Here's how big a city containing the entire world population of 6.9 billion would have to be if it were the same density as some of the world's cities:
Paris:
New York:
Singapore:
San Francisco:
London:
Houston:
Most of you are idiots
Most of You are Idiots with Nothing to Say:
We've occasionally discussed the problem -- usually in the context of music -- of "Where are our Wagners?" Eric reminds us that we are in a time of extraordinary richness of sharing: we can hear forms of music that most of the greats never heard while they were composing; and those great composers; and many other forms as well.
This should be producing some magnificent synthesis, Beethoven with punk rock: but what we're getting instead is... well, it's garbage. Literature and academic thought is likewise drowning in sewage.
What is to be done about this? Also, what does it mean that more variety -- even more access to the greatest that history has ever produced -- does not reliably produce greats, but seems instead to drown them? I have heard that happiness is often imperiled by having too many choices; this seems like another problem of that type.
It is a problem not often considered in philosophy, which often follows Aristotle's formula that 'the good' is what things desire, and they desire those things because they lack them in some sense. Here is a case where we lack nothing -- not the best. Yet, lacking nothing, we are unable to make good things ourselves. It is as if the magic has broken, and the spell receded: all that is left are the old things, the works we cannot make alone.
Present company excepted, of course. However, that is the conclusion of two separate articles treating the bounty of literature being published today.
Why read?
If we take the argument a step further, we face the possibility that the humanities are actually countereconomic; the notion of alterity and sympathy, taken seriously, would undo the profit motive and put a fair amount of grit into the workings of economic activity. It would undermine the individualism upon which exchange, in its current forms, is based.Why write?
A loud, swarming noise of hundreds of thousands of books published each year, one almost indistinguishable from the next. Here are three new biographies of Coco Chanel, published almost simultaneously. A giant stack of memoirs about being sexually abused as a child. A dozen or so fantasy trilogies that begin with a poor girl who, upon the death of her mother, discovers she’s actually heir to the throne and must fight off usurpers.Surely, though, the best ideas float to the top?
Does one dare to raise one’s voice above the commotion, try to draw some attention away from those taking up the spotlight? Who gets in that rarefied space is still determined by the writer’s gender, connections, beauty, nepotism, youth, or “platform.” Not even the most idealistic among the cultural critics bother to argue that the system is merit-based.That's from a female author, by the way.
We've occasionally discussed the problem -- usually in the context of music -- of "Where are our Wagners?" Eric reminds us that we are in a time of extraordinary richness of sharing: we can hear forms of music that most of the greats never heard while they were composing; and those great composers; and many other forms as well.
This should be producing some magnificent synthesis, Beethoven with punk rock: but what we're getting instead is... well, it's garbage. Literature and academic thought is likewise drowning in sewage.
What is to be done about this? Also, what does it mean that more variety -- even more access to the greatest that history has ever produced -- does not reliably produce greats, but seems instead to drown them? I have heard that happiness is often imperiled by having too many choices; this seems like another problem of that type.
It is a problem not often considered in philosophy, which often follows Aristotle's formula that 'the good' is what things desire, and they desire those things because they lack them in some sense. Here is a case where we lack nothing -- not the best. Yet, lacking nothing, we are unable to make good things ourselves. It is as if the magic has broken, and the spell receded: all that is left are the old things, the works we cannot make alone.
A Solution to Global Warming
A Solution to Global WarmingAccording to the San Francisco Business Times, marijuana grown indoors is responsible for 1% of U.S. electrical production and contributes 17 million metric tons of carbon per year, not counting exhalations.
A couple of years ago, I spent a little over a year representing the bankrupt owners of a large redwood timber company in Humboldt County, California. The few local towns are tiny. They used to depend almost entirely on the timber industry, before it was ripped to shreds. More recently, the local economy has given the superficial impression of depending on tourism (it's an extremely beautiful, remote area), but it's widely believed that the actual source of income buoying the place up is grow-houses. Locals believe that most of the rental house stock is in use as indoor pot farms. A very small town supports two fully-stocked hydroponics-supply stores.
