Month: January 2011

by Conor Friedersdorf

Wouldn't it be interesting if various writers subverted the Team Red versus Team Blue aspect of the blogosphere by founding lots of competing teams? Like the yellow-bandanna-wearing Team Intellectually Honest Consequences Be Damned, or the green scarf-clad Team Averse To Hyperbolic Denunciations. Who wouldn't have a bake sale for Team Just Trying To Think Through This Very Complicated Issue, or even Team Everyone Can See Ethanol Subsidies Are A Bad Idea? (Well,  Iowa wouldn't have a bake sale for that team). 

I realize that at present all these teams exist informally. But we still behave as if it's totally coherent to say things like, "You never agree with the other side even when they have a point," or "You're just a useful idiot, always attacking your own side." I've always been attracted to the notion, "Of No Party Or Clique," and tried to write as if there are these sides, none of which I fully embrace. There's a lot of truth to that!

But it happens that I do have some loyalties.

For example, Will Wilkinson, who blogs at The Economist, belongs to Team Writes With Clarity And Regularly Turns Delightful Phrases. I feel season-ticket-holder loyalty to that team. And Freddie de Boer is on Team Very Earnest And Forthright In His Convictions. He and I disagree about most things, but I still want lots of spectators at his games. There are teams he's a part of that I'd play on. Is he "on the other side"? Only if you're thinking in a reductive way that doesn't square with reality. Freddie isn't a right-leaning libertarian by any stretch, but I'd rather he live on my Seastead than Bill O'Reilly!

Plus it'd be fun if, for once, the rest of us got to go on the offensive with these team-based cudgels. It's always ineffective to say, "How can you be a liberal," or "How can you be a conservative."And I'd never say those things anyway.  But "How can you be on Team Misleading People Into Thinking That Marked Up Commemorative Gold Coins Are A Good Investment?" That could work, if everyone were concious of that being a team. Or "Why Don't You Join Team Intellectually Curious?" It could use more members, and put that way, who could refuse?

There isn't just more to life than politics. There's more to civic life than politics. There's more to politics than elections, and more to politics than short term wins and losses on particular issues of import.

American government is organized around a de-facto two party system.

But the political blogosphere doesn't need to be.

by Zoe Pollock

Choire Sicha applauds PayPal founder Peter Thiel in his extended interview with the National Review, especially on education:

Education is a bubble in a classic sense. To call something a bubble, it must be overpriced and there must be an intense belief in it…. [W]hen people make a mistake in taking on an education loan, they’re legally much more difficult to get out of than housing loans. With housing, typically they’re non-recourse—you can just walk out of the house. With education, they’re recourse, and they typically survive bankruptcy. If you borrowed money and went to a college where the education didn’t create any value, that is potentially a really big mistake…. I estimate that 70 to 80 percent of the colleges in the U.S. are not generating a positive return on investment.

A one-day-old Asian elephant female calf lies between her mothers legs in her enclosure at Chester Zoo, in Chester, north-west England, on January 24, 2011. The unnamed newborn calf is the second baby elephant born at the zoo in the past six months. By Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images.

by Patrick Appel

Chris Cillizza says that Obama is "able to lose half a dozen (or more) swing states he carried in 2008 and still win the 270 electoral votes he needs for a second term." Bernstein yawns:

The problem with this kind of analysis is that it ignores the possibility that the Republican candidate might actually do better than the Democratic candidate overall. If that happened, it wouldn't just be the states that Obama won narrowly that would swing to the GOP; it could be lots of marginal states. Cillizza's "detailed examination" is meaningless; all he's telling us is that Obama won big in 2008 and could do a lot worse and still win. That's true — but Democrats in 1968 and Republicans in 1976 could tell you that large swings from election to election are quite possible. As could George H.W. Bush.

by Zoe Pollock

Jamelle Bouie takes issue with this post quoting Kenan Malik:

