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Hey, look over here! No, I mean over here.

We're moving! Blogger has been good to us for the last 18 months, but we think we're ready to move over to the slightly snazzier MovableType, so, here goes...

Point your bookmarks, assuming anybody has actually bookmarked this page, to http://www.oobleck.com/tollbooth. Same name, same great taste, fancier packaging.


posted by David Nieporent at 9/09/2003 06:38:00 PM |

 

Self vs. Un

The New York Times reports on the latest unemployment data in its usual unbiased way.

The Labor Department announced yesterday that 93,000 jobs were lost in August, countering expectations that employment would finally begin to expand. The economic recovery in the United States is now in its 22nd month, without reversing constant job losses.

The unemployment rate declined to 6.1 percent from 6.2 percent in July, but economists said that was apparently because of a surge in the number of people who, having lost jobs, listed themselves as self-employed rather than unemployed. The Bush administration, however, cited the drop as a positive sign.

First, note how the Times sets up the story: to begin with, it describes what "economists" say, as if there's some well-established, undisputed Economic Truth here. Only then does it describe the Bush administration position, introducing it with a "however" to make it clear that the Bush administration is in opposition to "economists" generally, and hence wrong.

Second, note the phrasing: they "listed themselves as self-employed." The Times is apparently accusing these people of lying. No evidence is presented to support this accusation, of course. Why shouldn't we believe that people who list themselves as self-employed really are?


By the way, the few people who bother to read to the end of a story like this will find, in paragraph twenty-four, the one economist the Times quotes in support of this theory of dishonest unemployed losers:

"Whenever you see a spike in self-employment in this kind of economy, you know that is involuntary entrepreneurship," said Jared Bernstein, a senior labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute.

Ah. Count the problems with that:

1. One economist is not "economists."
   
2. The Times fails to identify the left-wing orientation of Jared Bernstein and the Economic Policy Institute.
   
3. It's yet another statement made without any backing.
   
4. Even if true, it doesn't support the Times' version of analysis. So what if the entrepeneurship is "involuntary"? Either the people have jobs or they don't. That they wish they had different jobs is in no way synonymous with them not having jobs at all.

I remember hearing, a few years ago, a radio interview with a self-styled advocate for the poor; he was talking about the "hidden homeless" in this country. But he wasn't talking about people who slept in sewers and couldn't be seen; no, he was talking about people living long term with friends and relatives. Well, that may not be ideal, but the only reason their homelessness was "hidden" was because it was completely imaginary. Same here; the Times and their pet economist are trying to spin possibly-less-than-ideal-employment as unemployment, because it fits their agenda. Can't the Times try not spinning things for a change?
posted by David Nieporent at 9/07/2003 05:43:00 AM |

 

Reading really is fundamental

Breaking new ground, John Zuccarini became the first person in the country to be charged with violating the recently-passed Truth in Domain Names law.

Prosecutors said that as part of the scheme, the defendant, John Zuccarini, had registered 3,000 domain names that included misspellings or slight variations of popular names like Disneyland, Bob the Builder and Teen magazine. Mr. Zuccarini used more than a dozen variations of the name Britney Spears, the prosecutors said.

A child who accidentally mistyped a name into an Internet browser would be directed to a Web page controlled by Mr. Zuccarini and barraged with X-rated advertising, the authorities said. The child would also be "mousetrapped," they said; that is, unable to exit from the Web site.

...

"Children make mistakes," Mr. Comey said. "The idea that someone would take advantage of that, of a young girl, for example, trying to go to the American Girl Web site to look at dolls or a child trying to visit the Teletubbies Web site, and mistypes, to take advantage of those mistakes to direct those children to pornography sites is beyond offensive."

...

In the misspelled domain names, Mr. Zuccarini used spellings like "Dinseyland," "Bobthebiulder," "Teltubbies" and "Britnyspears," prosecutors said.

Perhaps I'm slow, or really naive, but what exactly is the point of this? The article quotes prosecutors as assuming this is a moneymaking scheme of some sort, and Zuccarini's past activities make that seem plausible:

Mr. Zuccarini has long been the subject of complaints, including lawsuits, over his use of domain names, records and news reports show. In about 100 complaints raised in arbitration proceedings to resolve domain name disputes, panels have ruled against him almost every time, prosecutors said, and ordered him to transfer the names at issue to the legitimate holder.

In 2002, the Federal Trade Commission got a permanent injunction against Mr. Zuccarini, ordering him to end his activities, dismantle certain Web sites and pay a $1.9 million judgment. But he continued to use misleading domain names to promote advertising for pornography to minors, according to a criminal complaint filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan.

It added that Mr. Zuccarini got a referral fee of 10 to 25 cents each time a visitor to one of his Web sites moved to the site of one of the advertisers. He earned $800,000 to $1 million a year through the scheme, the complaint said.

And yet, I don't quite get it. How do those schemes translate into this one? Is there a large untapped market for pornography among dyslexic eight year olds? I would understand the plan if he took advantage of sites intended for adults, like Amazon, CNN, or ESPN. But Teletubbies or Bob the Builder (whatever the heck that is)? Where exactly does the profit come from? Not that this guy sounds like a rocket scientist, but I would think he would have thought through at least this part of his plan.
posted by David Nieporent at 9/07/2003 04:07:00 AM |

 

Whatchoo talkin' 'bout? (Sorry, but how can I not use the pun?)

Gary Coleman is upset that people don't respect him.

So why is the aging action star taken more seriously than the erstwhile child actor?

"It's the height," Mr. Coleman says with a twinge of bitterness. "He's an adult-size superstar male."

Well, that might be it.

Or it might be that the littler Arnold has the IQ of, well, a sitcom actor:

He has appeared on CNN, Fox News and foreign programs. Sean Hannity, the conservative, asked Mr. Coleman to name the vice president of the United States. He could not.

Nah, it's probably the height.
posted by David Nieporent at 9/07/2003 02:56:00 AM |

 

My faith in humanity is gone

If you can't trust a murderous dictator, who can you trust? What's this world coming to?
posted by David Nieporent at 9/06/2003 04:28:00 PM |

 

If a senator filibusters in a forest and there are no cameras, what's the point?

In the past, I've wondered why we only see virtual filibusters nowadays, rather than the real thing. Well, over at the Volokh Conspiracy, Randy Barnett quotes Larry Solum's explanation approvingly as to why a real filibuster (which Solum calls a 24/7 filibuster) won't work:

The contemporary filibuster is a polite affair. Charles Schumer does not talk through the night, bleary eyed and exhausted. Why not? Couldn't the filibuster be broken if the Republicans forced the Democrats to go 24/7? No. Because the 24/7 option actually gives an advantage to the minority. Why? In order to force a 24/7 filibuster, the majority must maintain a quorum at all times, but the minority need only have one Senator present to maintain the filibuster. So 24/7 both exhausts and distracts the majority, while allowing the minority the opportunity to rest and carry on their ordinary business. No modern filibuster has been broken by the 24/7 option. For more on this, see my post entitled Update on Filibusters.

Interesting, but I'm not entirely convinced. Of course Larry's right, if the goal of forcing a real filibuster is simply literally to wear your opponents down; the filibusterers can always outlast the filibusterees, for the reasons stated.

But the point of requiring the Democrats to filibuster for real was never to wear them down until they gave in; the point was to create bad publicity for them. Republicans hoped that Democratic filibusters could be exploited in the press to make the Democrats look obstructionist, and get the voters angry with them -- but that plan never got off the ground. Why? Because the non-filibuster didn't have any legs in it. There was no reason for the media to cover the story, because it just wasn't very exciting. In particular, there was no video footage.

On the other hand, a real filibuster is sexy. (I don't mean that literally, unless Mary Carey moves on to the Senate after her bid for California governor succeeds.) It's news. It's not quite as exciting as a high speed car chase, but at least there's something to show to the public. Republicans would have something to point to while saying, "See? Look how ridiculous Democrats are being." It might have backfired; it might have made Republicans look like bullies. But at least it would have put pressure on one side or the other to resolve the situation. This way, Miguel Estrada was just strung along indefinitely, until he finally gave up. Which means that there's no reason to think this won't continue to happen unless and until one side picks up sixty seats in the Senate, which doesn't look too likely too soon.
posted by David Nieporent at 9/05/2003 04:44:00 PM |

 

The world turned upside down

Tyler Cowen happens to mention this odd description of the co-editor of the Almanac of American Politics:

"Michael Barone is to politics what statistician-writer Bill James is to baseball, a mix of historian, social observer, and numbers cruncher who illuminates his subject with perspective and a touch of irreverence."--Chicago Tribune

I remember, growing up, hearing Bill James compared to others all the time. Galileo and Einstein were popular choices, but my favorite was one, coincidentally from the same Chicago Tribune, labeling him "the Mozart of baseball statisticians."

James was always something of a cult figure among a small group of geekydedicated baseball fans, so it feels weird enough to see that James has so hit the mainstream that people are now being compared to him. But what makes this comparison particularly strange is that Barone has been editing the AAP since 1971; the first Bill James Baseball Abstract didn't come out until 1977, and it wasn't really anything more than a pamphlet until the early 1980s. And (though I can't seem to find the figures) Barone has to have sold many more copies than James has over the years. Plus, Barone is regularly on television; James isn't. And yet it's Barone being compared to James, rather than the other way around? It seems as anachronistic as describing CNN as "the Instapundit of television news" would be. Bizarre.
posted by David Nieporent at 9/05/2003 04:12:00 PM |

 

Actually, it's John Ashcroft, out to get you.

