Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 2736
July 20, 2010
Adventure Is Out There
Robin Hanson observes:
Watching Journey to the Center of the Earth, I noticed
again how folks seem to like adventure stories and games to come
guides. People prefer main characters to follow a trail of clues via a
map or book written by someone who has passed before, or at least
follow the advice of a wise old person....relative to fiction, real grand adventures tend to have fewer guides,and more randomness in success. Real adventurers must accept hugethrows of the dice; even if...
Dead, Not Resting
Now that cap and trade has turned stiff, Bradford Plumer pages through the other items in the energy bill:
For now, it looks like the only cap that can pass through the Senatewould be watered down and do more harm than good. So we're left withthe combination of EPA Clean Air Act regulations—which,first and foremost, will shutter a lot of older coal plants and preventnew ones from being built—along with a grab-bag of subsidies andregulations that would ramp up renewable power and tamp down on...
Revisiting Liberaltarianism
E.D. Kain looks at the prospects of a liberal-libertarian alliance:
I think the real obstacle to a libertarian-left alliance is the labor
movement. In the UK that movement has its own party. Here, the
Democrats are the nominal representatives of labor. I think for
libertarians this will be a major hurdle. I see a Cameron-like
Republican party emerging before I see a real reformation of public
worker unions.
Libertarianism - Politics - Liberalism - Republican Party - United...
Sitting For Sale
The Daily What digs up a gem on Vimeo:
Fabian Brunsing's public art installation "Pay & Sit: The Private Bench"
imagines a dystopian tomorrow in which even the most quotidian of
conveniences — resting a moment on a park bench — have become soulless
objects of enterprise.
Vimeo - Public art - bench - Business - Fabian Brunsing
The Nate Silver Model
Using the Silver-Zogby spat as a starting point, Jim Manzi details how "538 has created a real business model problem for pollsters":
Silver intelligently combines multiple polls to make more accuratepredictions than are usually achieved by any one individual pollster.On one hand, the math of this is irresistible – in the real world,voting models often work. On the other hand, it would be prettyuncomfortable for a pollster to combine his own results with variouscompetitive poll results to...
July 19, 2010
The Daily Wrap
Today on the Dish, bloggers reacted to the WaPo's big feature on the police state. Andrew's take here. He also tackled the Christianists over Mel Gibson, replied to Frum on the state of the conservatism, threw up his hands at the GOP over spending, and kept his eye on Israel's campaign against Turkey.
Palin coined a Bushism and inspired a Twitter meme. Gallup had her in the lead for 2012, Blumenthal explained disparate polling, and a reader illustrated her immense clout in congressional...
Bombing Iran, Ctd
Marc Lynch notes a series of articles suggesting the US is considering taking military action against Iran. The case against force:
I've been critical of parts of the administration's approach to Iran,overall Tehran has become considerably weaker in the Middle East underObama's watch. Much of the air has gone out of Iran's claim to head abroad "resistance" camp, with Obama's Cairo outreach temporarilyshifting the regional debate and then with Turkey emerging as a muchmore attractive leader...
Parenting In The Age Of Internet Punks
The online teasing of a trash-talking 11-year-old girl gets uglier and uglier. Alexis Madrigal has a poignant take on the enraged reaction of her father (now removed from YouTube but preserved in Internet parody):
[Y:]ou know, there was a time when these kinds of threats worked, andmaybe it was a good thing. Words like that from a dad just might put ascare into some cruel 13-year-olds on a mission to ruin some kid's lifefor fun. In the old days, dads could handle harassment of their...
Top Secret America, Ctd
Julian Sanchez is worth reading:
If we were getting this little value for our money in any other sector, you'd find no shortage of legislators eager to make the issue a personal crusade—but investing time and resources in ferreting out inefficiency in a Special Access Program is likely to be a costly endeavor with little promise of a self-congratulatory press release as a reward for one's trouble. And that's on the generous assumption that legislators are in a position to provide much more...
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