Asymmetrical Information

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Cats and Dogs Frowning Together

The Journal's take on the Harvard Phallus story shows that the Po-Mo P.C. and the Publicly Pious can conspire to be over-sensitive, humourless and waste everybody's time:

Nor is Ms. Keel alone. Diane L. Rosenfeld, a lecturer in women's studies quoted in the Crimson, argued that "women do not need to be reminded of the power of male genitalia." She compared the statue to the Washington Monument and to "missiles."
This is the nub of the problem. To Ms. Rosenfeld and Ms. Keel, the sculpture was obscene not in itself but insofar as it belonged to a category of symbols that suggest male domination. In Athens 2,400 years ago, Ms. Keel's phallus-breaking would have been a desecration. Luckily, she does not live in a phallus-worshiping culture, though she seems to think she does.

So the debate limped along. The Harvard Women's Center offered "feminist perspectives" on the sculpture. Then, on Wednesday, good sense emerged. Mary Cardinale, Ms. Keel's roommate and accomplice, explained her actions. Before doing the deed, Ms. Cardinale, who writes for the campus conservative publication, asked herself what Jesus would do.
In a strange alignment of differing moral views, Ms. Cardinale and Ms. Keel arrived at the same answer. The sculpture had to go.

Wouldn't it have been easier if the university snow removal team had just cleared the whole area?

By the way, I don't know what Jesus would have done, but here's the obligatory concordance search:

Hast thou entered into the treasures of the SNOW? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail...

And he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand hath he hid me, and made me a polished SHAFT; in his quiver hath he hid me...

____________________________

I'm writing something up on the Alterman-Goldberg Fresh Air episode, but I haven't finished it. Perhaps tonight I shall lob it soundlessly into the yawning Friday night-to-Sunday morning void in the blogosphere. UPDATE: Here it is.

update: Noooo, there's no connection between the guests on Fresh Air and the Phallus Post, thankyouverymuch.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Now here's a fascinating site: Classic Novels in Five Minutes a Day. You subscribe, and every day it emails you a bite-sized installment of the book you've selected. I've subscribed to Beowulf, the Age of Innocence, and the Arabian Nights so far.

For those who want more in-depth coverage, try the Online Books Page, which may be the best thing ever. It was there that I discovered, among many other treasures, Stepping Heavenward by Elizabeth Prentiss. For devotees of the mid-Victorian woman's novel, it is a must read, as it is quite possibly the worst one ever written. The author's stilted prose is matched only in her ingenuity in finding afflictions to visit on her protagonist, in the frail hope of making a tragic heroine out of a middle-class housewife in a New England town. Her husband is simply the archetype of all other husbands in Victorian novels, the living, breathing, soft-boiled-egg demanding impersonation of God on earth -- infinitely just, infinitely kind, and totally remote. Really, if you know anything about the period at all, you just can't skip it -- it's more absorbing than a train wreck, although of course, much longer.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

W.M.D-Cups

Here's an interesting thesis:

AM talk—Rush, Dr. Laura, Hannity—targets middle-aged white guys. Surprise: They tend to be conservative. But FM talk—Stern, Joyner, Mancow, Don and Mike in Washington, Tom Leykis in Los Angeles—scores with young men, guys who like their radio on the risqué side, with a bulging menu of sex jokes and a powerful message that this is America and you can do whatever you want. Hint to Democrats: You may not like to admit this, but these are your voters

Yes, they like it raunchy. Most people listen to radio alone in their cars, where no one needs to be PC, where it's still OK to insult women and minorities and foreigners, and no one has to fear being slapped with a harassment charge. And it's OK to chuckle at that coarse humor and still vote Democratic. The PC brigades may find this hard to believe, but shock jocks do quite well with black listeners and with traditional Democratic demographics, such as college graduates and city dwellers. No, Stern and Don Geronimo and Tom Leykis have no interest whatsoever in having Dick Gephardt on the show, at least not unless he's going to remove his pants. And no, they would say, there's no politics on their shows. (Sabo tells DJs who want to be talk-show hosts: "If the topic is national politics, abortion, gun control, death penalty, religion, race, we have no interest. If the topics are movies, TV, personal relationships, your strong personal feelings, stuff about the workplace—things people under 90 talk about, we'd love to hear your tape.") But even if Stern wannabes don't address abortion directly, their daily diet of searingly intimate conversation with callers hits many of those hot-button issues, and they do it almost unfailingly from a left-libertarian perspective—they are classic social liberals.

I'm quite familiar with Howard Stern, as I pop back and forth between his program and NPR as I drive in in the mornings. I also have a passing familiarity with Leykis and Geronimo as they both took a turn as evening drive before WNEW changed format. These days for me it's Fresh Air (AM only now - yuck) or a book on tape in the evening*

I saw the above article first over at the prolific and straightforward Brothers Judd. I want to join Judd in asking:

Is the author of this piece stark staring bonkers?

While I don't object much to the puerile sex talk, and only occasionally jog the dial when the abuse goes over the top, I can't imagine any serious political ideology wishing to claim these guys for their own. It's sort of like saying professional wrestling is the future of the party.

Stern, for instance, often advocates nuking the entire Middle East. While he is never truly serious, this is as close as he gets. He has been consistently critical of Bush for moving too slow. If those demonizing the "warbloggers" are interested in finding a libertarian warmonger, Stern well and truly fits the bill. He has supported Christie Whitman (who named a rest stop on the Turnpike after him) and Governor Pataki. He would shill shamelessly for any official that gets the FCC of his back and, as ever, he admits he would. His sidekick, Robin, votes Republican.

Tom Leykis, as far as I can tell, has one clear theme, paraphrased thus: Women are gold-diggers looking to coerce you into marriage with sex, so they can live a life of ease on your efforts. They care about money and power only. If you understand this, you can use it to your advantage and bang as many as you want without obligation.

I don't know about you, but I see progressive political gold out there on the shock jock streets just waiting to be taken.

Don Geronimo described himself as a Democrat and his sidekick Mike a Republican (interesting compared to the Stern-Quivers axis of neutral). "Mike" is actually incredibly funny, without being nasty. I guess that's why Don is the famous one.

Have at it, I say. I mean it's obvious that making political common cause with any of these shows would be....suicidal.

There is one common theme of these three shows that certainly has universal appeal: Boobs. These shows all capture the power of the unveiled mammory gland, dedicating at least one quarter of the hour to feeding at the nipple. If Music has charms to soothe the savage breast, shock jocks reveal soothing breasts to charm savages. On radio, which makes a lot of sense...

Now if either party can harnass these Weapons of Mass Attraction for their benefit, they could rule the political roost for a lifetime. Or should it be "Massive Weapons of Disruption"?

*By the way, Alterman is on Fresh Air tonight, and I'm going to close this [small] tag this time.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

The Supreme Court just put the kibosh on the reprehensible RICO prosecutions of protesters.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Why are Dogs Such Awful Bigots?

Though it's not something one wants to spread around, the first time my dog saw a black person, he went ballistic. He barked like mad, and when we wouldn't join him in chasing her off (she was a friend of my sister's), he hid under the bed and refused to come out until he was gone. Though he's since made friends with many of my black friends, I know people with dogs that, despite their best efforts, simply go nuts whenever certain races are around. I've heard it argue that this was racism on the part of the owners, but I don't buy it -- in one case, the victim was the owner's fiance. Besides, the people Finnegan barks at are often people I haven't even noticed. This Slate article explains what's going on:

Barring human intent, however, what turns an otherwise sweet dog like Percy into a bigot? Typically, such behavior indicates that the dog was not exposed to the people it now targets during its developmentally "sensitive time"—weeks 3 through 12—when its understanding of the world was formed. "If you take a dog who has never encountered a black man, or someone who has a funny walk, who uses a walker, or has a gimp or a limp, and he sees the first one in his life when he's six months old. … it's going to be a shock," says Dodman. "He's going to think 'Jinx! That's pretty strange! What the heck is that!' They might hide—that's the more fearful type of dog. But if they're a little bit macho"—known in the trade as "fear aggressive"—"they might try and go for it, to try and drive it away. And it's because they're unfamiliar."

But even if unfamiliarity breeds contempt, how does this explain Percy? Whatever the circumstances of his early life, being abandoned in Fort Greene indicated that he was, if not raised by, at least exposed to people of color. In such a case, a dog probably has had a bad experience at the hands (or feet) of those it doesn't like. This does not necessarily incriminate Percy's previous owner. In The Dog Who Loved Too Much, Dodman profiles a dog who developed a mysterious hatred of white-bearded men late in life. Eventually Dodman determined that the owner's white-bearded ex-boyfriend, left alone with the dog just once, was the likely culprit. "A dog's memory is like a photographic plate," Dodman says, "whatever happened, it just look a snapshot of that person and logged it in its long-term memory as 'bad'." (In the same vein, dogs can develop an aversion to certain breeds, sizes, and colors of other dogs.) Extreme trauma can even cause a dog to exhibit the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Whether it's bad experience or lack of experience that turns a dog into a racial profiler, the habit is hard to break. If the dog barks and the person recoils, the dog registers a victory. (Such "positive" reinforcement goes a long way to explain dogs' fixation on mailmen: He comes, I bark, he leaves.) And even if the person doesn't recoil or show fear visible to the human eye, the dog's sharp eye and sharper nose can sense fear in a tiny gesture or a whiff of sweat.

