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Jens 'n' Frens
Idle thoughts of a relatively libertarian Republican in Cambridge, MA, and whomever he invites. Mostly political.
"A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures."
-- Daniel Webster
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Saturday, February 08, 2003 :::
I saw Chicago today. It's okay, but not as good as everyone but Colby Cosh has been saying. The cinematography warranted a beating, and it was a little dark for my tastes, both figuratively and literally. I'll give it a six out of ten.
A little more detail on the cinematography? It was generally too low, and too close in, but the most jarring aspect was that it was far too active. They should have just let it sit for a while in some places where they moved the cameras and switched among them every couple seconds.
::: posted by Steven at 10:37 PM
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I discovered the "repeat" function on my car's CD player. Boston, Third Stage, "I think I like it". My voice hurts.
::: posted by dWj at 10:24 PM
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Yale and Princeton both lost solidly last night, so I'll quit guessing basketball games for a little while.
::: posted by dWj at 10:24 PM
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A plan I suggested seems to have been taken up at the U.N.; I'd like to thank the French foreign ministry for reading our humble blog.
::: posted by dWj at 10:23 PM
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Here's how to remember the terrorist threat colors. 5, 3, and 1 form the backbone of the system -- those are the colors of a traffic light. 4, orange, is between red and yellow. 2 is blue -- chromatically, green should be in between yellow and blue. I guess you can just figure that a blue belongs in there somewhere, and 2 is your remaining slot.
I agree that the numbers would be easier. But, while this is open to debate, I do think the colors are easier than the names -- "high", "elevated", "neurotic", and whatever else they've got.
::: posted by Steven at 10:50 AM
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Friday, February 07, 2003 :::
Princeton, Penn, and even Yale to win easily tonight. Harvard and Brown might be more interesting.
::: posted by dWj at 6:01 PM
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The terrorist threat assessment level has been ranged to orange, which would be "4" if I had my way. Fortunately, there is no news outlet that just reports this as "orange", since nobody remembers these things off the tops of their heads.
::: posted by dWj at 5:23 PM
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Kate Malcolm wants a definition of big government, and I guess I mean by it government that displaces a large portion of the private economy. That's the way I tend to think, is in terms of economics. (If Lily really does have a Richard Posner fan club, I wouldn't mind joining. I have a Calvin Coolidge fan club; appropriately, it doesn't actually do much. But I digress.) There's some difficulty, in the limit of small government, with determining what exactly that means, at least if we suppose that no government would mean chaos and the breakdown of the marketplace. (For thoughts on this, see a National Geographic article from last year on Somalia, where a fellow from a cell-phone company exults at how much easier it is to operate in an environment of anarchy than it was with the previous government.) I am fully confident that we are not near that limit.
I would warn against trying too much to distinguish between the government performing or ordering out for services that are governmental versus those that are, somehow, not; I certainly think of weapons development as a very governmental act — though I know a guy whose neighbor bought a Mig jet — while there are surely people who consider health care to be such a thing. (Either does displace — divert resources from — the private economy.) If the government could run health care exactly as is, perhaps subsuming it into the government does not really change the economy, but it certainly makes the government "bigger" in any sense in which it seems to me likely for someone to ordinarily use that word.
::: posted by dWj at 12:27 PM
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U.S. jobless rate drops to 5.7 percentAnalysts had expected the unemployment rate to hold steady at 6 percent for a third straight month, with a more modest increase in payrolls.
I'm especially excited, I think, because it was a .3 point jump in May of 2001 that convinced me that we were definitely headed toward recession, which I merely regarded as highly probable before that. I think there's a good chance there's some noise in this number, especially since it was so unexpected, and so I wouldn't be suprised at all if it ticks back up a bit next month, but it's good news.
::: posted by dWj at 9:58 AM
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Thursday, February 06, 2003 :::
Kate Malcolm asks,
A more expensive project, mind you, does not mean that it is larger. One fighter jet costs much more than 1000 handouts. Which is "bigger" government?
The fighter jet is, for "shadow government" reasons you give earlier. A proper accounting finds the Boeing employees, and even the steel mill employees (on a pro-rated basis), part of the former program.
Spending is a remarkably good metric of size. If you want to argue that a department with 300 $30,000 employees is bigger than one with 200 $60,000 employees, I'll afford that it's a tenable position (though I think I still disagree, on the basis of the effect on the private economy), but as a measure of size where the President doesn't seem to be gaming the metric — perhaps not the case for Clinton there — it's probably generally as good a simple metric as is available.
