Homeobox

2003-03-22T13:04:00.000-08:00

Again it seems to me as if the entire U.S. military plan had been that Iraqi forces would simply fold up in the first few hours of the war. I don't think that we were prepared to fight it through to the end. Rather, we were expecting that Saddam would flee the country once the shooting started, or that his regime would collapse soon after the first shot. It's not turning out that way.

Now, we rush to Baghdad. We do not pacify the cities we leave to our rear before doing so.

In the end, I would like to see a swift victory for the U.S. But the more I see, the more I am convinced that the political leadership of the U.S., namely George Bush and his coterie, have cocked it all up.

2003-03-20T16:56:00.000-08:00

The moral of this story is don't bluff like you've got a royal flush when all you've got is trip threes.

2003-03-20T08:29:00.000-08:00

Bush Administration Questions Hussein Video

So, no "shock and awe," peace protesters everywhere, and we're reduced to saying that we "really" did kill Saddam.

Don't believe your eyes. Bush was assassinated last night at 7:00 pm EST. The guy on TV was a double.

2003-03-20T05:46:00.000-08:00

I haven't blogged in a while, but the commencement of hostilities in Iraq somehow compels me to put my thoughts down, at least so I'll remember them later.

It seems to me that things are already unraveling. This morning's attempt to "decapitate" the Iraqi leadership structure, coupled with the lack of any other military initiative, suggests to me that the strategy of the Bush administration all along has been a bluff. They hope that the Iraqi regime will simply fold under the pressure.

I'm led to this belief by the president's earlier bluff with regard to calling a vote in the Security Council. He bluffed, the French called, Bush folded.

So, in the end, I hope that we do, in fact, have a plan to subdue Iraq, and that we're not just hoping that harsh language from a known bluffer will carry the day. Sadly, though, with all the talk of psy-ops, with all the saber rattling, I think that the administration just expected Saddam's regime to fold up and blow away.

The Rock and the Hard Place revisited

2002-09-22T08:51:00.000-07:00

Josh Marshall gives voice to some sentiments that I'm all too familiar with:

There's also an issue people don't like to talk about, but which is an undeniable reality for many. Military action is easier to contemplate if it's being planned by political leaders who you support and whose values you share. One might say this is mere partisanship, agreeing with what politician X wants to do because he's a member of your party or vice versa. And there's always some of that. But it runs deeper. Following political leaders into war requires a deep measure of trust on a variety of levels: trust in their judgment, trust in their analysis of factual information that can never be shared with the public, and so forth. If your general sense of an administration is that they're not trustworthy or that they don't share your values it's difficult not let that color your opinions. Of course, to some degree it should color your opinions. But it's important to evaluate these questions as much as possible simply on the merits. And I've tried to do that to the best of my ability in my writing about Iraq on this site over the last several months.

It truly is difficult to know where to draw the line.

I believe that a nuclear or biologically armed Iraq would present an existential danger to the U.S. and Israel. I believe that an Iraq so armed would be able to deter the U.S. from action, and would thus destabilize the region. I believe that the current sanctions regime is both ineffective and morally unjustifiable due to the decade of suffering it has brought to the Iraqi people. I believe that a properly administered U.S. occupation would beneficially transform the region.

At the same time, I believe that George Bush is manifestly corrupt, deeply ignorant and shamelessly arrogant. I believe that the moieties of the administration's record are giveaways to the president's rich friends and bald blunders.

The threat is clear and present. Yet the motley collection of incompetents running the show are almost sure to botch the operation. In the end, the question of the hour is: Which is worse, a nuclear and biologically armed Saddam free to flex his muscle around the Middle East, and give tasty tidbits deniably to whichever terrorist group strikes his fancy, or a botched U.S. follow-up to a conquest of Iraq that most of the international community opposed?

Reluctantly, I have to conclude that the former is the greater evil. But it's a terrible call to have to make.

Consciousness

2002-09-20T05:14:00.000-07:00

Matt Yglesias informs us that he's taking Ned Block's class on consciousness. Now, philosophical inquiry into the nature of consciousness is one of my favorite topics, so I hope Matt posts some more as the class continues. For those of you who are interested, the link at the left to David Chalmers's homepage will lead you to a wide range of online papers on consciousness.

For what it's worth, I'm a reluctant dualist when it comes to phenomenal consciousness.

Evil

2002-09-20T04:29:00.000-07:00

Reading Michael Kinsley's ruminations on rightists' use of the concept of evil vis-a-vis Osama bin Laden left me with contradictory feelings.

I agree that many rightists have glommed on to the concept of evil as a mechanism to prevent discussion on this topic from straying into territory they would prefer it not went: The relationship between America's position and activities in the world and the attack against it. And I think that it's profitable to explore this territory.

Nevertheless, I think the important question is the character of the discussion. Is it a practical or a moral one? I can be found in the latter camp. Investigation of root causes is practically useful, but doesn't contribute anything to our moral reasoning on the issue, and in that sense, is not part of the moral argument.

The actions of al-Queda were manifestly evil. Our reaction to that evil needs be moral revulsion and a desire for just retribution. An investigation into the slights, perceived or otherwise, suffered by the perpetrators of an atrocity just has no place in our analysis of the situation.

Finally, as something of an aside, I find Kinsley's invocation of the biological bases of human behavior a little wide of the mark. While I agree that our growing knowledge of these bases raises interesting, though ultimately tractable, questions for ethics, I don't think those questions are deeply implicated in anyone's position regarding al-Queda or Osama bin Laden.

Pinker on the "blank slate"

2002-09-19T04:51:00.000-07:00

Edge brings us an interview with Steven Pinker that's well worth reading. Pinker, an outstanding popularizer of the computational theory of mind and evolutionary psychology, pretty much demolishes the Standard Social Sciences Model of the "blank slate," and shares some insight into why this wooly headed model has had such success clinging to life in the academy and beyond.

On Iraq

2002-09-18T04:20:00.000-07:00

I can agree with half of Thomas Friedman's argument about Iraq: That a commitment to building a plural, democratic Iraq must be part and parcel of our invasion strategy. Frankly, military conquest and occupation seems to me to be the only way to ensure that there exists any plural, democratic countries in that region.

What I don't agree with is the idea that Saddam can be deterred from supplying terrorists with WMD. And I think that this is beside the point. Why? A nuclear armed Saddam will be able to deter the U.S.

Check out Nick Bostrom

2002-09-18T03:45:00.000-07:00

I've added Nick Bostrom's home page to my list of other sites. Mr Bostrom is a professor of philosophy with some interesting ideas. For those who've been following the Anthropic Principle discussion, check out his book, Anthropic Bias: Observation Selection Effects in Science and Philosophy. The first five chapters are available on-line.

Another interesting paper asks the question: Are we living in a simulation?

Norah Vincent on Art

2002-09-18T02:05:00.000-07:00

Giving a rest to the issue of Norah Vincent's opinions on the blogosphere, issued from within her protective crouch, I thought I'd turn my critical eye to one of her substantive posts, namely Norah's reflections on Art.

Boy, do I wish I hadn't. Not to put too fine a point on it, it was tripe. Norah's point, such as it is, seems to be that Art cannot be explained. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's have some fun parsing Norah.

At long last, a few words about philosophy and aesthetics. I suppose the Randians will club me over the head for saying this, and the rest of you will dub me a hopeless philistine or a dolt, but I don’t think that the two fields, if one can rightly call them such in this context, are in any way compatible. They can neither be compared nor comingled. That is why, in my view, a philosophy of art is not only utter nonsense in practice, it’s an oxymoron. It’s also why academics and critics ruin every beautiful thing they touch.

First of all, aesthetics just is the philosophy of Art. Norah's confusion as to terms does, however, highlight a problem with pronouncements like this. Arguments as to the impossibility of aesthetics tend to contain aesthetics within their justifications. They wind up being self-contradictory.

Fans will note the typical Norah touch of smearing someone as part of her argument, in this case, academics and critics.

Philosophy is an entirely left-brain endeavor—verbal, analytic, logical. But it is also an activity. By this I mean that it comes from within the human mind (from thought) and seeks to impose itself and some measure of order (via language and argument) on the world without. It is naturally the purest expression of the logos in every sense—the word, the rational principle, and meaning all rolled into one.

Art is the exact opposite. It is a passive right-brain endeavor that flows in the other direction—from the outside in, from the world into the brain. The experience imposes itself on the experiencer, not the other way around. Art happens to us – or in some cases, if you’re a literal-minded, chess playing, dictionary-scrounging geek it doesn’t. (You have noticed, I assume, that there are just some people in the world who simply don’t “get” art. It just doesn’t register. It flies right past the old sensors and splats on the wall behind them.)

Ah, the old left brain/right brain trope. It's such a cliche that's it's not really worth commenting on beyond the fact that Norah doesn't make very good use of it.

Norah helpfully clarifies her thoughts, though, by saying that philosophy is a human attempt to impose order on the world. Now, it seems to me that the order already exists in the world. Philosophy, and other human activities, characterize and define the world, but they don't read order in so much as they read order out.

Nevertheless, even if Norah's conception of the mind as imposing order on an orderless world were true, our right hemispheres would be doing it just as much as our left.

As to philosophy being "naturally the purest expression of the logos in every sense," frankly, I just had to laugh. What pompous bloviation; what pointless jargon. Writing a sentence just to make yourself seem clever is the highpoint of bad writing.

But let's get back to Norah's dichotomy. Art, in contrast to philosophy, is a "right-brain endeavor." And not just that, a "passive" one. Tell that to an artist.

