The _Boston Review_ has a fascinating debate on the future of American foreign policy, with a long “lead essay”:http://bostonreview.net/BR30.1/walt.html by Stephen Walt, and responses from Richard Falk, Joseph Nye, Ivo Daalder, Mary Kaldor and Ann-Marie Slaughter among others. The Walt piece is on-line; the others are only available in the print edition at the moment (but if you enjoy CT, you should “subscribe”:http://bostonreview.net/subscribe.html to the _Review_; you’ll almost certainly like it, and it’s a cheap read). I suspect that he’s going to get most flak for his bald statement that it is not in the national interest of the US to offer unconditional support to Israel, but the most interesting bit of the essay, to my mind, was his discussion of non-proliferation policy. Walt is a realist – perhaps one of the three or four most prominent IR realists out there – and he’s calling for the US to give up most of its nuclear weapons in order better to encourage other states to sign up to a revamped version of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

bq. If the United States is serious about reducing the dangers of nuclear terrorism (and it should be), then it must offer the rest of the world a “grand bargain.” In exchange for a more reliable nonproliferation regime (accompanied by an aggressive effort to secure existing stockpiles of loose nuclear materials) and the verifiable abandonment of nuclear ambitions by countries like Iran and North Korea, the United States would simultaneously agree to 1) abandon current plans to build a new generation of nuclear weapons, 2) significantly reduce its own nuclear arsenal (while retaining a few hundred warheads as a deterrent against direct attacks on the United States), and 3) take concrete steps to reduce the threat that it presents to so-called rogue states, including a willingness to sign some sort of nonaggression agreement with them.

This seems to me to be a thoroughly sensible set of arguments – but I’m rather surprised to find a realist advocating them. I’m even more surprised to find that I agree more with Walt’s essay than with the replies of some of his more ‘liberal’ critics such as Slaughter and Daalder (but then Walt, unlike Slaughter and Daalder, got it right on Iraq). Anyway, it’s a fascinating essay – anyone who’s interested in these debates should definitely give it a read.

NB – as per my usual policy, comments relating to Israel or Palestine will be expunged, to prevent the comment section degenerating into a flame-fest.

I’d just about finished this lengthy post when I got the news that our readers and fellow bloggers are calling for lots of juicy attackblogging instead of dryasdust issues analysis. But it’s done now, so I’m going to post it anyway.

Matthew Yglesias had a well-argued piece a couple of days ago on Social Security and the Efficient Markets Hypothesis (EMH), in which he quoted me on the (generally left-wing) implications of rejecting the EMH. This spurred me to start on a post (or maybe a series) on the EMH, the equity premium and the implications for Social Security reform. Most of what I have to say is consistent with what Matt and others have said previously, but perhaps there will be a bit of a new perspective.

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Letters are what we get:

Regarding destroying the sun and all–you missed a good one. Power Line’s “Hindrocket” finished off a pessimistic quote on the Iraqi elections from Jimmy Carter by noting: “Jimmy Carter isn’t just misguided or ill-informed. He’s on the other side.”

I gotta say, I’m a conservative and all (of the old-fashioned, pre-Bush type), and I dislike Carter as much as the next conservative, but openly accusing an ex-president of treason is way, way, way, way, way out of @#$@#ing line.

Why, oh why, do left-wing blogs not keep this kind of odious insanity ever before the public eye, like right-wing blogs with their Democratic Underground posts and their Ward Churchill obsession? The past year’s worth of John Derbyshire’s commentary alone would be enough to tar all of wingerdom with the taint of racist, xenophobic idiocy from now until the midterm elections. And this is from the so-called “in-flight magazine of Air Force One.”

The sooner you guys take a breather from pointy-headed debates over “issues” and devote some time to good, old-fashioned propaganda, the quicker we can crush the caricature of conservatism that is the “right-wing movement’ and get back to real left-right debate in this country.

