Wednesday
Come on, pal! Fugu me!
I will be eating here in the next week or so, just as soon as I mug someone for $79. Maybe I can get an advance from my summer job. Or find something which includes the desired dish but is cheaper than the prix fixe, the online menu doesn't list what I'm looking for at all. Mmmmm, teterodoxin (via Gothamist).
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Tuesday
Fairies are, by and large, irredeemably indolent
I just finished reading the Crooked Timber seminar on Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. It features guest-blogger/author of the book Susanna Clarke, and is certainly worth working your way through. If you can read only one, I vote for Henry's piece, but you may enjoy something else more. Also, do not read it if you haven't read the book and are planning on doing so.
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Monday
Belated
It's a very small thing, but I'm thankful that my legal education (essentially, my job) includes assignments which lead me to read interesting like the following, from Jay Rosen's response to Cass Sunstein's Boston Review essay, "The Daily We."
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Peruvians learned an interesting fact about their government during the wild scandals involving the corrupt intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos, who had almost everyone with influence on his payroll. For the big national broadcasters that he intimidated, bribed, and then videotaped, Montesinos had some advice: keep politics off the air as much as possible, or else. Not just the opposition and its demands (that went without saying), but politics itself was suppressed, in favor of game shows, soap operas, and sports.
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Montesinos didn't want a public sphere breaking out while he was concentrating his power—not surprising. What's surprising is his keen grasp of the situation. If the state prevented the public sphere from competing in the broader attention marketplace, it could allow a relatively "open" contest of ideas among educated elites, those who do read the newspapers.
Monitor
Using opensecrets.org to look up your professors campaign donations (or lack thereof) is a suprisingly interesting way to spend a part of your Federal Income Tax class. I also found one very well-known professor from a school other than mine who for some reason received a partial refund of his contributions from a Senatorial campaign. Not being up on the campaign finance laws, I'm not sure if he exceeded a cap or what, just thought it was curious. I'm also not sure why I feel more awkward writing that person's (or particular professor's) name than I do about writing this post in general, but I do, so I'm not.
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Sunday
Desired qualities
I just finished watching Down by Law, and have mixed feelings. So: it's funny, and unpredictable, and the cinematography is beautiful. But a lot (not all) of the ways in which it's funny are just schtick, and while unpredictable is nice (one certainly can't predict from the setup even the vague outlines of the rest of the film) nonsense is also unpredictable, and I can't give the film too much praise just for that. But it's hard for me to understand some of the praise the film has received. I think this is mostly because the characters are (purposefully) underwritten. And it's really hard to make a great film in which the characters don't, and don't appear intended to be, inspire an emotional response. This is not to say great films have to be emotionally manipulative...well, actually it is, but not in the sense where manipulative implies the film is trying to cheat in order to influence your emotions. Rather, in the sense that the film desires such an effect. This post is incomplete in terms of explaining both the negatives and positives I perceived in the film, but I'm having trouble stating them anymore fully.
Also, Octopussy may have the worst of the Bond theme songs.
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Also, Octopussy may have the worst of the Bond theme songs.
Tuesday
Posting so nice, I did it twice
At Unfogged, ogged asks:
In the first six chapters, (which is all I read yesterday, and thank god, because it turned out Prof. Balkin had made it non-mandatory and and half the class missed that) the mechanism through which Big Media will keep providing this isn't explained, and worries about Craig's List and E-Bay eating into classified and other advertising revenues are mentioned. However, let me suggest that the reason no mechanism is mentioned is because the N.Y. Times has no trouble at all making a profit1, though it does have some trouble making a constantly increasing amount of profit. But as a privately held company, it doesn't have to do that.
As a personal note, the only reason I give the N.Y. Times money is because I don't have an online crossword account and much prefer doing the crossword by hand anyway.
Also:
1. Gillmor, We The Media, xv, "Big Media enjoys high margins. Daily newspapers in typical quasi-monopoloy markets make 25-30 percent or more in good years." No further citation is provided for that claim.
