Month: June 2010

Matt Steinglass was for marijuana legalization before living in countries with lax drug laws. He now prefers  decriminalization:

In the Netherlands, marijuana possession for personal use remains illegal. It's just never prosecuted. And indeed this seems to be the case for all the European countries with relatively permissive marijuana policies…It would be nice if we could arrive at an ethically and logically consistent legal stance on drug use, but it may be that in practice that's very hard to do, and not actually very important. Basically, while Sarah Palin's position on this issue, as on many others, is semi-deliberately incoherent, it is in this case a semi-deliberate incoherence that has proven to be effective policy in many countries, and I'm not even sure it's the wrong stance on the issue.

Jonah Lehrer finds Shirky's latest book wanting:

While Shirky pokes fun at [lolcats], he still argues that it represents a dramatic improvement over the passive entertainment of television. "The real gap is between doing nothing and doing something, and someone making lolcats has bridged that gap."

There are two things to say about this. The first is that the consumption of culture is not always worthless. Is it really better to produce yet another lolcat than watch The Wire? And what about the consumption of literature? By Shirky's standard, reading a complex novel is no different than imbibing High School Musical, and both are less worthwhile than creating something stupid online. While Shirky repeatedly downplays the importance of quality in creative production–he argues that mediocrity is a necessary side effect of increases in supply–I'd rather consume greatness than create yet another unfunny caption for a cat picture.

Further thoughts at Jonah's blog:

The larger point, I guess, is that before we can produce anything meaningful, we need to consume and absorb, and think about what we've consumed and absorbed. That's why Nietzsche, in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, said we must become a camel (drinking up everything) before we can become a lion, and properly rebel against the strictures of society. 

That's Steven Zeitchik's view:

Families are the ones going to the movies these days. Perhaps the only ones.

That's not just a summer phenomenon. Almost every big hit among the 2010 releases has been a movie whose primary, if not overwhelming, audience is children 12 and under — "How to Train Your Dragon," "Shrek Forever After," "Alice in Wonderland." Ditto for the year's biggest sleeper, "Diary of a Wimpy Kid." In fact, there isn't a single big-studio movie aimed at children that failed, save perhaps for "Marmaduke" (and some would argue that wasn't a movie).

The Atlantic's James Parker recently reviewed "Diary Of A Wimpy Kid."

Desktops are on the way out:

Amazingly, by 2015, desktops will constitute just 18 percent of the consumer PC market, if Forrester's projections bear out. In other words, more than 80 percent of PCs will be portable. Part of this is driven by what Forrester forecasts will be the wild success of tablet computers like the iPad. In just three years' time, tablets are projected to outsell desktops, becoming the second-largest PC category after laptops. This sounds crazy until you consider that Apple alone is already selling 1 million tablets a month.

Today on the Dish, we passed along BP's latest duplicity on the extent of the leak, processed the easing of the Gaza blockade, spotlighted the latest evils to emerge over Maciel, and blogged the tweeting of an execution in Utah. The new coalition in Britain laid out its views on gay equality while Kagan stiffed gay rights. A view of the violence in Afghanistan here.

BP also burned turtles alive. Michael Barone backed Barton and Reihan did as well (but soon followed up). Crist could be coming back from the political dead because of "Drill Baby Drill". Palin wanted to pray the leak away.

Chait pushed for the EPA to bypass Congress on climate change and worried about Sharron Angle. Frum predicted that the Tea Pary will lose the GOP seats, Ariel Levy put her money on Huckabee in '12, and Larison poured cold water on Palin's chances. Kinsley criticized Krugman over the debt. Friedersdorf blegged over what could replace local newspapers and a reader responded.

In other commentary, Steven Berlin Johnson critiqued Nick Carr's new book, Evgeny Morozov went toe-to-toe with Clay Shirky over his new book, Shirky sounded off on the publishing industry, Wilkinson countered Bryan Caplan over having lots of kids, and Dreher felt sorry for child geniuses.

World Cup crack here and here. Uber pwnage of a politician here, delicious unicorns here, and Bieber-looking lesbian coverage here. MHB here, VFYW here, and FOTD here. Andrew gave Hildog some love.

— C.B.

"Faith in reason is not only faith in our own reason but also — and even more — in that of others.

Thus a rationalist, even if he believes himself to be intellectually superior to others, will reject all claims to authority since he is aware that, if his intelligence is superior to that of others (which is hard for him to judge), it is so only in so far as he is capable of learning from criticism as well as from his own and other people's mistakes, and that one can learn in this sense only if one takes others and their arguments seriously.

Rationalism is therefore bound up with the idea that the other fellow has a right to be heard, and to defend his arguments," – Karl B. Popper.

(Photo: dusk at Herring Cove Beach, Province Lands National Sea Shore, last Friday.)

Douthat sizes up Huckabee. Larison leans on tradition to discount Palin's political future:

According to the pattern of the last thirty years, we all know that the Republican runner-up in one cycle is treated as the heir in the next open cycle. It doesn’t seem to matter how flawed or deeply disliked the runner-up is among conservative activists and journalists, and it doesn’t seem to matter how poor of a candidate he is.

McCain became the nominee in spite of all the conservatives who loathed him, and Dole won the nomination in ‘96 largely on the grounds that it was his turn. Democratic runners-up may try to come back, but they usually don’t succeed and just as often they don’t make the attempt. This is just one more reason why the conservative cult dedicated to Hillary Clinton is utterly misguided. If the pattern holds, and there is no reason to think that it won’t, the nomination will probably end up going to Romney or Huckabee, unless both of them appear so unelectable that a safe, viable third alternative becomes necessary. Then Mitch Daniels or someone else deemed suitable will emerge as the new frontrunner. Assuming that there will be a large, weak, divided field again, it is likely that the next Republican nominee will also win with barely a third of the early primary vote, so the bar is low enough for Romney or Huckabee to get over. It is probably still too high for Palin to cross.

Think Geek publishes "the best-ever cease and desist letter":

First, it's 12 pages long and very well-researched (except on one point); it even includes screengrabs of the offending item from our site. And we know they're not messing around because they invested in the best and brightest legal minds. But what makes this cease and desist so very, very special is that it's for a fake product we launched for April Fool's day. It wasn't the iCade, or the Dharma Initiative Clock, or even the Tribbles 'n' Bits Breakfast Cereal. No, it was the Canned Unicorn Meat.

The very special but also very real letter is from the National Pork Board, who claims we're infringing on the slogan "The Other White Meat," a slogan they're apparently thinking about phasing out anyways.

A great sentence:

We'd like to publicly apologize to the NPB for the confusion over unicorn and pork–and for their awkward extended pause on the phone after we had explained our unicorn meat doesn't actually exist.

Frum believes that the tea parties will lose the GOP winnable seats:

It's difficult for a political party to think strategically after a political defeat as severe as 2008's. But the Tea Party elevated the inability to think strategically into a fundamental conservative principle. Its militants denounce those Republicans who have resisted the movement as ideological traitors: "Republicans in name only" or even (charmingly) as "Vichy Republicans". In fact, the unthinking rejectionism of the Tea Party has strengthened Obama's political position. Now it threatens to deplete Republican strength in Congress, losing races that could have been won.

David Cameron's Conservatism responds to local British conditions. It's not an export product. But there is at least one big lesson that Americans could learn from him when the Tea Party finally ends: yes, a party must champion the values of the voters it already has. But it must also speak to the voters it still needs to win.