To answer Partha's question -- though the answer can be found elsewhere now -- it's not just Partha's computer. YACC, who provides our commenting service, is down, and will be down through the weekend. I would do something about substituting another service for YACC, but we're planning some big changes behind the scenes which will be unveiled shortly and make it unnecessary, so I see no great urgency to act right now. So if you want to complain about something Partha wrote (and who doesn't?) you'll have to respond to us via email.
posted by David Nieporent at 9/05/2003 02:21:00 PM |

 

You might not be a NASCAR Dad if...

In a promo for the Brian Lehrer Show yesterday morning on New York City's National Public Radio affiliate WNYC, Mr. Lehrer tells us that the topic of the day is "NASCAR Dads" (a term that is fast replacing "Soccer Moms" as the political demographic cliche of choice) and asks anyone who considers themself a NASCAR Dad to call in to his show later that morning.


Of course, there is an inherent contradiction in his request, for a sure sign that you are *not* a NASCAR Dad is if you listen to NPR call-in shows!!
posted by Peter at 9/04/2003 11:28:00 AM |

 

No hobgoblins here

John Rosenberg points out a minor discrepancy in the positions of the NAACP on two race-related issues:

In Florida the NAACP does not want the state to collect information that would identify poorly performing schools. By contrast, in California, as one of their primary arguments against Prop. 54, the Racial Privacy Initiative, the NAACP and its allies argue that the state must continue to collect racial information in order to monitor compliance with civil rights laws.

Of course, nobody who has been paying attention over the last few decades thinks the NAACP stands for any principle beyond naked self-interest any longer, but the contrast is still striking.
posted by David Nieporent at 8/30/2003 09:42:00 AM |

 

My kids are hot! Please raise my taxes!

James Lileks writes a column about a column he didn't write:

The premise concerned the closing of the wading pools in the middle of August. That's right - budget cuts, you see. They couldn't find $13K in a $60 million budget for wading pools, so they shut them on the hottest day of the year. I think, but cannot prove, that this is their way of making us scream to our legislators, to show up outside their offices carrying our limp tots, begging for tax hikes so the wee bairns can be moistened with chlorinated, pee-infused H20 through Labor Day. God forbid they'd ever let some staffers go - no, every Park Department employee is vital and crucial, right down to the guy whose job consists of visiting all the wading pools and putting up CLOSED signs.

If I didn't like Lileks so much, I'd say screw the kids - let parents go to his beloved Target and spend a few bucks on wading pools of their own. But I won't. Instead, I'll point out that he's right on the money about politicians' motivations. A friend of mine who worked for a U.S. Senator confirms that this is *exactly* how budgeting works: fully fund the invisible, unpopular, and/or silly programs, so there is less money left than there should be for the visible, popular, and/or necessary programs; then make grand pronouncements about how this latter group of programs will need to be cut unless something is done.


Politicians don't close public swimming pools in August because they hate children. Politicians close public swimming pools in August so constituents won't complain as much when their taxes go up by a few hundred dollars in January.
posted by Peter at 8/28/2003 12:12:00 PM |

 

Elections are a serious threat to democracy!

On the November ballot in New York City will be a proposal to eliminate partisan primaries. If the proposal passes, all candidates in a district will run in a single primary election, which will be open to all voters. The top two vote-getters for each office in the primary will face off in the general election. Such a system is used in many other large cities, and it sounds like a reasonable idea to me. But not to everyone:

City Democrats have vowed to fight the plan and Brian McLaughlin, head of the 1.5 million-member city Central Labor Council, said he will convene 90 union leaders tomorrow to "spearhead an effort to challenge this serious threat to democracy." McLaughlin said he has enlisted the support of some of the city's biggest unions, including District Council 37 and Local 1199, to come out in force to reject the initiative in November.

I fail to see how the proposal is a "serious threat to democracy," and I doubt McLaughlin was asked to elaborate. How anyone can get so riled up to fight the proposal is beyond me. Well, almost beyond me - obviously, anyone with an entrenched interest in the current system is going to scream. So far, that would be political party hacks and labor union leaders. Which suggests to me that the proposal would be the best thing to happen to the city since unlimited ride MetroCards were introduced.

But what is the chance it will actually succeed at the polls? I predict slim to nil. Gotta hand it to the party hacks and union leaders - when they scream, people listen.
posted by Peter at 8/27/2003 09:31:00 AM |

 

Who said it first?

With regard to the Fox lawsuit against Al Franken, I've heard several pundits comment about the general absurdity of being allowed to trademark a common phrase like "fair and balanced." So here's a question: is the phrase "fair and balanced" really a common phrase, or do we just think it's common because of Fox? Were people regularly using the phrase before Fox adopted it?
posted by David Nieporent at 8/26/2003 03:05:00 AM |

 

Moore religion

According to Eugene Volokh, Hindus are gay! Well, it makes sense if you read the whole post.


And on the subject of the intersection of religion and government, this excerpt of aletter published in the New York Times about the Roy Moore ten commandments controversy:

The duty of a judge is not to obey God but to follow the law, which he took an oath to uphold. If Chief Justice Moore finds that his duties as a judge conflict with his religious beliefs, he can resolve the conflict in favor of his higher calling by resigning from his secular responsibilities.

But he has no business being a judge if he is willing to subjugate the law to his own personal convictions, regardless of how deeply those convictions are held.

In other words, Moore can believe what he wants, but he can't act on those beliefs as a judge; he has to follow the law. That, indeed, seems to be the conventional wisdom amongst liberals about Moore.

Which is fine, except that I recall someone not on the left saying the exact same thing about judges like Moore, and taking flak for it. Last year, Justice Scalia gave a speech, and then published an article, saying that judges, whatever their personal moral or religious views, had to follow the law with regard to capital punishment:

I pause here to emphasize the point that in my view the choice for the judge who believes the death penalty to be immoral is resignation, rather than simply ignoring duly enacted, constitutional laws and sabotaging death penalty cases. He has, after all, taken an oath to apply the laws and has been given no power to supplant them with rules of his own. Of course if he feels strongly enough he can go beyond mere resignation and lead a political campaign to abolish the death penalty—and if that fails, lead a revolution. But rewrite the laws he cannot do.

Scalia was accused of injecting religious views into jurisprudence, and there was great uproar on the left. But all he was saying is what people are saying now about Moore: if he can't obey the law, he's not fit to be a judge, and he should step down.
posted by David Nieporent at 8/26/2003 02:49:00 AM |

 

Still, more successful than the Devil Rays.

A couple of years ago, Tampa famously rolled out surveillance cameras with facial recognition technology at the Super Bowl. They've finally, tacitly, admitted failure:

Two years after Tampa became the nation's first city to use facial-recognition software to search for wanted criminals, officials are dropping the program.

It led to zero arrests.

Perhaps if they had focused the cameras on the state legislature?

In any case, I say that they "tacitly" admitted it, because they didn't really admit it at all:

Durkin emphasized Tuesday that the trial run with Face-It didn't cost the city any money. But even so, he said, its use likely benefited the city.

"Something that's intangible is how many wanted persons avoided (Ybor City) because the cameras were there," he said. "That's something we may never calculate."

And the best part of not calculating it is that the city is free to pretend that it provided a benefit, without fear of contradiction. Except, if it "likely benefited the city," then why are they giving it up?

I shouldn't complain overly; it's good to see that government officials are willing to experiment with new approaches, and it's also good to see that they're willing to abandon those experiments if they prove to be failures. We should count our blessings that this didn't go the way of the typical failed government program, as seems to be happening in nearby Pinellas County:

Meanwhile, facial-recognition technology has been in use at the airport, jail and jail visitation center in Pinellas County for more than a year, and at the courthouse since late April. And Pinellas sheriff's officials have no plans to discard it, although they have not attributed any arrests to the technology.

Pinellas sheriff's Lt. James Main, who heads the program for Sheriff Everett Rice, said Rice's office is confident the technology works well and is a useful security tool, despite the lack of arrests.

"We don't have any plans to change anything here," Main said. "The fact that we aren't making arrests doesn't mean the technology isn't working."

He said Tampa's use of the technology is far different than in Pinellas. In Tampa, the technology isn't used in a controlled environment like the inside of a well-lighted courthouse, where people can be asked to take off hats and glasses.

Hmm. With that stubborn denial of reality, anybody want to bet that there's a federal grant somewhere out there which is paying for Pinellas' use of the technology?
posted by David Nieporent at 8/22/2003 11:13:00 PM |

 

Conservatives are evil

Yesterday the New York Times came up with yet another of those well-some-Republicans-are-okay-but-these-extremists-in-Washington-now-are-modern-day-Torquemadas editorials they're so famous for. This time, it didn't come from Paul Krugman, but from editorial board member Adam Cohen, who is allegedly an attorney. (I say "allegedly" for reasons that will be made clear.)

