Virtually all of my betters appear to be turning thumbs up (even if tepidly) to the Fanny/Freddy bailout, so I guess I do too. But it still seems to me that there's a fundamental issue here of "socialism for the rich" that shouldn't be dismissed quite so, well, quite so dismissively.
Yes, they tell us, it is true that we are (or may be) saving the owner's ass, but you have to do it save the economy. Well, who can argue with "save the economy"?--no thanks, not me. But phrasing the issue this way seems to conceal a rookie error.* That is: it is one thing to save the going concern and something quite different to save the equity. We may well need to save the business. But we can save the business even though equity doesn't get squat. Consider the crudest numerical example (I'm not deft enough with blogger to sketch a balance sheet, so bear with me): Liabilities $100. Assets, $50 in a simple liquidation, $80 if we preserve the going concern. Since $100>$80 and $100>$50, there is nothing for equity either way. But $80>$50, so creditors have a powerful motive to preserve the going concern even so. Tom Jackson used to call it "sellling the business to the creditor." Under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code, we do it all the time. There's no reason why we can't do it here, too.
A critic will object that I've made my life too simple by assuming I "know" the values--that equity owners deserve protection even when the balance sheet is upside down because they have a "lottery ticket value"--something might turn up--that deserves to be protected. I think there is a good deal of merit to this view (it would explain, for example, why Bear Stearns equity continued to trade even as the enterprise appeared to fall off the cliff. But this is an entirely separate issue: it's only a matter of how we parcel out the ownership stakes, not how we define them in the first place.
I suppose this was what I had in mind a few weeks ago when I asked: why doesn't the government just buy Bear Stearns, rather than planting a big wet kiss on the chops of JP Morgan (link)? I got a bit of offline flack on that one from people who said no authority blah blah socialism blah blah, government can't be trusted to run a blank blah blah and blah. Well, of course the government can't be trusted to run a bank. But it can perfectly well enjoy the residual share if, as, and when (if ever) that stake has value. And let JPM run it in the meantime, as a private contractor.
I haven't noticed anybody giving any serious thought to this kind of proposition. I suppose one argument for staying away from this perspective is that it is unfamiliar and therefore risky: in times of great uncertainty, we don't want to play around with the tried and true--so pay off the equity and move on. It's hard to argue with that. But I do wish I could see the wise men giving these kinds of concerns just a bit more thought.
Afterthought: Just for perspective, I am not that nuts about giving a lot of relief to homeowners in trouble, either. I think it is fair to assume that most of them understood perfectly well the risks that they were running, and that if the risk came out badly, why, them's the breaks. And not incidentally, I sign on with those who point out that if we spend a lot of public resources puffing up the wealth of current homeowners, we make housing just so much more inaccessible to all those who have not yet had their chance.
*I see I discussed this same "rookie error" a while back in complaining about Gretchen Morgenson (link)--and even included a balance sheet. Well, fair enough. Hey, you didn't listen before, you gotta listen again.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Schneier on CCTV
Truth is, I've always been a little surprised that CCTV surveillance hasn't caught on in America as much as it has in London. In our current atmosphere of paranoid self-righteousness, you'd think we'd have those cameras poised at every street corner.
In London, where they proliferate, they tell you that "it's the Irish"--i.e., that they came in as part of the campaign to quell independence terrorism emanating from Northern Ireland in the 70s. I've accepted that more or less uncritically (or incuriously). But comes now the world's best non-lunatic security blogger pointing out that the blinking things aren't really all that good (link). Bruce Schneier (for that is he) points to a number of studies that he says support his claim. Schneier elaborates:
In London, where they proliferate, they tell you that "it's the Irish"--i.e., that they came in as part of the campaign to quell independence terrorism emanating from Northern Ireland in the 70s. I've accepted that more or less uncritically (or incuriously). But comes now the world's best non-lunatic security blogger pointing out that the blinking things aren't really all that good (link). Bruce Schneier (for that is he) points to a number of studies that he says support his claim. Schneier elaborates:
Schneier concede that cameras probably are effective in reducing crime in enclosed areas with minimal foot traffic (think parking garages). And they do "move crime around." But this last point is equivocal: if Tesco gets crime out of Tesco, Tesco may be better off. But if crime merely moves next door, the overall crime rate is not affected.Pervasive security cameras don't substantially reduce crime. There are exceptions, of course, and that's what gets the press. ... Overall, CCTV cameras aren't very effective. . . . They actually solve very few crimes, and their deterrent effect is minimal. . . . Most CCTV footage is never looked at until well after a crime is committed. When it is examined, it's very common for the viewers not to identify suspects. Lighting is bad and images are grainy, and criminals tend not to stare helpfully at the lens. Cameras break far too often. The best camera systems can still be thwarted by sunglasses or hats. Even when they afford quick identification -- think of the 2005 London transport bombers and the 9/11 terrorists -- police are often able to identify suspects without the cameras. Cameras afford a false sense of security, encouraging laziness when we need police to be vigilant.
Weather Update: Not That Bad After All
(With Romanian Culture Note)
Well, maybe I overspoke: by twilight last night, the smoky inversion layer over Palookaville seemed to have lifted, and this morning bids fair to be, I guess you would say, almost fair (we've gone so far as to dare to open a window).
We celebrated the irrelevance of my Romania joke by watching 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (link), which sounds like it ought to belong at or near the head of anybody's life list of edifyingly dreary movies: abortion under Ceauşescu!--right up there with Salaam Bombay, not far behind Dead Men Walking!--you'll be hummin' the tunes on your way home from the theatre! It wasn't that dreary, really, thanks to some flawless acting, lots of photography that was surely imaginative (if a bit showy) and a plot that wasn't quite as hackneyed as you might have expected. Still, there were moiments when I went plunging into the sofa cushions to find out whatever happened to Sound of Music.
