Author: Andrew Sullivan

Huckabee Flirts With A Run, Ctd

Douthat contemplates the former governor’s fledgling campaign:

I see him almost inevitably as a spoiler rather than a true contender — as a figure who’s likely to split the vote that might otherwise consolidate around a single conservative rival to Jeb or Christie or whomever, but whose own chances at the nomination are exceedingly low. Since this “Huckabee as splitter/spoiler” narrative is basically conventional wisdom, I should add a wrinkle: In a crowded field he might also be helpful to a sui generis figure like Rand Paul, because he could weaken a movement candidate like Ted Cruz among evangelicals while Paul takes votes from Cruz from the libertarian side.

Dougherty is unsure who Huckabee’s candidacy will hurt:

The most fascinating question to my mind is which of the other viable 2016 GOP candidates Mike Huckabee will dislike the most.

He is a capable assassin. In 2008, his distaste for Romney was obvious — and often hilarious. Like a lot of Evangelicals who grew up on books describing Mormonism as a “cult,” Huckabee couldn’t restrain himself from making less-than-respectful comments about Latter-Day Saint theology. He considered Romney “presumptuous and arrogant,” and in the most memorable line of the 2008 GOP primary, said Mitt looked more “like the guy that fired you” than the one who hires you. Huckabee did more than anyone to create a McCain comeback, certainly more than McCain himself.

In this way, Huckabee has a kind of veto power. He’s able to prevent his opponents from consolidating social conservatives as part of a primary coalition. Who will be the next victim?

Sally Kohn respects Mike:

[P]erhaps the most dangerous thing about Mike Huckabee is that some of those firm beliefs, those clear convictions, appeal to liberal voters. In a post-Occupy moment, when even Democrats are desperate to strike the chord of economic populism—fueling, for instance, the clamoring for Elizabeth Warren to mount a challenge Hillary Clinton—Huckabee spouts populist rhetoric with ease. …

In campaigns that are more about more about ads and appearances and personality, and sadly less about substance—even though substantive disagreements exist and are key—the sense that Huckabee is a Republican who knows there are poor people, knows how to talk about them, and apparently wants to do something to help could be very appealing. As evidence, Huckabee is pro-government enough—which is to say, at all—that already the arch anti-tax Club for Growth is pledging to oppose his potential 2016 candidacy because he “increased state spending” in Arkansas and “raised the minimum wage.”

But Linker sighs at Huckabee’s populism:

[Huckabee’s schtick] is the irritable mental gesture of a provincial (rural or exurban) white America that can’t tell the difference between cultural signaling and a cogent argument. And it treats the details of public policy as an afterthought or a matter of indifference.

Would-be Republican reformers can look for a better vehicle than Mike Huckabee for the populism they favor, but they’re unlikely to find one. Huckabee — or someone like him — is the only game in town. The authentic reform of the GOP — its refashioning into a genuinely national party — requires more than the shedding of its plutocratic image. It also requires that the party’s leading lights give up on their impossible populist dreams.

And Enten calculates that Huckabee has little chance at the nomination:

The vast majority (70 percent) of Republican delegates are fromoutside the former Confederate states. Given that many non-Southern states have minimum thresholds to win delegates or will be winner take all, Huckabee would win few delegates in them if he performs anything like he did in 2008. In fact, his path to a majority of delegates would probably be shut out no matter how well he does in the South.

Busted With An Eggcorn, Ctd

vine

Quality eggcorns from readers keep coming in. One sends the above screenshot:

A strangely intriguing but short-lived Internet meme/mystery meets up with an eggcorn of “TV day-view”, as opposed to “TV debut”, by one of the solvers of the mystery. It’s also strange how someone’s random reaction on TV can become the focus of millions of investigators.  I have to admit, I watched the Vine video over and over and I don’t exactly know why …

Several more eggcorns below:

As young child I was out to dinner with my family at a fairly nice restaurant.  I was very excited to order all by myself.  When the server came to ask about my order I was very clear, and then she had to go and ask a question.  “Would you like soup or salad with that?”  I heard “Super Salad” and oh boy did that sound well super. Needles to say my family got a good laugh as I proudly proclaimed, “I will have the super salad!”

