Ted

If you were away from your computer this weekend, God bless you. But you missed this Kevin Drum post on the new look at Iraqi reconstruction:

When Jay Garner tried to hire well-regarded experts who had real experience with reconstruction plans, he was turned down because they were too “liberal.” When Garner was abruptly replaced by Paul Bremer, Bremer staffed the CPA with inexperienced ideologues recruited from the Heritage Foundation. Foreign contractors were banned from Iraq out of pique, regardless of whether they were the best qualified. Unions were trampled and ignored because they didn’t fit the privatization agenda. Naomi Klein, who traveled to Iraq last year to report on the reconstruction for Harper’s, found Bremer pursuing plans for Iraq that were so outlandish they tested even her well-known skills for hyperbole…

Last week, I asked newish bloggers to send me links to their strongest posts. One of the smarter traditions of the right-wing blogs is their various “Carnival of the ….” link roundups, in which blogs volunteer themselves for links from higher-traffic blogs by presenting the posts that they are proudest of. On the left, we don’t do so much of that.

If none of my fellow Timberites object, I’m going to try to do this once a month or so. People who began blogging after January 1, 2004 or so are invited to send me links to their best posts as the month goes on. Also, anyone is welcome to suggest a better name for these sorts of roundups. “Carnival of the Reality-Based” seemed kind of lame.

Dave at The Big Lowitzki’s Random Ravings asks, “What is pro-life?”

Taryl Cabot at non-ecumenical ramblings has a fun post about inventions that still need inventing (N.B.- I think that this was the post that I was referred to… stupid Blogspot. If I’m wrong, I’ll change the link.)

Kenneth Rufo at Progressive Commons has a long and serious post about rhetoric and strategy, titled “How Not to Respond to the Luntz Memo”.

The Corpuscle has a letter to a young person, “Young Person’s Guide to Democracy”. (I’m liking this one, too: “Brand New Gay Stereotype, Gratis”.)

Adam Kotsko has obviously had his share of pledge drives.

Nick at News From Beyond The North Wind has a post about another corner of the Victorian attic, the Keswick Museum.

Alex at Bloodless Coop has a meditation on the intersection of reason and politics that doesn’t let the political left off scot-free.

Alex is also a member of a terrific group blog on neuroscience and psychology called Mind Hacks. Here’s a fascinating post on the drug ketamine, a recreational drug that produces symptoms similar to those seen in schizophrenia.

Wired Magazine has a fascinating story about buprenorphine, a heroin detox drug that offers significant promise for recovering addicts. Unlike methadone, buprenorphine (or “bupe”) doesn’t produce a high or low, and it’s almost impossible to abuse it. As a result, it can be dispersed in large quantities. (Methadone clinics generally only deliver one dose per day, which must be consumed on the spot.) Recovering addicts using bupe don’t have to deal with the sedative quality of methadone, and don’t have to schedule a visit to a clinic every day. Unlike methadone, it doesn’t show up on a urine drug test. All of these factors should significantly ease the reintegration of ex-addicts into the work world.

Despite the improved technology, bupe hasn’t been much of a success. Regulation has been bungled, and the relevant parties simply don’t have the incentives to promote a new, improved treatment. Methadone clinics are afraid that they’d lose money if methadone users got on bupe. GPs are afraid of bringing a new population of ex-addicts into their offices. A set of idiotic regulations prevents clinics from dispersing more than a pill a day, and bans even giant health care providers from taking more than 30 cases. The patent holder isn’t a pharma company, and doesn’t have the interest or expertise to promote the new drug. In fact, the protagonists of the article are a pair of treatment specialists who are promoting the drug freelance.

Well worth reading.

I’ve got to take Juan Cole to task for what reads like a rather antagonistic misunderstanding of the pro-life philosophy:

Anti-abortion activism is essentially patriarchal. It insists that the woman’s egg, once fertilized, is immediately a person and that the woman loses control over her body by virtue of being impregnated by her husband’s sperm. It is men who dictate to the woman that she must carry the fertilized egg to term, must be a mother once impregnated by a man. For extreme anti-abortionists, even a woman who has been raped or is in danger of losing her life if she tries to give birth must be forced to bear the child. A rapist can make a woman be a mother whether she likes it or not, because his maleness gives him prerogatives not withdrawn by his mere criminality.

