April 2005

Howard Kurtz’s blog round-up points to this small gem of insight on the estate tax, from blogger and University of Nebraska law professor, Rick Duncan.

Of course, the Democrats played the Marxist class-warfare card and said this legislation would only help the dirty, stinking rich. Actually, it is a very egalitarian law that ensures that no one will pay death taxes. What is wrong with equal treatment?

Duncan finds himself in some interesting intellectual company. If I’m not mistaken in my recollection, Karl Marx himself was fond of quoting Anatole France’s not-dissimilar observation that “[t]he law in its infinite majesty, prohibits rich and poor alike from stealing bread and sleeping under bridges.” (I fear however that Duncan, unlike Marx and France, believes himself to be making a serious argument).

I had to share this detail from the Family Research Council’s webpage for their book Getting It Straight:What the Research Shows About Homosexuality:

Chapter 6: Is There a Link between Homosexuality and Child Sexual Abuse?

· A study of 229 convicted child molesters in Archives of Sexual Behavior found that “eighty-six percent of offenders against males described themselves as homosexual or bisexual.” (emphasis added)

(W. D. Erickson, “Behavior Patterns of Child Molesters,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 17 (1988): 83.)

I’m reminded of Kieran’s classic question, “Why are so many of the closets I open full of my clothes?”

Dwight Merideth, “The GOP Is Robbing Us Of Our Christian Heritage”:

Since 1969, Republican Presidents have appointed 211 Judges to the Circuit Courts. Democrats have appointed 122. Since 1969, Republican Presidents have appointed 813 trial Judges to the District Court bench while Democrats have made 508 such appointments.

If the Federal Judiciary is comprised of a bunch of liberal activists, it is the GOP who put them there.

Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings, “When Reality Outstrips Irony …”

“It is unfortunate in our electoral system, exacerbated by our adversarial media culture, that political discourse has to get so overheated that it’s not just arguments, but motives are questioned,” Tom DeLay, 4/16/05

“The Democrats’ hateful, moronic comments are beyond the pale, and the Democrats know it, but they don’t care because they have nothing to offer the public debate but rage, resentment and quackery.” Tom DeLay, 12/16/03

Fred Clark, “And have not charity”:

Elimination of the estate tax would result in a decrease in charitable giving of up to 12 percent… For many vital nonprofit agencies on the front lines, a 12-percent drop in charitable giving will mean they have to close their doors.

On the other hand …

There is no other hand.

tbogg, “Ride the wild Bolton Mobius strip….”

John R. Bolton — who is seeking confirmation as the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations — often blocked then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and, on one occasion, his successor, Condoleezza Rice, from receiving information vital to U.S. strategies on Iran, according to current and former officials who have worked with Bolton.

Matthew Yglesias, “New Depths Discovered”

According to Landay’s sources, the administration only wants reports showing that terrorism is going down, and if the State Departments methods don’t produce that result, then there report just won’t be done. Lovely.

via Pandagon, Inquiry Finds White House Role in Contract

A White House aide was told about potential problems with the Education Department paying a conservative commentator to promote an administration policy but did not prevent the contract from being renewed, according to a new government report.

Via Andrew Sullivan, former Reagan and Nixon speechwriter Jeffrey Hart:

The Bush presidency often is called conservative. That is a mistake. It is populist and radical, and its principal energies have roots in American history, and these roots are not conservative.

Brad DeLong, “Why Oh Why Can’t We Have a Better Press Corps? (I’ve Got to Stop Saying “National Review Has Reached Its Nadir” Department)”

But the point isn’t to provide or critique economic analysis, is it? The point isn’t to inform the readers of National Review, is it? The point is that Paul Volcker–chosen by Republican Richard Nixon’s staff to be Undersecretary of the Treasury for Monetary Affairs, chosen by Republican Arthur Burns to be President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, chosen by Republican Ronald Reagan’s staff to be Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board–has written something inconvenient for the Bushies inside the White House. And so National Review undertakes the mission of trying to murk the waters with clouds of ink.

And in this squid-like task, actual knowledge of the economy or of economics is a positive hindrance. The less the writer knows, the better.

Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution, “No surprise”

And how is this for a laugh?

Reducing agricultural spending by $5.4 billion is [was? AT] a key part of the administration’s plan to cut the federal defict in half. So far, however, the the Senate Budget Committee has agree to cuts amounting to just $2.8 billion.

The Federal deficit is currently over 400 billion.

Three links relating to unions and the academy:

A very nice article in Dissent, which I’ve been meaning to link to for a while, setting out the reasons why non-tenure track faculty should unionize.

