into the crowds to end the demonstrations.

But Mr. Yu, an aspiring scientist, described that as hearsay. "Rumors say so," he said of a bloody crackdown witnessed by a worldwide television audience outside China, "but I need a lot of evidence to believe it."

If the Chinese government can help it, he may never see that evidence.

You, reader, know more about one of the most important uprisings in post-Mao China than many of the Chinese people.

And that may be important. The behavior of countries, as with that of people, is influenced by the way in which they remember their history. A country sobered by its past, and informed by an open discussion about its government's behavior, will respond differently in a crisis and will act differently in its daily affairs than one that is arrogant out of ignorance. This ignorance can be produced by apathy and poor education, coupled with a ragingly nationalistic media; or, as in China, by a concerted effort to propagandize and distort. If the rising generation knows nothing of their parents' aspirations for democracy and justice, as they know little of the events of the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward, they will be less likely to desire freedom. They will also be more likely to perceive the outside world as hostile. And as discussed above, there is no end of potential crises that could provoke a hostile response, born of ignorance, from China's people.

Posted by Paul Musgrave at 03:04 PM | Comments (11)

Iraq: No Jimmy Carter

Washington Post reminds us that no foreign observers will watch the Iraqi elections, to be held one week from today. Iraq, then, is more dangerous than Palestine or Afghanistan, to name only two places where these observers have shown up in the past. That's pretty dangerous, I think, and it goes a long way toward undermining the spin one still occasionally hears on the starboard side of the good ship Blogosphere. (Actually, there may be one observer. He will be busy.)

There will be six thousand Iraqi observers, at least in theory, but then one can hardly blame the Iraqis or the foreigners for not being willing to participate. Election officials have been targeted by insurgents from all groups, and the site of election workers being shot in broad daylight must surely deter some people from considering canvassing as a career. It's certainly deterred Iraqi candidates from campaigning, thereby sparing Iraqis from the downside of democracy (running into candidates at every streetcorner) but also preventing them from learning minor details such as the candidates' positions, beliefs, identities, etc.

One elections expert quoted by the Post has already begun countering the inevitable post-election spin:

"I hope we don't resort to saying that in the U.S. we only get 15 percent in local elections, 35 percent in gubernatorial elections and 55 percent in presidential elections, and therefore even a low vote is credible," Barton said. "This is not an honest standard in a country that finally gets a chance to vote on its future."

Let's not forget that two years ago, a lot of us were still upbeat about the chances for "Democracy, Whiskey, Sexy." Somewhere along the line, we blew it, and we need to figure out what happened.

Posted by Paul Musgrave at 02:58 PM | Comments (6)

A walk through the ivory tower

There are two things that really disturb me in academia - poor correlation/causality conclusions and silly research. My morning news reading offered two good examples of each. The first comes from the Indianapolis Star which reports a New England Journal of Medicine study which found "Women who drank up to a glass of alcohol per day were 'cognitively equivalent to being approximately a year and a half younger' than teetotalers." But all the study really found was a correlation between a drink a day and a better mental state. I assure you, though, that I could find an even stronger correlation between eating ice cream and drowning. Does that mean ice cream can inhibit swimming? Of course not, people simply swim and eat ice cream more in the summer. I don't necessarily blame the Journal or the scientists for this misconception. I blame the sloppy reporter who drew a conclusion when only a correlation exists, and by extension the scientists who didn't make the inconclusive nature of the research clearer to that reporter.

The second annoying item, silly research, comes from the Washington Post magazine. Prof Todd Zywicki bluntly called it "stupid academic research" and "one of the dumbest I have come across in some time." Rather than try to summarize I'll simply direct your attention to Prof. Zywicki's sufficient takedown of the project. My point with these two items is to highlight how important it is to cast a discerning eye on everything you find in the news, even if it comes from professors working under the auspices of "academic research."

Update: Reader "philospher" offers this critique regarding the cognitive benetifs of alcohol: "So, not only were the scientists quite clear about the difficulties of inferring causation, they also did an excellent job of doing exactly the sort of things you need to do in a retrospective design to enable you to, in fact, infer causation."

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 10:33 AM | Comments (10)

They breed them

Radley Balko has a provocative post up on the nature of war and Iraq in particular. The title and thesis is striking: "Dead bodies don't just attract flies. They breed them." It's my recommended reading for the day.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 10:30 AM | Comments (5)

Yushchenko Ukraine's President

Viktor Yushchenko was sworn in as Ukraine's president today, ending the months-long contentious elections process in the Eastern European country. His inauguration comes after the end of a series of appeals filed by his rival Viktor Yanukovich, former prime minister.

Posted by Paul Musgrave at 07:55 AM | Comments (0)

The Blade Cuts Deep

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels has called on the General Assembly to weed state government by eliminating dozens, even hundreds, of state boards and commissions, the Times of Northwest Indiana reports. Some members of the boards about to be axed protest they're doing necessary work, but it's the Legislature and the governor who will have the final say.

Separately, the paper notes that new state Secretary of Commerce Pat Miller has announced plans to shut regional Department of Commerce offices in Fort Wayne, Bloomington, Kokomo, Muncie, New Albany, Terre Haute and West Lafayette. Fort Wayne, at least, will retain a limited "satellite" office, reports the Fort's Journal Gazette. The Star Press of Muncie points out that Miller's move undoes former Governor Joe Kernan's expansion of the Commerce Department's efforts. Before 2002, all Commerce policy was coordinated from Indianapolis. Miller says the cuts are needed to help the department focus on job creation.

