The World Cup is only a week away, which means there is actually a reason to be in Tucson in June, if like me you (i) want to watch the games but (ii) are too cheap to buy the cable package and (iii) only have a useless old TV in the garage somewhere. (We’re close enough to the border to pick up the Mexican stations.) “Here”:http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1790025,00.html is a self-hating Englishman, deciding to support Germany because English footballers are oiks and English football fans are thugs. At least you’re in the competition, mate, unlike “some countries”:http://www.fai.ie/ I could mention. (“Here”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2tjfbNRdz8 is some nostalgia. It’s all we have.) Given Ireland’s regrettable absence, I think I will be cheering for the “Socceroos”:http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/, seeing as my daughter was born in Canberra. The Aussies “have to play Brazil”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/world_cup_2006/4973552.stm in their group. Probably their best bet is to hope the Brazilians will be confused by the Australian kit, which looks a lot like Brazil’s. I’m also hoping that the “U.S. team”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/world_cup_2006/teams/usa/default.stm does well, just because it will piss off the footie snobs.

Meanwhile, here are two terrific bits of World Cup commentary, both much better than the now-hackneyed “Gol” guy: a clip in Arabic from “Kuwait vs Czechoslovakia”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IS48giKs1U in 1982, and one in Dutch from the last minute of “Holland vs Argentina”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqEWpHuib9A in 1998. Both commentaries are out there in the realm of religious/sexual ecstasy.

After telling us that we shouldn’t worry about global warming because the _Denver Tribune_ predicted climate change in 1874, David Kopel “leaps to the defence”:http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/opinion_columnists/article/0,2777,DRMN_23972_4747222,00.html of noted loon, William Gray, in his weekly column for the _Rocky Mountain News_.

bq. … former Vice President Al Gore claims that scientific skeptics of global warming are merely being paid off by big oil companies. But in fact, Colorado’s most prominent skeptic is Colorado State University professor of atmospheric science William Gray, who has directly harmed his own financial interests by speaking out … [a]s detailed in a major profile in The Washington Post, … while the Boulder Daily Camera reprinted the story of Colorado’s controversial scientist, The Denver Post – which has access to Washington Post articles – did not. … The News and The Denver Post do recognize Gray as an expert on atmospheric science, and have published dozens and dozens stories citing his hurricane forecasts and analysis … Yet in the News and Post combined, one can find only a few paragraphs even mentioning Gray’s analysis of global warming. … by little noting the evidence presented of eminent experts such as William Gray, the papers are presenting a skewed and misleading perspective on the scientific data.

Kopel curiously fails to mention Gray’s insights into the politics of global warming, which receive prominent mention in the aforementioned “article”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/23/AR2006052301305.html.

bq. Gray has his own conspiracy theory. He has made a list of 15 reasons for the global warming hysteria. The list includes the need to come up with an enemy after the end of the Cold War, and the desire among scientists, government leaders and environmentalists to find a political cause that would enable them to “organize, propagandize, force conformity and exercise political influence. Big world government could best lead (and control) us to a better world!” Gray admits that he has a dark take on human nature: “I have a demonic view on this.”

Cue the black helicopters (perhaps, given the subject at hand, to the music from “Thus Spake Zarathustra”)

In short, Kopel’s entirely correct in his claim that it isn’t only hacks who deny the mounting evidence for global warming. It’s cranks too.

