Month: April 2011

A reader writes:

You rules out GOP hopefuls like Mitch Daniels, in part, because, well, he's really short."

Consider the fourth president, James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, who checked in between 5’3” and 5’4” and weighed barely more than 100 pounds. As a young orator they say friends taunted him by calling “Jemmy, stand up!” as he stood at the podium. His presidency had its ups and downs, but he was assuredly a very great leader to whom the country is indebted for its civil liberties tradition.

Could anyone imagine a man of Madison’s stature being elected today?

And isn’t that a shame!

Go Mitch!

Dan Drezner figures that a grand bargain on the deficit is possible:

If GOP legislative leaders calculate that they can't win back the White House in 2012, their preference flips over to cutting a deal with the Obama administration.  Bipartisan deals help incumbents and hurt challengers, which means that in cutting a deal, the House Republicans would help Obama while helping themselves.  That's not their first option, but in a political climate when Donald Trump can poll second in New Hampshire by embracing the birthers, it's not the worst calculation either. 

Peter Smith summarizes David Kessler's The End of Overeating:

Because the brain's amygdala responds to the anticipation of food and because food is the most socially acceptable salient stimula—pasted on buses, on storefronts, all over the Internet—our brains are constantly being activated. Even with the right tools and messages about healthy eating, you can’t expect individuals to protect themselves once they have this neural circuitry laid down. Kessler says, "You can’t turn this neural circuitry off. You need this to live."

A reader writes:

Noah Pollak tweeted, "Israel's missile defense uses $50,000 rockets to shoot down $100 rockets. When u look up 'unsustainable' in dictionary, it says 'Iron Dome.'"

Unless it works.  The Israeli government cares for each survivor of terrorist attacks.  I suspect the cost of medical care and potentially years of therapy is on the order of $500,000 per person.  So if Israel is spending $50K to prevent spending $500K, that's not a bad deal.

Another writes: 

France began enforcing its veil ban today. In response, Henry Farrell digs up a paper (pdf) on workplace discrimination against Muslims in France:

[Claire Adida, David Laitin and Marie-Ann Valfort] suggest that employers discriminate against Muslims because of their beliefs that more Muslims in the workplace will lead to lower workplace efficiency, because of French workers' animus towards them. Occam's razor would suggest that without further direct evidence, it is simpler to assume that much of the time French employers will share the motivations of other French people – that is, that they will frequently be directly biased against Muslims themselves. Notably, this bias seems distinguishable from simple anti-black racism – the experiments find differences in how French people respond to Senegalese immigrants when they are presented as being Muslim and Christian. Obviously, this does not make this apparently irrational bias any more normatively defensible than racism simple.

Ben Smith takes another look at Planned Parenthood's funding for abortions.

Jamelle Bouie thinks voting to elect judges is a bad idea. Julian Sanchez expands on Bouie's argument:

Ordinary people are generally not in any position to evaluate how well judges do their jobs, and in any event, that job isn’t to satisfy majority preferences. A judge whose rulings always produced the outcome preferred by the majority would, in fact, be a terrible judge.

From a new report (pdf) on global trends in military spending:

The increase in 2010 is almost entirely down to the United States, which accounted for $19.6 billion of the $20.6 billion real-terms increase. Excluding the USA, the total in the ‘rest of the world’ barely changed in 2010, increasing by a statistically insignificant 0.1 per cent.

 Greg Scoblete summarizes the rest of the world: 

Regionally, defense spending in Europe has fallen 2.8 percent while spending in South America has risen by 5.8 percent and in Africa by 5.2 percent. Brazil drove a lot of the South American growth. Asia rose only a modest 1.4 percent, which the Institute said was slower than previous years. Overall, global military expenditures ticked up slightly at 1.3 percent, the slowest growth rate since 2001.

Contrary to what many believe, male-on-male rape in the military is usually inflicted by heterosexuals to assert "power, intimidation, and domination." Stephen H. Miller argues that confronting these rapes is an added benefit of repealing of Don't Ask Don't Tell:

A key argument by those opposed to letting open gays serve in the military was that it would lead to sexualized barracks (often with the none too subtle invoking of gays as sexual predators). In all likelihood, having open gays around will decrease the incidents of male-on-male sexual assault. Reporting and follow-up measures being put in place measures to protect straights from gays will have the effect of protecting both gays and vulnerable straights from the assaults of twisted, hetero bastards.