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Jens 'n' Frens
Idle thoughts of a relatively libertarian Republican in Cambridge, MA, and whomever he invites. Mostly political.
"A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures."
-- Daniel Webster
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Tuesday, May 22, 2012 :::
Less than a month before new general elections that could determine Greece’s future in the euro zone, the conservative New Democracy Party secured cooperation with a small liberal grouping on Monday in an effort to beat to first place an ascendant leftist political force that has rejected the country’s debt deal with foreigners.
Antonis Samaras, the leader of the conservative party, which signed the 130 billion-euro (or $170-billion) debt deal with the socialists in February, said New Democracy would run in the June 17 election on a joint platform with a liberal grouping, the Democratic Alliance, led by Dora Bakoyannis, a former foreign minister and old conservative rival. Their chief goal, Mr. Samaras told a joint news conference, was to secure Greece’s position in the euro zone and “fight the forces of populism.”
The full story is at the New York Times. I had been uncertain whether, given a vote, I'd cast it for the Democratic Alliance (which I would prefer, but was likely to again miss the threshold to win any seats) or New Democracy (which will definitely reach the 3% threshold and which is likely to be very close to the 50-seat bonus allotted to the party with the plurality of votes). Apparently, I'm just backing New Democracy now.Labels: Greece
::: posted by S at 6:59 PM
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Friday, May 11, 2012 :::
I've been sitting on a few URLs that I've been meaning to blog. Bradley Smith had a piece in the Wall Street Journal last week opposing "secondary boycotts" - boycotts of organizations for their support of other organizations with controversial stances - for their damage to civil society, which drew sympathetic comments from Jonathan Adler. I think these arguments apply to primary boycotts, too, though much less so.
If I remember correctly, roughly a third of self-identified Democrats believe that Bush supported the 9/11 attacks and roughly a third of self-identified Republicans believe that Obama was born outside of the US. I'm not averse to simply ruling the former group out of polite society (the latter belief strikes me as similarly wacky but substantially less dangerous) -- life is too short to rehash old arguments with the lunatic fringe -- but any opinion held by a substantially larger group needs to be accommodated and the concerns of such a group responded to with argument. Some of the examples Smith gives are of boycotts of organizations for supporting organizations for supporting political positions held by roughly half of the population (opposing same-sex marriage) or even a substantial majority of the population (supporting voter ID laws). In the former case, you might win, but at the cost of balkanizing society and the risk of turning off people (like me, in that case) who are sympathetic to your position but not your intolerance; in the latter case, you're more likely to marginalize yourself than your target.
::: posted by S at 11:50 AM
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Tuesday, May 08, 2012 :::
From Athens News:
4.35pm Final Parliamentary seat distribution
New Democracy 108
Syriza 52
Pasok 41
Independent Greeks 33
KKE 26
Golden Dawn 21
Democratic Left 19
New Democracy has generally been the major party of the right and Pasok of the left, such as they are in Greece. I'm pretty sure they're the only two on that list that support adhering to the deal they made with the troika, so there was talk before the election of their attempting to form a coalition, but they're two seats shy of being able to support a confidence vote on their own. The other 151 are also unlikely to team up, which probably means an election again next month.
The CW is that a new election is likely to be won by the hard left Syriza, which will not be in a mood to bargain with Europe; I wonder if New Democracy can broker a deal with Pasok, the Independent Greeks (which broke away from New Democracy on the issue of the bailout plan), and the troika by pointing out that if the troika won't renegotiate now, they won't get a better deal after new elections, and that if the Independent Greeks don't support a plan, the hard left will form the next government. But I'm not sure the Independent Greeks and the troika can find any room for agreement, especially in the time frame that we're talking about, and the Independent Greeks are probably hoping to displace New Democracy as the party of the center-right in the next election.
My preferred (center-right) party is the Democratic Alliance, which got about 2.5% of the vote. A party needs 3% to win seats in parliament. I don't even know their position on the bailout deal, but they have some specific proposals to promote economic growth without spending money, and I'd like to see the conversation move in that direction.Labels: Greece
::: posted by S at 2:57 PM
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Sunday, May 06, 2012 :::
If anyone wants to posit the probability that Gary Johnson will carry New Mexico, preferably expressed as a power of 10, the comments are open.
I imagine I'll revise this before November if the election looks close, but right now this is my favorite "close race" rubric:
- Give Obama every state Kerry won, except for New Hampshire; also give him New Mexico and Nevada
- Give Romney every state Bush won twice, except Nevada, Colorado, and Virginia
- Call New Hampshire, Virginia, Iowa, and Colorado neutral
With any luck, I've put each state in one and only one category, and given each candidate 253 electoral votes. I also intend to have ascribed states to candidates in such a way that it is extraordinarily unlikely that either candidate will "steal" a state from the other and not win the election.