We celebrated the irrelevance of my Romania joke by watching 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (link), which sounds like it ought to belong at or near the head of anybody's life list of edifyingly dreary movies: abortion under Ceauşescu!--right up there with Salaam Bombay, not far behind Dead Men Walking!--you'll be hummin' the tunes on your way home from the theatre! It wasn't that dreary, really, thanks to some flawless acting, lots of photography that was surely imaginative (if a bit showy) and a plot that wasn't quite as hackneyed as you might have expected. Still, there were moiments when I went plunging into the sofa cushions to find out whatever happened to Sound of Music.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Appreciation: Weiner on the CIA
Say this for Cheney. When he set out to ignore the intelligence of the CIA on
This is one lesson tht Tim Weiner does not draw from his long, shambolic, somewhat misnamed but resoundingly fashionable Legacy of Ashes: A History of the CIA (2007).
Not that there is anything particularly appropriate about the “Legacy of Ashes” part: Weiner makes a good case for the proposition that the CIA has, through a toxic mixtue of arrogance, incompetence and organizational pathology, more or less worked itself out of a job.
Compulsive and instructive reading, but at the end of the day, not really “A History of the CIA.” The problem begins with the notion of “intelligence” itself, as the CIA may or may not have defined it. There are at least three possible meanings:
- The tedious and unending search for data, and the attempt to process same.
- As a distinguishable subset, the sometimes tense and dramatic campaign to steal information, to expand or enrich the the more general inquiry.
- Dirty tricks: rigging elections, overthrowing governments, and all the attendant business of so many “spy stories.
What Weiner has achieved is a breezy, entertaining jog-trot through the final category above (dirty tricks), with somewhat more disjointed comments, insights, etc., about the second. He’s got some stuff about the first, but only incidental, indirect—hey, I said it was tedious.
Weiner makes it clear that so far as “gathering intelligence” goes—either via route #1 or route #2—we are really pretty awful. As far as “dirty tricks” goes, the record is more complicated. We clearly had some short-term “successes”—overthrew (or helped to overthrow) Mossadegh in Iran, Arbenz in Guatamala, Allende in Chile (to name the more obvious examples—Diem in Viet Nam was more of a State Department job)—but many of these short-term “successes” can be understood in retrospect as tactical successes only, strategic failures (think “Japanese win at Pearl Harbor”). We also, bye the bye, slipped hundreds, perhaps thousands, of agents, into enemy territory to “spy: for us—only to have them captured or killed, sometimes moments after they touched the ground. But they are dead, and so not a powerful lobby.
Weiner also offers a few tantalizing—but sadly transitory and disjointed—insights into larger issues in intelligence. For example, he suggests that one reason the CIA so vastly overestimated Soviet economic strength is that it spent all its time looking at military targets (on directions of our military) and for economic data, pretty much took the Soviets at their word. As another, he suggests that for all of (whatever) success we may have had in tracking down information about what the Soviets had done, we were never good at all at sorting out their purposes—okay, so they had all those rockets; did they intend to use them? And where? And when?
All this suggests that what we can really use is something vastly more ambitious than Weiner’s already ambitious undertaking—namely, a more thorough analytic assessment of what intelligence can be expected to do, and how it can accomplish the job. This would require a sifting and resifting of the raw data that Weiner has assembled—plus a lot more about the CIA that he has not assembled here, plus all that stuff about intelligence operation sin the Defense Department or the State Department or the National Security Agency. A tall order: maybe an agenda for Weiner’s next book.
Update: Oops, I forgot to mention the promised "exception." Anyway: the CIA failed to anticipate the Korean War, the Chinese counteroffensive, the chances of a Hungarian counterrevolution, the Cuban missile crisis, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the collapse of the Soviet Union--just to hit the high spots. And they were wrong about WMD in Iraq in 1991: specifically, they failed to see how far along the Iraqis were in their quest for the bomb. By Weiner's count, they were right exactly once: they did anticipate 1967 Arab-Israeli war. But the Israelis were our friends--for my money, getting a heads-up whisper from them doesn't quite count as an espionage victory at all.
Still Smoky Here
Back from sunny, balmy, Portland, into the haze smoke of the California Central Valley, we feel a bit like a UN delegate from Soviet Romania when he got ordered home from the East River to Bucharest. We are pleased to note that the town of Paradise is still standing; at least we enjoy momentary relief from all those headline riffs on "Paradise/inferno."
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Traveling Again
We're off again for more family stuff and once again, it's good timing, however accidental. It's due to be 105-115 here today, ameliorated only by the continuing nasty fires in the mountains, which (irony) lay down a kind of cloud cover. The not-so-smallish town of Paradise, just uphill, is under threat this morning and we down here in the valley are enjoying just a hint of the Pompeii look, with a scattering of ash on car windshields, patios, etc.
Had hoped to write a few words about The Tale of Genji, but it will have to wait. Back Monday night.
Had hoped to write a few words about The Tale of Genji, but it will have to wait. Back Monday night.
Pension Solvency Again
I'm a great admirer of wonky liberal bloggers Matt Yglesias--and it is becoming clearer and clearer that John McCain is just gobsmackkingly ignorant of even the rudiments of public policy. Still, I don't know why Yglesias is getting his knickers all in a twist over the idea of a financially solvent pension system [Update: Ditto for this, with other links].
