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Hitchens: Still Partying Like It’s 2002

By Matt Duss on Nov 24, 2009 at 8:00 pm

hitchensChristopher Hitchens apparently didn’t get the memo that it’s no longer verboten to recognize that certain U.S. policies have, in some cases, exacerbated the very problem of Islamic extremism that they were intended to address. Responding to Robert Wright’s Sunday New York Times op-ed, in which Wright suggested that Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan and Little Rock shooter Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad were driven to violence in part by images of U.S. forces killing Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan, Hitchens fumes:

For a start, did Hasan or Muhammad ever say what “killing” of which “Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan” they had in mind? There isn’t a day goes by without the brutal slaughter of Muslims in both countries by al-Qaida or the Taliban. And that’s not just because most (though not all) civilians in both countries happen to be of the Islamic faith. The terrorists do not pause before deliberately blowing up the mosques and religious processions of those whose Muslim beliefs they deem insufficiently devout. Most of those now being tortured and raped and executed by the Islamic Republic of Iran are Muslim. All the women being scarred with acid and threatened with murder for the crime of going to school in Pakistan are Muslim. Many of those killed in London, Madrid, and New York were Muslim, and almost all the victims callously destroyed in similar atrocities in Istanbul, Cairo, Casablanca, and Algiers in the recent past were Muslim, too. It takes a true intellectual to survey this appalling picture and to say, as Wright does, that we invite attacks on our off-duty soldiers because “the hawkish war-on-terrorism strategy—a global anti-jihad that creates nonstop imagery of Americans killing Muslims—is so dubious.” Dubious? The only thing dubious here is his command of language. When did the U.S. Army ever do what the jihadists do every day: deliberately murder Muslim civilians and brag on video about the fact? For shame. The slippery slope—actually the slimy slope—is the one down which Wright is skidding.

It’s probably important to point out here the yawning chasm between saying that “we invite attacks on our off-duty soldiers” through a “hawkish war-on-terrorism strategy” — which Wright did not do — and saying that a “hawkish war-on-terrorism strategy” and its attendant right-wing propaganda has generated resentment which in turn fed Hasan’s and Muhammad’s extremism, which is was Wright does say. As a general point about radical extremism, I think it’s so obvious as to no longer be controversial. In specific regard to Hasan and Muhammad, I think the jury’s still out.

I find it hard to believe, though, that Hitchens hasn’t yet moved beyond this idea that saying “the terrorists are very bad!” and then detailing some of the very bad things that “the terrorists” do constitutes an actual argument. This sort of petulant sanctimony went out of style years ago. For the record: Yes, “the terrorists” are very bad. So are some of the consequences of our poorly thought out policies for dealing with them. These two ideas are not mutually exclusive.

Yglesias

Endgame

By Matthew Yglesias on Nov 24, 2009 at 6:15 pm

I’ll make this week disappear:

— Awesome ad from a New Orleans mayoral candidate.

— Charles Diez shot a cyclist in the head and will serve just 120 days in prison for it.

— David Rohde, Parties and Leaders in the Postreform House.

— Getting the story right on Chicago parking meters.

— The case for optimism about the civic consequences of the decline of newspapers.

— Obama has leverage to use over Netanyahu, but will he use it?

— Chinese banks need more capital.

A friend of mine was foolishly comparing Lady Gaga favorably to David Bowie earlier today. Engaging in that dispute eventually led me to Kashmir’s “The Cynic” which features some Bowie vocals—definitely a lesser Bowie work, but far better than any Gaga out there.

Climate Progress

SuperFreak Dubner Embraces ClimateGate Conspiracy Theories: ‘Everybody’s Scared To Be A Skeptic’

By Brad Johnson on Nov 24, 2009 at 6:00 pm

Stephen J. Dubner, co-author of SuperFreakonomics, has embraced charges by the right wing that a handful of illegally obtained private emails means that the scientific consensus on climate change is actually a dangerous conspiracy. Dubner lent credence to the fevered “ClimateGate” ravings of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), and other global warming deniers in an interview with Fox Business Network host David Asman. Dubner purports that the hacked University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit emails reveal that the supposed “consensus” on global warming is because “everybody’s scared to be an outlier, everybody’s scared to be a skeptic.” After Asman compared climate scientists to Stalin and Hitler — we’re not kidding — Dubner jumped in to accuse “potent” scientists of “colluding” to “tell Al Gore what to say,” and “distorting evidence” to “make their findings be right for their position”:

You can’t read these e-mails and feel that the IPCC’s or the major climate scientists’ findings and predictions about global warming are kosher. You can’t. They may be, but if you read these you have to have a whole lot of skepticism about that. And of course, coming into Copenhagen these are going to have a big effect how the world looks at you. They’re going to say, “Wait a minute. You say these climate scientists have been telling us we have to stop burning fossil fuel tomorrow?”

