# Posted 11:17 PM by David Adesnik  

KENNEDY ON ALITO c.1990 VS. KENNEDY ON ALITO c.2005: The following quotes are from separate front page stories in Tuesday morning's WaPo. First:

On April 5, 1990, four days after Samuel A. Alito Jr. celebrated his 40th birthday, he enjoyed a cakewalk of a hearing on his nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals. The Senate Judiciary Committee asked Alito only four questions -- just one more than its chairman, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), asked Alito's 4-year-old son, Philip.

Perhaps the good senator's memory is fading after almost 42 years in the Senate. Yesterday his tone was markedly different:

"The far right has now forced the president to choose a nominee that they think has views as extreme as their own," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

Well, I hope Kennedy has the good sense to cast the same vote on this extremist's nomination that he did in 1990.

By the way, I find it rather amusing how the Post unintentionally advertised the way that Kennedy has talked out of both sides of his mouth re: Alito. It just goes to show that the media is not a liberal conspiracy -- since a conspiracy would demand quite a bit more self-awareness. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:02 PM by Patrick Belton  

END OF THE BROADCAST DAY: Signing off for the night, broadcast day resumes at 5 am. Shipping forecast is q windy everywhere. Over to the OxBlog world service now. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:29 PM by Patrick Belton  

MICHIKO KAKUTANI REVIEWS BANVILLE'S BOOKER WINNER: She doesn't pull many stops in her praise: 'stilted, claustrophobic and numbingly pretentious,' 'chilly, dessicated and pompously written.' Actually, one starts to suspect she didn't like it. Actually, one starts to suspect she doesn't like most books, or perhaps books in general. We'll be reviewing it in this space, incidentally, as his publicist is kindly sending us a copy; Rushdie's latest, also. (Kakutani is a Pulitzer prize winning Yalie, incidentally, and single. But she doesn't like Banville, so it never would have worked.)

Vonnegut, auguring or perhaps just limning the New York Times's book critic: 'any reviewer who expresses rage or loathing for a novel is ... like a person who has just put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae or banana split.' (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:13 PM by Patrick Belton  

FIRST WE TAKE MANHATTAN, THEN WE TAKE THE WORLD WATCH: Alito if confirmed to be the fifth Catholic on the current Court. We just let the Jews (Bonesmen, Freemasons) think they run the world. Cunning, us jesuitical papists.

No, this is not an endorsement.

FOOTNOTE: Leonard Cohen, Antwerp, 17/04/88: 'It's a curious song. I used to know what it means but I don't remember what it means anymore. ... I think I intended to take Manhattan and then Berlin.' (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:26 PM by Patrick Belton  

THE NYT IS BRILLIANT WATCH: The headline, 'Michelin Awards 4 Stars to 4 N.Y. Restaurants'
The lead sentence: 'Michelin on Tuesday awarded four New York restaurants its coveted three-star rating in its inaugural restaurant and hotel guide to New York City.' (Ital. added.)
The question: really, we've caught you out at last. No one proofs this stuff, do they?

UPDATE: I suppose we do. They've gone and changed it. Now where's the fun in that? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:12 PM by Patrick Belton  

CONFUSED, BUT IT'S QUITE ALL RIGHT, I'M THAT WAY A GREAT DEAL, WATCH. Usually it's to do with consumption of alcohol; see following. But is it just me or is the current romantic art blogad on Glenn's site ... erm, a female presidential candidate?
I suppose now we simply have a small indicator of just how deeply President Bush has alienated the blogosphere. Does the right honourable Senator from New York have a position though on puppies and blenders? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:50 AM by Patrick Belton  

FESTUM OMNIUM SANCTORUM: In Spain, the performance today is traditional of Don Juan Tenorio, who was not a saint but had an awfully good time not being one. The day's hymn in the Catholic and Anglican churches, For All the Saints, is generally sung to the foot-tapping tune of Ralph Vaughan Williams, OM. The words, though, are those of public transport-taking suffragan Bishop of London William Walsham How (formerly of Wadham), who frequented the dockland slums and was in fact thought something of a saint there. (Given the Nelson anniversary, we could even note a Nelson connection: How's lyrics were first published in the Hymns for Saints' Days, and other Hymns (1864) by Thomas Nelson, nephew of the swashbuckler who in the peerage became Earl Nelson upon the first incumbent's death.) The personal connection: it was my school song, and I quite like it in spite of the fact I've never quite been accused of being a saint, and I once dated a How, though as a gentleman I will take to my grave whether she was or was not a saint. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:14 AM by Patrick Belton  

RITTER V. RITTER. Actually, I've often thought that by frequently disagreeing with myself I could become a one-person opinion industry. Riches, girls Tim Blair. Oh well. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:01 AM by Patrick Belton  

MY GOD, THEY'RE EVERYWHERE WATCH: This just in from OxBlog's Samhain and Scottish stuff correspondent Alex Massie,

Patrick,

Splendid stuff, as always.

You probably know that in plenty of the old Scottish fairy tales the fairies are far from the kindly, cute, little things popularly imagined today. On the contrary, they are malevolent, troublesome, vindictive creatures best avoided. [We call them yobs - pb]

Tonight they appear from that crack in time you refer to at Carterhaugh, the narrow plain at the confluence of the Ettrick and Yarrow rivers, just outside Selkirk in the Scottish Borders where they will dance for the Fairy Queen herself. (Caterhaugh is half a mile down the hill from where I grew up and does, at night, have an oddly eery feel to it. so I declare an interest here.)

