Monday
Strategic blogging
I'll try to get something up on Samuel Alito soon, but for now I'd like to point to two interesting foreign-relations posts by Thomas PM.. Barnett which I read last night. The most interesting is a response/interpretation to Iranian President's Ahmadinejad's statements calling for Israel to "be wiped off the map". It reads the statements as the outward manifestations of a domestic political conflict, and notes that the U.S. responding to them as if they were serious is exactly what the Ahmadinejad-faction in this battle would want. Since this is not the democracy-activist faction which U.S. hopes for Iran are to a good degree pinned to, it is important that the U.S. recognize the statements as insincere attempts to gain the upper-hand domestically, and respond accordingly (it's not clear to me, though it might well be to Barnett, what an appropriate response would be). Or at least, that's how I read him.
The other post I found interesting was on the new U.S.-Japanese military arrangements. It's interesting in part because just before I read the post, one of my roomates read part of the article it's responding to and wondered why the United States would want to do something like this just to weaken/piss-off China. Barnett says pretty much the same thing through a more sophisticated framework, talking about how the fact that Cold Warriors are still in charge of the United States military leads to policies which are overly-confrontational towards China. I agree that pissing China off is, ceteris paribus, an evil. If you want to understand why I think that, see this (really excellent) DeLong post from July.
But Barnett and my roommate's reading both fail to address a point which the article makes: Japan taking over more of its military defense for itself leads to other benefits — benefits not associated with China at all. Namely, either Japan itself can use more troops for future (truly) humanitarian military operations or the United States will have more troops available for such operations because Japanese troops will have substituted for American troops otherwise tasked to Japan. Both of these could also occur. I don't know how to assess whether this benefit (or others) out weigh the cost of this pissing off China, but surely it must be taken into account before declaring this new arrangement to me a negative. The original article's failure to mention the "China isn't going to like this" factor is, of course, bizarre.
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The other post I found interesting was on the new U.S.-Japanese military arrangements. It's interesting in part because just before I read the post, one of my roomates read part of the article it's responding to and wondered why the United States would want to do something like this just to weaken/piss-off China. Barnett says pretty much the same thing through a more sophisticated framework, talking about how the fact that Cold Warriors are still in charge of the United States military leads to policies which are overly-confrontational towards China. I agree that pissing China off is, ceteris paribus, an evil. If you want to understand why I think that, see this (really excellent) DeLong post from July.
But Barnett and my roommate's reading both fail to address a point which the article makes: Japan taking over more of its military defense for itself leads to other benefits — benefits not associated with China at all. Namely, either Japan itself can use more troops for future (truly) humanitarian military operations or the United States will have more troops available for such operations because Japanese troops will have substituted for American troops otherwise tasked to Japan. Both of these could also occur. I don't know how to assess whether this benefit (or others) out weigh the cost of this pissing off China, but surely it must be taken into account before declaring this new arrangement to me a negative. The original article's failure to mention the "China isn't going to like this" factor is, of course, bizarre.
Friday
It's a mad world
There is a survey-style post I've been wanting to do for a while, but I can never figure out how to phrase the question as precisely as I mean to. Nevertheless, I'm going to try. What is your ideal candidate (I refuse to specify an office, though it obviously matters, so specify one in your answer if you choose) platform? The rules for this survey/contest aren't quite listing the necessary conditions, and they certainly aren't listing the sufficient conditions, instead, they're the following: list the positions such that if a candidate committed to these positions (as specifically as possible (i.e., not "education reform," but a specific education reform proposal)) you would vote for that candidate over anyone who didn't commit to these positions. But you don't need to deal with the "all of those positions, and a pony" problem, because I'm not saying you would vote for this candidate over any other candidate, but only over anyone who didn't accept each element of the platform. Accepting your platform+ isn't a problem.
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Thursday
Neither boom nor hedgehog
I've been wondering about the following for some time now, but forotten to blog about it: While in New York City, I've been seeing commercials for the fast-food restaurant "Sonic." Having checked Sonic's web-site to confirm my gut instinct, I notice that there are no Sonic locations in the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey, or Connecticut. In this instance I saw it on a cable channel (USA, to be precise) but I believe I've seen the ads on networks in the past. I won't swear to that last part though. The answer to the question I'm about to ask could then just be that USA sells some of its ads natioanlly, but I really think I've seen them on networks. So the questions are: Can you think of other non-national companies that advertise natioanlly? Why would they do this? Is it possible that the sum of costs the ad-buys for all the individual areas Sonic needs to target would be greater than a national ad-buy?