My dog still barks, randomly, at people (of all races). He doesn't like loitering, canes, wheelchairs, or balloons. Then there are the people I can't figure out -- something has clearly attracted his ire, but what? I'll probably never know. But at least when I'm standing on the street with that embarassed look, I'll be able to explain that it all goes back to childhood trauma.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Patrick Ruffini's excellent post on the Democrat front runners asks this fascinating question:

Imagine if the 1992 campaign had started this early and Clinton had been forced to pander to the doves, stronger then than they are now. Could he have eventually been elected?

He says it in the context of discussing Howard Dean, who I think is a most unlikely candidate. Friends active in New England Democratic politics say he's considerably farther to the left than the other major contenders, and has said so on the record enough that if he does get the nomination, the election is effectively over. What's saving him right now -- and making him so attractive to so many Democrats I know -- is that he's an unknown quantity because Vermont doesn't get a lot of major media coverage. I get the sense that my friends are simply projecting all their beliefs onto him, because they don't have any high-profile examples to show them different. That's also why I've heard him repeatedly described as a moderate, a description that flabbergasts the folks I know who follow him most closely, including people who agree with his policy ideas. For Democrats who want to win this election, it may be instructive to take a look at the candidate's performance at the NARAL dog-and-pony-show. Dean came off as by far the most hardline liberal candidate, which may make you feel warm and fuzzy but which is going to alienate voters, particularly if the war goes well.

On the other hand, maybe the Democrats need to spend some time in the wilderness, the way the Republicans did for many years running up to Reagan. Get some ideas, get in touch with the voters, and educate the base that if they want to get any of their ideas put forward, they can't indulge themselves at primary time. Howard Dean is perfect for that.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Baraka at Yale

Whenever I witness one of these campus debates about controversial guest speakers, I reflect on my time at graduate school at Columbia.

Baraka would certainly have been welcomed. It was Jeane Kirkpatrick the student body apparently couldn't stomach. I can't seem to google up any references to the controversy but I remember it well myself. It was an important milestone in my own disillusionment with what often passed for "liberalism" in some academic environments.

Here's part of the email I just received on Baraka's appearance at Yale:

On Monday, February 24, 2002, Amiri Baraka spoke at the Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale. Before his visit, many expressed concern over the poet's bigoted and Anti-Semitic past, resulting in a Yale Daily News Editorial that criticized Baraka's visit. That afternoon, Mr. Baraka's read aloud his controversial "Somebody Blew up America" and argued point-blank in his subsequent speech that Israel knew about and was complicit in the attacks of September 11th, garnering him wild applause and numerous standing ovations. His vitriolic diatribes were indeed difficult for those of us in attendance to stomach. To make things worse, today, YDN Columnist Sahm Andrangi penned an opinion piece that has scared the heart of every Jewish member of the Yale community.

On behalf of Yale Friends of Israel, we strongly urge you to read Mr. Andrangi’s column, in addition to the YDN’s entire coverage of the event. We eagerly anticipate your thoughts, suggestions, and words of wisdom as we as a community attempt to respond to this difficult and painful challenge with strength and dignity.

Since I haven't read all this stuff yet, and since I don't fully understand the origins of the email, I'll hold off on quoting and attributing the whole thing. They offer the following links:

THE NEW'S VIEW, (3/24), "Baraka's hate speech has no place at Yale"

YDN Column (3/24), by MICHAEL ANASTASIO, "A man who deserves no attention at all"

Letter to the Editor (3/24), by FREDERICK STREETS and RABBI JAMES PONET, "With the appearance of Amiri Baraka, a call for dialogue"

YDN Column (3/25), by DEAN PAMELA GEORGE, "In defense of inviting Amiri Baraka"

YDN Article about the event (3/25), by KATHERINE STEVENS, "Baraka refutes criticism"

YDN Column (3/26), by JAMES KIRCHICK, "Applauding falsehoods at a university"

From the desk of Jane Galt:

American ignorance of history is appalling.

I've been thinking about this listening to people debate Iraq. What it really reveals is that they know nothing about all the other wars we've been in. Not that I'm any expert, but honestly:

Nearly 100% of Americans I've surveyed are unaware that North and South Vietnam were not one country at any time in modern history, and that the North's invasion of the South was thus an invasion of another country with which we had a treaty, not a civil war. People who did know this seemed not to have thought about it too hard. "But they're ethnically the same," explained one otherwise intelligent apologist for Uncle Ho. Hmmm. Does that mean we can invade Canada?

Nearly 100% of Americans are also apparently unaware that the Japanese didn't just attack Pearl Harbor because their militaristic government was mean. We had been engaged in low-level hostile activity designed to thwart their ambitions in China and the Pacific all throughout the thirties, and were funding the opposition. They attacked Pearl Harbor not because they thought it would be groovy to fight us, but because they wanted to destroy the navy that was blocking their expansionist ambitions, and they underestimated our reaction.

Nearly 100% of Americans don't have any idea what we were doing in Korea, and also, don't seem to know that the Chinese were involved.

I'm talking about educated Americans, here, not the folks who can't place the Civil War in the correct century. The most interesting thing is that they use all these examples in arguing about Iraq, even though true examination of the facts might make the case for the other side.

Not that I'm on any high moral ground. I didn't know them either, until someone who did explained them to me.

Don't sit there smirking, Europeans, either. The last Frenchman I talked to thought Puerto Rico was an American colony.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Bush's Credibility

Cats and Dogs living together! In another well-crafted essay, David Warren questions the credibility of the Bush administration. It is, however, not exactly Krugman's complaint:

As a journalist digging for information in the departments of the Bush administration, I have often enough found myself asking a pointedly naïve question -- even more for my own curiosity than from any journalistic need -- "Why do you agree to lies?"

And not very sophisticated lies, but lies anyone with a small amount of hard information can immediately see through. Why, for instance, do they allow the most astonishing untruths to pass into public information from countries such as Syria and Saudi Arabia, which claim to be assisting in the struggle against terrorism, when they are more obviously abetting terrorism? Why are the most outrageous bluffs from Europe not called -- such as requests for proofs of Saddam's illicit weapons programmes, from the two countries whose pharmaceutical and chemical industries are his principal suppliers?

In many cases, the immediate tactical, the "diplomatic" reason for avoiding a confrontation over fact, is clear enough to see. But in almost every case, a little further thinking shows that an interest of the longer term is being sacrificed to an interest of the shorter.

How much of what we chalk up as "politics/diplomacy as usual" amounts to being stuck in a rut?

From the desk of Jane Galt:

It looks like my WASP ancestors may have been on to something after all: repression works.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Yes, but. . .

Regarding the post below, a friend points out that the construction industry also has multiple powerful unions -- how come they don't all declare bankruptcy? That question has a couple of answers, starting with the fact that they do go bankrupt a lot.

But while the structure is superficially the same, in practice it's very different. Other than equipment operators, most unions actually face competition. Ironworkers and Carpenters compete for work with Dockbuilders, Electrical Workers compete with Electricians, and there are too many labor unions to count. While union workers certainly get above-market wages, they aren't claiming as much value as the monopoly unions in the airline industry.

Moreover, construction unions take place in regional collective bargaining. All the contractors face exactly the same labor cost (plus or minus the efficiency of their operation). They are thus able to easily raise their prices to cover their labor costs, unlike the major airlines that face competition from companies with much lower costs than they have.

So why can't we get the joys of collective bargaining in the airline industry? Several reasons. First, doing so would raise prices, restricting flight to the carriage trade. And second, the unions don't want collective bargaining. Collective bargaining reduces everyone's wages to those affordable by the least profitable operator; it's only good for labor in industries with a very high degree of labor mobility, such as construction, where workers change companies with each project and utilization varies day to day.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Letting it All Hang Out for Peace

I must say I am dumbfounded by the volume of naked antiwar protesting. In general, I am all in favor of getting naked, but it's quite difficult to see how it makes any difference in the war debate. Here's a catalogue of naked notations from high altitude. At least we can say this is a protest neither Saddam nor the Mullahs can publicly get behind - except in private, where I'm sure they stand proud before the great satan of image-assisted onanism as much as the next guy.

Likewise, I find it difficult to react to this account of the Byron Bay protest:

have been spouting off in the world press about this group of amazing women in Marin County whose picture in a newspaper stopped the world, as I knew it, and shifted me into the type of determination and concentration that I have only ever experienced whilst giving birth. I have only one child and his birth was the most powerful, beautiful, experience of my whole life. I am a singer/songwriter/performer and whilst I found the words spewing from my pen to write the verses of a song, I was utterly flummoxed when it came to writing a chorus. I had nothing positive to say, and for me as a songwriter there seems little point in reminding myself and others of the state we're in, without a chorus that inspires and lifts the listener's heart.

I kept looking at you gals' pic in the paper on the table in front of me and my tears kept rolling and rolling. I was angry I was sad I was frustrated and the tears kept rolling.

I was angry that I could see through the US and Ozzie propaganda that was set up to strike fear in the hearts of the population so that our governments could convince their respective communities to accept their plans to murder innocents in Iraq.

I am not a political person, I cannot argue politics as I am unread. Until now I felt unable to have an opinion that I would publicly talk about, for fear of easily being shut down by someone who knew their politics and policies. However I have realised you don't need to be Einstein to work out what's going on here and that from the point of view of a Mother and a female, THIS IS WRONG. And knowing that, it was my duty to say so, from a Mother's point of view.

