Paradox of Determinism?

Can anyone help me here? I can’t tell if this is a legitimate paradox, or even a sound line of reasoning. (Forgive me if the writing isn’t clear—I’m working on clarifying my thoughts and finding a better way to articulate them, but the urge to share and get feedback has taken precedence). Here’s what I’m thinking:

I believe in the laws of physics. I don’t have a sophisticated understanding of them, but from what I do understand, they imply that all activity in the universe is governed by laws. This leads me to endorse the theory of mechanistic determinism. And since I have yet to hear a plausible argument detailing the sense in which humans are exempt from those laws, I am, in turn, led to (reluctantly) deny free will.

But if we aren’t free, then wouldn’t that cast suspicion on the truth of the very laws that imply determinism? For we are the creators of science, and if we aren’t free, then that means that science wasn’t created freely and isn’t practiced freely. The behavior of scientific practice and development would be the result of laws with no particular (or at least identifiable) aim, not humans seeking truth. And while we may think it is our pursuit of truth that drives science, under the theory of determinism (as I understand it), this would merely be our perception, not the true cause of our actions. But to remove the motivation for truth from science seems to significantly lessen its credibility. For why should we consider the claims of science to be true if there is no evidence that truth is their intended purpose?

So here is my circular train of thought: My belief in science leads me to determinism, which then leaves me with no good reason to believe in science (or any inquiry for that matter).

I’m probably way oversimplifying the issue, partially because of misunderstanding, but also because I’m trying to cram it into one post. And the more I think about it, I don’t think that this problem is a proper paradox, at least in the logical sense. For it doesn’t seem to be the case that if determinism is true, then it’s also false; only that if it’s true, then there is no reason to think it’s true. But aside from what to call it, does it sound like a legitimate dilemma at all? I’m sure I’m missing something here. Any help?

interesting take on media bias

This is the first time that I've heard someone propose an explanation as to why both the left and the right tend to impugn the media. It's long, so here's the interesting part:

Brian Dominick: There is no objective "bad" or "good." The problem with bias in media is not that it exists, since it is inherent. A bias that can be called “good” to one reader will be “bad” to another. Maybe I want a pro-corporate bias in the news, because I am a stockholder or an executive. Why shouldn’t I have news with that bias? At the same time, a blue collar worker might wish to see another bias in the news. If I am a Christian conservative, I will probably want to see a conservative, Christian bias in the news. Why shouldn’t I? As for those who don’t already have biases, where are these people?

The problem with bias, instead, is that it is not stated. News media should be up front about their bias, but they almost never are. All news media outlets should list their influences, be they ideological or institutional. It is probably the case that both the Leftist and Rightist critics of news media are right -- and they are saying almost entirely different things. (Mind you, when I say Left I mean left of liberal. You'll almost never hear liberals complaining about the news media because, frankly, it's just about right for them much of the time, with the exceptions of Fox News, The New York post and AM talk radio, which pretty much no one contends are "leftist"or even liberal.)

The Left says there are institutional pressures--mostly having to do with corporate ownership and sponsorship, plus affluent audience bases in order to sell advertisements at higher premiums, etc.--that inexorably push all media in rightward direction. Leftists say the pressure is on corporate media outlets to be pro-capitalism, pro-markets and pro-profits, as well as tailored toward upper middle income brackets and above, or extremely massive popular markets below those brackets. How could they not be?

Reliant as it is on wealthy stockholders, sponsors and underwriters and their markets, how could the media be anything but generally favorable to those interests? Corporations and the government would not sponsor news media hostile to their interests -- they would fire any producers or editors who did not toe a pro-corporate line in the newsroom.

Meanwhile, the Right points out that most journalists are liberals, at least socially, and that is almost certainly true. They keep much media coverage to the left of conservatism, but even if they were so inclined, their owners and sponsors keep them from pushing anywhere to the left of liberalism, which has historically proven unsafe territory for the status quo of any society. That's why on so many stories that have only a modest effect on the corporate bottom line, such as gay rights and abortion, there is often a discernible liberal bias in the mainstream. If these stories aren't threatening to profits and market share, let the reporters have some leeway. Throw them a bone.

This all generally maintains a liberal bias at many institutions -- a bias that can be mislabeled as "leftist" and decried by the far Right -- which just so happens to perfectly serve elite interests. While the media are cow-towing to corporations (largely by being corporations themselves, remember!), conservatives are making largely convincing cases to the public (and using extraordinary funding to do this), that the media are something those critics call "leftist." By proving that the media are in fact largely liberal--as if liberal equals leftist--they convince a great many Americans that the media are too liberal, even fringe. Any leftist who stops to think about the matter would probably agree: the media are too liberal, indeed! Oddly, about half the recognized political spectrum lies to the left of liberal.

What is really strange is how this debate always boils down to the bias of journalists, which puts even decent journalists on the defensive, instead of about the bias of institutions. Corporate conglomerates, unprecedented in their massiveness and social power, are behind the news we consume every day. Yet somehow we manage to get distracted into this debate about whether the journalists themselves are biased?

There's an 800 pound gorilla in the room with the reporter, but we focus on the reporter. Is it really conceivable that these giant corporations are leaving their public interface--their power to influence the public and write history--in the hands of the reporters at the very bottom of the hierarchy? Are we really so naive as to think corporations wouldn't in any way take advantage of the opportunity to use such power in their own interests?

Here we go

Let the world love fest begin.

Oddly funny links

These have been going around the office and are pretty funny in a mesmerizing sort of way:

http://www.cryingwhileeating.com/

http://dailydancer.com/

another good book

A good companion piece to the Jeffrey Sachs book that I plugged a while back is Samantha Power's pullitzer prize winning book A Problem from Hell: America in the age of Genocide. It charts both the many cases of genocide in the twentieth century and the evolution of American foreign policy vis a vis genocide, which has essentially been to complain a lot.
The End of Poverty and A Problem from Hell combine to do a pretty good job of showing how incredibly fucked up human beings are. I am pretty much unequivocally in the Pax Americana camp at this point. For all those parents of soldiers who would flip out if we sent their kids to, god forbid, stop a genocide, I say Get OVER IT! That's the job they signed up for, and I'm sure the soldiers would rather risk their lives for a noble cause than to secure the pocketbooks of CEO's.
The Armenians, the Jews, the Tutsis AND the Hutus (they alternately slaughtered each other), the Cambodians, the Kurds, the Bosnians.....sorry bout ya, can't piss off Mr. and Mrs. Apple-pie. They might vote for the other guy next time.

Academic open-mindedness

CUNY’s school of education has actually codified the institutionalized ideological discrimination that now pervades academia:

The School of Education at the CUNY campus initiated last fall a new method of judging teacher candidates based on their "dispositions," a vogue in teacher training across the country that focuses on evaluating teachers' values, apart from their classroom performance.
Critics of the assessment policy warned that aspiring teachers are being judged on how closely their political views are aligned with their instructor's. Ultimately, they said, teacher candidates could be ousted from the School of Education if they are found to have the wrong dispositions.
"All of these buzz words don't seem to mean anything until you look and see how they're being implemented," a prominent history professor at Brooklyn College, Robert David Johnson, said. "Dispositions is an empty vessel that could be filled with any agenda you want," he said.
Critics such as Mr. Johnson say the dangers of the assessment policy became immediately apparent in the fall semester when several students filed complaints against an instructor who they said discriminated against them because of their political beliefs and "denounced white people as the oppressors."

Speaking of Jesus

For whatever reason, Joe’s last post reminded me of an experience I once had that I hadn’t thought of for a while. Several years ago I became friends with a newly converted Christian. She had several friends who were also Christian, though more forcefully than herself. And, at the time, she was dating someone who was also a very devout Christian.

Given the Christian theme among my new friends I decided to attend church with them on a semi-regular basis just to see what the experience was like. Overall, my church experience was a mixture of boring ceremonial procedures, insightful commentary on humanity, not so insightful commentary on humanity, deeply moving music (sound more than lyrics) and an invigorating sense of connection among people.

