Asymmetrical Information

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Narrowing Horizons with the Internet, part 2

A while back I posted a retort to Cass Sunstein's contention that using the internet somehow narrows our exposure to diverse opinions. A reader recently moved to Louisiana, Janis Gore, commented:

Dear Mr. Hofer: Here in the vast red rural wasteland of this country, people like me, who live in communities of less than 40,000, can't pop down to the local newstand and buy a variety of national newspapers and "important" magazines.

The Internet has been a tremendous boon to me for the consumption of products and news. I am a recent comer to my little town of Vidalia, LA, pop. 5,000, after stints in Dallas, Portland and New York City. I can't begin to imagine how the horizons of children in this area have expanded since the advent of the Internet.

Sunstein is a snob. I have to go to the Internet to escape filtration of news. Jeez, what a limited-use kind of soul.

This is a point I neglected to make earlier. Like Sunstein, I'm too used to having international newstands all around me, and neglected to think about those that don't. Disadvantage, MTZ.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Baby Steps Towards HTML Independance

Baby Steps Towards HTML Independance

Links work! At least, sort of! Included at the bottom, note the link to evil Princetonian Dave Tepper ;-) who tried to sneak Cornel West onto the cool green hills of Penn.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Advantage MTZ, and the Scots

Glenn Reynolds Picks up on my Falwell Award a few days ago, given to the Bishop of Winchester for his immortal words:

Would we be in this situation, if western - north American and European - electorates, all with deep Christian pedigrees, had not encouraged, supported or at least allowed our governments, over so many decades, to develop our standard of living at the expense of millions in the southern hemisphere? And if we had not sold their rulers armaments on such favourable terms, and with so little forethought? Cruelly evil though they were, I find that I have to understand the events of September 11 as a judgment upon us; and so, to understand these weeks, this Christmas, as a critical moment, an opportunity for a fresh beginning, its character caught in those words we have read: "Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus."

I never miss an opportunity to quote Flanders & Swann:

The Scotsman is mean, as we're all well aware
And bony and blotchy and covered with hair
He eats salty porridge, he works all the day
And he hasn't got bishops to show him the way!

The English, the English, the English are best
I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest.

I must say, the idea that having bishops and using the tired Book of Common Prayer somehow gave us Anglicans some principles was always absurd. Isn't the Book of Common Prayer just an excuse not to put together a service yourself? Just a crutch to allow more time for "tea and cake with the vicar?" Another blow to my wobbling faith.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Decor Change For the New

Decor Change

For the New Year, I've decided to shake things up a bit. Since I'm still figuring out how to make those darn links work -- yes, I know how sad it is to see a former networking professional who can't code simple web page -- no great loss. Here goes!

From the desk of Jane Galt:

They're opening a viewing platform

They're opening a viewing platform for the site

I walked by the new viewing stand yesterday on my way back from lunch & still don't know exactly where it is. But you could sure see the lines. While the article I linked to said the wait was two hours, I heard a woman talking to the cops on patrol, and he said it was more like three and a half.

My personal advice is not to bother right now, unless you're only in town for a couple of days. Two or three hours is a long time to wait, I don't think they let you stay on the platform very long, and it's COLD here! The site pretty much looks like any construction site now, although there's a hole in the ground where you can see into the sub-basements.

The best reason to see the site is just to appreciate the vast scale of what was destroyed. You will still be able to see this in a month, when the crowds will hopefully have died down. Although I know that it would be economically devastating to downtown, and hence will not happen, I would like to see the entire area maintained as one flat green space, with perhaps a flat plaza in the middle, so that generations can see that emptiness.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

New Years Bust A number

New Years Bust

A number of articles on the web today saying that New Year's Eve will be quiet this year. Sounds right to me. Personally, I didn't even consider a loud New Years -- I'm going to dinner & a comedy club, albeit dressed to the nines. Most of my friends are taking a similar route. Whether this is because of the disaster, the recession, or the inevitable toll of aging, I can't guess.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

The Gray Lady and Her Sisters Before the Reformation

Iain Murray points us to this entire column on blogs United Press International: Anglosphere: The new Reformation?:

This pan-Anglosphere aspect to blogspace has permitted a much richer, closer and more critical examination of precisely who is saying what. The typical chattering class anti-Americanism of, say, the Guardian or The Nation is raked through point by point and torn to shreds within hours of publication. Persistent archiving means the foolish wrong predictions of Sept. 12 can be linked to as events prove them not only wrong, but based on such absurd premises that they appear to have been written by somebody on drugs. Blogspace is already affecting the wider media, as criticisms and corrections first made on blogs get picked up by journalists and columnists.

This writer feels much of academia and the media throughout the Anglosphere has come to resemble, in a way, the Church in Europe immediately before the Reformation. They have grown intellectually lazy, out of touch with the people they believe they exist to enlighten, and irrelevant to the needs they exist to serve. They have come to see their position, incomes and the respect of the public as entitlements due to them for their virtue, rather than earned by achievement.

The intellectual monopoly of the medieval Church was undermined by the advanced communication technology of the printing press. Printers and pamphleteers mushroomed throughout northern Europe, and the rapid and hard-to-control exchange of ideas their network enabled created the medium for new awarenesses and attitudes. Large parts of the old structure of the Church were overthrown and replaced; that which was left was greatly transformed by the Counter-Reformation.

Are these little Weblogs the harbinger of a similar reformation of the academia and media establishments of the Anglosphere? I wouldn't count it out.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Minor Notes Well, it's cold

Minor Notes

Well, it's cold as a mother-in-law's kiss here in NYC, especially down at the site, where the wind blows off the water practically unobstructed. The good news is, they've finally fixed the broken circuit in the air conditioning which was causing all the cold air in the trailer to sweep across the seat of yours truly before finally exiting the vent. So I'm only wearing one set of thermals now, and my fingers have thawed sufficiently to allow easy typing.

On a related note, the move from Chicago seems to have eaten both my winter coats, so I'm not only layered up in the trailer, but wearing a windbreaker and about six sweaters for my long walk to and from the train, with a scarf tied around my head for good measure. The kind of clothing one wears to a construction site is, in general, not the kind of clothing that screams femininity, but six layers of that clothing screams nothing short of "East German Female Bodybuilding Team". So there I was walking down the street yesterday thinking "who is that fat Russian lady walking next to me?" when I realized that that was my reflection in the glass of a shop window. When I returned to the trailer I had to strip to my bottom layer of clothes just to reassure myself that no, I hadn't put on a couple of hundred pounds without noticing. (For those who don't know me, I'm the lanky type. NOT an East German bodybuilder.) This has strengthened my resolve: precious student loan dollars must be spent to avail me of a real coat. This will also simplify the process of dressing and undressing, which sucks up about fifteen minutes per venture outside. But layering does work: I'm toasty warm in that windbreaker, thanks to the magic of air insulation and my incredible EMS thermals.

Post New Years, I'll be returning to my job search, as the work stabilizes and rumors float of 50-hour weeks. (Sniffle -- bye, bye, overtime.) Anyone who knows of prospects in the economics and corporate strategy field, is hereby openly solicited to email me. Complementary fruit basket to the person whose lead finds me a job.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

We had a little mixup

We had a little mixup at work, I think. The greeting card from one of my coworkers that used to be in this spot is being removed. But Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to all!

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

I'm Too Sexy for My Dishdasha....

The holiday season is always an opportunity to hear some strange stuff from your family, especially if your family tends to take a New York Times kind of worldview. I heard little, however, as strange as the independent admission by my mother and sister that they "find Osama bin Laden...{guilty shrug}..kind of..sexy." The roguish, Lawrence of Arabia gone bad qualities apparently hold some strange appeal, according to my psychoanalyst Mom. I guess it is a variation on the weird charisma of those who live outside the norms of polite society.

I have to admit, I thought Catwoman was pretty sexy (TV show and movie). She definitely wasn't one of the good guys, but ooh - that suit and all that purring. It never seemed so strange that women swooned over rock stars who, but for their fame, wouldn't be able to buy them a drink. My wife, I'm happy to say, has no similar feelings provoked about Osama. She does confess that Bill Clinton's sex appeal grew during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. That I can also see, grudgingly.

But if this Osamarousal, if at all typical, has to fall under the heading of "I don't understand (certain) women." How can he have any charisma through all that pedantic talk, not to mention blatant misogyny and mass-murdering tendencies? I think it is also safe to say that the olfactory aspects of Osama's charisma, untranslated by the video medium, might not work in his favor either. Yet it is true that Charles Manson and Ted Bundy have had their female admirer-groupies, long after their crimes were known.

I remember a similar conversation with my mother and sister when they both described how sexy Dracula is in nearly all the versions of the Bram Stoker story. I found that equally odd - that a man who has been "undead" for 300 years and drinks your blood could be so attractive. Many other women have confessed that one to me.

It's enough to make one think that nice guys do finish last.

For an even more bizarre attraction, examine El Al security's reaction to Richard Reid (according to spokesman Nahman Klaiman):

"Our security people were aroused and [Reid] went through a security check, which included a personal check as well as removal of his shoes, which were checked separately," Klaiman said.

OK, that's unlikely. But if this doesn't indicate an attraction, were the guards asleep?

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Another Story I Don't Want

Another Story I Don't Want to Hear

Rumors are afoot that Taliban Johnny's father is gay. Cultural conservative leaning types have apparently intimated that the father's moving out to live with another man may have pushed the kid over the edge into militant Islam; more libertarian or lefty types are ignoring the story. But I think this raises an important question: who the hell cares? Cultural conservatives who want to roll back the tide of irresponsibility in our culture are now suddenly turning around and arguing that Johnny had to commit high treason (okay, maybe not legally, but still) because daddy doesn't like girls? A pre-Christmas OpinionJournal reports "Rob Morse of the San Francisco Chronicle blasts Corkery for taking "attacks on [Walker's] family to a new and disgusting level" [although, if homosexuality is a perfectly valid lifestyle, how does intimating that Dad's gay constitute an attack?]. How about blasting him because he told us something that none of us really cared to know, true or not? But then I'm biting my own tail, so I'll return to my original point: Dad could've dressed up as Annette Funicello to take Johnny to school and the kid would still be responsible for the decisions he made five or ten years later.

And on the Department of Lefty Idiocy side, here's a quote from the above story attributed to one of the men the father allegedly lived with: "I'm really shocked and upset at the stories and rumors going around. I'm afraid for the young man (John Walker, Frank Lindh's son). Is the country going to try him for treason based on rumors? The facts in this case have not come out." While it is hard to believe that anyone could actually say something this stupid, experience teaches that yes, there is a segment of our population that actually believes that Johnny Walker could be convicted of treason for the sin of having a gay father, rather than because he went to a foreign country and took up arms in support of our avowed enemies.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

A Plug for Lord of

A Plug for Lord of the Rings

Saw it on Friday. I loved it. The friend I saw it with, who does not read fantasy or science fiction and doesn't much like action films, loved it. As far as I can tell, everyone who's seen it loved it.

There are very few movies I've seen that left me with nothing critical to say. (Megan? With nothing critical to say? Can this be right?) Saving Private Ryan -- kill the speech to the grave & cut to him saying "Tell me I lived a good life", please. The English Patient -- yes I know the desert is desolate & beautiful, and war sucks. Now get the lead out. Titanic -- well, for starters, stop letting Leonardo read his lines from cue cards located somewhere over Kate Winslet's shoulder. (See? I don't have nothing critical to say.) But Lord of the Rings, while long (a feeling probably exacerbated by the fact that it was late, I was tired, and the air conditioning in the theater was set to "arctic blast") left me filled with nothing but wonder. See it.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

No Help on Social Security

This is the title of the New York Times' 12/27 editorial on Bush's Social Security Commission. It is a fitting title for the Times' coverage of the issue.

The problem is not so great that it cannot be solved with some modest changes in the benefit structure, retirement age and an infusion of revenues. But when the stock market boomed in the 1990's, many experts began beating the drums for a government-sponsored system of private investment accounts to replace Social Security. In response, President Bill Clinton proposed allowing workers to supplement but not replace Social Security with separate retirement accounts subsidized with part of the federal budget surpluses that were projected to arrive throughout the coming years.

...During the presidential campaign, Mr. Bush was always vague about whether benefits would have to be cut in order to finance his privatization plan. His commission, headed by former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York and Richard Parsons, the chief executive-designate of AOL Time Warner, makes at least that much clear.

Let's paraphrase: "The problem is not so great that some tax hikes and benefit cuts won't fix it. And people can save on their own, as long as its outside the existing plan. But Bush's plan involves benefit cuts." Am I missing something?

According to the Times "changes in the benefit structure" that result in less total benefits don't equal "benefit cuts." Saving outside the plan is fine as long as the current amount of social security reserves invested in special government obligations remains the same.

Here's another precious bit:

In the 1980's a Social Security commission helped lead to bipartisan steps to extend the system's solvency

Just to clarify, the 1983 amendments after the Greenspan Commission raised taxes and cut benefits. Look for yourself.

Social security macroeconomics are pretty simple (micro- is a lot more complicated). It takes money in from the workforce and either redistributes it to the currently retired or saves it up in a "reserve" for future retirees. The reserves are important because of the increasing ratios of retirees to workers (note: on linked chart "2005 should be "2025"). Three factors can improve Social Security's condition, listed here with policies that would create the desired effect:

1) Increased taxes on the working: increase the tax rate or build the tax base through payroll growth, birth rates or immigration

2) Decreased distributions to the retired: increase the retirement age, decrease payout amounts, limit eligibility....or establish a maximum age (!)

3) Increased rates of return on reserves: invest them in something with better return potential than government IOUs but less certainty, e.g. bonds and stocks

Stripped of partisan positioning, the political debate should be about how to equitably distribute the pain of the first two, and deal with the potential uncertainties of the third. According to the times, only item 1 and decreased distributions to the wealthy are "bipartisan" or "consensus building". If true, this confirms what the Times has been denying all along. Social Security is no longer a "savings and retirement plan", it's a bread & butter welfare state program for redistribution of income. How much less "lockbox" baloney would we have to endure if we just admitted that?

Why we shouldn't be looking into the relatively painless option of increasing the rate of return beats me. For some reason, the Times thinks raising taxes and cutting benefits are a no-brainer and increasing returns is off limits. Could it be because it can only happen outside the Treasury?

Also, the reason the system is now projected to bust in 2038 instead of 2017 (as predicted a decade ago) is because economic growth has increased the tax base through increased payrolls. This is the surest way to get out of this problem. The Times has neither publicly considered this fact, nor acknowledged the incredible progress made so far. It may be too pro-corporate for the Times to say so, but pro-growth policies are the best way to increase the solvency of Social Security.

Once again, we receive no help from the Times, only limited choices and partisan puffery dressed up as analysis.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

I'm famous, sort of Penn

I'm famous, sort of

Penn classmates will be happy to know that as soon as I saw InstaPundit.Com attempting to divert Cornel West from Princeton to Penn, I immediately fired off an email in protest. Well, InstaPundit put it on the website, which means that more people just saw my name and deathless prose then have viewed this blog. Maybe when I finally get those pictures up. . .

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Advantage MTZ

Andrew Sullivan took my advice and gave Arthur Schlesinger the Von Hoffman award for 2001.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

The Best Offense is a Good Defense

...or is it the other way around? There's a difference between offense and defense, but sometimes it's not easy to define.

Bill Keller, up until September the Managing Editor of the New York Times, takes a poorly-aimed stab at defining the two in his Op-Ed on Missile Defense today. In the process, he acknowledges, without indicating as much, the doves' (and the Times, if I remember correctly) mistakes on missile policy prior to the end of the cold war. He divides the 1980's missile defense supporters into two camps - "dreamers", to include Reagan, and "schemers", including McFarlane and Keller's hero Colin Powell.

The more cynical camp — including the national security adviser, Robert McFarlane, and the military assistant to the secretary of defense, Colin Powell — saw an impregnable defense as a pipe dream, but also a useful bargaining chip. It wouldn't stop a nuclear strike, but it would worry the Soviet military planners, and make it easier to drive a favorable deal in arms control talks.

That time around, the schemers had it right. The impermeable superdome was a technological fantasy, and one that could have bankrupted the national treasury. Even if it had worked, it would have been dangerous, because it would have encouraged the illusion that we could win a nuclear war. The prospect of an American missile defense system did, however, help goad the Soviets into mutual cuts in our nuclear arsenals.

OK, fair enough. Keller thinks missile defense was a technological pipe dream, but he acknowledges that developing it put us in a favorable position in arms negotiations and, presumably, our position in the cold war. He goes on to suggest that the "schemers" are up to something much more devious this time, and it is the elephant in the national defense debate living room:

The concept at the heart of nuclear strategy is deterrence, which means that our ability to obliterate the enemy prevents him from doing something rash. It is generally accepted that our nuclear strength deterred the Soviet Union from raining nuclear warheads on America. But preventing Armageddon was not the main purpose of our nuclear forces. The foremost purpose was to stop the Soviet Union from sending its superior non-nuclear armies into Western Europe. By deliberately leaving open the possibility that we would go nuclear if Soviet tanks crossed the Fulda Gap into West Germany, we deterred the Soviets from beginning a conventional war in Europe. Would we in fact have risked decimating the planet to save Europe? Maybe not, but the Soviets could never be sure.

The schemers in the current debate fear that any nation with a few nuclear weapons can do to us what we did to the Soviets — deter us from projecting our vastly superior conventional forces into the world. This could mean Iraq or North Korea or Iran, but it most importantly means China. The real logic of missile defense, to these advocates, is not to defend but to protect our freedom to attack.

"The logic of missile defense is to make the stakes of power projection compatible with the risks of power projection," says Keith B. Payne, a deterrence theory expert and an ardent supporter of missile defense. Missile defense, in other words, is not about defense. It's about offense.

...Why is everyone being so coy about this?

How can you acknowledge the value of nuclear deterrence and not see the rational behind being able to project force? By Keller's definition, a nuclear missile is still an offensive weapon. Yet our ability to launch them quickly from our own soil and from submarines all around the world is, indeed, a heck of a deterrent - a defensive system. But it's little or no deterrent to a terrorist squatting in a headless or hostile state. We would not have nuked Afghanistan to get rid of Osama bin Laden and everybody knows it (no matter how bellicose they think the U.S. is). It is our ability to project power precisely into places like Afghanistan that puts terrorists at risk. We can argue about whether future Bin Ladens would bother to use a missile, when many other cheaper means are available, but a working defense would certainly make it more difficult for him to forestall a U.S. action with a missile.

So why, as Keller suggests, is our ability to project power a covert "scheming" rationale of the defense establishment? It's not. Our ability to project power is the "big stick" that keeps us safe. Plenty of tyrannical trouble-makers in the world are already scratching their heads at what we've done in Afghanistan, because it showed how we can leverage the power of a popular revolution against them, if we so choose.

Keller's piece ends in a swamp of rhetorical questioning, with little opining:

The schemers' agenda, on the other hand, makes a more complicated and uncomfortable debate, because it raises the question of whether missile defense might, in fact, make the world less safe. "Force projection" has an unpleasant, bellicose ring to it. It also drives the Chinese up the wall. There are already plenty of hawks in China who believe we have a long- range strategy to "contain" it — and the force projection rationale tends to suggest they are right.

Arguing that we need missile defense to assure we can take the battle to the nuclear-armed bad guys opens up two ticklish lines of discussion.

One is whether missile defense makes it likelier we will get into a war that is not essential to our national interests, or that we will move more easily from containing bad regimes to ousting them, and whether as part of such a conflict we may find ourselves playing nuclear chicken.

The other is whether missile defense might lead to a new arms-building competition. If it is true that China cares enough about Taiwan to threaten nuclear war — that is, if China's ability to deter us with nuclear weapons really matters to Chinese leaders — then it stands to reason they will work hard to protect their deterrent. However they do that, by manufacturing more missiles or putting multiple warheads on each launcher or by a shift in strategy, a Chinese buildup may well influence the behavior of China's wary nuclear neighbor India. What India does in turn alarms its nuclear neighbor Pakistan. If you're following the news, you know that India and Pakistan are at this moment on the verge of war.

Strategic planners have a technical expression for this kind of discussion. It's called a can of worms.

Well, thanks for the strategic and technical insights, Bill.

The easy way to cut through the equivocating fog here is to think about my favorite phrase - "compared to what?" Accept, for the moment, Keller's argument that missile defense increases our ability to project power - to "move more easily from containing bad regimes to ousting them," as he says. Think about whether we should decrease our ability to project power, which is what happens if we stand still as the world changes around us. Should we emasculate our forces to the point that we cannot oust a bad regime? It is difficult to argue that our ability to get rid of Saddam whenever we choose to has to have governed his behavior somewhat. The fear of being "ousted" is the best deterrent we've got, and our only significant "threat power", to borrow a game theory term. The "hawks in China" should "believe we have a long- range strategy to 'contain' it" because they are an expansionist communist state. How that affects the Pakistan-India conflict I don't know, but let's not violate the prime directive - the defense of the U.S., our allies, and free democracies around the world by a massive deterrent power. If missile defense really allows us to project power, it's a pretty good idea.

There are few reasons, as long as our constitutional democracy is functioning, why we should reduce our ability to project military power. Enhance it and communicate with China, India and Pakistan using clear diplomatic channels. Back that up by doing what you say (i.e., "hand over Bin Laden or your days are numbered"). Keller should not underestimate the U.S.'s credibility.

Here's another question I've asked until blue in the face - if missile defense is technologically unfeasible, how come it has all these incredible ramifications on the arms race and our "ability to project power"? If it doesn't defend us from at least rogue missiles, by definition it has no deterrent or other military value. Our future enemies should be cheering it on as it "bankrupts our treasury" (now there's an exaggeration - it takes a lot to bankrupt the outfit printing the money) and thereby eliminates our ability to project power.

Missile defense is like the theory of man-made global climate change. It is a scientific leap of faith, involving extrapolation of current trends and prognostications that are highly sensitive to how technology and/or humanity will evolve. We face the difficult challenge of evaluating the current and future value of the program against the present value cost. The only difference is that we can sound preachy, high-minded and sensitive whilst talking about global warming, whereas the realpolitik of deterring genocidal maniacs is a hardnosed and calculating business - "scheming", as Keller puts it. I'm willing to finance some "scheming" myself, having been a few hundred yards away as one of those maniac's plans panned out.

Keller is a big proponent of international courts, treaties and organizations. I'd like to ask him a question: Do these organizations need the ability to "project power" or the means to "oust" a criminal regime? Would the existing international organizations have any credibility at all without the U.S.'s ability to do those things? Is a judicial branch meaningful without the executive? Could you possibly define an international organization's ability to muster military power as "defensive"?

John Nash, described in the movie A Beautiful Mind, solved a problem of unstable equilibria in game theory (this article offers more on the subject). The equilibrium must be found where each player has maximizes his own "threat power" - his ability to do harm to the other, net of their ability to do harm to him. When it comes to harm by military means, the ability to project force, as well as the ability to repel it, are opposite sides of the same "threat power" coin. Those who have already become international criminals (terrorists, rogue regimes) and therefore have no fear of economic isolation or the eunuch of diplomatic influence "the disapproval of the international community". That leaves the ability to project force, or our ability to perform the old CIA "dirty tricks" (such as assassination) as the only useful "threat powers" against them. Without at least one of those, you lose. Better learn to grovel fast.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

You can find me at www.janegalt.net

Steven Den Beste and others are discussing Pyra's (home of Blogger) potential demise.