Run some numbers: Social Security benefits top out these days at somewhere around $20,000 pa. The average recipient collects for something like 18 years, starting at age 65. Assume (plucked out of the sky) an interest rate of 4 percent. To fund that pension, you would need a t=65 pot equal to about $253,000. To raise that money over a working lifetime--say, 35 years--you would need to deposit about $3,400 a year.
Fund a pension scheme according to these parameters and it is solvent, and perpetual. And rather innocuous. So, why don't we let it happen that way? I can think of two reasons. One, we don't trust people to do it on their own; we want to compel, or at least strongly nudge, them to do something of the sort, even if they are too weak-willed to do it on their own. And two, we want to raise money from the haves to take care of the have-nots.
Now, there may be good justifications for either of these two reasons--I happen to think there are, but we can cover that topic another day. The point is, that neither of these undercuts the basic principles of pension solvency.
Wonk note re numbers: You can get the basics in any first-year B school finance book. Or you can get them from Underbelly.
Run some numbers: Social Security benefits top out these days at somewhere around $20,000 pa. The average recipient collects for something like 18 years, starting at age 65. Assume (plucked out of the sky) an interest rate of 4 percent. To fund that pension, you would need a t=65 pot equal to about $253,000. To raise that money over a working lifetime--say, 35 years--you would need to deposit about $3,400 a year.
Fund a pension scheme according to these parameters and it is solvent, and perpetual. And rather innocuous. So, why don't we let it happen that way? I can think of two reasons. One, we don't trust people to do it on their own; we want to compel, or at least strongly nudge, them to do something of the sort, even if they are too weak-willed to do it on their own. And two, we want to raise money from the haves to take care of the have-nots.
Now, there may be good justifications for either of these two reasons--I happen to think there are, but we can cover that topic another day. The point is, that neither of these undercuts the basic principles of pension solvency.
Wonk note re numbers: You can get the basics in any first-year B school finance book. Or you can get them from Underbelly.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Reading Note: The Dawn of Human Culture
Years ago in
As I recall, the lecture was a disappointment. I can remember something about “burying their dead,” but it was pretty clear that the speaker hadn’t much more to offer on the subject than I had myself or, at any rate, that what he had to offer was not memorable.
It does flag an issue, or pair of issues, that have stuck in the back of my mind—when did we become “human” and, by the way, what does it mean to be human? I’ve given it odd bits of thought over the years—enough to grasp that I don’t have any special talent for metaphysics—but I do come up with a workable definition: creatures are human when they start “acting like us.” That would include not just killing and dying—all creatures do that—but the stuff of archaeology: bead-making, wall-painting, elaborate tools, long-distance exchange and, oh yes, complex burial rites.
The Dawn of Human Culture (2002), by Richard G. Klein with Blake Edgar, is a readable, recent contribution to the inquiry, though the authors do not quite clarify just what is “bold” or “new” about what they call their “bold new theory.” In a way, it is a narrative summary (“rehash” would be too unkind a word) of major developments in physical archaeology from, say, 500,000 to 50,000 years ago, give or take. The author do stake out their claim that we started “becoming human”—in the sense here identified—more or less around the latter end of that time line.
They do a satisfying job of explaining why they plump for that date, and provide some interesting discussion/analysis of possible competing dates. But perhaps the most interesting point of the analysis—readily conceded by the authors—that there isn’t really any physical evidence why or how it happened that way. None, nada, bupkas, zip. Only the evidence that it happened. Saying that it must be the result of a “behavioral revolution” is no help, because it makes the consequent the antecedent. But fossil evidence—changes in skull size or frame construction—nothing. And they admit that this itself is, at least, a fascinating fact.
They do flirt with the notion that this revolution is somehow tied up with the origin of language—the capacity to manufacture complex yet comprehensible methods of communicating abstract notions. All of which makes it possible to share information, to organize, and perhaps most important (though if they mentioned it, I missed it) the capacity to accumulate knowledge and to pass it on to later generations.
Merely saying “language” may take you a little way, but not very far: exactly where did it come about (probably
It’s not everything, but it’s a start. And in context, it is the kind of item that makes Klein/Edgar worth reading. Wonder if the guy at the Royal Free has read it; wonder if he is planning another speech.
Monday, July 07, 2008
"A Related Philosophy Class
Addressed the Morality of the Action"
Larry's reading the NYT obits again (link):
In the 1970s, Dr. Bennett introduced a popular undergraduate course for humanities and social-science students at Yale, intended to show the problem-solving promise of nascent computers.
A colleague, Werner P. Wolf, a professor emeritus of engineering and applied science at Yale, said the course proved to be both prescient and persuasive, and “made the whole concept of computers exciting.”
Part of the course, Dr. Wolf said, was dedicated to practical challenges; Dr. Bennett told his students to calculate the ballistics of catapulting frozen loaves of bread across the New Haven campus.
The Second Amendment in Kentucky
Still thinking of Antonin Scalia (link), I’m remembering Rodes K. Myers, late distinguished Kentucky lawyer, and his client, General Henry Denhardt, and Septmeber 21, 1937, the night before the scheduled second trial of Denhardt on a charge of murdering his ladyfriend, the widow Verna Garr Taylor. Both Denhardt and Taylor passed as dues-paying members of the Bluegrass Aristocracy in the Kentucky of their time (Myers was a bit more dodgy). Taylor was, by popular account “the most beautiful woman Henry and Oldham counties.”
