Funmurphys: the Blog

Wilson Plame Who Cares Anymore?

Yes, I know some of you never cared about the whole Wilson Plame saga from the beginning, and some gave up caring long ago, but I've stopped. I know, Tom Maguire who is a better writer and investigator is still going full steam ahead, but this is I hope my last word on the subject. I'm going cold turkey.

Yes, I'm upset by the leaking of classified information, but then unlike a lot of people excited by the whole affair I'm upset by the leaking of any classified information. Frankly, it was a shock when Fitzgerald announced that revealing classified information wasn't a crime in and of itself. It ought to be, but then there might not be anyone left at the CIA (or Congress for that matter).

Part of the ennui is the excessive focus on the least important parts and the ignoring the of the most important. And by that I mean the focus should be on our ability to gather intellegence, analyze it, promulgate it, and protect it. In other words, the process. Instead, the focus has been on the personalities, the who instead of the what. The whole mess has been (or at least should have been) an embarrassment to everyone involved. The CIA comes off as bumbling at best or rogue at worst; the press comes off as bumbling at best and biased at worst; even the vaunted Patrick Fitzgerald comes off as a bumbler - he didn't deliver on what he was asked to do, namely get to the bottom of who leaked to Bob Novak -- instead he got Libby who appears to have leaked to everybody but Novak, his prosecution of Libby now looks weak since Bob Woodward nonchalantly announced that he got a leak from somebody else before Libby started and while I'm always up for perjury the idea that Libby diverted Fitzgeralds investigation is nonsense - it ultimately saved it from coming up empty - because Libby wasn't party to the leak to Novak. Apparently, prosecuting the mafia, terrorists, and Illinois politicians is a walk in the park compared to unraveling the relationships between the press and the government in D.C. - which is a reflection not on Mr. Fitzgerald but the Byzantine workings of Washington. The whole prosecution has this weird feel because even though we have a prosecutor investigating a crime, he can't come after the witnesses, and let's face it, partners in crime AKA reporters with the full majesty of the law like he could against mob bosses, terrorist masterminds, and crooked politicians.

And finally, the left seems to be deranged on the subject. Consider Marty Kaplan, otherwise brilliant renaissance man - bright light to my dim bulb, who wrote the most astonishing blog post A Piss Is Not A Leak:

When government officials or campaign operatives go off the record to a reporter in order to smear someone, spread disinformation, lie about an opponent, stab someone in the back while wearing the cloak of anonymity, kindle a propanganda brush fire, slander critics, psych out enemies, and throw red herrings in an investigator's path, they are engaging in the dark arts of psy ops.

And that's from the calmer part of the rant. Why do I consider it deranged? Becuase of the often heard claim, repeated not just by the many like Kaplan but Joe Wilson his own self, that he was smeared by the Bush Adminstration. What exactly was this smear? Was it that he as a cross dresser, like the left likes to smear the definately unsaintly J. Edgar Hoover? Did they call him a traitor or a liar like President Bush is routinely savaged? Nope, the big bad smear is that somebody in the administration pointed out that Joe Wilson got the job to go to Niger because of his wife. Holy Mackaloney, that's about the worstest thing you could say about anyone. Instead of "your mother wears army boots", tell somebody they got a two week paid assignment because their spouse wrote a glowing assessment, then watch the punches fly. And the really crazy thing is, the left hates to admit, and Joe Wilson pretty much can't admit it himself, but it's the truth. There, I said it, Joe Wilson got the job to go to Niger and nose around because his wife recommended him, and that's been backed up by every investigation into the matter.

On the other hand, this laudable devotion to the truth and fair politics somehow falls to the wayside when it comes to examining Joe Wilson's claims which again, have been revealed to be false by every investigation into the matter. Those claims which were, how shall we say, leaked under the cover of annonymity to the New York Times to kindle a propanganda brush fire - a propanganda brush fire that continues to burn (Bush Lied!) and divert attention and resources from important things. So you have Wilson pretty much doing everything the left is foaming at the mouth mad at the Bush administration for but not doing, which strikes me as deranged. It must be amazingly emotionally satisfying, to be so utterly convinced of one owns superlative righteousness that reality itself is distorted into a mirror image. Excuse me if I find it boring to hear such smug assertions of fairy tales.

Perhaps we can find a middle ground with it comes to kicking the tar out of Randy Cunningham, who I hope we can all agree behaved reprehensibly in accepting bribes and who's actions are, in a word, unpatriotic. Frankly, I don't know if it worse or mitigating that he was a war hero in Vietnam.

Different But Equal

Jim Pinkerton looks at Maureen Dowd's lastest book, Are Men Necessary? and while he starts out good, he goes astray. I think one area that Feminism went astray was the outlook that equality meant sameness, and so the way to be equal to men was to be the same. I'm all for equality, but that doesn't mean sameness. Different but equal makes perfect sense to me. And so it seems to me that when women try to compete sexually as if they were men, macho men, disaster strikes. That's the direction mainstream Feminism took and got the pants beat off them, and I do mean that literally. I know men tend to be protrayed as idiots by the media, but it is the height of folly to think that women can try to out masculine the most masculine of men.

And so Jim's right that Hef is laughing and Maureen is crying, but it isn't because Men hold all the cards and always have; it's because Maureen tried to beat Hef at his own game.

A Trio From Ed

Ed Driscoll combines a couple of good observations from others to arrive at his own: "For the left, what matters far more than America's success is who will get the credit for it."

Not content with that, Mr. Driscoll also has an excerpt from Amir Taheri that sums up:"What matters, however, is that it is up to the people of Iraq and its coalition allies to decide the moment an the modalities of the withdrawal It is a judgment that no outsider could make .. Those who opposed the liberation and those who have done all they could to undo it have no moral right to join that debate."

The other day when The Amazing Race was preempted for the Country Music Awards, the Murphy Family had a free night. And we had a coupon for a free video on demand. So we carefully considered the hundreds of available movies, and narrowed down our choices to Robots, which we hadn't seen before but which I had heard bad reviews, The Great Race, which I hadn't seen since I was a kid, and Phantom of the Opera, which we had seen before. That was it. That is simply pathetic. Hundreds of possibilities, three tepid choices. Since my wife really wanted to see Phantom again and old movies are a tough sell with the rest of the family, we watched it again. I have to say I enjoyed it much more the second time. But it is sad to think how difficult it is to see a good family (and by that I mean something the whole family will like, not just kids) because Hollywood makes so few of them. And that's my looooong introduction to the last link from Ed Driscoll, which examines how political correctness/leftwing sensibilities are strangling Hollywood storytelling.

Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire

The Murphy family did something it rarely does - venture out over the Thanksgiving Holidays and see a movie. While I prefer seeing comedies in full houses, I never have liked crowds, or standing in line to see a movie, or rushing to get a good seat. And by good, I mean with the people I came with, and not in the front row off to the side. Yes, we saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and I think the Potter movies just keep getting better. I saw it on a chain Imax screen (Ronnies 20 if you must know) which doesn't compare to a real Imax theater, like at the St. Louis Science Center. But it is still a better movie going experience, especially enhanced because there were no previews - we went from a couple of slideshow adds straight to the main attraction without passing go. There is a scene in the movie about evil and our response to it that I wanted to blog, but sadly the rest of the weekend experience has driven from my mind. But let me say I enjoyed it, and the only negative for me was that there was a stetch that focused on the fact that Harry & Co. were 14 year olds and not on swashbuckling. I want my swash buckled, I don't want teenage angst at the movies. I get enough of that at home.

Friday Links, Part Deux III

Because its Friday, that's why.

I use to do lists at work, mainly because if I don't I forget to do a lot of stuff, even important stuff. Since I'm a happily married man, I have no need for a home to do list, except for the stuff I don't want her to know about -- like Christmas presents for her. But I don't recall ever putting this on my to do list before. Hopefully, Listless isn't keeping that from his wife (Are you sure he's married? No, and I'm not even sure he's a man except he keeps a to do list).

I'm not a big fan of Bill Moyers - who strikes me as the perfect embodyment of the characature of a Christian as mean, humorless, and holier-than-thou. Tim at Random Observations, who strikes me as none of those things, sets Mr. Moyers straight on the teachings of Jesus. Keep reading, because he also sets Jimmy Carter straight, and Glenn Reynolds too for good measure.

Jim Hoft does what the Bush administration should be doing: Letting us know what's really happening in Iraq, and why we shouldn't pull out now. Scott Ott does something similar, but in his own style. Oh wait, Centcom does put out the word, but the press somehow never has time for such information.

Archpundit relays Stephan Chapman's take on the "morning after" or "Plan B" pill and makes me think:

But it turns out the reputation is groundless. The best scientific evidence we have indicates that the morning-after pill serves to block fertilization, while having no effect on implantation. That makes it contraception, not abortion.

As a longtime pro-lifer, I think anti-abortion groups had solid grounds to oppose the morning-after pill when its function was unclear--as I did. But given what we now know, it's a grave mistake to keep opposing it. In fact, there are grounds for celebration: A drug once believed to produce abortion is found to prevent abortion.

He also gets in a dig at the Bush adminstration, but not only is that to be expected, it may be the right thing.

Yesterday I wrote how in theory Christians, Jews, and Moslems all worship the same God -- although all three are different religions. David Opderbeck puts a lot more meat on the bones of that idea. He concludes contra Joe Carter that all three groups do in fact worship the same God.

Pajama's Media finally launched, there was a big party that the right people were invited to (Yes, that means I wasn't), they changed their name to Open Source Media and trademarked it (whether the irony was intended I don't know) and the world changed. Or maybe not. I'm with Jeff Harrell-- I'm not sure what it is they are trying to do. But with 3.5 million in financing, they can take awhile to figure it out.

Children on Love - because we all need a laugh, and as you know, children say the darnedest things.

The last word on the White Phosphorus is a chemical weapon nonsense.

The last word on why Funmurphys won't ever have advertising. And no, it's not any objection to making money on my part, it's the lack of focus. I consider it a feature, but people who spend advertising dollars consider it a bug.

Want to know more about Paris Hilton? Me neither, but she shops for lingerie with a monkey. Why? Because she can.

Is Google really going to take over the world? Beats me (OK, if I said yes, this would the last you ever heard of this blog), but Crooked Timber looks at one attempt.

Wilson Plame Libby Woodward

The case against Scooter Libby took an odd turn the other day when investigative reporter extraordinaire (just ask him, he'll tell you) Bob Woodward announced the other day that he'd been given Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA analyst by an administration source other than Scooter Libby before Libby talked to Miller, Cooper, and Russert.

Tom Maguire is all over this, as always. And from every angle, especially Cheney.

What I think it means is that Fitzgerald will have a harder time convicting Libby. Why? Because Mr. Fitzgerald's claim was that Libby was the first leaker based on the testimony of Miller, Cooper, and Russert and therefore his claim to have heard it from reporters first has to be a lie, and not just a disagreement over what was said in a brief conversation a couple of years ago. If it cannot be established that in fact this info was not leaked prior to Libby, then that claim goes down in flames. And further, Woodward claims he told Walter Pincus about Ms. Wilson, although Pincus doesn't remember that. So now we have two reporters disagreeing about who told what during a brief discussion a couple of years ago. But wait, there's still more - Mr. Woodward kept mum about this leak, despite the investigation, until Mr. Fitzgerald contacted him because one of Woodwards sources spilled the beans to Mr. Fitzgerald. So no doubt everybody is wondering who else is out there but hunkered down and waiting for Fitzgerald to make the first contact.

I think it also means we're less likely to ever make sense out of it beyond partisan ax grinding. And that might be a good thing, because as far as I can tell it has become a sideshow, a distraction, the mother of all red herrings, from the important questions - what can we do to improve intelligence collection and analysis at the CIA and what can we do to safeguard classified information better. This is a case where we can't see the forest for the trees.

In God We Trust

In God We Trust, all others pay cash.

Michael Newdow is trying to have "In God We Trust" removed from US currency. I don't care, but don't our courts have better things to worry about? I'm an evangelical Christian, so I think what's written on our hearts is far more important to God than what's written on our money. Take it off, leave it on, makes no difference to me. That isn't the case for everyone, though.

