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Wish List Der RSS Feed (I think) Links policy Donate to ePatriots Dan is a student at Georgetown University. He is currently trying to think of a new biography for this space. Blogs (more soon) (new) - blogrolling.com reports that the blog was updated in the last 2 hours American Journalism American Prospect Atlantic Monthly Boston Globe Christian Science Monitor Cleveland Plain Dealer CNN Financial Times (US) Foreign Policy Los Angeles Times MSNBC National Journal New Republic New York Times Newsweek The Nation Wall Street Journal Washington Post Global Journalism BBC News Economist Evening Standard Financial Times (UK) Guardian Independent (UK) Intl-News.com International Herald Tribune The Scotsman The Telegraph (UK) The Times (UK) The Western Mail (Wales) Toronto Globe and Mail Useful Information Aerfares.net AskJeeves Amazon.com Borders Union Center for Public Integrity CNNSI Deutsche Bahn (European Rail) Encyclopedia.com ESPN.com MoveOn QJump (British Rail) RailEurope Take Back the Media The Weather Channel Weather (UK) Wikipedia Yahoo! Useless Information Amish Tech Support Canadian World Domination FuckedCompany Georgetown Univ. Haypenny Neal Pollack ScrappleFace Slumbering Lungfish Dybbuk Hostel and All-Night Boulangerie The LSE The Onion The Smoking Gun The Political Graveyard User-agent: * Disallow: / This blog translated: Chinese French German Italian Japanese Korean Portuguese Spanish  Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do. "There are three types of lies - lies, damn lies, and statistics." - Variously attributed to Benjamin Disraeli, Alfred Marshall, Mark Twain and many other dead people. Currently reading: Songbook by Nick Hornby The Sex Lives of Cannibals by J. Maarten Troost White Teeth by Zadie Smith You should read: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby Bobos In Paradise by David Brooks Madam Secretary: A Memoir by Madeleine Albright Damned Lies and Statistics by Joel Best Books written or edited by my professors (well, only the good ones) Nick Barr The Economics of the Welfare State The Welfare State As Piggy Bank Chris Dougherty Introduction to Econometrics David Gewanter The Collected Poems of Robert Lowell (ed. with Frank Bidart) In the Belly The Sleep of Reason Meredith McKittrick To Dwell Secure John McNeill The Human Web (with William H. McNeill) Something New Under the Sun Max-Stephan Schulze Western Europe: Economic and Social Change Since 1945 Greater Blogtopia Abu Aardvark Across the Atlantic AngryBear Asparagus Pee Blah3.com Bohemian Mama BonoboLand Brazos de Dios Cantina Carl with a K Chip Taylor Clareified Conceptual Guerilla D-Squared Digest Dilettante's Guide to Life Egotistical Whining Enemy of the People Equilibrismi ridanciani Fester's Place Fleeting Impulse Funny Farm Grammar Police Gropinator Hamster Head Heeb Hegemoney Hjordiso I Know What I Know Interesting by Association Impolite Company Internet Activism Jacqueline Passey John Hoke John Lemon John Scalzi Kick the Leftist Kids Korner Kieran Healy Liquid List Loopy Librarian Mark Maynard Martin Stabe Metajournalism More White Teeth MyDD No More Mr. Nice Blog Notes on the Atrocities Open Source Politics Oxytocin Passenger Pachyderms Peevish...I'm Just Saying Pigsqueal Pol3d Politics and Policy Quantum Skyline Radical Review Random Points Risa Wechsler Sha Ka Ree Sick of Bush Signifying Nothing Something's Got to Break Stryder Talking Dog ThomPaul Tom Runnacles Truth is a Blog Undependent Vaguely Right Vast Left Wing Conspiracy Vulgar Boatman We Report... You Deride Wizblog 
2004 ESPN Information Please Sports Almanac "Everything to Everyone" by Barenaked Ladies "In Between Evolution" by The Tragically Hip "Phantom Planet" by Phantom Planet The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell "One Plus One Is One" by Badly Drawn Boy "Sultans of Swing" by the Dire Straits "Best of the Talking Heads" by the Talking Heads How Shareholder Reforms Can Pay Foreign Policy Dividends, James Shinn, ed. Weaving the Net, James Shinn, ed. Fires Across the Water, James Shinn, ed. Panasonic ES8017SC Men's Triple Blade Pro Curve Rechargeable Linear Shaver 
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Saturday, June 28, 2003
George Galloway has initiated legal action against the Telegraph for publishing documents accusing him of taking bribes from Saddam Hussein. - The Ulster Unionist Party appears to be breaking up. The break-away MPs are opposed to David Trimble's willingness to proceed with the peace process in Northern Ireland. Ostensibly, they are angry over the participation of the Irish government in the negotiations. The three break-away MPs made up half of the Ulster Unionist delegation in Westminster, which formerly made the party the fourth largest in Westminster, behind Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems. That, um, honor now goes to the Scottish National Party, which has 5 seats. The three MPs, led by Jeffrey Donaldson, appear to be unwilling to join Rev. Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party, but may form a third unionist party, Two Catholic parties elect MPs in Northern Ireland - the Social Democratic and Labour Party and Sinn Fein. Sinn Fein MPs do not sit at Westminster, however, as this would require swearing allegiance to the Queen. Thursday, June 26, 2003
I'm currently blogging from an internet cafe, so this post may get updated and amended later when I actually have a computer to use. That said ... About the RIAA's plans to sue music downloaders. Beyond Ezra's brief comments, let me add a few ideas as to how to respond: 1. Start downloading more. A lot more. If you haven't already, sign up to Grokster, Kazaa, whatever under an assumed name, use a proxy server, and download and burn to your hearts content. Now. 2. If they sue you, sue 'em back. And I mean all of them. Find your neighborhood's nearest lawyer, and sue everyone associated with the record labels and RIAA suing you ... and their secretaries, parents, children and pets. 3. If you want to buy CD's rather than burn them, buy them directly from the musician's websites. I dunno if they're actually cutting out the labels, but it sends a message. 4. Find friends with similar tastes in music and copy everything that the other buys. The RIAA still doesn't have a way to track that (and I think it's technically legal, but I'm not really qualified to make that judgment) 5. Hack the web sites of the RIAA, the labels, etc., etc. I don't really know how to do it, but, again, somebody needs to give these idiots a good slap in the face. Do it repeatedly. 6. Someone has to find the private e-mail addresses of Hilary Rosen, Carey Sherman, etc. and publicize them ... and make sure that their inboxes are getting filled with spam. I'm not even going to try to delve into the issues of whether file sharing constitutes theft of intellectual property or not. (in any case, that should be the decision of the artist, not their label to decide). Besides the fact that music is produced by a cartelized group of companies whose monopolistic behavior would make Microsoft blush - and who are clearly both manipulating the sales numbers that they provide to the public and are charging far more for CD's than can possibly be justified by the underlying economics - this is simply a rampant misuse of the legal system. The Cavs selected LeBron James. Big surprise. Being the Cavs, I don't know how, but they'll find a way to screw things up. Monday, June 23, 2003
Sorry Um, I currently don't have internet access at work (and even if I did, there's nothing but a glass partition between me and my boss's boss at the moment), nor any internet access in my apartment either. Thankfully, we'll be moving into a new office next weel. Blogging is going to be very sporadic as a result until Saturday ... probably. Saturday, June 21, 2003
News in British I haven't had access to a computer for the last day, so I'm a little behind on this one, but apparently the Christian Science Monitor did tests on the documents that they had published indicating that George Galloway had taken money from the Iraqi government and found that they were forgeries. Tests have not yet been performed on the Telegraph's documents, but this obviously casts doubt on everything. Galloway has already demanded a government inquiry into the publication of the documents. Galloway remains suspended from the Labour party, as he had been suspended on other grounds - his terming of Tony Blair (and George W. Bush) as 'wolves' and attempting to incite British soldiers in Iraq to refuse their orders. As a result, he may still be expelled from the party (and due to redistricting, he stands little chance to win re-election at the next general election). - The Guardian is reporting that, while dying of tuberculosis, Eric Blair (George Orwell) send the foreign office a letter listing 38 individuals who "in my opinion are crypto-communists, fellow-travellers or inclined that way and should not be trusted as [anti-communist] propagandists." The list included Charlie Chaplin, an MP, novelist J.B. Priestly, a handful of journalists and others. The article notes that Blair was definitely right about one of the individuals on his list - journalist Peter Smollett - and may have been right about a few others. - Peter Hain has been forced to back down on suggestions that the government should raise the top level of income tax. Though Gordon Brown has done much to introduce a more progressive income tax, Labour remains reticent to blatantly raise the top level of tax - a suggestion that it would do the same was one of the main reasons behind Neil Kinnock's loss in the 1992 general election. The Independent notes that extremely high levels of income taxation lead to labor disincentives and may induce people to leave the country. This is technically correct, though it's not clear whether the tax rises that Hain wants would be sufficient to incite serious problems - as high tax rates during the 1970's actually did. - The Times is reporting that Labour peers want to speed up the reform of the Lords and ensure that the Lord Chancellor's post is replaced with a Speaker of the Lords by the time of the state opening of Parliament - Lord Falconer had suggested that it might take a couple of years to pass all the legislation needed to allow the changes that the government wants to make. Thursday, June 19, 2003
I'm still kind of busy with real life, so I'll just list the things I've noticed upon returning to the U.S.: 1. There are a lot more SUV's here. 2. There are a lot more fat people here too. 3. People mumble a lot more. Or maybe that's just me. 4. There are a lot more TV stations here. There's still nothing on. 5. And nine months after I left, they're still running the same old ads. Tuesday, June 17, 2003
That's all, folks (I also would have accepted 'Leaving on a Jet Plane,' 'TTFN,' 'Over and Out,' ...) It's time for me to put away the blog for a day or two. I need to pack up ye olde laptoppe (I thincke I'm usinge ye Olde Inglishe a bitt toe mutche), as I'm leaving Britain and going back to the U.S. tomorrow ( So, a little parting advice should you, um, get bored and stumble on to this during the next day or so: Moving your life across a multi-thousand mile expanse of water is a real pain in the ass (not to mention the legs, back and arms). Tomorrow I'm going to have to haul my own body weight* and then some across to an airport on the other side of town. It's a pain, and this is one of the easier parts of it. It's well worth it anyway. The more I read about the problems going on today, the more I come to understand just how little we really know about the rest of the world - and how distorted the information that we receive often is. This is, of course, true in the other direction as well. Indeed, travel is the only first-hand and direct way to get a grip on how everyone else sees things - and you. I'm not trying to take this point to its extreme - the world would not suddenly become a perfect place if everyone got a nice little trip somewhere else to see how things really work outside their own respective backyards - but the more I wonder about it, the greater effect I think it just might have. *It's not that I really have that much stuff, it's just that I'm that thin. George Monbiot, nutter George Monbiot may have lost it. He's proposing the creation of a global democratic assembly that would oversee the numerous multinational NGO's around and bring about a more friendly form of globalization. The UN security council should be scrapped, and its powers vested in a reformulated UN general assembly. This would be democratised by means of weighted voting: nations' votes would increase according to both the size of their populations and their positions on a global democracy index. Perhaps most importantly, the people of the world would elect representatives to a global parliament, whose purpose would be to hold the other international bodies to account. Er, wasn't the UN the good guy and the U.S. the bad guy as of a couple of months ago ... Anyway, as Chris Bertram pointed out, "it seems rather obvious to me that such a body would in practice by colonized by elites in the shape of both corporate interests and NGOs. And why should anyone accord such a body legitimacy?" Not to mention the fact that creating a global democratic assembly would give rise to enormous distortions of democracy. Monbiot has said elsewhere that there should be roughtly 600 seats in the assembly, representing about 10 million voters each. The problem is that this means that millions upon millions of people's votes will essentially be distorted out of existence if they don't vote for the winning candidate (the FPTP problem). Representing millions upon millions of people will ignore millions upon millions of others. Clearly any assembly that expects to be remotely democratic needs to consist of constituencies that aren't so huge. Monbiot adds the following: You might regard this agenda as either excessive or insufficient, wildly optimistic or boringly unambitious. But it is not enough simply to reject it. Do so by all means, but only once you have first proposed a better one of your own. OK. How about what we've got now? It sucks, but at least it's not an infeasible and illegitmate mess. Or how about anarchy? I don't doubt that Monbiot means well. But he doesn't seem to be paying any attention whatsoever to the actual implications of his ideas. News in British Everything right is wrong, night is day, black is white, etc., etc. The Speaker of the Commons, Michael Martin, has apparently demanded that Tony Blair speak to the Commons on constitutional reform yesterday. Blair then refused, citing a scheduled lunch with Pervez Musharraf, but will speak later today. This is a fairly unprecedented move, as I understand it, given that the Speaker rarely makes use of his formal powers over the Commons. The Tories are clearly scoring points off the mess - Iain Duncan Smith is apparently at his best when it's time to defend a bunch of old men wearing wigs and breeches. At the same time, I think it's worth noting that few actually seem to oppose the bulk of the reforms. The Lord Chancellor's job was clearly a vestige of ye oldenne dayes and out of touch with modern legal practices. Few will be sorry to see it go, along with the elimination of the Law Lords. There have been a few voices raised against the elimination of the positions of the Scottish and Welsh Secretaries, but there are just as many who want to see the positions eliminated entirely. Hugo Young argues that Tony Blair won't respect the independence of the judiciary - which is a little ironic, given that the reforms are intended to give the judiciary a far larger degree of independence than it currently enjoys. The bulk of the criticism is that the job was rushed, and that people other than Tony Blair weren't consulted. Which is true and innapropriate. So instead of a debate beforehand, we're getting a debate now - the reforms to the judiciary have to be passed by the Commons. As the Guardian points out, faced with Alan Milburn's impending resignation, it would have been a far better idea for Tony Blair to push back the reshuffle for a couple weeks until the summer recess begins. (or, for that matter, he ought to have reformed the Law Lords in 1997 when first elected) OK? Maybe the press can calm down now. - David Trimble has narrowly won a leadership election in the Ulster Unionist party, raising the possibility that the loser, Jeffrey Donaldson, may break away and form a third unionist party (the other is Rev. Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party, which Donaldson apparently does not intend to join). - There have apparently been a couple of break-ins at the Baker Street Tube station. The company running the station has responded by putting up a couple of CCTV cameras - which are already pretty much everywhere else in London - including one opposite the point where workers clock in. So how has the workers union responded? They're thinking of going on a one-day strike to protest. Seriously, do they actually think these things through? It's getting to the point where people are going to be afraid to sneeze in the stations for fear of inciting a walk-out. Ah, Britain You can buy a one-way ticket for the Heathrow Express in Express (i.e., second) Class for £11.70 ($19.70), or a 12-pack of tickets for £143 ($240.77). Do the math ... because someone else sure as hell didn't. - I'm listening to BBC Radio 4 right now, and they're doing a story on an art forum bringing together artists from different countries across Europe. Apparently the Scots have demanded their own pavilion. At the same time, one of the Welsh artists has rigged up a spotlight to write out a peace message in the sky in Welsh, spelled out in Morse Code. In other words, a grand total of three people will be able to read it. Monday, June 16, 2003
