Detective Work

A friend fowards along this photo of her father, Walter Rule, on one of his first Navy postings. She wonders whether this is Honolulu or San Diego. Any thoughts?

The Only History is Confederate History

Robert Stacy McCain unleashes some spittle-flecked outrage about something called the "Historic Victimhood Narrative" that is allegedly taught in American schools. For example, some history courses might suggest that race had something to do with the murder of Emmett Till. Why, they might even suggest that the acquittal of his murderers after a perfunctory show trial had something to do with the murder taking place in an apartheid police state! For shame -- I can't believe history has become so "politicized."

Atlas Shrugged

The revised manuscript.

By the way, has Dr. Mrs. Ole Perfesser "gone John Galt" yet? It's difficult to see how the country could be sustained with a reduction in wingnut blogging, but during times of crisis sacrifices are sometimes necessary.

More on Turkey

This is right. Admittedly, traditions being self-justifying is less harmless when it comes to one meal a year as opposed to, say, when Antonin Scalia uses this logic with respect to the 14th Amendment...

Plus, of course, everyone knows that the history is erroneous.

Also, Al Gore is Fat...

In my darker moments at the end of the semester, I sometimes find myself complaining to no one in particular that kids these days lack basic research skills and that their written work often reads like mediocre paraphrasing of Wikipedia entries.

Then again, it could be worse. Politico, for instance, should be lucky enough to hire reporters who actually know how to use Google. If Erika Lovley had even bothered to looked at the wiki entry for her major piece of "evidence" of growing scientific doubt about global climate change, she'd have discovered that the "31,000 scientists" on the laughable Oregon Petition included "Perry Mason," "Geri Halliwell," and someone by the name of "Redwine, Ph.D." For the sheer fun of it, I just might sign the petition and stuff it in the late afternoon mail, thus blending my skeptical voice with fellow Alaskans "Edward M. Dokoozian" (a "Certified Safety Professional"), "Monte D. Mabry" (a staff geologist for ConocoPhillips), and dozens of other folks whose existence on the internet consists, so far as I'm able to tell, entirely of having "signed" the petition....

No word on whether "Ronald Ruck, Ph.D." and "Rickey Rouse, DDS" have added their names to the list.

The rest of the piece is equally pathetic and weird. Did you know the Farmer's Almanac "predicted that the next year will see a period of cooling"? If you're the sort of person who doubts the predictive wisdom of the FA, you're probably the sort of person who doubts that "if it rains on St. Swithin’s Day, it will rain for 40 more". It's scientifical!

Cities of the Plains

I'm not sure I'm convinced by this argument:

Economic geography tells us that market potential is important. If you want to be a rich place, it helps to be close to other rich places. This is one of the problems with the Rust Belt. Individually, Rust Belt cities are weaker than cities on the east coast — they have smaller economies and less human capital. This is complicated by the fact that they’re fairly isolated. The rich cities of the northeast corridor are squeezed together, while Rust Belt cities are far apart — from each other and from the rich cities of the east coast. This means that they have less to work with, and they’re less able to leverage that strength in a regional economy. For this reason, I’ve argued that it’s important to invest in individual cities in the Rust Belt, but it’s also important to improve connections between the cities. To effectively bring them closer together.

High-speed rail would, in other words, turn Rust Belt distances into northeast corridor distances, while also shifting the Rust Belt closer to the northeast corridor. It would increase the return to doing business in every city in the region. It would be the Erie Canal and the original railroads on steroids.

I like the high speed rail idea, but I'm not sure I buy the argument that distance is the real problem in the Rust Belt. Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver really aren't that close to each other by Midwest standards, yet they all seem to be doing fine. Denver is very far from anything of consequence, yet is typically regarded as a wealthy city. I haven't done any research, and so my thinking could be all wrong (maybe Cincy and Cleveland are richer than Seattle and Portland in some non-obvious way?) but cities that aren't really close to other cities would also seem to benefit from being regional centers of consumption. Maybe there's some kind of upside down bell curve, such that close proximity and relative isolation are good for growth, while middling distances are a problem? Or perhaps the experience of the coastal cities of the West isn't transferable to the Midwest (this wouldn't apply to Denver, though)?

Via Ezra.

German Intelligence Did What Now?

Somebody explain to me how this makes sense:

A small explosion in Kosovo is quickly growing into a much bigger incident after the authorities in the capital, Pristina, arrested three Germans, alleged to be intelligence operatives, in connection with an attack on the building that houses the European Union's special representative there.

