Reuben Sportsbar

2003-12-29T18:56:00.000Z

ON THIS DAY FELL THE FIRST SNOW OF THE SEASON

I estimate accumulation at 0.000001cm. Break out the sled, Eunice!

2003-12-29T18:50:00.000Z

THE SUV AND THE DAMAGE DONE

A few years ago I read an interview with a guy whose 16-year-old daughter had rammed the family SUV into a normal-sized car, killing several kids in that car (but emerging relatively unscathed herself). Did he feel guilty, the dad was asked, for putting his daughter behind the wheel of an automobile that was particularly likely to do damage to others? Not at all, he barked. "If those kids' parents wanted to protect their children, they would have had SUVs too." Now that's a social conscience.

And this is an informative article on the cost in fatalities of SUVS. Basically, it works out like this: Because they lead to a far higher risk in fatalities in the cars they collide with, SUVs increase the overall fatality tally. They hurt more people than they protect. That problem would be emiliorated, though, if everyone drove SUVs. Awesome.

2003-12-26T00:34:00.000Z

POPE ON

Want the Pope to send you an inspirational text message every damn day of the week? Then sent a text message reading "Pope on" to 61131. Popetastic!

2003-12-24T13:03:00.000Z

MAYFLY

Sum up your year in twenty words or less. I like the idea, but at first glance I'm not impressed by the summations. I was hoping for something a bit more poetic than "eat,drink,get high,have sex and sleep..."

2003-12-22T16:50:00.000Z

DRUNK

What a whirlwind two weeks. Only nine days 'til new year's, then I can shift into recovery phase.

Saw The London Nobody Knows and Finisterre at the Barbican this weekend. James Mason is a god and Neil and I will seek to emulate him from this moment forward. (Actually, I started on Saturday, and things seem to be going pretty well.)

2003-12-11T12:05:00.000Z

THEOLOGICAL/GASTROINTESTINAL OBSERVATION

It's the morning after the office Christmas party (no illicit coworker shags for me, but i'm pleased to say that not everyone i work with can say that this morning) and we're all popping ibuprofen, gulping water and eating bacon sandwiches. Which prompts to have the following revelation:

The reason Muslims are banned from drinking isn't because drink itself is so bad. It's because they can't eat pork, and without a bacon sandwich there's no way to recover from a hangover. They'd have them forever, and Muslim society would spiral into the ground. Fact.

2003-12-06T01:59:00.000Z

BUSY BUSY BUSY

Time and inclination to read, but not to blog. Less newspaper reading this week than any time I can remember. The replacement? Witty and urbane detective novels, as suggested by commenters to a Crooked Timber thread on genre fiction. As much as I hate the seeming pretention of the name "Aurelio Zen", I'm really enjoying Ratking. It's not a detective novel, but I also read Furst's Red Gold earlier this week. He's fabulous: he can even write sex scenes well.

2003-11-27T20:10:00.000Z

ARTICLES ABOUT ANTI-AMERICANISM

Here.

2003-11-25T21:59:00.000Z

DDT IS VERY VERY BAD, RIGHT?

Silent Spring and all that? I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that hundreds of thousands of Africans dying of malaria is worse.

2003-11-24T23:19:00.000Z

WHAT NEXT, SCURVY?

Ricketts is making a comeback.

Soon there'll be a bowlegged fat kid on every corner. I warned women that this would happen if they stopped wearing whale bone corsets.

2003-11-24T22:58:00.000Z

GOLIATH EYES DAVID, THREATENS TO PISS ON HEAD

According to What's Brewing, the very quaint Campaign for Real Ale newspaper, Budvar, the wonderful Czech lager that I can buy for a stunningly cheap £1.09/500ml at my corner shop, may be in trouble. Budvar is made by a Czech company named Budweiser, and because Anheuser-Busch wants sole ownership of that name in the beer world, there are fears of intimidatory and harassing litigation. The Czech government currently owns Budweiser Budvar and has recently decided not to privatise it, reportedly in part because fears of litigation are driving its potential selling price down.

Please god, don't take this beer from me.

2003-11-20T23:09:00.000Z

SUCCESSFUL GOOGLESHMUCK

Or whatever it's called when you type [word] + [otherword] into google and manage to return only one page. After hitting three with inveigle + lunchbox, I got two with inveigle + lunchmeat, then hit paydirt with inveigle + munchkin.

And they said I'd never accomplish anything.

UPDATE: He does it again on his very next try, ladies and gentlemen! Inveigle + Lichtenstein - who could have imagined it? (The page is a tourist's discussion of a visit to Washington Mall, of course.)

2003-11-20T22:52:00.000Z

THE SIDESHOW IS SOME GOOD SHIT, BABY

Talking the talk on American attitudes to nationalised health care. Basically, way too many people believe in the myth that the American system is ipso facto more efficient because it's not socialised.

2003-11-20T22:46:00.000Z

BIG LIES

Sideshow points to consertative studies showing that, if anything, American print media is more conservative than liberal.

The stuff he cites is from Joe Conason's Big Lies, which I definitely should read.

Have I mentioned yet that it's nice to be in a part of the world where culture wars don't rage non-stop?

2003-11-20T21:25:00.000Z

THE US TAXPAYER PAYS TOO MUCH FOR TOO LITTLE HEALTHCARE

Matt does the math.

But wait, there's more.

2003-11-19T22:44:00.000Z

GREAT BUILDINGS

At greatbuildings.com.

2003-11-15T17:55:00.000Z

PRIVATISATION RHYMES WITH SALVATION

A US Forest Service study shows that in 93% of the FSA's cases, it's cheaper to let the government do the work.

Not that this is stopping the FSA from doing it. Looks like this is part of the administration's cynical bid to be able to saypretend that they've reduced big government by reducing the government payroll - even when that means spending more government money because private contractors cost more than government workers. Very cynical. Good to see some hard evidence of government work not being as inefficient as it's conservatives inevitably claim it to be, though.

2003-11-15T17:39:00.000Z

NATIONALISM CAN REALLY ADD SOME OOMPH TO SPORT

The 2002 World Cup, for instance, was incredible. And right now I'm enjoying Russia v Wales in the qualifying playoff for Euro 04. There's a certain frisson knowing how much national games mean to the men on the field.

But god I wish British announcers could try not to be such homers. All game long they've been fairly criticising bad calls that have gone against Wales, but when Ryan Giggs just threw an elbow into a Russian's cheek, I could hear nothing but the chirping of crickets. Funny thing was, they wanted to criticise the Russian for diving after the elbow, but that would have meant admitting that Giggs had thrown it.

The sound, it was of silence.

That being said, Go Wales!

2003-11-15T15:17:00.000Z

HURLING FECES AT THE KING

Bumped into a owrk colleague today, and as we walked past a bunch of folks protesting against Bush's impending visit, she expressed her condolences to me: all this anti-Americanism has to be tough to deal with, doesn't it?

Really, though, how much anti-Americanism is out there? Sure there's that idiot Pinter, and there's Pilger, but besides them, just how much genuine anti-Americanism is there in the UK? (I can't speak for other countries.) I've experienced it twice in three and a half years: once from a drunken bum shouting something on a bus the day after September 11, the other time from a disgruntled uni twat angry that I'd pointed out that he'd jumped the queue. Not exactly a constant barrage, and certainly not representative of the rest of the British public - including my Guardian-reading friends, none of whom is anti-American.

The truth is, I think most Americans, for all our tough guy John Wayne swagger, are really thin-skinned. September 11 was truly terrible, but to read right-wing bloggers' account of the effect it's had on "we Americans", you'd think that no one else had ever suffered so much. Look, it was horrific, but the countries of Europe have had two world wars fought on their land in the last hundred years. In African, up to 40% of some nations' population is dying of Aids right now. The world is full of starvation, cruelty, immense suffering. The Twin Towers attack was horrible, and created a hell of a lot of pain - but it wasn't a patch on what most other nations in the world have suffered - even if it did look really really horrible on tv. Yet to hear many of my countrymen bleat, you'd think that true suffering was invented on that day.

Another thing: I wonder if our lack of a figurative head of state makes us uncomfortable with criticism of the president. As I mentioned a few posts down, an entire football stadium of Aussies recently booed Prime Minister John Howard over his Iraq prevarications. Here, opponents of Blair's stance feel no compunction about tearing into him in the most forceful of terms. But in the US there's the notion that even if you diagree with the president, you shouldn't cross the line in criticising him. (Not that the Republicans stuck to this with Clinton. Remember Jesse Helms hardly veiled threat on the president's life when he visited North Carolina, or the constant attacks on teenage Chelsea's looks?) You can disagree, people say, but you shouldn't be disrespectful. I wonder if part of the discomfort with disrespecting the president has to do with the fact that he is both the nation's political leader and, in absence of any type of manarchy, the figurative embodiment of our nation. Do Americans believe that attacking the president is attacking the nation?

Or is it more than this? American policies do come under frequent attack, and Americans don't seem to take well to it. My feeling - and I wouldn't have agreed with this before living overseas - is that the other developed nations of the world are far less envious of the US than Americans imagine. I also think that most Americans are so isolated from other nations' opinions on international issues that we don't realise that when they criticise our policies, they are doing so in the context of our geopolitical decisions, not just because we're America.