Maybe Norah means to speak only of the experience of Art, though. Even here, she's barking up the wrong tree. Some of the enjoyment I get from Art lies in the understanding of it. There's a lot in a Bach cantata, after all.

Once again, Norah treats us to some choice invective. If you don't buy into her sophomoric conception of Art, you are "a literal-minded, chess playing, dictionary-scrounging geek."

Art is the consummate anti-rational pursuit and, what’s more, at its height, it makes a mockery of language. So, if you’re stuck on the rules of art and what makes it tick, chances are, you’re missing it. It makes YOU tick, or else it floats off into the ether to entreat some worthier recipient.

Here, we can see Norah beginning to hit the rapids. All along, she's been conflating language and rules. Is Art a rejection of rules or of language? Both positions are hard to support. As to language, aren't works by Shakespeare or Cervantes Art, according to Norah? In their use of language, do these writers make a mockery of it? I don't think so. Maybe Norah really does. Or maybe she just hasn't really considered what she's writing.

As to rules, it seems clear to me that Art, by it's very nature, requires rules, requires an idiom. Of course, these rules are fuzzy at the edges, but still they're there. They are revised, broken for effect, transformed, but always present. Ask Picasso.

There's more. Norah prattles on about how "Beckett is always and everywhere asking us to let go of our right brains." (I guess she means left brain; hard to keep track) Norah babbles about how Beckett and Joyce "learned in the end" that language can't "capture human consciousness." Didn't stop them from trying to use it to do just that. But, Norah grows tiresome.

Ultimately, the entire piece is littered with cliche and contradiction. Norah can't make up her mind if she wants to argue that Art is incompatible with rules or with language, and makes no convincing case for either position. Norah lashes out, preemptively, at those who might disagree with her. Norah uses every fifty cent word she can dredge up from her memory.

The real reason to be down on Norah Vincent isn't that she's a snob, though she is. It's that she's a crap writer with nothing original to say.

New Links

2002-09-17T23:20:00.000-07:00

I've added some new blogs to my roll. So check 'em out. I thought about adding some explanatory remarks about my choices, but in the end, I figured why bother. They're there because I like 'em.

Inspections?

2002-09-17T22:57:00.000-07:00

William Saletan makes the observation that a return of inspectors to Iraq without conditions isn't exactly what the U.S. is looking for. Rather, the U.S. is seeking a return of inspectors under the most rigorous conditions possible for Iraq.

Administration apologists have been waxing lyrical over the supposed skill of Bush the lesser in turning the U.N. to his will. It seems to me that, by allowing the discussion to become one about "inspections," the administration has lost a tempo. The discussion should be about enforcement.

The interesting question, however, is the extent to which Bush has been wrongfooted by Iraq's offer. Surely, the president and his team were aware that such an offer would be forthcoming, perhaps just not so soon. The next few days will see whether the administration can return the focus to Iraqi compliance on U.S. terms.

Back to the blog

2002-09-17T22:36:00.000-07:00

After a brief hiatus, Homeobox is back with the incisive, generally pithy commentary my tens of readers have come to love.

Heroes?

2002-09-09T11:52:00.000-07:00

My colleague in Norah Vincent criticism, Jeanne D'Arc, has an insightful reflection on the nature of heroism up that's well worth a read.

Save Farscape!

2002-09-09T11:25:00.000-07:00

I just learned, via This Modern World, that one of my favorite TV shows, Farscape, had been cancelled.

An innovative, intelligent and iconoclastic production, Farscape has provided me and mine with hours of viewing pleasure. If you'd like to do something to try to keep the show in production, go here for more info.

Selective quotation

2002-09-09T08:53:00.000-07:00

Glenn Reynolds of InstaPundit fame had posted a comment on this post of mine where I directed readers to David Yaseen's critical analysis of Glenn's thoughts on Jimmy Carter's anti-war position. Unfortunately, Haloscan lost the post. The gist was, though, that Glenn had predicated his remarks on president Carter's "abject record of humiliating failure in dealing with middle-eastern rogue states."

By leaving out the italicized portion of the quote, I arguably engaged in selective quotation, distorting Glenn's position. Although I honestly took Glenn's remarks to be broadly directed to Carter's Middle East record in general, I can see how the InstaPundit could have been focused exclusively on Iran. I apologize for any distortion.

Sexism in the blogosphere

2002-09-09T08:19:00.000-07:00

Meryl Yourish's reflections on sexism in blogging got me to thinking about my own blogroll, on which she's the only woman blogger. Consciously sexist on my part? No. But I did go and check out some sites written by women bloggers. And I'll probably add a few in the next couple of days.

Nevertheless, I'm of two minds on the issue. One of the great things about the blogosphere, from my point of view, is that the opinions expressed in blogs stand or fall on their own merits. Are the arguments well-structured? Is the writing good? Does the blogger have a unique voice? Are the topics timely and interesting?

Hell, I don't even know the sex of some of the bloggers on my sidebar. They're anonymous or pseudonymous. And I don't want to add links just to get my female to male ratio up. What's more, where do I stop? How many of the bloggers on my blogroll are minority bloggers? How many are Americans? Do I have any disabled bloggers? Or veteran bloggers? Do I have too many leftish bloggers? Too many rightish bloggers?

The blogs on my blogroll are what I say they are: Blogs I read. Regularly. They got there because they were the first ones I read, or because they linked to me, or because I stumbled across them and liked what I read. Ultimately, I guess, I'm not happy that my sex ratio is a skewed as it is, and I think it's in part a consequence of the fact that blogrolls tend to be skewed toward men and, consequently, the phenomenon is self-perpetuating.

So, I'm going to take Meryl's advice and check out more women bloggers. Those I particularly like enough to read regularly will go on the blogroll.

Cause for hope?

2002-09-06T20:04:00.000-07:00

Demosthenes is feeling hopeful as a consequence of this poll (available in PDF format from Search for Common Ground) conducted by the Program on International Polling Attitudes showing that "80% of Palestinians would support a large-scale non-violent protest movement and 56% would participate in its activities." Additionally, "a strong majority (62%) of Palestinians thinks that a new approach is needed in the Intifada and overwhelming majorities (73-92%) approve of Palestinians using various methods of nonviolent action."

Now, these results aren't bad news, but I think I'll wait for a poll that indicates that a majority of Palestinians reject suicide terrorism before I get my hopes up. Unfortunately, the same poll finds that "concurrent with their high support for nonviolent methods, Palestinians show equal levels of support for violent methods. Majorities express a desire for retribution and do not think violence is harming their cause internationally."

Barlow on Homeobox

2002-09-06T19:37:00.000-07:00

Ted Barlow likes my take on Norah Vincent and calls Homeobox a "sharp example of bottom-feeding riffraff." Thanks Ted!

Unbelievable

2002-09-06T19:18:00.000-07:00

The Independent reports that an aide to the Taliban Foreign Minister, on the Minister's instructions, warned the U.S. consul general in Pakistan, David Katz, in late July, 2001, that Osama bin Laden planned a massive attack on the U.S. Accounts are unclear, but "U.S. sources" say the warning was never passed on. An unnamed "diplomatic source," however, says:

We were hearing a lot of that kind of stuff. When people keep saying the sky's going to fall in and it doesn't, a kind of warning fatigue sets in. I actually thought it was all an attempt to rattle us in an attempt to please their funders in the Gulf, to try to get more donations for the cause.

Now, unless the "diplomatic source" is Katz himself, who reportedly has declined comment, the message obviously got passed on to somewhere. It would seem that some ass covering is going on.

Ultimately, I think that it's pretty clear that massive failures of intelligence allowed the attack to take place.

Culture of lies

2002-09-06T16:25:00.000-07:00

Josh Marshall slams NRCC Chairman Tom Davis over his disingenuous attempts to "bully reporters out of using the term 'privatization' to describe Republican policy on Social Security reform, claiming the label was a misleading slur concocted by Democrats, when in fact it was the term all Republicans used until a few months ago."

Combine this with Paul Krugman's take on the issue, which has a wider focus on the Bush administration's general tendency to doublethink and newspeak, and you have a pretty sorry picture of a political party mired in a culture of lies.

Remember when the bright idea on the right was to lay blame for corporate malfeasance at president Clinton's, well, feet? It was his moral failings that corrupted business culture.

I think the charge that the Republicans are the party of mendacity whose willful lies are corrupting our national culture and political dialog is much harder hitting and capable of changing people's minds.

And it has the virtue of being true.

Impeach John Ashcroft

2002-09-06T11:20:00.000-07:00

Atrios calls our attention to yet another Justice Department bungle. Homeobox has already called for an Impeach John Ashcroft movement. Seems to me that Ashcroft's incompetence (and grandstanding) creates a much bigger threat to U.S. security than Norm Mineta's. Where are the bumper stickers?

Carter's Middle East record

2002-09-05T20:23:00.000-07:00

David Yaseen reminds the InstaPundit that Carter's "abject record of humiliating failure" in the Middle East includes the Israel-Egypt peace treaty. You tell him, David.

More on blogs

2002-09-05T09:38:00.000-07:00

Meryl Yourish is happy with Andrew Sullivan's response to her critique of the Slate discussion on blogging.

Can't say that I am. Both Sullivan and, to a lesser extent, Yourish, seem to view blogging as the anteroom to a career in writing. It can be that, for some, but I don't think it defines the medium. In fact, it seems that Sullivan defines "blogging well" in terms of satisfying an audience. I think just the opposite is true. A "good blog" is one that satisfies the blogger.

Indeed, Sullivan projects his hit fixation onto others, expressing his dislike of those who view him with "hit envy." If hits are what float your boat, go for it. But not every blogger sees hits as the goal, or even a goal.

