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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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Saturday, April 12, 2003 :::
Link from K-Lo at the Corner.
The doors of the town house opened to reveal a playboy's fantasy straight from the 1960s: mirrored bedroom, lamps shaped like women, airbrushed paintings of a topless blonde woman and a mustached hero battling a crocodile.
Troops thought it was the home of Saddam Hussein's mistress, though on the wall and in the bedroom were photos of the Iraqi president and a woman who appeared to be his wife. The company commander suspected they had found one of the Iraqi leader's many safe houses.
"This must have been Saddam's love shack," said Sgt. Spencer Willardson of Logan, Utah.
Surprised? Neither am I.
::: posted by Steven at 10:20 PM
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In the Sun Times a few days back, Mark Steyn pointed out that many of the people (particularly at a certain New York newspaper, not to be named here) who were referring to the "quagmire" two weeks into the war had also been complaining about a "rush to war" for more than a year.
::: posted by Steven at 5:24 PM
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Friday, April 11, 2003 :::
American troops do their best to bury Iraqi troops in accordance with Muslim tradition — with bodies interred to point toward Mecca, for example — but the rituals can't be perfect. Graves-registration units often feature female soldiers, and Muslim custom forbids women from handling male remains. At Slate.
::: posted by dWj at 6:04 PM
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Iraqis eager to get involved in Basra's clean-up (Link from somewhere -- the Corner?)
[I]n Basra's main power station... the plant's directors met an American intelligence officer to decide what would happen to it.
The meeting had barely begun when the officer proclaimed: "Gentlemen, I am here to get this power station up and running. I've got engineers and contractors itching to get started. Is there anything you would like to add?"
"Actually," said the station's planning manager, Adel Hussein al-Shati, a stout, elderly man who once studied at Portsmouth Polytechnic, "we'd like to do it ourselves." He then explained how long it would take and how many men he needed.
"Well that's a relief," the officer said. "Get to work."
"Of course," Mr al-Shati said. "This is our job and this is our country".
It is now.
::: posted by Steven at 5:12 PM
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I recently commented in email that I've lived through some history, most notably, I think, the fall of the Soviet empire. It's a bit of an odd comment; it's as though "history" is something divorced from our day-to-day reality, not something that actually happens.
This sense is part of the everything that was supposed to have changed a year and a half ago; we were reminded that our relative peace and prosperity don't isolate us from world events as different from our ordinary lives as Hitler invading France was. An element of our abstraction was supposed to have given way to a sober awareness of reality and a willingness to take it into account.
This war, too, is history, but again seems very distant; the local men and women who lose their lives are mentioned on the news and the television is overrun with coverage, but we need reminding, as Bob Scheiffer found in the deaths of well-known journalists, that it "isn't just something to watch on TV for those who don't like basketball".
It is not we alone in this country who suffer this disconnect; the Arab world laments the "embarassment" of an Arab thug's efficient removal, or at least that portion of the Arab world that did not suffer under his oppression does. They, too, are dealing in abstractions; the people of Iraq are rather lower on Maslow's hierarchy.
::: posted by dWj at 4:46 PM
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Mark Steyn is gloating today, and it's not attractive. Well, actually, it kind of is.
::: posted by Steven at 4:26 PM
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If you haven't heard, the main topic of conversation today seems to be a column today by the head of CNN's news division, admitting that they played along with Saddam's regime to avoid getting their "journalists" kicked out of the country or killed or whatever -- a charge he had explicitly denied before.
There's good coverage of this at Volokh, which I linked to in the previous paragraph, and some at Instapundit as well.
::: posted by Steven at 4:07 PM
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- When Iraqis in 1991 rose up against Hussein, should the United States have provided support, military or otherwise, for them, and
- Were the people of Iran to commence action to overthrow its regime, should the United States provide support, military or otherwise, for that action?
If yes, support of what kind?Seems Jonah Goldberg has a take on this, more or less.
::: posted by dWj at 3:31 PM
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A couple weeks ago the Onion ran an article under the title, "U.S. to create own U.N." I recommend starting with all open (i.e. publicly professed) members of the current coalition that receive no worse than some cut-off score from Freedom House. "The Coalition of Free Peoples" or some such. It shall never take a vote on anything but the most basic administrative tasks — say, admitting new members — but will provide by example and ad hoc voluntary multilateral actions a gentle force on the world toward peace, order, and the most very basic liberal rights. Carrot-and-stick Saudi Arabia into at least doing no harm, perhaps lean on the UN to try to do something about North Korea, see what can be done to help Egypt perfect its democratic system. Also, if any member nation elects a Mugabe or a Hitler, the rest of the Coalition is duty-bound to invade.
::: posted by dWj at 3:31 PM
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Little Eva (best known for singing "The Locomotion") has died.