2003-11-14T18:35:00.000Z

GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS RANKINGS SHOCKA!

The World Economic Forum's 2003 Global Competitiveness Report is out, and by placing second the US proves yet again that low taxes are absolutely essential to robust economic performance.

By placing first, third and fourth, Finland, Sweden and Denmark prove that what I just wrote is a fat load of hairy bollocks.

2003-11-14T17:57:00.000Z

THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE

I'm always annoyed when people moan about how antideluvian the electoral college system is. Would they complain if their candidate won? And in such a large nations, is it a good idea to proceed solely by popular vote? Today's Independent has a good letter explaining why the electoral college makes sense for the US (but then the writer has to go and spoil it with his final statement):

"Sir: In his article about George Bush, Rupert Cornwell writes: "A President... who, but for the archaism of the electoral college, would have lost to Al Gore, who clearly defeated him in the popular vote."

"This statement reflects how misguided this article was. The Electoral College ensures that our constitutional freedoms are secure for as many walks of life as the United States represents. Without the Electoral College, presidential candidates need only campaign in the 10 largest cities to gain the popular vote, or the five most populous states. Meanwhile, farmers, ranchers (like myself) and retirees, would not be solicited for their vote, nor would they and their interests be defended by the Executive Branch of our government.

"Without the Electoral College, you can assume that most presidential elections would fall in favour of the Democratic ticket. Our country ails from a primarily two-party system as it is. Imagine only one! The United States is a republic, not a democracy. It's a shame that our politicians need more lessons in civics, as do you and yours, about this uniquely American ideal: fairness."

Uh, yeh. Fairness is a uniquely American ideal. Why our history is practically built on fairness. Just ask the Indians and the descendants of slaves how uniquely American fairness is.

And we wonder why some non-Americans consider us arrogant. Maybe it's because we're convinced we invented every human virture and are the only ones who embody them! This thoughtless rhetorical chest thumping is truly one of our worst national habits.

2003-11-14T17:06:00.000Z

I DON'T LIKE SUVs ONE WHIT BUT...

This article argues that SUVs are only a small part of America's energy problem - buildings are really to blame. No idea as to how correct this is.

2003-11-14T16:28:00.000Z

BIG ASS BUILDINGS TO THE RESCUE

City Comforts on whether or not supercentre-based redevelopment schemes can revitalise urban districts. I guess that crazy Disney stuff has got all the kids talking, don't ya know. As ever it seems, time for me to read and learn. Really, how the hell am i supposed to get any work done?

2003-11-14T15:14:00.000Z

BACK40 SAYS "WHOA THERE NELLY!"

Trolling through his archives, I find this post from Back40 on why he thinks subisdies are needed in developed countries and why removing them would hurt poor nations.

One day I'll know enough to have an opinion on agricultural subsidies. In the meantime, I'll just try to understand all the big words.

2003-11-14T14:55:00.000Z

BUSH IN BRITAIN

The Guardian's letters section today has a good
representative sample of the gamut of opinions regarding Bush's state visit to the UK.

I bet it seemed like a great idea 17 months ago, didn't it Tony - a little post-war parading? Funny thing is, at the moment the papers can't find anyone in governement or at the Palace (not that they have much say in these things) to take credit for the invitation.

Among the letters, a few bits stick out. In one, an angry American castigates the British public for not supporting Bush. "This is treatment," says Peeved of Portland, Maine, "one would expect from the French." Oh those perfidious French! The ending of Peeved's letter shows a major difference between Americans and Brits. He writes: "It is one thing to disagree with our president, an entirely different matter to be disrespectful. Shame on you. I would have expected better."

I'm not going to argue that most Americans believe you should get behind the president in times of trouble. That's a canard. The truth is, most Americans believe you should get behind the president in times of trouble if the president is the one they support; otherwise, he's fair game with a bad leg.

Most Brits, I think, find it a bit asinine to be told that they can loathe someone's politics yet musn't show that person disrespect. Look at Minister's Question Time, or, as I mentioned yesterday in the comments at Yglesias, the ferocity of carictarisations in British political cartoons. As I said there, quarter is not given. It seems far less hypocritical a position than that occupied by so many pro-Bushies, with their insistence that no matter how they treated Clinton, Bush should be held in honour. Rubbish.

Another letter, while criticising what it sees as "adolescent anti-Americanism", makes the sensible point that when criticising US policies, we need to remember what the US has done for Europe in the last hundred years and to put our current beefs in context. To my mind, this in no way means that the US need be excused for anything it's doing right now. After all, stupid acts are stupid acts, even if committed by those who have done many great things. (Speaking of context, it's very fair to point out the many negative politically selfish acts the US has engaged in since WWII, and it would do kneejerk supporters of the US good to reflect on them.) But people need to keep a sense of perspective. If you want to argue, as Monbiot once did, that the US has caused more suffering than Nazi Germany ever did - he was tallying up slave and Native American deaths, among other crimes - you also have to be willing to admit that the US has stimulated far more happiness and goodness than the Nazis ever did. Obviously, that's not exactly the most compelling boast - I'm just saying that it's dishonest to only focus on one side of the tally sheet, no matter whose team you're on.

UPDATE: Brits aren't the only ones not afraid to show a li'l disrespect. From This Modern World, where (imagine my surprise) I find Bob rhapsodising about rugby:

"At the opening ceremonies a few weeks ago, Aussie Prime Minister John Howard, recently censured for lying about Iraq, stepped out to declare the games officially open -- and the entire stadium of cheering fans suddenly unleashed a cathartic chorus of boos. Howard looked humiliated, and didn't even speak for about ten solid seconds. Dishonesty actually being treated as dishonorable -- a national leader actually being held accountable, face-to-face, by the public -- oh man, that was something to see."

2003-11-13T19:24:00.000Z

PUSH IT BACK, PUSH IT BACK, WAAAY BACK!

CalPundit has a very provocative question about the push to bypass that nasty, negative liberal media and tell the American public the happy truth about Iraq. His question is, given that it's surely taken several weeks for the CIA to write its recent, very negative report - meaning that the CIA has known for weeks that the situation is very negative - why has the administration been making itself look foolish by singing songs of birds and posies? Part of me says that this is just one more example of how this administration is truly post-modern, believing that there is no such thing as truth and that there is thus no reason to relate what one says to what one knows to be fact.

Kevin has some interesting thoughts; read on, MacDuff.

2003-11-13T18:34:00.000Z

SCHOOLY D

Via Crooked Timber, who appear to be stalking him, I see that Adam Swift has yet another article on the ethics of private schooling. Ho hum, except that it's in the Telegraph. As I always, the commentary at CT should be quite informative.

2003-11-13T17:51:00.000Z

WHAT THE FRENCH GUY SAID

This is getting very surreal. Bush is now parroting what the French and Germans were saying at the last UN meeting and claiming it as his own. The Iraqi people are now saying they want to play a bigger role in governing their country, he says, and we want to give it to them. As if we've not been saying all along that the handover was going to go at our pace rather than the Iraqis'. Operation Cut and Run has truly begun. It's too bad the American public isn't going to be keeping a "lies and the lying liars who told them" factsheet.

Can we expect any climbdown from the blogosphere chickenhawks who've been whining about liberal media bias? Probably not. Credit, however, to the boys at Oxblog, who must right now be feeling as young and optimistic as they've long been looking to the rest of us. Bright boys, but still boys nonetheless.

Was this Saddam's plan all along? Creepy - I don't like the idea of Hussein as some wily bogeyman. "The enemy is waging a campaign against the occupation," said retired Army Col. Andrew J. Bacevich, who teaches strategy and security issues at Boston University. "In some respects, their campaign manifests greater coherence and logic than does our own."

2003-11-12T17:44:00.000Z

WE APPEAR TO BE LISTING, CAPTAIN

England has more than 360,000 listed buidlings, writes Jonathan Glancey in this old article I just stumbled across. A lot of them should be listed, he believes. In fact, he says, "It really is hard to find an ugly or unlikeable building from the period between 1660 and 1830." (Though he doesn't say that they should all be listed.) But a lot of the others, including much of what the late Victorians produced, are craptastic. Why are so many on the books? According to Glancey, it's mostly because too many hobbyists have too much damn time on their hands. Wonder if we could get them picking up litter instead?

At Images of England, they're compiling photos and descriptions of every listed edifice in England. What was that about too much time on one's hands? (Actually I think it's a worthwhile project, though I wish densely-packed areas such as mine were browsable. That would allow us to see and understand the listing process from, as it were, the street rather than the library.)

2003-11-12T16:58:00.000Z

MOBILES FOR RENT

I've always thought travelling would be just that little bit easier if I could rent a mobile while in country. And when Brennan was here, for instance, it would have been great to be able to lend him a phone. Last night while on a long and rambling stroll I saw a shop with mobiles for rent. It was in the Edgeware Rd area if I remember correctly, north of Marble Arch but maybe further east than Edgware Rd. I walked on Connaught, I recall, and Craven... Not sure if it was so far as Craven though.

