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One small voice in the proud tradition of FreeBlogging*
Saturday, March 02, 2002
posted by gbarto at 11:49 PM:
Natalie Solent needn't feel bad; I put Lileks in my links weeks ago and haven't heard a peep.* * *
posted by gbarto at 11:39 PM:
Monk Mind Meditation Manifestation. Reading Natalie Solent's blog, I finally gave up and looked at the blogdex and found this fascinating story.* * *
posted by gbarto at 10:49 PM:
Derbyshire on death and 9/11. Interesting if disturbing. (via Bjørn Stærk (properly written to boot!))* * *
posted by gbarto at 10:32 PM:
Mr. Layne (two posts down) also notes that some lawmakers are not happy about being out of the loop on the shadow government. But there are worse things than being out of the loop; sometimes it's worse to be in the leadership when dealing with this administration (from WaPo):The leaders agitated to get out of their bunker and back to Washington, but Cheney resisted. Terrorist threats persisted and there was no way to guarantee their security, he said. Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.) protested. We're a separate branch of government-why do we need the approval of the White House, he complained.
"Don," the vice president replied, "we control the helicopters."
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posted by gbarto at 8:44 PM:
Joan Jacobs has also weighed in on the shadow government issue.* * *
posted by gbarto at 7:03 PM:
Ken Layne has been worrying about the implications of the term "shadow government". He's right that the media have been selling this term in ominous tones that aren't warranted for the concept. However, the term is just fine.Our friends across the ocean, the Brits, have been talking about "shadow cabinets" for years. Here is a not at all sinister interview with a "shadow cabinet minister". And here is an article on the possibility of reshuffling the "shadow cabinet" to make the thought of a new Conservative government more plausible.
In England, the shadow cabinet is put together by the opposition party; its members have access to most of the info that the members of the "real" cabinet have. Its purpose is two-fold:
- It assures that the opposition party will be prepared to immediately govern, should it gain power.
- It allows the party and the public to think through how such a government would work - a reality check for the party, a yardstick for the voting public.
The U.S. is quite different from Britain in this regard; they can change governments in hours; we set aside months for a new administration to make the transition to power. Good campaigners sometimes prove to be disastrous at governing - and vice versa. This is unsurprising; formulating goals for your vision of an office and dealing with its realities can prove quite different. The "shadow government," on the other hand, models Britain's shadow cabinet almost exactly: It allows a new government to take the reins quickly, should there be a sudden change in leadership, and it improves the odds that the new government will be made up of people who have seriously thought through their roles and prepared for them.
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Friday, March 01, 2002
posted by gbarto at 10:29 PM:
Tales of a music pirate. Instapundit and Ken Layne are again going after the music industry and the whole copy protection game. Here's a thought: Maybe if they actually provided their product efficiently, at least a few problems would go away. About a year ago, I went to a little concert - 10th-12th century madrigals. I really liked one of the pieces and decided to add it to my CD collection. I trooped down to the local Tower Records - of course they didn't have it. I ordered. And waited. And waited. On my fourth trip to Tower to find out what was up, they told me their supplier for the disc wasn't very reliable; they hadn't even received word on whether the CD was on back-order. I went online - the major services said the disc was hard to find; one encouragingly said I could get the disc in 4-6 weeks. So instead of buying the $20 CD, I finally gave up, went to Napster, downloaded the songs I was looking for - for free - and burned my own CD for $.50. Money the industry could have had: $20. Money they got: $0.00. Money I saved: $19.50 give or take. Too bad they were too ineffecient to take my twenty and run.Napster has, of course, been effectively shut down. But it hasn't got the record industry much money on my account: Now I'm more likely to just do without.
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posted by gbarto at 2:17 PM:
Of course there are far more important questions than whether Daschle is happy with our progress in the war. There is another American whose patriotism is unquestioned, whose service to the nation is invaluable - as we have seen in his moving efforts to bring New York City back and help America to understand. So comes the question, will Dave move to ABC?* * *
posted by gbarto at 2:13 PM:
Daschle's desperation. There is no question that in a democracy, everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. And it is certainly the case that senators and congressman - who speak for us, after all - need to have their say in matters of public policy. Nonetheless, I don't think the Senate Majority Leader is doing himself, his constituents, or his country any favors with the questions he's raising. Considering that it was not long ago that the Democrats were making noises about "no daylight between us and the President," the changing tone can only mean one thing: Elections are coming.If the good Senator had taken an interest in our defense before - other than seeing how much he could move from the Pentagon budget to social programs - I might take a greater interest in his analysis now - i.e., were it Joe Liebermann making these noises, I might half listen, were it former Sen. Nunn doing the fidgeting, I would pay attention. But Senator Daschle looks to be concerned first and foremost on combatting Bush's high poll numbers (the one battle the Dems approach with eagerness) and second with where our country is going on the war on terror.
