The Right Coast |
|
|
Thoughts from San Diego on Law, Politics, and Culture
Right Coasters
Gail Heriot Saikrishna Prakash Michael Rappaport Maimon Schwarzschild Thomas Smith Christopher Wonnell Email Us Gail Heriot Saikrishna Prakash Michael Rappaport Maimon Schwarzschild Thomas Smith Christopher Wonnell Links Andrew Sullivan Atlantic Blog The Buck Stops Here Corporate Law Blog Crescat Sententia Crooked Timber Curmudgeonly Clerk Daniel Drezner En Banc EveTushnet.Com FreeSpace How Appealing Instapundit Law and Econ Blog Little Green Footballs Legal Theory Blog The Leiter Reports Marginal Revolution Overlawyered Pejmanesque ProfBainbridge.Com Punishment Theory Rasmusen Weblog SFA Politics & Relig Southern Appeal SpoonsExperience USS Clueless The Volokh Conspiracy The Yin Blog Archives The Bear Flag League Aaron's Rantblog (LA) Absinthe & Cookies Accidental Jedi (Fres) Angry Clam (LA) Baldilocks BlogoSFERICS (Expat) BoifromTroy (LA) CalBlog (Los Angeles) California Republic Citizen Smash(SD) Cobb (Los Angeles) Daily Pundit (SF) Dale Franks e-Claire(Northern CA) Fresh Potatoes(Orang) Infinite Monkeys The Interocitor (LA) The Irish Lass (Sacra) Left Coast Conserv. Lex Communis (Fres) Master of None (LA) Miller's Time (Sac) Molly's Musings (SD) Mulatto Boy (LA) Howard Owens (Vent) Pathetic Earthlings) Patio Pundit Patterico's Pontifications(LA) PrestoPundit (Orange) QandO Right on the Left Beach Shark Blog (Expat) Slings and Arrows (SD) So. Cal Law Blog (LA) Tone Cluster Window Manager Xrlq (Orange) 
|
December 29, 2004
On the First Day of Kwanzaa, My True Love Tortured Me ... (Reprise) By Gail Heriot I have been prevailed upon by my colleagues to repeat my post from last year. Rumor has it that we have picked up some readers since then .... If you visit a card shop at your local shopping mall these days, chances are you will see Kwanzaa cards. It's big business. (Well, maybe it's just medium-sized business, but it is evidently lucrative enough for card companies to bother with.) And if you go to swanky private schools like the one attended by the children of my fellow Right Coaster Chris Wonnell, you may well receive instruction on this traditional African-American holiday. Taking Kwanzaa seriously is all part of the spirit of multiculturalism. Except, of course, Kwanzaa isn't traditional at all. It was invented in the late 1960s by convicted felon Ron Everett, leader of a so-called black nationalist group called United Slaves. I use the word "so-called" because United Slaves' veneer of black nationalism was very thin; most of its members had been members of a South Central Los Angeles street gang called the Gladiators, just as the Southern California chapter of the Black Panthers drew its members from the Slauson gang. In the early 1960s, these gangs were mostly concerned with petty and not-so-petty crime in the Los Angeles area, including the ever-popular practice of hitting up local merchants for protection money. By the late 1960s, however, they discovered that if they cloaked their activities in rhetoric of black nationalism, they could hit up not just the local pizza parlor, but great institutions of higher learning as well, most notably UCLA. Everett re-named himself Maulana Ron Karenga ("Maulana" we are told is Swahili for "master teacher"), donned an African dashiki, and invented Kwanzaa. And the radical chic folks at UCLA went into paroxysms of appreciation. In theory, Kwanzaa is a Pan-African harvest holiday, except that it is not set at harvest time. And in theory, it celebrates the ties of African Americans to African culture, except that it purports to celebrate those ties using the East African language of Swahili when nearly all African Americans are descended from West African peoples. But those are just details. Many of the best-loved holidays in the Christian calendar have traditions connected to them that don't quite fit if you examine them too closely. But those rough edges have now been smoothed over by the long passage of time. No one really cares if the Christmas tree was once used to celebrate pagan holidays; many generations of credible Christians have earned the right to claim it as their own. Kwanzaa is different. It has connections to still-living violent criminals. To suggest that it is an "African American holiday" is an insult to the Black community, very few of whom celebrate Kwanzaa and even fewer of whom would celebrate it if they knew the full story of its recent history. UCLA soon found that a bunch of street thugs calling themselves United Slaves can dress themselves up in colorful clothing, learn a few words of Swahili but they will still be ... well ... street thugs. The beginning of the end for United Slaves as an organization came with a gun battle fought on the UCLA campus against the Black Panthers over which group would control the new Afro-American Studies Center (and its generous budget). In the end, two Black Panther leaders--Alprentice "Bunchy" Carter and John Jerome Huggins--were dead. Two members of United Slaves were convicted of their murder. (Under UCLA's High-Potential Program, which admitted politically-active minority students during the late 1960s, often regardless of their academic credentials or even whether they had graduated from high school, many members of the Black Panthers and United Slaves were registered as students at UCLA.) No, Maulana Ron Karenga was not among them. But not long after the incident, Karenga proved himself to be every bit as brutal as his followers when he was charged and convicted of two counts of felonious assault and one count of false imprisonment. The details of the crime as reported in the Los Angeles Times (and quoted last year by Paul Mulshine in an article for FrontPage magazine) are horrific. The paranoid Karenga began to suspect that the members of his organization were trying to poison him by placing "crystals" in his food and around the house. According to the Los Angeles Times: "Deborah Jones, who once was given the Swahili title of an African queen, said she and Gail Davis were whipped with an electrical cord and beaten with a karate baton after being ordered to remove their clothes. She testified that a hot soldering iron was placed in Miss Davis' mouth and placed against Miss Davis' face and that one of her own big toes was tightened in a vise. Karenga, head of US, also put detergent and running hoses in their mouths, she said." The Los Angeles Times went on the state that "Karenga allegedly told the women that 'Vietnamese torture is nothing compared to what I know.' " Karenga spent time in prison for the act. But if you are worried about what has become of him, you needn't be. He served only a few years. When he got out, he somehow convinced Cal State Long Beach to make him head of the African Studies Department. Happy Kwanzaa. December 28, 2004
December 27, 2004
Chicago Girl Makes Good By Gail Heriot When I was a girl, I loved the fact that Golda Meir had been a Milwaukee school teacher. And I still smile every time I hear about or see a picture of Jordan's Queen Noor (nee Lisa Halaby), whom I prefer to call Queen Noor of New Jersey. I like to see American women turn up in improbable places. Of course, the election of Viktor Yushchenko in Ukraine makes me very happy. There are many reasons for this, most of which are obvious, but one of them is his wife, Kateryna Chumachenko Yushchenko, who is from suburban Chicago and (like yours truly) a graduate of that august institution of higher learning on the midway, U of C. Go Maroons! December 26, 2004
December 25, 2004
December 24, 2004
Guns for Christmas By Tom Smith It's still America, if you look hard enough. (via instapundit.) I have never bought any toy guns for my kids. I didn't have too. Ever alert to these things, my lovely wife Jeanne came home one day with a bag full of black, plastic guns. Not just any guns. MP-5s, Uzis, M-16 carbines. My goodness. I told the boys they could not take them away from the house. They looked so real, I was afraid they might get shot or something. Maybe 15 years ago, before years with boys, Jeanne had allowed as how she would never buy toy guns for her children. "You've come a long way," I said. "I know," she said. December 22, 2004
The United States Civil Rights Commission Rises Again By Gail Heriot Maybe I've been too much of a pessimist lately. Since the disastrous Supreme Court decisions in the University of Michigan cases, I had convinced myself that no good news would ever come out of Washington on civil rights issues. I was wrong. An important event happened earlier this month: The long reign of Mary Frances Berry as Chairman of the United States Civil Rights Commission finally came to an end. After twenty four years, the Commission will no longer be the personal fiefdom of one very, very strange and combative woman. And with any luck it will again become what it should have been all along--a serious, independent, bipartisan commission investigating compliance with federal civil rights law. Berry was originally appointed to the Commission by Jimmy Carter. She rewarded him by taking a trip to China and, upon her return, singing the praises of communist education. In particular, she admired the ability of the Chinese communists to "develop what they call socialist consciousness and culture." Carter was suitably embarrassed by her statements, but, like his successors, found he could do nothing. It's been downhill from there. As chairman, Berry's sharp, but way-off-target attacks on sitting presidents became the Commission's major export (including one on Mr. Clinton, who earned her wrath by withdrawing the nomination of Lani Guinier once Guinier's controversial positions on issues