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January 31, 2008

Setting the Bar Pretty Low

"The beauty of America is that a person can come and even make a disruption, and you know what, that person is not going to be taken out and shot."
-- Mike Huckabee

Posted by Zach Wendling at 09:48 PM | Comments (3)

Short Work of Fiction

Hey, it can't be all politics all the time around here. We're pleased to present for your enjoyment a very short story by brief ITA contributor Michael Mattair entitled, "The Secret Sinners' Society."

Posted by Zach Wendling at 06:23 PM | Comments (2)

John McCain's Free Market Principles

At last night's Republican debate in California, Amanda Oro from Casey, Illinois asked "if [the candidates] have a plan to help people with bad credit get lower interest rates so they can keep those homes and avoid foreclosure." John McCain answered this way (emphasis added):

...I think the efforts that have been made so far are laudable. We may have to go further, but the fact that the FHA and the other organizations of government under Secretary Paulson's direction, and I think he is doing a good job of sitting down and fixing at least a significant number of these problems.

I think that we've got to return to the principal that you don't lend money that can't pay it back. I think that there's some greedy people on Wall Street that perhaps need to be punished. I think there's got to be a huge amount more of transparency as to how this whole thing came about so we can prevent it from happening again.

When a town on Norway is somehow affected by the housing situation in the United States of America, we've gotten ourselves into a very interesting dilemma.

If necessary, we're going to have to take additional actions and particularly in cleaning up a mortgage. A mortgage should be one page and there should be big letters at the bottom that says, "I understand this document."

We ought to adjust the mortgages so people who were eligible for better terms, but were somehow convinced to accept the mortgages which were more onerous on them. We need to fix the rating systems, which clearly were erroneous in their ratings, which led people to believe that there were these institutions which were stable, which clearly were not.

You can see video of the response here. In an earlier presidential debate McCain noted, "The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should. But I've got Greenspan's book."

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 05:17 PM | Comments (2)

January 30, 2008

The Road From Florida, Part 2

Thousands of pundit hearts quickened at the news that John Edwards is dropping out of the race. Farewell to theories of Edwards and his delegates as king-maker at a brokered convention! His refusal to immediately make an endorsement more than makes up for that. The commentariat who can now exhaust themselves speculating upon whom his exit will benefit more.

My prediction: Edwards will endorse Mike Gravel.

Posted by Zach Wendling at 12:08 PM | Comments (3)

The Road From Florida

Who won in Florida yesterday? The American people! Why? Because Rudolph Giuliani will not be President of these united States. Despite the fact that he was a strong contender in the GOP Macho Primary, to characterize his campaign as full of machismo is to give it an aura of romance it does not deserve. Simply, he ran on a platform of brutal stupidities that took Bushism to a coarser level due to Rudy's special blend of vindictiveness, megalomania, and crackpottery.

Sadly, it is no surprise that he would turn around and endorse the only other true heir to the "major policies (and major blunders)" of the "party of Bush": John McCain, now the ostensible front-runner. While relatively less crazy than Giuliani, he remains an objectionable candidate, whose flaws are brought into sharp relief by Ross Douthat:

As anyone who reads this blog well knows, I don't much care for Mitt Romney, at least as he's presented himself to the American people in his campaign for President. Unfortunately, now that it's a two-man race, I'm being reminded of all the things I don't like about John McCain: His self-righteousness and stubbornness; his thin grasp of policy detail on a host of issues; his (related) tendency to filter policy debates through a Manichaean worldview, in which politics is the extension of war by other means; and his longstanding tendency to squander his reform-conservative tendencies on precisely the wrong domestic causes (campaign-finance reform, immigration, etc.). So for tonight, at least, I'm pulling for Romney - since the race will be more or less finished if he loses, and I'm not ready for it to be finished yet.

Is the race finished? Certainly, McCain has been leading the polls in all of the big Super Tuesday States, so Romney was only fighting for a bump coming out of Florida. His narrow chances just narrowed further. Douthat does see a ray of hope in the exit polling. Will the anti-McCain forces try to exploit that opportunity? As Kevin Drum asks:

[D]oes this mean that the McCain haters are going to redouble their efforts and go absolutely ballistic over the next week? Or are they going to start realizing that McCain is now inevitable and begin the process of dialing down the vitriol and circling the wagons in preparation for taking on the Democrats in the fall?

Looks like some tentative wagon-circling has started already. This is probably prudent considering the likelihood that, with Huckabee splitting the stop-McCain vote, St. John of Arizona will roll on to the nomination winning "primaries in conservative states without the need to secure majorities." In other words, he will win the nomination of his Party without the support of his party. The establishment better halt those wagons before they roll too far down the trail.

Posted by Zach Wendling at 03:55 AM | Comments (6)

January 29, 2008

Obviously an Eyesore

This guy deserves some kind of an award. His neighbors fellow citizens deserve scorn.

Posted by Zach Wendling at 11:56 AM | Comments (6)

"I regret all this cheap and tawdry imitation of English royalty."

-- Sen. John Sharp Williams of Mississippi, upon Pres. Woodrow Wilson's decision to deliver the State of the Union as an address rather than in writing. The ritual has only grown worse over the years.

As always, I did not watch the State of the Union Show last night. It is simply political theatre, and bad theatre at that. Besides, it has been a long time since anyone took George W. Bush seriously.

In case you missed it too, I did search through the transcript to find the one nugget of vital information every SOTU includes. Here it is, along with previous conclusions:

The state of our Union is . . .

• 2008: Strong (implied)
• 2007: Strong
• 2006: Strong
• 2005: Confident and Strong
• 2004: Confident and Strong
• 2003: Strong
• 2002: Never been stronger
• 2000: Strongest it has ever been
• 1999: Strong
• 1998: Strong
• 1997: Strong
• 1996: Strong
• 1995: Stronger than it was two year ago
• 1994: Growing stronger

Whew, how reassuring.

Posted by Zach Wendling at 08:03 AM | Comments (3)

January 28, 2008

More Conservatives on Obama

Andrew Sullivan tips his hat to my post here and earlier noted a post by Rod Dreher at beliefnet, who likens Obama to a Democrats' Reagan:

Look, I don't want a man who believes the things Barack Obama believes to be president. But I've got to confess, he makes me proud of my country. When's the last time you heard from a politician that made you proud of your country?

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 04:29 PM | Comments (11)

Barack Obama's Draw

The United States, unlike the United Kingdom, vests the powers of its Head of State and Head of Government in one single position: the President. Whereas the Head of Government concerns himself or herself with policy and government management, the Head of State is the chief public representative of a government, both on foreign and domestic fronts. As Charles de Gaulle put it, the Head of State should embody "the spirit of the nation" for the nation itself and the world.

As a libertarian-minded conservative, I agree with almost nothing of Barack Obama's actual policy positions. Whether it is with education, health care, or fiscal matters, Obama is a liberal in the truest sense of the word. He fails to respect federalism and his policies can often border on socialism. Indeed, I have trouble identifying any policy positions of Obama's that appeal to me. In short, I think Barack Obama would make a terrible Head of Government.

