Month: October 2010

Adam Ozimek reads a year-old paper (pdf) on the subject:

Among the many interesting results they report are that 40% of prostitutes have a college degree, and 80% have had some college. Apparently, the current economic downturn has led to churn in the industry and lower wages, as supply has expanded and demand has contracted. For many women this puts the market wage below their reservation wage, which drives them out of the market.

Roja Heydarpour brings us the latest on plight of albinos in Tanzania. Albinos have been killed and maimed because of the ludicrous belief that albino body parts hold magical powers 0 a story the Dish has mentioned in the past. The current state of affairs:

Politicians who want to win elections wear large rings with albino powder hidden inside, she said. High-powered CEOs buy the potion in order to make more money. And the police are in on it, too.

The Tanzanian government finally banned the practice nearly two years ago, in part due to [journalist Vicky] Ntetema’s stories. They were embarrassed by their country’s now-tarnished image. But the ban was revoked last month, conveniently close to the general elections on Oct. 31, said Ntetema.

The witch doctors wield enormous power in a country where more than 90 percent believe and are afraid of being bewitched, she said. So even if a politician running for office does not buy the potion, the witch doctor threatens to tell his community to withhold its votes.

A couple months back Graeme Wood filed an excellent report on the continued widespread belief in witchcraft in parts of Africa.

(Image by Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty Images)

Adam Serwer sees how the military allowing openly gay recruits, for the moment at least, could come back to bite Obama. A couple scenarios:

The administration now finds itself hurtling toward an irreconcilable moral conflict. If its repeal effort fails and another court upholds DADT, those openly gay and lesbian recruits will be in danger of discharge. But just as the images of happy, newly married same-sex couples put the lie to the apocalyptic predictions of societal breakdown made by marriage equality opponents, the admission of openly gay and lesbian service members will further erode the already feeble basis for keeping DADT. The skies will not crack open, thunder will not roll, al-Qaeda will not suddenly establish a Western caliphate with Washington as its capitol. Life will go on largely as it has before.

But if the administration successfully appeals Judge Phillips's decision, it will find itself obligated to enforce a policy the president himself says he opposes and that he says undermines national security, a policy with no empirical, legal, or moral basis. The administration will have effectively instituted its own Proposition 8, retroactively denying rights to individuals who already have them. That will be significantly harder to explain or justify than simply maintaining the status quo. After having promised to repeal DADT, Obama would be responsible for its ongoing survival. 

Chris Geidner reports on the DOJ appealing the DADT stay request to the Ninth Circuit. Wonk Room reads the DOJ's stay request and realizes that it "doesn’t note a single specific instance in which the Pentagon has received a complaint about mass resignations or disruption in the time since it has complied with Philips’ order and stopped implementing the policy."

John Goodman's case against the health care reform law:

Most people intuitively know that the worst thing government can do in the middle of the deepest recession in 70 years is enact policies that increase the expected cost of labor. Yet that is exactly what happened last spring, with the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) …

In four years’ time, the minimum cost of labor will be a $7.25 cash minimum wage and a $5.89 health minimum wage (family), for a total of $13.14 an hour or about $27,331 a year. (I think you can see already that no one is going to want to hire low-wage workers with families.)

Brad DeLong and his commenters argue that the "health minimum wage" is effectively paid for by premiums and by government subsidies for low-wage workers. DeLong's mantra:

There is no employer mandate in the bill. Employers will still be able to offer workers $7.25/hour to work.

A reader writes:

You stated, "I don't believe in mandatory provision of food and shelter to those who have decided to be free-loaders, as opposed to the unlucky or incapable." That's all well and good, but in practice, when the presence of poverty and homelessness and its consequences negatively impacts tourism, social atmosphere, and the desire to do business and take up residence, there's an economic and quality-of-life incentive – self-interest, effectively – to provide food/shelter to those types of people, not just a moral one.

Another writes:

On food and shelter provision, this is a tough call. 

I agree that "freeloaders" who make little or no effort to help themselves should be limited, if not cut off.  But what if these same folks have, unfortunately, children?  Then what?  I'm not leaving those kids on their own, and I doubt that each case would warrant taking the child away.  So, I'd probably still give a bunch of adults who may not "deserve" the provisions.

Another:

If you don't believe in mandatory food and shelter for freeloaders, what do you think Christ meant when he said that if a man asks for your coat, give him your cloak also? I'm not playing "gotcha"; I honestly have never heard any person of faith (of which I'm one) even discuss this passage, let alone attempt to reconcile it with free market capitalism.

What Christ is saying is "give him your cloak also." Not have a government that confiscates your coat based on its beliefs and not yours. Another:

I think the most prominent distinction between you and Hertzberg is that you want to differentiate between free loaders and those who are unlucky or incapable.  But how would you propose that we make this distinction?  Surely a limited and humble government could not have any role in determining who is lazy and who is unlucky or incapable.