Be that as it may, somebody put a bullet through her. It might have been suicide; it might have been Taylor: he was indicted for murder but a jury hung 7-5 in his favor at his first trial. Regrettably for Denhardt, Taylor had three brothers with a keen sense of their Second Amendment rights. The night before Denhardt’s second trial, Myers and Denhardt were walking back to their hotel. Myers remembers shouting:
“Lookout, General! There’s the Garr brothers!”
As Denhardt reached for the hotel door, seven shots rang out, striking Denhardt in the back and head. But it was Myers who is the focus of our particular attention here. For by all accounts, it was he who whirled around to face the Garr brothers and to remonstrate with the immortal phrase:
“Don’t shoot me, I’m a lawyer!”
The late George Hendon of Louisville, a cultivated and civilized lawyer with only a moderate taste for his own profession, wrote a priceless song with that as a chorus, which song, sadly, I cannot locate in my office or via Google.
Anyway, Scalia. As I said in an earlier post, I am impressed that he seems to think that keeping guns out of government offices is a good thing. Now, don’t misunderstand me here: I think keeping guns out of government offices is a very good thing, to be strongly encouraged and implemented by a wise government under law.
But as I argued before: I think a central premise of the gun rights movement must be that it is not a good thing. Why, exactly, do we need weapons, anyway? I don’t think even Scalia would argue for a constitutional right to murder our loved ones (though I’m with Mrs. Billy Graham on this one). The whole point is that for a citizenry without weapons, the government cannot be trusted—and so we have to be prepared to take the law into our own hands (if you think I’m defaming the gun rights crowd, try this Google search). Of course Scalia would feel better if he was certain that the lawyer (or the client—or come to think of it, the colleague) in his courtroom was not packing a piece. But for a strong-form Second-Amendment originalist, I should say that denying this right drops his argument into incoherence.
Sequel: One of the Garr brothers was put on trial for the murder. His lawyers didn’t deny the facts. One of them said: “It isn’t a shame that Kentuckians are quick on the draw. It’s an honor sometime.” After deliberating an hour and 15 minutes, the jury agreed, and acquitted the accused.
Source: Oddly enough, the Myers/Denhardt story is not widely represented on the web; here’s the only full account I can find. The song doesn’t seem to be there at all, but it is in my skull as I write.
Be that as it may, somebody put a bullet through her. It might have been suicide; it might have been Taylor: he was indicted for murder but a jury hung 7-5 in his favor at his first trial. Regrettably for Denhardt, Taylor had three brothers with a keen sense of their Second Amendment rights. The night before Denhardt’s second trial, Myers and Denhardt were walking back to their hotel. Myers remembers shouting:
“Lookout, General! There’s the Garr brothers!”
As Denhardt reached for the hotel door, seven shots rang out, striking Denhardt in the back and head. But it was Myers who is the focus of our particular attention here. For by all accounts, it was he who whirled around to face the Garr brothers and to remonstrate with the immortal phrase:
“Don’t shoot me, I’m a lawyer!”
The late George Hendon of Louisville, a cultivated and civilized lawyer with only a moderate taste for his own profession, wrote a priceless song with that as a chorus, which song, sadly, I cannot locate in my office or via Google.
Anyway, Scalia. As I said in an earlier post, I am impressed that he seems to think that keeping guns out of government offices is a good thing. Now, don’t misunderstand me here: I think keeping guns out of government offices is a very good thing, to be strongly encouraged and implemented by a wise government under law.
But as I argued before: I think a central premise of the gun rights movement must be that it is not a good thing. Why, exactly, do we need weapons, anyway? I don’t think even Scalia would argue for a constitutional right to murder our loved ones (though I’m with Mrs. Billy Graham on this one). The whole point is that for a citizenry without weapons, the government cannot be trusted—and so we have to be prepared to take the law into our own hands (if you think I’m defaming the gun rights crowd, try this Google search). Of course Scalia would feel better if he was certain that the lawyer (or the client—or come to think of it, the colleague) in his courtroom was not packing a piece. But for a strong-form Second-Amendment originalist, I should say that denying this right drops his argument into incoherence.
Sequel: One of the Garr brothers was put on trial for the murder. His lawyers didn’t deny the facts. One of them said: “It isn’t a shame that Kentuckians are quick on the draw. It’s an honor sometime.” After deliberating an hour and 15 minutes, the jury agreed, and acquitted the accused.
Source: Oddly enough, the Myers/Denhardt story is not widely represented on the web; here’s the only full account I can find. The song doesn’t seem to be there at all, but it is in my skull as I write.
"If Your Phone Rings and Nobody's There--It'll Be Me"
My mother always told me I would get in trouble for trying to be too clever. Looks like she had the right dope.
I sent an email to a bunch of my friends--maybe you got it--and asked a favor. But I couldn't help myself. I festooned it with cute: "Trust me," I said, "I will not ask for your password, and will not require you to deposit a $10,000 good faith fee in a foreign bank account."
Well, I should have remembered that it doesn't make sense to yell "Hi, Jack!" in the airport security line. My friend Toni reports:
Update: He could have asked us.
PS: I have no idea why this message is appearing in a weird type face all of a sudden.
I sent an email to a bunch of my friends--maybe you got it--and asked a favor. But I couldn't help myself. I festooned it with cute: "Trust me," I said, "I will not ask for your password, and will not require you to deposit a $10,000 good faith fee in a foreign bank account."
