Obvious Question, Obvious Answer

Where are the moderate Muslims? Why don't they oppose Islamist terrorists more strongly?

This and this aren't authoritative references, but I've read elsewhere and it seems plausible that most Muslim violence is directed against other Muslims.

While that answers the question, presumably there's more to the situation.

Unlikely Pair

The Atlanta Journal Constitution's Cynthia Tucker and the Hoover Institution's Michael Finn.

Tucker:

Cynthia TuckerVoting Rights Act: I was wrong about racial gerrymandering
...
Unfortunately — like so many measures designed to provide redress for historic wrongs — those racially gerrymandered districts also come with a significant downside: They discourage moderation. Politicians seeking office in majority-black or –brown districts found that they could indulge in crude racial gamesmanship and left-wing histrionics.
...
As Richard Harpootlian (cq), chairman of the South Carolina Democratic party, told me: “When the only issue is race, idiots win, black and white.”

Finn:

...Particularly lamentable is to see academic standards for fourth graders turn into a “tea party” issue that’s used to bludgeon GOP office holders to repudiate a sound reform out of fear that they’ll be clobbered from the right during the next Republican primary. (One sorry outcome of both parties’ twenty-year quest for “safe” legislative seats is that nearly all of today’s credible electoral challenges come from the fever swamps and fog banks within the parties.)

The thrust of Finn's piece is that grassroots conservative activists are wrongly opposing a voluntary set of educational standards that was developed in a federalist spirit.

Give the Position to the Best Qualified? Fascism!

Via Instapundit, Advice Goddess, and Michael Kinsley, the dean of Johns Hopkins Medical School commented on Ben Carson's disapproval of gay marriage:

"It is clear that the fundamental principle of freedom of expression has been placed in conflict with our core values of diversity, inclusion and respect," Rothman said.

I didn't get the memo, or see it in the Constitution, that diversity and inclusion are core values. They certainly aren't mine. (Respect, yes, because of the fundamental dignity of each human being.)

Reynolds:

...My analysis is that, at a crucial moment, the dean failed to defend a real core value of the university: tolerance.”

Free speech and tolerance were only important back when communists and gays were being gone after. Now that the worm has turned, those bourgeois values no longer obtain.

Free speech, free inquiry, and tolerance were viewed as vulnerabilities and exploited accordingly. Common decency is for naifs.

Totalitarian propaganda contrasts hypothetical utopias with the imperfections of democratic republics. When the audience is dumb, who can successfully argue against utopia?

Memorial Day

Walter Russell Mead:

...Those who die for freedom, or to protect their homes and families from invaders and aggression cannot be pitied and dismissed as victims. They must be honored and respected as warriors, as men whose service ennobled them and calls forth an answering sense of dedication among the living.

As should the conscripts who did not want to fight, but went and did their duty even unto the ultimate price.

Pity and compassion can be noble emotions, but wallowing in these feelings is not what Memorial Day should be about. Our duty to the fallen is not just one of remembrance, or of caring for the wounded or those the warriors left behind. We also owe a debt of emulation: to continue to fight and if necessary to die for the great causes of our time. To fight an ideology of hatred that masks itself as religion is a noble and a generous thing to do; those who give their lives in the fight against this great evil are not victims. They are heroes, and they deserve to be remembered as such.

...The generals who ordered those boys and young men into No Man’s Land in Flanders were incompetent bunglers more often than not. This does not vitiate the heroism or render meaningless the sacrifice of those who laid down their lives in that war.

The Americans who have fallen in battle, and especially those who have fallen since 9/11, demand more from us than our pity. Their sacrifice demands that we live up to the values for which they gave their lives. Their memory demands that we embrace the generosity with which they placed themselves in harm’s way for our sake and that we dedicate ourselves to the values of liberty and toleration whose banners they followed to the end of the world.

Yes.

Randians Strike Me as Nuts, But...

...there's this. Multiculturalists...

...hold that the basic unit of existence is the tribe, which they define by the crudest, most primitive, most anti-conceptual criteria (such as skin color). They consequently reject the view that the achievements of Western— i.e., individualistic— civilization represent a way of life superior to that of savage tribalism.

(HT Instapundit. Boldface is mine.)

Sometimes the village madman is the sanest guy in the place.

Such times aren't the best of times.

Social "Conservatives" on the Administration Scandals

This is terrible! Our system of government is in danger! terrific! Now we can outlaw abortion and gay marriage!

(And impeach Obama, of course.)

The people who wrecked the Reagan coalition will blame anyone but themselves for the genuinely alarming condition of the country.

Ramesh Ponnuru gets it. (Last week I posted Is Impeachment Talk a Trap? Yes It Is!)

Omen? Metaphor for Embittered US Politics?

Two bald eagles fought in midair, locked talons, and crashed to the ground. One flew away; the other is expected to survive.

The national bird. Usually depicted as proud and dominant. The picture at the link is creepy.

It would have been really creepy if they'd died.

What the Hell Is Wrong With Me?

The Left screams that the Right is crazy. The Right screams that the Left is crazy.

From where I sit, they both look crazy. (Ditto for the libertarians, commies, etc.)

Who am I to criticize? I'm sure as hell no hero. No saint. No mental or moral giant.

What the hell is wrong with me?

I'm lonely.

Is Impeachment Talk a Trap? Yes It Is!

The Politics

Da Tech Guy warns that the Left is pitching in. He discusses the politics of Watergate, what had to happen and what had to not happen to bring Nixon down.

That's all valid, but IMHO the Clinton impeachment is at least as instructive. Consider the 1998 midterm elections:

The balance of the Senate remained unchanged at 55-45 in favor of the Republicans. Because of gains made in the House of Representatives, it was the first time since 1934 that the out-of-Presidency party failed to gain congressional seats in a mid-term election, and the first time since 1822 that the party not in control of the White House had failed to gain seats in the mid-term election of a President's second term.

The Democrats would looove to make the 2014 midterms a national election, i.e. a repeat of 2012. Protect the President! Protect the Constitution! Protect the nation! Protect them from evil Republicans, of course.

Is the Right dumb enough to fall for this? Well, there are reasons why they're called the Stupid Party. Some of them have been howling for impeachment all along, a fact which the Left will not decline to mention.

The Merits?

Obama is a Chicago machine politician with ties to race hustlers and violent radicals. His favored Senate-race opponents were destroyed with "illicitly obtained, lurid allegations from their pasts", so I am shocked, shocked at the recent revelations.

Famous Churchill Quote Is Outdated

Attributed to Churchill (?): A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

You wish. Modern communication technology makes the former speed of dissemination glacial by comparison. The truth also gets help from Google and such, but the lie's advantage during Churchill's time has grown enormously.

Moreover, the lie itself has been made obsolete by Frankfurtian bullshit.

Climate Analogs in the Laboratory?

Jack Risko is a smart, savvy aerospace CEO with an investment banking background who occasionally posts about climate change. He has interesting things to say although he persists in thinking he can crack the thing on the back of an envelope.

His latest is here. I am submitting the following as a comment:

1. This conference focuses on theory but Paul Williams' presentation, the second talk on the list, touches on the kind of thing you have in mind. See also Schumacher's talk and perhaps others.

