February 2004

The ‘Gray Lady’ nickname of the NYT implies the kind of conservatism and caution that’s appropriate to a journal of record. But in what is, as far as I know, a newspaper first, today’s NYT brings the astrology column onto the Op-Ed page, providing horoscopes for the Democratic Presidential hopefuls.

I’m bemused by this. If the implied view is that astrology is so patently silly that no-one would take it seriously, isn’t this rather a juvenile trick to play on Erin Sullivan, noted as the author of Saturn in Transit and the forthcoming Astrology and Psychology of Midlife and Aging., who appears to have contributed her column in all seriousness? If the implied view is anything other than that astrology is too silly to be taken seriously, isn’t this insulting to every reader of the NYT who has even a high school level of scientific literacy? No doubt there is some ironic postmodern stance that is appropriate here, but I can’t quite locate it.

Update The Letters page ran three letters on this, one tongue-in-cheek supportive, one critical and one, from an astrologer, concluding

I hope that Ms. Sullivan’s intelligent presentation of astrology is just the first for The Times. Perhaps we now know what we’ve suspected all along: the Gray Lady always reads her horoscope like everyone else.

I think we have to conclude that the NYT is “having two bob each way”* on this one.

* This Australian idiom refers to a horesracing bet that pays off for either a win or a place.

Via Mark Kleiman, Rasmussen Reports has the following poll out:

Bush vs Generic Democrat

Bush 42%
Democrat 49%
Other 3%
Unsure 6%

There’s two big questions about this before we draw any conclusions. First, are Rasmussen any good? Second, are these polls (incumbent vs generic) more or less reliable than head to head polls, e.g. Bush vs Kerry? For what it’s worth Rasmussen has Kerry winning that one 46-44 right now, though obviously 49-42 would be a much better position to be in.

This piece by William Safire alleges that the CIA was engaged in terrorist activity in Russia in the early 1980s, sabotaging a gas pipeline funded by Britain and Germany, and allegedly leading to its explosion.

Of course, Safire doesn’t use the word terrorism and regards the whole thing as a major victory in the Cold War, but we don’t need to use our imagination to see how the US would regard the same thing done in reverse – blowing up pipelines is one of the main terrorist activities of the Iraqi insurgents.

The sabotage was allegedly done by supplying defective computer chips of a type that were under embargo because of their supposed military use. I get the impression Safire thinks that this makes the deal OK and that it’s different from blowing up the pipeline with dynamite (but I can’t be sure of this).

Finally, I should add that the story sounds phony to me.

A little belatedly, some thoughts on _After the New Economy._ Other Timberites are still in the throes of writing their posts, so we’ll do a linkage post pulling the various responses together (as well as the responses of non-CT people such as Brad DeLong), when we’ve all reported. First take – this is a very good book indeed. It provides a trenchant response, not only to the New Economy hype, but also to the political project that it implies. Most importantly (and unusually, for a book about the US economy) it’s solidly based in a comparative framework, examining not only the relationship between the US and the world economy, but also showing that the experience from other countries (European social democracies) suggests that large welfare states aren’t necessarily a drag on growth. Brad DeLong notes somewhere or another on his blog that the economic success of the statist Scandinavians is a real puzzle for economic theory; this is something that should give pause to gung-ho US advocates of unfettered free markets, but rarely does. It’s nice to see the lesson being drawn out in a book that isn’t aimed at an academic audience. Furthermore, as Kieran has already “noted”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/001213.html, _After the New Economy_ avoids falling into the trap of bucolic communitarianism; Henwood makes a guarded – but thoughtfully argued – case for the potential benefits of globalization for societies in both the West and the developing world. He’s right on all fronts, I think – but there’s still something missing in the book, which reflects a wider absence in the political debate. Not only is there not much in the way of a pro-globalization left; what there is doesn’t have much in the way of a positive alternative vision to offer. This means that Henwood is able to make a strong case for the prosecution, but doesn’t have very many positive arguments to defend his own vision of globalization.

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Among the famous quotes attributed to JM Keynes, one that stands out is

When the facts change, I change my mind – what do you do, sir

I am reminded of this whenever I read discussions of what was in the minds of those who pushed us into the Iraq war. It’s regularly stated that the behavior of Saddam Hussein in obstructing weapons inspections led analysts to assume he had something to hide. I shared this view until late 2002, and was reinforced in this by the behavior of Bush and Blair, including the various dossiers they published and the push for UN Resolution 1441 – they acted like police who had their suspect dead to rights, and only needed a search warrant.

In November and December 2002, however, the facts changed. First Saddam announced that he would readmit UN inspectors, without restrictions on the sites to be inspected and that he would declare all his weapons. Then he proceeded to do just that, claiming to have no weapons at all. Meanwhile Bush and Blair suddenly started hedging about the nature of the knowledge they had declared. The same pattern proceeded right up to the outbreak of war. Time after time, some condition would be declared crucial by Bush and Blair (overflights, interviews with Iraqi scientists, out-of-country interviews with Iraqi scientists), the Iraqi government would agree after a brief delay and then new condition would be raised. As quite a few observers noted, the behavior was the same as that of the Austro-Hungarian government with respect to Serbia in 1914.

Given the change in facts, any unbiased observer would have concluded, correctly that the balance of probabilities favored the hypotheses Bush and Blair were bluffing and that there were no weapons of mass destruction in usable form. I drew precisely this conclusion at the time, though with the mistaken corollary that Blair would stick to his word and refuse to go to war once Saddam called their bluff.

If those facts weren’t enough, it was obvious that, if Saddam did have weapons he would use them in the early days of war, preferably before Coalition troops had entered the country. Thus, it was apparent by the first days of the war that (with probability close to 1), there were no usable weapons. The fact that the contrary belief prevailed for so long is testament to the power of faith in the face of experience.

Coming up with a good title for your book is a tricky business. There was an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education a few weeks ago about the convention of “Vague General Title: More accurate but perhaps less interesting subtitle.” Sadly, the working title of my own draft book falls squarely into this mode. It’s hard to avoid it while also staying away from the grandiose, the misleading, the glib or the overly cheesy. Not all disciplines face this problem to the same degree. My other half is an old fashioned analytic metaphysician, for instance, and when you are developing a new property mereology to solve problems in ontology then you can get away with a book title like Objects, which might in other respects seem rather general.

One persistent trend is books titled “American [Whatever].” American Dynasty, American Skin, , American Terrorist, American Nightmare, American Empire … Those are just the ones I knew off the top of my head. Are there any other countries where authors or publishers have this habit? Maybe it happens because the adjective “American” scans easily in a way that, say, “French” or “Azerbaijani” doesn’t. So we should expect, say, _Namibian Psycho_ but not _Welsh Skin_.

Given the prevalence of this kind of title, maybe I should re-name my own book — which is about blood and organ donation in the U.S. and Europe — to American Kidneys.

Tim Dunlop encounters U.S. sports commentators at their most excitable:

Over the last few days I’ve heard four radio commentators refer to the Superbowl as the “most important sporting event in the world”. Those exact words.

This is especially true this year with the eagerly-awaited Lingerie Bowl at half-time. Depending on your outlook, the Lingerie Bowl is either (1) A measure of how deeply the Title IX revolution in women’s athletics has penetrated into the football industry, (2) A high-end version of the noble American tradition of powder puff football; or (3) Sadly available only on Pay-Per-View.

Anyway, the most important sporting event in the world is the All Ireland Hurling Final.