Month: November 2008

You can vote on which Minnesota votes should count. Kind of meta, no?

Suderman is enthralled by it:

Today, for example, I’ve gotten emails urging me to "Save Rush Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly Before It Is Too Late" and — one of my favorites so far — an offer to teach me how to "Obama-proof" my financial portfolio. Part of me still worries that this sort of paranoia, which isn’t new (wacky political newsletters of all political stripes were huge in the 80s and early 90s), but is now far more accessible thanks to the internet, will be used to unfairly discredit the right. So I’m a relieved to see that it’s tapered off slightly since the election. But I can’t help but be a little disappointed, can’t help but hope, in some small way, that it never fully goes away…

Mozart’s Symphony No. 40:

(Hat tip: 3QD)

A reader writes:

I have to confess I haven’t read your books, but since "The Politics of Homosexuality," I’ve tried to push you on those who can’t seem to articulate why they, as conservatives, object to civil equality. I imagine somewhere in your writing though, you’re coming from Benjamin’s Angelus Novus. He’s one of my favorites, and with this post today, so are you.

"A Klee painting named ‘Angelus Novus’ shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such a violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress," – Walter Benjamin.

The painting is after the jump:

Adrian Wooldridge admires a new class of journalists:

These journo-gurus have overturned two established hierarchies. The first is the billion-dollar management theory industry, hitherto ruled by business professors and management consultants who produced books and then turned those books into business fads. Alas, the books were often dismally written, the fads a recipe for disaster. This created an opportunity for those with sharper pens and more dispassionate attitudes. A recent Wall Street Journal ranking of management gurus, based on Google hits, newspaper mentions and academic citations, included two journalists in the top five (Friedman at two, Gladwell at four) and only one traditional management guru, Gary Hamel. The New Yorker is now a bigger generator of management fads than the Harvard Business Review.

The second overturned hierarchy is that of journalism. This used to be dominated by political journalists who hogged the front pages and secured the best book deals. But the most successful of those–Bob Woodward, George Will–are all getting long in the tooth. And younger political writers are finding it almost impossible to talk their way into the first-class cabin. The big money goes to TV journalists whose grinning faces launch a dozen worthless bestsellers. Political partisanship is tempting political writers to turn themselves into ideological water carriers rather than serious reporters. And the internet is multiplying the number of voices while diminishing the impact of any of them.

Appleyard contemplates the value of philosophy.

Evan Kohlmann discusses Al-Qaida’s racist comments:

Clearly, Al-Qaida is seeking to undermine the surge of popularity and enthusiasm for the Obama victory that has spread throughout the developing world, and particularly in Africa — where Al-Qaida has strong vested interests in at least two ongoing military conflicts. There certainly are ways to accomplish this — as was demonstrated by Al-Qaida’s skillful use of imagery of Barack Obama at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. However, by indulging in divisive labels such as "House Slave" or "House Negro", Dr. al-Zawahiri has strayed from being merely disrespectful into being entirely disreputable and dishonorable.

By playing the race card so quickly and so brazenly, al-Zawahiri may end up causing backlash against Al-Qaida in the very constituencies he is seeking to woo. It also invites the question, how is this a legitimate criticism coming from the senior leadership of Al-Qaida, which is dominated almost solely by Arab Egyptians and Saudis? Moreover, what would Malcolm X have thought of an organization, Al-Qaida, that at one time offered a higher salary to its Arab membership than its Black African adherents? One might imagine that the financial guru responsible for overseeing this inequitable arrangement — Egyptian national Mustafa Abu al-Yazid — would have been punished for his bigoted actions. In fact, al-Yazid has since been promoted to the number 3 position in Al-Qaida, right behind Dr. al-Zawahiri. This is hardly the type of image that Al-Qaida would like to see proliferate in critical regions adjacent to jihadi conflict zones in Somalia, Algeria, Morocco, and Mauritania.

(Hat tip: Ilan Goldenberg)

Nikolas K. Gvosdev explains Somali piracy

I’ve gotten some queries as to why the U.S. and/or other Navies don’t just retake hijacked ships by force. Well, there’s a good economic reason why, for the last number of years, companies have preferred to pay ransom. Generally, companies prefer getting their ship and cargo back in one piece rather than risk destruction–and because the pirates, as of yet, don’t seek to kill the crews (although there have been accidental deaths from bullet wounds during the initial takeover and a sailor on the Ukrainian vessel that was seized in September had a coronary)–there is no sense that the captured sailors are in imminent danger of death.

Thoreau has an epiphany:

For a long time, I was kind of amazed by the libertarian rhetoric of the GOP, the way that somebody could argue for torture and corporate welfare and unchecked police powers and massive deficits and a global empire, and then follow it up with “Because I believe in limited government and the free market.” The cognitive dissonance wasn’t what bugged me (I’m cynical enough to take it as a given that politicians know how to lie) but rather that they would even bother appealing to the small government crowd that they feel free to screw over. I mean, aren’t we, like, a miniscule faction?

And then it hit me–it was never about us.

All those dog whistles that libertarians respond to whenever Republicans blow the whistle? Those were for other people. Second amendment? It’s a cultural thing, not principle. Free markets? Intellectual cover for corporate welfare. Limited government? This is their way of saying to the subsidized farmers of the Great Plains and the employees of the Military-Industrial Complex and all the other beneficiaries of GOP-style redistribution “Don’t worry, you aren’t a welfare recipient like all those city folks that I bash. You’re better than that. You’re a hearty, self-reliant person who supports limited government.”

Timothy Kincaid notes:

One negative observation: Judge Kennard was one of the four judges who found for gay couples in May. The motion indicates that Judge Kennard would have denied the petitions of the gay couples to be heard before the court on this matter. That may indicate that she does not think that the case has merit.