She's a tough mistress as the final verses from the ballad of Tam Lin (as collected in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border by Sir Walter Scott - a must read, incidentally) make clear. Janet has returned to Caterhaugh to wait for her lover Tam Lin to reappear. The Queen is not amused:

52. Up then spake the Queen o Fairies,
Out o a bush o broom:
She that has borrowd young Tamlane
Has gotten a stately groom.,

53. Up then spake the Queen o Fairies,
Out o a bush o rye :
She's taen awa the bonniest knight
In a' my cumpanie.

54. But had I kennd, Tamlane,' she says,
A lady wad borrowd thee
I wad taen out thy twa grey een,
Put in twa een o tree.

55. Had I but kennd, Tamlane,' she says,
Before ye came frae hame,
I wad taen out your heart o flesh,
Put in a heart o stane.

56. Had I but had the wit yestreen
That I hae coft the day,
I'd paid my kane seven times to bell
Ere you'd been won away.'

Whole thing here:

http://www.tam-lin.org/versions/39I.html

Anyway, trust all is well with you and that you enjoy yourself this evening.

yours aye

Alex Massie

Many thanks Alex, tapadh leat! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:19 AM by Patrick Belton  

HOW BRITISH IS OXBLOG? Fortunately, now there's a test to see.

(Procrastinatory addendum because there's a bit more coffee left: Question four brings up the interesting point that by the usual standard - enfranchisement of both sexes with ability to stand for office, no racial bar from the vote - Britain becomes the world's first democracy at national level in 1918. Among dominions and provinces, the Pitcairn Islands get there in terms of women's suffrage in 1838, South Australia in a somewhat restricted fashion in 1861, and New Zealand in 1893 in terms of voting rights but not the ability to stand; then once more, South Australia with universal suffrage and the right to stand for parliament in 1894. New Jersey briefly extends women the franchise from 1776 until 1807, somewhat accidentally at first because of a drafting error and then formally from 1790. Coffee gone.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:14 PM by David Adesnik  

MEA CULPAS ARE OVERRATED: Yesterday morning, Tim Russert brought together three former chiefs of staff to hash out the implications of Scooter Libby's indictment. The firm consensus among all three -- two Democrats and one Republican -- is that presidents should admit their mistakes before aggressive journalists expose them as liars.

I disagree. Not on ethical grounds of course. I think presidents should tell the truth, sooner rather than later. But I'm not sure whether doing so is all that smart. The problem here is that both Democrats and Republicans have an incentive to draw the wrong lessons from history.

Democrats would clearly relish an immediate admission of wrong-doing from Rove and/or Bush without having to pull it out of him. But the real lesson of the Lewinsky episode -- GOP denials to the contrary -- is that Americans may enjoy raking their president over the coals because of an errant blowjob, but they will also forgive him because loose lips don't sink ships when they belong to Monica Lewinsky.

Certain Republicans have an incentive to overvalue mea culpas because they want to believe that Reagan eventually decided to tell the truth to the American public, rather than persisting in his delusions of innocence. This was certainly the line taken on Meet the Press by Reagan chief of staff Ken Duberstein. Tim Russert and his Democratic guests all agreed, because I think they're hoping for a Bush confession. (To my surprise, Reagan's foremost biographer has taken this position as well.)

But in spite of his semi-confession that he traded arms for hostages (which was only one of the issues at stake in Iran-Contra), Reagan and his associates proved to be extraordinarily uncooperative when it came to revealing the truth. But Reagan's breakthroughs in his negotiations with Gorbachev were so dramatic that he was able to leave office as a champion.

So my cynical advice for Bush is this: Win the war in Iraq. History will only rememeber Scootergate if America fails in Baghdad. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:44 PM by David Adesnik  

OXBLOG JOINS THE PODOSPHERE: I didn't just get an iPod. I got the brand-spanking new video iPod.

If I had been footing the bill myself, I might have lacked the courage to invest in this glorious bit of technological virtuousity. But thanks to my general incompetence as a retail shopper, I never cashed in the "good for one iPod" promise that my father made to me last Chanukah.

Until now. Why? Because one of the very few down sides associated with my new job is the almost hour-long commute. Since I really don't like reading in motion, I knew that the time had come to take the iPod plunge.

Yes, iPod a little too trendy, a little too been-there-done-that. But who gives a sh**? The only thing more conformist than buying something because it's trendy is refusing to buy something because its trendy.

The bottom line is that iPod has transformed the two lost hours of my every day into a chance to catch up on news and politics. But what I really should be talking about is iPod video, since everyone already knows what a plain vanilla iPod can do.

The screen may be just 2.5 inches wide, but the images are crystal clear and when you hold the iPod in your hand, 2.5 inches provides plenty of detail and clarity.

The real question is content. I have no interest in either music videos or network dramas -- although Apple has once again demonstrated its business savvy by focusing on entertainment content first. In just over two weeks, customers have downloaded over one million videos from the iTunes store.

But what I want is free content from the mainstream media of the kind that is so common for audio-only podcasts. The good news is that the WaPo has already stepped up to the plate. Click here to view five samples of what the Post has to offer.

The clear winner among the five samples is the two-minute clip of baby panda Tai Shan getting a check up at the zoo. With its help, I have elicited a chorus of oohs and aahs from my female colleagues at work. (The guys are impressed with the technology alone.)

I also recommend the WaPo vid-pod on the upcoming election in Azerbaijan.

In general, I am optimistic that ABC, NBC, CBS etc. will all step up to the plate and provide video content for the iPod. There is already so much free streaming video available on their websites that content itself isn't an issue. It's just a matter of presenting it in an iPod friendly format.

