Pejmanesque

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

For him that Stealeth a Book from this Library,
Let it change into a Serpent in his hand & rend him.
Let him be struck with Palsy, & all his Members blasted.
Let him languish in Pain crying aloud for Mercy,
Let there be no Surcease to his Agony till he sink to Dissolution.
Let Bookworms gnaw his Entrails in token of the Worm that dieth not,
When at last he goeth to his final Punishment,
Let the flames of hell consume him for ever & aye.

--From the monastery of San Pedro in Barcelona (there is some doubt as to whether the monastery ever existed, but I am entirely in agreement with the curse).

CARRILLONATHON!

Following up on the post immediately below, and given the fact that music restoreth the soul, I went down to Hyde Park this evening to take in the second-to-last performance for the year in Rockefeller Chapel's Carillonathon series. By a pure act of serendipity, Pachelbel's Canon in D was played (though, alas, not the gigue) and it was quite charming to hear the many bells of the Chapel ring out the familiar and sweet tune. Interestingly enough, it is easier to hear the Carillon from outside than it is inside the Chapel. Which was fine this evening--the weather outside was beautiful.

Of course, one cannot venture out to Hyde Park without taking in the Medici and the wonderful pizza and ambience it offers (along with a generous serving of RC Cola--which is quite hard to find anywhere else). I should have used my pocketknife to carve my name in yet another table--though there was little room on the table to do so.

The night would have been perfect if only I didn't hear the 1812 Overture on WFMT this evening. Not that I have anything against the Overture, mind you (in fact, I love it), but this rendition was played by the USSR State Symphony. At the end of the piece, when we hear the rousing finish, the Symphony instead substituted a different version of the finale--making me wonder whether I had entered some bizarre alternative universe. When the piece was over, the radio announcer explained that at the end of the Overture, Tchaikovsky had inserted a tune called God Save The Czar--which is the familiar majestic and heroic melody we hear and associate most closely with the Overture. Naturally, the USSR State Symphony could not be heard playing God Save The Czar, so they decided instead to tweak Tchaikovsky's masterpiece.

Needless to say, Tchaikovsky's version was better.

AUDITORY BLISS

Many people don't know that Pachelbel's Canon in D should actually be referred to as the Canon and Gigue in D--with the gigue not being played all that much. That's a pity because it is a very vibrant, charming and intelligently constructed movement which deserves its place in the sun.

I have been rejoicing throughout the day, however, because this morning on WFMT, I heard an excellent rendition of both the canon and the gigue on period instruments played by the marvelous Musica Antiqua de Cologne. As a consequence, I continue to enjoy the effects of divine auditory bliss.

That is all.

IF YOU'RE GOING TO BE SNIDE AND ARROGANT, IT HELPS TO BE RIGHT AS WELL

James Miller wrote this piece arguing that if the bounty on Osama bin Laden was increased to $1 billion, it might help capture the terrorist thanks to the increased reward incentive. While one might quibble with particulars of Miller's statement, it is entirely reasonable to think that an increased bounty will help spur efforts to get bin Laden.

Chris Bertram, however, will have none of that newfangled logic and reason. Continuing the jihad against Tech Central Station that now appears to define the mission over at Crooked Timber (and probably is a sine qua non for being able to post there), Bertram issues a two sentence snark against Miller's idea. Mind you, there are no actual counterarguments in Bertram's post. Just juvenile sarcasm. But apparently, Bertram seems to think that this is enough to dismiss Miller's piece.

Fortunately, Alex Tabarrok is a great deal more substantive than the majority of Crooked Timber bloggers, and points out that Bertram's sarcasm is about as misplaced as it could possibly be:

I'm puzzled, don't the gang know that the United States has been putting bounties on terrorists since 1984? Or that Qusay and Uday Hussein were located due to a reward - as was Al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, as was Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 WTC bombing as were the terrorists responsible for the destruction of Pan Am 103? Could the gang be unaware that in the United States bounty hunters have a better record than the public police both at preventing bail jumping and apprehending fugitives once they have jumped bail?

No response has come yet from Bertram--but then again, what will he respond with? Attempts to imitate the vapidity of prose that has been trademarked by Maureen Dowd does tend to get a bit stale, after all, and I can't help but think that even the writers at Crooked Timber will eventually slink away in embarrassment when it becomes clear to all but the irredeemably purblind that Crooked Timber has nothing substantive to add to this debate.

But if it is snark that Bertram and the gang want, it is snark they shall have. Here is Radley Balko, properly excoriating Bertram and his supporters on both their lack of facts and their insufferable arrogance. Bertram might want to take note of the post--at least Balko cites some facts and figures to justify his sarcasm at Crooked Timber. And for those of us who remember that Crooked Timber was initially advertised as the liberal answer to the Volokh Conspiracy, spare a prayer and a hope that Eugene Volokh and his fellow bloggers will never again have to suffer such an insulting comparison.

UPDATE: William Sjostrom has more on this issue, and on other examples of bloggers who have decided to join the Silly Party.

MY WISH FOR THE DAY

Can the University of Chicago please get rid of Bruce Cumings? The man is a complete embarrassment:

You've just finished your life's work, a bold new history of the Watergate burglary in which you manage to prove that the White House was out of the loop, but the ink is hardly dry when an eighteen-minute tape surfaces in a Yorba Linda thrift shop, and soon the whole country is listening to Nixon gangsta-rap about how he personally jimmied the door open. It's every revisionist's nightmare, but Bruce Cumings, a history professor at the University of Chicago, has come closest to living it. In a book concluded in 1990 he argued that the Korean War started as "a local affair," and that the conventional notion of a Soviet-sponsored invasion of the South was just so much Cold War paranoia. In 1991 Russian authorities started declassifying the Soviet archives, which soon revealed that Kim Il Sung had sent dozens of telegrams begging Stalin for a green light to invade, and that the two met in Moscow repeatedly to plan the event. Initially hailed as "magisterial," The Origins of the Korean War soon gathered up its robes and retired to chambers. The book was such a valuable source of information on Korea in the 1940s, however, that many hoped the author would find a way to fix things and put it back into print.