A judge in Kosovo remanded the three men - who media outlets there and in Germany have reported are members of the German foreign intelligence agency, the BND - to 30 days of investigative custody Saturday. On Monday in Berlin, a government spokesman, Thomas Steg, called the charge that Germany was involved in terrorist attacks abroad "absurd," but declined to comment on whether the men were intelligence agents or, as has also been alleged, members of the German Army, the Bundeswehr.

Sounds like a job for the Sandbaggers.

A Lack of Doctors

Via Megan Carpentier, Patricia Meisol has a very interesting article about the small number of medical practitioners who choose to become aboriton providers. One factor is the fact that the skills are not easily acquired at many medical schools ("Even in Maryland, where about 61 percent of voters approved a referendum guaranteeing abortion in 1992 and which has the fourth-highest abortion rate in the country, abortion is not taught in any formal lectures at the state's flagship medical school.") Another important factor is the lingering effects of the terrorism directed at abortion clinics in the 80s and 90s:

Regardless of specialty, doctors who perform abortions sign up for a lifestyle unlike any other in medicine, a subculture replete with drawn blinds, shredders, and security guards at professional conventions. Violence against abortion providers has declined markedly since the 1980s and '90s, when several doctors were killed or injured in shootings across the country and scores of clinics were torched or bombed, according to abortion federation data.

Myron Rose, a longtime College Park abortion provider who spoke at the seminar Lesley attended, wept as he described the difficult search for new office space after his clinic was firebombed in 1984. But that, he assured Lesley and the other medical students, was "antique times."

Even so, those involved with abortion remain extremely cautious. Doctors take cover in the anonymity of large hospitals and debate whether to take their spouses' surnames and how best to protect their children. Some avoid speaking publicly about abortion.

It is true that the legislation passed during the 90s was very effective at curtailing violence, but the precautions that abortion providers still have to take continues to have a chilling effect on the number of doctors willing to provide the service. Somehow, I'm inclined to think that the ongoing effects of this much more recent and successful terrorist campaign is more relevant to contemporary politics than Bill Ayers.

Proper Use Of Incentives

Yglesias commenter "hupcapiv" is making sense:

I’ll bail out out [any] writer who promises not to use the tiresome Friedman-esque phrase "it’s not X, it’s X on steroids."

I continue to endorse this idea. Some other fine choices here, although were he to write it today I'm sure the Editors would include "under the bus," "close the deal [at least in political context]," and "game changer."

The Arrival

Peter the Great has arrived in Venezuela:

The flag of Venezuela already flies on the mast. It is naval tradition to fly the flag of the countries in whose port you are conducting a friendly visit. Today the sailors checked out the missile tubes. The Peter the Great's armament will be shown to the presidents of both countries.

What is there to show? The Peter the Great is the largest non-aircraft carrier warship in the world. Two hundred and fifty meters of steel with dozens of missile tubes. And beneath each of these three ton hatches lays the main battery - the Granit nuclear anti-ship cruise missile (RNB comment - Huh! Well how about that!). As opposed to American cruise missiles, the Granit flies to its target at supersonic speed like a fighter jet. There is no ship as powerful as the Peter the Great in the world.

After finishing exercises with Venezuela, Peter the Great and his task force will head to India. After that, Galrahn speculates they might be on their way to Somalia.

That Sounds Like a Terrible Idea

The International Association of Independent Tanker Owners thinks that a blockade of Somali ports would be more effective against pirates than shipping escort. The European Community Shipowners Association thinks that air and cruise missile attacks on pirate bases would be even more effective. And the Russians, apparently, believe that direct land-based attacks on pirate strongholds are necessary:

NATO, the European Union and others should launch land operations against bases of Somali pirates in coordination with Russia, the Russian ambassador to NATO said on Wednesday.

Dmitry Rogozin said the view of Russian experts was that naval action alone, even involving a large fleet of a powerful nation, would not be enough to defeat the pirates, given Somalia's geo-strategic position.

"So it is up to NATO, the EU and other major stakeholders to conduct not a sea operation, but in fact a land coastal operation to eradicate the bases of pirates on the ground," he said.

Let's take these in reverse order. The idea of a NATO/EU/Russian invasion of Somalia (which is what ground based attacks would amount to) strikes me as crazy. David Axe:

Please recall that the last time Western troops had a large presence in Somalia, in 1993, 18 Americans and hundreds of Somalis died in a brutal gun battle. And much of the bloodshed in Somalia today is an outgrowth of a brutal Ethiopian occupation. Somalia is not the kind of place you invade lightly, and certainly not just to kill a few pirates.

I'm also less than convinced by the airstrike option. Pirates may have offices and known operation centers like everyone else, but I doubt that much organizational capital is tied up in fixed land infrastructure; rather, I suspect that the capital is in ships, human expertise, and organizational/tribal loyalties, the last two of which cannot be easily destroyed with cruise missiles. Striking pirate motherships in port might make some sense, if you could reliably differentiate them from normal shipping. But any such strike would run the risk of civilian casualties, and the piracy problem just isn't serious enough to take gambles like that.