In general, it's a bit like a note I got from my sister once that said "I don't believe individuals have rights, I believe communities have rights." One realizes the size of the gulf and neither knows where to start nor wants to be cruel.

Well - "spout off", "give birth", "spew" and get naked for peace. It's a free country (Australia or even Marin) and we certainly aren't puritans!

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Can Airlines Ever Make a Profit?

A friend who works closely with the airline industry alleges that there is an office pool on when the remaining major airlines will go bankrupt. No one's taken any dates later than six months. American, the strongest of the airlines, is spending down their cash and apparently has no prospect of improving their profits before it runs out.

What's up? Why can't the airlines make any money?

Well, obviously, there's this recession. And the travel industry has been hit hard by terrorism fears, particularly the airlines. But there's a recession all over. And the entire hotel industry isn't declaring bankruptcy en masse, even though they have many of the same structural problems as the airline industry: high fixed costs, a product that can't be stored for later when demand is low, and a high percentage of financing by debt. What's the difference?

I know I'm pasting a big fat target on myself, but the answer's not all that controversial: the difference is in the labor costs. Airline unions have repeatedly pushed their carriers into bankruptcy since the government stopped fixing the price of air travel artificially high, providing margin cushions to pay lavish wages and ensuring that no one but the affluent would be able to fly.

This is not to say that airline unions are evil. I don't know anything about airline unions in particular, and I've no reason to think that they have some diabolical desire to drive their employers out of business. The problem is, the structure of the airline labor arrangment aligns incentives so that such an outcome is inevitable.

Airline unions have an extraordinary amount of power. If any one of them strikes, the planes don't fly, and the airline loses a lot of money. Positions are not readily subsititutable -- pilots and mechanics won't scab, and being a flight attendant requires training, believe it or not. In negotiations, this power translates to extremely high salaries.

In theory, this is just a battle between shareholders and labor for their share of the profits. There are a couple of problems with this theory, however. For one thing, the unions bear little downside risk; after a bankruptcy, the union employees generally still have jobs, while the shareholders lose everything. There is thus a strong incentive for the unions to be overoptimistic about the airline's potential profits over the life of their contracts, and the power they wield to shut down the airline allows them to extract salaries in line with those optimistic expectations.

But the problem is even worse. Theories about value claiming posit a single force, labor, negotiating with a single employer. Both parties are fighting for a share of the pie, but both parties have an incentive to make sure the company stays in business. But airlines don't have one powerful labor force; they have five or six, any one of which can shut down the airline.

Negotiations are thus not a simple bi-lateral calculations. In single-union negotiations, money left on the table now can be partially reclaimed by demanding higher wages in the next round of negotiations. Not so with multi-lateral arrangements. Any money left on the table by one union will be picked up by another one, since negotiations with different unions are staggered rather than simultaneous. Unions thus have incentive to pick up every last dime. The fights to claim value at the expense of the other unions are quite bitter. Because each union has the power of a bi-lateral union to shut down the company; but the value-maximizing incentives of a multi-lateral arrangement, the unions end up claiming too much value in the good years. When the bad years come, the airlines go broke. It's almost impossible to extract sufficient concessions any other way, since the unions all hold out hoping the other guys will give something back first. We witnessed this with United, where the pilots and mechanics were still fighting over who should make concessions as the company filed in bankruptcy court.

So why should we care? The concessions are made, the airline's burdens are eased, and everyone makes their flight. What's the big deal?

Well, bankruptcy pretty much erases the shareholders' money. It also erases much of the creditor's money. That money has to be gotten back from somewhere, in the form of higher interest rates. Those higher interest rates slow down investment and raise the cost of air travel. Next thing you know, you're driving from New York to Arizona with three kids in a Subaru. On the plus side, you have to stay somewhere while you're driving, and the hotel industry could use your support.

So what should we do about it? Aside from easing the federal regulations that give flight attendants and ticket agents the same power to shut down an airline as the pilots have, I don't have any easy answer. My best advice is to get one of those beaded seat covers and a whole lot of books on tape.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Annals of Innumeracy

Why you shouldn't rely on people with a political stake in the outcome to provide your crowd estimates.

Using a fixed camera mounted in the floor of the plane, the crew made images of the rally from 2,000 feet. The photographs -- taken directly above Market Street and Civic Center Plaza and enlarged -- provide a perspective that allows a discrete count of individuals and a view of the spaces between them, a view that is impossible from ground-level.

Both Air Flight Service and The Chronicle examined the photo survey and independently arrived at the estimate of 65,000 marchers at the time the photographs were taken, a figure supported by public transportation statistics.

The flight service says its count is accurate within a range of plus or minus 10 percent.

This verifiable technique, experts say, could replace the current politically sensitive count totals, whereby organizers tend to provide a high number of participants, and police generally provide a lower number.

'MYTHICAL NUMBER'
When told of The Chronicle's survey, Alex S. Jones, the director of Harvard University's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, said, "The number of people (in a crowd) is a mythical number, and now you're going to turn it into a fact, and that won't be welcomed."

Jones, a Pulitzer Prize-winning former reporter for the New York Times, added, "There's an old saying in journalism: People only see what they believe. This is an emotional issue, not a factual issue as far as most people are concerned."

Police and event organizers, when told of The Chronicle's numbers, stood by their estimates of 200,000 marchers, though both groups based their figures almost entirely on observational methods and not on a verifiable methodology. (Organizers originally estimated the crowd at 200,000 to 250,000 but now are going with the 200,000 figure.)

They said the aerial survey results were flat wrong.

"Oh my word. Come on, that's ridiculous," said Bill Hackwell, spokesman for International ANSWER, one of the groups that organized Sunday's march and rally. The organizers have another planned for March 15 in San Francisco, coinciding with rallies in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere.

That's ridiculous! What kind of a shoddy methodology is that, trying to get the number of protesters by counting them?

Now, there were certainly people who weren't there to be photographed. But the photograph was taken at the peak of the rally, and as an experienced marcher, I can verify that it's just not possible that three times as many people as were present at the peak marching time between 1 and 2 either showed up very early or very late. Especially since the article reports only 43,000 extra riders on the public transportation system. It's wildly unlikely that the number even approached 100K, much less doube that.

Do you think ANSWER would let me do their books? I could do a lot for a client that doesn't believe in counting. . .

(Via Mean Mr. Mustard)

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

A Reminder

James Woolsey strikes a conciliatory note on euro-bashing:

Internet messages mocking French courage and denying that the French have ever successfully defended Paris not only should be beneath us but are quite false--the drafters of this nonsense should consult, among other things, the history of the Battle of the Marne in September 1914. Gen. Gallieni's mobilization of the taxis of Paris to rush reinforcements to the front and save the city is as famous in France as Washington's crossing the Delaware is to Americans. We diminish ourselves and our arguments by denying the noble side of these nations' history and slandering their national honor. Yes, the Germans had the Nazis and the French the Reign of Terror and Vichy. And we had slavery. We have both had our villains and our heroes--we have had our Audie Murphys, they their Ewald von Kleists and Jeannie Clarenses.

Believe it or not, I have a French cousin (by marriage) who fought in the Resistance, so I feel I know one of these folks.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Shoot, Even Barbie Had Those

"He said that I should cut off her breasts, but I said no woman wants that," Lynn, 35, said.

First it was the giant Phallus in Harvard Yard. Now it's large breasts on snow-women. Perhaps we are a nation of fundamentalists after all. Or should I say, who are the fundamentalists?

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

No Soap, Radio!

The most primitive technique for impressing others with one's own sophistication is to assert a deep and subtle understanding that defies logical explanation. If one's logic proves opaque to the audience, one can just call them simplistic and rush off to be king of one's own little dunghill.

This transoceanic nose-thumbing from Regis Debray is appalling. No arguments are proffered, no alternatives proposed, merely an assertion that the French are now all grown up and we in the United States are fundamentalist children driven by puritan absolutism. The French "get it", we do not. For good measure, he throws in the "they have training as satellite states" insult, aimed at Eastern Europe.

The "U.S. is fundamentally fundamentalist" argument is one I hear a lot, with little explanation other than reference to the occasional publicly religious President (such as Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush and even continental favorite William J. Clinton). It strikes me as some version of "a pox on both your houses" (or worse, an Ad Talibanum fallacy), likening us to our enemy in order to pretend one is above the fray.

I am off with the kids and may not return to this until tonight. In the meantime, I'm sure other bloggers will point out that Mr. Debray, for all his assertions of continental worldliness, is ignorant of us and the art of persuasion.

UPDATE: Done. Money quote:

Oh, cram it down the croissant hatch, Chanticleer. If we were a Puritan nation Courtney Love would be arrested on the Slattern Act and forced into the stocks, and we’d all put on our big black buckled hats and head to the square to throw rotten fruit at her head. Puritans don’t show up for church in sweatpants.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

A Quick Plug

:: w.bloggar :: has been upgraded to v.3 and works with Moveable Type's titles and categories. It's my favorite posting tool, especially with multiple blogs (yes, I keep a private one).

Oh - it's also why the comments in the prior post don't match the content. If you care, that post used to point out this letter from Ariana Huffington about this editorial. She complains of an "epidemic of literal-mindedness." Heh.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Left RightWest Wing

What an extraordinary episode of West Wing. Sorkin's idealized Democratic politics have become very confusing.