J

I should note that (1) I’ve got to disagree about taking a breather from pointy-headed debates. Personally, I’d like a little from Column A, and a little from Column B; I think that folks like Josh Marshall and Kevin Drum are having a real effect in the debate about Social Security privatization. (2) I don’t know J, and can’t personally vouch for his conservative credentials, and (3) I think we do a reasonable job with the odious insanity. But, “reasonable” doesn’t mean “effective”.

Related post from Digby.

UPDATE: Here’s a good collection from MyDD.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Discover the Network! I’ve been wondering about the connection between the well-known liberals Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Ayatollah Khomeini and Barak Obama. Now I know!

ON A ROLL: David Horowitz, you’ve done it again! So I clicked on Katrina vanden Heuvel, an unambigious liberal and presumably a juicy target. Here’s the beginning of the profile:

· Editor and co-owner of the leftwing magazine The Nation
· Limousine leftwing daughter of William J. vanden Heuvel, who worked for the founder of the CIA and for Robert F. Kennedy, and Jean Stein, whose father founded MCA-Universal.
· Married to New York University Russian scholar and Gorbachev enthusiast Stephen F. Cohen
· Fluent in Russian. Worked as reporter for state-run Moscow Times in U.S.S.R.

AAAH! Teh foregin language knowledge! RUN!

(Incidentally, the Moscow Times is a private English-language newspaper that started in 1992.)

AAAND: Commentor abb1 made the reasonable point that the Moscow Times might have existed in a different incarnation prior to 1992. To confirm, I spoke to Katrina vanden Heuvel, who told me that she worked for a few months in 1989 for the Moscow News covering the first multiparty elections.

The 15-year-long “McLibel” case came to an end yesterday. Two anti-McDonald’s protesters won their fight in the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled that they did not recieve a fair trial in the UK. They were not provided with legal aid to assist them in their defense against libel charges brought by McDonald’s (thus the ruling was against the UK government rather than McDonald’s itself; Mickey D’s won the original libel suit in 1995). I think the Independent is right in calling the original suit, over a leaflet accusing McDonald’s of bad labor practices and worse food “one of the biggest own goals in the annals of corporate public relations.” Seriously, they should have just let that slide.

Slightly OT: damn, y’all have really got some supra-national organizations over there in Yurp, dontcha? It’s like faceless bureaucrats in Strasbourg are telling everybody what to do, or something. Voting for some incompetent Tories would probably straighten that right out; you might want to look into it.

Thanks to everyone who bought through Amazon. With tsunami reconstruction funds cash-flush, I ended up donating another $250 (on top of the original $500+) to the Doctors Without Borders general emergency relief fund. Thanks in particular to whoever bought the expensive stuff lately. Although I regret to inform that Amazon capped the commission on the tasty G4 Powerbook at $25. I think you got a pretty good deal anyway. I hope you are happy with your sleek new machine. I’ll give again in a month and a half. Whatever accrues over the quarter.

Reason Magazine “has a long piece attacking New Urbanism”:http://www.reason.com/0502/fe.st.crime.shtml co-written by an architectural liaison officer with the West Yorkshire Police and someone from the Thoreau Institute. It would be tempting to suggest the Onionesque headline:

bq. Libertarians: “World would be better if designed by the police.”

Laurence Aurbach has “a detailed rebuttal on the City Comforts site”:http://citycomfortsblog.typepad.com/cities/2005/02/correcting_the_.html .

This is an interesting Washington Post article about how rising property values have hurt homeowners who bought their homes through Habitat for Humanity.

Rising property values across the region have put the squeeze on taxpayers, but the bite has been especially acute for owners of Habitat for Humanity homes in Northern Virginia. In some areas, their homes have doubled and tripled in value in the past three years.

At least a dozen of the 47 Habitat homeowners in Northern Virginia pay more in property taxes and insurance than they do to pay off their mortgages, according to Karen Cleveland, executive director of the Northern Virginia arm of the housing nonprofit group. It is part of an international group that builds homes with volunteers and sells them to low-income buyers.