2003-11-12T16:40:00.000Z

NATION-BUILDING AS AN INTELLECTUAL GAME

When I met Jonah Goldberg a year or so ago, I didn't yet know who he was so I didn't have any preconceptions. (If only I could meet the bloated wanker now.) What irritated me most about him was his obvious belief that war and nation-building was some sort of intellectual game. It was obvious that he believes that because he did a great job in his school debating society, he always knows better than those who disagree with him. As if war is an argument.

The neocons, I've since realised, are just like the Marxists. They believe that because theyäre bright they are always right, and because of who they are they can acomplish anything. Actually, maybe they don't believe they can accomplish anything. the sense I got from Jonah was that Iraq was a great big debating society game, and that if it all did go tits up, well, I'm pretty sure that wasn't going to effecting the Goldbergs too much. Just those far away Iraqis.

Anyway, here's something on the neocons as Trotskyites.

2003-11-12T16:07:00.000Z

THAT'S NOT CAPTAIN STEUBING; IT'S JONAH GOLDBERG!

The funniest post I've ever read.

2003-11-09T20:13:00.000Z

PRIVATISATION

At Fistful of Euros, a very informative discussion on the pros and cons of privatisation.

2003-11-09T18:52:00.000Z

THE WTO, SAYS CLIVE CROOK, AIN'T SO BAD

Here.

2003-11-09T18:29:00.000Z

AMERICA IS LOSING MANUFACTURING JOBS TO CHINA, RIGHT?

Then who is China losing them to? A study shows that manufacturing jobs are disappearing everywhere, even in Brazil and China. The culprit? Higher productivity.

2003-11-09T18:23:00.000Z

THE BLACK-WHITE EDUCATION GAP IS WIDENING

After reading the Thernstrom's No Excuses the Atlantic's Stuart Taylor argues that the biggest factor holding back black kids is culture. Even middle and upper class black kids tend to watch more television and have
less expected of them than their white or Asian counterparts. Why?

More here.

2003-11-06T13:53:00.000Z

THE STUPIDEST ARTICLE I'VE READ ALL YEAR

Amazingly, it's from the Guardian's Opinion page. Some schmuck who wrote some book that inspired the Matrix tells us that those of us who just use computers, rather than really understand their workings, are
"technological peasants who are consigning ourselves to the evolutionary scrapheap. Seriously. "In 50 years," he tells us, "perhaps much less, the ability to read and write code will be as essential for professionals of every stripe as the ability to read and write a human language is today. If your children's children can't speak the language of the machines, they will have to get a manual job - if there are any left."

Yes, just like in our grandparents' day, when those who didn't learn the new sciences of telephony and automobile mechanics found themselves unable to cope with the brave new world opening before them. And jeez, what about those poor fools who never figured out how to build a crystal radio receiver? Boy, didn't they drop out of the gene pool fast!

2003-11-05T18:14:00.000Z

SOME ALBUM COVERS ARE SO BADASS YOU WOULDN'T COMPLAIN IF THEY FUCKED YOUR GIRLFRIEND RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU

Like these

2003-11-04T20:17:00.000Z

130,000 TROOPS SOUNDS LIKE A LOT. HERE'S WHY IT ISN'T

Again via CalPundit:

"Total U.S. troops: 133,000.
Excluding support troops, total combat troops available for security duty: 56,000.
Given normal sleeping/eating activities, total troops available at any given time for patrol: 28,000.

That may still sound like a fair number, but even if you count only the large urban areas in the Sunni Triangle, these guys have to patrol a population of roughly 15 million people. That means there's one soldier for every 500 people.

Still not convinced? Break it down again: it means that in, say, Fallujah, a city nearly the size of Pittsburgh, there are no more than a few hundred troops patrolling the streets at any given time."

2003-11-04T20:12:00.000Z

SIX MONTHS AGO, THIS IS WHAT THE ADMINISTRATOIN SAID ABOUT IRAQ

Via http://www.calpundit.com/archives/002566.htmlCalPundit. just to remind ourselves, here are some of the predictions:

"Mr. Wolfowitz...opened a two-front war of words on Capitol Hill, calling the recent estimate by Gen. Eric K. Shinseki of the Army that several hundred thousand troops would be needed in postwar Iraq, "wildly off the mark." Pentagon officials have put the figure closer to 100,000 troops. Mr. Wolfowitz then dismissed articles in several newspapers this week asserting that Pentagon budget specialists put the cost of war and reconstruction at $60 billion to $95 billion in this fiscal year.

....."The idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces I think is far off the mark," Mr. Rumsfeld said....A spokesman for General Shinseki, Col. Joe Curtin, said today that the general stood by his estimate.

....In his testimony, Mr. Wolfowitz ticked off several reasons why he believed a much smaller coalition peacekeeping force than General Shinseki envisioned would be sufficient to police and rebuild postwar Iraq. He said there was no history of ethnic strife in Iraq, as there was in Bosnia or Kosovo. He said Iraqi civilians would welcome an American-led liberation force that "stayed as long as necessary but left as soon as possible," but would oppose a long-term occupation force. And he said that nations that oppose war with Iraq would likely sign up to help rebuild it. "I would expect that even countries like France will have a strong interest in assisting Iraq in reconstruction," Mr. Wolfowitz said. He added that many Iraqi expatriates would likely return home to help.

....Enlisting countries to help to pay for this war and its aftermath would take more time, he said. "I expect we will get a lot of mitigation, but it will be easier after the fact than before the fact," Mr. Wolfowitz said. Mr. Wolfowitz spent much of the hearing knocking down published estimates of the costs of war and rebuilding, saying the upper range of $95 billion was too high....Moreover, he said such estimates, and speculation that postwar reconstruction costs could climb even higher, ignored the fact that Iraq is a wealthy country, with annual oil exports worth $15 billion to $20 billion. "To assume we're going to pay for it all is just wrong," he said."

One of CalPundit's commenters argues that critics of the administration are bitching because Rumsfield, Wolfovitz et al couldn't predict the future. After all, who the hell can predict the future? Well, um, General Shenseki certainly seems to have been able to predict the future, as did numerous other military experts who argued that we'd need far more ground troops. That's right, they predicted the future.

But of course they didn't. Instead, they analysed all the data available to them, both positive and negative, and made informed projections. That's what our leaders are supposed to do, not ignore the bad and exaggerate or invent the good. Which is what the administration did.

2003-11-04T13:21:00.000Z

IS DIANE ABBOTT A HYPOCRITE? IS SHE EEEVIIIL?

One thing that's always shocked me about the British left is the venom with which some of its members attack apostasy. I often come away feeling that this left wing firebrands attach far more value to ideological correctness than on humane understanding.

This week's guest on the Acid & Venom Show is Hackney and Labour MP Diane Abbott, formerly a harsh critic of those who don't send their kids to the local comprehensive, now a self-avowed "hypocrite" for packing her son off to a fancy and exclusive private school.

What makes the case truly interesting is that Diane's son, like herself, is black. This seems to have been a significant factor in her decision: she's cited the abysmal lack of success of black boys in the Hackney system and clearly seems to fear that her son will be sucked down into the morass.

But by whom? Here's where the debate gets truly interesting. Not only do we have the "Are private schools acceptable" debate, we reignite the burning argument over where the fault lies for black boys' failure in school. On the "society sucks" side are people like this letter writer to the Guardian:

"The fire-storm engulfing Diane Abbott is a corollary of her status. But her choice of school arises from the private dimension of her life. On this basis, she has no obligation to explain or defend her choice. For it is the private, largely unregistered experience of institutional racism that drives choices for black parents. Most who can do make huge sacrifices for their children's education. Some send them to the Caribbean. Some compete for state grammar school places. Some opt for the private sector. Practically all will understand Ms Abbott's choice.

"No matter how much of the Puritan ethic a black family can embody, the power and pervasiveness of racism ensures a deadly lottery on life prospects. It is clear the variables of inner-city life involve the serial wastage of young men, black boys in particular. Institutions fail to reverse this. Black and other affected parents routinely experience lives of searing desperation in face of this. Should any parent place the development and education of their children on hold while awaiting "the long revolution" in provision?"

Now to me, this argument just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Are our inner city schools really stocked full of racist teachers? This guy doesn't think so:

"The failure of black boys in London schools has little to do with racism. If this were the case, then Asian children would do badly and black girls would fail. But both do well. The schools try as hard as they can to overcome the real problem: working-class male, "urban" street culture - both black and white working-class boys do poorly.

"This culture rejects education so strongly that black and white teachers cannot, despite immense efforts, overcome it completely. It is this culture that Abbott and many middle-class Londoners are so desperate to keep their sons away from. This does not, however, rescue them from the charge of hypocrisy and selfishness when they send their children to exclusive, expensive, private schools. Until people like them, with status and influence, join with the teachers and others in the community, nothing will change."

