Month: April 2012

Charles Kenny thinks the appeal to African helplessness poisons real efforts to spur global development:

Even people of goodwill in the West are stuck with a bad case of the white man's burden complex, then: We must help, because they are so helpless. That attitude leads to bad aid — the type run out of donor-country capitals with little involvement of beneficiary governments or citizens on the ground — with the irony that reams–worth of evaluation studies suggest it is exactly this aid that is some of the most likely to fail. It also leads to aid fatigue: "What? They're still helpless after all our help?" Worse, it surely depresses other powerful forms of engagement between North and South — like private investment, trade, and travel. Who would think of setting up a factory or going on holiday to a region supposedly engulfed in war, run by crooks and psychopaths, and starving to the last man?

(Photo from The Library of Congress)

Basically, the opposite of how McCain picked his:

Think of it this way: it's tough being a politician. No matter what your goals are, you're always having to compromise. The vice-presidential nomination is one place where playing politics doesn't seem to work. So I suggest forgetting the cleverness and forgetting about the idea that voters choose candidates based on their looks, and just picking the person you actually think would do the best job. Ruling out the Quayles, the Bidens, and the Palins . . . that wouldn't be such a bad idea, both as politics and as policy.

Very little, according to Felix Salmon:

His larger argument:  

Why is the price of gold going up? Simple: when interest rates are this low, bonds are increasingly unattractive as a source of yield, so you might as well just buy stuff — call it SWAG — instead. SWAG doesn’t have any yield, but then again, neither does cash, really. And when there aren’t attractive investments out there, then it becomes more attractive to spend money rather than to invest it. As a result, people spend their money on SWAG, and some of them even kid themselves while doing so that by buying their SWAG they’re making some kind of investment. They’re not. And they’re certainly not producing a reliable guide to the future status of the US dollar.

Researchers tested whether people would accurately record what they rolled on a gambling die. Those who were given more time were less likely to lie:

The conclusion, therefore, at least in the matter of cheating at dice, is that sin is indeed original. Without time for reflection, people will default to the mode labelled "cheat". Given such time, however, they will often do the right thing. If you want someone to be honest, then, do not press him too hard for an immediate decision.

From a press release emailed last night:

Director Lee Hirsch and The Weinstein Company have announced that the documentary "Bully" will receive a "PG-13" rating from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) in time for the film’s April 13 expansion to 55 markets, and that despite three minor edits, a major scene in the movie that had been at the forefront of the film’s ratings battle will be kept intact.

A reader continues the broader debate:

Granted, I think that your reader has a point about the MPAA being essentially a cartel, but the question becomes, who replaces them as rating reviewers? 

The only independent organization that has the manpower and resources to rate films on a regular basis right now is the Parents Television Council – and, well, that organization is not exactly known for nuance or subtlety.  God forbid the government get involved either, because they'll likely invoke a strategy similar to Apple's closed-garden approach: Any refusal to classify a film will invoke a ban from distribution (ie, censorship).  Such was the case with Australia, who only recently began implementing an R18+ rating into video games, all because a single moral crusader and high-ranking politician had the authority to prevent it from happening.  Prior to that, games that were more explicit than the MA15+ rating would simply be refused classification, and thus would not be available for sale at all in that country.  And you best not even ask to change the system, lest you want every family-values/Christianist organization hounding at you from multiple angles.

Granted, giving the MPAA cartel free reign over the ratings of films is like giving poultry factory farmers inspect their own shit-covered chicken.  But at least they're mostly on the ball.  I'd doubt that 95% of the films would even reach distribution, intact or with very heavy editing, if some moral guardians were controlling or influencing the ratings.

Today on the Dish, Andrew doubled down on his diagnosis of Romney's terminal ailment, dissented from Obama's "Social Darwinism" label for Ryan's budget, checked in with the economic forecasters about the unemployment rate during the general, tried to wrap his brain around Santorum's motivation for staying in, and was wowed by Mitt's ideological rigidity. We profiled Santorum dead-enders, patiently explained to them that the race was over, scoured GOP turnout numbers during the competitive part for clues about the general, guessed at what determined elections, ran down the reasons no liked Romney, clarified that he wasn't "moderate" in any meaningful sense, and pooh-pooed the idea that veeps can swing their home states. The Jewish vote remained safely in the D column (shenaniganry like this notwithstanding), the right's picture of Obama embodied another James Baldwin quote, Obama failed to prepare for releasing his inner Alinsky in term 2, too few women ran for Congress, and dogma poisoned parties. Ad War Update here.