I have secured server space with Cornerhost, and I am trying to figure out the most efficient way to archive my posts outside of blogspot (any thoughts?) in a way that can easily be fed into a new program if necessary. Ultimately, I'd like to combine the Bullpen (short) entries with the longer MTZ posts in a way that is more convenient.

Whatever happens, I'll set the above web address to point to my site.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Nominee for the "Parallel Universe" award

What more could you ask for than free people with the resources to do as they please?

Very little, I would think. Yet along comes David Boyle, armed with his new book The Sum of Our Discontent and a $50,000 PR budget, suggesting additional conditions. It starts out in a promising way, pointing out all sorts of problems and inconsistencies in how everything from national accounts to meaningless news statistics are produced (these are subjects I enjoy). As I plowed into it, however, I began to founder in its finger-wagging criticism of numerical measurement.

Chapter 9 is called "The New Indicators," and it suggests that economists and post-war politicians have focused exclusively on GDP as the aim of government policy. He suggests this is not a good measurement of economic progress. Boyle goes on to plug (and do a disservice to) a variety of alternate indicators, such as the GPI ,described in this Atlantic article, or the related Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare. Here's Boyle's verdict on post-war (British) growth:

The mantra of growth has been repeated with growing conviction ever since World War II, and with a kind of manic frustration as real life failed to comply with the figures....

...In the 45 years since Butler painted his hopeful future of growth (1954), there are (sic) more ill health and less creativity, fewer people on sports teams, less amateur dramatics, fewer learning musical instruments or painting. There are more people with asthma, depression, and cancer. There is more crime, more people in prisons. But the key measurement of success used by politicians and economists recognized none of these things as important. By narrowing the definition of what constituted "wealth" we ended up narrowing all our lives.

This breathtaking statement earns Boyle a nomination for the MTZ "parallel universe award." Boyle needs to read up a bit on what happened in the latter half of the 20th century. Doubled lifespans and quadrupled real incomes apparently count for little in Boyle-land, where we are all sick in body and spirit.

One wonders where he gets the figures (there is no footnote) to back this nonsense up. Fewer people on sports teams? fewer learning musical instruments? I'm sure the coal miners in Britain in Doyle-land's 1950s were pleased with the musical literacy of their children. The statements about health are just laughably absurd. One suddenly understands why Boyle is engaging in the counter-tribal (he claims to be a mathematician of sorts) act of attacking numeracy - he doesn't want to be bound by figures.

Also, while GDP is generally the focus of economic policy, it has never been the exclusive focus of economists, let alone politicians. His characterization of GDP growth as the sole political lodestar is therefore a straw man.

To be fair, Boyle is reasonably hard on alternative measures, suggesting that what we choose to measure is a reflection of our aspirations, and our aspirations change. But this is all the more reason to use the elastic abstraction of money. Ignoring the cries of those who somehow think it is crass to measure things in monetary terms, let's consider why we do so. Money is a medium of exhange. We don't all want the same things, as Boyle's ridiculous assortment of alternative measures so aptly suggest. Money can be exchanged for the things we want. Money can be used to pursue diverse aspirations.

Boyle points out that money itself is useless, but that is precisely its virtue in this context. For instance, critics of economic growth worry about inequality. But imagine for a second that somehow one person accrues all of a country's monetary wealth. What is he to do with it? If he cannot trade it for the things he wants he has nothing, so individual and economic freedom are also necessary. If the citizens of that country are allowed to trade with him (there's that freedom thing again), he will quickly part with significant sums, and many will be richer for his wealth. It is true that when freedom is missing, inequality persists - think of Zaire, where President Mobutu traded his ill-gotten gains primarily with the outside world and enslaved his citizens with the blunt stick of his corrupt government. You can hoard all the power in a country, or have a monopoly on the means of production or critical services . But if you have all the money and no ability to use it, you have nothing.

GDP is an attempt, however flawed in calculation, to measure the amount of wealth created by summing all the monetary transactions in a country or zone. Money is meaningless until it is transacted, and that is why, paradoxically, measuring total monetary transactions in GDP is precisely the right way to measure economic progress.

One wonders if Boyle has noticed that terrorists come from countries that cannot manage consistent GDP growth over any stretch of time and are slaves to authoritarian regimes riding the inelastic demand curve for oil. Has he noticed that countries that have both grown their GDPs and respected individual freedom have been particularly peaceful and do not attack each other?

Boyle's diatribe has scary social-engineering overtones. Are we really to measure progress by people learning musical instruments? I am as ardent a booster of musical literacy as there is, but I wouldn't dream of using musical training to measure "wealth" in any way that might be important to government. Boyle goes on in his non-attributing way:

'A country that cut down all its trees, sold them as wood chips, and gambled the money away playing tiddly-winks, would appear form its national accounts to have got richer in terms of GNP per person,' wrote one economist in 1989. Some of them almost did.

Well, that's right. We can do things you don't approve of with money (the above example would bring growth to a screeching halt in the next period). We can also do things you do approve of. That's the point. If we could only do things you approve of, it would be called "Boyle's Authoritarian Economy." Now why isn't there a stampede to renounce the citizenship of our GCP-obsessed countries and move there?

I am highly suspicious of economists that attempt to measure economic growth in non-monetary terms, because the terms they invent reflect their own aspirations for society. The suggestion that one person's particular definition of progress should be shared by all of us is social engineering in disguise, an attempt to shape society to one constituency's interests. In the extreme, eugenics comes to mind as one way people have pursued alternative measures of national wealth in the past.

If your country's citizens have money, they require only individual and economic freedom to enjoy increased wealth, as they define it. That they should choose to exchange that monetary wealth for something other than musical instrument lessons is their own choice, much as the David Boyles of the world may lament it.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

I'm BAAAAAACK! After a much

I'm BAAAAAACK!

After a much deserved hiatus, spent preparing for Christmas (which culminated in a seven hour train ride to scenic Newark, New York, where I spent 3 straight days cooking for my grandparents before returning to work), I have emerged from retirement to rant about the Enron debacle -- or more specifically, Reason's reaction to it. Which is retarded. Flailing to explain the failure of a market oriented system, Reason strives to argue that no one really did anything wrong. Bullshit. As Reason points out, Enron's entire company match, up to 6% of salary, was in company stock. Let's think about that. The contribution limit for a 401K, provided you don't hit the salary caps, is 15% of salary. (Or at least it used to be when I had, you know, a regular job.). So our hypothetical Joe blow making, say, $50,000 annual, and contributing the maximum, is putting $7,500 into his 401K. The company puts in $3000 worth of company stock as a match. Even if the stock appreciates exactly in tandem with the rest of his investment choices, and Mr. Blow appropriately diversifies the rest of his portfolio into non-oil related, countercyclical investments, almost 30% of his 401K will be invested in company stock which cannot be sold until he turns 50. Since this is about 30% more than any sane financial advisor would allow Mr. Blow to invest in the company for which he currently works, Enron was pushing extremely unsound financial practices on its employees. Remember, that $3000 is not free money -- it is in lieu of other compensation that Enron would otherwise have to give. It also, through the imaginitive accounting used for ESOPs, does not show up on the balance sheets the way that cash would, plus it supports the stock price by providing a large pool of owners who can't sell even if -- well, even if the stock goes to 33 cents. So Enron gets three for the price of one -- conserves cash, gooses its balance sheet, and supports its stock price. The employees get -- 33 cents.

Even if you work for a fantastic company, one with extremely low volatility and sound management practices, this is a dreadful idea. Why? Imagine Joe's great-grandfather, Hiram, a respectable accountant with an extremely stable firm for which he has labored all of his adult life. He not only draws a good salary as he nears retirement age, but has a lucrative junior partnership in his firm from which he will be able to draw over half his salary when he retires, enough to comfortably live out his golden years. He has other investments, of course, but Hiram is counting on the firm to provide the bulk of his funds.

Unfortunately, some young whippersnapper in Detroit starts churning out automobiles, and the buggy whip manufacturer which employs Hiram experiences a couple of years of declining earnings. Several years later, the firm merges with two other manufacturers, leaving Hiram on the street. At 58, it is hard to find another post. His junior partnership is diluted by the merger, then wiped out entirely three years later when the combined firms go bankrupt together. Had Hiram purchased some stocks and bonds instead of that junior partnership, he would be able to retire comfortably instead of moving in with Joe's grandfather and spending his last years crammed in a back bedroom listening to the grandkids screaming through the walls.

Joe's great-grandfather is what my Investments professor called extremely undiversified. Undiversified holdings increase volatility, which is to say the likelihood of extreme events. You can get extremely rich, as you would if you'd plowed all your money into Microsoft. Or you can lose everything, as the Enron folks did. What's worse, they had their entire financial worth tied up in the company, because their jobs were there too. Houston doesn't have a ton of large companies to work for -- and 60 is no time to be looking for a job. Enron should never have allowed, much less encourage (or really, forced) employees to be so undiversified.

Legal? Almost. Nothing restricts companies from offering their matchings in company stock (although -- gasp -- in the opinion of this near-libertarian, the SEC should.) In this case, however, there were two problems. The first is that executives engaged in a clearly criminal (at least to me, and all my b-school buddies) concealment of the actual financial condition of the firm. This means that they were committing fraud by giving employees compensation which they knew to be worth less than the face. Whether this is legally fraudulent I know not, but it certainly meets my definition of fraud, particularly as the executives were the only people who could know the firm's true condition, negating any cries of caveat emptor. They did this at least in part to inflate the value of the firm's stock, delaying the reckoning long enough for at least some of them to sell out large Enron positions. (I'm not saying this is why they pushed the company stock; only that it had this effect). Secondly, they caused employee accounts to be frozen during critical periods (though from what I've seen of the matching plan, so much of those 401k's were in matching stock that couldn't be sold -- because the average Joe Blow contributes much less than 15% of his salary -- that the lockup period wouldn't have helped much.) They maintain it was routine. I maintain that if they had given a rat's ass about their employees, they would have delayed the routine. But of course, having a block of owners that couldn't sell delayed the reckoning by at least a couple of days. Do I know that this factored into the decision? No. But at the very least it showed callous disregard for the employees it subsequently dumped on the street.

Yes, people should behave responsibly. No, you can't protect people from being idiots. And sometimes managers do their best and the companies fail anyway. I don't think that you can prevent people from buying their company's stock with their own money. But it seems to me that you can prosecute the criminal fraud and negligance perpetrated by Enron's directors and captive board (four doctors on a fifteen person board? None of whom, apparently, understood anything about the oil, commodities, or financial markets in which Enron was involved, nor how to read a balance sheet or income statement?) More importantly, you can strip their assets in a civil suit and hand them over to those devastated people near retirment who are losing their houses along with their jobs (and ending up with nothing from the sale, due to the Enron-led collapse in Houston real-estate prices), and have no realistic prospects of either getting another job, or retiring any time soon.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Blogger Back

Phew - we can post again, so I can tell you I am with family in the land of low bandwidth. Back by Saturday.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

The Beautiful Mind I Once Knew

I read with sorrow of Damian Penny's loss of a friend. Yet another reason, on top of the season and the opening of A Beautiful Mind , to think of a college friend who is no longer around.

Michael Laudor and I were "Social Activities Chairmen" of our residential college at Yale, which means we were in charge of beer and bands for Silliman College's parties. Mike's demeanor was sort of like Leon Redbone. He wore tinted glasses and was extremely laid back. The thing about Mike was he was brilliant, and never seemed to work very hard to obtain straight A's. He and I took a class together on computer-modeling physics problems (in Basic, no less). As his study partner, I found it hard not to coast on his work. Solutions just seemed to come to him.

Mike was open and friendly to anyone, completely without pretense. I never passed a minute with Mike when he wasn't listening and just being gemütlich. And then he'd say your thoughts back to you, only so much more eloquently, often adding information you didn't know. He was as likely to quote Dylan as Plato. People like Mike made Yale exciting. He was intellectually hyperactive yet completely unassuming. I passed many three-hour dining hall marathons with Mike and regretted losing touch with him in the years after graduation.

Mike worked at Bain & Co. for a after Graduation (1985) and had his first serious schizophrenic episode in 1987 when he was applying to Yale Law School, which he eventually attended. He was in and out of treatment during that time, but did well when he went to Yale:

The law school, Laudor told the New York Times in 1995, turned out to be "the most supportive mental-health-care facility that exists in America." The Times story, documenting Laudor's recovery from schizophrenia and his struggle to become a lawyer in a world prejudiced against mental illness, transformed his life. It led to a $600,000-plus advance from Scribner for writing his saga and $1.5 million for the movie rights from director Ron Howard's Imagine Entertainment. At one point, Brad Pitt considered playing the lead in the film, titled, like the proposed book, The Laws of Madness. Society seemed ready to proclaim Laudor a hero, another who overcame.

(from "A Precarious Genius")

In 1998 Mike stabbed his pregnant wife, Caroline Costello, to death. He has, of course, been locked up. While medicine has made great strides, treatment of mental illness has not produced a cure for his tortured mind.

There 'but for the grace of God' go we.

Several articles on Mike are available on the web:
Why Deinstitutionalization Turned Deadly
A Precarious Genius
The Michael Laudor Tragedy
A Hotshot Haunted and 'Hunted'

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Happy Pagan Rituals; December Birthdays; Cheap Link to 'Mindles''s Wish List

Kathy Kinsley writes on the "Spirit of Secular Christmas" today:

There is a secular "spirit of Christmas" which has partly come out of the old pagan celebrations, and partly out of the entirely human urge to connect with family and friends, and to show appreciation to them.

.....I also know Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Wiccans, and atheists who celebrate the "secular" side of Christmas. There is something about the idea of Christmas that seems to warm the hearts of people everywhere. I think that is a good thing. Those who don't might consider moving their birthday celebration to the month in which Christ was born.

It's true. Everybody loves the pagan rituals of December such as Christmas Trees. Apparently the Romans did too, and that's why they chose this time to celebrate Christ's birthday.

Incidentally, my birthday is the 27th of December. When I was a kid, everybody bent over backwards to make sure my brithday wasn't acquired by Christmas, so no harm no foul.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Merry Christmas

Sshhh! Santa Claus is about to arrive for the three little proto-pundits in the Hofer household. There's nothing like tonight. I hope you are all having as much fun as I am right now.

And laying his finger
Aside of his nose,
And giving a nod,
Up the chimney he rose

This painting is by Robert Weir. It was painted in 1837 based on the 1822 poem "A Visit from Saint Nick" ('Twas the Night Before Christmas). Apparently, St. Nick was not "fat and jolly" until Thomas Nast illustrated him in that fashion in 1888.

If you go to the source of this image (click on it), you can comment on it in the New York Historical Society Luce Center Database

This painting of "Flags on 57th Street" (1918) by Childe Hassam was Bill Clinton's Christmas card this year. It's one of his series of flag paintings depicting New York's patriotism towards the end of World War I.

If you go to the source of this image, you can comment on it in the New York Historical Society Luce Center Database.

19th century Kerchief of Santa with a flag! You can comment on this one too.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

In which MTZ is sucked, somewhat reluctantly, into an intentionally provocative debate

Fredrik Norman, provoking controversy, wrote the following:

Does Welfare Equal Terrorism? I'd answer that with a resounding yes.

I spent part of the wee hours a few nights ago responding on his site in the negative. Unfortunately that's lost now after the great Kristiansand Server-Freeze. So let me try again.

I agree that government redistribution of wealth is coercion and a substantial reduction in individual liberty. I think Fredrik and I would also agree that there are millions of lost souls who have forgotten that this country was built on a foundation that prohibited coercion by individuals (the rule of law) and limited coercion by government (the Constitution). Liberalism was founded on the ideal of "freedom from" coercion, not the statist or communitarian entitlement ideals of those who wear the "Liberal" label today. The Utopia we should be striving for is the one where individuals are free from any obligation that today's government may force on us. We could argue whether the sacrifices forced on us by government are necessary, but we should agree that ideally they would not exist. We would be free to finance neither redistribution nor Daisy Cutters, if we so chose.

Most of my trouble comes from the label "Terrorism". It shouldn't mean anything that involves coercion, as that dilutes the term. We reserve a special label for this purposeless violence. The best definition I can provide is "violence, purely for the sake of fear and intimidation but under the pretense of a dispute, intentionally made on a party unconnected to that dispute." A state and its citizens are inextricably involved. In fact, an oppressive state is in a direct dispute with its citizens. So it is difficult to accuse a state of Terrorism per se. But that doesn't mean the state may not be brutal, genocidal, oppressive or thuggish, all of which we also associate with Terrorism.

Democracy also makes a difference. We may have no choice but to have our wealth redistributed, but we can try to vote the bums out. The folks in the WTC had no connection whatsoever, let alone a chance to object, to Al Qaeda's concerns. Which is what makes them a party "irrelevant to the dispute."

It is tempting to extend the definition of Terrorism to any form of coercion to perform something we find abhorrent. But then the only thing that differentiates terrorism from a "legitimate" use of force is the judgement we pass on its aims. It becomes the Justice Stewart definition of Terrorism - "I can't define it, but I know it when it happens to me," if you will.

I concede Fredrik's point about "matters of degree". To some extent I am making an argument that serves our aims of coalition-building in a war against Terrorism rather than strictly on the logic of freedom limited by force. But I think it is legitimate to have a special name for a particularly abhorrent and unusual (thank goodness) form of violence or coercion, as much as it is legitimate to have a special and violent effort to combat it. We would not make military war on the proponents of an expanding but democratice Welfare State, even though they attack and hinder growth and opportunity for the little guy while hypocritically using him as a symbol of their cause.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

"No Sanctions" crowd forgot to speak to the locals

In a recent post, I made lengthy comment about the illogical arguments against the sanctions on Iraq.

A reader pointed out an article by Michael Rubin in the (June 2001) New Republic on the contrast between Northern Iraq and the rest of the country under sanctions:

But Sulaymaniyah, a city in northern Iraq with approximately 500,000 inhabitants, tells a different story. Indeed, across a crescent-shaped slice of northern Iraq, the picture is the same: The shops are stocked, and the people are eating. Northern Iraq lives under exactly the same international sanctions as the rest of the country. The difference here is that local Kurdish authorities, in conjunction with the United Nations, spend the money they get from the sale of oil. Everywhere else in Iraq, Saddam does. And when local authorities are determined to get food and medicine to their people--instead of, say, reselling these supplies to finance military spending and palace construction--the current sanctions regime works just fine. Or, to put it more bluntly, the United Nations isn't starving Saddam's people. Saddam is.

....All of which helps explain why, despite the inconveniences, residents here don't want sanctions weakened--they want them strengthened. Indeed, when the Bush administration recently announced it was going to use "smart sanctions" to target the military--not Iraqi civilians--one farmer in a rural village asked rhetorically how the administration could talk about Saddam's war crimes one day and reward him the next. Didn't the United States care that Saddam started two wars and used gas against Iraq's non-Arab population? Then again, whatever doubts northern Iraqis have about American resolve, it's better than the sheer disdain they feel for the French and the Russians, who, they say, sacrifice freedom to win lucrative contracts from Saddam. "Surely they understand that we hate Saddam," says one northern Iraqi deputy minister. "Once he is gone, we won't forget that they wanted to help him."

The arguments for weakening or removing the sanctions peddled on Lowly Delusions suffer from what Steven Den Beste calls "deeply loving and compassionate chauvinistic contempt." There is no moral high ground for those who suggest we ease up.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Attacking the corporate shell instead of its contents

While I did not make my way through most of the New York Times this weekend, I could not help but notice the Thomas Frank Op-Ed on the fellow who has come to be known as Tali-boy (the American formerly known as John Walker).

This article is extraordinary. First it lays out a reasonable criticism of the moral right's reaction to Tali-boy:

the culture warriors have decided that Mr. Walker's doings are an obvious reflection of the treasonous tendencies of the "liberal elite" and have commenced offensive operations accordingly. Radio commentators decry Californian "permissiveness." The Weekly Standard has posted Mr. Walker's teenage hip-hop noodlings on its Web site as though these were profoundly embarrassing to the left. Shelby Steele suggested in The Wall Street Journal that Mr. Walker's path to the Taliban started with the 60's, "countercultural hipness," sneering intellectuals and "cultural liberalism."

We really don't know enough about John Walker to pin his deeds on anyone other than himself.

I don't object to examining Mr. Walker's writings, and if they happen to parrot one ideology or another I don't care. Frank is right, it's a bit of a stretch to link Walker's obviously losing his group on reality to the political orientation of his family, let alone those he parroted along the way. Can you feel the "but.." coming?

But as long as we're passing out explosive bits of blame, we would do well to turn the spotlight on that other corner of American life where a band of impudent snobs, elected by no one, wax subversive and work to undermine the authority of parents, the sanctity of marriage and even the honor of the flag.

I refer, of course, to corporate America.

Oh God, not one of these. Here we go:

It is from TV commercials for sneakers and S.U.V.'s that we learn of the horror of American sameness and the freedom and personal authenticity that await us when we fire up a Macintosh or zoom away in a Honda CR-V. Extremism in the pursuit of intensity, the ad men tell us, is no vice. John Walker's generation was encouraged to use "extreme" cordless drills, buy its Dodges from an extreme used car dealer and catch its trout with an extreme fishing rod. Just for them did ecstatic TV hipsters steer their sedans up Himalayan peaks in search of the phattest possible brand experience. Maybe the boy Talib is simply an attentive consumer, his ill-fated affair with extreme Islam merely a twisted continuation of his search for the weapons-grade authenticity promised him so many times by manufacturers of bell-bottom jeans and lemon-lime soda.

The HORROR! That's right, "extreme sports" breeds extremists! What an epiphany. All those people who climb sheer cliffs with their bare hands and drive SUVs are just Taliban waiting to happen. And when we promise extreme sports and deliver only Mountain Dew we are driving them to misogyny and genocide rationalized by religious fundamentalism. While he's at it, Frank also manages to join the human haters who consider not only consumption, but catering to consumption a form of coercion. Not only is purchasing an SUV a sin, but selling one is worse.

Corporations are, of course, to blame for the tastes of their customers. It's also hard not to notice that Frank rather enjoys employing the very tactics he criticized ages ago in the prior paragraph. But wait a minute, he's not done:

And if shallow, questing soul talk has an institutional home, it is management theory. This is where you go to find impassioned stories about becoming a "change agent," searching earnestly for the true identity of a brand or devoting yourself to a "corporate holy man."

All that our culture warriors claim to deplore can be found in fashionable corporate literature: the relativism, the affected reverence for the wisdom of the East, the denunciation of old white males. Had the world not changed on Sept. 11, the teenage Talib might have anticipated a career back in Marin, schooling audiences made up of his middle-class homies in the leadership secrets of Mullah Omar.

