Not Funny

This cartoon is considerably more creepy than what is normally published in the New Yorker. It was sort of unfortunate that I read it the morning after I saw this story.

And while I'm at it, this cartoon isn't funny at all. I don't know what it is about prison rape that sends people into fits of giggles, but you'd think the editors of the New Yorker would have better taste than that. Making fun of Polish names? "We just don't publish that kind of thing." But, condemning American citizens to serial rape? That's comedy gold.

Embarrassing

Over the course of this year, the Oberlin College Republicans have, as part of the "Ronald Reagan Lecture Series" hosted, among others, a climatologist to challenge global warming orthodoxies, a woman to discuss the failures of feminism, and a black guy to discuss the end of affirmative action. Yesterday's speaker, given this hilariously transparent MO, was not particularly surprising, but they made a mockery of themselves in a way I wouldn't really have though possible. On Tuesday May 1st, the Republicans hosted a speaker of Mexican descent who discussed immigration reform. What's the big deal, you ask? The big deal is that they titled it:

"An Evening with a Mexican-American: Essentials of Real Immigration Reform."

Are you fucking kidding me? An evening with a Mexican American? It's like they don't want to be taken seriously. I guess it's kind of brilliant because you can't ridicule something if its title is so mindbendingly stupid it leaves you speechless.

Vetoed

The President vetoed a bill that I don't really understand last week, but it at least made gestures at getting the US out of Iraq. There's now something of a standstill, in which Congress needs to either defund the troops, which no one seems to want, or pass some sort of bill that the President will sign. John Edwards is asking for money to run an anti-war ad directed at Congress in DC, and John Kerry has a great diary at DailyKos already thinking ahead to targeting key Republicans in '08.

Congressional tactics are very very complicated, especially to the extent they intersect with procedural matters, but I think the thing to do is to pass a bill that funds the troops for 2-3 months. When the President comes back to ask for more, pass the bill he just vetoed, or a stricter one. If he vetoes that, give him funding for another short period of time. Right now we just don't have the votes to end the war, but its sure not getting any more popular. If Pelosi makes the Republicans vote to stay in Iraq and support Bush every 2 months until November of 2008, they will have a worse election then than they did in 06. Either that, or sometime between now and then we will see major Republican defections, big intra-party clashes, and hopefully an earlier (but long overdue) end to the American involvement in the disaster in Iraq.

In which I agree with Mitt Romney

and disagree with liberal bloggers. There's been some fuss, like this post at TPM, that Mitt Romney said it probably wasn't worth it to expend a huge effort to capture Osama Bin Laden. Apparently, the responsible thing for the media to do would have been to flip a collective shit and destroy the man without ever analyzing the value of his statement. It's undoubtedly true, and unfair, that Nancy Pelosi would have gotten this treatment. But Romney happens to be right, so its a good thing it didn't happen. Capturing Osama Bin Laden would accomplish approximately nothing. People would feel slightly better about 9/11, perhaps. We might or might not embarrass ourselves by botching his trial, a la Hussein. The world and country would be not at all safer. I would rather, to use Romney's words, be "moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars" to do things that will actually protect America, as opposed to make good headlines. I'm all for criticizing the media when they obsess over offhand comments by Democrats that are poorly phrased but basically true, but that's because I want the media to be good, not because I want them to be equally bad to everybody.

Gravel for President

The first primary debate was tonight, and Mike Gravel stole the show. Tell your friends. Join the Facebook group. Volunteer. My guess is his performance in South Carolina tonight will catapult his name recognition into the high single digits.

His most memorable assertion was that, and I'm paraphrasing here, running for President is like being in the Senate. The first day you walk in and you think, "wow, how did I make it here?" The third day you ask yourself, "How did all of these guys!?"

Terrorist attack on US soil narrowly averted

Or at least, you'd expect the headlines to say that. In actuality, you can't find this story using Google News at all if you include variations on the word terrorism in your search.

One of the obvious problems with the media reporting on "Islamic terrorism" is that if you define everything bad Muslims do (buying cell phones) and nothing Christians do (murdering civilians with IEDs) as terrorism, it suddenly seems like Islamic terrorism is an awfully big problem.

Really?

Via John, an article on building giant skyscraper farms to feed the world's cities. This is exactly the kind of technology reporting that I can't stand. It's really common in magazines like Discover (which I love.) They uncritically report on cool ideas that range from totally impossible to very unlikely except under extraordinary conditions and claim that they'll... solve global warming!

The building/farm is supposed to do all sorts of fancy things. It'll generate energy through 1) a photo voltaic collector that will presumably turn the electricity into light. This is obviously less efficient than just letting the light hit the plants, and so will presumably not even power one story of this 50 story building. 2) The building will collect wind power, which is pretty sweet, but I can't imagine it will reliably generate power for light for all 50 stories of the building. 3) The non-edible plant waste will be used to generate power. That's awesome, but the energy in the plant waste had to come from light the plants absorbed, so that's only an efficiency improvement, and certainly isn't an energy source. Yet the article suggests that this building is going to produce more energy than it consumes. 4) Everything will be organic. How? Because it said so! 5) Even though all of the unused plant waste is being removed to make fuel, it won't need fertilizers. Why not? Because it said so! Right there in the first page of the article.

There's a lot of cool stuff in there with really interesting implications for urban design, but pardon me if I roll my eyes when I read the article. I'd love to see buildings using solar and wind power, purifying sewage, collecting rain water, and using energy and space efficient design, but I'll believe in the magical energy and water and food producing organic building when I see it in Manhattan.

Amnestwhat?

Kind of a weird Times article. It's all about how Giuliani has turned away from his pro-immigrant views now that he's running for president. That should surprise exactly no one, since, as far as I can tell, playing on fears of Blacks and Arabs is already shaping up to be a centerpiece of his electoral strategy. Why not the Mexicans too, right? On the other hand, when you read what he says by the end of the article, it just doesn't sound that bad.

pg. 1: "And while he once pushed policies like providing schooling for the children of illegal immigrants by saying, “The reality is that they are here, and they’re going to remain here,” now he emphasizes denying amnesty."

pg. 2: "These days, when he says he opposes amnesty, Mr. Giuliani says he does not mean that the millions of people here illegally should be deported, but rather, that they should have to earn their citizenship and that nothing should be accorded automatically."