In conclusion, all I can say is "Thank you, Steve Jobs." (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:31 PM by David Adesnik  

WHAT IS "ACTIVE LIBERTY"? According to a profile of Stephen Breyer in this week's New Yorker, it is the good Justice's "manifesto for a progressive revival on the Supreme Court". It is a doctrine that hopes to provides progressives with the same intellectual heft as the originalism of legal conservatives.

So what is "active liberty"? Heck if I know. Jeffrey Toobin, author of the Breyer profile, suggests that the doctrine itself may not have a solid core. Nonetheless, Toobin is clearly smitten with Breyer, whom he celebrates for sharing the ultimate liberal character flaw: being too good and kind to recognize that Republicans aren't.

I'm guessing Toobin's right that Breyer really is quite a mensch. Thus, I just might be willing to give his book on active liberty a chance. Mercifully, Breyer has avoided the penultimate liberal character of excess verbosity. His book is just 176 pages long. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:32 PM by Patrick Belton  

AN IMPORTANT CUSTOMER SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Oíche Shamhna shámh, agus Athbhlian faoi mhaise!

In traditional Ireland, Samhain was the harvest festival marking the end of one year and beginning of the next. The two years wouldn't fully align, though, so for a short bit, time would quite literally be out of joint (thus the Celtic origins of the phrase from Macbeth.) Thus faries would get lost, wander up around the world of men, and generally not know what they were about - so if you were kindly enough, you'd dress yourself up like a fairy and go about, so when they ran into you, they'd run straightaways back to the fairy world, and a big fright on them. Hence the original custom, which we here at OxBlog have always found much nicer than its contemporary descendant. So a very happy maith Oíche Shamhna ort, from OxBlog.

HORRIDLY INCONVENIENT REPORTERS UPDATE: Jeff Landaw from the Baltimore Sun kindly points out this oddly seems to be in Hamlet as well. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:12 AM by Patrick Belton  

THIS BLOG'S OCCASIONALLY BEEN HARD ON HER. But hey, she's a hottie and she's Irish. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:25 AM by Patrick Belton  

DEARBORN HIGH FOOTBALL SQUAD: At least during Ramadan, they play hungry. They win, too. Personally, I think they should make something of a motto out of it.

(It's a lovely town, incidentally; and the food, when one can eat it, is superb - the best in the Midwest. I've written from there here on OxBlog and here in print.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:55 PM by David Adesnik  

POWER LUNCH, ROMANTIC DINNER: If you ever want to impress a beautiful and intelligent woman in Washington, take her to dinner at 1789. That is what I wanted, so I made a reservation there for my girlfriend and myself this past Friday night.

The food and the service are superb. Yet what endows 1789 with its atmosphere of romance and intimacy is its location in a converted townhouse on a quiet block in Georgetown. Instead of the single large hall that most restaurants provide, 1789 consists of a array of small dining spaces, each one carved out of a room or two in the old townhouse.

In addition, the understated 19th century decor and the jacket-and-tie dress code make you feel as if you have stepped back in time to a more civilized era. (Yes, I know that the average American in the 19th century lived a life of much greater hardship than his 21st century counterpart. But nostalgia is a wonderful sort of romance.)

Given what a romantic sort of place 1789 is, I have been surprised to learn that it is also a hangout for the Washington power elite. In fact, the hostess who seated us mentioned that Donald Rumsfeld had just finished having dinner. At first, I figured that the SecDef must have been celebrating an anniversary or something. Then, while reading Jeffrey Goldberg's profile of Brent Scowcroft in the New Yorker, I noticed with interest that Brent and Condi had a falling out just a few years ago over dinner at -- you guessed it -- 1789.

So, if your willing to take the risk that some members of the cabinet will distract your sweetheart, then there is no better place for a romantic dinner than 1789. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:16 PM by David Adesnik  

SCOWCROFT, TAKE TWO: All right, I'm back. I've read Jeffrey Goldberg's profile of Brent Scowcroft in the New Yorker and found it to be worth the while. Although focused on Scowcroft, it would be more informative to describe Goldberg's article as a fair-minded primer on the divide between realists and idealists within the GOP foreign policy establishment.

The article begins by using Scowcroft's record to demonstrate what realism has to offer. In 1991, Scowcroft opposed taking out Saddam, whereas Wolfowitz wanted to March on Baghdad. In 2002, Scowcroft went public in the WSJ with his opposition to invading Iraq. Thus realism is supposedly the doctrine that prevents the United States from entangling itself in dangerous and expensive occupations.

But at what cost? As most pundits would, Goldberg asks whether the self-consciously amoral approach to diplomacy that motivated Scowcroft to oppose regime change is a doctrine that Americans could ever apply with a clear conscience. Scowcroft is basically unapologetic about the first Bush administration's uncaring response to the slaughter in Bosnia. However, one could write that off as simply Scowcroft's defense of his own record.

In contrast, what interest could Scowcroft possibly have in defending the Clinton administration for its pathetic response to the genocide in Rwanda? If Scowcroft were less sincere, he might have mitigated the charge of amorality by saying that when confronted with definite evidence of genocide, even realists believe in intervention. But no:

"A terrible situation -- just tragic," Scowcroft said of Rwanda. "But, before you intervene, you have to ask yourself, 'If I go in, how do I get out? And you have to ask questions about the national interest."

Although Goldberg lets Richard Holbrooke respond to this remark by asserting that "support for American values is part of our national-security interests", Goldberg's article as a whole fails to develop this point, which is absolutely critical to the idealist worldview.

Instead, Goldberg slips into a realist framework in which one confronts a clear choice between ideals and interests. It may have been right for the United States to defend human rights Bosnia and Rwanda, but what do we have to gain from it?