Well, I'm certainly not going anywhere ... Ezra Klein is no more (the blog, not the individual). Ezra, Matt Singer and Joe Rospars have abandoned the fine (read, free) confines of Blogger and hauled arse over to Not Geniuses (and Moveable Type). This sentence will have to do until I can come up with something snarky, sarcastic, and appropriate to commemorate the move. UPDATE: Nothing yet. If Tony Blair acts too presidential, should we just make him President? Tom Runnacles responded to a post I wrote discussing why Tony Blair should be upheld as a model for Democrats in the U.S., rather than derided over his support of the war in Iraq. My post is here, his response is here. Tom said: My sense of the country is that people are really, really sick of Blair. He annoys lefties as it becomes more and more obvious that he's not much more than a smiley Thatcherite; he annoys the right because there's a kind of year-zero anti-tradition trope Blair goes in for that they really hate; and the great apolitical swing-vote in the middle are losing patience with his gratingly unconvincing 'ordinary guy' persona, with his obvious control freakery, with his propensity for dishonesty. Blair certainly has his failings. If John Major represented 'Thatcherism with a human face,' Tony Blair may well represent 'Thatcherism with an attractive human face.' OK, so that's a little cruel (and an exaggeration). Blair certainly backs the strong state half of the strong state/liberalized (i.e., less government involvement) economics. Thanks to Gordon Brown, liberalized economics hasn't been a product of Tony Blair's premiership. Still, I think Blair is a good role-model for Democrats. Britain is, on the whole, to the left of the U.S. Thatcher was considered fairly far to the right in Britain; in the U.S., she'd be a mainstream Republican. Individuals like George Galloway, Tony Benn and Michael Foot could not get elected to a county dogcatcher position in the U.S. The Lib Dems would be unelectable in much (though not all) of the U.S. In other words, though Tony Blair may live on the centre-right of British politics, he'd fit snugly in the center-left of American politics. Blairite policies represent a series of ideas that would work quite well in the U.S. and, as Clinton showed, lead to electability. I should point out though that the ideas of Blair, Blunkett and Straw on civil liberties would probably fail in the U.S. (and unfortunately don't in Britain). The Labour party really needed to wise up in the 'eighties; it needed a leader who could speak confidently and persuasively about social democratic values without scaring the horses too much. ... I believe it had actually found such a leader in John Smith, who had the damned lack of consideration to die on us. So instead, we ended up with Blair, who could do the 'confident and persuasive' bit, and who the horses weren't scared by at all, but who kind of passed on the bit about values. The democrats need to find their John Smith, or even their Gordon Brown; a Blair won't help at all in pulling the political centre of the country back to where I think, from reading his blog, Dan wants it to be. True, though where Smith gave Labour the final push it needed to get away from the Bennite wing of the party, the Democrats are not suffering for having moved to the far left, but because they cannot develop a coherent and 'sticky' political stance. As far as Brown ... well, I think highly enough of Brown that I believe we should just kidnap him and run him for the Presidency in 2004. I'm not sure that's a particularly feasible (or constitutional) strategy, though. Brownite ideas of redistribution, however, probably aren't politically feasible in the U.S. in the immediate future. I have to think that, though Tony Blair may not be perfect for Britain, he makes a damn fine role model for the Democrats - probably the best that they can hope to do in the immediate future. One other minor quibble - I'm not entirely sure that Iain Duncan Smith is the main problem of the Tories. Everyone else (besides Letwin) is. They've become an incoherent rambling mess that can't do anything well other than fight each other. Duncan Smith comes across well - indeed, as the average guy that Tony Blair aims to be - except when he starts taking his talking points from the Daily Mail. He seems at his wits end, though, in dealing with a group of people clearly unfit for government. Thus, he comes across like an idiot when giving the 'unite or die' speech. The truth is that the Democrats need not so much someone who mirrors a stereotype as someone who can draw on the best elements of the American political system and the ideas and strategies of Smith, Blair and Brown. Like Tom said, it's not much of a fight. (a random question - Why doesn't Ken Clarke just give up and join the Lib Dems already?) Democracy by diktat Jacob Levy at Los Volokhs is upset about the way that Tony Blair seems to be changing the British constitution by fiat. He points to this article in yesterday's Observer that detailed a report suggesting that the Queen should lose her role as the head of the Church of England. Prof. Levy said: "I'd like to see this one happen, but, again, we're talking about a major change in the formal and symbolic character of the state, and I'd be disappointed to see the change enacted simply on Blair's say-so." How would you do it differently? Parliament is the British government. Regional assemblies obviously could not undertake such a measure. Referendums aren't an answer to everything, either - just ask the people of Hartlepool.* Obviously some consultation with the monarchy and other affected bodies would be necessary - which is precisely what the report in question did. Further direct consultation with the Church of England would be a good idea (though it's fairly likely that the Archbishop of Canterbury would probably be favorable to the idea). Prof. Levy also says that "the radical changes to the British constitution under Blair, enacted by prime ministerial diktat and simple parliamentary majority, have already fundamentally transformed the world's oldest continuously-operating free system of government, and in one major case-- House of Lords reform-- pretty much done so on the fly and with no clear sense of what comes next." As the recent reshuffle showed, Blair is still well short of ruling by diktat, needing to rely on his Cabinet - well, mostly Brown, Blunkett and Straw**. Referendums or consultation can be the source of mandates, but they are not a feasible way to govern. Britain uses a unitary system of government, not a federalist one, and has no checks and balances. There is no way to change the national government but by the parliamentary majority. Finally, the reform of the Lords was hardly done on the fly - the need for major reform had been clear for nearly a century. The problem has been not so much that Blair eliminated a pointless vestige of the old aristocracy than that he failed to eliminate the whole of it, because there is still no consensus as to what the upper house should look like in the future. *The citizens of Hartlepool approved a referendum to create an elected mayor, and subsequently elected a monkey to the new post. I'm not kidding. **Who should probably be thinking of changing his name to something that starts with a 'b' Around the blogosphere in 80 seconds Jerome Doolittle has a post up (via Atrios) pointing out that in the 16 cases where Ashcroft has over-ruled prosecutors and ordered them to seek the death penalty, capital punishment has handed down once. Ashcroft wants the death penalty to be applied more fairly across different jurisdictions. I'm not sure that, as a U.S. attorney said, the tide against the death penalty is turning that significantly. Rather, as I pointed out back in February, though, the expectation seeking the death penalty more evenly will lead to a more even application of the death penalty is fallacious: Regardless of whether the move actually will lead to greater unity in the application of the statute, trying to get uniform application of the death penalty nationwide is a lost cause. The jury system is intended to provide a body representative of the populations from which they are selected to judge the defendant's guilt. Where the people are less supportive of the death penalty, there is less likely to be support of its application in any particular case (although clearly there will be some volatility in this). To a certain extent, the effect of this is undermined by the fact that, in death penalty cases, the jury selection system is allowed to weed out those who oppose the death penalty on various grounds, which is clearly a departure from the original basis of the jury system ... no matter how evenly defendants are tried under the statute, there is no way to guarantee that they will be sentenced evenly. - Brett Marston has an interesting post comparing Giscard-d'Estaing's proposal for a new EU constitution to the Articles of Confederation - confederational, clumsy and unworkable, but leading to something better in the end. - Nathan Newman oddly supports Tom DeLay's plans for tax cuts as a way to skew future tax cuts even more towards the rich, making them politically impossible. News in British The Telegraph is reporting that the Queen was apparently livid at not being informed by Tony Blair that he planned to eliminate the 1500-year old post of Lord Chancellor before the news was made public. Interestingly enough, the article notes that the Lord Chancellor also holds the position of the Keeper of the Queen's Conscience. I'm guessing that Prince Charles keeps his in a blind trust. OK, that's a cheap shot. Anyway, it seems that Downing Street definitely rushed the job, and didn't know at the time of the reshuffle just what would have to be done to eliminate the position. The Times is reporting that some of the Lords are considering impeding the work of the Commons in retaliation for not being consulted. As Peter Hain pointed out, given that reform of the Lords is likely to take place (eventually), this probably wouldn't be the best way to go about things. William Rees-Mogg thinks that the Prime Minister is too busy and may not be smart enough to handle the constitutional reforms that he seeks, having made a mistake in firing Lord Irvine. Meanwhile, the Guardian is reporting that the government, while still intending to create a Supreme Court, has rejected the U.S. model of lifetime appointments as too open to partisan politics. Well, duh. - The Guardian is reporting that the government is preparing to introduce bills that would allow referendums on whether to create regional assemblies in the north of England. Why? Is there anyone who believes that there's something that the regional assemblies could do any better than the current structure of local government. It's not as if this is going to give rise to some quasi-federal structure, as with Wales and Scotland - it's just a reorganization of the local government. - With the results of a faux-referendum held by the extremely Eurosceptic Daily Mail on entering the Eurozone, Tim Hames writes in the Times that "It is not just that my fellow Eurosceptics go over the top, but they insist on using a pole vault to do it." Hames argues that, while he argues against Euro entry, he can't particularly stand the people alongside him who share the same ideas. Damn time It appears that the most of the remaining Tulia defendants in jail will be released while the process of overturning their convictions continues. There's more here. So when does Herbert get his Pulitzer? - Former Sen. Alan Simpson writes in the WaPo on the capture of the Republican party by partisan zealots. - William Raspberry also writes in the WaPo on the need to maintain its principals and its civil liberties despite the difficulties of the current global situation. Sunday, June 15, 2003
And the goodwill ends .................... now Days after Roger Clemens won his 300th game, he has said that he would boycott his own eventual induction into the Hall of Fame unless he is allowed to go in wearing a Yankees cap, rather than a Red Sox cap. Most people will probably remember Roger as a member of the Red Sox after his retirement - the vast majority of his wins and strikeouts came with the Red Sox - but Clemens left after an acrimonious contract dispute in 1996. The right of players to choose which cap was displayed on their plaque was taken away a few years ago, after Dave Winfield was reportedly paid by the Padres (or, depending on who you asked, given a front office non-job) to become the first player to enter the Hall of Fame wearing a San Diego cap. This change has rarely been a problem - the only case I know of was Gary Carter, who will be inducted later this summer - Carter achieved most of his accomplishments with the Expos, but wanted to enter as a Met. The Expos are probably going out of business soon. The Mets are just playing like they should go out of business. Carter will be going in as an Expo anyway, and he seems to have accepted it and moved on. Unlike Clemens, Carter appears able to behave like he isn't the greatest thing since sliced bread. It's a nice thought, but ... I just popped out to go make a withdrawal from the ATM. Across the street, I noticed that one of the pubs had put up a sign advertising that they had menus written in Braille. I guess it's the thought that counts. Core curriculums and brain candy Ezra Klein of the blog formerly known as Ezra Klein beat up this Hugh Hewitt article in the Weekly Standard a couple of days ago (see Matt Yglesias for more). Hewitt repeatedly avoided the use of logic in discussing the fact that the graduation speaker was former Mexican president, Ernesto Zedillo (who was, I believe, a Harvard graduate ... as was last year's speaker, the esteemed former politician, Al Franken), implying that this was part of Harvard's great downfall - well, that and appointing a Secretary of the Treasury under Clinton as the President of the university. What stuck out at me amongst Hewitt's idiocy was this: EVEN CASUAL OBSERVERS of elite academia know of the thorough-going decay within its ranks, with its attachment to absurd theories and rejection of anything like a traditional core curriculum. For a quarter century, undergraduates have been fed a diet based on intellectual junk food that will eventually cripple the eater. Want to know why traditionally core curriculums are being abandoned at many universities? Because there's far too much information for undergraduates to take in and constitute a 'well-rounded' individual nowadays, far more than any core curriculum can expect to cover. If a core was to teach a student everything they needed to know, it would probably take a decade or two. Well, that and core curriculums suck. Yeah, I'm a little biased. I'm in Georgetown's School of Foreign Service, which has one of the last massive core curriculums around outside of pre-professional programs. The core is actually larger, I understand, than Columbia's famed core. Columbia's core, though, was at least designed as a coherent whole; the core in the SFS is largely the product of regulatory creep - some courses seem to be required for no other reason than to produce an audience for departments that would otherwise have too many professors hanging around. By the time I graduate, the core will have constituted 21 of the 35 full courses that I've taken. I won't have completed the core until the end of my 7th semester (of 8) - I still have a theology and an international relations course left. My 7th semester will also be the first in which I can actually take a single elective course. Some of those - principally the economics, history and government classes - were classes that I would have taken anyway. Some of them - the English, theology and philosophy courses - were more or less pointless. One of the English courses actually diminished my writing skills. I can't think of a damn thing I took from the philosophy classes, and I basically knew everything in the one theology course I took beforehand.* I've been stuck taking classes that were of utterly no use to me, because the administrators - for whom the same courses might have been more useful decades ago - think that I should. Meanwhile, I haven't had any time to study some of the subjects that interested me most in high school - photography, physics and Latin - because they don't fit into the strict definitions of the core. I can't enjoy my coursework for the sake of learning as I'm stuck taking subjects that I have utterly no interest in. I won't deny that there aren't some things that any student should have to take. Any student should be required to demonstrate a basic level of writing ability, necessitating some English courses, adequately taught. Similarly, a basic knowledge of history and math is generally necessary to operate in the real world. But where there is no social consensus nor any clear need for certain subjects, students should not be forced to study them. Traditional core curriculums create far more problems than they solve, failing to teach the student anything that will be useful in the real world nor teaching students to enjoy learning for the sake of learning. *This led to one of my all-time favorite exchanges: Friend: How'd you do on your theology midterm? Me: I got a 51. Friend: Oh. (pause). What happened? Me: It was out of 50. Friend: Oh ... that's a lot better. Me: Yeah, I took the test out back, slapped it around a little and made it my bitch. Incompetent, or just incoherent? I can't even make any sense of today's column, built vaguely around some comparison of everything to The Stepford Wives (and, shudder, the remake) So, I must resort to the immutable laws of Maureen Dowd. "Law the First is 'the People magazine principle: All political phenomena can be reduced to caricatures of the personalities involved.'" Today's column describes the junior senator from New York: Hillary Clinton, once so angry about tea and cookies, is now so eerily glazed and good-natured that she could be the senator from Stepford. "Law the Second is that 'It's easier to whine than to take a stand or offer solutions.'" Thus ... If 70's feminism produced the squat and blunt Betty Friedan, this decade has produced the sensual and zaftig Nigella Lawson, who wryly calls herself a "domestic goddess" and is a purveyor of what fans call "gastro porn." More of a male fantasy than Stepford husbands could ever conjure up, the British cooking show hostess is always in the kitchen purring hot home economics advice such as mangoes are "best eaten in their natural state, and preferably in the bath." "Law the Third is that 'It is better to be cute than coherent.'" So ... There's even a retro trend among women toward deserting the fast track for a pleasant life of sitting around Starbucks gabbing with their girlfriends, baby strollers beside them, logging time at the gym to firm up for the he-man C.E.O. at home. "Law the Fourth is that 'The particulars of my consumer-driven, self-involved life are of universal interest and reveal universal truths.'" Actually, this one fails, though only because this particular column is concerned with other people's consumer-driven, self-involved lives, citing Botox, anti-depressants, and plastic surgery as well as the Nigella Lawson and Starbucks comments. "Law the Fifth states that 'Europeans are always right.'" See the Lawson comment (and, yes, British people are Europeans, too) There are plenty of incompetent and incoherent writers out there. They don't need their own representative on the editorial page of Times. News in British It is being suggested that the Queen should lose her role as head of the Church of England. In related news, no one cares anymore. - Is it me, or is David Blunkett set on picking a fight with every damn judge in the country? Don't get me wrong, I think Blunkett's probably right. While having a justice system that is actually built around rehabilitation is a damn good idea - as opposed to the U.S. system, which far too often talks the talk but doesn't walk the walk - it's clear that some things have gone too far, with criminals going all but unpunished. A degree of minimum mandatory sentencing for the worst crimes is quite perfectly reasonable. Still, it would be nice if the Home Secretary could keep quiet every now and then. It appears that the conflict between Blunkett and Lord Irvine was worse than anyone realized, and may have been a prime cause - along with Alan Milburn's resignation - for the messy reshuffle. Andrew 'self-appointed political journalist of the year' Rawnsley has pointed out that the problem is not so much that Blair is acting presidentially than that he has too little power, undermined by the infighting in his own Cabinet. It appears that, by and large, there are few people with any long-term opposition to the idea of legal reforms. The problem is that many are unhappy that they haven't been consulted, and oppose some parts of the reforms. Frankly, it was a stupid move to go forward without any consultation whatsoever now - I say now because they probably could've done it in 1997 alongside other reforms without raising any ire. Around the blogosphere in 80 seconds This is either a dumb mistake or the latest sign of the apocalypse. - Max Sawicky, actual economist, on the idiocy of Tom DeLay's idea of a tax code (or lack thereof). - Long Story, Short Pier on Bob Riley's plans for the Alabama tax code. It's a really ingenious loophole in the political debate that Gov. Riley has found. He is arguing that the notoriously regressive state income tax system has to be made more progressive - because the Bible implies that it must be done. I can't really think of any way in which the Democrats could re-use such a strategy elsewhere, though there may be some loophole that I'm missing here. (via P.L.A.) Saturday, June 14, 2003