He describes the National Constitution Center, a new museum in Philadelphia devoted to (you guessed it) the Constitution, as a wonderful, inspiring place that tells "a largely triumphal story of rights recognized and new groups woven into the fabric of the nation." You can practically hear the trumpets in the background. But now (cue ominous music) George Bush and his evil comrades want to change all that, taking away the right to vote from women and re-enslaving blacks. Or something like that; Cohen doesn't come out and say precisely that, but he implies it as strongly as possible without doing so. But holding out the spectres of Dred Scott and the Chinese Exclusion Act is just the beginning for Cohen; he then goes on to slander specific nominees of Bush's:

One Bush choice for the courts, Michael McConnell, now a federal appeals court judge, has argued that the Supreme Court was wrong to rule that the equal protection clause required legislative districts with roughly equal numbers of people.

Here's why I question Cohen's credentials as a lawyer: he can't tell the difference between an argument about what the law is and an argument about what the law ought to be. It's one of the first things one learns in law school, but Cohen has problems with it. It's possible that Michael McConnell is secretly a Klansman, dreaming up ways to keep blacks down. But that has nothing to do with the discussion; McConnell makes a scholarly argument that the Supreme Court misinterpreted a law. Does Cohen not know that, or does he not care?

Jay Bybee, also now an appeals court judge, has argued, incredibly, that the 17th Amendment should be repealed, and United States senators once again selected by state legislators.

And? What's so "incredible" about that? It may be a good idea; it may be a bad idea. But why is Cohen so horrified by it? Cohen doesn't say. He provides no context for Bybee's statement, nor does he let anybody know why this particular amendment is so important in the arena of civil rights, which was the framework for Cohen's discussion. People for the American Way, in their denunciation of Bybee, argues that it's "anti-democratic" and "turning back the clock on representative government" to repeal the 17th. But (a) given that state legislatures are democratically elected, it is in fact neither of those things, and (b) given that the whole Bill of Rights which PFAW and Cohen celebrate is anti-democratic, that's not a very compelling criticism standing alone.

William Pryor, a nominee to the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, urged Congress to repeal an important part of the Voting Rights Act.

He urged Congress to repeal a provision of the Voting Rights Act, Section 5, which requires Justice Department preclearance before certain portions of certain states make even trivial changes in voting procedures. Since the Justice Department rarely objects to these changes, there's little purpose to the law. Repealing it wouldn't change the substantive rights of anybody; it would just streamline bureaucratic procedures. Cohen demagogues this to make it sound as if Pryor is trying to repeal voting rights for blacks -- but again, is vague enough that most readers won't know the difference.

President Bush has said he wants to appoint judges like Clarence Thomas and Justice Scalia, both embarked on campaigns to undo years of constitutional progress.

Not all change, of course, is progress, and in any case, Cohen provides no evidence for this assertion. "Judges like Clarence Thomas and Justice Scalia" want to change the way judges work; Cohen again either can't discern, or refuses to acknowledge, the difference between statements about what the law should be and statements about what the law are.

Justice Scalia advocates tying Americans' rights today to the prevailing wisdom of the 18th century. In a petulant dissent in the recent sodomy decision, he argued that gay sex can be criminalized now because it was a crime in the 13 original states.

Actually, Justice Scalia advocates tying Americans' rights today to two things: the Constitution, and the prevailing wisdom of the 21st century. He argues that judges ought to apply the Constitution rather than their personal views, and, on issues where the Constitution is silent, that democratically elected legislatures ought to decide. He argues that gay sex isn't forbidden by the Constitution for the simple reason that nothing in the Constitution addresses the issue; he argues that it can be criminalized now because the "prevailing wisdom" in Texas now says so.

Justice Thomas offered the dangerous argument in last year's school voucher case that states should be less bound by the Bill of Rights than the federal government.

A flat out lie. That one seemed bizarre, so I checked it out. Thomas argued, in the school voucher case, that the states should be less bound by the establishment clause than the federal government. Here's what he actually wrote:

Consequently, in the context of the Establishment Clause, it may well be that state action should be evaluated on different terms than similar action by the Federal Government. "States, while bound to observe strict neutrality, should be freer to experiment with involvement [in religion]--on a neutral basis--than the Federal Government." Walz v. Tax Comm'n of City of New York, 397 U. S. 664, 699 (1970) (Harlan, J., concurring). Thus, while the Federal Government may "make no law respecting an establishment of religion," the States may pass laws that include or touch on religious matters so long as these laws do not impede free exercise rights or any other individual religious liberty interest. By considering the particular religious liberty right alleged to be invaded by a State, federal courts can strike a proper balance between the demands of the Fourteenth Amendment on the one hand and the federalism prerogatives of States on the other.

Not only does Thomas not make a claim about the "Bill of Rights," but he doesn't make the claim that states can establish a religion or discriminate on the basis of religion. Again, Cohen tries to turn a legal argument about the interpretation of a particular amendment into a claim that a conservative judge wants to revive lynchings.

Reasonable people can disagree on some of these issues of legal interpretation, but Cohen doesn't even try. He just race-baits in the hopes that nobody will notice the paucity of logic, facts, or fairness in his column. When Republicans attempted, unconvincingly, to claim that Democratic opposition to Bill Pryor was based on anti-Catholic bias, the New York Times had a tantrum. And yet the Times' editorial writer has no problem insinuating that George Bush and his gang -- including the black Clarence Thomas -- want to take away basic rights from blacks and women.
posted by David Nieporent at 8/20/2003 07:29:00 PM |

 

Didn't families of suicide bombers get $15,000 also?

From the killing-the-golden-goose department: Blair Hornstine, the girl who successfully manipulated the system to become valedictorian and gain admission to Harvard, and then tried to gild the lily (perhaps it's actually the mixed-metaphor department) by suing her school district for millions of dollars, has settled for a mere $15,000. (Her attorneys also get $45,000, lucky them.)

So, let's tote up the scorecard:

• Without the suit: Hornstine would have had the title of co-valedictorian, admission to Harvard, a good reputation in her circles and anonymity outside it.
  
• With the suit: Hornstine got the title of valedictorian, the tag of plagiarist, and national notoriety as a spoiled brat. And couldn't attend her own graduation because of the fear of being booed off the stage. And $15,000, which won't even pay for a year of Harvard -- a moot point, since she lost her admission to Harvard.

It doesn't sound like a very good tradeoff to me. But it does sound like poetic justice. It's one thing to "work the system" to one's advantage. Fine, she invented a phony illness and used it as an excuse to fix her class schedule so she couldn't lose. That seems like crossing the line from working the system to cheating, but she did it, and the school district let her get away with it. But when you've twisted and bent the rules that much, and successfully reached your goal, give thanks for your good fortune and move on. Don't press your luck and try to milk it for a big cash windfall for no other reason than that you think you can get away with it. But she tried, and failed, and now she's got a big pile of nothing. And that's exactly what she deserves.

(What's known but doesn't get enough attention in all this is that the school district wasn't trying to take her valedictorian status away from her. I've heard several radio talk show hosts make that claim. Her whole lawsuit was motivated by the fact that someone else was also going to be honored. How much of a jerk do you have to be to try to keep someone else from getting what is, ultimately, a pretty trivial honor? Sure, it's an accomplishment, but she was already in college, and it's not as if, years down the road, anybody would have cared whether she was a high school valedictorian or "mere" high school co-valedictorian.)

Ah, well. Knowing the way the world works, she'll probably be defrauding investors of her own company someday.
posted by David Nieporent at 8/20/2003 05:33:00 PM |

 

Only the true Messiah would deny his divinity... or something like that...

American religion is becoming more "mystical" and less "mainline" says New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. The Roman Catholic holiday of the Feast of the Assumption this past week is his Exhibit A. Fine. Let him believe or not. What I was most struck by in the column was this passage:

Yet despite the lack of scientific or historical evidence, and despite the doubts of Biblical scholars, America is so pious that not only do 91 percent of Christians say they believe in the Virgin Birth, but so do an astonishing 47 percent of U.S. non-Christians.

First off, the Virgin Birth isn't meant to be a matter of scientific or historical evidence. For that matter, it's not clear whether such an event *could* be proved by any such evidence. Secondly, one can probably find Biblical scholars who doubt the existence of God. If all Biblical scholars agreed on everything, all Christians would still be Catholic (well, not exactly - you'd still have Biblical non-scholars around - but you get my point).


But it's the claim that 47 percent of non-Christians believe in the Virgin Birth that is most striking. How was this poll taken? Who are these people? You can certainly believe that Jesus was born, was crucified, and had lots of followers without being a Christian. But the Virgin Birth is an event that presumably marks Jesus as, well, somehow special. Perhaps 47 percent of non-Christians didn't fully understand the question? I'd be interested to know how many of them believe in the Immaculate Conception and Transubstantiation as well.
posted by Peter at 8/19/2003 11:20:00 AM |

 

Future urban legend?

The New York Times points out a budding myth: despite what people are saying, it wasn't fifty million people who lost power in the recent blackout.

The number 50 million appeared as part of a news release issued late Thursday and again on Friday by the reliability council, which sets rules for managing the electrical grid.

"Approximately 61,800 megawatts of customer load was lost in an area that covers 50 million people," the statement said. "We cannot say with precision how many customers were affected at this time."

The statement did not say 50 million people lost power — indeed, it made clear that the total was unknown. But that number was widely reported as the sum of those plunged into darkness.

