Greens Against Dogs

Fighting words from Arnold Kling:

Which do you think takes a bigger toll on the environment, owning a dog, or owning an SUV? My bet would be on the dog. I’m thinking of all of the resources that go into dog food.

Rebuttals in the comments here and here:

My dog presumably values his life a lot more than an SUV values its existence.

My dog creates plenty of negative externalities (barking, excreting, etc.) but also many positive externalities. Walking a cute dog in a big city I am constantly stopped by people who want to pet him and walk away smiling. He facilitates interaction between strangers, which is important for neighborliness and very rare in crowded cities. In contrast, I rarely see people who stop and touch an SUV, smile at the owner and walk away happier.

Running The Demographics

Jay Cost:

It is hard to identify a momentum effect here. Clinton’s losses in the contests are as explicable as any of her losses before or on Super Tuesday. Obama has systematically won states that play to his particular strengths since the Iowa caucus. So has Clinton. Her problem has been that she has not had any good states in the last week.

And yet … campaigns are dynamic things, and momentum matters. Obama has the time to make the sell – something that he lacked in the Super Tuesday states.

The Distraction Of Waterboarding

A fascinating interview with Darius Rejali, whose new book, "Torture And Democracy," casts a penetrating eye on prisoner abuse throughout history:

The historical record is clear. Waterboarding is torture, and yes focusing on just waterboarding is a distraction. Waterboarding is serious, but only the tip of the iceberg. There have only been three documented cases of waterboarding, but the CIA has subjected at least 30 others to “enhanced interrogation” as Director Hayden says, so there are other kinds of techniques as well. And there are unaccounted prisoners last seen in US custody as well as secret prisons out there where these things continue to happen.

One day we’ll know more, but the historical record now shows that American interrogators and soldiers, whether authorized or not, have used forced standing, forced kneeling, sleep deprivation, exposure to extremes of heat and cold, beatings on the soles of the feet, sexual humiliation, and psychological coercion, as well as some cases, electrotorture. So it would be a mistake then to confuse the forest from the three tallest trees in it. Waterboarding highlights the huge dangers of torture, but it is only the beginning of political literacy not the end of it.

The Danger Of Obama

Kevin Henry:

Have we learned nothing from the tragic events of 1998, when, under the watch of President Morgan Freeman, this nation was plunged into chaos, and hundreds of millions of people died at the hands of the deadly Wolf-Beiderman space rock? The mere fact that this country is even considering putting another black man, Barack Obama, in the Oval Office proves that we have not.