So, I think the whole discussion is wrongheaded, focused as it is on blogging-as-profession, with heavy reference to big media blogs. A better discussion would focus on blogging-as-avocation.

By way of conclusion let me say that I do like hits. So link to me.

On Norah Vincent

2002-09-05T09:15:00.000-07:00

Both The Rittenhouse Review and Atrios have comments up on Norah Vincent's reaction to the criticism her new blog's been receiving around the blogosphere.

Apparently, the criticism of her "reads like a snot rag." But Norah's going to rise above it, and ignore her critics from now on. After all, her critics are snakes who should heed Norah's command and go "back to the swamp . . . and the deserved obscurity from which you slithered."

First thing is that Norah's got pretty thin skin. The main points of criticism against her have been: 1) Her writing sucks; 2) She plagiarized a Jackson Browne tune; 3) She's begging for money under false pretenses.

As to the plagiarism, I think the charge is overblown, but Norah's reaction was overwrought. As to the begging charge, that one sticks. We all know blogging is free, Norah. Best to change the tag line on your tip request. As to her writing, I find it often over the top and exaggerated, but there's no accounting for taste.

In the end, though, I think Norah needs to grow a tougher hide. None of the criticism she's receiving is that harsh. People are going to bash you, and if your first taste of overblown criticism causes you to post a harsh "fuck you" to your critics, you're in the wrong line of work. Just wait until someone gets the idea to start NorahVincentWatch.

UPDATE: Alex Frantz also has some trenchant commentary on the Vincent flap. Here's a sample:

Ms Vincent wants to have it both ways. Although she makes regular appearances on the editorial pages of the largest and most respected paper west of Chicago, she likes to think of herself as an oppressed Conservative rebelling against the overwhelming power of the ominpresent Liberal Media Establishment. At she same time, she is insistent on the privileges of her position. As a paid journalist, her opinions Matter. Insignificant amateur bloggers are permitted to admire, but only if they have the decency to know their place and not insult their betters. Clearly, Vincent's only regret for the nasty attacks she makes on bloggers who dare to criticize her is that she has been forced into the unpleasant position of publicly acknowledging their existence, an act which she vows not to repeat.

Where's Osama

2002-09-04T06:56:00.000-07:00

Paul Orwin is pissed off. While I don't agree that capturing or killing Osama bin Laden should be the number one priority of the administration, I do think that the administration made it a clear goal, failed to achieve it, and then tried to convince us all that Osama wasn't really that important anyway.

What's in a blog

2002-09-04T05:00:00.000-07:00

Meryl Yourish disses the Slate discussion of weblogs between Andrew Sullivan and Kurt Anderson. While I agree with most of what Meryl writes on a gut level, I suspect there's something ironic in a claim to "get blogging."

If your idea of blogging is similar to Meryl's, you'll likely say, right on sister. If it's not, you'll likely think she's full of it.

And, ultimately, that's as close to "getting blogging" as I'm likely to get. If you don't care how many hits you get, fine. If you want to write a "disembodied, disassociated murmuring blog," fine. It's your call.

So, I can't say, as Meryl does, that the "next time Slate wants to have a discussion on blogs," they should "use two people who have an understanding of the medium." I would, however, like to see a discussion of blogging with more voices than the two Slate has given us, perhaps a table discussion with 5 or 6 people from various continents of the blogosphere.

Even more on the Anthropic Principle

2002-09-03T11:50:00.000-07:00

Over in Matt Yglesias's comments section, Iain Coleman (sorry about the Ian, Iain) adds a follow-up to the Anthropic Principle discussion, responding to my assertion that complexity is what's important. Here's Iain:

There is no generalised theory of complexity such that one can plug in the parameters of a hypothetical universe and calculate how much complexity can arise in that universe. In the absence of such a theory, this assertion about the consequences of changes in the physical constants is just so much handwaving - which was the basic point of my post. And as for life being impossible in two dimensions, tell it to John Conway.

Again, I'm forced to wave my hand around. A "generalized theory of complexity," as Iain defines it, isn't necessary. That is to say, we don't need a formula that tells us parameters x, y and z produce complexity factor A. For the anthropic principle to be a useful concept, we only need to ask if a system is complex or not. The vast majority of changed parameters produce non-complex universes.

As to John Conway's Game of Life, while it is interesting to see what kinds of patterns can be produced from simple rules, I don't think that the "Life Universe" has given rise to anything like the BBC, yet. And, by the by, the "Life Universe" has three dimensions.

In any event, for those interested in the Anthropic Principle, let me suggest some further reading. For those with some technical background, Tipler and Barrow's The Cosmological Anthropic Principle is a must read. For a more popular approach, try Martin Rees's Just Six Numbers or Paul Davies's The Mind of God.

More on the Anthropic Principle

2002-09-01T18:17:00.000-07:00

There are many flaws in Ian Coleman's assessment of the Anthropic Principle, not least of which is: It's bollocks.

To begin with, Coleman offers us a straw man. The conclusion of the anthropic principle, he tells us, is that human life is perhaps the purpose of the universe. Uh, no Ian. The anthropic principle, name notwithstanding, rest on the fact that certain physical constants are so finely tuned that small changes wouldn't permit life of any kind.

Coleman regales us with visions of "an intelligent race of wave structures in a quark-gluon plasma" forming "vast empires" and contemplating philosophy and the concept of the divine. All very well for the science fiction novelist, but hopelessly idle speculation for those interested in the question: Why do the physical constants of this universe have the values that they do?

The point that Coleman misses is that changes in the values of the constants don't rule out life because they render biochemical life impossible. They rule out life because they rule out complexity. Imagine a universe with only two dimensions, to take the most obvious example.

Or to take a harder example, imagine a universe in which the nuclear resonance that permits the creation of carbon were different. You'd be imagining a universe that contained only hydrogen and helium. Too simple a chemistry to give rise to anything like life.

Or again, imagine a universe that expands so quickly that each particle in it is irrevocably isolated from all the others. Or one that collapses in a second. Not a lot of room for life there.

But wait, says Coleman, how can I possibly know that universes like those couldn't give rise to life. Well, because they don't have the structure or the time to produce complexity.

Ultimately, his conclusion is as much a straw man as his introduction. One need not be able to "derive the existence of planets, DNA and the BBC World Service from first principles" in order to be able to say, from first principles, that our kind of universe allows complexity.

Poll problems

2002-09-01T06:26:00.000-07:00

Eugene Volokh takes issue with Patrick Ruffini's poll of attitudes in the Blogosphere. Volokh points out that, because the respondents to the poll are self selected, the data gathered will be worthless.

Frankly, that's not the only problem with the poll. The questions themselves are biased to produce an outcome that Ruffini favors. The following is only a slight exaggeration:

I like:

crack

honest American stuff

The only charitable way to characterize Ruffini's poll is as a joke. Which makes it hard to understand why Volokh and Glenn Reynolds take it seriously.

Is this InstaPunditWatch?

2002-08-31T16:09:00.000-07:00

Prof. Reynolds claims that it was lack of European material support for our efforts in Afghanistan that caused Bush the lesser's dismissive attitude toward European opinion. Or to put it in his own words: And that's why Bush doesn't "give a shit what the Europeans think."

Come on. Bush never gave a shit what the Europeans thought. On the day he was elected president, he probably couldn't have named five European leaders. Or five European countries for that matter. (Is Mexico yurpean?)

Dressing up Bush's arrogance and unilateralism as a reaction to tepid European support is worse than the InstaPundit's usual pro-Bush spin. (Let none speak ill of the Dear Leader) It's a flat-out lie.

This or that

2002-08-31T08:45:00.000-07:00

Glenn Reynolds discusses the environmental alternatives in his Tech Central Station column, but falls, I think, into the excluded middle. Here's Prof. Reynolds:

Environmentalists are right, in a way, when they refer to resources as finite. At current technology levels, resource endowments will eventually run out. But that's the problem. If we follow the advice of enviro-Luddites, we may cut our consumption of resources significantly, but since the supply is still finite, that only puts off the inevitable day when they will run out. And when they run out, people will do what people always do in a crisis: survive any way they can, even if it means strip-mining, wholesale tree-cutting and tree-burning, and stripping the ocean of anything that swims and can be eaten.

On the other hand, if technology continues to develop, resources are no longer finite. Nanotechnology turns dirt and sunlight into all-purpose construction materials. Space development turns asteroids into substitutes for mines (a 100-meter nickel-iron asteroid contains literally centuries' worth of metal at current rates of consumption), and lunar soil into potential fusion fuel. Biotechnology turns garbage into fuel and drugs.

Which world would you rather live in? One in which technology stagnates, and people make do with less to delay the inevitable day when everything goes black? Or one in which we can turn the Earth into a garden because we've moved all the polluting stuff into space? Back in the 1970s, science writer Jerry Pournelle called the latter future "survival with style," and it's the future I'd rather live in. If the Johannesburg flock have any sense, it's the one they'll pick, too.

Professor Reynolds and I probably agree on where we want to go, a future of increased plenty for all through the exploition of the solar system and the use of advanced technology. But I think he ignores the fact that there is more than one route there.

Too often, Prof. Reynolds's argument is used as a justification to proceed full speed ahead, heedless of the fact that such a pace is a guarantee of misery for millions and millions of people. Of course, throttling back the pace of progress to a speed that ensures we run out of everything before we make sufficient technological progress to be able to make the leap to a solar system utilizing culture is self-defeating. That doesn't mean, though, that we shouldn't moderate our growth so that we might reach our goal with the minimum of suffering along the way. And that route might very well be very slow.