Posted by Paul Musgrave at 07:48 AM | Comments (1)

U.S. Says Will Expand Tsunami Warning System

New York Times reports the U.S. government has pledged to expand a tsunami warning system, which will be constructed by a consortium led by Japan, to a worldwide system to warn of all natural disasters. The Times quoted Ambassador Howard Baker, Jr.'s comments to a international conference in Kobe, Japan. The limited South Asian tsunami warning system will be built within a year to eighteen months, sources told the Times; the U.S. has given neither a timeline nor a dollar figure for its proposed global watch system.

Posted by Paul Musgrave at 07:43 AM | Comments (1)

ITA Update

ITA is now ranked 89th in the Ecosystem, and the blog has been in the top 100 for a while now. ITA is not even four months old, and as far as I can tell that makes ITA's rise to the top 100 among the fastest in blogging history. Expect it to continue.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 07:00 AM | Comments (2)

January 22, 2005

Amazing love

As Sanctity of Human Life Week draws to a close, I have been reflecting a lot on pro-life issues. One thought that I keep returning to is how much I admire pro-life women. These women give their time and energy not only to take a public stand against abortion, but also to volunteer as peer counselors and other staff at crisis pregnancy centers. In addition to the usual consequences of involving oneself in a controversial issue, they risk scorn and ridicule from self-appointed guardians of "women's rights."

Ironically, though, some of the most notable early feminists were pro-life. Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote:

When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit.

Susan B. Anthony viewed abortion as serving the interests of selfish or predatory men:

Guilty? Yes. No matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; But oh, thrice guilty is he who drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime!

Beyond the activists and the historic icons, there is another group of women whose deeds are awe-inspiring. I am referring to those women who become pregnant as a result of rape and choose to carry the child to term. I once read an article profiling a few such women, but I could not find it online. Many of them give the children up for adoption, but some choose to keep them. In either case, they considered their choice to be the ultimate triumph over their rapist. What words can be used to describe a person who makes such a choice? I can think of only one...hero.

Posted by Eric Seymour at 06:43 PM | Comments (21)

Caption contest

Click the link below to see the picture and take part in ITA's first caption contest. The winner gets, uh. . . praise and kudos.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 09:18 AM | Comments (13)

Boxer and Rice, Part II

Colbert I. King, Post columnist, criticizes some of Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice's detractors. He singles out Barbara Boxer, California senator, characterizing Boxer's attack on Rice's record as a series of blind and misguided personal attacks.

Posted by Paul Musgrave at 07:23 AM | Comments (6)

Hubble, R.I.P.

A federal program that served successively as a metaphor for government incomepetence and as one of the great scientific research projects in history is about to end. Although NASA will receive an increase in this year's federal budget (if the White House has its way, at least), Washington Post reports that the Bush administration has decided to slash the requested $1 billion save-the-Hubble Space Telescope mission. Instead, the space agency will work out how to de-orbit the telescope in 2007 or later. The funds are needed for what the Bush administration has deemed higher priorities, including the trip to Mars and relaunching the space shuttle fleet. (Remember? Mars? The Moon? Hundreds of billions of dollars over the next two decades?)

All may not be lost for the HST. Post mentions that support for the mission remains high in Congress, and it's possible the White House is using tactics similar to those suspected in its proposed defense budget cuts--namely, submitting a deficit hawk-budget that gets its spending cuts from popular programs Congress is likely to continue funding.

Wikipedia has useful background on the Hubble and its scheduled successor, the infrared-only James Webb Space Telescope (named for a former NASA administrator). Wikipedians argue that ground-based observatories can observe nearly as well as the HST can, but also that a new-generation space telescope, incorporating the nearly thirty years of research since the HST's design, could bring about major new discoveries.

Balta is upset.

Posted by Paul Musgrave at 07:11 AM | Comments (10)

Speaking of court decisions. . .

Today marks the the 32nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973). I have a feeling that Eric will have much more eloquent thoughts to say about it than I, but I think it's worth noting that I oppose the decision on two grounds. First, the decision strays much too far from the text and history of the Constitution. Secondly, it flies in the face of universal human rights inherent in justice. People involved with punditry can get tired of the endless focus on abortion. But for those, like me, who see the act as the taking of an innocent human life, there can be little else that precedes it in significance.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 12:19 AM | Comments (13)

Substantive Due Process Porn

The Western District of Pennsylvania has released a radical decision that, if upheld, would have enormous implications outside mere privacy. The decision, United States v. Extreme Associates, held that legislatures cannot ban the distribution of obscene pornography on Substantive Due Process grounds. Orin Kerr spells out the argument made by the court:

1. Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557 (1969), recognized a fundamental right to privacy in the private possession of obscene materials.
   
2. A law that imposes a substantial burden on a fundamental right triggers strict scrutiny, especially after Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003) made all morals legislation suspect under the due process clause.
   
3. Regulating obscene pornography places a substantial burden on the fundamental right recognized in Stanley and hinted at in Lawrence, triggering strict scrutiny; and
   
4. The federal obscenity laws cannot survive strict scrutiny as applied to a case such as this involving obscene pornography.

There are a few important and related points I want to make about this district court opinion. First and foremost, the district court is blatantly ignoring US Supreme Court decisions directly on point. United States v. Reidel, for instance, held that Stanley v. Georgia does not apply to distributing or receiving obscene materials. This is a classic case of "activist judges" who like making law themselves and ignoring precedent, rather than interpreting the law and following SCOTUS precedent. Changing the law is up to the legislture, not the judiciary.

But besides flying in the face of existing doctrine, the decision also validates some fears of dissenters in the Lawrence v. Texas decision. Lawrence is now being applied to more than just private consenual sex between two consenting adults, as the decision narrowly held. Nor did Lawrence make all morals legislation suspect. Further, the district court's decision highlights just how vague, loose, and undefinable "substantive due process" has become. The theory was first applied by the Supreme Court in the infamous Dred Scott v