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Wednesday
And everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned
Some time tomorrow, perhaps before I'm awake again, and likely before I update this blog again, Patrick Fitzgerald will have issued indictments.
Update: So I was wrong. If you had asked me this weekend I would have said no announcements till Friday because all indications are that Fitzgerald is as thorough as can be, and would want to take all the time allotted to him assembling his evidence. But last night's stories convinced me otherwise. Damn you, last night's stories.
In other news, I'm seeing Jon Brion in concert this evening. Since I'm constitutionally incapable of music reviews ("Duh...I like it?"), don't expect to hear more about this. The title of this post doesn't really fit the update, does it?
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Update: So I was wrong. If you had asked me this weekend I would have said no announcements till Friday because all indications are that Fitzgerald is as thorough as can be, and would want to take all the time allotted to him assembling his evidence. But last night's stories convinced me otherwise. Damn you, last night's stories.
In other news, I'm seeing Jon Brion in concert this evening. Since I'm constitutionally incapable of music reviews ("Duh...I like it?"), don't expect to hear more about this. The title of this post doesn't really fit the update, does it?
Monday
Minutia
Tonight I was returning home from dinner on the Subway subway when I was confronted with a difficult decision. I had taken the six-train (actually the five to the six, but that's not relevant to the point I want to discuss) from Grand Central to the Bleecker Street station. The dilemma was whether or not to transfer to the F or V subway for one stop which would leave me a short block from home (≅.08 mile), or walk ≅.43 miles in a heavy rain storm. This decision is made more difficult by the fact that at 10:30 PM it is unpredictable when the next subway might to arrive. It could arrive anywhere from simultaneous with to (I guessed) 20 minutes after my arrival at Bleecker, and I couldn't tell based on the number of people on the platform whether or not a train had arrived recently. Nor have I seen any data on the average wait-times during night time operation.
My goals were to avoid walking in the rain (walking is good, and rain can be appealing sometimes, but going for a stroll in a downpour wasn't what I was in the mood for tonight), but also to minimize the time taken to get home. My decision was to wait for five minutes, and if the train hadn't arrived by then, say screw it to the sunk costs and walk home. This seemed like a good strategy because it has as good a chance of the best outcome (there being a train immediately) as any other strategy, while avoiding the possibility of the worst outcome (waiting twenty minutes). Admittedly, walking home after waiting five minutes is worse than walking home immediately, but it seemed like a worthy gamble.
This post would give anyone who was interested the ability to figure out exactly where I live. Of course, so would asking me.
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My goals were to avoid walking in the rain (walking is good, and rain can be appealing sometimes, but going for a stroll in a downpour wasn't what I was in the mood for tonight), but also to minimize the time taken to get home. My decision was to wait for five minutes, and if the train hadn't arrived by then, say screw it to the sunk costs and walk home. This seemed like a good strategy because it has as good a chance of the best outcome (there being a train immediately) as any other strategy, while avoiding the possibility of the worst outcome (waiting twenty minutes). Admittedly, walking home after waiting five minutes is worse than walking home immediately, but it seemed like a worthy gamble.
This post would give anyone who was interested the ability to figure out exactly where I live. Of course, so would asking me.
Everybody Loves Ben
...Bernanke, that is. Alternate (tabloid-style) title for this post: New Fed Head Slick Pick.
Here's a roundup of economics bloggers saying they like him, here's an odd omission from their list (Possibly omitted because his post just says, "yay!" But it's important to know that he thinks "yay!", so it's still odd.), and here is the guy who seems to be the lone dissenter so far. The dissenter's opposition to targeted inflation doesn't seem at all persuasive to me, deflation can also be bad.
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Here's a roundup of economics bloggers saying they like him, here's an odd omission from their list (Possibly omitted because his post just says, "yay!" But it's important to know that he thinks "yay!", so it's still odd.), and here is the guy who seems to be the lone dissenter so far. The dissenter's opposition to targeted inflation doesn't seem at all persuasive to me, deflation can also be bad.