Simply framing the question in this way gives away half the debate. Even if one grants, for the sake of argument, that the occupations of Germany and Japan in no way justify the occupation of Iraq, it is still absolutely critical to point out that the transformation of Germany and Japan from militarist empires into liberal democracies was absolutely critical to the United States' victory in the Cold War.

Often, committed realists often seem to forget their visceral opposition to the democratization of Japan on the grounds both that America had no right to dictate the Japanese form of government and that the Japanese people weren't ready for democracy. (With regard to Germany, the realists put up less of a fight.)

These days, critics of our nation-building project in Iraq, realists included, argue that we should've known it was going to fail because unlike Japan, Iraq is not ethnically unified and was not an advanced industrial nation before the war. But were there any realists who appreciated these underlying realities and therefore supported the democratization of Japan? Not as far as I know.

Whenever there is a country that may have a chance to cross the democratic threshold with American assistance, there will always be realists there to tell us that the people of that country aren't "ready". Because rather than a commitment to seeing reality as it is, realism is a commitment to a view of human nature that considers freedom to be less important than stability.

Scowcroft, at least, is candid about this fact. He tells Goldberg that

"This notion that inside every human being is the burning desire for freedom and liberty, much less democracy, is probably not the case...some people don't really want to be free."

It would be nice if Scowcroft would tell us precisely which people these are, since it would surely prevent us from ever occupying their homelands in the name of democracy promotion. I'm guessing that before March 2003, the good general would've have listed the purple-fingered people of Iraq as those who were least likely to be "ready" for democracy.

In fact, a marked blindness to this universal desire for freedom actually led to one of the most significant mistakes of Scowcroft's tenure in the Bush 41 White House. During the first Gulf War, President Bush encouraged the people of Iraq to "take matters into [their] own hands." The result was a massive Shi'ite-Kurdish uprising that Saddam brutally repressed. These uprisings caught Scowcroft totally unprepared. As Goldberg points out, Scowcroft and Bush 41 later wrote that

It is true that we hoped Saddam would be toppled. But we never that that could be done by anyone outside the military and never tried to incite the general population. It is stretching the point to imagine that a routine speech in Washington would have gotten to the Iraqi malcontents and have been the motivation for the subsequent actions of the Shiites and Kurds."

After reading that quote, I was ready for Goldberg to deliver the knockout punch. Wasn't he about to write that Bush & Scowcrofts ignorance provides a powerful demonstration of the costs of being ignorant of the human desire for freedom? Who knows -- with minimal American support those Shiite and Kurdish uprisings might have accomplished exactly what American soldiers are now attempting to accomplish with their own blood. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:11 PM by David Adesnik  

IRANIAN GOVERNMENT TO WIPE ISRAEL TEHERAN STOCK EXCHANGE OFF THE MAP: Joe Gandelman describes Pres. Ahmadinejad's novel approach to market jitters. I'm beginning to wonder: Is Ahmadinejad exactly the kind of incompetent dictator who paves the way for a democratic revolution? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:27 PM by David Adesnik  

SCOWCROFT, TAKE ONE: Inside the Beltway, Brent Scowcroft's nasty remarks about this President Bush have been big news. Unfortunately, the New Yorker has refused to post on its website the article by Jeffrey Goldberg in which Scowcroft goes for the jugular.

Thankfully, my girlfriend came down from NYC to visit me this weekend and brought me a copy of the magazine. In theory, I could have purchased it at a newsstand, but I refuse to pay newsstand prices. Anyhow, I will now depart briefly from the blogosphere in order to read the general's remarks. In the meantime, I recommend Jim Taranto's response to Scowcroft, posted on Tuesday:

War is Peace

The Washington Post reports on a New Yorker interview with Brent Scowcroft, who served as national security adviser in the Ford and Bush père White Houses:

Scowcroft, in his interview, discussed an argument over Iraq he had two years ago with Condoleezza Rice, then-national security adviser and current secretary of state. "She says we're going to democratize Iraq, and I said, 'Condi, you're not going to democratize Iraq,' and she said, 'You know, you're just stuck in the old days,' and she comes back to this thing that we've tolerated an autocratic Middle East for fifty years and so on and so forth," he said. The article stated that with a "barely perceptible note of satisfaction," Scowcroft added: "But we've had fifty years of peace."

Now let's see. Between 1953 and 2003, here are the Mideast wars we can think of off the top of our head: the Six Day War, the Yom Kippur War, the Iran-Iraq War, the Gulf War, the two Palestinian intifadas against Israel, the Algerian Civil War, the Yemen Civil War and two Sudanese civil wars. That doesn't even count acts of terror against non-Mideastern countries, from the Iranian invasion of the U.S. Embassy to the attacks of 9/11.

What do you call someone who describes this as "50 years of peace"? A "realist."

Heh. And let me just add two wars that Jim forgot: The Anglo-French-Israeli invasion of Suez in 1956 and the Lebanese civl war/Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the early 80s. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:07 PM by David Adesnik  

IS MY NEIGHBORHOOD FULL OF DRUNKEN, VIOLENT JEWS? In addition to myself, that is. Recently, while walking by the Tivoli Theatre, I noticed that an empty liquor bottle had been smashed to shards against one of the pillars on the theater's 14th St. facade.

