Follow-up

by Henry Farrell on July 18, 2005

Two addenda to posts I wrote last week.

First, the “New York Times”:http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/16/politics/16immigrants.html?ei=5094&en=ed9000bb0979f7ff&hp=&ex=1121572800&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&adxnnlx=1121702930-H0vhXu9rNu0DeaqhsRIh8A picks up on the “OSHA sting”:https://crookedtimber.org/2005/07/12/impersonating-osha/ story; it appears that the immigration officials responsible are getting a lot of flak, as they should be. Thanks to Matthew Lister for the tip.

Second, Sean Carroll provides contact details for WBEZ, the radio station which “cancelled Odyssey”:https://crookedtimber.org/2005/07/14/odyssey-cancellation/ last week. Anyone who wants to suggest politely that they reconsider this decision should contact:

Torey Malatia
General Manager, WBEZ
848 E. Grand
Chicago IL 60611
312-832-3312
tmalatia@wbez.org

Sean and a group of other physicists have just started a new group-blog, “Cosmic Variance”:http://cosmicvariance.com/. Looks good.

{ 2 comments }

1

Alex R 07.18.05 at 4:16 pm

Mark Kleiman makes a great point about the OSHA sting:

The Times quotes an OSHA official as criticizing the sting, and an ICE official as defending it by analogy with undercover drug enforcement operations. But that elides what seems to me to be the central point: in a drug sting, agents pose as bad guys. Doing has the direct effect of catching some bad guys, plus the desirable indirect effect of making it harder for bad guys to trust one another.

In this case, the operation had the direct effect of catching some illegal aliens, and the undesirable indirect effect of making it harder for anyone to trust the Government of the United States of America.

Seems to me there’s a subtle but significant difference there.

I would only add that the more cynical side of me wonders if the Bush Administration actually considers “making it harder for anyone to trust the Government” to be an undesirable side effect…

2

Horatio 07.18.05 at 7:17 pm

What now fills the slot that Odyssey vacated? Right-wing talking points hour?

Comments on this entry are closed.