Maybe Mr. Newdow has the right idea for the wrong reason. Maybe we should sell "motto rights" to each individual piece of currency. Think of the money we cold raise if corporations would pay to put their name, logo, or motto on the currency. If big oil did it, would Congress promise to use that money to defray the costs of home heating?

I have to admit I don't really pay much attention to what's on there - just enough to let me tell it apart, although the mint keeps screwing with the nickel and freaks me out with every change - the friendly game of golf (it looks like golf clubs and a handshake to me) on the back, the ancient bireme, the ocean view on the back and the weird just Jefferson's face on the front. But I couldn't tell you what's written on there, or if it changes.

So why should a court rule to have the motto removed? Because somebody is offended? And don't tell me it violates the separation of Church and State, since that isn't a constitutional provision. Instead, the first amendment reads (in relevant part) "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". Putting God on money clearly doesn't violate free exercise thereof, but does it constitute establishing a religion?

I suppose you could argue that it establishes a monotheistic religion with just three tenets: God exists, there is only one God, and we trust God. Seems pretty slim to me, but I tell you what, if the Supreme Court declares that putting "In God We Trust" on something makes it an official religion, I'll slap it on all my possessions and tell the IRS hands off because its now religious property in the "In God We Trust" religion. I suppose for those who adhere to the notion that "all religions are basically the same" (I'm not a believer in that church) then those three are enough. I'd just point out that there are huge differences between Christianity and Islam, although they in theory worship the same God.

I think the Supreme Court adopted the right policy when it comes to "In God We Trust": Leave us out of it.

Codger At Work

The press in theory is all about speaking truth to power but in practice its about offending those it doesn't like and if it happens to offend those it does like then it grovels while speaking soothing platitudes.

Frames Matter

Yeah, I know I've been on an economic kick lately, but it's either that or intestinal bacteria. OK, now that we've cleared that up, on with the numbers and cents.

There has been the usual wailing and gnashing of teeth over the record Current Account Deficit (otherwise known as the trade deficit). First I'm going to point you to another fine piece by David Nicklaus:

Fortunately, there is another way of viewing the trade deficit. Instead of being a sign of weakness in our goods- and services-producing industries, it's a sign of strength in our capital markets.

By definition, the current account deficit must be matched by a capital account surplus, which means foreigners invest more here than we invest abroad. If foreign investors simply view the U.S. as a great opportunity, their enthusiasm may be driving the trade equation.

Bill Poole, president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, explored this line of thinking Wednesday in a speech at Lindenwood University.

"It may be that the trade deficit is driven by ... investors seeking the best combination of risk and return in the international capital market," he said. "The mechanism creating this outcome is that capital inflows keep the dollar stronger than it otherwise would be, tending to boost imports and suppress exports."

That does make the trade deficit sound less scary. But, the alarmists would argue, the U.S. is in a vulnerable position. Foreigners can simply pull their money out, cause the dollar to plummet and throw us into recession.

Poole thinks that is highly unlikely. "For the United States, unlike almost every other country in the world, a hard-landing process is inherently self-limiting," he said.

That's because our external debts are denominated in dollars. A decline in the dollar's value has no effect on our debts - we still owe the same amount in dollars as we did before - and it makes our overseas assets, denominated in foreign currencies, more valuable.

"To the extent that the foreign exchange value of the dollar declines, the effect on the values of U.S. and foreign asset holdings works not as an accelerator of crisis, but as part of a self-correcting mechanism," Poole said. "The composition of the U.S. international investment account, therefore, contributes to stability rather than to instability."

His view is that the trade deficit will be reduced in a "slow and orderly" way and that the adjustment "may not begin for quite some time."

The real question is if that's the better way to look at the issue ("I'm not overweight, I'm undertall") but since I've been hearing just how bad the trade gap is for a very long time now, and it doesn't seem to have a noticable effect, I'm going to go with looking it as a sign of capital market strength. I recall reading something similar in regards to when Britannia ruled the world -- at least in the economic sense -- and how having the world currency provided certain capital benefits, but I'm too lazy to go track it down.

In addition to the main thrust of the article, a couple of things caught my attention. First, is the use of absolute dollar numbers when comparing ecomonic events that occur at different times. This can be misleading. The best way to compare such figures is to use non-dimensionalized figures, in other words divide dollars by dollars, which removes the effects of inflation and gives a real apples to apples comparison. So in this case, you should divide the gap by either the size of all trade, or by GNP, just as you would divide the budget deficit by either the total budget or the GNP to give meaningful figures. Whenever somebody just gives you absolute numbers and then makes a comparison, even if only implied (e.g. worst deficit ever), take it with a grain of salt.

Secondly, buried in the piece was this interesting fact: Even with record trade deficits, the economy has grown at a rate of 3 percent or better for 10 straight quarters, the longest such streak in more than two decades. What's this, the "Bush" economy beats the "Clinton" economy. Gee, that's not something you hear from the press, mired in a loss of advertising revenues that has gone from glitch to downturn to slump to permanent loss.

When Dictators Make The Rules ...

Hey Hitch, don't you know war never solves anything? President Bush should be commended for following the approved international process in the Sudan, unlike Iraq or Afganistan, because its more important that we follow international norms than save one single life. Since the weepy left only weeps over American soldiers killed (those that manage to survive are apparently "bad") and those they supposedly killed, there is no weeping for those dying in Sudan -- thus answering the question, if a person is killed without any relation to America, does anyone notice (or care?). Of course, the question was already answered by the reaction to the deaths inflicted on a grand scale in Afganistan and Iraq before the US intervened.

You Can't Handle The Truth

So, President Bush has finally decided to go after those Democrats who are smearing him by claming he lied or mislead about the intellegence on Iraq in order to drum up support for the war. It will be an uphill battle because not only will he have to contend with the Democrats, but the news media as well. The Democrats aren't that formidable a foe, but the news media is much, much smoother at lies and misrepresentations. Good luck Mr. President, you'll need it.

TANSTAAFL

A Quote of the Day over at Listless Lawyer reminded me of something (There's more inspiration over at Listless than I have time) the other day:

There is no more dangerous illusion than the belief that one can get something for nothing.

– Bernard Baruch, Baruch: My Own Story.