I don't know about the close blockade concept; my hunch is that there are too many points of egress on the Somali coast and too few ships to carry out a full blockade. A close blockade would also put naval vessels at risk of attack from small boats; it's very unlikely that we'd see suicide attacks off Somalia, but I expect that the various navies would be too paranoid about the idea to actually go for it.

Axe gets it right, I think:

Ending piracy means encouraging Somalis to establish law and order on their own territory, while deterring pirates with naval patrols in international waters. An armed invasion would be counter-productive, by exacerbating the present nationalist insurgency and prolonging the country’s instability.

This is Your Brain on Drugs

Hinderaker, via Dave Weigel:

Obama thinks he is a good talker, but he is often undisciplined when he speaks. He needs to understand that as President, his words will be scrutinized and will have impact whether he intends it or not. In this regard, President Bush is an excellent model; Obama should take a lesson from his example. Bush never gets sloppy when he is speaking publicly. He chooses his words with care and precision, which is why his style sometimes seems halting. In the eight years he has been President, it is remarkable how few gaffes or verbal blunders he has committed. If Obama doesn't raise his standards, he will exceed Bush's total before he is inaugurated.

I am struck speechless.

Bad ideas in the form of constitutional law

Sandy Levinson, a professor of law and political science, has been arguing for several years now that academics pay way too much attention, relatively speaking, to the rights provisions of the Constitution, and not nearly enough to what he calls its hard-wired structural features. One reason this is so is obvious: the hard-wired features don't produce any litigation to argue about.

A nice example is the 20th amendment. 73% of law professors and 99.95% of normal humans can't tell you anything about it, but what it did was, among other things, close the gap from the presidential popular vote to the inauguration from 4 months to two and a half. Four months made a certain amount of sense in the 18th century, before Blackberries and Wi-Fi, but can anybody come up with an argument for why, in 2008, in the middle of a severe financial crisis, etc. etc., it's a good thing for us to be stuck with two and a half more months of George W. Bush in the lamest of duck blinds, while Obama "signals" this and "hints" at that?

It doesn't make a lick of sense, but it's in the Constitution so we're stuck with it, more or less. Like a lot of other stuff.

Hunting Humans

I think Kim du Toit has been reading The Corner lately:

[A]n increasingly large cohort of America in the lower 48 (and probably Hawaii) are p—-ies. They have no clue where their food comes from, they don't hunt, they don't fish, so they get to act all high and mighty about scenes like [the Sarah Palin "Faces of Turkey Death" video].

In Alaska, they have critters that consider humans food. Absent high powered rifles, humans are not at the apex of the food chain in Alaska. That will tend to give people a different perspective than the silk pantywaists in the lower 48.

I wish people would stop with this sort of nonsense, but surely they won't. For the record, there are no "critters in Alaska that consider humans food" unless -- like the unmourned Timothy Treadwell -- you defy every sensible piece of advice and hang around famished grizzly elders who would (and did) kill you after all the dead salmon had been harvested. It's true that polar bears would gobble a human or two -- but here again, only under conditions of extreme ecological duress, such as the disappearance of summer ice in the Arctic (which, I remind everyone, our governor doesn't seem to think is a problem.) Even this, though, would place maybe 1% of Alaskans at risk of being gnawed on by a starving, rogue bear who would much rather eat your dog or your garbage than you.

But here's the bottom line: so far as animals are concerned, humans are not terribly appealing as a source of food. I suppose there's a species of conservative who derives an extra surge of adrenaline from the claim that people aren't at the top of a regional food chain, but these are apparently the same people who equate hunting and fishing with stuffing a turkey into a killing funnel...

(via Ahab)

The worst sports broadcasters

This is a very trivial issue, but on the other hand this is an eclectic blog.

Why are so many high-profile sports broadcasters so incredibly bad? OK, I'm sure broadcasting a sports event, like just about everything else in this world, is harder than it looks if you've never tried to do it. But I'm not asking why there aren't more good broadcasters. That a certain number of people in a field, even near the top of a field, are going to be mediocre, boring, semi-competent, somewhat irritating . . . this goes without saying. What I'm asking is why a 21st century sports fan, watching a football or basketball game in glorious high-definition, should be subjected to, for example:

Paul Maguire

This babbling moron is a kind of Platonic archetype of the insufferable old white guy jock -- constantly making utterly unfunny "jokes" that his somewhat less insufferable booth mates (usually Bob Griese, who used to be OK but is now mailing it in, and the intermittently competent Brad Nessler) feel obliged to laugh at and try to top, thus producing a kind of Moronic Convergence of irrelevant idiocy, that rises up between the viewer and the game like a noxious verbal fog. He also loves to point out extremely obvious things as if they were stunning insights, a.k.a. Tim McCarver Disease.