Instead Cumings went on to write an account of postwar Korea that instances the North's "miracle rice," "autarkic" economy, and prescient energy policy (an "unqualified success") to refute what he calls the "basket-case" view of the country. With even worse timing than its predecessor, Korea's Place in the Sun (1997) went on sale just as the world was learning of a devastating famine wrought by Pyongyang's misrule. The author must have wondered if he was snakebit. But now we have a new book, in which Cumings likens North Korea to Thomas More's Utopia, and this time the wrongheadedness seems downright willful; it's as if he were so tired of being made to look silly by forces beyond his control that he decided to do the job himself. At one point in North Korea: Another Country (2004) we are even informed that the regime's gulags aren't as bad as they're made out to be, because Kim Jong Il is thoughtful enough to lock up whole families at a time.

The mixture of naiveté and callousness will remind readers of the Moscow travelogues of the 1930s, but Cumings is more a hater of U.S. foreign policy than a wide-eyed supporter of totalitarianism. The book's apparent message is that North Korea's present condition can justify neither our last "police action" on the peninsula nor any new one that may be in the offing. It is perhaps a point worth arguing, particularly in view of the mess in Iraq, but Cumings is too emotional to get the job done. His compulsion to prove conservative opinion wrong on every point inspires him to say things unworthy of any serious historian—that there was no crime in North Korea for decades, for example—and to waste space refuting long-forgotten canards and misconceptions. Half a page is given over to deriding American reporters who once mistook Kim Il Sung's neck growth for a brain tumor—talk about a dead issue.

I await Jessica Harbour's expert annihilation of Cumings's nonsensical arguments, though I understand if she decides to pass over the chance to shoot fish in a barrel.

THE DECLINE OF THE DEMOCRATIC LEFT

Nick Cohen has written out a devastating indictment:

Three mementoes of a steamy summer which prove, if proof were needed, that the principled left was a 19th- and 20th-century phenomenon.

1) The hit of the season is Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, a sort of Fox News for liberals. Among the many clunking contradictions and honking errors, one unforgivable scene stands out. Moore brushes aside the millions forced into exile and mass graves by Saddam Hussein, and decides to present life in one of the worst tyrannies of the late 20th century as sweet and simple. Boys scamper to barber shops. Merry children fly kites. Blushing lovers get married.

At the end of the film, leftish audiences in America and Europe show they are more than prepared to forgive and forget. They rise to their feet and applaud.

2) In July, Yusuf al-Qaradawi arrives in London to meet the leaders of the Muslim Association of Britain - co-organisers of the great anti-war demonstration of February 2003 - and Ken Livingstone, the "left-wing" mayor of London. Al-Qaradawi's Islam Online website is available for the world to read. It supports the murder of Israeli civilians and declares that "on the hour of judgement, Muslims will fight the Jews and kill them". Homosexuals, the website continues, are depraved and abominable and should be put to death to cleanse Islamic society of its "perverted elements". As for women, they must be kept in their place. Wives are forbidden to rebel against their husbands' authority. A husband may beat his wife "lightly with his hands, avoiding her face and other sensitive parts". Rape victims must carry a portion of the guilt if they dress "immodestly".

The liberal media treat al-Qaradawi's views with tact and circumspection. BBC News Online barely mentions them, and instead describes al-Qaradawi as an "articulate preacher and a good communicator". If Livingstone has qualms about al-Qaradawi's endorsement of murder, racism, homophobia and misogyny, they don't show. He sends the limousine anyway.

When they meet, the mayor embraces the priest as a fellow dissident. "Those who raise uncomfortable truths are denounced by those who would rather not consider them," he says.

3) As so often before, you find more of what you need to know in the alternative than in the mainstream media. In August, [http://www.crookedtimber.org,] a part of the explosion of political journalism on the internet, investigates John Laughland. He is a regular at the Spectator, and in the course of his work has defended nearly every rep-ressive state on the planet from Belarus to Zimbabwe. As might be expected, he has found that Jean-Marie Le Pen isn't so bad. "Le Pen's views on immigration are the same as Norman Tebbit's," he told readers of the Spectator, "while his views on urban blight, social collapse and the decline of traditional values can be found every week in the columns of the Daily Mail . . ." In May 2002, the Guardian cited the piece as proof that "when they're down . . . they [the Tories] can always go lower".

The ding-dong isn't surprising. The Conservative press, like the Conservative Party, has to accommodate views from the centre through to the far right. The liberal media have always enjoyed rubbishing their Conservative enemies and vice versa. Laughland has every right to express his opinions. Tory editors have every right to publish them. Liberals have every right to denounce them.

As Crooked Timber points out, Laughland's subsequent appearances in the Guardian are more novel. But then editors, including the editors of this magazine, like pungent comment pieces and hope they will stir an angry reaction from the readers.

What is telling is that, with the odd exception, Laughland's defences of Robert Mugabe and Slobodan Milosevic and his condemnation of Tony Blair's concern for the people of Darfur as a sick cover for the Prime Minister's true desire to launch a colonial war for Sudanese oil don't provoke an angry reaction.

[. . .]

Ask an Iraqi communist or Kurdish socialist today what support they have had from the liberal left and they won't detain you for long. Apart from the odd call from the Socialist International, there has been none worthy of the name. One expects the totalitarian left to be stuffed with creeps, but the collapse of the democratic left strikes me as catastrophic. Why couldn't it oppose the second Gulf war while promising to do everything possible to advance the cause of Iraqi democrats and socialists once the war was over? Why the sneering, almost racist pretence that Saddam had no honourable opponents?