Another:

When I was taking drivers ed in the early 2000s, nearly all of my classmates thought the term “right of way” was “right away” – as in, “Pedestrians always have the right away,” because they get to go “right away” and the cars have to wait. So if you’re the first person at a four-way stop, you have the “right away” to go first. I remember the instructor getting agitated, “no, no, no it’s right OF way.” Many students still didn’t understand the difference when both meant that the person with the right of way gets to go right away.

Another:

I am a Christian minister who was was invited to speak at a community interdenominational worship service. Our small-town newspaper, always hungry for anything to fill its pages, sent a reporter who wrote a lengthy article about the service, including a surprisingly good summary of my sermon. He did slip in an eggcorn, though, when he transcribed my phrase “the pole star of faith” as the pulsar of faith. Because both are metaphors, one is almost as good as the other, I suppose.

Another:

Recently we brought on a new staff member to our IT department.  She had no IT background but was a go-getter and adept at using our EHR system and making corrections.  (I will take a known entity over a “good interviewer” any day). On one of her first days, she was answering our help desk phone.  She wrapped up a call by saying that a tech would be right over to twerk her computer.

I know I have tweaked a computer, but I’m still working on the twerking.

Do Cops Treat Blacks And Whites Equally? Ctd

Another reader joins the discussion:

As an Afro-American, I want to address the cop who said “of course there are racist cops – there are racists in every profession – but I don’t think cops as a whole are more racist than other professionals”. I don’t know if this is true or not, but while it does seem plausible, it completely misses the point.

First, cops aren’t just “any other profession.” They are armed and have enormous power. When they take a life, there is a implicit presumption of innocence that most other professions do not have. Because of this, we need to hold them to a higher standard. Further, being a cop is a very dangerous profession, so rightly so, cops are always on the lookout for their own safety. This makes the the consequence of their bias far greater than that of most other professions.

Second, to really understand this situation you have to realize that some of the worst racism that many blacks have received have been at the hands of other black people.

In fact, this very often comes from black people who live in black neighborhoods and have only black friends and married to their black spouse. This may seem strange and rare thing, but it is actually quite common. The reason is that there is an implicit message in our culture that to be black is somehow to be less worthy and less beautiful and just less in general. There’s no conspiracy to teach this, but rather it is an insidious legacy that we carry from our past. The truth that no one wants to say is that it is hard for any of us (including blacks) to avoid learning these deeply flawed lesson. I’m convinced that for most, the only way to truly not being racist is admit that these false images exist in our culture and do the personal work it takes to say “no” to it.

Lastly, we’re discussing this topic as if there is actually a debate. There have been studies performed about this and the numbers don’t lie. One example that comes to mind is the statistic that blacks and whites use marijuana in near-equal percentages, but blacks are incarcerated at a much higher rate. This is the very injustice that has fueled the decriminalization across the country. I believe I’ve also read something similar regarding NYC’s use of stop-and-frisk tactics.

So there’s really no question as to whether blacks and whites are treated equally. The only thing we learn from the Post/ABC poll is that most whites either don’t know the facts or choose to deny them. This isn’t really surprising, as it is only natural to understand the complexities of struggles that you have experienced while completely not understanding the struggle of others.

Leelah Alcorn’s Last Words, Ctd

A reader focuses the Dish discussion:

There’s a pretty basic point that may deserve explicit mention. A major purpose of puberty-blocking drugs, in particular, is to DELAY the moment of decision until one is prepared to decide. One can discontinue these drugs and undergo puberty later on, with no further intervention. I understand fully why people would be worried about young children making complex irrevocable decisions about their own well-being. What I can’t understand is why those people are against puberty-delaying drugs, rather than being fervent advocates!

Here’s a helpful NPR interview of two doctors who specialize in these issues. Money quote:

How long do you use the hormone blockers to suppress puberty?

Until around 16. Then you use the cross hormones to bring on the characteristics of the opposite sex. And remember, if you just stop the hormone blockers at 16, the person will go right back to genetic puberty within months. So the beauty of the suppressant is not as a treatment but for prolonging the evaluation phase … ’til a young person has greater ability for abstract reasoning. It buys you time without a tremendous fear of their body getting out of control.