Who's right? My guess is that there's some of each in the equation, but a whole lot more of what the second writer decries. And here's a question: how come the left always celebrates the strength and vibrancy and importance of (sub?)cultures, yet refuses to acknowledge that they can play a negative role too? What's up with that shit?

2003-11-03T22:38:00.000Z

REVOLUTIONARY SUICIDE MECHANISED REGIMENT BAND

That Idi Amin sure knew how to name 'em. Too bad that didn't keep his fifth wife, who he met when she was a go-go dancer with the aforementioned super troup, from getting busted for running a London cockroach cafe.

An old story, but too funny not to link to.

2003-11-01T20:38:00.000Z

IS NEW URBANISM CRIMOGENIC? AND WHO COINED THE TERM CRIMOGENIC?

Answer to the first question - and an informed debate besides - via Big Bad CT. A very interesting subtext here is the conservatives' apparent willingness to leap on any topic - no matter how erroneously - as an example of how "big government" is spoiling it for all of us.

2003-11-01T19:41:00.000Z

HOW TO SOLVE A PROBLEM... THE BUSH WAY

Yglesias really is a very bright boy.

2003-10-31T13:50:00.000Z

WHAT REALLY HAPPENS TO LEMMINGS

Hint: safety fences on cliffs wouldn't make a difference.

2003-10-31T13:15:00.000Z

IT'S THINGS LIKE THIS THAT MAKE ME THINK MAYBE MICHAEL MOORE ISN'T GOING TO FAR

James Baker's law firm is defending Prince Sultan, the Saudi defense minister, against a lawsuit filed by families of the 9-11 victims. As Mark Kleiman points out, defendants deserve a zealous defence, but isn't it a little strange that the former Secretary of State of the US, and GW's Florida fixer, is "carrying water for the foreign power responsible for the largest massacre of Americans ever carried out?"

How in the name of god do Americans have the idea that the Republicans are the party to protect us in time of war?

2003-10-30T16:33:00.000Z

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA IS ON FIRE

LA Times photo gallery. Awesome and intimidating sights.

2003-10-29T12:47:00.000Z

THE BIG BAD NEW GEHRY BUILDING IN LA

City comforts looks at the good, the bad and the beautiful. Verdict? Pretty nice eye candy, but there's no way in hell it's going to "revitalise the neighborhood" as its proponents (and the apologists for its $250mn price tag) say it will.

Why not? Because three of the sides are block-long blank walls. Who the hell wants to hang by a blank wall? Ok, besides drug dealers. (Obviously it'll be too well policed for that.)

We need shops, people! Shops!

2003-10-27T13:04:00.000Z

MY GOD IS A JUST GOD, NOT LIKE THAT STUPID MUSLIM ONE

Sorry - looks like General Boykin has taken over my site. Ah well, perhaps if I burn some good thigh meat on the altar he'll let me have it back. In the meantime, I know my god is a really nice fella because even though I thought the Guardain wasn't going to publish my letter on redneck chic and refugees (scroll down), on Saturday it did.

Ah such minor triumphs.

2003-10-27T12:58:00.000Z

YOU THINK THE NHS IS BAD? TAKE A LOOK AT THIS FELLA

I'm constantly amazed by American arguments against "socialised medicine", but the one argument I do find somewhat compelling is the one that highlights the US's capacity to offer top-end supercare not available elsewhere. As an example, one of Jayne's old work mates had his life saved after flying to the US with £70,000 in cash to have an experimental procedure done to his liver. Otherwise, he'd have died within a few months. So some people really do benefit from the best of the American health system.

But so many more suffer. Day in, day out, medical decisions are made by insurance companies. Literally, guys at desk looking at spreadsheets telling patients thousands of miles away that 24 hours after surgery for bladder cancer, they're ready to go home. As in this case from a letter to today's Guardian:

"My heart stopped when reading of the health secretary's plans to import methods used by private healthcare corporations in the US (Plan to cut hospital stays the US way, October 23). I have just returned from the US where I experienced first hand the effect of these shortened hospital stays. My 85-year-old father was sent home less than 24 hours after surgery for bladder cancer. My elderly mother, after the briefest of guidance, was expected to nurse him. Within a fortnight, my father had a stroke and my mother was in a state of emotional and physical collapse.
Arriving a few days later, I found that my father was again about to be discharged from hospital. The stroke had rendered him partially blind with difficulty communicating and limited mobility. He was suffering from a bladder infection and still on catheter due to the bladder surgery. He was considered to need 24-hour care. In spite of all of this, and the fact that the hospital staff wanted my father to stay at least another week, the insurance company declared him fit to go home. The social worker and I spent many hours arguing with the insurance company. They were "generous" with another few days.

I had to spend the precious time of being with my fragile father trying to reach the heart of someone hundreds of miles away sitting in front of a computer screen filled with bureaucratic criteria, with the stockholders' agenda as the bottom line. When I arrived back in the UK, I kissed the ground in thanks for the glorious, imperfect NHS."
Cathryn McNaughton
Lower Shiplake, Oxon

There was a bit of chat about American health care recently at Crooked Timber, and I know I've read a damn long thread on it somewhere else in the last few weeks. Thought it was on Calpundit, but can't find. Oh well... I'm sure there'll be plenty more said.

2003-10-23T12:32:00.000Z

FORTRESS EUROPE?

At Fistful of Euros, a good discussion on European immigration policies. Since immigrating here I've thought that this issue was one of the few in which US policy was more compassionate than European - though of course crowding plays a huge role in the European equation. What will I believe when I learn more? We'll see.

2003-10-23T12:17:00.000Z

REDNECK CHIC

In the Guardian, Carrie Gibson capitalises on her heritage to write an article decrying redneck chic. It's well written, but so banal in the quality of its argument that I'd expect to see it in a high school paper.

As part of my never-ending quest to capitalise on my own redneck background to get onto the letters page of the Guardian, I've sent them a response:

Carrie Gibson (So hip it hurts, 23 Oct) needs a sense of perspective. Like her grandmother, I lived in a trailer in the deep American south. (It was a doublewide, so we thought we were lower middle class.) And like Carrie, I now pass dozens of people a day wearing "Trailer Trash" t-shirts and sporting the same mullet I wore as a boy. I'm not offended. The reason it's ok to dress up like a redneck and not a refugee is that refugees suffer more in a week than rednecks like me will suffer in our lifetimes. Even fashonistas have enough sense to see that.

Will I make the cut? Tune in tomorrow...

2003-10-22T12:08:00.000Z

ARCHITECTURE FOR THE PEOPLE, BABY

Via the mighty CT, an informative discussion of New Urbanism versus "Secured by Design".

2003-10-17T20:36:00.000Z

SCHOOL SELECTION AND/OR PARENTAL CHOICE

Harry Brighouse of Crooked Timber weighs in.

2003-10-17T20:34:00.000Z

PULLING YOURSELF UP BY YOUR LUNCHBOX STRAPS

Via Crooked Timber, a very interesting post on the role of school in creating social mobility. After writing that "in fact very few societies have come anywhere close to approximating the ideal. In Britain, for example, although the proportion of working class children attending university has steadily increased over the past 50 years, this has only been in line with the increase in the proportion of 18 year olds attending university. Relatively, it is as great an advantage to be born well in 2003 as it was in 1953," Harry then addresses social policy decisions that can be taken to improve schools and social mobility.

His argument is that you've got to help the least advantaged while ensuring the middle classes that the schools are good enough for their kids. One proposal is to:

"alter the funding formula so that all children eligible for free school meals bring with them three times the normal amount of per pupil funding. This helps to counteract the tendency of schools to prefer middle class to less advantaged children, and ensures that, if low income children do still concentrate into particular schools, they are at least better resourced."

I think it would also encourage middle class kids to attend these suddenly very well resourced schools. You could ideally get a very good mix. He's got more. Go read.

2003-10-17T12:47:00.000Z

FIXING THE US HEALTH CARE SYSTEM

Over at CalPundit, King Drum asks why businesses don't push for a single-payer health care system. After all, he points out, by taking away the expense and hassle of providing health care, single ppayer would save businesses money - and help level the field for smaller companies.

An interesting and amazingly civil debate ensues. Well worth a read. The best post I've read so far concerns what markets are good at and what they're not:

"One of my problems with our health care industry is that the market incents parts of the industry to come up with better solutions within the given fraemwork of our industry. For example, it incents a drug company to come up with a better treatment for high cholestoral. But it does not incent anyone to provide the best solution in general to those health care problems (which, in the case of the vast majority of people with high cholestoral, is diet and exercise).

It seems to me that if the market really can come up with the most efficient solution to a problem, then it should be able to come up with the best health care treatment, not just the best drug. Can you come up with a suggestion that would have this outcome?"

2003-10-15T12:03:00.000Z

HOW NOT TO GET RICH

Neil and I will open a pub called the Thong & Goggle.

In a private venture, I'm opening another drinking joint: Allahu Sportsbar.

2003-10-15T12:01:00.000Z

THE AMERICAN PRESS SMELLS OF SECOND-RATE CHEESE

One in a million examples why, from Matthew Yglesias.