Watch it:

By asking whether “we have to stop burning fossil fuel tomorrow,” Dubner — a top blogger for the New York Times — gets to the heart of why this bizarre theory of a cabal of all-powerful climatologists is getting support from conservative media and politicians. The incontrovertible science — based not on manipulated data but on decades of basic research — is that the burning of fossil fuels is drastically reshaping our planet’s climate, melting the glaciers, and acidifying the oceans. And the only known way to restore conditions to those safe for human civilization is to dramatically reduce the use of fossil fuels. Doing so, however, would affect the incredible profits and power of the oil and coal industries, and of their ideological allies.

One of the scientists, for example, who is “telling us we have to stop burning fossil fuel tomorrow” is Ken Caldeira, who Dubner and Levitt falsely portray in their book as a supporter of their mindless contrarianism. Is Dubner now accusing Caldeira of being part of this conspiracy?

Dubner continues:

But the point is this: carbon mitigation as a plan to stop global warming — even if you devoutly believe that global warming is the biggest problem we ever faced — won’t work.

This is an even more radical claim than what’s in SuperFreakonomics, in which Dubner and co-author Steven Levitt merely argue — based on flawed logic and falsehoods — that carbon mitigation would be ruinously expensive and difficult.

In fact, if we stop treating our atmosphere like a sewer, the climate system will heal itself over time, potentially more rapidly than we expect. That our past inaction will continue to bear consequences into the future is a reason to act with greater swiftness, not to dither further. The longer we delay, the more difficult and expensive the challenge to reduce pollution while adapting to a hostile world becomes.

Transcript: Read more

Yglesias

Highways Are Heavily Subsidized

By Matthew Yglesias on Nov 24, 2009 at 5:31 pm

An excellent Subsidyscope item reveals that, contrary to myth, highways are not financed by user fees but rather just like intercity rail and mass transit are subsidized by other financial flows:

highway_funds_chart 1

Using Federal Highway Administration statistics, Subsidyscope has calculated that in 2007, 51 percent of the nation’s $193 billion set aside for highway construction and maintenance was generated through user fees—down from 10 years earlier when user fees made up 61 percent of total spending on roads. The rest came from other sources, including revenue generated by income, sales and property taxes, as well as bond issues. Going back further, the trend is more pronounced. Forty years ago, user fees amounted to 71 percent of revenues spent on roads.

I look forward to people explaining that highway travel may work in Europe, but that the United States isn’t populated nearly densely enough to make it viable as a mode of transportation.

Politics

Huckabee Shies Away From Criticizing Limbaugh, Citing Fear Of His Big Microphone

By Ben Armbruster on Nov 24, 2009 at 5:27 pm

Last month, President Obama visited Dover Air Force Base to honor 18 soldiers killed in Afghanistan. One family allowed the media to photograph the return of their fallen member. Soon after, the right wing went straight into attack mode. “It was a photo op precisely because he’s having big-time trouble on this whole Afghanistan dithering situation,” hate radio host Rush Limbaugh said.

But Mike Huckabee took a different tack, calling the right-wing attacks “deplorable.” “I think it was the Commander-in-Chief of our military paying respect to a dead soldier, and I’m grateful that he did that, and I was proud of him for doing that,” Huckabee said. In a recent interview, CBS’ Katie Couric asked Huckabee if he was criticizing Limbaugh, but Huckabee declined to take the bait:

COURIC: Were you referring to anyone in particular or anyone specific because I know Rush Limbaugh had criticized the day before you made that statement.

HUCKABEE: No one in particular. I wasn’t criticizing Rush. He’s got a bigger megaphone and microphone than I do and I’m not going to get into a war with him. It wasn’t about Rush Limbaugh; it was about the general tenor. I read editorials, I heard people on commentary shows.