Well, I like some of the scholarship on leadership, but I'll admit, some of its over the top. Management is about people, so the leadership studies tend to focus on getting managers excited about the people who work for them. But isn't the idea of Tali-boy being a young Peter Senge or Jack Weber a little far-fetched? And isn't likening those folks to Mullah Omar...well, extreme? This is by far the most curious (not to mention puerile and silly) example of Ad Talibanum I've seen yet. I've been imagining in my free moments this weekend, how else could we build an argument similar to Frank's? I have a few.

1. Media. It's the media that's to blame. They are constantly offering us quick fixes for short attention spans. Good Morning America tells us if we read a book or change a few daily habits, we'll turn our lives around. It's no wonder John Walker went off in search of a more rigorous and effective curative for his soul, which was emptied by the media

2. Self-help specialists. There's not a religion or philosophy in the world these folks have boiled down or strained through a sieve as a band-aid for our deeper needs. If "shallow questing soul talk" has an institutional home, it is the self-help world.

3. Women. Women wear all these clothes that flatter their shape. They employ the artifice of underwire bras and control hose. They use makeup to enhance the smoothness of their skin and the shape of their cheekbones. They flirt and are coy. But when you see them in the morning, they aren't what they appeared to be. Walker's conversion to a misogynistic religion is just a "twisted continuation" of his search for the flesh and blood authenticity of a woman under a cane fearing for her life.

I looked into Thomas Frank's body of work. He clearly believes that corporations rule our culture unchallenged, and are enemies of democracy. Seeing as we customers vote every day with our dollars, I find his entire worldview hard to fathom. Take for instance his claim in this article that "Above all markets love the country of Singapore." Have a look at a chart of Singapore's STI index against the S&P 500 (SPX) and wonder how Frank developed this conclusion.

Of course, Singapore is a country known for favoring caning. Frank might argue that's a reasonable "authentic" reaction to all the fake violence peddled by corporations.

Corporations are groups of individuals, banded together to work make a profit in the free market. They are slaves to their customers - the people in their markets. And they have been an important agent in capitalism, which is the best friend the little guy ever had. It's a mystery to me why commentators of both conservative and liberal ilk crap on them like this. Except to observe that since it has become unacceptable to openly peddle your hatred of humanity, beating up on the corporate shell has become sort of chic, much like those leadership gurus Frank hates so much.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Pourquoi Test?

Pourquoi Test?
So I can stay up all night with templates.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Test Entry

Test Entry
Fiddling with templates. Need more than one entry.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Greenwich Village feels the U.S. is Provincial part 5,483

This links you to the audio of a panel discussion held at the New School including journalists from the Weekly Standard, The New York Times, Al Jazeera, and Harper's. In it you will find Al Jazeera and New York Times journalists bemoaning the ignorance of Americans, objecting to the use of the flag, etc., and calling it "censorship". You will also hear the Greenwich Village audience clapping enthusiastically for Al Jazeera's representative Hafez Al-Mirazi, then clapping sort of furtively when John Podhoretz calls out Al-Mirazi for running the "Mossad did the WTC" story and being horribly anti-semitic. For his part, the Al Jazeera reporter claims they qualified the Mossad story as a rumour and ran their own editorial condemning the rumour-mongers. Apparently it is necessary to report ridiculous and unfounded rumours in order to be objective - as if they were statistics from an independent source. The audience hoots scornfully at the "hidden message" argument about the Bin Laden tapes, but applauds thoughtfully when it is suggested that showing an American Flag in WTC coverage is jingoistic. If 4,000 Jordanians were killed, and CNN covered the event, would it be jingoistic to put the Jordanian flag in a cover graphic? I can't relate.

The questions at the end are precious (and predictably left-leaning and long-winded), the best one being the irate Northern European-sounding man who asks "why is the American Left so utterly useless?!?" Before anyone else can answer, John Podhoretz injects "Because you're wrong."

Listen as you blog. You will find yourself wishing Mark Steyn was there instead of Podhoretz.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

MTZ before it was MTZ

Anticipating a dry spell during the holidays, I'd like to throw some vintage material up. Before I started this site (way back in September and prior), I was an enthusiastic correspondent with some newspapers. I am sure you find this shocking. If you read my site, you know I am a bad food/bad weather/good company Anglophile. However, a certain reporter got my dander up when he described the American reaction to the Yank Ryder Cup victory in 1999. Here is my letter to The London Evening Standard", which was published:

Gentlemen:

The following is excerpted from a US story summarizing European reactions to the American Ryder Cup victory on Sunday.

"Let us be painfully honest about it,'' columnist Matthew Norman wrote in the London Evening Standard. `"Yes, they (Americans) are repulsive people, charmless, rude, cocky, mercenary, humorless, ugly, full of nauseatingly fake religiosity, and as odious in victory as they are unsporting in defeat."

I admire Mr. Norman for his forthright writing style. There is no doubt as to his position on this important issue - how best to completely over-generalize about Americans so as to diminish their come-from-behind victory in the Ryder Cup.

Coming from the people that invented drawing and quartering, colonized three quarters of the world (then lost it), put a succession of deranged monomaniacs on the throne, and invented not only the genocidal religious "crusade" and the "hooligan spectator", but also the Spice Girls, this really hurts. But at least Mr. Norman didn't call us whiny, self-satisfied, snotty, hygienically challenged, prissy, clotted cream-eating bigots. That would have been too much!

I was at The Country Club on Saturday, we applauded every player resoundingly, and I didn't hear or see anyone bothering Colin Montgomerie. Monty does have the uncanny ability, however, to hear the sound of a fly suppressing a fart at 100 paces. But his main problem is he frowns at everyone, everywhere- in Mr. Norman's words, he is truly "charmless". Please understand, I favor capital punishment for any spectator that spits on anybody. But it seemed to me that on Saturday, the most popular player on the course was Sergio Garcia, who, perish the thought, smiled occasionally and engaged the crowd with grace and and good humour. America adored him, even more than our much less expressive hero, Tiger Woods. Golfers on both sides could take a lesson from El Nino.

There is no doubt that America owes much to Europe. In this very Ryder Cup, the American golfers learned about teamwork from the Europeans, to their benefit. I will grant you that civility is fighting a losing battle on both sides of the Atlantic (read up on Valderrama, Mr. Norman), but is having a better time of it on the Continent. Britain has given us, to name just a few examples, the (British) Open, Monty Python, Rowan Atkinson, Fry and Laurie, P.G. Wodehouse, Jane Austen and Samuel Barber. However, with just one word you will see that you now owe every American with a young son or daughter an apology: Teletubbies.

Yours in cocky, humorless odiousness,

You see, I've always been like this, I can't help it.

It did tip off a long series of letters with a very congenial fellow named Edward Rawes, who is a serious history buff. He took issue with crusades (Pope Vezelay?) and chided me for picking on King George's Porphyria (sp?). A genuine non-cyber blogging experience.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

The Great Moral Case for Capitalism

Quiet and manly blogger Richard Bennett's makes an aside that reminds me of something important:

Now that NSI doesn't have a monopoly on domain registration, discount brokers are on the scene offering domain names for as little as $5 for a UK domain, or $9 for a American one (ending in .com, .org, .net). 123-reg and Domains for $10 offer basic registration services, and actual DNS management (the thing that directs web surfers and e-mail to tour server) is avaible anywhere from free to whatever you want to pay for it. ZoneEdit and My Domain offer it for free. Are any of these guys going to stay in business?

See, that's just the thing about competition. We all like to make fun of competing companies if they price themselves out of business. Remember, however, its the consumer that gets the profits they don't earn.

Subroutine: Soap box

Ever wonder how so many things are cheaper, such as food, appliances, etc.? It hardly costs anything to deliver 1950-level healthcare now. It's 2001 level healthcare that's expensive. As it happens, the 2001-level fridge is less expensive than the 1950-level fridge. Guess which one's better? More energy efficient?

Another example is telecommunications. Investors dole out money based on business models that anticipated 17-cent a minute long distance. They doled out so much money Sprint is now offering 2.2 cents a minute. Go look at Qwest's stock price over the last year. Then look at your long distance bill.

In recessions, profit margins shrink. (8 to 6% in these last two business cycles). Know who gets the difference? You.

Capitalism is the best friend the little guy ever had. (a phrase I'm borrowing from Woody Brock) The only economies that grew consistently in the 20th century are capitalist economies. Lifespans doubled and income quadrupled as a result. Compare that to your average middle-eastern kleptocracy - growth averaging negative 1% for years on end. Where is the "inequality-bred" terrorism coming from?

Capitalism is the best friend the little guy ever had. People who don't see that are blind or delusional. People who impugn capitalism with fictitious evil motives are immoral.

End soap box. Return.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

More Donuts

A colleague, who had been instructed on the "donut" story (see previous post) by his college German professor writes to me:

Perhaps my schooling was overly pedantic about matters of grammar. Now that I've read the the article, I find this nuance (metaphorical vs. literal) rather compelling. It's also worth noting that the Berlin audience cheered rather than snickered. I like the New Yorker comparison. Roz Chast could do a cartoon showing JFK in one frame saying "Ich bin ein Berliner" with a listener envisioning a jelly donut and Willy Brandt in another saying "I am a New Yorker" with a listener picturing him as a magazine.

My own story of transnational embarrassment was telling an attractive young German woman I met shortly after my arrival at a summer job in Germany that I had been "präpariert" instead of more correctly "vorbereitet" for something or other. "Präpariert" means castrated as in what they used to do to Viennese choirboys.

Note: The colleague in question has a mellifluous baritone voice and children. Not by the German girl, however....

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

I am a donut

This picture of a Euro protester dressed as Satan, on a bicycle, dragging a sign sayin "Ich bin ein Euro" reminded me of the famous Kennedy speech.

I only know a bit of German. Enough, however, to understand that the use of articles can make a significant difference in meaning. In fact the same is true here, as I'll demonstrate. My understanding (courtesy of several people, most recently Eddie Izzard) is that ein Berliner is a pastry. The use of the article ein ("a"or "one") makes it so, vs. the article-less Berliner meaning "person from Berlin". Imagine for a moment the difference between "I am Danish" and "I am a Danish".

So, Izzard insists, Ich bin ein Berliner means "I am a donut". Izard goes on to give thanks that Kennedy didn't go to Frankfurt and Hamburg on that famous trip or he would have likened himself to the entire American Diet: "I am a hamburger, a frankfurter and a donut."

However, learned sources say this is "the gaffe that never was". Too bad, because it is a beaut.

So my question is - what are the overtones of Ich bin ein Euro, if any? Thomas, are you there?

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Supply and Demand

Reading this interesting Glenn Reynolds post on his alleged Euro-bashing reminded me of something I saw in a "family newsletter." One of my relatives abroad hoped that 911 would make Americans "less pushy" about our culture.

I still don't get it. First of all, we seem to be under the gun for not having a culture. Second, the culture I observe is based on individual rights and choice, so it is the antithesis of pushy. Third, who is in Europe "pushing" our culture on them? It is similar to remarks about "exporting" culture. The thing about exports, as we know all too painfully, is that somebody has to buy them - import them - or they never become exports. I remarked on this in an earlier post , nobody is forcing anybody to buy Big Macs, listen to N'Sync (I obviously don't) or watch Die Hard movies.

I'm open to suggestions, as I have remarked before, but I have yet to see an example of us "exporting" culture that someone else didn't want to import.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Critics who claim that 'Internet use narrows intellectual horizons' should be brained with typewriters

I read on Samizdata of a pitiful wail from technophobe Cass Sunstein about how the internet may be narrowing its users' consumption of information. I was stewing about it all the way home.

See only what you want to see, hear only what you want to hear, read only what you want to read. In cyberspace, we already have the ability to filter out everything but what we wish to see, hear, and read. Tomorrow, our power to filter promises to increase exponentially. With the advent of the Daily Me, you see only the sports highlights that concern your teams, read about only the issues that interest you, encounter in the op-ed pages only the opinions with which you agree. In all of the applause for this remarkable ascendance of personalized information, Cass Sunstein asks the questions, Is it good for democracy? Is it healthy for the republic? What does this mean for freedom of speech?

I haven't read the book so I can't say I'm giving Sunstein fair treatment but...oh screw it, I can still react - GAG ME WITH A QUILL PEN! This is complete reactionary technophobic horseshit, a 180-degree inversion of the truth.

Think about your daily interactions. You go to work and you are exposed to people with similar backgrounds and living contexts. You converse with those who need to transact business with you. You interact with the people in your community, who are likely to be much like you.

What is it about the internet, do you suppose, that Sunstein thinks actually narrows our sphere of interactions? In order for two people to interact, they have to have something in common. In the physical world they have to be in the same place at the same time, for starters. This severely limits our interactions. Speaking the same language and not self-immolating with dynamite strapped to one's chest helps as well. We probably interact more with people whose interests or worldview iverlap with ours in some significant way. If two people disagree on everything, they are unlikely to spend much time together. In the physical world we live with constrained interactions.

Similarly, we go to a newstand, we buy what's available: The New York Times, the Post, The Atlantic Monthly, etc. Our choices are constrained by the choices that are economical for the newstand. Ditto for the bookstore.

The only thing different about the internet is that it eliminates the time and space restrictions of interaction, and the economics of information are completely different. We find people whose interests overlap and interact. We seek out information, but our choices are infinitely wider. Does Sunstein think my local Pakistani-owned newstand spends much time making sure I have a diversity of news sources? I think not. Sunstein is singling out filtering technologies and a la carte news services like "My Yahoo", but he vastly overestimates the technology's capabilities. Anybody seen a filter that limits delivery of commentary to those pundits reinforcing the reader's worldview? The most effective filter I've seen for that is the New York Times editorial board.

As it happens, I consume the New York Times and Wall Street Journal largely on the web. But, thanks to its lack of geographical constraints, I also look at a variety of European and Middle Eastern news sites (Dawn, Arab News). I am linked to and link a variety of weblogs and I have a lot in common with them. But as much as we overlap, we also differ. Not only are we from all over the world, but throw military tribunals or post the absence of any guidance on foreign policy in libertarian thought and...splat...do you hear raw meat landing in front of the salivating dogs? It seems as a community, we spend a lot of time dissecting those with whom we disagree. Which, I've noticed, usually requires reading them (this post is an exception, I note with some guilt). Mr. Sunstein has potential for this list.

To interpret the removal of time and space constraints in my interactions and information gathering as "limiting" exposure to "topics and ideas they would not have chosen in advance" is ridiculous. Every time I run a search to start a blog, I find ideas that are new, and range from eye-opening to...downright revolting! In the physical world, would I have been exposed to Common Dreams, the idiot Eric Margolis, a deconstruction of Newton, The Afghan Resistance, Britney Spears does physics, The Leonard Nimoy Album page, Aussie editorials, The Waco Holocaust Museum or Anti-Lomborgians? I don't think Sunstein has spent much time on the 'net.

If Sunstein or other critics want to read paper academic journals by like-minded colleagues or pore over the Times or (hah) watch TV. and think they are getting a range of exposure, be my guest. Removing constraints with the internet exposes us to a much wider diversity of opinion.

So tap away on your Smith Corona, but don't pretend it makes you more or less well-read than the rest of us.

When I wrote this last night, I couldn't remember which weblog. I added the Samizdata link in the morning

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Deconstructing Martha

Those of you who stroll by the Bullpen every now and then will see I have coughed up a variety of articles on deconstruction. You will also have noticed that I make derisive reference to "deconstructionism" in a variety of posts on this page. Several of you have queried me about it. In the prior post I criticized defeatist reasoning for not providing alternatives. In this post, I submit to you that deconstruction-style reasoning is how defeatists can dismiss every positive contribution to the world made by Western culture.

Deconstruction originated as a school of literary interpretation, in which the meaning of a work was interpreted with reference to the "binary" references (a simple example of a binary reference is "good and bad") that are the work's cultural foundation. These binary references are inferred from the "canonical texts" (in Western Lit. the Bible, Plato, etc.) and the prevailing system in which the author operated. If confined to literature, this is an interesting way to turn one's assumptions upside-down to re-read a work. The invitation to challenge the assumptions of the prevailing system and structure, however, provide an enormous temptation to enter the political realm. A student at Brown interprets the consequences of this method as follows:

One consequence of deconstruction, then, is that a theorist's criticism of a given system is limited in that it is always dependent upon (and complicit with) the prevailing terms of that system. Deconstruction's suggestion of the critic's complicity with dominant social formations has translated in the decades following Derrida's work into the pedagogical responsibilities of colonial, postcolonial, and transnational cultural studies of imperialism and the struggle for decolonization. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, a leading postcolonial critic, uses deconstruction to problematize the privileged, academic postcolonial critic's unknowing participation in the exploitation of the Third World.

It is possible that in practice, as suggested by this student, deconstruction has gone way beyond its original theory. Nonetheless, current practice is what bothers me, for several reasons:

1) It is a complex methodology for turning everything on its head, including logic and critical thought as well as...good and evil. As far as I can tell, deconstructionists believe they have found an excuse to commit a grand ad hominem fallacy: Western literature (and by extension science and culture) is evil,racist and false because Western civilisation has been Logocentric, Eurocentric and Phallocentric (biased towards Greek and French Enlightenment reason, absorbed in the Western perspective and hopelessly rooted in male dominance).

2) It glorifies the academics over scientists, writers and speakers, as only they are capable of deconstructing "canonical texts" (everything from the Bible to Newton's Laws) and thus "proving" their falseness due to the authors being....Logocentric, Eurocentric and Phallocentric

3) It is impossible to understand becuase its practitioners write in the most jargon-infested dense prose possible. Clarence Walton, who wrote a difficult but interesting book on Deconstruction's effects on academic, religious and political discourse, describes the problem as follows:

Derrida always insisted that deconstruction, properly understood, was not a philosophy but a practiced activity of reading always tied to the text it interrogates. Deconstruction can therefore never be defined as an independent self-enclosed system of operative concepts. As a consequence, it is practically impossible to identify what might be called a "deconstruction creed." Consistency is a contradiction in terms; indeed, it may be suspected that Derrida wrote in an overly opaque style to frustrate other French philosophers who, like Gilson, sought clarity in thought and word.

I don't like to go to bed confused (some might say I don't like to go to bed at all), but trying to understand deconstruction is a sure-fire formula for bedtime confusion.

3) finally, and most irksomely, The Yale Literature Department has been considered its spiritual home, although somewhat discredited by the exposed bigamy and compulsive lying of its deconstruction luminary, Paul De Man. De Man is appropriately cited in Columbia World of Quotations as follows:

Curiously enough, it seems to be only in describing a mode of language which does not mean what it says that one can actually say what one means.

This is the excuse for reasoning that pollutes the discourse of defeatists, and attempts to place academics and pundits in the extraordinarily privileged position of being the only "pure" judges of good and evil. As Walton said, "the scribe walks before the speaker." The scribe is also, conveniently, excused from basic rules of logic, because of their morally bankrupt Western origins.

A benign example is deconstruction-style criticism of Martha Stewart, which shows her to be the blunt edge of a colonialist and racist society:

But just how to interpret Ms. Stewart's cultural prescriptions is open to vigorous debate. In the introductory essay to their anthology, "Martha Stewart's Living: History, Fragmentation and Late Capitalism's esthetician," Ms. Wazana and her co-editor, Zoe Newman, explore parallels between Ms. Stewart's work and the psychology of colonialism. Through repeated rituals that center on cleanliness, nostalgia and setting boundaries, they argue, both Ms. Stewart and colonialists strive to create a safe haven in a hostile world, demarcating the imperial "us" from the menacing "other."

"You leave Mother England and you go into the bush and you try to carve out a place that reflects upper-class English sensibilities," said Ms. Newman, a graduate student in sociology at the University of Toronto. "You eat your picnic off china and crystal in the middle of the desert."

A similar ethos is at work in Ms. Stewart's advice, which holds out the promise of security through grace, beauty and meticulous order. An essay in the Newman-Wazana anthology, "A Look at Linen Closets: Liminality, Structure and Anti-Structure in Martha Stewart Living," examines Ms. Stewart's rage for organization as represented in an instructional article in her magazine on arranging sheets and towels. The author, Ashley Prentice Anderson, argues that linens are fraught with messy, primitive associations, which trigger in Ms. Stewart -- and in everyone else -- an urgent need for control. "You're born on a sheet and you die on a sheet," said Ms. Anderson, a graduate student in English at New York University.

Ms. Newman also cited recurrent images of fences, hedges and garden walls as well as an article in the magazine on organizing basements that portrayed the nether region of the house as a place of foreboding and disorder. "I connect that to a need to regulate, a fear of transgression and the need for clear boundaries," she said.

By imposing such boundaries, these scholars say, Ms. Stewart serves to stem unease about race, class and sexuality. "It's people of color, it's working-class people" who are being put at a distance, said Ms. Newman, who stressed that she was not accusing the literal, flesh-and-blood Ms. Stewart of racism but rather examining her work as a symptom of the larger culture.

Incredible how a home and garden show that helps people (who choose to watch) achieve a commonly desired aesthetic end is, in truth, an instrument of racism and colonial imperialism. What a tour de force of criticism! Oh- but I don't mean to be "too hard on Martha - I just made her Avocado Soup!" (that's an actual quote from the issue of American Studies that focused on Stewart).

Next time you read Fisk or a defeatist "Guardependent" editorial, or some such swill, think about how this sort of "reasoning" pollutes the commentary. Since the government and the (non-academic) privileged are hopelessly burdened by "the bloody record of the United States in the past 50 years and the seemingly limitless capacity of U.S. officials to kill without conscience" , our institutionalized racism, and a foundation of militarism and colonialism, the U.S. can make no moral judgement. Since our definition of "evil" is by necessarily polluted by our definition of "good", we cannot condemn. Since to reason deductively is to be guilty of "logocentrism", we are incapable of demonstrating that outcomes in Afghanistan are positive (see Rall). Since corporations are an "illegitimate structure of authority" they cannot benefit us, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. We are doomed prisoners of our past and our inherently racist "canonical texts."

Using the logic born in deconstruction to condemn everything Western is now a gateway to an "elite" opinion-maker status, an ostensibly foolproof way to become a "Scribe." Ta-da - Punditocracy.

Amusingly, deconstruction creates its own hierarchies and privileged elites. Once recognized, anything written is polluted by the elites' privileged status, and they are rendered meaningless on their own terms. Deconstruction (as practiced here) eats its young. DeMan discovered when his World War II-era writings were uncovered as anti-semitic and Nazi-justifying . De Man's paradoxical (isn't that ironic?) writing career became the subject of entire books.

Enough of this academic stuff. Let's talk about Winona Ryder......

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Compared to What?

The best way to identify misleading use of statistics or presentation of facts is to ask a simple question: "Compared to What?"

For instance, what if I told you I had a cure for the common cold? Proof? Well I found ten people with colds and gave them my cure. They were all better within a week! Miraculous! Except, as you well know, this was bound to happen. I'd love to tell the public I was responsible for curing all these good people, but my cure may have been irrelevant.* "Compared with" a control group, there would likely be little difference. Similarly, I would love to claim conclusively that tax cuts cause GDP growth, but the best I can tell you is that economic growth has followed tax cuts three times. There were many other things going on in the economy, so I can't prove to you that growth was the direct result of tax cuts or, for that matter, the exact contribution of tax cuts to economic growth. That part is left to econometric modelers, and if anyone can spin a grain of truth into a blanket of falsehoods, it is people who interpret complex models as precision tools (but that's another post).