came to light). Some of the "official" reports of the Commission were issued without any effort to get the input or approval of the Republican members. Berry made it clear that she regarded them as the enemy. Fortunately, even the press eventually caught on to Berry. Salon magazine called her a "vitriolic brawler." The L.A. Times put it more kindly by calling her "combative," but its coverage of her activities was largely unsympahetic. Perhaps that explains why the Commission does not get the same attention and respect it used to. After a while, vitriolic brawlers start to get ignored. The GAO has called the Commission "an agency in disarray." Despite rules requiring periodic independent audits, none had been conducted during her chairmanship. Berry wouldn't allow it. Nor would she allow anyone to sit on the Commission that she did not approve. When Bush appointee Peter Kirsanow, a conservative black lawyer from Cleveland, tried to take his seat, she prevented him from doing so, and relented only when a federal court ordered her to do so. Bush's replacement for Berry is Gerald Reynolds, a former Department of Education official. I've known Jerry since his days at the Center for New Black Leadership and couldn't be more pleased with the appointment. Ditto for the Bush's choice of the inimitable Abigail Thernstrom as the replacement for Vice Chairman Cruz Reynoso. Abby (along with her husband Harvard history professor Stephan Thernstrom) is the author of two important recent books on civil rights issues: America in Black and White and No Excuses, both a which are must-reads for anyone interested in the issues the Commission addresses. It is a measure of just how strange things had gotten at the Commission that much of the press coverage of the last few weeks centered on whether Berry would go quietly at the end of her term. (Weirdly, Berry disputes that her term is actually over and had earlier threatened to stay). Would she turn over her keys? The word is that she did. Would the locks have to be changed anyway? The word is that indeed the locks would have to be changed. In the end, the whole thing had become rather sad. December 21, 2004
Alexander Hamilton: The Man who Made Modern America-n Lefties Go Bananas By Gail Heriot On Saturday, I posted on item on the New York Historical Society’s Alexander Hamilton: The Man who Made Modern America exhibit. I commented on the New York Times’ odd little article asserting (incorrectly as it turns out) that the show is not attracting crowds. It seems that I had only touched the tip of the critical iceberg. Professional historians on H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online have been discussing the show for more than a month, sometimes in terms that seem almost paranoid. Among the criticisms: * The show “inexorably leads to the re-election of George Bush.” * The title of the show suggests an “archaically hagiographic approach” to history, “which is coming back into style in Bush’s America.” * “[T]he right-wing agenda comes right out in your face, starting with that huge $10 bill” depicted on the banner announcing the show. * In the opening video, Thomas Jefferson’s voice was depicted as “haughty and aristocratic;” John Adam’s voice was depicted and “whiny” and “kvetchy.” I don’t know what to make of the first of these criticisms–that the logic of the show compels the conclusion that George Bush ought to be re-elected. All I can say is that the elderly ladies in the coffee shop after the show seemed to enjoy the exhibit, but did not seem to have been put through a life-transforming experience. “Manhattan Democrat” was still written all over their faces. But maybe they (and I) are just dense and unable to recognize when they have been brainwashed. The second criticism is at least a little more understandable given the show’s title. But that title was intended to be taken as hyperbole. Obviously, Alexander Hamilton did not literally make modern America. But it’s fair to say that he foresaw it and worked towards it in a way that most of his contemporaries did not. How much of an effect upon did he have individually? We’ll never know, since history does not disclose its alternatives. But if it is “archaically hagiographic” to believe that individuals can and do have an effect on history, then I guess I’m archaically hagiographic. And if the author of these criticisms is convinced that individuals do not have an effect on history, why is he so obsessed with George Bush? I laughed at the third criticism. Those darn right wingers are so obsessed with money that they put a ten dollar bill on banner announcing the show. But for goodness sake, Hamilton was the Secretary of the Treasury, and responsible for standardizing American money. What portrait of Hamilton would be more fitting? Finally, we have the voice criticisms. Thomas Jefferson’s voice was depicted as having a Southern accent. I didn’t notice that it was “haughty” or “aristocratic,” and I rather suspect that the author regards all Virginia accents that way. I don’t recall the sound of the Adams voice, but let’s face it: I’m a big Adams fan (there I go being archaically hagiographic again), but he really was “whiny” and “kvetchy.” Depicting Adams as he was makes him more endearing, not less, so I hope this criticism is accurate. Again, the real reason for these criticisms has nothing to do with the Hamilton exhibit and everything to do with the identities of the New York Historical Society’s major benefactors–Richard Gilder and Lewis Lehrman, described in one of the posts as “two rich right wingers.” The title to the post that opens the discussion is, “Are Gilder and Lehrman Tilting American History to the Right? A Case in Point.” You can almost hear the sinister music playing in the background. Oddly, one of the chief complaints offered against them is their inclusion of historians who do not share their conservative views in their many historical projects, including the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Says the author, “Gilder and Lehrman are buying legitimacy by buying historians, giving money to Yale and to the Organization of American Historians, constructing a board with some stellar left-liberal types on it (what is with this, guys?).” I guess it’s hard to please some people. Ho Ho Ho By Tom Smith I'm doing my best to get into the Christmas spirit, but it's not that easy out here in Jesusland. I knew I lived in Jesusland, but now it is official, as the pharmacist who lives at the entry to our development has erected a display of colored lights with multi-colored, 5 feet tall letters spelling, you guessed it, JESUS. It adds a real toniness to the neighborhood that I appreciate. After that, at the next house, you encounter a seven feet tall inflatable Santa, facing off with an equally large Frosty. I think the look kinda like professional wrestlers, but that's just me. The Santa Ana winds a week ago knocked them down, but unfortunately did not carry them away. I should look on the bright side. Walmart does not sell a life-sized, internally illuminated, self-inflating scene of Santa sitting in the outhouse, red pants around his ankles, going over his list of naughty and nice, while Mrs. Claus pounds franticly on the door. How do I know Walmart doesn't have one? Because if they did, someone around here would have it up in their yard. Let's just say, a quaint little village in the Austrian Alps at Yuletide, it ain't. But we have fewer Nazis, so perhaps it evens out. I finally bought our Christmas tree last Saturday. I went to Target, that source of all things good and valuable, and there were a bunch of 8 foot firs looking pretty decent for the price. It was one of those fateful moments of decision. I could probably find something better if I was willing to brave the crowds of other driven tree-seekers at Home Depot. With my martial arts training, I was probably up to it. Or I could settle for the tree in front of me. I settled, and boy, was it the right decision. I set up the tree, secured it in place with some lines in case of earthquake, put some lights on it, and I must say, it looks very nice. When the kids got home we put some Christmas music on the stereo, and even 1 year old Mark got into the act of hanging ornaments (yes, he's a genius). I left the lights on outside all night, too lazy to turn them off, and some miscreant threw eggs at our house. Jeanne found it creepy that someone bothered to come up our long driveway to throw eggs at our house. I on the other hand realize it is a normal stage, the pupal stage, of redneck development, before they move on to pickups, baseball bats and mailboxes. I was somewhat disturbed that our two labs slept through the whole thing. Now I'm thinking, big German Shepherd. Our labs sound fierce, but the only danger they pose is licking someone to death. I assume my secret is safe with you, so I will let on that I'm getting my lovely wife Jeanne some nice presents. Two nice cop-r-chef All Clad pots to add to her collection. She is a serious cook, which makes finding presents easier, as kitchens are a gear-lover's dream. I also couldn't resist a set of the newfangled laser-etched, micro-plane graters, said to go through a chunk of Parmasean like a hot knife through butter. And, I'm especially proud of the set of Cold Steel kitchen knives I found on the internet. As some of you will know, Cold Steel specializes in weaponry, and based on their dedication to quality and innovation in things like combat hatchets, must be run by a bunch of very strange people. They make kitchen knives as a sideline; their real passion are things like combat-quality katanas. Thus you can get very high quality kitchen knives from them at a very low price, compared to the prestige German or Japanese brands, where you are buying partly the name and fighting the weak dollar. True, with their non-slip rubber handles, the Cold Steel knives are kinda ugly compared to the German knives, but there's something to be said for pure, American functionality, not to mention paying a quarter of the price. At Mass last Sunday, the ever cheerful Mark (age 1, as I said) let out a window-rattling belch that cracked up about 25 percent of the worshippers. He makes me very proud. Farmers decided to pay $1600 of the $4500 in damages caused by a recent water heater flood, and that came as a pleasant surprize, since I was sure they would just deny the claim and cancel my policy. In putting up the tree, I moved a chair in the living room and discovered 11 year old Patrick's horde. As I may have mentioned, he is the offspring to whom I owe $400 and who is charging me a weekly rate of interest. He had about $600, including many faux-gold Sacajawewa dollars, packed in a little wooden chest, pirate style, hidden under the chair. Now I have to go before Biscuit and Denali scare the UPS guy to death. December 19, 2004