2. I had a similar idea: build a miniature analog of the Earth and include the heat flow from the Sun.

How to scale everything perplexed me, though. For example, the stratosphere extends up to about 30 miles on a planet whose radius is 6000 miles. Not only that, the dynamics within the atmosphere is complex. How do you infer what happens on the Earth from what happens in the scale model (if you can even build it)?

Nevertheless, IMHO suggestions like yours have merit as exploratory research. How well can current scientific models characterize simplified heat transfer environments? If the models work well there, that somewhat enhances confidence wrt their applicability to the Earth. If they don't work well there...

Reynolds' Fourth Law: A Modest Proposal

The first three:

1. Subsidizing the markers of status doesn’t produce the character traits that result in that status; it undermines them.

2. The more a government wants to run its citizens’ lives, the worse job it will do at the most basic tasks of government.

 3. Whatever politicians control, they will use against you to get what they want.

Actually, the third has been proposed by Will Collier. Reynolds has not explicitly embraced it.

So here is:

0., 3., or 4. When confronted with a public policy decision, politicians will prefer the option that maximizes graft.

The Right to Print Weapons is the Right to Be Free?

The federal government is trying to prevent CAD files for printable weapons from being displayed online. As Glenn Reynolds notes, they (the Clinton administration) tried to do this with cyptography.

Will they go SOPA on 3D printers by trying to cripple them and/or prevent the price from dropping?

Addendum 20130512: When I made this post, I was unaware that on 20130504162807, AR15 forum member grendelbane had written:

My new sig line may be, "The right to print weapons is the right to be free", with apologies to A. E. van Vogt.

The linked site does not assign addresses to individual posts, so click the link and search for Vogt.

Ted Cruz

He impressed me from the get-go. He's impressed James Carville too.

For once, no staircase wit for me. Per my LI link, I posted the following back in January:

What a brilliant individual. He emanates it. Listen to how quickly, how seamlessly, he reconfigures the questions.

My guideline is that, before seeking higher office, a politician should be reelected to their current slot by a greater margin than they were elected by.

Cruz heads my list of potential exceptions.

Time will tell.

I'm Too Late on Electoral College "Reform"

In January I commented:

Here’s a simple two-step recipe for a prosperous career as a leftist intellectual.
a. Write an essay titled The Electoral College: Mend It, Don’t End It. Follow with a book.

Argue that the Electoral College should be revamped with electors representing the classes of multicultural identity politics.

b. Hire an assistant to screen the flood of job offers from elite universities, foundations, and think tanks.

Alas, I was way too late. Mel Watt, former head of the Congressional Black Caucus, has been nominated to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Daily Caller reports:

“There would be a substantial majority of white voters who would say that under no circumstances would they vote for an African American candidate,” Watt said Oct. 14, 2005 during a Washington hearing held by the National Commission on the Voting Rights Act.

The Voting Rights Act should be expanded to “adjust districts to take [racially motivated voting] into account,” Watts said.

Such voters “need to be factored out of the equation,” Watt said, because “I’ve got no use for them in the democratic process.”

The former head of the CBC openly called for the disenfranchisement of voters whom he doesn't like. Let's see if he gets confirmed. I bet he does. (Given a choice between a white candidate and a black candidate, who, whites or blacks, are more likely to vote extra-racially?) 

American Entrepreneurs In Trouble?

So worries Via Meadia, commenting on an essay by Pethokoukis. (HT: Instapundit.)

My interpretation of this chart is that job creation at startups grew, peaked and began to decline under Clinton, declined under Bush, and declined under Obama with perhaps an emerging plateau or modest recovery.

My interpretation is consistent with the view that an elite ruling class is accumulating power and wealth without regard for the country's overall welfare.

The foregoing will be submitted as a comment to the linked Via Meadia piece. (Added: it's here.)

Consciousness After Death

Fingernails and hair grow for a time after death. 

Apparently consciousness, too, continues for a time in a fashion which is currently not understood. (HT: Instapundit.)

While there are spiritual and theological implications, the first conclusions my mind jumped to did not survive afterthoughts.

There are also implications for humane ways of execution and suicide. Perhaps, if there indeed is an as-yet-not-understood mode of consciousness, there are implications for abortion.

Intrade is Down

After loving Intrade for years, Instapundit linked to Bryan Caplan's huffing about how the CFTC shut out American customers from the service.

Now Intrade is down because of financial irregularities, yet neither Reynolds nor Caplan has seen fit to mention it. To be wrong is one thing; not to acknowledge it is egregious.

(Prediction markets sound like a good idea to me, by which I mean that under conscientious  management the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, e.g. steps will be taken to ensure that people who commit an atrocity do not profit from betting on it. However, good ideas can attract fraudsters.)

So I was wrong about the CFTC's decision. I was also wrong when I supported the Three Wise Men's Stooges' (Greenspan, Rubin, Summers) when they squelching of the CFTC's warning about OTC derivatives.

Deficits Are Less Bad Than Had Been Believed?

Supposedly a Harvard paper on which the deficit hawks have relied contains serious errors. Supposedly deficits are not nearly as bad for growth as Reinhart and Rogoff had claimed.

Henry Blodget gloats that deficit doves like Krugman have been proven correct. Yes, this is the guy who is banned for life from the securities industry.

Jeez, don't economists check each others' work when they debate issues of national---no, global---importance? Tell me again why ruling-class elites deserve their lifestyle, status, and pay? Can't anybody here play this game?

Rogoff and Reinhart respond here.

I'm not jumping to conclusions, but the Harvard duo doesn't look good here.

Me & Derb on Immigration

Me in January:

My long-term nagging suspicion is that (one reason why) legal immigration does not get reformed (is) because government knows full well it is too incompetent to do a professional job of regulating immigration. Cases in point: FEMA, TSA.

Derb just now:

Even if this new law were to get passed, and even if this administration, and the next, and the next, made sincere efforts to enforce it, they could not.

The USCIS people—and don’t get me wrong: they are nice people, dealt with me courteously, and I have no doubt are doing their best—cannot handle their current workload. Give them ten or twenty years to master this new bureaucratic extravaganza that Schumer, Rubio & Co. have cooked up, they might just possibly re-attain their current unimpressive level of mastery; but to imagine that the Act, once passed, will swing smoothly into action, all the things in it happening and being done, is wild fantasy.

Even If I Say So Myself

At Sarah Hoyt's:

A Hillary Presidency would be the Tantrum Boomers’ last chance to exact revenge for their inadequacy to the Great Generation. (Maybe those Americans who are zealous to tear down the country are driven, in part, by the knowledge that they lack what it took to build it.)

Especially the first sentence.

Comandante Rubio on Abortion

I call him Comandante because of this sentence in his victory speech:

It is a road that understands that the world is a safer and better place when America is the strongest country in the world.

Here's Rubio on abortion:

“The issue of life is not a political issue, nor is it a policy issue. It’s a definitional issue. It is a basic, core issue that every society needs to answer.”
He continued, “The answer ends up defining society. That’s how important the issue is.”
...
Rubio said while people push pro-lifers to focus on the national debt, jobs, the economy and other fiscal challenges, “Well, we can’t do that.”

