- Everything on Body and Soul today about Iraq and Afghanistan is essential reading. Just start with this post and scroll down.
- An interesting Science News article about different voting systems. Basically, the US’s voting system – plurality voting – is arguably the worse voting system of all, if the goal is to have outcomes which reflect the desire of the largest possible number of voters. Alternative systems (not just Instant Runoff) are discussed. Thanks to Jake Squid for the tip.
- The Rittenhouse Review quotes a New York Review of Books article, which points out that CNN created two entirely separate newscasts for the Iraq war – an intelligent one for CNN internatoinal, and a jingoistic one for CNN America. Amazing how blatant these things sometimes are…
- A genuinely excellent Terry Neal op-ed piece on the Jayson Blair “scandal” in today’s Washington Post.
- Via BlueHeron, an February article from the Economist arguing that the GDP per capita difference between the USA and Western European countries is exaggerated by factors irrelevant to real quality of life. For one thing, raw GDP numbers don’t account for the greater amount of leisure time Europeans enjoy; to some extent, Euroworkers choose to spend their productivity on leisure rather than on wealth. For another thing, some things counted in the US’s greater GDP – such as how much we spend keeping folks in prison – don’t really net us a greater quality of life than Europeans enjoy.
- My So-Called Lesbian Life talks about the next big body-mod trend: forked tongues. Even better, she’s got a photo.
- An interesting Haaretz article reports Frank Luntz’s take on how Americans see Israel and Palestine. Mr. Luntz is a republican pollster who has also worked for the Israeli government. (Via Aaron’s Israel Peace Blog).
Luntz warned that, following America’s victory over Saddam Hussein, Israel’s standing in American public opinion has become very vulnerable. […] Most Americans dislike Sharon and believe that neither Israel nor the Palestinians want peace, Luntz continued. Americans, however, want peace now – and they do not care what Israel must sacrifice to achieve it, he said. Thus, for Israel to insist on its rights, he said, will cost it in terms of American public opinion.
Americans, Luntz added, do not want to hear about democracy in Israel. They want to know when the settlements will be dismantled, when the occupation will end and when Israel will recognize a Palestinian state, as well as when the Palestinians will halt terror, when they will finally oust Yasser Arafat and when they will stop educating their children to hate Israel. In short, Americans want to pressure both sides to reach an agreement.
- D-Squared Digest has a fascinating post about how software has made it easy for folks performing multivariate analysis to “data-mine” by simply running the data through over and over, perhaps hundreds of times, until a model is found that makes the data look good. This makes finding significant-looking results easier, while actually making those results meaningless.
- Raznor’s Rants (permalink bloggered) provides this quote (which he got from Atrios and Ezra Klein) about the presidential election:
If you are a Democrat with a compulsion to run for president, this would be a good time to find a detox program for the ambition-addicted. President Bush’s popularity is at Founding Father levels. The Republicans have a cassette full of your doleful prewar words about Desert Storm, ready for media man Roger Ailes to pin to your hide. Meanwhile, Bush’s Warthogs . . . are softening you up from the air, impugning your toughness if not your patriotism. Even if you voted for the war . . . you still have to answer for your party, which opposed it almost en masse. “They’re fair game,” says Ailes.
The good news is, the quote is from 1991.
- Brad Delong discusses an economic theory explaining when slavery and serfdom arises. Really fascinating stuff.
- New Volokh Conspirator Russell Korobkin argues – I think correctly – that it’s perfectly legitimate for Democrats (or Republicans) in the Senate to block judicial nominations merely because they don’t like them politically.
The bilateral monopoly situation (neither side can get a judge appointed without the other) should ensure that either (a) presidents appoint only judges that everyone can live with, or (b) presidents must make concessions on some nominations in order to get their favorite candidates confirmed. Either way, the country gets a more balanced judiciary than it would if the Senate played doormat
- Even if you’re not the sort of person who generally reads judicial rulings for the fun of it, you should go read this very entertaining court opinion (pdf file) by Greg Easterbrook. The case involves a man who claimed to own the copyright on his own name, and wanted to charge the Judge, the prosecutors, and his own lawyer thousands of dollars every time they mentioned his name in court. There’s also an interesting discussion of if judges should demand that spectators in the courtroom remove their hats. (Via The Volokh Conspiracy.)
Easterbrook, by the way, is the same judge who years ago ruled that the MacKinnon-Dworkin anti-porn ordinance was unconstitutional. Although I generally admire MacKinnon, I think Easterbrook made the correct ruling in that case, too.
- I really should get around to adding the new group econo-blog It’s Still the Economy, Stupid to the blogroll.
- Maxspeak discusses the cost of health care and the private sector, including a useful graph. Look for the US aalllllll the way in the upper-right corner of the graph.
- An excellent Mother’s Day post in The Watch on economics, childrearing, spillovers, and motherhood. “Demanding that women shoulder whatever burden of childrearing that their companions don’t voluntarily assume is a disgrace. It’s not just rotten politics, it’s a horrid reflection on ourselves.”
I agree, and I’d add that it’s not just childrearing – its all caretaking. Look at who’s taking care of elderly relatives, for example.
Corso, what caught my eye was: The doctor was worried about my kidneys with what I’m on, and I get…
That particular guy doesn’t do much for me, but I think forked tongues are sexy.
Great Terry Neal op-ed. You’d have to be pretty dumb to plagiarize George Carlin jokes in a major paper, or really want to be caught.
I don’t like forked tongues myself. I once kissed a woman with a tongue stud, that was interesting.
I used to have my tongue pierced. I’d have kept it in if it wasn’t causing my TMJ to be worse. But forked tongues? EWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!
Reading? Does the word “cartoon” mean anything to you?
Yeah, Amp. I mean all this stuff is great but you haven’t posted a cartoon yet this week. Sure, you posted three last week, but come on. I’m in pain here.
I mean, come on! Do we really *need* the sun?
I’ve been in Europe for the past four months (Spain, Italy, and Greece), and standard of living really does seem lower here. People have less time-saving appliances. For example, no one seems to have a dryer, even in Italy.
I’m a lawyer. I don’t need body modification to speak with a forked tongue.
Would you equally cheer the quote if it read like this: “Demanding that men shoulder whatever burden of breadwinning that their companions don’t voluntarily assume is a disgrace. It’s not just rotten politics, it’s a horrid reflection on ourselves”? I agree that people shouldn’t be kept from doing what they want by rigid gender roles, but that doesn’t make it the case that women are held hostage by men who get all of the benefits with none of the costs.
Amy, I think you’ve misunderstood the quote; I think that the quote is talking about the demands made by our social structures.
To read the quote as being about men holding women hostage is… well, it’s a very biased and inaccurate reading of the quote, in my opinion.
But of course, I think women should do an equal share of the breadwinning. I think both these things should be equally divided between men and women (on average; individual couples, of course, have individual preferences).
What that means to me is that society should be organized in such a way to allow people to reasonably combine breadwinning and caretaking, rather than assuming that people will be doing only one or the other.
***”What that means to me is that society should be organized in such a way to allow people to reasonably combine breadwinning and caretaking, rather than assuming that people will be doing only one or the other.”***
Yep. I don’t want to see women helpless to maneuver in the job market, and I don’t want to see men helpless when confronted with a crying child, either. I’m just weird that way.
Info on Levaquin online.