Get 'em a Goat By Gail Heriot If you are out of gift ideas for your Uncle Ray and Aunt Babs, I suggest you go to World Vision's Online Gift Catalog and get them a goat. For only $75, you can purchase a goat in their name for a struggling family in Africa. Your aunt and uncle will receive a card in the mail telling them of the gift. Over the years, I have purchased quite a few goats in the names of my friends and relatives, and in turn quite a few of them have purchased goats in my name. I figure we must have a thundering herd by now. December 18, 2004
The Man Who Made Modern America by Gail Heriot On Sunday, my friend John Fund and I went to see the Alexander Hamilton show at the New York Historical Society. It was a thoroughly enjoyable Sunday outing. (Yes, I know what you’re thinking. Just yesterday I complained that I had been working so hard that I had been unable to blog for weeks. How could I have had time to spend an afternoon at a museum? It’s this way: Last weekend I had to be on the East Coast for a National Association of Scholars Board of Directors meeting; I figured that, given my interest in Hamilton, it would be negligent to come home without seeing the show.) Its title is "Alexander Hamilton: The Man Who Made Modern America," and it is bringing in record crowds to the New York Historical Society–until recently a beleaguered little museum that had come dangerously close to bankruptcy. In this age of blockbuster museum shows, I would call the Hamilton show refreshingly human scaled. (Indeed, the statues of Burr and Hamilton in dueling mode remind one that in 1804 "human-scaled" meant something different from what it means today. At a hair shy of 5' 9", I was significantly taller in my flats than either of them.) But though smallish, the show is chock full of interesting information about Hamilton and his times. I had a great time. Weirdly, the folks at the New York Times must not have had such a great time. On November 22, 2004, they ran an article entitled, "Big Hamilton Show Fails to Draw Crowds." When I saw headline, I wondered why in the world a newspaper would consider the failure of a small museum to draw a large crowd to be newsworthy. That kind of thing must be happening all over the country, seven days a week. But then I scanned the article and understood: One of the New York Historical Society’s major benefactors is Richard Gilder, chairman of the conservative Club for Growth and no doubt an arch-villain in the New York Times’ rather extensive pantheon of villains. Without Gilder, the New York Historical Society’s rescue might have been impossible. With him, it will never get an even break from the New York Times–not in this lifetime anyway. The article is full of dark hints that something sinister is happening at the Society. (It took the Society’s president, Dr. Louise Mirrer, to point out in a letter to the editor that the crowds attending the show were in fact record breaking.) By the way, it’s a stretch to argue that Hamilton must be classified as a "red" hero rather than a "blue" hero. Sure, Hamilton was a champion of commerce and industry and an advocate of a strong military (as well as a passionate foe of slavery), but he was also an ardent advocate of a strong national government–not a position taken by many conservatives these days. It’s too bad the New York Times is so busy working up a fever about the vast rightwing conspiracy to see that. Life in the Suburbs By Tom Smith Last summer I wrote this essay, which you can download here. It is intended to be funny, yet full of profound meaning, or at least funny. My vague intention is eventually to write several such essays about various topics and put them together in a book. More bad news By Tom Smith While this may seem like good news, it is actually just one more attempt to undermine a woman's right to choose, just like those proposed laws that would require doctors to anesthetize fetuses before aborting them. We know this not from science, but from scripture. To find these scriptures, go to your local used book shop, and look in the feminism section for books published before 1979. Amen. French culture on the marchay By Tom Smith This is fun. It just goes to show you, moral superiority is never enough. Your ACLU dollar at work By Tom Smith Is nothing left that one can believe in? Now even the ACLU wants to be big brother. I have been cynical about the ACLU for a long time. I call upon Right Coaster Maimon to tell us about their sordid history, since he is much better at that sort of thing. My little experience comes from agreeing, stupidly, to help out on a pro bono basis on a project that involved reviewing the 1990 census questions for privacy concerns, and then talking about it to the board of the D.C. ACLU. The 1990 census had a question on it such that if you were gay and living with a partner, you were supposed to tell your friendly neighborhood federal government about that. But consider, maybe you do not want to identify yourself as gay on the census. Perhaps your considered view is, it's none of the government's f'ing business how you like it. If you are gay and living with your boyfriend in what amounts to a domestic partnership, you could always decline to say that on the census, but then, you would actually be committing a crime. Seemed like a bad idea to me. Not withstanding my cogent and humorous presentation of this concern to the ACLU, which I think any libertarian would have understood and agreed with, the ACLU mavens, who included some pretty hot shot lawyers in DC, looked at me like I was speaking Martian. I think if you had posed to them the hard question "Can you give me an example of liberty?" you would have gotten answers like "um, Social Security?" and "higher taxes!" They were that clueless. There may be some libertarians in the ACLU but to call it a libertarian organization is like saying the fire department is in charge of starting fires. Maybe there were a couple of decades when it was not so, but it has long since turned into the criminal defense bar's lobby with a bunch of other leftish causes thrown in for good measure. December 17, 2004
She's Baaacckk!! By Gail Heriot I apologize for being such a negligent correspondent for the last few months. It proves that contrary to popular belief, the legal academy is not a great place to come if you're looking for cushy job. I've been running myself ragged with too much work. But in case you missed it, today's news included a story about a Colorado college professor who has been run ragged in perhaps a more troubling way. He has been dismissed from his teaching responsibilities for writing an article about his experiences teaching American Indian students. Judging from the excerpts in the newspaper coverage of the dismissal, the article was rather pc--perhaps to the point of being annoyingly so. Dr. Andrew Gulliford wrote that "teaching native students has brought me some of the most meaningful and satisfying professional experience in a 25-year teaching career. I am so grateful for the opportunity to live and learn here, but for an Anglo or nonnative, teaching native students, especially about Indian issues, can be both difficult and rewarding. There are frequently cross-cultural complications and conundrums." The article itself turned out to be one of those "cross-cultural complications and conundrums." Some students were apparently enraged when Gulliford called his Indian students "quiet, well-groomed" and "impeccably polite." They read it as implying that he expected them to be otherwise. The newspaper account also reports that "they were ... unhappy with a quote from an unidentified student who says, 'My parents didn't teach me anything because they were frequently drunk with their car in a ditch.'" I can understand students being displeased with a teacher who refers to them as "well-groomed." It's condescending. And so is some of the rest of the material quoted in the article--including the lines about the "most meaningful and satisfying professional experience" in his long career. I've never known anyone to use language like that to talk about an experience he truly found meaningful and satisfying. It reads like so much pc blather. But trying to get the guy fired from teaching for it seems extreme. Evidently, no apology from Gulliford (which he freely gave) would do. The college administration concluded the article violated student privacy under federal law because it used statements from students without their permission--presumably the drunken parents line. I'm no expert on student privacy law, but if it's true that federal law forbids a college professor from anonymously quoting a student without his permission in a scholarly article on teaching, it's a pretty silly policy (and surely does not require that violators be dismissed). After all, the quotation is anonymous. If it's the case that a significant number of American Indian students face such hurdles in getting a good education, isn't it appropriate to bring the facts to the public's attention? December 12, 2004