It calls to mind the "Super Bowl Sunday" domestic violence myth. A "fact" is reported once, and is repeated over and over again, by reporters whose goal is sensationalism, and whose idea of research is cutting and pasting from older stories. Good to see the Times, for once, not falling into this trap.
posted by David Nieporent at 8/17/2003 07:41:00 PM |

 

Now I know my ABCs

Perhaps I'm just missing something really obvious, but I can't quite figure out the point of the California alphabet lottery. If they're going to rotate the alphabet from district to district in order to be fair, well, that part makes sense. Different people will be at the top of the ballot in different districts, so nobody gains the advantage of being first all the time.

But if they're going to do that, then why do they need to pick a random alphabet? What exactly does that do for them? Ultimately, ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ is no more or less random than RWQOJMVAHBSGZXNTCIEKUPDYFL. The former, of course, is more familiar, so it seems more "ordered," but it's no more or less arbitrary than the latter, and hence no more or less fair.

Or am I missing something really obvious?
posted by David Nieporent at 8/14/2003 01:41:00 AM |

 

When bad things happen to bad people

Also known as getting what you deserve.

(Yeah, I know: she meant well. Big whoop.)
posted by David Nieporent at 8/11/2003 05:07:00 PM |

 

Advertisements for vouchers

Fun with unions... a New York City junior high teacher was arrested for possession of cocaine and marijuana. Did I say teacher? I meant "dean of discipline." He pled guilty to a felony. The Department of Education fired him. Well, they tried, anyway. But he entered a "drug treatment program," and so an arbitrator has now ruled that he should be allowed to keep his job.

The arbitrator's "logic," and I use the term loosely, was that since completion of the diversion program would leave the teacher without a criminal record, the Education Department couldn't fire him. Ain't tenure grand?

But I'm sure the real problem with public schools is that not enough money is being thrown at them. And vouchers can't possibly help, because, after all, private schools don't have the same highly-qualified teachers the public schools do.


(Incidentally, none of my comments should be read as an endorsement of the drug war. The whole fiasco just points out the idiocy of the whole situation. First we pretend that possession of a recreational substance causes harm. Then we pretend that we can "treat" people who are carrying these substances around, as if they had pneumonia, when what we're really doing is making politicians look compassionate while keeping jails from filling up too fast. Then we pretend that this "treatment" erases the harm supposedly caused by the offense itself. And at the end of the process, we've spent thousands of tax dollars for no clear reason, and have accomplished nothing. But all that aside, it hardly sends the right message to students to tell them that the person in charge of enforcing the rules against them doesn't have to obey the rules himself.)
posted by David Nieporent at 8/11/2003 05:23:00 AM |

 

Panda Republicanism

Anne Applebaum of the Washington Post is moving to New York City:

Whatever else can be said about Rudy Giuliani, he gave New York City a different profile in the 1990s, and now people who would never even have dared to visit Manhattan flock there to live. But this is the point: In fact, what makes me nervous about Manhattan nowadays is not the criminals, who have faded back into the Bronx, but the people who replaced them: clever people, accomplished people, well-educated people -- and people who agree about almost everything.

She's right, and I find it just about the most infuriating thing about living in the city. Thanks to Dr. Manhattan for pointing the article out. I agree completely with his comments:

I think just about every conservative in the greater NYC area can relate to what I used to call the "Giant Panda" reaction: when a group of people, having just become aware of the exotic species in their midst, react with the strange mixture of curiosity and condescension: "I've heard such species exist, but I never expected to actually meet one!" Then there's the "Misplaced Compliment" variation, where the reaction is a stammering "But..but you're nice and smart ... you don't seem like a fascist!"

Indeed. One other reaction I get when they do find out my party affiliation is "well, you're just a *fiscal* conservative, right?" I've been asked that multiple times. It's a rough enough description of my beliefs that I usually just agree. Friends (as well as people I've just met) are somewhat comforted to know that while I may be all for lowering taxes, I'm not in favor of hunting gay people for sport.

posted by Peter at 8/08/2003 05:08:00 PM |

 

When is a door not a door? When it's ajar!

What do you call it when the government imposes costs on you, which you must pay, by law, whether you get something for it or not? Well, if you figure it out, please let the New York Times know, okay? Writing about the BBC:

Indeed, the corporation is governed by a 10-year Royal Charter, not expiring until 2006, meaning it can take a much longer view of its investments and spending than other broadcasters. At the same time, though, to the annoyance of competitors, the charter permits it to sell programs, books and magazines even as it harvests income from the compulsory license fees that its critics call a tax.

(Emphasis added.) What do other people call it, a penguin?
posted by David Nieporent at 8/01/2003 11:09:00 PM |

 

Not Solly

It's on right after the Simpsons and it's unlike anything else on TV. It's Banzai! And it's ticking people off:

Animal rights activists were appalled. The National Council on Problem Gambling would like to see viewers urged to bet responsibly. And the Media Action Network for Asian-Americans has complained that the series showcases "the most offensive, negative Asian stereotypes." [...]


"I didn't think that was particularly funny," said Aki Aleong, a spokesman for the Media Action Network for Asian-Americans.


His group mounted an unsuccessful effort to block the show from airing in cities with big Asian populations.

Notice the contempt the professional complainers at the Media Action Network for Asian-Americans show their fellow Asians in attempting to dictate to them what television programs they may not watch. That's what *I* find offensive. Hooray for the series creator Gary Monaghan (as well as the Fox Network) for showing some sense and not backing down:

[Monaghan] pronounces himself shocked that some Asian-Americans are offended. The show has aired for two years in Britain and he hasn't heard any complaints, he said.

The show uses virtually all Asian actors who use their own accents, not exaggerated ones, he said.

"I can understand that Asian-Americans want a realistic portrayal of Asian-Americans on TV," Monaghan said. "But this isn't set in America. It's not realistic. It's fantasy. I don't quite understand it."

posted by Peter at 7/31/2003 10:31:00 AM |

 

I hate when things get cheaper

You've got to love the logic of desperate partisans:

But the recall provision, which was created in 1911 to thwart the corruption of East Coast-style machine politics and domination by plutocrats, has become another way big money can warp the system.

"Instead of spending $50 million to be governor," Mayor Brown says, "a wealthy person can throw in $2 million for a recall and only need 20 percent of the vote to win."

Got that? A Democrat is complaining that elections cost too little and that this lower cost is biased in favor of the wealthy. Instead of having to spend $50 million, a candidate can spend $2 million, and this drop in price is "big money warping the system."

[MAJOR caveat here: I'm citing Maureen Dowd for a quote. Jerry Brown may have actually said something slightly different, such as, "I hope the As win the World Series."]
posted by David Nieporent at 7/30/2003 11:42:00 AM |

 

Doubleplusungood

By the way, think of the phrase "nonviolent drug offenses," which I used below. Aren't all drug offenses, by nature, nonviolent? If a drug addict mugs an old lady to pay for his habit, that's assault and robbery, not a violent drug offense. If a drug dealer shoots another drug dealer over a territorial dispute, that's murder, not a violent drug offense. By using the phrase "nonviolent drug offense," though, we imply that there's another kind. And this implies that some drug offenses are worth locking people up for. And once we imply that, then we're just haggling over the price of each, not arguing a fundamental point.


Without meaning to sound all Orwelly, the words we use matter. They shape (and sometimes cloud) our thoughts. That's why it's important to stop and think about what the words mean, instead of just reflexively using them. And that's why I endorse the use of the phrase "homicide bomber," which many think is silly. I endorse its use not because "homicide bomber" is more accurate, but because a change in our cliches means we have to pause and reflect on what those words refer to. "Suicide bomber" had become a one-word term, like peanut-butter-and-jelly. Nobody mentally broke it down into separate components, because people had become so used to saying it as a phrase. But by introducing the phrase "homicide bomber," people were forced to step back and consider what the words truly meant. Even if they ultimately concluded that suicide bomber was more suitable, it meant that they were thinking about it, instead of just using the phrase thoughtlessly. At least for a little while.
posted by David Nieporent at 7/28/2003 04:20:00 AM |

 

Whoosh!

The New York Times's Fox Butterfield is (in)famous for not being able to grasp cause-and-effect, but his myopic mindset appears to be spreading. An Associated Press story on the subject of crime pays homage to one of Butterfield's classics in the annals of liberal cluelessness:

America's prison population grew again in 2002 despite a declining crime rate, costing the federal government and states an estimated $40 billion a year at a time of rampant budget shortfalls.

"Despite"?

Actually, down in its fifth paragraph, after the mandatory quote from the ACLU, the article actually does present the case that the causal relationship may just be there. But it does so skeptically, and immediately moves on to suggest that there's something wrong with putting people in prison, even if it reduces crime. Namely, the cost. But while the article does discuss, ad nauseam, the costs of incarceration, it never even mentions the benefits. How much money is saved due to the reduced crime? It doesn't say. You would think the benefits of a program would be an important part of cost-benefit analysis. Unless you were a reporter, in which case you'd forget all about it.

And then we get to the second aspect of liberal media bias: the implication that the criminal justice system is just a sideline, a distraction for the government from its real business of ensuring that we don't eat too many saturated fats, making sure that women can play basketball in college, and wiring homeless shelters in North Dakota for broadband internet access. We do see stories from time-to-time which depict government programs such as these as unaffordable, yes. But the focus of those stories is invariably on how the government needs to find more money to pay for these essential programs, rather than on how the government needs to find ways to cut spending on these programs. With crime control, on the other hand, we see articles like this one, in which increased incarceration is treated as an obstacle to reducing the deficit, rather than the other way around.