The S.F. Business Times asserts that, after medical marijuana was legalized in 1996, residential electricity use in Humboldt County jumped 50% in comparison with other parts of California. One of the issues complicating my bankruptcy case was the presence of squatters in the redwood forests, who grew pot in the clearings and had a distressing tendency to start small brush wars in response to intruders. Paradise, man! Global warming probably will make the pot crop even more vigorous.
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE ON MARGINAL TAX RATES
Discuss amongst your ownselves.
While I mostly agree that raising taxes on the rich isn't the answer to erasing the federal deficit, I can't help observing that there's precious little evidential support for the view that allowing marginal tax rates for the highest income bracket to climb to 40% is either unprecedented or gol-durned unAmerican.
The fact is that for the past century, the top marginal tax rate was nearly ALWAYS been higher than 35%. Not that "it's always/usually been that way" is a particularly solid normative argument for taxing the living daylights out of the Chinese toy-loving minions of the richest one percent.
On the otter heiny, "it's always/usually been that way" makes a pretty good argument against the notion that Armaggedon will result if we raise taxes on Teh Evil Rich (among whom the blog princess is mildly disturbed to find herself) :p
UPDATE: the argument conservatives *should* be making:
Discuss amongst your ownselves.
While I mostly agree that raising taxes on the rich isn't the answer to erasing the federal deficit, I can't help observing that there's precious little evidential support for the view that allowing marginal tax rates for the highest income bracket to climb to 40% is either unprecedented or gol-durned unAmerican.
The fact is that for the past century, the top marginal tax rate was nearly ALWAYS been higher than 35%. Not that "it's always/usually been that way" is a particularly solid normative argument for taxing the living daylights out of the Chinese toy-loving minions of the richest one percent.
On the otter heiny, "it's always/usually been that way" makes a pretty good argument against the notion that Armaggedon will result if we raise taxes on Teh Evil Rich (among whom the blog princess is mildly disturbed to find herself) :p
UPDATE: the argument conservatives *should* be making:
I find this simply fascinating.
In a blog post that I thought was about Congress, a self described progressive suddenly takes a hard left turn into fatty-hate:
I wonder if this is going to be the new meme, now that hating on Republicans seems to be becoming passe', especially since the supposedly progressive President is starting to sound like one. And since obesity knows no color line, there are all sorts of entertaining implications to this line of thinking.
I suspect that this particular blogger is a retired baby-boomer, since he (the voice sounds like a he to me) has the time to post dozens of posts a day. I notice this blog showing up on memorandum much too often for a blog that appears to have no readers. Or at least no one who comments.
That gives me a thought.
Ymar, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to show this person error of their ways in your winning style. See how long it takes for him to start deleting your comments. (Anyone else who wishes to, can join in as well.) There is certainly enough to comment on over there.
We are a nation of sacred cows. I'm talking about two aspects of America. One is our personal tonnage and the other is our indignation when anyone looks askance at someone who is obese. If feeling disgust and annoyance around people who are seriously obese is unfair, well, count me as one of the unfair. One reason has to do with feeling uncomfortable and frustrated in the company of people who are both self-destructive and heedless. The other has to do with those whose addictions add to everyone's difficulties. They cost us all a lot. The losses are measurable exactly as war's costs are measurable -- in young lives and a nation's treasure.
I wonder if this is going to be the new meme, now that hating on Republicans seems to be becoming passe', especially since the supposedly progressive President is starting to sound like one. And since obesity knows no color line, there are all sorts of entertaining implications to this line of thinking.
I suspect that this particular blogger is a retired baby-boomer, since he (the voice sounds like a he to me) has the time to post dozens of posts a day. I notice this blog showing up on memorandum much too often for a blog that appears to have no readers. Or at least no one who comments.
That gives me a thought.
Ymar, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to show this person error of their ways in your winning style. See how long it takes for him to start deleting your comments. (Anyone else who wishes to, can join in as well.) There is certainly enough to comment on over there.