A decade or so ago I was refinancing Murphy Manor. I was working through a mortgage broker, and just before closing they gave me their itemized closing costs. Since it was a lot different than the sample closing costs they had provided back when I started with them, I looked over the figures carefully enough to spot a mistake. That led to a fine tooth comb and a phone call where I went over every line - both what it was for and why it cost what it did. One of the lines had some boilerplate description and the lady provided me with some boilerplate explanation that was mighty similar to one she had given me for a previous item. I explained that I would like to know exactly what I was getting for my money on this line, and why I should pay twice for what sounded like the same thing. After a couple of other unsuccessful attempts to explain it, she talked to her supervisor and came up with a much better explanation, although still obscure. When I said "It's your fee", she agreed but was apologetic and seemed to expect me to object. I told her I'd much rather they were upfront about their fee rather than trying to hide it since they had to be making money out of the deal somewhere and I'd just as soon know how much than worry about how bad they were screwing me. It's not like they were working for free.

Slimeball Is More Like It

Last night when my wife and I were watching the news, Larry Connors reported the story I highlighted yesterday of the bombmaker killed in Indonesia. Thankfully he left out the speculation about maybe he was planning more attacks, but Larry did call Bin Husen "the mastermind" of the Bali nightclub attacks. My wife had a similar reaction to Jason's: "Mastermind? What kind of mastermind does it take to put some bombs in a nightclub and blow the place up and kill a bunch of people?"

Veterans Day

Today is Veterans Day, the day we honor those who have served in the military and lived. Memorial Day is the day we honor those who died while serving in the military. While that seems like a big difference, the reality is that chance plays a huge role in which soldiers live and which soldiers die. So to all you veterans out there, thanks for the willingness to put your life on the line for all the things I hold dear.

Judy Miller "Retires"

Now that she's not part of the black hole of news, I'm hoping Judy Miller tells all, starting with the offer Keller and Pinch made her she couldn't refuse. Of course, it would be nice if elite journalists actually told us what they knew when they knew it instead of only telling it to a grand jury.

Oil Economics 101

Since Jane Galt is tackling abortion at the moment, I'm going to seize the opportunity to talk about the Senate hearings on oil prices. I suppose the whole thing is one of those moments that Yakov Smirnoff loves -- only in America are private companies called in to explain why in a capitalist system they are making the huge, windfall profit of a whopping 10 percent. The really sad thing is that I, with but one college economics course under my belt understand economics more than our august Senators do (at least some of them, anyway). Or perhaps its that they understand politics far better than economics.

It continues to astound me how people confuse cost and price. The price is what the buyer pays, and cost is the aggregate of the sellers expenses for a given transaction. Profit (or loss) is the difference between the two. The real beauty is that there are least two ways to figure cost -- average or marginal -- but only one way on price. And you can play all kinds of un games by picking and choosing which basis to determine cost.

Now the funny thing is, back when I learned my economics (1983) -- and from a marxist, no less -- they taught that price is set by the intersection of supply and demand curves, as illustrated here. Cost enters in through the back door, as it is part of the supply curve. So let's review - if demand goes up (shifts to the right), the price will go up, but then so does the quantity sold. And if supply goes down (shifts to the left), price goes up, but the quantity sold goes down. Wow, cutting edge economics, only formulated this way for 115 years.

Now pay close attention here, the price changes as rapidly as the change in supply and/or demand, even nearly instantaneously. There's no wait to change for a given product, made at a particular price point, to eventually make it's way all the way through the distribution system to the final consumer. So if for instance a hurricane roars through the Gulf of Mexico overnight and decreases the supply of oil overnight, why the price changes overnight too! Wow, no government price board meets to make it happen, the market simply reacts to the new information. Maybe more countries should use that market thingy.

Permit me a small digression [OK, I've come back from the bottom of the paragraph and it turns out that this is really a great big digression, but its a good one, so stay with it] here, because I know a little something about control theory (OK, a lot more than I know about economics). And if you're into controls, lag is your enemy. You hate lag. Lag screws up your system. Lag can make your system go unstable, lag is something you would like to eliminate completely if you could. Except, then setting up real world control systems would be too easy, and you wouldn't get paid the big bucks to do it, so OK, you love lag, because lag makes your genius necessary. But say I'm a user of a controlled system, then lags my enemy. For all the reasons I cited above, only now I'd just as soon have geniuses working other problems so I don't even have that incentive. The market is simply a control system for economic activity. One big reason it's better than any other method so far devised, is that it is less laggy than the other systems (such as government control). What is one of the things businesses hope for when they flatten their management structure or better integrate different parts of the enterprise? They are trying to reduce lag inside their own control system - vertically and horizontally. So the ability to make rapid price adjustments isn't a bug, it's a feature, and a very important one at that. It means economies can turn on a dime, and not keep overproducing unwanted products and services and fail to produce wanted products and services. One of the reasons improved information technology has helped the ecomony is that it has wrung lag out all over the system. OK, enough about lag, but once you understand control theory, you'll laugh when Princeton economics professors write columns for newspapers saying the worry that increased informational speed and flow could destabilize an economy, and you'll laugh because they got it exactly wrong, and you don't even have a big pointy head.

Another great thing about the market is that in a transparent, open economy we're all colluding together to get what we want, when we want it, where we want it. We all contribute to setting the price and the quantity of each and every good and service out there. We even stimulate the formulation of brand new goods and services. Wow. The amazing thing about price is not only is it feedback from the customer to the producer, it's feedfoward from the producer to the customer.

OK, back to the oil companies. So what do higher prices and higher profits tell us, hopefully including the oil companies. To the oil companies, it says produce more oill!!! That's what it says. And while it's telling the companies that, its actually giving them the money to do it with. Wow. You get told what to do and you get the resources to do it with. But wait, there's more. Because to us consumers, it's saying cut back on oil consumption!!! because there is a greater reward for it than there was before the price went up. Or we could wait for Congress to pass a sense of the Congress resolution that the oil companies should produce more and consumers consume less, and then pass some legislation to give companies incentives to produce and consumers not to consume, and by the time that all happens, we'll be in the middle of an oil glut. See why lag is bad?