Watch it (starting at 31:05):


Watch CBS News Videos Online

Huckabee, a potential GOP candidate for president in 2012, apparently knows the dangers of criticizing the Party’s de-facto leader. Numerous Republicans over the past year — including RNC Chairman Michael Steele — have criticized Limbaugh at one point or another but then came crawling back to apologize.

Yglesias

Climate Change Futures Market

By Matthew Yglesias on Nov 24, 2009 at 4:44 pm

MGM Grand

Robin Hanson, who has the somewhat idiosyncratic view that pretty much all issues can best be resolved by gambling, thinks the real moral of the East Anglia email fracas is that we need a climate change futures market. Nate Silver likes the idea, too, arguing:

The markets would help to clarify exactly the extent to which there is in fact a consensus about climate change. There is, I believe, an abnormally high degree of disingenuousness within the global warming debate, most of it coming from one side. We would very quickly find out if the skeptics — and for that matter the believers — were willing to put their money where there mouths were.

This idea has some merit, but let’s not get carried away with ourselves. The underlying intuition here is that talk about climate change is cheap, but if we made people put their money where their mouth is we’d force them to speak honestly. The problem is that when coal and oil interests or the Koch family pays people money to mislead people about climate science or clean energy policies they are putting their money where their mouth is. Big money is at stake in this issue, and it could be easily worthwhile for polluters to lose money on a prediction market if that helped undercut support for clean energy legislation.

The problem is that just about any metric you might like becomes contaminated once people know there are large political economy stakes.

Health

Fact Check: Rove Uses Fuzzy Math To Argue Health Reform Would Increase Premiums

By Igor Volsky on Nov 24, 2009 at 4:35 pm

This morning, former Bush adviser Karl Rove pulled out a Russert-esque white board to argue that premiums would increase under health care reform in the individual market. Rove relied on a series of Congressional Budget Office (CBO) numbers and claimed that tax increases, the cost shift from Medicaid expansion and insurance reforms could raise premiums by $4,000:

Four studies by outside groups have found the likelihood of higher premiums, but they are just estimates. The most solid numbers have come out of the CBO, but even then, it was only a partial state. Outside groups estimated that insurance premiums would increase by 20% to 50% under the bill over what they would otherwise be, and the CBO report, which looked at the three bottom insurance programs, found that in 2016, without reform, those policies would cost an average of $11,000. With reforms, they would cost $15,000 or an increase of roughly $4,000.

Watch it:

Rove’s reasoning is as pernicious as his math. In its September 22nd letter to the Senate Finance Committee the CBO does project that premiums in the none group market would cost approximately $6,000 for individuals and $11,000 for families, but it also demonstrates that health premiums would be cheaper for a majority of families. Here is how:

1. Overwhelming majority of Americas will pay less than $11,000: Under the House and Senate bills, an individual who does not qualify for subsidies would pay between $5,200 and $5,300 in premiums for a health policy from an exchange (saving up to $800). Premiums for family policies would cost between $14,100 and $15,000, but over two-thirds of exchange enrolless would qualify for subsidies and would spend less than $11,000 on their premiums. In fact, MIT economist Jonathan Gruber extrapolated the CBO data to argue families could actually see savings “ranging from almost $8500 for low income families to almost $1,400 for higher incomes.”

2. More value for the premium dollar: Ultimately, it’s misleading to compare a policy in the exchange with a plan in the individual market. Policies sold in the existing market offer less benefits and even fewer consumer protections. Without reform, older Americans or anyone with a pre-existing condition would not be able to find coverage in the individual market — much less afford it. In its September 22nd letter, the CBO writes that under reform, Americans would receive more value for the premium dollar (plans sold in the exchanges would have higher actuarial values).

All of this is explained in the CBO reports, but omitted in Rove’s white board arithmetic. Rove also misrepresents the so-called “cost-shift” between public and private payers and ignores reform’s the payment increases for both Medicare and Medicaid providers.

Politics

After conceding, then unconceding, then conceding, then unconceding, Hoffman now concedes.

By Amanda Terkel on Nov 24, 2009 at 4:28 pm

Doug Hoffman On Nov. 16, ThinkProgress reported that failed Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman told Glenn Beck that he was unconceding the NY-23 special election, even though the winner, Democrat Bill Owens, was already in office. Shortly thereafter, however, Hoffman’s spokesman said that they weren’t unconceding the race. But then on Nov. 19, Hoffman posted a statement on his website, this time making clear that he was actually unconceding the race, citing concerns about voter fraud at the hands of ACORN and labor unions. Today, Hoffman has put out another statement, this time saying that he is conceding:

Yesterday, the remaining ballots were counted in the 23rd Congressional District special election. The results re-affirm the fact that Bill Owens won.