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I understand that we're all supposed to be happy that TimesSelect has been such a failure, but I'm also more than a little worried. If news sources can't find a way to make money, there will be fewer of them, with less reach, and likely with less independence.I answered (slightly edited): Dan Gillmor in We the Media asserts that Big Media (his term) will remain because of the importance of investigative reporting, which multiple people above have noted is the main thing we'd miss if the Times and similar papers continue to die out.
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What's the plan to keep national, general interest news outfits in business?
In the first six chapters, (which is all I read yesterday, and thank god, because it turned out Prof. Balkin had made it non-mandatory and and half the class missed that) the mechanism through which Big Media will keep providing this isn't explained, and worries about Craig's List and E-Bay eating into classified and other advertising revenues are mentioned. However, let me suggest that the reason no mechanism is mentioned is because the N.Y. Times has no trouble at all making a profit1, though it does have some trouble making a constantly increasing amount of profit. But as a privately held company, it doesn't have to do that.
As a personal note, the only reason I give the N.Y. Times money is because I don't have an online crossword account and much prefer doing the crossword by hand anyway.
Also:
ONLINE, THE TIMES ALREADY is making serious money. New York Times Digital (which includes Boston.com as well as NYTimes.com) netted an enviable $17.3 million on revenues of $53.1 million during the first half of 2004, the last period for which its financials have been disclosed. All indications are that the digital unit is continuing to grow at 30% to 40% a year, making it NYT Co.'s fastest-revving growth engine.And another commenter added:
It is a striking paradox, however, that newspapers, for all their problems, remain huge moneymakers. In 2004, the industry's average profit margin was 20.5 percent. Some papers routinely earn in excess of 30 percent. By comparison, the average profit margin for the Fortune 500 in 2004 was about 6 percent. If the Los Angeles Times were allowed to operate at a 10 to 15 percent margin, John Carroll told me earlier this year, "it would be a juggernaut."Finally, ogged noted his worry that while the N.Y. Times' profits are currently very good, a large part of them may arise from older people suscribing because they aren't comfortable with the internet, and that as those people cease to be available as a subscription base they will not be adequately replaced. I'm not sure I have a response to that other than to note that such a fall off would still be a while coming and would be rather gradual, giving the N.Y. Times plenty of time to experiment with different business models or try to persuade customers of the value of dead tree copies.
1. Gillmor, We The Media, xv, "Big Media enjoys high margins. Daily newspapers in typical quasi-monopoloy markets make 25-30 percent or more in good years." No further citation is provided for that claim.
The return of content
So I was just reading Article II of the Constitution, and it got me thinking: Wouldn't now be a good time for a Democrat to propose a Constitutional amendment repealing Presidential term limits? I'm going to ignore the substantive merits of such a proposal in this post (Isn't the fact that Jed Bartlet was in favor of such a repeal enough? I hope so, it's all I have) and talk about how great it would be politically.
It looks far too self-serving to propose eliminating term limits when someone in your party is an incumbent (this is in some ways the reverse of the problem where the minority party is always the one complaining about gerrymandering). But the Democrats don't have to worry about this, because Bush is anything but a Democrat. Also, Bush is amazingly unpopular right now, so there's far less risk than normally exists for an incumbent of him being elected for a third term (Updated: originally said “elected for a third time” but edited to take into account Bush v. Gore) (a truly terrible outcome, and even the lesser than usual risk which my plan entails might be too much.). But the really great (political part) is that most likely Bush will try for a third term. This would almost literally destroy the Republican Party's ability to do anything. Too many Senators are too ambitious to possibly stay on with the Bush agenda if they know that doing so strengthens him and hurts their own chances at the presidency.
While the more I think about a third Bush term the less I favor this, let me throw out one positive argument that is not adequately developed in the Wikipedia entry on the topic: it greatly increases the incentive for Presidents to think in the long term, which is not currently sufficiently strong. And another interesting point which I'll borrow from my professor: Second terms following the passage of the second amendment have had a marked tendency towards scandal. While this seems like an argument in favor of repeal, it might not be, since the suggestion of his post is that just as much scandal-worthy activity takes place in term I, but less is done about it because of fear of the President's power in his second term.