So why is it so hard, absent hurricanes and other natural disasters, to figure out the gyrations of gas prices. Because from where you sit, you can't see the supply and demand. You're driving down the road thinking everybody I know is driving just as much, so why does the price go up and down all the time? Energy markets are global, so the whole world is setting the price. So changes in global supply and demand drive the price at your corner gas station. I suppose that's one opposition to globalization - since we can't see the inputs (supply and demand), we distrust the output (price).

Masters of the Obvious

Is headline writer that difficult a job? Check these out:

Bin Husin May Have Been Planning Attacks

"Police found more than 30 bombs in the hide-out of a Southeast Asia terror ringleader shot to death during a raid by an elite security unit, triggering speculation he was planning more attacks, authorities said Thursday."

Why the 'may' in the headline -- he held on to the bombs for sentimental reasons? He was planning one heck of a stage show for the comeback tour of Great White? Whose speculating, experts? Sheesh a la Beef, what ninnies are writing this stuff.

News And Response

The CIA has asked that the lastest leak about secret CIA prisons be investigated.
As Billy Idol would say, more more more!!!

White House Staffers to take Ethics Class.
Hey, the business solution to ethics problems. Michael Sears once observed that if you weren't ethical before you took an ethics class, you wouldn't be ethical afterwards -- and he ought to know!

Ahmad Chalabi will meet with Secretary Rice during trip to US
You don't have to hold you're nose, but I'd wash my hands afterwards Condi. Just remember, an ambassador is an ethical man who lies for his country (hey, that must be why Joe Wilson is out, he wasn't ethical and his lies were only self serving).

US-EU Stalemate Persists Over Farm Subsidies.
Let me be perfectly clear: end farm subsidies now. Let's not bicker over whose is bigger, cut them both off, completely.

Crude Oil Falls Near a Three-Month Low as U.S. Supply Increases
What, it wasn't Bill O'Reilly holding the feet of Big Oil to the fire that dropped the price of gas? Maybe we'd be better off listening to Adam Smith on tape than listening to radio or TV pundits.

Gates Orders Web Services Emphasis.
I thought MS would already have been all over web services, what with that marvelous free browser of theirs that giving away free didn't hurt consumer choice, and especially after Chairman Bill changed that chapter in his book The Road Ahead from Internet Schminternet to I Guess The Internet Might End Our Monopoly So We Better Crush Our Competitors There First

Europe Space Agency Launches Venus Probe
Looking for love in all the wrong places.... The good news is that spaceflight has become routine, the bad news is spaceflight has become routine.

Scientists unearth earliest known Hebrew ABCs
From graphiti to scientific bonanza in 30 short centuries. How long before the scribblings here become worth writing about?

The Best Darn Talking Points Period

Speaking of policy disputes versus morality plays, Brent Scowcroft criticized Bush administration policy and the Bush administration responded. If you believe Joe Klein, and I don't, the Bush administration responded by sending out "talking points about how to attack Brent Scowcroft" based on a claim by a source who deleted the email before he read it. Well, as Jim Taranto points out: "He [Klein] "reports" that the White House is trying to "destroy" Scowcroft, based on an anonymous source's description of an e-mail that not only Klein but the source himself hasn't read! It's such a hilariously inept bit of journalism..." The sad thing is that as we've seen, this is isn't inept journalism, this is SOP for journalism, and the main reason I don't get excited over claims of malfeasance reported by the media until I can see the primary documents with my own two eyes.

Like a lot of people who have read the talking points, I find them both civil and cogent, and frankly the right way to approach a policy dispute. I reprint them here from Elephants in Academia:

1. Bernard Lewis is perhaps our greatest living historian on the Middle East.

2. Ronald Reagan calling the Soviet Union an "evil empire" was accurate, courageous, and important, as we learned from (among others) Soviet dissidents.

3. The assertion that we have had "fifty years of peace" in the Middle East is an odd one, if you consider (a) America's 1991 war against Iraq (which General Scowcroft favored); (b) the Iraq-Iran war (in which there were a million casualties; (c) the conflict in the early 1970s between Jordan and the Palestinians; (d) the civil war in Lebanon; (e) the four wars between Israel and Arab nations; and (f) the attacks of September 11, 2001 (which was carried out by Islamic radicals who emerged from the broader Middle East).

In some ways this point underscores the enormous difference between the worldview of Mr. Scowcroft and those in the Bush Administration. Mr. Scowcroft seems to believe that the status quo in the Middle East is tolerable, maybe even preferable; we do not. The President believes that if the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation and anger and violence for export. In the words of President Bush, "In the past, [we] have been willing to make a bargain, to tolerate oppression for the sake of stability. Longstanding ties often led us to overlook the faults of local elites. Yet this bargain did not bring stability or make us safe. It merely bought time, while problems festered and ideologies of violence took hold."

4. The "bad guys" -- the most ruthless among us -- do not "always" rise to the top. In fact in many elections - in Spain and Portugal, Nicaragua and El Salvador, the Czech Republic and Romania, South Africa and the Philippines, Indonesia and Ukraine, Afghanistan and Iraq, and many more - we have seen enormous strides toward freedom. For example, the Western Hemisphere has transformed itself over the last two decades from a region dominated by repressive, authoritarian regimes to one in which the overwhelming number of countries there have democratically-elected governments and growing civil societies.

It's also worth bearing in mind that some pretty bad guys (like Saddam Hussein) "win elections" in authoritarian and totalitarian societies. Indeed, non-democracies make it far easier for the "bad guys" to prevail than is the case with democracies. Is it the supposition of Mr. Scowcroft that from a historical point of view dictatorships have a better record than democracies? Or that because democratic elections don't always turn out well they can never turn out well? Or that because democratic elections don't always turn out well we should prefer authoritarian and totalitarian regimes? The habit of mind that sees all the weaknesses in democracy and all the "strengths" in authoritarian and totalitarian regimes is, well, curious.

5. Mr. Scowcroft insists we will not "democratize" Iraq and that "in any reasonable time frame the objective of democratizing the Middle East can be successful." Except that in the last two-and-a-half years Iraq has moved from tyranny, to liberation, to national elections, to the writing of a constitution, to the passage of a constitution. By any standard or precedent of history, Iraq has made incredible political progress. Iraq still faces challenges, including a ruthless insurgency -- but there is no question that the people of Iraq long for democracy and for victory over the insurgency.