Let's review. The last two episodes covered the week leading up to Bartlett's second term inauguration speech. His new speechwriter (a familiar face to those of us who loved Sports Night, and playing the same geeky polymath character) gets testy with the President about standing by while an ethnic cleansing proceeds in the fictional African country of Khundu. Bartlett is also badgered by African dignitaries reminding him the U.S. would act differently if Khundu were in Europe. A few scenes of Toby nastiness and Presidential ruminating later, the new character's thoughts on foreign policy are included in the Inauguration speech and, as Jeb says, "we have a doctrine." Just what this doctrine is remains a but unclear, apart from the President's resolute, although slightly confusing quip - "there are women standing in front of tanks, and we got their back". Perhaps the West Wing's new doctrine might be summarized as "I put my thing down flip it and reverse it".

All this introspection leads to a U.S. take over of Khundu's airport and an ultimatum to the forces committing these atrocities. Bartlett's action is not only unilateral, it doesn't even appear to involve consultation with the State Department, much less allies or the U.N. This episode ends with several American soldiers taken hostage nine hourse before the deadline. It is part and parcel with his black ops assassination of a diplomat known to be helping terror groups.

The French take it in the neck in these two episodes. First, Zoe, the President's daughter, is dating a young Parisian, cast as a completely over-the-top elitist "Eurotrash" who insists on lecturing the President and everybody else on "what's wrong with me" (as Bartlett puts it). Second, just before the President is supposed to take the podium to support Sam's congressional campaign he is overheard calling the French "pansy hairdressers" when they refuse to let the U.S. fly over their airspace. Bartlett roams around the White House grousing at everyone, including the government representatives from Khundu, whom he chews out as if they were grade schoolers in the principle's office. This is a President that would have no time for the State Department or the U.N. As they say, a "Gaffe" is when a politician accidentally speaks the truth, and Bartlett is gaffe-a-minute in these episodes.

All this unilateralism and French-bashing leaves one wondering where the show's politics, so firmly Left in the past (er...so to speak), are moving? It seems to me the common underlying theme of this shows politics is that government can do anything with enough money. After all, the other theme winding through these episodes is the President's tax plan, which will "raise the top 1%'s taxes 1%". In the course of learning the evils of tax cuts we are reminded once again that the President is an economist, as if we didn't notice the big "E" emblazoned on his cape.

Now, does the character played by the fellow in the last photo here feel this way about Rwanda (clearly Khundu's model)? Or Does he only support U.S. intervention when genocide proceeds at a certain pace? We don't know. Martin Sheen,of course, is not an Economist, or a unilateralist president. He just plays one on TV.

I don't mind admitting I love the show. It's one of only two shows I Tivo regularly. I did, however, like Sports Night better.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

So the Florida professor who engendered a storm of controversy when his university tried to fire him over his alleged ties to Palestinian terror groups has now been arrested, along with eight others, for raising money for Islamic Jihad.

I don't know enough about the particulars of the case to comment on whether it's likely that he's guilty. What I want to say is this: we need to watch this case like hawks.

We're emotional about terrorism, justifiably so. But that emotion has got to make it tempting for a prosecutor to make too much out of a weak case because of the political payoff if it sticks has to be enormous. And in cases like this, the evidence is often tenuous. It's better we free a man who is likely guilty than imprison one who is possibly innocent, even in a case involving terrorism.

I'll be looking for bloggers and journalists who expose the facts of the case beyond the press releases from the DA and the defense, and cheering them on whatever the conclusions they draw. I think it's really, really important that we make it attractive for them to try to discover the truth.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Breaking News

A barge docked at a refinery caught on fire and exploded in Staten Island. The consensus here is that it isn't terrorism -- or that if it is, the terrorists aren't too bright, which is a relief.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Is Widespread Heterosexual AIDS a myth after all?

MedPundit points to a study claiming that AIDS in Africa is caused more by poor health care practices than heterosexual sex. If it's true, it's horrifying. Not because it's bad news -- indeed, it's very, very good news, since providing gloves and syringes to medical personnel is probably a lot easier than getting the entire population using condoms. What's horrifying is the process by which the WHO may have decided that the problem was heterosexual sex, relying less on the data and more on the political leanings of the people involved in making policy: the local field personnel, who didn't want to admit they had problems, the overpopulation folks who wanted condoms distributed to cut down on babies, the Western AIDS activists who wanted evidence of a heterosexual AIDS problem to increase the threat perception and hence funding in their own countries, WHO doctors who didn't want to terrify Africans about vaccinations, and scientists who let paternalistic beliefs about African sexuality and their desire for an eye catching publication showing widespread heterosexual AIDS influence their thinking.

I'm not qualified to judge the merits of the paper, although the gap between heterosexual AIDS here and in Africa did seem improbably large, given that I am assured by an epidemiologist that the female-to-male transmission ratio here is simply too low to establish what I think he called a "stable disease reservoir" -- a sustainable population of infected people to keep the disease going. Women would have to have an improbably high number of partners over the course of the disease to infect sufficient new males to prevent the epidemic from dying out. The study argues that that factor still overrides the cultural and health factors that have been pointed to as facilitating heterosexual transmission in Africa, and it seems to me that they make a good case. If they're right, people are going to have some 'splaining to do.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

While I was away. . .

I had a good time away. I worked on my needlepoint, went out every night, and romped with the pooch in the snow. But there were a few things I wanted to blog:

Headline on the paper: "Storm of the Century". Isn't it a little early to be making that call?

Statistic found in a FindLaw article: "And to make the question [of abortion] more difficult, what if the woman and her partner fail to use any birth control, or to use birth control correctly? According to the Guttmacher Institute, this was the case in 93% of abortions performed in 2000 in America. " That threatens to change substantially my view of abortion, though I haven't parsed the logic yet.

Anyone know anything about OpenOffice?

Can I tell you how tired I am of the people in the subway? I don't know where the hell they're from, but if any of you are coming to New York, here's the scoop: walk on the right. Just like driving your car. Yesterday, as I was going up the stairs on the right, exactly where I was supposed to be, some woman came barreling around the corner at seventy mph and nearly knocked me back down the steps. Then she gave ma a snotty look before she flounced off. Sweetheart, I know that walking the extra five feet over to your section of the stairwell would have taken critical time from your search for the cure for cancer, but I'm afraid that that's a sacrifice that we, as a society, have chosen to make in the interests of reducing the number of people who break their necks getting pushed down the stairs. Deal with it.

I saw Chicago and it was great. Great. I'm not going to comment on the tall woman who may or may not have been seen dancing around my living room in her bathrobe singing "Give 'Em the Old Razzle-Dazzle", except to say that we should all remember we're only human.

I spent the entire day in my pajamas Monday, except for walking the dog. Every once in a while, we should all spend the day in our pajamas. It's strangely comforting.

So one of my revenue streams is writing up earnings calls for a web site. Unfortunately, given the nature of the work, I'm not allowed to write "Can't you see he's LYING!!!!" next to the remarks. A particularly abysmal one featured the CFO of a health care company trying to spin their prediction last year that Medicaid funding was going to go up. Since then, two states had cut funding, a dozen others were talking about proposed cut, and a single state had actually raised it. The CFO's reaction? We stand by our prediction of a 2-2.5% rise in funding. Thank god for safe harbor, eh? Of course, it's hard to imagine what else he could say. It's a nursing home company. Nursing homes are almost entirely government funded, largely because middle class people feel it's the duty of the state to pay for their care, so they hollow out their assets to qualify for Medicaid. This is disgusting, yet entirely predictable, and completely unstoppable as long as the government pays for care. Yet the government is not willing to impose the taxes on the children to pay for their parents care, so instead they cut funding. This makes it very hard to operate a nursing home profitably, resulting in said children suing the nursing homes because Mom is tied to a wheelchair 23 hours a day. The resulting verdicts raise costs, which the nursing homes can't recover because most of their rates are set by fiat. Instead they turn to fraudulent billing to recover the money they lose on patient care. And they're still losing money. And people wonder why I'm a libertarian?

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Return from Coventry

Hello, everyone.

Can I just mention that I love you all? Even -- no especially -- the readers who brewed up 277 comments arguing that

a) I shouldn't have talked about violence at the anti-war protests, because there wasn't any, ergo the potentially violent protesters were just a figment of my sick, right-wing imagination

b) It was very, very wrong of me to advocate the pummeling of these entirely imaginary people.

I'd like to agree, but I just can't bring myself to give up Bugs Bunny.

I didn't quite mean to convey the image that I was in a snit because people disagreed with, or even disliked me. Goodness knows, I've been walking the earth for 30 years from now. Hell, I'm a free market advocate living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Jane knows from argument. However, wading through a long stream graphic suggestions for my rape, death, and dismemberment, peppered by the inevitable implications that I was the kind of person who is likely to invade the Sudetanland any day now got me down. Actually, that's not right. It got me mad. And since I couldn't think of anything polite to say, I didn't say anything at all. That is what my Victorian grandmother calls "being a lady".