You know, it’s very rare that I find myself agreeing with some Instapundit post about terrorism. Vanishingly rarely. And I find the tedious “media bias” paranoia on the right to be…tedious–wait did I say that? Still, the NYT account of the recent Canadian government action (in which they claim to have arrested the members of a terrorist group previously under monitoring when they accepted delivery of some 3 tons of ammonium nitrate) is sort of strange. I obviously don’t suggest that the headline should read “Muslims, trying to kill you, or trying to kill you and your children?”. That said, it actually is a little weird to have the info run as follows: 1) 17 Canadians arrested for plotting to blow things up; 2) the men were mainly of South Asian descent and varying ages as follows; 3) none were known to be affiliated with al Qaida (why would we even think they were? Oh.); 4) RCMP assistant comissioner notes: “They represent the broad strata of our society. Some are students, some are employed, some are unemployed” (right, now this is crazy, but do they have anything in common at all, like adhering to some fringe-group religious extremism? Anything?); 5) something something something; 6) something something something; 7) other stuff, also, stuff about border security, possibly zinging those who obsess about our southern border at the expense of real security; 8) “Islamic extremists.” Wait, what? Islamic extremists? Surely not!

It merely invites suspicion to dance around an obviously relevant point. I do not think that the risk of anti-Muslim pogroms among readers of the NYT rises appreciably as the issue is mentioned in earlier paragraphs of the article. If Nazis plot to blow stuff up, just go on and say they’re apparently Nazis in paragraph one. I promise not to go look up some random blonde guy and pistol-whip him. Unless he’s this one ex of my sister’s, who’s a racist skin, and…what? OT, sorry. If radical Islamists plot to blow things up, then just go on and say so.

UPDATE: James Wimberley’s point about the “Nazi’s” noted. Namely that they’re Nazis.

FURTHER UPDATE: I thought you all knew enough about me to know that I think Roger Simon is a crazy person–with a hat! It’s my birthday and everything, y’all; be charitible.

Despite his modesty, we’re going to miss Ted hugely; if nothing else, as “Kieran”:https://crookedtimber.org/2004/06/21/crooked-timbers-greatest-hits/ pointed out two years ago, Ted has been responsible for many of our most widely read posts. Among the posts I’ve particularly enjoyed or found thought-provoking over the years are his piece on “MEChA”:https://crookedtimber.org/2003/09/02/stories, and his _National Review_ classics, “Punk the National Review”:https://crookedtimber.org/2004/02/03/punk-the-national-review/ and “Today’s Activities on the National Review Cruise”:https://crookedtimber.org/2003/11/12/todays-activities-on-the-national-review-cruise/. Another Timberite suggests “Please Call Your Senators about Torture Today”:https://crookedtimber.org/2005/10/05/please-call-your-senators-about-torture-today. Others may have other posts (including ones from before Ted joined CT) that they prefer- feel free to mention them in comments.

Siva Vaidhyanathan “takes inspiration”:http://www.nyu.edu/classes/siva/archives/003175.html from the recent “NAFTHE decision”:http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/worldwide/story/0,,1785634,00.html to boycott Israeli academics who don’t disassociate themselves from their country’s policies.

bq. Please boycott me. While you are at it, boycott all other American professors. Do not invite us to conferences. Do not publish our work. Do not read our blogs (after this post, of course). We have a lot to answer for. I am an American academic who has not done enough to prevent my government from launching an illegal and counterproductive invasion of a sovereign country. On my watch, my country has also imprisoned thousands of innocent people without charge and without instigating a process for demonstrating their harmlessness. It has engaged in massive surveillance of communication both overseas and domestic without regard for domestic laws or the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. Many of my fellow American academics have failed to prevent our government from doing these and many other bad things. So we deserve to be punished. Clearly, we are craven collaborators.

This is a far better response to the silliness of the motion than Larry Summer’s over-the-top claim that the boycott was “motivated by anti-Semitism”:http://news.ft.com/cms/s/702d69f2-f10b-11da-9338-0000779e2340.html, which grants the authors of the motion a level of world historical significance than they sorely lack. Their self-importance smacks less of Julius Streicher than the “Skibbereen Eagle”:http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1:142795416/Now+the+bad+news+-+its+yet+another+tsar~R~(Column).html?refid=SEO. Steven Poole’s “post”:http://unspeak.net/C226827506/E20060531171014/index.html on the sorry affair is also worth reading.

Update: as this is degenerating into the usual pro/anti Israel fight, I’m not allowing any further comments.

