by John Q on May 14, 2008
While most attention has been focused on the never-ending story of the Democratic presidential primaries, the Republicans have just lost a seemingly safe seat in a Mississippi special election, following two earlier losses including that of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert. As this CNN story says, this raises the prospect of a wipeout in November. The result is consistent with steadily declining Republican affiliation and massive rejection of Bush (who’s reached all-time lows in several polls recently). McCain is still managing to avoid much of the stench associated with his party, but it seems to me this will be a lot harder for him in the context of a general election, where I imagine he will be expected to campaign on behalf of vulnerable Republicans.
I don’t know, though, whether there’s a common pattern of upsets in special elections. Incumbent governments often do badly in such elections in Australia, since it provides the opportunity for a largely consequence-free protest vote, but this logic doesn’t seem to apply in the US context. I’d be interested in any thoughts from readers
by John Q on May 13, 2008
by John Q on May 11, 2008
It’s unclear whether we are bound for a Post-American World in the near future, but it seems pretty clear that we are bound for a world in which the US dollar is no longer the unique ‘reserve currency’. The combination of chronically large trade and budget deficits and willingness of the US monetary authorities to tolerate sustained inflation means that decisions by national central banks to hold US dollar reserves are now driven by a desire to preserve the existing order rather than by calculations of risk and return. In the long run this can’t be sustained.
If the US dollar can no longer satisfy the requirements of a reserve currency, what are the alternatives? I can see two possibilities.
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Kevin Drum points to this piece by Michael Gerson, denying the existence of a Republican War on Science. As Drum points out, Gerson doesn’t even mention the major battlegrounds like global warming denialism, creationism and intelligent design, and the Gingrich-era shutdown of the Office of Technology Assessment, focusing on a much narrower set of issues including stem cell research and abortion.
Moreover far from refuting the claim of a war between Republicanism and science, Gerson spends most of the article fighting on the Republican side. Most obviously the obligatory, and in this case, lengthy discussion of eugenics, tied in Jonah Goldberg fashion to contemporary liberalism.
There’s an even more fundamental problem here. Gerson is so focused on the political/cultural/ethical war he is fighting that he doesn’t even consider the question of whether there are any scientific facts that might be relevant to the question.
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You can see how desperate I am for help by the use of the second word in the title of this post, which I’ve resisted until now.
I have offered to present a talk to a large conference audience in Adelaide, and intended to do it by videoconference, following several successful (and cheap!) presentations to seminar-size groups. But the conference of organizers have been quoted a cost of thousands of dollars to present the videoconference session. There are some obvious cheap alternatives like a pre-record, but I’d like to avoid these if possible. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I could deliver a videoconference presentation, at reasonable cost to a large audience in a venue that isn’t specifically set up for this?
I was pretty much stunned into silence by the proposal for a gasoline tax holiday put forward by John McCain and Hillary Clinton (not that it matters but I’m not clear which of them came up with it first – can anyone set me straight on this). I won’t bother repeating all the reasons why this is a terrible idea ( when Tom Friedman has your number, I’d say your number is up).
Just a couple of observations. First, I find it hard to see how anyone serious can support either McCain or Clinton after this.
Second, the fact that the proposal has lasted this long suggests to me that the chance of any serious US action on global warming after the election is not that great. Without the US, we won’t get anything from China and India either, so that means we’re setting course for disaster. Perhaps if Obama wins, he’ll be able to turn this around, but this episode has me very depressed.
Among the outcomes produced by a market economy, real wages are arguably the most important single variable for most people. With inflation rising around the world, and sensitive prices like those of food and petroleum going up a lot, most people’s living standards depend mainly on whether wages grow faster than prices. I got a couple of pieces of info on this today, which illustrate the difference between data and anecdote.
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by John Q on April 29, 2008
I presented a videoseminar today, presenting a new argument against discounting the utility of future (more precisely later-born) generations, and I thought I’d report on both medium and message.
It was a bit of a bleeding edge experience, though it worked OK in the end. The big problem was presenting slides at the same time as video of me talking. ANU was expecting a hardware solution (dual video) while UQ was expecting a software solution (NetMeeting or Bridgit). Fortunately, I had sent the presentation ahead of time, so someone at the ANU end was able to run it for me. But I’ll have to develop a standard procedure for this.
I’ve attached the presentation (in PDF format)here
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by John Q on April 28, 2008
It’s not that surprising to read that former Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad has called for an international tribunal to try Western leaders with war crimes over the war in Iraq, nominating Bush, Blair and Howard in particular. Mahathir is well-known as a provocateur, with a fondness for extreme statements, which have included anti-Semitic attacks on George Soros and others. So it’s unlikely that anyone will pay much attention to him.
Still, his views on Iraq as a war crime are widely shared. It scarcely seems beyond the bounds of possibility that someone like Baltasar Garzon might find a legal way to file criminal charges (Wikipedia says he’s already threatened a civil suit).