The ineluctable answer is, I'm afraid, that there no longer is a left with a coherent message of hope for the human race. The audiences at Michael Moore films don't look at his propaganda images of kite-flying kiddies and pull themselves up short by thinking of what happened to their comrades in Iraq. They have no comrades. They don't support Saddam. They don't support his foes. They have no policy to offer. The noise of their self-righteous anger is merely a cover for an indifference bred by failure.

Marxist-Leninism is as dead as any idea can be - it made the fatal blunder of putting its ideas into practice and died of shame. Fifty years ago, there were revolutionary socialist movements in dozens of countries ready to take power. Today there isn't one, and the world is a better place for that. The nobler traditions of the social-democratic left are also under enormous strain. It seems that Tony Blair or Gordon Brown is about as good as it can get in Britain. Europe has leaders who appear more left-wing on paper, but to date they have failed to pull the Continent away from stagnation.

Unless you believe that the failure of the world's peoples to look leftwards is all the result of brainwashing by the corporate media, you have to conclude that the left is dead. The anger that propelled it is still there, and although it won many battles, some of the oppressions it fought against remain as grievous as ever.

The pity of the aftermath is that while the honourable traditions of the left are forgotten, the worst flourish and mutate into aberrations that would have made our predecessors choke.

A CHESS METROPOLIS

What is it with people wanting to build giant chess cities?

IMPRESS YOUR FRIENDS! BE THE LIFE OF THE PARTY!

I wish I knew Vedic math when I was in school:

What is the square of 85? In an instant, a 17-year-old boy said without blinking, "7,225."

Kamlesh Shetty had used a trick from a quaint concept called Vedic math, a compilation of arithmetic shortcuts believed to have been written by ancient Indians who lived centuries before Christ, during a glorious period in Indian history called the Vedic Age. Its math has now crawled into the 21st century to further Shetty's dream of cracking a nasty engineering entrance exam.

For most Indian students, engineering is a calling decided in the cradle by their parents. It is engineering that is most likely to take them away from Third World realities to the shores of America's good life. So the tussle to get into engineering colleges is often cruel. In top entrance exams, only one out of 100 candidates makes the cut.

Quick problem-solving ability becomes the most crucial link between aspiration and fortune. Coaching for these exams is a multimillion-dollar industry in India, but with almost every student equipped with such preparatory courses, the applicants search for something more. That's why several Indian students are beginning to get help from an ancient source -- Vedic math. It has 16 brief formulas in Sanskrit that have been translated and interpreted into astonishing arithmetic shortcuts.

Shetty did not know the original Sanskrit verses, but he did know how to crack the square of 85 in less than a second. "To find the square of any number ending with 5, just put 25 on the right-hand side," he said. "Take the number that precedes five. In this case it is 8. Add 1 to it. So in this case it becomes 9. Multiply 8 and 9. You get 72. 7,225 is the square of 85. It's easy."

REVENGE OF THE BUSYBODIES

Once again, it merits asking whether the mullahs in Iran have anything better to do with their time than obsess over the trivial:

THE Greek organizers of this summer's Olympics, which began in Athens yesterday, claim that more women athletes are competing than ever before. Women are also playing a high-profile role in making the whole enterprise, the biggest of its kind in Greek history, run as smoothly as possible. Seen from the Muslim world, however, the Athens game will look like a male-dominated spectacle in which women play an incidental part.

According to officials in Athens, the number of Muslim women participating in this year's game is the lowest since 1960. Several Muslim countries have sent no women athletes at all; others, such as Iran, are taking part with only one, in full hijab. And state-owned TV networks in many Muslim countries, including Iran and Egypt, have received instructions to limit coverage of events featuring women athletes at Athens to a minimum.

A circular from the Ministry of Islamic Guidance and Culture in Tehran asks TV editors to make sure that women's games are not televised live: "Images of women engaged in contests [sic] must be carefully vetted," says the letter, leaked in Tehran. "Editors must take care to prevent viewers from being confronted [sic] with uncovered parts of the female anatomy in contests."

Women athletes in Athens are unlikely to wear the Islamic hijab or full-length manteaux that cover their legs to the ankle and their arms to the wrist. The ministry's order thus could mean a blanket ban on images of female athletics.

Fear of Muslim viewers seeing bare female legs and arms on television is also shared by theologians in several Arab states. Sheik Yussuf al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian theologian based in Qatar, claims that female sport is exploited as a means of undermining "divine morality."

Ayatollah Emami Kashani, one of Iran's ruling mullahs, goes further. In a recent sermon, he claimed that allowing women to compete in the Olympics was a "sign of voyeurism" on the part of the male organizers.

"The question how much of a woman's body could be seen in public is one of the two or three most important issues that have dominated theological debate in Islam for decades," says Mohsen Sahabi, a Muslim historian. "More time and energy is devoted to this issue than to economic development or scientific research."

YOUR MISSION FOR THE DAY, SHOULD YOU CHOOSE TO ACCEPT IT . . .

Is to find an interviewer more horrible, biased and clueless than Deborah Solomon.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

I feel that you are justified in looking into the future with true assurance, because you have a mode of living in which we find the joy of life and the joy of work harmoniously combined. Added to this is the spirit of ambition which pervades your very being, and seems to make the day's work like a happy child at play.

--Albert Einstein on America

WELL, SOME OF THE NEWS THAT'S FIT TO PRINT, ANYWAY . . .

Once upon a time, the media may have been embarrassed over being called out so accurately and so devastatingly--as they are here. As it stands, I'm afraid that the media would be more than happy to ignore such shortcomings among their fellow journalists. They would be more successful at ignoring those shortcomings if it weren't for the Blogosphere placing the media underneath an unforgivingly bright light.

"SPONTANEOUS PROPERTY RIGHTS"

Quoth Don Boudreaux:

Law is so much more vast than legislation, and so much richer. Much of it – perhaps even most of it – isn’t written down anywhere. It’s embodied in people’s expectations about how others will act and about how others expect each of us to act under various circumstances.