Granted, Malik is speaking to European multiculturalism, but I've heard others make a similar argument for the United States, and for us at least, it is ridiculous. When trying to correct for decades of organized and systemic discrimination, you have no real choice but to think of the afflicted in terms of their group affiliation. For African Americans in the Jim Crow South, the mere fact of their blackness guaranteed political disenfranchisement, economic isolation, and state-sanctioned violence. The rules of white supremacy were brutal, totalitarian, and applied to blacks as a group, with few — if any — exceptions for individuals. …

Now, there's something to be said for treating people as individuals and not "members of groups" in terms of formulating public policy. But group-based discrimination requires group-based remedies, and anything less risks avoiding the inequalities and power differentials that actually hinder marginalized groups.

by Chris Bodenner

A reader writes:

I found it interesting that you moved on from the Calvin & Hobbes/Fight Club Theory to Ferris Bueller.  Surely, you've heard of the Ferris Bueller/Fight Club Theory? 

One day, while he's lying sick in bed, Cameron lets "Ferris" steal his father's car and take the day off, and as Cameron wanders around the city, all of his interactions with Ferris and Sloane, and all the impossible hijinks, are all just played out in his head. This is part of the reason why the "three" characters can see so much of Chicago in less than one day – Cameron is alone, just imagining it all. Here's a more detailed explanation from Cracked: 

Cameron creates Ferris in his mind. Ferris is the total opposite of Cameron: he's fun, spontaneous and has a loving family and foxy girlfriend. At the beginning of the film, the imaginary Ferris convinces a bed-ridden Cameron to "borrow" his dad's Ferrari 250 GT California and cruise all over Chicago. Given Cameron's crushing social incompetence, it's likely that Sloane is fictional too and represents a girl that he has a crush on.

This theory explains the more fantastic elements of the film. For example, the whole city of Chicago rallies around the "sick" Ferris. This represents Cameron's miserable home life and how he yearns for friends and family who give a shit. Or, perhaps Bueller is a guy Cameron knows but isn't friends with, and his fantasy is based on what he imagines life to be like for the "popular" kids at school–everything is easy and the world revolves around them.

When Cameron accidentally trashes his father's Ferrari at the film's climax, he realizes that he needs to stick up to his father and take responsibility for his own life. At this point he "disposes" of Ferris and Sloane. Both of his fictional friends receive happy endings: Sloane is left pondering marrying Ferris, whereas Ferris safely returns home, where he can break the fourth wall for eternity.

Derek James covers five more "Insane Fan Theories That Actually Make Great Movies Better".

by Patrick Appel

Ezra Klein studies the sections of the healthcare bill Republicans complain about most:

It's perfectly fair to believe these six provisions problematic. I'd reform the 1099 requirement myself. But it's worth noting that the parts of the legislation that Republicans understand to be vulnerable and unpopular — and that they plan to specifically attack — are the fiscally responsible parts. 

Some Republicans are suggesting more financially responsible tweaks.

Joshua Foust puts the bombing of Tarok Kolache in context:

The pressure to achieve "progress" on an artificially short time frame has guided the U.S. military to make regrettable choices across much of Afghanistan. The destruction and reconstruction of Tarok Kolache is only one example, if an especially sharp one. That pressure comes in part from the same political forces that led to the July 2011 drawdown date, and now the 2014 one. It also comes from officers' desire to show progress over a year-long tour of duty. You can hardly blame individual officers and politicians for the high-pressure environment driving their decision-making. In fact, some of these pressures, especially the desire to exceed expectations and accomplish great things, can be very beneficial. But each affects command decisions in unexpected ways, and when combined often undermine the ultimate strategic goals of the war.

by Zoe Pollock

William Saletan challenges pro-choice writers on late-term abortions:

I agree with you on most abortion policy questions. Contraception or abstinence is best, emergency contraception is next best, early abortion is next best, and we should make these options more accessible, not less. But we'll still be left with some women who, for no medical reason, have run out the clock, even to the point of viability. Should their abortion requests be granted anyway? I've answered your questions. Now it's your turn to answer mine.

by Chris Bodenner

A reader writes:

I don't know if you've ever seen this video of an astrology experiment performed on young believers, but I think you can learn a lot about horoscopes (and people) from this quick two minutes.