An entry at a sand sculpture competition in Moscow, Russia.
Month: May 2009
How The Right Cracked
Damon Linker makes a "a few observations about the factions forming on the intellectual right as it adjusts to life in the political wilderness." He tackles National Review, The Weekly Standard, and Commentary:
Oh sure, there are bright spots at all three magazines/websites: Jim Manzi's libertarian-minded commentary on economics and finance for NRO; Max Boot's historically informed posts on foreign affairs and military issues for Contentions; and best of all, Christopher Caldwell's carefully reported essays on various political and cultural topics for the Weekly Standard. But that's pretty much it for intellectual conservatism these day, at least in the places it used to thrive.
Make Your Own Beautiful Music
I second this:
This visual musical synthesizer by Andre Michelle is one of the most awesome things I've ever encountered anywhere. It's incredibly simple, effective and provides instant positive feedback in that almost nothing you do will produce an awful bit of music. I want my entire house plastered in something that does this. It also wants me to spend an entire weekend on drugs, just fucking around with this thing.
It's here and your day is over.
Mental Health Break
Behold the pygmy jerboa, apparently an actual animal – like a rabbit's face on tweety-pie's body:
Publishing’s Downs And Ups
This is interesting news:
U.S. book production rose and fell in 2008, according to preliminary statistics released this morning by Bowker. The number of new and revised titles produced by traditional production methods fell 3% in 2008, to 275,232, but the number of on-demand and short run titles soared 132%, to 285,394. The on-demand and short run segment is the method typically used by self-publishers as well as online publishers. With the decline in the number of traditional books released last year and the jump in on-demand, the number of on-demand titles topped those of traditional books for the first time.
Of course, the actual sales of these two categories are out of whack – with on-demand sales a fraction of traditional ones. But as the web begins to offer options to buy books outside the old model – e-books, on-demand books – authors may begin to see the kind of opening that the web once offered via blogs.
The Coming Inflation Tax
Posner ponders Obama's push for healthcare reform and Krugman's agenda:
My own heretical view is that Americans are undertaxed, and so if I thought that the increase in the public debt was going to be financed by higher taxes I would not be upset. But Congress and the public seem adamant against tax increases, even when they take the form of closing ridiculous loopholes, and against spending reductions, even in ridiculous programs such as farm subsidies; and this combination of aversions makes it likely that increases in the public debt will be financed by a combination of continued borrowing, but at higher and higher interest rates, and inflation.
A bit of inflation can be a good thing in a depression, because it operates as a tax on cash balances and thus reduces hoarding and stimulates spending. But I am worrying about the inflation that hits after the depression, when the government decides that it can no longer finance the public debt by borrowing, cannot raise taxes, cannot cut spending, and is left with having to debase the currency. I would like to see greater efforts by the Administration and by the economics profession to determine, so far as may be possible to do, the gravity of this danger.
Amen on all counts.
Prop 8 Reax
My take here. Chris Geidner doesn't approve of the pro-equality protests planned for today:
First, this is not a ruling about whether marriage equality is correct or just. This is a ruling about whether the California Constitution allows a measure like Proposition 8 to be voted into the Constitution by the people. Even if there is some overriding federal claim that marriage equality is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, it was not raised by the parties here. Second, we have spent the past decade decrying those who demean the legitimacy of court decisions by attacking them. It would turn that principled stand on its head to say that this court, which previously held that marriage equality was guaranteed by the California Constitution, is somehow responsible in today’s decision for “denying an entire group of people our civil rights.” Third, and most simply, this is not the righteous anger exhibited this past fall.
The anti-gay bigots said before the decision that they wanted Prop 8 upheld and they weren't concerned about the 18K gay couples who wed while same-sex marriage was briefly legal in CA. That exposes their fundamental dishonesty. If they believe, as they claimed during the campaign, that married same-sex couples are a threat to the family, a threat to children, an invitation to hurricanes and earthquakes and wildfires, and that the existence of married gay couples somehow requires homosexuality to be taught in schools, how can they be indifferent to 18K married gay couples rattling around the state? Won't all those bad things still happen?
…the ongoing existence of these marriages, with no demonstrable harm being caused by their existence, will call into question, if not outright destroy, the bigots' argument for why the state has an interest in banning gays from getting married.
The 6-1 split is significant. The previous ruling declaring gay marriage a right under California’s constitution was very narrow. Three of the judges who voted for that decision went the other direction today. They had little choice. California allows constitutional amendments by referenda, and the backers of Proposition 8 followed the law scrupulously in getting it on the ballot.
Even in California there is only one justice willing to strip 7 million voters of their core civil right, expressly guaranteed, to amend their own constitution. I should be grateful, right?
Will the anti-Prop. 8 mob restrain itself? Stay tuned.
I’m overcome by a profound sense of grief. The courts are supposed to be on the side of justice and protection of the rights of minorities. This time, the California Supreme Court — admittedly with precedential justification — blinked. And I’m reminded again that people get to vote on my rights. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that, or be able to regard these kinds of setbacks as “second-level disappointments.” Well, back to the political process — like it, or not.
[T]he California court ruled today that voters can modify constitutional rights in California, so long as they don’t take them away altogether.
(Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty.)
The Cannabis Closet: Aspergers, Ctd
A reader writes:
Hooray for the "Dealing with Aspergers" stories! My husband has Aspergers and uses marijuana to deal with the symptoms of his neurological disorder. The biggest struggle he faces each day is the overwhelming anxiety he experiences as a result of his many sensory processing problems. He can see every flicker in fluorescent lighting, hear every electrical hum of an appliance, feel every fiber in his sweater. He also experiences a great deal of stress as he tries constantly to fit in and behave appropriately in social situations. He oftens says that he doesn't believe neuro-typical people can truly understand how hard it is to live in this society as a person with autism.
He has not tried pharmaceutical anti-anxiety medications because he is afraid of side-effects, but he finds marijuana easy to tolerate and the side-effects for him have been minimal. (The munchies? Not really a big deal.) My husband has not been held back by his marijuana use. He has a successful career and is often referred to as a model employee that exceeds expectations. He has friends in every state. We have a great marriage and smart, wonderful kids.
I sometimes worry – marijuana is illegal, afterall – but those moments are fleeting because he really does not smoke pot recreationally. In fact, we joke around that "he doesn't get high, he gets normal."
Sotomayor’s Chances
Nate Silver notices:
Sonia Sotomayor was the subject of a roll call vote in 1998, when she was confirmed to her current position the 2nd Circuit. The overall vote was 67-29 in favor of confirmation, with 4 Senators not voting. All Democrats voted in favor of Sotomayor (although three did not vote), while Republicans opposed her by a 29-25 majority. Among those Senators who are still in the chamber today, however, Sotomayor's margin of confirmation was a bit more comfortable: 35-11.
The Prop 8 Ruling: The Right Call
It has been upheld. The 18,000 same sex marriages performed in California are still valid. For my part, I will leave the fine legal analysis to those trained in these matters (and link to them). Politically, this seems to me the perfect decision. It would have been dreadful if voters were retroactively told their valid vote was somehow null and void – it would have felt like a bait and switch and provoked a horrible backlash.
It would have been equally dreadful if those couples lawfully wed were subsequently forced into divorce by the court. And these married couples and their families and children will now become the focus of the debate in California, as they should be. They are the evidence that we are right: that extending the blessings and responsibilities of full family life to gay men and lesbians is a good and conservative and integrating thing. We need now to put these families forward as our core argument. Their lives are our best case. Like mixed-race married couples in another era, they will show that there is nothing to fear here and much to celebrate.
Read the opinion below:
The Dish 