Month: August 2009

A reader responds to this post on subsiding blog traffic:

I think what we're dealing with is actually an affordance of the book that was previously hidden by the overwhelming paper-ness of it: books are discrete organizations of complex thought, invented and used by a species that is naturally good at building such discrete organizations. It strikes me that a lot of bloggers, myself included, start blogs because we have an idea that would twenty years ago have only been expressible as a book, or perhaps a never-to-be-published manuscript. Mine took more than a year to get fully out there, but now what I do when I blog is more or less to provide notes toward a hypothetical second edition.

Doing what you do–what I guess we could call "true blogging"–seems to me not to be something many humans are suited for, whereas I think there are many more of us who are suited for the "blook" paradigm. It stands to reason that if the above is the case, we're hitting a point where a lot of previously pent-up blooks, whether they're so called or not, have been written, and the pace will become slower, but still, I tend to think, steady.

Larison doesn't buy Cole's comparison of Palin and Ahmadi:

If you look past a few superficial and ultimately meaningless similarities, it becomes very difficult to see how Ahmadinejad is anything like Palin. Ahmadinejad is more like Huey Long with an engineering degree (not normally the profile of a right-wing populist), whose power base is the rural and urban poor, and who has pushed for redistribution of wealth in his campaign rhetoric and in his governing policies. In other words, when it comes to actual policy Ahmadinejad is an actual economic, and even left-leaning, populist. Because of the peculiarities of Alaskan sources of state revenue, Palin was able to play at this for a time with her tax hikes on oil companies, but in her incarnation as a national political figure she has become the antithesis of all of this.

I suppose both do adopt a working-class Everyman/woman shtick, but once again when it comes to substance Palin endorses the usual pro-corporate economic policies of her party. Ahmadinejad’s tenure has been an economic disaster as he has tried to buy his way out of economic woes with easy credit and spending, but this is a function of his genuine, if poorly-conceived and even more poorly-executed, economic populism. Palin’s populism is purely rhetorical and symbolic: she is a journalism major who rails against journalists, and a politician who rails against the political class.

Daniel Drezner throws cold water on reports that Obama is talking with congressional allies about imposing harsh sanctions on the Iranian oil industry:

[W]ithout China and Russia, this is just a theoretical exercise. In fact, here's a good time-saver: if you read any story about a gasoline embargo on Iran, just scan quickly and get to the part where the reporter explains how and why Russia and China would go along. If it's not mentioned, the story is inconsequential.

Drezner also explains why the recent uprising is likely to lessen any chance of China or Russia going along with sanctions:

I'm betting that Moscow and Beijing have observed the "Death to Russia!" and "Death to China!" chants among the protestors. This is likely going to make them even more reluctant to do anything that undermines the current regime (even if this hurts their long-term interests). Which a gasoline embargo would most certainly do.

Do I think a gasoline embargo is a good idea? Absolutely. Do I think it will happen? No, I don't.

Ackerman agrees, adding:

[W]hy would, say, the United Nations agree to a move that would push the Iranians to dare the international community to confront it militarily over a global economic chokepoint?

Gallup updates its state-by-state polls for the first six months of Obama's presidency – and almost nothing has changed. America remains a predominantly blue nation.

That all depends on what you mean by "end" and "recession." Dick Posner elaborates here.

Ezra Klein, contra Brad Delong, argues that steadily dropping the age of Medicare eligibility is a bad strategy for expanding health-care coverage:

First, if you can't pass Medicare-for-All, what makes you think you can pass Medicare-for-More? The industry stakeholders won't be confused about where this process is going. Nor will Republicans. The opposition will react with exactly the fury you'd see directed against a single-payer proposal. But far fewer people will benefit. The opposition, in other words, would mirror the opposition to single-payer, but the potential support is a lot smaller.

The second problem is that this probably reduces, rather than expands, the constituency for health-care reform. You're seeing this now with health-care reform. As Friday's Gallup poll showed, seniors are the least supportive constituency for changes to the health-care system. They worry it'll mess with the comfortable arrangement they already have.

A reader points us to a news item we missed last week:

The Iraqi Ministry of Culture has just taken the unexpected step of launching a program of official censorship of books imported from abroad. The new rule also applies to books published within Iraq, as publishers

are required to obtain authorization before printing.

Needless to say, this has provoked a hostile reaction from Iraqi publishers and booksellers, calling it “a great step backwards on the path of freedom of thought and expression,” as guaranteed by the new Iraqi constitution. A number of critics have pointed out another problem with the new rule in the Iraqi context: the possibility of sectarian influences in the Ministry of Culture affecting the decision about what books can or cannot be published.  After what some intellectuals have called six years of “free circulation of books,” there is a sense that this is a return to censorship of the Saddam years.

Publishing Perspectives also has article examining censorship in neighboring Iran. The piece is written by Arash Hejazi, a novelist and founder of a Tehran-based publishing house who is most famous for being the trained physician who tried to save Neda.

A reader writes:

Since you are on the subject of Kirk/Spock bromance, I thought you might enjoy this clever mash-up from a couple of years ago. Trekies will recognize that this episode is when Spock is going crazy as he enters a mating cycle. Add Nine Inch Nails, clever editing, and a second of secondary footage and you get brilliance.

(Lyrics NSFW)

The Pentagon is developing a super-fast submarine that will travel about four times the current speed limit:

The technology, if developed, could revolutionize ocean transportation if it could be adapted to cargo and passenger ships. The vehicle would travel inside a large gas bubble created in the water, a process known as supercavitation. The bubble reduces drag, since the drag is much lower in air than in water, allowing the vehicle to travel at high speeds.

(Hat tip: Like Cool)