But what I remember most vividly was the end of church, wherein we were told to hold hands with our neighbor and simultaneously recite 5 things to each other at the cue of the pastor. I only remember one of the lines, which was, “I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord Savior,” or something close to that. I always held their hands, but never spoke the lines. I couldn’t because I didn’t believe them, much less understand what they meant specifically. The expression on some of my partners’ faces was one of shock as I looked them in the eye and remained silent after each of the cues, leaving them the sole participant in a one-way interaction. After the recitations they almost always drew me closer to them, usually putting an arm around me, and would ask in a concerned tone, “Why weren’t you speaking?”. Then came the hard part. I had to be honest, so I told them, somewhat timidly, that I don’t believe that Jesus is my savior and that I don’t really understand Christianity. Then their jaws would drop, they’d pull me even closer to a full-on hug, and would tell me in a very consoling tone that it was okay not to understand. My belief will come in time and that they’ll be praying for me. One woman even cried.

I went to church for a majority of the Sundays that summer. Looking back, they were a strangely intense set of experiences through which I learned more about the emotional effect of ideological isolation than about how to be a good person.

evangelicals saving the day

In contemplating what I want to spend the majority of my life doing, I've sort of settled on trying to improve the lives of people whose lives are really hard. The only way that's going to happen in a sustainable way in this century is if the U.S. government starts giving away more money. And the only way that is going to happen is if politicans' constituents allow them or force them to open up the governments coffers a little wider. Like many people who have read the Bible and have taken to heart the teachings of Jesus, I have long been dissappointed by the fact that evangelicals have chosen to focus on issues of sexuality and reproduction for a poltical agenda rather than concern for the poor and the oppressed. But, in contemplating specific career paths, in the back of my mind I wondered if I couldn't find a way to try to steer the evangelical agenda toward a more economic focus, one that still had a clear Biblical and spiritual grounding. If that could be done, global development would have a real chance of becoming a high priority for the U.S. government.

If David Brooks (conservative columnist for the NYT) is right, this might actually be happening. At the risk of hyperbole, this could be one of the most important political shifts in history.

Sad Day for Europhiles

For years numerous experts on various NPR programs such as MarketPlace have preached the inevitability of Euro dominination. "Sky high" trade and fiscal deficits and general animosity towards the US was supposed to perminantly put the greenback back behind the Euro where it belongs. Sorry, doesn't look like it's going to happen because the Euopean Union constitution is going down.

MP3 Playaz

My job is pretty sweet, because I have around 2 hours everyday to read while the kid I work with takes a nap. Unfortunately, these potentially tranquil and intellectually stimulating hours are consistently filled with the incessant harping of my gossip hungry co-workers. I would like to shut out their innane banter with some music, so I have decided to purchase some sort of MP3 player. I'm probably going to buy the 4 gig Ipod mini, but I heard that they don't have a random option. Is that true? Some of the non-apple ones I looked at had an FM tuner, so I could listen to the radio as well as my tunes. Does the ipod have that option?

I thought about the shuffle, but I figure I might as well get something a little more tweeked out. At the same time, I don't really feel the need for something that can hold a million songs.

I guess I'm wondering if there are non-itunes mp3 players that would give a better bang for the buck. Any advice?

Bias

An understandable misconception from my previous comments is that I think bias in the media is inherently wrong. In actuality I think bias is a natural and inescapable part of having beliefs. Any journalist with half a brain and an education better than Dan Rather’s will have a healthy load of biases by the time they get a real audience. My problem with bias in the media is where it manifests itself in news sources which portray themselves as “objective”. Too much news is opinion masquerading as fact. While the inherent conflicts of interest within the 4 or 5 major MSM conglomerates and simple laziness can be blamed for a lot of MSM inaccuracies, the fact that the lion share seem to favor one side of the political spectrum demonstrates that the problem goes beyond random error.

Several previous posts on the issue of media bias suggested that since everyone is somewhat biased that the measure of bias is hopelessly subjective and not empirically identifiable. Fortunately we’re not dealing with the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle here. In the dark old days under the fairness doctrine conservative groups, in an effort to demonstrate empirically that news stories were not being reported fairly, began to simply count the number of times individuals were identified as conservative vs. liberal. While it’s easy for MSM news source to dismiss such studies as “unscientific” and ideologically motivated rather than address the actual validity of the charges, there have actually been a few studies within the hostile realm of academia. “A Measure of Media Bias” by two political science professors from UCLA and the University of Missouri found that the overwhelming majority of MSM news sources show a “strong liberal bias”.

Well I suppose that even the data in empirical studies can be skewed to suit the author, so lets move on to more specific examples:

Here’s an example of a story from Reuters detailing the outcome of the investigation of the Italian Journalist who was shot at by American solders that was modified by the LA Times to shift blame onto the US. Central to establishing culpability in the issue was the speed at which the Italian vehicle was traveling. The Italians attested that they were traveling at a “normal speed”, 25-30mph while US soldiers testified the vehicle was driving in excess of 50mph. The LA Times left the Reuters article intact minus this slightly important sentence:

CBS news has reported that a U.S. satellite had filmed the shooting and that it had been established the car carrying Calipari was traveling at more than 60 mph per hour [sic] as it approached the U.S. checkpoint in Baghdad.

The net result is that instead of revealing that Giuliana Sgrena is a lying commie, the article presents the outcome as far more negative to the US military than it really was.

ABC News’ Terry Moran had this admission of Bias in explanation for Newsweek’s Koran flush story error:

There is, Hugh, I agree with you, a deep anti-military bias in the media. One that begins from the premise that the military must be lying, and that American projection of power around the world must be wrong. I think that that is a hangover from Vietnam, and I think it's very dangerous. That's different from the media doing it's job of challenging the exercise of power without fear or favor.

I’m sure the whole Koran – sorry “Holy Qu’ran” since we’re talking about Newseek – thing doesn’t need rehashing but it is worth nothing that the pressures of the intensely competitive news market which is always cited as the cause for blunder such as this one didn’t seem to be a factor when Clinton was in the White House. The same editor responsible for pushing a highly damaging story to the Bush administration with little regard for the consequences and facts showed complete restraint when presented with the Isikoff piece which first revealed the existence of Clinton’s relationship with Lewinsky -- "there were huge stakes if it was wrong." After letting Newsweek get scooped by Drudge he still didn’t learn his lesson and also spiked a story on Katherine Willey that allowed Newsweek to be scooped by 60mins. Embarrassing a self-destructive, hedonistic relic of the 60’s is “huge stakes” while causing the deaths of 16 people and further damaging the image of the US abroad can’t be anticipated or avoided?

I’m sorry but anyone who’s not Dan Rather could have asked and answered the blindingly obvious questionL

“Why is it news worthy that the “Holy Qu’ran” is flushed down the toilet as opposed to an issue of our shitty magazine?”

Answer: Because a lot of people with a shockingly low regard for human life who we’re trying to get to chill out consider it sacred.

I find it fantastically unbelievable that a man with an Oxford education with intelligence described by his peers as “laser-like” wasn’t completely aware of this reality. Instead I think it was a half hearted attempt to tear open the wound of Abu Ghraib as a means of discrediting the current non-democratic administration.

To reiterate, I don’t believe there is anything wrong with ideology in the media, it just needs to be acknowledged. The increasingly transparent attempts to insert an agenda into the news has caused overall trust in the veracity of the news media to fall from 72 to 49 percent in the last 17 years. MSM is ailing and will not recover until it acknowledges that it is no longer an accurate reflection of reality. It must do this by either acknowledging it’s institutional bias so consumers can apply the correct filters or by truly seeking editorial and journalistic diversity.

Goodbye 31

One of the great heroes of my life played his last game tonight as the Pacers lost their series against the Pistons. Reggie Miller is now retired, and I have no more reason to watch basketball.

interesting documentary

I recently saw a documentary called The Weather Underground about the 60's leftist militant organization called the Weathermen. It was very well-done, if a bit too sympathetic to the weathermen.

It raises a lot of good questions, though, about what constitutes ethical behavior in a world where large forces effect large numbers of lives, sometimes in very negative ways. It also raises good questions about the ethics and the strategic effectiveness and ineffectiveness of violence.

As someone who believes that situations can potentially arise where the most ethical response involves violence (i.e., as someone who isn't a pacifist), I was forced to confront very tricky questions about the concepts of ethical vs. unethical applications of violence. It seems to me that if one adopts a utilitarian ethic, which governments essentially do when they conduct war, then it is difficult from a purely moral standpoint to condemn those who adopt a similar ethic in oppostion to war, as the weathermen did. In other words, if you support the Vietnam War, in which hundreds of thousands if not millions of innocent people were killed, then you can't very well stand in righteous indignation and shock when a terrorist group blows up a building in opposition to the war.