Well, I should have remembered that it doesn't make sense to yell "Hi, Jack!" in the airport security line. My friend Toni reports:
Ah, you are too kind. I'm sure it is I, not the program, who is (acting) too smart for his own good. Of course, as Toni observes the same disappearing-message thing " I suppose could be happening to this very email I'm sending to you!" Right, except that it didn't. So what have we learned? We've learned that Toni's security program is more careful than mine.I just found your email in my "junk" box because my mail program looks for certain phrases that indicate it might indeed be an invitation to bail out a Nigerian in distress etc. etc., so by telling us you were not enlisting us in such a scheme, and by using similar words to do so, it triggered the "junk" alert ... .
Here's the message I got above your email: "Appears to be advance fee fraud (Nigerian 419)."
A mail program that's too smart for its own good I guess...
Update: He could have asked us.
PS: I have no idea why this message is appearing in a weird type face all of a sudden.
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Scalia the Wimp
“Nuance” is back and the Republicans are loving it. After eight years of government on a policy of no-nuance, Obama has suggested that he wants to “nuance” his policy in the Middle East, and the wingers dancing with malevolent glee. Not a manly thing to do, this nuance stuff: start down that road and you end up a pussy like Colin Powell.
I reflected on this point as I read Justice Scalia’s opinion in D.C. v. Heller, the Supreme Court’s new gun rights case (link). Now, if ever there was a manly guy who could be trusted not to sink into the bog of subtlety, one would think it would be ol’ high-saliency Scalia. Therefore it is with consternation that I read some of the law French in the back end of the Heller opinion where Scalia lets slip just what a sissy he can be.
For example, here is Scalia saying that “nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill.” Felons, you say? You really going to keep handguns away from, say Martha Stewart, just because of a few thoughtless comments about her portfolio? And what's all this cop-out talk about "metally ill"? Aren’t the so-called “mental health” laws exactly the thing that nanny state uses to keep free thought in harness?
“Or,” Scalia continues, nothing prevents “forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings." Wait a minute, whoa—isn’t the precise point of the Second Amendment, the fact that we can’t trust all those pinheads in Washington to protect our fundamental freedoms? The mere fact that he may feel more comfortable if I am not allowed to come packin’ heat when I visit the Supremes—that fact should hardly be allowed to trench upon an immutable right.
“Or”—he isn’t done yet—“laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.” I’d say that if the gun-show crowd ever gets its hands on that one, Scalia better make sure he has an unlisted phone number and a high security fence.
But the oddest part of the opinion may concern what you could call the “proton pack” rule—the question whether Bill Murray can go busting ghosts with an untested nuclear weapon on his back (link). A principled originalist might find himself caught in a cleft stick on this one; not so Scalia. He first considers whether the Second Amendment protects “only those arms in existence in the 18th century.” He dismisses that one as “bordering on thee frivolous.” You can almost hear Bill Murray’s lewd chuckle at that one, but he’d be premature—moments later, Scalia is declaring that the Second Amendment, while not limited to the blunderbuss, still may not extend to protect military weapons in private hands—or, to put it more directly, may not protect the private ownership of precisely those weapons that you would need to equip a “well-regulated militia.”
Don’t misunderstand me, some would say that Scalia is right to make this kind of discrimination, allowing, say, weapons appropriate for mere domestic violence, while barring, say, weapons that might be useful in taking out a Federal building. Such a result might be characterized as prudence—a balancing of interests and traditions, seasoned with wisdom and mature good judgment.
But wisdom and mature good judgment are precisely the perspectives on which Scalia, at least publicly, likes to heap such scorn. Serious gun nuts Constitutionalists had better keep their hands on the trigger: ol’ Nino has gone all girly.
I reflected on this point as I read Justice Scalia’s opinion in D.C. v. Heller, the Supreme Court’s new gun rights case (link). Now, if ever there was a manly guy who could be trusted not to sink into the bog of subtlety, one would think it would be ol’ high-saliency Scalia. Therefore it is with consternation that I read some of the law French in the back end of the Heller opinion where Scalia lets slip just what a sissy he can be.
For example, here is Scalia saying that “nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill.” Felons, you say? You really going to keep handguns away from, say Martha Stewart, just because of a few thoughtless comments about her portfolio? And what's all this cop-out talk about "metally ill"? Aren’t the so-called “mental health” laws exactly the thing that nanny state uses to keep free thought in harness?
“Or,” Scalia continues, nothing prevents “forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings." Wait a minute, whoa—isn’t the precise point of the Second Amendment, the fact that we can’t trust all those pinheads in Washington to protect our fundamental freedoms? The mere fact that he may feel more comfortable if I am not allowed to come packin’ heat when I visit the Supremes—that fact should hardly be allowed to trench upon an immutable right.
“Or”—he isn’t done yet—“laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.” I’d say that if the gun-show crowd ever gets its hands on that one, Scalia better make sure he has an unlisted phone number and a high security fence.
But the oddest part of the opinion may concern what you could call the “proton pack” rule—the question whether Bill Murray can go busting ghosts with an untested nuclear weapon on his back (link). A principled originalist might find himself caught in a cleft stick on this one; not so Scalia. He first considers whether the Second Amendment protects “only those arms in existence in the 18th century.” He dismisses that one as “bordering on thee frivolous.” You can almost hear Bill Murray’s lewd chuckle at that one, but he’d be premature—moments later, Scalia is declaring that the Second Amendment, while not limited to the blunderbuss, still may not extend to protect military weapons in private hands—or, to put it more directly, may not protect the private ownership of precisely those weapons that you would need to equip a “well-regulated militia.”
Don’t misunderstand me, some would say that Scalia is right to make this kind of discrimination, allowing, say, weapons appropriate for mere domestic violence, while barring, say, weapons that might be useful in taking out a Federal building. Such a result might be characterized as prudence—a balancing of interests and traditions, seasoned with wisdom and mature good judgment.
