The Good Life
It’s time I got back, and I don’t even know how I got off the track
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Tags: Weezer
Random
So I’ve been told some people like my random musings better then my political and policy commentary, which has been moved over another site, so I guess I’ll post random musing over here.
World:
Prepare yourself for the return of another blogger making random and grammatically challenged points.
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Still Boycott Whole Foods
So regarding the anti-boycott open letter in the comments section (Which I won’t link to or quote) I wanted to say a few things
Points 1-3 are attempts to build a false equivalency between discrimination based on political beliefs and boycotting a company for political reasons. Whole Foods customers are under moral obligation to maintain their relationship with Whole Foods, in contrast to an employer or someone you agreed to terms of service agreement, etc. Further, John Mackey political views aren’t really the issue, as opposed to the fact that spending his can spend his wealth to further those views. If people don’t want to help make him richer they have every reason to not shop at Whole Foods.
Points 4-6 are basically overblown claims of economic destruction. If I don’t get food at Whole Foods I’ll need to get someplace else. The market for food isn’t going anywhere so the jobs in the industry will be remain at roughly the same level.
As for the whole question would boycott every company that’s CEO pisses you off, the answer if you think it improves things then yes, otherwise no.
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Resources, Population, Malthus
Andrew Sullivan posted this video and described the claims in it as “controversial”.
Except for the end claim about there being no population problem, I don’t see much room for controversy. As the video depicts proponents of the overpopulation thesis have a terrible track record of predicting doom every 20 years and yes many of them would have had us resort to Social Darwinism and letting people starve.
This absurd track record is part of why, except for James Lovelock, climate scientists tend to keep their predictions loose and somewhat optimistic.
Clearly what is missing from the calculations overpopulation theorists is an accurate sense of the world’s resources and potential food output. That’s what is so scary about today’s world. We’ve got more people then ever before, they are using more resources and eating more food then ever before, and we’re damaging the ability of the ecosystem to be productive, potentially irreversibly.
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Tags: Population
Supreme Court Strategery
Far and away one of the most effective (in terms of achieving his objectives) decisions by George W. Bush was nominating Justices Roberts and Alito. Although Bush deserves little of the credit since he tired to place Harriet Myers on the Court, there is no denying that Conservative got exactly what they were looking in Roberts and Alito.
And in all likelihood they’ll get many decades of Roberts and Alito rulings, since both are young, healthy, and clean living folks. The model is clear for the GOP: nominate youngish, Conservative, Catholics judges and you decades of no surprises Conservative judicial rulings. So what’s the model for the Democrats?
Women. Roughly same age as Roberts. That’s best way to avoid a surprise vote against Roe, or some other major set back in the judicial realm. Additionally women live longer then men. Imagine a court with 5 women picked by and 4 men picked by Republicans. Everything else being equal the Dems would picks would last longer.
That’s one area where Sonia Sotamayor fails. She’s diabetic and probably has a shorter life expectancy then John Roberts. It might seem like a small thing, but there’s a lot of 5-4 decisions, and it just takes one new justice to start shifting the balance
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Tags: Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court
I often think that the lifetime appointment of Supreme Court Justices is problematic and unnecessary, then a Supreme Court starts talking about their rulings and says something that can be easily taken out of context and I’m remember why they probably need lifetime appointments. Here’s Gerson on Ruth Bader Ginsburg in today’s WaPo:
Justice Ginsburg: “Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. [Harris v. McRae -- in 1980 the court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions.] Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion.”
A statement like this should not be taken out of context. The context surrounding this passage is a simplistic, pro-choice rant. Abortion, in Ginsburg’s view, is an essential part of sexual equality, thus ending all ethical debate. “There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to be so obvious,” she explains. “So we have a policy that affects only poor women, and it can never be otherwise, and I don’t know why this hasn’t been said more often.” Of pro-lifers, she declares, “They’re fighting a losing battle” — which must come as discouraging news to litigants in future abortion cases that come before the high court.
ad_iconGiven this context, can it be argued that Ginsburg — referring to “populations that we don’t want to have too many of” — was merely summarizing the views of others and describing the attitudes of the country when Roe v. Wade was decided? It can be argued — but it is not bloody likely. Who, in Ginsburg’s statement, is the “we”? And who, in 1973, was arguing for the eugenic purposes of abortion?
