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Wish List Links policy Donate to ePatriots Dan is a student at Georgetown University, majoring in International Economics. He is currently trying to think of a new biography for this space. Blogs (more soon) (new) - blogrolling.com reports that the blog was updated in the last 2 hours American Journalism American Prospect Atlantic Monthly Boston Globe Christian Science Monitor Cleveland Plain Dealer CNN Financial Times (US) Foreign Policy Los Angeles Times MSNBC National Journal New Republic New York Times Newsweek The Nation Wall Street Journal Washington Post Global Journalism BBC News Economist Evening Standard Financial Times (UK) Guardian Independent (UK) Intl-News.com International Herald Tribune The Scotsman The Telegraph (UK) The Times (UK) The Western Mail (Wales) Toronto Globe and Mail Useful Information Aerfares.net AskJeeves Amazon.com Borders Union Center for Public Integrity CNNSI Deutsche Bahn (European Rail) Encyclopedia.com ESPN.com MoveOn QJump (British Rail) RailEurope Take Back the Media The Weather Channel Weather (UK) Yahoo! Useless Information Amish Tech Support Canadian World Domination FuckedCompany Georgetown Univ. Haypenny Neal Pollack ScrappleFace Slumbering Lungfish Dybbuk Hostel and All-Night Boulangerie The LSE The Onion The Smoking Gun The Political Graveyard This blog translated: Chinese French German Italian Japanese Korean Portuguese Spanish  Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do. "There are three types of lies - lies, damn lies, and statistics." - Variously attributed to Benjamin Disraeli, Alfred Marshall, Mark Twain and many other dead people. Currently reading: Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis Madam Secretary: A Memoir by Madeleine Albright In an Uncertain World: Tough Choices from Wall Street to Washington by Robert Rubin You should read: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby Bobos In Paradise by David Brooks Damned Lies and Statistics by Joel Best Books written or edited by my professors (well, only the good ones) Nick Barr The Economics of the Welfare State The Welfare State As Piggy Bank Chris Dougherty Introduction to Econometrics David Gewanter The Collected Poems of Robert Lowell (ed. with Frank Bidart) In the Belly The Sleep of Reason Meredith McKittrick To Dwell Secure John McNeill The Human Web (with William H. McNeill) Something New Under the Sun Max-Stephan Schulze Western Europe: Economic and Social Change Since 1945 Greater Blogtopia Abu Aardvark Across the Atlantic AngryBear Asparagus Pee Blah3.com Brazos de Dios Cantina Carl with a K Chip Taylor Clareified Conceptual Guerilla D-Squared Digest Dilettante's Guide to Life Egotistical Whining Equilibrismi ridanciani Fester's Place Fleeting Impulse Funny Farm Grammar Police Gropinator Hamster Head Heeb Hegemoney Hjordiso I Know What I Know Interesting by Association Impolite Company Internet Activism John Hoke John Lemon John Scalzi Kick the Leftist Kids Korner Kieran Healy Liquid List Loopy Librarian Mark Maynard Martin Stabe Metajournalism MyDD No More Mr. Nice Blog Notes on the Atrocities Open Source Politics Oxytocin Passenger Pachyderms Peevish...I'm Just Saying Pigsqueal Pol3d Politics and Policy Quantum Skyline Radical Review Random Points Risa Wechsler Sha Ka Ree Sick of Bush Signifying Nothing Something's Got to Break Talking Dog ThomPaul Tom Runnacles Truth is a Blog Undependent Vaguely Right Vast Left Wing Conspiracy Vulgar Boatman We Report... You Deride Wizblog 
2003 ESPN Information Please Sports Almanac "Phantom Planet" by Phantom Planet A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson 
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Wednesday, March 17, 2004
More thesis crap Does anyone know of a good historical data set that involves annual numbers on poverty in developed countries over the last half-century or so? Theoretically the World Bank should have something along these lines somewhere, but I haven't been able to find anything in the format I need there as of yet. Thanks. Tuesday, March 16, 2004
There's a rumor going around campus tonight that Craig Esherick will be out tomorrow as head coach of the Georgetown men's baskeball team. It's not clear as to whether he is thought to have been fired, re-assigned or resigned. None too soon, really. It's not that Esherick's a bad guy. He's certainly dedicated almost all of his adult life to the Hoyas basketball program. And I have no doubt that he's a damn fine assistant coach, gets along well with the alums and Georgetown community more generally, and would probably make a fine Athletic Director. It's also clear - and I've seen this far too much over the last couple of years - that he's a horrible head coach. He can't manage during the game worth a damn, and can't recruit worth a whit (the only top-notch player we've had over the past few years was Mike Sweetney, who actually committed to John Thompson shortly before he resigned). We've done horribly in the Big East in recent years - though we're still perfectly capable of beating the crap out of MEAC teams. It's pretty clear that he can't motivate at all either (and he's about admitted as much in a couple of interviews recently). Which has basically left us with a coach who does very well at running practices and very poorly at everything else. More than that, Esherick has steadfastly tried to take credit for the success of 1970's, 1980's and early 1990's while denying any responsibility for the recent troubles. At the press conference after the first-round loss in the Big East tournament last week, Esherick blamed our crappy record this year without once acknowledging that he was ultimately responsible for that recruiting. It's possible that the decision was made in response to a rally that was put together by a bunch of alums that was scheduled for tomorrow. The alums had also put together a petition here that had about 3600 signatures at last check. Then again, it's just a rumor. (If true, this will bring about the rumors about who they're going to hire. There will be some pressure, no doubt, to bring in a big name. Which ain't gonna happen, since the school is pretty much broke. My guess would be that they'll lean towards one of John Thompson's sons - Ronny, a former GU assistant coach who's currently an assistant coach at Arkansas, and John Jr., currently the head coach at Princeton - or Horace Broadnax, another alum who used to be the head coach - though not a particularly good one - at Bethune-Cookman. Possible extremely dark horses might include dragging either John Thompson or Lefty Driesell - whose son is currently a Georgetown assistant coach - out of retirement. ) UPDATE: And it's official. He's been fired. (honestly, could the President's office please get someone to write press releases who can actually make it sound like DeGioia is actually talking rather than writing press releases that sound like a committee wrote his quotes) Tuesday, March 09, 2004
Moral Dilemma I'm currently in the process of writing my thesis. Which is one of the reasons I'm not writing much here right now. I'm working in a fairly esoteric field in which there are very few existing academic papers (because it's a highly politically charged topic, I've decided not to discuss it here until I have at least have all the data before me). One of the papers was co-authored by John Lott. I'm seriously queasy about citing Lott, given his spectacularly unprofessional behavior in the past surrounding "More Guns, Less Crime" and the Mary Rosh fiasco. So, the question is: do I cite Lott, cite Lott with a footnote indicating that the man is all but entirely discredited, or just ignore the paper? Sunday, March 07, 2004
Happy (slightly belated) blogiversary to Wizblog. Anyone who can refer to me as a trendsetter and still keep a straight face about it is fine by me. Thursday, March 04, 2004