I'm a big fan of the kind of not-amnesty that involves a path to citizenship without deportation or prosecution.

And you look like one, too

Hey, it turns out Chimpanzees are smarter than us, at least at some stuff. Which means when they decide to force billions of us into concentration camps where they sever our limbs without anesthetics, restrict our free movement, sensory stimuli and social interaction, leave us in piles of our own feces, give us feed that makes our stomachs swell and rupture and then kill and consume us, it'll be totally fine. You know, because you're allowed to do that to animals that aren't as good at arbitrary mental tasks. Right?

I'm a Republican

I wasn't old enough to vote against mayor Mike Bloomberg in '00 or '04, but after reading today's Times, I can say that I would happily support him in '08 if he could run again. The guy has always seemed competent, only about an eighth as obnoxious as Giuliani, and generally interested in doing well for the city. My three major complaints have been that he 1) has deeply flawed views on education, 2) wasn't willing to stick his neck out and turn NYC into a truly green city and 3) is a Republican.

Well, I still don't buy into the small school education philosophy, though that's a post for another day. But he has fought as hard as anyone to get the city our fair share of education funds, and for that I applaud him.

Today we learn that he's pushing for a massive environmental/developmental package that could reshape the city. NYC could and should be the most environmentally friendly city on the planet, and a model for living in the post-fossil fuel world. This (especially the congestion pricing!) is a great first step, and it will be illuminating to see who lines up in support. Were I registered to vote in NY, the position of the candidates for mayor and for local office on this issue in would probably determine my vote more than anything else.

On the other hand, he's still a Republican. I feel dirty complimenting him, so I'll have to go shower now.

Good news!

Apparently, things are going pretty darn well in the conservative blogosphere. Just head on over to Instapundit.com and see what's happening: Reynold's deftly disposes of the strongest arguments from the most cherished and respected members of the Democratic establishment in such posts as "a response to Rosie O'Donnell" and "More Celebrity Global Warming Hypocrisy." Take that, Senator John Travolta!

But that's not all. If you thought that the White House firing public servants in order to influence Federal corruption investigations was a big deal, wait until you hear about Sandy Berger! And if a three year old non-scandal doesn't interest you, don't lose faith, because the conservative blogs are hard at work fabricating a new one. The "Dianne Feinstein Scandal" has apparently been so well covered up that no one can even find any evidence of wrong doing! Just wait until the Mainstream Media gets a whiff of that.

I almost (but only almost) feel bad for them.

Howard who?

Peter Suderman at the Corner has apparently never heard of Howard Dean. His interest is piqued by the idea that engaged citizens might actually organize outside of a traditional campaign structure and... well, God only knows what might happen.

"But the prospect that popular political ad campaigns might no longer be officially approved leads to all sorts of interesting possibilities. How does a campaign control its message when independent parties are out there working without oversight? What happens when an election is won even partly on the basis of an ad that a candidate didn't create or approve? My inner 13 year old boy is extremely curious."

It makes sense that his inner 13 year old might be curious, given that when Peter was 13 a campaign for the Democratic nomination hadn't yet been run on exactly the principles he's talking about. But it is pretty amusing that the grown-up conservatives are just noticing this crazy phenomenon now.

Edwards still in

Elizabeth Edwards' cancer has returned. The campaign will continue. She looks and says she feels fine. Best wishes to them.

A Toe for a Toe

I just read a super interesting article in the Times on the development or evolution of morality in primates. Often using words like morality confuses things a fair amount, but the the subject of the article, Dr. Frans de Waal, makes a very convincing case that various apes and monkeys can empathize, enforce social rules, and can take actions for the good of the community, not just the individual.

What rights animals should have is, to be sure, a complicated issue, but in the case of chimpanzees it seems almost impossible to draw a distinction between us and them that would render their wellbeing worthless.

Of course, given the variation between human populations on issues of rules and punishment, its not surprising that other species have modes of enforcement we would never consider. I learned that "Young rhesus monkeys learn quickly how to behave, and occasionally get a finger or toe bitten off as punishment."

Accountability

I just Youtubed (yes, it's a verb) Alberto Gonzalez's press conference on this whole "sneakily firing lots of competent federal employees in order to politicize their positions" scandal. In response to the first question, which was inaudible on my speakers, he said "As we can all imagine, in an organization with 110,000 people, I am not aware of all the information that passes through the halls of justice, nor am I aware of all decisions. "

Then, in response to the next question, he says "I am ultimately accountable and responsible for what happens within the department." Well, this really shouldn't need to be said, but the fact that he didn't know what the hell was going on in his own department is not an excuse for anything. In fact, it's a fairly good reason for him to resign. The idea that an event of the magnitude we're talking about could have taken place without Gonzalez's knowledge is totally absurd unless you assume that he isn't doing his job at all. I'm not particularly interested in whether he's lying or slacking, because either way, he should not be the AG of the United States of America.

Here's a fun analogy. Lets say at Oberlin College, there was suddenly no electricity on North Campus. Nancy Dye could hold a press conference and say "I'm really not in charge of electricity." That would be totally true, but also totally irrelevant, because as president of the college, a disaster of that magnitude would ultimately be her responsibility. And if it was obviously preventable, or the motivations behind it were less than pure, or if she proved unable to effectively solve any of the resulting problems in the aftermath, it would certainly be cause for her to resign. It also would have been much more dramatic than her decision not to return next year was in real life.

Anyway, I suppose it's inevitable that the term accountability will be butchered by people who refuse to be held accountable for anything, but at its core, it does actually mean something. Gonzalez is saying that he's "accountable", but um... nothing will happen to him even though he utterly failed his job. That sounds an awful lot like a little thing I like to call being "not accountable".

Those Greasy, Greedy, Hook-Nosed, Jew States...

The debate about the "new" anti-Semitism has been had so many times on the internet I hate to even delve into it. But I will, because Stanley Fish is wrong, and bad at math, and for some reason he still gets to write on the Times website.