Teaching assistants at Columbia and Yale plan strike action; the university administration responds with the usual chestnut: “The university’s relationship with graduate students is educational and collaborative. It is not an employer-employee relationship.”

Nathan Newman writes about a new book by Charles Morris, a labour law scholar, arguing that unions have a right to “engage in collective bargaining through a minority union on a members-only basis.” By Newman’s account, Morris “documents that the clear legislative intent of the National Labor Relations Act was to require collective bargaining by companies with minority “members only” unions.” If this original intent can be made to stick (which would be a hard-fought battle, given the current ideological slant of the NLRB), it could transform the US labour relations system.

I’m sure others have suggested this, but doesn’t there seem to be a great job opportunity available in those American states which carve out (as some are considering) a “conscience exemption” for pharmacists who do not wish to fill prescriptions for birth control or emergency contraception? Just get certified as a pharmacist, hired at Walgreen’s, and then reveal that you are a Christian Scientist and it is against your religion to dispense any medicine at all. Then just sit back, read chick magazines, and eat expired candy while the money rolls in. “I’d like to fill this perscription for an asthma inhaler?” “Sorry, ma’am, that’s against my religion.” And you can’t get fired! Awesome.

I saw Rufus Wainwright singing on stage in 1984, with Martha and their dad, at one of those free concerts the GLC used to put on. You couldn’t tell at the time that he was going to be a huge star, but I mention seeing him then occasionally when I want my cool students to think that I am not quite as uncool as I usually like to seem. But now Want One

is the featured album on Stuart Maconie’s show. Frankly, I still find it a bit nerve-wracking to hear a voice that is almost Loudon’s singing songs like Rufus’s, and it prevents me from being a true fan. If, though, there’s anyone here who hasn’t yet heard him, he’s brilliant.

This is one of the most exciting things to have happened in a long time. Scientists using a new photographic technique have made amazing strides in deciphering the famed Oxyrhynchus papyrii (the contents of an Egyptian trash-heap). Apparently, just in the last few days, they have discovered previously unknown writings by Sophocles, Euripides, Hesiod, and Lucian, as well as a long epic passage from Archilochos. It’s not particularly likely that you’ve ever had a look at how much Archilochos there is in the world, but let me tell you: ain’t a whole lot. Not even one complete poem, if memory serves. (Oxford’s Delectus ex Iambis et Elegis Graecis has all the details.) From the Independent:

The previously unknown texts, read for the first time last week, include parts of a long-lost tragedy – the Epigonoi (“Progeny”) by the 5th-century BC Greek playwright Sophocles; part of a lost novel by the 2nd-century Greek writer Lucian; unknown material by Euripides; mythological poetry by the 1st-century BC Greek poet Parthenios; work by the 7th-century BC poet Hesiod; and an epic poem by Archilochos, a 7th-century successor of Homer, describing events leading up to the Trojan War. Additional material from Hesiod, Euripides and Sophocles almost certainly await discovery.

Oxford academics have been working alongside infra-red specialists from Brigham Young University, Utah. Their operation is likely to increase the number of great literary works fully or partially surviving from the ancient Greek world by up to a fifth. It could easily double the surviving body of lesser work – the pulp fiction and sitcoms of the day.

Go Mormons! (Now if only you could find those darn gold plates and diamond spectacles!) I know every Classics scholar and enthusiast in the whole world is waiting with bated breath…
On the other hand, this Scotsman headline is enthusiastic but misleading: “‘Lost’ classical manuscripts give up their secrets after 9,000 years.” What’s 7,000-odd years among friends, after all?

The British Conservatives have been covering the country with horrible posters asking questions like “How would you feel if a bloke on day-release [from prison] attacked your daughter?” Some enterprising character has now produced a design-your-own-Tory-poster website. Here’s my own feeble effort:

(via Nick Barlow)

Avian flu sounds pretty nasty, and a pandemic would be a disaster. But John Sutherland, “writing in the Guardian”:http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1462141,00.html , is in the grip of statistical confusion when he asserts that it could kill 70 per cent of the population. As I understand it, the virus kills 7 out of 10 people that it infects, and the number infected is far below 100 per cent. Moreover, the 7 out of 10 figure may well be an exaggeration, since people who recover and don’t die are less likely to be be included in the figures than those who do. The WHO “impact assessment”:http://www.who.int/csr/disease/influenza/preparedness2004_12_08/en/ isn’t encouraging (2 to 50 million dead, but could it be worse than that). I’m sure we have some epidemiologists among our readers. Any thoughts?

Backword Dave notes, cogently:

I hate those in power. I look up, and others see the stars; I see the shit up our leader’s arses.