Kieran Healy makes the argument that divorce is far more of a threat to the social order than gay marriage. I agree. To a point, anyway. I'm all for restricting the use of no-fault divorce laws where children are involved. I've seen far too many times amongst my friends (and arguably, between my parents), where parents have just given up on a marriage rather than fight through tough times, and in doing so, causing serious emotional damage to their family members. This isn't to say that I'm against divorce in case of a fault (adultery, violence, etc.) or no-fault divorce where no children are involved. But social costs aside, allowing people to just give up on their families so easily is a bad way to run a society. I haven't written much here in the last week or two because of midterms - I'm increasingly convinced that midterms are worse to deal with than finals, as the rest of university life doesn't come to a grinding halt during midterms as it does during finals - and regular posting (or what passes for it here) should resume shortly. Wednesday, March 03, 2004
I'm not usually in the outrage-manufacturing business, but ... I just came across this notice at the Political Graveyard. It seems that a bill has been reported out of the House Judiciary Committee in and is now before the House Energy and Commerce Committee to overturn the Supreme Court's Feist decision, which decided in 1991 that facts could not be copyrighted. If passed, this bill would wreak untold havoc on the internet, forcing the removal of the Political Graveyard, Wikipedia, Froogle, Google News (both Google sites gather information from other sites), and numerous other sources of information, both on the internet and across all media. Basically, if you want a dumber and more ignorant America, support the bill. Otherwise, you can send a fax to the committee members here (note: you have to register). You can also write your Representative here. Sunday, February 29, 2004
Friday, February 27, 2004
Y'know, it's one thing when Charles Krauthammer writes something really stupid. It's another thing when he just writes something entirely wrong, as he does in today's column. So says Krauthammer: "Not again. We are the only Western country to have legalized abortion by judicial fiat rather than by democratic approval of the people or the legislature. Are we going to do it again with gay marriage?" Well, actually, no. I dunno about the link between abortion and gay marriage in Krauthammer's argument, but the United States is not the only Western country to have legalized abortion through a court decision (five states actually legalized abortion in 1970, three years ahead of Roe v. Wade - some due to state court decisions and some via state legislatures). Canada fully legalized abortion in 1988 through a decision by the Supreme Court of Canada in the Morgentaler case (it had previously legalized abortion under certain restrictions in 1967). Australia legalized abortion on a state-by-state basis from 1969-86 through a variety of court decisions (except for South Australia, which legalized via legislation in 1969, and Tasmania, which has yet to repeal its laws criminalizing abortion as best I know). The United Kingdom first liberalized its abortion laws via the Bourne case of 1938, which allowed abortions to protect the life of the mother or to prevent her from becoming a "mental or physical wreck." Abortion laws in the United Kingdom (excluding Northern Ireland) were subsequently substantially liberalized by an Act of Parliament in 1967 (in effect in 1968). So much for fact-checking. Wednesday, February 25, 2004
Josh Marshall is musing on the apparent reticence of Congressional Republicans to wholeheartedly support the Federal Marriage Amendment. As Marshall points out, the FMA is clearly about getting Bush re-elected, regardless of the health of Republicans in the House of the Senate. They're upset - and with good cause. The more I think about it, the more I have to believe that the cultural war isn't a winning issue for Republicans. Yes, it will motivate a large part of the base, but it simultaneously angers a smaller part of it - more libertarian types - while pissing off moderates. Similarly, if Bush were to propose that Congress move on a constitutional amendment to overturn Roe v. Wade, it would essentially be electoral suicide. The American public doesn't support gay marriage and/or civil unions quite as strongly as it supports abortion, but it's just a weaker version of the same argument. I find myself repeating Al Franken's story about the 1992 Republican convention. Pat Buchanan gave a particularly vitriolic speech in which he openly stated that the Republican party was in the middle of a cultural war. The major networks all simultaneously proclaimed the speech to be the 'red meat' needed to rally the base and put Bush back on top. Meanwhile, Franken, offering live commentary on Comedy Central, alone mused aloud that the speech would be scaring away moderate Americans from the Republican party. Only Franken was right. This isn't to say that the cultural war, in some weaker form, isn't a means for the Republican party to draw support. But at the end of the day, people want to tell each other how to act, not to be told how to act themselves. Tuesday, February 24, 2004
With the Federal Marriage Amendment now closer and closer to reaching the floors of the House and Senate, I think we have to start wondering about it's actual chance of passing, regardless of the actual quality of the amendment (for the record, I think it's bigoted and idiotic, randomly snatching a state issue and making it a federal one). Josh Chafetz thinks that it's not likely to pass the Senate, but I have to wonder about that, given the large majority that the Defense of Marriage Act got - as it did in the House. I have to wonder, though, about the chances of ratification by the states. An enormous anti-amendment campaign will likely be taking flight soon. And while 38 states have passed laws refusing to recognize gay marriages, I have a hard time believing that a similar number would approve an amendment now. The small territorial size of northeastern states relative to western ones could be a distinct advantage there. Random Tech Support For reasons I can't understand, my ancient, Windows-95-running, laptop, has decided to start printing out one blank sheet when I turn the computer off at times. Basically, when I shut it down, it makes a lot of noise, the printer lights start blinking, and after about five minutes, a blank sheet gets fed out and the computer shuts off. Any ideas as to what's going on? Arnold Schwarzenegger has come out in favor of an amendment to the Constitution proposed by Orrin Hatch that would strike the language requiring that the President be a natural-born citizen and replace it with a requirement that the President be a U.S. citizen for 20 years. I oppose it. I oppose it not because I think that the language in the constitution is any good - it's plainly a relic that is no longer needed. I'd quibble with the 20 year requirement (I think it ought to be a little longer, but I'm not so opposed to this as to oppose the amendment entirely. I oppose it because the Hatch Amendment seems plainly intended to promote the possibility of a Schwarzenegger campaign for the White House. And I do not believe that the Constitution should ever be altered because of one individual. The constitution is intended to represent the entire nation, not one individual. Come back to me in a few years, and I'll happily support the amendment, but not now, not for Schwarzenegger. (I should point out, for consistency's sake, that I would argue that the 22nd amendment, which limited the President to two terms and was a reaction to the long presidency of FDR, was a bad idea, and that any attempt to repeal the 22nd amendment on behalf of a sitting or former president - as was talked about for Reagan and Clinton - would also be a bad idea) Thursday, February 19, 2004
I haven't seen anything written about this, and have no indication of how certain or accurate the report is, but the local NBC affiliate in DC is reporting that investigators are now considering the possibility that the tests on the letter thought to have ricin that was found in the Dirksen Senate Office Building were oversensitive and produced a false positive by detecting castor bean pulp used to make the paper rather than ricin. Good news, I suppose, if true. UPDATE: WRC has put up this synopsis of the situation. Wednesday, February 18, 2004