That interview was from 2008. From September:

[A] new study finds that the results of such treatments are very positive. … Lead Author Dr. Annelou de Vries explained to CBS News that puberty suppression is a “fully reversible medical intervention” and the extra time allows the young people to work out their struggles related to gender dysphoria before taking permanent steps toward a transition.

Back to the in-tray:

I think many readers are missing Leelah’s point regarding appearance.  The question is not attractive versus unattractive, but rather being “visibly trans” versus “not-visibly trans.”

Transitioning early does not ensure you look like Cindy Crawford, to utilize the example of one reader.  Rather, it helps to ensure that the transgender person is not thrust into a life where merely walking down the street threatens their physical safety.  A trans woman was stabbed on a bus in San Francisco the other day while simply minding her own business – all because the perpetrator (correctly) assumed she was trans from her appearance.  In a perfect world, “looking trans” wouldn’t be a problem, wouldn’t lead to violence or discrimination – but it does. To subject a person to a life with that type of physical and economic hardship because of an abstract point about beauty is cruel.

And again, early transitioners aren’t guaranteed “beauty.”  And it’s not nearly as superficial as some readers suggest – quite the contrary. Additionally, the mere outset of puberty and the ensuing physical reactions (body hair, lowering of voice) induces the medically demonstrable experience of gender dysphoria.  Denial of access to transition related medical care is a leading contributor to suicide, not merely because of the potential long-term consequences outlined above, but because the real-time denial of an identity is emotionally traumatic for transgender people.

Puberty blockers are reversible, but, even still, are only prescribed after a thorough medical process, extended gender identity assertion, and conversations between parents, children, and their doctors.  That’s why this process is quickly becoming the medically and psychologically recommended course.  I understand the initial negative gut reaction to allowing a child to transition genders.  It seems like a big step, and kids are fickle, after all.  Indeed, I’m sure many of the parents who eventually let their kids transition initially feel that way.  People are obviously entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.  The facts, and, thus the growing medical consensus, is on the side of allowing children to transition.

Update from a reader:

I have been wanting to share my experience (and my partner’s) on this topic for some time. We are both lesbians. We are both very comfortable with our gender. When we were growing up, however, we both wanted to be boys.  We dressed like boys.  We played mostly with boys. We always chose to play the boy role. It wasn’t until puberty that those feelings changed. I am not sure why that was, but they did. We no longer wanted to be boys. All this is to say that blocking/delaying puberty, which for me, and other lesbians I know, changed the way we felt about ourselves, isn’t risk free.

Another:

Your reader describes how she and her female partner both “wanted to be boys” until puberty, and then got comfortable being females. It may not be possible to know for sure, but this sounds very different from the transgender experience. I do not hear about such people “wanting to be boys” (or girls) as children, but always as insisting that they are boys (or girls). That seems like a fundamental difference.

Another notes:

This entire discussion reminds me again of why I’m so grateful you curate comments for discussion of a topic, rather than have an open comments section. I’ve never seen anything like he cesspool that is the Leelah thread going on at Datalounge. I have no doubt this is what a Dish “comments section” would look like right now if one existed, not because most of your readers share these views (or most Dataloungers share these views), but because this is how it always goes with open comment sections on hot button topics. The rational and reasonable on all sides of a debate flee in droves because of the vitriol, and then the bottom feeders really take over, racing to outdo each other in saying the most repulsive things about each other and people like Leelah.

Headline Of The Day

A reader nominates it:

Disco Clam Freezes Prey With Toxic Snot

How Nicholas St. Fleur describes the little bugger:

Known as “the disco clam,” this six-centimeter shellfish has tentacles that flash like a strobe light. At first, researchers thought the light was a type of bioluminescence like fireflies or deep-sea angler fish. But last year marine biologist Lindsey Dougherty from the University of California, Berkeley, found that the flashing lights are caused by highly reflective silica spheres in the clam’s bright orange lips. They initially thought the glow attracted mates, but now, new research from her team suggests that the light display may ward off would-be attackers.