Budget Spectacles
Eat the RichObviously last week's budget drama -- the impending doom of a shut-down of non-essential federal government activity -- was just a warm-up for the festivities surrounding the impending doom of a failure to raise the debt ceiling. (I'll add here my apologies to households expecting a military paycheck, as I would have considered freezing those funds a cause for a general public uprising, almost alone among the proposed effects of a shut-down. Cutting off paychecks to Congress would have been more my speed.)
Most of the excitement is generated by two sides shouting "Spend less!" and "Tax more!" at each other. So now might be a good time to consider Iowahawk's no-nonsense approach to finding the additional tax money to fund the nation's $10 billion-a-day spending habit:
12:01 AM, January 1
Let's start the year out right by going after some evil corporations and their obscene profits. And who is more evil than those twin spawns of Lucifer himself, Exxon Mobil and Walmart? Together these two largest American industrial behemoths raked in, between them, $34 billion in 2010 global profits. Let's teach 'em both a lesson and confiscate it for the public good. This will get us through...
9:52 AM January 4 . . .
Iowahawk manages to make it through the end of 2011 with a series of confiscations, then finds himself at the beginning of 2012 needing to do it again. Anyone know, he wonders, where we can get more plutocrats?
MORON WATCH
The United Nations, an organization that never met a pressing human rights issue it wasn't willing to pretend to care about bloviate into submission, has decided to deploy its unique brand of Multisyllabic Might against Gaia-raping capitalist running pig-dogs everywhere:
Because Goddess knows, there is nothing your average Gaia-raper fears more than those four little words: "We need to talk." Look for this latest humyn rights initiative to be just as wildly successful as their last effort:
Is there anything the sternly wagging finger of international consensus can't do?
We think not.
The United Nations, an organization that never met a pressing human rights issue it wasn't willing to Bolivia will this month table a draft United Nations treaty giving "Mother Earth" the same rights as humans — having just passed a domestic law that does the same for bugs, trees and all other natural things in the South American country.
The bid aims to have the UN recognize the Earth as a living entity that humans have sought to "dominate and exploit" — to the point that the "well-being and existence of many beings" is now threatened.
The wording may yet evolve, but the general structure is meant to mirror Bolivia's Law of the Rights of Mother Earth, which Bolivian President Evo Morales enacted in January.
That document speaks of the country's natural resources as "blessings," and grants the Earth a series of specific rights that include rights to life, water and clean air; the right to repair livelihoods affected by human activities; and the right to be free from pollution.
It also establishes a Ministry of Mother Earth, and provides the planet with an ombudsman whose job is to hear nature's complaints as voiced by activist and other groups, including the state.
Because Goddess knows, there is nothing your average Gaia-raper fears more than those four little words: "We need to talk." Look for this latest humyn rights initiative to be just as wildly successful as their last effort:
A month after the United Nations last summer announced the creation of a new, $500 million-a-year organization to promote equality for women in global affairs, the U.N.’s own investigators revealed that 15 years of “gender mainstreaming” efforts within the UN Secretariat have been a sweeping and costly failure.
The report, issued in August 2010, evaluates how gender mainstreaming -- the term that the U.N. uses to describe achieving equality between the sexes in all walks of life -- is being incorporated in all U.N. work to “ensure that the different needs and circumstances of women and men are identified and taken into account when policies and projects are developed and implemented.”
Is there anything the sternly wagging finger of international consensus can't do?
We think not.
Eek - a Republican
Eek -- a RepublicanAnother Maggie's Farm find: this essay in Slate by a woman who's struggling to understand how her best friend can be a Republican. She seems like an honest, caring friend whose opinions are based on carefully educated thought -- and yet she opposes Obamacare and the federal funding of Planned Parenthood! How can the author reconcile her revulsion with her love?
Nowhere in this amazing piece do I find even a glimmer of recognition that the Republican friend might also have to struggle to deal with her progressive friend's beliefs, or with her circle's casual assumption of superiority.