Maybe the folk singers actually can save the world There's an interesting article in the Guardian on the role of - of all people - Billy Bragg, in the reform of the House of Lords. Bragg, an English folk singer, has put forth a proposal that's actually being considered quite seriously alongside other proposals put forth by individuals more involved in the political process (Bragg has been quite politically active in the last couple decades, strongly promoting Labourite left politics, but isn't actually a politician). Lords reform, of course, has been ongoing for nearly a century, as the upper house has been slowly neutered. Most of the hereditary lords were ejected a few years ago, but the house remains unelected. It has little power in dealing with most legislation passed by the Commons - it can only delay and amend - though it has occasionally stifled the passage of certain bills, most recently in blocking anti-fox hunting legislation. As the article notes, the Lords remains quite conservative and Conservative, despite the ejection of the hereditary lords, and tends to oppose Labour-held governments far more than Tory-held governments. Bragg's proposal would allocate seats in the Lords through Proportional Representation party lists on a regional basis. The proportional representation rather than being decided by separate elections, would be set out at each general election by how many votes Commons candidates for each party receive. Thus, if the Lab-Tory-Lib Dem breakdown in Commons votes were 45-35-20 across an entire region, the seats in the Lords allocated to that region would be allocated accordingly. There would be a 4% cutoff for any party - that is, any party receiving less than 4% of the total votes in a region would receive no seats in the Lords from that region. Thus, there would still be no separate elections for the Lords, limiting election fatigue, but the Lords would become essentially representatives. This would probably allow some small parties - the Greens, Socialists and UK Independence Party - to take a few seats, but would still keep out the truly minor parties - i.e., the Monster Raving Loony Party, etc. The actual power of the Lords vis a vis the Commons would stay the same, though it would gain additional legitimacy in the eyes of the public. The end result of this plan, though, would be to make the Lords as reflexively left-wing as it currently is right-wing. The result of the current single-member district system has been to distinctly penalize the left as votes have been split between Labour and the Lib Dems - even at the height of her premiership, with a hundred seat majority, Margaret Thatcher's Tories never won a majority of the popular vote. The reform could also significantly affect the formation of cabinets. Current rules allow members of the Lords to sit in cabinets, but leaves parties choosing possible ministers from a group that does not sit on its political merits. The reform would allow parties to place favored ministerial candidates on the party lists for the Lords, thus ending any uncertainty about winning a position in the Commons. The biggest downside about the reform would be that it would make the Lords distinctly more partisan, eliminating the role of non-partisan cross-benchers, and would convert the Lords to being a chamber for debating from a chamber for carrying out oversight. I don't know about how it stands up to the alternatives, but Bragg's plan does seem likely to be able to please far more of those on both political extremes more than any other plan I've seen yet. Monroe Doctrine redux Josh Marshall, writing yesterday, asked whether the possibility of French intervention in Haiti to deal with the ongoing rebellion would raise any Monroe Doctrine issues? Well, no, not really. First, the Monroe Doctrine - glibly simplified, the idea that the Europeans should leave international conflicts in the Western Hemisphere to the U.S. to deal with and the U.S. would do likewise to international conflicts in Europe - was never as strong in reality as it was on paper. At the time the doctrine was first promulgated, British, French and Spanish troops were garrisoned in Canada and throughout Central and South America. Anyhow, Haiti is internally divided, not currently at odds with anyone else (though this could conceivably change if relations with neighbors or humanitarian issues deteriorate). Anyhow, it would seem that any pretense to the Monroe Doctrine was abandoned by the American government during World War I, irretrievably so after World War II. Second, the French aren't proposing to send troops from France to Haiti. They're considering sending some troops currently stationed in the Caribbean to Haiti (the French still have a few troops in territories in the Caribbean - I believe the British also do station a few troops there, as well as in Belize). Technically speaking, this would a reorganization, and not any new intervention in the Western Hemisphere. This, of course, ignores the question of whether foreign powers should currently interfere in the internal conflict. I'm inclined to feel that nothing more than humanitarian aid (and what ever security needed to safeguard it) should be sent right now. To intervene now would essentially be to protect Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who has, a la Robert Mugabe, abandoned any pretense of running the country in a transparent and democratic manner. Of course, the rebels might well not be any better ... From the 'I have some truly weird professors' dept. Earlier today ... Prof. X: Um, sorry, I keep having trouble remembering your name ... it's that you look exactly like my roommate when I was in the Peace Corps ... uh, do you mind if I just call you Jim? Me: Umm ... ok. I think he might of been joking. I hope he was joking. Monday, February 16, 2004
I occasionally photograph basketball games for the school paper. This means sitting right along the endline of the court (well, actually, set back a few feet for the safety of myself, the players and the referees). It also often means that I'm sitting right in front of the band. And let me say unequivocally that, no matter how catchy the original performance may sound, Outkast's "Hey Ya!" was not meant to be played by a marching band. Particularly not one located ten feet behind you. Monday, February 09, 2004
Well, this story just keeps getting more and more interesting ... Kevin Drum has uncovered the full (i.e., not torn) document listing George W. Bush's military service in 1972-73. The document shows that Bush, in fact, did not actually show up for his Air National Guard training. As a result, he was transferred to the Army Reserve Force, where he could have theoretically been called up to actually serve in Vietnam. He continued to accumulate service points while in the Army Reserve Force, though it's not yet clear for what. Thursday, February 05, 2004