The whole argument centers around the question of people like me, or people who take slightly more extreme views that I'm ambivalent or disagree with. These people sometimes claim that the occupation of Gaza and the West-Bank is illegal and a human rights violation, that Israel and the Zionist movement are imperialist, and that they don't deserve the support of the United States, that a state reserved for a Jewish majority shouldn't exist, or that it was a mistaken product of imperialism that should never have been created, that there should be a "one state" solution involving the incorporation of the West Bank, etc.. So, are these folks who oppose the state of Israel or its policies anti-Semitic?

Well, he cites a study by Small and Kaplan which claims that in Europe “Those with extreme anti-Israel sentiment are roughly six times more likely to harbor anti-Semitic views than those who do not fault Israel on the measures studied, and among those respondents deeply critical of Israel, the fraction that harbors anti-Semitic views exceeds 50 percent.” The fact that the hostility to a country would coincide to hostility towards the people living there is not terribly surprising, I think. Fish then goes on to completely butcher the study. "Small and Kaplan are careful to disclaim any causal implications that might be drawn from their analysis ... [If you] scratch an opponent of Israel and you are likely – 56 percent of the time – to find an anti-Semite. This does suggest that if opposition to Israel increases, there will be an increase in anti-Semitism because the population of the 56 percenters will be larger. Is this something Jews, even Jews living in the United States, should be apprehensive about?" Well, it's not something to be apprehensive about because it doesn't make any effin' sense. If two groups (anti-Semites and Israel critics) have no causal relationship, then guess what happens to one group when the other grows? Nothing! Or, as my roommate put it, "hasn't he ever heard of a Venn-diagram?"

The way that the study measures anti-Semitism seems rather fair, but brings up a big pet peeve of mine. If the respondents agree with statements like “Jews don’t care what happens to anyone but their own kind” or “Jews are more loyal to Israel than to this country” or “Jews have too much power in international financial markets” they are considered anti-Semitic. I'm inclined to agree with that, but I would like to point out that when people say similarish statements about blacks (that they are lazy, should work harder, aren't owed anything etc.) in the U.S., we call it "racial conservatism." I wish we recognized those stereotypes as racism as easily as we recognize the first set as anti-Semitism. But I digress.

Fish goes on to say that he basically believes in this New Anti-Semitism, and critics of the occupation are using it as a pretext for their desire to gas the Jews. He fantasizes about being dispossessed. Apparently, his experience on College campuses has convinced him that this movement of covert anti-Semites exists. I find this interesting because my experience on a college campus is that I meet a lot of other Jews from all over the country, many of whom have been to Israel and identify much more strongly than I do, and they almost universally reject a brutal occupation being carried out in their name.

I think it's a good rule that if a majority or sizable minority of an ethnic group believe something, that belief probably isn't motivated by racism against that same group. For example, one could say that the states of Florida, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina should be a Black State, and that all the whites currently living their should be forced to live in an area the size of Rhode Island under Jim-Crow conditions. One could also say that everyone who disagreed with that is motivated by hatred of black people. The problem here would be that most black Americans would think that was insane. Similarly, plenty of American Jews (I count myself among them) think the occupation of Palestine, and the invasion of Iraq (and possible invasion of Iran?) are just plain crazy. Not good for the Jews, just crazy.

Finally, he brings up a good friend of his who believes that you can be politically opposed to Israel and not a racist. He says "He is 10 years my junior. I remember World War II. By the time he was born it was history. Maybe it’s that simple." I wonder how well he really remembers WWII, because I'm pretty sure Hitler sounded a lot more like Marty "We have higher standards of civilization than they do" Peretz than like Tony Judt.

Walmart, Galbraith

I'm slowly working my way through John Kenneth Galbraith's American Capitalism, the Concept of Countervailing Power. He's a wonderful writer, and I'd have finished it in a few days if I didn't have so much homework and access to a Game Cube.

The book is slightly out dated, though it only makes Galbraith seem smarter. He argues that, with some exceptions, all industries will tend towards monopoly, or at least an oligopoly of a few large businesses (which disrupt the supply and demand system of competition). The exceptions listed in my 1956 edition of the book are "... agriculture, the textile and garment industries, soft-coal mining, wholesale and retail trade, shoe manufacturing..." That's right, the industries dominated by Kraft, Nike and Walmart were at the time his examples of industries unimpeded by a few dominant companies.

What really interests me is his discussion of how the competitive system is supposed to work vs. the reality of the American markets. The forces of supply and demand and the competition between producers are supposed to determine prices, which can only work if no single business can effect prices on its own. If I, and 3000 other people, are selling wheat, I can't raise the price because no one will buy it, and if I lower it it won't force anyone else to do the same, and I'll just lose money. This ideal system, according to JKG, breaks down in a monopoly or oligopoly, where there are so few producers/suppliers that any of them can affect prices. To me, it sounds spot on.

What surprised me is that I was basically aware of the fact that large companies can choose to affect prices, and it was never portrayed as anything other than a good thing. Walmart's "Always Low Prices" don't result primarily from innovation, but from the fact that as the world's biggest retailer, they can simply force wages and prices down. What to do about that is something that there will be wide disagreement on (Galbraith certainly has his own solutions) but it seems fairly important to recognize that Walmart has an influence on the market that violates the competitive model just like Big Government(!) intervention or a Union might.

So, so, creepy

Apparently Liberalism is like premarital sex, and conservatism is like... I don't know, it all freaks me out too much to wade through the entire gross metaphor, but here's Grover Norquist on Brownback, Huckabee and Hunter, the "principled" conservative Republican second tier. They still aren't conservative enough for Norquist:

"Mr. Norquist said he remained open to any of the three candidates who spoke to the council or to Mr. Romney. He argued that with the right promises, any of the four could redeem themselves in the eyes of the conservative movement despite their past records, just as some high school students take abstinence pledges even after having had sex.

'It’s called secondary virginity,' Mr. Norquist said. 'It is a big movement in high school and also available for politicians.'"