Glad to say, our President today offered a response to Daschle's jibes without dignifying them. In noting that the public - more than Congress, perhaps - knows that we've got to be in this for the long haul, Mr. Bush made it clear that Mr. Daschle was practicing politics, but a losing politics, and reminded us again how fortunate we are to have a President who sticks to what he percieves as important, rather than getting dragged down into this nonsense.
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posted by gbarto at 1:03 AM:
Cheese-eating surrender monkeys. In the Lileks screed two posts down, there is a reference to a French ambassador calling Israel "a shitty little country". And yet, as the article I translated the other day makes clear, there is a contingent of the French that has been appalled by what is going on in their country and is seeking to make the voices of tolerance heard loud and clear. This is a diverse country - you expected total unity among around sixty million people? Lileks misses the point that a French ambassador doesn't count for a hill of beans - he's from the same elite that's trying to ban American movies and music... because the younger citizens of his nation are choosing certain aspects of American culture over the high culture on which the elite prides itself. Likewise, tagging the whole of the French people with the label, cheese-eating surrender monkey is unfair. It's also unfair to tag Americans as gunslinging cowboys or unsophisticated, narrow-minded puritans. Tant pis for us, tant pis for them. In the past, we have seen French justifications for their animosity rehearsed ad nauseam. I'd like here to give one "justification" for American sentiment.In '93, when I first went to France, I was by and large greeted warmly. I heard too many jokes about crazy Americans, caught a lot of guff when Clinton put tariffs on French steel (as though I'd voted for the man), and answered way too many questions about how Americans coped with the violence, the heartless capitalism, the ruthless exploitation and all the other stereotypes that socialized Europe relies on to satisfy itself of its cultural superiority. Still in all, it was a good time. It has not always been thus for Americans.
An old family friend, Jack, went to France once too. He was a radar operator for the Air Force during World War II. It was quite an experience for him: the furthest he'd been from home before he shipped out for the Air Force was the next town on main road, almost fifteen miles away. By the time he finally touched French soil, shortly after the war was won, he had met a good many men who'd gone on to die. Some had been crewmates - one of them even died in a mission Jack was on. He went through this because he'd been told that French needed to be liberated from the Germans and England needed protection from them. That's right, a kid from a town of less than 500 went all the way around the world to help liberate a country he'd barely heard of, and then he found himself in that country. In a little bar. Just outside Paris. He went in, ordered a drink, and tried to say hi in his best guidebook French. The bartender was a bit chilly, but positively warm compared to some of the patrons. He tried to find out what was wrong, and was told that things were better under the Germans - more orderly, more tranquil, more civilized. He couldn't believe his ears, but several others spoke up to make sure that he knew this was how they felt; if anyone felt differently, they kept quiet. Jack had that experience in at least a half dozen bars and restaurants before he left. Other Americans did too. Was it common? I don't know. But I know it had a pretty strong impact on Jack - watching a crewmate die when your plane gets shot up, and then being told you shouldn't have bothered will do that to a man. Especially a man so unsophisticated that he honestly believed that helping make the French a free people again was worth risking his life for. Jack passed away a few months ago, and I don't think he ever watched the Simpsons - he wouldn't have known about the expression. But he did know that once upon a time he went halfway around the world to help free the French, and it never left him that the surliest of their number said they'd rather be captive to the ("more civilized") Germans than liberated by the Americans. I think he would have appreciated the expression.
As for me, I find the expression mildly amusing, but ripe for interpretation; I feel the same way when America is accused of cowboy diplomacy, wild-west foreign policy and the whole bit. In the U.S., resentment about liberating the French and being resented for it has led to a caricature of the French that ignores the bravery some have shown, and fails to acknowledge that this is a country that has put its troops on the line - in Bosnia, for example - for causes deeply felt. But the caricature speaks to what America perceives as a strength - its role as liberator - and masks the cultural insecurity Americans sometimes feel (hence the too many movies and television shows where the Frenchman impresses an American woman and leaves an ordinary Joe out in the cold). The French (and European) cowboy stereotype, likewise, transforms what Americans perceive as a can-do spirit into something silly and over the top, while minimizing European insecurity about the implications of the U.S. interventions in WWI and WWII. So perhaps it is best for France and America to keep exchanging barbs; they irritate, but they remind that we're still enough on the same page to care what one another thinks. Not a bad place to start for the first two nations to build republics in the modern era.