He said, “This speaks to more than just our politics. It speaks to what we want to do in our life to serve and to glorify our Creator.”

Well, at least he's (sort of) honest. He comes right out and says that abortion is more important than all that wonky limited-government stuff.

(While googling the acceptance speech, I came across this: Marco Rubio's personal finances clash with call for fiscal discipline.)

Online Sales Tax

I've presumed all along it's an effort by established businesses to use government to preclude competition from agile upstarts that cannot afford to comply with the regulations. See, for example, de Rugy's post at The Corner.

The same process of centralization of wealth and power that gave rise to SOPA.

The system is corrupt and illegitimate: the system, not one party or the other.

(Similarly, afaic the billionaires who "demand" to be taxed more expect more back in the form of crony-capitalist favors than what they would pay.)

The Derbyshire Firing One Year Later

I'll make this criticism: the guy so enjoys being a contrary curmudgeon that in effect deliberately dilutes his effectiveness, after which he is all O tempora! O mores!

I'd say much the same about Daily Pundit's Bill Quick.

Anti-Abortion Absolutists

Wikipedia is not a definitive resource, but it looks like there is a substantial number of countries where abortion is regulated more strictly than in the USA, or even forbidden altogether.

Some Americans believe that all abortion is murder and that the 50+ million US abortions to date constitute genocide.

Well, why don't they move to one of the aforementioned countries or at least make the effort to do so? I can't think of a reason that reflects creditably on them, and some that do the opposite come readily to mind.

(Perhaps to be continued.)

Dismay! Shock! Horror!

1. Former Volleyball Star Gabrielle Reece Ignites Controversy With Marriage Advice: Being ‘Submissive’ Is a Sign of Strength. (HT: Instapundit)

Gabrielle Reece, the former volleyball star and model who filed for divorce less than five years after tying the knot to surfer husband Laird Hamilton roughly 17 years ago, recently wrote a book explaining how she got her marriage back on track.

The key? In “My Foot Is Too Big for the Glass Slipper,” Reece credits an “old fashioned dynamic” and abiding by more traditional gender roles — and has created a firestorm in the process.

“To truly be feminine means being soft, receptive, and –- look out, here it comes –- submissive,” she wrote.

OMG! OMG! shriek the usual suspects.

2. Dryden, as misquoted by Lord Chesterfield:

The prostrate lover, when he lowest lies,
But stoops to conquer, and but kneels to rise.

Iirc similar sentiments are expressed in the Tao Te Ching. I'll dig them out later if time and memory allow.

3. If Reece's husband has a clue, he will recognize what's going on and accept it gracefully and gratefully.

You're a lucky man, Hamilton. If you have a brain, don't push that luck.

4. I'm assessing Reece's solution as a pragmatic one, not arguing that it applies across the board.

The Boston Bombings

Right off the bat, the online Right attacked the online Left, and vice versa.

This was a very promising day for the enemies of America.

Belated Credit When (And If) Due

Obama signed an executive order requiring cost-benefit analysis of proposed federal regulations. See here and here, for example. Obama signed the order in January 2011---soon after the election of 2010 expressed emphatic dissatisfaction about his policies.

Even if the order might leave operating room for agenda-driven rulemaking, it's a move in the right direction and a nod to doing the right thing.

It's "surprising" that I didn't notice this in the conservative blogosphere at the time.

Conservatives Can't Compromise Capably

Commenter Valerie nailed it at Legal Insurrection:  

I think it’s overwhelmingly stupid to take insulting swipes at people with whom you agree. The whole point of politics is to work with other reasonable people, in order to accomplish something worthwhile. You can’t do that if you alienate potential allies that you need.

 I chimed in.

 Abortion is the most conspicuous example. This is part of the problem:

When professional extremists dominate a debate, the only thing they’d rather shoot at than each other is somebody who walks the middle ground. Compromise threatens their franchises.

It's not just the pros, it's also people with emotional investments.

Derb on Maggie

The eulogy is here. This caught my eye:

Thatcher’s changes were necessary, but they weren’t pretty. Necessary changes are rarely pretty. Politicians, however, must pick their fights and do what they can, in hopes that future generations will somehow sort out the new problems that always, inevitably, arise as old ones are solved. Things become their opposites; the chess game never ends.

Fine livings are made and absorbing hobbies are pursued by only focusing on the negative aspects of an adversary's policies.  The Left's babble about "fairness" is conspicuous in this regard but it's not the only example.

Even If I Say So Myself

Here:

When professional extremists dominate a debate, the only thing they’d rather shoot at than each other is somebody who walks the middle ground. Compromise threatens their franchises.

Arm the Copts!

The thought has been on my mind.

Instapundit asks if anyone is helping them defend themselves. Someone, especially their co-religionists, should.

And not just the Copts: facilitate self-defense for Christians and other religious minorities that are subjected to foreign-funded violence.

Hopefully US socons can take a break from losing elections via obnoxious magical thinking, and turn their energies to something that is actually important. But they should hire some good lawyers because the Saudis will not be happy. If the Saudis aren't happy, the Bush and Obama administrations aren't happy.

An Emerging Superpower and a Pitiful Giant

This is how a great power behaves:

Drug kingpin Naw Kham was accustomed to a comfortable life on the lam in the “Golden Triangle”—the remote mountains and river valleys where Burma, Thailand, and Laos meet. He had a small army to protect his meth and heroin business and a network of locals and politicians who would tip him off if the authorities were hot on his tail. But then he ordered the killing of eight Chinese nationals who apparently had not paid protection money when they sailed into Thai waters from China. It was the worst slaughter of Chinese citizens abroad in recent times, and it infuriated the Chinese public. It was enough to put the powerful Ministry of Public Security, China’s FBI, on his case.

The end of the story has already been told. Naw Kham was caught by Laotian police on the banks of the Mekong in April 2012 and extradited to China a few days later. In March 2013 he was executed by lethal injection.

The locals in some Southeast Asian countries have gotten used to slaughtering their Chinese minorities as an outlet for frustration. They're in for a surprise as the Chinese navy grows.

Meanwhile, the pitiful giant:

A senior U.S. defense official says the Pentagon has delayed an intercontinental ballistic missile test for next week at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California amid mounting tensions with North Korea.

The official says Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel delayed the long-planned Minuteman 3 test because of concerns the launch could be misinterpreted and exacerbate the current Korean crisis.

Remember: if NoKo attacks, even if they knock out much of our power grid with an EMP device, above all we must avoid a disproportionate response.

North Korea is just one of the world's punk regimes.

Mark Sanford Wins GOP Congressional Primary

National Review:

What was really smart about Sanford’s strategy was that he was able to turn it into a referendum on whether people had the capacity to forgive — the God of second chances — and whether people are capable of giving him another chance, and capable of Christian forgiveness. And that is an excellent strategy for him, and there was nobody in the race who successfully countered it to focus on his term on governor.

None of his opponents pointed out that Sanford got on a high horse about Christian forgiveness while being engaged to the woman he dumped his wife and four children for.