Yet, as David Kopel has deftly noted, the Head of State is an entirely different role altogether, and regardless of your ideological perspective, there is something tremendously appealing about Obama. Indeed, several of his recent speeches - his Iowa victory, a speech on MLK Jr. Day, and the South Carolina victory - have given me goosebumps and caused me to swell with pride at being an American. Caroline Kennedy, reflecting on her father JFK, offered this in her endorsement:

I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president - not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.

As a twenty-something, I lack the historical perspective of being alive during Kennedy's presidency, but the analogy seems apt.

It's hard to identify all of the intangibles that make Obama so appealing. But, for me, I think it's that he ultimately speaks to the America we all love. The America we all want to believe in again. Heads of Government will come and go, but iconic Heads of State are a rare breed: Roosevelt (both), Kennedy, Reagan, etc. One must acknowledge Barack Obama's undeniable ability to act as Head of State; to represent the "spirit of the nation."

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 11:44 AM | Comments (14)

January 27, 2008

Cooking Books

Here's a clever site that's been making the rounds: Books That Make You Dumb. The gist is that the creators downloaded the top ten books at every college listed on Facebook, then correlated the books with the average SAT scores at the colleges at which they are popular. The results, sorted by genre, are plotted here.

Really, this probably doesn't tell us much about the books or their readers, but there are some interesting observations.

• The top titles (scoring roughly more than 1150):

  Lolita
  100 Years of Solitude
  Crime and Punishment
  Freakonomics
  Catch 22
  Atlas Shrugged
  The Alchemist
  Cat's Cradle
  Ender's Game

• Lolita is an outlier within the 'Erotica' genre (much dispute, apparently, over that classification); otherwise that genre scrapes the bottom of the barrel. Slightly above that lies the 'African-American' genre. All of those titles scored lower than "I Don't Read."
• While Atlas Shrugged scores high, the kind of committed Objectivists who would delve deeper into Ayn Rand's works will find Anthem quite a bit lower, scoring mid-range among 'Dystopian' literature.
• The Da Vinci Code scores well, and those who went back to read Angels and Demons score even higher. Oddly, those who expressed a preference for "Dan Brown" scored lower than DVC.
• Interesting distinction between those who list The Bible (~1050) and those who list The Holy Bible (~925), the only title to score lower than The Purpose Driven Life (no favorite of mine) in 'Religion.' Those hard-working Mormons lead the pack in that genre.
• As noted elsewhere, Crime and Punishment far outranks Anna Karenina. Also noted elsewhere, some derision for tagging Tuesdays with Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven as 'Philosophy.'

Posted by Zach Wendling at 07:45 PM | Comments (4)

Let the diner beware (a weekend epiphany)

Restaurants make more profit from their beverages than from any other menu item. That bottomless soft drink that you pay $2 for costs the restaurant perhaps a few nickels. It's no coincidence, then, that the first thing your server asks you as they hand you the menus is some version of "Can I start you off with some drinks?" while the actual price they charge is buried at the back of the menu. If you're like most people, you just name your favorite soft drink without thinking about it.

I ate lunch at The Cheesecake Factory yesterday and as luck would have it, I decided to just drink water because of the hefty meal I was planning to eat. But then as I looked through the menu, I did happen to notice how much they charged for a soft drink: $3. Suddenly, drinks at the movie theater seemed a little less expensive.

Posted by Eric Seymour at 04:17 PM | Comments (9)

January 25, 2008

'Breaking Up Is Hard to Do'

Peggy Noonan has penned what I believe to be a good column in today's Wall Street Journal assessing the state of presidential politics.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 09:53 AM | Comments (3)

January 24, 2008

Discuss

Wounded by war, possessing years of accomplishment, hated by conservatives...

Posted by David Darlington at 11:36 AM | Comments (8)

A Lesson in Economics for Joe Carter

Joe Carter of the evangelical outpost fame has penned a post titled "Was McCain Wrong About Bush's Tax Cuts?" In it Joe defends John McCain's decision to vote against Bush's tax cuts, and notes that cutting taxes and cutting spending (simultaneously) has long been a conservative principle. This stands in stark contrast to the view that there are reasons to cut taxes but leave spending high. Attempting to debunk the latter, Joe identifies "three reasons not to tie tax cuts to spending reductions" and why "all appear to defy reality."

The first strategy, "starve the beast," and the second, "cut now and force spending reductions in the future," are criticized by Joe. Though there some reasonable defenses of those strategizes, I don't necessarily find them persuasive and I won't quibble with Joe's characterization.

However the third "and most common" justification identified by Joe is the notion that cutting taxes actually increases tax revenue. Or, in Joe's words, "supply-side magic." Joe's subsequent critique of the concept reveals a woeful ignorance of rather fundamental economics.

This idea - that lower taxes actually increase government tax revenue - was popularized by economist Arthur Laffer, and from him sprung the Laffer Curve. The underlying principle is simple. As the government increases tax rates, tax revenue will likewise rise. However, at some point, the tax rates become so high that there is actually a disincentive to bring in more income. Why work for that extra $100 when most of it is taxed? Taken to an extreme, with 100% there would be virtually no tax revenue. As the Laffer Curve to the left illustrates, there is an optimal tax rate, and when the current rate is set above that, tax cuts will actually increase revenue.

Far from what Joe suggests, the fact that a Laffer Curve exists is almost universally accepted among economists. The only real debate is where the optimal rate resides. Some think it's relatively high, while others (such as President Bush), think it's below the current rate.

I certainly don't claim to know where the optimal rate can be found, though it's worth noting that federal government revenue has steadily increased since the Bush tax cuts. Nevertheless, there are far too many variables that determine revenue (e.g., world markets, innovation, etc.). Thus, the famous economic phrase ceteris paribus - all else being equal - isn't possible in the real world. Whether we are above or below the optimal rate remains a mystery to me. But the real world does house "such fiscal foolishness" as a Laffer Curve.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 12:07 AM | Comments (13)

January 22, 2008

Fred Thompson Out

Daniel Larison: "[H]e always inspired more feelings of pity than indignation, which is more than I could say for any of the other one-time leading candidates."

Well, there you go.

Oh, and Duncan Hunter ducked out, too, which no one seemed to notice.

Posted by Zach Wendling at 09:56 PM | Comments (5)

Quirky Nevada Caucus

Just a reminder: before Nevada, Obama had one more delegate (allocated by primary/caucus) than Hillary; after Nevada, Obama has two more delegates than Hillary. Somehow, this little nagging fact actually acted like something of a speedbump in the media's hysteria over Hillary's nominal victory in Nevada. Hopefully they'll start paying more attention to these delegate things. Although, since polls show Obama set to score one last victory in South Carolina before Super Tuesday, the media narrative might actually match the delegate totals in the run-up to the big day.

