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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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Friday, February 28, 2003 :::
Abbot and Costello didn't split their proceeds evenly. As the straight man, Abbot got more.
You learn something new every day. Or you don't -- no skin off my back.
::: posted by Steven at 2:36 PM
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Chirac's own party worried over repercussions of anti-war stance
President Jacques Chirac is under pressure from key supporters who fear that France's opposition to war with Iraq could cripple relations with the United States, wreck the United Nations and leave France isolated.
::: posted by Steven at 2:33 PM
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Lily Malcolm provides shocking information in a Columbus, GA newspaper, while I provide useless information: Columbus, GA is the largest city in the United States that is smaller than another U.S. city with the same name. (At least last I checked. Kansas City, KS, was close on its heels.)
::: posted by dWj at 1:47 PM
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FYI, the Cambridge Republican City Committee met on Monday night. Here's the press release I just sent out:
The Cambridge Republican City Committee met on the evening of Monday, February 24th. The Committee elected three nominees for the position of election commissioner. In order of preference, these nominees are incumbent Wayne Drugan, Benjamin Hunter, and William Cobham.
The Committee also heard a report on the Cambridge schools by School Committee member Fred Fantini, and passed the following resolution:
"The Cambridge Republican City Committee hereby indicates its support for President Bush in his actions to obtain disarmament of the Iraqi regime in accordance with the U.N. Resolutions which require Saddam Hussein to eliminate his weapons of mass destruction."
For more information on the Cambridge Republican City Committee, you can contact chairman Steven Jens at 617-864-3311 or steven@stevenjens.com, or visit the Committee's web site at http://www.cambgop.com/ .
::: posted by Steven at 1:36 PM
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Recidivist actor and recovering U.S. Senator Fred Thompson is
"taking on the Hollywood left in a 30-second ad that supports President Bush in his showdown with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein."
::: posted by dWj at 11:51 AM
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Colby Cosh links to a surprisingly interesting history of graphs.
::: posted by Steven at 11:34 AM
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Last night, Instapundit linked to this cartoon on the "rush to war".
::: posted by Steven at 11:03 AM
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For no reason, here's a collection of rhetorical terms.
::: posted by Steven at 10:54 AM
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Happy fiftieth anniversary of the discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA.
::: posted by dWj at 10:18 AM
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Terriers clinch top spot with win
Bell was not the only one in foul trouble, however, as the game was called tighter than Michael Jackson's face.
The headline and that line are really the bulk of the story. This is from the BU student paper, BTW, re men's basketball.
::: posted by Steven at 7:53 AM
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And that reminds me, if anyone knows where I stole "diabolical, yet festive," let me know -- I've forgotten. If it wasn't the Simpsons, I suspect some other cartoon.
::: posted by Steven at 7:52 AM
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Thursday, February 27, 2003 :::
That reminds me, actually, of a thought I've had before.
I don't know what legally constitutes plagiarism of a quip (I assume if it isn't too long, it's "fair use"), but my moral distinction between that and a reference to the origin of said quip is that a reference is something you hope people will recognize, while plagiarism constitutes something you hope they won't.
Sometimes this gets a little fuzzy -- I ended my last post, if I remembered it correctly, with a Dave Barry reference. I don't actually expect you to get the reference, and I haven't actually had four beers (though I did have two glasses of wine and two beers -- no kidding), but if I were forced to issue a preference, it would still be for you noticing rather than against you noticing. So I'm comfortable. And pretty light-headed, actually.
::: posted by Steven at 11:35 PM
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Kate asks whether crossing a picket line to go to class means taking sides. (I don't really need to say which Kate, do I? We link often enough to the Kitchen Cabinet.)
My take on it is that, as a consumer (rather than a worker), changing your behavior based on the picket line means taking sides. If you were to avoid going to class based on the picket line, you'd be siding with the union. If I were to apply to Yale Law School based on the picket line, I'd be taking sides. But going to the class you've already paid for, in a program you signed up for two and a half years ago, is just going to class.
Of course, your judgment is as good as mine. Better, probably, since you haven't had four beers.