Read the rest of the post to find this general observation put into practice. It is quite interesting.

WHEN A VOLOKH CONSPIRATOR AGREES WITH YOU, THAT'S WHEN YOU'VE GOT IT MADE IN THE SHADE

Longtime readers know that I was--and am--a proponent of the national "Do Not Call" list, and that I defended its virtues against criticism by others of a libertarian/small government bent.

Now, Todd Zywicky--fresh from having served on the Federal Trade Commission--explains precisely why the "do not call" list should not offend libertarians and small government conservatives:

And a word on the National Do-Not-Call Registry, which is mentioned in the Post as being a "big government" initiative, and as such, has been criticized by many libertarians and conservatives. I believe the criticism is misplaced--the DNC registry is simply law & economics in action. It took an ambiguously defined property right (when can telemarketers call you), defined it clearly (telemarketers can call you whenever they want to), and provided a low-cost way of reallocating the property right (register on the DNC). Thus, it is nothing more than the Coase Theorem in action.

But even more, the DNC is actually the first example I can think of that illustrates a Contracts principle of an efficient minoritarian default rule. Usually contract default rules are allocated so as to create a majoritarian default rule (i.e., what the majority of people would want). Based on the registration numbers, a majority of Americans want to be free from telemarketing calls. So why not make the default rule "no calls" and make the telemarketers get your permission? Leaving aside the logistical problems (Would calling you to ask you if you want to be called count as a telemarketing call?), the minoritarian default rule is efficient because the transaction costs of reallocating are so munch lower for consumers than for telemarketers, especially because the FTC made registration so easy.

So the government was just creating and enforcing contractual transfer of property rights in an area where rights were unclear--what is so wrong about that?

Nothing at all.

UM . . . WHOOPS

This is quite entertaining:

Is there any move in chess worse than blundering away a queen or walking into a checkmate?

Yes. How about picking chess as your game for a front-page cover story in the state's largest newspaper three days before your senatorial primary and then setting up the board incorrectly.

On Aug. 7, Rocky Mountain News reporter Jim Tankersley wrote an entertaining piece about how each of the four Colorado senatorial candidates played a game of their choice played against a News reporter.

Republican Pete Coors picked a backyard washer game. Democrat Ken Salazar selected basketball.

Probably in an attempt to create an intellectual aura in the voter's mind, both Democrat Mike Miles and Republican Bob Schaffer picked chess.

From a chess perspective, amazingly, both the liberal Miles and conservative Schaffer made identical blunders.

Even a novice chess player will quickly notice from the front-page photos that both boards were set up wrong; the righthand corner square closest to the player should be white, not black.

Tankersley reported that both "lead with their queens but fail to seal the deal" and commented on each candidate's style and personality as shown by how they played the game.

As a chess master, perhaps I can add some additional insights. A chess player who leads with his queen hopes that the opponent will ignore her, perhaps resulting in a quick checkmate. This is a flawed, shortsighted plan. If the opponent pays attention, the queen will do little damage, and moving her about actually loses crucial time as the lady is chased around the board by opposing pieces.

In chess, and in life, it is smarter to assume that your opponent will play the best move, not the worst.

The chess personality traits demonstrated in the strategy used by both Miles and Schaffer are impatience, disrespect for your opponent, lack of long-range vision, and a quest for immediate gratification . . . all traits commonly displayed by second-graders, but unbecoming of a U.S. senator.

As polls predicted, the underdog Miles lost handily to Salazar.

Oh, there's more. Read the rest.

HELPING THE VICTIMS OF HURRICAN CHARLEY

This is a good resource on how best to lend a hand.

BRILLIANT

Nice job, Google-guys. Be sure to pat yourselves on the back for this one.

Maybe if you had a good lawyer on your staff, this kind of thing wouldn't happen. Front the appropriate cash and a favorable offer on the impending IPO, and I'll see what I can do to help you out.

AH, THE OLYMPICS . . .

Bringing people together, as always. How charming.

BEFORE WE LIONIZE HIM TOO ECSTATICALLY . . .

It should be remembered that outgoing New Jersey Governor James McGreevey has a lot of 'splainin' to do:

A former aide to Gov. James E. McGreevey of New Jersey identified himself Friday as the man with whom the governor had an extramarital affair, but said the relationship was far from consensual.

The former aide, Golan Cipel, issued a statement through his lawyer in Manhattan, saying that he had been subjected to sexual exploitation and retaliation by the governor and had suffered "emotional distress and turmoil."

"While employed by one of the most powerful politicians in the country, New Jersey Governor McGreevey, I was the victim of repeated sexual advances by him," the statement said. "I was the victim whose oppressor was one of the most powerful politicians who made sure to let me know that my future was in his hands."

The statement used the word victim four times, and in it Mr. Cipel said he "did not have the strength to disentangle myself from such an oppressive environment and from such a manipulative person." He said his aim in going public was to make Mr. McGreevey "take responsibility publicly for his horrible actions, which he did by resigning from public office."

The governor's office, in a second day of turmoil in the State House, quickly responded, saying there was no abuse involved in the relationship with Mr. Cipel, a young Israeli who was appointed to a $110,000-a-year job by the governor in February 2002.

"These are completely and totally false allegations from a person trying to exploit his relationship with the governor," said Micah Rasmussen, Mr. McGreevey's press secretary. "As the governor said yesterday, the relationship was consensual. Any suggestion otherwise is totally false."

And then, of course, there are the fundraising allegations. Given all of the scandal surrounding McGreevey, his decision to remain in office until November 15th can only be seen as a nakedly partisan act designed to prevent voters from punishing Democrats associated with McGreevey. The Governor and his staff claim that three months are needed to make a successful transition between McGreevey and his successor, and that--not political considerations--drives the timetable. But Presidential transitions can be completed in about two months, which makes one look askance at this claim.