Now, you’re probably wondering why they just don’t sell. Here’s why:

In recent months, Habitat for Humanity of Northern Virginia has launched a campaign to persuade localities to provide tax relief for their homeowners. It is arguing that the Habitat homes shouldn’t be assessed at market rates because deed restrictions prevent their owners from selling the homes for profit or getting home equity loans until the 20-year mortgages are paid. If Habitat homeowners sell their homes before 20 years are up, they must sell them back to Habitat for the amount they cost — $80,000 to $120,000 in most cases, Cleveland said, which is the restricted value.

Perhaps someone can help me out here; why put this onerous restriction on the deed? I can sort of see that the nature of the charitable donation would be altered if it essentially became a cash gift rather than a house. And I suppose it makes some sense to restrict immediate sale. But 20 years? This seems to deprive the recipients of one of the main benefits of homeownership: capital appreciation. What would be wrong with letting this woman sell and buy another, cheaper house elsewhere in the area, rather than petitioning the local government for tax abatement? She and her family would be just as “housed.” On the other hand, she would seem to have a good case that her house is not actually worth the assessed price, since she can’t sell it for that amount. Thoughts?

I’ve just seen that we’re through to the final stages of the “Best Group Blog” category of the Koufax awards. As Dan observed at an earlier stage of this process, CT has a sorry enough history in these awards.

bq. Oh god, it’s the same every year. We get nominated as “Best Group Blog”, which means “Maybe about Ninth Or Tenth Best Blog On A Good Day, But There’s A Group Blog Category So We’ll Nominate Them In That”. And then we lose.

If you want to show Dan that he’s talking smack for once, exercise your democratic rights, and “head over there and vote for us”:http://wampum.wabanaki.net/archives/001709.html (while you’re at it, consider “giving the nod”:http://wampum.wabanaki.net/archives/001724.html to Belle’s classic “and a pony”:http://examinedlife.typepad.com/johnbelle/2004/03/if_wishes_were_.html , which is up for the best humorous post). If any further reason is needed, we’ve already gotten endorsements from Fafnir and the Medium Lobster (although Giblets has apparently decided in a fit of pique to vote for Obsidian Wings instead).

Update: Looks like the awards site is down (I suspect due to bandwidth limits) – will update this again when it reappears.

Update 2: Site back up.

Useful site of the year, and it’s only January. Chris Lightfoot has (I think with a couple of his mates) put together this extremely useful site which will allow you to send a communication to your MP, free gratis and for nothing (Americans, spammers, and loonies[1], you are out of luck I’m afraid and will need to wait for someone to invent a different service for you). It’s very useful for sending letters to MPs who don’t have readily available email addresses but (for example) helped sort out a parking ticket for you a couple of years ago and you want to say thank you. Or for that matter, if you want to ask them not to start any more wars, introduce ID card schemes. Or to suggest to them that the government is unlikely to do any better picking winners among immigrants than it did among nationalised industries. If your local MP (or MEP, MSP, etc) is a Tory or a LibDem, you can have a go at him or her too.

Personally, I think that democracy is basically doomed in the UK, but Chris still thinks it’s worth saving, so well done him for trying.

Footnote:
[1]Other than loonies who happen to live in the constituency of the MP they are trying to write to, I suppose.

“Matt Yglesias”:http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2005/02/hiatt_on_social.html should be pleased to hear that Princeton University Press has re-issued Harry Frankfurt’s well-known essay, “On Bullshit,” as a small book. You can “buy it”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0691122946/kieranhealysw-20/ref=nosim/ at Amazon. There’s a nice piece in the Times about it, distinguished by the fact that the newspaper’s stylebook forbids the word “bullshit” — though of course its pages are filled examples of the stuff — so it’s referred to throughout as “[bull]” instead. As I think Matt’s also observed, journalism would be serving its readership much better these days if it were possible to write headlines like “More Bullshit from White House on Social Security Reform.”