Will this make a difference wrt the women's vote in the general election? Sanford has a presentable female opponent.

(And if he wins, he'll be a political piñata. It's almost a no-lose situation for the Democrats.)

You go, Stupid Party!

Just for the Heck of It

Hare Palin! Hare Palin!
Palin! Palin! Hare! Hare!

Hare Sarah! Hare Sarah!
Sarah! Sarah! Hare! Hare!

Burma Shave

"Conservatives" Who Know What God Wants

Afaic if gay marriage and abortion were outlawed, it wouldn't take long before religious kooks concocted other demands that are flatly unacceptable to much or most of society.

In fact, this piece claims that the abortion issue is itself a fabrication by Pat Buchanan and Nixon.

HQ Beancounters Wrecking Walmart?

Apparently the stores don't have enough staff to keep the shelves stocked.

It's one thing to push a system right up to the point of diminishing returns. That's the culture I thought Sam Walton created; it wasn't touchy-feely, but it worked superbly. It's quite another thing to push a system beyond the point of diminishing returns. Bonus-hungry wise guys in management?

This kind of thing happens on Wall Street and at start-ups that are being mismanaged into the ground, but I didn't expect it at Walmart. Where else is it going on? Are US business leaders afraid to stick their necks out by hiring even though they know they should?

Cyprus Hicks and the Sophisticated EU

Daydreams:

Wouldn't it be something if Cyprus accepts bankruptcy---and emerges reinvigorated while the EU continues to flail?

Wouldn't it be something if Cyprus accepted Russia help in exchange for a naval base?

Addendum 20130330. According to news released late Friday afternoon, the Cyprus government is stealing the money outright.

Theft in Cyprus

I never expected to be cheering for the Russians to squash the Europeans.

Self-congratulatory Western ruling classes are terrific at centralizing their power at the expense of their societies' overall health. IMO they have no idea how outmatched they'd be at existential power politics.

"Do not call up any that ye cannot put down." Fools. Culpable fools.

Addendum 20130321. The EU is cracking the whip on the government and citizens of Cyprus. Not a peep about having the French head of the IMF resign or go on leave after her home was raided in a corruption investigation. No, it's almost as though Lagarde asked to have her home raided.

We are ruled by crooks who lecture us about morality.

Gender Segregation at University College London

Here. Unbelievable.

More unbelievable is that debater Krauss participated under those conditions but does not want to debate a philosopher about the underpinnings of physics. (HT: Peter Woit)

Foreign Online Threats

Reuters headline: Cyber threats against U.S. 'ramping up,' Obama says

I am concerned that SOPA may be slipped into cybersecurity legislation. That says something about me and, IMHO, it says much more about my corrupt government. I am balancing the threat from foreign governments against the threat from my own.

Massachusetts Banned Road Travel

Signed by the governor at 12:15 8 February 2013. The ban is effective at 1600. Its duration is indefinite, i.e. it remains in force until withdrawn. It was posted on the state website at 1502.

Addendum: The ban was withdrawn 24 hours later. Okay, Deval, but don't make a habit of it. (Roads were not closed during the major snowstorm a month later. However, the amount of snow greatly exceeded forecast expectations.)

Disgusting

Headline: Royal Navy girl who fought in Afghanistan told to cover up uniform on Virgin flight in case it offended other passengers (HT: Instapundit)

Maybe Virgin doesn't want to offend the traitors, Commies and jihadis among its passengers.

The Daily Mail piece concludes with a comparison of how Americans treat behave toward troops with how Brits behave theirs. The way our serving military, draftees in many cases, were treated during the Vietnam conflict is a national disgrace. Just possibly we've learned from it. (Travesties do occur in America, but if they come to light, the blowback of public anger against the responsible organization apparently is greater than in the UK.)

R-e-s-p-e-c-t

Lack thereof is why Bryan Caplan thinks the GOP loses Asian voters. A number of comments are worthwhile, for example this one and this one about Canadian Tories' success at attracting these voters: attracting them away, in fact, from the Liberals who imported them. (HT: Instapundit.)

Shikha Dalmia notes that GOP traditionalism may have echoes of colonialism and the concomitant racism. She notes also that the image of the GOP as a Christian party does not play well with non-Christian Asian-Americans, presumably less so as Asians become increasingly confident wrt the West; in other words, visible Republicans like Jindal and Haley are less influential with their ethnic group than one might suppose.

Yes, once again the Republican base is also a ceiling.

OT: Despite the best efforts of the Left to polarize the country by race, intermarriages are apparently booming. If they start to dwindle, look out.

Death Spiral States

Forbes compiles a list using what they call the taker/maker ratio and other fiscal metrics. Some surprising names are on it. The bottom eleven, from least bad to worst:

11. Ohio
10. Hawaii
9. Illinois
8. Kentucky
7. South Carolina
6. New York
5. Maine
4. Alabama
3. California
2. Mississippi
1. New Mexico

Look at the red states on that list. And some very blue states are missing.

I had no idea NM was tops; my attitude toward Gary Johnson may need reassessing, and my endorsement of Susana Martinez may have been premature.

Virtual Trekking Via Google Maps

They've done part of the Grand Canyon. Haven't tried it yet, so I don't know if it offers 360° views (or 4π steradians...presumably not yet).

I expect more--eventually, much more--like this, including virtual reality. The question is how soon.

I want Everest!

Addendum 20130209: See XKCD.

The Singularity is Near So 20th Century?

Joichi Ito, the recently appointed head of the MIT Media Lab, is not a fan:

"I'm on the other side of the singularity guys. I don't think immortality is a good thing," Ito said. People who think about maximizing efficiency "don't think about the ecological, social-network effects. In the future, every science invention we do should be at least neutral," and preferably positive.

"When you introduce immortality, you have to think about what does it do to the system. At the Media Lab, our design principle is not to make the world more efficient, but making the system more resilient, more robust."

The Precautionary Principle is an indicator of civilizational stasis. Who decides whether an invention is at least neutral? Unfortunately, do-it-yourself biotech may make despotism even more inevitable than it seems today.

In very grudging defense of Ray Kurzweil, I note that the Singularity should happen spontaneously, not be a decision made by elitist big shots ("you introduce immortality"). In that view, whether or not it's a good idea is beside the point.

A skeptic might wonder whether Joichi Ito, as he continues to age, will decide that immortality should be offered to a few individuals who are essential to humanity's continued progress. People like...Joichi Ito? Afaic, in principle, such technology should be available to all or to none.

(The Media Lab used to be Kurzweil's personal stomping grounds. Maybe the attitude of the new administration played a role in his decision to work for Google. However, IMO the primary driver was, shall we say, the lack of Kurzweil-denominated IPOs in recent years. And in Mountain View he can be close to so-called Singularity University, at which he holds the title of chancellor.)

NB: I have not checked out the Media Lab since Ito took over. The foregoing critical take is based on an a single hyperlink.

Martial Law in Arkansas Town

Crime is supposedly up in Paragould, Arkansas, so the city government is putting SWAT on the streets. As the chief of police explained at a town meeting:

Stovall told the group of almost 40 residents that beginning in 2013, the department would deploy a new street crimes unit to high crime areas on foot to take back the streets.