But wisdom and mature good judgment are precisely the perspectives on which Scalia, at least publicly, likes to heap such scorn. Serious gun nuts Constitutionalists had better keep their hands on the trigger: ol’ Nino has gone all girly.
Obama: Who Is He, Really?
This just in—Obama not “native born,” birth certificate a forgery! You can almost hear the wingnuttery salivate over a story that seems to tailor-made for the right-wing noise machine. Oddly enough, so far it doesn’t seem to be getting much traction. Apparently it has been around for close to a month now, and even the good folks at the NRO Corner, who have scarcely ever met a Democratic character assassination they couldn’t warm to, appear to be keeping their distance.
I have nothing independent to contribute by way of evidence here and for all I know, they will come up with cast-iron proof that Obama was in factc hatched out of the devil’s backside, but I must remark on how venerable the strategy is here, going right back to, at least, the literacy laws of the Jim Crow south. That is: for any target class, erect a presumption of invalidity. Then erect a standard of proof that he applicant has to leap over before he can achieve legitimacy—and if there is any risk he might get over it, erect another, higher than the first.
In this wise, if the “forged certificate” story does indeed crash and burn, I have a suggestion for the next move—admit that the birth certificate is valid, but assert that it isn’t his—that he is an interloper who claimed his identity from God knows who.
I don’t think this is as frivolous as it sounds. A couple of years ago when I got set to apply for Social Security, I fired off a letter to the Bureau of Vital Records in Concord, NH, asking that they send me a copy of my birth certificate.
And here it is: a “Certificate of Vital Record,” signed by some guy whose name may be Quinn—rather, a copy, attested by a registrar whose name may be Bolton, and with an embossed seal. Ha! At least they fell for it at SSA! But the point is: BOLTON DOESN’T KNOW ME FROM THE MAN IN THE MOON. I’m just some guy with a postage stamp. For aught that appears here, I could have asked for the birth certificate of Senator John Sununu and got the same sort of result.
But of course the plot thickens. Assuming that I believe I am, indeed, who I say I am—how do I know that what I believe is true? I have only the word of my mother, who, to tell you the truth, was a bit of a fabulist herself. Or, remember Mark Twain: how he and his twin brother were in the bath onee night, and one of them drowned, and no one has ever known which one.
In other words, the wingnuttery should take heart. There are all kinds of reasons why Obama may be an avatar of satan, and the mere fact of a valid birth certificate ought to be of no relevance to the discussion.
Oh, and there’s always this.
I have nothing independent to contribute by way of evidence here and for all I know, they will come up with cast-iron proof that Obama was in factc hatched out of the devil’s backside, but I must remark on how venerable the strategy is here, going right back to, at least, the literacy laws of the Jim Crow south. That is: for any target class, erect a presumption of invalidity. Then erect a standard of proof that he applicant has to leap over before he can achieve legitimacy—and if there is any risk he might get over it, erect another, higher than the first.
In this wise, if the “forged certificate” story does indeed crash and burn, I have a suggestion for the next move—admit that the birth certificate is valid, but assert that it isn’t his—that he is an interloper who claimed his identity from God knows who.
I don’t think this is as frivolous as it sounds. A couple of years ago when I got set to apply for Social Security, I fired off a letter to the Bureau of Vital Records in Concord, NH, asking that they send me a copy of my birth certificate.
And here it is: a “Certificate of Vital Record,” signed by some guy whose name may be Quinn—rather, a copy, attested by a registrar whose name may be Bolton, and with an embossed seal. Ha! At least they fell for it at SSA! But the point is: BOLTON DOESN’T KNOW ME FROM THE MAN IN THE MOON. I’m just some guy with a postage stamp. For aught that appears here, I could have asked for the birth certificate of Senator John Sununu and got the same sort of result.
But of course the plot thickens. Assuming that I believe I am, indeed, who I say I am—how do I know that what I believe is true? I have only the word of my mother, who, to tell you the truth, was a bit of a fabulist herself. Or, remember Mark Twain: how he and his twin brother were in the bath onee night, and one of them drowned, and no one has ever known which one.
In other words, the wingnuttery should take heart. There are all kinds of reasons why Obama may be an avatar of satan, and the mere fact of a valid birth certificate ought to be of no relevance to the discussion.
Oh, and there’s always this.
Phone Booth--That's the Name
Yglesias reports that McCain says he "hates the bloggers" (link). Y, watching the video, observes: "It seems that old people find this anti-blogger campaigning to be worthy of tepid laughter."
Ah, the most despised minority: elderly bloggers. We could meet in one of those stand-up coffins on street corners that people used to use for making telephone calls.
Meanwhile, there's this that I lift as is from Laudator Temporis Acti (link):
Oh, to be 70 again...
Ah, the most despised minority: elderly bloggers. We could meet in one of those stand-up coffins on street corners that people used to use for making telephone calls.
Meanwhile, there's this that I lift as is from Laudator Temporis Acti (link):
An Old Man and His Books
Lu Yu (1125-1209), The Wind and the Rain (tr. Pai Chwen-yu):
Though I am seventy, I do not want to leave my books:
I fear that only death will be able to snatch me away from them.
I wake and poke at the lamp beneath my window,
And so I pass through this night of wind and rain.
Oh, to be 70 again...