::: posted by Steven at 11:27 PM
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State Farm nixes nuclear claimsBloomington-based State Farm Insurance Cos., the nation’s largest auto insurer, is changing its auto insurance policies to exclude claims for damage caused by nuclear explosions or radioactive contamination. Insurance companies are great for spreading out diversifiable risks, but the correlated ones not so much. I wrote to my Congressman last year about terrorism insurance; I'd like to see a capitalist solution, and the clearest way to do that is to promote a market in catastrophe derivatives, but it might be difficult to police them the way they would need to be policed. Would only allowing large, regulated insurance companies to take the long side (i.e. the side that benefits from such catastrophes) be sufficient and enforceable? Would it make it impossible for the market to get terribly efficient?
::: posted by dWj at 4:25 PM
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Tony Blair, in the interview I mentioned earlier, seems to imply that credibility is his main reason for attacking Iraq; how will the U.N. deal with North Korea if it demonstrates that it has no credibility? Even if Hussein is replaced by someone just as bad, that someone will have a recent precedent to worry about.Bush seems to support the U.N. because he thinks it will enable him to do something in Iraq; Blair seems to want to do something in Iraq because he supports the U.N.
::: posted by dWj at 4:20 PM
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Cathy Young has "strong arguments both for and against war". Link from Volokh, I think. It's not a "drop whatever you're doing and read this brilliant, original article" sort of piece, but if you have some time, she makes good points.
I think the most under-rated point for invasion is the damage that would be done to our credibility if we backed off. I think the most under-rated point against it is that removing Saddam Hussein is not the same thing as replacing him with someone better.
::: posted by Steven at 3:20 PM
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Iraq to destroy missiles
Iraq will announce later today that it will comply with a UN order to begin destroying its Al Samoud 2 missiles by the weekend, the Egyptian Middle East News Agency reported.
There was no immediate comment from the Iraqi government, but the agency quoted unidentified sources in Baghdad as saying the step was intended to deprive Washington of an excuse for war. [emphasis added]
It surprised me that they'd admit that the threat of invasion is affecting their behavior. Perhaps they're trying to imply that this single step should be enough to get us to leave them alone?
::: posted by Steven at 12:45 PM
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Mr. Rogers is dead, and if there's anything I expect the NYTimes still to do well, it's obituaries.A friend who grew up near Pittsburgh tells me that Mr. Rogers once had his car stolen from in front of his house. The local papers made this a big story; for the ultimate nice guy to have his car stolen was emblematic of the decay of society. The next morning, the car was back in front of his house with a note reading, "Sorry, Mr. Rogers; we didn't realize it was yours." Even car thieves don't steal from friends.
::: posted by dWj at 9:57 AM
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Wednesday, February 26, 2003 :::
Jonah Goldberg writes in the Corner that this column (which is unusually bland for Goldberg) has generated hate mail from both sides of the abortion issue. Let's check a couple paragraphs:
But abortion rights groups have a financial and political interest in making Roe seem more imperiled than it is. And these extremists are unwilling to concede what is readily apparent to most Americans: There is a big difference between aborting a pregnancy at two weeks and aborting one at eight months.
That's why pro-life groups had their biggest victories in more than a decade over partial-birth abortion. The average Joe or Jane can draw a meaningful distinction between a "clump of cells" and an eight-month-old fetus.
I can see why that would bother you if you put the beginning of life at birth or conception.
::: posted by Steven at 3:46 PM
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The Iraqi regime has lied, deceived, obstructed, and shown nothing but contempt for the rule of law. We have precedent for this; Iraq must be impeached and acquited by the Senate.
::: posted by dWj at 11:23 AM
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Today is the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, the biggest act of terrorism on United States soil up to that time. It has since been superseded.
::: posted by dWj at 11:21 AM
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Mayor Daley won reelection, apparently with about 78% of the vote. Estimates I heard a week ago were generally in the low seventies, even though his list of opponents last time included a Congressman, while this time around it, er, didn't. Of at least as much interest is that it appears, based on exit polls and precinct by precinct breakdown, that he received a majority of black votes, as well as his usual majorities in the white and Hispanic communities.
::: posted by dWj at 11:19 AM
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My brother on education. Even for jobs where no other special training is required — as opposed to plumbing and the like — I'm curious as to how much of one's education these days is actually useful for most jobs and how much is at best some form of information discovery. There's a desire these days to hire BAs because 1) one can and 2) they're probably better candidates for the job than those without BAs, not because of anything that they picked up during college, but just because they started out that way. The BA is a marker, and those who can acquire it do so at high cost to make it clear who they are.