Now, I'll be the first to acknowledge that there are problems with our criminal justice system, that people are prosecuted for nonviolent drug offenses when they shouldn't be. But the problem with that isn't the fact that it costs money, but that arresting people for victimless crimes is a bad idea at any price. If we're prosecuting the right people, then the cost is worth it; that -- not health care, or prescription drug benefits, or subsidies for farmers -- is the job of government.
posted by David Nieporent at 7/28/2003 03:47:00 AM |

 

Why not the XFL?

There are many people who have criticized the Postal Service for sponsoring Lance Armstrong's team in the Tour de France. Generally, people questioned why the Post Office, as a monopoly, would need to advertise. But then there's the argument everybody except the New York Times would be embarrassed to print. In an Op/Ed piece they published -- scarily enough, by someone who sits on the Postal Rate Commission -- we see a new theory for how the Postal Service should choose its advertising strategy:

Rather than criticizing the Postal Service for supporting Lance Armstrong (although perhaps he needs far less money than when he joined the team years ago, before he was a superstar) we should demand that sponsorships reflect the diverse character of postal customers. Why, for instance, does the agency seem so partial to men's sports? Why not sponsor women's soccer or the Dance Theater of Harlem, or the American Film Institute? Why not sponsor graphic art exhibitions that simultaneously promote stamp illustration sales and stamp collecting?

Why not? Uh, I'm going to take a wild stab at it. Maybe because the purpose of sponsorship is to bring in revenues? Why not sponsor women's soccer? How about because test patterns get higher ratings?

Hmm. Affirmative action for advertising. If Lance Armstrong doesn't "need" the money, and the Dance Theater does, then give it to the latter. After all, who cares about the needs of the Postal Service? They should be spending their advertising dollars based on the needs of the recipients. Sheesh. You'd think it was a parody, if it weren't for the fact that the context, and the author's biography makes it clear that she is entirely earnest. You've got to love leftist identity politics.
posted by David Nieporent at 7/26/2003 12:39:00 AM |

 

Uday's Bodyguard

I found this interview with one of Uday Hussein's bodyguards fascinating. Sorry, no excerpts. Read the whole thing, as they say.
posted by Peter at 7/25/2003 04:48:00 PM |

 

Iceberg, Greenberg, Goldberg, what's the difference?

Did they really say this? From a New York Times story on immigrants in Japanese society:

Though Vietnamese by origin, as fellow Asians they would be hard to pick out out in a crowd.

Yeah, they all look alike to me. All them colored people do, in fact.
posted by David Nieporent at 7/24/2003 11:14:00 PM |

 

What happened to the WMDs? We don't know.

It's possible Saddam was disarmed five years ago, but we didn't know that then. And we didn't know that in March. And President Clinton has just admitted he still doesn't know:

"When I left office, there was a substantial amount of biological and chemical material unaccounted for," Clinton said on CNN's "Larry King Live."


Clinton said he never found out whether a U.S.-British bombing campaign he ordered in 1998 ended Saddam's capability of producing chemical and biological weapons. "We might have gotten it all, we might have gotten half of it, we might have gotten none of it," he said.

This is not to bash Clinton - nobody else seemed to or seems to know. Pro-war and anti-war folk alike thought that there were WMDs left - remember that a main point in opposition to the war was the fear that Saddam would use such weapons against us. Perhaps the only way to find out for sure was to send in the Army. And if they come back and say "well, golly, the WMD's *were* destroyed five years ago", I can live with that. I'll leave it to war opponents who might be cheered by that news to explain why they feel bombing was justified then in the first place.


Anyway, here's another excerpt from that very same article:

Clinton confined his remarks to biological and chemical weapons, and did not say whether he would consider credible any report that Saddam had wanted to build a nuclear weapons program.


Nonetheless, he suggested that Bush's mistake was par for the course -- and that it was time to move on now that Bush had acknowledged the error.


"You know, everybody makes mistakes when they are president," he said. "I mean, you can't make as many calls as you have to without messing up once in a while. The thing we ought to be focused on is what is the right thing to do now."

If Clinton can move on, can Clinton democrats?
posted by Peter at 7/23/2003 12:41:00 PM |

 

Let's hope this is confirmed soon

From msnbc.com:

BAGHDAD, July 22 — Widespread and sporadic gunfire crackled across Baghdad after dark on Tuesday as word spread that Saddam Hussein's feared and hated sons may have been killed in a gunbattle with U.S. troops.

It really would have been more gratifying if they were captured alive, but why quibble?
posted by Peter at 7/22/2003 04:36:00 PM |

 

We won! How outrageous!

Of course, Clinton actually lied about his affair. At most, Bush was wrong about the Niger connection (although note that the British are sticking to their story). An actual lie is the suggestion that uranium purchases were the only reason for going to war, and that proving that claim wrong would wreck the entire war rationale. Sorry, but that would still leave Saddam as a very immediate threat to his people and his neighbors, an avowed threat to the United States, a flouter of multiple U.N. resoutions, and a thorn in the world's side for decades. Good enough reasons to get rid of him for me, and for most of the country, yellowcake or no yellowcake.


A related lie is that Democrats can gain by running against a war we won. Note that they were smart enough not to try that in 1992. As James Taranto puts it:

Democrats seem to be just as out of touch today. Rather than celebrate the overthrow of a tyrant and enemy of America, they are trying to discredit it by retrospectively niggling over the nuances of the argument for war. It's as if they were defense lawyers arguing an appeal on behalf of Saddam, trying to get him off on a technicality.


The Washington Times quotes Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as explaining to a Senate committee yesterday: "The coalition did not act in Iraq because we had discovered dramatic new evidence of Iraq's pursuit of weapons of mass murder. We acted because we saw the existing evidence in a new light, through the prism of our experience on September 11."


Rumsfeld is exactly right, and the Democrats will self-destruct unless they grasp the political ramifications of the national epiphany that was Sept. 11. The response that "Iraq had nothing to do with Sept. 11," though possibly accurate, is beside the point--the equivalent of arguing in 1942 that Germany had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor. FDR and Truman knew who America's enemies were, but many of their heirs seem not to.

posted by Peter at 7/22/2003 03:50:00 PM |

 

To the rescue

Don't fret, we're going to Liberia. I know you've always been eager for war, Partha. It just takes time:

U.S. officials announced that 4,500 more American sailors and Marines have been ordered to position themselves closer to Liberia, if needed for an evacuation of Americans, peacekeeping or some other mission.

So where's the concern about threatening and invading a sovereign nation that is neither an immediate nor a long-term threat to us and which has no ties to terrorism? Where's the concern about the projection of American power and hegemony? Darn it, you anti-war folks, I demand consistency! Get organized! I expect thousands at a "hands off Liberia" rally this weekend on Fifth Avenue!

Harrumph.
posted by Peter at 7/22/2003 10:52:00 AM |

 

Just imagine the dry cleaning bill

So you thought your wedding was expensive? Try this wedding dress on for size:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Syrian-Jewish bride from Brooklyn will this summer wear what could be America's most expensive wedding gown, a white dress adorned with 1,100 glittering diamonds and worth $300,000, an assistant to the designer said on Thursday.

[...]

Mindy Woon, buyer and assistant manager of the bridal salon at the upscale department store Bergdorf Goodman, said the most expensive gown it sells is for about $40,000.

"I've never heard of a gown that high," Woon said. "That's probably three times what most people spend on their entire wedding."

Probably three times? How many $100,000 weddings have you been to? I'd like to meet some of Mindy Woon's pals.
posted by Peter at 7/20/2003 10:08:00 PM |

 

Having a ball

I know that there are people out there who hate President Bush with every molecule of every fiber of their being. (Thousands of people drove that point home this past winter by taking to the streets denouncing him and supporting one of the most murderous dictators of the past fifty years.) I've learned to find their shrill rants amusing, despite their dead seriousness. And for a fine example of shill ranting, check out this lead paragraph by Matt Taibbi of the New York Press:

George Bush should be hung up by his balls. No kidding. He should be grabbed from behind, restrained, forcibly stripped below the waist, and a big hook should be pushed through his scrotum. Then the rope attached to the hook should be dragged through a pulley at the top of a flagpole, and the president should be hoisted up and left to swing in the breeze, 60 painful feet above the ground.

Ye gods. So what did the president do to earn Taibbi's wrath? He went to Africa and made a speech condemning slavery. (Gasp!) And he also changed the way Head Start and Section 8 programs are funded. (The nerve!) Mind you, funding levels haven't been reduced, they're just now being given out as block grants to the states. Taibbi describes this as "whipping out the rusty garden tools and cutting the very balls out of the black community." (Note the casual racism in implying that all blacks, and no whites, are on welfare. Apparently, he doesn't much care about the poor white men in testicular danger. And never mind the women.)

So as I said, it's amusing. What other reaction can you have? People like Taibbi aren't going to listen to reason, for their Bush-hatred is like a religion. And you can't argue with religious fanatics. But if you try (and you're a man), remember to wear a protective cup.
posted by Peter at 7/20/2003 06:34:00 PM |

 

Logic deficit

Wouldn't complaints about the deficit be more credible if they were coming from people who had ever met a federal program (other, of course, than the defense department) that they didn't like? I didn't notice Democrats who demanded a prescription drug program worrying about the deficit. I didn't notice Democrats who demanded federal grants to the states for their budgets worrying about the deficit. I didn't notice Democrats who complained about the lack of funding for No Child Left Behind, or for port security, or for aid for Africa, or peacekeeping in Liberia, worrying about the deficit. I didn't notice Democrats who demanded universal health care worrying about the deficit.