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Next Stop: Planet of the Apes
[T}he Neanderthals had broad trunks and short limbs like the Inuit (or Eskimo)
but in both features, they were more extreme. … The bottom line is that their
distinctive heads rested on fireplug-like bodies, and in the buff, Neanderthals
would garner stares in any modern health club. It has sometimes been said
that if they were properly dressed, they would go unnoticed on the New York
subway, but even this is doubtful, unless their fellow riders were also
Neanderthals, or unless, like many New Yorkers, they made a point of minding
their own business.
—Richard G. Klein and Blake Edgar, The Dawn of Human Culture 175-6 (2002)
Be Happy In Your Work!
I’m one of those who cheered when Wesley Clark pointed out that McCain’s prison time does not qualify him for the presidency, and annoyed when Obama seemed to back away from Clark: Republicans thought they saw a glint of fear in his eye and used it as an excuse to go full bore on attack.
But now it appears the smearing just might backfire. Roger Simon apparently stumbled into the punji trap of comparing McCain to Alec Guiness in The Bridge Over the River Kwai—apparently not grasping (let’s get this straight folks) that the Guiness character is broken and corrupted by his prison experience, and winds up a collaborator (track back from here). I say this is a good season for wall-to-wall reruns of The Manchurian Candidate, to give ‘em some sense of what military experience is really like.
Nostalgia Note: I first saw River Kwai the night before I went off to Army basic training (standing up, in the back of a theatre in Dayton, Ohio). Perhaps not a good beginning for a military career, but in fact, I loved the movie (didn't mind the Army either, but that is another story). Years passed before it sank in me that iRiver Kwai involves British giving management advice to the Japanese.
But now it appears the smearing just might backfire. Roger Simon apparently stumbled into the punji trap of comparing McCain to Alec Guiness in The Bridge Over the River Kwai—apparently not grasping (let’s get this straight folks) that the Guiness character is broken and corrupted by his prison experience, and winds up a collaborator (track back from here). I say this is a good season for wall-to-wall reruns of The Manchurian Candidate, to give ‘em some sense of what military experience is really like.
Nostalgia Note: I first saw River Kwai the night before I went off to Army basic training (standing up, in the back of a theatre in Dayton, Ohio). Perhaps not a good beginning for a military career, but in fact, I loved the movie (didn't mind the Army either, but that is another story). Years passed before it sank in me that iRiver Kwai involves British giving management advice to the Japanese.
Friday, July 04, 2008
Somebody IM Kathryn Lopez!
On the advice of my physician, I do my best not to read the National Review, but a bit of it snuck up on me yesterday in the form of a Kathryn Lopez column reprinted in the Palookaville Evening Bladder (I can’t seem to find it online). She was going all damp and slurpy over Tom McClintock, the heir apparent to the Congressional seat of John Doolittle who is leaving under a—well, not such a cloud as a giant stink bomb of corruption and cronyism. McClintock, she suavely suggests, will be different. “Too good to be true?” she asks. “I don’t blame you for being skeptical.” And then this amazing sentence:
It may be that Lopez forgets herself because her off-duty persona knows that this is one of those programs that Congress is never likely to do anything about, and so conservatives can continue to rail against it, secure in the notion that they’ll be able to continue to enjoy its benefits. But she might want to be careful. McClintock is one “conservative” who also doesn’t get the message, and who once in a while actually tries to do the things the wingers say they want to do. Well, sometimes, but not always (link).
But as a sometimes DC-er who still gets a thrill stepping off Amtrak and seeing the Capitol building, I’m buying.Whoa there, luvie. Amtrak? Hasn’t somebody filled you in on the agenda here—told you that Amtrak is at the head of the target hit list, right up there with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting?—Google "Amtrak" and "boondoggle" and you get 6,500 hits (link).
It may be that Lopez forgets herself because her off-duty persona knows that this is one of those programs that Congress is never likely to do anything about, and so conservatives can continue to rail against it, secure in the notion that they’ll be able to continue to enjoy its benefits. But she might want to be careful. McClintock is one “conservative” who also doesn’t get the message, and who once in a while actually tries to do the things the wingers say they want to do. Well, sometimes, but not always (link).
The Fog Smoke and Mirrors of War
They say that victory has a thousand parents. Reading Frank Bajak’s Associated Press piece on the Columbian hostage rescue, I’d say that one of those fathers—that would be US Ambassador William Brownfield—knows how to put on a pretty good spin. And that Bajak is the spinee.
Take two points of departure:
“About seven times, [Brownfield] said, the U.S. government had to make decisions –‘at the highest levels’—about proceeding.” Ah—by highest levels, do you mean “above 12,000 feet”? Anyway, what sort of decisions did you have to make? And what were the decisions? And did the Columbians pay the least attention? And: “”’When I first got briefed, I said, ‘This is realistic? Can it truly work? … And obviously, the answer was yes.’” Well, obviously it did work. But 20-20 hindsight doesn’t tell us a thing about what you said or thought at the time you were “briefed”—and whether you endorsed it, or tried to stop it, or indeed, were not asked to offer any opinion at all.
So far as I can tell, the story includes only one direct, declarative assertion about specific American assistance: “U.S. spy satellites helped track hostages on a monthlong journey that … ended with Wednesday’s rescue.” Brownfield is also quoted as saying that “for four days [i.e., before the rescue] ‘we had our eyes on them,’” although this doesn’t specify exactly who “we” are [nor, indeed, “them”].
I wouldn’t want to go all the way off the cliff here. I would assume that for $4 billion you could buy some cool toys (even at Costco). And it may be that some of them played a role. What I do know is that Bajuk isn’t telling us exactly what role, probably because Brownfield didn’t tell him, perhaps because (a) he has nothing to tell; or (b) he’s so far out of the loop he doesn’t yet know whether he has anything to tell or not. But for smoke and mirrors like this, I'd say he deserves at least an oak-leaf cluster on his PowerPoint.