Helluva day for Georgetown alums doing time for the Bush administration ... Manuel Miranda (SFS '82, 6 or so years after Tenet, I believe) is being forced to resign (very much against his will, the article seems to think) from his position on the Majority Leader's staff. Oddly enough, Miranda is being forced to resign by Orrin Hatch, his former boss while he worked for the Judiciary Committee, not his current boss. While there, Miranda was apparently involved in a break-in to the servers of Democratic staff members in order to get an understanding of their plans to filibuster the nominations of the more extreme individuals that George W. Bush had nominated for the federal bench. It hardly seems that Miranda was the only person involved in the break-in - judging by the spread of the memos, he clearly passed them along to other people, at the very least, who must have then known of the plot. Note #1: One of Miranda's defenses was that "there is no such thing as a property right to a federal document." Uh, in that case, I'm sure he'd be happy to provide us with the papers that Miguel Estrada had written ... and his own strategies for dealing with the filibuster, for that matter. Makes sense, no? Note #2: Miranda has been a continual thorn in the side of the university since he graduated (some people don't understand that - unless you're entering academia - you leave when you're done). Besides formerly serving as the President of the Cardinal Newman Society, which argues that Catholic universities should become more Catholicized, at all costs (not being Catholic, this is one of those things that I think should be entirely left up university administrators and students, not to outsiders). Miranda has also been involved with The Georgetown Academy a hyper-conservative newspaper usually filled with insults and screeds against various students and faculty deemed too left-wing (or in other words, anywhere to the left of Pat Buchanan). Fun guy, eh? OK, so I just got back from the Tenet speech, which was apparently his first public defense of the pre-war intelligence and first speech in months. He ranged over a number of topics, which can be summarized in the following: 1. No imminent threat The CIA estimate of Iraq's WMD capabilities in late 2002 found that Iraq was trying to build a number of different WMD programs and had various capabilities, but was not an imminent threat to the United States. (Spinsanity has some background on the 'imminent threat' rhetoric) 2. Analysis of intelligence Tenet said "Unfortunately, you rarely hear a patient, careful or thoughtful discussion of intelligence these days. But these times demand it, because the alternative -- politicized, haphazard evaluation without the benefit of time and facts -- may well result in an intelligence community that is damaged and a country that is more at risk." 3. The Iraq Survey Group Despite the assertions of David Kay and others, the ISG is nowhere near '85%' complete, Tenet said, and is far from complete. It still has much work to do in all parts of Iraq. Moreover, it has run into systematic attempts to inhibit its work, both through intimidation and the organized destruction of files and other information during the immediate aftermath of the war and thereafter. As a result, Tenet was insistent that any information he gave today was provisional and subject to future revision as more information becomes available - and insisted that this would be made available to the American people. 4. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Iraq has been found in recent months to have had various unmanned aerial vehicles - probably, though not certainly, for the dispersal of biological and chemical weapons - that could have been used regionally, or, if launched close enough, used to attack the United States. Iraq did admit to parts of this program - in violation of UN sanctions - in the run up to the war. 5. Nuclear Weapons No one thought that Iraq had any nuclear capability during the war, but would have been able to build a bomb within 12-24 months if it could acquire fissile material, it was thought during the run up to the war. This now appears to have vastly overestimated the capability - it probably would've been a few years. 6. Biological Weapons We thought that they were building dual use facilities - which could be used for civilian production or converted to illicit use - but did not have much success in actual production yet. We haven't yet really found much. 7. Chemical Weapons We thought that they were building dual use facilities and may have had relatively small stocks. We haven't yet really found much yet, but we believe that they probably didn't have the stocks we thought they did. 8. The Chem/Bio mobile production trailers We thought they were to be used for mobile production of various weapons in violation of UN sanctions. We're not sure whether they were intended for that or for hydrogen production - they don't appear to have been ideally suited for either one. 9. CIA productivity Tenet argued that the CIA knew what was going on in Libya, Iran, North Korea and elsewhere. This may or may not be true - I really have no idea how accurate it is - but it seems pretty clear from elsewhere in the speech that the CIA gets a lot of information and has to often balance contradicting info. Thus, it may be technically correct to say that it had accurate information about various threats - though it probably also had other information that has been subsequently been proven wrong. If we do have things right more often, it raises the question of why we're apparenlty not doing more - we've dealt with Libya, but seem to have no footing in dealing with Iran or North Korea right now. 10. The CIA and the rest of the intelligence community Tenet, when asked about the effect of the Office of Special Programs (Doug Feith's domain) in the Pentagon in its effect on the politicization of intelligence on Iraq. Tenet replied that he did his job at the CIA, and that the President worked off of the objective view and information of the CIA alone. The former is a valid point - Tenet had little control over OSP. As far as the latter, well, fat chance. 11. The independent WMD commission Tenet said that he welcomed the establishment of a commission to investigate WMD claims and the chance to explain the actions of the CIA in drawing up its estimates. 12. Human intelligence Tenet suggested that we did not have the human intelligence in Iraq that we would have liked to have had, but our human intelligence elsewhere is much better, and we were able to rely on the intelligence sources of our allies in Iraq. Analysis ... I think Tenet seems to have overestimated the importance of the CIA in the intelligence process and underestimated the role of Defense and other groups in setting the President's mindset on Iraq. That said, I think he wants to fiercely defend the CIA's independence and commitment to objectivity - when he uttered the words "politicized, haphazard evaluation," he practically spat them out. Tenet seemst to be confident in his ability to prevent the politicization of the CIA but simultaneously seems unconcerned about the politicization of the rest of the intelligence community. He was quite insistent that the CIA would make further information that it finds out about Iraq available as found out "no matter what," rather than this information being politically controlled. It seems that both the left and right on the political spectrum will find something to be pleased about with this speech. Opponents of the war will clearly be pleased by the disclosure that the CIA did not see Iraq as an imminent threat. On the other hand, supporters of the war will look at the list of intelligence as far as Iraq's repeated violations of UN sanctions on missiles and UAVs and the possible future threats from eventual WMD production as justification for the war. The news outlets ... CNN's current story is mostly just a few quotes from the speech and some stuff excerpted from the preview earlier. MSNBC currently has an AP story up that emphasizes Tenet's point-by-point estimates, and the fact that Tenet said that the CIA never saw Iraq as an imminent threat. The WaPo has a partial transcript here. The New York Times has an early article up here. Wednesday, February 04, 2004
CIA Chief George Tenet is set to speak at Georgetown University tomorrow to 'correct misperceptions' about the CIA and its intel on Iraq. Now, I think I should have a ticket (long story). Anyhow, Georgetown usually makes sure that its speakers have to answer questions from the audience (they have made exceptions once in a while in the past, though the only one that I can remember was Bill Clinton during the speech in which he announced he was postponing certain work on the Missile Shield). Any suggestions as to any questions that I should ask if I were to get a chance? Thanks. UPDATE: I got stuck in the balcony and didn't get a chance to line up for the only microphone in the room. In any case, someone asked the question, more or less, about the Pentagon reinterpretation of the case for war in Iraq, that I wanted to get at, and Tenet essentially brushed it off, saying he did his job and others did theirs. Tuesday, February 03, 2004