The charge that the way we have sought to bring democracy to Iraq is "you invade, you threaten and pressure, you evangelize" is itself deeply misleading. Mr. Scowcroft's invasion was in fact a liberation -- and overthrowing one of the worst tyrannies in modern times and replacing it with free elections is a good start on the pathway to liberty. And of course this year we have also seen political progress -- not perfection, but progress -- in Kuwait, Egypt, and among the Palestinians.

6. The notion that democratic progress in Lebanon is "unrelated" to the war in Iraq is undermined by what the Lebanese themselves have told us. To take just one example, here are the words of Walid Jumblatt, who was once a harsh critic of American policy: "'It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq. I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world. The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it."

7. Mr. Scowcroft seems to wish that Syria were still ruling Lebanon with an iron fist. Brutal repression may be;wicked -- but (Scowcroft seems to believe) it does keep a lid on "sectarian emotions."

8. Sometimes when given a chance, we humans don't screw up. Sometimes ;human beings reach for, and (even if imperfectly) attain, nobility and the advancement of freedom and human dignity.Which seems to me to be an argument against cynicism and despair -- to say nothing of repression and tyranny. Let the debate proceed.

I suppose too many people don't know who to have a civil debate, so they have to resort to name calling and lying.

Policy Dispute or Morality Play?

There are two things I find very offensive about the claim that the Bush administration lied about WMD just so that we could go to war - it insults my intellegence as it is so obviously wrong to anyone who has the slightest ability to remember, or absent that, to anyone who takes the slightest time to investigate; and it takes a straightforward policy dispute (whether or not to to to war) and turns it into a morality play (Bush lied and people died!).

And in this fantasy, it's Joe Wilson who exposed the administration. Let's examine the circumstances around Joe Wilson's trip and the claim that, for instance, the administration either made stuff up out of whole cloth or at least leaned on intellegence agencies to provide intel like the White House wanted. The VP and his staff (i.e. Scooter Libby) took a strong interest in intellegence and even visited CIA headquarters a few times. Thus the claims that the VP pressured the CIA to tell him stories he wanted to hear.

Wilson's trip starts, according to the CIA, when Vice President Cheney indicated an interest during his daily CIA brief in more information about a report that Saddam tried to buy Uranium from Niger. So the CIA sends former Ambassador Wilson at the recommendation of his wife to check the story out. He spends some time in Niger talking to old friends, briefs our Ambassador there about his findings, returns home and briefs the CIA about his findings. What did he find in Niger? He found that indeed, the Iraqi's in 1999 had gone to Niger and made overtures that the Nigerians interpreted as a desire to buy uranium, but that the Nigerians didn't sell any, and couldn't anyway because of monitoring. Did the CIA, under pressure from Cheney, immediately alert the Vice President that in fact they had confirmed the Iraqi's tried to buy uranium from Niger? No, the CIA concluded that the report was inconclusive because all Wilson did was talk to contacts who knew he was reporting to the US government (which they knew he did before he left) and handled the report routinely without informing the White House of it's contents. Later on Ambassador Wilson would go on to lie or mislead about almost every aspect of his trip, his findings especially, in a successful attempt to make people believe that the White House lied about WMD, when the only liar was Joe Wilson.

So what does the uncontested part of Wilson's trip tell us? If the CIA felt any pressure to say what the White House wanted, they sure as hell didn't act like it. Here we have the Vice President show an interest in a report about WMD, and the CIA went out of their way to investigate in such a way as to generate a report they could ignore while telling the White House if asked that they had indeed investigated but the results were inconclusive even if, as it happened, they turned up evidence that Iraq did try to obtain uranium from Africa.

Once More Into The Breach

As I have mentioned before, I am a death penalty agnostic. But one thing the irks me about certain death penalty opponents is that they think that not just has an innocent been put to death, but only innocents have been put to death (leastways if they are a minority). Marlin Gray was executed for the rape and death of two sisters, and there are some people who are convinced he was innocent. I don't know for sure since I wasn't there, but the evidence is pretty clear and convincing. Even Bill McClellan, who's a soft touch for a sob story, sits through all the trials and says the mystery isn't who but why. This reflexive defense of anyone sentenced to death is as annoying than the other extreme - no innocent person has ever been put to death.

Real Journalism

Imagine my surprise to read this article in my paper on Sunday which completely bebunks the stories told by an OIF veteran named Jimmy Massey.

Among his claims:

Marines fired on and killed peaceful Iraqi protesters.

Americans shot a 4-year-old Iraqi girl in the head.

A tractor-trailer was filled with the bodies of civilian men, women and children killed by American artillery.
...
Each of his claims is either demonstrably false or exaggerated - according to his fellow Marines, Massey's own admissions, and the five journalists who were embedded with Massey's unit, including a reporter and photographer from the Post-Dispatch and reporters from The Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal.

Gateway Pundit is all over this and thinks Mr Massey should be behind bars; I think he should be in a mental institution getting the help he obviously needs (along with his partner in madness, Cindy Sheehan.)

And not content with that, Mr. Ron Harris then goes on to ask "Why did the press swallow Massey's stories?" The quotes Mr. Harris presents do not paint a pretty picture of the press:

Media outlets throughout the world have reported Jimmy Massey's claims of war crimes, frequently without ever seeking to verify them.

For instance, no one ever called any of the five journalists who were embedded with Massey's battalion to ask him or her about his claims.

The Associated Press, which serves more than 8,500 newspaper, radio and television stations worldwide, wrote three stories about Massey, including an interview with him in October about his new book.

But none of the AP reporters ever called Ravi Nessman, an Associated Press reporter who was embedded with Massey's unit. Nessman wrote more than 30 stories about the unit from the beginning of the war until April 15, after Baghdad had fallen.

Jack Stokes, a spokesman for the AP, said he didn't know why the reporters didn't talk to Nessman, nor could he explain why the AP ran stories without seeking a response from the Marine Corps. The organization also refused to allow Nessman to be interviewed for this story.

How typical -- stonewall when called on shoddy journalism.