Since, the morning of November 4th, many of my supporters have asked me to challenge the outcome of this race. Their concerns centered on the veracity of the new voting machines used, for the first time, in the majority of the eleven counties that make up the Congressional District. Over the past three weeks, we nearly cut Bill Owens’ lead in half. Sadly, that is not enough.

Alyssa

Is Zach Braff To Blame For The State of Popular Music Today?

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Nov 24, 2009 at 4:27 pm


http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnia/ / CC BY-NC 2.0




Chris Milam’s piece to that effect at PopMatters is well-written, and I do find the argument that certain genres of popular music have gotten a little self-absorbed fairly convincing, but man is it problematic on a number of levels.  First, I refuse to acknowledge that Zach Braff has nearly enough influence on popular culture to set us all off track.  Second, I think Milam may be overinterpreting the scene from Garden State in which “Natalie Portman popped headphones onto Zach Braff’s head and said flatly, ‘This song will change your life.’”  Portman’s character in the movie may have picked the wrong song to have her life changed by.  But I don’t actually think there’s anything wrong with having your life lit up by music.  And I don’t know that a desire for music to transform you actually leads to the predominance of bland music.  If anything, it ought to set the bar for music much higher.  It should take a lot to blow your head off.


But it was actually the last paragraph of the piece that bothered me the most.  Milam writes:

While these questions and a million others go unanswered on the radio waves and split-screens and message boards and blogs and Top 40 countdowns of this Bored New World, I’m still in the back of a smokeless room, waiting for someone, anyone with a kick drum and an amp, a vein in their neck and a thorn in their side, hungry and desperate and raw, to step up and sing something with a heartbeat from the Other America, where there’s something to prove and nothing to lose.

 It’s more than slightly weird to me that Milam seems to think that the quality of music a person makes is determined by the class that they’re a part of.  And while he doesn’t say it, his argument seems to be entirely determined by his analysis of rock.  It seems fairly abundantly obvious to me that growing up basically middle-class didn’t stop Kanye West from pushing hip-hop forward, and it didn’t deny Beyonce her voice.  And there’s something seriously problematic with declaring that the rock that comes out of poorer communities is somehow more authentic, inherently better, than rock that comes from anywhere else.  Fetishizing other people’s disadvantage in the name of your own enjoyment of art doesn’t mean you’re empowering them.  You’re putting them on a pedestal, and demanding that they not be allowed to get down.

Politics

How the recession is affecting Thanksgiving.

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Nov 24, 2009 at 3:42 pm

Foodbank2 While many Americans will be sitting down to a hearty Thanksgiving meal on Thursday, too many others will go hungry. With the current recession and increasing unemployment, the number of Americans who lacked enough food hit a record high in 2008, and charities can’t keep up. A look at what’s going on around the country:

– Phoenix: “Donations aren’t meeting demand this year” at St. Mary’s food bank. They’re hoping to receive 26,000 donated turkeys, but by Monday they were only halfway there. “A lot of people who used to give as donors are now coming to us and asking for food,” said St. Mary’s Jerry Brown. “These 3 days are going to be make-or-break whether or not we’re going to be able to feed everybody this year,” Brown added.

– Mississippi: The Mississippi Food Network, which supplies non-profits throughout the state, has decided that it cannot provide turkeys this year “for the first time ever.” It expects to feed nearly double the number of people as it did last year and the cost of turkey has gone up.

– Houston: Organizers are expecting 25,000 needy people to show up at the convention center on Thursday, but they are almost “in the panic mode” as “more than a dozen companies that financially supported the dinner in years past have pulled out, and 60 percent of the remaining donors have scaled back their donations.” As of Saturday, they had fewer than a third of the number of turkeys they need and lacked “the traditional Thanksgiving Day vegetables.”

– Boston: The Greater Boston Food Bank gave out 38,000 turkeys last year. This year, a ticker on their website shows they have collected just 4,200 so far.

Hunger relief agency Feeding America found that 99 percent of food banks reported increases in demand for emergency food aid. But due to weak donations, 78 percent have had to reduce the amount of food provided and 55 percent have had to turn people away.

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