(0) (4)

This article from the Washington Post, on the application of the little known Data Quality Act to hobble the regulatory leviathan, is full of unintentional insights. The Data Quality Act is, well, let the Post tell it, and let the insights begin!

The Data Quality Act -- written by an industry lobbyist and slipped into a giant appropriations bill in 2000 without congressional discussion or debate -- is just two sentences directing the OMB to ensure that all information disseminated by the federal government is reliable.

The first insight is, of course, the clonking great pro-government, pro-regulation bias that the Post brings to this story. Note the disparaging terms applied to this piece of legislation, which has a genesis and a pedigree that is totally ordinary - most legislation is the product of interested parties, and most finds its way onto the books via massive omnibus bills that no one reads. However, these routine facts of Washington life are given ominous prominence only when the media outlet is opposed to whatever was done. The rest of the story is riddled with similar bias - in the Post's world, regulation is always good, always to protect the people, never fails a cost-benefit test, always supported by the preponderance of the scientific evidence, etc.

The next set of unintentional insights comes to us when the relatively innocuous purpose of the Act collides with the prerogatives of the regulatory state.

But many consumers, conservationists and worker advocates say the act is inherently biased in favor of industry. By demanding that government use only data that have achieved a rare level of certainty, these critics maintain, the act dismisses scientific information that in the past would have triggered tighter regulation.

First, of course, note who the Post asks for their opinion. Of equal interest is the rather revealing admission that, in the past, regulation was apparently handed down on the basis of information that was, how to put this, of less than adequate quality. Declining to regulate because the data isn't there is, of course, a Bad Thing.

These final comments surely need no elaboration.

"It's a tool to clobber every effort to regulate," said Rena Steinzor, a professor of law and director of the Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Maryland. "In my view, it amounts to censorship and harassment." . . . .

Yet Steinzor, the Maryland environmental lawyer, and other critics complain that the OMB's involvement politicizes the process. The expertise of the handful of scientists hired by Graham, they say, cannot match that of the thousands of experts on agency staffs.

(0) (21)

One of the interesting but un-noticed thing about world affairs is that, for all the wealth that traffic in oil is able to generate, the nations that produce it are not high up on the list of nice places to be. Not many people consider Saudi Arabia, Iran, Nigeria, or Russia to be desirable places to go for a holiday, never mind live. In an odd twist to the old folks tale that 'money won't make you happy', it is pretty clear that oil wealth is not particularly useful in solving the problems of a nation.

Nancy Birdsall and Arvind Subramanian did notice it however and wrote a 5,000 word essay on the subject, with Iraq in mind, for Foreign Affairs magazine (preview here) What they noted was that oil wealth tends to corrupt the state, and since it has an easy stream of revenue at its disposal, it does not have to work so hard at gouging its citizens. So it also has no incentive to promote property rights as a way of creating wealth. And those that control the state, control the wealth.

Therefore, you get the distressing sight of the President of Chad spending the first instalment of his country's oil wealth on a new Presidential jet for example. More recently, in Russia we see President Putin using state power to attack the oil-enriched oligarchs. And Nigeria seems to have been actively impoverished by its oil wealth, as the 'Pirates in Power' have skimmed $100 billion over the years. Oil wealth is not particularly healthy for democracies, either.

How to escape the curse? Merely privatising the oil sector does not work very well in states where the concept of 'property rights' is a shaky one at best (see Russia). Another attempt has been to create special 'oil funds' with constitutional restrictions on the way the money is used. This has been used in many different places. But again, the strength of the rule of law is the decisive thing. Chad had a 'oil fund' but the President still got his airplane.

Birdsall and Subramanian instead advocate the novel idea of distributing the oil wealth directly to the citizens. This means that every citizen of the nation gets an annual cheque from the oil company. For Iraq, this idea has many wonderful features. In the first place, Iraqi citizens get a real stake in their government, and will be not inclined to support Islamist or separatist groups who wish to smash the state for their own nefarious purposes.