You can condemn the goal, you can condemn the effectiveness, you can condemn the ideology, but it is difficult to qualitatively condemn the technique of terrorism as immoral while simultaneously supporting the ethical permissability of other forms of violence. Some might argue that conventional military powers don't target civilians directly (at least not according to official policy), but does that really make state sanctioned violence more ethical than terrorism? Is it really worse to intentionally kill 3 people than to unintentionally kill 50,000? Was it immoral for German theologian Dietrich Bonhoefer to attempt to assasinate Hitler?

In a similar vein, I think the film very effectively portrayed the level of dedication that some of these people possessed. Regardless of one's opinion of their goals or their techniques, it is difficult to deny that they were the real deal. One got a real sense of "we're not in Kansas anymore," that these people were willing to change their whole way of life for their cause. I'm not trying to laud them, but only to contrast that palpable sense of dedication with the condition of the modern left--- the oppostion to the Iraq War, for example.

I in no way support what the Weathemen did (although I should note that they only destroyed property; they never killed anybody). At the end of the day, I think that if you make moral allowances for terrorists because you sympathize with their cause, then you can't very well complain when someone from the opposite cause adopts the same technique. I also think they were foolish for abandoning conventional politics and non-violent dissent (as George Will said of interest groups, they want the all the power of political office without having to be bothered with inconveniences like running for office). They were also extremely foolhardy, in that their techniques were not only completely ineffectual, but they were also extremely counterproductive. They, and the rest of the 60's far left, caused such a knee jerk political reaction in main stream America that the Left is still paying the price today.

I was continually reminded throughout the film of the Earlham pie thrower, Josh Medlin. His justifications for his actions were eerily similar to those of the weathermen. As the length of this post suggests, all of these people really get to me, in infuriating, haunting, and humiliating ways. I am at once impressed by their dedication and shamed by my own complacency. They make me wonder what I could really do if I got off my duff and got organized, got radical. At the same time, though, I'm frightened by their extremism, because I know that there but by the grace of God go I. The line between admirable dedication and contemptable extremism is disturbingly blurry.

Intelligent Design

My roommates and I had an interesting discussion yesterday about intelligent design. Ben mentioned an article he’d read in which the author argued that many scientists have failed to realize the growing distinction between ID and Creationism. Apparently ID is far more sophisticated and evidence-based than early Creationism, thus making it more plausible and more science-like.

While I agree that ID may be more plausible than Creationism, I still don’t buy the argument that the complexity of the natural world is evidence of an intelligent creator. Sure it sounds nice, but compared to what? There aren’t any other universes out there we can point to and say, “Now there’s a universe that was created by random chance. See how crude and disorganized it is. Our universe is far too elegant to have been created that way.” Complexity is relative, and with only one universe to study, there is nothing to compare that complexity (or simplicity) to. That’s where the argument falls apart for me.

I’m also interested in the dispute about whether or not ID should be considered a science. Personally I think it shouldn’t since it makes certain claims that the rules of science can’t verify. But that only speaks to where it belongs categorically, not its validity. And the fact that ID advocates push so hard to become a science suggests to me that they aren’t making that distinction and are confusing classification with rank. It’s as if being denied the title of science somehow makes it less compelling and is, in a way, saying that it is a sophomoric form of inquiry. On the contrary, I think that the incompatibility between science and ID is as much a sign of the poverty of science as it is that of ID.

I guess I just think it’s strange that ID advocates stress so much over making ID a science. I would expect them to find strength in the fact that their aim is to discover truths so ultimate that even almighty science can’t bear the whole burden.

Interest-group Conservatives

Slate editor Jacob Wiesberg has an informative summation of the Republican's transition from being haters of "big government" to being "interest-group conservatives". Money quote:

A recent Cato Institute study points out that for the 101 biggest programs that the Contract With America Republicans proposed to eliminate as unnecessary in 1995, spending has now risen 27 percent under a continuously Republican Congress. Likewise, the conservative notion of deregulation has been supplanted by a demand for moralistic regulation, while the demand for judicial restraint has been replaced by pressure for right-wing judicial activism.

Public Broadcasting experiment

Here's an article from the New York Times on the chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (who is a Republican) and his "aggressively pressing public television to correct what he and other conservatives consider liberal bias." Just for the hell of it, I thought I'd ask, when considering your own definition of bias, is there anything about this article that stands out? In the end, I guess I'm less curious about this particular article than I am about how folks delineate bias.

Fearless Freaks

I saw the Flaming Lips Documentary "Fearless Freaks" yesterday, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I believe it's a good movie regardless of whether or not you have prior experience with the Lips, but try this on for size; the first eight minutes of the movie. This seems like a smart move from a "gettin your stuff out there" perspective, so kudos to director Bradley Beesley. I watched this clip just a few minutes ago and got sucked back into the story. Also check out Beesley’s other Okie-centric documentary, Okie Noodling. For the curious but un-initiated, noodling is hand-fishing for catfish, which sometimes weigh upwards of 40 pounds.

A haunting thought

Fareed Zakaria has a review of Tom Friedman's new book The World is Flat in the NY Times. Zakaria raises a good point, one that scares me enough that I try not to think about it. Namely, if countries across the world develop economically, eventually they're going to want some bombs, tanks, and guns. Will our economic interdependence keep us from World War III? That's the standard optimists argument, but Zakaria isn't so sanguine. Here's a quote:

"The largest political factor is, of course, the structure of global politics. The flat economic world has been created by an extremely unflat political world. The United States dominates the globe like no country since ancient Rome. It has been at the forefront, pushing for open markets, open trade and open politics. But the consequence of these policies will be to create a more nearly equal world, economically and politically. If China grows economically, at some point it will also gain political ambitions. If Brazil continues to surge, it will want to have a larger voice on the international stage. If India gains economic muscle, history suggests that it will also want the security of a stronger military. Friedman tells us that the economic relations between states will be a powerful deterrent to war, which is true if nations act sensibly. But as we have seen over the last three years, pride, honor and rage play a large part in global politics.

The ultimate challenge for America -- and for Americans -- is whether we are prepared for this flat world, economic and political. While hierarchies are being eroded and playing fields leveled as other countries and people rise in importance and ambition, are we conducting ourselves in a way that will succeed in this new atmosphere? Or will it turn out that, having globalized the world, the United States had forgotten to globalize itself?"

Did he really say that?

I just saw Pat Robertson (700 club guy and Christian fundamentalist) on George Stephanopoulos's show on ABC. It was delicious. He actually said that Muslims and Hindus are not fit for public office. I was amazed.
I think this is a brilliant approach to the rise of Christian fundamentalism. Bring it out into the open, into the public square, into the main stream media, and let the public see its real beliefs. This is a good idea for two reasons. First, fundamentalism emerged, and has thrived, as a counter-cultural movement. This is true of most religious movements. If you allow it into the mainstream, one of its primary fuels (the moral fervor that comes from being an oppressed movement) will wither. Second, you force people to defend their theologically based public policy agendas with rational argument.....which won't work out well, as Rev. Robertson demonstrated.

on the off chance

I doubt that anybody else besides Andrew and I cares much about the Whitewater debate (my side=whitewater was a desperate but clever right-wing attack on what republicans then saw as a dangerously popular and effective Democratic president. The plan was orchestrated by Newt Gingrich and implemented by Ken Starr, whose primary technique was to leverage Clinton's friends and associates with the threat of prosecution to get them to testify against Clinton, regardless of the truth or falsity of their testimony. And when Clinton came out clean from these approaches (only after many lives lay in ruins), Starr cynically exploited Clinton's sex-life to embarass him, again for obviously political purposes, and these events, at least the sex part, were overcovered by the media). (His side=Whitewater was a legitimate investigation, occasioned by compelling evidence of wrongdoing, carried out in a fair and professional way by Ken Starr, who aggressively but dutifully did his job, who uncovered substantial evidence that Clinton was engaged in criminal behavior, and who prosecuted those crimes that he came across during his investigation. Finally, the media under-covered these events due to their liberal bias.)
If, on the off chance you do care, I found an interesting interview with Susan McDougal, whose husband went to prison and died there, and who herself was inprisoned for refusing to testify against Clinton. In the interest of finding multiple points of view, read her version and decide for yourself if you believe her.