Then again, at this point, if James McGreevey had a press conference to announce that the Earth rotated around the Sun, astronomers worldwide may check their reference books for confirmation.

"TAKING THE MEASURE OF JOHN KERRY"

In the course of this review of three books about the life of John Kerry, Christopher Hitchens makes the following trenchant observation:

To begin with a small question that I trust is not a trivial or a petty one: how often have you met a self-described Kerry supporter? During the truncated and front-loaded Democratic primaries, it was relatively easy to encounter Dean enthusiasts, Gephardt union activists, Clark fans, Edwards converts, Kucinich militants and even dedicated Sharptonians. (My circle wasn't wide enough to encompass any Braun campaigners.) But a person who got up every morning and counted the day wasted if he or she hadn't made a Kerry convert? I've asked this question on radio and on television, and on campus and in the other places where people sing, and I've heard only a slight shuffling of Democratic feet. Just as the junior senator from Massachusetts used to say, for arcane fund-raising purposes, that he was only the ''presumptive'' nominee, so he was earlier the ''presumptive'' or last-resort choice once all the passion and spontaneity had been threshed out by the party machine. The name Kerry is thus another tired synonym for ABB, or ''Anybody but Bush.'' Shall we ''take America back'' this November? In such a case, we would be taking it back to a fairly familiar version of Democratic consensualism.

It is, quite definitely, a fair point. Bill Clinton actively went out and won the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1992, and even Al Gore had to beat back a surprising challenge from Bill Bradley in 2000. But John Kerry didn't so much woo voters as he became the lucky beneficiary of Howard Dean's implosion, and Dick Gephardt's lack of popularity with the Democratic base. Kerry caused Democratic primary voters to settle for him.

Will that same strategy be enough to beat George W. Bush in the fall? Doubtful. This time, Kerry faces an incumbent President who has a strong base of his own, and who is a better and more popular politician than either Dean or Gephardt. Kerry will need more to win the fall election in my view.

But even if Kerry does prevail with the Anybody But Bush strategy, it does not bode well for his Presidency. He will have to go out on the hustings, and fight for attention and approval of his own policies--on their own merits. Deprived of his foil in George W. Bush, a President Kerry may find himself directionless and floundering as a result--as could his base. Could that presage another Carteresque Administration? Quite possibly.

And that should be taken into account when Americans go to vote. If voters believe that "Anybody But Bush" is a good strategy to follow just for the election, and that it can be dispensed with when it comes time to govern, they are sorely mistaken. Elections offer up mandates--or a lack thereof--and inevitably, the tone and tenor of an election will help determine the kind of government we get. "Anybody But Bush" may have power in this election cycle, but even if it does, it won't help get John Kerry elected so much as it will just help get George W. Bush out. I realize this is enough for some people, but they are short-term thinkers who likely have not considered the long-term consequences of an inconsequential replacement Presidency.

And because you asked so nicely, let's end this post with some excellent Hitchensian snark:

If Kerry is dogged and haunted by the accusation of wanting everything twice over, he has come by the charge honestly. In Vietnam, he was either a member of a ''band of brothers'' or of a gang of war criminals, and has testified with great emotion to both convictions. In the Senate, he has either voted for armament and vigilance or he has not, and either regrets his antiwar vote on the Kuwait war, or his initial pro-war stance on the Iraq war, or his negative vote on the financing of the latter, or has not. The Boston Globe writers capture a moment of sheer, abject incoherence, at a Democratic candidates' debate in Baltimore last September:

''If we hadn't voted the way we voted, we would not have been able to have a chance of going to the United Nations and stopping the president, in effect, who already had the votes and who was obviously asking serious questions about whether or not the Congress was going to be there to enforce the effort to create a threat.''

And all smart people know how to laugh at President Bush for having problems with articulation.

Actually, when Kerry sneered at ''the coalition of the willing'' as ''a coalition of the coerced and the bribed,'' at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, no less, he was much more direct and intelligible. Yet I somehow doubt that he would repeat those clear, unmistakable words if confronted by the prime ministers of Britain, Poland or Australia. And how such an expression is likely to help restore America's standing is beyond this reviewer.

MAJOR FORCE DEPLOYMENTS AFOOT

This seems quite consequential:

The US is expected to announce on Monday that it is pulling 70,000 troops out of Europe and Asia in the largest restructuring of its global military presence since the second world war.

People briefed on the plan say two-thirds of the reductions will come in Europe, most of them military personnel stationed in Germany who will be sent back to US bases.

An additional 100,000 support staff and military families worldwide will be part of the realignment.

The changes are expected to be announced by President George W. Bush at a speech to the Convention of Veterans of Foreign Wars in Cinncinatti, Ohio, on Monday.

Although Germany will remain home to the largest contingent of American forces on the continent, both army divisions now based there the 1st Armoured and the 1st Infantry could be moved to US bases.

Germany will continue to be home to sophisticated training and command facilities and to a mobile infantry force which will be equipped with the new light-armoured Stryker vehicles and is expected to form the core of a restructured European presence.

There is no discussion in the piece over whether the troops may be redeployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, although I have to assume that the option is on the table. This is no doubt a developing story--one that will be fleshed out some more when President Bush speaks on Monday.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

That was the most unexpected thing I've seen since my two-headed uncle debated free silver and triumphantly refuted himself.

--Jane Galt on the resignation of New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey.

HOW SPORTING

I enjoyed watching the opening ceremonies of the Athens Olympics, and I look forward to two weeks of (mostly) amateur sports at their finest. I also hope that the ceremonies won't be imbued with too much politics, but I suppose that having some politics in the Games is inevitable.

Having said that, let's dip our toes into the political aspect of the Games, and note a massive inconsistency from the opening ceremonies:

There was huge applause for Afghanistan on its return to Olympic competition after an eight-year absence and with its first female athletes.