The main union representing academics in the UK is “in dispute with university employers at the moment”:http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/01/world/europe/01cnd-britain.html?hp&ex=1149220800&en=a1097c439ced02b9&ei=5094&partner=homepage, a dispute that is getting nastier all the time. Academics are refusing to assess students’ work, leading to the worry that many of them will be unable to get classified degrees this summer, and universities are now threatening to withhold a proportion of salaries (30 per cent in my institutions, up to 100 per cent in some other) as a penalty for partial breach of contract. I’m supporting the action as a loyal union member, but also because there is something right about the union case. However, as an egalitarian liberal, I can’t feel other that unhappy about some of the arguments put for higher academic salaries.

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“Miriam Burstein”:http://littleprofessor.typepad.com/the_little_professor/2006/05/cliche.html on academics in the movies.

bq. The $1,000,000 office. All faculty offices have built-in, glass-fronted, mahogany bookcases, as well as executive desks and leather chairs. Moreover, all professors keep their antique books _in_ their offices. Where _are_ these offices, and, more importantly, when can I have one?

“P. O’Neill”:http://bestofbothworlds.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_bestofbothworlds_archive.html#114798404611215661 on Flack Central Station and supersized astroturf.

bq. McDonald’s] is also funding TCS Daily, an arm of the Washington lobbying and public-relations firm DCI Group, that is making more pointed attacks against Mr. Schlosser and his work. Last week, TCS Daily launched a Web site called Fast Talk Nation that called his theories “rhetoric” and argued that he wants to decriminalize marijuana … Last Friday, TCS Daily abruptly closed the Fast Talk Nation site two days after its launch. James Glassman, who says he “hosts” the TCS Daily site, says he closed the Fast Talk Nation site because he wanted to pool his resources with the broader industry’s Best Food Nation site. … Are we really expected to believe that anything TCS now publishes about the film is not influenced by the food industry even with the more blatant lobbying now hived off to a separate — industry funded — website?

“Nick Antosca”:http://brothercyst.blogspot.com/2006/05/interview-with-john-crowley-contains_30.html interviews John Crowley.

Ezra Klein has a nice explanation of the problems with the health insurance proposal in Murray’s In Our Hands. (Read also numerous comments in the comment section which pretty much do for it anyway). He also expresses puzzlement at the laudatory nature of my review; because topnotch CT commenter bob mcmanus joins in, I explain my reasons there. Ezra says:

Give me a plan that’s $10,000, plus universal health care, funded through transparent means, and ratchets back in a more intelligent way, and we’ll talk.

I’ll follow up next week (there’s a promise) with references to left-wing versions of the idea that everyone should already know about but apparently doesn’t, in the hope of prompting Ezra into talking.

Laura asks:

Please tell the blogosphere one cool thing that you’ve done that you suspect that nobody else has done. And I don’t want to hear about athletic sexual events, because it’s impossible to shock me. I told one story in the comments section yesterday. Your turn.

Jane Galt dressed as the Pope for Halloween. Go there to add you 2 cents (and do it non-anonymously if you dare)!

It seems “nearly certain”:http://www.repubblica.it/2005/l/sezioni/cronaca/sofri5/mastella-grazia/mastella-grazia.html that the Italian government is going to pardon Adriano Sofri. This has been a continuing sore on the Italian legal system – to all appearances, Sofri was stitched up for a murder he didn’t commit. It’s a slightly involved story (Carlo Ginzburg’s book, “The Judge and the Historians”:http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/radical_history_review/v080/80.1reid.html, gives a good account). Sofri was one of the founders of _Lotta Continua_, an autonomist Marxist group which bitterly denounced an Italian policeman, Luigi Calabresi, as a symbol of all that was rotten and corrupt in the Italian state (an anarchist railway worker, Pino Pinelli, had mysteriously taken it upon himself to jump to his death from Calabresi’s office window while under interrogation – the subject of Dario Fo’s play _The Accidental Death of an Anarchist_). Some years after Calabresi himself was murdered, presumably by leftists, a former _Lotta Continua_ supporter came to the police and claimed that Sofri and others had ordered the killing. Despite the weakness of this evidence (the witness appears to have been highly unreliable), Sofri and two others were convicted of murder. This has been a _cause celebre_ for the Italian left ever since. There’s no real evidence that Sofri was guilty of anything more than overheated and rather unpleasant rhetoric, for which he has since apologized – it’s good to see that this miscarriage of justice is about to be righted.