St. Fleur provides some great footage of the clam defending itself from the formidable mantis shrimp. The above video shows off the disco clam’s light show.

The Revolt Against Boehner

Bernstein calls bullshit:

A real uprising against the speaker would have happened back in November, when House Republicans met and instead endorsed him for another term. Had conservatives been unhappy with Republican leadership, they could have rounded up the votes and made it clear that Boehner was finished. They could even have proposed a plausible replacement. But they didn’t have the votes or an alternative then, and they won’t have them now.

Yes, Louie Gohmert of Texas has proposed himself as a new speaker, but the last thing any of the radicals want right now is Boehner’s job – which entails, more than anything else, cutting deals with Barack Obama on must-pass items such as the debt limit and next year’s appropriations. House Republicans aren’t really unhappy with how Boehner has handled those negotiations; that’s why they supported another term for him. This “revolt” is nothing more than a tantrum against the inescapable fact of compromise.

Another reason Boehner is likely to keep his job:

The defections Tuesday appear as though they could be more significant than at any point since 1923, but Boehner has one major advantage amid the revolt: the biggest GOP majority since the 1929-30 Congress. The GOP’s 246-188 advantage means Boehner can lose 29 votes before we can even talk about him being in real trouble.

Beutler believes that Boehner was more vulnerable two years ago:

Republicans had just lost an election badly. The Republican House majority had been diminished to the point where a small, determined group of rebels could conspire to force a second ballot, and a third ballot, and as many ballots as it might take to shake up the leadership ranks. Assuming Boehner would neither seek nor find aid from Democrats, the logic of a voluntary exodus would have become difficult to resist. That’s more or less what Newt Gingrich realized early on after presiding over the poor GOP showing in the 1998 midterms.

Today, a sneak attack is neither plausible, nor theoretically sound. Under Boehner’s leadership, Republicans expanded their majority in the midterm. He has a much bigger cushion this year than he did in 2013. Pulling off a surprise upset wouldn’t be in the cards, even if House conservatives were the adroit operators everyone knows they aren’t.

How Ben Jacobs thinks about the vote:

[T]his episode serves as a clear test of how Boehner can manage what will be the biggest Republican caucus in the House since the Hoover Administration. If he manages to pull through while limiting the number of dissidents it’s a sign that the speaker might be able to finally enforce party discipline in his caucus. But a close run contest would indicate the opposite and point to yet another Congress where Boehner would have to tiptoe around conservatives in his party to accomplish anything of substance.

“Thought Crime Now Exists In This Country”

Last week, Scottish police examined “complaints about Ebola comments tweeted by controversial TV personality Katie Hopkins”:

After news that a Scots nurse was being treated for the virus, Hopkins wrote: “Sending us Ebola bombs in the form of sweaty Glaswegians just isn’t cricket.” Another tweet said: “Glaswegian ebola patient moved to London’s Royal Free Hospital. Not so independent when it matters most are we jocksville?” Police confirmed they were looking into an unspecified number of complaints.

Massie, who is quoted in this post’s headline, is disturbed by the police reaction:

Morons post moronic comments on Twitter or Facebook or wherever and other morons report them to the police who in turn waste their time deciding whether a given tweet is grossly offensive or merely run-of-the-mill offensive.

But regardless of whether people are grossly offended by such posts or not it is plain that, in the absence of direct harassment or threats of specific harm, they’re simply expressions of opinion. Distasteful opinion, perhaps, but still only opinion. Which ought not to be enough to trigger an investigation, far less arrests and prosecutions. This is so even if – no, especially when – a reasonable person might conclude the tweets (or whatever) were racist, sectarian, homophobic or anything else. The freedom to be a moron is an important one. Ditto for bigots.

