Month: December 2008

by Chris Bodenner
"I don’t know what Caroline Kennedy’s qualifications are. Except that she has name recognition, but so does J.Lo," – NY state Rep. Gary Ackerman (D), apparently taking his rhetorical cues from the McCain campaign.

by Chris Bodenner
My title for this piece by Geoffrey Cottence:

More athletic-wear animals here.

By Patrick Appel
David Nygren on the future of book publishing:

For now, for most people, print is to read, and electronic is to search and browse and discover.  But this will soon change.  E-book reader technology is at the point where it would be acceptable to most people.  All that is necessary is for the price of readers to come down (or perhaps they could be provided for free in return for an annual subscription to content) and for their use to permeate the culture (see my Amazon Kindle idea).

If the cost-savings and convenience are there, we might not have to wait for a generation or two to die off to get to this point.  It could happen nearly as quickly as digital music came to dominate, though I suspect it won’t happen quite that fast since the benefits are not as great for end users.

But print will still have its place, as it should.  Any person or organization that takes archiving seriously will see the value of print.  Yes, it can burn, drown, etc., but on acid-free paper a book’s perpetuity is almost certainly more assured than if it is simply data on server, hard drive or disc.  Apart from the conscious archivists, people may well continue to desire print copies of books that are meaningful to them.  Since no additional equipment is necessary, as with musical recordings on vinyl, and since people like to collect physical things, there will still be a market for print books.  We will have to pay more for them, however, and most books will printed on demand, so don’t expect to see stacks of every new title lying around in bookshops.

by Chris Bodenner
In a come-from-behind effort to capitalize on the unregulated use of melatonin to cure jet lag, the pharmaceutical industry is developing drugs to mimic its effects:

[Melatonin] is a hormone that regulates the biological clock. It is made in the brain [when] darkness sets in after sunset. Light is the most potent cue for keeping the biological clock in synch with solar time. The clock then tells the brain when to go to sleep. The theory of those who use melatonin is that an external dose of it can reset the clock, and thus cause the "go to sleep" signal to be sent at a more convenient moment.

By Patrick Appel
Law-blogger Rick Hills wonders when it is  it illegal for a politician to sell government jobs:

Does the indictment against Blagojevich rest on the theory that rewarding fund-raisers with plum jobs constitutes an instance of mail fraud — that is, depriving the people of Illinois of their intangible right to honest services? Or does the case rest entirely on the allegations that Blagojevich demanded money for his personal use? If the former is the case, then the indictment is an extraordinary power grab by a U.S. Attorney. If the latter, then there is nothing in the tape revealed so far that could form the slightest basis for a prosecution of Jesse Jackson, Jr. for offering a bribe in violation of 18 U.S.C. §1346.

Volokh had similar questions a few days ago.

by Chris Bodenner
Jessica Cutler, the scandalous sex blogger of "Washingtonienne" fame, is back on the scene (and married).

By Patrick Appel
Saletan makes the pro-life case for Planned Parenthood:

The campaign to defund Planned Parenthood is really about abortions. [The Family Research Council] would like to see fewer of them. So would I. And that’s the crux of the idiocy: The single best thing you can spend money on to reduce the number of abortions, not just in this country but around the world, is Planned Parenthood.

I’ll say that again: If you define pro-life as preventing abortions, Planned Parenthood is the most effective pro-life organization in the history of the world. No, it doesn’t give teenagers the idea of having sex. That idea comes to them quite naturally, thank you very much. What Planned Parenthood does, more comprehensively than anyone else, is to distribute the means and knowledge to control your risk of getting pregnant when you don’t want to be pregnant. And those two things, combined with pressure to exercise that control assiduously, are the surest way to prevent abortions. If you wait till women are already unhappily pregnant, you’re too late.

Elizabeth Nolan Brown made a similar point last week.

by Chris Bodenner
As the Dow drops, beards rally:

Facial hair is showing up on more former corporate types. It’s one of those tiny luxuries unleashed by unemployment, a time when people are briefly released from workaday habits and may wish to take stock of their lives before setting out anew. … [A stylist] says her bewhiskered clients often associate facial hair with power and rugged masculinity. "They joke with me about it — ‘I feel like a real man.’"

Or perhaps a shifty intellectual:

An alternative meaning of "beard" is someone who diverts suspicion from the guilty. To avoid sending unintended messages, stylists say, guys should think carefully about what their beards signal.

Still, professorial beards on older men can imply depth of intellect. Indeed, Ms. Anders says, fully one-third of the law school’s male faculty members have facial hair. Among them, she says, "we have two goatees, a mustache and two full beards."

By Patrick Appel
Virginia Postrel gets an e-mail from author Sam Macdonald:

I just wrote a book (released November 25) about my own experience with starvation. Long story short, I was really fat and really broke after college, so I decided to live on 800 calories a day. I ended up losing 160 poounds and, eventually, digging myself out of debt.

I wrote the thing when the economy seemed rather strong. So it was never supposed to be "timely." But now it’s intereting to see the way the media is reacting. For instance, here’s a review in the LA Times stating that the timing is "… uncanny…" That is, that there are lessons for people to learn.

On the other hand, here’s someone from Time magazine saying that the book WOULD be funny and interesting, but the timing is awful, somehow making it not funny anymore.

By Patrick Appel
Steve Chapman argues:

Okay, so it’s obvious we don’t want Rod Blagojevich choosing a replacement to fill Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat. But is it obvious we want any governor to have that power?

Of all the things a governor has the authority to do, this is the one that reeks most of King George III.

One senator, Dick Durbin, holds his office because the people of Illinois voted for him. The other, to be named later, would hold his or hers just because the governor said so. Neither the legislature nor the courts nor the voters have any role.

Even absent corrupt motives, that role asks too much of any governor. No one can accurately represent the wishes of the people of the state, and no one should try.

(Hat tip: Wilkinson)