::: posted by Steven at 1:09 PM
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Congratulations to Candace Parker of Naperville Central High School for being named (by Gatorade) the national girls' basketball player of the year. Next year she will be attending ... Naperville Central High School. She's the first junior to win the award.
::: posted by dWj at 9:57 AM
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More and more, the increasing interdependence and complexity of international political and economic relations render it incumbent on all civilized and orderly powers to insist on the proper policing of the world. I'll give you at least twenty four hours to guess on the source of that quote before I post it here. Quite possibly until Monday.
::: posted by dWj at 9:57 AM
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The Telegraph examines who got it right and who got it wrong. Link from the Corner.
Meanwhile, at NRO, Mark Levin records big names against the war.
::: posted by Steven at 12:51 AM
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Fidel Castro isn't nice. Link from the Corner.
::: posted by Steven at 12:14 AM
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Thursday, April 10, 2003 :::
Stuttaford at the Corner repeats from Reuters:
Marines leapt out, training their guns and binoculars on surrounding buildings, checking for snipers. They received a warm welcome -- except from one European woman, who had come to Baghdad as a human shield. "Children killers!" she yelled at a U.S. tank commander.
A microcosm of the whole affair.
::: posted by Steven at 10:56 PM
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I suspect Doggles were created just so they could use the name. Link from Dave Barry.
::: posted by Steven at 4:04 PM
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State and local tax burdens. The highest's only neighbor is the second lowest. (The lowest hasn't a neighbor.)
::: posted by dWj at 3:26 PM
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Fisk contradicts himself. You'll notice that this doesn't necessarily mean he's right either time. Link from Instapundit.
::: posted by Steven at 2:51 PM
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Kate laments that the Kitchen Cabinet has been moved to the last position on the Volokh blogroll.
I actually gave some thought to blog-roll positioning when I noticed a week or two back that Cosmo Macero has added us to his roll, presumably out of reciprocity. The top two spots on our blogroll are the two blogs I try to keep up with that have linked to us. The first blog that I don't read regularly is How Appealing, who has linked to us.
But it seems to me that the last place in the blogroll is probably better than third-to-last; I expect that a reader who wants to see a new blog, and follows one of my links based on its position, is most likely to visit the top blog on the list, but I think the last spot kind of stands out, too. I could have asked Macero what he'd like, but it hardly seemed worth bothering.
Incidentally, now that I look at it, I can't remember when or why I stopped keeping up with Discriminations. I'm sure time was a major factor, but I almost manage to keep up with Volokh, Instapundit, and the Corner, all of which (I think) out-do John Rosenberg on volume. I do notice that none of the blogs I try to keep up with are based on a single issue. At any rate, it's a good enough blog that I feel the need to make an excuse for not having followed it.
Those of you who don't know Discriminations might notice that I mentioned John Rosenberg's volume, while the blog description lists a Jessie as well. Jessie Rosenberg is an Abby Malcolm. Both of them are out playing bridge with Harvey the Rabbit and the Iraqi Army.
::: posted by Steven at 1:37 PM
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Kate Malcolm points to a post indicating that Europeans are calling the U.S. role in Europe in World War II "marginal". This is one of those things that needs less comment than one wants to give.Grandpa was wounded in Italy. I think it's pretty cool that by the time he was my age he had helped save the world from Hitler.
::: posted by dWj at 10:07 AM
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I requested (and suggested) a flag for a free Iraq last week. I heard on the radio today that some of the Iraqis have been flying the flag as it appeared when Saddam stepped in, identical to its most recent form except without the Arabic script (and maybe with a couple stars replacing it). For some reason, I can't find this flag on the 'Net.
Oh, and a few days ago, I referred to the battle of Baghdad as the hard part of the war. My bad.
::: posted by Steven at 1:14 AM
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Re women's basketball: after UConn won their second consecutive title a couple nights back, despite having lost four of their five starters from last year, one of the TV people asked Diana Taurasi -- the UConn junior who won this year's award for the country's top female college basketball player, and who some seriously consider as a candidate for best woman ever -- how they did it. She talked about how they had pulled together as a team to do what they needed to do. "No superstars," she commented. She didn't seem to think she was kidding, either.
::: posted by Steven at 1:09 AM
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Wednesday, April 09, 2003 :::
The Washington Post has a picture that makes me think of the tearing down of Lenin's statue in Moscow. If it hasn't been remarked here, I'm sure it has elsewhere, that the biggest, most famous statue in the United States is not of or to a person, but Liberty. Iraqis pledge their blood and souls to Saddam; our lives, fortunes, and sacred honor go to an ideal.
::: posted by dWj at 1:32 PM
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I'm sure the AP will vote UConn number 1, just because they're the best team in the country. Well, not just because of that. Actually, and Tennessee won, I would believe that they, more likely than not, are the best team in the country, certainly right now. That's the kind of championship match I like to see: a credible one.