Defending Blair (Tony, not Jayson) There's been a little schadenfreude (sp.?) on the left side of the blogs - see Steve Gilliard at Kos and Leah at Eschaton pointing joyfully at the troubles of Tony Blair over the Iraq intelligence. The problem is this: the American left needs to study Tony Blair, not demean him over Iraq. Yeah, Blair isn't going to satisfy the far left anywhere. And he certainly has his flaws. As the recent creation of the 'Constitutional Affairs Department' shows, he's not great at consulting others and tries at times to rule by fiat. His attitude towards civil liberties is in need of a serious adjustment. The joke about him that "these are my principles, and if you don't like them, I have others" is more true than not. And god only knows why, he seems intent on keeping Peter Mandelson around. For that matter, the situation isn't identical. Blair faces a Tory opposition that is clearly unfit for government, something that is well known in the public; I'd like to make some crack here about the lack of ability amongst the Republicans, but I'll avoid it and just say that there is no public consensus that the Republicans should not be in power. That said, there's a lot that the Democrats need to take from Blair if they are to win back the White House and Congress - a muscular stance on national security and the military, sound economic policies that include a progressive tax system and measures to redistribute income, being 'tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime,' and the creation of a vaguely 'third way'-ish social democracy that is as efficient as possible. Blair is a damn fine role model. After 6 years - and despite the current scandals - he remains quite popular, even moreso than his party. If an election were held today, WMDs and all, Labour would win an easily win re-election - at most, I'd think, it would lose about a couple dozen seats (and then only if the Lib Dems refused to participate in strategic voting). Another 6 years of Labour government seems quite likely - barring something massive and unseen, the only question is how long Blair sticks around until Gordon Brown takes over. Yeah, I'd like to see the Democrats win a huge majority and hold it for 6 years and then some too. Your tax dollars at work The government prosecutors are still attempting to block Zacarias Moussaoui any access to Ramzi Binalshibh, whom he wants to call at his trial. Why, you may ask? Because they feel that Binalshibh's testimony would help convict Moussaoui rather than exonerate him. Their priorities seem to be, um, a little mixed up. Prosecutors are supposed to seek convictions, not innocence. As I've said before, there are legitimate national security concerns at hand, as the prosecutors have also argued (btw, the prosecutors have also argued that the Sixth Amendment right to call witnesses does not extend to non-citizens held overseas, though they apparently at least now admit that Binalshibh is in custody) but there is plenty of room for a reasonable compromise that would allow the presentation of any evidence from Binalshibh - say, allowing Moussaoui's stand-by lawyers to take a deposition from Binalshibh, with Judge Brinkema then admitting any relevant parts. It should be possible to allow any relevant evidence to be introduced without giving Binalshibh a public forum nor giving Binalshibh and Moussaoui any means to communicate. In the meanwhile, the prosecutors should avoid trying to undermine their own possibilities of success.* Can they really be that stupid? *The trial can't begin until this issue is settled. In the end, Moussaoui will be found guilty of something - unless the prosecutors are even more incompetent than it currently appears - as he has admitted to ties to Al Qaeda in open court during past hearings, though he continues to deny that he was the '20th hijacker.' This post will explode 15 seconds after it is read I've been dwelling on this Matt Yglesias post for the last couple of days, in which he writes: Am I alone in feeling like the outbreak of Israel-Palestinian peace talks actually increases the frequency of terrorist attacks and military reprisals? I don't have a quantitative analysis at hand, but that certainly seems to be the pattern to me. Rejectionist Palestinian groups seem to actually hold their fire and wait for moments when it looks like peace might be given a chance and then they launch their attacks in order to derail things. Of course, never negotiating is also not a long-term solution. Well, yeah, not negotiating isn't a solution. Negotiating in secret, though, is the only thing that's ever really worked. The only thing that gets remembered about the Israeli-Egyptian deal - well, besides the handshake on the White House lawn and Sadat's trip to Jerusalem - was that the deal was struck after a long and arduous period of negotiations at Camp David. What gets forgotten are the secret contacts that had to be established between the two governments before negotiations were possible. The Oslo Accords were negotiated in almost total secrecy until the announcement of a deal was made. The Jordanian-Israeli accords were more or less agreed on privately years before they were publicly announced (Jordan renounced its claims to the West Bank in the early 1970's and reached a tacit agreement with the Israeli government in the mid-1980's that a peace agreement would be signed as soon as the Israelis could reach a deal - that is, any deal - with the Palestinians. It was untenable in the domestic political arena for the Jordanian government to make a peace deal without something for the Palestinians) The only viable agreements have been those that have been reached in secret, neutering the ability of extremist groups to derail the process, and presented to the public as a fait accompli. When open negotiations are ongoing, the desire for security against extremist actions leads to greater violence on both sides, disabling whatever silent majorities for peace do exist. It would then appear that representatives of the Palestinian Authority and Abu Mazen and of the Israeli government should be sequestered away somewhere, quietly, safely, and secretly, where they can reach an agreement that will satisfy each side and put an end to the violence. Now. Don't tell us, just do it. UPDATE: Corrected for spelling, grammar, and general coherence. Friday, June 13, 2003
Reshuffle-board, part 4 The Guardian is reporting that Estelle Morris, the former Education Secretary, will return as an Arts Minister (no word on whether Blackstone or Howells are out), and that Margaret Hodge will become a Minister for Children (no word on what department, though, Alan Johnson replaces her as Higher and Further Education Minister) More as it develops ... or until I lose interest, whichever comes first. UPDATE: The BBC's latest report is here. Michael Meacher is out as Environment Minister - he had clashed with Blair and others over GM crops (Meacher opposed allowing their use and importation). There's also been a few other minor changes. Overall, it appears that the reshuffle has been smaller than many had expected. I'm certainly disappointed ... I was hoping for a big finale with lots of explosions and fireworks, like a bad Jerry Bruckheimer movie.* *Yes, I know that 'bad Jerry Bruckheimer movie' is redundant. Around the blogosphere in 80 seconds Read this PLA post, backed up by Ruminate This, the Rittenhouse Review, Bigwig, Dean Esmay, North Georgia Dogma and "even the conservative" Jay Caruso, among others. First, while I oppose nearly any form of censorship, I would like to point out that de-linking is not a form of censorship, as it does nothing to inhibit the ability of the writer to write nor the reader to read. Second, can I be a little paranoid for a minute? Anyone think that the person in question is just acting up to discredit left/liberal/etc. bloggers? (this makes no sense when you consider that, as Dwight and others have pointed out, this blogger has attacked Ricky of North Georgia Dogma, Gene Expression, Freespeech.com and a number of other righty blogs as well). Third, anyone taking bets on when the person in question picks a fight with Sullivan or Reynolds? UPDATE: Fourth, now it's time to stop feeding the beast. Oh, and anyone else who uses the 'car wreck' metaphor needs a good talking-to. - One Pier Petersen responded to the WSJ's terming of the poor as 'lucky duckies' who avoid taxation ... In this spirit, I propose a trade. I will spend a year as a Wall Street Journal editor, while one lucky editor will spend a year in my underpaid shoes. I will receive an editor's salary, and suffer the outrage of paying federal income tax on that salary. The fortunate editor, on the other hand, will enjoy a relatively small federal income tax burden, as well as these other perks of near poverty: the gustatory delights of a diet rich in black beans, pinto beans, navy beans, chickpeas and, for a little variety, lentils; the thrill of scrambling to pay the rent or make the mortgage; the salutary effects of having no paid sick days; the slow satisfaction of saving up for months for a trip to the dentist; and the civic pride of knowing that, even as a lucky ducky, you still pay a third or more of your gross income in income taxes, payroll taxes, sales taxes and property taxes. You know, this is just screaming for a bad reality show.* *Yes, I know, 'bad reality show' is redundant. - Timothy Garton Ash: I don't want to live in a Europe that is trying to build its identity by asking itself how to stop America. It's hopeless, because to define yourself against the US will not unite Europe - it will split it down the middle, as we saw over the Iraq war. It split governments, with France, Germany and Belgium on one side, and most of the rest on the other. It split public opinion, with most people against war and against Bush, but certainly not against America. To be European today is, whether we like it or not (and I do like it), to be deeply intertwined with America - culturally, socially, economically, intellectually, politically. Why cut off your nose to spite your face? Why define yourself by who you are against, rather than by what you are for? Good point. I hope people are listening (or, um, reading) - Iain Murray of the Edge of England's Sword is guest-posting at the Volokh Conspiracy and has a post explaining why Blair isn't in trouble over the WMD issues. The funny thing is that I agree with him, but I still think he's wrong. As I've said before, I don't think Blair is in serious trouble. Iain is correct that Cabinet revolts are extremely rare in modern British politics. Thatcher is definitely the exception there. The only way that one seems possible now is the development of open warfare between Brownites and Blairites, something that seems roughly about as likely as aliens* landing in Parliament Square in the next hour or so. A no confidence vote by the whole Parliament seems similarly unlikely, because the Tories have barely a quarter of the seats. Even if the Lib Dems were to vote against the government (which isn't certain), that would get them about a third of the Commons. The minor parties could also add in another dozen or so votes. If they all manage a strict party line, they would still need about 80 Labour rebels to defect, which is also extremely unlikely (a handful might vote for the motion, but most would not ... though those who would probably vote for the motion are those on the far left and ensconced in seats that will almost certainly re-elect them, unless Joseph Stalin can be re-incarnated to run against them). Iain seems convinced, though, that Labour would be lose over a hundred seats if a snap election were called due to a no confidence vote. I don't see that happening. As he notes, Labour remains far more popular than the Tories. The Lib Dems could refuse to participate in strategic voting in marginal districts (urging their voters to vote Labour lest the Tories win), but this would cost a few marginal seats and wouldn't bring down the government. The Tories remain desperately unpopular across nearly every segment of the population and seem unready for government (save, I guess, for Iain Duncan Smith and Oliver Letwin). Incidentally, there is one other way that Blair could lose power, which would be for a leadership challenge to be launched within the Labour Party. I am not sure what the exact mechanism for triggering a challenge is. The voting takes place through a complicated system by which the Trade Unions, the Labour MPs and Labour party members each vote, and each gets their vote weighted to 1/3 of the overall outcome. It isn't quite clear who would run against Blair at this point. Although a challenger on the far left could probably be mustered, he would be unlikely to pick up many votes. About the only possible candidate (this excludes Gordon Brown) who might pose any threat to Blair at this point would be Robin Cook. John Major actually challenged himself to a leadership election in 1995 as a way to quiet the discontent within his party, which is a rather interesting and unique precedent, but not something I expect to see repeated. *The extra-terrestrial type, not the illegal type. - Added to the blogroll: Tom Runnacles, the watch, Ruminate This, and Alas, a blog News in British The Fire Brigades Union has approved the government's pay deal for a phase 16% pay rise and certain reforms by a 3-to-1 margin. - The congestion charge is raising less revenue than expected due to lower traffic within the zone than had been expected. Reshuffle-board, part 3 The Guardian is reporting that there's a fair bit of unhappiness over the reshuffle, principally over the elimination of the formal Welsh and Scottish Secretaries, the appointment of Lord Falconer - as he is an old friend of Tony Blair, some have seen the appointment as evidence of nepotism, particularly given Falconer's role in the Millenium Dome - and the sudden promise to eliminate the Lord Chancellor's position. While Lord Irvine and David Blunkett had been at odds lately, the odds were that one of them had to go, not one of their positions (Falconer is technically the Lord Chancellor now as the position cannot be eliminated until enabling legislation is passed). There was a widely held opinion that it was inappropriate to separate the administration of the judicial system as it had been set up, and to have the Law Lords serving as both political figures and judges. The apparent new system - the actual details are yet to be published, as the plans seem to have been drawn up fairly quickly - include the creation of a new Supreme Court. Blunkett additionally said that "judicial appointments would be vetted by a system based on that which operates in the United States." Um, because it works so well? (and, as Polly Toynbee points out, now it appears that all that expensive wallpaper will go to waste) - The summary in the Independent is here. An explanation of the reforms planned for the courts are here. The summary in the Times is here. Their explanation of the reforms planned for the courts is here. The Telegraph points out that the man now in charge of the English branch of the NHS (the Scottish health services are controlled by the Scottish Parliament) is a chain-smoking Scot and that the shifts within the Cabinet mean that Brownites now outnumber Blairites - though both are still outnumbered by Kinnockites (Neal Kinnock led Labour between 1983-92). Cheap partisanship Officials are saying that plans call for laying the cornerstone for the initial construction at Ground Zero during the 2004 Republican Convention. I cannot see how this would not be a completely inappropriate politicization of 9/11. I don't see how the Democrats could pull this off without being pilloried, yet here we are. UPDATE: If you'll look at the version of the article now online, it's been culled of all information about the convention ... this smells funny. Any ideas about what the hell is going on here? - Krugman on DeLay. Not shrill. Not partisan. Just true. Thursday, June 12, 2003
Snarkiest post ... ever Yes, I've broken down and joined ePatriots (that didn't take long now, did it?), against my better judgment (sorry, judgement). Anyway, I'm not going to some of the astroturf that they've provided us with or anything else exhorting you to donate. If you want to donate, by all means do it, and you're welcome to do it via the donation site I've set up or by any other means that you can find and would prefer to use. If you don't want to donate, you don't have to. I don't intend to make it a central feature of the blog. And besides, if your donations total $100, I get a bumper sticker ... which might be a hell of a lot more useful if I owned a car (don't tell the feds). (actually, I nearly owned a bumper a couple of months ago, but no car ... it's really a far less interesting story than you'd think, however) Reshuffle-board, part 2 The Guardian's report is here. The report in the Times is here. The Independent's report is here. The Telegraph's report is here. The report in the Evening Standard is here. Lord Irvine has retired as Lord Chancellor, as expected, and it appears that the office will be terminated, with most of the duties of the office - the oldest in the British political system - shifted to a new office on Constitutional Affairs, which will be headed by Lord Falconer, an old friend of Tony Blair. Falconer's department will also include the rump of the Welsh and Scottish offices. The former Welsh Secretary, Peter Hain, will become the Leader of the House, and will still speak in the Commons on Welsh issues, though his actual duties within the department will remain unclear. The Transport Secretary, Alistair Darling, will maintain a similar role in speaking on Scottish issues. The current Scottish Secretary, Helen Liddell, appears to have left the Cabinet entirely. The current Leader of the House, John Reid, will become the new Health Secretary, replacing the long-serving Alan Milburn, who has stepped down to spend more time with his family. It appears that Milburn resigned of his own free will and was not forced out. Liddell is reported to have volunteered to retire from government. The oft-combative Reid comes into the Health job while the foundation hospitals row continues, and it should be interesting to see if he turns out much as the similarly combative Charles Clarke has as Education Secretary, where Clarke replaced Estelle Morris. Since then he seems to have wasted no opportunity to put his foot in his mouth (although many of the problems seem to be exaggerated and not exactly new). Geoff Hoon, John Prescott and Margaret Beckett have not been shifted, as some had hypothesized. Apparently there will still be no 'Minister for Europe' and the International Development Ministry will remain independent of the Foreign Office. The shake-up seems to have been smaller than some had expected, though I can't yet find anything describing any changes at the middle and lower levels of the ministries. The reshuffle has also been a fairly rare instance of shrinking rather than expanding the senior Cabinet positions. UPDATE: BBC Radio 4 is reporting that the Tories are denouncing the abolition of the Lord Chancellor's position and that the SNP and Plaid Cymru are upset about the abolition of the Cabinet-level Scottish and Welsh Offices. Apparently the reason that I can't find the junior ministerial appointments is that the reshuffle of those ranks won't be announced until tomorrow. My links policy I've been meaning to put this up here for a while. I'm not an automatic reciprocal linker. In the past, I've had a couple of blogs link to me that I felt I should not link back to. One of them contained far more female nudity than could possibly considered artistic. Another one of them was in a language that I suspect to be Icelandic (this one). So, basically, I'll link to anyone who asks me to link to their site, so long as it's not written by someone who espouses bigoted views or is just a complete nutjob, and as long as it is written in either English or some language that I have at least a rudimentary knowledge of.