In the end, we should neither revert to low-impact agrarianism nor burn the planet out on our way to bigger and better things. Rather, keeping the goal of a solar system wide society in mind, we should plot a course that gets us there in the most equitable manner possible. If that means getting there a hundred years later, so be it.

Thulk smash

2002-08-31T08:30:00.000-07:00

Meryl Yourish dodges Marvel Comics' legal department.

More on race

2002-08-31T07:10:00.000-07:00

Godless, of Gene Expression, was kind enough to reply to my earlier post on race, and I'd like to respond in a post. Godless writes:

Races are clusters in genome space.

If we ignore slight variations in genome length (e.g. insertions, deletions, etc.), we can approximate each human as a genome sequence - equivalent to a categorical vector with ~ 3*10^9 components, each with one of four values.

Vectors from people of the same geographic ancestry tend to cluster together in sequence space. If you start at a given point in sequence space and expand a hypersphere around it of steadily increasing radius (as defined by a genetic distance metric), you will start to include more and more points, representing other humans.

For example, if we extended a small hypersphere around someone of Chinese ancestry, they would group with other Chinese. As the sphere expanded, the radius would include other East Asians (Koreans, Japanese, etc.). At maximal radius the sphere would include the entire human race.

If we tease this out a bit, the important observation is that as we expand the hypersphere certain radii will be more significant than others, by virtue of the fact that those radii capture natural clusters in genome space. This is unremarkable. What is a substantial claim is that certain of the largest cluster groupings, those corresponding to the classical "race" categories, have something to tell us about the populations contained therein beyond the fact that those populations fall within that particular cluster.

Extraordinarily large clusters will contain correspondingly large variation. Of course, it is always possible to average over the cluster, but any information you obtain will be an artifact of the values more properly ascribed to smaller clusters.

Race?

2002-08-30T03:26:00.000-07:00

I was over at Gene Expression, where I found this post by Godless. In it, (s)he provides a recap of his(her) position on the nature and importance of human genetic differences, by way of listing points of agreement with a/some commentators. What struck my eye was this: "We agree that races exist."

Now, I'm not sure what this means. There's a fairly charged dispute in the biological community and beyond over the meaning of the term "race," and over the question of the "existence" of race. For a quick primer, here's a pro essay and a con essay.

But what does Godless mean when (s)he says that races exist? If (s)he means broad stroke racial classifications like "white" are biologically meaningful, I don't think I can agree. If we're talking about more specific classifications like "southwestern European," I wonder what use calling these "races" is, instead of a less charged term like "geographical subpopulations."

Is it all polemics?

And now for something completely different

2002-08-30T01:03:00.000-07:00

For those of you interested in or amused by philosophy, I can recommend The Philosophers' Magazine Online. Check out the games section.

Again, Mr President, make the case!

2002-08-29T22:50:00.000-07:00

David Aaronovitch speaks for those skeptical of the case for war, but willing to be convinced. He asks:

Show me the evidence first. Don't just tell me you have it, tell me what it is. Convince me that the consequences of inaction outweigh the consequences of action. Publish the dossier. If I am going to have dead kids on my conscience, I have to know that the alternative was worse.

These are the people Bush needs to speak to. If he makes the case, I think they'll listen.

When I say uh, I mean uh

2002-08-29T22:42:00.000-07:00

James Carroll argues that there's more to Bush the lesser's famed inarticulateness than a lack of capacity with language. Rather, it is indicative of a failure of understanding, and ultimately, leadership.

Comments are back ...

2002-08-29T22:14:00.000-07:00

via Haloscan. Can't wait to hear from you.

Something to gaze on

2002-08-29T21:55:00.000-07:00

I just checked out David Yaseen's site, A Level Gaze. It's definitely worth a read. Go check it out for yourself.

Between Scylla and Charybdis

2002-08-29T21:18:00.000-07:00

I'm not feeling too hopeful these days.

On the one hand, we have a petty despot, determined for the purposes of his own personal aggrandizement to engage in the most reckless of conduct, thoughtless of the fate of his people and surrounded by a coterie of sycophantic factotums.

On the other hand, we have Saddam Hussein.

Dean on Iraq

2002-08-28T20:35:00.000-07:00

Matt Yglesias rightly points out that Howard Dean's position on Iraq's nuclear capacity exposes us to the worst of both worlds:

Waiting for Saddam to acquire nuclear weapons seems to me to be the worst of both worlds. All the international law issues surrounding the very concept of "preemptive" war will still be just as troubling, the thorny regional diplomacy will still be just as thorny, innocent Iraqi civilians will still die, except this way Saddam will be able to drop the bomb on us. If we're going to attack Saddam preemptively, then the sooner the better. The longer we wait the higher the costs become for the same payoff.

Nevertheless, I would point out that Dean calls for action given "irrefutable evidence" of Iraq's possession of nuclear or biological weapons.

Given the vice president's statement that there is no doubt that Saddam possesses WMD that he plans to use on the U.S., I think Dean's condition is pretty well satisfied.

I wasn't aiming for the baby

2002-08-28T20:23:00.000-07:00

Ampersand follows up on last week's account of the police assault on toddlers with a cartoon illustrating the "Top Ten Police Excuses For Pepperspraying Infants."

Memetic infection

2002-08-28T20:06:00.000-07:00

Bigwig over at Silflay Hraka graciously acknowledges my small contribution to the Hulk as politician meme, recently ripped off by The Onion and previously ripped off by me from Meryl Yourish.

Give me a break

2002-08-28T06:29:00.000-07:00

The InstaPundit hypes Mickey Kaus's latest bit of disingenuous Krugman bashing.

Kaus's target was a Krugman column about Bush's new plan to prevent forest fires by cutting down forests. Mickey couldn't find anything to nitpick in the substance of the column, so he focuses on the last paragraph:

A final thought: Wouldn't it be nice if just once, on some issue, the Bush administration came up with a plan that didn't involve weakened environmental protection, financial breaks for wealthy individuals and corporations and reduced public oversight?

In a stunning display of what the InstaPundit calls "fact-checking," Kaus offers up a Clinton era pollution control measure that Bush didn't kill as refutation.

First of all, rhetorically hyperbolic concluding paragraphs that ask for just one counter-example can charitably be read as suggesting that the vast majority of the possible examples to be found won't qualify as the counter-example. Sending your research assistant off to delve into the databases to find one good counter-example smacks of desperation.

Regardless, last time I checked, "come up with" means "produce." Failing to kill someone else's plan is hardly coming up with it.

Better luck next time.

The course is clear

2002-08-27T15:29:00.000-07:00

After finely parsing Dick Cheney's speech on Iraq, Bill Buckley concludes that "the American people should now be told that we are at war against Saddam Hussein."

The logic is inescapable. Cheney has stated that "there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction; there is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us."

If Cheney is not dissembling for political effect, the course is clear.

Dean for President

2002-08-27T09:32:00.000-07:00

Hugo Young has a short interview with Howard Dean that's worth reading. Here's Dean on Bush:

This president has the capacity to do more harm to America than any other individual. For the first time we have a man in the White House who can neither manage economic affairs prudently nor foreign affairs wisely.

On Iraq, he rightly advocates "a 10-year, nation-building commitment."

Mr President, make the case yourself

2002-08-27T06:41:00.000-07:00

Dick Cheney's attempt to make the case for an attack on Iraq just convinces me that the administration of Bush the lesser is far too incompetent even to lay the groundwork for such an attack, let alone successfully conduct one, and more importantly, manage the aftermath.

Swirling in the air when Cheney made his speech was the news that the president doesn't feel he has a legal obligation to acquire the consent of Congress prior to an attack. No controlling legal precedent indeed. Isn't it obvious that the president must secure the approval of Congress prior to any attack on Iraq? Clearly it's a moral and political necessity. Leaks of White House counsel briefings informing the president that no such approval is required muddy the field before the game even starts.

The president should have made it clear from the outset that he will obtain the approval of Congress. Research into whether he could dispense with that approval should never have been undertaken.

What's more, the president must make the case himself. Sending Cheney out to float a trial balloon is worse than useless. It sends the signal that the president is unwilling, or unable, to make the case himself.

Mr President, talk to the American people. Convince them of the moral and practical need for action against Iraq. Be straight about the dangers. Commit yourself explicitly to the task of post-liberation nation building. Obtain the consent of Congress, through a formal vote, and if possible, the consent of the U.N.

Get busy with the nation's business.

Cover your BUM

2002-08-27T06:23:00.000-07:00

N.Z. Bear and others have launched the BlogMD Initiative, a project to create "new ways to browse the blog universe."

For me, the project conjures up images of both early cartographers endeavoring to map the natural world and early explorers boldly venturing out to discover and bring back information.

So, go check it out.

Only, I don't really like the BlogMD moniker, which puts me too much in mind of Blog Doctor, the cure for your sick blog. I prefer MetaBlog, or perhaps Blog Universe MetaDatabase.

What's up with comments?

2002-08-27T05:37:00.000-07:00

Jonty of netcomments tells me that his hosting company has decided that the comments feature uses too much CPU time and has suspended the site temporarily. He's trying to sort it, and hopes to get the service back up within a few days. If not, I'll switch to a new comments tool.

Sarcasm from the InstaPundit

2002-08-26T11:43:00.000-07:00

After characterizing, with tongue in cheek I think, the arrest of podiatrist terrorist Robert Goldstein as a "success for homeland security," the InstaPundit adds the following pithy comment:

I'm still waiting for someone to write that we need to understand the hopelessness and desperation that lead people to contemplate such horrific acts, though.