More movies By Tom Smith Not to be outdone by Professor Rappaport below, I too am planning to see National Treasure. I loved Raiders and own all the premium DVDs of the Indiana Jones movie. The four senior boys in my family were going to see National Treasure yesterday, but the time got away from us after William's soccer team heroically held St. Heterogenous (or whatever) to a mere 7-1 (we were crushed, yes, but their "fourth graders" looked like they were out on parole). So, instead, I watched the director's cut of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," which, if you like Speilberg, is really worth seeing. (The boys took a pass, opting for Megamutadeath IV on the playstation.) This cut comes across as grittier, and more focussed on Richard Dreyfuss's ordeal than the original version. It works quite a bit better, I think. Like ET, the tale is not really science-fiction, but a reworking of one of the oldest European (especially Irish) tales, running away from your grim life to join the little people. As science fiction, it makes no sense; its plot is silly, the behavior of scientists and the army inexplicable in various ways, and why those five tones to initiate contact? But it's just incorrect to see it as even soft Sci-Fi. Speilberg is just using the myth of UFOs to tell the story of the obsessed non-comformist who gives up everything (his claustrophobic life) to chase his dream, and improbably finds it. December 11, 2004
Conservatives in academia By Tom Smith I couldn’t resist. My comments are in italics. Chait’s piece appeared in the L.A. Times (registration undesirable). A few weeks ago, a pair of studies found that Democrats vastly out numbered Republicans among professors at leading universities. Conservatives gleefully seized upon this to once again flagellate academia for its liberal bias.
Jonathan, this a good first draft. However, I would try next time to rely a little less on tired cultural stereotypes such as “Democrats are smart/Republicans are stupid; Democrats are altruistic/Republicans are greedy.” I know what you mean, but as we discussed in class, we want to exercise “critical thinking”! Ask yourself, what is the best argument I could make for the position opposite mine? Even force yourself to write something from that POV—a useful exercise! So, for example, could it be that even slight discrimination in a highly competitive industry could have large impacts? Could the absence of role models have an affect on conservatives? Could liberals be so convinced of the correctness of their positions that it affects their judgments as to the quality of scholarship, when really it is just the politics of it they object to? Is there a role for ideological diversity in the university environment? So, might it be desirable to have more conservatives around, even if they are somewhat stupider? Also, avoid awkward phrases such as ‘think complexly.’ If your point is you and your pals are smarter than most Americans, it comes across as a little . . . ironic. December 10, 2004
More bizarre Brits By Tom Smith How to defend yourself by not defending yourself in the UK. (via instapundit.) Somebody, quick! There's free speech going on! By Tom Smith Maybe, just to be more honest, CBS should start its own 527 and call it, Really Big News Organizations Against Unregulated Speech. I mean, really. Even cool-headed sorts such as myself get a little uneasy when major networks decide it's time to start running hatchet jobs on bloggers, and even liberal bloggers at that. It looks like this particular blogger can take care of himself, but still, somewhere in my naive soul I still believed that even though the liberal media was idiotic in innumerable ways, they still believed in freedom of the press. Silly me. Another possible name for their 527: The First Amendment is For Us. (via instapundit). December 09, 2004
Crim law blog By Tom Smith Here's an interesting blog on criminal law. Crim law is interesting. Many years ago, I taught what must have been the oddest and worst intro crim law classes ever. Let's just say as a libertarian, I had a somewhat unique perspective on criminal law. Now I confine myself to watching Law & Order reruns, which are great. Got to go. Da dum da da da da DUM. A sweet story By Tom Smith My 11 year old, Patrick, offers this sweet, little story for his creative writing class: The Howling Wind Lee and his family were on their yearly camping trip. He had enjoyed it the first few times, but now, on the ninth time, it had become an unceremonious routine. The only thing he had to look forward to were the s’mores, which he had enjoyed all his life. He also had a cool, new tent this time, which left him with two things to look forward to on the week long trip: eating and sleeping. What to do in the time in between was a mystery. He had just finished rolling out his sleeping bag for the night. His parents were asleep when he heard a loud, screeching noise, like a high pitched whistle, or a whole chorus of screams. It was very unsettling. He assured himself that it was only the howling of the wind. He crawled into his sleeping bag, his hands shaking. His feet dug compulsively into the cozy fluff. His gaze drifted to the small, netted window that topped the tent as he tried to calm himself. The stars gleamed back at him like the unblinking eyes of fish. Then he heard the noise again, and it triggered a new burst of fear in his mind. He again insisted that it must be the wind. He glanced back at the window in an attempt to calm himself, only to see a huge, flying creature silhouetted against the dark night sky. Then he felt something splat on his face, and pain erupted in his eyes. It felt as his head had been cut in half. It was not the pain so much that troubled him as the horrible, helplessness he felt as he tightly shut his eyes. The next thing he knew, he was flying above the tent. He opened his eyes, but there was nothing to see. He was blind. The claws of a bat tightly gripped his arms, dangling him in the air. He heard a whisper from the creature above. “Can you ride on the back of the wind?” hissed the strange creature. “Can you escape from its icy grasp?” Something splattered on his face again, and his sight returned to him. The last thing Lee saw were the huge, demonic bat’s eyes bulging insanely, a malevolent smile on its face, showing its many, sharp fangs. “My children hunger,” she said. And the ones you do sire will be addicted to computer games By Tom Smith It makes the guys too warm, apparently. OK, so, work with me here. A little fan, that mounts to the bottom of your laptop, powered by the PC battery, or its own little power unit, that sends a gentle breeze . . . It could work! VC's, feel free to contact me here at the right coast. Good Iraq election news By Tom Smith I see the upcoming elections in Iraq as the political equivalent of a jet landing on a carrier. Scary, difficult, risky and necessary. But here's some pretty good news. More on medical marijuana By Tom Smith Appropos medical marijuana, I cannot believe I am the only person to whom it has occured that the Chief Justice might soon, if he hasn't already, be in a condition where a big, fat spleef would do him some good. There are those who would argue the country would be a better place if this had occurred years ago. On the other hand, under no circumstances should David Souter be allowed to light up. We know all we want to know about what goes on inside the mind of Souter, and anything that would encourage loquatiousness on his part is much to be avoided. As to Justice Kennedy, well, what harm could it possibly do? I for one am more to willing to randomly rewire that squash and see what happens. Justice Thomas got rid of his stash a long time ago. What about Nino? Goodness. There's a sobering thought. Baked Scalia. What about Ma O'Connor? Did she ever fire up a bowl of loco weed back in Rattlesnake Gulch? Unfortunately, we are in the position where every one of those brain cells must be conserved. Who knows on which two or three the future of the Republic may depend. Breyer would probably get all excited about the Administrative Procedure Act, and I don't want to be there. Should academic diversity be tolerated? By Tom Smith Well, John Holbo certainly seems sincere in not wanting to pick a fight with me, so that's fair enough. He even mentions me by name a couple of times, and that alone gets a link. I don't have a lot to add to John's interesting post, which is quite discursive and makes many different points. So, as usual, I will just add my personal, subjective and only dubiously valuable ruminations. I realized recently I am probably in a very poor position to form any reasonable judgments about how dominated by liberal orthodoxy, smelly or not, the academy is. As a not very rigorous Catholic at a not very oppressively Catholic university, I am comfortable. I suspect I'm known among the students as an arch-conservative, but it has been years since I've received any death threats, and that was from a mentally ill student and had nothing to do with politics. And he taught me a valuable lesson about the importance of being