"[Police are] going to be in SWAT gear and have AR-15s around their neck," Stovall said. "If you're out walking, we're going to stop you, ask why you're out walking, check for your ID.
...
Should an individual not produce identification, Stovall said his officers would not back down. Individuals who do not produce identification when asked could be charged with obstructing a governmental operation, according to Stovall.

"I'm hoping we don't run across [any] of that," Stovall said. "Will there be people who buck us? There may be. But we have a right to be doing what we're doing. We have a zero-tolerance. We are prepared to throw your hind-end in jail, OK? We're not going to take a lot of flack.

This pig obviously does not consider himself a public servant addressing his employers.

More here, here and here (Radley Balko), via the Wikipedia link above.

Nope, no need for that Second Amendment. None at all.

Islam and Western Men

If Islam could demonstrate it can run a modern society--technology based, reasonably democratic, reasonably pluralistic, reasonably noncorrupt--there is an enormous base of potential converts among Western men disillusioned by today's feminized culture.

(Cf. Sarah Hoyt's recent post, which moved me to finally write down this thought.)

Addendum 20130130: Islamic science is staffing up. (HT: Instapundit.)

The Dilemma of Moderates: Muslims and Social Conservatives

Caution: the analogies in this post should not be taken too far.

Where are the moderate Mulsims?, it's sometimes asked. My guess is that some of them tacitly support the extremists but may not want to admit it, perhaps even to themselves. My guess is that some of them are bullied or worse into silence.

How to support moderate Muslims, especially the latter group, against extremists? A multicultural policy is unlikely to achieve this because it is inclined to accept the extremists as "authentic". What would Genghis do? He'd make the moderates more frightened of him than of the extremists; as it were, Your god has sent me to exact vengeance for the blasphemers you harbor. It's an unpalatable recourse, but I can't say that it will never come to that.

Something on a far more modest scale may be going on in US politics. I suspect that some social conservatives are open to compromises regarding abortion but they are being intimidated into silence by thuggish religious kooks. This may be coming from the top: just as the GOP establishment would rather control a minority party than share power in a governing coalition, the socon leadership might rather control their faction than do the same.

Obama's False Dichotomy

Supposedly it's a choice between We're all in this together and You're on you're own. Kumbaya vs. Hobbes and Darwin. Among other things, this ignores the safety net and focuses only on the downside of a market economy (just as Warren's You used our roads! rant ignores the jobs created by a factory builder).

John Althouse Cohen rips apart the deliberate fallacy and a commenter goes one better, emphasizing the different between voluntary cooperation and compulsory collective action. (HT: Instapundit.)

Obama's Big Talent

His famous self-description:

“I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.

There's more to that statement that I first thought.

In particular, Obama serves as a blank screen on which Kook Squad "conservatives" project their pathologies for all to see, discrediting themselves to anybody but fellow denizens of the cocoon.

And discrediting the conservative movement.

Gun Control and Abortion...Huh?

In response to gun grabbers' emotional appeal wrt Sandy Hook and other school shootings, some "conservatives" mention the "babies" supposedly killed by abortions.

This brings up, yet again, what such people's real motives are.

Would they accept a gun ban in exchange for a ban on abortions?

Addenda 20130130: Will Real Conservatives™ persuade themselves that the Second Amendment prohibits abortion, and call for judges who "follow the Constitution"? tI seems too ludicrous to post, but a time or few I'd have looked prophetic had I posted things that seemed ludicrous.

If an amendment banning abortion and gay marriage magically appeared in the constitution, it wouldn't take a week for the "conservative" kook squad to fabricate another "moral crisis" unacceptable to most of the country.

American Bastards

Should unwed mothers be disincentivized or thanked? Are they instinctively keeping the species going during a time of what may be transformation or may be decline/collapse? Are they minxes or heroines? (Finally got around to posting this thought now that Instapundit did so.)

Maybe the distinctions on which the above paragraph is based no longer apply completely.

The very fact that the title of this post is jarring says something, though I'm not sure what. The Democrats' Julia shtick says something more clearcut: they want to make hay by abetting a trend which is in all likelihood bad for the country. The danger is that we may have a class of voters who are not just indifferent to, but invested in, the country's decline (the stupidity of Romney's 47% remark notwithstanding).

I'm pretty sure that asking whether men or women are to blame is a false dichotomy.

Addendum 20130602 Apparently China is hard on single parents. The linked piece is by a British former single parent who whines about how hard it was without once considering whether it was a good idea; she ignores or is unaware of Helen Smith's trope that if you subsidize something, you get more of it. Made a bad decision? Blame society!

(Is there a positive correlation between readily available welfare and single motherhood? There is an anecdotal one (destruction of the black family, etc), but I wonder about the rigor.)

Nothing in this Addendum is intended to erase my concerns about false dichotomy.

Aaron Swartz

Alan Turing comes to mind. To a lesser extent, so does Jan Palach.

14-0 Eight Minutes In

One of the few loyalties I've retained from my Midwestern Catholic boyhood is an affinity for Notre Dame. Being content without a TV, I decided to spot-check the game online.

It's been like sitting down to follow the election returns. I conceded and edge to the opposition but expected a close contest and a real shot for my side.

Whereupon I was shocked to realize that my team didn't even belong on the field.

(That said, Alabama knew what to expect in a championship game and Notre Dame didn't. I can't make the same excuse for the Republicans.)

I Was Wrong About World War I

I had thought it ended with the collapse of Soviet Communism, but neo-neocon is right: the damage to the West's cultural confidence has never been repaired.

Bipartisan Attack on USA Civil Rights

Bridget Johnson reports:

The amendment from Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) to block the president’s broad power to hold American citizens without trial was stripped from the final defense authorization bill in conference, prompting a “no” vote on the entire bill from Lee and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).

(HT: Instapundit.) See Rand Paul's remarks as quoted by Johnson.

If things get screwed up to the point at which a man person on horseback emerges, the bill will provide a handy justification for rounding up the culprits in the ruling class. For starters, everybody in Washington who supported an unbalanced budget since Y2K. Sure, a few good apples will be gathered with the bad, but they can be sorted out later. National emergency, y'know. Compelling government interest.

Why Did Romney Lose?

The Boston Globe has a plausible narrative, to my chagrin.

Susannah Fleetwood has another. (HT: R.S. McCain)

The Atlantic's Alexis Madrigal claims that Obama's nerds outclassed Romney's nerds. More here, among other Google links.

Pat Caddell and Michael Walsh had yet another. In contrast to most of the commenters above, they were writing in advance of the election.

There's plenty of blame to go around. Fleetwood, in particular, makes a good case that I hadn't considered--but the buck stops with the would-be President.

To Tax or Not to Tax: A False Dichotomy

For reasons I don't fully understand, Megan McArdle's shtick is starting to pall on me. I question whether she knows as much as she pretends to. However, I agree with this (boldface mine):

But I am uncomfortable when the government makes more money off your labors than you do. Yes, some people don't work very hard to earn their money, or earn it in ways that seem illegitimate. But the solution is to change the law so that it's harder to earn money in illegitimate ways, not to take the majority of their money in taxes--and the majority of the money of other people who work quite hard indeed.