The University of California Berkeley has run a trial program this past semester that makes webcasts available from around 30 courses. (MIT also has had some course videos and other material available for some time.) They also have special lectures and events available here. The courses range from Art 32, “Foundations of American Cyberculture”, to EE 240, “Advanced Analog Integrated Circuits”, to Psych 130, “Clinical Psychology”. There is one philosophy course – Phil 7, “Existentialism in Literature and Film” by Hubert Dreyfus. His course has 27 lectures; each appears to be a little over one hour. Video is available for many of courses, but not Dreyfus’s.

It’s probably long since time that I hang up my blogging spurs. This isn’t a result of any sort of bad news; mostly, it’s just a matter of time. I’ve been increasingly unable or unwilling to carve it out, and that’s not likely to change any time soon.

I don’t want to write a “whither blogging?” bit any more than you want to read it, so I’ll spare you. Suffice it to say that I believe that Sturgeon’s Law (“Ninety percent of everything is crap”) has proven to be much more supportable than each and every rah-rah slogan about how “the blogosphere is self-correcting” or whatnot. I still believe that there are plenty of jewels in the political blogosphere making the world a slightly better place, including (but certainly not limited to) Obsidian Wings, Radley Balko, Kevin Drum, The Editors, Jim Henley, Brad DeLong, Tim Lambert… And that Matt Welch’s old article has held up better than most anything I’d have written.

It was an act of extraordinary generosity for the brilliant folks here at Crooked Timber to give me a platform and lend me some of their credibility. I hope that I haven’t tarnished it too badly. It’s been a great pleasure and honor to be part of the crew here, and I wish them nothing but continued success and good luck.

So, are you ready for a rave review of Charles Murray’s latest book, In Our Hands, on Crooked Timber (yes, that Charles Murray)? Its a book that just about anyone interested in policy ideas ought to be read; I recommend it highly and without reservation. There, that’s that out of the way.

So here goes. Before writing about it I did a quick google search, and was glad to see it being attacked by some of his colleagues on the right; it confirmed my sense that there’s a lot of good stuff in it, and that the wool is not being pulled over my eyes. More than that, I found that some of the criticisms seemed dead on as comments, but not as criticisms. One blogger points out that whereas “flat tax” reform builds in a constituency that will always press to keep taxes as low as possible, a universal basic income grant of the kind Murray proposes builds in a constituency that will always pressure to make the benefit as large as possible. That sounds right, and good, to me. Liberals also attack it, but my sense of all those criticisms is that they are simply ad hominem. I’ll suggest a way to avoid ad hominem responses later. But, I’m running ahead of myself.

The central proposal is for a basic income grant of $10,000 per year for every citizen aged 21 and above.

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Brad DeLong and Matt McIrvin are annoyed by this Joel Achenbach piece on global warming sceptics. On the contrary, I think it’s a great instance of how the truth can be told while sticking to the much-criticised rules of journalistic objectivity (not the same thing as ‘balance’).

Achenbach reports the scientific evidence on global warming then investigates the “parallel Earth” (his words) of the soi-disant “sceptics”. As he says

It is a planet where global warming isn’t happening — or, if it is happening, isn’t happening because of human beings. Or, if it is happening because of human beings, isn’t going to be a big problem. And, even if it is a big problem, we can’t realistically do anything about it other than adapt.

Achenbach then proceeds to interview the sceptics, lets them speak for themselves, and lets the readers draw their own conclusion.

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