The entrance of the more than 500-member U.S. team - led by basketball guard Dawn Staley - drew cheers. But some people also stood and put their thumbs down in an apparent show of displeasure for the war in Iraq. Moments later, the Iraqis entered to a roaring ovation.

So there you have it. Cheers for two countries liberated by the United States, and some jeers for the country which did--and continues to do--the liberating.

Fascinating, isn't it?

IS THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE LISTENING?

This proposal for a political ad has the twin virtues of being very compelling, and entirely accurate. Someone should get about producing it post haste.

A VERY WORTHY CAUSE

If you are looking for something to throw money at, try here.

I GENUINELY HOPE THAT JOHN KERRY'S NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY VIEWS HAVE MATURED . . .

Because the views mentioned here are utterly naïve:

John Kerry told Democrats gathered in Boston two weeks ago that he defended his country as a young soldier in Vietnam and he would defend it again as president.

But as Michael Dukakis' lieutenant governor, Kerry authored an executive order that said the state of Massachussetts would refuse to take part in any civil defense efforts in response to a nuclear attack on America.

The presidential candidate was an ardent proponent of the nuclear freeze at the time, and viewed Cold War civil defense preparations as an attempt to delude the American people into thinking a nuclear exchange was survivable.
Lt. Gov. Kerry's executive order on behalf of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts read in part:

"Whereas the existing and potential strength of nuclear weapons is such that nuclear war can neither be won nor survived, it can only be prevented; and Whereas the only effective defense against the horrors of nuclear weapons lies in their elimination and in the prevention of nuclear war or attacks, [the Commonwealth of Massachusetts] shall seek to ensure the safety of its citizens by pursuit of policies reflecting a serious commitment to prevention of nuclear war."

"Such policies," the Kerry directive continued, "shall include education of citizens concerning the real nature of nuclear war and efforts to influence national policy towards negotiation of an end to the nuclear-arms race."

The Kerry order stated emphatically, however: "No funds shall be expended by the Commonwealth for crisis relocation planning for nuclear war."

Just out of curiosity, isn't all of this a little more alarming than complaints that President Bush sat in a Florida school for seven minutes on September 11th after being told that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center? Or shall we wink and nod at Kerry's genuine policy of dereliction--a policy that was actually given legal force by Kerry's executive order?

THE BOUNCE THAT FELL FLAT

Whatever bounce the Democrats may have come out with after their convention appears to have completely dissipated:

A new Gallup Poll shows a slight improvement in President George W. Bush's overall job approval rating, while the presidential contest remains essentially unchanged. In a two-way contest with Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, Bush enjoys a slight lead among likely voters, 50% to 47%, little changed from the 51% to 47% lead he enjoyed in a July 30-Aug. 1 poll.

Even among registered voters, Bush leads 48-47. I don't imagine that the Republican convention will bring much of a bounce for the Bush-Cheney ticket either because of the polarization of the electorate, but the Democrats have to be disappointed. They stage-managed their convention to near perfection, and have nothing to show for it.

PUTTING A MEME TO BED

The New York Times comes out with the following breathless announcement:

Fully one-third of President Bush's tax cuts in the last three years have gone to people with the top 1 percent of income, who have earned an average of $1.2 million annually, according to a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to be published Friday.

The report calculated that households with incomes in that top 1 percent were receiving an average tax cut of $78,460 this year, while households in the middle 20 percent of earnings - averaging about $57,000 a year - were getting an average cut of only $1,090.

The new estimates confirm what independent tax analysts have long said: that Mr. Bush's tax cuts have been heavily skewed to the very wealthiest taxpayers. Those are also the people, however, who pay a disproportionate share of federal income taxes.

That last sentence pretty much takes the news out of the story, now doesn't it? Unless, of course, one is an income redistributionist and doesn't believe in any kind of equity in the tax system.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, free without indecency, learned without conceitedness, novel without falsehood.

--Shakespeare

MY TECH CENTRAL STATION COLUMN IS UP

Some secrets just shouldn't be kept.

ANSWERING--OR FAILING TO ANSWER--"THE IRAQ CHALLENGE"

Robert Tagorda takes note of the operative political dynamics in the wake of John Kerry's announcement that he would have still voted in October, 2002 to authorize the President to use force in Iraq even if he knew then what he knows now:

As Pejman Yousefzadeh notes, by responding in the affirmative, Kerry undercut his own claim about being misled into supporting the war. But he weakened another argument, too: he removed WMDs off the discussion. It's doubtful that he could have taken this point very far anyway, since everyone pretty much believed that Saddam either had them or was close to producing them. Nonetheless, for many people, it's a potent reminder of our war failures -- an issue casting its shadow on the Iraq debate. Yet Kerry conceded it.

Moreover, if you read [David] Sanger's analysis closely, you'll notice one gaping hole: throughout the entire exchange, Bush and Dick Cheney have worked together to corner Kerry, but the Democratic response has launched without John Edwards. Indeed, Joe Biden comes across as Kerry's chief defender. It may have just been poor reporting on Sanger's part; perhaps Edwards has pitched in, but somehow, his contributions failed to make the article. But I suspect that his relative silence has something to do with his foreign-policy inexperience. Certainly, you can bet that Republican strategists have noticed this weakness and are preparing to exploit it again soon.

AN AGENDA FOR THE SECOND TERM

Assuming that George W. Bush gets re-elected, Tyler Cowen has a wishlist for the second term. Other than Item #2 on the list, I am in full agreement. (I think that having America provide security for Western Europe is not so bad, as it does enable America to project power and have a presence in Europe. I don't mind, however, having the Western Europeans contribute more to their own security--something that they will immediately be shown as averse to if the United States ever did pull out of security cooperation guarantees with Western Europe.)