Dick Vitale

Once, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, Vitale's schtick was fresh and mildly entertaining. That was about four presidencies ago. Now he's truly become the very definition of insufferable -- splattering the screen of every broadcast with his non-stop verbal diaherria regarding Dick Vitale's favorite coaches, how great Duke is, Dick Vitale's favorite memories of something from the 1950s, Dick Vitale's family album, the greatness of Coach K, Dick Vitale's views on popular music, Dick Vitale's opinions regarding the best team in the NFL -- in short, almost any conceivable topic except something having to do with the actual game on the viewer's screen, except for the perhaps 15% of the time when he remembers he's supposed to say something about the game in front of him. Listening makes me want to root for a major terrorist incident to take place at his precise location on the planet.

Tony Kornheiser

35 years ago Monday Night Football had a cool for the time concept, when Cosell, Gifford and Meredith produced a weird but positive synergy. Since then, it's been a slow decline into increasingly desperate attempts to recapture the freshness of that concept. I thought MNF couldn't sink lower than Dennis Miller. I was wrong.

For God's sake, somebody pull the plug already.

Outrage

Krugman on the Citigroup bailout. Or perhaps "weak, arbitrary, [and] incomprehensible" is the better phrase. The fact that Citigroup's shareholders are apparently not even going to get much of a haircut (let alone the wipeout that should be the no-questions-asked starting point for any bailout of this magnitude) is particularly appalling. Is there some sort of "Queens's only skyscraper" exemption to representing taxpayer interests that I'm unaware of?

And, of course, this provides stark evidence about how much damage Bush will be able to do in his last lame duck months.

Clinton at State

I'm fairly agnostic about the merits of the appointment -- I'm inclined to defer to Obama's judgment given the quality of his campaign and Clinton is certainly a person of substantial ability, but there are some real policy concerns here. Still, I have to admit the fact that it will make people like Our Lady of the Dolphins just a little bit crazier makes me feel better about the whole thing...

The Important News

Congratulations to Henry Burris and the Calgary Stampeders on winning North America's most important football championship...

Preview of a Cat-Robot Alliance?

Not. Good.

From Colony to Superpower: Tragedy, Comedy, Farce

Erik leads off this week's discussion of From Colony to Superpower. Chapter 3 deals with the period between 1801 and 1815. This period saw the dominance of the Republicans, and of the Virginia planter class. George Herring is considerably less sympathetic to the Republicans than to the Federalists, at least in terms of foreign policy. Both Jefferson and Madison receive criticism, on points both practical and ideological.

On a couple of points, Herring get hilariously cruel. Noting Jefferson's preference for the language of "natural right" in the Declaration of Independence, Herring points out other instances in which Jefferson understand American interest in terms of natural rights, such as the natural right of American commercial access to the Mississippi (in spite of the French and Spanish property right to same), and the natural right of the United States to have a border along the Gulf of Mexico. Jefferson also made a conscious distinction between the kind of natural rights possessed by native Americans and African slaves, with the former achieving the status of "noble savage" which meant a chance for assimilation and eventual inclusion within the United States. Didn't really work out that way, but nevertheless...

It's dangerous to attempt to derive modern parallels for the events of the early nineteenth century. On the one hand, the author most certainly wants to make the history seem relevant. On the other, there is an obvious risk to understanding the past in the context of the present, rather than on its own terms. Herring discusses two incident in particular that reminded of modern foreign policy questions. The first involved continuing violence on the frontier. Herring discusses how the Americans appeared genuinely incapable of believing that Indian violence and attacks stemmed from the behavior of settlers and the US government. Rather, British influence was blamed, virtually without evidence.

Similarly, the US treatment of Haiti seems to lay out a template for 20th century Cuba policy. Adams moderated Haiti policy substantially (partially in response to tensions with France), but Jefferson pursued a very hard initial line. He shifted somewhat when anti-French sentiment rose just prior to the Louisiana Purchase, then returned to the hard line after the completion of his transaction with Napoleon. Because of the influence of Southern slaveholders, the US would not recognize Haiti until the Lincoln administration.

Herring is extremely critical of Madison's handling of the War of 1812, both in terms of its initiation and its execution. While recognizing that genuine policy conflicts existed between Great Britain and the United States, Herring faults Madison (and Jefferson) for inept diplomacy backed by no military force. Republican nervousness about standing military forces limited US capability, and by necessity produced an unfortunate confidence in the capacity of militia and irregular troops. Naval victories in the Great Lakes, combined with instability in Europe, managed to save the US from a more serious disaster.