* I reserve the right not link to the blog if it is completely unrelated to the subjects that I deal with and appears to be of absolutely no interest whatsoever to my readers (I don't think this will happen). I also reserve the right to change this policy whenever the hell I feel like it. Check it regularly ... if you need a good sleep aid. I use the blogroll to check to see if blogs that I regularly read have been updated. Thus, I occasionally will add blogs to the blogroll without any request from the author. Odds are that it's probably not yours, though. As far as linking to me, I ask for you to follow the basic rules of fair citation ... that is, don't plagiarize anything. I aim to follow the same idea in linking to others on the blogroll and within individual posts *Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, French, Italian, German and Latin ... not that I expect to ever find a blog in Latin. Around the blogosphere in 80 seconds ePatriots is up and running. Despite my earlier qualms, you will probably me putting up my own donation board in the near future. Uh, to test it out, of course. OK, no, I really want to see if I can be of any help ... and it's an ego thing as well. I do reserve the right to return to my earlier views, though, and pull the thing off my website if I feel that the system does, as I fear, not work if it gets too decentralized. - Dumbass. (via Atrios) - Yep, that's me. - David Adesnik discusses the immutable laws of Maureen Dowd and ends with a plea for her firing. Actually, I'd like to broaden that plea, and just request that the New York Times and Washington Post get rid of all of their columnists. Other than Krugman, Dionne and Kinsley, none of them are really intelligent, insightful, creative and good reporters on a regular basis. Some of them - Dowd and George Will are probably the worst offenders (I don't think Will has written a column that isn't just a summary of the talking points offered by the RNC headquarters with a couple of faux-witty bon mots added in the last couple decades) - fail all of these tests on a regular basis. UPDATE: Now that I think about it, Anne Applebaum is generally worth reading, and Diehl, Hoagland, King and Ignatius at the WaPo are probably deserving of another chance (other than Hoagland, none of them writes particularly regularly), as was Sebastian Mallaby, who seems to be on permanent vacation. One of the commenters also defends Bob Herbert. Herbert is definitely a damn fine writer and reporter (or, um, his assistants are). The Tulia case showed him at his best. He often, though, succumbs to a spectacularly fatalist view of the world - everything is going badly and he has no solutions (as opposed to Safire, who has a solution to everything in mind even where things are going swimmingly). - On one hand, the Rittenhouse Review has the best damn linking policy out there, but on the other hand, it may also have the worst damn advertising out there. A little completely unsolicited advice: either run or don't run, but don't drag out a cheap ploy for too long and toy with us. UPDATE: Jim says the ads aren't his. I apologize for any ... thing I wrote. UPDATE to the UPDATE: To explain ... at the time I wrote the initial post, it appeared that TRR was either taking a joke about campaigning too seriously or a real campaign not seriously enough. The ads are fake, and thus, what I wrote is moot. - This is probably not the correct response to any death, but I suppose I can understand it. News in British The firefighters are finally expected to approve their pay deal today, though a defeat of the deal is not impossible. The firefighters had to settle for a phased-in 16% pay rise and certain reforms, rather than the insane 40% immediate raise and refusal to consider any reforms that they had proposed. UPDATE: BBC Radio 4 is reporting that the pay deal was approved ... I think. - I've been told that I won't pass my Public Economics exam if I don't link to this column by Nick Barr in the Guardian on the advantages and disadvantages of the Labour plan for loans for university students and the Tory plan to eliminate university fees (I took Nick's Public Economics course). - Thank you, Julie Burchill, for putting the thoughts of 60 million Britons to words. - I have nothing against ColdPlay. They, um, don't suck, which is actually a fairly positive assessment given the current state of the music industry. Virgin Radio, though, seems insistent on playing ColdPlay all day long, every day. And it would be a hell of a lot more bearable if they actually were playing more than the same three songs. Reshuffle-board The papers are rife with reports that a reshuffle of the Cabinet is imminent. The Guardian's report is here, the Telegraph's report is here, the report in the Times is here, the report in the Independent is here and the Evening Standard's report is here. A number of minor reshuffles have already taken place during this Parliament - due to the resignations of Estelle Morris, Robin Cook and a couple others at the outset of the war on Iraq, and a couple of other sackings. The reshuffle is expected to mostly deal with middle and lower-ranking figures. The only major figure expected to stand down is Lord Irvine, who has been the Lord Chancellor since Labour came into power in 1997. Lord Irvine has been criticized on a number of issues, including his acceptance of a hefty pension and salary, as well as his purchase of expensive wallpaper for the Lord Chancellor's residence. Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary and David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, aren't expected to shift. Straw has reportedly been opposed to the proposed creation of a full-time Minister for Europe - mostly to deal with the new EU constitution - who would be a half-step below Cabinet rank. Blunkett is also said to be opposed to the creation of a new Ministry of Justice - ministries are regularly created and closed in Britain, unlike in the U.S. - that would deal with the complicated mess of powers currently split among the Home Secretary - which deals with policing and criminal sentencing policy - the Lord Chancellor's office - which administers the criminal courts and civil law - and the Attorney General's office. Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, and Alan Milburn, the Health Secretary, are reportedly tipped for promotion, though my math seems to indicate that there are more individuals tipped for promotion than there are slots to be opened. There is also talk that the Welsh and Scottish Secretaries may be combined into a single post for the devolved regions (Northern Ireland will not be immediately be included, as negotiations over Stormont are still ongoing). The current Scottish secretary, Helen Liddell, has apparently complained that she has been given a non-job, as most of the Scottish Secretary's traditional powers have been given to the Scottish Parliament (the Welsh Assembly is less powerful, and thus the Welsh Secretary maintains some powers). There was also talk in the past that John Prescott, the Deputy PM (who basically maintains control over a wide range of various minor departments that don't fit logically into other departments) may be bumped up into the Lords - and that the International Development Ministry may be folded back into the Foreign Secretary's fold, in the wake of the Clare Short debacle. Wednesday, June 11, 2003
Around the blogosphere in 80 seconds Oliver Willis points out that Michael Oxley has defended a bill to combat internet gambling - on the basis that it will fight terrorism. Is it me, or have the Congressional Republicans reached the point that they'll claim that anything will fight terrorism ... except for the bills that are actually intended to fight terrorism? - Oh, Scheiße und Bumsen.* - Kos is already up to about $11,500 in donations already realized, and I think it's about twice that in donations year-long. Probably more, actually. See here for my thoughts. - The Rittenhouse Review has returned to working order. - Tacitus points to the latest round of Democrat-bashing at ESPN. Of course, I was on this subject, all the way back last week (dunno why I'm being so self-referential today). Easterbrook has a point, of course, in that the blatant use of ghost-writing isn't intellectually honest. On the other hand, in spite of the the cases to the contrary that he cited, it's hardly an unheard-of practice, and singling out Sen. Clinton is both unrealistic and dishonest. But who knew that ESPN was such a bastion of the wingnut school of conservatism? - A damn (but not damned) good idea. *I like Babelfish, no? (interestingly, in playing around, I've noticed that the word that translates to 'shit' is fairly similar in all of the Romance languages - some variant of 'merd,', while the word that translates to 'fuck' is different in all of them ... there's probably some greater significance to this but I lost any interest in it about fifteen words ago) News in British As part of the Brown-Blair settlement on the Euro tests, pro-Euro ministers have been unleashed and told to go forth and spread the gospel of eventual Euro membership in a travelling 'road show.' I really can't believe that it's a good idea to promote the benefits of entry so loudly when it is clear that entry in the near future is not entirely likely. Raising expectations above what is realistically possible is not a sound idea, either as economic or political policy. - The Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC), a quango that advises the government on agricultural policies, has said that the halal (Muslim) and kosher (Jewish) methods of butchering animals should be banned immediately. They feel that the methods are unnecessarily cruel, as the animals are killed by having their throats slit while conscious. Dumb, stupid, and worse. As Brian Klug argues in the Guardian, "Ultimately, 'humane' and 'ritual' slaughter are racial metaphors for Us (modern, civilised, decent) and Them (backward, savage, merciless)." Klug points out that the banning of ritual slaughter methods has often been used as a quasi-racist policy undertaken during times of rising anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim sentiments. Or, as Camilla Cavendish argues in the Times, FAWC "has decided that Jews and Muslims should sublimate their religious traditions to a minority group of infinitely greater importance. Cows." Unless the importation of halal and kosher meat is banned as well, such a restriction of slaughter methods would simply lead to the greater importation of halal and kosher meat from other countries that still allow the practice, which would be more costly to the communities demanding the restricted meat. Such a move would also severely undermine British companies that currently serve this niche market. A ban will not end the practice, just shift it elsewhere in all likelihood ... though the increase in costs might also create a few vegetarians as well. - The Telegraph is reporting that George Galloway's suspension from the Labour Party will likely be concluded before the selection process for the next general election. Although this will mean that he can be considered as a prospective candidate, he will be likely unable to run as a Labour candidate in the actual general election anyway, as his district is being eliminated and split between two districts due to redistricting. He apparently is also yet to launch libel action against the Telegraph, as he has promised to do, in response to charges that he was a paid agent for Saddam Hussein. Death and Taxes There's an interesting articline in the New York Times on the clash between many House Republicans and the White House over the low-income tax credit. This is clearly an issue that the Democrats will be able to make noise about, assuming they can actually stand united. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out, since DeLay has clearly reached the Thatcher-in-her-third-term level of hubris, and Bush showed a willlingness when dealing with Lott to take on the leadership in his own party when he feels that they are doing something that might undermine his own political viability. - Roy Blunt, the House Majority Whip tried to insert a provision into a Homeland Security bill that would aid Philip Morris USA, the tobacco dealer. The provision was actually not unreasonable - it dealt with restricting illegal sales of cigarettes and internet sales - but it was clearly not germane. What is far worse is that Blunt was clearly compromised by his relationship with the company and should never recused himself from anything relating to the company long ago. Besides the fact that he has received large sums of donations from the company, Blunt's son works for them, and Blunt apparently has something of a 'personal relationship' ongoing with a company lobbyist. - Anne Applebaum has a column worth reading about the deep and borderline illogical hatred of George W. Bush in much of Europe. I disagree with Bush on nearly every single thing that he's done, but I still have a hard time keeping a straight face at some of the allegations that I sometimes hear levied against him. I believe him to be a lousy President, but I don't consider him a sign of the apocalypse either. - Come back, Mike! OK, so there's no one else left, but please come back! (and tell Lang to get rid of Esherick already) Tuesday, June 10, 2003
Things I wish I hadn't learned You know how M&M's are supposed to 'melt in your mouth and not in your hand'? Well, the British ones don't quite pass the test. Ewwww. And now for something completely different ... David Beckham has reportedly been sold (contingent on certain conditions being met) from Manchester United to Barcelona. I fully expect to hear people running around in the streets screaming "THE END IS NIGH!" tonight. UPDATE: Beckham is apparently upset at being used as a pawn in the upcoming elections for the presidency of Barcelona - the candidate who arranged for the transfer has run on a platform of delivering Beckham - and set to reject the deal. Around the blogosphere in 80 seconds Kos is beta-testing the new ePatriots system for the DNC, which will "will allow bloggers to take "credit" for raising donations on behalf of the Democratic Party's eventual nominee fund." As I write this, he's raised about $8000 in 12 hours. Not too shabby. Kos wants to make the system available to all webmasters and bloggers. I have to wonder if this a little elitism might actually work better here. Although the donations have to come with a verification that the donor is legally allowed to do so - and officially channeled through the blogger, anyway - the system will have to be carefully monitored for any violations of election law. Moreover, Kos has already raised $8000. Putting this up on every blogger's site might remove some of the urgency from the matter, just as putting a PayPal box up on nearly every damn site does. If the ePatriots system is limited to a few big bloggers, it might actually be easier to get concerted fundraising drives going than if the system is installed everywhere. UPDATE (8:30 BST*) - He's now up to $9700 and above $20,000 when promised year-long donations are counted. *Technically speaking, the UK is currently in BST, or British Summer Time, not GMT, or Greenwich Mean Time. I don't know if the Irish were consulted in the name, and yes, I am that anal retentive. - Atrios has a number of posts up on the SCLM. I really should be more outraged than I am about all this. Euro update Again, rather than bother trying to link and summarize ever damn article, I'll just point to the individual papers - the Guardian, the Evening Standard, the Times, the Independent and the Telegraph. The Independent also has this summary of the editorial reactions of the different newspapers in Britain, Europe and America, as well as this summary in the Telegraph of Gordon Brown's speech in the Commons, if you need something to put you to sleep that's more powerful and less addictive than sleeping pills. The speech clearly intended to have something to offer everyone. In doing so, it also offered everyone something to get pissed off about. It did strike me as a little unrealistically pro-Euro. I'm simply not convinced that the circumstances will be right for Britain to join the Euro, let alone not significantly harmful, any time soon. At the same time, though I have little reason to directly argue against the merits of a rolling review, I do worry that it will give too much of an opportunity to die-hard Europhiles to ignore reality on a regular basis. The Worst Generation Boo-hoo. The boomers are complaining again how they've been handed such a raw deal. They can't jet around the world or retire to Tuscany at 45. They can't all send their children to Ivy League schools. They can't stand to see all the horrors of the world on their 100-plus channels on TV. They can't all be multi-millionaires (unless inflation sets in). Uh-huh. Let's see. This is the generation that could neither stop nor win the war in Vietnam. This is the generation that has managed to bring the stock market to its knees twice in a decade-and-a-half. This is the generation that has decided to leave me and my hypothetical children drowning in debt. The best generation with the highest levels of human capital ever experienced can't figure out how to build any social capital. This is the generation that has been coddled to the point that it can't solve any problems and won't stop complaining about them ... unless their psychiatrist gets the mix of drugs right. The generation that broke all the social norms and now wonders what the hell is wrong with kids today. The generation that doesn't vote and then can't stop whining about what's wrong with our political system. I hope I'll be excused for not having any sympathy for them. I fear that there's going to be a large mess left behind that my cohort and I will have to clean up. Monday, June 09, 2003