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It looks far too self-serving to propose eliminating term limits when someone in your party is an incumbent (this is in some ways the reverse of the problem where the minority party is always the one complaining about gerrymandering). But the Democrats don't have to worry about this, because Bush is anything but a Democrat. Also, Bush is amazingly unpopular right now, so there's far less risk than normally exists for an incumbent of him being elected for a third term (Updated: originally said “elected for a third time” but edited to take into account Bush v. Gore) (a truly terrible outcome, and even the lesser than usual risk which my plan entails might be too much.). But the really great (political part) is that most likely Bush will try for a third term. This would almost literally destroy the Republican Party's ability to do anything. Too many Senators are too ambitious to possibly stay on with the Bush agenda if they know that doing so strengthens him and hurts their own chances at the presidency.
While the more I think about a third Bush term the less I favor this, let me throw out one positive argument that is not adequately developed in the Wikipedia entry on the topic: it greatly increases the incentive for Presidents to think in the long term, which is not currently sufficiently strong. And another interesting point which I'll borrow from my professor: Second terms following the passage of the second amendment have had a marked tendency towards scandal. While this seems like an argument in favor of repeal, it might not be, since the suggestion of his post is that just as much scandal-worthy activity takes place in term I, but less is done about it because of fear of the President's power in his second term.
Monday
Punchline
At the end of his most recent Dear Economist advice column, Tim Harford writes, "Please send your cheque via the FT, and quickly please - I've already given Professor Tabarrok all my cash." Read the article to find out why this is really funny.
Found via the aforementioned Professor Tabarrok.
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Found via the aforementioned Professor Tabarrok.
Wednesday
I bet you thought I'd say habeas corpus
I don't know if this happens to other people, but I can't recall it happening to me: I had a song stuck in my head, and then realized that no such song had ever been recorded. In particular, the song was a hybrid of Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain" and CCR's "Who'll Stop the Rain?" The chorus went, "I can still hear you saying/ You can never stop the rain."
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Tuesday
Bingaman/ Graham update
[First paragraph cross-posted to comments at two other blogs]
I'm watching C-SPAN right now, Bingaman amendment lost (54-44), then Graham spoke in favor of his and corrected part of his previous lies (mistakes?) where he had said that U.S. soldiers didn't have the ability to appeal military court decisions to U.S. civilian courts, then Specter noted that a comment Graham had made about the Supreme Court being able to issue certiorari went against the plain language of the bill placing exclusive jurisdiction in the D.C. Circuit, and Specter continued to decry that such an important idea as stripping habeas corpus was being voted upon so soon after its introduction, because it didn't allow for an opportunity for judiciary committee hearings. Now they're voting on the revised Graham amendment. The revision to the Graham amendment passed overwhelmingly, I missed the count but it seemed like around seven nay votes.
This is still quite bad, and taking away habeas corpus is a very scary precedent, but it's not as abysmally bad as the original Graham amendment. One interesting question to which I presume the answer is "no": Should Graham stating minutes before the passage of the amendment that the Supreme Court would be able to grant cert. under the amendments provisions have any effect on how the Supreme Court interprets its jurisdiction under the bill? Should Specter stating that the amendment says otherwise (and implying that is a very bad thing) and then everyone still voting for it undo any effect that Graham's statement otherwise would have had? If you think legislative history should have no influence on interpretation, pretend you think otherwise while answering the second question.
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I'm watching C-SPAN right now, Bingaman amendment lost (54-44), then Graham spoke in favor of his and corrected part of his previous lies (mistakes?) where he had said that U.S. soldiers didn't have the ability to appeal military court decisions to U.S. civilian courts, then Specter noted that a comment Graham had made about the Supreme Court being able to issue certiorari went against the plain language of the bill placing exclusive jurisdiction in the D.C. Circuit, and Specter continued to decry that such an important idea as stripping habeas corpus was being voted upon so soon after its introduction, because it didn't allow for an opportunity for judiciary committee hearings. Now they're voting on the revised Graham amendment. The revision to the Graham amendment passed overwhelmingly, I missed the count but it seemed like around seven nay votes.