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Thursday, February 28, 2002
posted by gbarto at 6:18 PM:
Joan Jacobs has an update on the question of what to call blogs now that they're not just about the war. TurkeyBlog still believes "freeblog" is an excellent choice, since all of us speak freely, using their freedom of speech, and in so doing maintain it. TurkeyBlog - a freeblog even before it knew it, a freeblog to remain.* * *
posted by gbarto at 5:44 PM:
Reynolds has a link to here about the slowness of the net, but the item above is a little more frightening: Apparently there's code floating around to screw up people's default browser settings, including homepages. Worse, some of them even can alter the Windows registry, so be careful out there, and you might want to follow the links from here if strange things start happening.* * *
posted by gbarto at 2:36 PM:
InstaPundit is trying to make the latest Lileks screed the most-linked blog on the net. While we're not that influential, here's one more. And here's the Lileks bleat from Tuesday that everyone's supposed to read.* * *
Wednesday, February 27, 2002
posted by gbarto at 11:00 PM:
Final Le Monde note - none of my searches have turned up any other stories from Saturday on anti-Semitism, so I'm guessing the link below is the one to which Natalie referred.* * *
posted by gbarto at 9:59 PM:
The dangers of skimming. So far, the two links below address the only story on French anti-Semitism that I've found in Le Monde for February 23. I'll do another skim, as this article seems mainly concerned with getting out the word that France is deeply offended by accusations of anti-Semitism - specifically accusations made by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in response to a recent study. The second part of the article touches on that study, and on one of France's responses outside of government channels. Here's the text:A list of anti-Jewish Acts
Michael Melchior and Ariel Sharon's declarations are based on a list of 330 anti-Jewish acts commited in Ile-de-France between September, 2000 and November, 2001. The list was made public by the CRIF the 1st of December, 2001. In that article, Roger Cukierman asserted, "Hatred for the Jews has reappeared." For his part, the former president of the CRIF, Theo Klein, felt that it would be necessary to "think twice before using the term anti-Semitism" (Le Monde, 4 December, 2001). Le minister of the Interior estimated that violent incidents of an anti-Semitic character as reported by police services had declined between 2000 and 2001, dropping from 119 to around thirty.
A petition against "the banalisation (norming) of anti-Semitism" that ran in Libération on January 18 has already garnered nearly 4000 signatures. The text [of the petition] states that "the multiplication of attacks against French citizens who are Jewish do not solely represent outbreaks of violence in "problem areas" but also a form of anti-Semitism." The petition, available at www.lapetition.org, has been signed by Lucie and Raymond Aubrac, Dalil Boubakeur, Malek Boutih, Jacques Delors, Michel Rocard, Bernard Tavernier and Jacky Mamou.
More to come later tonight with any luck.
* * *
posted by gbarto at 9:28 PM:
Blogger's doing strange things again, so here's the proper Natalie Solent link for the post below.* * *
posted by gbarto at 9:23 PM:
Follow-up on French anti-Semitism. Natalie Solent mentionned seing on article on French anti-Semitism in the LeMonde from Saturday. For Francophone readers, here's a link that might work. The second section is the discussion to which I believe she was referring. I'll try to get a translation of the most relevant paragraph up, time permitting.* * *
posted by gbarto at 7:04 PM:
Anti-Semitism revisited. The new National Review has finally wended its way through the postal system to the Turkey's door, and it includes two notes on a topic that has been much on Instapundit's mind of late: The rise in anti-Semitism worldwide (Will Pat Buchanan become an internationalist after all?). NR notes the reemergence of this scourge in France, a story that has got some play in blogland. It also notes - something I apparently missed - that the proposed future British Ambassador to Iran was rejected by the host country because - to their reckoning - he is a Jew (apparently he isn't). NR says:That Jewishness disqualifies a diplomat, in [the Iranians'] eyes, from representing his country to them, and that they should be unembarrassed about saying so out loud, indicates how far Iran still has to go toward civilized government.
Let us add: That France and the other usual suspects are going to bat for these people in response to the President's axis-of-evil comment shows how far they have to go to get back to civilized government - and how pervasive anti-Semitism is again becoming on the continent. It is time that the U.S. stop worrying about the opinions of these unsophisticated hicks who think themselves hip but are still living in the twelfth century, along with their barbarian friends in the Middle East - except to repudiate them for their backwardness and to remind them that the last time France and Germany flirted with anti-Semitic ideas, it required the assertion of superior Anglophone force to put things back in order. We really shouldn't have to keep expending our resources so that the idiot leaders of these otherwise worthwhile countries can keep pretending history hasn't passed them by.