Anyway, the whole virginity pledge and second virginity crap is really awful. I suppose I'd be against it anyway, but the fact is it just leads to a lot more anal and oral sex. Shakespeare's Sister has great stuff to say on how much it devalues the pledgers. There used to be a pretty sick video on YouTube about the "Purity Ball" where daughters pledge to their fathers not to have sex until marriage. I think the video's gone, but here's the website.

"I pledge to remain sexually pure...until the day I give myself as a wedding gift to my husband... I know that God requires this of me... that he loves me, and that he will reward me for my faithfulness."

McCainiacs United!

Well, I thought John McCain was probably doomed in the presidential primary, but now he holds the distinction of being the only major Republican candidate for president who hasn't lost embarrassing campaign materials. Given the competition, he basically just needs to overcome the fact that his base hates his guts, he's too old to get elected and he's more closely tied to the astoundingly unpopular war in Iraq than any other person in congress.

Meanwhile, the Democrats are in the awkward position of deciding between a supremely competent and ambitious former first lady with unparalleled fundraising ability, a brilliant and eloquent speaker who is already drawing crowds of tens of thousands two years from the election, and an energetic and charismatic former vice presidential candidate with a populist platform that will resonate in the mid-West and upper-South.

Oppression in Chinatown!

Matthew Yglesias comments on the phenomenon of Chinese Restaurants charging more on the English menu than the Chinese menu. He thinks its no big deal. But his comment section is practically overflowing with outrage at this racial injustice!

Gatchaman says:
"So nobody here would shit a brick if a white run business was charging non-whites more? Good to know."
and follows it up with:
"Interesting, my sister-in-law, who owns a cafe in a gay neighborhood should charge the gay couples more, because it is safe to assume a gay couple with no children has more disposable income than a heterosexual couple with kids."

Right On actually spells this whole pathetic "but, what if I wasn't privileged!?" game for us:
"Would it be okay if:
(a) the Chinese people were charged more?
(b) there was a third menu, in Spanish, that charged even more than the English one?
(c) you could only order off the Chinese menu if you looked Chinese?"

If white people charged black or Chinese or gay people more at their stores, that would be a privileged majority group institutionalizing their personal prejudice against a minority group. I think we can all agree that that's bad. I don't know if I'm going to "shit a brick" or not, but it is and should be illegal.

If Chinese restaurants charged Spanish speakers more, that would be an attempt by a non-privileged immigrant group to institutionalize discrimination against another non-privileged group. It would have little impact, since unlike stores owned by whites, it is actually easy to avoid stores owned by Chinese people. This would be bad, but it is worth pointing out that, you know, it's not happening.

What matters in this sort of situation is what actually happens, and who benefitis. In this case, the effect is that a meal in Chinatown that completely stuffs my family of four costs $29 instead of the $25 they charge to first or second generation immigrants, as well as anyone who decides to devote two weeks to learning passable menu reading in Chinese. This is, as Matt said, not a big deal.

On the other hand, the result of the reverse scenario would be the creation of a second-class citizenship of Chinese speakers who would either be totally prevented from assimilating by being forced to stay in areas where other Chinese speakers owned stores, or else would find themselves paying a tax directly to everyone else for not speaking English.

One of the most subtle (and common) forms of racism among white Americans is the denial of any difference between us and everyone else. Being part of a privileged majority with higher average income and more education is not the same thing as being part of a minority that faces widespread discrimination which is often subtly (or not so subtly) institutionalized. It might be fun to pretend that those are the same if you're interested in denying your own advantage or want to minimize the hardships of others, but it puts you somewhere in the gray area between pathetic and racist, and that's just not a good place to be.

UPDATE: I realize the title of this post should have been "Forget it Jake. It's Chinatown."

David Brooks! III

This will be short. Brooks today:

"Can we stop hearing about downtown parents who dress their babies in black skull slippers, Punky Monkey T-shirts and camo toddler ponchos until the little ones end up looking like sad-parody club clones of mom and dad? Can we finally stop reading about the musical Antoinettes who would get the vapors if their tykes were caught listening to Disney tunes, and who instead force-feed Brian Eno, Radiohead and Sufjan Stevens into their little babies’ iPods?"

Seriously? I think David Brooks just wrote a column instructing people not to read his column.

Ann Althouse

Ann Althouse, New York Times guest columnist and insufferable blogger, has a column out today begging to be dissected. She starts out recognizing that Giuliani and Romney were both totally pro-choice, and that Rudy is now insisting that he'll elect strict constructionist judges (but being coy about whether they'd overturn Roe) while Romney is saying that he doesn't think his position could be described as pro-life or pro-choice.

Althouse then inserts this gem. "Compare them with straight-talking John McCain, who said: “I do not support Roe v. Wade. It should be overturned.” That’s harder to mock." Well, it would be really hard to mock him if he wasn't, you know, also a pandering liar. In '99 McCain said that "certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations."

Althouse then refrains from discussing McCain any more, and settles on the thought that we should all like(!) Romney and Giuliani because they are totally incoherent. "If we listen with a decent sympathy, the things Giuliani and Romney say about abortion make sense. When Romney ran for governor, he made a commitment to Massachusetts voters not to attack the law he knew they supported. That was politically expedient, of course, but it also took an admirably limited view of executive power and acknowledged the independence of the legal system."

Ok, first of all, it did not take an admirably limited view of executive power. Massechussettes doesn't run on a federalist system. He wasn't respecting an independent legislature, he was choosing not to exercise his power because he wanted to win an election. There is nothing honorable in that. He either supports the right to an abortion, or he doesn't and was lying about it. If he's going to settle on supporting it, then the best he can do is the Giuliani states rights bullshit. If he's going to settle on opposing it, he's have to deal with the debates for Massachusetts Governor in 2002, in which he said that "and I've been very clear on that, I will preserve and protect a woman's right to choose, and I'm devoted and dedicated to honoring my word in that regard."
Giuliani's slippery position is that he doesn't like abortion, but he personally wouldn't vote for a state law banning abortion, but he is pretty clearly comfortable appointing judges who would overturn a 40 year precedent which end up banning abortions for millions of women in this country. Althouse thinks it's taking "account of the deep beliefs Americans have about both reproductive freedom and the value of unborn life."
John McCain in fact has a 0% rating from pro-choice groups, but he's spent the last decade convincing everyone that he's a moderate, and, unfortunately for him, his lying actually worked.