Sunday
Never say 'I'm gonna fight you Steve'
I'd like to put together the uniform from Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou for Halloween. It looks like this. Anyone have ideas about how to this together which are more specific than, "Go to a thrift store"? Because I already thought of that one.
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Friday
Sputter
I knew Leon Kass, former Chairman of the President's Council on bioethics and University of Chicago professor, had some odd ethical views. But I didn't realize these ethical views entailed it being a negative change that has taken place between now and an unspecified bygone era that men no longer "distinguish[], as did the culture generally, between women one fooled around with and women one married, between a woman of easy virtue and a woman of virtue simply. Only respectable women were respected; one no more wanted a loose woman for one's partner than for one's mother." Read the whole piece if you're interested in hearing what people think who are sincerely opposed to autonomy of women. Or see S.Z. and Kieran mocking him.
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Tuesday
How many Stone Phillips could dance on the head of a pin?
First episode of Colbert report: mixed bag. But not because everything was mediocore. On the contrary, the first fifteen minutes were awful and the interview with Stone Phillips outstanding.
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Passing judgment
So, an employer isn't ethically obligated to continue paying an employee's salary if the employee is unable to work due to illness and has previously chosen not to (or been financially unable to) participate in the optional company health insurance plan. While this may sound very harsh, the alternative answer, which Randy toys with, would lead to a dangerous moral hazard. That is, no employee would ever have reason to purchase insurance, knowing that their employers would provide for them either way.
I do think there is a societal obligation to move towards single-payer health care, but there's no conflict between that and individual employers not being obligated to care for their employees. I of course hope that this employer does everything he can for his employee, as the fact that any serious illness is capable of ruining someone's life even if they recover from it is horrifying, and should be alleviated via government policies. I believe that to be the case even if such government policies, such as the Family Medical Leave Act which mandates that employers provide (unpaid) leave when employees are ill without negative consequences to the employees career, lead to higher unemployment. This doesn't seem to have much to do with the ethicist column though.
On the second question...Over an hour? Pittsburgh must be quite different from New York or St. Louis, the only cities I've lived in. Because I can't imagine waiting an hour. It sounds more like a Curb Your Enthusiasm skit then something that really happened. The real question is the appropriate punishment for making someone wait an hour.
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I do think there is a societal obligation to move towards single-payer health care, but there's no conflict between that and individual employers not being obligated to care for their employees. I of course hope that this employer does everything he can for his employee, as the fact that any serious illness is capable of ruining someone's life even if they recover from it is horrifying, and should be alleviated via government policies. I believe that to be the case even if such government policies, such as the Family Medical Leave Act which mandates that employers provide (unpaid) leave when employees are ill without negative consequences to the employees career, lead to higher unemployment. This doesn't seem to have much to do with the ethicist column though.
On the second question...Over an hour? Pittsburgh must be quite different from New York or St. Louis, the only cities I've lived in. Because I can't imagine waiting an hour. It sounds more like a Curb Your Enthusiasm skit then something that really happened. The real question is the appropriate punishment for making someone wait an hour.
Monday
Sardines would have been a better mascot
Most "Mamet" exchange in State and Main:
Bunky: "She could have done better than him."
Spud: "It takes all kinds."
Bunky: "That's what it takes? I always wondered what it took."
This gets the nod because my idea of the archtypal Mamet dialogue (at least for his later films), is something that doesn't work at all on the page, but really sings when it's delivered with right pacing and intonation. Also idiomatic phrases literally looks to be something he likes playing with.
The runner-up for this award was:
Walt Price: Waterford, Vermont. Where is it? That's where it is.
This ends tonight's edition of a sampling of my thoughts on the (really excellent) DVD I just watched. In other Mamet news, Spartan sucked, and don't let people telling you that it subverts the expectations of the action genre tell you otherwise.
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Bunky: "She could have done better than him."
Spud: "It takes all kinds."
Bunky: "That's what it takes? I always wondered what it took."