Secondly, all Iraqis get the same cut. A struggling farmer, a Mad Mullah, or an educated doctor- each of them get the same thing. No complaints about the system getting rorted in favour of one ethnic group or another.

And best of all, ordinary Iraqis will get prosperous at the expense of the government. There will not be rivers of gold for a class of local 'social planners' to waste, and the government will have to work hard to sell the need for tax increases to fund their operations. This means that citizens can look the state in the eye. And tell it where to get off, too.

(1) (2)

In Denial: Historians, Communism & Espionage
J.E. Haynes & H. Klehr
Encounter Books, San Francisco, 2003

"We should recognize the issue of communism and Soviet espionage has become an antiquarian backwater. After all, the Cold War is over." With these words, a typical leftish US historian, Ellen Schrecker, recommends that a whole sector of an historical era should be ignored and work on it effectively closed down. "It is time to move on," remarks another academic, using the modern terminology that neither denies nor accepts responsibility, but leaves a mess behind for someone else to clear up. Now historians are, by definition, paddlers up backwaters, investigators of things that are "over" and move in, not move on when invited to examine data never before available. When World War Two ended historians started, not stopped, writing about it, just as an unending stream of books about Napoleon has continued in the nearly two centuries since he was bundled off to St Helena. The idea that, just as enormous quantities of material from Soviet and other archives are being released, work on them should be called off is so ludicrous that it could only have been suggested by those who feel the foundations of their beliefs and attitudes crumbling beneath their feet. However, though public apathy is what they would like, the hard facts, and writers such as Haynes and Klehr, have forced some response.

According to the authors of In Denial, the two examples quoted are not isolated oddities, but characteristic of the mindset of a large, perhaps predominant section of US academic historians. Certainly those they cite, or otherwise mention, whom I list at the end of this review, make up a considerable body. They also must include at least the majority of the editors of The American Historical Review and The Journal of American History which rarely publish articles critical of Communism, or have done for the past 25 years at least. Yet these two must be distinguished from Radical History Review which avowedly "rejects conventional notions of scholarly neutrality and objectivity' (p. 44)". The Encyclopedia of the American Left omits such matters as the large subsidies the Soviet Union transmitted to the American Communists, specifically for subversion (pp 70-72), the evidence that Alger Hiss spied for the Soviet Union (p. 106), indeed that American Communists had anything to do with espionage, even after opened Soviet files had massively documented the fact that this was so. After all, if something is in print in an accepted reference work, as the Encyclopedia is, it becomes history - an interesting example of history being written by the losers, for a change. Why, though, did the editors of the "highly prestigious", 24 volume American National Biography for its entry on the Rosenberg spies commission a Communist academic who then, not surprisingly, brushed aside recent confirmatory evidence of their guilt as "discredited" (p. 104)?

Read more.

Just as with the denial of its acceptance of Soviet subsidies, there has been a strong attempt by leftish historians (termed by Haynes and Klehr "revisionists") to absolve the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) from the accusation that its policy slavishly followed that of the USSR. In fact, any sign of independence was smacked down by Stalin himself (p. 135) and the leaders who claimed their position by right of election were expelled at his orders from the CPUSA, which published the reason for it in a pamphlet. The Party's endorsement of the 1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact was unconditional and it opposed bitterly all attempts by Roosevelt to help Britain during the year when we stood alone (p. 133). Perhaps insufficient study has been made (I for one am not aware of any) of British Communist resistence to our own war effort during this vital period.