Goodness

There's some lively discussion in the comments section of the "Rover on the Media" post that's worth browsing, if at least, to see what works and what doesn't. I threw the past two posts up with the intent of sparking something, and was pleasantly surprised to see those comments brew. Initially I thought the post full of Drezner links had more to run with, and I put Rove up there mostly because it seemed amusing that this political operator could sound so apolitical (i.e. reasonable).

Of course there's a good chance the quotes tone was entirely the point. As with so many of the administration sound bites, Karl's no doubt had a hand in, it seemed designed to put him just above the fray. Rove is no less shrewd than Clinton (in fact, I'd say he's more), and put into that context, his statment became more interesting. It felt like he was goading me (or you, but mostly the press) into giving that blurb some strained meaning. The actual topic of Media Bias drifted away and became irrelevant (though you probably found some in that very article).

Maybe that's just because I'm biased.

Blogs have drastically changed my outlook on the Mainstream Media (MSM). The tendencies of poorly written material, which poses as news but oozes it's author's opinion, to survive and thrive in certain markets is pretty appalling. When I started looking, I couldn't help but find it everywhere. I don't have any examples, so don't take my word for it. Read your newspapers with a healthy dose of skepticism, then follow up on it. Read stories on the same subject from other publications, take in some undisguised editorial opinion, and think about where you stand.

Blogs make it infinitely easier to do that. On a personal scale, bias has turned into an annoyance, though on a broad, societal scale its presence will always be troubling no matter which side it comes from. In the end, I rarely dwell on it anymore as it hardly seems worth my time. If I'm reading a shitty article, once I become aware of it's shitiness, I know it's time to move on.

This seems as good a point as any to give a question of Joe's some air, and let it breathe:

"It occurs to me that all of the newspapers that Andrew cited as liberal are from liberal areas (new york, chicago, washington). What about the Indianapolis Star, and all of the thousands of newspapers from smaller markets all over the country. The Star's editorial page is much more conservative than it is liberal, and I at least detect a slight conservative edge to its reporting. I wonder if other smaller market papers, particularly in the midwest, are similar?"

It doesn't have to do with bias, but hopefully this article by Andrew Sullivan on "the fundamentalist threat to the conservative coalition" will stir up more conversation. I found the article terribly well done, so please, don't be put off by registering at The New Republic (if you even have to register it will be free) or the article's length. It's worth the while.

A lite kick in the Sachs

What I've read from Jeffrey Sachs can be found if you root around in the following links and find a response he writes to a critique from the Washington Post, which is to say, very little. However I've found some stuff from Dan Drezner that has me curious. He, Drezner, starts a worthy discussion on Sachs' The End of Poverty and has a pretty fair (the impartial kind, not the mediocre kind) review of it in the NY Times. If anything it makes me want to pick up Sachs' book and plug away, it's just that now I believe I'll have some things to think about while I'm reading it.

Speaking of foreign policy-ish books I'd like to read, "The World is Flat" by Thomas L. Friedman looks, and I use the word a little loosely, exciting. For a good review of this book check this from Slate, For an example of a writer wanking with his keyboard in search of a "good clip" see Matt Taibbi battle Friedman’s use of metaphors and completely refuse to engage with a single idea.

Rover on the media

I've read before that Karl Rove doesn't make many appearances outside of stumping for his man, so I found this piece in the Washington Post rather novel. Whatever you think of this guy, he's damned shrewd, so I'd assume most will take anything he says with a grain (or two) of salt. That being said, this quote was what got me: "I'm not sure I've talked about the liberal media," Rove said when a student inquired -- a decision he said he made "consciously." The press is generally liberal, he argued, but "I think it's less liberal than it is oppositional."

Taken at face value, this additude makes whole lot more sense to me than the conspiratorial blatherings I usually come accross on the topic of liberal bias. And, poof!!. Just like that, Rove seems less like he-who-must-not-be-named and more like reasonable human being. Weird.

awesome book

I'm reading an amazing book called The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs, a PH.D economist, now at Columbia, and head of the UN Millenium Development Project. It is blowing my mind. Everyone on the planet, but especially everyone in the United States, should read this book. He very briefly and cogently explains how the world went from fairly uniform poverty across the globe 200 years ago to its current state of vast inequity, a change that coincided with an explosion in global population. He shows how the rich countries got rich and why the poor countries stayed poor, and he shows how some countries have dragged, or are dragging, themselves out of poverty. He disects poverty, showing its different degrees and their distribution throughout the globe. Most importantly, he argues that extreme poverty, the 1 billion people (1/6 of the world) that lives on less than a dollar a day, can be eliminated by the year 2025 if the world's rich countries decide to take the necessary measures, which aren't even that strenuous.
This guy has a great deal of real world experience advising the governments of developing countries, and he has had a great deal of success. He is very much pro-free trade, but he is also very critical of the United States and other rich countries for their failure to prioritize international aid and debt relief. He is neither a starbucks brick-thrower nor an unqualified free-market Milton Friedman economist. In other words, he's awesome. If you have a chance, you owe it to yourself to take a look.

Believers

A lot has been made over the years about the inappropriateness of the religious right using institutions of faith to advance an ideological agenda. This co-opting of a fundamental and arguably necessary component of society to legitimize patently ignorant ideas such as creationism has had some success in causing the adoption of these ideas by parts of society but only at very high costs to the host institutions. Each time the religious right succeeds in getting "evolution is a theory" stickers on textbooks the event is rightly accompanied by loud and frequent discrediting by the media.

What hasn't been adequately challenged is the left's co-opting of another fundamental component of society. A recent study revealed that nationally 72% of college/university faculty identify themselves as being liberal while only a scant 15% identify themselves as conservative. While many college professors keep ideology outside of the classroom an increasing number do not. This has had a chilling effect on the free exchange of ideas keeping many that have been long discredited in circulation. The product of an educational institution unwilling to submit its curriculum to the rigors of challenge is ignorance.

Parents of soon-to-be college students are not blind to this and are becoming alienated by the pseudo-intellectual wankery that's now passing as curriculum in some colleges. As a left leaning college among left leaning colleges, Earlham is particularly susceptible to the culture of ignorance that can form in the absence of intellectual diversity. While the administration knew it needed to present a united front in condemning the 'pie' incident the reality of faculty opinion is anything but. Its clear many professors at the school believe their mastery of their discipline and their perspective of reality is so unassailable that subjecting their world view to dissenting opinion is at best a waste of time.

This is best demonstrated by SOAN professor Lyn Miller:
"Why would a Quaker college with a commitment to peace and non-violence invite a speaker who has been instrumental in building consensus for war to campus?" She ridiculed the notion of a need for dialogue with figures like Kristol. "Kristol has far more power by virtue of his access to the media and had a far less restricted platform for expression of his ideas than did anyone else in the room...Listening to Kristol...is akin to teaching you to sit quietly in kindergarten."
Martin stressed the importance of 'translation' of the act, referencing her research on social movements, "[which] attempts to read movements not from the center, from those who direct and speak for the movement, but from acts carried out by those who cultivate space at the limits of social movements...acts that generate disagreement and demand translation."

It's ironic that after long being critical of the dogma organized religion demands unquestioning acceptance of, academia is now producing its own.

Correction: Dan pointed out that I attributed the above quote to the wrong SOAN professor. The quote was from Earlham SOAN professor Jo Ann Martin. As for my interpretation of her comments regarding 'translation' I think she was simply saying that she believes that extremists are necessary to expand what ideas the mainstream finds acceptable to allow the center to shift. Stating the obvious with jargon just makes it easier for it to be mistaken for profundity.

my new alma mater

After much deliberation, I've settled on the home town favorite, Indiana University, for grad school. I'll be getting a Masters in Public Affairs, concentrating in international affairs/african studies and economic development. I may try to do another degree after the MPA at IU or somewhere else (which won't be a big deal, since it's incredibly cheap for me at IU), or I might do peace corp, or maybe I'll just start working.....there's a novel idea. I want to work on humanitarian/development/crisis management issues in developing countries, probably in Africa. A lot of places there need a lot of help, and at least some places speak English. And so what if I don't speak any of the hundreds of native tribal languages. Neither does anyone else in the U.S., so it's not a great disadvantage. Latin American development would be a bit tougher to get into, cause my spanish is very bad, and a lot of folks in the U.S. speak it very well. I may very well decide that I don't want to spend my life travelling around to far-away places, in which case my MPA degree would give me enough flexibility to do different kinds of work (domestic government, non-profit management, fundraising, politics, etc).