Making sure everyone gets a BA — or, less so these days, a high school diploma — devalues it as a marker. If you're not discovering information, and the education per se isn't useful, then you're pretty much left with rent-seeking, i.e. education is a simple waste of resources. I plan to run for political office on that platform. Just for fun, you know.
Alright, so when I say "education per se isn't useful", that premise holds, on a societal level, only if we believe not only that it's useless in terms of one's job, but also in terms of one's activity as a citizen and a member of society. I spent enough years being indoctrinated in liberal arts schools not to be willing to make the latter part of that assumption quite so quickly.
::: posted by dWj at 11:16 AM
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Australian PM John Howard has a piece at OpinionJournal.com. When people think of our strongest allies in the war on terrorism, they too quickly start with the UK and continue through Europe, and too rarely remember Australia. Or maybe that's just me.
This reminds me, I need to get more wine (I try to keep a few bottles around, so I can buy it cheaper). I'm thinking Australian and Italian.
::: posted by Steven at 7:28 AM
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Meanwhile, back in Venezuela
We know how Hugo Chavez treats Venezuelans who criticize him: He shoots them.
How does Chavez respond to criticism from abroad? Well, it looks as if we found out the other day.
On Monday, Columbia and Spain both issued strong statements critical of Chavez.
Early on Tuesday, large explosions occurred at both the Columbian and Spanish embassies in Venezuela.
Link from Instapundit
::: posted by Steven at 7:14 AM
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Colby Cosh writes about a Tory member of the Albertan Legislative Assembly (I'd rather hoped Tories had been stamped out in Alberta), who wants to increase the amount of compulsory "education".
As it happens, in the real world you can train for a lot of jobs without finishing Grade 11--but perhaps McFarland doesn't think Alberta needs bakers, janitors, hairdressers, or garbagemen.
Cosh is, of course, exactly right. McFarland's suggestion is well-intentioned but wrong-headed -- and very similar to what Cambridge has done.
In recent memory, Cambridge public schools have pretty much always -- what's the euphemism I'm looking for? -- sucked. Twenty years or more back, though, there was one shining exception to this rule -- the Rindge Technical school. Naturally, the school committee decided that everyone should be prepared for college, and they gradually rolled back the technical programs. Kids who once would have been trained -- and trained well -- for well-paying, productive jobs as plumbers or mechanics are now given meaningless diplomas after serving four years at Cambridge Rindge and Latin, that they might begin careers in the rapidly-expanding windshield-squeegee industry.
They're gradually recognizing their mistake, and some kids are now shipped to technical classes in Lexington (at great expense) while Cambridge re-builds its own programs.
::: posted by Steven at 7:10 AM
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Not again HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) A fire tore through a Hartford nursing home early Wednesday, killing at least 10 people and sending 20 people to hospitals, authorities said. One person was arrested, but fire officials would not say whether arson was suspected.
Part of me wondered, when I first heard this on the radio and there weren't any fatality figures, whether big fires are more common than we think, but are going to be reported more often now because of the recent large-scale tragedies. Last summer, for example, a kidnapping became national news every other week or so, not because the rate of kidnapping went up, but just because the media got used to reporting it.
I suspect, though, that every double-digit fatality fire does, in fact, make the news. In other words, it's not media inconsistency, it's simply been a bad couple of weeks.
::: posted by Steven at 6:36 AM
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Tuesday, February 25, 2003 :::
They're saying on the radio that Phil Donohue's show has finally been cancelled.
::: posted by Steven at 3:11 PM
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If you're in Chicago today, go ahead and vote for Daley (it obviously doesn't matter whether you're a resident), then vote for whichever aldermanic candidate he isn't backing, and oppose the incumbent, unless you're in the 25th ward, in which case you should vote for the machine-backed incumbent over the felon.
::: posted by dWj at 3:09 PM
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It’s foolish to try to synchronize your investments with entirely unpredictable political and military developments.
Of course, it's also foolish to try to synchronize your investments with entirely predictable political and military developments. If there are some you can predict but others can't, that's when there's some chance to make money on such things.