This gets the nod because my idea of the archtypal Mamet dialogue (at least for his later films), is something that doesn't work at all on the page, but really sings when it's delivered with right pacing and intonation. Also idiomatic phrases literally looks to be something he likes playing with.
The runner-up for this award was:
Walt Price: Waterford, Vermont. Where is it? That's where it is.
This ends tonight's edition of a sampling of my thoughts on the (really excellent) DVD I just watched. In other Mamet news, Spartan sucked, and don't let people telling you that it subverts the expectations of the action genre tell you otherwise.
Friday
It's a poser
Can anyone think of an interesting policy justification for why my posting defamatory material in someone else's blog comments does not create a possibility of them being held liable even if they ignore notice from the person being defamed; but my posting a copyrighted mp3 or a link (I'm pretty sure) to a copyrighted mp3 would lead to the blog owner being held liable if they ignore a proper take down notice? That is, why do we value intellectual property more highly than avoiding torts committed against people, even fairly serious ones? For an example of a serious one, see Zeran v. AOL.
This question was posed in my last class, but not answered. The class also featured a student telling Jack Balkin about The Superficial, and Prof. Balkin sounding quite interested.
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This question was posed in my last class, but not answered. The class also featured a student telling Jack Balkin about The Superficial, and Prof. Balkin sounding quite interested.
Wednesday
Practicing self-restraint
I don't think it makes sense to wish people an easy fast, since part of the reason one fasts (or at least part of the reason I fast) is that it isn't easy. But I'm not sure what else is appropriate so, [insert a positive Yom Kippur related thought directed towards people who are observing in anyway].
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Tuesday
Good assertive blogging
I'm really not sure what my opinion is of this UNICEF advertising campaign, though raising the profile of the problem caused by child soldiers is of course an unambiguous good.
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Call for the damn ball, seriously.
I will not be commenting on the end of the Baseball season, which took place tonight for those of you who might be confused about the end date.
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Monday
A bit of vindication
I don't have much to write about a week where the Ethicist column is entirely made up of correcting his previous columns, so here's a link to my post where I came to the conclusion which he has now reached: he's wrong about it being ethical to require students to type their work. I don't recall ever commenting on the second issue he addresses, and I'm certain I never even read the third.
On another note, haloscan seems to have lost all of the comments on this blog from the first five months of its existence. Since there are so few comments here, I prize each and every one of them. Anyone know what I can do about this?
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On another note, haloscan seems to have lost all of the comments on this blog from the first five months of its existence. Since there are so few comments here, I prize each and every one of them. Anyone know what I can do about this?
Local boy makes good
I know that:
a) people are tired of stories about Hurricane Katrina, especially with the onslaught of other storms and disasters in the past two months;
b) I, and almost everyone else, have already noted that there have been a lot of stories about how frequently rumors about New Orleans in the first post-Katrina week were being repeated as gospel truth;
c) people who are going to read the lead story of the New York Times Magazine probably do so whether or not I suggest on my blog that they should.
Nevertheless:
a) I can't have been the only person who was wondering about who the person (or people) would be to eventually offer an in-depth book form chronicle of Katrina-related events;
b) on the evidence of his piece in the Times, Michael Lewis (note: his crappy website isn't a reason not to read this) is an early contender;
c) the obvious broken-windows fallacy on page two (of the online version, print is differently paginated) might be attributable to him explaining how he saw things as a child.
Read it.
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a) people are tired of stories about Hurricane Katrina, especially with the onslaught of other storms and disasters in the past two months;
b) I, and almost everyone else, have already noted that there have been a lot of stories about how frequently rumors about New Orleans in the first post-Katrina week were being repeated as gospel truth;
c) people who are going to read the lead story of the New York Times Magazine probably do so whether or not I suggest on my blog that they should.
Nevertheless:
a) I can't have been the only person who was wondering about who the person (or people) would be to eventually offer an in-depth book form chronicle of Katrina-related events;
b) on the evidence of his piece in the Times, Michael Lewis (note: his crappy website isn't a reason not to read this) is an early contender;
c) the obvious broken-windows fallacy on page two (of the online version, print is differently paginated) might be attributable to him explaining how he saw things as a child.
Read it.