As evidence mounts of subversion and spying by American Communists on behalf of the USSR, some of their defenders have moved from denial to approval, if not always of their actions, certainly of their motives, while any attempt to stop them, let alone punish them "is part and parcel of vile McCarthyism (p. 207)." The Rosenbergs, Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White (the last two very high White House officials) are now defended as pure idealists who wanted to make the world safer by sharing secrets with the Soviets - a one-way traffic, of course. Longtime defenders of the Rosenbergs "have reacted to the new evidence with a confused mixture of denial, acceptance and defiance (p. 198)". In New York there is even an Alger Hiss Chair of Social Studies, appropriately filled by one Joel Kovel who proclaims that the United States is the "enemy of humanity (p. 211)". White is, so to speak, being whitewashed in a forthcoming book by, it is disconcerting to read, someone who has got about as far up as it is possible to get in the directorship of a number of historical institutions (p. 212). Sometimes defenders want to have it both ways - Alger Hiss wasn't guilty (he still has defenders of his innocence, the case for which Haynes and Klehr still have to demolish on pp. 152-162), but if he was, it was only "in technical violation of the law (p. 195)". Other, now forgotten persons - such as Lauchline Currie (as highly placed as Hiss) and Theodore Hall (as important a spy as Klaus Fuchs) - get the same treatment. In case anyone thinks that the authors have limited their examination of American Communist spies to those discussed above, I have added a list of all (or perhaps I should say most) they have at least mentioned.

What is it that motivates people obviously intelligent enough to enter elite universities, pass their degree exams, research and write theses and books and gain tenured positions, and yet defend a political philosophy justifying regimes responsible for millions of deaths, aggressive wars, and a command economy inadequate for their needs? Is it too simple a solution to suggest that these are people so conscious of the the shortcomings of their own society that they idealise another? Thus "I wanted the Soviet Union to be a successful experiment in socialist democracy and so I checked my critical faculties . . . I still need that belief even if the particular vision I embraced has turned to ashes, (p. 42)" explains "post-Marxist feminist" Gerda Lerner, emeritus professor of History at the University of Wisconsin. But, though a refugee from Nazism and disillusioned with Communism, this has "done little to mitigate her loathing for the United States" and she has compared "life in America to living under Adolf Hitler." Incredible though this must sound to most people, it must be taken seriously as evidence of a certain state of mind. Unfortunately we are not given the parallels between her experiences in Austria and in America which might justify it. Others want to make America responsible for all the deaths caused by war since World War II, though including those at Hiroshima and Nagasaki for good measure (p. 49). That the Americans initiated none of these wars seems to be no excuse, nor is the far greater death toll brought about by Communist governments by engineered famines, labour camps and straightforward terror and genocide set against this so-called American guilt.

With nothing left to believe in, the default position of these leftish academics and intellectuals is a sort of nihilistic anti-Americanism. "We need a civil war, class war, whatever, to put an end to US policies that endanger all of us," declared Professor Robin Kelley after September 11th (p. 49). Who is going to fight whom with what is not explained. Presumably another American Civil War, by this logic, will persuade Al Qaida that terrorism is unnecessary, since America will destroy itself. Over here, Scott Lucas, hired to teach "American Studies" at Birmingham University, by his own confession taught "anti-American studies (p. 48)". He has not been alone, of course; anti-Americanism is perhaps America's largest intellectual export - and it is entirely negative. Its missionaries have no substitute to offer; if successful it would leave a moral and political power vacuum which only Islamic fanatics seem willing, if not able, to fill. Is that what those "in denial" want to happen?

The Academics etc:

Leslie Adler, Herbert Aptheker, Rudy Baker, Alexander Bittelman, Ethan Bronner, Michael Brown, Paul Buhle, Nicholas Callather, Michael Carley, Peter Carroll, David Caute, Blanche W. Cook, Bruce Craig, Marion Davis, Michael Denning, Eugene Dennis, Frederick V. Field, Sheila Fitzpatrick, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Barbara Foley, Isaac Folkoff, Eric Foner, William Z. Foster, Grover Furr, Dan Georgakas, Marvin Gettleman, J. Arch Getty, Jacob Golos, Robert Griffith, Ruth Hall, Michael J. Heale, Gerald Horne, Jerry F. Hough, Peter M. Irons, Maurice Isserman, Edward Johanningsmeier, Michael Karni, Aaron Katz, Robert D.G. Kelley, Robin Kelly, Bernard Knox, Gabriel Kolke, Robert Korstat, Joel Kovel, Aileen Kraslitor, William Kunstler, Corliss Lamont, Gerda Lerner, Nelson Lichtenstein, Robbie Lieberman, George Lipstitz, John Lowenthal, Scott Lucas, Paul Lyons, Norman Markowitz, Robert Meeropol (ne Rosenberg), Mark Naison, Victor Navasky, Anna Kasten Nelson, Fraser Ottanelli, Herbert Packer, Michael F. Parrish, Thomas Paterson, James Patterson, William Pemberton, William Reuben, Alfred Rieber, Michael Rogin, James Ryan, Roger Sandilands, Bernice Schrank, Ellen Schrecker, Bernard Schuster, Samuel Sills, Gregory Silvermaster, Malcolm Silvers, Mark Solomon, Athan Theoharis, Robert Thurston, Brian Villa, Theodore Von Laue, Alan Wald, Max Weiss.

The Spies:

Iskhak Akmerov, Jacob Albam, Johanna Beker, Joseph Bernstein, Lucy Booker, Raymond Boyer, Harry Bridges, Earl Browder, Morris and Jack Childs, Judith Coplon, Lauchlin Currie, Laurence Duggan, Noel Field, Klaus Fuchs, John Gates, Eve Getsov, Harold Glasser, David and Ruth Greenglass, Gus Hall, Theodore Hall, Maurice Halperin, Alger Hiss, Felix Inslerman, Philip Jaffe, Joseph Katz, Charles Kramer, Harry Magdoff, Carl Marzani, Floyd Miller, Victor Perlo, Jozsef Peters, John Reed, Vincent Reno, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Andrew Roth, Alfred Sarant, Saville Sax, George Silverman, Robert Soblen, Jack and Myra Soble, Henry and Beatrice Spitz, Lincoln Steffens, Arthur and Martha Dodd Stern, William Ludwig Ullmann, Julian Wadleigh, Donald Wheeler, Harry Dexter White, Milton Wolfe, Ilya Wolston, Mark Zborowski, Jane Foster and George Zlatowski.

Read less.

(0) (24)

It was with something akin to delight that I saw the Times, not a newspaper overly concerned with civil liberties, have on its front page 1 an article about objections to Britain's developing surveillance state.

This is modern Britain

If we cannot get these issues out in the open, we will indeed see Britain 'sleepwalking' into what may some time in the future be a panoptic nightmare. Blair or Howard are not going to be having the security services doing 'midnight knocks' on the doors of those they disfavour (well, maybe for a few people in the Finsbury Park area) but make no mistake about it, the infrastructure of repression is being put in place at an astonishing rate and someday (hopefully long after I have decamped to New Hampshire) this information is going to be used by statists of both left and right with fewer qualms than Tony Blair to order every single aspect of people's lives in Britain in ways that places the state at the centre of everything you do in ways earlier totalitarianisms could only dream of... for your own good, of course.

We have a serious battle to win and the more these issues are out of the committee rooms and in the more general public arena, the better we can argue the case for resisting the emerging Panopticon State.

When the state watches you, dare to stare back

1 = Readers outside the UK may have difficulties accessing this link once it is archived due to the benighted policies of the Times newspaper.

(Cross posted from White Rose)

(1) (42)

President Bush has announced, and not a moment too soon, that the US will undertake a massive reorganization of its overseas deployment, moving troops out of theatres where war no longer threatens (e.g., Europe). Apparently, most of the troops would be brought home to the US.

As I have noted before, the security guarantee that the US extends to its nominal allies can be counterproductive, encouraging irresponsibility and anti-American attitudes in such allies. For nations, as for individuals, there is no substitute for self-defence.