JUST IMAGINE WHAT WILL HAPPEN . . .

When our employers get a load of this news:

Just in time for back-to-school season, researchers have turned procrastinating monkeys into workaholics by suppressing a gene that encodes a receptor for a key brain chemical.

The receptor, for the neurotransmitter dopamine, is important for reward learning. By suppressing it, researchers at the US National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in Bethesda, Maryland caused monkeys to lose their sense of balance between reward and the work required to get it.

"Like many of us, monkeys normally slack off initially in working toward a distant goal. They work more efficiently—make fewer errors—as they get closer to being rewarded," says Barry Richmond of the NIMH Laboratory of Neuropsychology. "But without the dopamine receptor, they consistently stayed on-task and made few errors, because they could no longer learn to use visual cues to predict how their work was going to get them a reward."

YOU CAN THANK ME LATER

Some good economic news is available to cheer thee:

Shoppers who disappeared from the stores in June returned in July, snapping up cars and other big-ticket items while raising hopes the worrisome economic slowdown in the early summer will not last long. The Commerce Department reported Thursday that retail sales rebounded by 0.7 percent last month. Consumer demand for autos was strong with the return of attractive incentive offers from dealers.

In other good news, the Labor Department reported that the number of laid-off workers filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell by 4,000 last week to 333,000, the smallest total in five weeks.

Economists said both reports should help relieve worries that an early summer slowdown could broaden into a more serious threat to the economic recovery.

That concern was heightened by last Friday's report that the economy created just 32,000 jobs in July, far below the 200,000-plus jobs analysts expected.

"Consumers are still spending their money and that points to solid growth ahead," said Joel Naroff, head of Naroff Economic Advisors.

The July sales rebound was smaller than the 1 percent advance forecast. But the government also revised its original estimate of a 1.1 percent plunge in retail sales in June, to show a decline of 0.5 percent.

Analysts said July's gain and June's smaller decline presented a more comforting picture that consumer spending, which accounts for two-thirds of total economic activity, was not threatening to collapse.

The second straight weekly decline in new claims for jobless benefits raised hopes the labor market will show improvements in August after job creation nearly ground to a halt in July.

We'll see if all of this does eventually come true. But the statistical evidence does give me cause to believe that there are prospects for strong economic growth ahead. The more interesting question is whether that growth will play a role in the Presidential campaign this fall.

PLAYING NICE . . . UP TO A POINT

Senate Democrats have announced that they will not be blocking the nomination of Porter Goss as DCI after all. Rather, they will simply use the nomination "to amplify their concerns over fatal intelligence failures under this administration."

Again, it bears repeating that the intelligence relied on by the Bush Administration was the same one relied on by the two previous American administrations, the UN, and a whole host of other countries. I know that in a political season, this sort of thing escapes the attention of Big Media--and indeed, the New York Times does nothing to question the premise behind the Democrats' charges. But that doesn't mean the rest of us need to be intellectually lazy and ignore the facts regarding the state of American and international intelligence.

UPDATE: An apparently gleeful commentator points out that the dimwitted Michael Moore has produced a quote from Goss saying that he "couldn't get a job with the CIA today. I am not qualified. I don't have the language skills. You know, my language skills were romance languages and stuff. We're looking for Arabists today." Never mind the fact, of course, that Goss is not seeking to be an analyst at CIA, or seeking to rejoin the clandestine services. Never mind the fact that previous DCI's did not have Arabic language skills. Never mind the fact that Goss actually did serve at CIA, that as the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, he is an authority on intelligence and national security matters, and that no one has indicated how or why the DCI must have Arabic language skills in order to do his/her job properly. Apparently, the thinking goes that if the DCI cannot do every job in the CIA, he is unqualified--according to Michael Moore and his similarly intellectually slovenly fan base.

The assertion is, of course, absurd. No one asks that the DCI have the skills of an intelligence analyst, or even a clandestine agent (which Goss was rather good at being by all accounts). For that matter, no one asks that the DCI have the skills of the tech people in the Directorate of Science and Technology. The reason is that each of those jobs involve vastly different skill sets. People who are actually aware of the whole "division of labor" concept will realize this, but I guess Moore and his ilk haven't yet caught on to the plan.

By ignoring the fact that the various positions in CIA involve different skill sets, by introducing us to the fallacy of believing that a DCI has to be able to work as an intelligence analyst, or a clandestine agent as well, Moore throws out a distraction that is merely meant to smear Goss without providing any substance to the debate. I suppose that Moore would also argue that the CEO of a pharmaceutical company needs to be able to make and develop drugs, that the owner of a football team needs to be able to play the game or that a Secretary of Agriculture needs to have his own farm. Common sense dictates that none of this is necessary, but common sense never applied to Michael Moore, or favorable citations of his "work." And of course, neither Joe Biden, nor Richard Holbrooke, nor Carl Levin, nor Rand Beers have Arabic language skills. That hasn't stopped talk about them playing roles as members of John Kerry's national security team should Kerry become President--or from advising Kerry the candidate.

Don't hold your breath waiting for Michael Moore to wax indignant about this, however. Consistency is not his strong point.

THE MOST BIZARRE POLITICAL NEWS STORY OF THE YEAR . . .

Is likely to be this one:

In a stunning declaration, Gov. James E. McGreevey announced his resignation Thursday and acknowledged that he had an extramarital affair with another man. "My truth is that I am a gay American," he said.

"Shamefully, I engaged in adult consensual affairs with another man, which violates my bonds of matrimony," the married father of two said. "It was wrong, it was foolish, it was inexcusable."

The Democrat said his resignation would be effective Nov. 15. Senate President Richard J. Codey, a Democrat, will become acting governor and serve out the remainder of McGreevey's term, which ends in early 2006. If McGreevey were to leave office before Nov. 15, a special election would be held.