This is still quite bad, and taking away habeas corpus is a very scary precedent, but it's not as abysmally bad as the original Graham amendment. One interesting question to which I presume the answer is "no": Should Graham stating minutes before the passage of the amendment that the Supreme Court would be able to grant cert. under the amendments provisions have any effect on how the Supreme Court interprets its jurisdiction under the bill? Should Specter stating that the amendment says otherwise (and implying that is a very bad thing) and then everyone still voting for it undo any effect that Graham's statement otherwise would have had? If you think legislative history should have no influence on interpretation, pretend you think otherwise while answering the second question.
Monday
Action-guiding
If you're bothered by the passage of the Graham amendment, which I mentioned in both of my posts from Thursday, this is a very important time to call your Senator and urge passage of the Bingaman amendment (Senate Amendment 2517 to Senate Bill 1042), which will undo the stripping of Federal Court jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus pleas from Guantanamo detainees. This weekend, Katherine & Hilzoy of Obsidian Wings wrote really extensively on this, read it if you're interested. I know this is repetitive, but it's very important.
In unrelated news, I've followed Brad DeLong's advice and bought a copy of Nixon Agonistes. Having not yet read past the preface, I can safely state that it has a pretty cover.
I did read, following the bracketed comment in one of my Thursday posts, Akhil Amar's The Two-Tiered Structure of the Judiciary Act of 1789. Once I figure out how the principles expressed therein on when jurisdiction stripping is unconstitutional apply to stripping jurisdiction to hear statutory claims raised by a certain class of aliens, I'll probably post something about it.
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In unrelated news, I've followed Brad DeLong's advice and bought a copy of Nixon Agonistes. Having not yet read past the preface, I can safely state that it has a pretty cover.
I did read, following the bracketed comment in one of my Thursday posts, Akhil Amar's The Two-Tiered Structure of the Judiciary Act of 1789. Once I figure out how the principles expressed therein on when jurisdiction stripping is unconstitutional apply to stripping jurisdiction to hear statutory claims raised by a certain class of aliens, I'll probably post something about it.
Friday
Instapundit follows Aumann
I'm not much good at those shorter so-and-so posts, but I'll give it a go. Shorter Glenn Reynolds (still the most popular individual political blogger there is): President Bush is too nice to Democrats, and there is no such thing as reasonable disagreement.
See also Scott Lemieux quoting Bierce. Remember when I used to do that for no reason?
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See also Scott Lemieux quoting Bierce. Remember when I used to do that for no reason?
Manic/Depressive
1: Kieran Healy provides a link to a video which I've wanted my own copy of ever since seeing it five or six years ago, despite being mistaken about what it's name was (I though just Rendezvous) There are some questions about the exact circumstances behind its filming, but the general story is that a well-known french director had recently acquired a gyroscopically stabilized camera, and it was placed on the front of his friend's (supposedly an F1 driver) Ferrari, after which the guy just drove through Paris like a complete madman. Must be seen.
2: Some thoughts for(first item) Veteran's Day. Importantly, both commemorating veterans and suggesting why it should still be Armistice Day.
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2: Some thoughts for(first item) Veteran's Day. Importantly, both commemorating veterans and suggesting why it should still be Armistice Day.
Things I should send to other blogs
In a reversal of my normal practice of posting things in other people's blog comments which make more sense as their own post (having nothing to do with the post being commented on and just being things I feel like talking about, most recent example here), the following should just be a submission to Overheard in New York:
Guy 1: No, not that show. The one with the alien girl.
Girl 1: Out of this World.
Girls 1 & 2, Guys 1 & 2: Would you like to swing on a star?
Carry moonbeams home in a jar?
And be better off than you are
You could be swingin' on a star
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Guy 1: No, not that show. The one with the alien girl.
Girl 1: Out of this World.
Girls 1 & 2, Guys 1 & 2: Would you like to swing on a star?
Carry moonbeams home in a jar?
And be better off than you are
You could be swingin' on a star
Thursday
What's the matter with Lindsey Graham?
