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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, June 21, 2003 :::
An essay on futility in Chicago baseball. The Cubs lost to the Sox (the White Sox, Steve) yesterday at Wrigley Field, 12-3. They snarl north side traffic again this afternoon and tomorrow.
::: posted by dWj at 12:06 PM
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Friday, June 20, 2003 :::
At NRO today, Kopel writes favorably about a book that writes favorably about Harry Potter. It comes with some speculation:
Harry will be revealed as the true heir of Godric Gryffindor and the climatic battle will be fought at Harry's birthplace, Godric Hollow. The heir of Gryffindor will confront the Heir of Slytherin (slithering, like a snake), Voldemort. Dumbledore has powers of invisibility; that is how he knew that the orphan Neville Longbottom (no-village, long at the lowest place) stood up to his friends in Sorcerer's Stone. Dumbledore will die, because Harry must defeat Voldemort himself. Snape's mixed feelings about Harry -- he saves Harry's life, but is angrily jealous of Harry's fame -- can be traced back to Snape's school days; then, Snape loved the green-eyed Lily (perhaps a Slytherin student, since the house color is green) who rejected him for James. No matter what -- love and sacrifice will battle with death, at first appearing to be defeated, and then triumphing gloriously.
I agree that Dumbledore will probably die in book 7. I don't know whether or not Harry follows suit. The Snape/Lily conjecture is intriguing. I think Snape is the most mysterious of the characters.
Just over eight hours. I'll be at Harvard Book Store this evening.
UPDATE: Why, yes, I do think the author of the book has read too much into it. I think he's right on some things (e.g., the name "Draco Malfoy") and wrong on others (e.g. Neville Longbottom's first name; probably the Philip Pullman connection). Some things could go either way (Pilgrim's Progress). But don't underrate Rowling's awareness of what she's doing -- especially when names have French, Latin, or mythological meanings.
Incidentally, each book covers a year, except for the first book which had some preamble. Also excepting the first book and the newest, each book begins with Harry's birthday, July 31, or late in the evening before. Order of the Phoenix (the new book) starts on August 2, and 150 pages in, it's August 12th. It's a long book.
::: posted by Steven at 3:51 PM
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"The [Efficient Market Hypothesis] is true," he said, "to the extent that people believe it to be false and so, by their exertions, bring about efficiency." Cool. Glassman at NRO on the new Paolos book, "A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market". He talks about market efficiency in general, and while there's nothing earth-shattering in here, it's a fun read. So are the opening sentences of the Science News synopsis of the book:Mathematicians should have an edge in the stock market. You'd think their expertise and scientific sense would yield predictions of market trends. Mathematician Paulos thought that, so a few years ago, he invested in WorldCom.
::: posted by dWj at 3:39 PM
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Have we all seen this helicopter game that Dave Barry's been talking up? I know you've all seen Jonah Goldberg's favorite mini-golf game.
::: posted by Steven at 3:29 PM
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Derb predicts humanity's near-term doom. I tend to think this is likely -- that space colonization is the only prevention for it.
Elsewhere, on a completely different note, a lengthy-yet-interesting summary of the Priscilla Owen controversy.
And in less than eleven hours, the new Potter goes on sale here.
::: posted by Steven at 1:20 PM
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Thursday, June 19, 2003 :::
I see that Derb has put up in the Corner a joke I sent him.
Regarding my brother's latest Buffett entry, Tony Nicely manages GEICo's operations, but Lou Simpson manages its equity portfolio. The broader point holds -- Buffett probably played no part in it.
::: posted by Steven at 2:08 PM
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Press release announcing "Exciting First Results from Deuteron-Gold Collisions at Brookhaven", namely that they have evidence for the creation of a quark-gluon plasma.
::: posted by dWj at 1:30 PM
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It's been previously noted in this space that "Warren Buffett" and "Berkshire Hathaway" are often conflated in the financial press. Hence the headline Buffett sells Great Lakes shares, which story details thatThe shares were held by car insurer GEICO, a unit of Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRKa - News) conglomerate. The punchline here is that GEICO chairman Tony Nicely manages the GEICO portfolio himself, with enough independence that there's a reasonable chance that Buffett is learning about the sale in the same way as you and I.
Update: my brother has a correction.
::: posted by dWj at 11:41 AM
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The Boston Globe has run most of a seven-part series on the life-so-far of John Heinz Kerry. I haven't been reading it, so I'm not endorsing it, just informing you that it's there.
::: posted by Steven at 10:04 AM
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Wednesday, June 18, 2003 :::
The College World Series will feature a team from Texas and a team from California. CSU-Fulerton won the winners' bracket of the quad of which Stanford won the losers' bracket, while Rice won the winners' bracket of the quad of which Texas won the losers'.
::: posted by dWj at 6:00 PM
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OpinionJournal on Iran:Foggy Bottom spokesman Richard Boucher said Monday that the U.S. is "concerned about the use of violence against the demonstrators" and that "it's time for the voices of the Iranian people to be listened to and heard." This, they note, is a change from State:State and its allies have supported dialogue, hoping to pry the reformist president Mohammad Khatami into a deal that would give up nukes and moderate Iran's anti-American foreign policy. But Khatami has been around since 1997, and the Clinton Administration failed utterly in its attempt at engagement. Khatami's credibility has suffered enough inside Iran that the protesters in Tehran's streets are now demanding his resignation. Now might be a good time for President Khatami to demonstrate, if he's serious, which side of history he intends to be on.President Khatami, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for Iran, if you seek liberalization: Come to these protests. Mr. Khatami, listen to these protests. Mr. Khatami, tear down this regime.
