From the armchair general department … Back when the surge began, I suggested that one of the ways in which things could go wrong (and of course, there are loads of ways things can go wrong and only one way they can go right) would be:

d) Al-Sadr demonstrates his political nous once more, and calms down his operations, carrying out only enough hit-and-run attacks on US troops to keep his popularity up. Then he forms a nationalist bloc with one or more of the Sunni parties. Political collapse of the Maliki government.

Which was looking rather awfully close to how things were shaping up; while the level of violence was falling, the Maliki government was going nowhere fast politically and the anti-government forces were gathering strength. Furthermore, nobody seemed to really be doing much about this, apart from sitting round congratulating themselves that “the surge is working”.

Now, (and I would be very glad to be proved wrong on this one, as I have very little personal credibility at stake having been right on nearly every other important point about Iraq, and contrary to supposition I would very much like to see a world in which far fewer innocent people were in danger of horrible death on a daily basis), it’s all kicking off, apparently (via Chicken Yoghurt).

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A letter from the Notre Dame Observer in response to an Op-Ed in the paper.

Andy Gelman “links to”:http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2008/03/mps_for_sale.html a “new paper”:http://polmeth.wustl.edu/retrieve.php?id=740 on money and UK politics. The abstract speaks for itself.

While the role of money in policymaking is a central question in political economy research, surprisingly little attention has been given to the rents politicians actually derive from politics. We use both matching and a regression discontinuity design to analyze an original dataset on the estates of recently deceased British politicians. We find that serving in Parliament roughly doubled the wealth at death of Conservative MPs but had no discernible effect on the wealth of Labour MPs. We argue that Conservative MPs profited from office in a lax regulatory environment by using their political positions to obtain outside work as directors, consultants, and lobbyists, both while in office and after retirement. Our results are consistent with anecdotal evidence on MPs’ outside financial dealings but suggest that the magnitude of Conservatives’ financial gains from office was larger than has been appreciated.

Andy isn’t sure about the substantive impact that this has for political science, given the disparities between the amounts of money that flows through politicians’ hands in functioning democracies and the amounts of money that they may personally derive from office. I’m not so sure about that, as the monies sticking to politicians’ hands do likely help shape their incentives (e.g. one can plausibly speculate that Tories who rock the boat too much aren’t going to have much luck cashing in on those directorships), but, in any event, the fact that Andy doesn’t spot any obvious methodological problems makes me at least think that the observed effect is likely real.

As some of you may know, David Reidy (Philosophy, University of Tennessee) is working on an intellectual biography of John Rawls. He has done research in the Rawls archive at Harvard which contains much, but not all, of his correspondence. He asks of anyone who might be willing to share with him their correspondence with Rawls – baseball-related or otherwise – to please contact him directly at: “dreidy [at] utk [dot] edu”.

Henley:

So many publications have expressed such overwhelming interest in the perspectives of those of us who opposed the Iraq War when it had a chance of doing good that I have had to permit multiple publication of this article in most of the nation’s elite media venues – collecting, I am almost embarrassed to admit, a separate fee from each. Everyone recognizes that the opinions of those of us who were right about Iraq then are crucial to formulating sane, just policy now. It’s a lot of pressure, so please forgive anything glib or short you read herein: between articles, interviews, think-tank panels and presentations before government agencies and policy organs I’m not permitted to mention, I’m a little frazzled …

Sometimes I think the other question is almost more interesting: What the fuck were those other people thinking? Alas, answers to that one are hard to come by, since understandable shame has closed many mouths. So my own side of the story will have to suffice.

Apparently Amazon’s Kindle is selling well. So says their front page. I’ve always wanted an eBook reader I could really want. [click to continue…]

I have to say: Victor Davis Hanson should probably stop trying to write about the difference between right and wrong. (I know, I know. But this one is unusually terrible.) In response to the Obama speech, he objects that ‘racism is a universal wrong’. Furthermore, because there should be an “absolute sense of wrong and right that transcends situational ethics, context, and individual particulars”, it is not acceptable to attempt to mitigate charges of racism by pointing out parallel wrongs committed by others, or by adducing facts about the background of the racist; or by arguing that the racist has done good things, which ought to be weighed in the balance. Last but not least, it is apparently necessary to ‘disown’ all racists, regardless of prior personal attachment or loyalty.

Now, to note only the most obvious, flagrantly salient consequence of this rigorous refusal of ‘situational ethics’: Hanson has just provided an argument that Wright was absolutely right to damn America (right?) And the fact that Hanson is not saying so himself therefore gives me a chance to pull a serious face and say I am very sorry to see him falling prey to moral relativism and, if I may say so, kneejerk victimology. It must be all the rap music. [click to continue…]

Greg Mankiw, in the New York Times, demonstrating the deft common touch for which Harvard economists are famous:

No issue divides economists and mere Muggles more than the debate over globalization and international trade. Where the high priests of the dismal science see opportunity through the magic of the market’s invisible hand, Joe Sixpack sees a threat to his livelihood.