Why am I writing a post about this? Because I've been obsessing about it for 5 months! And listing my reasons helps build my confidence that I'm making a good decision.

Pie continued

I just want to vent some more about this pie incident. It really pisses me off on many levels, so many that I don't even really know where to start. In fact, it pisses me off that I have to be pissed off about it. I don't want to feel sorry for Bill Kristol, and I sure don't want to have to admire his poise and perseverance, but the pie thrower has put me in that position. As Michael Wood says in his recent Word article (which is usually found online, but for some reason the server's down), I never thought I'd be caught dead clapping for Bill Kristol. (There are many other good responses to the pie incident in the recent edition of the Word, as well as some idiotic ones).

Yes, there are many things that bother me about it: the laziness, the idiocy, the damage to my and every Earlhamite's reputation, the obvious counter-productiveness, the egregious liberal hypocrisy. But more than anything, it's the self-righteous arrogance of the act that makes me seethe, that makes me visualize myself kicking the pie thrower in sensitive areas.

Bill Kristol is not Ann Coulter. He is an experienced political operative and journalist who very seriously advocates conservative policy and ideology. He has connections and experience at the highest levels of government, and his opinions are grounded in these experiences. I want to say to the pie thrower and to his far-left allies, "Isn't it possible that this guy might know something that you don't? Do you really think, in your infinite wisdom derived from your 20-odd years of life, none of which was spent actually making policy decisions, that you have the intellectual and moral clout to interrupt a legitimate presentation of ideas? Don't you understand, you sniveling, lazy, self-absorbed idiot, that fully HALF this country thinks that you are completely full of shit and that the guy on stage is right? Are they all morons? Have they all been brainwashed?

I can't wait to throw a pie in Walter Wink's face. When I'm criticized, I'll be happy to downplay my inappropriate behavior by noting how pacifism is an insidious, immoral philosophy that slavishly stands by while innocent people are killed, just as many people defend the pie thrower by criticizing Kristol as an imperialist war-monger. Ask the Iraqi Kurds who's more of a purveyor of death, Bill Kristol or an anti-war activist?

Ann Coulter is an inflammatory moron who doesn't deserve my attention. When she came to Earlham, I didn't go see her. I had that right, just as the pie thrower had the right to stay home. People in the audience had that right too, and they chose to listen instead. The pie-thrower violated their right to make that decision, and he should be punished for it.

If you want to change the world, you have to be smart and you have to work your ass off for it. The pie-thrower and his ilk, in addition to being wrong, are lazy. (That's not to say that Bill Kristol is right, but at least he has put his money where his mouth is and has worked to actualize his moral vision). I'll fight both groups tooth and nail; at least with the pie-throwers, I know I'll win.

Super Sketchy

Clinton's former National Security advisor found guilty of "not inadvertently" walking off with and shredding classified material.

Earlham Drudged

If I experience any more shadenfreunde I'm going to burst.

Karl Rove has a drug problem

How else do you explain how the Republican party stupidly, stupidly jumped head over heels into a lose-lose situation that now allies them with Jessie Jackson!?! Yes, it's an absolute freak show that Terri has all the lights on but no one's home but does that really mean you need to flush pretty much all classic liberal (libertarian) ideas down the crapper? Republicans give me the supply side economics and almost indescriminant use of force I crave, but cramming government into the realm of morality is not cool.

UPDATE: These are the classy folks Bush and the GOP sold the farm for.

sick and tired

I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.

First CBS now ABC? Thank God for GE

The same guys who recently brought CBS to it's knees are taking a keen interest in another potential phony document ostensibly created by democrats to discredit Republicans. This case isn't remotely as clear- cut as the National Guard docs, but there seems to be enough evidence to suggest that something fishy is going on. Is the MSM really this biased, dumb or both?

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/2005_03.php#009953

First, an alert reader pointed out that the copy of the memo that was leaked to a left-wing web site does not quite match the "exact, full copy of the document" as quoted by ABC News. ABC News identified four errors in the document, each noted with a (sic). The first such error is in the very first word, a misspelling of Terri Schiavo's name. (Interestingly, ABC did not note as an error the fact that the memo got the number of the Senate bill wrong.) But in the scanned version of the memo itself, as now leaked to the web, three of the four typographical errors have been corrected. So, what is going on? Is the memo now being presented as authentic one that was fabricated or, more likely, cleaned up after the fact? Second, our Washington sources tell us that a number of Republican Senators say they did not receive, and have never seen, the memo. This contradicts the implication that the memo is some kind of official Republican document that was circulated to all Republican Senators.Third, the only clear evidence as to the origin of the memo is that it was circulated by Democratic staffers. Tom Maguire, author of Just One Minute, wrote to point out this story from yesterday's New York Times: As tensions festered among Republicans, Democratic aides passed out an unsigned one-page memorandum that they said had been distributed to Senate Republicans. "This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue," the memorandum said.So the memo has been traced to a group of Democratic staffers. What evidence is there that its origins go back any farther? None, that we're aware of.

Something completely different

I still think Bobby Knight is the greatest, congrats to Texas Tech for making it to the Sweet 16!

It's difficult to describe in mere words, but this clip makes me terribly nostalgic for some reason.

White House VNR?

I heard a story about this on NPR and then my bro mentioned he read about it in the New York Times. I searched every which way on Google, and couldn't find any genuine footage from these things. If anyone can point me in the right direction I would be thankful.

I should note, that I find it strange that I can't find this stuff. It would seem that if it is so controversial, and improper, the footage would be widely available. Is this reason to be skeptical?

Paul Krugman Gotcha

As many of you may already know, Paul Krugman is one of my least favorite people. Ever since Bush got elected he’s written books and columns in the NYTimes that breathlessly foretell a grim future where the US dollar collapses like the Argentinean peso because of the “unjust” tax cuts. Well those tax cuts which certain media outlets would like to portray as completely discretionary might be the biggest factor behind the current economic growth we’re now seeing. As this guy will likely be as close as progressives will get to winning a Nobel in Economics it should come as no surprise that virtually everything Krugman has written over the last 5 years has been completely wrong.

enjoy:
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2005/03/happy_anniversa.html

Roll the tape from March 11, 2003, please; his lead:

With war looming, it's time to be prepared. So last week I switched to a fixed-rate mortgage. It means higher monthly payments, but I'm terrified about what will happen to interest rates once financial markets wake up to the implications of skyrocketing budget deficits.

Well. Per the Federal Reserve, I see that mortgage rates were 5.67% on March 7, and 5.61% on March 14, 2003.

Today, despite the war, financial markets continue to slumber - as of March 3, 2005, the Federal Reserve tells me that fixed rate mortgages were at 5.79%. Robert Samuelson puzzled over this a few days back.
Perhaps the Earnest Prof is a bit stronger when forecasting equities? Let's check his stock market call of June 20, 2003; with the S&P 500 closing at 994.7 on June 19, 2003, Krugman wrote this:

The big rise in the stock market is definitely telling us something. Bulls think it says the economy is about to take off. But I think it's a sign that America is still blowing bubbles — that a three-year bear market and the biggest corporate scandals in history haven't cured investors of irrational exuberance yet.
Or, to put it another way: it's hard to find any real news to justify the market's leap. Instead, investors seem to be buying stocks because they are rising — which is pretty much the definition of a bubble.

As of this writing on March 4, 2005, the S&P is at 1221, up 11 on a good jobs report.

Would they rather rule in Hell…..?

Over the past few weeks I’ve been chagrined at the “unspinnably” good news coming out of the Middle East. So irrefutable is the progress that even the New York Times editorial page can’t find a way to knock it. Despite this, there seems to be a sizable contingent on the left that still wants to minimize any progress that has been made, dreads the accelerating democratization of many Arab nations and wants nothing more than the US to fail in potential future endeavors in Iran and Korea.

Here’s a transcript from a recent Daily Show interview with Clinton Aide Nancy Soderberg about a book she wrote with contributions from Clinton and Albright.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110006362

Stewart: He's gonna be a great--pretty soon, Republicans are gonna be like, "Reagan was nothing compared to this guy." Like, my kid's gonna go to a high school named after him, I just know it.

Soderberg: Well, there's still Iran and North Korea, don't forget. There's hope for the rest of us.

Stewart: [crossing fingers] Iran and North Korea, that's true, that is true [audience laughter]. No, it's--it is--I absolutely agree with you, this is--this is the most difficult thing for me to--because, I think, I don't care for the tactics, I don't care for this, the weird arrogance, the setting up. But I gotta say, I haven't seen results like this ever in that region.