Well, Professor Reynolds, I'm still waiting for you to write that the person responsible for the homeland security farce, as well as the airline security boondoggle and the anthrax investigation debacle, is none other than George Bush.

Thanks Rittenhouse Review

2002-08-26T11:27:00.000-07:00

Thanks to James Capozzola, editor of The Rittenhouse Review, for adding Homeobox to that site's list of "better blogs." Homeobox appreciates it, Mr Capozzola. Right back at ya.

Readers might also want to check out The Lefty Directory's interview with Mr Capozzola.

More Hatfill

2002-08-26T10:56:00.000-07:00

NRO's Joel Mowbray seems to think that the worst thing about the Steven Hatfill situation is the pillorying the man has received at the hands of Nicholas Kristof. Now, I tend to agree that Kristof's treatment of Hatfill verges on the irresponsible, but the worst thing about the Hatfill situation is that the Justice Department are botching the investigation.

To be fair to Mowbray, though, he does devote two paragraphs to Justice. Here's one of them:

With Hatfill on the offense, the government ought to make its move: Go public with the legitimate evidence against Hatfill, or, if there isn't any, publicly exonerate him and apologize. It seems only appropriate to ask of the Department of Justice.

Yeah, and maybe conduct an investigation that stands a chance of catching and convicting the perpetrator.

Justice bungling

2002-08-26T04:37:00.000-07:00

Here's what I took from yesterday's Washington Post story on Steven Hatfill. Hatfill claims that he had been working overtime on the days the anthrax letters were mailed, so he couldn't have mailed them. He's produced timesheets to back up the claim.

Now, I realize that it's been quite a while since the days in question, but the FBI have had this guy under a lens for quite some time. Haven't they been able to pin down his alibi by questioning co-workers, seeing if he used a card key at work on the days and at the times he suggests he was there or obtaining things like credit card or phone records that could establish his whereabouts?

I don't know enough to say whether Hatfill is innocent or guilty. I do know enough to say that this investigation is becoming a debacle.

Inconsistencies on the left

2002-08-26T03:53:00.000-07:00

Writing in the Guardian, David Clark calls our attention to the contradictions and shifts in attitude that characterize the arguments of many on the left with regard to action in Iraq. Here's a sample:

There are no easy options for dealing with the threat that Saddam represents. He can either be contained or deposed, and there are unavoidable costs in both. It scarcely matters whether the suffering of the Iraqi people has been caused by UN sanctions or deliberately orchestrated by Saddam in order to blackmail the international community into giving him a free hand. Containment has a human cost either way. Those who have argued that it is unacceptably high have a moral obligation to say which of the alternatives they prefer: to get rid of Saddam or allow him to continue unhindered.

Yglesias on design

2002-08-25T14:24:00.000-07:00

Matt Yglesias thinks that presenting the argument from design would make it "that much harder" to disabuse students of "the massively false beliefs" that in all likelihood currently make up the larger part of their views on evolution.

Just to make sure that my position is crystal clear, let me reiterate that I don't think that Intelligent Design is a viable alternate hypothesis for the apparent design of biological organisms. I do think think that natural selection provides a perfectly robust explanation.

Nevertheless, prior to the advent of natural selection, Intelligent Design was the best explanation going, and it does answer the key question: Why do biological organisms look as if they were designed?

In communities where there is substantial desire to see the argument from design presented as part of the curriculum, I can see no reason not to compromise and present it. Students are smart enough to choose the better explanation themselves. Plus, it would be a great exercise in critical thinking.

Let students decide

2002-08-25T11:18:00.000-07:00

Charles Murtaugh turned me on to this excellent demolition by Allen Orr of William Dembski's arguments that Darwinism cannot provide an explanation for the existence of complex adaptations.

Orr reveals Dembski's arguments to be not simply wrong, but fundamentally disingenuous.

After an interesting discussion of Dembski's preference for an interventionist designer over one who sets the rules in advance, Orr concludes by speculating as to Dembski's motives:

But more important, I suspect Dembski and much of the ID community are turned off by the fact that the Einsteinian view demands no change, much less revolution, in our practice of science. The Einsteinian view is insufficiently radical—too tame, too palatable, and too inconsequential for Dembski and his fellow travelers. It is one thing to stand in awe before the harmony of natural law. It is quite another to topple methodological naturalism, puncture materialism, and re-write the textbooks of Ohio and Texas. I can guess which Dembski prefers.

Which brings us back to the discussion of whether and how Intelligent Design should be included in high school curricula. As loyal readers of Homeobox will know, I'm an advocate of compromise on this issue. In the end, I think that a well designed course that begins with the feature of the world we want an explanation for, apparent design of biological organisms, and presents Darwinism and Intelligent Design as competing hypotheses, would allow students to reach the conclusion for themselves that it is Darwinism that provides the most robust explanation. Students, I think, are smart enough to make up their own minds.

Equal justice

2002-08-25T08:44:00.000-07:00

Atrios is calling for comments on the case of Robert Goldstein, the Florida podiatrist discovered to have a small arsenal in his home along with a written plan to attack an Islamic educational center.

What do I think? Well, I think he should be held without bail, because he presents a threat to the community, afforded access to his attorney, given a fair and speedy trial on charges of plotting terroristic violence, and, if found guilty by a jury of his peers, sentenced to a long stretch in prison.

Just like anyone else in the U.S. accused of similar crimes. Oh, wait ...

Dear Leader

2002-08-25T08:29:00.000-07:00

Ampersand posts the account of a dad who, along with his toddler, got pepper sprayed by police making sure Bush the lesser could raise funds without having to be annoyed by the voices of the people. Check out the chilling picture of people confronting police in riot gear.

Combine that image with the arguments made in this Washington Post essay that the administration, in pursuit of its bogus Homeland Security program, "has made no attempt to devise any procedures consistent with the rule of law and instead argues that the president's power related to the national defense does not require such procedures."

It looks like a cult of the leader, entitled to deference from the masses enforced with violence and entrusted with powers unchecked by any Constitutional restraint. Makes you wonder.

Make the case!

2002-08-25T07:43:00.000-07:00

James Baker gives the president a blueprint for making the case for action against Iraq. Regime change in Iraq, argues Baker, is a practical and moral necessity, and can only be accomplished through the use of overwhelming military force. Baker advises the president to get his squabbling aides on the same page and make the case to the U.N. for immediate, no-restrictions inspections of Iraqi arms facilities, with military conquest an absolutely certain consequence of the first failure of complete compliance.

There is no place for a misguided policy of strategic ambiguity with regard to Iraq. Stop temporizing, Mr President.

Let's subvert the Constitution ...

2002-08-24T10:09:00.000-07:00

... so the president looks good.

Dahlia Lithwick's essay on the difference between U.S. and British treatment of suspected terrorists is worth a read. Ms Lithwick points out that the British are affording their accused the right to a fair trial, which is producing acquittals, while the U.S. is either conducting show trials or simply not bothering to try suspects at all, just locking them up, presumably forever.

The issue that's raised for me is whether U.S. actions are actually making anyone safer. It seems that we've locked up a bunch a low level nobodies whose connections with and knowledge of ongoing plots are slim to nonexistent. More Bush administration window dressing.

The issue of suspending rights for accused terrorists would be complicated if such suspension were actually necessary to protect lives. To do it simply for propaganda value is utterly without merit.

Adoptions and annulment

2002-08-23T06:43:00.000-07:00

Nicholas Kristof's NY Times column raises some interesting questions regarding the issue of annulment of paternal rights.

In Florida, a law has come into force which compels mothers who wish to give their babies up for adoption to publish in a newspaper a notice attempting to locate the father, so that he might be informed of the mother's intentions and give his consent.
Kristof, rightly I think, characterizes this rule as an affront to women's dignity. How, though, can I reconcile this characterization with my opposition to voluntary annulment of paternal rights?

To begin with the issue of adoption in general, I believe that the father has the right to decline to grant permission for adoption, accepting sole custody of the child as a consequence of that decision. I also believe that, in such a circumstance, the non-custodial mother should be responsible for paying child support to the custodial father.

I oppose annulment of paternal rights on the grounds that it diminishes support for children by removing a source of support without substitute provisions for care. Adoptions do not do this.

But aren't adoptions equivalent in some sense to annulments? No, because in an annulment, we vitiate the principle that both biological parents are responsible for their children for no other reason than that the father doesn't want to pay; with adoption, on the other hand, we recognize that, neither parent being willing to undertake the task of support and custody, alternative arrangements have been made that will support the child satisfactorily.

One final question must be asked. Would this regime contribute to an increase in abortions? Probably.

So how can I oppose the notification provision in the Florida law? On the grounds that it is overkill. I agree that a father-to-be has the right to consent to an adoption, but would argue that there are many less publicly onerous ways to get to that notification and consent than a newspaper ad. A good faith effort to contact the father, including perhaps hiring a private investigator, should be sufficient.

The harm we are seeking to avoid, after all, is a father losing parental rights as a consequence of a pregnancy and adoption he was unaware of. In most cases, I think, getting in touch with the father and documenting that fact won't require an ad in the Times.

It's the stupid president

2002-08-22T12:06:00.000-07:00

Glenn Reynolds's latest Fox News column contains much carping about the airline security "charade." Now, I agree with Prof. Reynolds that the new airline security measures are just window dressing designed to fool people into thinking they are safer.

My problem is best encapsulated in this sentence: It's the bureaucrats’ effort to fool the American public into feeling safe via cosmetic measures that create enough inconvenience to fool the gullible into thinking that all that hassle must be making them safer.

The bureaucrats? Where have I heard that bit of blame shifting before? Now I remember. It was part of the president's characterization of the EPA report on global warming.