I can't say I was all that surprised, since Columbia Heights isn't exactly Park Avenue. But then I took a closer look at the broken bottle. Its label read "Manischewitz". I guess when people describe this neighborhood as still being somewhat ghetto, what they have in mind isn't Harlem or Compton, but rather Warsaw. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:03 PM by David Adesnik  

COMMENTS ON COMMENTS: I am much obliged to all of you who have taken the time to share your thoughts on the subject of whether OxBlog should have comments. So far, the best description of your thoughts on the subject is 'cautious'. Alongside a few readers who are either firmly pro or firmly con, there is a majority that appreciates the potential benefits of a comments section while expressing serious reservations about the potential of even a limited number of trolls to destroy any hope for civility. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:48 PM by Patrick Belton  

WHEREIN AA GILL ANNOUNCES HE ISN'T ENGLISH: In the Times, which is of course the appropriate place for any English person to announce they aren't English. Well done.

This anger is also the source of England’s most admirable achievement — their heroic self-control. It’s the daily struggle of not giving in to their natural inclination to run amok with a cricket bat.

It's why they can't dance.

It’s not in the games that the English excel, it’s in making the rules that govern them, and the committees that oversee those rules. It’s in controlling the consequences of unbridled competitiveness. ... But of course, for the English, just getting off the pitch without their opponent’s ear in their pocket is a personal victory over their natural national inclination.

I suppose you might call it wit, and the definition of wit is a joke that doesn’t make you laugh.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:49 PM by Patrick Belton  

THE REAL REASON we want to see democratisation in the Middle East. (Note: OxBlog's also quite up for democratisation in Russia and Pakistan. Oh, and Cuba. Definitely Cuba.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:38 PM by Patrick Belton  

I WISH BRUCE REED WOULD STOP BEING WITTIER THAN US WATCH: 'It's a sure sign of how far the Bush White House has fallen that it's considered a good day when only one top aide gets a criminal indictment. Soon they'll be breaking glass and pulling out the last, desperate spin: Better than Nixon.' Also: 'Give Harriet Miers credit...she could proofread the writing on the wall.' (Extra credit: if you haven't yet read his piece on hacks versus wonks, go do it now....) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:33 PM by Patrick Belton  

HAVING YOUR COBLOGGER QUOTED IN FRENCH IN A BLOG on the Le Monde site: cool. Being called 'Oxbow': well, I suppose, also cool, provided it comes along with sufficient café crème, or say, boeuf bourguignon, or sweet crêpes. Think I'm going to go look for some food now... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:56 PM by Patrick Belton  

NOT THAT ONE GETS HOMESICK EVER, Switzerland being a lovely, wonderful place with brilliant chocolate, friendly cows, and where you can get gobs of writing done. But of a Sunday evening, I just felt like strolling down Grafton Street, and through WC1. Thanks to google local, I could. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:54 AM by Patrick Belton  

PROFILES IN COURAGE, AND ITS OPPOSITE:

British Defence Secretary John Reid: 'It is in contradiction to everything that the United Nations stands for.'

The Prime Minister: 'I have never come across a situation where the president of a country says they want to wipe out another country. This is not acceptable.' ... 'real sense of revulsion' ... 'a real threat to our world security and stability.'

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, Sunday: "I don't believe they [sanctions against Iran] are on the agenda now. At least, we are not considering them now.' ... 'premature' ... 'We are considering ... very strong political and diplomatic pressure.'

via CNN, Indy, and Times (which also features Juan Cole calling Bush and Ahmadinejad political 'soulmates'. Erm, right. Was it Wednesday when he called for the destruction of Canada?) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:16 AM by Patrick Belton  

OH, IS THAT ALL: Headline off the AP wire, Israelis, Palestinians to Stop Fighting. (Also includes a sad report of the apparent penetration of Gaza by Al Qa'eda operatives in the fluidity immediately after the Israeli withdrawal.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:34 AM by Patrick Belton  

IEVA LESINSKA has a conversation with Harold Bloom about wisdom literature, the art of reading and Hamlet who attempts to rewrite the play he is in.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:06 AM by Patrick Belton  

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF THERE WERE TWO PATRICKS ON OXBLOG? Would the world simply come to an end? Would OxBlog cease to exist because of our alcoholic punditocracies? Well, there's only one way to find out, but there's no danger in telling us apart when we welcome this corpulent Aussie on as a guest blogger in a few weeks, once he's punched the 'submit' button on his thesis - he's the one who'll have already finished his d.phil., to move on instantly to fame, riches, and girls (in his case, marriage - which I'll be live-blogging from New York in December.). So c'mon over, mate, we'll have the porter on tap for ye! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:49 AM by Patrick Belton  

PERHAPS NO ONE IS A HERO TO THEIR VALET, but Churchill came off pretty well to his bodyguard. In a biography just published from Walter Thompson's unpublished diaries, 'an unmistakable and living character breaks surface: irascible, impish, brave, with a child's curiosity and swift change of mood, unsullied by lasting spite or temper. No man could fake the lack of side and spin and the generosity of spirit. Not, at least, to his bodyguard.' (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:28 PM by Patrick Belton  

NAKED MORNINGTON CRESCENT: Coming to OxBlog as soon as we can find enough readers who have mastered all the rules. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:15 PM by Patrick Belton  

MAIL BAG - BRITS AND THE HOLOCAUST: Reader Paul Hurley obligingly sends this in further to the ministre des Affaires étrangères-gate story below.

Besides the few English Jews deported to Auschwitz from the Channel Islands, there may have been members of the UK armed forces or merchant marine who were captured by German forces, ascertained to be Jewish, and then sent off to Auschwitz (or other death camps) and oblivion.

At least one possible instance is documented in a 1954 book about a British senior NCO, Sergeant-Major Charles Coward, one who was captured by the Germans (during the battle of France, May 1940), and later came to be in charge of a detachment of other captured British troops, assigned to a POW work camp immediately adjacent to Auschwitz.