(HT: Instapundit.)

I've been meaning to post the same thing. In fact, commenter jvic, one of the few conservatives left at LGF, recently wrote:

I view the taxation "debate" as a false dichotomy in which both parties collude. I would take it more seriously if it were accompanied by discussion of policies which abet concentration of wealth. Two examples that immediately come to mind are too-big-to-fail financial institutions and excessive protections for intellectual "property". There is corporate welfare in general, of course.

Addendum 20140114: See James Pethokoukis, here,

British Infanticide

Here. (HT: Instapundit.)

The Mess in the GOP

Corporate kleptocrats and religious kooks are fighting for control of the GOP. The trouble is that each is becoming unelectable.

No, the country is not going to ban abortion across the board. No, the country does not believe that billionaires are panting to create jobs, except overseas.

For the GOP to survive and prosper again, both factions have to make their agenda realistic. To save face, call it clarifying their agenda:

1. Social conservatives should stop trying to impose their religious views via the federal government. They should work to devolve social issues to the states: abortion, drugs, gay marriage, assisted suicide, etc.

2. Economic conservatives should stress that they favor free markets over big businesses; if they don't, they should damn well start. Questioning the too-big-to-fail status quo is one place to start. Adopting Derek Khanna's agenda is another. A market economy with a safety net is salable to the electorate, and big business might prefer it to what the Democrats want to do to them.

A Historical Glitch, Not a Turning Point?

Reagan and Thatcher.

This guy expressed what has been on my mind, although I wasn't aware of the analogy with Diocletian.

(Paul Johnson thinks we're irreversibly far gone. He's not optimistic about China either. One possible outcome: a war that will make WW2 seem like a background scuffle.)

I'm Worse Than Mad. I'm Indifferent.

From Legal Insurrection, I infer that perhaps the conservative faithful are not flocking to their places of worship the way they did before the election. My response:

1. Why are you reading this?

Because you still care (?).

I’m reading this out of habit and because I agree with many of your positions as academic propositions. As a practical matter, I note that the Right, having been utterly outmaneuvered by the Left in an election which was the Right’s to win, is carrying on with business as usual.

2. Your previous Operation Counterweight urged your readers to support eighteen candidates, including honorable mentions. Fifteen of them lost. Your reaction: Would do it again, with the same choices. My reaction to your reaction: And likely with the same outcome.

3. America is heading toward a point of no return. It may or may not have reached it. If it hasn’t reached it, the conservative movement as currently constituted is not going to change the direction.

4. In a comment thread started by stevewhitemd, I replied to Towson Lawyer as follows:

The kook faction and the kleptocrat faction are vying for control of the GOP. Everybody else lacks critical mass.

Your suggestion about the abortion issue coincides with my opinion, but afaik it is not acceptable to the kooks.

After the eruption of post-election lunacy on this board, I decided to stop commenting regularly. The loss of a winnable election was bad enough; the post-election craziness is the last straw.

Maybe America hasn’t suffered enough. My real worry is that the country may be too far gone to respond constructively to experience.

Never before has a nation been presented with the position and opportunities America had at the dawn of the millenium. Never before has so much been squandered so quickly. Heaven help us if history is just.

Rant over. Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming: Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great! No new taxes!

5. WAJ has called abortion “the civil rights issue of our time”. There were overwhelming thumbs-downs against the term “zygote” because it is supposedly dehumanizing. It’s been a waste of my time to seek common ground on this. Enough is enough.

“Conservatives” are for limited government, except when government can be used to shove their religious practices down the country’s throat. Good luck selling that. Santorum-Akin 2016!

6. I could go on and on. For example, Asian Americans are more disadvantaged by affirmative action than whites are. How, then, did the GOP contrive to lose 3/4 of their votes?

7. During WW2 George Orwell told British pacifists that objectively they were aiding the Fascists. A similar indictment applies to Real Conservatives™ wrt the Left.

And perhaps the collection baskets are emptier than they were before the election.

Climate Engineering

Geo-engineering wins scant enthusiasm at UN climate talks, reports Canada's Financial Post.

“Let’s first use what we know,” said Christiana Figueres, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, dismissing suggestions that it was time to try geo-engineering to halt a rise in greenhouse gas emissions.

“There are so many proven technologies we know exist that are tried and true that have not been used to their maximum potential,” she told Reuters. “To begin with, the simplest is energy efficiency.”
...
“Let’s face it, geo-engineering has a lot of unknowns,” Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the U.N.’s panel of climate scientists, told Reuters on the sidelines of U.N.-led climate change talks among 200 nations in Doha from Nov. 26-Dec 7.

“How can you go into an area where you don’t know anything?” he said. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is examining geo-engineering in depth for the first time as part of a major report due in 2013 and 2014.

But if the science is definitive that warming is anthropogenic, why can't that definitive science be used to assess climate engineering technologies?

I can't think of an answer that is complimentary to vested AGW/CAGW alarmist interests.

(Count me as a skeptic. Not a denier, a skeptic. If there is doubt, I'll give the benefit to economic growth which will facilitate technological progress:

I’m not willing to turn the economy inside out because there might be a problem, and I’m not willing to bet the biosphere that there isn’t a problem.
...
If humanity hasn’t learn(ed) to tweak the atmosphere by the time the extreme AGW scenarios are expected, it doesn’t deserve the label of homo sapiens.

Research into climate technology should be a no brainer for rational policymakers---unless they have ulterior motives to the contrary.)

The Scots-Irish

I've read Jim Webb's Born Fighting with admiration and Walter Russell Mead's The Jacksonian Tradition with eye-opened respect.

Scots-Irish heroism, especially in the service of lost causes, cannot be overpraised.

But good Lord, if a cause isn't lost, they'll turn it into one.

At a conservative blog where I used to comment regularly, the S-I reaction to the Romney loss? We aren't being emphatic enough that every sperm is sacred! Incredible.

Why Are Commented Blogs Getting Unreadable By Anyone But the Crazy Regulars?

The Arxiv Blog links to a preliminary explanation.

The notion that the Internet is fostering extremism is not new, but it is worth repeating in this context.

Addendum 20121227: Cyberpioneer Jaron Lanier has expressed concerns along the lines above, as far back as 2001. (HT: jvic at LGF.) Hopefully this addendum will be followed by at least one full post because Lanier's concerns warrant serious attention. Unfortunately what comes readily to mind are solutions, e.g. abolishing online anonymity, that are worse than the problems which Lanier identifies.

Enough is Enough

No one expected the Republicans to win the black vote. They should have done better with the Hispanic vote.

But it took real genius to lose the Asian vote by 3:1. (Asian Americans are severely disadvantaged by affirmative action, more so than whites.)

I've had it with the GOP in its present form. I've had it with the conservative coalition in its present form.

The loss of a winnable election was bad enough, but the reactions of the commenters at Legal Insurrection were the last straw for me.

My guess---purely a guess---is that Asian Americans looked at the influence of the creationist, every-sperm-is-sacred religious kooks and said sayonara.

I'm saying sayonara too.

Akin-Mourdock 2016!