O wad some Pow'r the Giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us
Republican Virtues vs. Servile Institutions
Republican Virtues vs. Servile Institutions
I recommend these two video lectures from the American Enterprise Institute website, recommended to me over at Maggie's Farm. The first is Charles Murray, summarizing a book he's nearly completed on changing patterns of industriousness, honesty, marriage, and religious involvement in the lower and upper thirds of the American population in terms of education and income. His main observation is that, while the upper third always has had stronger showings in these areas than the lower third, the divergence between the two groups has grown over the last 50 years even as both groups have dropped off in their "scores." A favorite snippet: he believes that the upper group is afraid to "preach what it practices," perhaps out of some diffidence about the propriety of pushing on others the practices that have worked so well for them and their families.
The other lecture is Bill Kristol, speaking about a collection of the neo-conservative essays of his father, Irving Kristol. A favorite snippet: a neo-liberal is someone who's been mugged by reality, but refuses to press charges.
Western Waters
Western Waters:
I imagine some of you are getting curious about my continued absence. A few weeks ago I got a call from BLACKFIVE's Mr. Wolf, who asked me to come down and help him out with something. I'm still down here, and I'm not sure how long I'll be. As I settle in, though, it'll be easier to find time for the Hall.
If you were curious about whether Mr. Wolf lives up to his nickname -- "Winston Wolf. I solve problems." -- here's the view off the back porch of the quarters he arranged for us.
So, when we're not working, it's not a bad place to be. Still, all this sun and wind can get you a bit dehydrated after a while. There was some good news about that today, though.
QUOTE OF THE DAY:
Heh... :)
I just wasn’t cut out to be a Chinese Tiger Mom. I’m more of an Irish Setter Dad. Here are some of the things my daughters, Muffin and Poppet, and my son, Buster, were never allowed to do:
• go to Mass naked
• attend a sleepover at Charlie Sheen’s house
• mix Daddy a martini using sweet vermouth
• play the violin within earshot of me
Have you ever heard a kid learning to play the violin? A cat in the microwave is nothing to it. And let me add an addendum to the things my children were never allowed to do—put a cat in the microwave. I’m not saying it didn’t happen; I’m just saying they weren’t allowed to do it.
Whose children are going to succeed in life, Amy Chua’s or mine? Her Lulu has that violin going for her—there’s hardly a Silicon Valley billionaire, Wall Street plutocrat, senator, four-star general, or pope who isn’t a violin virtuoso. And Sophia, who tickles the ivories, can always say, “Don’t tell Mom I work for Goldman Sachs, she thinks I play piano in a house of ill repute.” But my kids practice too, hour after hour every day. They practice being jerks. And since almost every boss I’ve ever had was a jerk, this gives them a leg up. Plus there’s the cat in the microwave. That shows an inquisitive, experimental turn of mind. You can see how electronic cat-zapping could lead directly to the invention of something like Facebook.
Heh... :)
WHY DOES LINDSEY GRAHAM HATE OUR FREEDOMS? MILLER TIME EDITION
In the last post I threw out a few Inflammatory Debate Questions:
The Intrepid MikeD was kind enough toput himself in the line of fire respond to my anguished cri de coeur:
As it turns out, Graham later explained the comment (which was by no means clear):
Maybe I hate America too, but I don't have any problem with any of this. Repeat after me: Lindsey Graham does not have the ability to single handedly pass laws against Koran burning. Nor did he advocate doing so (hand waving and hyperbolic mischaractizations notwithstanding).
I'm fine with people disagreeing with Senator Graham. But I get off the bus when I see people arguing that it's "dangerous" to limit free speech... and then go ballistic when a U.S. citizen says something they disagree with. I thought the whole point was that robust debate was a *good* thing?
As for the second part of Mike's commment, I'm going to take exception to that, too (what is this? Pick on MikeD day? :)
First of all, it's not at all clear to me that Graham is advocating that the U.S. government hold Koran burners accountable:
Secondly, if you stop to realize that one of the major goals of the Taliban/Al Qaeda is to turn Abdul SixPack against us, then it's hard to imagine a better propaganda tool than some moron burning a Koran. Let's not forget that Afghanistan ain't Manhattan. It's a foreign culture that views honor in a way that is... well, foreign to us. And it's not too hard to whip up a mob in a country with where law and order are both fragile and precarious. I would argue that if you make it easy for our enemies to turn the general public against us, you ARE aiding and abetting the enemy (leaving aside the question of appropriate response).