Charles C. W. Cooke discovers that the policing of thought is widespread in Britain:

I would like to report that this represents little more than an idle threat, or, perhaps, that it is merely the product of a rogue and overzealous intern. But, alas, I cannot. As The Independent’s James Bloodworth noted this week, this is in fact rather typical. “Around 20,000 people in Britain have been investigated in the past three years for comments made online,” Bloodworth confirms, “with around 20 people a day being looked into by the forces of the law, according to figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.” Worse, some of these people have actually been imprisoned: among them, a “woman found guilty of a public order offence for saying that David Cameron had “’blood on his hands,’” a man named “Azhar Ahmed, who was prosecuted for an online post mocking the deaths of six British soldiers killed in Afghanistan,” and a young man named Liam Stacey who tweeted something unprintable at a top-flight soccer player and was incarcerated for two months in consequence.

Elizabeth Nolan Brown puts the news in its greater context:

Of course, the British have always been more censorship-happy than Americans—why should we worry too much about their current speech-limiting antics? Because they come at a time when countries around the world—from Japan to India to Turkey—have been debating (and legislating) the handling of hate speech, and the European Union’s Council on Human Rights has been taking up the “no hate speech” mantle more vociferously. The United Nations is also pressuring countries, particularly Japan, to enact anti-hate speech laws. I’m really afraid that speech penalties of the past are the wave of the future.

If The Earth Were To Stop Orbiting …

… we would slowly fall into the sun. Aatish Bhatia provides a timeline. Here’s what Day 35 would look like:

It’s been over a month of Earthfall, and we’re now 20% of the way to the Sun. The Sun in unbearably bright and intense, and noticeably larger in the sky. At 58 C (137 F), the average global temperature now exceeds the historic hottest temperature recorded on Earth, which was 56.7 C (134 F) measured in Death Valley, CA.

For most people on the planet, it’s now impossible to stay alive without air conditioning, and the electricity infrastructure is either tapped out or failing. Forest fires are ravaging through the wilderness. Land animals that can’t burrow in to the soil to get respite from the heat are going extinct. The insects, too, are feeling the heat and dying out. The increasing water temperature will cause fish to start dying out, because warmer water holds less oxygen and more ammonia (which is toxic to fish), and because the entire marine food chain would be disrupted and collapsing.

It’s so hot that even the Saharan silver ant, one of the most heat resistant land animals on Earth, can no longer survive the heat (for it can stay alive up to 53.6 C). However, the Sahara desert ant is thriving – it can survive surface temperatures of up to 70 C. As scavengers, these ants feed on the corpses of other creatures that have died from the heat, and there’s now plenty of food to go around.

Update from a reader:

I’m sure I won’t be the only person to point this out, but I think the title “If The Earth Were To Stop Spinning …” is a bit misleading.  The hypothetical scenario that the post presents is where the speed of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun is reduced to zero, not if the Earth stops spinning around its own axis, which is what the title sounds like. Now, it wouldn’t work out so well for us either if the Earth stopped spinning around its axis, but at least it’s a different sort of problem.

Is “Broken Windows” Broken?

NYC police commissioner Bill Bratton and criminologist George Kelling, two of the earliest advocates of the “broken windows” theory, have published a lengthy piece defending it against fresh critics outraged by Eric Garner’s death:

Our experience suggests that, whatever the critics might say, the majority of New Yorkers, 9722024610_f768258614_kincluding minorities, approve of such police order-maintenance activities. After all, most of these activities come in response to residents’ demands, which are made to patrolling officers directly, to precinct operators by telephone, to precinct commanders at community meetings, and via the 311 and 911 call centers. Contrary to conventional wisdom, citizens almost invariably are more concerned about disorderly behavior than about major crimes, which they experience far less frequently. We have attended countless meetings with citizen groups in high-crime areas, and, almost without exception, disorderly behavior and conditions are the central concerns. …

[E]ven in this highly charged context [of Garner’s death], support for Broken Windows [in an August 2014 poll] remained high. African-Americans supported it by 56 to 37 percent, whites by 61 to 33 percent, and Hispanics by the largest margin of all—64 to 34 percent.

Emily Badger finds that Bratton and Kelling “make some fair points”:

Randomized experiments have supported the argument that “broken windows” can work. And crime has notably declined in New York since the philosophy was first embraced there. But in making this case, Bratton and Kelling overstate the role that “broken windows” has played in making New York a safer place — or, at least, they understate the very likely possibility that many factors far beyond the control of law enforcement have contributed to making it so. This is the weakest part of their argument.