Incidentally, many people support smaller (cheaper) government because it allows lower taxes; I support lower taxes because they require smaller (cheaper) government. I'd say a bigger violation of the "cheaper is smaller" rule is regulation that imposes large costs that don't get tallied as government expenditure; that I would count as big government regardless.
::: posted by dWj at 6:07 PM
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"Ah, the Luftwaffe -- the Washington Generals of the History Channel."
The Simpsons are on.
"I'm a level five vegan -- I won't eat anything that casts a shadow."
::: posted by Steven at 5:44 PM
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The Newest Malcolm writes:
But, to be fair, gay voters are so entrenched on the left end of the spectrum that a Republican can't have much reason to court them. (Andrew Sullivan has a recent article about the scattershot far-left agenda of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.) Looking at this fact solely in terms of political strategy, it doesn't seem very shrewd. Quite apart from all the reasons an individual has for maintaining independence itself, wouldn't gays have more leverage if their votes could be won by either party?
Iris might be surprised by the number of gays who vote Republican -- according to the New York Times (before Raines took over), Republicans got a third of the 1998 homosexual vote for the U.S. House of Representatives (so claimed here). The NGLTF isn't representative of all gays -- in fact, it's pretty clear from the piece he wrote that they don't represent Andrew Sullivan.
On issues specific to sexual orientation, the Democratic party is generally going to be more in line with gays. But many Republicans are more interested in freedom and capitalism and genuine small government than in statutory enforcement of societal norms. And some gays will vote for those Republicans, given the opportunity -- the NGLTF gays clearly won't, but more libertarian gays will. If Andrew Sullivan were American, I'd like to think that he would.
::: posted by Steven at 1:57 PM
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I stayed up too late last night watching Powell at the UN on tape-delay. I hope he won some converts, because he did seem to compromise some sources. What he made perfectly clear was that Iraq has (present tense) weapons programs and is taking extraordinary measures to keep them and keep them hidden; what he made a less firm case for was that Iraq is supporting al-Qaeda; what he mentioned a couple times but, I think, should have hammered at more, is how helpless this leaves certainly this and to some extent any inspections regime, and why, thus, temporary full possession of the country is becoming our only choice.
Until we get full support for that, I'd like to see a compromise: militarily supported inspections. Pass the resolution stating that Iraqi attacks on U2s supporting inspections will be considered an act of war eligible for immediate response, but also put fighter jets in the sky to bomb out roads in front of apparent moving weapons labs. Make immediate use of any timely intelligence for strategic strikes to pin down or, if necessary, immediately destroy targets. None of this would yet be targeted at the regime, or even for the most part its conventional military; it would merely put the force of law behind the inspections.
::: posted by dWj at 1:30 PM
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Is there any immune response to Botox that I can build up by eating excessively old and poorly kept leftovers?
::: posted by dWj at 1:24 PM
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The first, quick explanation for the Columbia incident, that tiles were knocked loose 80 seconds after launch, has had doubt cast on it. If it was accelerating straight upward at twice gravity — so the passengers would experience triple their normal weight — then that was at basically the same hight at which it came apart. How would the heating experienced from that point on up compare to the heating experienced coming back down to that hight? In the latter case, to be sure, they're trying to convert speed into heat, while in the former they're trying to slip through the atmosphere as best they can, but unless it took a couple minutes of jostling before they really became unsited, it seems like the problem had to be of a particular order of magnitude in order to be a problem down and not up.
Thinking more about my surprise that more stuff didn't burn up on the way down, it occurs to me that it would have to have burned up before slowing to terminal velocity unless that was high enough for it to burn up later. In a thin atmosphere, you're going to lose speed (and gain heat) more slowly than at lower altitude, so it really shouldn't have been such a surprise. Meteors that burn up come in faster than the Columbia was going at that point, and probably make it to the stratosphere with a lot of that speed left.
::: posted by dWj at 1:24 PM
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Re "right turn on red", I understand that Boston was one of the last places to allow it. Since out-of-staters didn't know that Boston was different, though, Boston decided to allow it by default, but put up signs in a lot of places to disallow it.
I assumed the left-turn-on-red was legal around here, too, but wasn't certain until I saw a "no turn on red" sign at Boylston (one-way eastish) leading onto Berkeley (one-way northish). I'll have to remember that New Jersey and NYC are weird.
This, of course, fits right into Kate Malcolm's water faucet conversation with me.