I’m pro-choice, but that’s just not a good representation of the other side. People who are opposed to abortion generally have a pretty simple reason. They believe that life begins at conception, and that there’s no bright-line moral distinction between a baby and a fetus. Therefore, we should extend the same considerations re: life to fetuses as we do to babies. It’s not hard to understand. Again, I don’t agree with it, but if you believe that a fetus has a soul- more precisely, if you believe that God told you that a fetus has a soul- it’s not hard to see why you’d be so motivated to ban abortion. There’s definitely overlap between individuals who are opponents of abortion and individuals who don’t respect women, but there’s nothing “essential” about it.
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The next sideshow will be M.I.A., the musician whose debut album irresponsibly, cynically flirts with terrorism and the Tamil Tigers. It’s a dumb, easy-to-understand storylet, centering on a pretty woman with an album to sell. It’ll allow cultural conservatives to bash the media, ressentiment conservatives to bash hipsters on the coasts, and national-defense conservatives to bash her lyrics. Straying conservatives, stunned at the unprincipled recent clown show in the Republican leadership, will rejoin the flock after being shocked by the cherrypicked quotes from Democratic Underground. If I didn’t know better, I’d guess that she was grown in a vat by TownHall.

I predict that Michelle Malkin will be one of the first out of the gate on this one, followed closely by National Review. O’Reilly will be demanding to know why she’s afraid to do his show by next Friday. Wizbang will employ the macro that hits popular left-wing blogs, notices how few have denounced her, and wonders why we don’t all move to Terrorvania because we seem to love it so much. The woman that Glenn Reynolds will declare to be “the authentic face of the modern Left (for real this time)” will be on the cover of Time in three weeks. The right will get to enjoy a few weeks of red-faced fury, and the controversy will make M.I.A millions of dollars.

Range time.

Fametracker has a hysterical bit[1] placing odds on the brilliant twist ending of M. Night Shyamalan’s next movie, in which Paul Giamatti finds a sea nymph in the building’s swimming pool.

My favorites:

The sea nymph leads Paul Giamatti to an enormous statue of Aperaham Lincoln: 25 to 1

It turns out Paul Giamatti is trapped on a planet of sea nymphs, who’ve actually “discovered” him — who’s the sea nymph now?: 17 to 1

[1]Or does it?

Non Prophet notices that Focus on the Family is pushing Hugh Hewitt’s Blog, and apparently encouraging its members to start their own socially conservative blogs. The interview in the link is little more than Hewitt’s usual “righties rule, lefties drool” schtick. It’s interesting, however, that they think that it’s helpful to their movement to have a bunch of brand new right-wing blogs. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with encouraging people to start blogs, but it isn’t immediately obvious to me how this would help a movement.

I suspect that, to the extent that this is helpful, it’s more about creating a community of activists than it is about the blogs in and of themselves. I strongly suspect that a person who starts and maintains a political blog is likely to end up significantly more involved as an activist (volunteering, donating, making calls and emails to politicians and media) than the same person would be if he hadn’t started one. Someone who starts a blog sees current events differently, for better or worse; even a mildly partisan blogger can’t help looking for angles, comments, or points to score. Plus, blogging puts a person in contact with a bunch of like-minded people on their best, funniest, most intelligent behavior. (Present company excluded, of course.)

In any case, it can’t hurt, and new bloggers can use some encouragement. This is a rambling way of saying that newish bloggers should feel free to send me a link to a post that you’re proud of. I’ll post a link roundup of the ones that I like sometime next week.

For now, let me recommend Finnegan’s Wake. Although the authors have the boorish manners of Yalies, it would probably be a pillar of the left-wing blogs if it had been started in in 2002.

Robert Farley at Lawyers, Guns and Money asks, “Who is America’s worst blogger?”

My vote: Kim du Toit. Best known as the author of the infamous “The Pussification of the Western Male” (well-skewered by the Philosoraptor in “The duToitification of the Western Conservative”. I love the description of du Toit as “a Neanderthal crybaby”). He’s the guy who disgraced himself on the first anniversary of 9/11 with this vile essay, “Traitors Within Our Walls“, in which he throws around accusations of treason like Rip Taylor with confetti:

4. We find the manifestation of traitors in those who espouse causes other than (small “r”) republican ones: those who call themselves “progressives”, “socialists”, “communitarians”, “populists”, “globalists” and so on.

Then there’s “Let Africa Sink”:

So here’s my solution for the African fiasco: a high wall around the whole continent, all the guns and bombs in the world for everyone inside, and at the end, the last one alive should do us all a favor and kill himself.