The book's title is The Password is Courage; it later was made into a movie starring Dirk Bogarde (1962; haven't seen the movie in its entirety so don't know if it covers the following episode from the book or not).

The captured British troops were frequent observers of Jewish "detainee" work groups and often worked in close proximity to them. One day, one of these Jews managed to slip the NCO a note (in English) from a captured British national.

The note said the writer was a captured "naval" doctor but did not give a name or location (also, as I recall it was unclear if he was Royal Navy or a civilian doctor from a sunken merchant vessel).

The captured British troops were trusted by their German supervisors and had fairly minimal supervision, so the senior NCO disguised himself as an inmate and slipped into the death camp to try to find the doctor. However, he had no location in which to search and it was hopeless; he was lucky to get back out again to his own compound.

I think he later was called before a war crimes tribunal (Nuremburg?) to give testimony about what he saw, in particular during this one episode when he actually spent the night in one of the death camp barracks.

A hair-raising story when I first read it in my youth. Had a used paperback copy which I gave away to a college professor years ago, so unfortunately I do not have a copy handy now to check my recollection.

His story may seem almost unbelievable now to someone who has never heard of it, but I believe it is well documented. The book is certainly still available.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:58 PM by Patrick Belton  

THE SELFISH ROMAN CATHOLIC GENE: Thomas Bouchard finds that identical twins raised separately tend to move toward similar levels of religious observance, even when one is raised in a religious home and the other is not. Also, more on the mind-body problem from Searle, who by naming a Chinese restaurant after one could attract a very densely specified clientele. (As advertised on late-night telly in selected markets: have a rich mental life while living in a physical universe, try new and improved dualism today!) (ed: can something be both new and improved? yes. that's called new-improved dualism.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:51 AM by Patrick Belton  

BUZZED: The Conspirators think it'll be Alito. They should know; they're lawyers. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:38 AM by Patrick Belton  

INDIA CORNER; OR, CURRYING FAVOUR: OxBuddies and general nice people both, Priyanjali Malik and Rahul Rao each have pieces on India in the most recent Oxonian Review, Priyanjali's on the history of Indian security thought and Rahul's on pomo anarchism Bangalore-style. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:17 AM by Patrick Belton  

BEST SLATE FEATURE: 'How to pronounce it', inaugurated before but revived for Federal Reserve appointee Ben Bernanke - whose name, we're told, is sounded "ber-NAN-kee." (They also helpfully provide a recording, before asking 'got other names in the news you'd like to have pronounced for you?') But where was Slate when General Shalikashvili was serving as Joint Chief of Staff?

Milking or doing whatever one does to a dead horse, Congress has a Faleomavaega, a Frelinghuysen, a Tiahrt and a Blumenauer, as well as a number whose names are funny but perhaps not strictly speaking difficult to pronounce; Parliament, where the names are odder, contains an Afriyie, an Öpik, a Llwyd who comes from a vowel-deprived bit of Wales and a John Baron who will presumably never become a life peer.

Got a name you'd like made fun of here for you? Send it in! OxBlog, raising the standards of public debate since 2002. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:04 AM by Patrick Belton  

AT THE MOVIES: The Times is blogging the London Film Festival. (And who says they're old media!) Meanwhile, the Emigrant (for which I occasionally write) has a new issue out of Books Ireland. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:50 AM by Patrick Belton  

TURKISH EU MEMBERSHIP QUOTE OF THE DAY: From the Economist, p. 18, and an article on product placement: Germany's public broadcaster, for instance, has been accused of taking money from a group promoting Turkish membership of the EU. That must have been tough to write into the script (Maria: No, no, our love can never be! Klaus: Yes, yes, my heart! We are destined to be together, as surely as Turkey is bound to be one with the EU). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:39 AM by Patrick Belton  

THEY GOT THE WRONG ONE: He may well have broken the law. But purely from a political rather than juridical standpoint, is it just me or has the Plame Game process succeeded in removing one of the cleverer White House foreign policy hands, while leaving Karl Rove (and whoever was behind the Miers nomination) untouched? Good job there's not a war on, at least. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:33 AM by Patrick Belton  

THE FRENCH FOREIGN MINISTER visits Israel and with the best of intentions reveals he has no idea what went on in World War II. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:31 AM by Patrick Belton  

MY GERMAN FLATMATE thinks Chicago public radio's This American Life is the dictionary example of humour. And they say Germans aren't fun. You be the judge. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:41 PM by Patrick Belton  

ARTICLE DRAFTED, and I'm utterly knackered. Go read Kevin and Dan instead. And the WS draws the hidden Straussian-White Sox connection, because someone had to do it. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:28 AM by Patrick Belton  

NOTE TO SELF: Don't commit suicide by hanging from a tree around Halloween. You might be up there for a while. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:51 AM by Patrick Belton  

TAM DALYELL SUGGESTS that the only solution to the West Lothian question would be to have no more Scottish MPs at Westminster; something he opposes, thereby helping guarantee... Tam Dalyell can have a pleasant retirement as former Father of the House speaking about the West Lothian question. But is this really the case? Why couldn't this simply be resolved by a constitional convention that government would not advance measures to deal purely with English matters which would rely upon the votes of Scottish, Welsh and (after the resuscitation of Stormont) NI members to pass? It seems to me that would resolve the matter nicely. As a matter of politics rather than constitutional theory, of course, for it actually to be instated would require the interests of the proposing party at the hustings to outweigh the diminution in power the party would suffer because of the convention while in government; and that would require it to become an election issue in England, which to my knowledge it never has been. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:17 PM by David Adesnik  

SECOND ADMINISTRATIVE ANNOUCEMENT: Patrick and I have decided that OxBlog should have a comments section after each one of its posts, just like most of the other blogs you read. However, we would like to get your opinion on this subject before we make a final decision. Thus, we would very much appreciate it if during the next week you sent us your thoughts on whether OxBlog should have comments.