Posted by Zach Wendling at 12:14 PM | Comments (4)

The GOP Blackbox v 3.2

Here are the delegate totals after Nevada and South Carolina for the Republican contenders:

Source:	NYT	CBS	MSNBC	RCP	ABC	AP	CNN	MyDD
Romney	27	35	59	59	59	59	66	87
McCain	32	32	36	36	36	36	38	66
Huckabee	7	7	39	40	40	40	26	29
Thompson	0	3	5	5	5	5	8	11
Paul	0	0	4	4	4	4	6	8
Giuliani	-	0	1	1	1	1	1	0
Hunter	-	1	2	-	1	1	1	-

There seems to be five schools of thought on how to count delegates.

1. Ultra-conservative: The New York Times is not counting any delegates awarded by caucuses (IA, WY, NV) because those delegates have not yet been officially selected, and even still, Iowa and Wyoming delegates are unbound.
2. Conservative: Like the NYT, CBS is not counting delegates from Nevada or Iowa, and yet they are confident enough to count the unbound delegates from Wyoming.
3. Prospective: MSNBC, Real Clear Politics, ABC, and the Associated Press are all estimating the delegates allocated by caucuses. This is the plurality view. I'll note here also that RCP has the best designed scorecard of any of these websites.
4. Liberal: CNN is also estimating delegates allocated by causus, but their method for Iowa seems to be straight proportionality, whereas the Prospective approach gives delegates to Huckabee (30) and Romney (7) only.
5. Unknown: I don't know how MyDD is counting these things, and they seem so far off the path I'm not that interested in tracking them down. They will probably be excluded from further roundups.

Update: CNN changed their totals: for some reason they are not counting any delegates from Michigan. CNN totals corrected.

Posted by Zach Wendling at 12:10 PM | Comments (4)

The Wrong Trousers

I came across this viral video months ago and was fascinated, like most people, with the idea of busking with a harp. The teen trio call themselves The Wrong Trousers, and a visit to their MySpace page should convince you that they are no mere novelty act. They've just produced a new album that is absolutely charming; it is distributed by CD Baby (a pretty decent business), and it looks like they will already have to print more.

Posted by Zach Wendling at 12:04 PM | Comments (4)

January 21, 2008

Barack's Ebenezer Sermon

For those with 34 minutes to spare, Mr. Obama's sermon to Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, this week is worth a watch.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 11:39 PM | Comments (4)

MLK, LBJ, and HRC

I'd like to thank Hillary Clinton for providing a hook for today's essay...

Last Tuesday marked the 78th birthday of Martin Luther King Jr, an event we recognize today with a national holiday. With impeccable timing, Dr. King's ghost also made an appearance this past week, in the Democratic presidential primary, as Hillary Clinton made comments which suggested that President Lyndon Johnson was more important for securing rights for African Americans than the slain civil rights leader. You can watch Senator Clinton's comments as they happened here on YouTube.

Clinton's comments, and the issue about whether or not her campaign has a race problem, have been debated extensively this past week. Reihan Salam's "statist or racist?" post from The American Scene is one of the better commentaries on the subject, as he astutely recognizes that the Clintons' top-down, government-action approach undervalues the role of a Martin Luther King Jr in creating an intellectual and political environment where legislative action on civil rights could take place. He says, "Clinton is undervaluing the role played by the 'war of ideas' and overvaluing the role played by the force of law," and "That Clinton seems to think of LBJ as the more substantial figure betrays an ideological bias -- the real work of 'change' is done by those who wield political power. Politicians 'wear the pants' in her vision of a national family. So if a moral and intellectual leader like King can't hold a candle to the likes of LBJ, surely innovators and entrepreneurs and intellectuals are but bit players in the drama of life." Frankly, the Clintons' top-down perspective should be enough to dissuade any disillusioned conservative from voting for Senator Clinton this fall.

But I wouldn't be as fast as Salam to dismiss a racism, or at least a racialized political strategy, in Hillary Clinton's remarks. The narrative Bill and Hillary Clinton have been constructing since their mildly surprising defeat in Iowa has been that while Barack Obama talks a good game about "change," Hillary Clinton actually has a public record of "35 years of change" because she's been closer to the levers of power. The comparisons they're trying to make are obvious. Barack Obama is Martin Luther King Jr: the African American with a powerful speaking presence but, in their perspective, a short record of real accomplishment. Meanwhile HRC is LBJ: the thin-skinned, short-tempered, arm-twisting Southern pol (hey -- their narrative, not mine!) who actually "gets things done." It's a move to diminish Obama's personal accomplishments comparative to Clinton's -- which, if we're honest, aren't all that different (seriously, Hillary Clinton has experience running government like Deanna Favre has experience quarterbacking the Packers). Likewise, when Clinton surrogates mention Obama's cocaine use as young adult, it's a move to cut off his cross-racial appeal and marginalize him as a candidate. Of course, media idiots like Joe Klein buy it completely, and when Obama calls Hillary Clinton on her LBJ remarks, he is the one accused of injecting race into the campaign. Classic Clinton rope-a-dope. Andrew Sullivan has been on this issue since Hillary Clinton's initial comments and notes that it is having an effect.

Racial mistrust is still very real in this country, even if the days of widespread violence are mostly in the past, and because of that mistrust the Clintons may have stumbled on a way to marginalize and defeat the first African American candidate with a serious, realistic chance at the White House. I do hope that Barack Obama finds a way to keep his cross-racial appeal and win the Democratic nomination though -- not just because it would mean the defeat of the Clinton machine, and not just because of the historical triumph of the first nomination of an African American by a major party, but also because Hillary Clinton is just plain wrong about Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King Jr. Politicians who try to impose their will on a republic from the top down without the public being prepared for it get kicked out of office, and rightly so. Men (and women) like MLK Jr are essential to seed the public mind with ideas of change and what a new, improved society can look like. The pols that people like the Clintons love so much can only reap what the visionaries have sown.

Or as a conservative might understand it, ideas come before consequences.

My MLK Day essay from last year: Whose Side Were You On?

Posted by David Darlington at 12:19 AM | Comments (10)

January 20, 2008

Human Rights Commission, Belasrusian Style

Ezra Levant, the publisher mentioned in Mr. Claybourn's article below, may want to send Alyaksandr Zdvizhkow flowers. On Friday, a Minsk city judge sentenced the deputy editor of the now-defunct newspaper Zhoda to serve three years in a "medium-security prison."

The impetus for his conviction? After reprinting the verboten Danish Muhammad cartoon in early 2006, the mufti of the Spiritual Association of Muslims in Belarus filed a complaint. Zdvizhkow was found guilty of "inciting racial, national or religious enmity or discord," in violation of Paragraph II of the city's Criminal Code, Art. 120. The intemperate associate editor has been in custody since 2007.

Posted by Seth Zirkle at 09:58 AM | Comments (6)

January 18, 2008

Nothing Short of Incredible

In his recommended items in ITA's right sidebar, Zach links to a post by Megan McArdle which features Ezra Levant, a Canadian publisher whose magazine reprinted offensive Danish Mohammed cartoons. A complaint was filed with the Alberta Human Rights Commission and Levant was called to testify. However the one clip which Megan features is only a small portion of the whole inquisition; the remainder is equally extraordinary. Repeatedly, and with inspiring passion and zeal, Levant stands up to the (literal) thought police. It's definitely worth watching the whole thing, so for your viewing pleasure, here are all of the parts with their titles:

Part I: Opening Statement
Part II: What was your intent?
Part III: The real violence in Edmonton
Part IV: I don't answer to the state
Part V: "You're entitled to your opinions"
Part VI: Attributes of free speech
Part VII: How does the commission make decisions?
Part VIII: Closing argument
Bonus: Details of the complaint

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 12:41 AM | Comments (22)

January 17, 2008

I'm Turning Japanese Redneck?

