Matt Yglesias “takes issue”:http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/08/blaming_the_ivory_tower.php with Michael Ignatieff’s _New York Times Magazine_ “article”:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/magazine/05iraq-t.html?ex=1343966400&en=cb304d04accc6df8&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss about why he screwed up on Iraq. [click to continue…]

Someone has gone and collected some numbers (or, rather, has finished the job started here and, before that, here).

Caveat: I know not who ‘Largo’ is, nor what Phreadom is all about (but they have a Friends of Ron Paul thing in their sidebar). The data is collected from here, hence verifiable (I assume). It turns out Ron Paul is the candidate who has collected the most financial contributions from military personnel (across all branches; presently serving and retired.) I’ll pass along the totals, going just far enough down the list to give us our major players: [click to continue…]

I’ve been following the Peak Oil debate with a mildly sceptical eye for some time, and it struck me a while ago that despite high prices, global oil output hadn’t grown much, but hadn’t declined either. I came up with the innovative description of our current position as “Plateau Oil“. If I had bothered with Google, I would have noticed that the International Energy Agency had offered the same description two weeks earlier. And if I’d thought about for more than a couple of seconds, I would have realised that the supply of topographical metaphors is so limited as to make this a forced move (Australians use “Tableland” to describe the same landform and there’s also “Mesa”, but Mesa Oil is taken, and “Tableland Oil” sounds silly)

Anyway, why are we (apparently) observing Plateau Oil and what does it mean?

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“Marty Lederman”:http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/08/jane-mayer-on-black-sites.html on Jane Mayer’s extraordinary – and horrible – _New Yorker_ “story”:http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/13/070813fa_fact_mayer?printable=true on the routinization of torture in CIA ‘black sites’ (I suspect he’s also writing on the basis of his own sources here).

I have repeatedly argued here that there is no justification for keeping secret what interrogation techniques the CIA is permitted to use. In particular, it is absurd to “classify” something that is revealed to people outside the government who have no duty of confidentiality, i.e., to the detainees on whom the techniques are used. Those persons are free to disclose the information to others, as they have now done to Red Cross interviewers. Because of this, it becomes necessary to detain these persons, in isolation, presumably forever, _in order to impose a prior restraint on their speech concerning their knowledge of what our government has done to them._ In a strange sort of circular logic, the interrogation becomes the justification for indefinite detention, even long after the interrogation ends. Thus, as Jane writes, “[t]he utter isolation of these detainees has been described as essential to America’s national security,” so that they cannot reveal what happened to them.

I’d like to see some of our libertarian law professor colleagues give their views on this. For example, “Eugene Volokh”:http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_07_29-2007_08_04.shtml#1186164435 recently – and correctly in my view – has blogged about the problems in issuing a restraining order on a possible paedophile who hasn’t committed any crimes, talking about the dangers of “letting courts restrain movement simply based on people’s even repugnant ideologies and desires.” Does he believe that imprisoning people without trial (however repugnant their ideologies and desires), torturing them and continuing to imprison them indefinitely while preventing them from having contact with lawyers because they might reveal the methods that have been used to torture them is justifiable? One would hope not, but he and other prominent law professors in the blogosphere have thus far proved “remarkably”:https://crookedtimber.org/2004/06/13/eugene-volokh-hits-the-eject-button/ “unwilling”:https://crookedtimber.org/2005/11/06/libertarian-litmus-test/ to express more then a certain degree of perhaps-eggs-must-be-broken-to-make-an-omelette type squeamishness about the topics of torture and indefinite detention before swiftly changing the subject to something more congenial. Some kinds of restraints on free speech are more worthy of comment than others, it would seem (perhaps they’ll prove me wrong).

Dani Rodrik argues that much disagreement in economics is between “first-best” economists and “second-best” economists. The former take Mark 1:14-15 as their text, and believe the Kingdom of God is at Hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel. The second believe, with Proverbs 16:18 that pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.

I pose a hermeneutic riddle of sorts. Consider the anecdote in the linked post:

At the end of his presentation, he allowed questions. The first supplicant approached the microphone and hopefully inquired, “Mr. Buckley, what do you think about Rush Limbaugh?” This was during the time when Rush was still something of a rising star. His rhetoric was bombastic, hard-edged, and wickedly funny. Members of the audience shifted forward in their seats expectantly as Buckley answered by telling the following story.

There were two Spaniards sitting in a bar. One asked the other, “What do you think about General Franco?” Instead of answering, the man gestured for his friend to follow him outside. Once on the sidewalk, he motioned for the friend to follow him to his car. They got in the car and drove to a forest. Deep in the woods, he parked the car and beckoned the friend to hike with him down to a lake. At the edge of the lake, he pointed to a boat which they boarded. He grabbed the oars and rowed to the center of the lake. Finally, he sat still, looked his friend in the eyes and paused for a moment. “I like him.” Buckley told the story so brilliantly and created so much suspense, the denouement brought the house down amid gales of laughter and happy applause.