Pro-lifers don't like McCain because he hasn't given them proper respect in the past, and they don't like Rudy and Willard because there is zero guarantee that they won't completely drop the pro-life thing in the general election. Pro-choice people don't like McCain because he has a terrible record, and don't like Giuliani or Romney because they are lying panderers.

Althouse clearly really really wants one of these guys to come out of this looking good. But they were all either pandering then, or pandering now. Lying then, or lying now. In the case of Romney, it appears to be both.

More on chimps

DailyKos blogger Devilstower has a pretty good write up of the chimp thing. He seems to agree that whatever it is that we think defines us as different from them* is not as clear as most people would like it to be.

*I'm inclined to think we're the only species capable of communicating abstract thoughts. We can imagine places infinitely far away, the beginning of time, etc., and actually communicate it to each other. On the other hand, I don't see why the right to life, or the right to live with some modicum of dignity, really stems from that.

They're so cute!

Via Matt Yglesias*, we find out that Chimpanzees are killing other primates with spears**. This, I think, leads to two conclusions that are becoming more and more obvious in regards to Chimpanzees in particular, and perhaps large primates in general. They are an awful lot like us, and they aren't very nice.
Despite the chimps not living up to their cuddly image, this study should probably strengthen the argument that these animals deserve at least some fairly basic rights. Their brains clearly function very similarly to ours, there is no reason to think they have any less ability to feel pain, they have complex social arrangements, they communicate and socialize in ways similar to humans, and many people who have spent any time with them will will attest to the complexity of their emotions. It's hard to think of a philosophical justification (aside from "they have no soul") for completely disregarding their wellbeing. No group of great apes breeding in the wild has managed to avoid the endangered species list, and things aren't looking so hot for them. It would be a real tragedy if any of our cousins went extinct, even if they do spend their time attacking each other with sharpened branches.

And isn't there a Michael Chrichton book about this?

* Read Matt's comment thread for many chimpanzee/spear jokes.
** The people who did the study didn't photograph or videotape any of this, so I'm inclined to take it with a grain of salt for now.

Marty Markowitz

Marty Markowitz is a pretty cool guy. For those of you who might not have heard of him because you're not from Brooklyn, he's the Borough President. For those of you who might not have heard of him even though you're from Brooklyn, he's your Borough President. This is a pretty sweet article about a Valentines Day dinner he hosted for couples married for over 50 years at the Brooklyn Marriott. It sounds rockin'. He also probably holds the record for the person who has presided over the most junior-high graduations anywhere ever. And he wields a light saber at each and every one.

The best Marty Markowitz moment that I can remember was a letter he wrote to the New Yorker totally serving them for a Marcellus Hall cover, which featured Adam and Eve being banished over the Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan. Marty wrote:

"Marcellus Hall's illustration of Adam and Eve being cast out of Manhattan by the hand of God is to be commended for its prominent placement of the Brooklyn Bridge, the world's most beautiful. I am concerned, however, that my copy of the issue may have been missing a second panel, in which the couple realize that what awaits them on the other side of the bridge is not a dark cloud of doom but the promised land itself. High rents might push some residents out of Manhattan, but we Brooklynites welcome these emigres with open arms to our better quality of life, our unrivalled diversity, and maybe even a nice brownstone. Just as Saul Steinberg's famous westward view from Ninth Avenue exaggerated Manhattanites' perspective in 1976, your East River scene in 2005 misleads by rendering gloom where there should be a glow; crossing the bridge is actually a blessing in disguise. Besides, what better than the hand of God to direct you toward the most divine bagels and lox?"

David Brooks! II

David Brooks came out with his new column today. He gives his (brilliant!, as usual) advice to republican presidential candidates.

"First: Be the Snowball. The conventional view is that Feb. 5 is going to be the decisive day of the race, when California, New Jersey, Illinois and a bunch of other states will probably have their primaries. That’s wrong..." Gosh, my presidential campaign should have momentum and win early primary states!? Thanks, David Brooks!

"Fourth: Be the Change. You are running to lead a traumatized party. Many Republicans think their party can recover from recent setbacks by returning to the old verities: cutting spending, cutting taxes, attacking government bureaucrats..." David Brooks thinks Republicans should act less like Republicans, and here at least I'm inclined to agree.

"Sixth: Get Ready for Phase II. Over the next several months, the surge in Iraq will dominate debate. But by late summer, the surge will either have succeeded or failed. A new, broader debate will start. One candidate will define the landscape by coming up with a new Grand Strategy for the war against extremism. Be that guy." Christ, what to say? He actually capitalizes "Grand Strategy" and I'm pretty sure he's not being ironic. You know what would have been a really effective "Grand Strategy" after 9/11? Read David Brooks' column every week, memorize his recommendations, and don't do them. This man bears no small personal responsibility for the war in Iraq, yet manages to act like not only does the war not have anything to do with him, but he's actually in a position to give advice about it! Here's a nice compilation of some choice Brooks Iraq predictions. You can watch him argue here that the surge is going to benefit John McCain politically if it succeeds and if it fails. But Brooks opposes it. But he thinks if we'd done it three years ago, then it would have worked, just like John McCain said. But he doesn't mind that John McCain supports it now. . And even though the surge is a bad idea, anyone who thinks we should pull out of Iraq is still a coward. Well, I have a prediction of my own. By late summer, the surge will have failed, and David Brooks will still not take any responsibility for the disaster that is Iraq.

"Seventh: Win the T.R. Primary. Many of you admire Theodore Roosevelt. You’ve got his picture on your walls. Every day, as the campaign madness swirls around, wake up and ask, Would T.R. be proud of what I’m doing? If not, take a risk. Do something else." I'm always amused by Republicans claiming the mantle of Roosevelt or Lincoln. Are the presidential primary candidates going to break up the big trusts? Massively expand America's national forests? End slavery like Lincoln did? The only T.R. policy that Republicans are likely to follow is deposing the leaders of weaker countries because we don't like their policies. And um... well, that's been tried by a modern Republican president.

