Month: October 2011

Why not? And well-hung TV characters, while we're at it.

For every added conspirator, the chances of success fade:

This can be formulated in a model.  Let n be the number of conspirators and let p= probability that a single conspirator will not cause failure, either through disloyalty or incompetence.  Then

Where A is a proportionality constant.  “Effectiveness” is a nebulous concept because I haven’t specified the conspiracy.  You can think of it as some measure of success appropriate to a particular conspiracy.  The simplest case is to assume Effectiveness is proportional to the number of conspirators, but one can imagine alternatives.

So for a typical example, A=1/10 and p=.75.  These give a Chance of Success (for Effectiveness=1) of 6%.  If the conspirators are in a Prisoner’s Dilemna situation where it’s advantagous to turn on the others, then p=.1 and the Chance of Success is , which nicely explains why conspiracies rarely work.

A story from Tennessee, where a pastor physically assaults his own son and his boyfriend as they attempt to attend church.

Mike Kinsley and Eugene Robinson are getting lots of pushback for arguing yes. Here's Chait:

Why does his weight matter at all? The only real reasoning I see here is that American elites view obesity with disgust, and they’re repulsed at the notion that a very fat guy could rise to a position of symbolic leadership. It’s not a very attractive sentiment.

McArdle nods. Ta-Nehisi steps back:

It's not so much that Eugene Robinson, or Michael Kinsley are being intrusive. It's that they're being rude. And their rudeness has targets beyond Chris Christie. The last thing people–and really kids–who are struggling with this need is columnists yoking the megaphone telling them how simple it would be for them to be in "optimal health." I don't grasp any great understanding of the science of hunger and weight from either of those columns.

Paul Campos believes Christie's extra pounds could actually help him electorally:

In the context of contemporary American politics, an unapologetically fat body, at least a fat male body (again, it should be obvious that putting 50 pounds on Michelle Bachmann or Sarah Palin would instantly destroy their presidential aspirations), could well function as a kind of symbolic flipping off of the endlessly intrusive nanny state, so despised by both libertarians and cultural conservatives.

Ezra Klein says extra weight, in and of itself, doesn't cut life expectancy much. He insists that "there’s no real reason to think that Christie isn’t up to the job of being president, or that he’s at a particularly high risk of keeling over should he take office." Klein's piety is a little much. The fact of the matter seems to me to be quite simple. Presidents in the modern age are increasingly required to look presidential. No baldies or beards, for example, since Eisenhower and some dude in the nineteenth century. Perry and Romney are almost made in a presidential Ken factory – and both presumably dye their hair (as, obviously, did Reagan). Looks, in other words, matter on an unconscious level in a president. We respond to these signals before our frontal cortexes kick in.

And so fatness – which, in Christie's case is better termed obesity – really depends on the eyes of the voters. It shouldn't, but it does. We can argue about it, but we cannot truly defeat it. The question is whether a man who truly looks like much of America in 2011 can be president. I think we may be surprised by the answer.

(Photo: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie listens to a question at a Reform Agenda Town Hall meeting at the New Jersey Manufacturers Company facility March 29, 2011 in Hammonton, New Jersey. By Jessica Kourkounis/Getty Images)

"We take literally what the Bible says. We believe that Israel composes the people of God and that they have fallen away at the moment, but that God has grafted the gentiles into the same roots. So that's why we're very strong support of Israel because we feel that Israel is the root of our faith. And so we support Israel strongly. We know that there is a – there's not really good religious freedom in Israel. We're very sorry about that. But the Bible says, that someday, and don't ask me how this is gonna happen because it seems impossible, that all of Israel will be saved. That they'll all believe in Jesus. And so we just take that by faith and none of our activities are geared toward that or anything else, but we just believe that that's gonna happen. So before Jesus returns, Israel, as a social group, will acknowledge Jesus Christ as their messiah," – the New Apostolic Reformation's C. Peter Wagner, whose group was instrumental in setting up Rick Perry's campaign launch, The Response.

A reader writes:

I grew up in East Texas in the 1950's and 1960's.  There were wildflowers there that were called "Niggerheads," much like these Echinacea:

I actually heard of this last summer when a Southern friend told me the name of the flowers I'd just planted in my little beach garden in Ptown. A TP commenter notes:

In a hunting context, it's an archaic term meaning "big, round, rock". I heard the term as a kid hunting in Arkansas. It's a way to give directions, I also noticed that my Wallace voting, extremely racist, grandfather didn't use the term when interacting with African-Americans hunting in 1984 or whatever.

There must be other definitions as well. Dish readers, take it away!

As Greater Israel builds more settlements in East Jerusalem, Goldblog's knee jerks again.

Ackerman thinks Ben Wittes’ arguments justifying the assassination don’t pass muster:

What should the evidentiary standard be for determining an American citizen poses a threat even warranting discussion of assassination? I’m not a lawyer. Not. A. Lawyer. So forgive me if there’s a legal step that I’m missing.  But this is the question, the one that has to kick in before any of Ben’s process — or anyone else’s — gets applied. We know that Anwar al-Awlaki (and Samir Khan) are noxious propagandists who are obviously guilty of incitement to murder. We know this because of their public writings and videos. Is that enough to warrant assassination? I refuse to accept the word of any member of the Obama administration that they are worse than that. When any member of the administration shows me evidence that they are, then I will consider that they are. But the stakes of killing an American citizen on the say-so of the government are, in my non-lawyer opinion, too grave to accept the mere assurance of a government official. To believe otherwise, in my non-lawyer opinion, is to be cavalier about both life and liberty.

Wittes counters:

I don’t think Spencer is right when he says what the distinction “actually is.” To my mind, at least, the distinction–the legal difference–is one of necessity. Assuming one has properly identified the citizen terrorist (and whether one has presents a separate issue that I will treat later), one is obliged as a matter of due process to neutralize the threat he poses by capture if possible. Only if a capture is not feasible without undue risk to forces or civilians is it consistent with due process to specifically target a U.S. national with lethal force. If the government, instead of capturing Shahzad, had simply shot him dead on the plane in New York, that would have presented a huge constitutional problem–just as I believe it would have presented a big due process problem had Navy SEALS shot Al Aulaqi between the eyes when capture was possible.

As readers know, I’m with Ben on this. If you’re fomenting Jihad, in direct contact with Jihadist mass murderers, like the devout terrorist at Fort Hood, and if you’re in hiding in enemy territory, you are a legitimate target. I think the administration should be more forthcoming about its reasining and intelligence, but I don’t think they made the wrong call.

Gotta question? askandrew@thedailybeast.com