2003-10-15T10:48:00.000Z

DRUGS: HIGHER ENFORCEMENT, LOWER PRICES

Mark Kleinman has an interesting post on the downward trend in heroin and cocaine prices over the last three decades. Compared to inflation, heroin in the US is now 95% cheaper than it was in 1980; cocaine is only slightly behind at 90%.

Yep, that drug war's really making drugs harder to purchase. But at least it's putting more people in jail!

2003-10-08T12:29:00.000Z

FIGHTING THROUGH PHLEGM TO BLOG

Boy, I must be some kinda superhero, dontcha know?

An old Fistful of Euros post on Work Freedom Day, which in the US doesn't come until Nov 17. But I'll be celebrating it here on October 25th. Can someone get me Johny Paycheck on the phone?

2003-10-08T12:08:00.000Z

WHERE TO SEARCH FOR SOCIOLOGICAL DATA

Via, Crooked Timber, this handy list of sociological resources

2003-10-08T11:33:00.000Z

HOLIDAYS + TOO MUCH WORK ON RETURN + COLD AND FLU SEASON HERE IN THE UK = NO TIME TO BLOG FOR NOW, ALAS. BUT SOON WE'LL HAVE BROADBAND AT HOME...

2003-09-18T17:00:00.000Z

HANKERING FOR A HEALTHY AMERICA

Kevin Drum mentions that in the last ten years, the number of workers receiving healthcare coverage from their employers has plummeted from 63% to 45%. Hey, that's great!

He also notes that:

"When you hear about income inequality statistics, keep in mind that they usually include only cash compensation. The fact that the poor have no medical coverage actually makes income inequality in America even worse than it seems at first glance.

And here's one more statistic from the BLS report: only 22% of people in service occupations get healthcare coverage from their employers, and only 35% of those who make less than $30,000 a year get it. Those are scary numbers if you happen to be in one of those groups."

2003-09-12T04:30:00.000Z

WORK IT DADDY
A Fistful of Euros complains about national wellbeing indices that don't take work-life balance into account. Then AFOE looks at which nations get the most
sweet sweet holiday via the hot new Work Freedom Day Index.

Turns out that October 25 is a big day for the UK, while the Dutch start chilling on August 22.

Here's a Times article looking at work-life balance in which the author, an academic specialising in the subject points out that among the Dutch, who work less than anybody, only 18% say they wish they had more time with their families. Among Americans, a nation of James Browns (after the capes but only slightly into the angel dust), 46% say we wish we had more time with our families. A possible connection?

2003-09-12T04:09:00.000Z

THE COST OF WAR
Tapped be telling you what it is. Most interesting is this:

"To put it in perspective, Bush hopes to spend more in Iraq and Afghanistan than all 50 states say they need -- $78 billion -- to finance the budget shortfalls they anticipate for 2004.
The request is higher than the $74 billion the Defense Department plans to spend on all new weapons purchases next year, and higher than the $29.5 billion the Education Department hopes to spend on elementary and secondary education plus the $41.3 billion the administration plans to spend to defend the homeland.

With $166 billion spent or requested, Bush's war spending in 2003 and 2004 already exceeds the inflation-adjusted costs of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish American War and the Persian Gulf War combined, according to a study by Yale University economist William D. Nordhaus. The Iraq war approaches the $191 billion inflation-adjusted cost of World War I."

2003-09-12T03:53:00.000Z

GLOBALISATION DEBATES
Here's a whole big fat online globalisation symposium pitting Cato people against TAP
.

As part of that symposium, here's an email debate between Jonah Norberg and Robert Kutner.

And here's a link-rich Drezner piece on how the little guys are teaming up to fight for fairness.

2003-09-12T03:43:00.000Z

A WORLD CONNECTED
Is the slightly insipid name of this apparently far from insipid site.

The site includes a point - counterpoint section that seems well worth a gander.

2003-09-08T16:48:00.000Z

WHY THE RIGHT CONTROLS THE RHETORIC
TomPaine.com interviews the author of Moral Politics, which was originally subtitled What Conservatives Know that Liberals Don't.

Conservatives, he says, are winning the rhetoric wars by being stern fathers while liberals try to be nurturing parents.

Does America want a spanking?

And via TAP, here's an article on how liberal became a four-letter word.

2003-09-08T16:36:00.000Z

EVANGELICAL PROGRESSIVE PUBLIC POLICY IN ALADAMNBAMA
This is a fascinating story. As for liberals, how do we stand? I think this is a great opportunity to support the work and not worry about the worker; that is, to focus on policy rather than politics.

Crooked Timber has its say.

TN Hayden has hers.

As does TAP.

2003-09-08T16:26:00.000Z

CROOKED TIMBER DROPS ON TECH CENTRAL STATION
Earlier this morning I linked to a Drezner article he wrote for Tech Central Station. Now,
Crooked Timber rags TCS out for sloppy journalism of the sort that uses statistics like a drunk uses a lamp post - for support rather than illumination.

In the above example, he skewers a "journalist" for reporting that a particular scientist said that "only a fraction" of global warming was caused by humans. What was that fraction? 1/2.

That's a fairly big fraction, boyo.

2003-09-08T16:14:00.000Z

BARBARA BUSH TELLS THE STATES "DON'T BE SO MEAN, BABY"
She wants them to stop cutting spending on teachers' salaries. Uh, Barb, the states are experiencing their worst fiscal crisis since WWII, and those crises are largely caused by your hubbie's federal tax cuts and opposition to health care reform. Does she genuinely not see the connection? More importantly, why doesn't the voting populace? Are Americans really so simple that we can't see past "tax cuts good"?

Tapped has several good article links here.

2003-09-08T15:57:00.000Z

GROUP BLOGS
Electrolite comments on their design and content. I'm posting this so I'll remember to have a look at them all.

2003-09-08T15:41:00.000Z

CHEESE MAKING? SURRENDER, MONKEY!
Dan Drezner says that despite his status as an anti-globalisation icon,
what really got Jose Bove railing against McDonald's was an-antiglobalisation move by the US:

"Activists have hailed Bové as a leader of the fight against globalization. I've always found this absurd. Bové's decision to attack the MacDonald's in the first place was due to a U.S. decision, during a typical trade spat with the EU, to raise tariffs against French luxury goods. This had a devastating impact on Bové's livelihood, as "someone who supplies sheep's milk to makers of Roquefort cheese," according to the New York Times. In other words, the initial incident that triggered Bové's "protest" was a lack of globalization, not its acceleration.

The fact that Bové and other protestors concluded that the cure for Bové's ills was to halt the free flow of goods and services across borders even further is a testimony to the blinkered logic of the anti-globalization movement."

But his moustache totally rocks.

2003-09-08T15:04:00.000Z

LET THEM EAT SUBSIDIES
Drezner writes that there is a general consensus that trade is twice as valuable as aid handouts to the poorest of the poor countries.

The CAP, he says, is to world trade what Showgirls was to cinematic good taste.

This graph shows what countries are the most dependent on subsidies as a percentage of the value of their gross farm output.

2003-09-08T14:38:00.000Z

CENTER FOR GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT
Drezner on his critique of the CGD's Ranking the Rich analysis of DC policies that help and harm LDCs. To his pleasant surprise, they read his criticisms and asked him to be on their board.

Now I'm gonna go read what they have to say.

2003-09-08T14:26:00.000Z

MORE FREE EQUALS MORE AMERICAN, DUNNIT?
From the same Drezner post linked to just below, a quick look at the politics behind protectionism. Plus, the multiplier effect (how one new job in farming, manufacturing or some other rural business creates other new jobs in the services). Drezner's implied conclusion is that to win rural votes, Bush is likely to continue making America more protectionist.

"What worries me is that the politics of this phenomenon suggests that Bush will be unable to ignore demands for greater barriers to foreign trade and investment. To understand why, go read this Chicago Tribune story on the effect of globalization on rural labor. The key grafs:

For decades, growth-minded rural towns have vied to attract manufacturers by offering tax breaks and other incentives. The expansion strategy is based on what economists call the "multiplier effect": When a new employer comes to town, the influx of new payroll money creates jobs throughout the local economy, as workers begin buying new homes, cars, and other goods and services.

Now, with manufacturers closing U.S. plants and switching production to cheap-labor sites in Mexico and China, the multiplier is working in reverse. The attribute that has long made manufacturing so attractive to communities--its ability to spark an outsize number of new jobs--is magnifying the economic disruption caused by manufacturer pullouts.

Rural communities' strategy of seeking growth through manufacturing "is colliding full force with a globalizing economy," said Mark Drabenstott, an economist with the Center for the Study of Rural America at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

Bush, in order to win, desperately needs rural voters. He cannot and will not ignore this constituency. Which means more protectionist rhetoric and more protectionist policies to come.

[But don't these articles also highlight real economic pain?--ed. Yes, but these article are also emblematic of the "lump of labor" fallacies that I discussed last fall. Blocking either investment or trade flows will do nothing but act as a massively inefficient subsidy for manufacturers. It's a disastrous policy. So what policies would you propose?--ed. You mean besides letting the market sort itself out? Based on this article, introduce subsidies for plastic surgery (link via Virginia Postrel)]."