Rudy!

Looking forward to 2008, I can say that I don't envy the Republicans one bit. I see three fairly strong Democratic leading Candidates (Obama, Clinton, Edwards) with a strong pool of possible breakthrough or vice presidential candidates (Richardson, Clark, Warner, Sebellius.) The three leading Republicans (Giuliani, McCain, Romney)all have serious personal issues and political issues that are likely to be problematic in the primary, general election, or both. I find their second tier of "true conservative" candidates to be a mix of terrifying (Brownback, Newt Gingrich) and odd, (Huckabee) but not very threatening in terms of the general election.

But about Giuliani.
The bad: The man is a complete and total asshole, personally and politically. He has no ability to build personal or political coalitions, because he's not a nice person, and he's more interested in carrying out personal vendettas than getting things done. He has had a truly messy and public divorce, which he came out of looking like a jerk. He tried to use 9/11 to change the city charter and extend his term as mayor. His one moment in the national spotlight since 9/11 involved getting the incredibly corrupt Bernard Kerik (his former police chief) nominated for Homeland Security Secretary for about two minutes, until he withdrew amidst several different simultaneous corruption scandals. His campaign managed to lose their campaign plan, so the entire thing is now available online.

The good: He's a competent manager, sort of. He was mayor of NYC when 9/11 happened.

He has major problems in the primary. Giuliani's current position is that he hates abortion, but he's pro-choice, but "mumble mumble states rights, strict constructionists mumble mumble." Color me unimpressed. The Republican base is not gonna go with that unless they have to. He's also catholic. Anti-catholic racism is something you don't hear about that much, but only three Catholics have ever been nominated to be presidential candidates, and they were all Democrats. Both Al Smith and John F. Kennedy had to defend themselves against accusations that they'd be taking orders from the Church, and Kerry (ironically) had to defend himself against accusations that he wasn't taking orders from the Church because he was pro-choice. Maybe the Republican primary voters are ready to elect a Catholic, but I don't think it should be assumed.

The real reason for Giuliani's pre-9/11 popularity in NYC, as far as I can tell, (I'll admit to not remembering his terms all that well) is that he made middle-class white people feel safe, partly through OK police policies, and partly through playing up racist tensions, locking up homeless people, and generally being an SOB. Playing up racial tensions against blacks has certainly a successful electoral strategy for Republicans in the general election before. It has a name; the "Southern Strategy." The problem with Rudy Giuliani being the heir to the Southern Strategy is that he's an Italian, Catholic, New Yorker who is on the record as pro-gay and pro-choice. If there is anything that would give Virginia and North Carolina to the Dems, it would be a Giuliani/Edwards race.

Occasionally you hear people say that Giuliani could win the general election because he could take New York State. I can't imagine he could run far enough to the left to make NY competitive, but even if he did, New Yorkers (Upstate and down) would almost certainly still vote for Clinton over him.

Finally, there is 9/11. He will have to wrap himself in September 11th and hawkishness if he hopes to have a damn chance of winning anything ever again. He's certainly proved to be shamelessly adept at doing this, but it just won't last. Republicans used 9/11 successfully in 2002 and 2004, but the war vastly overshadowed it as an issue in 2006. And in case you didn't notice, people aren't holding the Democrats responsible for that disaster. There isn't really any way for Giuliani to position himself as an anti-war candidate without giving up the 9/11 talk, so he's basically stuck embracing what will be an even more hugely unpopular war in 2008.

Obviously, there are many many things that could totally alter the landscape before the primaries happen, but looking at how things stand now, I see his chances of making it through both the primary and general election as close to zero.

Liberated Women

Riverbend is a woman who operates the blog Baghdad Burning from inside Baghdad. She posted recently about Sabrine Al-Janabi, a woman who was brave enough to report her rape at the hands of American-trained Iraqi Securtiy Forces, and use her real name. Her post ends:

"Let me clear it up for any moron with lingering doubts: It’s worse. It’s over. You lost. You lost the day your tanks rolled into Baghdad to the cheers of your imported, American-trained monkeys. You lost every single family whose home your soldiers violated. You lost every sane, red-blooded Iraqi when the Abu Ghraib pictures came out and verified your atrocities behind prison walls as well as the ones we see in our streets. You lost when you brought murderers, looters, gangsters and militia heads to power and hailed them as Iraq’s first democratic government. You lost when a gruesome execution was dubbed your biggest accomplishment. You lost the respect and reputation you once had. You lost more than 3000 troops. That is what you lost America. I hope the oil, at least, made it worthwhile."

Weird

So, I am planning to write up my thoughts on Rudy Giuliani as presidential candidate shortly. I went to the New York Times search page and typed in "Giuliani." Here is the page I got. Notice anything odd? Look at the second of the paid Advertiser Links. It says, "Giuliani Learn More About The Exploratory Committee", but it is sponsored by JohnMcCain.com. The link takes you to McCain's (really, really creepy, cultish) website.

If you search "John McCain", the first paid link to come up is MittRomney.com, though it at least says Mitt Romney's name on the link that directs you to his site.

If you google Romney, the two that come up are for Romney related sites, and for Clinton, Obama and Edwards, only sites relating to the candidate searched come up in the Advertising link section.

So are the Republican candidates paying to have their websites come up when their oponents are searched? Is McCain paying to have a misleading link with Giuliani's name direct people to his own website? Do the paid advertisements in the Times just work in mysterious ways? Very strange...

Counter Insurgency = teh fun!!1

1,500 British troops should leave Iraq in the next "several weeks." They expect to have only 3,000 of their current 7,200 left by the end of 2007.

Meanwhile, in Somalia, we find out that not only does invading Muslim countries for no good reason and occupying them indefinitely not work well, but convincing proxy states to do it also sucks.

And here's more stuff on Afghanis and Iraqis (and Al-Qaeda!) trading all the awesome new tactics they are developing fighting the American occupation. I wrote about that here and here.