As we see it, comments provide readers both with the opportunity to respond to our posts in a public forum as well as the opportunity to engage fellow readers in discussion that otherwise would not have been possible. From our end, we appreciate the chance to get additional feedback on our work.

At the same time, we recognize that comment sections introduce a whole host of problems of their own. Above all, we recognize that a lot of posts wind up generating comments that consist of nothing more than partisan name-calling and personal attacks. But so far, I have been very impressed with the intellectual caliber of those readers who've gotten in touch with me via e-mail over the past three years, so I have a lot of confidence that an OxBlog comments section will be a very good thing.

But in order to help ensure that it is a very good thing, I would like to invite all of you to send in your ideas for how to ensure that our comments section becomes a forum for sophisticated, aggressive debates rather than sophomoric insults. My sense is that a set of informal guidelines for commenters would be best. For example, comparing anyone to Nazis is not a good way to foster discussion. Yes, such comparisons may be valid. But there are lots of other good ways to get one's point across.

So, I look forward to hearing your thoughts both about whether OxBlog should have comments and about how to make sure that the comments add value to this site instead of becoming a burden. In the meantime, Patrick and I will try to come up with some of our own ideas for how to make sure that having comments turns out to be a good thing.

Thanks,
David (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:56 PM by David Adesnik  

FIRST ADMINISTRATIVE ANNOUCEMENT: Just over a month from now, I will head back to Oxford to defend my dissertation. Although I didn't know the exact date of my defense until just recently, I did know that it was coming and thus began some months ago to look for post-graduation employment.

The good news is that I now have a job. The less good news is that I can't tell you anything about my job, otherwise I would have to kill you. Actually, I'm not doing anything terribly secret. However, my job does have to do with national security and I am indirectly working for the federal government, so a certain measure of discretion is called for.

Fortunately, I will be able to continue blogging. While requesting permission from my employer to blog, I made a commitment not to mention the name of my employer nor to address directly any projects on which my employer works, even if such information is available in the public domain.

In addition, I made a commitment to seriously consider how anything I write might affect my employer's relationship with the government, since at some point it is probable that my affiliation with my employer will become public knowledge. In plain English, that means that sometimes I may have to pull some punches when talking about the government.

Exactly what this will mean in practice I am not yet sure. However, my firm intention is not in anyway to publish anything that might mislead you about the nature of my opinion.

That said, I recognize that the restrictions mentioned above will limit my candor to a certain extent that OxBlog might be less interesting to read as a result. However, I hope you will continue to visit us for a while, so I have a chance to show you that I can still publish good material while at the same time respecting my employer's concerns. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:11 PM by Patrick Belton  

OVERHEARD THIS MORNING at the Alpine Institute for Advanced Study: 'I don't wake up in the morning and say, "I want to be an ideologue." I wake up in the morning and say, "I want to go back to sleep."' (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:02 PM by Patrick Belton  

NOT TRUE, ACTUALLY. Okay, that's annoying. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:16 PM by Patrick Belton  

SURE HE'S WEAK ON FOREIGN POLICY, BUT YOU SEE I VOTED FOR HIM BECAUSE OF DOMESTIC POLICY WATCH: Dan Drezner points out that Ahmadinejad is making a bullocks of things at home as well. Meanwhile, Downing Street, reading no doubt OxBlog, hints at whether the international community might be forced to consider forceful measures against Iran: ''If they carry on like this the question people will be asking us is — when are you going to do something about Iran? Can you imagine a state like that with an attitude like that having nuclear weapons?' (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:51 PM by Patrick Belton  

PLEASANT THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Brought to you by BBC and several rodents. 'The [British] beaver was hunted to extinction for its fur and the pain-relieving properties of its anal gland secretions.' We now have Bavarian, imported, beavers to take its place. Should you ever find yourself in pain, and near trees. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:59 PM by Patrick Belton  

EXTRA CREDIT READING: Belmont club (no relation) not only has a brilliant summary of the madness of Georgeous George the Perjurer, but also a blogbeat post with the memorable title 'Iraq the Model in Pajamas'. Well done. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:11 PM by Patrick Belton  

OXBLOG DOES EXPLAINER: Okay, I should be writing, but you guys are just too much fun to leave. So the Israeli prime minister has called for Iran's expulsion from the United Nations, or, to use the rhetoric of the moment, wiping Iran off the map of the General Assembly. (Does that also entail pushing Iran into the East River? - ed. Perhaps, but that sounds rather more difficult; plus there's always the danger of injuring Schrödinger's Cat, purported to be living on the Upper East Side).

Purely as a legal matter, can that be done? Apparently yes, though there isn't precedent within the current United Nations. (The closest is when in 1971 the General Assembly voted to change the government entitled to the Chinese seats in the General Assembly and Security Council from that based in Taipei to that in Beijing, but 'China' per se retained its U.N. membership.) The expulsion clause lies in Article 6, which provides the General Assembly with the ability to expel a state, if the Security Council has first recommended it do so (thus making the power vetoable by the P-5), and if the state has 'persistently violated' the principles contained in the Charter. The principles most explicitly associated with membership are mentioned in Article 4, i.e., being 'peace-loving,' (i.e., a strong case of 'like' doesn't cut it) as well as having the state capacity and intention to carry out obligations assumed under the Charter. The relevant sections, drawn from the Jesse Helms Handy-Dandy Pocket Guide to the UN Charter:

Article 4

1. Membership in the United Nations is open to all other peace-loving states [i.e., beyond signatories] which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter and, in the judgment of the Organization, are able and willing to carry out these obligations.