Whenever anyone raises the possibility that resource shortages may have serious social consequences in public, they’re almost certain to run into flak from someone citing Julian Simon’s “bet”:http://www.answers.com/topic/wager-between-julian-simon-and-paul-ehrlich with Paul Ehrlich on metal prices. Thus, Jim Henley, in response to my previous “post”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/003168.html on Gregg Easterbrook and Jared Diamond says:

bq. Right-leaning technophiles adopt this posture because, in our experience, scientific (or scientistic) pessimism has proven itself repeatedly, embarassingly wrong, from Malthus to Paul Ehrlich to the Club of Rome. We saw Julian Simon win the Great Dispute of the 1970s, and are inclined to think the Julian Simons of today and tomorrow will win their own disputes.

But what I suspect Jim doesn’t know (and what I didn’t know until I read it yesterday in Jared Diamond’s Collapse), is why Simon was quite so confident that metal shortages weren’t a problem. Over to Diamond:

bq. There is an abundance of errors of the latter sort (anti-environmentalist predictions that have proved wrong): e.g. overly optimistic predictions that the Green Revolution would already have solved the world’s hunger problems; the prediction of the economist Julian Simon that we could feed the world’s population as it continues to grow for the next 7 billion years; and Simon’s prediction “Copper can be made from other elements” and thus there is no risk of a copper shortage.

Now Diamond himself exaggerates a little when he says one page later that copper cannot be made from other elements by definition, because it itself is an element. More precisely, we could make industrial quantities of copper from other elements if we had the power and the inclination to whizz around the universe “creating supernovas”:http://www.vectorsite.net/tastga4.html. Quite why we would want to create more copper if we had these superpowers is a question that I’ll leave to our readers’ ingenuity and imagination.

Simon’s prediction is far and away the most impressive example that I’ve ever seen of lunatic technological optimism in support of a transparent political agenda. I don’t think that even the boyos over at Flack Central Station would have the chutzpah to make this claim; Easterbrook’s belief that we don’t have to worry about material shortages because we can spread across the galaxy is strictly minor league stuff in comparison. More seriously, Diamond makes a strong case that a qualified scientific pessimism (along with a qualified optimism about the ability of human beings to respond to environmental problems and resource limits) is the appropriate attitude to take. Otherwise, we face a very serious risk of environmental collapse – not the end of humanity, but some very serious problems all the same. Jim should read Diamond’s book (we live quite near each other; I’m happy to lend him my copy) – while I doubt that it would convert him, I do think that it would give him some serious food for thought.

This piece by Nicholas Kristof encapsulates everything I don’t like about ‘evolutionary psychology’, particularly in its pop mode. Kristof makes the argument that the success of the religious right is due to a predisposition to religious belief grounded in supposed evolutionary advantages, supposedly reflected in a particular gene, referred to by its putative discoverer as ‘The God Gene’. This is pretty much a standard example of EP in action. Take a local, but vigorously contested, social norm, invent a ‘just so’ story and assert that you have discovered a genetically determined universal. Kristof doesn’t quite get to the point of asserting that there exists a gene for voting Republican, but it follows logically from his argument (Dawkins defends the idea of a gene for tying shoelaces, for example).

Where to begin on the problems of all this?

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Our own Henry Farrell was on “NPR this morning”:http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4461850 talking with Scott Simon about blogs and their role in propagating rumors.

Tomorrow is the sixtieth anniversary of the bombing of Dresden. The other week I “mentioned”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/003128.html W.G. Sebald’s “The Natural History of Destruction”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375504842/junius-20 , a work that addresses the horror of the Allied bombing raids and the inadequacy of the German postwar response to that horror. Today, of course, the bombing is being cynically used by German neo-Nazi groups who want to relativise or diminish Nazi crimes. The methodical slaughter perpetrated by the Nazis on Jews and others shouldn’t lead us to close our eyes to what happened in Dresden and in other German cities. What was done there was wrong, even though I, for one, would hesitate in blaming those who did it. Der Spiegel’s English site has “an interview with historian Frederick Taylor”:http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,341239,00.html , a “piece on Victor Klemperer”:http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,341147,00.html , and “an extract from Klemperer’s diary”:http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,341230,00.html .