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Tuesday, February 26, 2002
posted by gbarto at 11:23 PM:
The INS bastards are at it again. More than security guards with tip jars, more than IRS agents with quotas, more even than BATF agents with dreams of stardom, these people tick me off. A few years back, I met a young woman from France - she was one of my younger sister's French instructors - who had come to the U.S. to get a better education, and maybe even stay. Somebody screwed up her paperwork, so au revoir (these idiots may have let Mohammed Atta through, but hey, he only wanted to blow up skyscrapers, nothing anywhere near as insidious as teaching at a small private college). Now we're rounding up "terrorists" at Intel? What's the logic? I don't know what you might think, but here's my guess: They had known addresses, were easy to find, and looked like they could be taken without too much of a fight.This is not, of course, exclusively the fault of petty bureaucrats making themselves feel powerful by kicking around the foreigners who are easiest to kick around at the moment; it's also the fault of folks in the executive and especially legislative branch who get their kicks by preaching nativism and cultivating hate for anyone who isn't on the voter rolls in their district. How this shakes out, I'll be curious to see, but it wouldn't surprise me if this turns out to be a continuation of the one - and only - story Anthony Lewis got right in all his dreadful years at the NYT. America can do better than this.
(link via Andrew Sullivan)
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posted by gbarto at 9:42 PM:
Instapundit links this piece from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung which suggests that neutrality is less and less of an option for serious states in serious partnerships, yet the whole of Europe wants to go down the same path. Europe is free to do so - and thus free to achieve the relevancy, as well, of Sweden in the 1980s, Ireland in the '60s. I get the feeling that's not what the Eurocrats have in mind. Too bad for them. They can be bothersome or helpful, but if they won't do what it takes to be a global player, they won't be a global player. Tant pis for them.* * *
posted by gbarto at 8:49 PM:
Reynolds was noting the web's slowness earlier today; now Yahoo is acting like it's down - or at least veeeeeeery sleepy. Coincidence? Glad to see that both blogger and my host are behaving.* * *
posted by gbarto at 6:16 PM:
Instapundit links to this Wendy McElroy story on Andrea Pia Yates. I'm in a tough spot on this one; being very close to a sufferer of bipolar disorder, I'm aware of the impact mental illness can have on someone's ability to process reality at times. One place where I feel no ambiguity, however, is in my disgust with NOW's political games with this case. Five children are dead; their mother is to be judged either a cold-blooded killer or a very, very sad example of the ravages of mental illness. (I'm inclined to believe the latter). Yet NOW is talking about the patriarchal oppression of stay-at-home moms? Nothing I have seen of this case indicates to me that Andrea Yates is chanting girl power slogans, celebrating her "liberation," etc. In truth, she's looked somewhere between sad, devastated, and completely lost. Whatever the jury decides, this is not a matter of woman-breaking-free. This is a matter of - let me repeat it - five children dead, their mother the killer, the nature of her act to be determined. Let's stop playing political football with this one.* * *
posted by gbarto at 5:59 PM:
Be sure to read Tuesday's Bleat from Lileks (it's the one on geese, you might need to go to the previous one if I haven't updated with the archive link yet).* * *
posted by gbarto at 5:23 PM:
The folks on Samizdata are pushing this Who's your biggest philosophic influence test. I got the following:1. Mill (100%) 2. Kant (94%) 3. Spinoza (88%) 4. Prescriptivism (84%) 5. Epicureans (83%) 6. Aquinas (80%) 7. Ockham (78%) 8. Aristotle (77%) 9. Rand (71%) 10. Bentham (70%) | 11. Sartre (68%) 12. Stoics (59%) 13. Augustine (58%) 14. Nietzsche (53%) 15. Hume (45%) 16. Hobbes (37%) 17. Cynics (33%) 18. Noddings (28%) 19. Plato (28%) |
Looking at the site's descriptions of the different philosophers/philosophies, I'd say they did relatively well with their selections - particularly since they only used twelve questions. But I don't think twelve questions is enough. I'd add that this survey is limited to straight ethics - there weren't a lot of questions to determine one's opinion of property rights, markets, etc. For the record, I usually think of Locke, Adam Smith and Frédéric Bastiat as bigger influences and enjoy reading Plato - I enjoy Socrates at his most cantankerous. As for the list, Mill I can see, Kant surprised me.