I have to admit it’s funny. But I don’t actually get it. Why does the Spaniard have to drag the guy all the way out into the lake? I guess it’s supposed to be a ‘the leftist made me do it’ thing. But the joke seems to be at pains to refute that reading. Since, after all, how could a leftist force you to like someone?

I just watched Pan’s Labyrinth. I liked it. Belle and I debated whether it had a happy or a sad ending. I think it had a happy ending. But I find it hard to believe that, if you asked someone whether it had a happy or sad ending, they would haul you out into the middle of a damn lake and tell you it had a sad ending because [PLOT SPOILER] [click to continue…]

You are really not helping your case for massively preferential taxation here, hedge fund guy:

Private-equity executives say they never dreamed that the tax status of their payouts would be questioned. “I don’t think that anybody felt it would ever be challenged,” said Scott M. Sperling, managing director of Thomas H. Lee Partners, a private-equity firm. Managers’ earnings are “capital gains in every technical and spiritual sense.”

That guy is so far at the front of the line that he may be up against the wall right this minute, absent any revolution whatsoever.

Dean Barnett, after digging up ranty stuff in a Kos comment box, then noting the post itself was mild-mannered:

With the Yearly Kos about to convene, I think it’s important to note what the Daily Kos is and, more importantly, what it isn’t. Markos Moulitsas and his front-pagers had nothing to do with these comments. He and they have grown much too smart to engage in such public displays of idiocy. But Markos doesn’t lead the Daily Kos; he sits atop it.

An interesting standard: blogs are to be judged exclusively by their comment boxes.

This seems like a useful snippet for someone to have, for talking points purposes, if they are getting interviewed about the whole ‘Kos Hate Site’ thing. Prominent right-wing blogger admits Kos postings are, on the whole, even-keeled – as befits the site’s prominence. After all, surely right-wing blogs generate their share of angry comment box froth? Barnett is judicious, possibly to a fault:

the right has its sliver of kooks and misfits who jam every event into a one-size-fits-all-events ideological prism

Ahem.

One of the reasons I was so amused by my Soft Boys YouTube discovery is that it’s funny to see a young Kimberley Rew banging his head so furiously, alongside Robyn Hitchcock. He can really play guitar. His more recent song-writing/performing accomplishments are, to my ear, less convincingly rocking.

In other news, I was discussing TV and film with a student and it emerged that, since he hadn’t been born yet when The Simpsons started running, naturally he thinks of The Simpsons as a thing that has just always been there. A comedy equivalent of electricity and hot running water, if you will. Curious. (By the by, Amazon has seasons 1-10marked down 55%. If you are like me, you snap that sort of thing up.)

In other news, I see Keith Richards is writing his autobiography.

From a friend of Scott’s (update — and, now I know who it is, of mine!), this. All our friends (mine and Scott’s) who suffered at Barnes’s hands, spit now.

The British pro-war “left” and its hangers-on (such as the crypto-neocon Oliver Kamm) are busy screaming abuse at traitors to the cause in the aftermath of “apostate-from-decency” Johann Hari’s _Dissent_ review of Nick Cohen (see “Chris Brooke for links”:http://virtualstoa.net/2007/07/30/hari-cohen-cage-match/ ). The contrast between the current scene and the “heroic” early phase of “decency” (the early days of the Iraq war) reminds me of some lines from Auden’s _Letter to Lord Byron_:

bq. Today, alas, that happy crowded floor
Looks very different: many are in tears:
Some have retired to bed and locked the door;
And some swing madly from the chandeliers;
Some have passed out entirely in the rears;
Some have been sick in corners; the sobering few
Are trying hard to think of something new.

Conor Foley will no doubt add to their discomfort with “his own brilliant dissection of Cohen”:http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/conor_foley/2007/08/trotting_out_tired_cliches.html . The highlight of Foley’s piece is a hilarious quote from Nick Cohen himself in which he characterizes his opponents:

bq. Rather than accepting the psychological consequences of confessing error, people lose their bearings. They talk only to friends. They imagine conspiracies as they seek the worst possible motives for their critics. They retreat into coteries and speak in code … To cut a long story short, they go a little mad.

I’m a big fan of the “Lifehacker”:http://lifehacker.com/ site, especially for their software tips, but when you read them every day you get to see that their lifestyle advice is pretty much all over the place. Yesterday’s “roundup”:http://lifehacker.com/software/it-all-comes-together/communication-roundup-284437.php includes a link back to a “May entry”:http://lifehacker.com/software/personal-relationships/how-to-improve-your-body-language-256873.php on body language:

bq. Slow down a bit – this goes for many things. Walking slower not only makes you seem more calm and confident, it will also make you feel less stressed. If someone addresses you, don’t snap you’re neck in their direction, turn it a bit more slowly instead.