With regards to the "who wants to stage a nasty and pointless blog-fight?" post that the CalPundit linked to, let me just say the following. Um, it was meant as a joke. Brevity may be the soul of wit, but it is also the font of misunderstanding. So far, I've been called a "F***ing commie freak" (in jest, I think) and the reason that the blogosphere will soon become "nothing but catfights, shameless fund-raising and name calling, a vast wilderness of dreck speckled with islands of obscurity" (that one was meant seriously). Actually, if you'll read this post, I'd say that the blogosphere is anything but vast. OK, there have been a lot of stupid blog-fights going on lately, and I intended to make fun of them. To that end, I have no intention of actually staging a 'blog-fight' with the two individuals who accepted my joking challenge (one of whom rescinded their acceptance). I'm happy to debate anyone if there's any policies or ideas on which we disagree on their merits, but I'm not intending to get into any mud-slinging. Nor do I intend to buy any beer for Matt, unless he wants to drop by the Dean Swift next to my flat. - Yes, I know, the comments haven't been functioning for most of today. I'm sorry, but I have to point the finger at Haloscan on that one. I gave up on Enetation a week ago because I was fed up with the comments always crashing. Haloscan hasn't exactly been doing any better. It's a free service, and I got what I paid for. Around the Blogosphere in 80 seconds When you've pissed off both Atrios and Josh Chafetz simultaneously, you've probably screwed something up pretty badly. And yes, Sen. Larry Craig (R-Dumbass) has decided put a hold on the promotions of 800 Air Force officers until four C-130 planes are delivered to the Idaho Air National Guard. What a putz. - Various Democrats have called for an investigation into the apparent requests for political contributions to various Republicans and their affiliated organizations in return for exempting Westar Corp. from various regulations. The Justice Department has refused to comment. Not good enough. (also via Atrios) - Kieran Healy works the market, but, as Brad DeLong points out in the comments, doesn't do math. - Kos and MyDD are now working for the man. - Pandagon: "George W. Bush v. The Kool-Aid Man - One is mostly water and exotic chemicals and comes at an affordable price. The other is the Kool-Aid Man. Which one is easier for you to stomach? You be the judge!" - Added to the blogroll: Marstonalia News in British Unison, the major public sector union, is reportedly setting up unified funds that would allow it to hold co-ordinated strike actions. It is illegal in Britain to hold sympathy strikes (this is a result of the 1926 General Strike), but Unison apparently plans to hold strikes across all of its sections on the same days as a way to bring the public sector to its knees and undermine the government. If carried out, this will end in disaster for everyone but the Tories. The British people haven't responded well to such action well in the past. Bringing back the tactics of Arthur Scargill is likely to bring back the Thatcherite Tories. To all those who fear that Britain might turn into the 51st state, such massive strike action could well bring this about - by forcing the election of a Tory government with a mandate to amputate the trade union movement and to pass the British equivalent of the Taft-Hartley Act. I remain a strong believer in labor (sorry, labour) unions. But allowing a monopoly on the labor supply to exercize (sorry, exercise) the same monopoly powers that are considered unallowable with other goods and services may be very, very costly. Labour unions cannot expect gain by seeking to undermine the Labour Party. - Gibraltar isn't going anywhere. - The Transport Secretary, Alistair Darling, is planning to move forward with plans on road pricing. Darling is arguing that the plans - and they are still plans, any concerted action being far off - must be considered, at least to some extent, as it is infeasible to deal with the traffic problems under the current circumstances, unless the entire country is to be paved over. The Times thinks it's an idea worth considering. The roads are currently clogged up in many areas and in need of some aid. I'm not convinced that things are really likely to get a whole lot worse than they already are. The population isn't growing that quickly, though car ownership will probably grow somewhat faster due to the high income elasticity of demand. The satellite tracking program raises a number of serious civil liberties issues. (I'm not entirely convinced that it's technically feasible to build such a system right now, but that probably won't last). Moreover, the gas (sorry, petrol) tax is a pretty good Pigouvian tax on air pollution, and satellite tracking may withdraw the incentive to use more environmentally friendly vehicles if the petrol tax is reduced to make the move revenue-neutral. Using toll roads may help somewhat relieve clogged roads somewhat, though there are a couple of problems. Toll plazas tend to increase concentrated air pollution (though this can be remedied somewhat by the use of EZ-Pass situations). Toll roads are a regressive form of taxation, but it's not really feasible to design a flat or progressive toll. There aren't any panaceas to be had here. Bugger. Britain and the Euro Gordon Brown's verdict is due in a little less than four hours from now. I don't think any real surprises are to be expected. He's going to say that Britain should not move forward yet, but should take secondary action to prepare for eventual entry into the Euro-zone. There's a ton of articles written today in the major newspapers - the Guardian, the Times, the Independent, the Telegraph and the Evening Standard - and I'll just link to them rather than linking to every damned article and column, none of which is saying anything particularly surprising. If I can squeeze it in, I'll go over to Westminster and try to get into the Strangers Gallery in the Commons to watch. UPDATE: Well, you may want the opinion piece in the Times by Iain Duncan Smith, the Tory leader. Duncan Smith increasingly seems to me to be a decent and upright individual. Unfortunately, he leads the Tories, who don't know what to make of someone like that. Also, I'm not going to bother going over to the Commons. I've done something to my foot, and standing outside in line for an hour doesn't really seem like a good idea right now. I think it'll be on the radio. UPDATE to the UPDATE: It's on Radio 5. It's funny. When the chamber is empty, there's a lot of polite debate and joshing around. When the chamber is full, the MPs really behave like children, heckling the speaker (though not the Speaker). One other thought. There's been a lot of talk that, once Gordon Brown takes over, the Tories will be revitalized, and Brown will end up as a footnote Prime Minister relative to Blair, just like Callaghan to Wilson and Douglas-Home to MacMillan. I don't think so. He's putting on a pretty damn good show. He would have to deal with a Tory party returning to the offensive and the problems within his own party, but I find myself thinking that Gordon Brown could do a damn fine job. Or Jack Straw, for that matter (just, please God, not Mandelson, Hain, Clarke, Prescott or Reid) Sunday, June 08, 2003
Perfectly pointless partisanship I've enjoyed reading Peter Gammons' columns at ESPN.com over the years. He's usually a damned fine writer and about as good at digging up information from front offices as anyone else. Sometimes, though, he's just a dumbass. For instance, there's this column about Sammy Sosa, in which he argues: This is not an American president looking into the camera and blatantly lying. This is not a Harvard student being dismissed for cheating, or later driving a car with a female companion into the ocean; and he recovered to introduce and enact more legislature that any man in the history of the U.S. Senate. This isn't the managing editor of the New York Times perpetrating and promoting serious fraud. This is not a major league manager betting on his team's games. Bad grammar aside, could he try to be just a little bit more partisan and angry? 'Cause it's so, like, cute and, y'know, endearing ... and, uh, completely irrelevant. No one has accused of Sammy Sosa of perjury, nor vehicular homicide, nor plagiarism, nor income tax evasion. He was caught breaking the rules by corking his bat - whether it was by accident or not does not matter - and he will be punished. Politics has no place in baseball, and vice versa. 'Nuff said. - Oh, and two things: Senators enact legislation, not legislatures. Jayson Blair was a writer for the New York Times. His plagiarism and falsifications were ignored by the Managing Editor, one Gerald Boyd. Fact-checking. It's the other white meat. The BWF I've been thinking about what I need to do to drive up traffic to this site. Anyone willing to stage a nasty and pointless blog-fight? Matt and Ezra? Scott? Tom? Kieran? Anyone? MORE... - New Baghdad blogger Raed is now complemented by G. in Baghdad. Euro-panicking Gordon Brown's verdict on the Euro is to be delivered tomorrow. So the pro-Euro press is panicking, knowing that they've lost the battle for now, while the Sunday Times argues that Gordon Brown is making the right decision, while the Observer and the Sunday Independent say that plans will be drawn for eventual entry as a way to placate Europhiles and ensure that things go smoothly once entry is underway. Think I'm exaggerating about the panicking? See this little fantasy, in which a writer for the Sunday Independent declares that Britain will be the 51st state, replete with the conversion of St. Paul's Cathedral into the Christopher Wren Wild West Rodeo Experience. Uh, right. Oh, and then there's this Will Hutton column, in which he proclaims that failure to enter the Euro-zone now will cost £150 billion over 25 years. Sounds like a lot, right? It's about 27 pence per Briton per day. I have more money than that on my floor. Congestion charging The Times is reporting that plans for national road charging will be going forward. Well, it looks like I spoke too soon. Meanwhile, the oddly-named Ferdinand Mount is complaining that the charge is turning central London into a ghost town. News updates Arnold Schwarzenegger is thinking about running for governor of California if the effort to recall Gray Davis goes forward, and no he thinks would be a better candidate comes forward. On one hand, he's clearly got serious star power. On other hand, he supposedly comes from the Bob Packwood school of how to treat women, which could, well, completely undermine his candidacy. - There's been a monkey-pox outbreak in Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana. It's reportedly tied to the trading of exotic pets, and there is no apparent link to communism. That's good, because it's only been about 15 minutes since my last panic attack. - George Will has a column worth reading on the dire fiscal straits that Amtrak exists in. Did I just write that George Will has a column worth reading? Christ ... I guess even a broken clock is right twice a day. The Washington Post has an editorial today discussing a couple of studies that have been released, each of which argues that the DC city government is stuck with a structural fiscal imbalance. The problem is that the city has to provide a number of expensive services, but simply lacks the tax base to provide for them. Services are expensive because much of the district's population lives in poverty and the costs of providing certain services for the federal government are borne by the district. The problem is made far worse by the fact that the city cannot tax federal land - no city can, but this is a particular problem in Washington because so much of the prime office space is owned by the federal government (and much of the rest of the land consists of the Mall, Rock Creek Park, and other green areas). At the same time, because most of the city residents living east of Rock Creek are too poor to pay any noticeable tax revenue. Because the city is subordinate to the federal government in a manner unlike any other city - its budget and any legislation can be overturned in Congress - the district cannot tax the income earned within the city by non-residents. No other city has such an exemption forced upon it. This exemption is jealously guarded, particularly by Congressmen who don't want to pay city income tax, and by the Congressmen and Senators from Maryland and Virginia, whose constiuencies gain as wealthier individuals who work in the district move to the suburbs in order to avoid taxation. Part of the problem is that the District has no voting representation in Congress (Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton can vote in committee, but not in the House). Moreover, the House and Senate have for some time tended to treat the District as a guinea pig for pet projects - as with the school vouchers plan, which about a half-dozen individuals in the district support (one of whom is the Mayor, admittedly), and with the referendum on the death penalty a decade ago (it was rejected by an overwhelming margin). Admittedly, this has gotten better in recent years somewhat, particularly in the House. Expanding the tax base isn't much of an option, unless the income exemption for non-residents is revoked (fat chance, I'd think). District residents are already taxed at insane rates in order to pay for sub-standard services. Many of the tax rates can't really go much higher before the Laffer Curve starts coming into play*. Meanwhile, I don't think that Congress is too likely to want to subsidize the city government any more than it already does, unless a crisis erupts. The district has gone on the offensive in recent years, trying to gain public attention for their lack of fiscal sovereignty. Holmes Norton submitted a bill that would have exempted District residents from U.S. income tax unless they were given voting rights in Congress. Thanks to Morella, the bill actually made it out of committee, but died on the floor. I've really become convinced that drastic action is needed to get public attention: 1. One way to do it would be to just refuse to comply with anything the Congress asks for in terms of safety provision until changes are made. 2. Another option would be to expand the tax base by laying claim to the district's original borders. The district originally consisted of a parcel of land handed over by both Maryland and Virginia. Virginia took back its land in the 1840's in one of the secessionist battles that led up to the Civil War. The area that they took back now consists of Arlington and parts of Alexandria and Falls Church, all of which are far wealthier than the current District, and could viably be taxed at higher rates. Given that the Supreme Court declared secession illegal in the years after the Civil War, I have to wonder if Virginia's sovereignty over the area is null and void. Again, I'm not a lawyer, but I think that there's something to be looked into here. 3. Want to really grab attention? Threaten to break away. Yeah, it's illegal - and I am not advocating violence or treason of any kind - and not sustainable, but it sure as hell would get news coverage pretty damned quick. *My view is that the Laffer Curve makes a difference in the big picture - say, between a 10% tax rate and a 90% tax rate - but not in marginal adjustments - say, between 50% and 51%. Saturday, June 07, 2003
Navel-gazing and pointless math There has been a fair amount of self-congratulation and 'navel-gazing' going on at the power of the blogosphere in the wake of the resignations of Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd. There's only one problem. Blogs aren't that powerful, and all that's needed to prove it is a little math. Take a look at the Truth Laid Bear's Ecosystem, for one (I know it's not a perfect system, no matter what TTLB says - it sometimes misses links that show up on other parsers or just misses blogs entirely). There are slightly over 2700 blogs in the Ecosystem right now. Let's take the assumption that it is a complete survey of the political blogs, which is a bit of a stretch, but probably not far off, as well as including some others. Now let's assume that one-third of the blogs are situated on the left and didn't care about the New York Times outside of the Jayson Blair scandal and another third of the blogs are either foreign or concerned with other matters than politics. So that leaves us with about 900 blogs. To make up for excluding the posts of anyone on the left or living abroad, let's assume that all of those 900 blogs were concerned with Howell Raines and the Times. Of the top five right-wing blogs in the ecosystem, only the Instapundit and the Volokhs allow access to the stats, I think. The Instapundit is in a league of his own, getting about 80,000 hits per day. The Volokhs get about a tenth of that. It drops off pretty quickly, though. Virgina Postrel, ranked 42nd in the Ecosystem, gets about 1100 hits per day. Once you get down to my neck of the woods, around the 25th percentile or so, you're talking about 100 hits per day, if that. And down near the bottom, it drops off to a couple dozen hits per day. So, anyway, let's make the assumption that out of the 900 conserva-bloggers, the top 100 average what Postrel averages, the next 400 get around the 25th percentile's average, and the remainder get 20 hits per day. And we'll add the InstaPundit on top of that to include his disproportionate weight. So what does that add up to? About 230,000 hits (about a third of which is Prof. Reynolds). Now there aren't 230,000 separate people, each hitting one blog per day. Many people read a few blogs per day, and some read dozens ... mostly bloggers, I'd think. So, again, let's assume that each blog reader hits two blogs per day. That makes for 115,000 people. And if we assume that only Americans read blogs, that means that 0.038% of the American population reads a post about Howell Raines and the New York Times on any given day. That's probably about as many people as believe that Elvis personally abducted them. The power of the blogosphere, insofar as it exists, exists because the press - as we've learned lately - is often lazy. It may be easier to pick up on a blogging phenomenon than do any new reporting, as occurred with the Trent Lott debacle. But with Lott, the press volume stayed high throughout the crisis. With l'affaire Howell, there was relatively little press coverage between when Blair was fired and the Raines and Boyd resignations, despite the continual concerns of the conserva-bloggers - much of which pre-dated Jayson Blair anyhow. Indeed, the resignations appeared to have been triggered not by the complaints of conservative bloggers but by the vote of no-confidence that Sulzberger received from much of his staff. It is what the blogs write but how the press responds that matters. So, what have we learned today, class? 1. The blogosphere really isn't all that big or powerful ... yet. Other than the Instapundit, the traffic appears to be insignificant in the greater scheme of things. Even the Instapundit averages about the same amount of traffic as the population of a single small city. 2. The Ecosystem trawls for links, not hits. Of the three blogs currently ranked directly ahead of mine, one averages about a fifth of what I get and the other gets about five times as much as me. Go figure. 3. The Ecosystem doesn't pick up every political blog. The actual conservative blogosphere is probably bigger than the 900 I guessed at - but most of the others would likely be added to the bottom of the distribution, making a relatively insignificant difference. 4. I made way too many assumptions here. This is a cute illustration, but not an accurate picture. 5. I should be kept away from calculators. UPDATE: Forget everything I just wrote. It's all Oliver Willis's fault. Civil unions, the constitution, and other issues that I know far too little about to be blogging about Matt Singer of the blog formerly known as Ezra Klein makes the point that all (political) hell may soon break loose if New Jersey or Massachusetts declares same-sex marriages legal. There's a couple of points worth noting here: 1. There are 50 state constitutions, and, as seen in Vermont, the result is likely to be different in every state. The variability of the state constitutions, for instance, means that school vouchers are legal in some states but not in others, regardless of what the Supreme Court says with regards to the (federal) Constitution. 