I'm getting really sick of people releasing the exit poll data early. Besides the fact that this can distort the democratic process by causing some voters - though probably not a huge amount now - to just follow the herd rather than voting their preferences, the early release takes the fun out of waiting for the results to roll in at night. Sunday, February 01, 2004
Super Bowl Prediction The halftime show will suck. UPDATE: And my immaculate record of predictions stands intact ... There's an interesting article over at MSNBC on how the remaining Democratic candidates are targeting specific states in Tuesday's primaries, save Dean - who is targeting the subsequent Washington and Michigan caucuses and Wisconsin primary - and the no-hopers, Kucinich and Sharpton. Essentially, it looks like Edwards, Clark and Lieberman have roughly divvied up the states, each taking on Kerry in one of them. Edwards has staked a claim to South Carolina (and promised to withdraw if he doesn't finish first, though he might conceivably stay in if it's extremely close). Clark has staked out Oklahoma, and also Arizona. Lieberman, riding that wave of Joementum, has targeted tiny Delaware. No one paid much attention to Missouri until recently because Gephardt was still running, and New Mexico's size and distance have made campaigning there relatively difficult. I don't really have the expertise to know how much the divide-and-conquer strategy might work. In any case, it will depend a fair amount on who gets momentum where, and how the media ends up covering things. Interestingly, though, the whole article reads like a big endorsement of the idea that realism is alive and well, if not in international relations, then certainly in domestic politics. Realist theory, for those who don't know, is (in an oversimplified sense) the idea that the world is essentially stuck in a Hobbesian mentality in which groups are always contesting for power. If one group gets too much power, other groups will band together to attack. In this case, Clark, Edwards and Lieberman are effectively - though not overtly - trying to band together to weaken Kerry so that each of them has a chance to ascend to the empty podium at the crucial moment. Saturday, January 31, 2004
Friday, January 30, 2004
Looking at the various reactions to the Hutton Inquiry - see Atrios, the Guardian editorial, the continuing refusal of resigned BBC Director General Greg Dyke to admit the validity of the Hutton criticisms or pretty much any other British paper in the last couple of days - I've found it surprising how many people have argued that the report was essentially a whitewash in one way or another, with the report going all out against the BBC and in favor of Blair. First, I don't know of anyone who leveled serious and valid criticisms about Hutton's partiality before the report was delivered. So I have a hard time accepting post-hoc criticisms of this, or Dyke's argument that Blair essentially rigged the jury, so to speak. Second, it seems pretty damn clear that David Kelly killed himself. The Vince Foster-like conspiracy theories are pretty damn ludicrous. Third, Hutton's inquiry was - by his own decision - limited to looking at the circumstances surrounding Gilligan's report, Kelly's death, and the accuracy of the claims about the dossier that Gilligan claimed had been 'sexed up' - as well as the subsequent reaction at the BBC. The first matter is Gilligan's responsibility, the second Kelly's, the third belongs to Blair, and the fourth the fault of the BBC. As far as the first matter, the BBC is apparently now launching an inquiry into Gilligan, as they should (and probably should have done a few months ago). The second is dead and can't - unless someone can prove me wrong - be resuscitated at this point. The fourth has led to the resignations of Davies and Dyke. It seems pretty clear that the inner workings of the BBC in dealing with serious claims of flaws in their reports need fixing. Basically, they took questions about whether a report had been falsified and just argued that the report was true and refused to look into it. As far as the dossier - Hutton only cleared the government of the allegations that the dossier itself had been 'sexed up.' The dossier was not the whole case for war. While the dossier had apparently not been 'sexed up' - though it probably was the result of cherry-picking (as all intelligence analysis will be at some point or another) - the case for war was clearly 'sexed up' on both sides of the Atlantic. Claims about WMDs and Al-Qaeda links were clearly exaggerated. The Hutton Inquiry did not exonerate Blair of exaggerating the entire case for war, as he almost certainly did, and should not be taken as such. The Hutton Inquiry report, while a vindication for Blair, only means that the dossier was, while flawed, not intentionally falsified. The report was not a whitewash - it was just a lot more narrowly defined than most observers seem to realize. Finally, the attitude at the BBC seems to be quite troubling. Somewhere along the line, the BBC seems to have taken the point of view that independence from the government means a reflexive opposition to it, rather than a dedication to finding the objective truth. This is hardly a new view - the BBC gave Harold Wilson and Margaret Thatcher fits at various times over their reporting. Moreover, it is hardly a unique problem, being a problem for quasi-independent government-funded agencies worldwide (the Bank of Japan has actually experienced similar problems over the last decade, keeping monetary policy more contractionary than apparently necessary as a means to thumbing its nose at the government). The attitude of Dyke, Gilligan and many others at the BBC seems to have been that they were right to oppose the government's backing of the war in Iraq, and were right to do so regardless of their journalistic obligation to the objective truth. And that, it seems, has been the ultimate failure here. UPDATE: Andrew Gilligan has resigned from the BBC. Gilligan has continued to defend the bulk of his story - which was largely correct - but has at least admitted that his claim that Blair knew the 45 minutes claim was false was incorrect. He has, at least - unlike Dyke and, to a lesser extent, Davies - offered what appears to be an actual personal apology for getting part of the story wrong. Of course, it's yet to be seen if he does what Greg Dyke did and turn around in a day and two and condemn the whole Hutton Inquiry as biaset, etc., etc. Countries I've been to The list of countries I've visited looks a lot less impressive than the states list, I guess, and there are a couple of dubious claims there - though it was only five countries total before the year at the LSE and assorted travels. I should note that I actually slept through Liechtenstein - I was on an overnight train at the time (and I don't think I missed much) - and I was only Sweden for about three hours (I had too much time in Copenhagen and went over to Malmo for a little while - and found out that there's really nothing there). create your own visited country map UPDATE: On my computer, there are some random islands that show up as speckled red dots. Those are mistakes, either of the image or of my computer. Dunno which. States I've been to Basically, I've done the East Coast at this point, and missed out on almost all of the middle of the country. I should note, though, that I'm not entirely sure about two of them. I seem to recall having been to Maine on a vacation in 1987, but given my age at the time, I'm not entirely sure. And while I've been through Delaware in a car or train numerous times, I can't recall actually putting my foot on the ground there, so I'm not sure if that actually counts. create your own visited states map Wednesday, January 28, 2004
Does anyone know the names of the statistical abstracts for Canada, Britain, New Zealand, Ireland and Australia? (I need data concerning various health, crime, government spending measures, among other things, mostly dealing with the last 50 or so years - more recent data only wouldn't be fatal, though) Tuesday, January 27, 2004
Anyone care to offer a guess as to just how many candidates will claim victory in New Hampshire in one way or another tonight? Probably all seven. Sunday, January 25, 2004
