Month: November 2010

A reader writes:

Palin isn't looking for someone to research the best policy answers for her.  Even she would get an economics expert for that.  What a freelance journalist is good for is researching the most publicly popular reasons for the answers she already has.

It reminds me of a book by Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, where a character creates an incredible piece of business decision-making software called "Answer".  You input all the information on your problem and possible options you can choose from, and it would create a logic tree to the optimal choice.   It was bought by the Pentagon and put under the Official Secrets Act after he made one tweak.  You could now put in the answer you wanted and it would produce the logical argument tree to get you there.  It was renamed "Reason".

It is a little hard to think of Sarah Palin developing a serious critique of "quantitative easing" in the last couple of months. Reagan figured out his economics over two decades of reading and speaking and radio talks. Palin got the equivalent of a Weekly Standard intern.

Chait doesn't understand pundit priorities:

What's truly bizarre is this idea that [the debt is] the most urgent issue to address. Climate change seems clearly more urgent–and, what's more, it's probably irreversible. The economic crisis is also more urgent. But Washington elites are fairly removed from the cataclysmic effects of the economic crisis–they're not losing their homes or living in economic terror. And climate change is a "partisan" issue, unworthy of the urgings of a non-partisan wise man. And so, by dint of the peculiar isolation and sociological demands of the members of the political and media establishments, the deficit must become the top priority.

Well, excuuuse me. The Dish has made the debt a top priority since the early Bush administration. The solution to it is a lot more straightforward and reliable than mitigating climate change; the urgency of it matters a great deal depending on what generation you're in; and the economic crisis is surely made no better when investors see the US economy as headed for default, precise timing TBD by the markets. 

A reader writes:

While I am no fan of Palin, or expert in copyright law, she might have a point about the leaked manuscripts. 

It is probably not illegal in the criminal sense, but leaking the juicy bits of a major political figure's unpublished manuscript parallels quite closely with Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U.S. 539 (1985).  In that case, the Supreme Court held that The Nation's unauthorized copying of excerpts from President Ford's leaked memoirs was not fair use.  The Court considered the impact on the market for Ford's book and The Nation's commercial purpose – it sought to exploit the leak as a "scoop" to sell magazines.  Like Ford, she has the right to sell exclusive sneak-peeks to magazines like Time or the Atlantic, and surely those leaking the manuscript did so in part for scoop value.

The difference here might be that the leakers probably used less of the manuscript and added commentary (unlike the Nation, which printed full paragraphs of the book and sent to press before adding criticism).  However, the courts do not look kindly on leaks, so I wouldn't be surprised if she at least has a colorable claim.  This is especially so if any source "went beyond simply reporting uncopyrightable information and actively sought to exploit the headline value of its infringement, making a 'news event' out of its unauthorized first publication of a noted figure's copyrighted expression." 

Regardless, I still don't want her controlling the police.

Harper Collins is suing Gawker. A federal judge has ordered Denton's site to take down the excerpts.

David Frum is reading Palin's new book. He focuses on this line:

But from what I’ve read, family life at the time of the founding was a lot like family life for Americans today: full of challenges, sure, but also full of simple pleasures.

Frum wonders how Palin could fail to mention American slaves:

 Palin is a candidate who habitually qualifies some Americans but not others as “real Americans.” That subdivision is a crucial element of her mental architecture, maybe the single most important element of her mental architecture. As I’ve written before, it’s that mental architecture that those who dislike Palin most dislike about her. Often and repeatedly, she writes huge numbers of people out of the American story. In that one throw-away sentence, she did it again.

It’s not a big deal in itself. But it reveals something, and not for the first time or the second time or the third time even. And it’s that something that her words reveal that is a very big deal indeed.

Pareene also reviews the book:

It is called "America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag," although if the leaked excerpts are any indication a lot of it seems to be "reflections on stuff Sarah Palin saw on TV."

Like "American Idol," which is a symbol of decadent liberal elitism. And, for some reason, "Murphy Brown," because inviting Dan Quayle comparisons is a really good idea. And the films "Knocked Up," "Juno," and "The 40 Year Old Virgin," which Palin likes because they are pro-marriage and pro-babies, even though godless Hollywood liberal elites made them.