2. Full faith and credit. I'm convinced that the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution should come into play here. Of course, I am not a lawyer or a constitutional scholar or otherwise qualified to think about this issue, but ... The full faith and credit clause, as I understand it, implies that a contract signed in any state is valid in any other state. Of course, the Defense of Marriage Act allows states to refuse to allow civil unions. But, from what I gather, the full faith and credit clause should still require states to recognize a civil union that is allowed by another state, say Vermont, and treat it exactly the same as any other marriage. A state doesn't have to sanction a civil union but should have to recognize one that is sanctioned in another state, no? Which would, I'd think, give rise to a gigantic mess. Mea culpa maxima ad nauseam The CalPundit went after the Guardian for incorrectly quoting Paul Wolfowitz as saying that the war in Iraq was all about oil. See here for the original, here for the follow-up, and here for one last note. Well, today, Ian Mayes of the Guardian has responded to the readers who had wondered why the story had been pulled off the website after the mistake was discovered. By 4.30pm on Thursday, about 24 hours after it was posted, the report was deleted. A statement to that effect was posted prominently on the home page of the website. It was amended at about 5.30pm to take in more of the precise words of Mr Wolfowitz, which were available on the website of the US defence department. That statement remained on the home page of the Guardian website until about 6.30pm. At that time all the corrections that were published on the leader page of yesterday's print edition, with the Wolfowitz correction leading, were made available to the website, several hours earlier than usual. Unusual efforts were made not only to correct but to kill the story because it was wrong and by Thursday morning was attracting worldwide interest. ... The sense was clearly that the US had no economic options by means of which to achieve its objectives, not that the economic value of the oil motivated the war. The report appeared only on the website and has now been removed." That has not satisfied all the paper's critics. There is no total satisfaction in these situations. The story should not have run. In view of the significance of the statements attributed to Mr Wolfowitz, rigorous checking should have taken place. The hazard of translating remarks from German back into the English in which they were originally made should have been apparent. It concluded a week in which the Guardian apologised to the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, for locating him at a meeting he did not attend. It has not been the best of weeks. Well, that's about as much as of a mea culpa as you'll ever see from the British press without a lawsuit first. Even better, no one was mistakenly imprisoned for eight months before the mistake was figured out, either. OK, so maybe Howell Raines wasn't the only problem The New York Times has an editorial today that argues that Britain should join the Euro-zone, saying that procrastination would be damaging, though not explaining why. Procrastination could be damaging, yes, but it is clear that joining right now would be all but disastrous for the economy. In the long run, Euro membership will probably make sense. Right now, though, it appears not to be a useful idea. UPDATE: One more thought - the exchange rate is in a more favorable spot for Britain than it was a few weeks ago, but exchange rates are fairly manic, sliding from one place to another at a moment's notice. There still hasn't been any real progress in what needs to be done with the ECB, and the structural reforms going forward in France and Germany fall far short of what is needed. Friday, June 06, 2003
Your lyin' cheatin' heart TBogg has another post on Blair Hornstine, the New Jersey student who sued to be declared sole valedictorian(1) - and won (though another student has sued to have the verdict overturned) and was subsequently caught having plagiarized a number of sources for newspaper articles she wrote, and has subsequently refused to apologize for. There's a petition to get her acceptance into Harvard revoked, which I think you should sign, here. Admittedly, it is sort of petty to launch such a petition, though certainly no more than anything that Hornstine has done. On the other hand, I can't see why Harvard should still allow Hornstine in. Firstly, there are questions about whether the health exemptions that she obtained were valid in the first place. Second, she has shown a complete and total willingness to violate basic academic standards and has refused to apologize for it. Finally, there comes this: Harvard shouldn't be accepting plagiarists while rejecting people like, well, me, who have not done anything of the sort (2, 3). Moreover, it lowers the value of a Harvard degree if it subsequently becomes impossible to separate those who legitimately gained admission from those who did not. OK, so Harvard may be fearful that Hornstine will launch yet another lawsuit if her admission is rescinded. Then again, if she listed the articles in anything she's submitted to the admissions office, as I understand it, she'll be out of luck this time, since the admission forms always include a little place to sign your name, acknowledging that everything included is valid and true. There simply is no justification for plagiarism, nor any reason to tolerate it. (1) Why are Google rankings considered protected speech as opinions but not GPA rankings? (2) I didn't take the rejection personally and I still don't. Given my grades, which were badly damaged by personal problems during my first year and a half of high school, it was a reach. But I'd rather see a total idiot who does nothing right beyond following the rules admitted before someone who will cheat, scheme and sue their way through life. (3) I'm tempted to bring up Gina Grant here, but given that Grant's crimes were far more serious than anything Hornstine has been accused of - Hornstine hasn't done anything illegal - I'll leave it at that. Around the blogosphere in 80 seconds Prof. Brad "Slow-blog" DeLong explains just how badly the economy is doing (see also here). I suppose once I get back to DC I'll have to scout out places to take up begging once I'm done at Georgetown. You'll be able to spot me as the crank on Wisconsin Ave. with the sign saying "will predict economic recovery for food" - This really needs a lot more press than it's getting: Matt Singer of the blog formerly known as Ezra Klein points out that, in many respects, Democrats are actually stronger on national security than Republicans. Never mind that the war in Iraq was essentially won by Clinton's military, as Al Franken put it (yes, Franken isn't the best of experts here, but that doesn't change the fact that he's right). - Since no one at Atrios has gotten around to it yet, go torture Wolf Blitzer (though it looks like someone else has already been directing people to the poll) - Via Oliver Willis: Tom DeLay and other Republicans apparently solicited donations from a struggling utility company in return for an exemption from federal laws. In other words, they went to a company that had no business making donations otherwise given their fiscal ill health to ask for money. Just a thought: the British legal system, as I understand things, allows private individuals to bring a criminal prosecution if they wish, though permission from the equivalent of the public prosecutors is required in order to ensure that frivolous charges aren't being thrown all over the place. Does American law (or British common law, insofar it applies to the American legal system) allow for any similar move? Someone needs to prosecute DeLay, be it private or public, given his complete and total unwillingness to do anything short of brushing his teeth unless he's received a donation to do it. (deluded side note: if we can allow private prosecutions, that should make conservatives and libertarians happy for introducing more competition and taking away a public monopoly, no?) - Added to the blogroll: D-Squared Digest Euro (currency) update The Times is reporting that the Cabinet has come to agreement with Gordon Brown that a skeptical verdict on the Euro will have to be delivered on Monday - though it appears that the exact wording has not yet been settled upon - arguing that four of the five economic tests have been failed and it is unlikely that all five tests will be passed in the near future. The editorial board at the Times thinks that Brown is right and needs to be tougher on the pro-Euro forces than Blair might allow him to be. Moves will still be made to attempt to bring about the necessary convergence without harming the state of the economy, including the introduction of an enabling bill after the summer recess that would allow the government to call a referendum on Euro-zone membership when it is ready. As I've said before, I think it's clear that joining the Euro would, if done immediately, create a number of severe difficulties for the economy, with little or no political gains. While it is perfectly reasonable to try to bring about convergence faster than it might naturally occur, in order to make joining a feasible measure, it would clearly be a disaster right now, and that isn't likely to be fixed in the immediate future. Brown needs to resist the pressure to give an unreasonably optimistic verdict that could easily backfire in the future should the conditions for entry not appear as quickly as hoped. Congestion charging, day one-hundred-and-something plus one The Guardian is reporting that studies are showing that traffic within London has increased due to the congestion charge, up 37% ... up to a whopping 11 mph. Call me when they get it up to an even dozen. Granita redux The big news here today seems to be that apparent proof of the deal struck between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in 1994 has been dug up by the Guardian. All of the papers are acknowledging this, as the Guardian has published the actual document, which can be seen here and is explained here. The report in the Independent is here. The report in the Times is here. The report in the Evening Standard is here. For those not familiar with the situation, John Smith, the Labour leader, died suddenly in early 1994. The two expected to be the prime candidates in the leadership election were Blair and Brown, who were respectively the Shadow Home Secretary and the Shadow Chancellor at the time (John Prescott and Margaret Beckett also ran). Brown pulled out in favor of Blair after a meeting over dinner at Granita, a trendy Islington restaurant. The 'Treaty of Granita' has been a subject of speculation ever since then, as Blair supposedly promised to step aside in favor of Brown mid-way through his second term as Prime Minister - the mid-way point is due in a couple of months from now. The document published today contains no evidence of the supposed promise by Blair to retire, but does include an agreement that Blair would follow a Brownite agenda in areas of social and economic policies. The memo is undated, but supposedly it is clear that the handwriting at the bottom is apparently Brown's often nearly-illegible scrawls. As Julian Glover points out, the agendas of Blair and Brown are often more or less identical, just intended to appeal to different wings of the party, and both have undertaken many actions with the support of the other. In other words, the document binds Blair and Brown to act much as they would have anyway. UPDATE: Sources close to the PM are arguing that Blair may have refused to sign the more strongly worded version of the document that was leaked. Meanwhile, Jackie Ashley argues that the document shows why Brown has been so protective of his influence over domestic political issues. The British press The Calpundit has a post up that argues for treating the British press with skepticism, stating that I've been trying to figure out what the British press reminds me of, and I think I have it now: they remind me of blogs. It's not just that they're sensationalistic and partisan - there are American newspapers that fit that description too - it's that they seem willing to print pretty much any rumor from anywhere without bothering to check it. If it's wrong - well, tomorrow's another day. That said, the easiest way that I know of to separate rumors from fact in the British papers is just to read multiple papers. The more broadsheets an item shows up in, the likelier it is to be true. If something shows up in only one paper, it's probably either false or not significant in the big picture. This is, of course, time-consuming, and not always foolproof. Every paper has reported on the allegations against George Galloway, but that doesn't necessarily make them true. That said, most of the papers have been careful to treat what is known as allegations, and not as fact. Generally speaking, the Times is usually reliable enough. It does, as Kevin's first commenter pointed out, 'slant Murdoch' - though a lot less so than the New York Post (either that or the Post is farther to the right of Murdoch than I'd think). Still, it doesn't tend to put as much effort into publishing rumors compared to the other papers, at least as far as I can tell. It's also worth noting that the Guardian is at least willing to print retractions, and regularly does so, as blogs and the other British papers rarely do (though the latter are sometimes forced to retract stories due to lawsuits). En fuego Nick Kristof draws a damning portrait of the President and his Secretary of Defense as more willing to create new intelligence on Iraq that looked like they thought it should than willing to listen to the existing intelligence services. "There was a collective failure here," one senior person in the intelligence world said. "At the end of the day, it should not be George [Tenet] left out to dry." If Tenet is the scapegoat, it's the wrong George they've gone after. - Krugman takes yet another look at the disaster that was the recent tax cuts. He notes that the 'bait and switch' moves used to gain support for the cuts in dividend taxation are likely to usher in a golden age of tax evasion. Well, someone's paying attention The New York Times editorializes that the U.S. and E.U. need stricter sanctions against the military junta in Myanmar. BBC Radio 4 is also reporting that the U.S. government is demanding that its envoy be allowed to see Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the recently imprisoned pro-democracy leader. Apparently the envoy was 'ambushed by a band of pro-government thugs' (quoting liberally from the radio report) en route to where he was supposed to meet her. The Washington Post has a similar editorial here. Thursday, June 05, 2003
Pointless update. Due to a desire to speed up the site, I've switched over from Enetation to Haloscan for comment boards. I'll mess around with the templates over the next couple of days to see if I can find something that I'm happier with. This move means, however, that previous comments have been wiped out. Humanity's loss, I guess. Enetation was getting kind of fluky and seemed to be slowing down the site, although I don't know whether Haloscan will do any better once it gets clogged up. Atrios uses Haloscan and seems to get by pretty adequately, where some of the other Enetation users seem to have been experiencing slowdowns lately. It's hard to tell how much of this is attributable to the comment boards and how much is attributable to Blogger. And yea there was much rejoicing on the right wing of the blogosphere Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd have resigned from the New York Times. The Times' own report is here. The AP's report is here. MSNBC's report is here. The Guardian's report is here. Sulzberger's memo to the staff is here. Joe Lelyveld, the former executive editor, will take over on an interim basis. It doesn't seem likely that much will change in the immediate future, particularly given the interim title that will be hanging over Lelyveld's head. As to who is likely to take over the position on a permanent basis ... I have absolutely no idea. Er. It looks like Kaus's 'Howell Raines O-Meter" was off by a little. UPDATE: Neal Pollack's, um, response is here. Tapped has an interesting post up discussing Republican tax strategies. Apparently Rep. DeMint has argued that it is necessary to make the tax system more regressive. DeMint said that "unless something is done, most people will have no reason not to keep voting for more government, because they won't be paying for it." Exempting too much of the low-income groups would give them little reason to vote for a smaller government - others would be paying for it. Tapped also published a letter from Bruce Bartlett, a conservative columnist, who argued that the evidence seemed to show that narrowing the tax base tended to help the Republicans, since it increased the voting levels among the rich, rather than widening it as the Republicans have recently done. The Tories tried to increase the regressivity of the tax code about 15 years ago in order to ensure that every one would want to vote for a smaller government. And that was at the heart of why Margaret Thatcher lost her job and why the Tories remain unelectable across much of London, Scotland, Wales, and within much of the educated middle class. To explain: Local government in Britain is funded through a combination of local taxation and direct funding from the central government. Up until the mid-1980's, the local residential taxes were funded through the 'council rates,' which were a form of property tax based on imputed rents (1). The system was the result of the tinkering of the past century, and had become insanely complicated. Thatcher decided to replace the 'council rates' with the 'community charge,' a flat-rate head tax, better known as the 'poll tax.' Every single resident (except for those in a few exempted groups) had to pay the same level of tax, usually a couple hundred pounds per year, varying somewhat across different areas to reflect the costs of service provision. The idea was to ensure that individuals would want to vote for Tories for their local council, who would then lower the levels of services provision and the tax rate. It didn't exactly work out as planned. The tax was spectacularly unpopular, and led to riots in some areas. Various estimates pegged the number of people who refused to pay between a quarter and a third, requiring further hikes in the tax to cover expenditure. One of the opponents of the tax, a Tory MP and former minister, Michael Heseltine, instigated a leadership challenged in 1990, which led to Thatcher's downfall (2). John Major managed to win the subsequent balloting and probably would not have hung on in 1992 were it not for the fact that he appointed Heseltine to his cabinet and tasked him with getting rid of the poll tax, replacing it with the council tax (3). To this day, much of the population remains skeptical that the Tories can be trusted with tax policy or government as a whole as a result. The same motivation was behind both machinations, though the Republicans have been talking about removing the progressivity from the income tax, not creating a clearly regressive tax as Thatcher attempted to do. (1) Imputed rents basically mean that the tax was related to what rent the dwelling would cost if it were available on the rental market. As I understand it, imputed rents were used because the British housing market formerly had a very low level of owner-occupiers (2) This is an over-simplification. Support for Thatcher within the Tories had been hurt by Howe's resignation speech. She still won a majority over Heseltine, who wasn't exactly popular within the party either, in the party ballot. Thatcher failed, though, to win the super-majority she needed to prevent a further round of voting. When her cabinet refused to unite behind her, she resigned. (3) The council tax is broadly similar to the council rates, though the latter is somewhat more simplifed and equitable than the former. - Speaking of the idiocy of the tax cut plans, go read Michael Kinsley, who is unusually (and rightly) outraged. Around the blogs in 80 seconds: &c knocks down Tom DeLay's idiotic arguments about why he won't allow legislation on filling the gaps left behind by the recent tax cuts. - Kos hypothesizes that