But as recently as last Sunday, they treated us to “Improve Your Self-Confidence”:http://lifehacker.com/software/self-improvement/improve-your-self+confidence-283450.php, which linked to “Ten Ways to Instantly Build Self-Confidence”:http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/10-ways-to-instantly-build-self-confidence/ :

bq. One of the easiest ways to tell how a person feels about herself is to examine her walk. Is it slow? tired? painful? Or is it energetic and purposeful? People with confidence walk quickly. They have places to go, people to see, and important work to do. Even if you aren’t in a hurry, you can increase your self confidence by putting some pep in your step. Walking 25% faster will make to you look and feel more important.

I think I’ll just sit where I am for now.

Via “John Gruber”:http://www.dashes.com/anil/2007/07/pixels-are-the-new-pies.html I see “Anil Dash”:http://www.dashes.com/anil/2007/07/pixels-are-the-new-pies.html wondering about the trend toward “square blocks of color … being used to represent percentage-based statistics instead of the traditional pie chart.” Like this.

I’d seen the one on the left — from a “New York Times story”:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/magazine/29wwln-lede-t.html?ref=magazine about beliefs in the afterlife, and wondered about it, too. The white block in the middle of the Times graphic presumably represents “Don’t Knows” but it is not labeled. This is especially odd in the context of belief in the afterlife, as agnosticism is a recognized point of view and so not equivalent to “Don’t know” answers on other survey questions.

The main problem with this style of presentation is that it uses two dimensions to display unidimensional data. As the graphic on the right, especially, makes clear, the layout of the subcomponents of the graph is arbitrary. Maybe laying out responses on a line is impractical in a newspaper column. This is one reason pie charts are popular, but their problems are well known. (Word to the wise: don’t use them.)

“Mosaic plots”:http://rosuda.org/~unwin/Japan2003/UnwinISMTokyoNov03mosaic.pdf superficially resemble the ones pictured here, and they are sometimes used to very good effect. But the whole point of a mosaic plot is that it visually represents several categorical variables at once. It’s a picture of an n x n table, in other words, where the sizes of the blocks reflect the cell values in the table. “Here’s an example.”:http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~ihaka/120/Lectures/lecture17.pdf Even here you have to be careful interpreting the results. But the boxes above take this kind of picture but use it with only one variable, which doesn’t make any sense at all.

This is a pretty weird post from “Ross Douthat”:http://rossdouthat.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/07/what_is_eugenics.php.

Ezra writes that it’s “very unfair” to apply the word “eugenics” to, say, the contemporary trend toward the elimination of Down’s Syndrome by selective abortion, because “traditionally, the term has been used to denote efforts to direct or encourage breeding by high status, socially dominant individuals in order to select for their characteristics, and discourage breeding by low status individuals (criminals, the insane, blacks, etc) in order to wipe their characteristics from the gene pool. For Ross to conflate that with parents who decide to abort infants with medically disastrous genetic mutations is a real stretch.” First of all, Down’s Syndrome is not a “medically disastrous” genetic mutation, unless you take an extremely broad definition of the term “disastrous.” Second, while the means of “traditional eugenics” were obviously very different from what’s emerging now – involving state power rather than parental choice, and selective breeding/sterilization rather than prenatal genetic screening and abortion – the ends were the same: the genetic improvement of the human species through the scientific management of the reproductive process.

Does Ross _seriously_ believe that people who have abortions because their foetus appears likely to have Tay-Sachs syndrome or Downs syndrome are doing so because their “end” is “the genetic improvement of the human species?” Can he even realistically contend that the genetic improvement of the human species crosses most people’s minds when they are making this kind of decision?? This claim seems to me to be ridiculous on its face, regardless of your underlying position on whether abortion is a good or bad thing.

What’s going on here, as best as I understand it, is something like the following. There’s a long-standing label in US politics called “progressive,” which used to mean something like “social democrat or non-revolutionary socialist.” As vaguely-left Democrats have increasingly become disenchanted with the term ‘liberal’ and its milksop connotations, they too have begun to embrace the term “progressive.” However, for them, it doesn’t mean ‘social democratic, but instead something like ‘vaguely pro-union liberal with balls’ (or ovaries depending … you get my drift). This in turn has led critics on the right to start harking back to some of the old-style socialist progressives’ sins, and to try to hang them around the necks of Matt Yglesias, Ezra Klein and company.

Here, Ross has been trying to assert in a series of posts that there is some sort of continuity between ‘old’ progressives’ views on eugenics, and ‘new’ progressives’ views on abortion. Which is kinda nonsensical. The modern liberal position on abortion isn’t rooted in the imperative towards genetic improvement of the species, or anything like it. It’s rooted in a particular notion of individual rights. That’s why they call it ‘choice’ rather than ’embrace your genetic duty by destroying imperfect foetuses for the benefit of mankind.’ The old-style eugenics of H.G. Wells, Swedish social democrats, Anglo-American family planners etc has _nothing to do_ with modern liberalism, or with liberals who have started to call themselves progressives. Instead, if it’s an embarrassment for anyone, it’s an embarrassment for social democrats like myself, who have some real continuities with that older tradition (although hopefully not with that particular part of it).