2003-09-08T14:19:00.000Z

FREE TRADE IS THE AMERICAN WAY, INNIT?
Via Dan Drezner, I read this ABC News article on Bush's protectionism:

'Bush said the nation has lost "thousands of jobs in manufacturing." In fact, the losses have soared into the millions: Of the 2.7 million jobs the U.S. economy has lost since the recession began in early 2001, 2.4 million were in manufacturing. The downturn has eliminated more than one in 10 of the nation's factory jobs.

The president attributed the erosion to productivity gains and to jobs flowing to cheaper labor markets overseas. He suggested that jobs moving to foreign shores was his primary reason for creating the new manufacturing czar.

"One way to make sure that the manufacturing sector does well is to send a message overseas, (to) say, look, we expect there to be a fair playing field when it comes to trade," Bush said.

"See, we in America believe we can compete with anybody, just so long as the rules are fair, and we intend to keep the rules fair," Bush said, his audience of workers and supporters cheering.'

Two thoughts on this:
One, if the jobs we are losing are in manufacturing, and are thus the jobs we should be losing, can Bush be faulted that hard on the economy?

Two, what the fuck is he talking about? He wants to "send a message overseas, (to) say, look, we expect there to be a fair playing field when it comes to trade."? And this message is sent how? Oh yeh, by subisdising our industries and using the WTO to stop poorer nations from subisdising theirs. Domestic politics all the way. Unfortunately, I think that just as the vast majority of Americans take it as writ that America is the greatest country in the world, they also take it for granted that we offer the free-est trade in the world. I'd have believed that myself three years ago.

2003-09-07T05:51:00.000Z

SOME LIES GET JUMPED ON BY THE AMERICAN PRESS, OTHERS GO UNCHALLENGED
Tapped (4 Sep 03) has a great explanation of why this happens:

LIES THE PRESS LIKES. The estimable David Greenberg, doctor of history, contributor to Slate and The Washington Monthly, and all-around smart guy, helpfully explains why some of George W. Bush's lies get scrutinized and others do not. He writes:

Every day, journalists struggle to reconcile two clashing professional mandates. On the one hand, their stature rests on a reputation for fairness and objectivity; if they appear to be taking ideological shots at a president, their credibility suffers. Yet they also hearken to the muckraker's trumpet, the injunction to scrutinize and challenge the powerful. One principle calls for restraint and evenhandedness, the other for skepticism and zeal.

Almost uniquely, official deceptions allow reporters to align these goals. When a public figure lies, journalists can simultaneously flaunt their adversarial stance and style themselves defenders of truth.

To the axiom that journalists love lies, however, there's one important corollary -- and it helps explain Bush's Teflon coating. Reporters like only certain lies. Perversely, those tend to be the relatively trivial ones, involving personal matters: Clinton's deceptions about his sex life; Al Gore's talk of having inspired Love Story; John Kerry's failure to correct misimpressions that he's Irish. Here, the press can strut its skepticism without positioning itself ideologically.

The lies reporters dislike, in contrast, center on what are usually more important matters: claims about public policy -- taxes, abortion, the environment -- where raising questions of truthfulness can seem awfully close to taking sides in a partisan debate. Most of Bush's lies have fallen in this demilitarized zone, where journalists fear to tread.

As part of its reverence for objectivity, journalism esteems balance. A reporter can demonstrate objectivity by quoting two opposing sides of an issue equally. In America's two-party system, the Republican and Democratic positions conveniently serve to demarcate those sides. Democratic claims receive every bit as much credence as Republican claims, and vice versa, and for a reporter to suggest otherwise is seen as joining the partisan fray.

In discussing which party's policies are preferable, this evenhandedness makes sense. But in reporting which party's claims are true, sometimes there's one right answer. Often, however, that truth isn't apparent to the lay person or the average reporter but only to experts -- scientists, doctors, economists, or scholars. Reporters must themselves work through the numbers or diligently mine the experts' research to ferret out the truth -- or, more likely, they fall back on presenting both sides' claims equally. Bound by professional strictures, news reporters can wind up giving a lie the same weight as the truth, while it falls to opinion writers to note when a president has lied about his tax cuts or stem-cell research policy.

Getting away with such policy prevarications has grown easier because of one last factor: the rise of the party message machines. In the 1970s and '80s, Republican leaders set out to coordinate their public arguments; under Clinton, the Democrats learned to do the same. Loyalty has come to mean not just voting with your party leader but mouthing the line on TV, to reporters, or in press releases. Faithful pundits, too, will parrot the official message. Thus, when a president lies about policy, so does a chorus of members of Congress, columnists, and commentators -- and try calling every Republican or Democrat in Washington a liar. In contrast, on a lie about a personal matter like sex, the offender stands alone or with just a few loyalists, and so it's plainly his honesty alone that's at issue.

This is about as succinct an explanation as you are likely to get. But Tapped would take it a bit farther by saying that this state of affairs clearly benefits the Republicans more than Democrats. Today's GOP is a very conservative party with a diminishing moderate wing and a radical agenda for changing American politics and government. But that agenda does not enjoy wide or deep public support, as Newt Gingrich discovered when he tried to abolish whole departments in the 1990s. It is thus necessary for the GOP to be deceptive about its agenda -- to, essentially, lie about it. Josh Marshall puts this well in his latest Washington Monthly article about President Bush's own lies, writing:
The president and his aides don't speak untruths because they are necessarily people of bad character. They do so because their politics and policies demand it. As astute observers such as National Journal's Jonathan Rauch have recently noted, George W. Bush campaigned as a moderate, but has governed with the most radical agenda of any president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Indeed, the aim of most of Bush's policies has been to overturn what FDR created three generations ago. On the domestic front, that has meant major tax cuts forcing sharp reductions in resources for future government activism, combined with privatization of as many government functions as possible. Abroad, Bush has pursued an expansive and militarized unilateralism aimed at cutting the U.S. free from entangling alliances and international treaty obligations so as to maximize freedom of maneuver for American power in a Hobbesian world.

Yet this is not an agenda that the bulk of the American electorate ever endorsed. Indeed, poll after poll suggest that Bush's policy agenda is not particularly popular. What the public wants is its problems solved: terrorists thwarted, jobs created, prescription drugs made affordable, the environment protected. Almost all of Bush's deceptions have been deployed when he has tried to pass off his preexisting agenda items as solutions to particular problems with which, for the most part, they have no real connection

For the reasons Greenberg lays out, journalists simply don't feel empowered to challenge the disconnect -- to point out that the policies the Bush administration pushes bear little relation to the problems they are ostensibly intended to address.

2003-09-05T13:02:00.000Z

ATLANTA
So I'm driving around in Nick's car yesterday looking for a nice way to pass rush hour and I think, "I know; I'll go to Little 5 Points." It's a nice enough place, after all.

But is it? When I drove up into it all I saw was two scrawny strands of lined shops buried slightly behind rows of sidewalk trees. Nice enough, I suppose, but it left me very underwhelmed. This is the best or second best Atlanta has to offer?

I had a Pabst Blue Ribbon, anyway. Guess I'll try East Atanta next.

EARLIER, THOUGH, I did slide into the High Museum's Hopper and Ansel Adams exhibitions. Hopper only had two rooms; all the pieces were, I think, on loan from MOMA and the Whitney. Most of it was dross, but they did have two of his best: the row of shopfronts at sunrise and looking down the stairs out the open door. A nice one focusing on the eves, gables and otherwise peaked roofs of some houses, too.

Ansel Adams also had a few architecturally-focused shots, but of course that isn't what made him. The exhibition of his work was stronger and more complete. Monumental stuff, but I find shots of pure, unadulterated nature somehow unmoving. Perhaps it seems to alien to me.

I preferred two human-scale photos taken by Robert Adams. These both offered a hint of the scope and greandeur of the western panorama, but showed it confined by man's needs. The first is of a Frontier brand gas station infront of power lines, with a mountain range far behind. The second shows a crescent moon suspended over a lovely young tree. The tree, however, stands in isolation smack dab in the middle of a parking lot.

I'm sure a jillion postmodernist art school twats have said this before, but I got two confliciting yet complemetary impressions from those Ansel Adams photos. On one hand, by showing the pure and unadulterated grand beauty of nature, he represents hope - hope that humans can find and experience that which is truly beautiful. But on the other, maybe he's complicit in the destruction of the west. By finding and showing these ideal images of a west that was rapidly being disfigured, did he make it easier for the powers that be - and the nation as a whole - to convince us that the west was still untainted?

I know he was a big environmentalist, and don't know what he had to say about this issue. Also, I may be exaggerating the scarring of the west. Don't really know.

2003-09-04T15:52:00.000Z

HOME AGAIN
The first time I flew back into Atlanta was two years ago; at the time I didn't feel any of the expected nostalgia for it. I certainly didn't feel like it was home.

As the plane banked around the city this time, I felt a bit more emotional. It wasn't a sense of homecoming, but one of coming back to say goodbye. London is definitely my home now, and I don't see myself coming back to the US in the near future. If I had to choose one country to remain in, I'd choose the UK.