It's not just airport security that is bogus propaganda designed to create the illusion of effectiveness, while actually accomplishing worse than nothing. It is the vast majority of the programs and policies of the administration of Bush the lesser.

When will administration apologists wake up? The problem isn't the bureaucrats. It's the president, stupid.

Annul this

2002-08-22T09:33:00.000-07:00

Even though Meryl Yourish has decided to take a step back from the great paternal annulment debate (or has she?), it seems lots of folks are still rarin' to go. So, without further ado, here are some responses.

Matt Yglesias thinks that increased state support for children might be the answer. That way we wouldn't have to "dragoon" people into paying support for their own children. While I'm not opposed to expanded state support for children, I don't think that increased levels of state support would obviate the principle that biological parents should pay for their own children. Certainly, if those biological parents lack the means, the state should be prepared to step in. But I don't think that unwilling, but financially able, parents should be able to free ride on the state's dime. Sorry Matt.

Tony over at the Rant Factory suggests that I have neglected to consider the question of accidental pregnancy, or worse, deception on the part of the woman. Tony wants to avoid "entrapment through deception" and thinks that some kind of post conception affirmation of responsibility would put the financial onus on the parent choosing to keep the child.

I am opposed to such proposals, as well as those for pre-coital annulment of responsibility, because they are needlessly complicated. Placing responsibility on biological parents provides the clearest method for assigning financial responsibility for children. That a woman can abort a child-to-be and thus avoid the responsibility does not provide sufficient reason to switch to another method. Sure, this creates an "unfairness," but men can avoid being in that position by not having sex, and can minimize their chances by practicing birth control themselves.

Frankly, I'm not too troubled about men who were "entrapped" into being fathers by women who told them they were on the pill, but were lying. If you're worried about it brother, wear a rubber.

In the end, I can't sympathize with those who argue that women's access to abortion creates an imbalance in rights that requires correction. Women have access to abortion because they control their own bodies. End of story. Abortion isn't morally justified because of privacy concerns, nor economic considerations, nor suitability for parenthood. That these factors might militate against the advisability of being a parent are beside the point.

I want children to be supported. I believe biological parents should do the supporting. The perceived unfairness to men created by a woman's right to abortion doesn't come anywhere near providing a reason to allow men to avoid supporting their own children.

Joy

2002-08-20T13:34:00.000-07:00

After the better part of a week staying at the Hotel Fitzpatrick, our little lost dog has been reunited with her family. Their house had been robbed and the dog taken and later abandoned. The police were no help in this reunion. Rather, the abuelas in the neighborhood put the family in contact with us. We're so happy, and Mister the happiest of all.

Please sign here ...

2002-08-19T06:04:00.000-07:00

Noah Snyder (permalinks not working) focuses on one aspect of my response on paternal annulment, namely the possibility of opting out of parental obligation through prior agreement. Noah sees opt out provisions as the first step on the road to a Brave New World, filled with joyless sexual encounters preceded by haggling over the terms of the coital contract. Here's Noah's suggested text:

I (name of sexual partner) being of right mind, free from the influence of drugs or alcohol, and under no coercion agree to engage in sexual relations including intercourse with (name) on (date) between the hours of (hour) and (hour). I certify that to the best of my knowledge I carry no sexually transmitted diseases and I have been tested within the past (number) months for such diseases. I acknowledge that the purpose of this intercourse is solely for pleasure and in the case of birth control failure I release (name) from any obligation to raise or financially care for any child which results from this intercourse.
(signed)

Now, as faithful readers of Homeobox know, I support a bright line rule with regard to parental obligation. If the child is biologically yours, you pay. I'm willing, however, to allow opt outs from this default rule, but only when there is sufficient reason to justify the opt out. As a consequence, I could see an opt out for sperm or egg donors, but can't see one that would be part of Noah's pre-coital contract.

So, in answer to your query Noah: No, it wouldn't satisfy me. I wouldn't even recognize such a contract.

Should I title my posts ...

2002-08-17T16:18:00.000-07:00

... or not?

Homeobox is new to blogging goodness, and is willing to take advice. So, tell me what you think. After I review the opinions of my tens of readers, I'll make a decision.

Do you lisp?

2002-08-17T16:08:00.000-07:00

Matt Yglesias helpfully posts the FBI's drug use shibboleth. I wonder if Bush the lesser would pass.

Who's president?

2002-08-17T06:36:00.000-07:00

Reading Meryl Yourish's amusing guest contributor, the Hulk, put me in mind of something. I think there might be a political message here. Let's look at the transcript of a recent press conference.

The NY Times: Mr President, can you articulate the basic case for war against Iraq?

POTUS: Saddam evil. Bush smash.

NYT: A follow up, Mr President. Isn't there a chance that any attack on Iraq would precipitate exactly the kind of MWD strike we hope to forestall?

POTUS: Bush not be hurt. Bush not care. Bush smash.

The Washington Post: Mr President, is it the administration’s intention to commit to nation building in a post-Saddam Iraq?

POTUS: Bush smash.

WaPo: Uh, yes, Mr President, but after the attack ...

POTUS: Bush smash. Bush smash you, you not careful.

NBC: Mr President, doesn't your refusal to make all Harken records available open you to charges of a cover-up?

POTUS: Bush not care what you think.

ABC: Mr President, given the ballooning budget deficit, is it wise to enact the future tax cuts envisioned in your plan?

POTUS: Bush smash taxes.

CBS: Mr President, given the current economic situation, what steps will the administration take to shore up confidence?

POTUS: Bush smash.

The Hulk as president.

2002-08-17T05:28:00.000-07:00

Meryl Yourish weighs back in on the ongoing paternal rights discussion and hits the nail on the head. Why do women have a choice when it comes abortion, while men have to pay as a consequence? Easy answer. Here's Meryl:

My body. My decision. Not yours, not a judge's.

2002-08-16T13:34:00.000-07:00

Paul Orwin (link via Charles Murtaugh) muses on the question of the apparent fine tuning of physical constants, and, I think, gets it backwards. He writes:

Well, I always find it a bit humorous how people with intense mathematical training can blithely state something like "the chance of human beings arising from Evolution are infinitesimal" or "the chance of all of these physical constants being just so, allowing for us to exist, is very small". Any time someone invokes an argument of this type, they are making a serious logical error. How many times have the physical constants of the universe been set? How many times has life on Earth evolved (ok, there can be some debate on this one, given the history of cosmic catastrophe on the earth's surface)? The answer, in both cases, is once. Not to put too fine a point on it, but you simply can't argue "What are the odds?" about something that has only, and can only, happen once! It is simply not a useful discussion.

No one is really asking what the odds are. We begin with the observation that a great number of the physical constants of this universe, such as the expansion rate of the universe or the nuclear resonance that allows the abundant creation of carbon, have values such that small deviations would render life impossible. Then we ask why those constants should have those values.

An obvious answer is that, if they didn't, we wouldn't be here to wonder about it. As true as that is, it doesn't provide an explanation for the values of the constants beyond brute fact: Those are just the values the constants have; lucky us.

The idea of "odds" gets introduced by the back door, as it were, when we try to come up with an explanation. If the constants varied across a large number of universes, the fact that we live in a universe that has life supporting values wouldn't be much of a surprise. In fact, it's a dead cert. "Odds are" that if constants vary across a very large number of universes, some will have the right combination to produce life, thanks to the law of large numbers.

But this doesn't mean that anyone is asking, "what are the odds that this universe would have those values." The question that's being asked is, "why does this universe have constants with the values that it does."

2002-08-16T10:35:00.000-07:00

For those of you interested in the fate of that little lost dog, we paid a visit to the vet and she's healthy, but doesn't have a microchip. So, for the nonce, she's got a room at the Hotel Fitzpatrick while we look around for either her owner, or somebody looking for a well-behaved, house-trained schnauzer cross. If you live in Catalunya and you're interested, drop me an e-mail.

Mister's not too thrilled.

2002-08-16T10:13:00.000-07:00

Noah Snyder has responded to my earlier post criticizing his position on annulment of paternal obligations. Let's take a look. Noah writes:

The argument is not that men have exactly as much of a right to annul paternity as women do to an abortion. The argument is that every argument for abortion has a analogue (albeit sometimes weeker) which argues for paternalt annulment. I'm not claiming that a right to control your bank account is equivalent to a right to control your own body, but that doesn't mean we don't have some right to control our bank accounts.

This, I think, is exactly where I disagree. The only valid argument for abortion rights is the argument for autonomy over bodies. And that argument has no paternal analogue.

Of course, we have rights to control our bank accounts. It's just that these rights don't survive balancing with the rights of a child to support.

The question at hand here is why is it reasonable to force a man to pay for the rest of his life for a child which he did not want to have. If you argue that by choosing to have sex he has agreed to live with the consequences, then you are on slippery ground because you could make the same argument that a woman agrees to part with certain rights to control her own body when she chooses to have sex. Perhaps the argument for men is weeker, but that doesn't make it incorrect.

Wanting or not wanting to have a child is irrelevant to the analysis. If the child is yours, absent some prior agreement with the other parent to the contrary, you pay. It's a bright line rule. And it applies equally to the mother and the father.

You could argue that a woman loses autonomy over her own body as a consequence of having sex, but there's no slippery slope between that position and the position that parents must pay for their offspring. And that's my point. The positions are entirely separate.

We don't make sperm donors pay child support, why should we make a man pay child support when he thought he was engaging in non-procreative sex?

We don't make sperm donors pay because there was a prior agreement not to. And frankly, there's not much difference between procreative and non-procreative sex. Intentions are difficult to determine, and accidents do happen. Bright line rules work best.