Seriously, this trend baffles me. It approaches the level of bizarre fads we usually expect out of the Japanese.

Posted by Zach Wendling at 09:29 PM | Comments (0)

The Faith of a President

Throughout the history of the United States - and indeed throughout the history of most of human civilization - the religious beliefs of civil leaders has mattered greatly. Indeed, one could easily argue that no single issue has had a greater impact on civil leadership than faith. Although its importance in the minds of modern American voters may be waning (even among the dreaded 'Religious Right'), it still impacts the presidential selection process in meaningful ways. In light of that, here's a brief chart indicating the religious beliefs of the candidates. Since all are self-described Christians, I will simply note their denomination:

If you're interested in more, check out the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, which offers a brief religious biography of each candidate.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 10:33 AM | Comments (4)

The rEVOLUTION of Ron Paul

Earlier in a Republican presidential debate held in May of 2007, a Politico.com writer asked any candidates who did not believe in evolution to raise their hand. The relevance of this question to a presidential candidate is highly debatable, but no one present appeared to protest the request. As I noted at the time in this post, only Sen. Sam Brownback, Gov. Mike Huckabee, and Rep. Tom Tancredo raised their hands. Yet as Ilya Somin describes at the Volokh Conspiracy, Ron Paul now says he also rejects the theory of evolution.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 10:12 AM | Comments (11)

January 16, 2008

Bad Day

And you think you have toxic co-workers...

Posted by David Darlington at 10:10 PM | Comments (0)

The GOP Blackbox v 2.0

How does the delegate allocation look after Michigan? We get a little more convergence, as it looks like RCP has adopted the ABC/MSNBC method of counting Iowa's delegates.

Source:	CNN	CBS	ABC	MSNBC	MyDD	RCP	NYT	AP
Romney	46	35	42	42	66	42	27	42
Huckabee	19	2	32	32	17	32	2	32
McCain	15	13	13	13	30	13	13	13
Thompson	6	3	3	3	8	3	0	3
Paul	2	0	0	0	4	0	-	0
Giuliani	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0
Hunter	1	1	1	1	1	-	-	1

Update: Added AP, which seems to be following the 30/7 IA split, and the NYT, which is not counting any delegates from IA or WY.

Posted by Zach Wendling at 09:52 PM | Comments (0)

January 15, 2008

Too Early to Rise

I've long heard that research shows our standard school day is absurd (my high school schedule was 7:35 am - 3:25 pm), but I've never come across an authority to cite. But here is Nancy Kalish in the New York Times:

Research shows that teenagers' body clocks are set to a schedule that is different from that of younger children or adults. This prevents adolescents from dropping off until around 11 p.m., when they produce the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin, and waking up much before 8 a.m. when their bodies stop producing melatonin. The result is that the first class of the morning is often a waste, with as many as 28 percent of students falling asleep, according to a National Sleep Foundation poll. Some are so sleepy they don't even show up, contributing to failure and dropout rates.

Naturally, the excruciatingly early schedule we have today is, like a long summer vacation, an artifact of our agrarian past. However, it seems like there's been much more progress in moving toward year-round school than pushing back the start time of a school day. The op-ed suggests there are three common objections: bus service, after-school activities, and the schedules of parents and teachers. None of these seems very persuasive, and Kalish cites examples where they have been easily overcome. Sounds like one of those maddening examples of inertia trumping common sense. (via Jacob Sullum)

Posted by Zach Wendling at 09:38 PM | Comments (5)

Delaying Children

The Washington Post carries an interesting story today titled "Bringing Up Babies, And Defying the Norm: Some Young College Grads Embrace Parenthood as Their Peers Postpone It". The story focuses on a handful of twenty-something professionals that are defying the odds by actually bearing children, rather than wait or forego it altogether. Far more interesting to me than the exceptions was the actual statistics describing the norm:

Demographic data obtained by The Post indicate that in metro areas nationwide, including cities and suburbs, 13 percent of men and 31 percent of women ages 25 to 29 with four-year college degrees have had children, according to an analysis of 2000-06 social survey data from the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. By contrast, 49 percent of men and 62 percent of women in that age group with less education have had children, according to the analysis by University of Maryland sociologist Steve Martin.

New data from the National Center for Health Statistics also show that college-educated mothers are usually about 30 when they deliver their first child.

[. . .]

Many delay children because they have delayed marriage. From 1950 to 2004, the median age of first marriage rose from 20 to 26, according to a new book, "The Price of Independence: The Economics of Early Adulthood," co-edited by Sheldon Danziger, a University of Michigan public policy professor. Another factor in delaying having children, Danziger said, is that women and men who live together without being married are more socially accepted than ever.

One wonders, what impact do older parents, and by implication older grandparents, have on the social fabric of society? How does being older as a parent or grandparent alter childrearing and culture? I'm not sure, but it's certainly worthy fodder for further study.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 01:55 PM | Comments (4)

January 14, 2008

Security Theatre Roundup

First off, bringing lithium batteries into the cabin of an airplane is intolerably dangerous -- unless there are only two of them in a plastic baggie or they are already in your electronic device. Then they are perfectly safe.

Next, we've learned that the TSA will now be investigating facecrime using witchcraft. Let's hope they use the same dazzling scrutiny we've come to expect from baggage screening.

New suspects on the No Fly List: a five-year old boy (no profiling here folks!) shares a name with an evildoer. Realizing they had the wrong guy, the TSA chuckled and sent the family on its way with no delay. Just kidding -- they questioned them, searched their luggage, and chastised the mother for hugging her son during the ordeal. Apparently, this is the perfect way to transfer contraband. And the government makes it official: Sam Adams is now a terrorist (oddly enough, also shared with a five-year old boy). Let that sink in.

Shocking no one, a new study confirms that airport security does not prevent terrorist attacks. The response from the TSA is especially rich:

"Even without clear evidence of the accuracy of testing, the Transportation Security Administration defended its measures by reporting that more than 13 million prohibited items were intercepted in one year," the researchers added. "Most of these illegal items were lighters."

Bruce Schneier cuts this to pieces:

This is where the TSA has it completely backwards. The goal isn't to confiscate prohibited items. The goal is to prevent terrorism on airplanes. When the TSA confiscates millions of lighters from innocent people, that's a security failure. The TSA is reacting to non-threats. The TSA is reacting to false alarms. Now you can argue that this level of failures is necessary to make people safer, but it's certainly not evidence that people are safer.

For example, does anyone think that the TSA's vigilance regarding pies is anything other than a joke?

Actually, the TSA's goal has never been to prevent terrorism on airplanes. It has been to create a level of wasteful bureaucracy devoted to CYA while putting on a show to justify their budget. (This is why appeals like this will certainly fall on deaf ears.)