::: posted by dWj at 11:10 AM
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Tuesday, June 17, 2003 :::
I tend to agree with my brother that "freedom of association" connotes concepts more related to with whom one associates than what one does with one's associates. Of course, the Constitution doesn't spell out a freedom of association, either -- the closest it gets is the first amendment right to "peaceably assemble", which doesn't clearly indicate that one may choose with whom one assembles (though it loses a lot of its meaning if that isn't inferred).
I started reading Barnett's amicus brief in Lawrence v. Texas, with a bias similar to my brother's -- inclined to disagree that the law is unconstitutional, but hoping to be convinced otherwise. I got part-way through it before realizing that it relies on elements of common law well over my head, in particular the doctrine that a law must have a "rational basis", a test which I contend most of the acts of the Massachusetts legislature fail.
Barnett has more on the meaning of the Ninth Amendment at his website. I haven't finished reading that, either, but that's more because I've lacked time than because I lack the training for it.
::: posted by Steven at 5:35 PM
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In the Washington Post, an op-ed from vice president of the Institute for JusticeGays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty, represented by my organization, the Institute for Justice, submitted a brief disdaining the Boy Scouts' discriminatory policies but defending their right to maintain them. The brief argued that "[w]hile a creeping infringement of [freedom of association] would harm all Americans, it would particularly threaten the welfare of gay and lesbian Americans, who have historically suffered when government has not respected citizens' right to gather together free from government harassment." It seems to me that what he asks for now is a broader reading of freedom of assembly than is maintaining membership rules for an organization, but I'd like to believe there are grounds for overturning the law. It would be less abusive than Roe v. Wade, though we should surely hold the court to a higher standard than that.The problem here is that the only feature that makes this "association" is that it involves more than one person; it would only be provocative of me to suggest that gang rape could be justified on these grounds, but in all sincerity I'm not sure how this is unconstitutional and the minimum wage is not.
::: posted by dWj at 3:59 PM
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Volokh on NRO on guns and journalistic innumeracy:Gun ownership is correlated with gun deaths. But that two things are correlated doesn't prove that one causes the other. The sex-crime rate is correlated over time with the use of air conditioning, but not because air conditioning causes sex crime; rather, both rise during the summer months.
::: posted by dWj at 3:58 PM
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Last night Sid Blumenthal was on a local broadcast; he told a story in which then-President Clinton received several of his advisors, who filled him in on various things, after which he criticized them for not having anyone with them who wasn't a white male. He told this story in an attempt to make Clinton look good, mind you. O brave new world that has such people in it.
::: posted by dWj at 12:19 PM
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Monday, June 16, 2003 :::
Newsweek reports on al-Qaeda in the U.S. It's long but compelling, and ends on the interesting note, Curiously, the best protection may be the soft power of daily life in the land of the free. One intelligence official, wondering aloud why America has not been attacked since 9-11 despite the clear intentions of bin Laden’s terror network, speculated that the sleeper agents just plain fall asleep. “A lot of these guys lose the jihadi, desert spirit,” said the official. “They get families, they get jobs, and they lose the fire in the belly. Welcome to America.”
::: posted by dWj at 4:57 PM
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I'm at the BU School of Management library, largely to avoid the distractions of my room, but I'm realizing again that that's only going to work if I leave the Ethernet cable at home.
In today's G-File (which is less weird than the author seems to think), Jonah Goldberg talks -- eventually -- about spam.
It seems to me that a conservative — as opposed to a libertarian or a liberal — should not have an inordinate fear of the state or an inordinate love of the unregulated free market. This requires conservatives to prefer nuance and balance over On-Off-switch arguments.
This is generally true, but I think all but the most hard-core ideologues would agree with it. I'm willing to see some government involvement in handling the externalities uncovered by making it easy to bother large groups of people. I have more love of the free market, and more fear of the state, than Jonah, let alone Caldwell. I think most pragmatic libertarians will agree that the free market is good for those circumstances where people incur the costs and benefits of their decisions, and while there are some costs at the receiving end of junk mail or door-to-door salesmen, the costs on the selling end are significant enough to keep things from getting out of hand. With email (in its current form), this isn't the case.
It should be remembered, though, that unintended consequences of legislative action tend to be more permanent than "mistakes" in the market. So I'd like to err on the side of looking for more techincal solutions. I anticipate adding to this entry later -- I'm going to undistract myself a little.
::: posted by Steven at 4:12 PM
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In Margaret Thatcher's book Statecraft, she notes that those countries and regions which capitalism has made rich — this is in her chapter on capitalism — tend to be those where the predominant religions leave a lot of room for self-determination, where the poorer countries have prevailing beliefs that life is something that happens to you. (This post is supposed to relate to the one my brother just put up, and the banner he put up recently.)
::: posted by dWj at 12:37 PM
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The tag-line I put on this blog's banner last night seems to be a pretty generic piece of wisdom, so I'd like to explain a bit where it came from.
I wanted to choose something Harry Potter, as the fifth book in the series will be coming out on Saturday. I looked around the end of the fourth book last night, trying to find something that sums up the state of the Potter-verse, preferable without spoiling too much. And I ran across Headmaster Dumbledore's comment that "it matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be." One of the key distinctions between the good guys and the bad guys is that the bad guys put a lot of stock in whether a wizard comes from a long line of wizards, or has non-magical dentists for parents (as does one of Harry's best friends).
The other "distinction" quote I like from the series is from the primary antagonist: "There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it."
::: posted by Steven at 11:01 AM
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Sunday, June 15, 2003 :::
Currently on Fox is the only episode of Buffy about which I've ever seen Jonah Goldberg write a column. It's a coincidence, I believe, that the FX network is scheduled to show the same episode tomorrow morning.
::: posted by Steven at 5:20 PM
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