I do, however, like the idea of coming back to the US for a year here or a year there. It'd be a lot of fun to get a one- year contract and spend a year in New York with the boys, or maybe end up in San Fancisco or LA or Hawaii for a short spell. It's all open to me. That's a damn nice feeling.

2003-09-04T15:45:00.000Z

HOME
Flew over and then into Atlanta yesterday. To the north I could see newly-bulldozed pine forest being converted into cul de sac-based subdivisions; every house large and white, every yard tree-less.

It's the tree-less bit that gets me. Couldn't they build these new subdivisions in a slightly less industrial manner, leaving a couple of trees where the front yards will be? I suppose you could argue that in many cases the area surrounding the subdivision is, as with the ones I saw yesterday, forest - so what's the big deal about not having trees in the front yard? You could also argue that doing the job in this industrial destroy then build style keeps houses cheaper, making it easier for poorer people to afford these houses.

Hmm. I kinda suspect that the money saved isn't going into the home owners' college funds. These are national or at least regional building firms who that have turned subdivision construction into a formula that must be followed at the risk of the builder's job. Every aspect of building has been costed and rationalised. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, but I do wish they would be thoughtful enough to want to take pride not just in their business model but in the neighbourhoods they are creating. Cost in a couple of trees, fellas. You'll make a little less, but build a nicer world.

And saying that does not make me a schmuck.

2003-08-31T19:37:00.000Z

LIES, DAMN LIARS AND STATISTICS

Good line from Mark Kleinman: "He uses statistics the way a drunk uses a lamppost: for support rather than illumination."

2003-08-31T19:05:00.000Z

DUMP SOME SUBSIDIES, NOT ALL
That's what SIngle Planet recommends. A good site.

2003-08-28T17:36:00.000Z

THE BENEFITS OF SUPERSTORES
Brad DeLong argues that the greatest good arises from a full range of food stores: tiny market stalls, medium-sized groceries, and, yes, big evil impersonal superstores.

I'm far from convinced that superstores don't push the mom & pops out of business, but I do agree with him when he argues that poor people benefit from giant stores.

In the short run, that is. I'm still unconvinced about what happens in the long run. Do small towns get Walmartised, seeing jobs disappear? When that happens and Billy Bob is suddenly making three bucks an hour less than he used to and no longer has health insurance for his family, has he actually benefitted?

I recall reading in Monbiot (hardly and unbiased source, of course) that per job, the average sueprmarkets sell five times what corner stores do. That means significant job less in the community. Or does access to all that cheap frozen beef give poor people the vim they need to suddenly become entrepeneurs?

The comments to this post are full of interesting info.

2003-08-28T17:23:00.000Z

CAN YOU CARE AND STILL BE SEEN AS STRONG?
Not a great article onthe myth of Republican competence, but an excellent argument:

"Republicans, at least since the 1980 election, have gotten lots of mileage out of billing themselves as the party of competence. They knew how to deal with the Russkies. They understood a budget. They knew how to crack down on the crooks and hoodlums. They understood the bottom line, and they knew what was right for America. The Democrats, meanwhile, were supposedly more interested in their dainty little social-engineering schemes than in success. Lots of people bought all of this, and of course there was a little bit of truth to it -- then. But the labels stuck hard. Democrats still have to take dramatic steps to prove their competence while Republicans are presumed -- by the mainstream media, anyway -- to possess it until they demonstrate otherwise. "

As Joe Conason points out in Big Lies, so much of what makes America great came from the efforts of liberals. And shit, dems were in charge during WWI and WWII. And we started Vietnam! How the hell did Republicans get the reputation for being tough warriors?

I think this relates to Amy Sullivan's musings on whether or not public money should be used to help the poor. (I think I linked to this a few days ago; can't be bothered now.)

Is it a case of the American public being a bit like those adolescent teenagers who associate caring (eg for the environment or for the poor) with weakness? Is this an image problem? In Europe, where it's accepted that the strong will to a large degree help out the weak, caring doesn't preclude strength. In the US, I fear it does.

2003-08-28T17:15:00.000Z

THE POLITICAL IMPERATIVE UNDERLYING BUSHIAN ECONOMIC POLICY

Political Aims has a great post discussing the far right's desire to bankrupt the state. It comes down to this:

"Right now, the people in power are busy starving the state, cutting popular public programs and running up record deficits that will, in turn, be used as an excuse not to spend more in the future (unless it's for defense.) This is by design, and the right ducks under the cover of its economic justifications because its political goals are not popular ones. It's time we started calling them on it."

2003-08-28T16:54:00.000Z

THE GOOD NEWS BOOK LIST
Americans read about politics - and they read what lefties write. Encouraging stuff.

Quoth Billimon:
"Franken should kiss Bill O'Reilly for inciting this whole loopy episode. Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them is currently at #1 on the Amazon nonfiction top sellers list, followed by Joe Conason's Big Lies.

Jim Hightower's Thieves in High Places is at #5 on the list, while Ann Coulter's Mein Kampf ... um, I mean Treason clocks in at #6. Molly Ivans' Bushwacked is at #7; Michael Moore's Stupid White Men hangs in there at #8, while Robert Baer's Sleeping With the Devil is at #9. Greg Palast's Best Democracy Money Can Buy is #10."

2003-08-28T11:46:00.000Z

A PROBLEM WITH OXBLOG
I visit OxBlog almost every day, but David Adesnik is a bit too much of a chest thumper for my taste. I hope he's not planning on going into government - his belief in his own rightness and that of his friends is already a bit too muscular for objectivity. Over time, this will only get worse. Hopefully he'll won't become one of these policy makers who always opts for ideology over evidence.

2003-08-28T08:58:00.000Z

Memorisation and the very young. An interesting post from Kevin Drum about the
seemingly mysterious instance of a pre-kindergarden girl losing her math skills between the ages of 3 and 5. The comments lend a good insight into how young brains learn and why.

2003-08-26T17:11:00.000Z

The incredible shrinking food pound In a paper entitled Some Benefits and Drawbacks of Local Food Systems, Professor Jules Pretty says a much smaller percentage of food money is now going to farmers:

"One of the reasons why farmers struggle is that the proportion of the food pound or dollar
returning to farmers has shrunk. Fifty years ago, farmers in Europe and North America
received between 45-60% per cent of the money that consumers spent on food. Today, that
proportion has dropped dramatically to just 7% in the UK and 3.5% in the USA, but remains
at 18% in France. So even though the global food sector continues to expand, now standing
at one and a half trillion US dollars a year, farmers are getting a relatively smaller share.

...

Over time, the value of food has been increasingly captured by manufacturers, processors
and retailers. Farmers sell the basic commodity, and others add the value. As a result, less
money gets back to rural communities, and they in turn suffer economic decline. A typical
US wheat farmer, for example, receives six cents of each dollar spent on bread, about the
same as for the wrapping."

When the proportion of the food pound is ever-shrinking, you've got all the more incentive to squeeze out more (subsidised) production.

Re that France figure, I wonder: Are some sorts of subsidies ok, or at least more ok than others? US and UK-style subisidies reward production without regard to market demand, and everyone loses except the biggest producers. If the French use subsidies differently, in a way that encourages smaller farming (and thus a more viable and thriving rurality), then they're using htem for a better purpose.

Why are they better? Because more people benefit from them. Bad policies are those which benefit the few at the expense of the many.

But what is good policy? That which benefits as many as possible while hurting as few as possible? And how do you meld internal and external policies?

2003-08-26T16:54:00.000Z

Fading. Greg Maddux is just barely on pace to win 15 games. If he doesn't, it'll be the first time in 16 incredible years. Will he make it? Go Greg.

2003-08-26T16:51:00.000Z

Dreary. Where I come from, the phrase "summer coat" doesn't exist. I live in London now, and have mine on today. Very depressing.

Not so bad as my first summer here, though. That was one of England's rainiest on record, offering by far the most depressing weather I've ever experienced. I used to try to ride my bicycle everywhere, and - I swear - every single time I got on the thing, I got rained on. That winter, I spent three weeks recuperating in Spain, where the rain may fall on the plain, but didn't once fall on me.

I'm a little better acclimatised now (lower standards), and this summer truly has been lovely. But does it really have to end so soon?

2003-08-25T20:35:00.000Z

Water, water. The Guardian has published a special report on water and the billion-plus people who struggle to get it everyday.

Earlier this month, the Observer focused on the multi-billion dollar bottled water industry.

2003-08-22T16:52:00.000Z

I think it's alright; how about you? Accidentally opened my copy of Fowler's to its entry on alright/all right. In a snarky, condescending entry, it says that "the use of all right, or the inability to see that there is anything wrong with alright, reveals one's background, upbringing, education, etc,. perhpas as much as any word in the language."

Yeh, just like ending a sentence on a preposition, Lord Pantsuit.

