Yglesias Award Nominee

"There are many reasons to write a book. One view is that a book is just another consumer product, and if people want to buy jalapeno-and-oyster flavored ice cream, then companies will sell it to them. If the point of Liberty and Tyranny was to sell a lot of copies, it was obviously an excellent book. Further, despite what intellectuals will often claim, most people (including me) don’t really want their assumptions challenged most of the time (e.g., the most intense readers of automobile ads are people who have just bought the advertised car, because they want to validate their already-made decision). I get that people often want comfort food when they read. Fair enough. But if you’re someone who read this book in order to help you form an honest opinion about global warming, then you were suckered. Liberty and Tyranny does not present a reasoned overview of the global warming debate; it doesn’t even present a reasoned argument for a specific point of view, other than that of willful ignorance. This section of the book is an almost perfect example of epistemic closure,"- Jim Manzi, NRO.

The whole post is a must-read.

Sarah Palin Should Back Marijuana Legalization, Ctd

Allahpundit continues to dream:

The west is the only region that supports legalization, 35s and under are the only age group that supports it, and a heavy majority across the board supports it for medicinal purposes. Looks like this is going to be a war of attrition, with more liberal-minded young’uns replacing the hardline anti-pot 65-and-over group over time, in which case they might as well wait 10 years before taking the next poll. The only thing that’ll move the numbers in the interim is if some prominent righty comes out in favor of legalization to soften the bedrock opposition among conservatives, Republicans, and seniors — which, come to think of it, are the core demographics of the tea party movement. Imagine the political impact if Glenn Beck sparked a bowl on his show tomorrow or Marco Rubio lit up a fattie. Although even with their influence, they don’t have quite the same sort of values cred as Palin does, huh? I think she’s the only one who can make this happen, guys. The movement is in her hands.

Funken, To Spark, Ctd

A reader writes:

Ironic that the Economist blogger enjoys listening to the radio because it's a reminder that "someone, somewhere is alive."  I guess it shows how successfully my industry has transitioned to heavily pre-recorded programs and disc jockeys without the public noticing.

Aside from local talk radio and live syndicated talk shows, a huge percentage of radio programs are now pre-recorded DJs, many of whom live thousands of miles from the city where they seem to be live on their stations.  Computers play the songs and the commercials, so the DJ merely records the brief segments where they speak between songs.  They can do this hours or days before the show airs, and the computer plays everything as scheduled.

So a 4 or 5-hour show can be "performed" in about 30 minutes.  Some DJs' careers now consist of coming to work in the morning, recording the various "shows" for a series of stations in various cities (each station e-mails the DJ their various local events/contests, etc. they want promoted), and going home, never doing a live radio show ever. Some larger radio companies now even produce completely generic daily shows in various formats (pop, country, rock, hip-hop, etc.) that don't even pretend to have any local flavor, or even mention the station's call letters.

So yes, someone somewhere is alive, but the living person you're hearing probably isn't there, or even in your city.

To be fair, blogs have future-publishing. But the future is usually only a few hours. We need to eat and sleep as well.

Not Leaving It To The Imagination

Rxchaos

"Good Show Sir" is a blog devoted to awful Sci-fi/Fantasy book covers. The UK-based blogger imagines a brainstorming session for the one above:

Ready? How about a big muscled LEOPARD MAN! Holding his rifle and roaaaaaaring off to one side….. YAWHAAT!?!? No I don’t want to see his leopard genitals! Put in him some futuristic combat armor, but no leggings.. his crotch is right there!!!  God can only dream of how good this will be…..