For an explanation of why this is so, I cannot recommend highly enough this op-ed by Patrick Smith. It's much too rich to quote: read the whole thing.

Previously by the Author:

Stupid Thursday
An In-Depth Discussion of Dilatants with the TSA
"Kip Hawley is an Idiot"
Security Theatre: A Minor Tragedy in One Act

Related by the Author:

I'm OK With the Black SUV's
Bad Chemistry
Dear Boston, Everyone is Laughing at You
Beantown Meltdown
Bombast

Posted by Zach Wendling at 12:57 PM | Comments (6)

What's your theological worldview?

In the same vein as similar political quizzes, this one helps you identify your theological worldview. (Hat tip to Richard Hall, who finds himself in the Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan tradition.)

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 10:37 AM | Comments (7)

January 13, 2008

Remember, Remember

Some history really ought not be forgotten. Take some time to make sure this isn't.

Posted by Zach Wendling at 09:16 PM | Comments (3)

January 12, 2008

Hillary's Race Problem

Amid reports (i.e., media-hyped narrative) that African-Americans are peeved with the Clinton campaign for perceived slights to their collective identity comes this hilarious quote from an unnamed Clinton advisor:

If you have a social need, you're with Hillary. If you want Obama to be your imaginary hip black friend and you're young and you have no social needs, then he's cool.

Take that liberal-white-guilt-laden yuppies. If you support Obama now, you're guilty of double-reverse racism! Brilliant move, unnamed advisor.

In an effort to reach out to the disaffected, Clinton recently released this report on positional inequality:

Posted by Zach Wendling at 07:04 PM | Comments (3)

January 11, 2008

The Politics of Sex

People tend to enjoy seeing the demographics of those who share their political views, or those who also back the candidate of their choice. Are they poor or wealthy? Smart or dumb? What ethnic group do they claim? But Playboy magazine has gone a step further and conducted a nationwide survey on politics and sex. The results are interesting.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 06:59 PM | Comments (1)

Quick Links

Here are some pieces so interesting I'm at a loss for further commentary:

• The absurdity of college admissions
• A Timeline of the Bill of Rights under George W. Bush
• How spammers are beating Captcha tests (SFW)
• Get a demographic breakdown of any zipcode
• A profile of Mount Holly, MN

Posted by Zach Wendling at 01:57 PM | Comments (2)

The Wrong Intangibles

Looks like Obama is losing the Democratic Macho Primary. Can he woo enough independents, not just from his rival Democrats but also from the Republican primaries, to win?

Posted by Zach Wendling at 01:21 PM | Comments (0)

Paging Rowan Williams' Compassion

Today marks the commemoration of Blessed William Carter, who was hung, drawn,and quartered at Tyburn on this date in 1584. Born in 1548, Carter was apprenticed to the Queen's printer, John Cawood, for ten years on Candlemass Day, 1563. Sometime later he served as secretary to Nicholas Harpsfield, the last Catholic archdeacon of Canterbury. Harpsfield, you'll recall, authored one of the first biographies of Thomas More, and was the author of the wildly successful Treatise on the Pretended Divorce. After the deaths of Queen Mary and Cardinal Reginald Pole, Harpsfield refused to attend the election of Matthew Parker, an act that would endear him to the Fleet prison until his death.

Likely encouraged by Harpsfield's literary and theological acumen, Carter set up a press on Tower Hill and reprinted, at 1000 copies, Gregory Martin's (of Douay-Reims Bible fame) A Treatise of Schism in 1580. For his efforts, Carter was arrested under pretenses of treason and languished in the Tower until his death four years later. It is said that the jury only took fifteen minutes to reach its guilty verdict. Carter was venerated on 10 November 1986 and beatified on 22 November 1987 by Pope John Paul II. His life is also celebrated on 22 November in the Feast of the Martyrs of England, Scotland, and Whales.

Posted by Seth Zirkle at 12:11 PM | Comments (0)

January 10, 2008

The GOP Blackbox

Who's leading in the GOP horse-race? Depends on who you ask. Here are the sources I've been able to track down that purport to show the total delegates allotted by primaries/caucus so far.

Source:	CNN	CBS	ABC	MSNBC	MyDD	Romney	RCP
Romney	24	12	19	19	21	15	24
Huckabee	18	1	31	31	14	2	18
McCain	10	7	7	7	12	12	10
Thompson	6	3	3	3	8	3	6
Paul	2	0	0	0	4	0	2
Giuliani	0	0	0	0	1	0	0
Hunter	1	1	1	1	1	1	0

At least we can agree that Giuliani is a loser.

Update: RCP added and MyDD corrected.

Update II: I believe the source of much confusion is what to do with the delegates from Iowa, which haven't exactly been allocated yet. Wikipedia explains:

The non-binding results are tabulated and reported to the state party, which releases the results to the media. Delegates from the precinct caucuses go on to the county conventions, which choose delegates to the district conventions, which in turn selects delegates to the Iowa State Convention. Thus it is the Republican Iowa State Convention, not the precinct caucuses, which select the ultimate delegates to the Republican National Convention in Iowa. All delegates are officially unbound from the results of the precinct caucus, although media organizations either estimate delegate numbers by estimating county convention results or simply divide them proportionally.

Thus one could, as CBS and the Romney campaign have done, exclude the Iowa delegates entirely -- they are unbound anyway. (However, Romney also seems to be counting unpledged delegates not allocated by primaries.) CNN and RCP have divided the Iowa delegates proportionally, and ABC and MSNBC have divided them up among the top two candidates (according to some rule I have not found). I don't know what is going on with MyDD.

Posted by Zach Wendling at 07:51 PM | Comments (5)

Mark Byron

Long-time blog neighbor and friend Mark Byron commemorated his blog's sixth birthday yesterday. Mark resided in Indianapolis for a short while, where I had the pleasure of meeting him and his wife. He doesn't expect to be quitting his hobby anytime soon:

I may take a day or two off now and then, which I rarely did when I first got started, but this is part of my life. I don't see it going away anytime soon; I have too much of a community going here to walk away.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 09:26 AM | Comments (0)

January 09, 2008

Watching Campaign Coverage Will Make You Stupid

Seriously, could coverage of the primaries be any more substance-free? Even otherwise intelligent pundits are going on about such trivial things like the moistness of Hillary's eyes. What in the world does that have to do with her qualifications to be President? And yet that and other episodes like it dominate political coverage.

Even the primary results are reduced to simple, misleading narratives. Reporters are so used to covering first-past-the-post elections that they forget it's the delegate allocation that matters. So far, the primaries have led to these delegate results:

Obama: 25
Clinton: 24
Edwards: 18

Romney: 24
Huckabee: 18
MCain: 10
Thompson: 6
Paul: 2
Giuliani: 1
Hunter: 1

(Note: I've seen varying accounts of the GOP totals.)