Such charges would have enough factual and legal support to make the outcome unpredictable if they ever came before a tribunal. Apart from the general question of the legality of the war itself, the US in particular has openly denied the applicability of the Geneva Conventions and has engaged in many actions (torture of prisoners, bombing of occupied civilian areas, reprisal attacks of various kinds) that at least arguably violate the Conventions.
On the other hand, the prospect of Bush, or any US official, for that matter, actually standing trial, let alone being convicted or punished, seems unthinkable. The only consistent inference that I can draw from this is that, if charges are ever laid in any jurisdiction, the governments concerned will find a way to abort the process without allowing the substantive issues to come before a court. Since most of the doctrines that might be used to achieve such an outcome (sovereign immunity, non-interference in internal affairs and so on) have already been repudiated, it seems as if such an outcome could only be justified in terms of a bald claim of “reasons of state”.
Are there any legal experts who can help me out here? I have two main questions:
1. Where, if at all, might charges be brought against Bush and others?
2. How would the hearing of these charges be prevented?
by John Q on April 24, 2008
As the Olympic torch touches down in Australia, it is hard to see how any good can come of the entire exercise.
After Kevin Rudd’s visit to Beijing, which seemed to herald a newly mature relationship between Australia and China, we’ve spent a week or more embroiled in a petty squabble, of a kind which is all too familiar in international relations, over the role of Chinese torch attendants/security guards, with the Australian government insisting that all security will be provided by our police and the Chinese saying that the attendants will “protect the torch with their bodies”.
George Orwell observed over 60 years ago that
Even if one didn’t know from concrete examples (the 1936 Olympic Games, for instance) that international sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred, one could deduce it from general principles.
and history since then has given plenty of examples. It looks as if the 2008 Olympics will join them.
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by John Q on April 17, 2008
The big increase in food prices over the last six months or so raises lots of issues, of which I’ll try to cover a few.
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by John Q on April 12, 2008
I mentioned this piece in comments a while ago and some interest was expressed. It should come out in the Australian Financial Review fairly soon, but there’s still time for me to benefit from comments and constructive criticism.
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by John Q on April 9, 2008
I only saw this item flashing briefly across the TV screen, but I’m sure it will be of interest to CT readers. The new Australian government, which is withdrawing combat troops (though not some troops guarding our embassy) from Iraq, has announced that Iraqis who have worked with Australian forces in Iraq will be offered resettlement in Australia. The estimated number of Iraqis to receive visas, including family members, is 600. Australia had only about 500 troops on average, so that gives an idea of the scale of commitment that might be expected from the UK and US if they met their obligations in a comparable fashion.
The decision to accept the interpreters ahead of other refugees has been criticised, but I think this is justified. The essential point should be to treat this intake as additional to, rather than part of, our general obligation to accept refugees.
Updating on the same point, this Times story indicates that the first three workers to be accepted under the much more restrictive British program have finally arrived in the UK, and that the program has so far delivered visas to a total of 12 Iraqis and their families. The total estimated intake is 2000.
by John Q on April 6, 2008
In my last post on Iraq, I concluded with a somewhat snarky reference to pro-war bloggers who reasoned that, since Sadr offered a ceasefire, he must have lost the fight in Basra, and therefore the government must have won. As it turned out, the ceasefire was the product of some days of negotation, brokered by the Iranians, which made the original point moot.
Still, given that the same claim was made by John McCain, who said”Very rarely do I see the winning side declare a ceasefire., I think it’s worth making a more serious point about the fundamental error in pro-war thinking that’s reflected in claims like this.
As usual with McCain’s statements in his alleged area of expertise, the claim is factually dubious (see below). More importantly, the implicit analysis here, and in nearly all pro-war thinking is that of a zero-sum game, in which one side’s gains equal the other side’s losses. The reality is that war is a negative sum game. Invariably, both sides lose relative to an immediate agreement on the final peace terms. In the vast majority of cases, both sides are worse off than if the war had never been fought. With nearly equal certainty, anyone who passes up an opportunity for an early ceasefire will regret it in the end.
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by John Q on April 2, 2008
Following up on Chris’s post a little while ago, it seems obvious that the best way to offset emissions from travel is not to travel at all. I’ve been trying hard to reduce air travel, and making some progress, though it isn’t easy.
I’m doing my first videoconference presentation for the year on Friday, appropriately enough at a University of Sydney one-day seminar on the economics of sustainability. My talk will be on “Uncertainty, awareness and the precautionary principle”. I’ve lined up two more videoconferences for the first half of this year, and I hope to do some more in the second half.
The other part of my plan to reduce my carbon footprint and the amount of time I spend travelling is to make one trip cover multiple events. I’m in Melbourne right now, for a visit that includes three presentations and several meetings.
With all this, I’m still travelling a fair bit more than I would like. But I think there is a network effect here. The more people get used to videoconferencing as an alternative, the better it will work, and the more demand there will be for technical improvements.