::: posted by Steven at 1:14 PM
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The case Colin Powell made to the UN seems to have done well. Immediately after he finished, a previously quite skeptical talk-show hostess (the liberal on a two-person show) said "let's go to war." I wonder to what extent there's a Nixon-in-China effect from the fact that it was Powell making the case, rather than Bush, Cheney, or Rummy.
::: posted by Steven at 1:10 PM
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Chicago may disallow right turn on red; of course, there are at some intersections signs to that effect, but this would be more general. The only place in the country, it's reported, where right turn on red is not allowed is New York City; this makes me curious about the left turn on red laws. I know that, under the same circumstances as apply to right turn on red, a left turn on red is allowed in Iowa, Illinois, and Pennsylvania, but not in New Jersey.
::: posted by dWj at 9:49 AM
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Wednesday, February 05, 2003 :::
The secretary of state played recorded excerpts of conversations between Iraqi officials and field agents -- as recently as last week -- showing that the Iraqis have been scrambling to evacuate any trace of prohibited arms before U.N. weapons inspectors find them. One conversation was recorded after weapons inspectors found 12 empty chemical warheads on Jan. 16.
An Iraqi official told Fox News in Baghdad that the "United States is just looking for a chance to go to war." The official said the intercepts used by Powell could have been "faked," and said "any defector could’ve made them. That’s not proof."
But Powell said sources have told the United States that the Iraqis also have gotten rid of hard drives containing vital information regarding Baghdad's banned weapons program, as well as the weapons themselves.
"Every statement I make today is backed up by sources -- solid sources," Powell said. "These are not assertions. Instead of cooperating, Saddam Hussein and his regime are busy doing all they possibly can to ensure inspectors succeed in finding absolutely nothing."
From Fox News; National Review has more response than I want to wade through.
::: posted by dWj at 1:12 PM
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Computers should have necks so you can throttle them.
::: posted by dWj at 10:29 AM
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Tuesday, February 04, 2003 :::
I seem to have misled Kate Malcolm with my reference, below, to "foreign, unlabeled faucets". I didn't mean to suggest that the convention is necessarily international -- I used "foreign" to mean "unfamiliar".
These sorts of conventions can be handy on an international basis, but much less so than domestically, since people (still, though decreasingly so) travel more within their country than between countries. Or at least Americans do -- I'm sure this is less true of Europeans (though probably more true of those in developing countries).
It's like driving on the same side of the road. Everyone on the right is okay, and everyone on the left is equally okay, but if you don't follow the local convention, things get unhappy. Being able to stick to one convention everywhere in North America is handy. It would be convenient for me if I could go to the UK without having to remember a different convention, but I don't go to the UK as often as I go to New Hampshire or Iowa.
As long as I'm on the subject: I had a professor once who pointed out that flipping a coin when you encounter someone, and picking a side of the road based on that, is also a Nash Equilibrium, since failure to conform with convention doesn't help you avoid a crash. It's not a stable equilibrium, though, or a very good one.
::: posted by Steven at 5:09 PM
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In Venezuelan news, the opposition's referendum was canceled, so they held a petition-signing in its place. Turn-out was, I think it can be said, pretty good.
::: posted by Steven at 1:13 PM
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Kate Malcolm researches why cold water faucets are on the right, and hot on the left.
It makes sense that we have a convention, just for informational ease. If you come across some foreign, unlabeled faucets, you'd prefer not to have to ask someone or test which is which -- it's handy that you automatically know. Of course, there are some exceptions -- I lived in such an apartment once.
And this isn't the most vital convention in the world to follow -- the informational costs of not doing so are not very high -- but there's really no reason not to, is there?
::: posted by Steven at 12:25 PM
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Monday, February 03, 2003 :::
My brother has written a few things the last day or so that I can agree with (you know, as opposed to the violent clashes you usually see between us).
Re President as Cheerleader, I think this is a reason we could use a queen. I've liked watching, and felt comfort in, Bush's speeches Saturday and a couple Septembers ago, but many Americans like him less than I do -- if Al Gore had given those speeches, my feelings would probably be more mixed. Cheney was asked a while ago what the biggest difference was between being VP and his job at Halliburton, and he said that at Halliburton, all of his constituents were cheering for him. I think it'd be great to have someone who nobody has voted against, whose sole duty is to be likeable and respectable and give apolitical speeches to the nation when called for.