Orwell on British pacifists:

Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other.

In that light, what should be said about the right-wing kooks who insist that human life begins at conception and abortion should be forbidden even for rape?

I say that they are so debasing the reasonable case for putting reasonable limits on abortion that they, as a matter of practical politics, are advancing their opponents' agenda.

This isn't rectitude; it isn't principle; it's stupdidity. Stupidity from the Stupid Party.

(A similar claim could be made about those who pass from justifying abortion to justifying infanticide, but at this time infanticide is not being seriously proposed in the USA.)

The Election

I said it here:

Some conservative reactions to the election worry me a lot more than the results do.

Polls

The Pew Research Center reports that only 9% of the people they contact agree to be polled; twelve years ago the figure was 36%.

Some time ago I got a robocall, claiming to be from Rasmussen, that asked for my views on the economy. As the questions continued, they became so personal and intrusive that I hung up. How secure were my responses? Would they be sold to political parties or financial institutions?

Pollsters might get better responses if they prefaced their interviews by stating reassuring privacy policies. Come to think of it, that's such an obvious step that it's suspicious that they aren't doing so already.

Question for Pat Robertson

If Obama's handling of Hurricane Sandy is well received, it could get him reelected. Did God send the storm for that purpose?

Addendum 20121105. This post mocked the superstitious Right when it should have been mocking the superstitious Left. One Savannah Guthrie (Whozzat? The host of the Today Show) pretty much said in all seriousness what I wrote in sarcasm.

Which are dumber, the people who suggest the hurricane was divinely ordained to get Obama reelected, or the people who unquestioningly characterize it as due to anthropogenic global warming?

Closure of US Financial Markets

Ostensibly because of Hurricane Sandy, US stock exchanges will be closed today.

IMHO the powers that be are concerned about vulnerability to flash crashes more than vulnerability to weather per se, but I'll be surprised if they admit it.

Another Discrepancy Like Y2K's?

According to various polls, Obama is narrowly behind in the popular vote but narrowly ahead in the Electoral College.

So far the National Popular Vote Compact has been ratified only by blue states. Look for a lot of back-pedaling if, heaven forbid, the current results hold up. (Of course the Left won't call it back-pedaling.)

She Always Struck Me As a Stuck-Up Member of a High School Student Council

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz has no idea what Obama's Kill List is, and could care less. (HT: Ed Driscall@Instapundit and Reason)

I'm not accustomed to being on the same wavelength as Glenn Greenwald, but he nails it:

One expects corrupt partisan loyalty from people like Wasserman Schultz, eager to excuse anything and everything a Democratic president does. That's a total abdication of her duty as a member of Congress, but that's par for the course. But one does not expect this level of ignorance, the ability to stay entirely unaware of one of the most extremist powers a president has claimed in US history, trumpeted on the front-page of the New York Times and virtually everywhere else.

This person is being touted as the successor to Pelosi as the leader of House Democrats.

It would be funny if it weren't horrifying. You can smell the rot.

Dippy Wasserman Schultz.

Is It Better To Be Lucky Than Correct?

The preceding post decried Romney's gaffe about Libya. Despite the disfavor of Real Conservatives™, here and here, when I called it a gaffe, my opinion is consistent with Krauthammer's. (Even Megan McArdle gets it.)

No question that the moderator inappropriately injected herself into Romney's gaffe, but suppose she had ignored it. Instead of focusing on her blunder & the underlying media bias and on the US failures in media, the Right would now be playing defense after the Left nitpicked out "acts of terror" from the transcript. (Wrt my previous post, in this situation it's better to be desperate on offense than desperate on defense, but I admit that my attitude has changed somewhat since that post.)

Who Sounds Desperate?

Given the frantic hairsplitting (but see this) about the distinction between acts of terror and acts of terrorism, the answer is that the Republicans do.

Romney was correct on the substance but threw it (the debate? the election?) away with an ill-chosen (ill-researched?) phrase.

Someone seeking to oust an incumbent President can afford very few unforced errors.

Promises by Real Conservatives™

1. No new taxes. Read my lips.

2. The Permanent Republican Majority.

(Why is Karl Rove not persona non grata like Richard Darman was?)

3. SCOTUS will throw out Obamacare.

4. Claire McCaskill is a goner in Missouri. The seat is a surefire GOP pickup.

5. Paul Ryan will destroy, crush, obliterate Slow Joe Biden in their debate.

Why Don't MA Voters See Through Elizabeth Warren?

So marvels LI commenter Jeffrey. I respond that Warren's deceit...

...might be easy to rebut out in flyover country. The prosperous, superbly credentialed, highly intelligent, deeply caring people who are so numerous in MA accept Warren’s narrative at face value and defend it ferociously.

Because they’re running the same scam Warren is. Wrecking the country for their own benefit while pretending to be stewards. (Some of them believe their own BS.)

PETA Kills Animals

I acknowledge this revelation belatedly.

It makes me wonder what the Legions of Militant Compassion would do to human beings if they had their way. Heck, look at what happens where they do have their way.

(IMO suicide is a fundamental human right and the State has no business meddling with it except maybe to the extent of requiring a waiting period. Nevertheless, IMO, involuntary euthanasia should be prosecuted as murder. I recognize that there are borderline situations, e.g. expensive high-risk treatments and limited resources. Right-wing religious kooks dishonestly conflate assisted suicide and euthanasia, pointing to one as a pretext for banning the other.)

A Senate Radical Caucus?

Sanders, Baldwin, Warren.

Still four weeks to go, but the Left is making cautiously triumphalist sounds about Warren. Intrade has Baldwin as a 3:2 favorite.

Brown gave the cold shoulder to Tea Partiers who had worked their hearts out for him in 2010. Although Warren is a disaster looking for the worst possible place to happen, Brown is stupid and deserves to lose.

I don't know much about WI, but gather that the Tea Party "patriots" divided their votes in the primary so a GOP squish won.

"Giving Back"

That phrase is a pet peeve. I've been intending to post about it, but wound up commenting:

1. After I accepted this phrase for years, some time ago it triggered a double take. It’s been an irritant ever since.

2. When I did volunteer work, I did not perceive it as repayment of an obligation; in fact, I would have been less likely to do it had it been so presented.

Afaic philanthropy is commendable, but its least commendable forms are philanthropy performed out of social pressure or for self-promotion. Even philanthropy performed for tax advantages strikes me as preferable to the foregoing.

Who Would Be Stupid Enough

...to believe that Chavez would lose the Venezuelan "election"?

Probably the same enlightened folk who think that liberal protests will force Putin out of office before his term is up. Yes, those protestors are the Russian liberals who let the thugs take over the country during the Yeltsin administration.

And the same enlightened folk believed that pluralistic democracies would sprout from the Arab Spring

Cutting Their Losses, And More

Submitted as a comment to Kristine Rusch:

As a reader, I am exasperated by publishers who cut a series off unresolved, even in mid-crisis, as soon as sales wobble. This goes at least as far back as the Dumarest of Terra series and the Dray Prescot series.

Their attitude toward their readership is as short-sighted as their attitude about authors’ sales. Of course, I’m not saying they should keep publishing a series which no longer makes money; my point is that they should provide a wrap-up to the readers who made the series successful.