Election night, if a state gets "called" for the candidate to whom I've given it, you can essentially ignore it. If a neutral state is declared, you give that candidate a point for each electoral vote from that state. If a state is declared for the other candidate, the points are doubled. (If Romney gets a congressional district in Maine, or Obama one in Nebraska, that's worth two points.) The margin in points will be the same as the margin in total electoral votes, but there will be less noise as the night goes on in the points count.
If Gary Johnson does carry New Mexico, that's 5 points to Romney.
::: posted by dWj at 3:56 PM
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Monday, April 16, 2012 :::
According to the Innocence Project, a legal advocacy group, about 75% of false convictions that are later overturned are based on faulty eyewitness testimony.
Apparently, though, they can be made better: Normally, witnesses are encouraged to take their time and carefully consider each possible suspect. But Dr. Brewer knew that strong memory traces are easier to access than weak and mistaken ones, which is why he only gave his witnesses two seconds to make up their minds. He also asked them to estimate how confident they were about the suspects they identified, rather than insisting on a simple yes-no answer. To test this procedure, Dr. Brewer and his colleagues asked 905 volunteers to watch a series of short films showing such crimes as shoplifting and car theft. The subjects then looked at 12 portraits, only one of which was the actual suspect. According to Dr. Brewer's data, his version of the lineup led to a large boost in accuracy, with improvements in eyewitness performance ranging from 21% to 66%. Even when subjects were quizzed a week later, those who were forced to choose quickly remained far more trustworthy.
I still doubt I could vote to convict a defendent solely on eyewitness testimony by a stranger, but I welcome this development. If the government's job is merely to provide services, like roads, schools and courts, competition among governmental producers may be as good a discipline as competition among private producers. But if government's job is also to remedy many of life's inequities, you may want a stronger centralized government, unchecked by competition.
I should confess to not having read Mankiw's piece, but it seems to me that a progressive Federal income (or consumption) tax allocated by income combined with unconditional grants to the states, with competition among states (and municipalities) on the provision of social services, could redistribute income however we see fit. States that don't provide welfare benefits to the poor and lose poor people also lose federal dollars. This assumes mobility, of course. - Frank J. Fleming notes that the government is better at hurting our enemies than actually helping us and that Obama is cleverly using it for this purpose.
- Joplin, MO has recovered from tornados faster than Tuscaloosa, AL, largely because the city of Tuscaloosa has chosen central planning while Joplin has encouraged private rebuilding.
I think Ilya Somin and the authors think this demonstrates the superiority of the decentralized method, and I disagree – in particular, if you had told a Tuscaloosa city official a year ago that their insistence on a central plan would slow down rebuilding, I think he would have said, "yes, it will be slower, but it will be better thought out." - Original pitch video for The Muppet Show
- In honor of the centennial of the sinking of the ship Titanic, I'm reposting a brilliant video proving that it didn't happen.
::: posted by S at 1:31 AM
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Thursday, April 05, 2012 :::
The 77-year-old retired pharmacist, Dimitris Christoulas, shot himself in the head on Wednesday after saying that financial troubles had pushed him over the edge. This is, of course, tragic, even if the current course of action is the least bad available."It's horrible. We shouldn't have reached this point. The politicians in parliament who brought us here should be punished for this," said Anastassia Karanika, a 60-year-old pensioner. It's worth noting that the politicians "who brought us here" are mostly no longer in parliament. It's also worth noting that a great deal of what did bring Greece to its current point is captured in the phrase "60-year-old pensioner". She may well have responded reasonably to promises that were made to her as to the terms of compensation under which she worked; it may even be that the promises were made in good faith by people who thought they could be honored. Some of the promises that were believed will have to be broken, and people are going to be unhappy about it.The IMF, which is unpopular among many ordinary Greeks for demanding the austerity together with the EU, said on Thursday it was saddened by the pensioner's death. The IMF is in a position to make demands, of course, only insofar as Greece wants the IMF to lend money to it. This is a bit like disliking the doctor for providing medicine that tastes bad; at best, it is like disliking the doctor for providing medicine that tastes bad at the behest of your mother. Of course, unlike your mother, members of parliament can be unelected. Hang on, folks; the show in Greece isn't over yet.Labels: Greece
::: posted by dWj at 2:37 PM
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Wednesday, April 04, 2012 :::
You've surely heard that there has been a lot of media-originated misinformation on the Zimmerman-Martin case, but some of it seems hard to explain by mere incompetence.How Wisconsin taxes ice cream cakes. This sort of thing is why I'm glad I don't own my own business.Obama gave a speech today (a quick search didn't produce a direct link, and that link has a lot of related information), attacking the House budget (the most recent Senate budget is available here). House Budget chairman Paul Ryan has a point-by-point response.
::: posted by S at 1:34 AM
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