Well, the deluge of goodwill I've gotten has far outweighed the nastiness, although several of my correspondents couldn't help coming back for an encore (and may I suggest you might want to take your act back to Buffalo and get some new material before you try the big time again?). I'm overwhelmed. I tried to email you all back, but I didn't even come close, particularly after my hotmail choked. So for anyone who didn't get an email -- THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!! I can't think of any adequate way to express how lovely it was to get your note, so I'll say it was inexpressably lovely, and leave it at that. As for those of you who hit the tip jar -- you shouldn't have done it, and you're mad, and thank you very, very much.

The other thing I wanted to say is that there's no call for the mail I got. For a lot of reasons. It's pretty clear that a lot of people hadn't bothered to read what I actually wrote, or skimmed it to see if some keywords confirmed their belief that every march is Selma, 1964, and the right wing is full of Bull Connors waiting with the firehose. That's just embarassing. Nor were the ones in the comment section willing to correct the error when it became apparent that they had misread it -- instead they started parsing the writing like those people who count every seventeenth word in the Bible to get the special, secret message Jesus left for them.

Nor should I have gotten email screaming names. What the hell's the point? I mean, if you wanted to make me feel bad, I guess you did, but only at the expense of making yourself look like a drooling idiot whose vocabulary is limited to four-letter words. If you wanted to convince me that I'm wrong, none of these is the correct strategy:

a) Suggesting that multiple people should commit felony murder on my person.

b) Chastising me for things I did not write.

c) Using sentences that start off with "All you people. . . "

d) Indiscriminate use of profanity. The only thing that this convinces me of is that the world of the left is filled with copulating inanimate objects with poor bowel control.

e) Telling me that I need to go sit in a corner and think about what I said as if I were two. Judging from the email headers, I was on the left for longer than some of the people who suggested this, and who seemed to believe that adopting a patronizing tone would make them sound all grown up. This only works on your little sister, child. To the rest of us it screams "pompous fool!"

f) Repeating over and over that I am stupid. Now, I have a fairly good sense of how smart I am. I am not 20, and it is no longer a crushing blow to my ego to learn that I am not actually the smartest person on the planet. But I've spent enough time at work and school to be fairly well assured that -- well, let's just say, I'm competitive. Calling me stupid doesn't make any more impression on me than calling me short¹.

g) Telling me I'm a member of a secret cabal involving radio and television personalities you don't like. Think about this. If it's not true, I think "hmmm. . . what a jerk this writer is." And if it is true, I have my goon squad kill you. This one is just never a win.

h) Telling me that when the revolution comes, I'll be the first one with my back against the wall. For one thing, you sound silly making this argument in the context of a peace march. And for another, the revolution has now been supposed to arrive for 150 years, and hasn't even called to say it's stuck in traffic. I just can't get worried.

i) Calling me a fascist or Nazi. I do not subscribe to either fascism, or its German variant, and calling me either of these terms has as much rhetorical effect as accusing me of promulgating the Albigensian heresy. What little effect it might have is deadened by my suspicion that few of my correspondents could muster even a rudimentary definition of fascism beyond its penchant for uniforms and genocide, and that most of them do not know that the genocide is not actually central to the original political philosophy. In general, people should not be called either of these terms, nor should they be called communist, unless they are actual adherents of those political traditions. Otherwise, it just conveys the message that you have no imagination and nothing interesting to say.

j) Comparing me to various historical figures whose behavior you do not like. For example, no one should be compared to Osama Bin Laden unless they are the head of a shadowy terror network and plotting the death of thousands. Comparisons to Hitler are particularly fraught, because so many of the comparisons seem to center around his moustache, or the goose-step, which conveys the impression that what you really object to is his embrace of the Prussian military tradition, and his barber. This does not improve your standing in the eyes of the beholder.

k) Stating that my writings evince deep-seated psychological problems caused by my relationship with my parents, my romantic attachments, or the lack thereof. None of the writers seemed to be a psychologist or marriage counselor. Moreover, just as I do not wish my auto mechanic to diagnose my car trouble over the phone, I do not seek therapy from people who have never met me and who, frankly, seem to have some issues of their own to work through.

l) Misspelling key words. Certainly, I make typos all the time, and I have a couple of words, such as independent, that I misspell repeatedly. But when monosyllabic words are repeatedly misspelled, it does not enhance your chances of being heard.

m) Grammar counts. If you have difficulty constructing complex sentences, stick with your old friend the subject-verb-object construction. If you don't know how to get out of a clause, don't get in. You should not end your sentence before you have a subject and verb appropriately placed, nor jam all your sentences together with commas. The semi-colon is there to be used, not abused. If you opened your letter with "You [expletive deleted] right-wing [censored]. All you are a bunch of fascist [expurgated]. . . " I am probably already looking for an excuse to stop reading. If you think you have an important point to make later on, don't let your appalling grammar and limited vocabulary be that excuse.

You not only failed to convince me that I was wrong, you ensured that I was in no mood to read any sensible emails that came by. In the comments, you offered several thousand people a belly laugh at your expense -- was that the point? Are you trying to win other, non-me, people to your side? "You are one stupid right-wing [deleted]" isn't going to get you there, and a lot of my interlocutors went off-line. Were you just trying to make yourself feel better? Honey, don't they have girls where you come from?

Now, there is no idiocy on the left, except the worship of Stalin, that is not mirrored on the right. I know that people on the left get the same kind of nastiness, and they shouldn't. No one should get these kinds of emails. They make it impossible for the rest of us. How can I convince someone that free markets are a good thing if you've been peppering their inbox with nastygrams in the name of capitalism? They're also juvenile. We all like to blow off steam, but tht's what your like-minded friends are for. Sending off bile-laden missives to your political opponents poisons discourse, makes you look like a jerk, and gives them the evidence they're looking for that your side is just a bunch of evil, potty-mouthed fanatics who haven't had a new idea since the Jurassic. So if you're my reader, and you want to make my day, pause for a minute before you send off that mail to Atrios, delete the contentless insults, and see if you can engage him in an actual argument instead. If you're posting in my comments section, don't say things like "liberals are idiots" or "liberals are all the same" or "you're an idiot." Make fun of their ideas, and mine. Heap as much scorn on foolish thought and weak logic as you like. But hold off on the personal invective. If nothing else, you'll have the adult pleasure of occupying the high moral ground.

¹ I am six foot, two inches tall.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

More than you ever wanted to know about two-by-fours

In the interests of beating a dead horse (with whatever comes to hand), I have been looking for something I can do to further the cause of our new visitors.

I went out in search of barbarous people advocating pre-emptive violence with hypothetical two-by-fours to 'find morally appalling'. It turns out, if you make a minor effort to seek out these serial lumber-abusers you will find yourself in what we hawks call a "target-rich environment". Read on for some of my findings.

First and foremost, I found that God wields a mean two-by-four. He turns out to be the #1 proponent of noggin-directed two-by-fours when you google this stuff. Here's a Mormon who is encouraging violence by the almighty -

There are times that I feel someone is getting to my son and he’s beginning to see what Mormonism really is. Then, he’ll have a complete turn around. Since his conversion started without my knowledge when he was fifteen, I’ve been praying for a long, hard two years. I must admit that today I’m rather tired. I want God to take that spiritual two-by-four and hit my son "upside the head".

Here's a difficult religious choice for those exercising free will:

Rather than waiting for God to whack you over the head with a spiritual two-by-four, wouldn't it be far better to give God some time each day to quietly speak to you?

And God's beatings are certainly an opportunity to wax philosophical-

If God Hit You With a 2x4, Would You Know What Hit You?

As we used to say, if the Yale Philosophy Department were felled by a 2X4 in the forest, would anyone care?

In a similar vein, quasi-religious beliefs can also put pulp to cranium. Someone on Common Dreams feels that the truth (well, his version) is violent:

You see, the central theme of Moore's documentary is the high level of fear that prevails in America - a fear that's fed by the media (If it bleeds, it leads), by our political leaders (Osama's going to get you if you don't watch out) and by our own minds (We've got to get them before they get us).

In times like these it's not difficult to get caught up in this anxiety and trepidation. And that's where I found myself until "Bowling for Columbine'' and Shonnie's question hit me with the force of a two-by-four upside the head. The truth that I realized in that moment: I have no need of the pistol because my fears have no foundation. I'm probably more likely to be killed talking on a cell phone while driving than by someone breaking into my home. Another case of FEAR - False Evidence Appearing Real.

God and the truth pummeled this poor sinner:

I hadn't slept well the night before and was a bit woozy from lack of sleep, so it took about five minutes for the truth to sink in... God had whupped me upside my head with a big fat two-by-four! Which I needed badly.

This is also sort of a..spiritual? two-by-four:

If you're anything like me, a set of awesome tits can hit you upside the head like a two-by-four slung from a Texas twister.

..or perhaps a 36-by-24-by-36, the dimensions of a brick house in my book.

I was disturbed to find my fellow sportsmen wielding two-by-fours with insufficient (well...sort of) provocation. At least one golf site is fond of the idea:

This month we discuss a subject that many golfers seem to be passionate about: how much noise can you make while the other guy is preparing to hit before that other guy should legally be allowed to take a two-by-four and whack you upside the head?

By the third hole, you'll be looking around for a two-by-four to whack this guy upside the head.

Contrary to popular opinion, hypothetical two-by-fours are indeed wielded by the left.