Before New Hampshire, Obama was one delegate ahead of Hillary. After New Hampshire, Obama is one delegate ahead of Hillary. But what are the media blaring? Hillary has made a dramatic comeback from her devastating defeat in Iowa! Were her tears the decisive factor? And on the Republican side, McCain has surged to . . . third place. Meanwhile, Mitt "two silvers and a gold" Romney is leading.

Even if the media chose to build narratives out of delegate totals instead of the "winners," they would still be misleading us. As Doug Masson reminds us, each party has allocated but a tiny fraction of their total delegates; no one is even close to having a substantial number of the delegates they will need for the nomination. So far, it is ridiculous to say that anyone is "winning." But without all of this hyperventilation, the media would have to come up with something substantial to say, and this they cannot do.

Posted by Zach Wendling at 11:46 AM | Comments (5)

MSN-High School Cheerleaders-BC

I should know better by now, but I was shocked last night at the open derision offered by the MSNBC political commentators towards GOP presidential hopeful John McCain. Not that I expect an Arthur Schlesinger level of erudition from the modern pundit class, but Chris Matthews and company's response to McCain's victory and subsequent speech was downright shameful. Working without a transcript, I recall it went a little something like this:

Sen. John McCain: "God bless you friends, and God bless America!"
Keith Olbermann: "McCain, you stink!"
Joe Scarborough: "Can't you wait until he's off the stage first?"
Olbermann: "McCain stinks, and so did that speech."
Chris Matthews: "Srsly, I think like every McCain adviser wrote one paragraph."
Olbermann: "LOL!"
Howard Fineman: "For reals, he stuttered like three times during that speech. How does he expect to go to the prom get elected sounding like that?"
Matthews: "Woot!"
Olbermann: "Srsly"
Fineman, Matthews, Olbermann: "LOSER!" All three make an "L" sign on their foreheads. Scarborough rolls his eyes.

Posted by David Darlington at 10:29 AM | Comments (1)

Onion Headline Comes True?

"Voting Potential of Husbands Doubles"

The signing into law of the 19th Amendment will almost certainly see twice the number of citizens participating in the democratic process, experts say, causing crowding and long lines at the polls, as women queue up to echo their husbands' votes.

"As women obediently take their place in line behind their husbands, preparing to do their wifely duty by casting their ballot for the candidate of his choice, it will certainly seem that a vast political change is sweeping our nation," said Hubert Prentice, a political-science professor at Harvard University. "However, aside from the novelty inherent in a voting female, little will actually change. The ladies will, no doubt, seek the reasoned and tempered opinions of their better halves and vote accordingly . . ."

-- The Onion, August 27, 1920, p.1

"NH v Iowa"

You know why Hillary does worse in a caucus? Because women who are leaning Hillary go to the caucus with their husbands, and he says "Let's go for Obama" or "Let's go for Edwards" and she says "Well, all right then" because she doesn't want to spend the next hour sitting alone in the Hillary group. I've sat through a caucus. This is how it works.

-- Emily Thorson, January 8, 2008 (via Matthew Yglesias)

Posted by Zach Wendling at 08:04 AM | Comments (0)

January 08, 2008

Ron Paul's Scandal

Well, this certainly takes some of the wind out of the sails. We've known for a while that some awful things appeared in Ron Paul's newletters, but most people generally accepted his explanation that he didn't write them and that he disavows them. What's striking about the latest revelations is the sheer volume of appalling quotes. His brief dismissals are no longer enough.

I think it is important to cut to the heart of the matter quickly. No one, not even James Kirchick, seriously believes that Ron Paul is a bigot. It is highly plausible that others were writing far-right trash under his name. The sentiments don't reflect his personal views, his writing style, or the message of his campaign.

However, this doesn't let him off the hook. These writings had his name at the top, and, as Kirchick notes, did so for decades. That leaves us with some important questions, the first two from Jesse Walker and a third from Nick Gillespie:

1. "If Paul didn't write those articles, who did?"
2. "If he didn't know what had appeared in his newsletter, when did he find out and how did he deal with it?"
3. "[W]hat [are the real writers'] connections to the Paul congressional office and presidential campaign"?

These all point to an even larger question: to what extent does this scandal reflect the character of Ron Paul? At best, even with the benefit of the doubt, he has a moral blind spot. At worst, he's tolerant of bigotry.

What does this mean for his candidacy? There are a number of criteria by which a candidate may be judged: principles, campaign platforms, experience, intelligence, and other intangibles like charisma. One of the most important of those intangibles is character. Most of Paul's supporters have been willing to overlook his lack of charisma (some, like me, even think it's endearing). I've gone even further and overlooked his platforms. Above these things, the principles are what matter: limited, Constitutional government; liberty and freedom; sane foreign policy; and the free market. But are these principles so important that we can also overlook his character problem? Are they so important that his supporters can still hitch the message to a man now clouded by guilt-by-association?

The answers to that depend on two things. First, will he answer the questions listed above? If so, do those answers ameliorate his guilt? Second, to what extent is this scandal resonating with the public? His campaign has already pushed the message Ron Paul = libertarianism. If this scandal establishes, fairly or unfairly, Ron Paul = bigotry, then the false syllogism will not be far behind. At that point, I don't think it will be worth it to defend Paul. Should supporters even try? Will they press him for an explanation? As Arnold Kling writes, "I think this is a very important moment for libertarians."

Dumping Paul would be hard because he has been such an energizing figure for a quixotic movement. If this moment passes, when will we find another? But this contradicts one of the sterling, bone fide, things Paul himself has said, "Politicians don't amount to much, but ideas do." Let's hope they survive Paul's rocky campaign.

Previously In The Agora

"The Cynic's Dilemma" by Zach Wendling
"No Finish Line at the Horserace" by Zach Wendling
"Pimps for Paul" by Eric Seymour
"Huckabee vs. Paul" by Joshua Claybourn
"Splitting Political Hairs, or, Just How Crazy is Ron Paul?" by Zach Wendling
"Intolerance of Ideological Minorities" by Zach Wendling
"Booing a Big Score" by Zach Wendling
"Positive Liberty and the Gold Standard" by Joshua Claybourn
"Ron Paul and the Gold Standard" by Joshua Claybourn
"Huckabee v Paul" by David Darlington
"Quote of the Day" by Zach Wendling
"Sexy Viral Political Videos" by Joshua Claybourn
"Ron Paul's Iowa Surge" by Joshua Claybourn
"Ron Paul's Cell Phone Problem Revisited" by Joshua Claybourn
"Are cell phones killing Ron Paul's campaign?" by Joshua Claybourn
"Ron Paul on Drugs" by Joshua Claybourn
"Ron Paul: A Sideshow No More?" by Joshua Claybourn
"The Second 'Debate'" by Zach Wendling
"Ron Paul" by Joshua Claybourn

Posted by Zach Wendling at 07:33 PM | Comments (8)

French Economics

This is so funny and tragic and dumbfounding that I couldn't leave it lying in my shared items. (You guys are checking that out, right?) Do click through to the article.

And while I have your attention, this is pretty funny, too.

Posted by Zach Wendling at 01:54 PM | Comments (0)

I suppose this shouldn't be surprising anymore...