Bill Frist may not be running for re-election to the Senate in 2006, for a couple of reasons. - Josh Marshall argues that there isn't much to Rush Limbaugh's complaints about Hilary Clinton's memoirs. - Kieran Healy: I got my end-of-semester evaluations back today, and as my favorite one of them said, "He was pretty rude at the beginning but he kind of grew on me like a fungus." - Junius has been added to the blogroll. - The Instapundit makes an interesting point about the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act. He argues that it's simply unconstitutional for Congress to regulate abortion, and since he's a law professor and I'm not, I'll have to take his word for it. To date, most of the arguments I've heard that the bill was unconstitutional have dwelt upon the fact that it lacks an exception where the health of the mother is concerned, which is explicitly required by O'Connor's decision in Carhart v. Stenberg. The argument that the proponents of the ban make is that such an exception would be wide enough to drive a truck through, since pregnancy is automatically threatening at some level to the health of the mother - and this is true. They have argued, though that they can get around this by arguing in the findings of fact in the bill that a partial birth abortion is never necessary to defend the health of the mother. There is a fair amount of disagreement about this and, anyway, the courts by no means have to accept the findings of fact as the Congress sets them - Congress could have declared in the bill that 'the moon is green cheese' and the courts need not do anything other than say 'that's nice' in response. George Galloway update The Telegraph is reporting that left-wing elements within the Labour Party intend to lodge a formal demand that George Galloway be reinstituted within the Labour Party, arguing variously that the party ought to be inclusive or that Galloway has paid his debt - he was formally suspended in response to having referred to Tony Blair as a "wolf" preying on Iraq, not on whether he had attempted to incite British soldiers to refuse to serve in Iraq or the questions about whether he was being paid off by Saddam Hussein. I've been surprised by the lack of news about possible prosecution over the former incident or his possible libel suits over the latter incident in recent weeks. Congestion charging, day one-hundred-and-something The Evening Standard is reporting that the latest statistics from Transport for London (TfL) indicate that car use - excluding other vehicles - is down by 38% inside the charging zone, about three times as much as was expected, and enough to call into question the hopes that the zone would raise £120 million ($196 million) in revenue, which would pay for new buses. Total traffic, including trucks (sorry, lorries), and exempted vehicles, is down by 16%, just above the target of 10-15%, indicating that more people have switched to alternative forms of transport than was initially expected. I really should be more outraged about this than I am The Washington Post is reporting that the Justice Department intends to move to block Zacarias Moussaoui from calling Ramzi Binalshibh as a witness at his trial. What's the point of defending the country if you intend to shred the constitution in the process? Moussaoui is pretty clearly guilty - he's more or less admitted it in open court already - and is all but openly intent in turning the situation into a circus. Moreover, it's not entirely clear what Moussaoui could gain in terms of his defense from calling Binalshibh. And there are clearly certain safety implications to bringing Binalshibh to Virginia and having him speak in open court.* The government also says that it would be dangerous to break off any ongoing interrogation of Binalshibh. This is a legitimate point, but not something that should be allowed to overrule the Sixth Amendment. Realistically, some restrictions will probably have to be met. Say, having Moussaoui's stand-by lawyers - he intends to defend himself - question Binalshibh in a deposition, which the judge could then decide if it is germane, seems perfectly reasonable and highly unlikely to endanger national security. Indeed, it might even get information out of Binalshibh that the interrogations do not (that's unlikely, but not impossible). *The government has actually refused to acknowledge that it Binalshibh is in U.S. custody, though he apparently is in custody, but outside the U.S. Wanker (adj.) - Remember that New Jersey high school student who won a lawsuit to be declared the sole valedictorian, rather than having to share the honor because she had been partially home-schooled due to an illness? Well, she's been caught for plagiarism in a couple of articles and essays that she wrote for The Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, having extracted material from Supreme Court decisions and the writings of President Clinton. In writing about it, she explained her actions but refused to apologize. The scary thing is, I think she'll go far in this world. (note: I've decided not to make any jokes about the following in this post: Jayson Blair, Rick Bragg, Stephen Glass, the WMD dossiers ...) Wednesday, June 04, 2003
Parliamentary update I got a little bored today, so I went across town to Westminster. I missed the Prime Ministers Questions (it's more or less impossible to get in unless you're a British citizen - tickets are only available from MPs), but managed to figure out a little trick as to how to get in faster than otherwise possible (I'm not publishing it, but I will send an e-mail explaining it to anyone who asks for the explanation). Anyway, I stuck around and saw Denis MacShane, the Minister for Europe (a second-level position in the Foreign Office) defend the Prime Minister's use of intelligence information on Iraq, followed by a speech by Steve Webb, a Liberal Democrat, on pensions. Webb was actually pretty funny, but most of the speech was fairly technical. I know a fair bit about the British pension system, but still couldn't follow the whole thing. I had enough of it eventually and headed over to the House of Lords. The Lords have a beautiful chamber, far more ostentatiously decorated than the Commons (which was rebuilt after a bomb hit it during WWII), and with far more leg room in the seats, thankfully. Unfortunately, most of the peers were staring at the walls, not following the speeches - somehow, they had managed to twist a bill concerning local government into a debate on globalization (sorry, globalisation). There were probably about 60-70 MPs in the Commons during Webb's speech, and three to four times as many during MacShane's responses to the questions he was offered. There were about 30 peers in the Lords. Where the commons contained a decent amount of diversity, at least as far as men vs. women were concerned, there were a grand total of two women in the Lords (and only one at any time). For that matter, only three of the peers weren't predominently gray-haired, and at least one of those was certainly a toupee. Surprisingly, there was more use of technology in the Commons, which really hasn't introduced any modern technologies other than the microphones hung from the ceiling. In the Lords, which I would have thought to be the more traditional of the two chambers, I sat behind a technician sitting at a mixing board. A bewigged peer sat in the middle of the chamber, controlling the various microphones through a switchbox and a laptop. But still, with his head propped against the wall, another of the peers lay, sleeping quite contentedly. I think he had been there for a while. Diplomatic schizophrenia Steven Den Beste has declared Canada a "level 1 enemy" of the United States (though this is still an improvement over being a "level 2 enemy" or a "level 3 enemy"). As someone who has a Canadian parent and an American parent, I'm not really sure how to explain the development that I've just become my own enemy. Well, at least he doesn't think I'll have to overthrow myself. (via Pedantry) Around the blogs in 80 seconds Patrick Nielsen Hayden has a post worth reading on the criticisms of the New York Times amongst the right-wing parts the blogosphere of late. - Daniel Gross argues (rightly, I'd think) that cutting marginal tax rates may have made sense twenty years ago, but it makes no sense today. Gross makes the good point that absurdedly high tax rates (say, 80-90%) do inhibit work levels and investment, but there's really not much difference between, say, 35-39% in terms of the labor supply or savings and investment levels, but it does lead to a lot of forgone revenue for the government. From what I understand - this isn't really an area that I've studied a lot - there was also a viable argument for what Reagan did in terms of simplifying the tax code. As time goes on, the income tax code tends to get riddled with all sorts of newly discovered and enacted loopholes and shelters. The Reagan reforms both lowered marginal tax rates and got rid of some of the gaps in the system, making up for some of the revenue loss. The tax cuts under Bush haven't attempted any simplification, but have instead introduced more new loopholes into the system. (via Ted Barlow) - I'm not really sure whether I should be horrified or fascinated by this. A New Zealand resident has decided to see if he can build a cruise missile using off-the-shelf parts. (via Making Light) - Nathan Newman on the upsides of total Democratic control of Illinois. (via Matthew Yglesias) - Jim Capozzola seems to be having a computer meltdown and is blogging from, shudder, Kinko's. It'd be a lot easier to help, though, if he'd explain what he knows about what's wrong with his thingamajig. - Added to the blogroll: AintNoBadDude, sans apostrophes. Killer contracts killed (sort of) The news that the government was considering introducing contracts that patients would be made to sign, agreeing to change their behavior (sorry, behaviour) by stopping smoking or adjusting their diet or so on in return for treatment has provoked a row. The Telegraph has an update. It appears that the government will not, if it does introduce the contracts, make them a cause for the denial of treatment, but simply a coercive measure. Janet Daley points out on the Telegraph's opinion page that such a move wouldn't be easily enforced, and would create definite tension between the government's aims to keep the National Health Service both free and finite. Salam Pax The first column by Salam Pax has been published in the Guardian. OK, so it reads like a list of various rumors and random observations, but it's still interesting stuff. WMD insanity Proving the paranoia of Clare Short isn't limited to former cabinet ministers, John Reid, the Leader of the Commons, and Hilary Amstrong, the chief whip, have claimed that 'rogue elements' within the British intelligence services have been spreading rumors (sorry, rumours) about the unreliability of the intelligence that was available before the war. This sort of insane paranoia apparently isn't new to British politics. Harold Wilson was convinced that the intelligence services were running a sustained campaign to undermine his premiership (and, from what I can gather, he may have been correct, albeit in a limited sense), while Winston Churchill was apparently convinced that the BBC was run by Communists. Nutters. UPDATE: Number 10 is saying that it backs Reid's comments, and is arguing that the WMD controversy is the result of a media frenzy. Charles Kennedy has said that Reid's comments prove even moreso the need for an independent inquiry. Sammy Sosa: Corked bat or corked head? Sammy Sosa was caught using a corked bat last night. If history serves as a guide, he will probably be fined and suspended for about 8 games or so (the death penalty will not be considered). Sosa said that he picked the bat up by accident - he only used the corked bat during batting practice. First, I don't know why he would have been using a corked bat during batting practice. Second, the rule makes no distinction as to repeated use. Third, if you believe him, I'd like to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge, OK? Jayson Stark thinks that this may permanently taint Sosa's accomplishments to date. Well, yeah, but he's been tainted for a while, as far as I'm concerned. The 'interview' with Rick Reilly achieved that a couple of years ago. Reilly, a columnist for Sports Illustrated, confronted Sosa in the Cubs locker room a couple of years ago and offered to arrange to have Sosa take a urine test, in order to clear up the rumors going around about his use of performance-enhancing drugs, and to provide a good example to the rest of the league. Sosa responded by throwing a public tantrum, and pointing out to the columnist that 'you're not my father,' which was completely true, but completely irrelevant. Basically, there were two possible explanations.Either he had some serious issues with his father that he needs to deal with, or he was using steroids or other drugs to aid his abilities. Given the tantrum, I'd certainly lean towards the latter (steroids can screw around with your disposition, among other things). The use of steroids, andro, HGH, etc., mean that I'm not going to be able to look at the home run numbers again without attaching asterisks. The corked bats are just one more nail in the coffin. UPDATE: Just a thought - In the best of all worlds, I want the players drug tested on a regular basis (say, weekly). If we want to make it fair, though, I think we should test the owners too. Tuesday, June 03, 2003
Dumb idea, no. 2 Manual transmissions generally get better gas mileage than automatic transmissions. I've seen a number of 3 mpg better tossed around before, though I can't quite remember where. It doesn't make sense to mandate automatic transmissions for a number of reasons. Some people have physical impediments to their use. Some people need to pay all of their attention to other things than the gearshift. Some people, like me, are just plain lousy at using a stick and shouldn't use one on a regular basis. Finally, there's the requisite civil liberties concerns.* So we shouldn't mandate their use. But why don't we mandate that everyone (other than those who physically cannot) be required to learn how to drive using a manual transmission - say, by requiring that driving license tests be taken in a car with a manual transmission? Right now, many people - particularly younger people - don't know how to use a stick at all and don't know whether they'd even prefer it over an automatic. Getting the numbers up from where they are in the US (where around 10% of cars have manual transmissions, I think) to what the numbers are in Europe (where about half have stickshifts, I think), could make a serious improvement, both environmentally speaking and in terms of energy independence. *Every damn thing the government does raises civil liberties concerns in one way or another. I really should just start treating that as an assumption in my posts. Dumb idea, no. 1 OK, so Buckley v. Valeo says that money is speech, as far as politics is concerned. So we can't have hard caps on how much can be spent in political campaigns. So how about soft caps - that is, candidate A cannot spend more than X more than candidate B or more than Y times as much as candidate B - would that be legal? UPDATE: LDS? Matt Singer thinks that taxing political expenditures would be another way to limit campaign finance costs. It's an interesting idea, but it would just provide a brake on the growth of spending and wouldn't roll back expenditures at all. There's also the question of who economically bears the tax burden (sorry, economics major stuff) - it could just as easily end up being the campaigns or the people who would otherwise receive the expenditure, which will have knock-on effects. The supply of expenditure is pretty elastic and the demand is pretty inelastic, which should mean the campaign organizations would be relatively unaffected (translation: the volume of advertising won't go down much, but the amount of money received by TV stations, etc., would decline). On the other hand, the government could directly mutualize the taxes by redirecting the revenue across all the competing candidates, which would mean that a chunk of your contribution goes to help fund your rivals. Now that would roll back spending pretty fast. John Kenneth Galbraith dreamt up a system of mutualization for campaign finance expenditures in his novel A Tenured Professor, by which any campaign contributions to one candidate would be matched for his or her opponents automatically. It was, however, completely tangential to the rest of the novel and not really elaborated upon. Scotus Notes There's currently talk going around about the possibility of one or two supreme court justices retiring this summer, given that the presidency and Senate are both Republican-controlled. Rehnquist and O'Connor are mentioned as the most likely candidates, though John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg are considered possible candidates for retirement because of age and ill health, respectively. If someone does decide to retire, the fact that Roe v. Wade might come back into play will be at the forefront of every consideration. Assuming that Stevens and Bader Ginsburg stay on the court - as seems likely - then it will be less of an issue. Rehnquist is a vote against any possibility of legal abortion, so his retirement will be of little loss to the pro-choice movement. O'Connor will be a much bigger issue, though, since she has ruled in favor of legality of abortion as well as certain restrictions and was the swing vote in Stenberg v. Carhart. I'm really of two minds as to how the Senate Democrats should respond. The cases has been made by some that it might just be better to let Roe go. Abortion would not be made illegal automatically, but the issue would simply return to the states. Outside of the south, there would be a lot of pressure to keep abortion mostly legal, with certain restrictions, as it already is. Within the south, well, women would probably have to travel elsewhere to get an abortion, and this would probably lead to some nasty situations. Politically, it would probably have the effect of what remains among the pro-choice faction out the Republican party, taking many middle class women with them. This could transfer into a significant resurgence in Democratic power - and possibly to a constitutional amendment legalizing abortion, which would do away with the endless court battles. The other option is to filibuster. Basically, this would entail promising to filibuster any nominee who would tip the balance*. It would be politically costly on both sides, no doubt, and create an apocalyptic legislative battle unlike anything seen since the civil rights bills and Voting Rights Act were passed in the mid-60's. The filibuster could create a tremendous rallying point, or it could collapse and create a tremendous failure. There probably wouldn't be much likelihood of anything between the two. They're both inherently risky strategies, and neither is certain of a favorable outcome. That said, either option would seem to be a hell of a lot better than simply rolling over and playing dead, as the Senate Democrats are wont to do at times. *Of course, there's also the question of which balance ought to be defended. A nominee replacing O'Connor could tip the balance with regards to partial-birth abortion, but not to Roe, unless Stevens or Bader Ginsburg also retires. The Democratic senators could probably be persuaded to rally behind Roe, but some might find it more difficult to stand behind Stenberg, being be under tremendous political pressure at home. My entry in the OxBlog bad political theory/philosophy pickup lines contest: "As a utilitarian, I