A few years ago when the anti-war Left were hysterically accusing Der BusHitler of violating the Constitution, I read an interesting book. The man who wrote it - Richard Posner - is not a liberal by any stretch of the imagination. His thesis was that war is different from peacetime and the Constitution was never intended to be a suicide pact:
I agree with Mike that we should view any infringement on our civil rights (whether it be during war or peacetime) with a suspicious eye. But I also see the wisdom in Justice Jackson's famous maxim in his dissent to Terminiello v. Chicago. It's an interesting case.
If a lifetime of reading history has given me an appreciation for anything, it has strengthened my faith in the natural ebb and flow of liberty in this country and the robustness of our system of government. Certainly there have been abuses and the majority of those abuses have occurred during time of war. From the vantage point of hindsight, it's easy to look back at our forebears and blithely say, "They overreacted", or conversely, "Gee... all those abuses and yet somehow the Republic endured!"
To me, the latter view makes more sense. To pretend that wartime (and we ARE fighting two wars and our servicemen and women ARE just as important as their civilian counterparts) restrictions of liberty are unprecedented, unAmerican, or the last gasp of a dying democracy on the otter slide to jackbooted repression and the Rise of the 4th Reich seems (at least when viewed from the perspective of history) a tad overwrought.
As does much of the rhetoric I've seen aimed at Senator Graham. Disagree with him on the merits if you wish. I would add, though, that not only is he an attorney (which leads me to suspect he might just understand the First Amendment and 1A jurisprudence better than does your average pundit) but he is one of the few Congresscritters who has actually deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan.
The "gutless coward".
In the last post I threw out a few Inflammatory Debate Questions:
1. Is it really a threat to democracy for Lindsey Graham to say that there's ample precedent in American history for wartime limitations on "speech"?
2. Does expressing an opinion that differs from your own make a politician "unfit for office"?
3. Is America really so fragile that we can't discuss the trade offs between liberty and security without imperiling the Republic?
The Intrepid MikeD was kind enough to
I wish we could find a way to hold people accountable. Free speech is a great idea, but we’re in a war,” Graham told CBS’ Bob Schieffer on Sunday.
How do we hold people accountable in this country? A civil suit, perhaps. Criminal law? Occasionally. The fact that he's a lawmaker makes this a monumentally stupid thing for him to say.
As it turns out, Graham later explained the comment (which was by no means clear):
NRO: How do you do that?
GRAHAM: Push back. Let the world know that we don’t condone this, that this is not America. Let people see that this is not who the American people are. To be a Christian, you don’t have to prove you’re a Christian by burning the Koran. We are nation where we tolerate religious differences and that’s what makes us great. We want to push the Muslim world to tolerate Christianity better. It’s pretty hard for us to stand up for freedom of religion in Islamic counties when you can’t stand up for it here.
NRO: If Koran burning puts troops at risk, should the New York Times be banned from publishing classified memos, since that is a form of First Amendment expression that potentially puts our troops at risk?
GRAHAM: Yes. I was very consistent. I wanted to investigate the WikiLeaks case to see if it compromised our national security. See, I believe that we are at war. I am not talking about Koran burning in isolation. I am talking about it in response to what General Petraeus said. If this is important enough to him to issue a statement, then it ought to be important enough for us in government to listen to what he has to say.
This is not some theoretical case of free speech; this is a case that is impacting the security of our forces, according to our general on the ground. WikiLeaks was the release of classified information, and I don’t believe that the private in question has a free-speech defense. Those who release classified information, even for those in the media, they are not above the law. The First Amendment doesn’t allow people to publish state secrets.
NRO: But don’t you fear that if we let Islamic extremists determine the speech debate in the United States, then we’ve lost something?