Jefferson's Embargo against France and Britain was one of the most ill-conceived projects in the history of American foreign policy. Jefferson barely bothered to explain the policy to the American people, or to build domestic support. Since many constituencies depended on trade with Britain, there was immediate resistance and efforts at circumvention. Moreover, the embargo had none of its intended effects; the French barely noticed, while the British were able to take advantage of emerging suppliers in Spanish America. As Erik notes, the Embargo depended on a radical over-inflation on Jefferson's part of the importance of American trade to Europe.

More later...

On Having the Game Pass You By

While watching Penn State destroy Michigan State yesterday, it occurred to me that we aren't hearing much this year about how Joe Paterno is a coach lost in another era, the "game having passed him by". It also occurred to me that we would be hearing quite a lot about how Tom Osborne, Don James, Bo Schembechler, and Lou Holtz were being "passed by" if any of them had possessed Joe's longevity, assuming that the disasters their teams have endured as of late ensued on their watch. Although I suppose that there's some question as to how much control JoePa still has over the team, the lesson would seem to be that even elite college football teams are subject to cycles of success and failure. The relatively weak performance of Penn State from 2000-2004 is best interpreted as part of such a cycle, rather than as evidence of JoePa's creeping dementia.

Preparing the Way...

This article is kind of fabulous, in the sense that it clearly lays out the connection between a lax attitude towards regulation and the production of bad loans:

Simeon Ferguson, an 85-year-old Brooklyn resident with dementia, according to his attorney, signed up in February 2006 for an option ARM. The monthly cost was $2,400, but the terms of the loan from IndyMac Bancorp, a major thrift based in Pasadena, Calif., allowed Ferguson to pay less than that each month, the way people can with a credit card. Many of the loans made by IndyMac and other thrifts were extended to borrowers without ensuring they could afford their full monthly payments. Ferguson, who lived on a fixed monthly income of $1,100, was one such borrower, according to a pending lawsuit filed on his behalf in federal court...

Concerns about the product were first raised in late 2005 by another federal regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The agency pushed other regulators to issue a joint proposal that lenders should make sure borrowers could afford their full monthly payments. "Too many consumers have been attracted to products by the seductive prospect of low minimum payments that delay the day of reckoning," Comptroller of the Currency John C. Dugan said in a speech advocating the proposal.

OTS was hesitant to sign on, though it eventually did. Reich, the new director of OTS, warned against excessive intervention. He cautioned that the government should not interfere with lending by thrifts "who have demonstrated that they have the know-how to manage these products through all kinds of economic cycles." Reich, through a spokesman, declined to be interviewed for this article.

The lending industry seconded Reich's concerns at the time, arguing that the government was needlessly depriving families of a chance at homeownership. IndyMac argued in a letter to regulators that in evaluating loan applications it was not fair to rule out the possibility that a prospective borrower's income might increase. "Lenders risk denying home ownership to qualified borrowers," chief risk officer Ruthann Melbourne wrote.

The proposal languished until September 2006, when it was swiftly finalized after a congressional committee began making inquiries.

The long delay in issuing the guidance allowed companies to keep making billions of dollars in loans without verifying that borrowers could afford them. One of the largest banks, Countrywide Financial, said in an investor presentation after the guidance was released that most of the borrowers who received loans in the previous two years would not have qualified under the new standards. Countrywide said it would have refused 89 percent of its 2006 borrowers and 83 percent of its 2005 borrowers. That represents $138 billion in mortgage loans the company would not have made if regulators had acted sooner.

See also Prarie Weather and Calculated Risk.

Ted Briggs

I am remiss in noting the passing last month of Ted Briggs. Briggs was the last of the three survivors of the destruction of HMS Hood at the Battle of Denmark Strait. Obits here and here.

Here's an animated depiction of the loss of Hood, including an interview with Briggs:

More recent scholarship on the loss suggests that it may have been the cruiser Prinz Eugen, rather than the Bismarck, that inflicted the fatal blow.

...oh, Johnny Horton. The Bismarck was, prior to commissioning of HIJMS Yamato, "the biggest ship", but it conspicuously lacked "the biggest guns", which belonged to HMS Nelson and HMS Rodney (9x16"; five other ships also carried 16" guns). And as to the claim of being "the fastest ship to ever sail the seas", Bismarck had an operational speed roughly similar to that of Hood (29 knots, as Hood's speed had dropped from 31 earlier in her career), and was notably slower than the German Scharnhorsts, the French Dunkerques or Richielieu, and the British Renowns.

