Month: July 2010

Kottke finds the "cutest thing on the internet." More images here.

Nyhan compares her favorables to Clinton's:

Though Clinton started 2007 as a less polarizing figure than Palin, the public quickly reverted to being sharply divided about her as she began to campaign actively for the Democratic nomination. Assuming Palin's remaining supporters will stick by her, she may end up with a similar profile in April 2011 as Hillary had in April 2007. In that case, a successful nomination campaign is plausible (and even a general election victory if the economy is in bad enough shape). However, her failure to improve her image during this pre-primary period may cost her the elite support she needs to win the GOP nomination.

What Republican elites?

Joshua Foust is critical of Wikileaks:

Quite possibly, the real damage this leak will do is to how the intelligence community operates. Last week, when the pundits were outraged at the revelations in The Washington Post’s expose on the intelligence community, much of it focused on how little agencies collaborate and share information. That is, when they find something important, they tend to keep it to themselves, rather than share it with the other 15 agencies that might be working on the same issue. The Post blamed this inability to share data, and the community’s inability to understand the sheer volume of data it collects, on several intelligence failures in recent months.

Think about what WikiLeaks has done, now. They have essentially told the entire IC that anything they write or say or make available to the broader defense community is, essentially, fair game to be made public.

Adam Weinstein explains who had access to this information:

Most of what you see on WikiLeaks are military SIGACTS (significant activity reports). These are theoretically accessible by anyone in Iraq, Afghanistan, or the Tampa, Florida-based US Central Command—soldiers and contractors—who have access to the military's most basic intranet for sensitive data, the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet). Literally thousands of people in hundreds of locations could read them, and any one of them could be the source for WikiLeaks' data.

Ryan Avent adds to Greg Mankiw's criticism:

It seems to me that fiscal stimulus will work well in countries where it is believed that fiscal stimulus will work well.

What do I mean by this? Well, one obvious point is that a country that understands stimulus should experience an immediate jolt to confidence when stimulus is enacted. But other factors are likely to be more important. A country committed to stimulus will take care to prepare to use stimulus. It will construct a system of automatic stabilisers that provide immediate countercyclical aid as an economy deteriorates. It may have a backlog of needed infrastructure projects at the ready, which can be rushed into action as conditions warrant. A country generally sceptical of stimulus, on the other hand, will reach for it in an emergency and find that it is unprepared. Automatic stabilisers will be too small and will require constant Congressional maintenance. Too few projects will be shovel-ready. The need to legislate will lead to inclusion of pork items that aren't particularly stimulative. Stimulus will be less targeted, timely, and effective as a result.

Today on the Dish we rounded up reaction to the latest Wikileaks leak. Andrew's take here. He also ripped into Journo-list for its Trig talk (a reader poured salt), wrung his hands over epistemic closure, and continued to confront anti-Semitic smears.

ABC finally released the full transcripts of her 2008 interviews. More Palin coverage here and here. The backlash against Lindsey Graham got scary. "Torture" watch here and here.

Creepy ad here. Slow lightning here, unoriginal lyrics here, ugly animals here, guy stuff here, and the definitive case against monogamy here. MHB here, VFYW here, and FOTD here.

— C.B.

Heh:

(Via TDW)

Tom Ricks recommends Leila Fadel's WaPo article on Mosul, Iraq. Ricks remains pessimistic:

There is no agreement on how to share oil revenue, no resolution of the basic relationship between the country's three major groups, and no decision on whether Iraq will have a strong central government or be a loose confederation. And no resolution on the future place of the Kurds and Kirkuk.

Joel Wing studies the connections between terrorism, insurgency, and government:

It’s much easier to come up with local projects and create community security forces than it is to reform an entire government. That can be seen in the current situation in Iraq. The insurgency has lost most of its popular base, but it still continues because Baghdad is dysfunctional, and militants still consider it a tool of the Americans.

Friedersdorf's reasoning:

I try the patience of some readers by regularly writing about talk radio hosts. It isn’t a fun beat, for all the obvious reasons (hate mail, gratuitous insults, having to listen to their shows)…It is nevertheless important to engage prominent talk radio show hosts by setting down their words on blogs, because otherwise their most indefensible nonsense just drifts off into the air unchallenged, a convenience that allows them to grow lazy in their call-screener-maintained cocoon while retaining more respect than is deserved from their ideologically friendly colleagues outside of it. The good folks at National Review or The Weekly Standard, which have covered this story well from various perspectives, might read Liberty and Tyranny, and being people that work a lot during the day, assume without ever thoroughly checking that the quality of argument on Mark Levin’s radio show is comparable.