So, Lindsey Graham's amendment to the Military Authorization bill passed. This amendment strips federal court jurisdiction to consider habeas corpus petitions from people who have been declared enemy combatants. In practice, this means that if you end up in Guantanamo for no reason whatsoever, you have essentially no way to prove this. So my question is whether or not stripping jurisdiction for writs of habeas corpus constitutes a suspension of the writ for those people, and then whether or not Article I, Section 9, Clause 2, applies to non-citizens in American custody?
[Rest of this post on hold while I decide to read articles on jurisdiction-stripping rather than read for class tomorrow.]
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[Rest of this post on hold while I decide to read articles on jurisdiction-stripping rather than read for class tomorrow.]
A demonstration...
...of the error which frequently follows from thinking less than maximally negatively of a modern-day Republican Senator. Hilzoy says [paraphrasing]: Lindsay Graham has proposed an amendment to the defense bill which will strip Federal Court jurisdiction from any attempt by an enemy combatant to challenge their detention. Good time to call your Senator.
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Wednesday
This idea at least 1/4-baked
Today, I was reading about the upcoming parlimentary elections in Egypt, and started wondering: why do we (U.S. citizens) have so few Congressional representatives per person? Egypt's parliament has 444 seats. Our House of Representatives only has 435. Since the (CIA world fact book) population of Egypt is 77,505,756, and the United States pop.is 295,734,134, something certainly seems out of whack here. But of course I'm being foolish, we have a Senate too. If the problem with a high number of people per representative is the lack of finely-grained districts, it's not clear at all that having two state wide Senators helps out, but let's assume it does for arguments sake and use 535 as the relevant figure. That means that Egypt has, on average, 174,563 (rounded to the nearest whole person) people per representative. The U.S. meanwhile has 552,774, 3.16 times more.
Now obviously, Egypt does it that way (Egypt is just the case that brought this to mind, I'm aware that many countries have lower such ratios), and therefore so should we is a terrible argument for any type of democratic structure, and many other things as well. So just let me note that a) it's easier for a representative to respond to their individual constituent's desires if they have fewer constituents, and b) the people who wrote the Constitution were keenly worried about this issue. See, e.g., Akhil Reed Amar, America's Constitution: A Biography p.76-84 (discussing the concerns with the high number of people per representative in the 1st Congress, and assurances that Congress could move to a ratio of one representative per 30,000 after the first census) and U.S. Constitution Art. I, Sec. 2, Clause 3 (setting 30,000 as the minimum number of people per rep).
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Now obviously, Egypt does it that way (Egypt is just the case that brought this to mind, I'm aware that many countries have lower such ratios), and therefore so should we is a terrible argument for any type of democratic structure, and many other things as well. So just let me note that a) it's easier for a representative to respond to their individual constituent's desires if they have fewer constituents, and b) the people who wrote the Constitution were keenly worried about this issue. See, e.g., Akhil Reed Amar, America's Constitution: A Biography p.76-84 (discussing the concerns with the high number of people per representative in the 1st Congress, and assurances that Congress could move to a ratio of one representative per 30,000 after the first census) and U.S. Constitution Art. I, Sec. 2, Clause 3 (setting 30,000 as the minimum number of people per rep).
I'm not qualified to talk econ, but...
I suppose it's a good thing that the effect of U.S. farm subsidies on the economies of both the United States and the world is being considered on the front page of the N. Y. Times. But some of the reasoning in the article seems off to me. In particular, this paragraph:
Update (12/2): I have recently concluded that this post made no sense, but I don't feel like editing it. At the time, I read the article as complaining that one crop in one market was simultaneously over and under-supplied. I no longer feel that the article said that. This just makes the post title even more accurate.
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Indeed, this season's huge volumes weigh heavily on farmers, who already have suffered a string of misfortunes: a large overhang of grain from last year, coupled with soaring energy costs and two Gulf Coast hurricanes that stymied transportation, and a severe drought that distorted prices. Together, these events have conspired to depress corn prices and potentially make this the most expensive harvest ever for the federal government.Now I could be totally wrong here, but it seems to me that a couple of those things would raise the prices of crops, and therefore benefit farmers. In particular, the stymieing of transportation and the severe drought should both have constricted supply,and offset the decrease in prices caused by the other factors to some degree. I suppose if the drought had caused quantity produced to drop by more than the increase in price, that would be one thing, but otherwise I don't get it. Also, the previous paragraph includes the phrase "...when they produce too much and when their crop prices are too low," in a context that suggests one isn't caused by the other.