So what's with the sudden interest in the deficit? Mere partisan hypocrisy? Well, there are a few other possibilities:

1. These Democrats want to raise taxes in order to pay for these additional boondogglesprograms. Hmm. I've heard many Democrats complaining about Bush's tax cuts; I've only heard some actually suggesting that these tax cuts be reversed. And I've heard none suggesting that taxes actually be raised from their pre-Bush levels.
   
   
2. These Democrats want to cut other programs in order to pay for these additional programs. Okay, which? Sure, we could save a little money if there were other countries participating in Iraq. But certainly not enough to eliminate the current deficit, let alone pay for additional programs. And I've heard no proposals to eliminate other federal programs. Nobody who suggests that perhaps Medicare and Social Security ought to be means tested. Nobody (on the Democratic side) who suggests that maybe the Department of Education is a big waste of money. If they're not going to propose large cuts, then they can't create large additional spending programs (without deficit spending).
   
   
3. Although Democrats don't like deficits, these Democrats think the new spending ideas they have are preferable to deficit reduction. Well, reasonable people can disagree on that argument; it's not frivolous. But if that's the case, then clearly they don't think deficits are that dangerous. In that case, what they're doing is using the deficit as a pretext to complain about tax cuts.

They don't care about deficits per se; they just don't like tax cuts. But since that's a losing political argument, they're citing the deficit.
posted by David Nieporent at 7/20/2003 02:44:00 PM |

 

On further review

Actually, Partha, the White House is correct. The correct rendition of Roberto Clemente's name is Roberto Clemente Walker, and the Baseball Hall of Fame changed his plaque a few years ago to reflect that.

(Oh, and he didn't actually "win" anything; he was given an honor.)
posted by David Nieporent at 7/19/2003 09:05:00 PM |

 

On the other hand, maybe the Times would

Quick question: do you think the New York Times would have printed a boy-isn't-that-cute profile of a kid who read Mein Kampf when he was little, thought the Nazis ideas sounded really cool, and went on to lead a branch of the Aryan Nations? Somehow, I doubt it. So what's up with this New York Times puffery about Charlotte Kates, one of the organizers of the pro-terrorism conference at Rutgers?

My favorite part is right at the beginning:

WHEN Charlotte L. Kates was in elementary school, she devoured a series of books on foreign countries. One nation, however, captured her imagination. She was in the family car on her way to a children's arts festival in Philadelphia, when, she said, the utopian vision of a communist society in the Soviet Union leapt off the pages and inspired her to be a revolutionary.

Sounds like a common story for young communists in the 1930s, when the New York Times was busy covering up Stalin's crimes and many people thought the USSR was a neat idea. Only, read further, and you see this: "Ms. Kates, 23..." That's right; when she "was in elementary school," it would have been about 1990. After the Berlin Wall fell. After everyone, including the Soviet Union, had rejected communism. But she joined the Communist Party anyway. Boy, isn't that cute?

And she "agitated to loosen the dress code at her [middle] school and reduce the lunch fees." Boy, isn't that cute?

And, oh yeah, she supports Palestinian terrorism. And the total elimination of Israel. Boy, isn't that cute?
posted by David Nieporent at 7/19/2003 04:09:00 PM |

 

Mass Destruction

According to an article in Newdsay:

Since the end of the war, dozens of mass graves [in Iraq] have been discovered -- many of them containing hundreds of bodies. The United Nations is investigating the killing or disappearance of at least 300,000 Iraqis believed murdered by Saddam's regime.

Does anybody out there still believe that we shouldn't have overthrown Saddam?
posted by Peter at 7/17/2003 03:09:00 PM |

 

Park-Workers, Nun-Beaters, and Candy-Stealers Local 1208

I have long thought that government workers should not be allowed to form labor unions. This article does nothing to change my mind:

Budget cuts meant there was no money to plant flowers this summer in Saskatchewan's Duck Mountain Provincial Park, so a group of cottagers raised $50 and spent an afternoon planting marigolds.


Less than a day later, a dozen park workers arrived to uproot the plants, saying the volunteer action had threatened their jobs.

These are precisely the jerks whose jobs *should* be threatened. Fire them all.
posted by Peter at 7/17/2003 02:52:00 PM |

 

Several of the punctuation marks were correct

There have been those who argued that blogs are inferior to traditional media because blogs aren't subject to the same standards that newspapers or magazines are. Blogs, the theory goes, don't have editors, so sloppy and misleading stories get published without the appropriate level of fact checking that editors provide. Anybody who believes that should read this appalling article-length correction in today's New York Times. The original story was so wrong that one has to wonder whether it was something left lying around Jayson Blair's desk before he quit.

From the correction:

A loan dispute between Prudential Securities and TVT Records, one of the nation's largest independent record companies, has had no impact on the control or management of TVT Records by its founder and president, Steven Gottlieb.

In a profile of Mr. Gottlieb last Monday, The New York Times reported incorrectly that Mr. Gottlieb had defaulted on a $23.5 million loan and that as a result, in February he had lost control of his company, officially called TeeVee Toons Inc., to Prudential.

In fact Mr. Gottlieb was never personally responsible for the defaulted loan and remains in full control of his company. Even if Prudential were to prevail in the dispute, which is still pending in court, its remedies would be limited to seizing certain music royalty rights that TeeVee Toons transferred in 1999 to an affiliated company called TVT Catalog Enterprises. Prudential has no claim to TVT Records itself and therefore would not be in a position to sell the company, as the article reported.

In short, they described something as already having happened as a result of a lawsuit, when in fact it hadn't happened at all, and couldn't happen as a result of the suit.

And it goes on. The Times described him as litigious; they had to take it back. The Times quoted his opponents in litigation without realizing that those people might have an agenda. The Times describes him as having sued people he hadn't sued. The Times described him as releasing albums he hadn't released. The Times described a suit as frivolous with no basis for that description, but citing yet another of its infamous anonymous sources ("People close to the case."). The Times reports that a contract was signed months before it actually was signed. The Times describes the songs as old when they weren't.

I guess the Times does get points for admitting the errors -- unusually, for them -- but that's like giving the surgeon who amputated the wrong leg credit for reattaching it. Let's wait and see what happens to Lynette Holloway, who wrote the original story. If her byline continues to appear regularly, we'll know that the recent spate of accountability at the Times is just for show.
posted by David Nieporent at 7/14/2003 05:23:00 PM |

 

Six of one...

In the 2000 election, Ralph Nader declared repeatedly (to some applause and much more derision) that there was no difference between Bush and Gore, or indeed between the Republican and Democratic parties in general. Of course, by that Nader meant that Gore and the Democratic party were conservative, just like the Republicans. They both favored NAFTA and globalization, after all, and both accepted "soft money" campaign contributions, and neither one spoke about corporations the way the Pope speaks about abortion. There's some truth there. Then again, there's some truth to the argument that there's not much difference between Bush and Gore because the Bush administration is liberal, just like the Democrats. For instance, just to pick one example at random, this headline from the New York Times: Bush Administration Says Title IX Should Stay as It Is.

The reference, of course, is to the law which bans sex discrimination in federally funded programs, and specifically to the portion of it which bans sex discrimination in college sports. When Bush announced a commission to review Title IX, there had been hope in some corners that the law might be amended, and on the left, the liberal advocacy machine had already geared up to blast Bush for wanting to eliminate women's sports and make all women barefoot and pregnant. But Bush, the supposed conservative right-wing extremist who wants to destroy everything good and decent in America, ultimately did nothing.


By the way, you've got to love the New York Times' idea of balance in reporting:

The National Women's Law Center says Title IX has led to increases of women's participation in sports of more than 400 percent in colleges and of more than 800 percent in high schools. But Title IX supporters point out statistical equality has not been achieved; 56 percent of college students are women and 42 percent of the athletes are women.

They quote supporters of the law to point out how important Title IX is, and contrast them with... supporters of the law who think it doesn't go far enough. They couldn't bother to find people who think that Title IX goes too far and is seriously misguided when applied to sports?

Title IX is one of those government programs that sounds perfectly fine on its face, if one doesn't follow the news enough to know how the program has been implemented. In theory, the law (and Department of Education bureaucracy in charge of enforcing it) allows three ways for colleges to comply with the anti-discrimination provisions. One is proportionality -- having the percentage of female athletes match the percentage of females in the student body. Another is to be continually increasing the size of women's sports programs until proportionality is reached. The third is to meet all the demand of female students.

In reality, colleges have found that cutting men's sports programs (and budgets) and giving the resulting money to women's sports is the only practical way to comply with the law. Obviously, they could increase women's sports budgets without cutting men's... if they could find a source of free money sitting around waiting to be claimed. Since we don't live in the land of tooth fairies and Easter bunnies, that isn't a realistic option.