Scientific testing is done with control groups and "double blind" procedures. Because outcomes are meaningless without a benchmark in which multiple contributing variables are held constant in order to test the reaction to one independent variable. In the absence of this testing, one has to be guarded with one's conclusions.

Which brings us to all the hideous charges leveled against the United States by those who think we can do no right. The most extreme examples are brought to you by the addled brains of that irritating species Pondscumi Guardependenti and related parasitic swamp life currently congealed at the website known as "Common Dreams." (Have I been reading Moira Breen? guilty!)

I marked four representative items of delusional thinking from Common Dreams in the MTZ Bullpen today. Tearing my hair out trying to select the most stupid from this impossibly high-achieving group, much like judging a flatulence contest for subtle differences in bouquet, is what prompted this rant. These simple organisms witness (and occasionally inflate) the evidence of many people dying of hunger and abuse around the world or dying as casualties of conflicts in which the U.S. has

a) been directly involved;
b) been indirectly involved; or
c) selfishly refused to become involved,

and jump to the conclusion that our involvement, or lack thereof, is the 100% contributing factor to this misery.

As an example, look at the charge that 1.5 million people have died in Iraq "due to our sanctions" (which comes from the not-so credible Iraqi government), and the more credible U.N. estimates of increased child mortality rates, which show a return to 1970 levels of child mortality. This is certainly the most popular evidence requiring American isolationism on Common Dreams. Curious, really, how much they have in common with Pat Buchanan. Maybe that's why they keep posting Eric Margolis columns. Nonetheless, this is one of the few arguments that more credible pundits have advanced recently, so let's think about it.

Accepting these numbers as fact, the fact that they exist does not attribute them directly to sanctions. There is a lot more going on in Iraq from 1988 to the present:

1) the country is run by a ruthless dictator who has nationalized, no personalized, everything that makes money so as to enrich himself to the tune of $7 billion dollars.

2) That same dictator is busy throwing every weapon he can find at residents of his own country

3) At the inflection point in child mortaility rates, the leader of this country invaded a neighboring country for no particular reason, placing hundreds of thousands of soldiers, his own citizens and, of course, the citizens of the invaded country, at considerable risk, and squandering the country's resources on the adventure to boot.

So, exhibiting our usual genocidal tendencies, we refuse to do business with him...until we can verify he is no longer stockpiling weapons to back up any more grand scheming. To prove we are killers, we offer ever-expanded oil-for-food programs (up to $17 billion dollars) despite the fact that he makes sure almost none of it ends up in the hands of these dying children. To expand on these themes, read this article.

I ask "compared to what?" What if there were no sanctions? There would be a lot more palaces in Iraq. Thousands more Kurds and other residents of the region would be dead from chemical and biological weapons experiments. And the Iraqi government would hide all the starving children from UNICEF surveyors (who depend on Saddam's voluntary hospitality) in order to show better mortality rates, as they did prior to 1990. If Saddam Hussein had a nuclear weapon, he could walk into Iran or Saudi Arabia with near impunity and slaughter whomever he wished. But we are the murderers for not buying his oil.**

And what should we do instead? It's clear these folks don't think we should invade. Should we pretend this is a legitimate regime? It's pretty clear that would be a mistake. It's one thing to speculate about a leader's intentions, but this guy actually did invade another country and has used weapons of mass destruction on his own people. What constitutes a basis for our involvement? And absent invasion or sanctions what would you do? If you favor the U.N., what do you suggest the U.N. do, if it isn't hopelessly paralyzed by the politics of the general assembly? It's so easy to bemoan the consequences of others' actions when you take or recommend none yourself. Until you realize that if we completely gave up on Iraq millions of people would die horrible deaths at the hands of Saddam Hussein or be condemned to a life under his dicatorship. I suppose the U.S. would be responsible for that as well. Because we drive SUVs. Because there are rich people here. Because we like to shop....

In truth, the "no more sanctions" movement is really the "more freedom and palaces for the Hitler of the Middle East" movement. But that's a claim we can debate. Remember, these are the folks who believe that "Global slavery is the secret behind our economic success.". For sheer self-contradicting idiocy, try this Madeleine Bunting quotation on for size:

So this year, as we pull the crackers, we can happily reflect on the fact that those dear Afghans are now flying their kites and listening to their screeching music (though it's a mystery as to why they would want to) once again, thanks to us. To top it all, feeling really good usually requires some measure of feeling superior; so round off that seasonal glow with some gloating at the idiots who opposed this war.

Oh that screeching Afghan music, and those condescending...everybodies. Now try this inarticulate nod to deconstructionism from U.T.'s own Robert Jensen. These words are intended to show a lack of cynicism:

For example, I am against the illegitimate structure of authority called the corporation. I want to see different forms of economic organization emerge. I am hopeful about the possibilities but not optimistic that in my lifetime I will see the demise of capitalism, corporations, and wage slavery. Still, I will do certain things to work toward that.

The same can be said of the problem of U.S. aggression against innocent people in the rest of the world, particularly these days in Afghanistan, where the aggression is most intense. Given the bloody record of the United States in the past 50 years and the seemingly limitless capacity of U.S. officials to kill without conscience, I must confess I am not optimistic that such aggression will stop anytime soon, in large part because those corporate structures that drive the killing are still around. But I will do certain things to work against it.

Or take the large state research university. I am concerned about how the needs of students are systematically ignored and the needs of corporate funders are privileged, how critical thinking is squashed not by accident but by design. I am concerned about the illegitimate structures of authority that I work in and that compel me to act in ways against the interests of students. I am not optimistic that the structure of big research universities is going to change anytime soon. But I will do certain things to work against the structures.

Apparently "doing certain things" includes rewriting history and blaming corporations for...everything bad in the world. What it doesn't include is posing any alternatives at all, let alone superior alternatives.

Wouldn't it be nice to be as free with logic as the people who infest the pages of in yer dreams? It's all very well for me to suggest they think a bit more scientifically, but the most productive thing these folks could do with a calculator would be to hit themselves over the head with it. Of course that would somehow be the U.S. Government-corporate conspiracy's fault as well. "After all (thunk) here it is (thunk) happening (thunk) right before your (thunk) eyes so (thunk) it must be (thunk) the CIA/FBI/ExxonMobil/BUSH (thunk) OW!"...

*Or, as Michael Flanders would say, "But it's not irrelevant, it's a hippopotamus."
**Of course, we are also murderers for buying oil from other thugocracies

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

MTZ Religious Studies Department

Many some One of you has written in to critique the MTZ intelligence coup of the year - the overheard conversation between Osama and one of his men over a short-range radio. "How can virgins have The Clap?", the reader asks.

Actually, this hits on an important aspect of the unique interpretation of Islam that is Bin Ladenism. Several of OBL's wives have had venereal disease, including one that infected OBL on his wedding night - well, that particular wedding night. Explaining what at first seemed inexplicable, OBL proclaimed it a miracle and led a propagandaprayer session this new discovery - the miracle of Immaculate Infection subsequently became a canonical text of bin Ladenism. Unlike the one-time miracle of Immaculate Conception, true followers of OBL have reported many instances of this incredible sign from God. This is just one of the many reasons they have such faith in the justice of their cause.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Everyone Should Read this Book!

Everyone Should Read this Book!

And it's blissfully short. The opening is somewhat filled with obscure references, but the story -- about a man who is condemned to spend over fifty years hearing and knowing nothing of America --- is deeply moving.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

The "Writer's Block" Award

The New York Times' Richard L. Berke couldn't think of anything good for the "Week in Review" Newsitorial* section of the Sunday Times. So he came up with This Time, Dissent Stops at the White House Door. The gist of the article is that an administration without more public infighting does a disservice to the public debate on policy. Before I give the quotation, reflect on how completely asinine and self-serving a suggestion this is.

But the current President Bush has achieved something he could never do for his father. His White House is remarkably devoid of infighting and more disciplined and loyal than any administration in decades.

That is no small thing. Presidents are often surrounded by advisers with colossal egos (not that these are lacking in this administration) whose major objective is to build their own empires and reputations. In the past, White House advisers would toss snippets of news to reporters to promote their point of view to the public, or Congress or even to get the president's attention.....

Having a unified government makes it easier for Mr. Bush to unite the public. But as cohesive as the Bush administration is, some politicians and academics fear that the administration's cool professionalism and collegiality may not be best for democracy.

The concern is that without the proper airing of opinions on important public policy matters, there is little room for challenging orthodoxies ? or for even gauging the public appetite for presidential proposals.

Well, I'm glad to hear the egos are still colossal, because if they were modest and unified behind the President that would be a real disaster.

First, what is this column doing here? This is an extraordinary time for a journalist to feel that he lacks material. It would seem to me public debate would be better served if Mr. Berke had something interesting to say about policy today. Maybe public debate would be better served if New York Times pundits spent less time spewing their hatred of administration figures, such as those Poppy and Junior columns or Krugman's Konstant refrain of budgetary deceipt, and debated some actual policy options?

Second, as most organization people know, loyalty and unanimity outside the meeting ALLOWS debate within it. Leaders are more comfortable having a wide ranging debate if they know that when a consensus or decision has been reached they will all agree to follow it. If the President and key administration figures feel safe that their discussion is not going to be reprinted in the Times, they can entertain any policy or position freely.

Third, perhaps he should look at Patrick Tyler's column in the same section:

A month ago, Mr. Bush promised Mr. Putin at their meeting in Crawford, Tex., that the United States would welcome Russia into NATO's decision-making councils. But Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld sought to remove from a press statement all references to "NATO at 20" ? the new characterization of 19 NATO members sitting with Russia as an alliance of 20 nations.

Mr. Rumsfeld lost the battle, but his intervention delayed the debate over how to integrate Russia into the alliance. One thing the hard-liners wanted to insure was that Russia would not get to influence next year's round of NATO enlargement, in which as many as nine new nations will enter.

Well, what's the waste of a few column inches, anyway?

*By the way, is this section all opinion? Or is the opinion supposed to be limited to the editorial and op-ed sections? Not that I necessarily disagree with it, but I looked at Richard Stevenson's article and wondered which voice this was.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Blogger takes time out for life

Not so much posting today, sorry. Bought Christmas tree. Spent time with wife & kids. Ran for first time in week. Blogger F-ed up anyway. Dropped articles from verbal communication to save time.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Epic times breed epic tales

..or so said somebody on NPR today about the revived interest in J.R.R. Tolkien. Count me among the Tolkien-heads, but nothing could be more epic than Leonard Nimoy's earnest tribute to Bilbo Baggins:

Now hobbits are a peace-lovin' folks you know They don't like to hurry and they take things slow They don't like to travel away from home They just want to eat and be left alone But one day Bilbo was asked to go on a big adventure to the caves below, to help some dwarves get back their gold that was stolen by a dragon in the days of old.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

SPECIAL MTZ EDITORIAL - Another Sadly Preventable Tragedy

Just as we recover from the violence we invited by our isolationist and unilateral foreign policy, we hear of a tragic disaster that comes as a direct result of our neglect on the domestic front. I am speaking, of course, of Winona Ryder's "shoplifting" incident.

As shocking as the events of her arrest may be, it is incumbent on all Americans to consider the root causes of this senseless act. The fracas on Wilshire Boulevard yesterday is the direct result of:

1) the growing gap between the haves and have-nots in our sad society
2) A lack of understanding of the diseases of shopping and consumerization
3) Our ridiculous dependence on foreign textiles and the failure to enforce our standards of fairness before pursuing the empty ideal of "free trade"
4) An understandable resentment among distraught Hollywood celebrities of the indistinguishable interests of the corporate-media-government monolith that is the U.S.
5) Our failure to be the first developed country to ratify the Kyoto Accords
6) Unhealthy attitudes about women's bodies and our disturbing worship of emaciation

The Taliban Right of the country have condemned Ryder's shoplifting as "stealing" even as this administration continues its own illegitimate thievery of, for instance, land in Puerto Rico (used for civilian target practice) and land in foreign countries that happens to sit under our "embassies", which are legitimate objects of anti-military protest. For that matter, as we condemn Ryder's "theft", shouldn't we consider our theft of Manhattan in exchange for a piece of costume jewelry? Are we without sin that we may "cast the first stone?"

Indeed, in many circles, Ms. Ryder's actions are considered heroic. There has arisen a deafening chorus of silent celebration about the "Saks Job" as deserved retribution for foisting useless fashion accessories on the hapless citizens of Wilshire Boulevard. Grass Roots social equity movements like "Brotherhood of Deadbeats" condemn the arrest: "Many of us are unable to obtain credit cards. Society tells us we need a new pair of pre-worn Dockers. How are we supposed to take them home when we don't happen to have any cash?," said Charles "Chap" Terseven, President of the BoD.

Others legitimately see Ryder as a victim of the women-hating body image foisted on celebrities by military-media-industrial complex. "At some point you just get fed up", said Empira Pinata, author of the controversial 9,465 page fact-novel Zamboni Women of the Ice Dispenser:

If you spend each night eating so much popcorn you can't breathe, if you end up leaning on the counter wheezing over your bloated abdomen, taking a limo to Saks, finding a silk chemise with a Peter Pan collar and carefully cutting the fascist "security tag" off with scissors suddenly makes more sense. This is a cry to end the binge-bilk cycle of female body image.

The Tuvalu Preservation Society also issued a statement from their headquarters atop Mount McKinley:

Given current trends in the environment, those of us remaining on the small outcroppings of barren land in a few years will all be reduced to dried piles of broken red blisters unless we find a way to protect ourselves. While we condemn all theft of property, public or even private, we understand Ms. Ryder's need to protect herself from the ravages of climate change. Surely, if President Bush had ratified the Kyoto Accords, she would not have found it necessary to obtain these opaque climate protection items, and her feelings of hostility towards Konsumer Kulture would not have been manifested in this way.

Some just don't believe Ryder did it. We contacted 16 year-old Giggle Pariah, president of the Winona Ryder fan club and designer of the "Oh God please please talk to me Winona" website to get her views. "That videotape of her cutting the tags off and stuffing it into her bag is a clear fabrication. The video is too blurry. It doesn't really look the way she does in Heathers. Even if that is her, I think that was a pill comb. She was just cleaning the shirt up so the store workers didn't have to. Anyone who inspired the Roxy Carmichael Shrine just couldn't defile Saks like this."

In fact, we must be sensitive to the religious nature of this act. Members of the " Two-for-one Jihad took credit for the shoplifting in an anonymous note to gossip columnist Cindy Adams, written elegantly on Crane's doublethick executive correspondence card with a Montblanc pen:

People who pay for department-store merchandise that belongs only to the Prophet are infidels. The great scholars have told us that offering fashion accessories and piping in Muzak is the greatest of blasphemes and is punishable by a slow and gruesome death. They should be electrocuted until their Gucci loafers are permanently fused with their skin and their eyeballs turn to smoking coals. Praise be upon the great, spiritual and peaceful followers of our cause.

While investigating this phenomenon on the ground in Hollywood expert Robert Tsk-Tsk was set upon by a group of actors as he recorded their misery in the dressing rooms of Churnemout Studios. They suddenly grabbed his 1954 Leicaflex camera, ripped it from his neck, stuffed the lense into his mouth and beat him over the head with the camera body. "As I brained the smallest one with my Dell laptop, I thought I completely understood their aggression This was a reaction to the senseless violence perpetrated on them by consumer products corporations over the years. I just wish they knew that I have been trying to prevent this violence for my entire vacation…er…career."

Well-known Pundit Noreen Swinden commented eloquently in her column today Whither Wynona?, on the hundreds of new patrons shopping at Saks today:

Ryder's deriders are cryin' over their credit cards. Do we honor the victims of theft by going to the mall and purchasing useless geegaws to satisfy our short-term cravings? I think not. If shoplifting hurts the system of consumerism, it’s the system that's to blame. If Ryder had spent more time at home with a book instead of filming "Girl Interrupted" this would never have happened.

Is it possible that the real villains are the Dastardly Doyens of Disney, the Wascally Wahhabis of Warner Brothers?

Ryder is apparently on Zoloft. Poppy Bush was afflicted with Hashimoto's disease, a prisoner of a thundering thyroid. It is ironic then that one of the central issues facing Junior's administration is this hyperactive, serotonin-challenged display of mood-altered consumerism.

The most serious consequence of this tragedy is the swelling chorus of careful disapproval from across the Atlantic. I recently visited with Etienne Beaucoup d'Argent-Ancien, the special French attache to the under-European Commission for the Secretariat of Preserving Traditions of the People, in his Chateau in the Loire Valley. Surveying hundreds of workers packing $200 bottles from his family winery into crates for shipment to the United States, he commented on American consumer culture. "In Europe we believe that experiences are more important than goods. I fear that as American ideas are exported to the young people of the Continent, that we will think less about the enlightenment and traditions of those around us and more about the acquisition of trivial absurdities like microwave ovens and instant coffee makers. We have no need for these things."

Etienne clapped his finely manicured hands and several Chateau staff members came running with freshly ground and meticulously prepared coffee in two-hundred year old china commissioned by his great-great-great-great grandfather. Savoring the experience of sipping this earthy brew and surveying the pristine valley in front of me, I came to understand the enduring respect for institutions of which Etienne so eloquently speaks.

We should be very careful about rushing to judgement on Winona Ryder's actions.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Another Casualty of 9-11 The

Another Casualty of 9-11

The New York Post says a grieving WTC widow shot herself the day before the three month anniversary. It seems the death of a beloved dog, on top of her husband a few weeks earlier, was just too much. She waited until they'd had the memorial service, got her affairs in order, and committed suicide.

I wish there was something profound to say about this, but all I can come up with is that we must not forget that while most of us are pretty much going on with our lives, there are thousands of families who are still struggling with grief. When we justly worry about the effects of the war on terrorism, we must not forget the effects of the terrorism itself.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

That darn Osama! - Yale Literature Department Deconstructs Bin Laden Tape

In my post last night I reference how believers in expanding the role of government see the natural instincts of citizens to rally around our government as a defender of its liberties as a renewed belief in an expansive role of government. It confirms what they already wanted to believe. The assumptions and context behind the text determine its meaning. When you do it under the offical imprimatur of elite academia, this is known as "deconstructing". Or maybe just a fancy excuse for reading whatever the heck you want.

Reaction to the bin Laden tape has received a similar "Rorschach Blot" deconstruction, and has not, of course, yielded any major PR bonanzas in the Middle East. Many Arabs already believed he did it - and were either condemning or supportive according to their predilections.

Others had to work harder to put it into their bizarre construction of Bin Laden's role in the world:

One man in Cairo said, "I don't think bin Laden [was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks]. I think he just did the tape to tease the Americans.

Knave! Prankster! Naughty millionaire terrorist! Do you feel a bit alienated from the worldview of a person who thinks that taking credit for one of the worst mass murders in history and faking a predicted headcount for the event is a good way to tweek the U.S.?

This just demonstrates the hollowness of the "P.R. battles" defeatists would like us to win by turning the other cheek and providing "proof" or "evidence". As Scott MacLeod says:

Figures like bin Laden live or die by their deeds. They get a tremendous amount of prestige, followers, recruits, money and support when they're seen to be out there performing. That was working for him over the past three years, now it's working against him. If he's being hunted like a wounded animal, some potential supporters will turn away from him. One of the U.S. government's motivations for tracking him down is to break his prestige, and his ability to attract people and motivate people.

Making it more difficult for him to do his "deeds", not uselessly trying to spin their morality to those remaining ethically-challenged people who still rationalize them, is the way to prevent future attacks.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Premature Pundit Prediction

John Donahue writes in the NY Times today his own version of "big government is back."

...any improvement in government's performance requires a reassessment of government's importance. For too long, to use the parlance of the market, the public sector has been undervalued. We may now be witnessing the beginning of a rebound.

To be fair, Donahue sounds much less hopeful for social engineering than the pundits appearing in this space, and does not excoriate markets for being evil. But he still misses the point by a mile. People who believe in limited government do not believe the government is bad. We just have a clearer idea of the proper function of government and basic, clearly immutable Constitutional principles (Iain Murray, I'm casting a sideways glance at you). The most important function of a government is protection. I hate to use this word but it political philosophy types call it "negative", as in negative freedoms - freedom "from" coercion, not freedom "to" get whatever you want. As Strabo quoted Ephorus on Crete:

Liberty is a state's highest good and for this reason alone (Law) makes property belong to specifically to those who acquire it, whereas in condition of slavery everything belongs to the rulers and not the ruled.

The most legitimate functions of government - defense of our life and our liberty, our property and pursuit of happiness. It is perfectly understandable for people to rally around the government, to consider it "The Good Guy" when its ability to do defend is tested. The "acceptance" of government functions Donahue cites - aviation security, the willingness to suffer a budget deficit in a time of recession and substantial catastrophe losses, do not necessarily imply that we will embrace the growth of "affirmative" rights and government. One could just as easily argue that we are happy with government now that it's focusing on something it can, apparently, do well.

In this sense, I'm extremely pro-government. Our liberties need vigilant protection. We as a nation need the ability to rally and project military force. But, as you may have noticed, I'm not nutty about the expansion of rights or freedoms "to", otherwise known as entitlements and social engineering. I don't argue I'm typical, but the "big government is back" case is far from demonstrated.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Notes from inside the polluted fog of environmental science - is the whole world dying or just the snobs?

I spent last night utterly absorbed in the Grist "scientific review" of Lomborg's book. Only a few things are obvious just yet:

1) it is a "response", as the reviews come from those Lomborg criticized most seriously (E.O. Wilson, Lester Brown), not a "review"
2) Some of the respondents didn't read the book but are highly exercised by the conclusions (as they describe them...)
3) Every response includes a lament about how much of these erudite experts "valuable time has been wasted" responding to Lomborg's "false, polemic, scam observations." This is usually followed by some non-responsive filler (much like my now redeemed Amazon customer service experience). One feels as if there is an enormous and self-serving repudiation of the scientific method from this mostly well-heeled bunch - "Sciontists" if you will. Whatever else you think, Grist didn't get much for their "commission." Few specifics and a lot of references to a Scientific American article that I haven't got hold of yet.
4) A lot of "No True Scotsman", ad Numerum and ad Verecundiam fallacies in the covering prose (since when, for instance, is a statistician not qualified to comment on statistics informing critical arguments?; "The vast majority of credible scientists have shown...")

I welcome any input you have - I need to find that Scientific American article and see if it demonstrates everything they all say.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Amazon redeemed - through the blog network

One of you forwarded my "who's on first" amazon email trail to the company, and I received an eloquent and helpful response from Robin Mogenson at Amazon. The "surprise gift to wish list owner", however, is not a possibility at this point in time. Possibly stroking my ego, they said they will discuss it with their design team. How nifty would that be? And would it set off a torrent of blogger holiday generosity....?