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posted by gbarto at 3:19 PM:
Following up on the post below, I'd note that if you want a voice, you need only go to blogger.com. Their servers are kept quite busy, so if you have your own webspace already, I'd suggest using that so that you'll only be tying up their servers when you post.And if you have something to say, by all means, say it. Many moons ago, Robert Heinlein wrote a wonderful book, Take Back your Government. (Sadly, it's out of print). The point Heinlein made was the same one that came through in much of his writing: In a land of individuals, we have both the right and the obligation to exercise our liberty including by taking our place in the public debate. Too often, we assume that congress won't change its mind, that the corporation is too powerful to stand up against, and all the other shibboleths that justify inaction. While starting a blog is not the same as building a political party or organizing the effort to overturn an unjust law, etc., it is a way of adding your voice to the mess of voices in a new and different way. Let's hope for lots more small voices to come.
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posted by gbarto at 2:57 PM:
Joanne Jacobs followed up an Andrew Sullivan WarBlogger manifesto by noting that a broader term is needed now that we're not writing exclusively about the war. Jacobs suggested "Freeblogging", since (a) most of us are essentially writing for free, and (b) we're exercising freedom of speech, free thought, and all the wonderful things that freedom encompasses. This site has declared itself "One small voice in the proud tradition of freeblogging", with the full recognition that there are many out there who have more to say and say it better and more often. Nonetheless, it's pretty incredible that as I sit here typing, the words are soon to go out for all the world - this simply wasn't possible 20 years ago; even a few years ago it was a problematic coding process. Now, anyone with a computer can have a voice - even if it's just "one small voice". Hats off to Evan for his wonderful creation.* * *
Monday, February 25, 2002
posted by gbarto at 4:50 PM:
The TurkeyBlog's other big target for opprobrium today is the incomparable John "I bought this seat fair and square" Corzine. It seems that Corzine wants rules for how we peons manage our 401Ks. Turns out, one of his rules for safe investing - never have more than 50% of your portfolio in one stock - was routinely violated by him while he was at Goldman-Sachs. He sniffs that he could do whatever he wanted since it was his own money, but 401Ks need rules since they are subsidized. That's right, folks, if the government even defers its take, it's a subsidy, not purely your money, and you therefore deserve less control. So I have a suggestion: The next time you get an update on your 401K, why not drop a note to Senator Corzine and thank him for his help.* * *
posted by gbarto at 4:48 PM:
Watching CNBC earlier today, I was disgusted but not surprised by the Mighty Gray Davis' handling of Calpine. It seems the stock had tanked after the guvnor announced his intention to sue Calpine to break the energy contract signed last year. I think this idea has real potential: What say we all sue the local car dealer? We wouldn't have paid that much for the car if we thought we could get it cheaper. Then we can sue the computer manufacturers - we wouldn't have paid $2,000 for that Pentium 5 years ago if we'd known that we could get a P4 for $700 in three years. Finally, we'll sue our lawyers because we wouldn't have agreed to such high fees in retrospect.I'm no big fan of the energy companies, but hey, they sell their goods to make a profit. Those that tried to play along with Gray Davis are now bankrupt, and this jackass is still seeing how much he can jawbone out of a legitimate business that was only able to negotiate such a generous contract because of the mess Davis had presided over in the first place. If I were negotiating with Davis, I'd be demanding a pretty high premium myself, because you can't trust the man to keep his agreements and you've got to have an out and a way to cut your losses when he finds a way to stab you in the back.
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posted by gbarto at 4:47 PM:
Real posts!Bartley on economics. In this morning's WSJ, Robert Bartley takes a look at Robert Rubin's celebration of surpluses versus the classic Keynesian view that if an economy is weak, you need deficit spending to keep money flowing and keep things going. Bartley concludes, finally, that the debate is very interesting, but that it is microeconomic - not macroeconomic - factors that determine the course of an economy. The perfect example of this is the dot-com bubble. The dot-com bubble was not about runaway growth, an overly loose money supply or anything else of the sort; it was the result of excessively optimistic assumptions about how much money dot-com companies could generate. So what should the government have done? Stomped on the whole economy to suppress these excesses? Set up the whole economy for a fall by pumping in enough money for other industries to get just as ridiculously hyped? The only answer was to let the bubble run its course, because unique microeconomic factors caused these unique microeconomic events. The same goes for the California energy crisis - rearranging U.S. economic policy to iron out the wrinkles in the situation would have required either inflating energy costs across the board or bankrupting utilities nationwide. So much better to let things take care of themselves at the appropriate level, for "the economy" is as much of an abstraction as "the market"; it has less to do with you and me than one might think.
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Sunday, February 24, 2002
posted by gbarto at 6:50 PM:
For Sunday, a moderate site redesign - the template's about the same but the colors are changed. Hopefully, it's a little bit more readable, but as quirky as before. And coming soon, a few new poems on the Hugo pages.* * *
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