...but I still find it shocking. The University of Michigan is now offering a course titled "How to be Gay: Male Homosexuality and Initiation". Click the link for a course description.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 11:43 AM | Comments (7)

Human Tetris

I tend to think this is a quirky Japanese show that might actually catch on in the States.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 12:02 AM | Comments (3)

January 07, 2008

The Cynic's Dilemma

Even with my highly qualified support for Ron Paul, I can't help but get a grin whenever I see a bumpersticker or a homemade sign for the rEVOLution by the side of the road. It feels odd. Am I chagrined by this minor indulgence in intellectual laxity?

Actually, I think Bryan Caplan hits upon what makes this so disorienting:

I just got back from LA, and Ron Paul's signature was everywhere. A random "Who is Ron Paul?" billboard. A mini-rally at the Palm Springs public market. A button on the collar of my flight attendant.

I have to admit that these sightings weird me out. I'm so used to being completely against everything that any publicly visible group is for, I don't even know how to respond. When a teen holding a Ron Paul sign walks past me on the street, what am I supposed to do? Give him a thumbs up? Cheer? Stop him and start arguing about immigration? When my flight attendant asks me what I want to drink, do I say "I sympathize with your button"?

You tell me.

(emphasis in original)

Posted by Zach Wendling at 02:55 PM | Comments (2)

Defining 'Conservatism,' Part Umpteen

David Brooks turns up his nose. I'm not surprised, but Kevin Drum is.

More: 'Democracy in America' suggests it's not all about definition.

Posted by Zach Wendling at 01:34 PM | Comments (1)

Campaign Miscoverage

A two-word thought formed in my mind as I read this Christopher Hayes post: citizen journalism. Unfortunately, it's an incomplete thought as of yet.

Posted by Zach Wendling at 01:31 PM | Comments (1)

1984

It's not often you'll find me quoting Frank Rich with approval, but this is good:

What felt good [about the results in Iowa] was not merely the improbable and historic political triumph of an African-American candidate carrying a state with a black population of under 3 percent. It was the palpable sense that our history was turning a page whether or not Mr. Obama or his doppelganger in improbability, Mike Huckabee, end up in the White House. We could allow ourselves a big what-if: What if we could have an election that was not a referendum on either the Clinton or Bush presidencies? For the first time, we found ourselves on that long-awaited bridge to the 21st century, the one that was blown up in the ninth month of the new millennium's maiden year.

Think about it. 2008 might be the first time since 1984 we don't have a Clinton or Bush at the top of the ticket. That's an undeniably good thing.

Posted by David Darlington at 11:29 AM | Comments (4)

Indy

The February 2008 issue of Vanity Fair has a long, in-depth article on the upcoming Indiana Jones movie. You get a good peek at the updates the filmmakers had to make in order to deal with the 19-year gap between films. Can Lucas and Spielberg pull off an Indiana Jones movie set in the 1950s? I've made my call and I'm looking forward to the film. Spoiler alerts.

Posted by David Darlington at 10:52 AM | Comments (0)

January 06, 2008

An Epiphanytide Story

I know I ragged on the Magi last year, but I can't help but pass along this charming story brought to us by Chris Atwood.

Posted by Zach Wendling at 10:57 PM | Comments (0)

January 05, 2008

Kudos to ABC

For the most part, I'm not a fan of most presidential debates. They often bring out the worst in campaigning and reduce the bid for the world's most important position to a circus. But to its credit, ABC's presidential debates this evening - which featured both Republicans and Democrats in back-to-back forums - provided a model for future such gatherings. ABC promoted an atmosphere that truly did resemble a round-table discussion. Perhaps the biggest factor was allowing the candidates to discuss issues and policies sitting down. This simple change appears to have promoted calm, thoughtful discussion in a way not typical of previous debates where spread out candidates shouted at each other from behind podiums.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 10:01 PM | Comments (1)

Public Health Alert

If I were going to make up some disease, I'm pretty sure this is close to what I would name it.

via this conversation

Posted by Zach Wendling at 06:07 PM | Comments (1)

January 04, 2008

Kung-fu Kampaign

Here's a very playable and entertaining video game with the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates fighting each other, Mortal Kombat-style: Kung-Fu Election. (The special moves of each candidate are especially clever.)

Posted by Eric Seymour at 04:41 PM | Comments (2)

The Hubris of Rationality

There is a certain mischaracterization of conservativism as an ideology hostile to rationality and pragmatism. After all, the Left is the province of central planning and the science of technocracy. And the Republicans in Washington have done a fine job of showing their contempt for reality-based governance. Beyond all that nonsense, serious conservative thought isn't anti-thought.

Listening to an episode of EconTalk, I was struck by a lesson Russ Roberts recounts from his college days. In teasing apart the difference between pragmatism and rationalism, we find a deeply conservative message:

When I was at college at the University of North Carolina, I took a wonderful course from Richard Smyth where I learned about . . . Charles Peirce, probably the greatest American philosopher, and the philosophy of pragmatism. Now Peirce and the pragmatists, which includes William James and others, believed that the rationalism of DeCartes and Cartesian thought . . . had a dangerous element of hubris. The worship of rationality could lead to deluding yourself about the reliability of your thoughts and reasoning processes. Prof. Smyth put it this way: he used to say that your Grandmother is right. She believes in certain things, and when you ask her and press her for a justification, or a reason for those beliefs, she might just shrug and say, 'Well, I don't have an explanation. I can't justify it, but that's just the way we've always done it, and that's the way it should be done.' You feel superior to your grandmother, because you only do things that are rational.

That's the way he talked to us as college students, and I think as 19- and 20-year-olds, we absolutely agreed with him. We scorned people who couldn't justify their arguments with reason. Now, most of us feel that way -- you know, if you can't prove it, rationalize it with a logical argument, then obviously it's wrong. But the pragmatists argue that your grandmother -- and Hayek -- were onto something. Norms of behavior that survive, survive because they are effective, even when the people who hold those norms and believe in them can't explain the reasons for them. And Hayek, of course, emphasized the evolutionary nature of culture and norms in evolving to be effective, and you didn't have to understand why they were the right thing or why they were effective. They just survived the test of time. There's a form of competition among cultures and norms that produced that outcome.

Prof. Smyth discussed the Cartesian belief that you should . . . examine every one of your beliefs. If it passes the test of reason, you keep it, otherwise, you throw it out if you can't justify it. And that seems like the right way that a thinking person should behave. But the pragmatists argues that it was akin to examining the planks of your boat when you were at sea and throwing them out if they looked unseaworthy. That was the wrong time to be examining your views. It's the road to ruin. It's particularly true when you are less than objective in deciding whether to reject or accept a belief. Smythe quoted Benjamin Franklin, "When fortresses and virgins get to talking, the end is in sight." That is, when you're besieged, once you start negotiating, it's easy to talk yourself into giving in and finding a way of justifying it as the right thing to do . . .

On most issues, like fiscal policy, conservatives can engage liberals in a common language. On other issues, mostly social ones, they are at a loss in 'justifying' their positions. This is usually taken as a sign that they haven't a leg to stand on, but we ought not dismiss skepticism outright. (I would refer you once again to this essay by Jane Galt on the incredulity of social reformers.) With the growing rejection of the "conservative" brand and the rise of New Atheism, I think we should be apprehensive about the hubris of Reason.