And according to Fox, this Texan was training with Al-Qaeda in Somalia, so presumably the Islamic Courts Union there will be using those same tactics any day now.

Cost of War II

As a follow up to this post, the Washington Post's second article in their series on how we treat the kids who volunteer to risk their lives in Iraq.

"Those who aren't old enough to buy a drink at the bar huddle outside near a magnolia tree and smoke cigarettes. Wearing hoodies and furry bedroom slippers, they look like kids at summer camp who've crept out of their rooms, except some have empty pants legs or limbs pinned by medieval-looking hardware. Medication is a favorite topic.
...
'I didn't take my Seroquel last night and I had nightmares of charred bodies, burned crispy like campfire marshmallows.'
...
If a taxi arrives and the driver looks Middle Eastern, soldiers refuse to get in. Even among the gazebos and tranquility of the Walter Reed campus in upper Northwest Washington, manhole covers are sidestepped for fear of bombs and rooftops are scanned for snipers.
...
While Mologne House has a full bar, there is not one counselor or psychologist assigned there to assist soldiers and families in crisis -- an idea proposed by Walter Reed social workers but rejected by the military command that runs the post.
...
Dogs are periodically brought in by the Army to search the rooms for contraband or weapons. When the fire alarm goes off, the amputees who live on the upper floors are scooped up and carried down the stairwell, while a brigade of mothers passes down the wheelchairs.
...
Sgt. David Thomas, a gunner with the Tennessee National Guard, spent his first three months at Walter Reed with no decent clothes; medics in Samarra had cut off his uniform. Heavily drugged, missing one leg and suffering from traumatic brain injury, David, 42, was finally told by a physical therapist to go to the Red Cross office, where he was given a T-shirt and sweat pants. He was awarded a Purple Heart but had no underwear.
...
Sgt. Steve Justi would get the slightest cut on his skin and drop to his knees, his face full of anguish, apologizing over and over. For what, Oscar did not know.
...
The talk turns to their friend Steve Justi. A few days earlier, Steve was discharged from the Army and given a zero percent disability rating for his mental condition ... 'They gave him nothing, they said his bipolar was preexisting.'"

This series should be held up as the model for wartime reporting. Our newspapers and televisions and bookstores should be filled with Steve Justi's story every day that Americans are being asked to live out this horror. Read, the whole thing, and Part I, there is so much more than I pasted here.

Nobody likes a Republican

A great line in this Times Week in Review piece on whether we are at the beginning of a liberal resurgence: "Oh, snap. Liberal optimism, thy name is caution and caveat."

It's a good article. He doesn't put it in exactly these words, but I think Liebovich's fairly sound point is that this country is not swinging left, it's just that everything on the right is falling apart. Republicans were fundamentally a coalition of a pro-business, anti-regulation, anti-tax contingent, a socially conservative contingent, and a crazy militaristic one, all held together by unquestioned partisanship. No part of that coalition remains electorally appealing. One at a time:

The big business wing of the Republican party has never been very popular, they just have an awful lot of money and influence. Under Bush they have pushed the public as far as they could, and I don't honestly see them doing anything to seriously shift the economy rightward for a long time. They won't eliminate the estate tax, they won't privatize Social Security, the minimum wage will be raised very soon, we will see climate change legislation, and we might even see universal health care. On the other hand, they will still prove a powerful force in blocking progressive legislation, and I don't see the U.S. turning into France anytime soon.

The social conservatives pissed everyone off by trying to force feed a very-brain dead Terry Schiavo with a tube; all for baby Jesus. The gay marriage campaigns were very effective in 2004, but their issues and candidates just don't have the power that they did, especially in the context of the war and economic worries. But Democrats aren't going to be stupid enough to play up social issues, so I don't think we'll see any real leftward movement, at least at the federal level.

The militaristic wing of the Republican party was awfully popular after 9/11, but now everyone hates them. 13% of Americans support the surge of troops into Iraq. Rudy Giuliani thinks that having been relatively close to 9/11 when it happened makes him an electable presidential candidate, but the republicans beat the 9/11 horse to death for two election cycles, and as we saw in 2006, the unpopular war far overshadows it. But I don't know if everyone hating the Republicans really makes room for a lefty foreign policy consensus to emerge. This country still operates on a basically Cold War mentality that we need to maintain our hegemonic position at any cost, and that we have to constantly, constantly spend more money on the military. I don't see any reason to think the war in Iraq has discredited either of these ideas.

On top of all this, there was the gross incompetence after hurricane Katrina, Mark Foley, Tom Delay and Jack Abramoff. In 2006, Americans had the choice of a corrupt, incompetent, warmongering, ultra-right wing party, or an incredibly strong field of Democrats. Now, if Democrats can unify around and articulate some new vision for the future of the country this could probably be an historic opportunity to reassert themselves as a long-term majority party. But, failing that, I certainly don't see the Republicans pulling themselves together in a serious way by 2008, especially under the shadow of Iraq.

Me: Slightly Ahead of the Curve

Well, I wrote this post about Iraq and Afghanistan and helicopters, and then I just read a very informative New York Times article verifying much of what I had said. The article reports that the recent spate of downed helicopters is not coincidence and is the result of new tactics, (which may well be exported to Afghanistan) not new weapons. The insurgents are also planting car bombs nearby to kill Americans who arrive on rescue missions.

There's also this: "The Feb. 7 attack on a Marine CH-46 Sea Knight transport helicopter near Karma, an insurgent stronghold near Falluja, was initially attributed by military officials to mechanical problems. But this week they acknowledged it had been downed by hostile fire, most likely a shoulder-fired missile and heavy-caliber machine-gun fire." So maybe that crash in Afghanistan was enemy fire after all.

What's the moral of the story? The disaster in Iraq can and will get worse, it will undermine our ability to salvage Afghanistan, it will lead to countless more deaths and staying there will not ever, ever lead us to a stronger position in the world. We need to get out of Iraq now, on our own terms. If we choose to stay, we will lose.