He combines the quiet reasonableness of an Ann Coulter with the eliminationist rhetoric of Dave Neiwert’s worst nightmares. du Toit was a finalist in “The Vicious Instapundit Blogroll Contest” for this post giggling at the bruises of war protestors. I could go on and on. As I write this, his most recent post sighs that there may be a Democrat in the White House, due to Bush’s immigration policy. Shooting enthusiast du Toit concludes:

Just what we needed: Clintons in the White House, Part II. Oh, joy.

Range time.

“But who reads Kim Du Toit?” According to BlogAds, more people read Kim Du Toit than Andrew Sullivan or Hugh Hewitt. More people read Kim Du Toit than Tim Blair and Matthew Yglesias combined. There’s a big audience for this stuff.

Via MyDD:

TALLAHASSEE: Republicans on the House Choice and Innovation Committee voted along party lines Tuesday to pass a bill that aims to stamp out “leftist totalitarianism” by “dictator professors” in the classrooms of Florida’s universities…

While promoting the bill Tuesday, Baxley said a university education should be more than “one biased view by the professor, who as a dictator controls the classroom,” as part of “a misuse of their platform to indoctrinate the next generation with their own views.”

The bill sets a statewide standard that students cannot be punished for professing beliefs with which their professors disagree. Professors would also be advised to teach alternative “serious academic theories” that may disagree with their personal views.

According to a legislative staff analysis of the bill, the law would give students who think their beliefs are not being respected legal standing to sue professors and universities.

Students who believe their professor is singling them out for “public ridicule” – for instance, when professors use the Socratic method to force students to explain their theories in class – would also be given the right to sue.

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Kevin Drum recently wrote about the danger of the unceasing partisan war against the media:

If this continues, the eventual result will be an almost universal ability to ignore any news report you don’t like simply by claiming it’s the result of bias and therefore not to be trusted. This is unhealthy.

I’ve been noticing this for a while. It used to be limited to blog comment threads, more or less, but it’s been creeping up the food chain. Look at the way that popular right-wing bloggers talk about Seymour Hersh, for example. Nobel Prize-nominated blogger Tom Maguire from Just One Minute is one of the most intelligent, careful right-wing bloggers, but he’s not immune to it. See this uncharacteristic post.

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When I came onboard at Crooked Timber, it wasn’t without some trepidation among my august co-bloggers. As respected academics, they didn’t want CT to devolve into a cesspool of personal invective. Accordingly, my invitation asked me to refrain from using terms such as “douchebag” and “world’s biggest douchebag”.

Obviously, there was an exception in a sub-clause for Ramblin’ Christopher Hitchens. The Poor Man explains.

Rep. Edward Markey has offered a bill (note: .pdf file) to stop extraordinary rendition. Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings makes the basic case quite ably:

Extraordinary rendition is a loathsome practice. If we have grounds to think that someone is a terrorist, we ought to charge that person and try him or her in a court of law. If we do not have enough evidence to bring charges, our response should be to try to develop some, not to ship that person off to another country to be tortured. This is completely inconsistent with our respect for the rule of law, and with our claim to basic decency. It is unworthy of our country, and it should be banned.

Representative Markey’s bill has 52 co-sponsors. 51 are Democrats, and 1 is independent.

I’m not an idiot. I know that this bill will never pass in this Congress. But I’d like to see at least one Republican co-sponsor for this bill.

I’m going to ask that readers politely contact Connecticut moderate Republican Christopher Shays, who might be open to persuasion. His phone number in DC is 202-225-5541. In Bridgeport, CT, it’s 203-579-5870. He can be emailed from this page. My letter, which you can adapt or just use, is under the fold. Thank you in advance.
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Thoughts on the Oscars? I’ve got a few under the fold.
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I recently wrote about seeing Ray Takeyh, Senior Fellow on the Council on Foreign Relations, speak about the nuclear threat from Iran. At the time, he mentioned that he would be publishing a piece with Ken Pollack on the subject. I see, via Belgravia Dispatch, that it’s out.

The authors argue that the West cannot force Iran to stop their weapons program; they rule out a full-scale invasion, targeted bombing, or wishful thinking about a coup. But a combination of incentives and sanctions that provide Iran with significant economic benefits for nuclear compliance can make butter more appealing than guns. It’s a serious and detailed piece, well worth printing out and reading.

How likely is it that the Bush administration will pursue this path? I doubt that anyone has any better ideas, but after their pointed rejection of the comparable North Korean framework, it’d cause a bit of whiplash.