The filet of films
I strongly recommend that people living in a city where it is playing (New York and New York, AOTW) see The Squid and The Walrus. If it hasn't come to your city yet, be on the lookout. In case people are reading the advertising campaign as overly sentimental, or (less likely) too humorously addressing a serious topic, I'll affirm that the tone was spot-on throughout. More reasons to support my recommendation and contention might be added as I please.
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Thursday
When was the last time I posted an actual argument?
I've recently seen the contrarian argument being batted around that having very few qualifications/ being an intellectual light-weight is not an important problem for a Supreme Court Justice (and correspondingly not an objection to a Supreme Court nominee), presumably because being a good Supreme Court Justice doesn't require being particularly intellectual. You can find it being argued in comments to this post or in the first two and last paragraphs of this one This is a bad thing to be contrarian about, as I'll now try to demonstrate.
Yglesias's argument in that second linked post requires two false premises, one explicit and one implicit. The one he actually says is, "But far and away the most important thing about a Supreme Court justice is the way he or she votes. This doesn't simply reduce to the justice's political preferences, but it's basically about his theory of judging, not his intelligence." I don't want to dispute that the vote is the most important thing, but far and away is off. Actually writing opinions, and how they're written, is also really important. This is because lower courts have to apply the opinion as written, and how they'll distinguish from it or extend it as dependent upon the reasoning used. And Miers will have to write quite a number of opinions, and bad opinions lead to bad results even if the case is decided properly.
Furthermore, the voting by Supreme Court justices isn't, in a great many cases, between binary options. So Justices who are trying to maintain a majority or turn a dissent into one have to construct their opinion very carefully to appeal to different justices predilections, and this is how it should be. If Miers is a lightweight who is going approach everything bluntly, that will lead to less good opinions even when she isn't writing them.
The implicit incorrect premise is the disconnect between a theory of judging and intelligence. Presumably, one develops a theory of judging by thinking about judicial issues a lot, probably reading many different people's arguments about how judging should be done, and weighing those arguments. Since legal intelligence is in large part about how to weigh arguments, why should we think of a theory of judging as being a different thing from being intelligent? Anyways, there's no evidence that Miers has done any of this, making it pretty reasonable criticism that she (based on the evidence we've seen) an intellectual lightweight.
On the rest of Matt's post, he's been noting the total lack of or reduced versions of judicial review in other countries for a long time, but the important point isn't how liberal democracies that grew up without judicial review do operate, but how the modern United States would operate if it suddenly vanished. And I don't know why I'd imagine that would be good.
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Yglesias's argument in that second linked post requires two false premises, one explicit and one implicit. The one he actually says is, "But far and away the most important thing about a Supreme Court justice is the way he or she votes. This doesn't simply reduce to the justice's political preferences, but it's basically about his theory of judging, not his intelligence." I don't want to dispute that the vote is the most important thing, but far and away is off. Actually writing opinions, and how they're written, is also really important. This is because lower courts have to apply the opinion as written, and how they'll distinguish from it or extend it as dependent upon the reasoning used. And Miers will have to write quite a number of opinions, and bad opinions lead to bad results even if the case is decided properly.
Furthermore, the voting by Supreme Court justices isn't, in a great many cases, between binary options. So Justices who are trying to maintain a majority or turn a dissent into one have to construct their opinion very carefully to appeal to different justices predilections, and this is how it should be. If Miers is a lightweight who is going approach everything bluntly, that will lead to less good opinions even when she isn't writing them.
The implicit incorrect premise is the disconnect between a theory of judging and intelligence. Presumably, one develops a theory of judging by thinking about judicial issues a lot, probably reading many different people's arguments about how judging should be done, and weighing those arguments. Since legal intelligence is in large part about how to weigh arguments, why should we think of a theory of judging as being a different thing from being intelligent? Anyways, there's no evidence that Miers has done any of this, making it pretty reasonable criticism that she (based on the evidence we've seen) an intellectual lightweight.
On the rest of Matt's post, he's been noting the total lack of or reduced versions of judicial review in other countries for a long time, but the important point isn't how liberal democracies that grew up without judicial review do operate, but how the modern United States would operate if it suddenly vanished. And I don't know why I'd imagine that would be good.