I had struck up a conversation with an ex-Iowan from Dubuque. The converations was eclectic. Eventually he showed his true colors and expressed his disappointment in me being a liberal commie from his home state. Well, tough shit, I was winning, he wasn't. I could hold my liquor, he couldn't. I went home that night the better man in every sense. Still, it was (sic)have been nice to have whacked him upside the head with a two-by-four, but that would have been wrong.

Even protesters named "Love" and "Quest" sling studs!

Aaron Love, a Unity and Struggle member spoke before a group of mostly college-age protesters.

"I'm basically here because white power and fascist organizations are growing throughout the world," Love said. "We believe racism can be countered by education and counterpresence."

Another Unity and Struggle member who spoke was Matthew Quest of Champaign.

Using strong language, Quest spoke against Hale and suggested that justice would be Hale "being hit with a two-by-four upside the head."

Journalists and writers are major offenders. There's even something called Two-by-Four Journalism!

Take Debra Dixon, for example. I don't know her work, but I'm not willing to take the risk of several blows to the head just to familiarize myself with it:

Debra Dixon says, "Goals should not be subtle. Get out the two by four and start whacking your reader over the head. 'This is what my character wants'. Whack. Whack. Whack."

Hmmm. Sometimes writing is so bad, it's violent. This surely qualifies as pre-emptive.

"You have hit the matter on the head!" (when someone tells you that you've hit the nail on the head, it makes sense because the mental image is that of a hammer striking true; Douglass's version is narrative-stopping, jarring nonsense at the best of times, and, at worst, provides the reader with an unintended and comic image of 'matter' being beaten about the head with a two-by-four...)

What did matter ever do to us?

A two-by-four also constitues an appropriate punishment for bad writing:

Gentle reader, we the editors of 3B Theater would like to apologize for those first few paragraphs. The writer is in the process of an attitude adjustment with a two by four. Did we mention he hates this movie?

We’ll be right back. *whack* *whack* *whack* *whack* *WHACK*

I think the following TV-reviewer may have already felt the trusty lumber tickle his neck a few too many times, judging by the consistency of his metaphors:

It's all kind of whack-you-over the-head-with-a-two-by-four touchy-feely, and it seems to be based on the tongue-in-cheek maxim developed by the late Brandon Tartikoff, president of NBC entertainment when the network was at its creative peak. Tartikoff joked that TV viewers can never see too many scenes of cuddly puppies.

Finally, I hope I'm never reviewed by this guy:

I don't want to watch all thirteen episodes and be left with an urge to whack the writers with a two-by-four, complete with protruding rusty nails strategically placed for maximum damage.

Legal eagles find themselves on both ends of the bonking board. Judge Penfield Jackson advocated pre-emptive violence in his Microsoft rulings:

Referring to his split ruling, this comment came after repeating an anecdote about a North Carolina mule trainer:

"He had a trained mule who could do all kinds of wonderful tricks. One day somebody asked him: 'How do you do it? How do you train the mule to do all these amazing things?' 'Well,' he answered, 'I'll show you.' He took a two-by-four and whopped him upside the head. The mule was reeling and fell to his knees, and the trainer said: 'You just have to get his attention.'"

I knew those tort lawyers were violent:

In its most strident form, accountability stands for the "two-by-four" approach to encouraging appropriate behavior -- "If they step out of line, whack 'em a good one. That'll learn 'em!" The leading example of this approach to accountability is the call to expand HMO liability in the courts, on the theory that a few multimillion-dollar damage awards would keep those HMOs on their best behavior. (Or would it? See "Why Torts Are Not Good Medicine" on Page 46E.)

Here, a dizzying combination of lawyers, studss and triple-mixed metaphors:

Thus the legal profession is frozen in time; a time hundreds of years ago--out of date and out of touch. Thus whenever the need for change becomes apparent, citizens are going to have to smash it over the head with a two by four and very likely fail anyway with no more impact than water off a duck's back-- up against its money, state power, influence and age old dogma.

The Russian judge gave that one a ten.

Politicians, of course, are not spared either. Why should they be?

At one point, Senate Majority Leader Dan DeGrow of Port Huron said: "I don't know what part of shortage or deficit you don't understand. ... Sometimes I think I need a two-by-four to bang some people upside the head."

This, from March of 2001, has some amusing context. In retrospect, it seems to suggest that two-by-fours are useful in forging consensus in the President's administration:

But this week, George W. Bush got whacked upside the head with a journalistic two-by-four when the New York Times reported that his top foreign policy gurus are increasing divided on, well, foreign policy.

Apparently, the re-installed Realpolitik crowd at the Pentagon and the State Department are evolving into two opposing camps: one ideologically conservative, the other moderate.

....As the harsh reality of foreign affairs sinks in, Bush would do well to hit the briefing books harder and heed his own words about "setting priorities" before the Rumsfeld-Powell rivalry truly becomes a "battle royal" — live on CNN.

"Rednecks", apparently, need something a bit stiffer than a two-by-four:

In order to solve the litter problem we must rein in the “Red-Necks” and hit them wear it hurts. Because whacking a “Red-Neck” upside the head with a two-by-four wouldn’t penetrate the solid layer of bone residing between their ears, we have to find other means. After careful consideration and analysis of all the available options, I settled on one I believe warrants consideration. Simply stated, “Eliminate the flow of beer into the “Red-Neck’s” blood stream.” If we can somehow reduce the blood alcohol content below 50% it would incapacitate him--probably leaving him layed out on the floor “wigglin,” “floppin,” and “twitchin” like a fish out of water. Not even the toughest “Red-Neck” can perform when the alcohol pulsing through their veins is displaced by blood. If the “Red-Necks” can’t function, they can’t drive their old pickup trucks, they can’t litter, and our problem is solved. Louisiana’s age-old beauty is restored.

Now we turn to the two-by-four in business and social science:

And so it is that our glutted society is victimized by what we might call the "two-by-four effect." The two-by-four effect provides humanity with a way to keep communication alive in a glutted environment. But in so doing, it extracts a hefty price: society, as we all know from experience, is becoming inexorably more crass. We are witnessing the new reign of trash TV, hate radio, shock jocks, tort litigation, publicity stunts, and excessively violent and sarcastic rhetoric.

Is it wrong to advocate pre-emptively hitting 'businesses' with two-by-fours?

It seems as if we all need a good, old-fashioned whack on the head to get our attention properly focused. Without question, this is a moment when businesses need to connect with the broad side of a two-by-four.

I even came across a kind of two-by-four "X-Files", suggesting boards may have parents, gender and even sexual orientation:

I want to come out to my parents, not whack them over the head with the Your Daughter’s a Lesbian two-by-four.

I also heard about some positively frightening restaurateurs -

Do you like your flavors subtle? Does the word nuance describe your taste? Then don't go here. The flavors here hit you upside your head with a two by four. The they come back at you with a two by four with a nail in it. Two of our dishes had a sauce of salt, pepper, and lemon. Woh! I'm salivating on my keyboard just thinking about it. Damn, I hate slobber on my space bar.

It is important to remember that two-by-fours are victims, too, as shown in the shocking documentary photograph below, taken by a brave plank rights activist with a hidden camera.

Liberate the Two-by-Four!

There are other heart-rending tales. There's nothing sadder than self-inflicted violence:

What was even more energy-draining was observing Cindy KM's dishearteningly perky level of energy at the end of each marathon day. Randy and I just wanted to curl up and have someone hit us upside the head with a two-by-four, while Cindy was cheerfully bouncing off to the T-shirt vendor, just as if she hadn't been on her feet for eight hours.

Some days I want to whack myself upside the head with a two-by-four for being so insanely naive. White girl from the northern suburbs, that's me.

Animal abuse is easy to find. In addition to the common custom of whacking mules, people are also beating dogs:

The first thing I noticed was that nobody looked happy. I don't know if it was because we were all being sautéed under the sun, or if it's cool to be pissed again. That was a really lame fad the first time around, and a dog usually learns the first time when you hit it upside the head with a two by four.

I found that two-by-fours rank pretty low on the Muppet Violence Scale, however, at least compared to cannonballs:

Clifford first introduces Gonzo the Great. Gonzo's act is a team of well-trained artillery shells, the Refined Young Cannonballs. The cannonballs roll onstage. They are all wearing yellow polka-dot bow ties. Gonzo asks Camilla to start the music, which happens to be the "1812 Overture", and he steps behind a bank of cannons with a lit sparkler. At the appropriate times during the music, Gonzo fires off a cannon, usually striking one of the Muppets with it. He hits most of the Muppets in the control room, the camera man, and even the cue card guy. One of the cannonballs almost hits Johnny Fiama, but Sal the Monkey stops the ball and tells it, "Hey, hey, hey! No cannonball hits Johnny Fiama." So the cannonball hits Sal. Johnny says, "Nice work there, Sal," but he gets hit by the next cannonball. As Gonzo wraps up the number, laughing maniacally, Clifford becomes the last victim -- except for Gonzo, who is hit on the head by a falling cannonball during the applause......

The next segment is an editorial message from Sam the Eagle. Just as he begins he is hit with a cannonball. But Sam picks himself up and does his editorial, which is about the lack of heroes in society today. As an example he shows two typical youngsters growing up in society today - Andy and Randy Pig. They are playing a video game and outfitted with the latest in VR Laser Tag equipment. They have an argument about who is winning the video game, and then decide to actually turn the game on. Sam claims that this shocking state of ignorance is because young people don't have any heroes. Andy and Randy finish their violent video game and realize they feel like hurting each other violently. Sam comes over and asks them if they have any heroes. They pigs answer that they do, and hold up a pair of hero sandwiches. They begin hitting each other with them.