Here's what the 1996 AmHer Book of English Usage says:

"Is it all right to use alright? Despite the appearance of alright in the works of such well-known writers as Flannery O’Connor, Langston Hughes, and James Joyce, the merger of all and right has never been accepted as standard. This is peculiar, since similar fusions like already and altogether have never raised any objections. The difference may lie in the fact that already and altogether became single words back in the Middle Ages, whereas alright (at least in its current meaning) has only been around for a little over a century and was called out by language critics as a misspelling. You might think a century would be plenty of time for such an unimposing spelling to gain acceptance as a standard variant, and you will undoubtedly come across alright in magazine and newspaper articles. But if you decide to use alright, especially in formal writing, you run the risk that some of your readers will view it as an error, while others may think you are willfully breaking convention."

Why do otherwise rational observers of the language insist that alright isn't alright? As AmHer rightly points out, the merger of all with other words is well accepted in our language. More pertinently, do these ding-dongs not realise that "alright" has a different meaning from "all right"? Alright is much more akin in meaning to "fine" or "good enough" than to "all right". All fluent speakers of English know this; except, it seems, a bunch of prescriptivists who see this as a battle that might yet win.

2003-08-22T16:38:00.000Z

The Hutton Inquiry is incredible. Powell's email shows that only a week before Blair's "45 minutes" speech, his inner circle knew the evidence for the claim just wasnt' there. Hoon looks likely to lose his job. Gilligan comes off like a complete hypocrite, having cried "gotta protect my source" while giving that source away to a friendly Liberal MP. That MP misled the Foreign Affairs Committee by implying that he'd got Kelly's name from Susan Watts.

And now, on the week's last day of testimony, it comes out that Kelly told a mate he would "probably be found dead in the woods" if the American and British invasion of Iraq went ahead. Next up, Tony Blair himself. Holy cliffhangers, Batman!

The Hutton Inquiry website
The Guardian's Hutton Inquiry special report.

2003-08-22T13:07:00.000Z

Fair trade good. Jacob Levy offers a solid summary of why, then ends it with a silly appeal to rub the Frenchies' noses in it.

However, he does have this excellent statement:
"Still, the costs agricultural policies impose on their own societies are manageable in the huge economies of the developed world. The costs they impose on the rest of the world are often devastating."

To me, that sums the whole fight up.

2003-08-22T12:51:00.000Z

More Josh Marshall on war haws. He's dead on the money when he says they're in thrall to their ideology.

"I hesitate to throw wisdom after foolishness. But Lincoln captured some of what's necessary when he said: "The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present ... As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disentrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country."

But look what we're getting.

In an article about the recent reverses in the Middle East, Ken Adelman told the Post: "We should not try to convince people that things are getting better. Rather, we should convince people that ours is the age of terrorism." Richard Perle said: "It may be a very long time before we've so substantially eliminated the source of terror that we can pronounce that we are safe."

The logic of these comments and others from administration-connected hawks is that the president should stop telling the public that things are getting better. Things really are as bad as they look in Iraq. But that's because we're in an all-out global war against the terrorists.

Rather than these guys disenthralling themselves, they're yet again trying to bend logic and chronology into a metaphysical pretzel in which the failure of the policy becomes the justification for the policy."

I find that Adelman quote particularly 1984-ish: "We should not try to convince people that things are getting better. Rather, we should convince people that ours is the age of terrorism." And it being the age of terrorism, anything our government does is right.

2003-08-22T12:40:00.000Z

After the UN suicide bomb, Josh Marshall argues that war hawks are trying to have their cake and eat it too. No matter what happens, he complains, the war hawks are spinning it as a positive:

"I'm probably getting certain particulars of this wrong, but there's a basic principle in scientific theory: an hypothesis, to be a real hypothesis, must be capable of disproof. In other words, for an hypothesis to be a valid basis for research, there must be some data which, if found to be true, would prove the hypothesis was false. Otherwise, there's no way to test it.

Now, foreign policy is no science. But some looser version of this principle must apply here as well. To be a policy, as opposed to a theological position, there must be some potential results that would show the policy was not working. The proponents of the policy should be able to say ahead of time that if this or that result happens, the policy has failed.

The utility of requiring this would be that if the result of the invasion of Iraq is an Islamic theocracy, governed by Osama bin Laden, and purchasing nuclear weapons from Pakistan at bargain-basement prices, we'd have the hawks on record saying this was in fact not a positive development.

Now, we've already had the 'flypaper' theory: that guerilla attacks against American troops are a good thing because we're pulling 'the terrorists' out of the woodwork and attacking them on our own terms. And now we have what I guess we could call the 'paradoxically positive mass-casualty terrorism event' theory: that mass-casualty terrorism events show the success of our policy since they are a sign 'the terrorists' are becoming desperate.

For my part, I don't think either guerrilla attacks or mass-casualty terror attacks in themselves show the administration's policy is a failure. This is a difficult business. But they also don't strike me as positive developments.

So I think it's time for the hawks to give us a few examples of events that would show that our policy was not working or at least facing setbacks. You know, just so we can put down some benchmarks, so we can know what we're working with ..."

2003-08-22T12:33:00.000Z

Up the tube! Earlier this week I scolded Josh Chafetz for being driven by belief rather than facts. (See BBC post below.) Today I say "You go, Josh!" as he scolds some ideologue at the bufoon over the charge that higher zone one tube rates are "socialism". Josh writes:

"ANDREW STUTTAFORD INEXPLICABLY WRITES IN THE CORNER that:

London's ill-judged 'congestion charge' has inconvenienced millions and hit business. To add injury to injury, the city's leftist mayor is now proposing that 'tube' fares be increased by 25 percent - but for central London only. Overall, ticket prices for the London Underground will be increased by a rather less onerous 3.6 percent. Why the discrepancy? Passengers boarding the trains in the central zone tend (allegedly) to be from higher income groups or, worse still, are tourists. They must, therefore, be punished.

Socialism - a bad idea that just won't go away.
Not to be pedantic or anything, but this is neither socialist nor a bad idea. Price discrimination is, in fact, a profoundly market-based solution, and it's quite a good idea. Look, this is just Econ 101: Profit is total revenue minus total costs (ð = TR - TC). Total revenue is price times quantity sold (TR = p x q). Now, at p1, q1 people are willing to buy the product. Let's suppose that p1 is the market price -- that is, q1 is equal to the quantity of the product demanded at p1. So, the price gets set at p1, and q1 people buy it. But, among those q1 people, most of them would have been willing to pay some price higher than p1. For the firm to really maximize its profits, it needs to find a way to price discriminate -- that is, to sell q1 of the product, while charging the last (i.e., the marginal) customer p1 and charging all of the other customers px > p1, such that, for customer X, px is the highest price that he would be willing to pay for the product. In other words, every customer is the marginal customer at the price that that particular customer is charged.

Of course, perfect price discrimination would have such absurdly high transaction costs as to be unworkable. But plenty of forms of price discrimination do exist. To take two examples, consider hardback books and Saturday night stay requirements for airlines. Publishers release books in hardback before they release them in paperback because they know that some (e.g., diehard fans of the author, or, more often, libraries) are willing and able to pay more for the book. They then release it in paperback to get the rest of us to buy it. And for airlines, the Saturday night stay requirement is a way of getting business travelers, who want to spend the weekend at home with their families, to pay more (which they can afford to do), while charging vacationers (who want to be away from home over the weekend -- or at least, don't mind as much) less. If they tried to charge the vacationers the business travel prices, many vacationers would stay at home, or rent a car, or go by train. But if they charged the business travelers the same price as the vacationers, they'd lose out on some of the profits they could make. So they price discriminate.

Now, assuming that Ken Livingston (the mayor of London) is right that the people boarding the Tube in central London are willing and able to pay more for the ride, then charging them more is perfectly sensible -- it's price discrimination. To say that it's "punishing" the wealthy or tourists is like saying that hardback book prices "punish" libraries. Now, London isn't trying to make a profit, but by charging the wealthy riders more than the poorer ones, it allows the city to subsidize the rides of its working class residents, which seems like a perfectly acceptable idea, and no more socialist than the fact that many US cities subsidize their public transportation out of tax revenue.

(NB: I know that Livingston is known as "Red Ken," and that he considers himself a socialist. All I'm saying is that this particular scheme hardly smacks of socialism. It's a use of the market mechanism of price discrimination so that the largest number of people can ride the Tube without lowering prices so far that the Tube goes bankrupt. Similarly, in fact, the "congestion charge" is a perfect example of a city using a market mechanism to discourage unwanted behavior (behavior which has significant negative externalities, by the way), rather than simply banning it outright. Both of these uses of market mechanisms seem to me to be good things ... )"

2003-08-21T17:17:00.000Z

As I'll be visiting Monticello soon... I thought I'd share this little titbit (from Electrolite):

"As a result, even in his lifetime he was scorned by many more doctrinaire Christians, but admired by those whom religious tests might have consigned to second class citizenship: Commodore Levy, a Jew, bought Monticello from its first purchaser after Jefferson’s death (he died bankrupt) with the intention of preserving it because he believed Jefferson’s championing of religious freedom was responsible for his own advancement in the Navy. And Baptists in Massachusetts presented Jefferson at his inauguration with the world’s largest wheel of cheese."

That's some beautiful shit, man.