Soderberg: Well wait. It hasn't actually gotten very far. I mean, we've had--

Stewart: Oh, I'm shallow! I'm very shallow!

Soderberg: There's always hope that this might not work.

And another attempt by Matt Yglesias to minimize the signifigance of Lebanon's shift towards democratic self rule:

I don't think that's a reason not to hope for the emergence of real democracy in Lebanon, but it's a bit of a sticky situation. More to the point, there simply doesn't seem to me to be any major geopolitical windfall we could possibly reap from any outcomes in Lebanon. It's a country that's very important to Syrian interests, pretty important to Israeli interests, and not really important at all to the United States. It just happens to be kinda-sorta near the strategically important Persian Gulf region. But nothing really bad has happened to us thanks to Syrian control, and nothing really good will happen to us if it ends.

Video-Blogging... of a sort

This is the abreviated version of spiel I have been storing up for a while and plan to elaborate upon soon. In an effort to easily and effectively distribute media, I came accross a website called Internet Archive. It is exactly what it sounds like, and opens up some very interesting conceptual doors for the average Joe, which I will prattle-on about later. For now, check this out. It's viewable on Quicktime and features Mark (in front of the camera) and I (behind the camera) testing our mettle.

Schadenfreunde

For most of my childhood, growing up near Madison, WI meant hearing weekly sermons (daily if I listened to WPR) about how much better certain European nations were for having social programs and economic regulations not present here. Repeated mentions of 10%+ unemployment and stagnant GDP didn’t matter – to these Europhiles some maddeningly inconsistent and subjective concept of “quality of life” was all that mattered. During my last visit over Christmas to extended family who live in a neighborhood festooned with signs warning about the risks of angering the neighborhood “eco-team” if unsatisfactory recycling takes place, I was lectured on how irresponsible US social and fiscal policies are in comparison to the EU’s. Well, I’m glad I’ll probably live to see their positions proven otherwise.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn27.html

CIA analysts predict the collapse of the EU within 15 years. I'd say, as predictions of doom go, that's a little on the cautious side.
But either way the notion that it's a superpower in the making is preposterous. Most administration officials subscribe to one of two views: a) Europe is a smugly irritating but irrelevant backwater; or b) Europe is a smugly irritating but irrelevant backwater where the whole powder keg's about to go up.
For what it's worth, I incline to the latter position. Europe's problems -- its unaffordable social programs, its deathbed demographics, its dependence on immigration numbers that no stable nation (not even America in the Ellis Island era) has ever successfully absorbed -- are all of Europe's making. By some projections, the EU's population will be 40 percent Muslim by 2025. Already, more people each week attend Friday prayers at British mosques than Sunday service at Christian churches -- and in a country where Anglican bishops have permanent seats in the national legislature.
Some of us think an Islamic Europe will be easier for America to deal with than the present Europe of cynical, wily, duplicitous pseudo-allies. But getting there is certain to be messy, and violent.
Until the shape of the new Europe begins to emerge, there's no point picking fights with the terminally ill. The old Europe is dying, and Mr. Bush did the diplomatic equivalent of the Oscar night lifetime-achievement tribute at which the current stars salute a once glamorous old-timer whose fading aura is no threat to them. The 21st century is being built elsewhere.

Jimmah!!!

It still blows me away when even steadfast Republicans respond with “well he was a good man” when discussing the ineptitude of the Carter administration. I’m absolutely amazed at how he’s managed to transform losing badly into political sainthood. He won the Nobel prize and now he’s even getting a sub named after him.

Do you think the Navy knows about this? Screw Soviet expansionism Jimmah needs to win!!!

Soviet diplomatic accounts and material from the archives show that in January 1984 former President Jimmy Carter dropped by Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin's residence for a private meeting.
Carter expressed his concern about and opposition to Reagan's defense buildup. He boldly told Dobrynin that Moscow would be better off with someone else in the White House. If Reagan won, he warned, "There would not be a single agreement on arms control, especially on nuclear arms, as long as Reagan remained in power."
Using the Russians to influence the presidential election was nothing new for Carter.
Schweizer reveals Russian documents that show that in the waning days of the 1980 campaign, the Carter White House dispatched businessman Armand Hammer to the Soviet Embassy.
Hammer was a longtime Soviet-phile, and he explained to the Soviet ambassador that Carter was "clearly alarmed" at the prospect of losing to Reagan.
Hammer pleaded with the Russians for help. He asked if the Kremlin could expand Jewish emigration to bolster Carter's standing in the polls.
"Carter won't forget that service if he is elected," Hammer told Dobrynin.

PHDeeze nuts

I ran across this article today. It's a little supplemental information to my rant about jobs a few months ago. I'm glad I decided to stay out of academia.

Y'all should really read it. It's good.

U.S. Tsunami aid

Bush has increased America's relief pledge by $600 million for nations affected by the December tsunami, making the total amount of aid $950 million. That combined with the estimated $800 million given from private sources is nothin' to sneeze at.

Similarly, I'd wager it's good news that the EU has decided to alter its tariff "preferences". This quote, was telling:

British charity Oxfam welcomed the move, but warned that more action was needed.

"The European Commissions decision to bring forward a new system of trade preferences for poor countries will help reduce poverty by improving market access, but the gains will be limited as many protectionist measures persist," the aid agency said in a statement.

Hmmnn. Improving market access helps developing countries? You don't say!? Protectionist measures on the part of rich, powerful countries, harm struggling economies? Sounds like Oxfam may have figured it out, now it's our turn. The Daily Times of Pakistan frames it thus:

There is also need to keep an eye on how much of the trade relief requested by the tsunami-affected countries will take effect. Sri Lanka, which lost nearly all its coastal fishing fleet, requested tariff relief for its textile and apparel exports. Thailand and India have done the same regarding shrimp exports. But the requests have already triggered fierce opposition from US textile manufacturers and shrimp farmers unhappy at being asked to open their markets further. Any change in import tariffs would require congressional approval, and Congress is hesitant to provide trade assistance to tsunami victims. Given the clout of the textile industry in Congress, any effort to extend trade relief will meet with fierce opposition.

If goading had anything to do with the U.S. increasing the sheer dollar amount given, perhaps it's time to consider charging congress and the President with the task of purging existing subsidies and the like. Trade policy that puffs up failing industries at the expense, in this case, of fishermen and textile workers half-a-world away (trying to get by on comparatively little) trying to recover from arguably the worst natural disaster in history is stupid. Axing said policies will do more good than cash chucked around higglty-piglty (though, by all accounts we're doing better at giving money this time than ever before). Just think, we get to help folks annnd buy cheap shrimp and clothing. Ohh, the invisible hand of capitalism...

I'm game (so far)

I found this article from "Reason", a libertarian monthly magazine and website, about the case for Social Security privatization. An interesting point: "The Democrats object that allowing workers to put some of their payroll taxes in personal accounts will worsen Social Security's financial condition, since the diverted money would not be available to pay benefits for current retirees. Although much depends on the final details of the plan and the number of people who participate, the administration estimates that making up the difference would cost $754 billion during the next decade.

But this cost will be offset over the long term by lower demands on payroll taxes, as future retirees draw more on their own accounts and less on standard benefits. Another way of looking at it is that establishing private accounts simply makes explicit some of the system's existing liabilities. It may not reduce them, but neither does it raise them."

There's reason (heh) enough to be leery of numbers as big as $754 billion coming from this administration, considering the way they sold Medicare reform. But, I'd be happy to give Socoal Security reform a chance simply to buck a system that seems more than a little antiquated. It turns out that FDR, the "father" of social security, supported the idea of voluntary personal accounts in 1935. Money quote: "In the important field of security for our old people, it seems necessary to adopt three principles: First, noncontributory old-age pensions for those who are now too old to build up their own insurance. It is, of course, clear that for perhaps 30 years to come funds will have to be provided by the States and the Federal Government to meet these pensions. Second, compulsory contributory annuities which in time will establish a self-supporting system for those now young and for future generations. Third, voluntary contributory annuities by which individual initiative can increase the annual amounts received in old age. It is proposed that the Federal Government assume one-half of the cost of the old-age pension plan, which ought ultimately to be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans."