Afterethought: I just caught up with a New York Times account, quoting Brownfield on Larry King, saying:
Technical Note: I draw my quotations from a print edition of the San Francisco Chronicle, July 4, 2008, Page A2. A Google News search turns up a lot of versions of the Bajak story, and I won’t guarantee that all, or indeed any, exactly matches what I’m reading.
Take two points of departure:
- We’ve given Columbia $500 million annually in military aid since 2000. Sounds like, give or take, about $4 billion.
- This rescue was an entirely Columbian operation. No Americans on board, or in sight.
“About seven times, [Brownfield] said, the U.S. government had to make decisions –‘at the highest levels’—about proceeding.” Ah—by highest levels, do you mean “above 12,000 feet”? Anyway, what sort of decisions did you have to make? And what were the decisions? And did the Columbians pay the least attention? And: “”’When I first got briefed, I said, ‘This is realistic? Can it truly work? … And obviously, the answer was yes.’” Well, obviously it did work. But 20-20 hindsight doesn’t tell us a thing about what you said or thought at the time you were “briefed”—and whether you endorsed it, or tried to stop it, or indeed, were not asked to offer any opinion at all.
So far as I can tell, the story includes only one direct, declarative assertion about specific American assistance: “U.S. spy satellites helped track hostages on a monthlong journey that … ended with Wednesday’s rescue.” Brownfield is also quoted as saying that “for four days [i.e., before the rescue] ‘we had our eyes on them,’” although this doesn’t specify exactly who “we” are [nor, indeed, “them”].
I wouldn’t want to go all the way off the cliff here. I would assume that for $4 billion you could buy some cool toys (even at Costco). And it may be that some of them played a role. What I do know is that Bajuk isn’t telling us exactly what role, probably because Brownfield didn’t tell him, perhaps because (a) he has nothing to tell; or (b) he’s so far out of the loop he doesn’t yet know whether he has anything to tell or not. But for smoke and mirrors like this, I'd say he deserves at least an oak-leaf cluster on his PowerPoint.
Afterethought: I just caught up with a New York Times account, quoting Brownfield on Larry King, saying:
We were able to cooperate. ...We were able to endorse. We were able to share our own experiences, and some small bits of equipment for this particular operation.Ah, now that sounds a little more like it. The Times piece, BTW, has a lot of good blow-by-blow on the operation itself.
Technical Note: I draw my quotations from a print edition of the San Francisco Chronicle, July 4, 2008, Page A2. A Google News search turns up a lot of versions of the Bajak story, and I won’t guarantee that all, or indeed any, exactly matches what I’m reading.
Money and Politics: Aw Right Awready!
I've had more than enough remonstrances about my late discussion of money and politics--and awright awready, I know that money has been "the mother's milk of politics" for longer than I can remember. What about Harding (in a satchel, Mr. Doheney?)? Grant? Come to think of it, how about those sturdy Roman republicans (small-r) who scratched and clawed for high office at Rome so they could get the opportunity to go pillage a province?
In particular the Kentucky memorialists bring me back to the 1963 Kentucky gubernatorial campaign, between A. B. (“Happy”) Chandler and Edward T. ("Ned") Breathitt. Happy was one of the last of the old-time stem-winder country pols, but oddly enough it was Breathitt, the forgettable and colorless technocrat, who got to claim the most memorable mot of he season. Okay, not Breathitt; rather, the mmorable d Prichard, who served as Breathitt’s Karl Rove. Prichard himself was at least as colorful as Chandler. Apparently Chandler had a son-in-law, one James J. Lewis, whose job was to work the campaign fuunding sources. The chronicler takes up the story:
Footnote: It doesn’t seem to be in Pearce’s book, but as I recall, there was a minor candidate in the same race whose slogan was “Put the jam on the lower shelf, where the little guy can reach it!” We just don’t make voters like that any more.
In particular the Kentucky memorialists bring me back to the 1963 Kentucky gubernatorial campaign, between A. B. (“Happy”) Chandler and Edward T. ("Ned") Breathitt. Happy was one of the last of the old-time stem-winder country pols, but oddly enough it was Breathitt, the forgettable and colorless technocrat, who got to claim the most memorable mot of he season. Okay, not Breathitt; rather, the mmorable d Prichard, who served as Breathitt’s Karl Rove. Prichard himself was at least as colorful as Chandler. Apparently Chandler had a son-in-law, one James J. Lewis, whose job was to work the campaign fuunding sources. The chronicler takes up the story:
This was surely no novelty in Kentucky, but the charge took on a comic character when Prichard shouted that Chandler was riding the state insisting that people “fill the sack for Jimmy Jack!” It became one of those campaign gimmicks which … could be counted on for a laugh, and the Breathitt speakers never missed a chance to “Fill the sack for Jimmy Jack!” … It was part demagoguery, part buffoonery, part hyperbole … it was also … effective.
--John Ed Pearce, Divide and Dissent: Kentucky Politics, 1930-1963 213 (available (here))
Footnote: It doesn’t seem to be in Pearce’s book, but as I recall, there was a minor candidate in the same race whose slogan was “Put the jam on the lower shelf, where the little guy can reach it!” We just don’t make voters like that any more.
Willie Mays Blasting Caps
Just in time for the Fourth, our friend Willie Mays warns all the kiddies to be careful with blasting caps. H/T to Tom McMahon who comes up with the durndest stuff.
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