With hardly any exceptions, I no longer buy a series of novels until it is complete.

My attitude as a viewer is similar.

Ideological Imbalance in Academia

I'm not proposing the following proposal as a definitive policy, but as a starting point for discussion:

No institution of higher learning that receives government funding more than TBD may require politically partisan coursework as a requirement for graduation. If such coursework is required, said funding will be cancelled.

I could propose that no credits toward graduation be granted for partisan coursework, but I am just brimming with tolerance, accommodation, and sweet reason. ;-)

Iran

I'm reading about a currency crisis, potential hyperinflation, and mass demonstrations. Is the regime in danger?

There seems to be a sort of Brezhnev Doctrine wrt Islamism: nowhere can it be rolled back. A replacement of the Iranian regime by a pluralistic one would be important.

Is there a potential effect on the US election?

Althouse and The Obamaphone Video

My two cents are here. Nice takedown in this thread, including links to the infamous crying episode. Money quote:

That coming from an educated person, a law professor, and one who is supposed to be in the moderate middle. I went to bed truly disturbed last night after I read that post. The first time a blog entry has ever done that to me. There is no hope for the future for our country if we have to fight that level of stupidity and inanity in someone with those sorts of qualifications.

Finds the words I've been looking for.

The attitude is everywhere. I attracted a noticeable disapproving minority when I wrote that, no, it is not a good idea to turn our Attorney General over to Mexico for trial.

What Big Content Really Wants

No transformational innovation allowed. They mean it:

...according to the former Register of Copyrights, Ralph Oman, under copyright law, any new technology should have to apply to Congress for approval and a review to make sure they don't upset the apple cart of copyright, before they're allowed to exist.

The review would be conducted by the same people who write the laws which Congress passes: special-interest lobbyists.

I found the above link through Instapundit. In a related post, he links to this piece discussing the latest from the Against Intellectual Monopoly authors.

The Polls Are Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!!

So say the Republicans. Maybe. Some sensible people think so.

So do some people who aren't sensible. According to them, it's a conspiracy involving the media, the pollsters, and the Democratic Party. They haven't yet folded in Putin and Ahmadinejad, but there are weeks to go until the election.

Will Mitt Romney take join Tom Dewey's place in history?

Afterthought. And what about the prediction markets? If the polls are wrong, you'd expect some participants to recognize it.

Ya Think?

Republicans wonder why they're not blowing out the Democrats given the Obama record.

I just went to an up and coming conservative blog, Legal Insurrection, at which I comment regularly. Scrolling down the front page yielded pieces critical of Tammy Baldwin, Democrat candidate for Senator; Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Democrat candidate for Senator; and Barack Obama, incumbent Democrat candidate for President. Not a favorable word about their opponents.

Maybe, just maybe, this is part of the GOP's problem.

We Are All Pauline Kael Now

Right and Left are in their cocoons, unable to visualize anything but victory, actul or stolen. It's like reading about two different countries. It's like the two branches of a Schrödinger's cat scenario.

Peggy Noonan

The notion crossed my mind that Peggy Noonan is the Right's Maureen Dowd, but it seemed too frivolous to post. Then I read this and this.

Response to Ann Romney

My impression of Ann Romney has been favorable, but this distinctly rubs me the wrong way:

During an interview early this evening with Radio Iowa, Mrs. Romney directly addressed her fellow Republicans who’ve criticized her husband.

“Stop it. This is hard. You want to try it? Get in the ring,” she said. “This is hard and, you know, it’s an important thing that we’re doing right now and it’s an important election and it is time for all Americans to realize how significant this election is and how lucky we are to have someone with Mitt’s qualifications and experience and know-how to be able to have the opportunity to run this country.”

Lady, a lot of people did get in the ring, and your husband used his financial advantage to crush them with carpet-bombed negative advertising.

(Yes, most of those people were worse than Romney, but my point remains.)

An Obvious Question, Now That I Think of It

Do any influential bloggers receive support from superPACs?

Immigration

After watching the riots wrt Innocence of Muslims, I wonder if explicit endorsement of the Bill of Rights should be required of immigrants. Perhaps a sign like Behead All Those Who Insult the Prophet should be grounds for deportation. Maybe revocation of permanent residency or naturalization should be an option wrt egregious violations of the aforementioned endorsement.

The foregoing is off the top of my head, not a considered opinion. I am dubious about increasing the distinction between naturalized and natural-born citizens; citizenship should be citizenship.

Obama Gains at Intrade

As I write, Obama has 2:1 odds at Intrade. He has been moving up steadily despite the Mideast, jobless claims, gas prices, and Romney bouncing back on Rasmussen. Why?

1. Intrade is being gamed by Obama supporters with deep pockets.

2. Intrade speculators are wrong.

3. Intrade speculators expect Romney to lose the debates.

4. Intrade speculators believe the debates will be rigged so Romney loses.

5. Intrade speculators expect an October surprise that will get Obama reelected.

6. Intrade speculators correctly recognize that this is no longer a country which dumped Jimmy Carter for Ronald Reagan, or maybe they correctly recognize that Mitt Romney is no Ronald Reagan.

Update 20120915: A week ago, Powerline touched on this here and here, as did Andy McCarthy.

Update 20120917: Patrick Caddell unloads on Romney here. The New Republic's William Galston does so here. The base is not happy.

For that matter, as he criticized the administration for the deaths in Libya, what the hell was he thinking during those smirks? A bigger image is here.

And what genius decided to exclude Sarah Palin and Michael Steele from the GOP convention?

Update 20121009. More Caddell here.

My Gut (Not Considered) Reaction

Oderint dum metuant.

Update 20120915: Where is the outrage at the Stevens murder? Why isn't Death to America being met with Death to Savages? What's wrong with us?

(The first two questions are wrt popular sentiment, not government policy.)

Afterthought 20120920. After 911 I thought that The Battle Hymn of the Republic would ave been a healthier reaction than the widespread America the Beautiful. I still think so.

Addendum 20130817. Sarah Hoyt, here and here, says that the Battle Hymn was taught in her children's CO school after 9/11. It didn't seem that way to me in MA.

Never Forget

The Apollo Program

This was posted before Neil Armstrong's death:

Whoever said that we went to the Moon a half-century early may have had a point. Apollo was a tour de force, but only now is the tech infrastructure emerging to repeat it sustainably, affordably, and profitably.

Though IMHO it may take additional decades of biology before humans can reside off-planet (and return).

Osteoparosis develops in orbit. Afaik not even animal breeding has been tested in non-terrestrial gravity.

This too:

Though there is no substitute for boots on the ground, in my reflective moments our planetary fly-by's seem more praiseworthy than Apollo.

Hegel and American Exceptionalism

In college my assigned reading included parts of H's Philosophy of History. I remember hardly any of it except the statement that when a country formulates a model of its place in history, its leading role is drawing to an end.

It's something to keep in mind when viewing the chest-beating, especially on the Right, about American exceptionalism and about how we are the only country ever founded on an idea. It's especially something to keep in mind given the blatant discrepancy between such rhetoric and the country's performance.