It is awfully strange behaviour for an imperial hyperpower, though, isn't it? Surely the evil Bushchimpler realizes that bringing troops home is no way to expand global hegemony. Whatever could he (or his puppetmaster Karl Rove) be thinking?

Update: Mark Steyn weighs in.

(2) (33)

The case of Gayle Laverne Grinds highlights one of the most important issues of our time.

I wonder how many adverts for fatty, calorie-laden food this woman viewed during the six years she spent on the sofa in front of the television. I suppose the free marketeers would claim that exposure to these commercials had no bearing on the foods this woman consumed during her six years on the couch, and that she had the "personal responsibility" to choose not to eat them and to choose not to soil herself every day. But public health experts predict that by 2010, one person in three will die this way, and that 72 per cent of all schoolchildren will be one with sofas of their own. With increased funding for public education on the dangers of sofas and junk food, those rates could be substantially reduced. As it is, the government departments in charge of such education are criminally underfunded - and still the right-wingers and libertarians cheer on as tax cuts for the wealthy kill us and kill our kids.

The real question is this: How many innocent people have to die after spending six years on the sofa, eating unhealthy food, defecating and sitting in a mound of their own filth before we put big business in its place and tell these fast food and junk food companies that they cannot continue to run roughshod over the public?

(0) (0)

We consider this our duty - to defend humanity against the scourge of intolerance, violence, and fanaticism.
- Ahmed Shah Massoud

(0) (11)

Judging by the many dreadful reviews I have seen regarding Catwoman, this should be a turkey of epic proportions.

Well... bollocks to that.

It actually is not that bad. Sure, even a connoisseur of B-movies such as myself can see that it is not a great movie... the special effects were pretty good in places but during some scenes it was painfully obvious that they were computer generated. The dialogue was serviceable rather than inspiring, the story was derivative and predictable with some feminist claptrap tacked on. The acting was of variable quality - Halle Berry's job was to shake her 'thang' and be alternatively sexy, confused, sexy, predatory, sexy, all of which she did to perfection; Ben Bratt's job was to shake his 'thang' and be a 'tough-but-nice-guy', which he did engagingly; Sharon Stone's job was to be sympathetic, unsympathetic, menacing and sexy, all of which she utterly failed to deliver which was rather disappointing.

But what strikes me is not the failings of this flick, which are indeed many, but the fact I found it vastly better than the reviews would have lead me to believe. It was by no means a waste of a few quid/bucks/euros and just confirms my suspicions that for most reviewers, sneering at things is a safer and more 'credible' option, a default mode in fact.

It is not a great movie, or even a particularly good movie... it just does not suck. Bored this weekend? You could do far worse than look at the exquisite Halle Berry strutting her stuff very effectively in Catwoman.

(0) (20)

This is without a doubt the movie I have most anticipated seeing since spotting a certain trophy in the background of a few frames at the end of Predator 2 back in 1990.

Oh yeah. I mean, OH YEAH!

(0) (3)

Looks like the US is playing hardball and refusing to compromise with the Islamists in Iraq. All to the good, I suspect.

The best chance for a reasonable long term political settlement in Iraq will come when Moqtada al-Sadr and as many of his supporters as possible are dead. Getting there will require resolve in the ongoing attrition battle but if the casualty numbers are even close to accurate, then things are going as well as can be reasonably expected in such a grim business.

(0) (7)

... yet another blog party at Samizdata.net HQ...

There are so many new bloggers 'on the party circuit' now that we have to rotate our invitation lists. So if you did not get an invitation, we (probably) still love you... maybe next time.

(11) (1)

As my father used to say, diplomats are very good at marrying rich women and making polite conversation at cocktail parties, but don’t ever expect them actually to do something.

Taki

(0) (25)

I use both a PC and a Mac (OS X 10.3.4) and I was wondering... is there any way to make the Mac not use that ghastly bugfest called Safari as the default browser?