Another Dive fave after the jump:

Sos_the_rope

Clegg On Israel

Nile Gardiner, a rabid British right-winger now in Washington, nonetheless spells out accurately Nick Clegg's foreign policy here. Yes, he's more Europhile than any prime minister this century (except, arguably, for Churchill at certain moments and Ted Heath), indifferent to the US alliance, and in favor of giving up Britain's nuclear deterrent. On Israel:

To describe Clegg as a vociferous opponent of Israel would be an understatement — I’ve written in greater detail on this issue here. Clegg has penned a number of articles condemning Israel’s handling of Gaza, and has been the most prominent British critic of Israel’s response to Hamas attacks. He has alleged that the Israeli government “continues to imprison 1.5 million Palestinians and prevent the rebuilding of its shattered infrastructure,” and supports the U.N.’s use of the highly offensive term “collective punishment.” Clegg has drawn parallels between Israel’s defensive actions and the terrorist campaigns of groups such as Hamas, and has urged the European Union in the past to isolate and even sanction Israel.

Remove the rhetorical spin and the truth is: Clegg is pretty much in the Euro-mainstream on Israel. Which is to say: about as anti-neocon as you can get. Tomorrow is the foreign policy debate. I'll be live-blogging it again. I'm beginning to wonder if Clegg couldn't win this outright the way things are moving. It's about change vs more of the same. And Clegg has managed to seize the change mantle from Cameron.

Raising Your Clone As Your Son

Via Cowen, Bryan Caplan admits:

I confess that I take anti-cloning arguments personally…I wish to clone myself and raise the baby as my son.  Seriously.  I want to experience the sublime bond I'm sure we'd share.  I'm confident that he'd be delighted, too, because I would love to be raised by me.  I'm not pushing others to clone themselves.  I'm not asking anyone else to pay for my dream.  I just want government to leave me and the cloning business alone.  Is that too much to ask?

DeLong is quick to accuse Caplan of misogyny. Steve Sailer also criticizes:

Are families in which the sons are exactly like the fathers happier? I don't see a lot of evidence for that. In fact, I see a lot of evidence from memoirs and fiction that strong-willed fathers tend to have strong-willed sons, and the two clash relentlessly over who will be dominant. Too much similarity does not always make for happiness within a family.

Cowen didn't like the comments his first post inspired:

I found this thread to be a lesson in how quickly smart people will side with their Darwinian intuitions, and attack another smart person with intolerance, just because something feels icky to them.  It's not so different from how some people find gay people, and also "what they do," to be disgusting.  They also don't want gay people to be adopting children because they see that as offensive too.  It's not, least of all for the child.

A New Trig Nugget

From Anne Korblut's book in a review at Palingates:

McCain aide Nicole Wallace tells proudly of responding to the first reporter who called to ask about Palin's alleged "wild ride" by responding, "'Are you asking me to respond, on the record, to a charge that amniotic fluid came out of her vagina?' He was so mortified, he hung up."

What's interesting to me is that even the controversy – and this fascinating Wallace quote – was never covered in any serious way in the MSM. And yet, it dominated Republican conversation at the St Paul Convention in the days after Palin's veep nomination was announced. According to several journalists who were there, it was all anyone was talking about. But the press kept a lid on it. The "refs" decided what was legit and not legit in an election campaign with a completely unknown candidate with a long record of crazy, obvious odd lies. The press acted as a guardian of those in power, not as a fearless skeptic. That's what worries me. If they did it once, they'll do it again.

Remember when I asked a simple question? And when the Anchorage Daily News asked, after the election? And this is not a question that has already been answered, like the Obama birth certificate. It is a question that has been ruled unaskable. By those tasked with asking questions.

What I do know is that no one on the McCain campaign asked, and some on the McCain campaign still harbor deep doubts about the truth. Still: no answer. No answer at all. And that's absolutely fine by the MSM. They have their reputations to worry about.

China Ends Its HIV Travel Ban

The world gets saner:

"The ban was imposed in the 1980s because of a lack of knowledge and is now obsolete and discriminatory," said He Xiong, deputy head of the Beijing centre for disease prevention and control. "HIV/Aids cases have been seen in all of China's provinces and a travel ban on foreigners will not help improve local public health," he said.

Obama helped. The gays should remember that among his substantive acts to help those with HIV – and the gay men disproportionately affected by the now defunct US ban.