The quote is from an article on MSN, and isn't extraordinarily worth reading, though I find some of the negative examples moderately amusing. I'm sure I'm making some of those mistakes, mind you, but not to an extreme extent.
::: posted by dWj at 12:12 PM
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March Reader's Digest has an interview with Tony Blair, who expresses that the reason for going after Iraq in particular is that there are U.N. resolutions on him already, and that if they aren't enforced the U.N. becomes ineffective at dealing with other such tyrants in the future. This, incidentally, is the only coherent argument I've thought of that the U.S. is not justified in acting unilaterally but is justified with U.N. support; if it's all about U.N. resolution enforcement, it becomes appropriate that we wait until the security council has been dragged kicking and screaming into taking itself seriously.
::: posted by dWj at 12:12 PM
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The Instapundit is pointing out the beginning of this column by Tim Blair.
"No one can doubt its cruelty and atrocities, but comparisons with the Third Reich are ridiculous." – John Pilger on the regime of Slobodan Milosevic, November 15, 1999.
"The current American elite is the Third Reich of our times." – John Pilger on the government of George W. Bush, January 29, 2003.
There's some other interesting stuff in there (e.g., Blair interviews John Howard after having a few drinks). Particularly this:
Those human shields in Baghdad?
You know, the people from Australia and Europe and the United States who think that by standing around in front of Iraqi buildings they'll somehow stop any attack? The US Marines are calling them "speed bumps".
He doesn't offer a source, but who really cares?
::: posted by Steven at 11:45 AM
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Monday, February 24, 2003 :::
Okay, so two good friends were getting married and the bride mentioned, a bit more than a month before the wedding, that they weren't having a wedding cake because neither of them particularly likes ordinary cake; they'd really prefer an ice cream cake, but nobody could do a wedding cake like that. So I got them an ice cream cake.
Now, it'd occurred to me that I might not be able to acquire the cake on the day of the wedding, but it being February in Chicago, I figured a car trunk would make a fine freezer. Ladies and gentlemen, I believe last Thursday and Friday were the warmest two days in Chicago since at least November, reaching fifty degrees. As I had to take delivery of the cake Friday evening, I was confronted with a problem.
I didn't figure the banquet hall would be thrilled about outside food coming in anyway, and had planned to present the cake to the couple at the hotel after the reception, and I figured I could ask the hotel whether they could keep it somewhere for me; I also found where I could acquire ice, though that itself would not be enough to keep the cake cold enough, and was at best an incomplete solution. My plan to present the cake at the hotel after the reception hit another snag before I could research what services they could provide me; I was informed Thursday, as I tried to tease a more precise schedule out of the groom, that a person I'd never heard of was holding a party after the reception.
If that looks more like a solution than a problem, you think more quickly than I do.
When I learned that this host was a coworker of the groom, and lived near the chapel where the wedding was to be held — and, more to the point, the rehearsal Friday night — I tried last name @ machine name, following the pattern of the groom's email address, and found several minutes later that, while that was not the prefered email address of the host of the party, it did get to her. She happened to be working from home Friday morning when I reached her, and cleaned out her freezer and gave me some measurements, in inches, of what she could accommodate. Baskin-Robbins was unable to provide the dimensions of the cake, but I measured a prepared one of the size I'd ordered with a CTA card, and returned the dimensions in lengths of a CTA card (i.e. a card for use on the bus and the famous "El" — not to be confused with "El Famous", but boy do I digress), with an approximate conversion ratio provided by an 8-1/2 by 11 piece of paper. That evening the cake was acquired and delivered to my co-conspirator as I made my way to the rehearsal. On arrival there I learned that the groom had been uncertain as to whether he and the bride would attend the event, introducing a new complication.
Up into the reception, it was unclear whether the bride could be counted on to assent to attending the party, and I began to reassess my previous bias in favor of secrecy to preserve the surprise, and candor to recruit co-conspirators to make sure the bride attended. I informed the bridesmaids, and continued to assess whether the groom himself would have to be brought in on it; I decided things were looking good, due largely to pressure applied by the host of the party, and eventually headed to the party fairly confident that the guests of honor would eventually show up.