Next week, presumably, Greg Mankiw writes on the subject of “Why is it that economists have so little influence in politics?”
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The Washington Post has a “story”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/18/AR2008031802971.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=AR today on the problems of US terrorist watchlists. The emphasis of the story is on the nightmare that these lists generate for people who have names similar to those of people on the watchlist, and the difficulties that they have in getting off. There’s an interesting parallel debate happening in Europe at the moment, but it’s about a more profound question – are these terrorist lists, as they currently stand, a violation of human rights? And where there is disagreement over them, whose laws should apply? [click to continue…]

… at least, that was what Bart De Wever, the leader of the small Flemish nationalist party, said in “an interview in La Libre Belgique”:http://www.lalibre.be/actu/belgique/article/408221/bart-de-wever-ce-pays-n-existe-plus.html. He doesn’t deny that when Belgium was founded, in 1830, it corresponded to what the francophone elite wanted. But these days, he argues, the media are divided, the culture is divided, public opinion is divided. There is no longer a unified society.

Whether or not that is true, the latest news is that Yves Leterme managed to reach an agreement on a new government yesterday. But what a government, and what an agreement! The coalition includes the three major parties (liberals, social democrats, and Christian democrats) and is asymmetrical, since the francophone social democrats are taking part, whereas the Flemish social democrats are not. This is highly notable, since until now federal governments have, to the best of my knowledge, never been asymmetrical in this way. But more worrisome, the agreement they reached is regarded by commentators from across the spectrum as extremely vague and weak. There are no details on the budget, yet there is an agreement on taxcuts (a demand from the liberals) and on an increase of the social benefits (a demand from the social-democrats), in addition to a commitment not to create a budget deficit. Perhaps they do believe in manna from heaven after all. Nothing is said about the Flemish demands to regionalise the social security system, employment policies and other responsibilities they wanted to transfer from the national to the regional levels. Nothing is said about how they will solve the problem with Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde, without which future elections will be unconstitutional.

So no surprise that most media commentators ask: how long will this government last? De Standaard “summarizes”:http://www.standaard.be/Artikel/Detail.aspx?artikelId=DMF18032008_117 the situation aptly: “No team, no programme, no budget, no leader.” And even if this government lasts longer than when the first real decision needs to be taken, what will it contribute to solving “the profound problems that are haunting this country?”:https://crookedtimber.org/2007/09/19/the-ingredients-of-the-belgian-cocktail/

I’ve been thinking most of today about Barack Obama’s speech on race and American society; while we’ve tried to avoid too much horserace type commentary here in the last couple of months, I don’t think that this fits well under horse race politics. Before the speech, if you’d asked me which candidate I’d support if I could vote, I’d have said Obama. After the speech, it’s quite different.

I’ve lived in the US for the last four years as a permanent resident, and been quite happy here. Hearing Obama speak made me feel for the first time that I genuinely want to become a citizen of this country and a part of the larger project that he talked about, regardless of specific disagreements I might have. You hear a lot of guff in politicians’ speeches about how great America is; Obama seemed to me to be challenging America to be great, which is a very different and much riskier thing, as well as something I find much more compelling and attractive. Obviously, I’m only speaking for myself here (other CTers’ mileage may vary widely), and I’m not going to talk about it any more, but I felt it would be dishonest if I said nothing (which would be the easier option for an academic, I think; we’re not supposed to talk about sincere personal commitments without some degree of ostentatious sighing, display of jaded skepticism etc).

Tonight’s selection goes with last night’s. Late 1860’s US SF. Ergo, for fun, another Lulu edition.

"No," said Q. bravely, "at the least it must be very substantial. It must stand fire well, very well. Iron will not answer. It must be brick; we must have a Brick Moon."

Along with The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Three Little Pigs, Edward E. Hale’s "The Brick Moon" (1869) is one of the three great brickpunk classics of world literature.

Sandemanian technopreneurs look to the bold, bricks & mortar future, with a flywheel-launched, satellite-based global positioning system; but learn valuable life lessons instead.

Brick. It’s awesome stuff.

"The Brick Moon" was originally serialized in The Atlantic Monthly. And there is an interesting thematic connection with the Steam Man, above and beyond the nigh simultaneous publication. Apparently the inspiration for the Steam Man was – the BigDog of its day – this. "However, by observing carefully the cause of failure, persevering and perfecting the man-form, and by substituting steam in place of the perpetual motion machine, the present success was attained." Words to live by.

As I was saying, in "The Brick Moon", our protagonists are likewise weaned off unreal dreams. "Like all boys, we had tried our hands at perpetual motion. For me, I was sure I could square the circle, if they would give me chalk enough." Then, having put away childish things, they are soon enough hyrodynamically flywheeling tons of bricks into the lower atmosphere.

Here’s a free PDF.

Arguably, this version of the three little pigs is even better.

If you are more old school, here’s Gilgamesh: "Go up on the wall of Uruk and walk around, examine its foundation, inspect its brickwork thoroughly. Is not (even the core of) the brick structure made of kiln-fired brick, and did not the Seven Sages themselves lay out its plans?"

Brick. Awesome.

I’m pretty sure I last saw one of these while playing Half-Life 2, but now it appears to be walking around New England somewhere. Just look at how it reacts about 40″ in when the guy gives it a kick.

We’ve had a few more offensive trolls and sockpuppeteers than usual (that is, more numerous and more offensive) recently, and it seems to be time to make an explicit statement of our policy in this respect. You can read the comments policy in the left-hand sidebar. We’ve just added the following:

We respect the preference of many genuine commenters for pseudonymity and will protect their privacy. However, this respect does not extend to those who abuse pseudonymity to launch personal attacks on posters or other commenters, post racist or sexist comments or employ sockpuppets. We will, if appropriate, publish the identity of such abusers and share their identifying information with other sites.

There’s nothing new here, and we’ve acted on this policy in the past. But it seems like a good time to spell it out.