believe that we must maximize our total utility. Shall we fuck?" Around the blogs in 80 seconds Mark Kleiman points out that the criticism of the failures of George W. Bush to help use the might of the U.S. to help rebuild Afghanistan is a little misplaced - he's just keeping to his campaign promises. - Best of the Blogs points out that John Ashcroft seems to have been disappeared by TPTB. - Ted Barlow has returned from his exile to Ardmore or wherever the hell he was. - Body and Soul has been added to the blogroll. Sooner or later I'm probably going to have to get around to reorganizing the thing somehow. - Atrios has gone on semi-vacation, replaced by semi-guest bloggers. - The blog formerly known as Ezra Klein is now Klein/Singer - Political consulting on the cheap. Ah, Britain The government is reportedly considering drawing up contracts that certain patients would be made to sign, requiring them to alter their lifestyle in order to minimize the need for future treatment. Written contracts would set out the patient's responsibilities while offering them help to cut down or quit smoking, lose weight, take more exercise or eat a more nutritious diet ... Those who failed to keep their side of the bargain or kept missing appointments could be denied free care. I'm not sure how seriously to take this. At times it seems that government proposals that are not the subject of serious discussions are repeated in the newspapers as real proposals (though the Times usually seems better than most about this). As the article notes, the actual sanctions have not yet been discussed. While it could lead to the introduction of fees for those who fail to maintain their agreements, such a move would be highly politically unpopular - the introduction of any fees into the NHS is generally an easy way to commit political suicide - and could theoretically lead to the denial of treatment. Moreover, I'm not entirely sure how possible it would be to enforce the contract. It is not entirely clear how they would expect to track the tobacco and food purchases of the patients. While the dangers of smoking are quite clear, the causes of obesity are somewhat more opaque. Finally, there are the always fun civil liberties implications. Still, one has to wonder if the idea could be adopted to the U.S. as well. With the exploding costs of health care, one has to wonder if any plan for reducing the incidence of problems that cause people to seek treatment in the first place. As difficult as it would be for the government to enforce such contracts, it would be far more difficult for private health care providers and insurers to do so, I believe. Moreover, where the NHS would probably still be required - not least because of the externalities that would result from a failure to treat and the political problems as well - to provide a modicum of treatment to even repeated violators who cannot afford any fees, private insurers in the U.S. do not have such an obligation, causing the ranks of the uninsurable to swell even further. It's an interesting idea, but a lot of adjustments would be needed to make it viable. UPDATE: BBC Radio 4 is reporting that a government spokesman has said that the proposal is only being considered as a non-binding way to encourage patients to avoid wasting NHS resources - penalties for failing to live up to any agreements between the patient and their GP are not currently being considered. WMD hearings British MPs are increasingly calling for hearings on whether Tony Blair misled the Parliament and the public over the status of Iraq's stocks of weapons of mass destruction. This morning, Charles Kennedy, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, added his name to the list, via this opinion piece in the Independent. So far, Blair is resisting calls for an independent inquiry, and has said that Clare Short's allegations were "completely and totally untrue." Blair has said that he still stands behind the intelligence information that was made public. Meanwhile, in a move that hasn't really garnered much publicity from what I can tell, Sen. John Warner (R-VA), the head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has arranged for Congress to be provided with the CIA briefings. I still think it's a little early to be demanding an independent inquiry. We are still only six or seven weeks from the fall of Baghdad, and the fog of war hasn't yet entirely lifted. If we get to the end of the summer and nothing has been found, then by all means, independent inquiries and investigations ought to be held in both the U.S. and Great Britain - and if it appears that Bush and Blair lied to their respective legislatures and electorates, then impeachment charges against Bush should be drawn up and a leadership challenge launched against Blair. Some of those in the UK will undoubtedly point to Warner's move in the coming days and call it justification for an independent inquiry in Britain. The cases aren't quite parallel, though. It's not yet clear whether Warner will be holding hearings at all, and even if hearings are held, they would hardly be free of partisan trappings. As far as Clare Short's allegations, I have a hard time believing her, since she seems to argue that the war was part of a huge conspiracy theory. Beyond the WMD's, where the hell is Saddam Hussein? Monday, June 02, 2003
As regular readers of this blog (both of you) will know, I complain about my laptop quite often. It was bought used, and it's, well, old and cranky. Anyway, the sound card hasn't been working for a few months now. Short of actually taking apart my laptop and trying to pull out the sound card and shove it back into the connector (after rubbing the connectors with an eraser*) - which might be a little difficult, since I'm not entirely certain of what it looks like - I'd like to reinstall the driver. I cannot, however, find the driver anywhere online, and e-mailing the maker of the soundcard has been of no help, since they apparently don't keep drivers for five-year-old sound cards handy. Anyway, does anyone know where I can find the driver for a Creative Labs Sound Blaster Pro sound card for Windows 95? Thanks. *When I first got my desktop, at the outset of my freshman year, it came with a USB connector for the ethernet hookup. It broke down repeatedly, and caused me to have to reset my computer every 15 minutes or so. After a couple of weeks I got fed up with this and broke down and bought a real ethernet card. It worked for about a day, and then I lost the internet connection entirely. So I called the folks at University Information Systems. They suggested that I reformat my entire hard drive (I later found out that this is their suggestion for nearly everything). I refused. They said that they could do nothing else, so I called the folks who made my ethernet card, and spent about two hours on the phone with one of the technicians, running every possible diagnostic to figure out what was wrong with the damned thing. Finally, came this exchange, roughly ... Technician: Take off the casing. Me: What? Technician: You've got a screwdriver and a number two pencil? Me: Yeah. Technician: Just take off the casing. Me: Okay. (five minutes later) Me: Now what? Technician: Take out the ethernet card. Me: Okay. I've got it. Technician: Now rub the connecting end with the pencil's eraser on both sides. Me: Done. Technician: Put it back in, close the casing and start the computer up again. The ethernet card has worked fine ever since then. Don't ask, don't tell? Last night, someone stumbled on to this site after running a search at AlltheWeb for "dangers anal sex". I came in fourth in the search. Um, I don't know exactly what you were looking for, but it sure as hell wasn't here. Then again, I don't think Alltheweb is a particularly potent search engine, given that the first site in the search results was about the dangers of 'gerbil stuffing.' There are some truly weird freaks out there. If a party leader is selected and no one gives a damn, does the party still matter? The Progressive Conservative Party in Canada has elected a new national party leader, Peter MacKay, the MP for Pictou - Antigonish - Guysborough in Nova Scotia, and the son of a former Tory Cabinet minister. (see also here and here for more coverage, as well as commentary here on the Faustian bargain that MacKay made and here the continuing good fortune of the Liberals). He won the election after agreeing with a crackpot rival to appoint a commission to reconsider the party's support of free trade (the PC's have traditionally been supportive of free trade). The horsetrading of votes that went on at the convention seems sure to undermine MacKay's ability to muster a mandate from the entire party, as will his refusal to contemplate a merger with the far-right Canadian Alliance, keeping the right divided in Parliament and far outnumbered by the Grits. Well, that and his freakishly large head. The total lack of news coverage about this, even within those parts of the blogosphere that pay attention to Canadian politics - Matthew Yglesias - and actual Canadians* - Jane Finch and the exiled Scott Martens - is pretty amazing. Then again, as the Tories are something of a national inside joke, I shouldn't be all that surprised. Nobody in the U.S. really gives a damn about Canadian politics anyway - few Americans even know who Jean Chretien is, let alone that he's retiring, or for that matter who's seeking to replace him amongst the Liberals. It seems pretty dumb of the Tories to pick a leader on a Saturday, when most of the major Canadian newspapers publish little or nothing on Sundays. Par for the course, I suppose. *As opposed to ethnic Canadians like myself. UPDATE: Ikram Saeed points out in the comments that I've missed a few sites that actually have bothered to comment on MacKay - see journalist Warren Kinsella and Colby Cosh, among others. Around the blogosphere in 80 seconds: Kevin Drum has a post worth reading about the need to "win the peace." He's right, although that phrase is something I have a visceral reaction against. I have nothing against what it implies, I just think that it's a dumb phrase that is used in order to simultaneously say something and say nothing at all. Anyway, he's still right. - Ezra Klein's blog has changed its name to "Klein and Singer." Hmm ... sounds like the name of an ambulance-chasing law firm. - Josh Marshall (permalinks fubar ... what the hell is this world coming to?) has another post on the Texas redistricting case. It appears that Gov. Perry directly ordered the Texas Rangers (the police unit, not the baseball team ... though I suppose it'd have been a lot more interesting had he actually sent Showalter's boys) to search for one of the quorum-busting Democrats in a neo-natal intensive care unit, where the prematurely born twins of one of the senators were at the time. - indiawest has been added to the blogroll. Michael Foot and Edwina Currie were apparently unavailable for comment Peter Mandelson and Michael Heseltine have both signed a paper urging Britain to join the Euro-zone. Of course, with those two joining forces, there's no stopping them ... Sunday, June 01, 2003
A brief conversation with one of my roommates, in front of the open fridge a few minutes ago: Roommate: Something in the fridge smells. Me: Yep. Roommate: Do you think it could be the eggs? Me: No. If it were the eggs, you'd know it. It'd smell like sulfur. Roommate: Oh. What does sulfur smell like? Me: Um ... like rotten eggs. Jumping the shark again A few weeks back, the Calpundit took the Instapundit to task for going off the deep end with regards to Iraq (see Kevin's first post here and the follow-up here as well as Matthew Yglesias here). The argument was that Prof. Reynolds had essentially let the blog and the war go to his head, so to speak. He had become unwilling to acknowledge the logic of any dissent, and was outraged at the idea that anyone could hold opinions counter to his own - in that case, that the war might actually be a bad thing. Reading the Instapundit over the last couple of days, it seems that he's returned to the same self-righteously indignant tone of six weeks ago. The New York Times is all but satanic, and that's that (at least until Howell Raines calls it a career). So I find myself reading posts from Prof. Reynolds pointing out that the Times included a typo (!) a few days ago - a report was actually 10 pages longer than the Times reported (by the way, I don't see Prof. Reynolds indignant at the fact that one of the posts he links to is someone who can't spell "Carnegie" correctly). And cheap shots like this post. Taking a quick look, 9 out of the last 50 posts refer to the Times in some way or another. I'm not going to argue that the Times is a paragon of perfection, but it, being the product of human beings, is bound to screw up from time to time. And when you're printing thousands upon thousands of words every day, some things will be written incorrectly. The editorial page may be slightly to the left of center, but that's just the editorial page, not the whole paper. Moreover, the Times is hardly at an extreme of the political spectrum in the same way that the Wall Street Journal is. And Glenn, dammit, CALM DOWN! The Left Coaster has a post up worth reading on how the House and Senate Intelligence Committees may declassify their report on the intelligence failures that led up to 9/11. Most of the report was declared classified due to national security concerns - it would, of course, embarrass the Bush administration - but the committees are frustrated over the stonewalling and may seek to release the report, based on some obscure 26-year-old rule that would allow them to overrule the classification. The rule has never been tested, and could be subjected to a court challenge, though the allegations of a cover-up that would inevitably follow would bring about a tremendous amount of publicity. Or, as Tacitus put it, "Where's Ellsberg and a Xerox machine when you need them?" Barring that, how about someone puts a couple of 9/11 widows up for a endless interviews on CNN to demand the release of the report? Referendum-mania? There's been a fairly big row lately over whether Britain should hold a referendum on the proposed EU constitution. Peter Hain, the Welsh Secretary, has come off looking like an ass, forced to serve as Blair's hatchet-man on the issue (I believe this is because he was the British delegate to the convention). David Aaronovitch, apparently seeking to fill the same role for the Labour Party that George Will serves for the Republicans (the columnist who incessantly insists that the party is always right, no matter what), arguing that a referendum would be a bad thing, well, because it might be rejected and amended, and then another vote might be held, and then who knows what will happen. John Humphrys argues in the Sunday Times that the only viable way for Blair to hold a referendum might be one on whether to stay in the EU. A yes vote would then be a vote both for the status quo and a tacit willingness to move forward on both the constitution and the Euro, while the Tories would be further torn on which side to take. It seems as if everyone is determined to make this issue about as difficult as possible for Blair. Valery Giscard-d'Estaing has already stated that he wants referenda everywhere, including Britain, in order to legitimize (sorry, legitimise) the constitution. Now the Irish apparently will hold a referendum on the constitution (a referendum is, by Irish law, effectively though not technically required). The truth is that I think it's very hard to come up with a viable argument against referenda on any issue, but particularly where national sovereignty is concerned, is extremely difficult. Opposing a referendum often sounds like opposing democracy (indeed, because it may be so in certain circumstances). I have to wonder if Blair is trying to pull of the same scenario that brought Britain into the EEC and kept it there in the early 1970's. Heath took the UK into the EEC in 1973. He was thrown out of office in February 1974 (primarily because the economy was doing awfully). In 1975, Harold Wilson held a referendum on staying in the EU. Both Wilson and Heath supported staying in the EEC, and the opposition mostly consisted of assorted wingnuts on both sides of the political spectrum. The referendum passed by a wide margin, and Britain stayed in the EEC. It's possible that Blair may be hoping to repeat the achievement by taking Britain into the new constitution and then holding a referendum on staying in it afterwards. Truth be told, I think the Euro referendum is probably winnable in the long run, so long as the government is willing to vigorously campaign for it, and can prove that there would not be damaging economic consequences (as there would be today) or damaging political consequences to not joining (which there do not seem to be). On the other hand, I'm not convinced that, even with all the might of the government behind it, a referendum beforehand on the new constitution could win. Too much of the British population seems to be willing to say 'no further right now' to the EU, and too many of them are inflexible about changing their minds, to make a referendum a viable way to say yes to the new constitution right now. And that will be a serious dilemma for Tony Blair. Tony Blair has stated in an interview that there is apparently information about what evidence has been found in Iraq of weapons of mass destruction that is yet to be made public. The Observer calls this 'secret proof,' (sorry, ',) though these words are nowhere in what he actually said (the British press tends to play fast and loose with the headlines, but this is a bit beyond what they usually try to pull off) Euro-mania? Gordon Brown's apparent "not yet" verdict is due a week from Monday. Thus, the "pro-Euro" camp is in full panic mode. The Sunday Independent is reporting that a delay in entering the Euro-zone would cost each Briton £2,000 every year. This is wrong. Not least because, like all linear projections, the infinite horizon isn't realistic. In this case, it would imply that within a decade that all Britons would have a negative national income. - Mark Leonard argues as to what the government needs to do to de-tooth the verdict. Besides arguing - rightly - that Britain needs to make the Euro more politically viable within Britain, he argues that they need to stop pointing at labor (sorry, labour) market inflexibility in France and Germany as an excuse for not joining. The only problem is that no one in their right mind has pointed to France and Germany's labor market inflexibility as an excuse. The problem is that the labor market inflexibility makes the entire economy too rigid and makes it far more difficult for shocks to be spread across countries. The flexibility itself, as Leonard points out, is a comparative advantage for Britain. It's implications, however, raise a number of problems. Anyway, the ECB and the Growth and Stability Pact are far more serious problems, which Leonard doesn't have any solutions for. - So here's what's going on: Brown's verdict will almost certainly be "not yet" and that four of the five tests will be failed. And that's pretty much what I agree with. As I've said before, the Euro has a number of advantages in the long run economically, and possibly politically as well. In the short run, attempting to enter the Euro-zone would probably seriously undermine the health of the British economy. I think Gordon Brown ought to have earned the trust of both sides in Britain by now. The British economy has stayed in good health over the last few years, as nearly every other developed economy has become sluggish. UPDATE: The post has been updated to reflect the real date that the report will be released. I'm declaring a mulligan. |