I wanted to update the record. See - I'm an easy touch.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Wink wink nudge nudge

CNN.com - Bush announces U.S. withdrawal from ABM treaty - December 13, 2001: Remember the movie Arthur? When Arthur's family threatens to disinherit him over marrying Liza Minelli, his mother offers some advice:

"Marry (the family-designated appropriate spouse) and sleep with the little tramp on the side"

Whether you think "Star Wars" is a pipe dream or not, isn't it more honorable (and permissible under the treaty) to declare your intention to abrogate than to dishonor it everyday with clandestine violations?

Don't tell me for one second that the old Soviet Union didn't do exactly that. Let's not even discuss how many Euro countries reached their budget and inflation targets (Italy?) or how so many countries might measure and achieve their Kyoto accord targets. For that matter, how credible is it to assent to a treaty that you know has unanimous opposition at home (Clinton/Gore on Kyoto)?

Credibility means doing what you say. It cuts both ways - agreement and disagreement.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Welcome Instapundit readers

Schlesinger post is three items down - here.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Amazon must be a global company - they don't understand English

Submitted for your approval below is my recent email exchange with Amazon (formatted and put into straight chronological order), in which yours truly completely loses his cool. It all started when I wanted to buy a small but humorous Christmas present for a fellow blogger. I have no need to know their address, but they have a wish list. So I'm wondering, can I select the item and have Amazon send it to the address specified in the wish list?........

12/10/01 05:49:22 NAME: 'Mindles H. Dreck' COMMENTS: I would like to buy a gift for someone who has a wish list. The item in question is not on the wish list, and do not know (or need to know for other purposes) their address. I would like to make it a surprise. Please tell me how to do this!! __________________________________________________________ >--- orders@amazon.com wrote: Dear 'Mindles', Thank you for writing to us at Amazon.com.

I hope you will understand that, for security and confidentiality reasons, we cannot reveal the full address of a Wish List recipient. This measure is designed to protect the privacy of our customers who sign up for Wish Lists.

Rest assured that we do have the full address and your gift should be delivered to the recipient without any problem.

We are also unable to offer the option to have a gift sent anonymously.

We require a correct billing address to be submitted for each order, and this address appears on the invoice included with each package. For gift orders, we will not include the price of the order on the invoice, but all other information will appear.

Thank you again for contacting us at Amazon.com.

Best wishes for the holidays,

Will L.
__________________________________________________
Date: Mon Dec 10 14:10:17 PST 2001
Subject: Re: UNRESPONSIVE
To: orders@amazon.com
From: dreck@morethanzerosum.com

As you will note from the text of my email, I NEITHER need to know the recipient's address NOR wish to send the gift anonymously. I merely want to buy something (a CD, for cryin' out loud) from your "store" and haveYOU send it to them, with NO KNOWLEDGE OF THE HOME ADDRESS AND FULL ATTRIBUTION.

You should really read more carefully. There, I'm no longer ticked. Can you help me? If you want to send it via their email (to be claimed), we can do that, too.
________________________________________________________
>--- orders@amazon.com wrote:
Dear 'Mindles',

Thank you for writing to us at Amazon.com.

We will be happy to assist you but please note that for security reasons, we can only modify orders or send account information when the request comes from the e-mail address that is associated with your Amazon.com account. We feel that this is the best way to ensure that any changes are authorized by the account holder and that your personal information is not compromised.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, and we appreciate your patience with our security measures.

Best wishes for the holidays,

Ankit Mullick
http://www.amazon.com
Did you know Amazon.com has DVD players for as low
as $99.99?
Check out http://www.amazon.com/dvdplayers
__________________________________________________

Date: Wed Dec 12 07:54:06 PST 2001
Subject: STOP BEING IMBECILES AND ANSWER MY QUESTION!
To: orders@amazon.com
From: dreck@morethanzerosum.com

THERE ARE NO ORDERS OR ACCOUNT INFORMATION TO MODIFY.
I AM NOT ASKING FOR YOU TO DIVULGE ANY DETAILS OF
OTHER ACCOUNTS. I AM ASKING YOU A VERY SIMPLE "HELP"
QUESTION THAT YOU COULD ANSWER IF YOU WOULD STOP AND
READ (MAYBE EVEN THINK) FOR ONE SECOND:

CAN I PURCHASE (FROM YOU - GRRR.) AND HAVE YOU SEND A
GIFT TO SOMEONE WHO HAS AN AMAZON WISH LIST, EVEN
THOUGH THAT ITEM IS NOT PRESENTLY ON THE WISH LIST?

THAT IS ALL. NO NEFARIOUS PRIVACY VIOLATIONS
REQESTED. NO INSIDIOUS PURPOSE FOR USING MULTIPLE
EMAIL ACCOUNTS OTHER THAN THAT I AM SOMETIMES AT WORK
AND SOMETIMES AT HOME (SHOCKING!). WHY IS THIS SO
DAMN COMPLICATED FOR YOU? WHY ARE YOU SPAMMING ME
WITH IRRELEVANT AND UNRESPONSIVE EMAILS? WHY ON EARTH
DO I GIVE YOU SO MUCH BUSINESS WHEN YOU BEHAVE THIS
WAY?

COULD YOU GIVE ME A CALL AT XXX-XXX-XXXX, OR SHOULD I,
PERHAPS, WRITE TO THE SUPPOSEDLY CUSTOMER-ORIENTED MR.
BEZOS DIRECTLY??

Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 11:37:08 -0800
From: orders@amazon.com | Block Address | Add to Address Book
To: dreck@morethanzerosum.com
Subject: Your Amazon.com Inquiry

Thanks for writing to us at Amazon.com. I have reviewed our previous correspondence with you, and I offer my sincere apologies for any misunderstandings thus far.

It is very easy to send a gift to somebody, even if it is not mentioned in his wishlist.

Just add the items to your shopping cart. You may send the items in Your cart to different shipping addresses within one ordering session--you'll be able to specify the name and shipping address of each recipient on the order form.

Once you've placed all the items you wish to purchase at this time in Your shopping cart, click the button that says "Proceed to Checkout."

If you would like to have any of the items gift-wrapped, simply check the "Add gift wrap" box underneath each item in your cart before you proceed to checkout. Items are wrapped individually and you will be charged for each item you want wrapped. If you do not want the item gift-wrapped, but would like to include a free gift message, click the "Change" button next to the "Gift options" logo that appears beneath each item on the order form.

You also have the option to choose a single shipping address or to Select the option to "Ship to Multiple Addresses." If you are a returning customer, you will see this option at the top left of the order form. If you wish to send items to someone not already in your address book, Just select the option to "Enter a New Address."

You may also use our convenient 1-Click feature to order gifts. Just check the box marked "Add gift wrap or note" beneath the "Buy now with 1-Click" button. If the gift recipient's address is already listed on your account, simply select that address from the pull-down menu. If it is a new shipping address, select the option to "Add an address."..

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Lauren Manning

There are few seriously injured survivors of the WTC attack. Lauren Manning is one of the 12 surviving WTC victims hospitalized in burn units. First, She Managed to Live; Now Comes the Harder Part is a moving profile in the Times marking her release on the anniversary of the attack. Perhaps this is the most notable of the many anniversary commemorations.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Art vs. Science; Schlesinger's Counter-Tribalism

Many of you, no doubt, saw Glenn Reynold's "Dropped Ball Awards" last night, quoting many defeatist columnists on the war in Afghanistan. I'd like to take a minute to examine one of the most influential, one who believes that his version of history predicts the future and has earned the uncritical (and, I believe undeserved) admiration of much of the Northeast establishment. In fact, Few names in the defeatist pantheon discredit Weisberg's "inventing an enemy" nonsense better than Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

Glenn cites Schlesinger Jr.'s famous November "quagmire" column in the Independent, but misses the opportunity to quote his even more ridiculous September column:

Bombing is not likely to eliminate Bin Laden and his crowd, who have well-prepared hideouts. It would only demonstrate once again the impotence of the American superpower.....

.....Afghanistan is famous for its unconquerability. The British Empire and the Soviet Union failed in their efforts to dominate the country, and they at least knew the rocky terrain and had people who spoke the languages. American troops in Afghanistan would be even more baffled and beset than they were a third of a century ago in Vietnam.....

...Moreover, by November freezing weather will arrive, and the Pentagon has no hope of dispatching troops and winning the war in the six weeks remaining before winter comes to Afghanistan. Nor could an invading American army count on serious assistance from the internal anti-Taliban resistance, their most effective leader, Ahmed Shah Masoud, having been assassinated shortly before the assault on America.

So Schlesinger famously begins his vietnam analogy here, totally misses the fact that the occupying army was Al-Qaeda, RULES OUT the possibility of victory before winter and writes off local assistance. It is difficult to imagine being more wrong.

My business is full of predictions gone bad, so I can take a charitable view. Then why trot out Schlesinger again? Because Schlesinger is influential in certain circles.

For those of you who didn't grow up among the reactionary (yes) Northeastern elite like me, you should understand that Schlesinger is my former movement's high priest. For decades before he became the "sheep in sheep's clothing" of these recent editorials, Schlesinger has been using his obvious talent for making elegant but strained historical comparisons to celebrate and excuse Kennedy and Johnson (and Wilson and Roosevelt) while demonizing Reagan and all who followed in his wake. High-minded intentions and idealistic international institutions are the ultimate justification for any action in the misty world of Schlesinger's history. Schlesinger's denomination of the defeatist family could also be called "counter-tribalism", a subject on which I posted in the earliest days of MTZ. If you are a Manhattan investment banker yearning for his 1960s idealism, or a marginalized academic angry at the mad rush of progress around you (and your desire for a six-disc CD changer), senselessly agreeing with Schlesinger is like going to confession. Say a few "Hail Kennedy's", re-assert your good intentions and receive absolution.

What Schlesinger must acknowledge is how clouded his worldview is, or just how Roosevelt-colored his glasses have become. Like many other defeatists, he refuses to examine the enemy carefully even as every potential U.S. misstep is under a microscope. I did too. In October, I just didn't perceive the extent to which Afghanistan had been highjacked by Osama et. al.. Schlesinger and I are guilty of the myopic U.S. navel-gazing we both criticize (from opposite ends of the spectrum and vastly different pulpits) But here's a nugget that betrays part of Schlesinger's even larger inferiority complex:

We need collective action for several reasons-to confer legitimacy on our response, to divert blame from the United States and to gain counsel from countries that have had far more experience than we have had in dealing with the tortuous politics of the Middle East.

We were attacked by a well-organized force of marauders who have opportunistically taken over a murderous, illegitimate and unrecognized foreign regime. There is no need for further "legitimacy". That we need to "Divert blame" is an even more disturbing thought. Either what we are doing is right, or it is not. Where is there a need to "divert blame"? He actually suggests Spain as an experienced country with which to consult.

It is clear that, even though he claims he is willing to justify "moral" military action on the basis of "human rights, atrocities and genocide" in his 1986 book The Cycles of American History, no military action can be justified in Schlesinger's world.

I went back and flipped through my somewhat worn copy of "Cycles", which is about the supposed 30-year swings in American sentiment from "innovative" public-mindedness to "conservative" individualism. In it he waxes hopeful that Reagan marked the extreme of the pendulum's path in American conservatism. In fact, the book seems to say "don't feel bad, these periods of self-interest are temporary purging, like hairballs. We're headed righteously backwards!". If you are looking for more poor predictions, look no further:

...the age of Reagan, like its earlier versions in the 1950s, 1920s and 1890s, will fade into historical memory.

Well, he covered his bets here, the Constitution kicked Reagan out in 1988, but in other respects Schlesinger was just hopeful. Interesting how Clinton's achievements 10 years later were welfare reform and free trade, isn't it? Predictions aside, Schlesinger himself outlines the appropriate pretext for U.S. action in Afghanistan in Chapter Four:

...national interest, realistically construed (as opposed to moral absolutes), will promote enlightened rather than aggressive policy...

It is certainly in our national interests to pursue those who would kill thousands of American citizens and have openly declared their intentions and a holy war on us. Nothing could be more directly in our national interest than eliminating those who threaten citizens directly. The "moral absolute" of not "bombing indiscriminately" or suffering civilian casualties did not, and should not, stop us.

Even though his own theories support it, Schlesinger would not come around to that view. Reading through his book you see a round condemnation of the invasion of Grenada, even suggesting Reagan to be an international criminal. Yet the Bay of Pigs is mentioned a handful of times only as an aside, and it is described as a misadventure of the CIA that might have turned out better if not for "leaks" and even, in a gross mischaracterization, as an example (p. 416) of Kennedy's restraint! Then he goes on to laud Kennedy because he "learned from" and "acknowledged" his mistakes and showed "courage and resilience." He winks at the use and abuse of power and force in these controversial presidencies (Oooh - scoundrel {smirk} scalliwag {grin} rogue! you can hear his congregation respond in unison). He credits Kennedy for the best economic management of the century, but attributes this, incredibly, to Kennedy's wage-price guideposts rather than his cornerstone tax cuts. Wow! look at all that 1990s inflation, Art (whole other post there, I'm afraid). He criticizes Reagan for achieving growth "at the cost of 11% unemployment." How about a 'dropped ball award for that one, Glenn. The Schlesinger worldview can be summed up in his own words:

The American leaders who had the greatest impact on the world in the Twentieth Century - Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Kennedy - exerted their influence because, in the world's view, their record at home had earned them the right to speak of justice and freedom abroad. Their professions before mankind, the abstractions to which they harnassed American policy, expressed visible realities of their domestic performance. Wilson's New Freedom validated his fourteen points, as FDR's New Deal validated his Four Freedoms. So ideals themselves, when verified by performance, become instruments of national power and therefore an essential component of national interest.

Think really hard how the author of these remarks can look at Reagan's attitude toward Soviet communist oppression and expansionism and the ensuing results, and now, Bush's renewed commitment to stamping out terrorism and the early success in liberating Afghanistan from the Al Qaeda-backed Taliban, and still condemn them so roundly. It is clear that the "ideals", as imputed entirely in Schlesinger's subjective discretion, matter more to him than the "verified performance." I'm sure there are civil libertarians out there thinking it was OK for Roosevelt to use military tribunals...because, after all, he had those four freedoms!. Oppressed or dead Cubans are, no doubt, comforted by Kennedy's idealism and "restraint".

This is the elitism of Northeastern Reactionaries - the "back to (my) Kennedy" crowd. Results don't matter, only intentions and grand intellectual designs with proper Ivy League pedigrees. Unfortunately, few of us have the Kennedy-esque ability to "acknowledge and learn from" our incredible errors in judgement. We sit in our pews crying feebly like Richard Harris at the end of his most famous role...."Camelot...."

Welcome to my home.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

On a lighter note, I'll

On a lighter note, I'll be posting pictures over the next few days! Stand by for snapshots of Megan making the world safe for democracy. Or something.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

On the anniversary, I don't

On the anniversary, I don't have much to say & I don't really feel like ranting. The only thing I'll say is this: one of the things I do on the site is get the guys to fill out forms. We haven't had a single one ask what today's date was.

So instead, I'm going to post a poem which is one of the first things I thought of when I started working in this trailer. It's about the Blitz, not 9-11, and it's very Catholic, but I think it sums up nicely.

Still falls the Rain--
Dark as the world of man, black as our loss--
Blind as the nineteen hundred and forty nails
Upon the Cross.

Still falls the Rain
With a sound like the pulse of the heart that is changed to the hammerbeat
In the Potter's Field, and the sound of the impious feet
On the Tomb:
Still falls the Rain
In the Field of Blood where the small hopes breed and the human brain
Nurtures its greed, that worm with the brow of Cain.

Still falls the Rain
At the feet of the Starved Man hung upon the Cross.
Christ that each day, each night, nails there, have mercy on us--
On Dives and on Lazarus:
Under the Rain the sore and the gold are as one.

Still falls the Rain--
Still falls the Blood from the Starved Man's wounded Side
He bears in his Heart all wounds,--those of the light that died,
The last faint spark
In the self-murdered hear, the wounds of the sad uncomprehending dark,
The wounds of the baited bear,--
The blind and weeping bear whom the keepers beat
On his helpless flesh... the tears of the hunted hare.

Still falls the Rain--
Then--O Ile leape up to my God: who pulles me doune--
See, see where Christ's blood streames in the firmament:
It flows from the Brow we nailed upon the tree
Deep to the dying, to the thirsting heart
That holds the fires of the world,--dark-smirched with pain
As Caesar's laurel crown.

Then sounds the voice of One who like the heart of man
Was once a child who among the beasts has lain--
`Still do I love, still shed my innocent light, my Blood, for thee.'

-- Dame Edith Sitwell, 1940

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Introducing the Thursday Afternoon Drinking

Introducing the Thursday Afternoon Drinking Club

Apologize for the purely social note for those of you who have come to expect only top-notch, hard hitting analysis & tasty WTC tidbits from me, but I'm proud to announce the foundation of the Thursday Afternoon Drinking Club, a support group for formerly employeed, almost employed, or still searching-for-a-job MBA's. We'll be kicking off our inaugural meeting this Thursday afternoon (as the name may have suggested to my more sagacious readers) at 2:30 over at McQuaid's on 44th and 11th. A good time WILL be had by all, or I'm going to know the reason why.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Wall Street Bonuses Head South

Wall Street Bonuses Head South for the Winter

The Wall Street Journal says that bonuses will decline 30% this year (subscription required). This was a shock to me, as from what my friends on the Street have been telling me, I expected the decline to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 100%. But then I realized that first, the big guys up top, who skew the numbers heavily upward, will continue to be taken care of, and second, that much of the rest will be the kind of bonus that isn't green and negotiable. For example, the rumor is that Morgan Stanley is forcing everyone to take their bonus in stock. Company stock. Isn't this the kind of thing that's getting Enron into trouble with Richard Cohen?

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

NPR's Geoff Nunberg is blah on Blogs - "bumbling, self-important and dutiful"

I heard the teaser for this segment of today's Fresh Air as I drove home "Geoff Nunberg on the internet phenomenon of 'blogs." I made sure to tune in. Would he discover the thicket of political commentary? Would he notice that while bloggers don't agree on everything, they seem to be politically libertarian as a group? Would he comment on the diversity of webdesign? The novel ability of this community to fact check and cross reference easily?

No. He compared the blogging world to Punch's "Diary of a Nobody", and desribes the "Nobody" diarist Pooter with the choice adjectives above. He cites only one blog specifically, one in which a woman describes a date with her boyfriend and a trip to the store or some such nonsense. He calls this (rightly) a "density of humdrum detail."

According to Nunberg, the only things bloggers have in common is a lot of time on our hands (hah! if you want something done, give it to a busy person) and a tendency towards exhibitionism.

Nunberg's a linguist at Parc/Xerox. I've seen their IP cross my site a few times. Jeff, you there? I think you missed something...but it's just as well. We would have lapsed into self-referential baloney for days instead of the intelligent commentary available from my new favorite links "jump-menu" above (sorry Netscape <4 users!).

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

No funny titles for this, I'm not in the mood

I had lunch today with my wife uptown. She is a curator at the New-York Historical Society, which has a special exhibit of photos and a video taken by Magnum Photographers on scene on September 11. She took me around the exhibit.

Included is a 25-minute video taken by Evan Fairbanks. He starts shooting just after the first plane hit from the overpass in front of the American Stock Exchange. From there he works his way up to the Southeast corner of the WTC plaza by Liberty Street - right where I emerged from the PATH 45 minutes earlier.

There is no sound track, but Fairbanks recorded stunning real-time visuals of: people gawking at the fire in the North Tower; firemen and ambulances arriving and entering the plaza, the second plane hit, including huge chunks of debris hurtling towards him; panic among the bystanders; discussions at the fire command center INSIDE the Trade Center; workers filing out of the 5 WTC exit on Church Street and, finally, the South Tower collapsing as he is plunged into darkness, about 40 feet from where one of my employees had to jump through a window.

I can't put my finger on it, but this clip is MUCH more vivid than the video I have seen on the internet. Resolution and size help as well. The press you read about the two planes being the equivalent of a 1-kiloton explosive seem unremarkable as you watch this.

There are some fantastic still pictures also, such as the one taken on a Brooklyn terrace that captures the photographer's baby in a "bouncy chair" in the foreground as the Towers burn in the background across the River. Combined with the moving tribute to Chief Feehan outside (look for the heartbreaking entry from his grandkids in the viewer remembrance book under his picture), I'm still reeling.

I was here a few blocks away when it all happened, but the museum, five miles uptown, has succeeded in making this a close-up experience. If you are in New York, go to the Historical Society (77th and C.P.W.), it's worth the trip.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

They Got Al Capone for

They Got Al Capone for Tax Evasion. . .

All those threatening late night TV commercials were telling you the truth about the dangers of cable theft: they're going after O.J. Simpson for stealing cable. Okay, I think the man's guilty as sin, but this smacks a little too much of impotent law enforcement officials lashing out. Turns out they were actually trying to arrest him for participation in an illegal ecstasy ring -- and I suspect they wouldn't have gone after that had it not been for the murder. Failing both (no evidence of his participation turned up during the search), they're going after him for illegally receiving satellite TV.

On the other hand, I always applaud when they use tactics like this on Law and Order, plus maybe they're just trying to hold him on the lesser charge while they build a case on the drug thing. But it makes me wonder if we aren't going to see this man bouncing in and out of court for the rest of his life on any stupid charge anyone can drum up. Instead of holding him without bail to prevent his fleeing the country, the judge can just shorten one leg on his walker. But if it does come to this, at least we can take comfort in the fact that it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Why is it that you are a genocidal maniac?

Andy Rooney provides another more bellicose take on the theme of "understanding our enemies" in an editorial published December 6,

It is important for the world to know whether bin Laden's motivation is greed, power or religion. The Nazi leaders were all interviewed at length in their prison cells and their testimony has provided good material for hundreds of historians. We should try to find out what makes anyone into a bin Laden. We do not understand why we are hated. We don't know why anyone would set out to destroy our civilization. If bin Laden were taken alive, brought here, questioned and tried, we might find out.

There's little to be gained and much to be lost from interrogating OBL. Excuse my French, but how much questioning do we need to reach the final diagnosis of "sick fuck"? Kill him slowly but quietly. Claim he fled and show everyone the pink panties you found in his sock drawer.

It would be an education for all of us if we could hear what bin Laden has to say in defense of himself. Everyone has a reason or excuse. We ought to do everything we can to understand this kind of a mind because we're facing many other people just like him.

No. There is no reason to put this guy on a soapbox. Terrorism is fundamentally narcissistic. Why play to it? Next:

There is less excuse for the young American Taliban fighter, John Walker, than there is for Osama bin Laden. Walker had a normal American childhood. He converted from Catholicism to Islam when he was 16 and neighbors are saying, "He was a good boy."

I think of the great cartoonist Al Capp, who wrote and drew the comic strip "Li'l Abner." Whenever a Dogpatch character committed some terrible crime, Mammy Yokum would sit on the porch in her rocker, smoking her corncob pipe and say, "He were a good boy ... but rotten clear through."

John Walker, like bin Laden, is rotten clear through.