::: posted by dWj at 9:56 AM
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Tuesday, April 08, 2003 :::
Women's basketball championship is tonight. It's UConn vs. Tennessee. They met earlier this season, and UConn won by one in overtime. This time could be even closer.
Even if UConn loses this year, though, they should be better next year -- I believe all starters are returning. Even next year, I think Taurasi will be the only senior.
::: posted by Steven at 7:47 PM
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Oh, it seems someone else has expressed that view.
::: posted by dWj at 6:10 PM
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I think the British troops in Basra should be doing more "policework" (i.e. stopping the looting) if at all possible. This period of anarchy is itself a humanitarian disaster.
::: posted by dWj at 4:50 PM
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Is Hussein still worth 14 civilian lives? Three weeks ago he absolutely certainly would have been; if he's already been severed from his military, and a cleaner shot might well have opened up in the next few days, it seems possible that as of last night he was not. (It may be that his death will make Iraqis feel freer to shake off the rest of the regime, and that that will save many lives. It's quite possible that he was still worth 14 civilian lives — that seems to be the upper estimate for last night's strike — and it's certain that someone other than I is in a much better situation to make that judgment than I am. I'm mostly expressing concern here that we're sitting on an out-dated assessment because we let it creep into our epistemology.)
::: posted by dWj at 10:24 AM
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My brother wants a rant from me, and perhaps I should give one. As I pointed out, none of the final four this year won its conference tournament, which means we knew a week ago that whatever team was declared the champion for having strung together six wins at the end of the season would have strung together only six wins at the end of the season; it lost its seventh-to-last game. That that loss is so much more important than the end of Kentucky's 26 (?) game winning streak is a bit disproportionate, even if the last several games were against tougher competition than most of Kentucky's string. (That string, though, included home and away against both Georgia and Florida, a home game against Notre Dame, and few genuinely bad teams.)Still, I have to say, those last six games didn't, what I saw of them, look like flukes. Neither, in fact, did Kansas's. That 33 point win the other night wasn't as close as the final score suggests, and most of last night's game looked like two very good teams playing each other. While Syracuse had some clear misfires during the season, and probably didn't quite earn a number one ranking with their championship, I don't think it's unsupportable to say that they really are the best team in the country, especially right now.
::: posted by dWj at 10:15 AM
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For me to much discuss Virginia v. Black would be silly, when Eugene Volokh actually knows what he's talking about.
::: posted by dWj at 10:03 AM
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If you know the ranks and groupings of the armed forces as well as I do (i.e., not very), you may get some use from this primer from "Philippe de Croy" of the Volokh Conspiracy.
Speaking of the Conspiracy, I'm expecting to see both actual Volokhs this afternoon. I've never met Eugene.
::: posted by Steven at 2:59 AM
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They're not quite sure that "chemical Ali" is dead.
::: posted by Steven at 2:29 AM
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- We've got snow.
- There's been an other attempt to take out Saddam himself. Go anywhere else on the web for details.
- Syracuse won the men's Div-1 NCAA basketball championship. Presumably, they'll be number one in the final AP poll, in spite of everything before the last three weeks. But that's probably more my brother's rant than mine.
::: posted by Steven at 1:16 AM
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Monday, April 07, 2003 :::
At The Kitchen Cabinet, Lily reported a few hours ago that it had started snowing in New Haven. It still isn't here in Cambridge.
::: posted by Steven at 7:52 PM
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Today's Lileks is good, even for Lileks. Here's an excerpt, not because it's the meat of the column, but because it segues into an other story:
[I heard an interview] a few weeks ago with the CEO of some big Middle-eastern Internet company; he said that Arabs hate the US because of the oppressive governments we support. The host asked if people were pleased when the Taliban was deposed, and he said of course not - the US was attacking a Muslim nation!
This AP piece talks to Arabs either in denial about or just upset about the impending liberation of the Iraqi people.
Abdelfattah insisted that Saddam will fight to the end. "He will remain standing until he dies while fighting for Iraq," Abdelfattah said.
We can work with that.
::: posted by Steven at 4:21 PM
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How 'bout that split on the cross-burning case?Always worth keeping in mind that talk of left-right division on the court is at best a good approximation. First amendment cases and certain kinds of criminal protection cases (ex post facto, fourth amendment, etc.) have a habit of violating those classifications with this court.
::: posted by dWj at 2:01 PM
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Law and morality:
By a vote of 26-21, North Dakota's state Senate has rejected a measure that would have repealed a 113-year-old ban on cohabitation. The Associated Press reports the law "says a man and woman may not live together 'openly and notoriously' as if they were married." Cohabitation is "listed among other sex crimes, including rape and incest."