I am also told that powdering a gator's behind and filling his head with cannonballs is unlikely to produce positive outcomes.

AppleFutility Cup

Consider: The Washington State Cougars are currently 1-10, with only a victory over Portland State to their credit. The Washington Huskies are 0-10, and likely to lose at Cal. The Seattle Seahawks are 2-8. The Seattle Mariners lost 101 games this season. And the Supersonics? Heh. Is this the worst calendar year in the history of Washington sports? Of major college and professional sports in any single state?

I never thought I'd live to see an 0-12 Huskies team. Go Cougs!

...Cougs win, in a game living down to the hype. Worst. Overtime. Ever. Anyway, Huskies 0-11, looking down the barrel of a Cal team that's beating Stanford by 27 points right now.

...UPDATE by Scott: And let us not forget to celebrate this. I wonder which book is more obsolete: this one or this one...and let us not forget that Charlie Weis, Super Genius (TM) announced that he was taking over the offense two weeks prior to this stellar effort.

The greatest understatement in the recent history of human civilization

Jules Crittenden:

George W. Bush did not solve all the problems of the world's most troubled and dangerous region.

You don't say!

Crittenden's larger claim -- that the Bush Doctrine has somehow worked out more or less as planned and predicted -- is beyond absurd. He and others who follow this tack seem to believe that "success" may be defined as the fortunate avoidance of the worst possible alternate outcomes. But as anyone who isn't a transparent hack would understand, the fact that Bush took the nation to war in 2003 does not mean that (a) Saddam Hussein would otherwise have survived into 2008 stronger and more dangerous than anyone could ever have imagined, (b) that Iran would otherwise have nuclear weapons, (c) that al-Qaeda would have earned the sponsorship of numerous other regimes across the Middle East, and (d) that the entire region would otherwise now be perched on the edge of a genocidal bloodbath. There were numerous paths the administration could have taken to avoid any or all of these scenarios; it chose the bloodiest and costliest and the one least conducive to anyone's long-term interest, save those who enjoy writing about how the United States needs to "impress" and "chasten" its foes with multi-trillion dollar wars.

I imagine we'll have to endure a lot of this nonsense in the coming months, and probably forever.

More McPherson

I suppose this silly column doesn't really merit further discussion, but I think gmack's comment merits elevation to the main page:

So far as I can tell, no one here knows whether McPherson harasses women. But we can tell that his argument is utterly ridiculous: if his complaint is that the training is boring and pointless, then why is this worth publishing in the LA Times? Moreover, that obviously isn't his complaint: if it was, then he would be advocating for reforms to make the training more useful or effective. Given that this is not what he's interested in, we can also conclude that he doesn't care about sexual harassment, and indeed, thinks that it is simply a matter of "political correctness."

Precisely. This may be exceedingly charitable, but let's assume that an earnest, humorless, self-righteous column with the sole point that "meetings can be boring" wouldn't justify a column in any newspaper. In fairness, that's not McPherson's point; his point (well, one of his points -- he also seems arguing that taking your employer's money while refusing to comply with reasonable professional obligations makes you some sort of hero) is pretty clearly that training that tries to make employees aware of and tries to reduce sexual harassment is wrong in principle. Needless to say, he makes no attempt to actually justify this, but then invoking "politically correctness" as pretty much always about insulating beliefs you'd prefer not to defend on the merits from criticism.

Giving away the show, of course, is the idiotic idea that these meetings somehow undermine his "academic freedom." Obviously, he seems to have no idea what the term means, but the real claim seems to be that the training is objectionable because it has "a political cast." Well, on some level this would be true. But, then, McPherson's implicit argument that the university should remain publicly neutral on the question of whether the harassment and sexual exploitation of students is a good thing would also a "political" decision. The university has to choose among substantive values, and (while the training itself may well be flawed) in this case it's making the right choice.

Another commenter believes that this follow-up is helpful. Since it makes no actual substantive defense of any of McPherson's specious claims I'm not really seeing it, but people can make their own judgments...

My Question

How can a stigma become attached to an individual based on an informational seminar everyone has to attend?

Mcpherson's tear-stained column is really some classic whining about nothing, but admittedly I'm not inclined to give a very serious hearing to people who complain about "political correctness" at this late date. I would be particularly interested in someone making this tired argument to identify mechanisms of social change that don't involve groups urging the redress of injustices...

...make sure to read Jill as well. I also forgot to mention McPherson's risibly specious claims that the meetings violate his "academic freedom." Uh, what?

"Seven Years Is Enough."