There's an article by Dorothy Brown, a Washington & Lee University School of Law in the NYT today in which she argues that if the President really wants to promote marriage, he should eliminate the marriage penalty. The marriage penalty, for the uniniated, is the result of flukes in the tax laws that mean that some married couples end up paying more in income taxes as the result of filing jointly than they would filing separately. Some couples, however, because of the tax laws, end up actually paying less. The problem, is though, that this accounting mess cannot be fixed without creating an even larger mess in the tax laws. So, my question is this: Why not just eliminate the anachronism and make couples file their taxes separately, thus ridding ourselves of the distortion entirely? Well, there are two reasons, I guess. The first is simple tradition - and the fact that it might seem 'anti-marriage,' to do so, regardless of the tax implications. The second is that it would create more paperwork. Still, one has to wonder if it would be far easier to eliminate the disparity - and the distortions - by just ridding ourselves of joint filing entirely, rather than trying to patch up the system inadequately. Tuesday, January 20, 2004
Two quick, pointless points: 1. I really don't have anything any more insightful to say about the Iowa caucuses than has been said and will be said elsewhere. 2. I did not watch the State of the Union. This isn't a partisan thing for me. I find it a pointlessly boring exercize in making promises that can't be kept, won't be kept, and probably shouldn't be kept in many instances. I stopped watching years ago - toward the end of the Clinton years - when it became clear that nothing useful would ever actually be said during a State of the Union. Frankly, I really don't understand why they still hold the damn things (yes, I realize that it's actually a partisan event at this point). UPDATE: Upon further review, I've found out that the Constitution (Article 2, Section 3) actually requires that the President "shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union ..." though this doesn't formally say that it has to be done in a speech (and, indeed, a written report was used during much of the 19th century, until radio became a viable means to relay the speech) Monday, January 19, 2004
I don't really see the purpose in trying to make an ironclad prediction of which Democratic candidate will win what percentage or what number of delegates. There are plenty of other people who are following things much more closely and have a better idea of what will actually happen in the next few hours. Thus, I will make the following, fairly ironclad, predictions: 1. George W. Bush will win the Republican caucus (if they're even bothering to hold them, which I'm not entirely sure of). 2. Each Democratic candidate will attempt to spin the results as a positive outcome, saying that they outperformed expectations. Even Lyndon LaRouche. 3. The State of the Union address tomorrow will, as always, include far more promises on spending and tax cuts than can actually be achieved. The speech will also run long and be extremely boring. And there won't be anything else worth watching on TV. 4. The sun will still rise tomorrow (unless you're living far enough near the North Pole that it still stays dark all day). As you can see, I'm really going out on a limb, particularly with the last prediction. Saturday, January 17, 2004
Antonin "Fat Tony" Scalia is refusing to recuse himself from a Supreme Court hearing on the lawsuit to force Dick Cheney to turn over information from the Energy Task Force meetings, despite the fact that he recently went on a hunting trip with his good friend, the defendant. Now, the law does seem to be fairly vague on the question of whether Scalia has to recuse himself because of the hunting trip. Then again, considering the long-time friendship between the two that brought about the trip, Scalia ought to recuse himself from the case, regardless of the trip itself. Both the New York Times and Washington Post editorial boards are upset about President Bush's recess appointment of Charles Pickering to the federal bench. The latter editorial, in particular, is more upset about the use of the recess appointment than Pickering himself. I find myself in an opposing position. Pickering is an all but unreconstructed segregationist and racist, with an horrific record on the bench that calls into question his ability to interpret the law in a sound manner. David Brooks writes "Conservatives like me don't get a vote in Democratic primaries, but we do have an interest." David, get over it. You're a Republican. It's not a sin (though it does question the ostensible objectivity of your columns on partisan subjects) Writing the last post gave me a thought: First, looking at the Democratic candidates, there are clearly more qualified candidates than can actually win the candidacy. Second, the VP nomination may go to one of the losing candidates, but there's more than two decent candidates out there. Third, the VP nomination announcement has been moving earlier and earlier in recent years - hell, it wasn't that long ago that it was a Convention-time decision - and will likely be announced within a few weeks of the presidential nomination being decided this year, to get a jump on fundraising and campaigning. Thus, rather than just announcing a VP candidate, I have to think that the Democratic candidate should subsequently announce a partial Shadow Cabinet, as the opposition does in Britain and most other parliamentary democracies. The result would be that there would be a half-dozen or so Democrats running around the country, raising serious money for the eventual candidates and offering a counter-point to Ashcroft, Rumsfeld and company. It would also have the advantage of jettisoning the intra-party politicking for appointments that has poisoned so many transitions. In other words, instead of having two high profile Democrats out in the media, there'd be four or five. (I'm not arguing for provisionally appointing people to every cabinet position, as this would probably divert too much time from the actual campaigning and spread attention too thin) So, if Clark doesn't get the nod for Prez or VP, he could be announced as shadow Secretary of State or SecDef. If Edwards doesn't get either nod, he could be announced as shadow Attorney General. If Dean doesn't get either nod ... well, I dunno what would be a good position for him (Surgeon General, obviously, but that's not actually a Cabinet position, and would clearly be a step down anyway). And I'm not sure if we would want to extend this to Lieberman (Homeland Security?) and Gephardt (Commerce?), who already have jobs in Congress. I should note that there would be some disadvantages to this idea. Most notably, it would require the losing candidates to check their egos at the door, which is never an easy thing to ask. More than that, though the shadow cabinet candidates would not need the same size entourage that each Presidential and VP candidate gets, there would clearly be a noticeable cost to this plan - though ideally less than the candidates would raise above what the President and VP themselves do. That said, I think that any plan getting more high-profile Democrats out to the people, and getting more money into the campaign coffers is strongly worth considering. The more I think about it, the more confused I am about who I'm going to vote for in the primary. The Ohio Primary is in early March, but I'll have to decide a week or so early, as I'm voting absentee for the umpteenth time. For a while, I was thinking about just throwing my vote away and going with Carol Moseley-Braun, but I guess that won't work now (anyhow, she failed to register for the Ohio ballot). I won't vote for Joe Lieberman. He's too holier-than-thou - I'm not referring to the religion issue, which I really don't care about, but his general attitude. I won't vote for Kucinich, who would be an absolutely disastrous President (though, as I always find myself saying, he really wasn't as bad as most people think as