"It stands as a reminder that there is right, and there is wrong," said Sen. John Andrist, a Republican. "Just because something can't be enforced, I don't think it necessarily means that we should feel compelled to take a position to take it off the books."
The conflation of law with morality degrades both. The pervasive belief that anything that is legal must be acceptable causes societal decay, and the imposition of laws that aren't intended for enforcement promotes a habit of law-breaking.Link from Taranto.
::: posted by dWj at 1:58 PM
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Middle Ages were warmer than today, say scientists
Claims that man-made pollution is causing "unprecedented" global warming have been seriously undermined by new research which shows that the Earth was warmer during the Middle Ages.
You'll note that this doesn't mean we won't cause the world to get warmer -- or prevent it from getting cooler, if it would do that. But it's important to recognize that climate change isn't all man-made.
::: posted by Steven at 1:43 PM
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Hussein has offered new bounties on the destruction of coalition weapons and vehicles, as well as on the lives of our soldiers. If anyone from the Iraqi army is reading this, I would hope you would consider the probability that that check will clear.
::: posted by dWj at 1:00 PM
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Governor Hair has a brand new daughter.
::: posted by dWj at 11:39 AM
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I once saw a comparison made between daylight savings time and the use of different currencies in different economies. (I think I got this from Paul Krugman, who got it from Milton Friedman.) As the sun rises earlier, I figure I may as well get up earlier, get things needing doing done earlier, and get home to go out and play before it gets dark; but my schedule is linked to someone else's schedule (say the train's, or the grocer's), it becomes rather more difficult to make that change, even if everyone else wants to change, too. What we do is just change the reference; keep calling the time I get home "6:00", but move it earlier, and everyone keeps the same schedule they always did.
What this has to do with currencies is that local prices will tend to track each other; a lot of the expenses we pay for, certainly in and near cities, are real estate, and the cost of service industries will directly correlate with the cost of living for the relevant servers; to the extent that a region has a trade deficit or surplus in those commodities that can be transported, it may in the long term find all of its prices moving down or up respectively in order to make its goods cheaper elsewhere or elsewhere's goods cheaper there, and if each merchant finds itself cutting prices separately from eachother and from each wholesaler, a lot of money can be lost and the economy can generally grind down. It becomes much easier on everyone if the local prices are denominated in a different currency than prices elsewhere, whereupon again the reference can change, moving all prices but leaving relative prices perfectly fixed.
What I really don't get about daylight savings time, incidentally, is why we wait until the days are, what, twelve and a half hours long before we go to it in the spring, but don't reset to the standard clock until there are only ten hours of daylight left. I would think this should be more symmetric.
::: posted by dWj at 11:39 AM
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My brother makes a good point about assassinations; I'd restricted myself to good reasons for the taboo. Not that I'm entirely unsympathetic to the notion of facelessness; certainly I think that if someone makes a product that millions of people use and enjoy, and is not terribly surprised when it's linked to five deaths, that seems less bad than if he knew who the five to die were; exposing a lot of people to small probabilities of harm seems less bad to me than killing anybody, though I can't quite think why that would be. Just because I think a reason isn't good doesn't mean I don't emote in its favor (or contrapositively).
::: posted by dWj at 11:38 AM
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So, Kate or Lily, how many of us predicted neither Syracuse nor Kansas to make the Sweet Sixteen? There are times it would be nice to be anonymous here, so nobody could know that it was I who made those disparaging comments about Roy Williams and the Big East three weeks ago. Also, so I could point out that Iraq would get 41 electoral votes. I can't really do that with my name on it.
::: posted by dWj at 11:38 AM
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Sunday, April 06, 2003 :::
Colby Cosh considers that SARS could turn out to have the same impact as the flu, or the same impact as -- well, the flu in 1919. He examines public reaction in 1919, and speculates on how it would be different today:
People seem to have been mentally prepared for the blind, implacable aspect of epidemic; although the people of 1919 Alberta weren't especially religious, they somehow had a sense of calm and self-possession we won't be able to call upon. We know too much to be content in the face of a crisis like this: virology and epidemiology have given our enemy a face, and we therefore cannot confuse it with God.
It's an interesting theory. I don't think he's right that our understanding of disease will cause us to react to it with more panic. I do think our culture is more panickable in a lot of ways than it was in 1919, though, and less accepting of death, and that sort of backs him up. So maybe I should consider this further when it's not 2:00 in the morning (and, simultaneously, 3:00 -- happy Daylight Savings).
::: posted by Steven at 1:56 AM
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Telegraph | News | Victim of Saddam makes Galloway shut up
Who here knows British politics? Can Tony Blair prevent Galloway from running for re-election on the Labour ticket? Do they have primaries? How does this work?
::: posted by Steven at 1:10 AM
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