Update (12/2): I have recently concluded that this post made no sense, but I don't feel like editing it. At the time, I read the article as complaining that one crop in one market was simultaneously over and under-supplied. I no longer feel that the article said that. This just makes the post title even more accurate.
Saturday
Faw-British
Remember, remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot
Yes, I know how to spell "faux"
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Gunpowder, treason and plot
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot
Yes, I know how to spell "faux"
Tuesday
It's strategy week at Provisionally Titled
Back in the olden days, a little bit after Monday the 3rd of October, I remember seeing various people saying, on blogs or otherwise, that Harriet Miers was just a decoy nominee. That is, she was nominated without the intention that she ever be confirmed, but rather that she ease the confirmation of whomever was appointed next. I don't feel like searching for people saying this, but if someone doubts that it was an idea being batted around, drop me a comment and I'll look into it.
I didn't believe at the time that those were Bush's actual intentions, though I suppose the speed with which Alito was nominated this time should add a little bit of credence to it. What I want to note now is that if that was the strategy, it was very clearly a massive failure. To see this, it's important to consider the ways in which the hypothetical strategy might have worked. It could have worked by setting the bar extremely low, so that a potential Democratic opposition to the second candidate would be blunted by how appreciative they are of the second candidate's superiority to the first. This might be (well, is) true of Alito versus Miers qualifications-wise, but it's surely false ideology-wise. That being so, there's no reason to think it'll make Democratic opposition less likely since Democrats had more to expect from Miers as far as the actual results of actual cases being in the directions of policies which the Democrats support. The previous sentence was not an endorsement of results-oriented jurisprudence, but rather a statement about expectations.
Alternatively, perhaps the second candidate wouldn't have been opposed because after a tough fight which the Democrats very narrowly won, and in which public opinion and elite media opinion either nearly or did turn against them, they were too tired to go through the whole thing again. This is the furthest thing in the world from what actually happened, as conservative opposition has actually strengthened the Senate Democrats procedural hand, and the Democrats rather than being tired are energized after seeing Bush suffer a political defeat.
Finally it could just be that people just think two nominees in a row not succeeding is one too many. This is historically false.
For all of these reasons, if the Miers nomination had been a ploy to ease the Alito nomination, it would have been just as much of a failure as the Miers as sincere nominee version of this story was.
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I didn't believe at the time that those were Bush's actual intentions, though I suppose the speed with which Alito was nominated this time should add a little bit of credence to it. What I want to note now is that if that was the strategy, it was very clearly a massive failure. To see this, it's important to consider the ways in which the hypothetical strategy might have worked. It could have worked by setting the bar extremely low, so that a potential Democratic opposition to the second candidate would be blunted by how appreciative they are of the second candidate's superiority to the first. This might be (well, is) true of Alito versus Miers qualifications-wise, but it's surely false ideology-wise. That being so, there's no reason to think it'll make Democratic opposition less likely since Democrats had more to expect from Miers as far as the actual results of actual cases being in the directions of policies which the Democrats support. The previous sentence was not an endorsement of results-oriented jurisprudence, but rather a statement about expectations.
Alternatively, perhaps the second candidate wouldn't have been opposed because after a tough fight which the Democrats very narrowly won, and in which public opinion and elite media opinion either nearly or did turn against them, they were too tired to go through the whole thing again. This is the furthest thing in the world from what actually happened, as conservative opposition has actually strengthened the Senate Democrats procedural hand, and the Democrats rather than being tired are energized after seeing Bush suffer a political defeat.
Finally it could just be that people just think two nominees in a row not succeeding is one too many. This is historically false.
For all of these reasons, if the Miers nomination had been a ploy to ease the Alito nomination, it would have been just as much of a failure as the Miers as sincere nominee version of this story was.