GRAHAM: No. Here’s what I fear: I fear that politicians don’t have any problem pushing against laws in the Middle East that are outrageous. It’s perfectly acceptable for me to push back against prosecutions by Islamic countries against people of my faith. And it is perfectly appropriate for me to condemn Koran burning when the general who is in charge of our troops believes that such action would help. I’m not letting Islamists determine what free speech in America is, but I am, as a political leader, trying to respond to the needs of our commander. You’ve got to remember, General Petraeus decided that this was important enough to get on the record as being inappropriate. And I want to be on the record with General Petraeus.
NRO: Instead of being an advocate for Petraeus, should you not first and foremost be an advocate for the First Amendment?
GRAHAM: You know what? Let me tell you, the First Amendment means nothing without people like General Petraeus. I don’t believe that the First Amendment allows you to burn the flag or picket the funeral of a slain service member. I am going to continue to speak out and say that’s wrong. The First Amendment does allow you to express yourself and burn a Koran. I’m sure that’s the law, but I don’t think it’s a responsible use of our First Amendment right.
Where does this end? How many more things are going to happen in the world that is going to incite violence against our service members overseas? I am just asking Americans, don’t do that, please. For God’s sake, no matter how you feel about religion, please keep it within the confines of realizing that we have thousands of people serving our nation, fighting for those First Amendment rights. They’ve got enough problems.
Just be responsible, that’s all I’m trying to say. Burning the Bible would not justify murder, burning the Koran doesn’t justify violence. The people who are committing this violence, I condemn them. That’s what I said Sunday. I don’t think I said anything Sunday that was inconsistent with what General Petraeus said.
Maybe I hate America too, but I don't have any problem with any of this. Repeat after me: Lindsey Graham does not have the ability to single handedly pass laws against Koran burning. Nor did he advocate doing so (hand waving and hyperbolic mischaractizations notwithstanding).
I'm fine with people disagreeing with Senator Graham. But I get off the bus when I see people arguing that it's "dangerous" to limit free speech... and then go ballistic when a U.S. citizen says something they disagree with. I thought the whole point was that robust debate was a *good* thing?
As for the second part of Mike's commment, I'm going to take exception to that, too (what is this? Pick on MikeD day? :)
But what is really the icing on my cake is "Free speech is a great idea..." No, the HELL it's NOT Senator, it's the CONSTITUTION. It superceeds the law. As far as your oath of office is concerned, it is your primary focus in your JOB. And what war are we in? ... Unless that moron pastor in Florida is inciting riots, committing treason, or aiding and abetting the enemy (which pissing them off hardly seems like abetting them), I see no need for the United States Government to "hold him accountable."
First of all, it's not at all clear to me that Graham is advocating that the U.S. government hold Koran burners accountable:
NRO: The question about your comments is about imposing any kind of legal pushback during a time of war.
GRAHAM: If I could, I would make it a crime to burn the flag, but the only way you could do that is through a constitutional amendment.
NRO: What I don’t understand is, if would you support an amendment to ban flag burning, why do you not support one to ban Koran burning?
GRAHAM: In my view, the flag represents who we are as a nation. It is a symbol of who we are. If you start talking about individual acts of religious intolerance, the amendment doesn’t make any sense. It does make sense, to me, to focus on the symbol of the country, the flag. I’m not proposing that we propose a ban on religious disagreement. I am saying that you can disagree with America; you can disagree with me, but don’t burn the one symbol that holds us together. That’s not an act of speech. They say that is symbolic speech, but I think that is a destructive act. It’s the one thing that unites us.
Yet when it comes to regulating what individual churches may do, or what individual citizens may do under the guise under religion, you are not going to be able to write a constitutional amendment to ban those practices. There is no way to do that. I wish we could hold people accountable for their actions, but under free speech, you can’t.