Mayor of Cleveland, despite the default). And two little words (Tawanna Brawley) are enough to keep me from even thinking about Sharpton. I'm none too fond of Gephardt, either. I think he would have been a great candidate, circa 1950 or so. His absolute tendency to demand protectionism is something I utterly abhor. I'm perfectly willing to consider a somewhat populist candidate, anyhow, but I don't think Gephardt has it down right. I really want to like Dean. The recent attack ad in Iowa, though, hit a really raw nerve with me, however. While I'm not going to argue that Dean has to sit back and take the attacks from the other candidates, I don't think that going after the others for their votes on the Iraq resolution is going to win any votes. And anyhow, it's a moot point now. I'm perfectly willing to listen to criticisms on where the others want to go, but I don't see what's to be gained from criticizing where things were. More than that, I find myself really concerned by the composition of the Deaniacs. I have no problem with 90% of them, really, but the other 10% are so far left that I have to wonder if I want to share a tent with them. For a while, I didn't like the Edwards campaign, mostly because it seemed to be trying to repeat the Bill Clinton formula. It's not that I have anything against a candidate being like Clinton. Edwards actually seemed to be trying to be Clinton (sans the character problems). Lately, though, he seems to be moving more from the latter to the former. There are two problems that I've had with Edwards. The first is the inexperience issue. That's not a huge thing, though, and I can easily get past that. The bigger problem is, a la Gephardt, that he's just far too protectionist. And then there's Kerry. I agree with just about everything he's said to date. The problem is that his campaign has been horribly run from the outset, and I'm afraid that Karl Rove and company would run circles around a Kerry campaign. Finally, there's Clark. On foreign policy, he's great - and I don't really give a damn about the semantics of where he stood on Iraq. His position probably changed marginally from week to week, as did just about everyone else's. I just can't figure out where the hell he stands on just about any domestic policy issue. So there you have my views. Maybe I should just put up a poll and leave the decision up to the people reading this, no? CNN reported yesterday that Bush is moving into full anti-Clark mode. Which is a little confusing since the Bushies were gunning for Dean ... or Carol Moseley-Braun ... I can't remember which. For all the deriding of the large and fairly even field - what the hell is Kucinich doing there, anyhow? - I'm starting to think that the large field is actually a strength for the Democratic party, both as it allows to get the demons out and have the party unite behind a single consensus candidate in the end - well, hopefully. More importantly, it diverts the attention of the Republicans in targeting individual Democratic candidates. Where the Republicans could target Gore from 1999 onward last time around, there'll only be a few months to target the Democratic candidate. Historically, it seems to me that the party with more legitimate candidates generally seems to do far better in November. (Of course, that gets into the question of what qualifies as a legitimate candidate, and whether you start counting no-hopers like Moseley-Braun and Gary Bauer, let alone perennial candidates a la LaRouche and Stassen). Still, since 1968 - the last time that the conventions played a real role in the nomination process (excepting 1976, arguably) - only in 1972, 1984 and 1996 did the party with fewer candidates win the election - each time, because the incumbent had little or no opposition. 1972 was a little anomalous, as the Democratic nomination was subjected to the Nixon dirty tricks campaign, which paved the way for George McGovern. 1996 was somewhat anomalous as well - though the Republican nomination was nominally contested, it was clearly Bob Dole's from the start. Still, the pattern seemed to hold true in 1976, 1980, 1984, 1992 and 2000. It seems to be a definite trend - though not an overwhelming one. And getting rid of an incumbent president is never an easy thing to do. But, together, the Democrats might pull it off. The Supreme Court has refused to issue an injunction to block the use of the redrawn map for state and Congressional races, which would drastically reshape many districts to favor the Republicans. While this does not directly decide the lawsuit, which will be heard later, it would not seem to bode well on the possible outcome of the suit once it is actually heard by the Justices. In any case, it will make it nearly impossible for the Democrats to retake the House in 2004, barring a massive anti-Bush and anti-Republican landslide (which would, ultimately, be unsustainable, anyhow). What one would make of this relative to the Pennsylvania case, also soon to be heard - the Texas case is argued over minority voting rights, where the Pennsylvania case will decide whether a Congressional map can be deemed illegal simply on the basis of overwhelming gerrymandering - is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose. Thursday, January 15, 2004
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
A few notes about the mess surrounding Paul O'Neill's book release. First, I think it's worth remembering that this is a man with a habit of shooting his mouth off. I have no reason to believe that his habits have changed much since he left office. On the other hand, he's always been a gabby straight-shooter, not likely to spin things or outright lie. So I don't doubt his characterizations much. Second, the utter hypocrisy of the Bush White House in quickly publicizing an investigation into the release of classified documents is astounding - after having acted similarly itself in releasing classified documents to Bob Woodward for Bush at War - and after having done little to push forward an investigation (which is ongoing despite its best efforts, apparently), into the release of substantive information when Bob Novak listed Valerie Plame's name. Third, I don't think there's really anything remotely interesting in the document itself. I should note first of all that I actually haven't had a chance to read it due to technological problems since I returned to Georgetown, but am only going by news reports. The policy of the American government towards Iraq had been to call for regime change since the airstrikes in 1998. With that in mind, it would have been utter folly to not prepare plans for a possible war, as the military should be prepared for any international contingency.*Iraq had long (and regularly) been a preoccupying problem for the American government and greater global community, well before the early months of the Bush administration. *As Josh Marshall noted awhile back: "There are plans and plans, of course. It's in the nature of Joint Staffs to have plans on hand for even most improbable of wars. (If I remember correctly, the US had battle plans even for going to war with Britain as late as the years between the first and second world wars, though perhaps it was earlier than that. Point being, it's the job of the military to have plans on hand for even the most hard-to-conceive eventualities.)" Friday, January 09, 2004