If sex does not commit a woman to bear a child this produces, then why does it commit a man to pay for the child this produces? (Notice I am not saying that bearing a child is the equiavlent of paying for a child, only that the act which produces the commitment is the same.)

Because a woman's right to autonomy over her body trumps the rights of the child-to-be. As soon as the child is born, that right to autonomy is taken out of the equation, and men and women are on equal ground. Since there is no autonomy issue for men, they just get to that point sooner.

I'm not saying that you can't come up with a good answer to that question, only that it is very difficult to come up with a good answer to that question which does not also give a decent argument against abortion.

I think I just gave a good answer that's not an argument against abortion. We'll see what people think. Maybe this is enough to convince Matt Yglesias.

2002-08-14T11:27:00.000-07:00

Josh Marshall rubbishes the Bush administration's decision to ax $5.1 billion dollars from the budget. He concludes:

The real story here is the folks running the White House were so desparate and panicked about what to do on the economy and so eager to come up with some way to salvage the Economic Forum that they came up with this joke which is sure to backfire.

Now, I agree that the administration of Bush the lesser is the most incompetent in my personal experience. But, I think this decision speaks more to the attitude in the administration that the American people, generally, are just as stupid and uninformed as the president is.

Hope they're wrong.

2002-08-14T09:58:00.000-07:00

Diane E. puts up another post about the paternal rights issue. And still gets it wrong.

I find that it's often the case that self-described conservatives try to clothe their positions in commonsense garb, when those positions are really ideologically motivated cant. Take this, for example:

Regarding the relationship of the child to the father, yeah, it’s too bad that the human product of a one-night shtup doesn’t have the same relationship to his night depositor as does the child of a marriage. Tough. Nature, and society, are correct to provide disincentives to stupid behavior. As I said, I am a conservative and it’s a dirty rotten job but someone has to point out “You can’t have it all.”

This conflates two senses of "relationship." Diane is playing off the sense of "personal relationship." What's at issue is the "legal relationship." And as I've said before, creating an incentive for marriage by punishing children is a pretty stupid idea. She's right, though, that "you can't have it all." If you want to have sex, and you're a man, be prepared to pay for a child.

Oh, but that's so unfair to the man, who can't decide to have an abortion. To quote Diane, "tough."

Here's some more:

If you believe that the woman should have 100% of the life and death power over the fetus, then you cannot believe that the man has 50% of the responsibility of the free choice she has made.

Well, I believe that a woman has 100% of the power over her own body. And I believe that a man has 100% of the responsibility for the decisions he makes, knowing that if a child is born and it's his, he has to pay.

Basically, I'm reluctantly coming to the conclusion that Diane's position comes down to: Punish these unmarried sluts, and their bastard kids too.

Give me a break.

2002-08-14T07:43:00.000-07:00

Matthew Yglesias's speculation that Demosthenes is really a kid put me in mind of this essay by David Deutsch. Deutsch argues that being a child constitutes the last widely accepted reason for irrational discrimination.

2002-08-14T07:24:00.000-07:00

Allison M. expresses surprise that people are still arguing about evolution in the United States.

Well, mostly, the argument about evolution is driven by religious fundamentalists and biblical literalists, who, by virtue of their positions on various school boards, are attempting to approve the teaching of some form of creationism in public schools. One of their favored avenues these days is reliance on the argument from design.

While I am not a believer in the applicability of that argument as an explanation for the apparent design of biological organisms, I do believe, as I've argued before, that in a democracy, sometimes you have to compromise, even if you find your opponent's thinking wooly headed. And given the centrality of apparent design to the concept of natural selection, there is room for compromise.

Allison also has an interesting post about chimpanzee violence. Check her site out.

2002-08-13T22:10:00.000-07:00

Diane E. adds her thoughts to the ongoing discussion of paternal rights. And gets it wrong. Here's the key section:

After the woman is pregnant, it is her choice to bring the child to term. Isn't that what the damned choice movement is all about? If an unmarried woman chooses to bring a child to term, then let her deal with the consequences.

Unfair? Tough. That's life. If the courts weren't so busy destroying the laws that protect marriage (which really protect women and children) then those women who choose, yes, choose, to have kids out of wedlock might think twice about their bad decision. Single parenthood sucks. Children who grow up without fathers are at a disadvantage in practically every imaginable way. There is no argument about that at this stage of the game.

What the feminists and Meryl seem to be saying is that a woman should be able to choose whether or not to bear a child (we agree on that), and force a man that a woman has no legal relationship with to pay for the kid's upkeep if she alone decides to bear the child.

Let me start at the end. What's significant in terms of a father's obligation to a child is not his legal relationship with the mother, but his legal relationship with the child. Diane seems to be saying that allowing fathers who aren't married to mothers to blow off responsibility for their children will send a message to those misguided single mothers: Get married or else.

Of course, this ignores the, admittedly wildly unlikely, possibility that it's the man who doesn't want to get married. And would have the effect of punishing children. If you want to encourage marriage, there are lots of better ways to provide incentives.

What's more, Diane arbitrarily picks one choice, the choice to carry to term, and makes that the choice that carries "consequences." Why that choice, and not the choice to have sex in the first place?

Ultimately, I think we all want to see children provided for, and the best way to do that is to attach financial responsibility to biological motherhood and fatherhood. Frankly, abortion has nothing to do with it at all.

2002-08-13T11:50:00.000-07:00

Intelligent Design seems to be on a lot of people's minds these days.

Iain Coleman comments favorably on Simon Blackburn's review of two books by John Polkinghorne, physicist, theologian and apologist for the reconciliation of religion and science. While I share the opinion of Messrs Blackburn and Coleman that attempts to provide scientific or historical justification for any particular set of religious beliefs are worse than useless, even delusional, I'm not such a sceptic when it comes to the argument from design in cosmology.

Blackburn offers us the familiar objections to cosmological Intelligent Design, that such a proposition is not falsifiable and leads to an infinite regress of "who created the creator" questions.

As to the former, the objection just doesn't hold water. Cosmological Intelligent Design, based as it is on the seeming fine-tuning of the constants of the physical world, does in fact make predictions, disproof of which would falsify the theory. If those constants, such as the nuclear resonance that allows the production of carbon in stars, are not quite so finely tuned as they seem to be, or if their fine tuning turns out to be the result of natural processes, the theory would loose crucial support.

Furthermore, the idea of fine tuning requires that the law of large numbers does not apply to universes. That is to say, a prediction made by an otherwise well confirmed theory that there were, in fact, a large number of universes would serve also to falsify Intelligent Design because the apparent fine tuning could then be seen simply as an artifact of the universe we live in. Of course the constants are finely tuned to support life in this universe, because otherwise we wouldn't be here to comment. This line of reasoning, however, requires there exist a large number of actual universes.

Arguments about falsifiability are similar to those that describe cosmological Intelligent Design as a "god of the gaps" position, a line which Charles Murtaugh puts forward. I have to disagree with this characterization as well. "God of the gaps" arguments point to an area where explanation is not forthcoming, and given our difficulty providing an explanation, simply insert god. Cosmological Intelligent Design, by contrast, points to a feature of the world, the seeming fine tuning of physical constants, and offers an intelligent designer as a hypothesis for the presence of that feature.

As to the problem of infinite regress, I don't think it is that hard to imagine that there could be a difference in kind between creator and creation, perhaps a difference in terms of contingency and necessity, that would explain why the universe needs a creator, but the creator does not need one in turn.

In any event, I don't find cosmological Intelligent Design to be an exercise in wooly-headed wishful thinking, or worse yet, disingenuous apology, but rather a fascinatingly open question. Attempts to make use of it to support a particular religious view of the world, however, probably do fall into one of the former categories.

2002-08-13T09:10:00.000-07:00

There's been a lot of talk in the blogosphere, and beyond, about the application of game theoretical models to the situation in Iraq. Take a look at the Spatialized Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma demonstration at Oxford Virtual Technology. Make sure to play around with the interaction target setting.

For another Prisoner's Dilemma interactive game, with some good commentary and links to boot, check out Serendip.

2002-08-13T08:48:00.000-07:00

Critics have suggested that Homeobox contains too much relentless bloviation on topics political, and too little ... er, whatever. Since I'm always willing to take constructive criticism on board (particularly when the critic is my wife), here's the lowdown on one of my favorite cartoons, Kevin Spencer.

You, too, can follow the adventures of the eponymous hero, a young, chain-smoking, alcoholic sociopath. Meet his dysfunctional welfare dependent parents, Percy and Anastasia. Thrill to his interactions with his prison psychiatrist. Laugh at the antics of his many acquaintances (sociopaths can't really have friends). And get to know my personal favorite, Alan the Magic Goose, Kevin's imaginary friend.

So, take a ride in Kevin's cracked skull. Check it out here.

2002-08-13T07:08:00.000-07:00

This piece in the Washington Post on a new Justice Department plan to fingerprint certain aliens is terrible as journalism. It contains the obligatory quote from an "immigration advocate" claiming that the plan is no more than racial profiling and suggesting that it is designed to reduce visitors from the Middle East.

But if the Post feels compelled to quote opponents of the plan, why no quote from someone suggesting that the plan is propagandistic window dressing that ignores the country that 15 of 19 of the 9/11 terrorists came from?

2002-08-13T06:55:00.000-07:00

It seems obvious to me that the raison d'etre of the Bush administration is the Bush administration.

Now, I think that I could live with this if, delving deeper, I saw Bush as a cynical manipulator, twisting the facts and his own positions in order to cling to power for power's sake alone. In fact, I think this is probably a pretty good description of many of Bush's consiglieres.