Poor bin Laden, raised without a normal childhood, spaced-out neighbors or the benefit of Catholicism. Well, I appreciate the sentiment, but he was also born without a heart. In reality, there is no comparison, because there is NO excuse for bin Laden. The man was born with an enormous financial advantage and has clearly done worse to humanity than Walker. I have little interest in either of them once they are appropriately neutered.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

The New York Times joins

The New York Times joins the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy

The Nation takes the New York Times to task for trying to obscure the fact that Gore won the election. No, really. It's a howler.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Shelley's Wives There's an article

Shelley's Wives

There's an article in today's Weekly Standard on Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein and wife of Percy Bythe Shelley, a Romantic poet whose works are still widely read. The gist of the article is that it's not a good idea to marry a Romantic poet, particularly if he happens to be named Percy Bythe Shelley. Which put me in mind of one of my favorite Mark Twain pieces -- a book review called "In Defense of Harriet Shelley" that takes apart, in high style, a nineteenth century biographer. No higher purpose in posting this -- just good, clean, Lit Major type fun.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Quote of the Day From

Quote of the Day

From the Weekly Standard (subscription may be required), an excellent article on human cloning contains the following priceless quote from ethicist Paul Ramsey: "any person, or any society or age, expecting ultimate success where ultimate success is not to be reached, is peculiarly apt to devise extreme and morally illegitimate means for getting there."

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Careful what you wish for

The New York Times Magazine today (well, tomorrow really) highlights "Global Warming Lawsuits" as part of its "Year in Ideas" special. This little brainstorm comes from the fevered mind of Andrew Strauss. So much for the undergraduate education offered in my hometown.

Blaming the U.S. for one's own troubles is an international sport. Lately we have plenty of material on how it is practiced by corrupt despots in the Middle East in order to distract the local populace from their own perfidy. There are less virulent strains of this, practiced by otherwise unobjectionable folks in the parts of the anti-globalization, environmentalist and, yes, European Union movement as well.

To some extent this is healthy. While I don't believe the U.S. is pursuing cultural hegemony in the world, it would be a damn shame if we achieved it (apart from free people and free markets, but I don't consider those uniquely U.S. ideas). I also believe that the motives and methods of a country as powerful as the U.S. should be questioned constantly. That's why it's been harder for me to get my dander up about, for instance, factually-challenged conspiracy theorists like the International Action Center relative to the factually-challenged sloppy, biased and condescending "big media" pundits. I prefer to attack disguised misanthropy and illogic rather than their naked brethren.

America's critics attempt to weave our freewheeling and attractively secular culture, our ability to project military power and our free market corporate success into one consistent tapestry of insidious conspiracy. In their minds, watching "Harry Potter", listening to Britney Spears, buying a Big Mac, cutting an exploration deal with ExxonMobil, supporting Israel and retaliating against Osama bin Laden are all of a piece. One of the logical weaknesses in these anti-U.S. arguments is that there is never any allowance for the fact that these different expressions of the U.S. result from incredibly contentious interplay between opposed and independent actors within the United States. Perhaps that was a verbose way of saying we are a successful, free market (mostly) democracy with a relatively strong respect for individual rights. Our critics see their own statist ambitions in the mirror and assume that there must also be a central architect within U.S. success in capital formation, corporate growth, foreign policy and exported media and art (broadly defined).

Imagine the irony, then, of U.S.-bashers potentially importing the commercial victimization scam that our Tort Bar has become. This is what I'm thinking as I read about Strauss suggesting that an international tort system might be used to compensate for the supposed ravages of global warming:

Imagine for a moment that you’re a citizen of Tuvalu, an island nation in the South Pacific. Your home will soon disappear beneath the waves, an early casualty of rising sea levels linked to global warming. The people largely responsible for your plight – the oil-burning, carbon-dioxide-spewing citizens of the United States – are thousands of miles away and show no signs of lending a hand. What do you do? A growing number of environmental advocates, alarmed by the Bush administration’s repudiation of the Kyoto Protocol, have this advice: take ’em to court.

The idea of filing lawsuits to recover damages from emissions of carbon dioxide is the brainchild of Andrew Strauss, a professor of law at Widener University in Wilmington, Del. In a controversial paper delivered this summer at a conference in London, Strauss explored the ‘‘litigation possibilities’’ for filing suit against the United States.

Even those in favor of the Kyoto Protocol admit that the models are seriously susceptible to assumptions. They also state that we are in the midst of a cyclical global warming pattern that is unrelated to Carbon Dioxide and Methane (in fact, that's why the emergency, they suggest we are aggravating it). So that's the state of the science, even giving greater credence to global warming models than they may deserve. How on earth can we properly attribute coastal erosion in a specific place in the Pacific to man-made global warming? We can't accurately measure our production of global warming gases, we can't accurately measure the man-made contribution to the phenomenon, we can't accurately measure the coastal erosion, we can't accurately say what measures a country might have taken to prevent the erosion.

In the absence of a hard scientific understanding, what happens to this national injury scheme? It becomes politicized (shocker). One need only look at what happens in U.S. mass torts such as the Dow Corning case, described here by Marcia Angell:

in 1994, Dr. Sherine Gabriel of the Mayo Clinic submitted to the New England Journal of Medicine her report of the first epidemiologic study of whether breast implants increase the risk of certain diseases and symptoms. By this time, thousands of lawsuits had been filed alleging that they did. Some women received huge damages from sympathetic juries (the record was $25 million). For every jury verdict, many more cases were settled for the plaintiff out of court. The situation became unsustainable for the breast implant manufacturers, and so they agreed to set aside $4.25 billion to meet the claims of all women with breast implants once and for all -- the biggest class-action settlement in history. Yet the Mayo Clinic study, published shortly after the class-action settlement was announced, did not show a link between breast implants and disease. I was struck by the discrepancy between the legal findings and the scientific evidence. Why were the courts so sure, when the scientists were not at all certain?

What fascinated me most about the contradictory opinions and accusations, the frenetic legal activity, and the huge sums of money at stake was the question of evidence. As I investigated the subject, I realized that the breast implant controversy is simply one example of the difficulty we Americans have in dealing with scientific evidence, particularly on matters of health. We depend greatly on science and its technological fruits, we like to talk about what research shows and what it doesn't, we think we understand risks, but when it comes to the recurrent medical scares that sweep across the land like locusts, all our sophistication goes out the window. Just give us the conclusion, tell us whom to blame, and don't bother with the evidence.

In the absence of hard science, the jury saw a group of seriously injured plaintiffs, and decided to hand over the bucks. Similarly, an international tort system would see a rich nation and a poor one, and twist the science to redistribute wealth. Especially since the instrument in question - industrial infrastructure - is a by-product of increasing national wealth (other by-products include slower population growth, less warlikje tendencies, better healthcare and LESS pollution per capita). Power corrupts seductively, and the temptation to undo the perceived injustices of the marketplace will be strong. Look at the U.N: while Israelis are being killed on schoolbuses and bombed in malls, the U.N. takes time out to condemn the Israeli government and remains silent on anti-Israeli violence directed at civilians. The collective tendency of the U.N. is that condemning the little guy, no matter how egregiously they act, is being a bully.

Apart from the ridiculous and unenforceable decisions created by such a body, I suggest to any nation that considers these actions that they are a Trojan Horse. What has your government done, what have your companies dones that might conceivably harm others? Many countries who could file actions under Strauss' scheme pollute indiscriminately, like China, and feel free to hide the evidence. Perhaps we should travel to the first country to file such a suit, drink some contaminated water or breath some polluted air from burning "biomass" (home fire), receive poor medical treatment and SUE SUE SUE!

No, the world certainly doesn't have to buy Big Macs, listen to NSync (I obviously don't, I can't even spell it) or watch Die Hard movies. And they really, really don't want to import anything like our tort system.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Should John Walker get the

Should John Walker get the Chair?

The Post (New York, that is) seems to be saying yes, and so do I, although I'm normally against the death penalty. My normal objection stems from two things: first, that there is obviously some possibility, no matter how slight, of making a mistake. No possibility here -- he was in Afghanistan with an AK47. Second, I'm against it because I think that it lessens human dignity -- no man should have to know the hour of his own death. In this case, however, we're not executing a criminal, we're shooting an enemy soldier. He wanted to go to war and get shot at by Americans. Let's give him that opportunity.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

DeSalvo wasn't the 'Boston Strangler'

DeSalvo wasn't the 'Boston Strangler'

Or so says Steve Dunleavy in today's New York Post
By STEVE DUNLEAVY. I have no editorial comment except that this seems to strengthen the argument against the death penalty -- a high profile case, presumably one with a lot of prosecutorial resources directed to it, and at least in one instance, they got it wrong.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Opinionjournal shares the Wall Street

Opinionjournal shares the Wall Street Journal editorial page from December 7, 1941 . Sitting down here near Wall Street, I find the words quite moving:

We Have a Duty

The business and financial discussion which customarily appears on this page in Monday morning's issue of The Wall Street Journal was written Saturday evening and given to the compositors yesterday. As the galley proof reached the editorial room, press association wires carried the flash that the Japanese had attacked Hawaii.
In that moment, the events of last week seemed suddenly to have been removed to some remote era of antiquity. The things that business and finance discussed last week seem now to have no relation to tomorrow nor to the many days to come after tomorrow.
There is a stark, horrible reality that American territory has been attacked. Japan has declared a state of war exists between her and the United States
Every citizen has and knows his duty. It will be heavy for all. The sacrifices will be particularly heavy for the business and financial community of America.
We say that the sacrifices will be made. The duty will be performed.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Remembrance Curiously enough, on Pearl

Remembrance

Curiously enough, on Pearl Harbor day I have been asked to find a flag for a letterhead. I found an amazing site that has all sorts of wonderful graphics commemorating September 11th.

What I also found is that these things still have the power to make me choke up. I've been working on the site for three months, and the grief I thought had attenuated had merely retreated. When I saw all those pictures with one common theme -- we will not forget -- that grief reappeared as fresh as the in the days immediately following the attack.

This is a measure of how sheltered we are -- or at least I am, as the product of New York's Upper West Side, private schools, and an Ivy League education. I have disliked for years the kind of affected anti-patriot who is far too sophisticated to ever do something as simple as love their country -- at least not without so many disclaimers attached that you wonder if they aren't sticking around in this dump just to annoy the rest of us. Nonetheless, I believed in patriotism in the nice, detached way that I believe in peace on earth and goodwill towards men. I did not know that I could be moved to tears by the sight of a flag or by really listening to the words of "God Bless America" for the first time during the first memorial service they held down here, when I realized, in a rush, just how much I do love this place. To judge from the weeping crowd around me, a lot of people have had that revelation. I confess that before the Day, I thought that people who claimed to be brought to tears by events long past or far away, were engaging in some mildly hysterical emotional grandstanding. Now I not only understand them, but am one of them -- and I sense that there are others out there like that, and that we will be a better nation for it. I am unbearably sad right now, looking at those pictures -- but I am also unbearably glad to know that the change is enduring.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

WTC Tidbit of the Day

WTC Tidbit of the Day

We have a 24 foot Christmas tree! It was paid for entirely by the Tully construction workers, and there are plans to weld it atop one of the work shanties to make a fine display. We'll need it, since the current word is that we'll be working full crews Christmas Eve and day. No one in America should forget that right along with the cops and firemen, the construction workers here are having a tough time, working 12 hour shifts six or seven days a week, spending holidays away from their families, and seeing more bodies than anyone should ever have to. When winter comes and there are no buildings down here to act as a break for the icy winds, they're going to freeze. So when people say that they don't count because they're paid, remember that when it's ten below and they're pulling bodies out of the ground, they earn every penny.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Remember December 7th I have

Remember December 7th

I have on my wall right now a printout of the famous WWII poster -- the tattered flag still flying over a background of smoke and fire, with the words ". . . we here are highly resolved that these dead shall not have died in vain", and "Remember December 7th" as its legend. Now that we have our own tragedy to remember, I thought I'd post FDR's original speech to congress.

Yesterday, December 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its Government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to the Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. While this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or armed attack.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the Japanese Government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. Very many American lives have been lost. In addition American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

Yesterday the Japanese Government also launched an attack against Malaya. Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong. Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam. Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands. Last night the Japanese attacked Wake Island. This morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island.

Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.

As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense.

Always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

I believe I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces - with the unbounded determination of our people - we will gain the inevitable triumph - so help us God.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December seventh, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire."

I'd also like to post another great FDR quote -- he had so darn many of them! -- we have hanging in the office, from his Third Inaugural Address:

". . . The state of this nation is good.
the heart of this nation is sound
the spirit of this nation is strong
the faith of this nation is eternal."

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Bad News Bears Tee-hee! I

Bad News Bears

Tee-hee! I love puns.

The WSJ.com front page (subscription required) is chock-a-block with articles that forebode ill for the economy (and the job prospects of freshly minted MBA's, I might add). For those of you not foresighted enough to subscribe online, I will recap the headlines, and even throw in valuable editorial comments for free. As follows:

THE HOUSE APPROVED by a single vote fast-track authority for Bush to negotiate trade deals

This would be good news, except for that "single vote" nonsense. How does so much protectionist claptrap linger in a body of allegedly educated legislators?

OPEC delayed making a cut in its oil production, saying it wants to be sure Russia and other large producers are really going to reduce their exports

Translation: OPEC isn't smart enough to avoid pushing us deeper into recession, nor to foresee the political firestorm that will ensue should they do so.

Japan's economy may be entering its worst downturn since the end of World War II

Their GDP shrank by half a point between July and September. This doesn't hurt us as much as it might, since the Japanese buy assets rather than goods and services with their trade surplus, but it certainly can't help.

Retail sales slumped at the end of November after a fast Thanksgiving-weekend start.

Fast seems to me to be a slight exaggeration -- the articles I read indicated that the holiday sales increase was anemic compared to normal years. An informal and highly unrepresentative survey of coworkers and friends indicates that no one is planning to spend as much this year as they did last year. This may be local to New York City and the uncertain job prospects of new MBA's -- but it's pretty depressing when you consider that half my friends were grad students last holiday season.

Electronics retailers reported weak third-quarter sales but added that an improvement in November and strong holiday spending would help them meet or beat current earnings expectations

Translation: Sales are bad. We hope they'll get better. But we aren't betting on it.

RTL warned it expects full-year profit to plummet amid a decline in advertising revenue

Don't look for Europe to help us out of this either. But then, you already knew that.

Intel and AMD boosted their fourth-quarter sales estimates, citing strong holiday demand for personal computers

This is the first really good news on the page. Personally, I'm surprised -- I would have bet that the market for PC's was at or near saturation. Unless of course, this reflects deep discounting -- which, like October's boost in car sales, is both unsustainable and unprofitable -- in this case for PC manufacturers, about whom the front page is silent.

Boeing appears to have been persuaded to keep its 717 jet program operating because of pressure from existing and potential airline customers

Headline: Business does things to keep customers happy.

Stand by for WSJ stories on people who go to work every day in order to collect a paycheck, and potential criminals who don't steal because they're afraid of the police.

Sun Microsystems said its business appears to be improving slightly in the current quarter, but the computer maker reiterated that it may not return to profitability until the second quarter of 2002.

See Electronics Retailers.

Apple Computer, Sun Microsystems and other competitors could benefit from a proposed remedy in the Microsoft antitrust case.

The point of anti-trust regulators is to protect the consumers, not unfit competitors. I find it disturbing that Sun et al. no longer even bother to pretend that they're interested in anyone but themselves.

California's state government made its first payment to the state's nonprofit electricity-grid operator after months of wrangling and an order to do so from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

I must be permitted one gleeful chortle at the mess California has gotten itself into. The whole state is filled with NIMBY environmentalists who want to regulate every industry out of existance except the one they happen to work for, and think that if they can just find the right herbal supplement they'll live forever. (Whew! I feel much better now.) The sight of the Invisible Hand taking them out behind the barn and giving them a good talking-to with a peach switch restores my hope for our political economy.

States Square Off Against Drug Firms In Crusade on Prices

Well, the US has the last functioning pharmaceutical market in the world. But don't worry, the states are going to take care of what the federal government wouldn't -- forcing the firms to sell their product at the cost of manufacturing it, rather than the much higher cost of developing drugs in the first place. We may be witnessing the end of pharmaceutical innovation.

U.S. BUSINESSES slashed 331,000 jobs in November, far more than expected, sending the unemployment rate to a six-year high of 5.7% and damping hopes for a quick economic recovery

There won't be any quick and easy recovery a la 1993. You read it here first! Er, at least I hope you read it here.

Stocks are set to open lower Friday, as continued signs of weakness in the labor market damped investor optimism

This is priceless. Fifteen minutes ago, the front page said stocks were going to open steady. Maybe the editors finally read their own front page.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Disqualified from legal or business punditry

Joel Achenbach has this to say about Enron:

A quick trip to the company Web site -- www.enron.com -- reveals that Enron struggled to explain its business model. Under the heading Who We Are, the company states:

"It's difficult to define Enron in a sentence, but the closest we come is this: we make commodity markets so that we can deliver physical commodities to our customers at a predictable price."

Let me say right now that this doesn't sound, to me, like a legal business.

Hmmm. Can I think of some "legal" businesses that provide a useful service of price/cost predictability?

How about Life insurance, annuities, property insurance, casualty insurance, banking (fixed/floating), the Futures exchanges, the currency exchanges, the Euro (if you think about it), home heating oil vendors, supermarkets that import South American fruit during the winter, any business that offers a term contract....

Enron executives used every trick in the book, plus some tricks that not even the book was willing to print, to make their company look wildly profitable.

Sounds like he's not sure which tricks they used. And of course, he starts with this:

I'm all broken up about the collapse of Enrun.

I mean Enround. Enron. Whatever. That big company that went poof.

He should be. Thousands of people are out of work, and there's much less liquidity in the markets that make the price of energy more predictable. Oh - that's right - he doesn't think that's legal.

But the real crime of this article is that I have just conveyed to you ALL of the substance within it.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Warming up in the bullpen

Introducing MTZ Bullpen. Wanna see what I'm setting aside for future blogging or reference? Or do you just want to see the strange bookmarking habits of a sleepless blogger? Go to the More Than Zero Bullpen. And feel free to have a swing on your own or email me with suggestions.

I've been trying to "catalyst blog", to borrow a phrase from Stephen Den Beste. So you've seen some long entries here prompted by a link, rather than just offering it up. I've decided to store bloggable material in the Bullpen and try to keep this site free of one-shot posts. So the Bullpen should have a style similar to, but infinitely less elegant than Reductio ad Absurdum, which I find quite useful.

I won't get to most of it. If you nail it first, more power to you.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Eyewitness Testimony

Terry Gross interviewed Sebastian Junger and Charles Sennott on Fresh Air tonight. Breathy tone aside, Terry Gross is a good interviewer, and these two have been on the ground with the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. I suggest you listen to it, as I think it amplifies the print coverage nicely. Quick observations:

1) The quality of our allies: Junger has overwhelmingly positive impressions of the Northern Alliance leaders and their desire for peace and representative government. Sennot is worried that General Dostum is setting himself up to control trade through and around Mazar-i-Sharif and make trouble. Both felt the Northern Alliance were reckless, disorganized, and "freewheeling." They commented on the willingness of Northern Alliance soldiers to let journalists ride on their tanks, and the sharp contrast in attitudes towards the press between the U.S. special forces and the Alliance. Attitudes towards the press notwithstanding, Sennott observed a genuine warmth between special forces and Northern Alliance troops.

2) The fortitude of the enemy: Both commented on the apparent loss of the will to fight by the Taliban. There were multiple occasions where the Alliance moved too quickly through Taliban lines into enemy territory and could have been cut off from behind and massacred. This technique (SDB would know the name) has been a staple of both sides over the years, and Junger expressed surprise that it did not happen. The Taliban willingness to fight to the death so many of us assumed was not there. Sennott talks about how Afhhans have switched to the winning side in many conflicts, hot rhetoric notwithstanding. I wonder if the same will not be said of much of the Arab world.

3) The tragedy at Qala-e-Jhangi fort: One group that was willing to fight to the death were the prisoners. Sennott calls the uprising a "fiasco" and blamed it on Northern Alliance sloppiness and the Northern Alliance faith that the defectors would remain just that. The prisoners found a munitions storeroom and fought hard to their last breath. No grist for the Amnesty International mill here.

4) Freedom moments: Junger talks movingly about Kabul men desperately digging up their chess sets as the Northern Alliance point force was still riding in. Like they were buried treasure.

Gross did ask one jarring question while Junger was commenting on the journalists who have died: "What is it about this war that makes it particularly dangerous?" I suddenly thought of that reporter who asked Randall Cunningham "have you always been a black quarterback?" But Junger had an answer. He suggests that the Northern Alliance's take-all-comers attitude towards the hundreds of Western journalists contributed to the danger. Junger also felt that the four who were ambushed were taking risks he would not.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Matt Welch is on fire

I'm busy, but I recommend warming your hands at Matt's place this morning.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

The Oversold Virtues of Moderation

I listened to Terry Gross interview Jim Jeffords last night. Two observations:

1) The Singing Senators are a crime against humanity. I pride myself on liking many different genres of music. My tolerance ends at the near edge of this deep river of singing sludge.

2) Jeffords is an opportunist (surprise!). He also cloaks his famous departure from the Republican party as a rescue mission for "the moderates." In fact, I believe he used the word moderate in almost every sentence. I only wish he and his former colleagues had used such moderation in their singing. Or, for that matter, modulation.

My overwhelming impression is that Jeffords is not a moderate in principle, if there is such a thing. The way he spoke in the interview, you get the sense that this isn't about his beliefs. He enjoys the power he gets from being part of a swing faction. The onely policy he mentioned was education spending. The other 95% of the time it was about him and his ability to change the power dynamics of the Senate. His politics are a form of narcissism, I believe. Everybody's always sucking up to you if they need you to create a majority. As part of a Republican majority he, not moderation, was becoming irrelevant. This singin' senator didn't like that.

The New York Times, Jeffords and pundits in general keep hyping the semantics of political orientation. We should take our warning from the "Taliban" epithet that was thrown around so freely prior to September 11. Virginia Postrel has pointed out that the old right-left description is pretty useless in a world where Nader and Buchanan agree on so many things. She's right. But even Postrel herself, in a well-written but un-linkable WSJ editorial on cloning yesterday, plays a similar card by making reference to what "most Americans want" in support of her argument (et tu?). So does William Kristol in the column immediately opposite. Opinion is about influencing others, not counting noses. These references to the unmeasurable majority belief are a form of the Argumentum ad Populum fallacy. Surfing for things to 'blog on will show you there is a pretty rich diversity of opinion available. Of what logical value is worshipping a "mainstream" that is subject to your own definition?

Pundits abuse the terms radical, extremist, moderate, mainstream, bipartisan (shudder - anything both parties agree on is either uncontroversial, meaningless or just suitably pork-laden) to the point of irrelevance.

There's more to say on this, but I have a day full of meetings for which I must prepare.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

"Stop yer whining Coursey!"

Remember my post on the bonkers technology journalist David Coursey? Well John Dickinson from ZDNet took him apart too.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

You've heard of bellicose women. Try Capitalist Chicks.

I've fallen for the inner beauty of capitalism myself. But the site sounds promising (MTZ to Chicks: run a spellcheck on the home page).