Nate Silver wonders whether the new scanners will decrease air travel:

In the past, more cumbersome security procedures have had deleterious effects on passenger demand. A study by three professors at Cornell University found, for instance, that when the T.S.A. began to require checked baggage to be screened in late 2002, it reduced overall passenger traffic by about 6 percent. (You can actually see these effects a bit when looking at the air traffic statistics: passenger traffic on U.S.-based airlines dropped by about 6 percent from the fourth quarter of 2002 to the first quarter of 2003 — greater than the usual seasonal variance — even though the economy was recovering and travelers were starting to get over the fear brought on by the Sept. 11 attacks.)

This ad, encouraging voter participation in Spain, is causing quite a stir.  Socialist equality minister Bibiana Aido calls the spot "misleading". But Green coalition leader Joan Herrera gets the money quote:

[It would be] very difficult to reach orgasm voting for any of the candidates, myself included.

But not impossible.

A new survey from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) finds low proficiency in African-American boys:

This slice of NAEP data shows just how stark the differences are: Urban black males without learning disabilities had reading and mathematics scores, on average, that were lower than white males nationwide with identified learning disabilities.

In response, John McWhorter advocates for the Direct Instruction method:

[A study in the 1970s found that the] Direct Instruction (DI) method of teaching reading – based on sounding out words rather than learning them whole (phonics), and on a tightly scripted format emphasizing repetition and student participation – was vastly more effective than any of the others. And for poor kids. Including black ones. … The poor child, the popular wisdom tells us, needs freedom to move about the classroom, or Ebonics, or less soda, or more leafy green vegetables, or any number of things other than being taught how to sound out words and read. Distracted by the hardships in their home lives, surely they cannot be reached by just having the facts laid out for them the way lawyers' kids can be reached.

Nate Silver notes Palin's ability to dominate the news cycle:

If Ms. Palin runs, there is probably some value to the candidate who positions himself as the “anti-Palin”, particularly since many Republicans have trepidations about how well Ms. Palin might fare in a general election against President Obama. But if she does not run, any attacks on her might seem gratuitous and could be counterproductive.

Ms. Palin may not be the front-runner in a traditional sense (although it’s not clear that any of the other candidates are either). But she literally commands as much of the public’s attention as the President of the United States, and the strategy for the other candidates will have to revolve around her to some significant degree. In fact, since it is uncertain whether she will run or not, they will effectively have to develop two separate sets of strategies, one contingent upon the assumption that she will enter the race and the other on the bet that she won’t.

(Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty)

Bradford Plumer revisits the ban on incandescent light bulbs:

Most of the opposition to the light-bulb law just seems to be cultural: Conservatives don't like the government telling them what to do (unless, of course, it's bedroom-related), and the only benefits of this law are to solve a problem (global warming) that the right doesn't even think exists. That's not a promising sign for energy policy. Cap-and-trade may be dead, but there are still a lot of smaller, relatively non-intrusive measures that could help curb power use, save money, and make the economy more efficient, such as stronger building codes. This isn't some wild-eyed liberal idea; even Ronald Reagan signed a big appliance-standard bill back in 1987. But the odds of small-bore compromise seem low now that even efficient light bulbs are considered unacceptably socialist.

Graeme Wood reviews a book about the country in its post-apartheid era:

Trevor Manuel, the South African finance minister from 1996 to 2009, got his job when the aging Nelson Mandela asked, at a cabinet meeting, who was a good economist. Mr. Manuel raised his hand thinking Mr. Mandela had asked who was "a good communist." Mr. Manuel served his country ably. But the appointment of the sole competent minister in the first government of African National Congress was a matter of blind luck.

This will hardly come as a surprise to anyone who has followed R.W. Johnson's reporting. The South Africa correspondent for the (London) Sunday Times and a frequent contributor to the London Review of Books, Mr. Johnson has been a prolific critic of the ANC's 16-year tenure in power. "South Africa's Brave New World," his political history of the post- apartheid era, amounts to a book-length indictment of the ANC. Its leaders come through as so corrupt, lecherous and violent that governance is not even an afterthought. "If we didn't dine with thugs and crooks," says one to Mr. Johnson, "then we'd always eat alone." The book is a catalog of sins and rumors (footnoted, though often attributed to private sources or, for example, "old girlfriends" of ANC members). It is big and disorganized but filled with credible gossip—like the Trevor Manuel story—and therefore a delight.