Month: October 2009

Althouse, Comments And Double Standards

Just check out Ann Althouse’s reaction to Garance Franke-Ruta’s rather anodyne reference to Jessica Valenti breast controversy on bloggingheads. It’s at the 50 minute mark. I have no idea what the reference is but Althouse explodes, threatens to hang up and tells Garance that she is involved in character assassination. But she is happy to post the vilest attacks on my being gay and having HIV and refuses to apologize. Her defense is that she is a robust defender of free speech. Oh wait … from Althouse’s blog four years ago:

Checking in on the blog, I face up to the problem of the degradation of the comments caused by an influx of several categories of new readers. I realize I’ve got to be more vigilant and less tolerant, because the decline in quality is affecting our regular readers. Newcomers are welcome to participate, but I’ve got to uphold some standards or the comments will lose their value for everyone.

In particular, I’m not going to accept repetitious arguments, abusive language, and overblown accusations — which seem to have become the style in the last few days. This is my place. I like debate and am ready to read criticism, but what has been going on lately has crossed the line, and I’m adopting a new, more activist form of supervision.

I will delete comments that offend my standards, and I will turn off comments on posts where the conversation is played out to the point where it is attracting too many deletable posts. You’re welcome to practice your free speech on your own blogs. I intend to keep a civil dialogue on mine.

Maybe I missed a post after that where she expressed her willingness not just to accept but to participate in threads that accuse an HIV-survivor of AIDS dementia because they disagree with him.

Best Typo Ever, Ctd

A reader writes:

That's a great typo… I was once researching IRS information related to giving gifts with donations and the following is a follow up email I had to send explaining the title on the attachments:

Just noticed something crazy – I saved the IRS document and titled it "Goods exchange for Donation"…the only problem though was that when its all together with no spaces it shows goodsexchangefordonation… sorry if that caused confusion – that was not the original name of document it was what I saved it as….

Another writes:

A friend’s law school resume listed her summer job as a proofreader.  An interviewer from a prestigious law firm asked her if she liked the job and if she was good at it.  Yes, she replied.  Oh really, the lawyer questioned, and showed her the “poofreader” typo on her resume.  I don’t think she got the job.

Obama Gets A Free Pen?

Ryan Sager’s reading:

The explanation that makes more sense to me is that it’s something closer to the old salesman’s free-pen trick on a grand scale. A free pen from, say, a pharmaceutical rep to a doctor seems harmless enough. But it triggers a strong reaction in people: reciprocity. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Social science experiments have consistently shown that giving people thing – even tiny little trinkets – can make them reciprocate in substantial ways. There’s a reason this free-pen trick exists, and that’s because it works.

President Obama has just received the biggest free pen in the world. I’m not sure what happens to the substantial cash attached to the award, but the prestige is a big free pen in itself. And the intent seems clear enough to me. We, the international community, have bestowed our highest honor upon you. Now, you feel at least a little more inclined to lean in our direction on: global warming, Israel-Palestine, etc.

David Frum has related thoughts. Kevin Sullivan counters. 

Our Women In Uniform

It has long been true that lesbians have suffered disproportionally under DADT. This last year was no exception:

In fiscal year 2008, the Air Force dismissed 56 women and 34 men. In addition, the Army removed more women under the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy at a greater rate than men when compared with the ratio of women to men in each service. Of those discharged under the policy, 36 percent were women, although women make up only 14 percent of troops in the Army, the data showed.

Off The Cuff, Ctd

A reader writes:

Fallows is largely on the mark here, though he moves too quickly through the latter half of the speech.  Speaking of Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama said: "I am the Commander-in-Chief of a country that's responsible for ending a war and working in another theater to confront a ruthless adversary that directly threatens the American people and our allies."  In the middle of this sentence, he drifts off slightly, seems to lose focus, and then quickly reconnects.  It's a brief moment, but a telling one. The immediate impact of this award will be to frame his decision to commit troops in the Afghan theater or to draw down our forces there.  I don't think the Nobel committee is so crass as to attempt to influence that specific policy decision.  At the same time, Obama must certainly be considering the implications of his status as a freshly-minted Nobel laureate on that looming choice.

A Thousand Little Frauds

Martine van Bijlert documents vote manipulation at the local level in Afghanistan:

The competition was more localized and the level of organization of the fraud more limited than in the presidential election, but the margins needed to win were also much smaller. Many unsuccessful candidates without money or access to the electoral apparatus have travelled to Kabul to register their complaints or to lobby their cases. The list of allegations is by now familiar: various forms of ballot stuffing on polling day, manipulation of the local count, tampering with result sheets, and manipulation during data entry and tallying.

Well Wisdom

Joe Klein writes:

A few weeks ago, a well-known U.S. military expert gave a wise speech about the near impossibility of making a counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy work in Afghanistan. He gave two examples. The first was digging a well: "How could you do anything wrong by digging a well to give people clean water?" Well, you could create new enemies by where you dug the well and who controlled it. You could lose a village by trying to help it. And then there was the matter of what he called COIN mathematics. If there are 10 Taliban and you kill two, how many do you have left? Eight, perhaps. Or there might be two, because six of the remaining eight decide it's just not worth fighting anymore. Or you might have 20 because the brothers and cousins of the two dead fighters decide to take vengeance. "When I am asked what approach we should take in Afghanistan," General Stanley McChrystal concluded, "I say humility."