A simple example: long-term vs short term welfare. I favored welfare reform on these principles. On healthcare, it's tough, because it's very difficult to make distinctions for care based on illnesses that may or may not be related to lifestyle, and because the sick definitionally cannot cure themselves. Ditto unemployment benefits which expire after a while. We do not make them permanent, although it's pragmatic to extend them if the economic circumstances truly make employment impossible.

See: who needs a raucous comments section, when you can actually have a civil to and fro?

Doug Mataconis thinks through political commercials in the Tivo era:

…there are some forms of television programming that typically aren’t watched on a delayed basis, specifically news and sports. As DVR use increases, you’re likely to see political advertising concentrated around these types of programs where the audience is more captive than it is for, say, Wednesday night’s Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

I’ve been watching the baseball playoffs all month, for example, and even though the part of Virginia I reside in doesn’t have any competitive races, I’m still seeing ads for candidates in surrounding Congressional Districts. Campaign ads are also showing up during the local and national news on the broadcast networks, and on the cable news networks. As long as that audience is still there, campaigns will continue buying ads.

Second, the types of programs that most people record on their DVRs, evening comedy and dramas, aren’t usually the ones where you see much political advertising to begin with. Partly this is because the commercial time for these shows belongs, mostly, to the networks rather than the local stations and it makes little sense for a Senate candidate in Nevada to buy national television time. Obviously, this will be different in a Presidential campaign year.

Radley Balko highlights two examples:

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca says that if Prop 19 if it passes, he won’t abide by it. He’ll keep arresting marijuana offenders anyway.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who reports to President Obama (man of the people!), says he has no intention of respecting the wishes of Californians, either: “We will vigorously enforce the [Controlled Substances Act] against those individuals and organizations that possess, manufacture or distribute marijuana for recreational use, even if such activities are permitted under state law.”

The official position of the Obama administration, then, [is] that the states are free to pass laws that further restrict economic and personal freedom (see its support of California’s stringent environmental regulations, and its support for the rights of states to discriminate in gay marriage and gay adoption), but promises to crack down on any state that attempts to expand freedom.

Yeah that's about right. But what about the Tea Party's position? Shouldn't they be on California's side – state's rights and personal freedom? It will be an interesting test of whether they are a truly limited government movement or Christianists in libertarian clothing.

A reader writes:

One of your readers notes that they have encountered “LGTBQA” as an acronym. I used to work for a Diversity-focused office at UC Berkeley, where political correctness gets chewed up and turned into guidelines. The acronym we had to use? LGBTIQQAA (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual, Intersex, Queer, Questioning, Asexual, Ally). When I left my employment there, they were having meetings about tacking on a “P” for Pansexual, another “P” for Polyamory, and an “I” for something I can’t even recall.

A quick Google search produces an “LGBTIQQAA 101” from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse’s “Pride Center”.  The introduction reads like PC self-parody:

Each of these definitions has been carefully researched  and closely analyzed from theoretical and practical perspectives for cultural sensitivity, common usage, and general appropriateness. We have done our best to represent the most popular uses of the terms listed; however there may be some variation in definitions depending on location. Please note that each person who uses any or all of these terms does so in a unique way (especially terms that are used in the context of an identity label). If you do not understand the context in which a person is using one of these terms, it is always appropriate to ask. This is especially recommended when using terms that we have noted that can have a derogatory connotation.

Accordingly, “potato queen” is a term that “should be used with caution.” Another reader:

In Canada, it’s usually LGBTTQ.  Still no vowels:  lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual, two spirited, and queer.  I just moved here from America and felt bad that I didn’t know what two-spirited meant.

Another:

Your reader rightly points out that the level of political correctness that causes people to use the über-acronym “LGBTQA” is annoying and unnecessary. But I would go a bit further and say it actively causes problems. There’s no way we can try to look out for the interests of a gay couple trying to get married in California, a transsexual trying to find employment in Georgia, and a questioning teen just looking for some answers in New York with uniform policy initiatives. Sure, some collective work to support basic rights is a good idea, but I think it’s a very bad thing that the public now thinks of “LGBTQA” issues all together.

Just imagine if we expected the NAACP to do all the lobbying on behalf of every racial minority in America. I doubt all the groups would be pleased with the result.  And perhaps worse, we’d have have to rename it the “NAANAACHIPI…P, because it would now also be representing Native Americans, Asians, Cubans, Hispanics, Inuits, Pacific Islanders, and a whole host of others I’ve lumped into the ellipsis.

The gay movement started out as a celebration of diversity; it’s dangerous that it’s now using nomenclature which hides the diversity within itself.