I don't know why I bother worrying about what Charles Krauthammer writes. He's a nutter. Well, unlike him, I'm not medically qualified to diagnose him as such, but reading his columns, it seems quite certain that he's a paranoid wacko. His fear of Howard Dean has been worsening of late. Hell, even George Will writes a coherent, interesting column once in a while (though mostly on non-partisan subjects). That said, on to Krauthammer's column today: Krauthammer lambastes Howard Dean for saying that the U.S. isn't any safer after the capture of Saddam Hussein ... 21 days after Hussein's capture, it's too soon to tell. He then goes on to say that America is, in fact, safer. The problem is that if it's too soon to say if Americans are less safe, it's also too soon to say if we are any safer, either. The capture of Saddam Hussein may have been a turning point in the conflict in Iraq ... or it may not have been - that turning point may also have come earlier, later, or not at all. If it's too soon to tell if your opponent is wrong, it's also too soon to tell if you are right on the same subject. Gregg Easterbrook has written a rather frightening estimate of what a moon base or a mission to Mars might cost. The moon base, he guesses, would cost about $200 billion, while a manned Mars mission would cost in the range of $600 billion. Again, we need to have a good reason for considering either one of these missions - that is, there must be tangible external benefits that would be produced. Neither one of them would seem likely to do so in the near future (Easterbrook does note that a Mars base would be useful to producing energy via fusion reactors, but fusion reactors remain decades away if at all possible). It's worth noting that Easterbrook has long been an opponent of much of the space program, seeing it as wasteful and unnecessarily dangerous. That said, I have to think that he's utterly right in stating that "What NASA needs right now is not an absurd, bank-breaking grand mission: It needs to spend a decade researching a safer lower-cost alternative to the space shuttle." There's an interesting Op-Ed by David Abraham in the New York Times criticizing Bush's plan to issue work permits to certain illegal immigrants on the grounds that it mirrors European 'guest worker' programs that existed between the 1950's and 1970's, and have subsequently given significant headaches to many European countries. Numerous European countries allowed 'guest worker' programs during that period to deal with huge labor shortages. In particular, West Germany imported huge numbers of Turkish and Yugoslav workers, while the Netherlands and France imported more North African workers. Rather than going home, though, many of the workers stayed in Europe and later brought the rest of their familes along. This became a problem as the poor immigrant population strained welfare programs and the labor supply overshot the demand for labor following the oil crises of the 1970's. The problem with this comparison is that there are a number of historical and legal differences that would minimize the likelihood of similar problems. First, relative to the total population (and total labor supply), the American program would seem to be far smaller than the 'guest worker' programs, which significantly altered the demographics of many European nations over the last half-century. Second, the American social safety net is far smaller than most European ones, and not likely to be as costly as European programs. Third, many of the problems that have resulted in Europe have come about because of the continued difficulty in assimilating non-European cultures. The result is that large immigrant populations have been kept at the outskirts of society in certain European countries. North America, on the other hand, is essentially built on immigration, and has many centuries experience in acknowledging the differences in cultures and accommodating them. Moreover, many European countries have maintained legal systems that extend citizenship by blood rather than by birth, creating untold problems down the line as second and third-generation descendants of immigrants can only claim the citizenship of their ancestral country rather than that of their residence. The American legal system, while not particularly accommodating to extending citizenship to illegal immigrants, has not punished the children for what their parents did (and has also - at times - created amnesties to allow illegal immigrants to gain citizenship). The frictures that have existed in Europe were not purely the result of the 'guest worker' programs, but from a number of unfavorable circumstances, many of which do not exist in the U.S. Thursday, January 08, 2004
From the 'You Get What You Deserve' dept. The University of Nebraska is apparently going to hire Bill Callahan to be the next head coach of its football team. (For the uniniated, the University of Nebraska fired its old head coach, Frank Solich, after he led the team to an impressive 9-3 record in the regular season ... because the team didn't do any better and was no longer feared, regardless of the fact that they were still one of the best teams in the country. As a result, practically no one was willing to consider the position. Callahan, on the other hand, proved to be a total ass in alienating his entire team, describing them as "the dumbest team in America" at a press conference and nearly inciting a munity en route to a 4-12 season) To boldly go ... where a dozen guys have been before The whispers are growing louder and louder that the Bush administration is going to propose a return to the moon and possibly to Mars as well. Er ... why? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the space program when it has a point. The Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs were all designed to build rocketry systems that would be useful in national security - and eventually petered out when they were no longer useful to that end. The Skylab and Space Shuttle programs were intended to be used towards a variety of scientific experiments (some more valuable than others, admittedly). Among all of the manned space missions, only the one-shot Apollo-Soyuz mission went up for the sake of itself. The apparent proposal seems to have come about - political considerations aside - because other countries are doing it. Yeah, well they're doing it because we already did it ... thirty-odd years ago. Nationalistic considerations are frankly an idiotic reason for a space program, and more than that, a near-total waste of money. Plainly speaking, the means cannot be ends in themselves - there needs to be a separate reason to do things. The nuts and bolts seem to be pretty problematic as well. The recent success with the Mars lander aside, NASA has mucked up a lot of missions over the last decade, with numerous failures that would raise the question of whether it could really expect to successfully expect to pull off the long-term manned missions that the Moon base or Mars mission would entail. Truthfully, there are other missions that would seem to be far more cost-effective right now, be it building the 'space plane' to replace the outdated Space Shuttle program, continuing to build the International Space Station, encouraging the commercialization of space, rebuilding the Russian space program - which could actually have quite beneficial political side effects - or looking into landers and other missions to the planets beyond Mars. Don't get me wrong, it would be really, really cool to either send men to the moon again or to Mars. But that's not nearly enough justification. There's an interesting article in the New York Times today about an IMF report criticizing imbalances in the American economy. It's nice to see that the problem is finally getting some attention. Interestingly, the report seems - at least from the article - to point to the problems resulting from the large American fiscal debt. The problem is that the debt, while huge in absolute terms, isn't exactly overwhelming relative to the overall economy. The article pegs it at 40% of the overall economy (which I'm assuming is a nice but oblique way of saying GDP). The devt levels of Japan and many western European countries are far larger now. Indeed, the total American debt level was nearly equal to a far smaller GDP at the end of World War II, and total British debt accumulated to nearly 2.5X times GDP at about the same time. On the other hand, the current fiscal deficits of the American federal government would seem to be far more problematic because of the resulting imbalances in the national income accounts, and problems in the capital accounts, rising real interest rates and a sinking currency. Of course, it could just be that the authors of the article have a hard time telling the difference between a debt and a deficit ... which may well be the case. In any case, any crisis is going to need a trigger, however small. |