Since it’s National Poetry Month in America and there isn’t enough scurrilous Welsh Nationalist verse on the internet, I reproduce below the fold the poem to which Dave is alluding; “Anglomaniac Anthem” by Harri Webb
[click to continue…]

I’ve been working my way through the archive of Steve Earle’s radio show on Air America. The sound quality is variable, but the content isn’t and they’re great for burning to CD and listening to when driving places. My favourite so far is with Emmylou Harris as guest. She chooses a variety of political songs including Johnny Cash’s Ballad of Ira Hayes, Joan Baez’s Birmingham Sunday and Woody Guthrie singing Plane Wreck at Los Gatos. Plane Wreck is a good song to hear at any time, but, here in the UK, with the parties competing to stigmatize the “economic migrants” (such as the cockle-pickers who died at Morecambe Bay) it has an immediate relevance. Recommended.

[Update: the server for the archive seems to be down because of exceeded bandwidth. This is probably due to the link here — sorry! I’ve deleted the link, but those who want to should try googling for it in a couple of days.]

A very interesting article about the Heritage Foundation, Malaysia, and and sums of money flowing to the Foundation president’s wife in the Washington Post, which I hope to write more about tomorrow or on Monday (there are some interesting and complicated issues that I want to think about a bit more). In the meantime, I want to point out this fascinating little paragraph about the Index of Economic Freedom (previously discussed here and here).

Gerald P. O’Driscoll Jr., former editor of the annual Index of Economic Freedom, published by Heritage and the Wall Street Journal, said that in 2002 Feulner [the president of Heritage] pressed him to give Malaysia a better ranking. When the staff objected, Feulner backed off on changing the ranking, Driscoll said, but changed the text to make it more positive.

Heritage said Driscoll’s account “is incorrect. . . . If Dr. Feulner had any concerns about the Malaysia score, his name would not be on the book.”

As you prefer, you can read this as a testament to the honesty of the Index’s staff, or as damning evidence of Heritage’s intention to cook the books. Either way, it’s a rather interesting datum on the politics behind the Index (and how the text of the Index report is shaped by the political and/or financial interests of its backers).

In the comments thread to Chris’ post on tactical voting, Michael Otsuka very sensibly suggests

I believe there’s an extensive, sophisticated social science literature on the expected utility of voting in elections which has made some progress beyond the speculations posted above. Could anyone who’s up-to-speed post a reference to an accessible summary to save us the trouble of trying to reinvent the wheel?

This brings me to one of those papers I’ve been meaning to write for years (I wrote a several drafts of a joint paper with Geoff Brennan, but we never quite converged), and which has finally (2005!) been written by someone else. The idea was to prove an assertion I’ve made quite a few times in academic papers, and here at CT, that, as long as voters have ‘social’ rather than ‘egoistic’ preferences, the expected utility of voting is independent of the size of the electorate, and potentially large enough to justify high levels of participation. You can read this paper by Edlin, Gelman and Kaplan (PDF file). There’s an excellent appendix on why the probability of a decisive vote is of order 1/n.

There’s still the question of why people vote when one side or the other is bound to win. EGK have a go at this, and in my paper[1] on the subject, I say

This approach, in which b [the social benefit of the preferred party winning] is a simple step- function, may be replaced by a more sophisticated one in which b depends not only on the party elected, but on the size of its majority. This would be consistent with the fact that there is a substantial, though normally reduced, turnouts in elections which are perceived as foregone conclusions.)

That’s not a complete solution, and I think it’s also important to consider that voting per se is considered as a social duty or as yielding social benefits, but I think it’s at least as important as expressive motives.

fn1. Quiggin, J. (1987), Egoistic rationality and public choice: a critical review of theory and evidence’, Economic Record 63(180), 10–21.

At Larvatus Prodeo, and at Catallaxy, they’re debating the question of whether you can dismiss an author based on ‘a brief skimming’, which I’ll take, along with some participants in the discussion, to mean five minutes of reading.

My answer to this question, which arises pretty regularly in blog debates is “Absolutely”. At skimming or fast reading speed, five minutes gives you 5000 words, which is more than enough to conclude that a writer is guilty of gross logical or factual errors, pretentious or illiterate prose, repetition of tired and long-refuted arguments, or simple inanity. The idea, commonly put forward in defence of various indefensible types, that you can’t criticise someone unless you have read every word they have ever written is simple nonsense. It’s true that there are people who produce the odd pearl among an output more generally fit for swine. But in such cases, it’s up to their defenders to point out the gems: the volume of words is so great, and the average quality so low, that a demand to read everything is simply impossible.

I should concede that, on one or two occasions, I’ve got into trouble through misreading someone in the first five minutes (or even less), after which pride and prejudice has done the rest. But in general, five minutes is enough to form a well-founded negative judgement.