Statler: "What'd you think of that sketch?"
Waldorf: "Well, it was better than getting hit in the head by a two-by-four."
Statler: "No it wasn't."
Waldorf: "Yeah, you're right. (Shouting) Hit me again!"
A nurse walks in with a two-by-four and hits Waldorf in the face with it.
Statler laughs.

Naturally, this easily-obtained and controversial eight square inches of evil has found its way into performance art as a form of protest:

Raoul Danger from Winnipeg, billed as The Industrial Strength Clown, does a comic act that includes a whack in the head with a two-by-four from an audience volunteer for every juggling drop

They are positively ubiquitous, I tell you. Here's some evidence for an Adlai Stevenson moment connecting basketball, UN Inspectors and Lumber of Mass Destruction:

Opponents are sometimes allowed to use a two-by-four on Laettner. They whack Laettner upside the head with the instrument of persuasion before making a move to the basket, and the referees, the three of them, go into the Hans Blix mode. They do not see a darn thing.

A sick game - for children, no less:

TWO BY FOUR GORE Teaching young ones the ways of politics, tots are encouraged to ask questions of this #3 grade, six foot piece of rough-cut fir that is a realistic rendition of "the man who would be queen." The wisdom emanating from "Two By Four Gore" is an amazingly accurate reproduction of the loser Vice President's exact words and demeanor.

There's a potential diplomatic incident:

Contrary to popular belief, a whack upside the head with a two by four isn't how to get a Swede's attention. Someone tried that with my cousin Guntar and it only broke the two by four.

Sometimes the two-by-four is the better of two options, as it certainly is in the unfortunate circumstance of one Glenna Bledsole:

And Glenna Bledsole?, Well even if you do agree that her head should have been blown off, or at least given a good two-by-four, attention-getting whack, hmm, doesn’t her anger and righteousness pull a slender, familiar thread?

This, on the other hand, sounds like a rather pleasant surprise when one might be expecting a plank on the head:

I braced myself for the much anticipated whack on the back of the head from a solid piece of two by four, but it never arrived. Instead I found a pleasing bouquet garni of sage and thyme, solid blackcurrant, plum and complimentary Asian spice. Lovely texture in the mouth and just a kiss on vanilla in the finish.

it was an impudent stud, with a hint of pine on the palate and a firm finish!

There are legitimate uses. Colonel Hackworth advocates two-by-fours for military safety:

Another point I make in About Face was that I had learned about war from tough old sergeants and captains who had fought the big war. They believed that if you didn't get it right, you died. These soldiers had no problem thumping you in the back of the head with a two-by-four if you made a mistake. I came up from that kind of army - a highly disciplined army with mentors that were hard task masters. That army saw too many young people die in Guam, Saipan, Guadalcanal, and Normandy.

Finally, here's some pre-emptive two-by-four whacking we can all get behind:

The Only Message Saddam Understands Is Getting Hit With a Two-by-Four

Now, my righteous friends, get out there and troll deconstruct, denounce and disapprove!


all images from this 'appalling' two-by-four saga.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Back From Time Off

I hadn't noticed that sophismata is back, with lots of interesting new graphs and quantitative observations. This is great news! Go immediately and have some fun.

...Unless, of course, you want to read more literary deconstruction of "pre-emptive" and "2X4". If so, go here and search [CTRL-F] for "denotative" for the latest amusing words on all that.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Stupid Inferences

Some time back I speculated that someone would soon refer to the recent cold snap as evidence against global warming (heat waves make lousy evidence for global warming, I might add). I swear to you I saw it on a tabloid as I walked by a newsstand, but was unable to find it on the web.

The first linkable instance comes from none other than the WSJ in
"Snow and Unilateralism". (quoted in full)

If only Joschka Fischer and Dominique de Villepin had stuck around New York City for the long holiday weekend after their Friday appearances at the United Nations. As the German and French foreign ministers observed cross-country skiers on Midtown Manhattan streets yesterday, they might have gained some insight into American "unilateralism" on another issue on which they differ from the U.S. -- that of global warming.

France and Germany like to complain about being "dictated to" by the U.S. on this subject. But who can blame Americans for being skeptical of the science behind global warming when the temperature stays well below freezing for days on end and the weatherman measures the snow in feet? Doesn't it still snow in Old Europe too?

It sure snowed in the U.S. this past weekend, when the Eastern Seaboard was pummeled with two feet or more of the white stuff. The weather system blasted in from the Plains, causing flooding and mudslides in the South and the Appalachians and ice and snow all up and down the East Coast. Airports closed, Amtrak curtailed service and driving advisories were issued. Parts of Maryland got a record 49 inches. In Washington, D.C., where admittedly they tend to exaggerate, some were calling it the storm of the century.

All this brings to mind a speech we read a couple of weeks ago by former Energy Secretary and all-round sage James Schlesinger. He recalled that 25 years ago, long before the term "global warming" became chic, plenty of smart people were more concerned about the prospect of a mini-Ice Age. The evidence at the time included such omens as summer frosts in the Upper Midwest that killed crops before they could be harvested. Amid this year's long, cold and snowy winter, who could say that prediction was wrong?

I understand, of course, that they are ultimately poking fun at this form of reasoning (with the "ice age" comparison), but the rules are the rules.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

The Usual Stuff

sigh.

.. and, speaking of unflattering images resembling presidents...

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Effects of the Hard Liability Market

Few know the "real" story behind this CFO firing. I think it highlights how the "hard" market for liability insurance* and flaws in recent regulatory actions are creating a liability crisis in the world of publicly-traded companies and financial institutions.

Again, I want to emphasize that this story does not tell us everything, but let's assume the fact pattern is as presented:

• A CFO is asked to sign-off (Sarbanes-Oxley style) on his company's books. This signature attests to the company being in accordance with certain accounting principles. His accounting firm needs this attestation to deliver a clean audit letter.

• The CFO in turn asks the accounting firm to acknowledge that he "relies" on their opinion on certain accounting issues, as he is not expert in all aspects of accounting convention.

  "As part of my own due diligence," he wrote, "I have asked KPMG to provide me a representation letter or certificate regarding KPMG's ongoing review of our financial statements and disclosures. KPMG has refused to provide me any such representation letter or certificate."

  
  
• The accounting firm refuses to do so and insists that the company fire the CFO or not receive a clean audit. As it is a public company, the board has no choice and fires the CFO.

  The company said that KPMG, which succeeded Arthur Andersen earlier this year as its auditor, said on Monday that it would not certify the financial statements if Mr. Gorman remained as chief financial officer.

  
  

On the one hand, the CFO could be trying to rid himself off responsibility for a controversial accounting decision. On the other, he may be worried about a variety of technical accounting interpretations he hasn't time to research himself. Which is it? What we have here is a game of "pass the parcel" of potential liability, and the accountants have the upper hand. As regulators and auditors crank up the representations made by officers of regulated/audited companies, those officers are trying to slough off liability for things they simply don't or can't know.

During that conference call, Mr. Gorman said the logic had seemed a bit circular to him, with him certifying to KPMG that the company's accounting was correct when in fact he was relying on the auditors for that very assurance in some areas.
He said he had raised "issues regarding what responsibilities, if any, auditors may have to companies, where certain technical accounting expertise should exist, the appropriate level of technical accounting expertise a C.F.O. should possess, and whether companies and C.F.O.'s can rely on independent auditors for such expertise."

Incidentally, "we rely" is apparently a potent phrase in litigation. Back when I was a lender and direct investor, I learned from one of our lawyers to shoot off "we rely" letters to everyone so that we might reel as many parties into an insolvency as possible. In particular, he recommended sending letters to all accounting firms stating "we relied" upon their audits to make material credit decisions. I always found it kind of obnoxious.

I find it disappointing to see the direction new regulation has taken since the scandals of 2002 (there seem to be a few percolating for 2003 as well). The primary thrust has been to provide greater grist for litigation, rather than tackling the hard work of defining acceptable conduct. As most of you know, my preferences for regulatory form run in the following order: 1) disclosure, 2) defining illegal behavior and then, only then 3) "prescriptive" regulation. I have a big problem with regulations that try to make us behave a certain way. First, because it's burdensome and second because it results in everyone doing the bare minimum with respect to the issue at hand using the regulators' prescriptions as a safe-harbor. Wherever regulators define a standard of behavior, companies cease to compete against each other and race to the minimum. Why? Because it's not a safe harbor unless you follow the regulation verbatim.

Over the last few years, finished regulation has taken two paths, both aimed as much at litigation than prevention:

1. regulations that shove liability around and aid litigation against the company, like Sarbanes Oxley (it's weasel words "to the best of his knowledge" notwithstanding)
   
2. regulations that create fertile ground for all kinds of litigation
   

Apart from Sarbanes-Oxley, the latest innovations in the financial regulator world are "Customer Identification Documents" that store as much information as possible on clients, "suitability documents" that force brokers to attest to a certain risk tolerance on their clients' parts and requirements to archive all internal and external email on filterable write-once permanent storage media (WORMS) indefinitely. Any litigator would drool over this mountain of discovery: you can bill forever for going through it and you are sure to find something embarassing or actionable. Any company would pay just to keep the other side from commencing discovery.