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

No, I can't take criticism. You got a problem with that?

Hmmm, what's this..interesting blog....good point, no, not true...WAIT A MINUTE! Browsing through my referrals I find Ginger Stampley, who says What She Really Thinks (good for her!), has equated my sanctimony with Anna Quindlen's. The Nerve! Quindlen's is, as I said, sanctimonious claptrap.. Here she goes:

I'm not convinced. Hofer falls for the same broad fallacy for which he attacks Quindlen: that spending and patriotism are related at all. They're orthogonal.

Orthogonal meaning statistically independent? Well, never mind. Even what she actually means is correct. There's nothing patriotic about spending or not spending. I looked back at my post and I don't see myself suggesting there is. I ridiculed Anna Quindlen for saying that not spending would honor the memories of the WTC victims, or be sensitive to them, or whatever she was suggesting. In doing so, I referenced and affirmed A.Q.'s own argument in the prior sentences that it was silly to say spending would honor them.

I do think spending will stimulate a weak economy. Similarly, I suppose, slower consumption would cool an overheated economy. So there is an argument in there that doing one or the other, depending on the economy, is "patriotic" to the extent it helps the economy. Helping the economy probably makes up a slightly larger part of "patriotism" than sneering at the masses for their consumerism. But I would say consumption is "patriotically neutral", to coin a phrase. If you can do something to keep the economy going, you are increasing the general welfare of the living, which is positive more than patriotic per se. Unfortunately, our propensity to spend or save offers no marginal benefit for the dead.

Quindlen may be sanctimonious, but she has a point. You don't have to be a Taliban to think that debt-driven consumer culture isn't America's best export. Hofer et al. don't have to like what she says, and they can think she's wrong, but there is merit to the idea that people are more important than stuff. That's the message I got from her column.

People are indeed more important than having/buying/coveting stuff. They are also more important than not having/buying/coveting stuff. The relationship between stuff and people is that most people can eat because of transactions in stuff. Tremendous increases in life expectancy, agricultural production, and welfare, as well as decreases in population pressure and pollution, have come from the growth in stuff transactions. So stuff is important to people, even though stuff is not more important than people. Is this beginning to get abstract...? Also, just curious, who is this et. al. of which she speaks?

Last, but not least, the insinuation that Real Americans should consume conspicuously to keep the little guy out of a recession is classist at best and preachy in a (dare I say it?) Taliban style about how people ought to live at worst. If Quindlen thinks that there's more to patriotism than buying a CD changer at the mall, more power to her. She's not alone in that line of thought.

Just when you think you've found a thoughtful opposing point of view you get words shoved in your mouth. My post is far from an exhortation to "consume conspicuously", but it does say that, given a choice, doing things that make the economy grow (yes, spending, in this environment) does much for the living while abstinence will, on the margin, make people poorer. If that's classist, I guess you'll have to whisk me away to Versailles, 'cause I'm in favor.

My main point is that A.Q. shouldn't tell people here (or in Afghanistan) how to spend their free time and discretionary money. My point was also that dressing up anti-consumerism as concern for humanity is self-defeating and illogical, while dressing up consumerism as concern for humanity is merely...preachy. Preachy is a weblog occupational hazard . A hazard for Ginger too, by the way. C'mon G. let it pass, Just like I let you get away with the assertion that we are "exporting" a debt-driven culture. See, this is me, exercising friendly un-Taliban-like restraint in the spirit of weblog collegiality.

Well, I bookmarked her weblog, grumbling bitterly about my first known Taliban-likening. Ken Layne and Glenn Reynolds may not do the same. Thanks for the link, Ginger.

P.S. you're a bit off base on Enron, but that's another post.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Success has many fathers

Whenever something goes well in a business, more people will claim responsibility for it. This is what appears to be happening with Adam Smith's legacy. Now that it is apparent that he was on to something with the "Invisible Hand", the more socialistically-inclined are searching his intentions for signs that he is one of them (via Reductio ad Absurdum).

This is, of course, easy, since the evidence of the well-known desire of all free marketers to put babies on spikes and strip the flesh off the poor are..somehow absent from his writing, now that they look at it. Read carefully. It is his stated "intentions" that redeem him in their eyes, not his ideas or recommendations. He is actually in favor (gasp!) of improving the general welfare. Here's everyone's favorite pinata, Noam Chomsky:

Chomsky, who has long criticized capitalism, sharply distinguishes between Smith and his conservative followers, writing that: "It's quite remarkable to trace the evolution of values from a pre-capitalist thinker like Adam Smith, with his stress on sympathy and the goal of perfect equality and the basic human right to creative work, to contrast that and move on to the present to those who laud the new spirit of the age, sometimes rather shamelessly invoking Adam Smith's name."

Here's David McNally (and Emma Rothschild):

According to both Rothschild and McNally, Hayek was guilty of conflating Smith's moral defence of the market with the amoral celebration of self-interest found in other economic theories. Hayek, who was a product of Freud's Vienna, defended capitalism because it encompassed human irrationality. As an enlightenment thinker, Smith would have found such an argument alien to his sensibility. "Smith definitely does not have the sort of Hayekian contempt for human reason," says McNally.

Sigh. Some people not only hear whatever they want to hear, they read it. How can it be news to them that BOTH Smith and Hayek argued for free markets as the best route to greater welfare? And since when does Hayek have "contempt for human reason." That's like calling Ayn Rand a collectivist.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Don't mess with Den Beste; a scheer drop

USS Clueless weighs in with a typically on-point essay about the pessimism of the anti-war faction:

...The "voices of caution" in this case have devolved into voices of hysterical fear who have contributed nothing relevant to the debate, except, ironically, to convince the majority that action and war are probably the right course.

The voices opposing the war have been wrong so often and so consistently now that they're coming to be viewed as a reliable negative indicator of what to do next...

In fact, any manager will tell you that being a pessimist is no way to lead people. One of the most important leadership skills is to paint a compelling picture of the future, dependent on achieving the goals you have set out. It's called motivation. It's one of the reason's we have little to fear from communitarian doomsayers. They just have enormous trouble getting people to act, and, after a while, to listen.

Speaking of which, Drospcan just drop-kicked Robert Scheer. Have a look. Shiloh thinks I flatter her writing insincerely, but I protest - read this turn of phrase, alliteration and vivid imagery included:

It is this Russian rationality which made the system of mutually assured destruction work. It will not work, however, against people who want to be sent to the sloe-eyed virgins ASAP.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Targeting civilians

Here is a list of attacks perpetrated since the 1993 peace accords. Like any rational person, I believe there is a difference between civilian casualties and civilian targets, and that Israel and/or the West can only negotiate with someone who can deliver. This speaks for itself. (via insta-hyper-blogger)

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

More from the world of paper and ink

American Heritage Magazine ran a special double issue (November/December) with all kinds of good stuff on the World Trade Center and the war on terrorism. Unfortunately, the most interesting article, entitled Can History Help? ("We put a question to several historians: What can history tell us about how we are going to get through the time ahead") is not available on the web. Barbarians. I would like to go up to midtown and strangle the editorial staff but I have carpal tunnel syndrome from re-typing quotations.

The contributors put the attacks in perspective against a variety of prior events, most notably the Wall Street Bombing of 1920, covered in a separate feature, and the German detonation of the Black Toms munitions dump in New Jersey. Both of these attacks damaged internationally known public symbols - the Morgan building and the Statue of Liberty, respectively. The Morgan building still bears the scars. I walk by it all the time.

Stephen Ambrose probably wishes to rewrite his assertions that "every enemy soldier (in Afghanistan) will be ready to die in defense of his country", as well as the claim that "few of those high tech weapons will make much of a difference in Afghanistan."

Paul Berman, however, does a beautiful job drawing the obvious historical parallels between the radical arab/islamic nationalists and the other "enemies of liberal culture", Bolshevism, Italian Fascism, Nazism and the Spanish movement to restore the reign of Christ the King (and they are worried about our death penalty now!). "...liberal values and practices arouse a wild fear in some people, and fear pushes them into violent acts." He also offers this:

The Arab world might have found a way to see in a Jewish state a marvelous opportunity for the rest of the Middle East, an opportunity for everyone in the region to become more creative, more diverse, and more modern.

Joseph Ellis points out, remarkably in this context, that "historical lessons are more like tea leaves than neon signs, so anyone who claims to see one clearly had best look again." True, but he ends his short blurb with "If we manage to put both pictures together (the supposedly contradictory short and long view), we shall at last be capable of irony." Well, I've always said that what this country needs is a more robust irony capability. Maybe a strategic irony reserve. What does he mean?

This wouldn't be a "warblog" (TM-Matt Welch inc.) if I didn't leave you with some stupidity from the "brought it on ourselves - its all about oil" camp, so here we go with John Lukacs:

...Yes, we live now in the twenty-first century [!], and the structure of history - of how and why things happen - is changing. The American people must make up their minds. Must America be "the dictatress of the world," what John Quincy Adams warned against 180 years ago? Must Americans be tol, and believe that they are the chosen people of humankind - indeed, of God?

Sometime during the twenty-first century, the United States will withdraw from the Middle East instead of expanding further. Sometime during the twenty-first century, Americans will pay much more for gas and oil and no longer depend on Middle Eastern oil. Sometime during the twenty-first century, Americans will begin rebuilding their railroads instead of building bigger and bigger airports. Sometime during the twenty-first century, Americans will begin to guard their frontiers seriously instead of opening them indiscriminately

OK - 1) We still have no idea what he means by the meaningless "structure of history is changing" assertion. The beginning of this piece is dedicated to praising the bravery of the highjackers and makineg sure we don't call this a "war". So the "structure changing" idea comes from thin air. If this is the standard to which he holds his students no wonder there's grade inflation.

2)the criticism is pure straw man: We might as well say "must we make our homes out of play-doh and feed our children to dogs?" We don't. The material hiding behind the "must we" rhetorical device is pure sweeping generalization nonsense. For John's sake, I hope that "sometime in the twenty-first century", he, and other isolationist defeatists of his ilk (maybe Pat Buchanan), will live in the wretched conditions they so clearly desire. If this is his optimism, what does he sound like when he's being pessimistic?

3) why can't he say "this century?", since to anyone capable of reading American Heritage and/or a desk calendar it is abundantly clear that "we are living in the twenty-first century." Except, apparently, Lukacs.

Having retyped all this, I've decided to do something more productive during the lunch hour. Perhaps roll an acorn to South Street Seaport using only my nose.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Health Care Hysteria The New

Health Care Hysteria

The New York Times has this article on the new "Cat Cap" coverage, a sort of institutionalized MSA plan, that's going to be offered by some insurance plans next year. Typical Times, the headline is "A New Health Plan May Raise Expenses for Sickest Workers". Equally true: "A New Health Plan May Lower Expenses for Young, Uninsured Workers and Finally Allow them to Get Coverage". Don't look for that headline any time soon.

The basic premise of Cat Cap insurance is that you have an MSA -- a medical savings account, contributions to which are tax free (just like health insurance benefits) -- coupled with high-deductible insurance that ensures that if you are in an auto accident or have some other catastrophic illness, you are still covered. Anything minor or routine, you pay for either from your MSA, or after that is deducted, your pocket.

The coverage in the Times is unsurprisingly hysterical, and larded with spurious examples of the disaster waiting to befall unsuspecting families. One example with which I am extremely familiar is Serevent, the steroid inhaler for asthma. The Times points out that a family which now has a contribution of ca. $130/year for the drug would pay as much as $800/year under the new system. What they of course do NOT mention is that in order for the family asthmatic to get asthma medication probably worth between $900-$1200 a year, plus a couple of doctor's visits which we may value (since I've paid for them out of pocket) at $300 a year, they will pay $3500 a year for insurance. You have to be the kind of asthmatic who shows up at the emergency room 6-10 times a year (believe me, I've done the math) for the health insurance bill to even start working out in your favor. The vast majority of asthmatics do not fall into this category; I who have 40% loss of lung function (and 80% loss in my bronchiae), have been to the emergency room for asthma twice in my life, both of them the result of a hysterical insurance company nurse afraid of being sued, rather than my own judgement about what was medically required. (Do not forget your inhaler when you go skiing. Never.) The Times leaves the cost of insurance out of the equation because employer's pay it. But employers do not do this out of the goodness of their heart -- surely Pravda-on-the-Hudson does not believe that employers do anything out of the goodness of their heart. They buy you health insurance in lieu of paying you wages that you could use to buy your own health insurance -- or anything else your heart desired -- if tax incentives had not essentially destroyed the private market for insurance. The Times also conveniently factors this out when they are discussing the deductible, leaving the impression that employers and insurance companies are atttempting to pull a fast one in order to line their own pockets, rather than offer a new type of insurance that consumers might want.

As it happens, high deductible insurance is exactly what this consumer wants -- and what I am not allowed to get due to New York State's byzantine health insurance regulations. Instead, I must pay $350/month for a horrible HMO that I don't want and which will come nowhere near to paying for itself. While the New York Times no doubt politely applauds the state for protecting the sick, I have to live at home because half my take home must go to insurance and student loans -- insurance, by the way, that won't cover my pulmonologist or any of the services I actually want, like decent physical therapy.

The other thing left out of the equation is service. For years, my HMO doctor made me wait from 1/2 to 1 1/2 hours to see her, perched on the examining table in a gown, then whizzed in and out within ten minutes when I finally did see her, shoving some inhalers my way whenever she got tired of hearing me complain. My asthma got steadily worse. The pulmonologist I paid for out of pocket, on the other hand, spent over an hour having a technician run me through tests -- then sat down and spent an hour talking with me about my lifestyle, reasonable limitations, how I felt, and explaining his diagnosis. He prescribed an intervention that halted the progression of my asthma and got me back into the gym within a month, after I'd spent several months lying down every chance I got because of the wheezing.

The Times complains about the deeply sick, wanting the rest of us to pay for it. In some categories I agree -- children stricken with leukemia shouldn't be denied care because they had the misfortune to be born to restaurant workers instead of lawyers. But what about the guy who's been overeating for the last thirty years, and is now a diabetic heart patient (EXTREMELY expensive diseases to treat). Suddenly, the injustice argument seems a little thin, especially when you think that maybe if this guy had to pay for his treatment along the way, he would have been a little more careful with his weight. Which group is a larger percentage of those suffering high medical bills I have no idea. But I bet the Times reporter doesn't either.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Poverty breeds terrorists: more evidence (not)

Here's a profile of Ayman Al-Zawahiri:

Born on June 19, 1951, al-Zawahiri grew up in an upper-class neighborhood in Cairo, Egypt. Both his grandfathers were renowned scholars and his father was a prominent physician.....Along with bin Laden, al-Zawahiri signed a fatwa, or declaration, stating: "The judgement to kill and fight Americans and their allies, whether civilians or military, is an obligation for every Muslim."

"Ayman al-Zawahiri's influence on bin Laden has been profound," said Peter Bergen. "According to a number of people who know both men, (al-Zawahiri) helped (bin Laden) become more radical, more anti-American and more violent."

Another of this gang.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Prize-winning fiction authors get theirs

I keep meaning to link up this wonderful article, which I read in paper & ink. It's by B.R. Myers, called A Reader's Manifesto. Myers does a weblog-level dissection of many of the most critically-acclaimed bestsellers. Like this look at Annie Proulx' "evocative prose":

In the long unfurling of his life, from tight-wound kid hustler in a wool suit riding the train out of Cheyenne to geriatric limper in this spooled-out year, Mero had kicked down thoughts of the place where he began, a so-called ranch on strange ground at the south hinge of the Big Horns.

Like so much modern prose, this demands to be read quickly, with just enough attention to register the bold use of words. Slow down, and things fall apart. Proulx seems to have intended a unified conceit, but unfurling, or spreading out, as of a flag or an umbrella, clashes disastrously with the images of thread that follow. (Maybe "unraveling" didn't sound fancy enough.) A life is unfurled, a hustler is wound tight, a year is spooled out, and still the metaphors continue, with kicked down—which might work in less crowded surroundings, though I doubt it—and hinge, which is cute if you've never seen a hinge or a map of the Big Horns.And this is just the first sentence!

On White Noise:

DeLillo also adds rhetorical questions or other disclaimers to throw his meaning out of focus. Here, to return to White Noise, is another of Jack's musings.

"We edge nearer death every time we plot. It is like a contract that all must sign, the plotters as well as those who are the targets of the plot."

Is this true? Why did I say it? What does it mean?

The first and third of those questions are easily answered; after all, we edge nearer death every time we do anything. So why, indeed, does Jack say this? Because DeLillo knew it would seem profoundly original to most of his readers. Then he added those questions to keep the critical minority from charging him with banality.

Myer's also takes his scalpel to David Guterson, author of Snow Falling on Cedars. After destroying the most un-sexy sex scene in Western literature, he points out that the world may not be fooled, although the critics are:

Almost every fourth amateur reviewer on Amazon.com complains about the repetitiveness of Snow Falling on Cedars. Kirkus Reviews, on the other hand, called the 345-page novel "as compact as haiku," and Susan Kenney, in The New York Times, praised it as "finely wrought and flawlessly written." The novel is required reading in some college English classes, and even history students are being urged to read it, as a source of information about the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. So much, I suppose, for Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston's Farewell to Manzanar (1973), another good book displaced from the school canon by a bad one.

Even if you are not into fiction (I, for one, spend too much time shopping and was thus unable to finish Snow Falling on Cedars), you will love reading this article.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Remember what they said

Here's the World Socialist Web Site on Why They Oppose the War in Afghanistan, as of October 9. No full dissection, it would take up too much space. One does get tripped up in the first paragraph:

The fact that no one has claimed responsibility (for the WTC attacks) only underscores the profoundly reactionary character of these attacks.

So if someone had claimed responsibility - wait, since OBL has claimed responsibility, are the attacks more progressive? Or do they just lack their profoundly reactionary underscoring. Well, OK, I guess taking responsibility for one's disservice to mankind is more progressive. Kind of like leaving this article up on your website, for instance.

(quoting Fahwaz Gergez)...the United States has an overarching strategy which includes control of the oil and gas resources in Central Asia, encroachment on Chinese and Russian spheres of influence, destruction of the Iraqi regime, and consolidation of America’s grip on the oil-producing Persian Gulf regimes.

Which explains all those cozy pick-up truck rides. The war clearly has nothing to do with the occupying army of thugs in Afghanistan attempting to build nuclear bombs and openly declaring war on us (and most non-muslims), and claiming the trade center was a legitimate military target. Not to mention beating and killing the locals for fun. The largest terrorist action of the century that left 4000 corpses in a smoking hole in downtown Manhattan was just a pretext. Does believing that the government should control the means of production also alter one's understanding of self-defense?

...the Taliban was helped along and brought to power with the blessings of the American government.

That must be why we didn't recognize them or have diplomatic ties. And why they loved us so much.

Anyway, tuck it away. It will age well for canon fodder. I apologize for picking on the obvious. I'll go look for something insidious.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Unnecessary innovations in virtual reality

The Japanese are always ..er..probing new video game ideas (warning:link is scatological - PG-13).

This comes via Follow Me Here.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

The primer needs some priming

This web page is called "An Afghani Primer". All together now, the Afghani is a currency once used primarily by Afghans. Afghans are the people who live in Afghanistan, get killed, beaten and oppressed by murderous non-Afghan mercenaries and are then condescended to by non-Afghan pundits from London and New York.

The article itself uses the term correctly, although it contains this tautological sentence about the future direction of Afghanistan: "No, the only direction now is forward." I guess a time machine would cost a lot of Afghanis.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

And the "big government is OK now" award goes to..

Or maybe the "clueless technology journalist" award goest to David Coursey of AnchorDesk, who says "@Home mess proves it: Regulate the Net...and Now! He claims that since 4.1 million Excite@Home have had their internet service interrupted,

The Internet needs to be regulated to prevent precisely what happened: A messy legal situation in which customer needs were forgotten, as giant corporations feud over their self-interests, not ours.

Breezing beyond this incredible generalization (if we accept his argument, it justifies regulating ISPs, not "the internet") Coursey also goes on to make the inevitable parallel between an ISP and public utilities:

I AM NOT A FAN of deregulating vital public services, be they airlines or electric companies. (What a success power deregulation has been in California, eh?) I've also always questioned the breakup of AT&T, thinking we'd have a much better communications infrastructure if one company had been allowed to build it.

Imagine what would have happened if voice telephone service or electricity were cut off as cavalierly as people's cable modems. For all the trouble California's electric power industry is in--it's also suffered its share of bankruptcies--I haven't heard anyone expressing concern that the lights might go out for any extended period of time.

....IF WE'RE TO ADOPT essential new technologies--such as those that provide the underpinnings to e-mail and e-commerce--we need protection from companies whose business models fail. We need a program for orderly transitions when companies like Excite@Home go bust.

Since companies can't be counted upon to do this themselves, the government needs to protect us. The best--perhaps the only way--to do this is through regulation.

Where to begin? First of all, California's power companies were deregulated as wisely as thrifts were in the 1980s;their costs were allowed to float and their revenues were not. In fact it's worse than thrifts because thrifts had the option to not sell fixed-rate mortgages against rising deposit rates. The California utilities had no such luxury, they had to keep selling electricity into an expanding fixed rate market while the wholesale market went bananas. And, now that wholesale rates are back down for the rest of the world, Coursey should examine who is paying the price. Calfiornia rates will be sky-high for the foreseeable future - unless the legislature opts to take it in taxes instead.

Second, Coursey spends most of the rest of the article criticizing AT&T. Why does he think they would be better in their old form? He hates them but he wants them to be in charge of our entire telecom infrastructure?

Third, and most obvious, internet access is not electricity or water. In case he hadn't noticed (and this is a technology journalist?) there is an awful lot of ISP competition out there. Broadband's a mess, but not unavailable. Since the entire infrastructure wasn't built by AT&T, we have cable, dial-up, DSL, Satellite, wireless....Shoot, I've even thought of sharing a T-1 with my street. It's getting more expensive, but there is certainly choice.

Fourth, the precedent for regulated entities "not forgetting customer needs" he should try taking Amtrak, New Jersey Transit, getting a driver's license, correcting a tax audit calculation, adjusting a utility billing error, or servicing and billing a medicare patient. Substitute "enormous faceless, poorly paid, unaccountable and inflexible bureaucracies" for "corporations" in his critique of the supposed telecom oligarchy, and you get a pretty good idea of the problem. They're both amoral and their motivation about customers is indirect (one through profit and the other through....not sure really, some form of indirect pressure). But guess which one actually cares if you stay a customer? And guess which one gave us all the "essential new technologies" he is supposedly trying to protect?

At the end of the article we find out why Coursey's so mad:

We need to prevent people from losing access to their electronic mail accounts through no fault of their own.

Ah-ha! Not archiving his mail or his address book. Well, that's a good reason to "regulate the internet." What a tosser!

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Cool Site Use this easy-to-use

Cool Site

Use this easy-to-use Interest Rate Calculator to calculate the effects of changing the payment schedule on all that debt you amassed in the go-go 1990's -- especially if, like me, you have to deal with Student Loans.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

Stupid News The Wall Street

Stupid News

The Wall Street Journal has an article about Phillip Morris's special holiday cigarette brand. I've seen these in the store and thought that they were some sort of promotional box of Marlboros -- but no, they're part of Phillip Morris's frankly admitted strategy to steal business from competitors over the holidays.