Of course, schools could address the actual wishes of students -- except that they can't. The problem is that in the most significant court case on Title IX, Cohen v. Brown University, the First Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Brown's attempt to show that they were meeting all needs:

We view Brown's argument that women are less interested than men in participating in intercollegiate athletics, as well as its conclusion that institutions should be required to accommodate the interests and abilities of its female students only to the extent that it accommodates the interests and abilities of its male students, with great suspicion. To assert that Title IX permits institutions to provide fewer athletics participation opportunities for women than for men, based upon the premise that women are less interested in sports than are men, is (among other things) to ignore the fact that Title IX was enacted in order to remedy discrimination that results from stereotyped notions of women's interests and abilities.

Title IX does permit institutions to provide fewer athletics participation opportunities for women than for men, if women are less interested. Brown didn't merely take that as a "premise"; Brown proved it with actual statistics. The judges, though, didn't care, substituting their prejudices for the law.

We conclude that, even if it can be empirically demonstrated that, at a particular time, women have less interest in sports than do men, such evidence, standing alone, cannot justify providing fewer athletics opportunities for women than for men.

In short, as courts have decided to enforce the law, schools have to provide opportunities for women whether women want those opportunities or not -- meaning that the only realistic option remains to cut men's programs. Which is why many people are opposed to Title IX. But the New York Times buried that argument, and the supposedly right-wing Bush administration ignored it.
posted by David Nieporent at 7/13/2003 02:21:00 AM |

 

Why ask why?

Over in National Review Online, there's an article by Clifford May providing a strong rebuttal to the sudden, weird claim that Bush's State of the Union address was a lie. While everyone has concluded that the Niger documents were phony, Bush did not mention those documents in the speech, and merely cited the British government for the proposition that Iraq was attempting to procure uranium from Africa.

May questions whether any member of Congress can honestly argue that this single minor claim was that significant to his decision making -- but May actually misses the mark on this point, because he fails to note that Congress voted to authorize war in October, three months before the State of the Union was given. So it would be pretty damn difficult for members of Congress to claim that Bush's true (if inaccurate) claim in the SOTU address is the smoking gun proving that Bush lied to get the US into war.

But what about the bigger picture? Maybe Bush's January statement didn't convince Congress to vote for war in October, but it surely convinced the American public to support the war, right? Wrong. What war opponents fail to mention is that all the administration's statements, over all the months since Bush began the full court press to "sell" the war, were ultimately irrelevant:

ABC News/Washington Post Poll. Latest: March 27, 2003. N=508 adults nationwide. MoE ± 4.5. Fieldwork by TNS Intersearch.

"Do you approve or disapprove of the way Bush is handling the situation with Iraq and Saddam Hussein?"

               Approve        Disapprove     No Opinion

               %              %              %

3/27/03        69             26             5

3/23/03        71             26             3

3/20/03        65             29             5

3/17/03        64             29             7

3/5-9/03       55             38             8

2/19-23/03     55             39             6

2/6-9/03       61             37             2

2/5/03         61             32             7

1/30 - 2/1/03  61             35             3

1/28/03        58             38             4

1/27/03        57             40             3

1/16-20/03     50             46             4

12/02          58             37             5

10/02          57             38             5

9/12-14/02     65             31             4

8/29/02        52             36             12

(Data from the invaluable Polling Report, which archives poll results.)

That's right; support for (and opposition to) the war was essentially unchanged from the beginning of the process until the day the war began. Minor week-to-week fluctuations, within the margin of error. Regardless of whether you think Bush lied, this simply isn't a Gulf of Tonkin situation. Bush's factual claims didn't mislead or trick Americans into supporting the war; Americans supported the war because they agreed with the various reasons advanced for it from the beginning.

It strains credulity to suggest that these handful of words in a speech that most Americans didn't watch, that weren't seen as overly significant at the time (see, for instance, Jake Tapper's review of the speech in Salon, where he barely mentioned the uranium claim in passing) somehow constitute the proof that Bush falsely tricked us into war. In the zillions of speeches Bush and other administration officials gave over the more than six months of intensive campaigning for war, it would be shocking if everything that was said turned out to be perfectly accurate. But if these 16 words are the best that Bush's critics can come up with, then it would be difficult to conclude that Bush did anything wrong.
posted by David Nieporent at 7/12/2003 09:31:00 PM |

 

Content of their character, shmontent of their character

Identify the bigot who criticized a civil rights activist thusly:

"It is possible for a lot of people to find his colorblind message to be superficially appealing..."

Hint: it was said in 2003, not 1963. Of course, the hint gives it away; the only people who are no longer for colorblindness in 2003 are minority interest groups, and this was said by a senior member of the NAACP. They're criticizing Ward Connerly, who, in the wake of Sandra Day O'Connor's ruling on behalf of race preferences, is campaigning for a ballot initiative in Michigan to ban the preferences, just as he has successfully done in California and Washington. The NAACP is annoyed. But so are others.

Opposition to his efforts has already begun to take shape. A Detroit News editorial on Tuesday called a potential battle over affirmative action dangerous, and called on Mr. Connerly to go home.

"The divide in understanding between whites and blacks remains wide," it said. "Toss in a ballot campaign that pits the two races against each other and all hope for finally closing that divide will be lost."

Sounds just like officials from the Jim Crow South complaining about outside agitators stirring up trouble, doesn't it? It's never the racial policies that are the problem -- it's always the people trying to end them who are accused of "pitting the two races against each other."


By the way, I know there are those who insist that race preferences are necessary because of the racism still prevalent in the United States. So what to make of this?

The leaders of both of the state's political parties also opposed the effort.

In the Michigan cases before the Supreme Court, universities, major corporations, and retired military officers (and of course the editorial board of the New York Times) all weighed in in favor of race preferences in the service of "diversity." And in Michigan now, both parties are in favor. So much for principle.
posted by David Nieporent at 7/12/2003 12:19:00 AM |

 

No Liberals Need Apply?

An ex-radio talk show host from South Carolina is suing her former employer for firing her.

The suit alleges that co-hosts Herriott Clarkson Mungo III, also known as Bill Love, and Hayden Hudson, also known as Howard Hudson, encouraged Cordonier to join their pro-war discussions regarding the invasion of Iraq.

The conversations became contentious on several occasions and management's tolerance for opinions decreased as war drew closer, the suit alleges. The suit also alleges that Love and Hudson belittled her both on and off the air because of her political beliefs.

"I went through hell," Cordonier told The Greenville News Monday. "I was forced out because I would not comply with their orders to be silent."

As is often the case, the facts are unclear from the news coverage, but it adds:

The suit cites a state law that declares a person cannot be fired because of political opinions.

Thought Number 1: I wonder how many people who would cite this a horrifying example of the suppression of free speech in this country also cheered the firing of Michael Savage by MSNBC?

Thought number 2: What kind of idiotic law is that? It sounds superficially reasonable -- but as written, it would apparently protect not only this radio host, but also a Michael Savage from being fired in South Carolina. In this instance, the story isn't entirely clear, so I can't be certain whether this host was fired for expressing her anti-war views on the air, or merely for holding those views. If the former -- as in the Michael Savage case -- it seems to me that there would be clear first amendment problems with applying such a law. To force a station to employ someone whose on-air views are contrary to the station's is tantamount to forcing a particular set of views on the station.

If the latter, there likely isn't a constitutional problem with the law -- but that doesn't make it less questionable. Why should an employer be forced to retain an employee who holds unpalatable political views? Should a black employer be prohibited from firing a member of the Klan? A Jewish employer be forced to keep on an avowed supporter of Hamas? (Are these extreme examples? Certainly. But, then, these sorts of laws are only needed for extreme situations. Nobody is going to fire an employee for being in favor of fireworks on the 4th of July. It's people who hold extreme views that will attract the ire of employers.)
posted by David Nieporent at 7/10/2003 02:54:00 AM |

 

The people united can never be mass murdered!

The International Herald Tribune reports that high school seniors in Italy are being taught that communism is bad. Actually, it reports that people are complaining that high school seniors in Italy are being taught that communism is bad.

The evils of communism appear front and center in one of the themes that hundreds of thousands of Italian high school seniors could choose to write about in graduation exams given this month. That topic invited students to ponder "terror and the political repression in the totalitarian systems" of the 20th century and gives brief descriptions of fascism in Italy, Nazism in Germany and communism in the former Soviet Union and other countries.


Communism is blamed for the executions of about 100 million people, five times greater than the killings attributed in the exam to Nazism.


In the wording of the topic, it takes one sentence to denigrate fascism. It takes four to vilify communism.


Some historians and teachers have complained that the balance of the question is out of whack. "I teach my students that of course communism must be seen in a negative light, but the goal of Nazism was to kill people, and the goal of communism was to unite them," said Giuseppe Costantino, 61, who teaches history in a high school in Naples.

Yes, what's a hundred or so million dead anyway? Their hearts were in the right place. Still, a history teacher should know that Nazism also shared the goal of uniting people. You know, "Ein Volk" and such. So where, I ask you, are the calls for a balanced discussion on Nazism?


Coincidentally, Saddam Hussein is another chap who means well:

"Unify your ranks and act as one hand," the voice said on the Al Hayat-LBC broadcast. "Boycott the occupying soldiers ... Act and do not let the occupying forces settle down in your land."


"He who favors division over unity, and acts to divide ranks instead of unifying them, is not only a servant of the foreign occupier but he is also the enemy of God and the people," the voice said on the Al-Jazeera broadcast.