It is almost as if the regulators have decided since they have failed to convincingly punish any of the corporate evildoers themselves, they will let loose the dogs of wartrial lawyers on public companies and the financial industry. Nice timing.

As the home products and medical industries can tell you, the prognosis is poor.

Before the sarcastic comments begin below, let me point out that I am not proud of the conduct of many in my industry (although I am proud of my firm). Also, as I have been criticized before for not suggesting solutions, here again my regulatory preferences in order:

1. More disclosure
   
2. Clear list of no-nos
   
3. to-do list as small as possible.
   

We'd all be better off if regulators had taken this road map to heart. Then again, a billion dollar settlement will fund a lot of new bureaucracy to go through old, out-of-context embarassing emails. Star regulators will be on the front pages for years to come.

The insurance world refers to a regime of higher premiums and scarce coverage as a "hard" market. The last hard market before the present was 1992, immediately after Hurricane Andrew created the largest insured loss ever of $20 Billion.

This cycle began before September 11, 2001 and before Enron and its fraudulent brethren. Premiums to protect directors and officers (D&O insurance) had been rising already as a result of "Dot-bombing" and the hundreds of lawyers ready to sue any company whose stock price tumbles in a short period of time. The two large commercial carriers in the medical malpractice arena had ceased writing, and extreme weather and consolidation in the Lloyd's market were already putting the pinch on property premiums.

September 11 and the year of Enron gave a hard shove to a trend already in place.

Incidentally, medical malpractice is getting all the press, but the market for accountant's liability is nearly equally disastrous, which helps account for KPMG's decision in this case.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Him Got Two Jobs

A commenter in the prior post asks "Is Mindles still afloat?"

"Afloat" is rather an apt description, I thought, gazing at the snow building over the window sill.

Over at work I am now performing two jobs. This is how a humane company avoids layoffs - we take up the slack when someone leaves or retires and keep the headcount slim.

My new second job involves lots of committees. I am in meetings all day, nibbling at stale sandwiches from the side table, scribbling on printed powerpoint slides and appreciating the irony of having authored these items about committees.

Meetings like this can be a lot like arguing. As my more prolific co-blogger can attest, blogging can be a lot like arguing as well. I'm too tired to argue at the end of the day and so, clearly, is Jane.

I shall endeavor to fill the gap. I've been turning a few posts over in my mind this week and may use this snowbound respite to finish them. But there are other priorities. I pinched a few mewling antiwar protesters Saturday as they hurled bricks through the window of a nearby Starbucks. I must go down to the basement at once with my trusty two-by-four and administer a few more bracing wallops.*

Honestly folks, lighten up.

*Kidding..kidding...relax!. If you don't get the reference, you have to read back a few posts.

...er...well you would have to read back a few posts. Jane has deleted the offending item. She has received some hate mail for suggesting that those protesters engaging in vandalism might learn what violence actually can achieve from some irate shop-keeper armed with said two-by-four and an active sense of property rights. Some of our more sensitive readers felt she hoped for this hypothetical beating too openly and have seen fit to berate and de-link her (horrors!) while the omnipresent bathtub scum of the internet are taking their kinky sexual Id out for a stroll in a series of abusive emails.

Personally, I've been experiencing feelings of violence towards the operator of the municipal plow that put a seven foot pile of snow on the corner sidewalk intersection I must clear (or get fined, as I live a block from a school).

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Public Service Announcement

I have a little anger I need to work out right now. You -- the ones who've been emailing me for the last several days -- you know about that. You've been mad since 2000, haven't you, mad with the blind impotent rage of a Republican ca. 1997, and thanks to your flood of emails, I got to share.

I just deleted a large number of them. Thanks to everyone who made my President's Day Weekend something special. You're doing a winning job of arguing your side -- I've always said that if you want to convince people to eschew violence, you should start out your communication by comparing them to Hitler and liberally lace all correspondance with pornographic suggestions. It helps, of course, if you can accuse them of advocating things they didn't say, and if you can throw in gratuitious references to their alleged support of military actions that took place when they were in grammar school. But mostly, I think, what really sells it is the cussing.

I'm generally suspicious of people who say "The [left/right] is a bunch of [hypocrites/malefactors/loonies], while the [right/left] is all that is finest in humanity", but if y'all are representative of what the left has been producing since we parted ways, I can honestly report to the right half of my readership that y'all are going to be in power for a long, long time.

I'm not responding to your deliberate attempt to cast me as Bull Connor in your own private resistance fantasy in which you singlehandedly save the people of Iraq and the world by -- agitating to keep Sadaam Hussein in power. If you can't read and comprehend multi-syllabic words strung together in a long row, this is probably not the correct forum to remedy the situation.

I grew up in a political family, and I spent what felt like a long time on the left, and more time in the libertarian wing. I don't get angry about politics, and I don't succumb to the tempting belief that my opponents are venal and/or stupid, but in the case of my correspondants, I'll make an exception. Many of you seem to have come via a few high-profile lefty blogs, and all I can say is, to the folks who sent them, your readership is certainly something special. And I never, ever want to hear another lefty blogger talking about how the reason the left is special is that they're nicer human beings, okay? I haven't heard language like that used by your readership since my youthful infatuation with Henry Miller. And at least Miller could spell. If any of y'all are reading this: a handy rule to use with four-letter rules is that when you're done writing them, they should only have four letters.

The nice thing is that I don't have to stay mad. This is a voluntary thing, and right now I don't feel much like volunteering. I think I'll withdraw to the wings so y'all can take your arguments to like-minded folks who think trading epithets is a good way to pass the time. The only things I want to say right now involve language that I won't use in public. I'm taking the controversial posts down and going off blog until I feel better.

-- 30 --

From the desk of Jane Galt:

To Hell with the Flowers

Just get me Michael Jordan for Valentine's Day:

Valentine's Day flowers are like celebrity endorsements. Why do consumers care if celebrities endorse a product? Perhaps it causes us to associate the celebrity's coolness and fame with the good. A more rational answer, however, is that we know that celebrities are expensive to hire. Consequently, when a firm hires a celebrity, we know their making a large financial commitment to their product, so perhaps we should trust their company. Wasting money on a celebrity is similar to wasting it on flowers: it signals devotion and long-term commitment.

(Via Radley Balko)

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Great Lileks piece trying to answer a question I've been asking myself: if Iraq nuked us, would we reallly nuke them? The answer is not, my dovish friends, as obvious as you seem to think. And a good thing for the soul of the country it's not.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Tax Evasion

This article on tax avoidance by Ariana Huffington is incredibly silly, even by the standards of a woman who starts an organization aimed at persuading people to stop driving SUV's even as she is driven around in an . . . er . . . enhanced light truck. She tries to make accountants who force clients to sign NDA's on confidential work product sound shifty, rather than following standard practice in intellectual-property based work with low levels of appropriability -- or in other words, trying to keep people who aren't clients from using tax dodges invented by the accountants without paying for the work involved in thinking them up. She maligns law firms for issuing opinion letters -- " law firms are reaping millions in easy money handing out so-called opinion letters, which theoretically provide assurance to clients that tax shelters are legitimate but, in reality, are little more than the legal equivalent of crossed fingers" -- which I think means she believes rich people should forgo consulting tax attorneys, follow their heart, and see if the IRS buys it. She tries to sound clever in a superior, rich-people-really-are-different-plus-I'm-a-real-live-columnist sort of way:

The tax ploys these shelter savants concocted were so convoluted that even the finance-savvy executives they were hawking them to often had a hard time understanding how they worked. But that was OK, because they certainly understood the end result: a seriously lowered tax bill.

This would be easier to pull off if she did not, in the next paragraph, demonstrate that she doesn't understand it either.

Take the smoke-and-mirrors trickery Ernst & Young used to obliterate the millions in taxes that Esrey and LeMay owed on the $288 million they'd made off Sprint stock options. First the accountants waved their hands over the execs' money and turned it from income into capital gains. Presto! Then they wiggled their slide rules and raised the cost of Sprint stock. Change-o! Next thing ya know -- Poof! -- Esrey and LeMay didn't owe the IRS a cent.

I mean, I understand why Ariana Huffington believes that all you need to do to make money is wiggle and poof!, but I don't know why she'd advertise it.

What she's really trying to get at, of course, is the old "Tax Shelters Are Evil" complaint. I will spare you the lecture on how tax shelters are a byproduct of mostly liberal attempts to use the tax code to do a little stealth social and economic engineering without taking the manly risk of telling the voters about it -- but they are, so there. Anyway. She has this silly piece on a 1991 ruling allowing accountants to keep some of the money they save that implies that it is the reason we have aggressive tax planning, as if $1000 hourly rates and a tax code more complicated than -- actually, metaphors fail me. The tax code is so complicated that I can't think of anything even remotely close, in complicatedness, to compare it to. As long as there are different rates on different kinds of income, people will spend time and money trying to take their income in the form that has the lower tax rates. I'm reminded of this magnificent passage from Milton Friedman's Free to Choose:

What would you think of somewone who said, "I would like to have a cat provided it barked?" Yet your statement that you favor an FDA provided it behaves as you believe desirable is precisely equivalent. The biological laws that specify the characteristics of cats are no more rigid than the political laws that specify the behavior of governmental agencies once they are established. THe way the FDA now behaves, and the adverse consequences, are not an accident, not a result of some easily c