They did show up a bit later, the cake was presented, I assured them that, while I had spelled their names for Baskin-Robbins, the innovative spelling of "Congratulations" was entirely the work of the cake manufacturers, and I explained to the groom why I had declined his offer, Friday afternoon, of a ride to the rehearsal, prefering to drive myself. The couple was pleased with the cake, and, as it happens, the party was fantastic.
::: posted by dWj at 6:07 PM
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I hadn't heard this.
::: posted by dWj at 6:07 PM
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More Australian nudity. Blokes this time.
::: posted by Steven at 6:00 PM
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As if there haven't been enough fires lately. This one, at least, didn't hurt anyone.
::: posted by Steven at 5:52 PM
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As has been mentioned in the Kitchen Cabinet, George Will's latest starts:
In Europe, anti-Semitism has been called the socialism of fools, which is confusing, because socialism is the socialism of fools.
Perhaps it's a confusion between foolishness and low class, and socialism is the anti-semitism of the elite. Though I still don't understand the analogy.
My brother suggests that Marxism is the opiate of the masses. That, I understand.
::: posted by Steven at 5:36 PM
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As someone who will be a net buyer of stocks for quite a while, I should buy S&P futures to hedge against the risk that they become more expensive.
::: posted by dWj at 12:57 PM
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An observation that I present without explaining why it's on my mind: smart unattractive girls seem to become more attractive when you get to know them, while dumb attractive girls seem to stay dumb.
::: posted by dWj at 12:57 PM
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I heard on the radio yesterday reports of pro-war rallies; I was recently discussing with someone that, to my knowledge, such things don't take place in free democracies, even where war is clearly the popular choice and anti-war rallies are taking place. I submitted that it is an inherently sober position not given to rallies.
If that analysis is perfect, then the pro-war rallies are disturbing, representing a certain enthusiastic belligerence. It's quite possible, particularly as a reaction to the anti-war rallies, that these are simply a response viewed as necessary by people who view war as necessary — a necessary frivolity for a necessary evil.
One of the things that makes the Arab street harder to like than the Israeli street is the joy the former takes in destruction, where the latter expresses nothing happier than relief. I hope we take no joy in any attack, but I also hope we find relief there.
::: posted by dWj at 12:57 PM
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Tony Blair and President Bush both stated last week that anti-war rallies would not dissuade them because they had to lead. JFK's discussion of this tension in leadership positions of democratic countries in the introduction to Profiles in Courage is worth reading, but perhaps the seminal and probably still the best summary of the issue is Edmund Burke's speech to the electors of Bristol.
::: posted by dWj at 12:56 PM
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Mugabe on France
“All I can say is that all the European Union should behave like France.”
That pretty much sums it up. Link from the Corner.
::: posted by Steven at 12:03 PM
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Today is the 200th anniversary of Marbury v. Madison
::: posted by Steven at 11:46 AM
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Last week, Mark Steyn wrote about Chirac. Referring to the comment that I've had on the blog banner (I'm trying to rotate it out this morning, BTW, and having blogger problems), he points out:
The problem for the subjects of this advice -- Central and Eastern Europe -- is that they're not looking for a good opportunity to shut up. They were shut up by the Soviet Union for half-a-century, and memories are fresh enough that they're in no great hurry to repeat the experience.
He also excerpts from a Romanian editorial.
::: posted by Steven at 11:01 AM
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The ring bearer dropped the box, but other than the bride showing up 20 minutes late, the groom getting her name wrong during the vows, and the bride getting hit in the head by bagpipes on the way out, that was really the biggest thing that went wrong with the ceremony. You know, it sounds worse now than it seemed at the time; it really did feel like it had gone perfectly.
I was previously a groomsman for this best man, but this was the first wedding I had thrown myself into quite this much. One of the bridesmaids and I did a lot of miscellaneous things over the last couple days, including throughout the day on Saturday, and I was still helping move wedding presents and leftovers yesterday. This was something I really wanted to do; I kind of mentally partitioned the wedding off from the rest of my life, and I didn't want to go back.
I might tell the cake story later, but for now just the observation that in St. Augustine's Confessions he writes that in his youth he was in love with the idea of being in love, and I entirely felt that way all weekend. That people often find partners at weddings has to be in part due to the suggestive atmosphere, doesn't it?
::: posted by dWj at 10:35 AM
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