polite to mentally ill students who own firearms, as well as giving me some insight into the other side of the gun control argument. I just don't really know whether I would be happily tolerated at a big state university in a liberalish state, for example. Would I be thought a harmless eccentric or would I be shipped off to a reeducation camp, plaintively begging Glen Reynolds and the Tennessee Volunteers to come rescue me? And also, I think law probably is more diverse and tolerant than Transgender Studies, or whatever is going on across the quad (figurative in the case of my university). Certain non-liberal orthodox legal movements, to wit, originalism in con law and law and economics everywhere, have been very influential in the legal academy. Moreover, law and I suspect plenty of humanities are so influenced by networks of friendships and favors, it is very difficult to sort out what is bias and what is merely that Baxter Yaffie, president of the Federalist Society, is just not hooked up with the notoriously liberal Professor Overhill Clerkmaker. As a final rumination, I will add that thought on the right in law and politics seems somewhat afflicted right now with a more than optimal degree of self-satisfaction, cant, laziness and demagogery, which is not to say anything in defense of the liberal varieties of the same, but just to express an impression I have. This does not mean there is not discrimination against conservatives in the academy; it just would be easier to make the case if we were in the middle of some sort of right-wing intellectual renaissance, which we ain't. December 08, 2004
Times watch By Tom Smith It's a pretty good morning for the New York Times. I am ensconced in my neighborhood Starbuck's, where the locals are being lured from their pickups by the wonders of lattes. I'm logged into the network of the friendly chiropractor next door, waiting out the traffic. San Diegans are creeping along at 15 mph, thinking "My God! It's water! And it's falling from the sky!" The coverage of political events in the Times is so reliably clueless, and their op-ed page offers endless reassurance that the Democrats are in no danger of getting it any time soon. I gather a big powwow of the Democratic National Committee is coming up in Florida, where the inevitable topic will be What Went Wrong. In the best tradition of the these therapeutic events, truth is in little danger of being rousted out of its spider hole. Donna Brazile opines that Dems isn't dead, that it's just gone fishing. Whatever that means. Donna thinks the Dems need to "abandon cookie cutter campaigns" and "communicate with those who enjoy fishing." Translation? This is her delicate way of suggesting maybe the Democrats need to think about how they can reconnect with, say, rural Ohio voters. But, gosh, look at how careful she has to be. Four years is not very long if she feels she has to be euphemistic at this stage. Rahm Emanuel and Jamal Simmons are nearly as clueless. Simmons rightly notes that reliving civil rights glory days is not enough for blacks to whom King is just a picture on the wall, and Hispanics who don't identify that much with the black experience anyway (and he doesn't even say that). So what do Dems need to do? Improve their organization. These people sound as lame as some unionized classroom teacher who should have been fired 20 years ago. Oh, that's right. What do the Democrats need to do? First, get a clue about national security. Just because you have a soft spot for hopeless utopian social schemes does not mean you have to be soft on Islamofascist terrorists. To put it very bluntly: they're not communists. It's OK to hate them. You can almost see the little wheels turning. "Let's see, they're poorly dressed, they kill Marines, they shout slogans, that means they're the good guys, right?" No, that's not right. It wasn't right in Ke Sahn either, but let's put that behind us. To be brief, the Democrats should have a purge. They should get rid of all the people who are nostalgic for Nixon's invasion of Cambodia, the one that caused Pol Pot to become evil. This is an old problem with the Left in this country, which the patriotic socialists understood, which is why they were quite happy to name the names of the communists, who really were Stalin's stooges. For heaven's sake, haven't any of these people read The Grapes of Wrath? There's a long tradition of patriotic leftyism is this country. This land is your land, blah, blah, blah. Come to think of it, it had a lot to do with the civil right movement as well. As an example of profound cluelessness, see Nicholas Kristof's not very funny little piece. Guess what? We don't have many allies in Iraq. The coerced and the bribed! Ho ho ho! Meanwhile, W is up at Miramar, bonding with Marines. Hugging, crying, praying. (story on page A16) Is this picture getting any clearer? Memo to Donna, et al.: Nobody out here in Jesusland gives a shit if Estonia is behind us or not. I have former students who are over there. A ranger who came to my martial arts class is over there now. He looked about 14. When I later asked his best friend in the class where the guy was going, he said Germany, then Iraq, and I thought he was going to cry. And the Democrats think they need to work on their organization. I really want the Democrats to get a clue. It makes me nervous to have a referendum every four years on whether we should defend ourselves or not. I would like there to be a consensus on self-defense, and we can argue over whether we should have a Department of Teeth that runs all dental care in the country. Glen asks an easy question by Tom Smith Why does Slate continue to run is risable "Bushisms" feature? Because they are not very talented political hacks? Because they are comfy in their little first mover perch? Because their audience likes it, being none too critical themselves? You be the judge. December 07, 2004
More bizarre Brits By Tom Smith You know this already, but still, how crazy are the Brits on this one? Well, at least you know if you are stabbed, the state will provide you with first rate medical care. (via instapundit). Galston update by Tom Smith As to Maimon's post below on William Galston, I think it's only fair to mention that he really, really doesn't like Republicans, not one little bit, as those of us who chatted with him at his visit a year or so ago to USD were able to figure out. Just a little fact I thought was worth mentioning. I was a natalist and didn't even know it ByTom Smith According to David Brooks, we're natalists. That's people with as many as four, four!, kids who find parenting the most spiritually fulfilling thing they do. Is parenting spiritually fulfilling? Ask me sometime when I'm not so exhausted. But it does have its moments. For reasons not worth explaining, one year old William has wormed his way into the parental bed recently. He burrows into my armpit, lifts his head, looks at me, says "Da!," and burrows back in. I think "yes, you can blow through my retirement account someday to pay for your Ph.D. in art history, if that's what's really important to you." How do you know if you are a natalist? Perhaps there is no one determining factor. But if when you are through with your minivan, you think it should be burned, that is a hint. If your fantasy life runs more toward sleep than sex, there's another. Can you say, fast, "Three big kid meals, boys, two with Mr. Pibs, one diet coke, one cheeseburger happy meal boy with diet coke, one Big Mac, no fries, medium diet coke thanks I know how much it is see ya at the window"? A tell tale sign. I don't know about what Brooks says about not seeing sophisticated movies, though. I can tell you that Shrek 2 is actually better than the original, and what the best parts of Finding Nemo are (an' I was like I whoa!). December 04, 2004
Your UN at work By Tom Smith Here's your hard question of the week. Should the UN in Congo be a) attempting to stop the slaughter of innocents, or b) engaged in pedophilia It's a hard one. Take your time. December 02, 2004
Smelly little orthodoxy update By Tom Smith I half agree with Brian about this one. I do think there is bias against conservatives and libertarians in the academy, and that life will be much easier for you if you are leftish in an academic way. But that being said, how easy do you want your life to be? I mean, consider, fellow academics, what it would be like to have a real job. The most I can complain about is being stuck at an underrated good law school instead of an overrated not as good law school, where my politics would be less tolerated and I would have to exercise my own skills at politeness and tolerance much more than I do. And fine weather would be not sleeting. Been there, done that. But, as someone who worked in the Reagan White House, I can tell you that having any political principles whatever is a real career killer in Washington, and libertarians in Washington were about as tolerated as, well, nothing polite comes to mind. The people I know who went to DC in the Reagan years are now thoroughly disillusioned with the right wing think tank scene, and I doubt it's much better on the left. It's that whole power corrupts thing. I think George Will sometimes hits the nail on the head, but Washington lecturing academia on intellectual integrity is like Hollywood lecturing Wall Street on greed. And the whole phony baloney, I was reading Hamilton's letters again this morning act that Will affects got old about 20 years ago. George Will is the Bill Moyers of the right. I know that is a cruel thing to say, but there it is. We have to be brutally honest about these things. In Will's defense, I will say that he probably could be less trivial if he tried, while I get the sense Bill Moyers is doing the best he can, sobering as that is. I will also say that while the academy needs to much more diverse politically than it is, my sense is that it is slowly getting better. I think it was worse in the 80's, for example. In defense of Kofi Anan By Tom Smith You may have read this in the Wall Street Journal, by Senator Coleman, who is leading the much needed investigation into the misnamed Oil-for-Food scandal: While many questions concerning Oil-for-Food remain unanswered, one conclusion has become abundantly clear: Kofi Annan should resign. The decision to call for his resignation does not come easily, but I have arrived at this conclusion because the most extensive fraud in the history of the U.N. occurred on his watch. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, as long as Mr. Annan remains in charge, the world will never be able to learn the full extent of the bribes, kickbacks and under-the-table payments that took place under the U.N.'s collective nose. Since it was never likely that the U.N. Security Council, some of whose permanent members were awash in Saddam's favors, would ever call for Saddam's removal, the U.S. and its coalition partners were forced to put troops in harm's way to oust him by force. Today, money swindled from Oil-for-Food may be funding the insurgency against coalition troops in Iraq and other terrorist activities against U.S. interests. Simply put, the troops would probably not have been placed in such danger if the U.N. had done its job in administering sanctions and Oil-for-Food. This systemic failure of the U.N. and Oil-for-Food is exacerbated by evidence that at least one senior U.N. official--Benon Sevan, Mr. Annan's hand-picked director of the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food oversight agency--reportedly received bribes from Saddam. According to documents from the Iraqi oil ministry that were obtained by us, Mr. Sevan received several allotments of oil under Oil-for-Food, each of which was worth hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars. To make matters worse, the actions of Mr. Annan's own son have been called into question. Specifically, the U.N. recently admitted that Kojo Annan received more money than previously disclosed from a Swiss company named Cotecna, which was hired by the U.N. to monitor Iraq's imports under Oil-for-Food. Recently, there are growing, albeit unproven, allegations that Kofi Annan himself not only understands his son's role in this scandal--but that he has been less than forthcoming in what he knew, and when he knew it.
On the other hand, maybe an utterly corrupt bunch of representatives of the international community should be represented by an utterly corrupt bureaucrat. No one could say Kofi is not a fair sample of what the UN stands for. Is it really fair to single him out in this way? Did he really do anything you or I wouldn't do, if we were utterly corrupt? There but for not sinking into the ethical cesspool of stealing bread out of the mouths of starving children to finance the high life of morally superiority and heavy food in Geneva, go you and I, eh? And who is to say that it is really wrong to emiserate even further people groaning under a brutal tyranny in order to finance terrorists and buy baubbles? Judge not another until you have walked a mile in his jackboots. What we need here is a moral compass, or as the French say, "What the hell is a moral compass, and what's in it for moi?" And one final point, Kofi and his co-conspirators deserve some credit for creating one of the most ironic events in the history of corruption. It just doesn't happen every day that you get this distance between stated mission and moral posturing on one hand, and what you were actually up to on the other. This is hypocrisy as performance art. This is greatness, of a kind. It may give rise to a new sort of all purpose defense. We were only following orders is just too retro. We were only indulging our greed at the expense of helpless victims, while doing everything we could to keep our scam going as the bodies piled up, and all the while posing as moral leaders of the world. Now that's what I call a defense. It now time for the rest of us to apologize to world, that's right, apologize, for not seeing the wisdom and inherent aesthetic appeal of this stance earlier, and instead, to our ever lasting shame, which only really morally sensitive people can feel, returning that nasty, brawling George le cowboy Bush to the White House, where he can continue not following the lead of the UN, the French and others, who at least know the value of a dollar, or an oil voucher. The West was medieval By Tom Smith Which might explain why I and so many others find the Old West (cowboys, etc.) so appealing . . . Are you immune to exercise? By Tom Smith Not only can some people eat like starved pigs and gain no weight, others, it now turns out, can exercise religiously and get out of it no benefit at all. Why? Because of their genes. And you can't smoke weed either. Digital photography revolution By Tom Smith Unfortunately, the article is not online, but if you can get ahold of this issue of New Scientist and your interested in digital photography, it's a must read. (See the contents, about half way down) (BTW New Scientist is geek nirvana. While its politics are the Brit equivalent of Scientific American--the usual academic left stuff, only somewhat less vacuous because they are scientists-- every issue is full of chewy, cutting edge science goodness, written in good ol' English prose.) The article shows how fast the cost of digital photography is falling, suggesting you should buy now because it's so much cheaper than it has been, and wait, since it's going to get cheaper still. The next big thing? Liquid lenses, which are little globs of fluid whose shape can be manipulated by electrical currents. Should be very economical, once the kinks are worked out. As digital photography gets even cheaper and more powerful, we will (they're not kidding) just have lots of little lenses planted in our homes, which allow us to record events from many perspectives, then recreate them in 3D, choosing exactly the moments and angles we want to keep. Golly. Be sure you turn it off before committing any crimes. It seems we're not that far away from being able to create a virtual log of about everything that goes on in "meat space," and that from multiple perspectives. The potential for law enforcement is obvious, promising and disturbing. Like stop light cameras for every moment of your life. Legal scholars and others need to think about this one. Blogs and freedom in China By Tom Smith The blogospheric revolution is hitting the PRC (aka "Red China"). That's a good thing. You always knew there was something deeply libertarian about blogging. November 30, 2004
Law schools get permission to take courageous stand By Tom Smith The Third Circuit has apparently ruled that the Solomon Amendment is unconstitutional. That was the law that told law schools that if they would not allow military recruiters on campus, as a protest against the "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gay soldiers, they could do without federal money as well. Just to review, soldiers are the ones that do things like get their legs blown off by grenades so the rest of us can decide what the best kind of wine is with turkey, and law schools are the places where idealistic solons take brave stands right up until the moment they are threatened with losing some money if they do so. It would be interesting to know by how much one would have to reduce federal largess to get law schools to reluctantly agree that they must courageously decide to postpone their brave protests to a more opportune time. Completely eliminating federal largess always struck me as extreme, when you could probably have gotten schools to about face for much less. Would an amendment that said law schools would be docked, oh, $367,235.21 from their federal subsidies if they did not permit military recruiters on campus, cause the law school administrations to see that discretion was the better part of valor? Or, perhaps a better way to calculate it would be $5000 for each soldiers' limb or eye lost in Iraq, and $10,000 for each soldier's life, but maybe $20,000 per soldier who had the misfortune to be burned alive inside a tank. Oh, except, that would run into the millions. Would anyone dare ask a law school to make so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom? Decline of Culture continues By Tom Smith More evidence that Hollywood people need brain therapy. What they name their kids. November 25, 2004