Jeebus, with uniters like these, give me good ol' fashioned divisiveness any day.
posted by Peter at 7/08/2003 04:14:00 PM |

 

Red Sox haven't won World Series since 1918; Bill Buckner solely to blame

The New York Times cites "Congressional investigators" in criticizing the Bush administration for its handling of Medicaid:

The Bush administration has allowed states to make vast changes in Medicaid but has not held them accountable for the quality of care they provide to poor elderly and disabled people, Congressional investigators said today.

The administration often boasts that it has approved record numbers of Medicaid waivers, which exempt states from some federal regulations and give them broad discretion to decide who gets what services.

But the investigators, from the General Accounting Office, said the secretary of health and human services, Tommy G. Thompson, had "not fully complied with the statutory and regulatory requirements" to monitor the quality of care under such waivers.

Damn Republicans. Always deregulating and such without any concern for the results. Right? Well, sort of...

More than a dozen state waiver programs covering tens of thousands of people have gone more than a decade without any federal review of the quality of care, the accounting office said. These programs were in Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.

In addition to blaming George Bush for things that happened years before he took office, the Times also significantly distorts the findings of the GAO report:

The accounting office examined 15 of the largest waivers, covering services to 266,700 elderly people in 15 states and found problems with the quality of care in 11 of the programs.

In fact, while the report does touch upon some quality-of-care deficiencies, that's not the focus of the study. The report, with regard to those eleven programs, cites problems with the states' documentation of their quality assurance programs. Got that? It's actually doubly removed from an actual problem. We're not talking about problems with care, and we're not talking about problems with state quality assurance. We're talking about the states inadequately explaining their quality assurance programs to the federal government. In short, paperwork problems. Hardly seems like a huge deal.

But none of these nuances of time or details matter, when you're the New York Times and you're out to criticize the Bush administration.
posted by David Nieporent at 7/08/2003 03:42:00 AM |

 

Cry me a river

People whose unemployment doesn't bother me:

• Charles Manson
  
• Members of Congress
  
• Jayson Blair
  
• Saddam Hussein
  
• Telemarketers
  

Though, apparently, Reuters apparently wants us to feel sorry for that last group, given the sob story they published yesterday. The essence: people with no skills will have to find another occupation besides harassing people trying to eat dinner. Gee, it doesn't sound quite so sympathetic, if I put it that way. Which I do.

But from the article:

Outbound telemarketing brings in $211 billion in annual sales in the United States, according to the Direct Marketing Association.

On the one hand, it obviously must be profitable, or why would companies do it? On the other hand, who the hell buys things from strangers who call them on the phone? I figure it must be a small, select group of morons. So why not establish a Please Call These People registry, and bother them 24/7?
posted by David Nieporent at 7/07/2003 01:55:00 AM |

 

VDH

I never fail to be awed by Victor Davis Hanson. I am not worthy to share the same internet.


Happy Independence Day.
posted by Peter at 7/03/2003 04:37:00 PM |

 

Paul Verhoeven is still a dope

Here's an article that explains the triumph of the PG and PG-13 ratings without blaming John Ashcroft:

Of the top 20 biggest box office hits of last year, all but one were rated PG or PG-13. The Santa Clause 2 was the sole G-rated film to make the list, while 8 Mile, the R-rated Eminem (news - web sites) movie, just missed at No. 21.

The PG rating appeals to movie-savvy teens who find a G rating too juvenile. PG-13 is even better, implying the movie goes about as far as it can without kids having to be taken by parents if they want to see it.

Even so, more movies are still given R ratings than any other rating:

R-rated movies have hardly died. This summer, The Matrix Reloaded became the highest-grossing R movie ever, with $268.9 million and counting. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines opens today, and Bad Boys II on July 18. R is the most common rating, but only because so many are low-budget foreign-language films that aren't widely released, or steamy made-for-video movies.

posted by Peter at 7/02/2003 06:37:00 PM |

 

Shallow people go off the deep end

I learned to swim at the town pool when I was about 5. I remember paddling around with the kickboards and also getting water in my ears, but my most vivid memory of the lessons is being forced to jump off the diving board into the deep end of the pool. The instructors stood at the side of a pool ready to extend a long pole I could grab on to if I panicked and started to drown. My fear of the deep end was largely psychological; I couldn't touch bottom in the shallow end, either. But fear is fear, and it was usually the pole for me.

When I got a little older, even after that traumatic formative experience, I grew to appreciate the deep end. So now, when I read a line such as this:

The old-style "drowning pools" won't be missed, said aquatics expert Tom Griffiths.

I immediately look for a cup of coffee so I can take a sip and spew it all over my monitor in shocked surprise. "Drowning pools"? "Won't be missed"? "Aquatics expert?" Halle Berry full of grace, what in the heck is wrong with people today?

In case you haven't yet read the article I am mocking, here's a summary: People were getting hurt jumping off diving boards in municipal pools, so the boards were removed. So fewer people used the deep end of the pools. So now the deep ends are being filled in:

Philadelphia has been filling in its deep ends over the past several years, said Terri Kerwawich, the city's aquatics coordinator. After filling in two more this spring, the city has only 10 deep ends left at its 86 pools. All but one or two will eventually be filled in.

The article quotes various aquatics experts and coordinators (who the heck knew such people existed?), along with a soccer, I mean swimming, mom who all praise the new shallow designs. They're "safer" and more "family-friendly" and yes, even "interactive" (you know, as opposed to the old pool designs that allowed no interaction whatsoever).

Well, screw friendly interactive family safety if it's come to this. Let aquatics busybodies build themselves a safe little padded cell on a safe little island away from the people in the world who want to live. Give me my childhood of deep ends and merry-go-rounds and Big Macs and pointy chess pieces and un-car-seated car trips to Florida.

(But I'll take today's adolescence. That sounds fun.)
posted by Peter at 7/02/2003 06:28:00 PM |

 

To Serve Mankind

While I'm glad the New York Times, as I noted, is finally providing some perspective on the supposed budget crises, the article still frames the debate as being between services or tax cuts. But what "services" are we talking about, exactly? Libraries? I suppose so. Fire investigators? Apparently. And, of course, the cabaret cops.

Records from the city's Department of Consumer Affairs show that the Bowery Bar is not one of the city's 332 licensed cabarets, so the evening's dancing was illegal under current laws. The city has shut down 11 businesses for cabaret law violations this year, compared with 20 closed from 1999 through 2002.

The cabaret laws have drawn fire since they were enacted in 1926 in reaction to popular racially mixed jazz clubs in Harlem, said Paul Chevigny, a New York University professor who has written a history of the laws. Critics say the laws do not address the more serious problems surrounding nightclubs, like noise, security or loitering.

Gretchen Dykstra, the consumer affairs commissioner, said the city was re-examining the laws for this very reason. But unless the laws change, members of the night life task force known as March — for Multi-Agency Response to Community Hotspots — will continue to crack down on unlicensed cabarets.

And heaven forbid people smoke while they dance; then the city of New York would declare martial law and call out the National Guard.

Gee, I can think of a few government employees who could be fired without impacting the "quality of life" in New York City. (Or, rather, firing them will improve the quality of life in New York City.) It would be a lot less irritating to read columns about the horrors of government budget cuts if there weren't so many stories like this, of completely wasted government resources. Nobody even makes an attempt to slash programs like this before raising taxes.
posted by David Nieporent at 6/30/2003 02:22:00 AM |

 

Kate

Katharine Hepburn is dead at 96. I'm not much of a cinephile; I have seen at most maybe one or two of her movies. Like W.C. Fields and Mae West, much of what I think I know about her comes from caricatures in 1930's Warner Brothers cartoons. But I always felt a little glimmer of amazement to know that, unlike all the others being lampooned, she was still alive. Sadly, no more.

posted by Peter at 6/30/2003 12:26:00 AM |

 

On further review

It's been fashionable around certain areas of the blogosphere to single out certain New York Times articles and say, "See, they're finally trying to be fair, now that Howell Raines is gone." I don't really know whether he has anything to do with it, but it does seem as if the reporting has undergone a sharp change in direction in a short time. For instance, the Times has been "flooding the zone" (in Raines' favorite phrase) to prove that George Bush's tax cuts have been devastating for state budgets. (Though it's never explained _why_ the federal government should be funding the states.) We hear horror stories about people devastated, communities decimated, and children weeping in the streets.

But, now, in the post-Raines era, lo and behold, a story which is actually balanced, pointing out that the budget cuts aren't extensive at all.

Fire marshals will no longer investigate most car fires. There will be 3,500 fewer police officers compared to three years ago. Inmates on Rikers Island will not get intensive drug counseling. And most city libraries are now open five days, instead of six.

It is hardly the kind of thank you that New Yorkers might expect after being asked to pay higher income, sales and property taxes in the fiscal year that starts Tuesday. But despite those cuts, New York City government will offer an array of services that is still more generous than it was early in Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's tenure, when New York faced its last major fiscal crunch. And the cuts agreed to this week by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the City Council are just a pittance compared to the wholesale reduction of basic government operations that occurred during the mid-1970's fiscal crisis.

It's nice to see, when reading the hysteria of Bob Herbert and Paul Krugman on the editorial page about the Republican plan to starve babies and puppies, some actual perspective. Spending, despite all the drastic, mean-spirited Republican tax cuts, is actually increasing in New York. As it is in most of the states with budget crises. The real crisis isn't that taxes are being cut, but that there is never an appetite for cutting any government program, ever.
posted by David Nieporent at 6/29/2003 10:55:00 PM |