McGreevey, 47, refused to answer questions at a news conference where he was flanked by his wife and parents. He said that "it makes little difference that as governor I am gay," but added that staying in office and keeping the affair and his sexual orientation secret will leave the governor's office "vulnerable to rumors, false allegations and threats of disclosure."

"Given the circumstances surrounding the affair and its likely impact upon my family and my ability to govern, I have decided the right course of action is to resign," he said.

He did not elaborate on what the circumstances were.

As they say, "Developing . . ."

JUST THINK . . .

If the Iraqi soccer team lost this game, they would have been tortured by Uday Hussein upon their return to the country. And now, they can celebrate their victory for its own sake--not for the sake of avoiding the horrific abuse the former Ba'athist regime was known to capriciously dish out.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.

--Voltaire

BACK AND BLOGGING

Alice in TV Land has returned back to the blogging fold. Go over and say hello. And since she would like to be back in the employment fold as well, be sure to give any leads that you might have.

HOT OR NOT?

For the record, the "e" sound in "Pejman" is pronounced the same way that it is for "Ben." Having revealed this, I expect to be fighting off the hordes of women who will lust after me now.

BLOGGERS, THEIR COMMENTERS AND LIBEL LAW

Terry Teachout wonders whether bloggers are "legally responsible for the postings that appear in their comments sections." The short answer is that they are not. The longer answer can be found here.

THE RAGE OF THE ARAB STREET

This article needed to be written, and should disabuse a lot of people about the way in which Americans are viewed around the world. It is easy to buy into the conventional wisdom that we are a hated nation--after all, we hear so much of that from the media, and from certain non-incumbent Presidential candidates right here at home. The truth--as always--is a bit more complicated.

Of course, America could have no better ambassador than Michael Totten. Perhaps we should send him abroad more often.

MAN, THE 527'S ARE POPPING UP ALL OVER THE PLACE

Here's the latest one. One wonders what will be next.

"CONSISTENT ALL ALONG"?

I think not.

QUOI?

Did anyone actually expect these demands to be taken seriously?

Iran has issued an extraordinary list of demands to Britain and other European countries, telling them to provide advanced nuclear technology, conventional weapons and a security guarantee against nuclear attack by Israel.

Teheran's request, said by British officials to have "gone down very badly", sharply raises the stakes in the crisis over Iran's nuclear programme, which Britain and America believe is aimed at making an atomic bomb.

Iran's move came during crisis talks in Paris this month with senior diplomats from Britain, France and Germany.

The "EU-3" were trying to convince Iranian officials to honour an earlier deal to suspend its controversial uranium enrichment programme, which is ostensibly designed to make fuel for nuclear power stations but could also be used to make fissile material for nuclear bombs.

Iranian officials refused point-blank to comply, saying they had every right under international law to pursue "peaceful" nuclear technology.

They then stunned the Europeans by presenting a letter setting out their own demands.

Iran said the EU-3 should support Iran's quest for "advanced (nuclear) technology, including those with dual use" - a reference to equipment that has both civilian and military applications.

The Europeans should "remove impediments" preventing Iran from having such technology, and stick to these commitments even if faced with "legal (or) political . . . limitations", an allusion to American pressure or even future international sanctions against Iran.

More astonishingly, Iran said the EU-3 should agree to meet Iran's requirements for conventional weapons and even "provide security assurances" against a nuclear attack on Iran.

This is a reference to Israel's nuclear arsenal, believed to include some 200 warheads and long-range missiles to deliver them.

It astonishes me that the Iranian government actually had the nerve to present this proposal. I don't know what to think about how in touch with reality the mullahs might be.

A DEPRESSING SIGN OF THE POST-LITERATE GENERATION

Great. Now C-Span is going to the dogs:

In announcing the cancellation of "Booknotes" -- C-SPAN's popular author interview program -- yesterday, host Brian Lamb was haunted by the numbers. He spends 20 hours each week reading books in preparation for "Booknotes," he estimates. That's 1.8 years of his life that have been dedicated to reading since the show debuted April 2, 1989. Now he wants to reclaim some of that time for his personal life.

Has it come to this? The author-interviewer, arguably the most quirky and dedicated on television, the creator and curator of one of TV's few institutions for avid readers -- has he finally tired of books?

"Oh, that's not true -- I still love reading," Lamb says. "I've never missed a show in all these years. It's been great, but I also think it seemed, in many ways, like I was always studying for a semester exam every week. Even kids in school get the summers off. I just thought it was time to do something new."

The program -- which has featured guests ranging from Bill Clinton to Shelby Foote, from Roger Mudd to Michael Moore -- will be pulled Dec. 5, when "Booknotes" celebrates its 800th author interview.

"What? They're canceling 'Booknotes?' " says Barbara Meade, co-owner of the Politics and Prose book store on Connecticut Avenue, a mecca for a "Booknotes" kind of person. A candlelight vigil at the store has not been announced. "Well, our store customers have loved watching his interviews, and they've gotten very interested in a particular book after watching a show [on the book]. We hear from our customers that 'Booknotes' is the only thing they watch on TV. They're going to be very disappointed."

As word spread yesterday among book lovers, many remarked on the way the show's tone and mood could edge on the surreal. Some recall Lamb asking questions such as:

"What was it like running U.S. foreign policy?"

"Was Khrushchev a trustworthy man?"

"How much did you make when you were 23 years old?"

"What is buggery?" Lamb once asked author Martin Gilbert.

This is just depressing. "Booknotes" was one of the few television programs that celebrated reading and made viewers aware of interesting books they should check out. If Lamb is somewhat tired of making the program, that is understandable, but surely C-Span could have found someone else to either assist, or to take over the program altogether.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

For no phase of life, whether public or private, whether in business or in the home, whether one is working on what concerns oneself alone or dealing with another, can be without its moral duty; on the discharge of such duties depends all that is morally right, and on their neglect all that is morally wrong in life.

--Cicero