Judge Richard Leon -- an appointee of George W. Bush -- issued a major ruling following the wake of the Supreme Court's Boumediene decision yesterday, ordering five Guantanamo detainees released "forthwith." He also added comments that echoed Souter's Boumediene concurrence:

The judge, in an unusual added comment, suggested to senior government leaders that they forgo an appeal of his ruling on freeing the five prisoners. While conceding that the government had a right to appeal that part of his ruling, Leon commented that he, too, had “a right to appeal” to leaders of the Justice Department, Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies, and his plea was that they look at the evidence regarding the five he was ordering released. “Seven years of waiting for our legal system to give them an answer to their legal question is enough,” he commented.

This brings the grand total of arbitrarily held detainees released by the federal courts to...five. If I understand correctly, to many Republicans this means that out-of-control judicial activists are essentially running American foreign policy. In fairness, since when has scrutinizing wholly arbitrary executive detentions been considered a function of the judiciary?

...the Talking Dog has more here, and also notes that the detainees haven't actually been released yet.

Cardinal Directions, Please...

I find that "route" directions (turn left at the third McDonalds, the one right next to the Fifth Third Bank) almost invariably get me lost in interesting and disastrous ways. Survey directions (NESW) are much more helpful; contra Ezra, in the city it's pretty easy to figure out which way is north, although it can be a bit more problematic in a suburban/rural setting.

In Lexington, the problem of route directions is compounded by the fact that Lexingtonians almost invariably seem to navigate according to landmarks that no longer exist. "Yeah, you'll want to turn right when you reach that Popeyes Chicken that they tore down four years ago" is a common example of this type.

Larry Craig apparently likes airports

From today's bukakke party for Ted Stevens.

Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho: "I’m en route from downtown Anchorage, to the Ted Stevens International Airport. And as we round the curb and pull up to exit the cab, I look up, and there is your name. And I said, ‘Oh, Ted’s got an airport, that’s neat.’

More Piracy...

I have another piece on piracy up at Comment is Free. And while we're on the subject, recall that David Axe is heading to Somalia in order to interact with actual pirates; he could use some donations.

Here's a groovy video...

Who Says Why?

Ed Kilgore says that "a critical plurality of Americans don't much like abortion but care a whole lot about when and why abortions occur." Assuming that this is true -- and there's some evidence for it -- the obvious answer is that since there's no way of inscribing "women should get abortions only when a Mythical Abortion Centrist says they're appropriate" into a legislative enactment, the best way of addressing this majority is to leave the decision to women rather than to, say, panels of doctors enforcing inherently arbitrary standards.

Ross Douthat, conversely, simply pretends that random regulations have this abortion have the effect of reducing "abortions of convenience," while failing to adduce any evidence that the regulations actually have these effects. (Tellingly, he cites Glendon, but one of the crucial flaws in her book is that she focuses on the abortion laws in statute books but makes little attempt to find out how these laws actually operate in practice.) Of course, this is a somewhat difficult question for the same reason that it's an appalling suggestion on the merits: who says what an "abortion of convenience" is? (One would think that it would be an even more meaningless and offensive term to a pro-lifer than it is to me, but I guess not.) At any rate, there's no reason to believe that putting up arbitrary barriers in front of women seeking abortions has much effect on why women choose abortions; rather, they just make it more difficult for some classes of women (poor, rural, single mothers, inflexible working hours) to obtain them. Similarly, Douthat argues that "In a similar "no abortions of convenience" vein, you could also imagine a law that banned repeat abortion." Omitted is any justification for assuming a priori that a second abortion is an abortion "of convenience."

Basically, attempts to tie various random regulations to mythical abortion "centrism" is a giant scam. Making women wait 24 hours to obtain an abortion isn't going to stop educated women who live in major cities from obtaining an aboriton no matter what the reason, and they make it more difficult for a poor women who lives 150 miles from an abortion provider to obtain one even if William Saletan himself would bless her choice. Which is why -- even leaving aside the question of why we should care what Ross Douthat or William Saletan thinks about a woman's reasons for obtaining an abortion in the first place -- leaving the choice to the affected women with a minimum of pointless restrictions is the right policy choice.

...UPDATE: To emphasize what Ed says in comments, I certainly didn't mean to suggest that he supported silly regulations as a response to the public opinion data he (accurately) identifies.

You're Not Recoiling Instinctively Enough!

Nick Kristof and Anne Applebaum are being way too even-handed; perhaps David Greenberg needs to write another article about how liberals are bad for trying to actually understand a war before adopting a rooting interest...

Manufactured hysteria on right wing radio? I don't believe it!

This is pathetic.