I hope it wasn't something I said By Tom Smith This post indicates somebody threw up in my M and A class the other day. I did not notice that. I hope it was just a virus and not one of my jokes, which do not always come off well. Bush the Guy ByTom Smith Of course Bush did the right thing. If the Chileans feel humiliated, they have only themselves to blame. There are about a dozen reasons why POTUS should not allow foreign security to separate him from his own security detail. First, security reasons. In my year in "the White House," which includes the Old Executive Office Building (now called the Reagan building, or something) where I worked (as opposed to the "West Wing," where the upper White House Staff worked, or White House Scum as I sometimes refered to them, since I thought most of them were political hacks, as opposed to the economic or national security professionals on the 3rd floor of the OEOB), security around the President himself was really, really tight. This was obviously before 9/11. You had to go through two or three screenings, with both metal dectectors and ID check (against a database with lots of info about who you were) to get anywhere near him. The agents themselves were very imposing physical specimens, all over 6 feet, very fit, and very vigilant. The idea that some foreign security heavies would interpose themselves between the President's personal detail and the President is very shocking. If you tried this in the US, you'd be lucky to come out of it alive. This incident has its lighter side, but in fact, it's fortunate it did not lead to something much worse. If the President had not come back as soon as he did, the Secret Service would have started getting much rougher and who knows what would have happened. Ukraine By Tom Smith Here's a blog from Ukraine. (Don't say "the Ukraine;" that makes it sound like just a region in greater Russia.) Apparently it's not just a fight over electoral corruption, but between democrats and the oligarchs who took over after the fall of the USSR. November 24, 2004
Family life update By Tom Smith I think everybody is suffering from a post-election let down. Enough politics for a while. So let's talk about my one-year old, Mark. He has graduated from rug rat to explorer dude, unsteadily walking everywhere. I captured some of his first steps on the video camera, but it all happens very fast. He has discovered the out of doors, and loves to locomote under the pine trees. He has not quite figured out leaning back into a slope, and just keeps himself perpendicular to the ground until he slowly topples forward. My theory is to go ahead and let him tumble, as long as the ground is soft, and maybe he'll learn faster that way the way to walk on uneven ground. It's more like life that way. Of course, walking off a cliff and dying is like life too; you don't want to overdo that sort of thing. He found a patch of flowers gone wild, combined with miscellaneous weeds and went to work patting them all down, putting his face into them, putting little bits into his mouth. At a moment like this, I couldn't help but think of all the potentially vicious little creatures that might be infesting that patch of ground. Fire ants. Scorpions. Black widows. Velvet ants. Brown recluse spiders. Rattlesnakes. No. Wrong season for snakes. If was the sort of person who thought, a little boy, exploring flowers for the first time, life is so wonderful, maybe I would have voted for Kerry. Our poor neglected labradors were thrilled to be out on the property as well. Denali, who looks like a minaturized brown steer with floppy ears, ran back and forth, chasing a well chewed plastic Halloween pumpkin. As the poster boy for the tragedy of cannine obesity, he could drop dead at any moment, but in the meantime, let him run. Biscuit is getting a few gray hairs around her muzzle, but still catches balls like a fielder, proof that it's all in the genes. It was one of those gorgeous, perfect San Diego days in November, that almost make you feel guilty for living here. But, given the season, I suppose gratitude would be the more appropriate emotion. There weren't any stinging or biting insects in the batch of flowers, or at least they were beaten down by the preemptive war we have waged against them. Thanks to the Marines and the Navy and the Army and the rest, I get to sit here and look at the twinkly lights of Chula Vista on the horizon, and wonder whether I should have a scotch before I open the merlot. I think we have decided to forgo creationism and knife fighting at the Christian martial arts academcy tonight, and pop a movie in the VCR instead. It's vacation, there's a Republican in the White House, and all boys have made it through the day with no major injuries or other catastrophe. Of course I'm grateful. UN is just what you suspect By Tom Smith Does anyone else remember growing up thinking the UN was this cool, sleek place where men in J. Press suits and attractive women of many different nationalites did important things to save the world? Napoleon Solo was a UN functionary, after all. So sad it's all a crock. Diplomad is right. Dear ROR, I'm so sorry By Tom Smith Just kidding! I'm not sorry at all! But if you are, you can go here and post an apology to the world for W's reelection. If you're not sorry, you can use the site for some private gloating. But don't do it at work. That might be illegal or at least against your firm's policy. There are some genuinely eeeewwww folks, who may remind you why you became a Republican. Or at least didn't vote for Kerry. I wonder if Kerry feels relieved. Maybe we are all better off. November 19, 2004
Powell the hawk By Tom Smith Powell is sounding the alarm bell on Iran. We should listen to him. Alternatively, we could enter a treaty with Iran, brokered peut-etre by la belle France, to the effect that Iran can go ahead and develop nukes and delivery systems, but they have to promise to keep it secret. And we have to promise that if Tel-Aviv or Pittsburgh suddenly turns into a big lake of molten glass, we will look everywhere, except Iran, to figure out where the bomb came from. November 17, 2004
The Middle East after Herr Arafat By Tom Smith Now that Arafat is chatting with Goebbles inbetween sessions on the grill, we may ask, what next for Middle East? Diplomad, as usual, has some astute observations. Which reminds me, as there is an old Europe and a new Europe, isn't there also an old America and a new America. The old America is the blue counties on the coasts, and the new America is the rest, which was settled later and is still growing fastest. So you'd like to help kill a terrorist . . . By Tom Smith Is it tax deductible? I'm not sure, but where else can you buy a gun or a knife for our boys on the pointy end? Via instapundit. November 16, 2004
Nanny state redux By Tom Smith So now after you've spent 8 hours squatting down pit, hewing out coal with sweat and sinew, you can't have a fag with your pint because it's bad for you. What rot. Why not just let pubs designate themselves as smoking or non-smoking, or smoking only in the smoking area, or whatever. You just don't need a universal no-smoking policy in pubs. According to the story, The aim, according to the government, is to reverse a trend toward an increasingly unhealthy society in which people take too little exercise, eat too much fattening food, engage in unprotected casual sex and smoke. And what else are you supposed to do to while away your life on that rainy isle? In the nation where you could spend your whole life and never encounter the state except at the post office, it is now going to tell you fish and chips and a Woodbines are bad for you, and instead of a pint, you need to go to jazzercize. Poor Britannia. Powell's mixed record By Tom Smith IMHO W is well rid of him. He's not a wartime SOS. Diplomad is interesting on this. Home ownership hell By Tom Smith There is some deep lesson in all this, I just don't know what it is. A couple of weeks ago I heard a strange dripping noise in the family room. Investigation revealed my water heater was emitting water, which travelled along some pipes and into a little interior space under the furnace. Well, I thought, with utter naivite, I'm going to have to get in there with a mop and clean it up. Silly me. Instead, plumbers had to come and remove the furnace and the water heater, take apart the little structure on which they sat, erect fans for a week or so, tear out carpet padding, put in a new hot water heater, put back the furnace, and oh yes, somewhere in there dry up all that water. Four large at least. At least. But it's covered by insurance, right? Oh, you would have to ask. In fact, it might be covered, and it might not be, but now, having already made my claim, I read that insurance companies in CA are cancelling people at record rates for having the temerity to make water damage claims. Because of the burgeoning mold claim phenomenon. OTH in 2003 only 1200 policies were cancelled in this reason in CA, so maybe I will be fine. Whether that counts non-renewals, I don't know. My lovely wife Jeanne is telling me to chill, and I should. If I could take back the claim, I would. At least after 2 weeks of no hot water, I can stop bathing in the ice cold pool. Invigorating, but conducive to grumpiness. Things got so bad, I actually had to go to a Home Depot. Which led me to compose the following somewhat blasphemous prayer: O Home Depot Clerk, I do most humbly prostrate myself before thee and beg thee, in thy mercy, to vouchsafe to me where the water softener units are to be sought. Not the little units to which I have been directed twice, but, lo, the large units, such as one finds next to water heater, in mine garage. Then, in thy wisdom, if thou wouldst get such great thing down from its high perch, great would be my praises of thee, O Great Clerk! And so on. Fortunately, the Scots have invented a useful tonic. November 14, 2004
November 13, 2004