What frightens me is that I can't really see Bush this way. I believe that he is filled with a messianic sense of purpose. The Bush administration is the end because God has chosen it to be.

2002-08-13T06:23:00.000-07:00

Bruce Anderson, writing in the Guardian, says that the case for war against Iraq is "irresistible." Here's a sample:

But if [Saddam] were left to his own devices, in command of Iraq's oil wealth and relatively advanced manufacturing sector, it would only be a matter of time before he acquired terrible weapons and a means of delivering them. The dangers of such a man possessing such weaponry are so great, so self-evident, that mere containment is not enough. A pre-emptive war is justified, and article 54 of the UN charter would provide enough cover for such a venture.

Anderson concludes that Tony Blair should use his "undoubted powers of persuasion" to make the case for the attack to the British people.

I think this is correct and applicable to the Bush administration also (well, minus the powers of persuasion part). It's time that Bush stopped shilly-shallying. Comments to the effect that Saddam is a bad guy but the president is deliberately weighing his options are worse than useless. Start making the case for war now, Mr President.

2002-08-12T11:23:00.000-07:00

Peter Beinart argues persuasively in TNR that Democrats should focus on making sure the administration follows through with nation building efforts in Iraq, following our conquest of that country.

Good advice.

2002-08-12T08:36:00.000-07:00

The Washington Post calls on the administration to live up to its own rhetoric and get busy with the work of rebuilding Afghanistan. Hear, hear.

What's so troubling about the lack of administration commitment to Afghanistan is that it bodes ill for commitment to a post-Saddam Iraq. From my perspective, the opportunity to build a liberal and democratic Iraq is at least as compelling a reason for U.S. action there as removing Saddam and his WMD program from the scene.

2002-08-11T12:34:00.000-07:00

Silflay Hraka trashes a NY Times piece on blogging and Noam Chomsky's new pamphlet. Check it out.

2002-08-11T11:54:00.000-07:00

This, frankly, is outrageous. It must be clear that the Jose Padilla "case" is nothing but an exercise in propaganda. And that's what motivates the administration to strip an American citizen of his constitutional rights? If there were evidence that the man was truly guilty of plotting a radiological attack, the situation would be more complicated, but as it stands, it's just shameful.

Impeach Norm Mineta? Impeach John Ashcroft.

2002-08-11T10:13:00.000-07:00

Noah Snyder argues that there should be a mechanism available to annul paternity, the legal analogue of an abortion (link via Matt Yglesias). I think this is a terrible idea.

The principal pro-choice argument is, at bottom, about women's autonomy in making choices about their own bodies, not bank accounts. Take away this factor, and there is no compelling reason to allow men to dodge responsibility for the children they father. What it comes down to is male sniveling about how unfair the situation is, since women can choose to abort a fetus, but if they choose to keep the child-to-be, dads have to pay.

To quote Meryl Yourish, "cry me a river." Might as well complain about not having a uterus. Maybe we can come up with some kind of legal analogue for one, though.

2002-08-11T07:04:00.000-07:00

Good stuff in the NY Times about the administration's making the case for war against Iraq. Here's a sample:

For all their talk, however, administration officials have not yet made a case for war that would ensure public support, critics say. President Bush must deliver a major speech on the subject, they say, and also secure the vocal support of Congress.

"You have not had the president articulate why Saddam Hussein needs to be removed," said Lee Hamilton, the former Democratic congressman who now heads the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. "He has not made the case that Saddam Hussein is an imminent threat to the United States."

2002-08-11T06:19:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd throw my two cents into the Steven Den Beste - Demosthenes brouhaha. Was Demosthenes's post ad hominem? Not precisely. Was it condescending as hell? You bet.

2002-08-11T05:34:00.000-07:00

Meryl Yourish follows up on her "you want to play, be prepared to pay" post regarding men's desire to duck child support for children they didn't want. As I've said before, I'm in agreement with the sentiment.

Meryl concludes with something that I can't quite agree with though. She writes:

The mother is going to spend the next eighteen years (minimum) caring for that child. The child isn't going to take care of itself. That's why the woman gets to decide whether or not she wants to have the baby, and why the man has to pay even though he has no legal say in the matter. Because of the age-old story: Men leave. Women stay and take care of the children. Cry me a river, part two.

Now, I agree that women usually raise the children, but I don't think that's the principal reason why women get to decide whether they want to carry a child-to-be to term. That reason is that women have a right to autonomy with regard to their own bodies. Even if we lived in Bizarro World, and men took care of children, women would still have the right to choose to carry to term, or not.

2002-08-10T06:41:00.000-07:00

The Washington Post has expropriated the title of Josh Marshall's excellent blog. Soon Slate will be ripping off my clever blog title, since it does fit in with their "box" line.

2002-08-09T13:47:00.000-07:00

I've added some bells and whistles to the site, including a search function and a very cool GuestMap. Check 'em out.

2002-08-09T09:31:00.000-07:00

Charles Murtaugh's thoughtful post on Intelligent Design led me to read Susanna Cornett's reflections on the same topic, where I came upon this line: "If it presents a challenge to my faith, well, then, I have to think about that because, like it or not, faith is a theory just like evolution is a theory."

Leaving aside the dubious proposition that faith is a theory, I'd like to comment on the idea that evolution is one, as that's one of my personal betes noires. I think the idea that evolution is a theory is an accident of language, a consequence of the phrase, the theory of evolution. What this means, of course, is the theory that explains evolution. Newton's Opticks contains a theory of light, but nobody would conclude that light is a theory.

That being said, I also want to offer a few words on Intelligent Design, and the flap it's caused in American political circles.

William Paley, perhaps the most well-known proponent of intelligent design of the natural world, put forward his ideas in the 18th century, well before Darwin. His most famous example is as follows. Imagine you are walking through a field and you find a rock. You would have no problem explaining the existence of the rock through natural processes. Now imagine you find a watch. You would have serious problems explaining the existence of the watch through natural processes. Why? The watch exhibits signs of design, or creation for a purpose, which imply a designer.

The point here is that Paley was trying to explain a then-inexplicable feature of the world, namely the presence in it of so many things that seem to be designed: birds, bees, eyes, wings, you, me. Intelligent design provides an explanation.

Comes Darwin, who provides another, much more robust, explanation, natural selection, which explains design without recourse to a designer. Now, the reason natural selection is considered one of the greatest ideas in history is just because the problem, explaining apparent design in the natural world, was so intractable, and intelligent design was such a satisfactory explanation.

Now, can I imagine a science course that begins with the feature of the world we want an explanation for, apparent design in the natural world, and works its way through possible explanations, including intelligent design? Yes. Would it be an intellectually dishonest course? Not necessarily. In fact, by focusing on design, the course would highlight the key feature of natural selection.

Where am I going with this? Well, in a democracy, the people get to decide questions like the one under discussion. Sometimes you have to compromise. If you don't want to compromise, you have to convince people, and if you want to do that you must understand where they are coming from and treat them with respect.

Is ID now totally obsolete? With reference to the apparent design of biological organisms, I think yes. With reference to some other features of the natural world, like the existence of the inverse square law, also referred to by Paley by the way, I think the question is open.

Do I think that proponents of intelligent design are being disingenuous? With reservations, yes. But I think opponents of intelligent design are often disingenuous too, ignoring the place of ID in the history of science, as well as discounting its continuing relevance with regard to other issues in science and the philosophy of science. Why do they do this? In part, I think that some, at least, fear that if their opposition is too nuanced, they will be perceived as giving in to creationists.

2002-08-09T08:41:00.000-07:00

Meryl Yourish adds her two cents to the ongoing discussion of Dahlia Lithwick's Slate piece on the abortion injunction imbroglio, and gets it right.

2002-08-09T07:36:00.000-07:00

Charles Dodgson comments on the case of Abdullah Higazy (via Brad DeLong). It seems that an FBI agent coerced a false confession from the guy.

Dodgson observes that the Bush administration is trying its best to make sure that the public isn't bothered by such stories in the future. If the FBI isn't given carte blanche to waste its time forcing confessions from the innocent, the terrorists will have won, of course.

Isn't it clear that, apart from being a misguided farce on its own merits, the Department of Homeland Security is taking attention away from the absolutely necessary reform of the FBI.

2002-08-09T07:03:00.000-07:00

Silflay Hraka continues its New Perfect Manhood series. Plus it has a very cool GuestMap feature that I might just implement on this site. Check it out.

2002-08-09T06:24:00.000-07:00

Josh Marshall explodes the myth of Bush administration competence. A must read.

UPDATE: Matt Yglesias, unsurprisingly, likes Marshall's take as well. He thinks, though, that the article would have benefited from a mention of the fact that we seem to have let al-Queda slip through our fingers, and over the border into Pakistan. I'd go even further, and say that, while the mission in Afghanistan has obviously become one of nation building, the Bush administration refuses to accept this. By keeping the focus on hunting down al-Queda and Taliban operatives who are no longer there, the administration invites wedding party shoot ups, consequent anti-American bitterness and wilting troop morale.

Nation building was always going to be the more important stage in our efforts in Afghanistan. But the administration's campaign disdain of such activities, coupled with its neurotic inability to accept that any of its positions could ever have been wrong, produces a no-win situation. The original mission is as completed as it's going to get, yet the administration won't square up to the facts and get the American people behind nation building in Afghanistan.

As a proponent of a campaign in Iraq, in no small part because I believe the effects of a subsequent American occupation administration would be a great humanitarian boon, I think the lesson of Afghanistan is that Bush the lesser, while he might win the war, is almost sure to lose the peace.