Month: August 2010

George W. Bush's attempt to distinguish between Islam and Islamism was always a hard sell for his base. But at least he tried.

Indeed.

Mark Kleiman proposes a detailed overhaul of our failed system.

So what was Conan O'Brien doing shirtless on his knees in a grass skirt at 18 years' old?

Jacob Stokes draws a correlation between Pfc. Bradley Manning's suppressed sexual identity and his decision to go to Wikileaks:

This argument is not to excuse what Pfc. Manning allegedly did, which was against the law and almost surely endangered the lives of Americans and Afghans in the field while revealing little new information about the war in Afghanistan. Nor am I saying that the DADT policy was the sole driver behind Pfc. Manning alleged decision to leak the information. It’s clear that there were a number of factors and motivations at work.

But the [NYT profile] clearly states how Pfc. Manning’s homosexuality isolated him within the force. Manning had joined the army, as the article says, “to try to give his life some direction and to help to pay for college.” He sought guidance from the military and was met with institutional discrimination. Surely the imperative to hide his homosexuality pushed Pfc. Manning further and further into isolation, and he eventually (allegedly) cracked. Pfc. Manning did what he could to gain acceptance within the community of hackers who had befriended and accepted him when the military wouldn’t—he leaked the material.

This from the group that claims allowing gay couples to marry civilly is an outrage against religious freedom:

"Permits should not be granted to build even one more mosque in the United States of America, let alone the monstrosity planned for Ground Zero. This is for one simple reason: each Islamic mosque is dedicated to the overthrow of the American government. Each one is a potential jihadist recruitment and training center, and determined to implement the 'Grand Jihad' of which Andy McCarthy has written.

"Because of this subversive ideology, Muslims cannot claim religious freedom protections under the First Amendment. They are currently using First Amendment freedoms to make plans to destroy the First Amendment altogether. There is no such thing as freedom of religion in Islam, and it is sheer and utter folly for Americans to delude themselves into thinking otherwise." – American Family Association radio host Bryan Fischer.

I think it's time to acknowledge what we are increasingly learning: the base of the GOP – aided and abetted by what's left of their elites – want a religious war abroad and at home not on Jihadism, but on Islam itself. And a vote for the GOP is a vote for this agenda. It is a vote for global warfare and domestic division.

Henderson, Kentucky, 8.30 am

Kiera Butler explains:

[E]mails—especially those with attachments—still use energy and create greenhouse gas emissions, even if you don't print them. … Part of the reason we have so much data has to do with redundancy: Let's say you take a picture and send it to 20 people. Each of those people then have to download it, which requires equipment—personal computers, servers, and storage centers. … All of a sudden there are 7,000 copies, and because of that there are 7,000 devices that are being run to support that data.

A reader writes:

You asked, "[W]hy the Democrats are under so much electoral pressure when so many people are doing fine in this economy, indeed enjoying hefty wage increases in an era of very low inflation."

I think the answer is  summarized in three words: real estate prices. Even those who are not unemployed, or who don't have stock market investments, have seen the value of their homes plummet by huge amounts in the last two years. For most of us, that's our primary savings and source of net worth. I know I've lost a huge amount of the equity in my home over the last three years, and that makes me very nervous. Even though I continue to work and earn, I'm not easeful about my position, and my own personal safety net. Until real estate prices recover at least somewhat, most people in this country, employed or not, will feel very uncertain of their economic position, and hence vulnerable to all kinds of rhetoric.

Another writes:

To counter Yglesias' point regarding social networks of college grads, he forgets about our families.  I am a college grad myself, and yes, most of my friendships are with other college grads.  However, I have many family members that are not college grads, and I hear about their plights constantly. 

For instance, my sister just ended an almost two-year unemployment stretch.  I've had to deal with countless phone calls from her crying and sobbing over her unemployment, thinking she was some kind of loser because she couldn't find a job.  Doesn't matter how irrational that thought is; it's still there.  And even though everyone in my social network and my pay has increased recently, I've had to give my sister plenty of financial and emotional support.  Therefore, this recession has been very real for me.

Another:

I think the histogram you published deserves some pushback. Unemployment may be significantly lower for those with Bachelor's degrees, probably because knowledge workers and professionals were less hard hit than some other sectors such as construction and retail. There's a difference, though, between hanging onto a job and finding one, and even for those with a college education it's not easy.

I graduated two months ago from a fairly pretentious university. From my cohort, virtually everyone is either going to grad school or has taken temporary summer jobs. The summer research job I had lined up fell through at the last minute so I went straight to job hunting. It's a hard slog. Many companies have shown an interest in me, but they're swamped with candidates, many of whom have 5 to 10 years more experience than I do. There's just no way they'll take a chance on a new graduate.

It's no cause for despair that finding a job is taking a while, but if graduates of a top-drawer university have to resort to teaching summer camp or taking unpaid internships, what's in it for everyone else?

John McWhorter reviews Race, Wrongs, and Remedies:

One of the most sobering observations made by [author Amy] Wax comes in the form of a disarmingly simple calculus presented first by Isabel Sawhill and Christopher Jencks. If you finish high school and keep a job without having children before marriage, you will almost certainly not be poor. Period. I have repeatedly felt the air go out of the room upon putting this to black audiences. No one of any political stripe can deny it. It is human truth on view. In 2004, the poverty rate among blacks who followed that formula was less than 6 percent, as opposed to the overall rate of 24.7 percent. Even after hearing the earnest musings about employers who are less interested in people with names like Tomika, no one can gainsay the simple truth of that advice. Crucially, neither bigotry nor even structural racism can explain why an individual does not live up to it.