I used to smoke, and IMHO their marketing department is about as closely tuned to the wants and needs of their public as the Pepsi Clear execs. Don't get me wrong -- as a smoker, I was certainly willing to try new brands, and I have a sneaking regret that I quit too early to try Camel's Turkish Gold. I was one of the lone holdouts on Camel Wides. But a special brand of cigarettes for Christmas? Are people going to bring them to the church Christmas party? Stocking stuffers for the children? Or perhaps a couple of cartons gift wrapped under the tree. I am second to none in my appreciation of the devastations the last year has wrought on our economy, but I don't think consumer spending has contracted quite that far.

Of course, Phillip Morris isn't just introducing this for Christmas, as the article makes clear. Most analysts seem to think it's going to be a super-premium brand priced higher than Marlboro and in competition with the aforementioned Turkish Gold line. But I think even trying to position it as a special holiday issuance is silly.

That said, the reactions of consumer advocates are amazing in their vitriol. I quote:

"It's selling cancer for Christmas," says Matthew L. Myers, president of the Washington-based Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids

What the hell is the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids doing complaining about this? No matter how well Phillip Morris markets this, parents aren't going to hand out loosies to their kids friends as party favors. And most of the rebellious adolescents I know won't embrace the holiday spirit to the extent of smiling at Christmas dinner, much less choosing their brand of smokes. Of course, we all knew that the kids were a smokescreen for the fact that these activists don't like tobacco, period -- but they used to at least try to find some tenuous connection to their cause.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

So much for that Newberry Medal

Rand Simberg weighs in by email that I use too many ten-cent words to be like Seuss. He's right. These should all be one-afghani words. He also points out that Mullah Omar is living in his car. Which reminds me about the story of the former red brigade terrorist I blogged many weeks ago. He was found begging for shoes in Cuba.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

If I ran the Jihad

I read some Dr. Seuss to my son tonight (If I ran the Circus). It got me to thinking what if Dr. Seuss told the Osama story. Well, a google search showed me it's been done at least once, but I found that one lacking. So here we go, an original effort, a new style for MTZ:

Osama's Pajamas

All of you wannabes, aspiring Osamas
Marching 'round with your guns, your korans and pajamas
Remember these fools and a thug named bin Laden
Who once bit off more than he should have, jihadin'.
"Cause now he's backed up in a corner like Custer
Awaitin' his end from a big Bunker Buster.

Born in the Gulf, the pearl of Arabia
He had much more money than sense, and said "may be a
vast, tribal war zone like Pashtun Afghanistan's
the right sort of spot for a mad Trustafarian,
and some of my friends, angry fascists and thugs,
Psycho misogynists financed with drugs.

We'll prop up a government, beat all the ladies
we'll cover them up, they'll be wishin for Hades!
We might have to give up snuff-porn and Mercedes
but we'll get lots of kicks building bombs with our maties!"

So they did, yes they did, they co-opted some nations
Created delusional jew-hating stations.
Set up in Algerias, Somalias and Yemens
Where money, government and police were all lemons

They hatched a great plot, a great cataclysm
Designed to turn all of islam towards fascism
By depriving New Yorkers of their dads and their moms.
By toppling towers, turning planes into bombs
And if the attack should provoke retaliation,
"Well a war requires a state, or an army, a nation
We'll be safe hiding here," said Mohammeds, Abdullahs
"Put our bombs in the schools, hide in mosques behind Mullahs."

With planning and money, some Egyptian and Saudi
Fellows who drink, dance with strippers so dowdy
They pulled off their plan, caused a great conflagration
And at first they rejoiced 'round their pan-half-wit nation
Ran around in the streets with great shrieks, ululation
They shot their kalishnikovs in Usam-adulation.

"The West is so sinful, its success we're negatin'!"
They said, buying girls to beat up celebratin'

Well it wasn't to be, freedom's not in a tower
Nor in our planes, nor the fact that we shower
Liberty caught its breath, then reached a decision
And rained deadly hellfire on them with precision

The thugs discovered that these tribal locals
Were angry and far from the dumb country yokels
They'd thought them. So now they run for a
deep mountain hide out they call Tora Bora

So the murderers with the rich thug named bin laden
Find the caves a bit cramped to conduct their jihadin'
Their days are all numbered, their robes soaked with sweat
Their goals, their sick greed and their virgins unmet

It was gonna be grand, it was gonna be fun
To wield Mao's power at the end of their gun
But now it's all sour, like month old warm butter
They're awaiting their end with a quick Daisy Cutter

All the world over a man wants his freedom
Even more than to have a sick tyrant to feed him
So beware young Osamas, before its too late
The West's not your problem, its your own twisted hate.

As with all MTZ posts, I reserve the right to edit this post whenever I choose. Any suggestions?

From the desk of Jane Galt:

The Good News maybe Isn't

The Good News maybe Isn't So Good

The Wall Street Journal says that consumer spending jumped by a record 2.9%in October. Great news, right? Maybe not -- it turns out that the jump followed a record 1.7% decline in consumer spending in September, leaving us with a less stellar but still solid 1.15% off the base August rate.

Not so bad -- except that something very special happened in October: automakers boosted their sales by offering 0% financing. This was essentially a 5% discount off the price of the car, and cut their profit margins to near-zero. Selling things at cost is not a viable long-term strategy for a firm; moreover, much of that consumer spending will be coming out of other months. Net gain, unclear. Meanwhile, spending in the non-defense, non-auto sector was atrocious, incomes atrophied, and the manufacturing sector shrank for the 17th consecutive month. Not to mention the fact that all my friends are moving in with their parents as they face their first student loan payments without appreciable job prospects. Once again, I am a trendsetter, having moved in with the rents during the summer.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Myers-Briggs newsflash - she's not the girl I married!

My wife was an INFJ 15 years ago. Now she is an ISFJ. I totally believe all this stuff.......

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Fischer: still nuts, and Hungary for attention

Bobby Fischer's delusions were upstaged by Noam Chomsky's for months. Well, that's taken care of. (via Opinionjournal).

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Yep, that's me

I took the abbreviated Myers-Briggs test that Fredrik Norman linked to on 11/21. The rector of my wife's family's church made us take this before we got married almost 15 years ago (we were young, 23 and 22).

I am still an INTP. My favorite self-serving excerpt:

You like to read, think, watch TV, play with computers..(and post on the Storm Palace message bases [??-APH]).. sometimes you'd rather do these types of things than hang around other people...you don't necessarily like "best sellers" or "must see" movies because you don't trust people's opinion on what's "popular" and would rather make a value judgment for yourself....

I mentioned in Fredrik's thread that I believe Metropolitan Life has used a similar test to evaluate potential salespeople. They believe optimism correlates with sales success. An optimist selling life insurance. Hmmm. Is it possible this is why so many life insurance companies have paid enormous settlements when their agents sold life insurance as a retirement product?

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Big news in Gaza

Debkafile claims to have been ahead of this story, and that it is part of a new front in fighting terrorism agreed-upon by the U.S. and Israel. Given the small amount of time passed since Bush's statement yesterday, I doubt it.

3 December: According to DEBKAfile’s most reliable sources, the major Israeli offensive scheduled for the next hours or days to smash the Palestinian terrorist machine, will in fact open America’s second front against world terrorism. This was the upshot of the hasty interview that took place at the White House Sunday night, December 2, between Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon and President George W. Bush, attended also by US secretary of state Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condaleezza Rice.

...What Sharon proposed to Bush – and will almost certainly put before the full-scale cabinet session scheduled for Monday night, December 3, will be to assign Israeli Defense Forces the task of smashing Palestinian terrorist organs – including the Palestinian Authority’s preventive security and intelligence branches which answer to Arafat personally.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

The Retail Support Brigade weighs in!

The Retail Support Brigade weighs in:

Consumer spending increased at a healthy 2.9% in October, according to the Commerce Department. This amounts to a $203 billion increase. On the downside, about $74 billion (36%) of that was cars, which are being given away. The auto buys probably represent consumption-shifting rather than a reliable pace of activity. The devil is in the details.

What's amazing to me is how difficult it is to find the component breakdown of these economic releases on the internet. Two seconds on a Bloomberg terminal gives you everything, but ten minutes on their site and you still have to use your calculator to back into it.

Either way, this is still pretty good news (could have fooled the stock market today). Thanks to all of you for ignoring the apple-of-my-ire Anna Quindlen and buying that six-disc CD changer, GI Joe with Kung Fu grip or whatever else floats your glorious boat.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Gostats says no no no, but your emails say yes yes yes

Gostats was down most of the weekend, so it failed to pick up what, anecdotally, appears to have been pretty good weekend traffic. I am just beginning to pick up links and things this A.M. This is the second time they have failed me thus. Anyone got a better freeware solution for hit counting and referral data? I just want to be able to 1)thank, 2) reciprocate if appropriate and 3) perform marketing research - see which posts people find interesting. Not a precursor to a "Pay" link. On that subject, however, how would you react to a pay link if the proceeds were for charity? If so, which one?

From the desk of Jane Galt:

WTC Extra!!! The American Express

WTC Extra!!!

The American Express building at the World Financial Center is on fire! No one knows yet what caused it, but it is a construction site due to the large hunk the collapsing towers took out of the side, and of course that means torches and other flammables to repair the steel. No word either on any victims, but here's devoutly hoping that everyone got out safe.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Intestines on the outside

Glenn Reynold's post on coastal condescension references the phrase "armpit of America" and likens D.C. to...another body part. That reminds me of an architectural critic who quipped about the Society of Lloyd's building:

It's the only animal I know with its intestines on the outside and many assholes in the middle

I don't share the sentiment about my friends at Lloyd's (although they mysteriously and unanimously do...), but you have to admit it's a funny remark, especially after you look at the building.

Anyone remember who said that? I don't.

From the desk of Jane Galt:

WTC Tidbit of the Day

WTC Tidbit of the Day

It is extremely cold in the trailer. Or at least at my desk, which is cunningly located right underneath the air outtake vents. There is approximately a five foot zone of cold around my desk, outside of which we have turned the heat up to tropical levels in an effort to have some of it penetrate my area.

So what we are doing is using hotpots. Mine is the Rival Hotpot Express, which is not only capable of holding up to 32 ounces of boiling water, but is currently doing so in order to provide primitive steam heat facilities to its desperate owner. At least my fingers are now warm enough to type, although my hair may frizz into an afro soon.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Pointless in New York

Yesterday I accused the NYTimes op-ed pages of being the sports pages of the elitist hyper-snobs after reading an op-ed which had no point and a few glaring fallacies. Maureen Dowd proves my point again today with more "poppy and junior" verbal gruel.

So I repeat: I defy any of you to isolate one single insight or clear opinion expressed in this NYT op-ed.

The Roberts editorial was a Circumstantial ad Hominem attack. Today's Dowd contribution is just an empty pseudo-cute gossip column with some dubious rhyming ("Wacky Iraqi"?) and no particular attempt at logic to examine:

If the president uses the reverse playbook now, and continues to coddle the conservatives his father neglected, he has to go topple the wacky Iraqi, completing Poppy's unfinished business.

But if he does that, he turns his attention away from the recession, repeating Poppy's mistake after his war, when he never used his celestial approval ratings to fix the economy.

...It's hard to say if the swagger was meant to co-opt the string of Perles — Richard Perle and others who are in full cry to crush Saddam — or to lay a real groundwork for at least bombing Iraq.

Next week: Big Changes in the Bush wardrobe: no more Poppy hand-me-downs. Howdy Saudi and Hysteria in Syria! Plus our White House Christmas Tree exclusive: Poppy's star on Junior's tree?

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Moira Breen is a great verbal vivisectionist

Too bad she doesn't have permanent links on each post on her page. Her post as of 12/1, 12:50 PM debunking A "European Wanker Class" editorial on the Qala-i-Jhangi prison revolt has that pure pointedness of the Brit:

Boggle along with me, Gentle Reader, at this sloppy and self-contradicting opener from an editorial in the Irish Times:

...They [the Taliban and foreign troops]were highly inconvenient prisoners, given their grisly record as fighters, their support for the al-Qaeda organisation and the determination with which they opposed their United States and Northern Alliance adversaries. But they were taken prisoner in a war and were entitled to protection under the Geneva Conventions and to a fair trial in accordance with international law. Instead they were killed in a bloody fight to the end, backed up by intense US bombing.

All depends on the circumstances that led to this bloodletting.

?!?. Let's be charitable here and just assume that the author has temporarily misplaced his grasp of the meaning and logical implications of the word "instead".

It just gets better.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Opinion shapers make pre-emptive strike against..

The Victims' New Referee. This is the title of the Times editorial about Ken Feinberg, the new special master for WTC compensation claims.

If you read the whole short piece, you'll see it is at best an attempt to shape Feinberg's decision, at worst a threat before Feinberg has has taken a stand on compensation methodology:

...Congress gave Mr. Feinberg considerable discretion in shaping the rules governing distribution — and thus considerable power to minimize disparities to an extent that might not be possible in the courtroom.

Though it will be up to Mr. Feinberg to figure out how to do this, one approach would be to award all victims the same amount for non-economic damages for pain and suffering — and set that figure high enough to provide a generous return to even the poorest families. Having thus provided a floor, he could then devise a ceiling at the other end of the scale to prevent obscenely large awards. That of course is the tricky part. Any ceilings set too low could persuade some families to take their cases to court, thus defeating the purpose of the program.

I know Ken a little. He's a bright, feisty guy with a huge heart and an open mind. He and the "charities" warned in the article, don't really need advice or veiled threats from the Times editorial board now. On the other hand, Ken deals with the Tort bar all the time. He can certainly take it - and give it right back. I hope he does.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Wow, Matt's dander is up

Matt Welch thoroughly dissects Sam Hamod, president of the American Islamic Institute, who bristles at his (apparently false) perception of being called a traitor for his "dissent." Matt discovers Hamod is a believer in the Saudi-inspired "Jews control the American Media" theory. As Matt says, "sigh." But there's more...

Anything else we need to know about the man who believes in a Zionist-controlled campaign of “media terror,” but denies the Sept. 11 hijackers were Muslim? Why, yes. Hamod not only supports the Palestinian kids throwing rocks, he actually advocates violent revolt against Capitol Hill and the White House:

Farrakhan and his Million Man and his Million Family Marches are only indicative of the anger growing in the American populace. […] He is only the harbinger of things to come -- at another time, he or someone else will call for a march, and it will not end peacefully, people will pick up stones and emulate the young Palestinian children who refuse to live a life of degradation and servitude -- so too will the Americans who have been slighted and shat upon. […]

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Pourquoi Blog?

I played nine holes of golf today in short sleeves. This weather is enough to make me reconsider my suspicions of man's ability to create accurate global climate models. Well, not really. But I was inspired to map out an essay on why I keep this website....click here, brave soul, for more....
.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Pourquoi Blog?…

Pourquoi Blog?…
I played nine holes of golf today, December 1, in short sleeves. After a special moment on the fifth hole, I thought of a good way to explain why I keep More Than Zero. So let's start with my little shot-making epiphany…..

Wait – non-golfers - bear with me for a second, I'll bring it back soon. It'll be great. Just hang on for a couple of paragraphs. Thanks. O.K., back to the course…

First I made a startling discovery. I am capable of shape-shifting. Not my own body, but inanimate objects under my telekinetic control. On the fourth tee, I had sudden doubts about my choice of club, and turned my 3-wood into a 9-iron in mid-swing, placing a perfect drive 125-yards out on the left side of the fairway (non-golfers – that was really funny, trust me. See – it’s going to be OK).

Number five is a short par-four, but following my supernaturally altered drive, I still lie 195 yards over the dogleg from a raised, well-bunkered, backwards sloping and shallow green. The smart play from this distance is to club down to get some height. Then if you land short you might get down in even par from the front bunker. Long is not an option. If you go over or roll through this green you are doomed to walk away with pencil lead carving complex and unfamiliar shapes all over your card. But it’s the off-season, right? So I grab my 4-iron and aim left of the green for the high fade from left-to-right. This is the only shot (from this distance) that will stop without going through the green. I swing freely and watch my ball fly high in the air, arc gently rightwards, land softly on the front of the green and roll slowly to 3 feet from the pin. Bingo, I’m the man!

Any golfer will tell you that the long irons are the hardest clubs to hit well. The only time a mid-handicapper like yours truly hits a towering fade (left to right for me) with a long iron is when he’s trying to hit a low-driving draw (right to left) off the tee. Even then, the high fades are handily outnumbered by “tops”, “banana balls”, pull-hooks, “sclaffs”, “turfmaster” shanks and other assorted hobgoblins of the “good walk spoiled.” An accurate, perfectly executed long iron is the pinnacle of golfing experience, that shining moment when your swing and your intentions marry and give birth to perfection. Baseball players talk of hitting the fat part of the bat, fly-fishermen find the perfect rhythm of looping casts to mimic an insect. These are the moments that keep you coming back. They addict you to this expensive and inane sport and set your day right. Later on I applauded from the opposing fairway as a sexagenarian lady chipped in from about 50 feet and did a little "end zone" dance. I strolled through the remaining holes smiling in the clear tranquility of the sun setting over the Hopewell Hills.

I attended a high school that emphasized writing, for which I am grateful. Back then it seemed like a burden. In college, I took a course called Daily Themes (accurately describing the work involved). That was the first time I started experiencing the writing “sweet spot”. The same sort of satisfied exuberance of my December afternoon also comes from the well-turned phrase, clear logical progression, well-aimed verbal darts, or the sudden and unexpected direct stimulation of the reader’s funny bone.

In my adult life, I’ve only kept a journal sporadically. I used to go for the occasional verbal spin in my work memos. Many of my colleagues awaited my meeting notes then, but there were drawbacks. Once I vividly related an experience visiting a client. I met a line foreman wearing a T-shirt saying “a boss is like a diaper, all over your ass and full of shit” and speculated humorously, I thought, on the stability of the company’s labor situation. The head of my department, who is now the managing partner at my firm, came up to me and told me to remember that “one day you’ll be reading your memos back in court.” Not yet, I’m happy to say, but I slowed down after that. I still managed to plagiarize P.G. Wodehouse in the occasional memo. Phrases like “Aunt to Aunt on the telephone, like Mastedons braying over primeval swamps”or “He drank his coffee with the air of a man who wished it were hemlock” can certainly liven up the dust-dry contents of office correspondence.

I’ve always been a writing consumer too, much of it commentary. Jonah Goldberg, Andrew Sullivan, Thomas Friedman and, even the current apple-of-my-ire Anna Quindlen all have well-known verbal gifts. Many of the webloggers I like are “scratch handicap” writers as well, professional, amateur and ‘avocational’. Matt Welch delivers pithy metaphors, beautifully chosen adjectives and a palpable life-affirming enthusiasm. I cower under the relentless factual onslaught of a Spockian Stephen Den Beste essay – then notice the sparkling humour hiding in the small print like extra charges in an automobile lease. I marvel at the mosaic of disparate information relayed by Glenn Reynolds (and his readers, I think.). I can re-examine one of Shiloh Bucher or Virginia Postrel’s rare gems several times, only to uncover new sparkling facets of perspective.

I still try to keep my corporate communication lively, but this weblog has become my driving range. It’s like hitting drives with Tiger to see how you measure up. So, Pourquoi Blog? Because just every now and then I pull off a clean verbal parry or a crisp, fresh argument. I hit that rare verbal sweet spot and then I get to stroll around in the sunlight enjoying the afterglow.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

More on the Burqette

I posted Thursday on the fellow who is designing the Burqa-inspired line of clothing, including the mystifying one-word oxymoron, the "burqette." Readers (and I) have suggested other line extensions for this aspiring Karl Lagerfeld:

1. The Burqini
2. Burqaloons ("for your more retro-islamofacists")
3. The Miracle Burqa
4. The transparent "Burq-a-Boo"
5. and, of course, Burqenstocks

Now, I'll tell you, I wouldn't want a Burqini-wax. Any others?

I've formed an 80s retro-pop group called Men Without a Developed Sense of Humour : "We can pun if we want to...."

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Cassandra of the....century?

Niall Ferguson's article in the New York Times Magazine is a doozie:

Take the long view. What will New York be like on Sept. 11, 2011? It's not difficult to imagine a rather wretched future. You need only visit one of those cities -- Jerusalem or Belfast -- that have been fractured by terrorism and religious strife to get a glimpse. Imagine a segregated city, with a kind of Muslim ghetto in an outer borough that non-Muslims can enter only -- if they dare -- with a special endorsement on their ID cards. Imagine security checkpoints at every tunnel and bridge leading into Manhattan, where armed antiterrorist troops check every vehicle for traces of explosives and prohibited toxins.

I'm going to read it again later, but I've already seen some incredible logical leaps in the text. In the meantime, however, I should be enjoying this December summer day with my kids, who clearly have a better future than this, and get back to it later. Ciao amici!

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Pointless op-ed

I defy any of you to isolate one single insight or opinion expressed in this NYT editorial by Diane Roberts, an English Professor from U. of Alabama. It is, however, riddled with logical fallacies. The point appears to be as follows:

George W. has always been inclined to the hermetic. After all, he was molded in occult clubs of upper-middle-class white men who meet by night and engage in ceremonies they are sworn not to reveal to outsiders.

Someone send Roberts a definition of Circumstantial Ad Hominem.

Oh, and add a definition of Hasty Generalization, for the dubious swipe against my alma mater:

When George W. was admitted to Yale (clearly a university committed to diversity even in academic achievement), DKE was happy to pledge him.

When you could run an editorial with the quality of Libertyblog's (for) or Newsrack's (against) on the exact same topics under the inept scrutiny of Roberts (and Lewis) in the Times today, why would you? Because the NYT Editorial pages run a lot of puff pieces to please those who wish to pretend they are informed by ridiculing "conservatives" (more accurately, non-statists). In some part, it's Talk Magazine for the chattering classes, or perhaps the elitist hyper-snob sports section.

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Sicilian bisexual gigolos redux: pretty pictures about meritless retirement promises

In an earlier post, I provided numeric data contrasting various countries retirement promises to their ability to pay. Here are some visuals to go with that, which I think are striking. I can't seem to import them here, but have a look:

1. Ratio of workers to retirees in various countries (I've just noticed that the red column should read "2025E", not "2005E". Grrr.)

2, Retirement promises as a % of final pay vs. funded pension assets as a % of GDP

As I commented before, this is a vivid illustration of how cheap retirement promises have been for politicians, and how dear they will be in the coming decades. One of the points I will make about Sweden, if I ever get the data series I'm looking for, is that they have long-since forsaken socialistic programs because they started to experience the effects of these kinds of promises (even without significant immigration). As Fredrik Norman wrote to me they had to change.

While we worry about our ability in the U.S. to address these problems, imagine the quandary of the continental European politician, particularly in Italy, Spain or France. It's worth repeating Woody Brock's quip:

Better a future career as a Sicilian bisexual gigolo than as a continental European Prime Minister trying to please the voters