Secondly, if you stop to realize that one of the major goals of the Taliban/Al Qaeda is to turn Abdul SixPack against us, then it's hard to imagine a better propaganda tool than some moron burning a Koran. Let's not forget that Afghanistan ain't Manhattan. It's a foreign culture that views honor in a way that is... well, foreign to us. And it's not too hard to whip up a mob in a country with where law and order are both fragile and precarious. I would argue that if you make it easy for our enemies to turn the general public against us, you ARE aiding and abetting the enemy (leaving aside the question of appropriate response).
A few years ago when the anti-war Left were hysterically accusing Der BusHitler of violating the Constitution, I read an interesting book. The man who wrote it - Richard Posner - is not a liberal by any stretch of the imagination. His thesis was that war is different from peacetime and the Constitution was never intended to be a suicide pact:
Posner, who sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, inaugurates a new series on inalienable rights. The series is intended to stimulate debate, and Posner's work will do exactly that, drilling energetically into a set of issues raised by what he sees as an unprecedented emergency. In the fact of terrorism and the threat of WMDs, he argues, the scope of constitutional rights must be adjusted—i.e., narrowed—in a pragmatic but rational manner. Saying we must balance the harm new security measures inflict on personal liberty against the increased security those measures provide, Posner comes down, in most but not quite all respects, on the side of increased government power. He advocates that coercive and even brutal forms of interrogation should be allowed in proper circumstances, that all communications within the United States should be subject to interception, and that government should have authority to enjoin publication of classified information. Posner (An Affair of State) would impose limits and qualifications on these assertions of government power, but even so, his views will provoke Category 5 protest from civil libertarians. You may agree with or be appalled by Posner's cost-benefit analyses, but the author's premises are explicit, his writing is economical and precise, and he ably makes the case for his side in the national debate.
I agree with Mike that we should view any infringement on our civil rights (whether it be during war or peacetime) with a suspicious eye. But I also see the wisdom in Justice Jackson's famous maxim in his dissent to Terminiello v. Chicago. It's an interesting case.
If a lifetime of reading history has given me an appreciation for anything, it has strengthened my faith in the natural ebb and flow of liberty in this country and the robustness of our system of government. Certainly there have been abuses and the majority of those abuses have occurred during time of war. From the vantage point of hindsight, it's easy to look back at our forebears and blithely say, "They overreacted", or conversely, "Gee... all those abuses and yet somehow the Republic endured!"
To me, the latter view makes more sense. To pretend that wartime (and we ARE fighting two wars and our servicemen and women ARE just as important as their civilian counterparts) restrictions of liberty are unprecedented, unAmerican, or the last gasp of a dying democracy on the otter slide to jackbooted repression and the Rise of the 4th Reich seems (at least when viewed from the perspective of history) a tad overwrought.
As does much of the rhetoric I've seen aimed at Senator Graham. Disagree with him on the merits if you wish. I would add, though, that not only is he an attorney (which leads me to suspect he might just understand the First Amendment and 1A jurisprudence better than does your average pundit) but he is one of the few Congresscritters who has actually deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan.
The "gutless coward".
SINCE I'M FEELING FEISTY TODAY...
...here's Yet Another Potentially Inflammatory Set of Debate Questions:
1. Is it really a threat to democracy for Lindsey Graham to say that there's ample precedent in American history for wartime limitations on "speech"?
2. Does expressing an opinion that differs from your own make a politician "unfit for office"?
Wow. Really?
3. Is America really so fragile that we can't discuss the trade offs between liberty and security without imperiling the Republic?
...here's Yet Another Potentially Inflammatory Set of Debate Questions:
1. Is it really a threat to democracy for Lindsey Graham to say that there's ample precedent in American history for wartime limitations on "speech"?
2. Does expressing an opinion that differs from your own make a politician "unfit for office"?
Wow. Really?
3. Is America really so fragile that we can't discuss the trade offs between liberty and security without imperiling the Republic?
HOW POLITICALLY INCORRECT OF HIM...
Apparently, Charles Murray is just a big, mean spirited misandrist:
Debate questions:
1. How does what Murray just said differ from Kay Hymowitz's latest effort, which has produced the most amusing (if deafening) howls of outrage - along with cries of "Misandry!!!1!!!!111!!!!" - from quite a few righty bloggers?