She points to many of those other factors:

The Marshall Project recently rounded up 10 of the most popular theories for why urban crime has declined. So many exist — from the rise of legal abortion to the decline of lead-based fuel and paint — precisely because the phenomenon has proved so difficult to explain. Can we really dismiss, for instance, the fact that anti-theft technology in vehicles has grown much more sophisticated? Or the fact that the crack epidemic finally waned? Or that our increasingly cashless economy makes people harder targets for crime? We recently wrote about a Chicago summer-jobs program that appears to have cut down on violent arrests by at-risk teens.

Drum backs up Badger’s basic point with data:

blog_violent_crime_six_large_cities_3It’s true that crime in New York is down more than it is nationally, but that’s just because crime went up more in big cities vs. small cities during the crime wave of the 60s through the 80s, and it then went down more during the crime decline of the 90s and aughts. Kelling and Bratton can dismiss this as ivory tower nonsense, but they should know better. The statistics are plain enough, after all.

Take a look at the [two charts]. The top one shows crime declines in six of America’s biggest cities. As you can see, New York did well, but it did no better than Chicago or Dallas or Los Angeles, none of which implemented broken windows during the 90s.

The bottom chart is a summary of the crime decline in big cities vs. small cities. Again, the trend is clear: crime went up more during the 80s in big cities, but then declined more during blog_crime_big_small_cities_1985_2010the 90s and aughts. The fact that New York beat the national average is a matter of its size, not broken windows.

Now, none of this is evidence that broken windows doesn’t work. The evidence is foggy either way, and we simply don’t know. My own personal view is that it’s probably a net positive, but a fairly modest one.

Christina Sternbenz adds:

When University of Chicago professors Bernard Harcourt and Jens Ludwig revisited broken windows [in 2006 – pdf], they reported criminologists knew very little about the theory’s effectiveness. Their paper found no evidence outside of Kelling’s work to support the notion that cracking down on minor offenses leads to a decrease in more serious crime.

Much of the new research claiming to debunk broken windows has also found that targeting minor crimes harms poor people and minorities. For example, a later paper, again by Harcourt and Ludwig, found that the policy, albeit indirectly, led to a disproportionate number of drug arrests for blacks, the New Republic reported.

Charles F. Coleman Jr. chimes in:

As a former prosecutor, I found the most common reasons people committed crimes to be connected to their own finances and/or rooted in the economic constraints of their surrounding environment. The threat of a summons for riding a bicycle on the sidewalk is hardly a deterrent for larger crimes when those crimes might help make ends meet for unemployed or underemployed people. This is the problem with broken-windows policing: The theory fails because it attributes the cause of crime to the “tolerance” and escalation of lesser crimes rather than acknowledging that crime rates are higher in poorer communities primarily because people do not like being poor.

But Matthew Hennessey defends Bratton and Kelling from such critics:

Broken Windows is a key part of the difference between a proactive police force and a reactive one. It’s the difference between cops that look for ways to stop criminals from victimizing neighborhoods and ones that sit in patrol cars drinking coffee and waiting for a 911 call to come in. That commitment to dynamic policing permeated the department, from the cop on the beat to the commissioner. Now, thanks to a year of official slander, public protests, and outright lies, the culture of results and accountability that made the NYPD the finest police force in the world could be at risk.

Another defender of Broken Windows may surprise you:

“Because of the broken-windows approach, we are the safest we’ve ever been. I lived through the 1980s in this city and the early ’90s, and I don’t ever want to go back there,” de Blasio said. And: “If I said, ‘Do you want responsive policing?’ ‘Do you want the police to come when you call?’ ‘Do you want small problems addressed, or do you only want big problems addressed?’ I think the vast majority of New Yorkers would say, ‘Yes, we want the police to come when we call.’ ‘Yes, we want order kept.’ ‘Yes, we want small things addressed and big things addressed.’ ”

Recent Dish scrutinizing Broken Windows here.

(Photo by Nick Harris)