CIA hubris By Tom Smith The CIA seems to be a problem. It does have a history of being anti-GOP, but why it would invest so heavily in defeating Bush is unclear to me. They certainly have a tradition of being WASP, Yalie, and perhaps even just ever so slightly anti-Hebraic. If you want a snootful of CIA Yalie snobbery, you can read this book until you heave. It begins with a long and dead serious discussion of exactly where a professor at Yale ranks on the social ladder. But that is history. This book is a much more contemporary look at the CIA, and quite accurate seeming, based on my tangential dealings with the Firm. Not to be too subtle about it, it seems to me the CIA isn't that different from Arab Studies departments at universities. It hard to study and understand something and loathe it at the same time. Few experts on the Soviet Union saw it as an evil empire. My guess is the CIA sorts essentially agree with the European critique of US policy in the Middle East. We're too pro-Israel, and we do too many things to offend the Arabs and their various sensitivities, which oddly enough, do not extend to blowing children into little hunks of meat. Yes, intelligence reform seems an opportunity to get the CIA on board in the war against terror. But how do you do that without crippling our intelligence capabilities, such as they are, during the transition? I don't know. Cheney should resign By Tom Smith Maybe not right this minute, but pretty soon, Dick Cheney should resign and Bush should nominate a VP who would be a live prospect in 2008. This is not the way Bushes think, of course, but there's no harm wishing. Cheney is a good man, even if he does have ice water for blood and a metaphorical metal pump for a heart. Even his admirers think he is a scary guy. But you can't have a guy a heartbeat away when his own heartbeat is not that reliable. If somebody told him W had been shot dead, he'd probably have a heart attack and die. Then who would be President? Hasert? It just won't do. So who should be VP? I like Condie Rice. It would be amusing to watch the Democrats explain that appearances notwithstanding, she was in fact both white and male. But Bushes are loyal to a fault, part of the fault being that family comes before party or national political future. Ask Dan Quayle. November 12, 2004
November 11, 2004
Off to that great compound in the sky By Tom Smith Arafat is in a better place, and so are we. Well, he may not be in a better place, but at least we are. via Instapundito. November 10, 2004
Scramjet. Cool. By Tom Smith New hypersonic jet to be tested by NASA. Of course, there may be other very fast jets in the air already we don't know about. There were some difficult to explain sonic booms here in San Diego a few years back . . . November 08, 2004
Liberal Paranoia By Tom Smith If you think about it, American liberals today resemble Puritans, of the Cromwellian stripe. They seem to be unable to tolerate the idea that in large swaths of America, evangelical Christians are out there, doing the things they do. Reading the bible and taking it literally is a kind of intellectual sodomy, that simply cannot be suffered to exist. Here is Brad DeLong, not getting it. Do you see what is wrong with his picture? He quotes with horror the story of a bunch of evangelicals, on a trip down the Grand Canyon. They look at geology and see creation. They make fun of Carl Sagan and imagine him roasting in hell fire. They listen to a preacher about the bible. But here's the thing. It's a private trip, isn't it? A bunch of co-religionists go out to the wilds. Where is the problem, exactly? Are they thinking unlicensed thoughts? Is the Grand Canyon a violation of the Establishment Clause? The Clean Air Act, perhaps, because such people are allowed to breathe? Brad DeLong seems unable to bear the idea that not everybody thinks he is as smart as he thinks he is. He wrings his hands and exclaims "the intolerance! I just can't stand it!" Liberals give themselves way too much credit. If they knew more evangelicals of the strict, biblical sort, they would appreciate what an embattled minority they are. Yes, they played an influential role in the last election, but I am talking about the lives they actually lead. Blacks are sometimes important in elections, but that does not mean a lot of them do not have tough lives. Strict Christians have to put up with the contempt of main stream culture, villification in the media, and policies in public institutions that border on official persecution. Most of them do not have a lot of money and can't send their kids to the private schools their betters send their kids to, so they won't have to suffer the consequences of liberal educational theories in practice. And all this while listening to the elites congratulate themselves for being so tolerant and superior. In the meantime, without the Catholics in the police and fire departments, and the born-agains in the Marines, they'd be asking some guy in a bathrobe to tell them again which way Mecca was. Jui-jitsu video By Tom Smith A student of mine who's into Brazilian jui-jitsu sent me this cool link to a a video of two of the Gracies sparring, showing their techniques. They are so good, they make it look smooth, clean and easy. More on exit polls By Tom Smith Pollster Frank Luntz said on the Dennis Praeger show this morning that when he first saw the exit polls, he thought Kerry had won it. This from a guy who called Ohio for W the morning of Nov. 2 based on polling. Luntz also said that Karl Rove told him that when he first got the exit poll numbers he was "sick to his stomach" and only figured out they were wrong when he looked at the internals. If the exit polls fooled savy professionals such as these, it's no big surprize that they fooled the betting market. It seems pretty clear that the exit polls were more wrong than anyone had reason to expect they would be. The market figured it out when real numbers started out of Florida, however. Luntz said he thought the exit polls were not biased, just incomptetent. He said they relied too much on phone polling of people who claimed to have voted, but did not. He said Americans traditionally underestimate their age and weight, and overestimate the frequency with which they vote and have sex. Red and blue America By Tom Smith We are the red cube in the southwest most corner. Via Diplomad, who has interesting posts about how they're taking W's re-electo-selection in the Far Abroad. November 06, 2004
Final word on tradesports By Tom Smith Yes, tradesports and the other bookies had W down at around 30 percent for most of election day. Does this suggest markets aren't so efficient or rational after all, or at least betting markets? Not really. The betting markets were reacting to the exit polls, just like everyone else was. The exit polls were way off, further off, I strongly suspect, than anyone had reason to think they would be. Why were they so far off? Both Dems and the GOP made a huge effort to get out the vote, including getting out many new voters. The GOP effort in particular relied on an extraordinary, risky, and unprecedented effort to use informal networks of contacts to get out the rural vote. Republicans called friends, relatives and associates and reminded them to get out the vote. In my republican part of San Diego county, "Be sure to vote!" became the temporary replacement of "Have a nice day!" Exit pollers have to make assumptions about turnout to allocate their boots on the ground. They apparently allocated their interviewers, rationally enough, in some way that did not anticipate the big increase in rural voters. Thus they oversampled suburban and urban voters, catching the big Dem turnout, but not the even bigger GOP turnout. The market isn't magic. It only works with the information it has. It looked for a while like a Democratic rout because the information wasn't available that across Red Amuricah, pappy had fired up the truck and taken all the kin into vote. If exit pollers had more samplers in rural areas, or if we had a media that actually reported the news, we and the market would have been spared a panic. When did the market fix itself? As soon as real numbers started coming in in Florida. When the real numbers started coming in, tradesports showed Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Nevada and New Mexico going to W well before the networks called any of them. Good information drove out bad. So, I think the betting markets did fine this election day. I think what the selling off of W contracts before the polls closed showed was simply that the turnout the GOP organized across the country was an utter surprize to all but a few GOP insiders, such as Herr Professor Rove. I have been told that the Realclearpolitics moving average of state polls called every single state correctly, perhaps because aggregating poll numbers has the effect of increasing sample size. Also, if you select randomly from a database that includes rural voters, laws of probability should assure they get adequately represented in your sample. So the likely voter screens ended up working well enough so that exit pollers had no particular advantage just because they were talking to real voters. The fact that the polls did as well as they did does not mean anybody knew there would be such a big rural turn out. Moreover, polls must have been using some likely voter screen beyond, "did you vote in the last election" to do as well as they did. BTW the only pollster I know who foresaw the Dem's problem was Pat Cadell, the rotund, very sad looking fellow seen rarely these days on TV. He said months ago he was getting numbers like 80 percent opposed to gay marriage, even in traditionally Democratic rural areas. He said the Dems were in deep trouble if they stuck to that issue, and it looks like he was right. |
Mr. Annan was at the helm of the U.N. for all but a few days of the Oil-for-Food program, and he must, therefore, be held accountable for the U.N.'s utter failure to detect or stop Saddam's abuses. The consequences of the U.N.'s ineptitude cannot be overstated: Saddam was empowered to withstand the sanctions regime, remain in power, and even rebuild his military. Needless to say, he made the Iraqi people suffer even more by importing substandard food and medicine under the Oil-for-Food program and pawning it off as first-rate humanitarian aid.