The Cost of War

Right now, there are 18 and 19 year old Americans who, instead of worrying about homework or plane tickets for spring break, are standing around in a foreign city, guns in hand, worrying about being shot at and killed.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and countless inconceivably excruciating external injuries affect tens of thousands of our soldiers in Iraq. The heroism of our dead soldiers is unanimously praised, but those who survive their ordeal get something far short of a hero's welcome when they return.

Shakespeare's Sister and Litbrit (at Ezra Klein's blog) detail it more eloquently than I possibly could.

Our country and our society have a true sickness. We should never forgive ourselves for allowing this awful war in the first place, but to vote for tax cut after tax cut while condemning our children to their hellish existence requires a cruel indifference horrifying to contemplate.

Meanwhile, our elected representatives in both the House and Senate take a week off for President's day.

Too Many Wars

One of the many awful things about the war in Iraq that people don't really talk about because they aren't as sexy as torture and beheadings is how much Iraq is undermining our efforts in Afghanistan. Ostensibly, we are in Afghanistan to get rid of the Taliban and establish a government that won't harbor Al Qaeda. Unfortunately, as this USA Today article discusses, we have fewer troops than we would if we weren't in Iraq, we have less money to spend on reconstruction, and our diplomatic capital (to say, convince Pakistan to stop harboring Taliban fighters) is totally spent. This all certainly helps explain why things there are not really improving.

But now, the good news. Oh no, wait, it's more bad news. According to this article from late last year, insurgents and fighters in Afghanistan are able to pick up (often over the Internet) tactics developed and honed by the insurgency in Iraq. Super. Which brings us to today's news. The New York Times reports that a helicopter crashed in Afghanistan, killing 8 Americans. The Taliban has taken credit, though the military says that it was engine failure, not enemy fire, and I'm more inclined to believe them. But more downed copters in Afghanistan may be something we should watch out for, because as Josh Marshall has covered extensively, there has been a nasty up-tick of helicopters shot down in Iraq in the past couple of months, and it appears to be new tactics, not new weapons, that has allowed it to happen.

The sooner we leave Iraq, the sooner the operators of counterinsurgency101.blogspot.com find something better to do than develop and disseminate more and more effective anti-American tactics.

David Brooks!

David Brooks, in one column, takes everything he doesn't like (Hippies! Montessori Schools! Free Love!) and some things he's pretending he doesn't like (Imperialism! Re-engineering other people's societies!) and explains for us, his silly readers, that science says its all just a bad idea. It turns out that the conservatives, and he lists them for us, were right all along.

His argument is that people used to believe in natural human goodness, and that society corrupted the individual, so people tried social engineering, communes, and... drugs? Anyway, according to Brooks none of that can be successful because of human nature. It's genetics, see?

The idea that science is remotely conclusive about how much people are shaped by institutions is absurd. The idea that the nation has reached this massive philosophical turning point, but that only wise David Brooks noticed, is hilarious. Look, Progressive Education is growing in popularity! And its being used in public schools, almost as if people were trying to alter institutions to change their effects on how people turn out.

But now we get to the heart of the column, and really the heart of every David Brooks column. How will he, someone who was uniquely positioned as a center-right commentator to convince people that Iraq would be a big mistake, shift the blame for that war to somebody, anybody other than himself. Take it away, David:

"In the realm of foreign policy, [the belief in natural human goodness] led to a sort of global doctrine of the noble savage — the belief that societies in the colonial world were fundamentally innocent, and once the chains of their oppression were lifted something wonderful would flower."

Gosh! Who could be gullible enough to believe that?! Must be someone who subscribed to a now widely discredited LIBERAL philosophy. Stop reading Rousseau, Liberals! Did I mention it's liberal? Like hippies! I wouldn't think something as absurd as that because I'm a follower of Burke and Smith!

The implication here is that because conservatives have effed up our foreign policy so badly, it has discredited liberalism, and we need to just recognize that the conservatives were right all along.

Study: Myspace Use in Schools Leads to Children Being Raped!

Or at least I assume their must be some sort of study that shows that, or else Republicans wouldn't be trying to pass a totally ridiculous law about it, again. Right?
(via www.zephoria.org)

DOPA (the Deleting Online Predators Act) is a crappy, crappy law that would restrict access to "social networking" sites like Myspace and Facebook (and very likely, Amazon, Yahoo and others as well) in schools and libraries, force school systems to buy expensive filter programs even though they will interfere with legitimate research, and make it illegal to disable those programs so students can research unless an adult is present at all times. Wikipedia has an excellent entry on it. It puts a financial burden on local schools and libraries, puts low-income students who don't have computers at a disadvantage to their peers, and um... has no benefits. Republicans couldn't get it through the Senate when they were in control, now Ted Stevens from Alaska (the craziest Senator there ever was) is trying to get it slipped through in another bill.

DOPA also changes the official motto of the American school system to "More Expensive, Less Effective."

Democracy in action!

The House of Representatives recently passed a resolution "expressing disapproval" (but not doing anything about) President Bush's plan to send 20,000ish more soldiers into the disaster that is Iraq. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid gave up on the various attempts the Senate has made to pass a similar resolution, and simply adopted the exact language passed in the House one. It seemed like a savvy move, but unfortunately, the Republicans have successfully filibustered it.

So, what we saw in the Senate today was our Democratic Senate fail to even get enough votes to override a filibuster to allow another whole vote on a resolution that, if passed, would not really have any actual effect on the President's plan to escalate the war in Iraq. A war which has, and this can't be said enough, already cost hundreds of billions of dollars, and probably (low-estimate) half a million lives, thousands of those American.

To their credit I guess we can say that they did at least try to hold a vote to officially not really do anything to stop a truly insane move that only 13%! of Americans actually support. Kudos to them.

The upside? The guilt for the many deaths likely to result from this tragic failure of our government can rest squarely on the shoulders of:

1) John Sununu, from New Hampshire, most endangered Republican up for re-election in 2008.
2) Sam Brownback, Chuck Hagel and every other senator/presidential candidate who voted against cloture.
3) Last but not least, everyone's favorite presidential candidate, supporter of the surge even before it was cool, John McCain. He gets special brownie points for being too busy campaigning to even show up and vote for his pet policy!