It is more likely that Ginsburg is describing the attitude of some of her own social class — that abortion is economically important to a “woman of means” and useful in reducing the number of social undesirables. Neither judge nor journalist apparently found this attitude exceptional; there was no follow-up question.
At the very least, Ginsburg displays a disturbing insensitivity to Supreme Court history. It was Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. who wrote the 1927 decision approving forced sterilization for Carrie Buck — a 17-year-old single mother judged to be feebleminded and morally delinquent. “It is better for all the world,” ruled Holmes, “if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.” Such elitism has been discredited; it is not extinct.
The entire Ginsburg interview is a reminder of the risks of lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court. Immune from criticism, surrounded by plump cushions of deference, the temperament of a justice can become exaggerated over time. For Ginsburg, complex arguments are now “so obvious” and “can never be otherwise” — and opposition is fated to failure. Such statements, made during Ginsburg’s own nomination hearing, would have been disqualifying. Now she doesn’t give a damn.
Her timing, however, is instructive. Ginsburg made her remarks as Sonia Sotomayor is emphasizing her poor and minority roots. In the past, Sotomayor has argued that her background as a Latina brings special insight and empathy — a humanizing, bottom-up perspective on life and law. This is true in life, where her Puerto Rican experience offers many lessons. It should not be true in applying the law, where the goal is objectivity — as Sotomayor herself has now backtracked to acknowledge.
But there is another view of the disadvantaged found on the left (and not only on the left). Instead of especially valuing the experience of the disadvantaged, some hope that public policy can thin their ranks.
First population control is a serious issue and the only reason we can’t have serious conversations about it in the press is because columnists like Gerson start calling people Nazi eugenicists. I personally don’t believe we need to do anything beyond education and handing out condoms to control population through, but that’s a minority view among liberals and conservatives.
Second, Ginsburg’s comments have nothing, nothing to do with Sonia Sotomayor. It’s straight up demagoguery to imply Ginsburg’s conversation has any relevance to Sonia Sotomayor.
Finally Ginsburg’s formulation, which clearly should not be read as her opinion on the matter, is that the rich would already have access to abortions, so logically you would also want to allow access to poor. That would equalize the balance of abortions, not targeting poor populations for something nefarious.
It’s fine line between engaging in strong criticism of a point of view and misrepresenting it for political purposes. Until our society starts rewarding people that understand that distinction with prominent roles in the media, the Supreme Court needs lifetime appointments.
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Tags: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotamayor
Why was it OK to overthrow a unpopular President in South America using military force, but it’s totally not cool to vote against the judicial nominees of an unpopular President in North America?
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Tags: Honduras, Honduras Coup, South America
Ground Breaking Commentary
So I thought the stuff You Should Know was informal, but listening to the Coolest Stuff on Earth Podcast (both by How Stuff Works) I struck by how stoned they sounded.
I mean downright silly stuff.
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Tags: Coolest Stuff on Earth, How Stuff Work, Stuff You Should Know
Old School Transformers
The death of Optimus Prime in this movie was the most historically and culturally important event of the 1980s. Don’t let anybody tell otherwise.
OK, more seriously as a 8 year old it was pretty jarring to watch the action scenes in this movie that were down right brutal compared to the television show. I mean they shoot at each other every episode and hardly ever got hurt, whereas in the movie it was a robotic version of Saving Private Ryan. Transformer guts falling on the ground and everything.
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Tags: Animated Transformers Movie
Let the Sunshine
Get in touch with your inner-hippie.
Alternatively you could consider this a subtle criticism of Obama’s failure to adopt the transparency rules he supported during the primaries.
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Wish I Had Known…
That eastbound buses on K street only run every half hour during the afternoon rush hour on June 30, 2009 and are jam packed with tremendously overweight people.
I seriously watched 20 buses go by going north, south, and west before any of the 3 lines going east arrived.
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Tags: DC, Downtown DC, K Street
The Horror
Given the harsh realites of the 20th century I’m often surprised that this type of narrative isn’t more common:
But it should be said clearly that today’s sense of outrage about the depredations of the Bush administration is in part about the nature of the depredations, and in part about the fact that our ethical senses have become more refined. World War II was something like the nadir of humane conduct in world history. Back then you could be deliberately targeting enemy civilians for mass death and still be the good guy in the war. Heck, you could be Stalin and still be the good guy. It was a bad time.