For a variety of reasons I can't quite explain, I listen to right wing radio during my 15-minute drives to and from campus; this is about as much as I can handle before falling into a deep well of boredom, but I take great momentary satisfaction in listening to someone like Mark Levin bring himself to the precipice of a stroke each afternoon as I'm heading home. I haven't spent nearly as much time listening to, say, Limbaugh or Hannity, so I don't know if they've been pounding the non-issue of the Fairness Doctrine as ferociously as he has, but Levin's rage has been effervescent in recent weeks, apparently provoked by some comments Chuck Schumer offered on Fox News' election night coverage. Levin has been vowing to devote all his time and effort to unseating Schumer when he comes up for re-election in 2010. To wit:

Schmucky, you’re up in 2010, Schmucky. We’re going to be talking about you. And when you’re trying to take me off the air, I’m going to fight you. It’s not going to be so easy. That’s right, Schmucky. I’m not rolling over. We’re coming to defeat you. Oh, you might win, but you’re going to know you’ve been in a fight. Yes, you will. We’re going to wipe that stupid smile off your face, Schmucky.

I actually heard this monologue -- which continued for about five minutes -- when he delivered it the day after Obama's victory. It was fantastic, and I can only hope that Levin squanders as much lifeblood as possible trying to beat Schumer on a phantom issue like the Fairness Doctrine.

Other folks aside from Schumer -- Durbin, Pelosi, Bingaman -- have occasionally voiced their personal support for reviving the Fairness Doctrine, but right wing radio hosts and their listeners seem incapable of grasping the simple fact that no one is going to waste their time trying to legislate the issue. Still, I would hope that various Democrats would continue to poke the stick occasionally; provided that it's done in a low-frequency way, I really don't see a downside to taunting right wing radio hosts.

Obama's Supremes

One potential list here. I must admit that I have a strong sympathy for Sonia Sotomayor, given her role in stopping MLB's attempted bad faith union-busting in 1995, but she seems too moderate to be a good first choice on a Court with four doctrinaire reactionaries and no Brennan/Marshall/Douglas style liberal. Marhsall's former clerk Elena Kagan -- who's only 48 -- seems a lot more promising.

Since many progressives are understandably less-than-enthused about the possibility of a Sunstein appointment, the best news I can give is that one logic of my critique of Sunstein's "minimalism" is that the effect it has on a justice's votes is veyr minimal. It's true that Sunstein has said some bad things about Roe; it's also true that he ends up in the same place (with, in this case, a rationale that's actually better and more expansive.) I suspect he'd cast the same kind of votes as most other potential Democratic nominees even if they would sometimes be justified with a little more hand-wringing.

That's Nothing

At what's amazing is that Ted Stevens is far from the worst example of misplaced senetorial courtesy -- let us not forget Kindly Ol' Strom Thurmond, for example.

Huh. Wow.

NYT:

Scientists are talking for the first time about the old idea of resurrecting extinct species as if this staple of science fiction is a realistic possibility, saying that a living mammoth could perhaps be regenerated for as little as $10 million.

The same technology could be applied to any other extinct species from which one can obtain hair, horn, hooves, fur or feathers, and which went extinct within the last 60,000 years, the effective age limit for DNA.

Read the whole thing, especially the bit about resurrecting Neanderthals.

Half Empty

To follow up on Kaufman and Lookout Landing, maybe it would help if the BBWAA would just release the winners. It's sort of amazing that a group of voters that all other evidence suggests are wholly inept and unqualified managed to get both of the awards right (or at least reach reasonable answers for both.) I probably would have voted for Mauer over Pedroia, but I admit that this is for not better reason than that if it's a close question you should never vote for the Scrappy White Guy who will be a media darling for the next decade+l; Pedroia was a fair choice.

But the rest of the ballots, oy. About the best you can say about the AL is that at least Morneau was closer to being as good as Mauer than in the year when he actually won the award. And it's not just that the #2 guy in the NL plays the same position at the MVP and is far worse offensively and defensively, but that he was at best the third best player on his own team (and a lot closer in value to Burrell than Utley, grated that it's partly about the Bat being very underrated.) I think Bill James wrote in one of the first Abstracts, the bias framework of the 50s (up-the-middle player on championship team) was at least better than the still-current "Juan Gonzalez" bias framework (guy who drives in the most runs irrespective of defensive value, how many guys were on in front of him, etc.) I just can't explain how a tremendous offensive defensive player like Utley -- whose peak at the position is exceeded in NL history only by Hornsby and Morgan -- can't even break the top 10 in a year in which his team won the division. But it certainly reflects horribly on the alleged professionals who do the voting.

Oh, yes, and in other baseball news it's not clear to me that the rest of baseball has to pitch in and help the Yankees get back to the postseason; seems to be they have plenty of resources already. I think the negotiations went something like this.