Posted by Zach Wendling at 01:38 PM | Comments (4)

Deference to Expert Opinion

Tyler Cowen has a couple of summary posts on policy areas where his views are uncertain and where they are nearly certain. Both are worth reading, and I especially like #'s 2, 3, and 6 in the second list.

Posted by Zach Wendling at 10:02 AM | Comments (0)

January 03, 2008

Iowa Results

Doug Masson has the smartest assessment of the results you will read all week:

What's really interesting about this is that it seems to be almost a completely media generated storm. In terms of actual delegates, Iowa is fairly inconsequential. But, with a 24 hour news cycle, the media demands winners and losers. The narratives they create will tend toward being self-fulfilling prophecies. If the Clinton campaign is "devastated" because of a 3rd place finish in Iowa, it's only because the chattering classes say so; not because she came in 10 delegates fewer than Obama or Edwards.

What more do you need to know?

Posted by Zach Wendling at 11:07 PM | Comments (6)

Putting Nothing Before the Cart

In High School, I worked at a big box store. I always wanted to do this, and it's just as beautiful as I imagined.

Posted by Zach Wendling at 01:49 PM | Comments (0)

A Caucus is Not a Primary

If you are curious about what is going on tonight in Iowa, I recommend this firsthand account of a Democratic caucus from Evan Herrnstadt. At first, it seems amusing and quaint. Then one realizes that one of the most celebrated events in American democracy is pure nonsense. For more on why it is such an appalling process, check out this piece by Jeff Greenfield.

Here is a short synopsis of what's wrong with the Iowa Caucuses:

• They are ridiculously early and skew subsequent primaries.
• They were never meant to be tools for selecting a presidential nominee.
• Iowa is not a representative State.
• Iowans are not imbued with any special powers of discernment.
• Very few (<10%) of eligible Iowans show up to the caucuses. Those who do are systematically unrepresentative of the whole.
• The Democratic caucuses violate basic principles of democracy, namely, one man-one vote and the secret ballot.

Who will stop this madness? Certainly not Iowans. Probably not the national parties. Hopefully, the media.

Posted by Zach Wendling at 12:16 PM | Comments (9)

Are SWAT measures justified to save cops' lives?

Radley Balko is one of the foremost experts in the blogosphere on civil liberty issues related to police work. So it was with interest that I read his post last week which asked the question "Just how dangerous is police work?" (h/t: Zach's shared items list) After subtracting traffic deaths not related to the pursuit of criminals or rushing to the scene of a crime, Balko concludes that police officers have just under twice the national average of on-the-job fatalities.

I'm not sure that it's valid for Balko to subtract those traffic deaths from the police fatality statistics and then compare them to the national average. After all, many of the on-the-job fatalities in the national average include traffic accidents and other causes of death which are arguably not intrinsic to the job.

Either way, there's a bigger factor to consider if the question is whether SWAT measures are justified to save cops' lives. We should look at the police fatality rate in the types of situations where body armor and big guns are used, not the rate for all police work nationwide. There's no doubt in my mind that apprehending an armed fugitive is one of the most dangerous activities that any American faces on the job. It's unthinkable to ask a police officer to carry out that task without additional protective gear and special weapons.

But as any industrial safety advisor will tell you, the first step in making work less dangerous is to ask whether certain hazardous activities can be eliminated altogether. As Balko has argued before, many SWAT raids which result in police or civilian deaths were unnecessary because the goals of the raid could have been achieved by other, smarter means. There is a real danger that the increase in police SWAT training and equipment, and the increase in confrontational police raids reinforce each other and create an upward spiral of militarization of the police.

Posted by Eric Seymour at 08:47 AM | Comments (2)

January 02, 2008

The Democratic Primary

Most of our primary speculation here at ITA has been on the Republicans, so I think we should take a quick look at the Democratic race.

I'm sure there are no Democrats waiting to hear what I think before making up their minds, but I'm endorsing Bill Richardson. If we are to have a statist government, we might as well also have a competent executive. Richardson arguably has the best resume among either party. It doesn't hurt that he also has the reputation of being the most market-friendly of the Democratic contenders, which, if nothing else, at least signals a welcome breadth of thought. Unfortunately, he is actually campaigning for Vice President at this point. Best case scenario: he inherits some meaningful power from Dick Cheney and uses his powers for good.

But Democrats aren't hiring based upon resumes this year, for they (or the media) have selected the three candidates with the least impressive ones to be their frontrunners. Of course, there are other criteria by which one may judge candidates. From my political persuasion, most Democrats are indistinguishable on principles and policies, so I'm not sure how much difference the median Democrat will see between Hillary, Obama, and Edwards. I suspect not much.

As so often in politics, the really decisive factors are less tangible: character, charisma, campaign savvy, electability, and the like. I believe that these are even more important for Democrats than Republicans. As Bill Clinton quipped about primaries, Democrats fall in love and Republicans fall in line. So what lies deep within the hearts of Democrats? Frustration. On many levels, Democrats are frustrated with their party's inability to win elections, to advance a progressive agenda, to fend off Republican policies, or to frame the political debates. I think Republicans really do not understand how deeply this frustration is felt or how much of a motivating factor it is.

Each of the candidates tickles the base in their own way, but only Hillary taps into frustration so powerfully. Here at ITA, David coined the phrase "macho primary" to describe the thick-headed bellicosity we see in the GOP, but the Democrats have their own version. While Republicans compete to see who can be tougher on terrorists and immigrants, Democrats promise to beat up on Republicans. In the bare-knuckle brawl of the Beltway, Hillary has the battle scars to prove she's a survivor. This time around, she pledges to do more than merely survive.

I think this explains a lot of her support, especially considering all the things that should be handicapping her: her lack of charisma (to put it mildly), the fatigue of alternating political dynasties (Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton), a weaselly position on Iraq, a comfort with the status quo, and a sole guiding principle called "triangulation." If relieving frustration were not so important, the momentum would be behind one of the other, more progressive candidates.

The race isn't over yet, and the priorities may change. So far, though, I do see the Democratic primary as being a contest based upon intangibles rather than sharp distinctions in platforms. As Matthew Yglesias writes, "what you see on the Democratic side is basically people with similar ideas arguing about who's best situated to put those ideas into practice." Ultimately, discussing the Democratic primary is just a lot of horserace speculation.

Update: John Edwards is getting macho. (via Doug Masson)

Posted by Zach Wendling at 12:49 PM | Comments (2)

Are You Rapture Ready?

Shelby Corbitt wishes to send all of her readers and followers a big apology for that whole rapture thing in 2007.

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at 10:58 AM | Comments (1)

Cake or Death

Josh's post below about the waning influence of the Church of England reminded me of this Eddie Izzard routine, which is funnier when animated with LEGOs:

Posted by Eric Seymour at 08:51 AM | Comments (1)

January 01, 2008

Resolved

Posted by Zach Wendling at 04:15 PM | Comments (0)