Only in brief flashes of cultural awareness do you really see people wonder how humanity can behave so monstrously. And while I’d agree we’ve moved in the right direction since World War II, it’s more that our institutions, technologies, and global power disparities have created a less violent world then that human sensitivities have changed. If anything we were more reflective about violence in the past.
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Tags: War, World War II
Things I Don’t Believe
That none of the good ole boys that have risen to high office throughout the history of South Carolina ever cheated on their wives.
I mean Strom Thurmond had a secret child and married a beauty pageant winner 40 years his younger.
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Tags: Mark Sanford, South Carolina
Big Picture on Climate Change
One thing that’s daunting about working on Climate Change is the multitude of factors which you need to consider. Crafting and sustaining legislation to address Climate Change will take place of most if this century and actually stabilizing the world’s carbon trajectory involves coordinating the entire global economy. So when you talk about the big picture for Climate Change, it’s a really big picture.
Which explains why you’ve got several major groups like Greenpeace withholding their support for the current Climate Change legislation. Looking at the bill from different perspectives or time frames really changes your view of the bill. Here are three viewpoints that are dominating the debate:
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We Can Do Better.
I think this view is largely focused on short term domestic change. It’s undeniable that Waxman-Markey has some warts, but to take it further it’s even true that many of those warts could be avoided using alternative legislative strategies. The primary method would be dropping the weak Cap and Trade elements and focusing on green energy and green jobs. Sustainable energy has more friends and less enemies then Cap and Trade. You design a policy that alters our energy trajectory substantially while reducing the agitation of coal, oil, and agriculture interests. Further because there would be no offset program to abuse you could likely craft legislation that reduced carbons emissions more and cost consumers less in the next 5 years.
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This is Bill is Revolutionary.
This position, which has been expressed President Obama, Al Gore, John Podesta, is much more focused on the long term. The Waxman-Markey bill sets a path towards dramatic long term carbon emissions reductions. Reducing carbon emission will become a formal national goal for the next 40 years. That’s a game changer, that only a Cap and Trade system like Waxman-Markey can deliver.
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The World Needs Us To Pass This Bill
A complementary argument to the above would be to focus on international change. It’s essential for us to commit to formal carbon reduction targets to facilitate action by Europe, China, India, and other big emitters. A bad bill that helps facilitate international action in China and India is worth more then a great bill that doesn’t set demonstrate we’re committed making tough change and thus undermines international action.
And it only gets more complicated when you start to critique each of these viewpoints. How much better could this bill really be and still get passed? Wouldn’t we make similar long term commitments sooner or later? Who says this bill will spur international action?
Each of the above perspectives contains a lot of truth, but ultimately the international and long term aspects of this debate need to carry the day. We need Waxman-Markey to become law and worry about fixing it through future legislation and impacting the rule making process, and monitoring the implementation of the bill. Particularly for income protection I think there are genuine opportunities to revisit and fix the policy.
There’s a lot of danger in passing Waxman-Markey, it could be too little too late, it could be politically harmful, and it could damage the integrity of the environmental movement, but those dangers are present in all the alternative courses of action. If we can make carbon reduction a national priority even if the related policy is imperfect we need to support that effort.
Crossposted at Carrots and Sticks
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Tags: Global Warming, Waxman-Markey
Support a Public Plan
Happily for politicians contemplating the inclusion of such a plan, a robust public option is also the best way available to control costs and minimize the need for new taxes. So just keep in mind that when people talk about political obstacles to a robust public plan, they’re not talking about mass public opinion as an obstacle—they’re talking about the wealth and power of relatively narrow interests.
The current system is broken, the public is strongly supportive of reform, and yet moderate Democrats en mass are concerned that a public plan would be “unfair” to the same people that broke the health care system in the first place. That moderate Dems would even contemplate voting against a health care reform package in a floor vote is hard to understand, much less badger us for burdening the poor private insurers that have been sucking the American economy dry.
Crossposted at Carrots and Sticks
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Tags: Health Care Reform, Public Plan
Both the Nationals and Orioles won yesterday, and both are currently winning streaks.
They told me climate change would increase the chances of freak occurrences like this, but I didn’t think it would happen so soon…
Filed under: Sports | Leave a Comment
Tags: Baseball, MLB, Nationals
In Other News
The WordPress Dashboard tells somebody found this blog by typing “cat condom” into a search engine.
I have no recollection of writing about condoms or cats, much less the two together. But Google’s search engine is way smarter then me, so if they reached this blog using Google and the search term “cat condom” my writing must be relevant somehow.
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