While the story never comes to a conclusion about why didn't the press checkout his stories, I'll give you my answer - in some cases they wanted to believe them, and in other cases they just never bother. I don't know which is worse, but check out more quotes from the story:

David Holwerk, editorial page editor for The Sacramento Bee, said he thought the newspaper handled its story, a question and answer interview with Massey, poorly.
"I feel fairly confident that we did not subject this to the rigorous scrutiny that we should have or to which we would subject it today," he said.

Mr. Holwerk, please don't pee on my leg and tell me its raining. What steps have you specifically taken so this doesn't happen again? Yes, no doubt today, after having been alerted, you wouldn't run Mr. Massey's ravings without the slightest scrutiny like you did the last time, but what about other stories?

Rex Smith, editor of the Albany (N.Y.) Times Union, said he thought the newspaper's story about Massey could have "benefited from some additional reporting." But he didn't necessarily see anything particularly at odds with standard journalism practices.

The paper printed a story in which Massey reportedly told an audience how he and other Marines killed peaceful demonstrators. There was no response from the Marine Corps or any other evidence to back Massey's claims.

Smith said that, unfortunately, that is the nature of the newspaper business.

"You could take any day's newspaper and probably pick out a half dozen or more stories that ought to be subjected to a more rigorous truth test," he said.

"Yes, it would have been much better if we had the other side. But all I'm saying is that this is unfortunately something that happens every day in our newspapers and with practically every story on television."

Mr Smith, I have to credit you with telling it like it is, and in the immortal words of Latigo Smith, "the Truth hurts", but how do you look at yourself in the mirror every morning while willingly and knowingly participating in a gigantic fraud on the American people. Yes, fraud. We pay newspapars to tell us the facts and provide all sides to a story, and here you are telling us that what we get for our money is a collection of fairy tales that on a good day might concievably have some ever so slight basis in fact, but you don't really have any idea.

Michael Parks sees it differently. He is the director of the University of Southern California Annenberg School of Journalism and formerly the editor of the Los Angeles Times. Parks also reviewed stories written about Massey.

"A reporter's obligation is to check the allegation, to seek comment from the organization that's accused," said Parks, a Pulitzer Prize winner who covered the Vietnam War as a reporter for the Baltimore Sun. "They can't let allegations lie on the table, unchecked or unchallenged. When they don't do that, it's a clear disservice to the reader."

Dear Mr. Parks, it isn't a disservice to the reader, its fraud. When the press claims one to fact check but doesn't, it's fraud. And this happens over, and over, and over.

"We're not stenographers, we're journalists," Dixon [former managing editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer and currently chairman of the Howard University Department of Journalism] said. "What separates journalism from other forms of writing is that we practice the craft of verification. By not doing that, that's saying they're abdicating any responsibility from exercising news judgment. ... As a journalist, you want to put accurate information before the public so they can make opinions and decisions based on accurate information. When something like this happens, harm is done, the truth suffers."

Amen Brother Dixon, Amen. Now if you can make that teaching stick with your students, I'll be much obliged to you.

My own theory on why Mr. Harris wrote two such take-no-prisoners articles: His sense of truth was offended by what happened. He was one of the imbedded reporters with the marine unit that Mr. Massey was maligning and as such he was a witness to the truth. And so he wrote two articles, one that looked at the liar, and the other that looked at those who uncritically spread the lies, and he discharged his duty to the truth.

Mr Harris and the Post delivered real journalism, powerfully delivered in two short articles. And Mr. Arnie Robbins, new editor in chief of the Post, that's something that I, and plenty others who also want real journalism, are willing to pay for, whatever the format.

The Editor Is Gone, All Hail the Editor

Ellen Soeteber has resigned as the Editor in Chief of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Her resignation followed a large voluntary employee buyout at the Post. I know the paper comes in for a lot of criticism here, but I do try to call attention to those times when the paper did a good job.

I think Ms. Soeteber did a good job within the limits of current journalism. By that I mean the faults of the Post are pretty much the faults of journalism today - too often smug, arrogant, unbalanced, inaccurate, and unfair. Certainly she did a much better job than Cole Campbell who championed "public" or "civic" journalism, which in those days just meant the the newspaper was supposed to be an advocate for public and civic improvement, in terms both of running the behind the scenes, and in terms of obvious steps to improve the paper. She focused on improving and expanding the business section and now it's a great section to read, often the best part of the newspaper. Her stress on local news is the right direction for a newspaper to take in today's wired world.

From her words in the article it sounds like she just grew tired of dealing with the financial pressures of the job. Newspaper revenues are being undercut by the weakness of the big department stores and car manufacturers who were a large source of advertising, the expansion of advertising in other mediums, and the loss in classified ads to the internet. I don't think this is the deathknell of newspapers, as there a lot of media that are still around, going strong, just not as dominate as they once were, such as radio or network TV. I don't think the adverstising and prestigue are ever going back to their old levels, but I think and hope that newspapers will be around for a lot longer.

Kevin In Wonderland

There are times I swear I'm through the looking glass. This is about the nuttiest article I've read in a long time courtesy of Getting Nothing But Static From MSM. Its got Venezuala conducting an excercise simulating attack by the United States, Venezuala's President (for life) Hugo Chavez fresh off his ban of Halloween as too Gringo musing aloud that he may sneak up behind President Bush and scare him at the Americas Summit, Cuba's Speaker of Parliament Ricardo Alarcon showing up even though Cuba wasn't invited since it isn't even a pretend democracy and claiming "even if they invited us, we would not have come" (note to organizers, next time invite the Cubans so they don't show up), and ignorant 30 year old students sporting a Che shirt and spouting off stupidity: "We are going to fight against all forms of imperialism," Zamora said, voicing complaints against free-market programs some here blame for enslaving poor Latin American countries. Note to Zamora, the problem with Latin America is your lousy governments which Latin America is itself responsible for.

But there was some meat to the article, namely that President Bush will continue to push for free trade and gathering support for the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas. Chavez, meanwhile, is trying to bribe as many neighbors as he can with Venezualan oil money to stay out. Note to Hugo - things didn't go well for the last dictator who spread his oil wealth around in an attempt to defy the United States.

A Start But In the Wrong Direction

I admit I was shocked to read this article in my paper today: only about 20 percent of Missouri's school districts spend 65% or more of their money on student instruction. Wow. And none in St. Louis County. Missouri spends 60.97 percent on student instruction, the national average is 61.34 percent.