His 1:33 entry this afternoon says things that occured to me this weekend (especially as I heard about a few other incidents -- a fire in China, a train accident in Zimbabwe, and I think something else -- each of which killed several times as many people as were in Columbia). Dean words them better than I did to myself.
It's probably macabre to wonder about the condition of the astronauts' remains, but not unusual. I've wondered about their deaths. Was it heat, or did the depressurization reach them first? I'm sure it was quick, but was it quick enough to beat the nerve signals from their skins to their brains? I'd be comforted to know that it was.
Also like Dean, my first thought was to hope the crew were okay. I'd like to thank him for admitting that before I did, though.
::: posted by Steven at 10:25 PM
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Lileks writes about American movies about Soviets during the cold war, many of which had sympathetic portrayals.
I don't think that American filmmakers over the years have sought the humanity in the adversary because they secretly side with Bolshevism, as some might suggest. It's the lure of the Russian character as we seem to define it - rash, sullen, romantic, effusive, violent, introspective, depressed, gorgeous and fiery and wintry and mad.
We've all dated someone like that.
That reminds me, her birthday's coming up. I should send her email or something.
The rest of the piece isn't required reading, as it is some days. Not bad, mind you, just not required.
::: posted by Steven at 10:02 PM
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Incidentally, Chicago was in the forties this morning with a cold front on its way in; depending on the timing, today's low and tomorrow's high may be at the same time.
::: posted by dWj at 3:54 PM
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Rebels in the nation of Colombia released a couple of hostages; I imagined they would not be seen again alive. This is relevant to the Columbia in the following way: I think the most fascinating part of the grieving process is denial. I distinctly thought on Saturday, "but they're okay, right?" when I had plenty of information to put together that, well, no, they weren't. This in spite of my tendency toward pessimism. (I assumed the Pennsylvania coal miners were dead, too. The day after they were rescued, Grandpa Dean suggested that we had witnessed a miracle, and I'm inclined to believe that.)
::: posted by dWj at 2:47 PM
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Arcane observation: Mardi Gras often falls on the Tuesday nearest the beginning of the Chinese New Year, but this year is a month later.
::: posted by dWj at 2:44 PM
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Is it macabre of me to be intensely curious as to the condition of human remains that have fallen basically all the way through the earth's atmosphere before smacking into the ground? I'm surprised at how many things are being reported as having been found — instead of vaporized. I suppose some of the clothing, if it breaks off, might flutter down relatively slowly, but I'd think just about anything that wasn't metal, ceramic, or maybe plastic that was of appreciable weight would be dust.
::: posted by dWj at 1:48 PM
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I've been wondering since Saturday why the Columbia disaster upsets us so much. (To be clear, that's "us"; for the hours when all I had was a short news item on my phone, I thought it was "me", but when the news radio seven hours later had canceled commercials, traffic, weather, and anything else to bring us continuing "we don't know anything more about the Columbia", I felt better — everyone else had lost perspective, too. Up to that point, I thought perhaps it had a particular impact on Generation X, i.e. those of us who remember the Challenger but were born after the Kennedy assassination.)
Last month a plane crash in North Carolina killed more than twice as many people. The astronauts were, in some sense, more famous, but no more so than the Oklahoma State basketball team, I don't think. The vehicle we lost was much more expensive, but an unmanned vehicle that was just as expensive I don't think would have had the same impact. The debris raining down seemed to intensify the disaster, but perhaps mostly because of what it symbolized coming back to earth.
There's something symbolic about the space shuttle and its astronauts, I think, and that moxie/arrogance/cussedness/"damn the torpedoes" is probably a big part of that. As Ilan Ramon suggested that he represented all of Israel, perhaps our astronauts, every time they go up, represent not just the country of America, but the idea of America. Spectacular failure is part of spectacular risk-taking, but it still upsets us; in response we resolve not to quit taking risks, but to make sure we succeed.
::: posted by dWj at 1:33 PM
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On American cussedness:"There's a lot of different things that we do during life that could potentially harm us, and I choose not to stop doing those things."
— Dr. Laurel Clark
::: posted by dWj at 10:11 AM
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I remember, around September 14, 2001, thinking that I could see some great advantages to having elected a cheerleader as President. He did a great job on Saturday as well.
::: posted by dWj at 10:09 AM
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Sunday, February 02, 2003 :::
I learned today that the Arena Football League writes into its players' contracts that they have to meet with the fans after the game. It's part of their job.
I think that's great.
::: posted by Steven at 10:33 PM
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