2. Is Murray's message "misandry"?
3. If so, is John Hawkins a misandrist, too?
From what I've seen, liberals have plenty of company on the right side of the blogosphere. Just sayin'.
Apparently, Charles Murray is just a big, mean spirited misandrist:
Note the discrepancy between what I just said and our common perceptions of what's going on with marriage. The very common impression is that it's the upper class that's had problems with marriage...
...For the upper middle class, marriage is alive and well. It has collapsed in the working class.
Why is it a big deal that fewer than half of working class whites ages 30-49 are married? Well, there are several reasons.
One is that marriage civilizes men. Married men... their incomes go up. Their productivity goes up. In a more general sense, adult males who are single are kind of a kind of disheveled population....disheveled in a variety of ways culturally and socially and they clean up their acts when they get married with fairly good regularity.
Another reason is that single people are not good producers of social capital. They seldom coach Little League teams and chair civic fund drives, or take the lead in getting a 4 way stop sign at an intersection where children play.
A third, more fundamental reason is the one that de Tocqueville saw. It's worth quoting directly:"I consider the domestic virtue of the Americans [domestic virtue referring to married life in America] as the principal source of all their other qualities.
He then goes on to enumerate those qualities and concludes:"In short, domestic virtue does more for the preservation of peace and good order than all the laws enacted for that purpose, and is a better guarantee for the permanency of the American government than any written instrument - the Constitution not excepted.
Debate questions:
1. How does what Murray just said differ from Kay Hymowitz's latest effort, which has produced the most amusing (if deafening) howls of outrage - along with cries of "Misandry!!!1!!!!111!!!!" - from quite a few righty bloggers?
2. Is Murray's message "misandry"?
3. If so, is John Hawkins a misandrist, too?
Is it controversial to note that people in their twenties are a lot less grown up and responsible than they used to be? Yes, it’s nice that so many Americans can waste their twenties clubbing and playing Madden — and I mean that. The fact that so many young Americans even have the option to do that shows we have an extremely prosperous society.
Of course, there’s also a price to be paid for that prosperity: Percentage wise, we have a lot of “adults” in this country who think like children because they’ve never been forced to grow up and deal with the real world the way Americans did in past generations.
Pointing this out apparently infuriates liberals, who in their ignorance, tend to confuse hedonism with happiness.
From what I've seen, liberals have plenty of company on the right side of the blogosphere. Just sayin'.
Criminal Faces
Criminal Faces
See how proficient you are at identifying a criminal, relying only on his face when set in a "neutral" expression. I got them 75% right, which is too good to be accounted for by chance. It turns out I'm reliable at identifying assaulters (something about the deadness of the eyes and the set of the mouth), so-so at identifying arsonists and drug dealers, and terrible at identifying rapists. The key can be found here, if you'll scroll down all the way to the last page of the article. (H/t Assistant Village Idiot.)
Nature abhors a vacuum.
These new “secondary” forests are emerging in Latin America, Asia and other tropical regions at such a fast pace that the trend has set off a serious debate about whether saving primeval rain forest — an iconic environmental cause — may be less urgent than once thought. By one estimate, for every acre of rain forest cut down each year, more than 50 acres of new forest are growing in the tropics on land that was once farmed, logged or ravaged by natural disaster.“There is far more forest here than there was 30 years ago,” said Ms. Ortega de Wing, 64, who remembers fields of mango trees and banana plants.
I've seen this before. I've spent some time around the battle field at Monmouth, NJ, and several years ago the park started an initiative to 'restore' parts of the battle field to its condition at the time of the battle in 1778. This pretty much involved cutting down a whole lot of vegetation that had grown up since end of intensive cultivation in central NJ. (by that I mean people who were doing tings like gathering firewood in addition to working the land) Grim knows what I mean.
It's hubris to think we really can damage nature on any long-term scale.
Traveling
Traveling:
I'm traveling again, this time on business, so I can't promise to be around much for a bit.
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