I have to agree with the comments made in this article:

Rep. Ed Robb, R-Columbia, said with all the funding disparities examined by the Special Committee on Education Funding last year, the wide range between what districts spend in the classroom was eye opening.

“When you think that more than one-third out of every dollar is going to overhead, I don’t think you could run a business that way, and I don’t think you can run a school that way,” he said.

Of course, that isn't the end all and be all of educational reform. I'd prefer to use vouchers to create a market in education which would mean you wouldn't need that kind of state mandate. All this demand for uniformity and micro-management would be out the window, although I assume we'd still have the never ending funding disputes.

The Zombies Are Coming!

I couldn't resist the headline: FBI arrest Zombie pusher. 3 quick guesses as to what they mean - by zombie pusher - if the first two have to do with people turned into "zombies" like in The Serpent and the Rainbow or drug dealers, you still have one left. Actually it's a good news/bad news kind of thing. The FBI arrested and charged one Jeanson James Ancheta for taking over computers and forming a "zombie network" that he used to install adware and send spam. He may have made roughly $60,000 but made the mistake of taking over Defense Department computers. So now he faces up to 50 years in jail (hanging's too good). That's the good news. The bad news is that "'Zombie botnets are a growing security problem". That sure doesn't sound good. So can we go to Internet 2.0 with security designed in from the start? Please?

Physics and Heavenly Bodies

Speaking of good work if you can get it:

To best support breasts, a designer has to understand how they move. To that end, McGhee's team in Australia, headed by biomechanist Julie Steele, tags women with light-emitting diodes and asks them to run on treadmills. (The women run with and without bras, so the laboratory doors are bolted to prevent uninvited people from bursting in.) Computer systems then track the breasts' motions in three dimensions by following the moving lights. "We can actually work out exactly where they're going, how they're moving, and how this movement is affected by bras," Steele says. Breasts move in a sinusoidal pattern, Steele has found, and they move a lot. Small breasts can move more than three inches vertically during a jog, and large breasts sometimes leave their bras entirely. "We have videos of women who, particularly if the cup is too low, spill all over the top," Steele says.

Too bad Victoria's Secret wasn't hiring engineers back when I got out of college!

If you can get past the snicker factor, it really is an interesting article on the physics of bras, at least for me as it combines two of my favorite subjects.

But there is a more controversial part to the article

Evolutionary biologists aren't sure why breasts evolved as they did—chimpanzees and other mammals develop them only when lactating—and no one knows what keeps them from sagging.

I'm sure the Intellegent Design people will be all over this to show female breasts prove that there really is a God. I'm waiting for the evolutionists to counter claim that women were once endowed with something even more delightful but they changed into breasts and that's why it only appears as if there is no point to them from an evolutionary point of view.

Kevin Explains MoDo

Maureen Dowd is making news again, this time for an excerpt from her new book: Are Men Necessary: When Sexes Collide. I'm proud of myself, because I noticed long ago not only had Maureen asked this question, but she answered it (hint: when it comes to the necessity of men, she's the David Spade of the Capitol One ads). Matt Yglesias, modern lefty to the core, can't recognize hate when it comes from the left or is directed at the right group. Ezra Klein, modern lefty to the core, is similarly perplexed, even while he provides evidence from Playboy to rebut her assertion that men only love stupid, spineless Barby dolls.

Let me explain the point of 99% of MoDo's writing: She hates men. It really is that simple. She hates them for not loving her, for what they've done to her and all other women. She isn't blaming feminism, she's blaming men for the failure of feminism. In MoDo-land, it's men who hold the upper hand because they force women to conform to their ideal before they have a long term relationship with them. What a shock then that she can't find a man.

Snack

It's not Friday, but I'm even more busy than usual so here come your links.

Tom McMahon recounts a funny joke of the French kind which I'm going to be sure to tell my daughter. She already loves my wacky pronounciation of ill-informed attempts to translate English words into French.

Steve Verdon looks at Simpson's Paradox. I thought at first he was examining a new twist on Zeno's paradox, namely that month after month every magazine in the checkout lane at the supermarket proclaims that Jessica and Nick are divorcing, but somehow they never actually divorce. The other night I happened to notice that one magazine cover had Nick begging Jessica not to leave him, while the one next to it had Nick serving Jessica with divorce papers personally. But as intriguing as that paradox is, that isn't what Steve was referring to, but one that is even more of a head scratcher: the reversal of trends from several separate groups when combined into one larger group.

When my son asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I said an iPod. He and my daugther both laughed. I have Ciocco envy.

Law Reform

My biggest complaint with the civil justice system isn't the system itself, but us. You know, Americans. We're the ones who have adopted the idea that anything, and I mean anything can be litigated. Everything is open for review by fifteen strangers: twelve people of the street, two paid advocates, and a judge. There is no aspect of human interaction - business, personal, intimate, property - that can't be hauled into a court at a later date for a do over. You may be thinking great, we need more oversight. But there is a penalty for all this, both in terms of direct costs paid to the practitioners and the opportunity costs in changed behavior. And our civil system doesn't even protend to be speedly like our criminal system. Cases can drag on for years, which means that not only is everything subject to review, but it can be years before anything is final. That surely has to be a big drag on invention, risk taking, and business in general.

Another facet of the problem is that when you have breakthroughs in technology or science, everyone benefits. When you have breakthroughs in finance, everyone benefits as improved financial helps new ventures get financed. These breakthroughs are driven by the quality and number of people involved in these fields. But when it comes to law, it seems that breakthroughs there only benefit lawyers, which only increases the attraction to a field that is way over represented and talented in America. The explosion in class action lawsuits hasn't done a thing for the average person -- if anything it's hurt them overall, but it sure has made a bunch of lawyers wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice.

It used to be that farsighted rulers would periodically reform the legal code (Hammurabi was the first recorded). I know the legislatures across the land are too busy with far more sexy and immediate stuff, but I think we're getting to the point that we really need to consider the kind of top to bottom overhaul to rein in the reach of lawsuits and combine it with a wholesale pruning of government regulation. But that won't happen until we demand it. Just having a "business friendly" Supreme Court Justice doesn't cut it.