A dash of hope
See this Jim Henley post on the passage of McCain amendments to the military apropriation bill which will hopefully lead to better treatment of prisoners by our military. See especially the veto-gates which the amendment still has to pass through and, in comments, the nine craven butchers who opposed this. I do not consider craven butchers to be a hyperbolic description, the reason to vote against these measures is if you approve of causing severe pain to others for the amusement value. For examples of the abuse for abuses sake which they don't want to decrease the chances of, see von of Obsidian Wings. The text of the amendment is included in this post, also courtesy of Obsidian Wings.
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Wednesday
Catch a risen star
Just returned from dinner. While there, I had gotten up from the table to watch a bit of the Red Sox - White Sox game. So I'm standing next to the bar watching, and hear a familiar sounding voice talking to a couple of the people sitting there. After watching Tony Graffanino miss a very playable grounder off of Juan Uribe, I turn to see if there's some reason I knew that voice. And it's Luis Guzman.
For some reason this some makes me nervous, which is stupid, but happens whenever one (or at least I) run(s) into a celebrity. So I turn back to the game for a couple of seconds, turn back to him, and say (over-excitedly), "I don't want to bother you during dinner, but you were great in The Limey" (I said it with italics too).
He says, sounding sincere, "Thanks man. Thanks a lot."
I turn to watch the game a little longer and then return to my table.
The above story is true, except for the parts I changed to make it more dramatic. In particular, I knew who's voice it was, because prior to my getting up to watch the game:
a) he was sitting at a booth diagonally in front of my table before I got up to watch the game
b) the waitress, when asked, confirmed that the Seafood Luis G. salad on the restaurant's menu was named after him
c) he had gone outside for a cigarette, and stopped to watch the game on his way out
But wasn't the story better when I told it as if I hadn't gotten up from my table to watch the game partially because it would lead to a chance to sound like a fanboy? But all of his work with Soderbergh and Paul Thomas Anderson has been very good.
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For some reason this some makes me nervous, which is stupid, but happens whenever one (or at least I) run(s) into a celebrity. So I turn back to the game for a couple of seconds, turn back to him, and say (over-excitedly), "I don't want to bother you during dinner, but you were great in The Limey" (I said it with italics too).
He says, sounding sincere, "Thanks man. Thanks a lot."
I turn to watch the game a little longer and then return to my table.
The above story is true, except for the parts I changed to make it more dramatic. In particular, I knew who's voice it was, because prior to my getting up to watch the game:
a) he was sitting at a booth diagonally in front of my table before I got up to watch the game
b) the waitress, when asked, confirmed that the Seafood Luis G. salad on the restaurant's menu was named after him
c) he had gone outside for a cigarette, and stopped to watch the game on his way out
But wasn't the story better when I told it as if I hadn't gotten up from my table to watch the game partially because it would lead to a chance to sound like a fanboy? But all of his work with Soderbergh and Paul Thomas Anderson has been very good.
Up with disbelief
If you're a regular reader of blogs or newspapers, you've seen stories in the last two weeks stating that many of the worst incidents of social breakdown reported out of New Orleans in Katrina's aftermath wildly exaggerated. For one of the most prominent, but far, far from the only example of these kinds of reports, see this LA Times story. I'm sure most of these rumor refutations are correct, but no one seems to be noting that most of them are sourced from people whose interest it's in if things are perceived as not being so bad, ie, the people responsible who were responsible for maintaining order. Basically I'm just saying, that it was good for people to be skeptical when the rumors were coming out, but don't stop being skeptical now. Some "debunked" rumors are probably being covered-up rather than debunked, and the reporters' ability or desire to do real detective work in the area is far from clear. I have no idea which particular supposedly debunked rumors are true, but simply doubt that they're all false.
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You know you're a cyclist when...
How to convince me not to fix my bicycle and get back into riding (cyclist friends might already know this, otherwise: take note!):
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Dr. Steven Schrader, a reproductive health expert who studies cycling at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, said he believed that it was no longer a question of "whether or not bicycle riding on a saddle causes erectile dysfunction."Via Unfogged
Instead, he said in an interview, "The question is, What are we going to do about it?"
Monday
Action, reaction
I'm off to an interview, but see Tom Goldstein's initial thoughts on Harriet Miers.
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