Category: The Dish

The constitution stirs.

Jay Reding makes sense:

The usual conservative answer is that the market will decide what technology becomes the fuel of tomorrow. Which is all fine and true, but people want some kind of plan now. We have the problem of needing fuel, yet having key fuel sources being in hands of places that are unstable or hostile. The reality is that our dependence on Middle Eastern, African, and Venezuelan oil is a problem of national security, and the Republicans are not sufficiently serious on how we will deal with this problem.

The next answer is to boost domestic production. That’s all fine and good, but that still isn’t enough. We can expand our percentage of domestic oil, but we can’t insulate ourselves from the world oil market. We can’t produce enough domestic oil to meet our needs, and countries like China and India expand, the demand for oil will keep pushing prices up regardless.

…there’s one issue that could significantly impact America’s energy independence, and that’s nuclear energy. The GOP needs to get behind the policy of removing the governmental roadblocks to safe, clean nuclear energy. It’s fundamentally conservative in that it involves removing governmental barriers to private enterprise. It’s also environmentally conscious in that modern nuclear technologies produce minimal waste and product significant amounts of power. As this excellent book points out, there is a strong case that nuclear energy needs to be a key part of America’s 21st Century energy agenda.

Eric Scheie seems to think that I view the author of the blog Instaputz is a libertarian. He misread my post, and perhaps I should have been less concise. The "libertarian" refers to the post Instaputz linked to, on CATO’s website by Tim Lynch who, unlike Reynolds, opposes the use of torture by an extra-legal executive branch. I view CATO as a libertarian entity.

Hilzoy thinks the fear of elections is misplaced:

There are very real dangers confronting Pakistan. Islamist extremists are well entrenched in the Tribal Areas and parts of the Northwest. They are already mounting terrorist attacks throughout the country. Those attacks could further strain Pakistan’s already fragile institutions. Any number of very bad things could happen.

But most of those things involve not Pakistanis’ exercise of democracy, but the further failure of its national institutions. Anyone who says that we should support dictatorship over democracy should do so not just on the vague grounds that bad things could happen in Pakistan, which is surely true, but on the grounds that democratic elections might actually bring some of those bad things to pass. The most obvious way in which elections might have bad consequences would be if there was widespread support for Islamist political parties in Pakistan.

There isn’t.

Scott Horton analyzes the recent Bush-Rice initiative to foster a Bhutto-Musharraf reconciliation:

So what went wrong? In my view, Musharraf sensed a fault line in the U.S. between Condoleeza Rice, the author of the arrangement with Bhutto which he found so unappetizing, and his "friend" Dick Cheney. Musharraf gambled that in the end, Cheney and not Rice would be the advisor to whom Bush would turn. And Musharraf was spot on.

The Musharraf defense – that he was fighting back against "judicial activism" was almost comically sly.

The violence in Iraq seems markedly down during the peak surge of occupation troops. But it’s worth remembering that, as of now, 2007 remains the deadliest year for US troops since the invasion. These gains have not come from nowhere. They have been built on the ultimate sacrifice of so many so much younger and braver than many of us.

Chris Orr sums it up:

To recap: Rudy Giuliani has now argued that his tenure as Mayor of the Universe New York City gives him better foreign policy credentials than Joe Biden, a keener understanding of torture than John McCain, more experience at Ground Zero than the actual recovery workers, and a unique ability to secure the nation’s borders against illegal immigrants.

At least now his contention that his wife is a bioterror expert thanks to her nursing background seems a little less out of left field.

Why is Giuliani even a faintly serious candidate? He’s a megalomaniacal nutcase.

Grist reviews here.

The Republican party John Podhoretz supports has no place for traditional conservatives like Ron Paul. Which is why he believes that Paul will become a potential Nader in 2008 – draining votes from Democrats, not Republicans. I’m not so sure – although I really have no idea at this point. What’s interesting about Paul is that he has drawn from both parties. I doubt a pro-life character who loathes the entitlement state will find a warm home among Rangel-Pelosi Democrats. But equally, I don’t see how a man who thinks our reflexive foreign policy posture should be non-interventionism can easily find a place in the pro-torture, pro-war, pro-occupation GOP elite. A lot, I’d bet, will depend on who the actual candidates are next spring. A Clinton-Giuliani race – which is what the Beltway wants – could drive a lot of people into a third party posture. Under those circumstances, why not revive a libertarian brand, drawing from the remnants of big government right and left? Ross thinks it’s feasible. Steven Stark thinks any third party candidate will hurt the incumbent, and this time that means the GOP. Whatever the dynamics, a lot of us – who feel like refugees from both parties – could come on board if a viable small government, anti-Iraq war option becomes available.

There’s been a pretty remarkable increase of 18 points in average IQ since the 1950s – more evidence that IQ is a function of both genetics and environment. But what does this mean? James Flynn explores the idea that intelligence is a function of different cognitive skills that can change independently of each other:

Once you break intelligence down into its autonomous components, many things become clear. For example, the Nation’s Report Card shows that today’s children are ahead of their parents in reading at early ages and then the gains fade away by the age of 17. How is that possible? The children are doing much better on heavily g loaded IQ tests like the WISC at all ages. Should not brighter people be able to read adult novels better?

This mystery is solved when you look at IQ trends over time. Since 1972 (when the NRC began), the big IQ gains have been on certain subtests and not others. There have been virtually no gains in vocabulary and information. You cannot enjoy War and Peace very much if you have to run to the dictionary or encyclopedia every other paragraph. We are doing a better job of teaching children the mechanics of reading at early ages. But their parents had mastered the mechanics by age 17 and at that age, neither generation has an information or vocabulary advantage. So we have made no progress is teaching young people how to enjoy adult literature.

Smarter and dumber. The more you analyze this subject, the more complex and interesting it becomes.

I’m not sure most Americans are yet aware of the abyss into which the reputation of the United States has fallen under the Bush-Cheney brand. But if you live abroad, you will know that the wanton destruction of America’s soft power has been Katrina-level. Almost anyone who gets elected in 2009 will get a bump around the world for being not-Bush, with the sole exception of Giuliani who could pull off the feat of making America even less popular than under Bush. But Ron Paul on the GOP side certainly seems to be giving ex-pats hope. Here’s one explaining why.