Month: September 2011

A beautiful passage from some stirring remarks:

"It has been a wounding decade. Our country is frayed, uncertain, inflamed. There is hardship and dread in the land. In significant ways we are a people in need of renovation. But what rouses the mourner from his sorrow is his sense of possibility, his confidence in the intactness of the spirit, his recognition that there is work to be done. What we loved and what we valued has survived the disaster, but it needs to be secured and bettered, and in that secure and better condition transmitted to our children. Our dream of greatness must be accompanied by an understanding of what is required for the maintenance of greatness. The obscenities of September 11, 2001 exposed the difference between builders and destroyers. We are builders. Let us agree, on this anniversary, that it is an honor to be an American and it is an honor to be free."

I particularly liked the affirmation that for Americans

none of our worldviews, with God or without God, should ever become the worldview of the state, and that no sanctity ever attaches to violence.

Amen.

(Photo: A woman mourns the loss of her son ten years after he died in the attacks on the World Trade Center, as she visits during tenth anniversary ceremonies of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center site September 11, 2011 in New York City. By Carolyn Cole-Pool/Getty Images.)

"Which has destroyed and ended the life of more people? Terrorism attack here in America or HIV/AIDS? In the last twenty years, fifteen to twenty years, we’ve had maybe three terrorist attacks on our soil with a little over 5,000 people regrettably losing their lives. In the same time frame, there have been hundreds of thousands who have died because of having AIDS. So which one’s the biggest threat? And you know, every day our young people…they’re bombarded with ‘homosexuality is normal and natural.’ It’s something they have to deal with every day. Fortunately we don’t have to deal with a terrorist attack every day, and that’s what I mean. It’s more dangerous, and yes I think that it’s also more dangerous because it will tear down the moral fiber of this nation," –  Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern.

One tiny nugget. Joe McGinniss sent advance copies of his devastating book on Sarah Palin, "The Rogue," to three people: me, Garry Trudeau and Rosanne Cash. Make of that what you will; but that book is unputdownable.

Ross has noted that this really will be the fundamental choice Republicans make these next few months: will they vote for a true believer or someone they think can beat Obama? Perry's current strength in the polls, reiterated in the new one by CNN, comes from the fact that he wins on both scores. Perry has a 42 percent "electability" rating, and a 26 percent "true believer" rating. Romney, despite creaming Perry in the last debate (I'll be liveblogging the next one tonight to see if Perry's game improves) has 26 percent electability, and 17 percent true believer.

If we call this the viability index, Perry has 68 and Romney has 43. Palin, I should note since the MSM is intent on assuming she no longer exists, has 24. Ron Paul, whom the MSM insists has never existed as a viable candidate, has 19. Bachmann has 13. Palin, interestingly, beats Romney on true-believer status.

But on the core, simple "Who do you support?" question, there are four clear leaders: Perry, Romney, Palin and Paul. I'd throw Bachmann in for good measure. I don't think the pundit class should narrow it down any more than that at this time. No votes happen this year. Let the field debate; lets watch these people react to events and to each other. And bide our time.

It's Girl Scout Cookie season, organized by percentage of total sales:

Sometimes, a little too close. A mother can carry cells from her fetus for years after the pregnancy ends. Chris Gunter explains the science behind fetal microchimerism:

Particularly in the last two decades, microchimerism has been recognized as the norm rather than the exception. We now know that, instead of being separate systems, the mother and fetus leave a number of permanent marks on each other through the trafficking of cells back and forth over the placenta. Fetal stem cells make their way into the mother’s bloodstream and even into her bone marrow, sometimes contributing to her blood supply for the rest of her life. …

But the presence of fetal cells is also invoked as the reason why women have more autoimmune disorders, including lupus and thyroiditis, during and years after pregnancy. Immunologists think that this happens essentially because Mom’s immune system eventually realizes that these fetal cells don’t belong to her own body, and attacks them as a result.

Cartoonist Steven M. Johnson uses his former urban planner knowledge to envision it:

In 1975 I started predicting (in my drawings) that store-bought clothing would be sold pre-ripped; I was almost a decade ahead. In 1991 I showed a drawing of a small, radio-controlled vacuum cleaner that could creep under furniture. It was about the size of the Roomba, which was offered a decade later. Mere entertainment is sometimes a vehicle for suggesting what is in the air.

Above: Johnson's design for a Swimming Pool Moat to address crime prevention. You can see his vision for umbrellas of the future here.

Did T-Paw just earn himself a place on Romney's short-list? Weigel thinks so:

The early endorser, who doesn't court media attention for his Hamlet Act, looks loyal. He looks like a possible running mate. So Pawlenty stays somewhat relevant, "Obamneycare" means less than ever, and Romney gets… a bounce? Do we actually think that? Pawlenty left the race as the anti-Romney-who-couldn't-pull-it-off. The TPaw voters I talked to in Iowa and New Hampshire didn't sound like they were as faithful to him as faithful to the idea of beating Romney.

Mataconis wonders if "this may be the beginning of the GOP Establishment lining up behind the former Massachusetts Governor as the race narrows down to a Romney/Perry fight."

George Loewenstein raised the specter in an (offline) interview in Money:

British Prime Minister David Cameron is a big fan of behavioral economics and gave a talk in which he said, “The best way to get someone to cut their electricity bill is to show them their own spending, to show them what their neighbors are spending, and then show them what an energy-conscious neighbor is spending.” … It’s a great idea, and leads to reductions in energy use of a few percent, but showing someone their neighbor’s bill is not the best way to get them to cut their own bill. The best way is to charge an amount that reflects the true cost of the electricity, including social costs from importing oil, pollution, climate change, and so on.

Wilkinson applies to logic to politicians:

Behavioral econ offers policymakers an added dimension of evasion. A government can make a big hullabaloo of caring about energy consumption and climate change by sending folks mail detailing in vivid color their energy use relative to social norms instead of making themselves unpopular by making voters poorer. Not only is behavioral economics not some sort of master-key for effective policymaking, it gives politicians a fresh way to appear forward-thinking, activist policymakers while really doing nothing much at all.