There should be no sacred cows where other people's lives are concerned. That Americans are used to Social Security working the way is does is no reason to keep it that way. Ideally, our government has a responsibility to enact it's programs in the most morally and financially efficacious fashion possible (that may sound redundant for some folks). If that means throwing what amounts to a tradition out the window, so be it.

Social Security

Just wondering what you think about Bush’s personal account proposal in conjunction with Social security reform. I think it’s an interesting issue because it’ll eventually affect everyone and even those I know who are under 40 and strongly dislike Bush are all for having more personal control of their retirement $$’s. I think regardless of your political inclinations, the vast majority of people now trust their own decision making over the government’s. Despite this, I'm fairly certain they'd oppose whatever Dubya throws out simply because he proposed it. This sentiment is highly visible in the differences in how the media handled Clinton's efforts of reform and Bush's current proposals -- even though they're both based on the work of Democrat Patrick Moynihan. Are there valid arguments against working on reform now or is it just political posturing?

The Generosity of our Betters

Gee the Europeans sure showed us:

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=66782005

TSUNAMI-struck Thailand has been told by the European Commission that it must buy six A380 Airbus aircraft if it wants to escape the tariffs against its fishing industry. While millions of Europeans are sending aid to Thailand to help its recovery, trade authorities in Brussels are demanding that Thai Airlines, its national carrier, pays £1.3 billion to buy its double-decker aircraft.

How ironic, that’s almost the same amount the EU has pledged to the entire Tsunami affected region. Though I'm sure they're only collecting so they can be even more generous in the future. Just think how generous we could be if we gave the same money over and over!

rank

One of my friends likes to play a game called "rank," where he names things and has people rank them. One popular rank was the following: Favorite Rural America Event: Haunted House, County Fair, Themed Festival, Amusement Park.

The New York Times had an interesting article on global environmental rankings. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/24/science/24enviro.html

I'm still not sure why I'm supposed to be a big fan of the Bush daughters, Andrew. They seem pretty cool I guess.

My computer got this nasty Trojan Horse virus the other day. It really sucked. I had to reinstall windows, and it was a big pain in the ass. Now I'm using the Firefox browser instead of explorer so I can avoid any other viral occurences.

Something we can all agree upon

Now I realize some of you probably aren’t as cool with the whole idea of Bush getting inaugurated again as I am. And I’m also pretty sure many of you probably don’t like Bush’s whole “Freedom can warm you or burn you: Your choice A-holes!” speech as much as I do. But in the midst of all the hand wringing over how “divided” the country is I think it’s important to identify things we can all agree upon. The most obvious: Jenna Bush kicks ass. This became very clear to me this week while I was sick and watching Chasing Liberty while buzzing on Pseudoephedrine. Holy Moses that was a bad movie, but as hard as director Andy Cadiff and the combined resources of Warner Brothers tried they couldn’t make Mandi Moore cooler than real life Jenna. You may not like the president but you can be thankful you have something better than an Alex and Vanessa bore-fest for 4 years. Med-school? Yawn. Here's hoping this term involves some Daisy Dukes and a mechanical bull!

unimportant

It turns out that the colts did not conquer the Massachusetts liberals.

Go Colts!!

I fully expect any of y'all who live in Boston to start working on the sabatauge effort. The Colts will conquer the Massachusetts liberals!

weird, weird, very weird

I just watched the Peter Jackson movie, Meet the Feebles. I have been watching bad, tasteless, gorry, and offensive movies on a fairly consistent basis since I was about 12, and this was one of the most viscerally disturbing things I've ever seen. Like the 20 minute flashback where the frog puppet junkie remembers his experience being caputured in vietnam by the "guks" (which I guess were cats). This whole scene, which alluded to the Deer Hunter when the frog prisoners were forced to play Russian Roulette, was completely straight.
These and other images are going to be popping up when I don't want them for a while. Oh, like the anteater (I guess it was an anteater) who cummed out of his nose. That was a good one.

A break from empathy

I just read this bit on German toilets. Makes me want to take a sitzpinkler.

Not really, 'course. Sitzpinkler is a great word though (not sure if it's "real"). I put "sitzpinkler" in to a Webster's dictonary search, and my eye immediately went to "cysticercoid", which, is oddly entertaining in it's own right (however unpleasant). But when I googled the thing I found out that there's some kind movement or something called stehpinkeln, and a whole lot of other words that made me laugh. I hope you click on the links and are entertained.

More Thoughts on Giving

I’m confused by the issue of what distinguishes an ethical donation from an unethical donation. I believe, like Joe’s last post suggests, that it is the percentage given from one's earnings that matters more than the dollar amount. But even here, it is difficult to clarify what counts as sufficient.

Should we give everything we have so as to compromise our own health? Or should we give everything except what we need to pay our bills and buy groceries? May we save a little bit of money to buy a beer or see a movie, or would that be placing our wants above their needs? Basically, what must we (citizens or governments) sacrifice in order to meet the standards of a morally unobjectionable donation?

lessons about giving from a dead guy

Despite my official abdication of the label "Christian," I do love the Bible. Here's a little classic wisdom from the man, Jesus.

Mark 12:41-44
The Widow's Offering

41Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. 42But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins,[a]worth only a fraction of a penny.[b]
43Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. 44They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything–all she had to live on.”

Amen to that, can I get a halleluia!

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%2012:41-44;%20Luke%2021:2

A Stingy Primer

If yer curious, here's some frame of reference on the U.S. and it's "stinginess".

The San Francisco Chronicle has a brief, decent article on "How much to give" for tsunami relief. Foreign Policy Magazine and the Center for Global Development ranks the rich for 2004 "on how their aid, trade, investment, migration, environment, security, and technology policies help poor countries". Check here for the nitty-gritty of the study, of which this index is perhaps the best snapshot of the actual rankings. According to the FP piece, the US went up in the rankings 13 places due to a new measure of security, changes in how investment is measured, and a consistently improving migration number. I have no idea how much stock to put in this single source, but it seems to be the most repubidable analysis out there (I didn't see much mention of private donation, but then I just scanned the thing). Overall the US was at 7th. Japan was dead last. Currently, the U.S. government is sending around $350 million to countries affected by the tsunami, around $200 million more is coming from private sources. Japan has pledged $500 million in aid. Australia just pledged $1 billion.

As a matter of comparison consider Spain's $70 million pledge, with strings attached.Oh, and don't forget there's a new power structure to the world and it's being evidenced, at least for now, by generosity. Fareed Zakaria has an article to similar effect. India and Thailand are each saying, "thanks, but no thanks," and are turning away this money, again, for now. And China is making a historic break from "stinginess" and helping its neighbors.

These donation numbers are all going to rise, and many promises made with this money will go broken or prove otherwise flawed. The tally of dead and injured won't be made final for weeks (jeezus, maybe months?) and there's a shitload of work to be done. Giving aid is far from being a cut and dry issue and only time will tell how generous or stingy we are being. Either way, if you're not convinced our country doing you service in it's giving, the answer seems simple enough to me, give more of yourself. There are enough reputable charitable institutions out there that would be happy to make use of your contribution.

U.S. aid?

The U.S. gives way, way more money in foreign aid than any other country, but that's mostly because we are way, way richer than most countries. As a percentage of our GDP, we don't give very much. So, even though we give a lot absolute dollars, we could give a shitload more. On the other hand, we give a lot through private charities (which, of course, makes the conservatives as pleased as punch). I'm not sure if giving money to your church counts as giving money to charity or not, but a lot of charities are church-based.
We are also, to quote Charles Krauthammer (which I am not inclined to do), the world's fire department, in that we bear the brunt of the world's military "peace-keeping" missions. So, some might argue that we give a significant amount if we factor in our non-monetary contributions. That doesn't cut it for me. The accusation of stinginess might have been in poor taste, but it's true. More precisely, because of the weak political will of leaders in Washington, no politican or beauracrat has been successful at conveying the message that international development, humanitarian aid, and other forms of crisis intervention are as important to the interests of the U.S. as fighting terrorism. I believe that George Bush, like most Americans, is a good person whose heart truly aches for the incomprehensible destruction in Asia. But after the shock of this event, after the headlines fade to the second, third, last page, or dissappear, this country will settle back into its blissful ignorance of just how incredibly fucked up this planet is, and we'll feel comfortable about spending our money on bombs and stupid bullshit again.

Happy Holidays & Relief

I had a great time visiting the homeland (i.e., southern Indiana) the past few days, and got back to Beantown just in time to miss a wee snowstorm. I didn't do a whole heck-of-a-lot over the holiday, but then that was part of what made it so nice. If you have any exciting or otherwise interesting tales, by all means share.