Andrew also debated Maggie Gallagher at Washington and Lee in front of an overwhelmingly pro-equality crowd, issued a correction on his Newsweek cover (related reader thread here), and blasted Netanyahu's settlement legalizations (companion post here). Game of Thrones explained our world, Mad Men viewers/readers sounded off about our psychoanalysis of its popularity, YA books were (maybe) OK for adults, and Bully's bullies were unelected and unaccountable industry types. We weighed the relative merits of pageant momes and tiger moms, worked on understanding how to parent an autistic child, thought about donating a kidney to save a stranger's life, wondered if the dead deserved privay, and listened to reader feedback on cremation vs. burial. Weddings were overpriced, pink slime wasn't that different from normal meat, baseball had some political merits, and pot got some readers to thinking. Ask Jonah Anything here, Cool Ad here, Quote for the Day here, Yglesias Nominee here, Moore Nominee here, VFYW here, MHB here, and FOTD here.

– Z.B.

This is pretty embarrassing. Thomas Jefferson compiled his famous Bible when he was 77, not 27. We've fixed the online edition and will correct in print. No excuses, but I misread "seventy-seven" and "twenty-seven" at the museum, and it slipped through the fact-check cracks. Apologies.

Geoffrey Kabaservice remembers Bill Buckley's famous repudiation of the John Birch Society: 

In his later years, Buckley believed that the Republican failures in Iraq stemmed from a … tendency to engage in ideological wishful thinking instead of hard analysis. He also cautioned against the tendency of conservatives to transform the cautious insights of supply-side economics, for example, into theological certainties, and to move toward ever more narrow and rigid definitions of doctrinal acceptability. Fanaticism and obsession, he believed, ultimately represented a surrender of individual freedom. As the high priest of the conservative movement, Buckley had latitude to advance unorthodox proposals such as the legalization of marijuana without being condemned for apostasy, but he also sought similar indulgence for other conservative thinkers. 

Above all, Buckley wanted conservatism to be a responsible and effective governing philosophy. He recognized that a movement that delegitimizes its opponents as Communists and traitors is doomed to be irresponsible and ineffective. He warned against conservative triumphalism and refusal to compromise. He had been mentored by Whittaker Chambers on the need to balance the ideal with the practical, and to strive for conservative advances that inevitably would fall short of utopia. To live, Buckley reminded conservatives, is to maneuver.

(Photo via Ride the Machine) 

The Obama campaign refutes a number of Romney's big lies: 

Another deals with Romney's election night speech earlier this week:

The RNC notes some, er, "similarities," between the president's 2011 speech on the House budget and this year's: 

Allahpundit rolls his eyes: 

Look at it this way, though: There are only so many ways to accuse House Republicans of hating sick people and disabled kids. If you’ve got a paragraph on point, why not just copy/paste that sucker in there and check the “Paul Ryan wants to kill grandma” box? Obama himself has obviously stopped paying attention to his own demagoguery or else he would have caught this recycling in draft and demanded a rewrite. The media apparently isn’t paying much attention either because this clip from the RNC oppo team is the first we’ve heard of O’s repetition.

But: 

Democrats say the attacks are similar because the budgets themselves are similar — and many believe they zeroed in on the GOP’s plans for Medicare to great effect last time around. By the end of the 2011 battle, Republicans were bruised and battered and Democrats picked up anunexpected House win in New York.

Previous Ad War Updates: Apr 4, Apr 3, Apr 2, Mar 30, Mar 27, Mar 26, Mar 23, Mar 22, Mar 21, Mar 20, Mar 19, Mar 16, Mar 15, Mar 14, Mar 13, Mar 12, Mar 9, Mar 8, Mar 7, Mar 6, Mar 5, Mar 2, Mar 1, Feb 29, Feb 28, Feb 27, Feb 23, Feb 22, Feb 21, Feb 17, Feb 16, Feb 15, Feb 14, Feb 13, Feb 9, Feb 8, Feb 7, Feb 6, Feb 3, Feb 2, Feb 1, Jan 30, Jan 29, Jan 27, Jan 26, Jan 25, Jan 24, Jan 22, Jan 20, Jan 19, Jan 18, Jan 17, Jan 16 and Jan 12.

For good reason:

A moderate-turned-extremist may perhaps grasp the brass ring. But he makes everyone uneasy.  Moderate Republican voters, of whom there may be more than meet the eye, may worry that President Romney will be captive to a GOP Congress beholden to the base.  Tea Party types may worry that he'll shake the Etch-A-Sketch again when dancing to a different piper, the general electorate and/or a divided Congress. No one, in any case, likes a liar, and people across the political spectrum know that Romney lies from sunup to sundown. Democrats know that nothing he says about Obama is true; conservatives know that nothing he says about his past positions and actions is true; and moderates know, or should know, that he's betrayed them to the base.