In contrast, the past couple days have been horrible for pretty much every country bordering the Indian Ocean. These pictures tell a lot of the story, but having heard the death toll rise from 20 to 50 and now 100 thousand (I haven't seen this one confirmed, but it seems believeable enough), I'm still absolutely stunned.

Amazon is taking donations on behalf of the American Red Cross and they are looking to make a serious difference. Yesterday when I first checked in $115,000 had been donated, this afternoon they're up to 1.8 million. Instapundit points out that it can be fairly mesmirizing to keep refreshing the donation page while looking at the number of people donating and the amount given (I concur, the amount went up $200,000 in the time it took to write this entry). Glenn also notes, "What interested me most about the Amazon phenomenon was how quickly and dramatically it worked, raising lots of money without a lot of overhead." I just donated a few bucks and encourage the rest of you out there to do the same.

P.S. If you'd prefer not to donate to the American Red Cross for whatever reason, but would still like to give something, look through relief funds on the right side of The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami blog.

UPDATE: There's some hullabaloo floating around regarding the U.S. and stinginess with aid money. That is, whether we are more or less stingy than other assortments of generous folk. I find the assertion to be pretty weak on it's face, and inflamitory besides. But if that inspires people to generosity, so be it. I don't see a loser if that's the game. Dan Drezner offers a reasoned, well-linked post thus.

Peter Suber

As Ben mentioned, I'm on sort of a Peter Suber kick. I was amazed by him as a student and am still amazed now purely as a reader. Anyone who has invented six knots, been a professional stand-up comic and taught philosophy is bound to be an interesting person. He has a profound mind, the vocabulary to articulate it clearly, and a knack for writing zingers that are both linguistically elegant and filled with insight. There are a lot of reasons that I find him interesting. But what I find far more fascinating than anything else is his sense of fairness.

I have never met or read anybody who is as willing to engage opposing points of view in as honest a fashion. He doesn't engage opposing arguments specifically to undermine them. On the contrary, he often shows ways to strengthen them that make them more persuasive than they were originally. But it's not a game. I don't think he does this merely to show that his position will remain intact when compared to even the best opposing argument. He does it, I think, in an honest effort to see if there's anything in them that is worth believing. He considers the possibility of having to temper, revise or even reject his own stance based on the points made by the opposition.

I'm a fanatic for this kind of flexibility of opinion. I only wish that I encountered it, and practiced it, more frequently. I recently found a short writing of his called The Clinical Attitude, which better describes the fairness and flexibility that he is an example of.

Good god, it's been ages!

Sorry 'bout that. I have no good explanations for my lack of participation and I'm not particularly interested in sharing the bad ones. Please forgive me if these seem a little on the brief side, but there's only one way to get back into the swing of things, so here goes...

Mark (one of my house/blog-mates) has been reading loads of stuff from Peter Suber's site. Peter was one of our Philosophy Prof's at Earlham College, and a particularly amazing one at that. He has an essay entitled "When we leave our desks" and it was originally a baccalaureate address given at Earlham in 1992. It generally works as a primer on Philosophy and specifically, for me anyway, as a kick in the pants.

My interest in politics has waned a little since about a month before the American election, but real life is always interesting. Since I constantly hear terrible things about what's going on in Iraq, I usually look forward to balancing it out with some optimistic news, Arthur Chrenkoff from the Wall Street Journal abides. This stuff from Spirit of America is pretty neat too.

Karla got me an IPod (20-gig style) for Christmas (we exchanged some gifts early), and I love it. I don't often listen to music through headphones and now hear what I've been missing. This morning I partook of some Magnetic Fields (69 Love Songs), Sufjan Stevens (Greetings from Michigan), and Neutral Milk Hotel (In the Aeroplane over the Sea). And it all has me thinking of splurging on one of these systems (or a variation thereof) from Apple. I have something like this at work, only a couple years old, and the things you can do from creating music, video, and doing photo editing is pretty amazing. Not that you can't do them on a PC, I've simply had much better luck with Mac's in this regard. Robert Rodriguez (another inspiring fella) is up to no good these days filming Sin City, using an HD camera and heavy post-production, but the main reason a filmmaker (especially one as notoriously penny-pinching and efficient as Rodriguez) can do this kind of thing is because of the crazy advances in technology from the past couple years. So it feels like time to either shit or get off the pot.

Oh and Joe, I found this one from Oxblog for you regarding the utility of school.

Ahhh... that's better.

UPDATE: Here's another link, with folks talking about making college mandatory?

my new toy

This is my first post on my new computer. I just bought an HP Pavillion ze4805us notebook. It was sort've used, but just barely. Someone bought it and the hard drive was bad, so HP fixed it and I bought it. It's practically new. It seems to be working alright. It's got an Athlon XP-M processor, 60G hard drive, and 500+ MB or memory. (The guy at circuit city talked me into putting an extra 200 MB of memory on there). I paid 999.00, plus a 100 dollar rebate, which I hope I will get back if I figure out how to do it.
It's got an integrated wireless (like I know what that means), but I guess it means I can get fast internet.
So, those who know about computers, how would you rate my purchase? 1. Joe paid too much for a shitty computer. 2. Joe paid the right amount for a shitty computer. 3. Joe got a good deal on a shitty computer. 4. Joe paid too much for a decent computer. 5. Joe paid the right amount for a decent computer. 6. Joe got a good deal on a decent computer. 7. bla bla bla for an outstanding computer.

musings

Last time I posted something, I was getting drunk. Now I'm hungover. I rocked the GRE. I bent it to my will. I am the man. I just read this thingfrom the NYTimes that made me feel weird. It was all about college and jobs and shit. Our generation, whatever we call it, totally got screwed. It used to be, if you graduated from college, you could basically get a job doing whatever you freakin wanted for a gazillion dollars a year. You didn't have to study something practical. If you had the degree, you were set. Now it all sucks. We pay a hell of a lot more for a lot less utility. Now I'm going to go to grad school, gonna make myself "marketable," but the scary thing is, I'm paranoid that my masters degree won't be sufficient! How fucked up is that! Ok, I get it, I don't have any marketable skills (I'm very good at going to school, but the market is down for professional students). I can read, write, speak, and think better than the average dude, but I've become obsolete. Fuckin A. And then I think about all those poor schmucks who are too dumb for decent jobs but too smart to be retarded and get good benefits. How are they supposed to compete?

Oh, the tears of unfathomable sadness.

Wow, was that gloating? I thought I was being rather amiable with my RNC hit list post. Internally I've been like Cartman tasting the tears of Scott Tenorman . Every time I hear any non-red-stater around me work themselves into a self righteous frenzy over 43 winning I feel all giddy inside. It's like watching a team you hate writhe on the ground in sorrow as you laugh victorious.

YEEESS!!!! YESSS!!! Let me taste your tears! They taste so yummy and sweet!!!!

I'm getting drunk

I'm gettting drunk at the big thanksgiving here in Boston. Although I'm tempted to respond to Andrew's gloating, in the spirit of bipartisanship and, why not, thanksgiving, I'll also give a big thank you for the demise of Arafat. But long live Hilary Clinton (I'd like to be able to afford a life saving operation if I need one)
Now it seems that the big bad fascist U.S. is supporting the quasi-communist challenger in the Ukrainian elections and is lambasting their sketchy elections. Boy, we sure do hate "the people"

Another One Bites the Dust

God it's great being me. I came into work today to find yet another person I despise effectively ruined. Here’s the tally so far:

1.) John Kerry
2.) Terry MCauliffe
3.) Yasser Arafat
4.) Tom Dashle
5.) Kofi Annan
6.) Randy Moss
7.) Dan Rather

Now all I need is Hillary Clinton, Paul Krugman and Robert Reich to have a fateful trip on a Russian airliner together and I’ll be set!!!

UPDATE!!!: Looks like Krugman's discrediting himself with renewed zeal. Come on Robert destiny is calling you! Oh wait, he listened...

Blogger Alchemists

Every so often science makes a discovery so startling that it forces you to see the world differently. These guys have found a way to turn crap vodka that would burn a hole in your stomach into vodka that supposedly tastes better than Ketel One with a Brita pitcher! Why are we pissing billions away on alternative energy research when an affordable single malt scotch could be just few years and an unidentified kitchen appliance away!