2. The admission of any such state to membership in the Nations will be effected by a decision of the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.

Article 5

A Member of the United Nations against which preventive or enforcement action has been taken by the Security Council may be suspended from the exercise of the rights and privileges of membership by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. The exercise of these rights and privileges may be restored by the Security Council.

Article 6

A Member of the United Nations which has persistently violated the Principles contained in the present Charter may be expelled from the Organization by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.

The closest you can get to this actually being done was within the UN's granddaddy, the League of Nations, which expelled the USSR on 14 December, 1939 upon appeal from Finland, after it rather unsportingly invaded Finland several weeks before (you can read the resolution here). This was, incidentally, the very last thing the League Council ever did. So I think the precedent is clear: the United Nations could indeed, if it so chose, vote to exclude Iran from membership. Particularly if Iran happens to invade Finland. In which case the Rockefeller family might get back some midtown riverfront property. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:04 PM by Patrick Belton  

HA HA! Angry Bear points out the obvious - replace Harriet Miers with Scooter Libby!

NEXT DAY UPDATE: Okay, possibly not. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:52 AM by Patrick Belton  

GONE WRITIN': Gone into hiding to bash out an article. Back tomorrow, with an article. Lots of bad jokes, too, if my very nice editor who is undoubtedly reading this lets me keep them. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:47 PM by Patrick Belton  

COST OF TAKING ACTION AGAINST IRAN: One or two hundred billion dollars.

Not letting this guy get hold of nuclear weapons: Priceless.

(UPDATE: Sometimes you have to say something fairly provocative to see whether Matt's still reading OxBlog....) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:17 PM by Patrick Belton  

PADDYWHACK REDUX: Reader Kyle helpfully writes in, 'No, sir, Mr. Belton. A paddywhack is a set of small shelves or cubbies, usually wall-mounted, for the storage and display of curios, souvenirs, and the like. Sometimes (redundantly) referred to as a “knick-knack paddywhack.”' Interesting concept, but mine's funnier. But thanks, though. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:47 PM by Patrick Belton  

WANT TO REALLY KNOW WHO WILL SUCCEED BUSH? Paddy Power's current top three: Hillary (11-4), Rudy (6-1), Condi (12-1). Combined odds the president's name will end with -y or -i: not sure how you add these things, but apparently high. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:43 PM by Patrick Belton  

WESTMINSTER WATCH: The Backbencher is delightfully bitchy these days. We want to stay on her good side. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:23 AM by Patrick Belton  

OODLES OF STUFF ON THE INTERNET BESIDES PORN, AND NO ONE EVEN KNOWS ABOUT IT: The Institute of Politics at the Cambridge Vocational Polytechnic and Trade School has put a number of truly excellent panel discusssions and guest lectures on to the internet in streaming video. With stuff this good now on the internet, the porn industry is seriously considering its position. (Q: Does one ever grow out of making fun of Harvard? A: Naah.)

Also, tonight at 6 EST the Council on Foreign Relations is webcasting Stephen Walt (a truly nice man), Nancy Soderberg (possibly nice but not a man) and Robert Merry (definitely a man but possibly more popular around Christmas) in a panel on the uses and consequences of American power. Well done; more of this, please. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:58 AM by Patrick Belton  

PADDYWHACKED. My contribution to the lexicon. A paddywhack is a googlewhack with a tangentially Irish theme. Example: alcoholic punditocracies. Christ, I'm procrastinating. Back to writing. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:19 PM by Patrick Belton  

KIMCHI AND BOOK GLUE: The Frankfurt book fair, a Roman German orgy of annual literary commerce, opened its doors last week to the theme of 'Korea' - note absence of directional modifier. The South Koreans came. The North Koreans didn't let their writers go; then said they would; and then they didn't show up. But lest you think the fair was totally devoid of authoritarian representation, the Iranians duly turned up. They're being investigated by the prosecutor's office now, for anti-semitic literature at their exhibition stalls. Q: What do you call the North Korean Olympic delegation? A: Asylum seekers (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:32 PM by Patrick Belton  

FERNS REPORT RELEASED: The long-awaited enquiry into sexual abuse against children in the Wexford diocese of Ferns by members of the Catholic clergy, an investigation led by retired Supreme Court judge Frank Murphy, has been presented to Government today. (c.f. RTE, Irish Times, Times) The report identifies over one hundred allegations, involving 21 priests, and concludes that the diocese's Bishops Herlihy and Comiskey systematically disregarded the interests of the community they served in order to protect priests at fault. The state comes in for criticism too, with the inquiry documenting gardaí lost witness statements and failed to pass cases to the DPP. Though the report is not being released on the internet, which strikes me as rather discreditable, Fine Gael MEP Avril Doyle (disclaimer: née Belton) and Wexford newspaper editor Ger Walsh discuss it here.

The Royal College of Surgeons released a study in 2003 of sexual abuse by clergy in Ireland, a subject which - especially under the guise of abuse of institutionalised youth by the Christian Brothers - has been at the forefront of the changing role, and declining privilege, of the church in Irish society. The Redemptorists have written thoughtfully and searchingly about this in their magazine Reality, here and here, and the Jesuits in their excellent magazine Studies, here. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:02 PM by Patrick Belton  

NOSTALGIA KICK - WHATEVER HAPPENED TO MISSILE DEFENCE? Um, it went the way of hula hoops and Beta videocasettes. (For sale on Craigs List DC: one half-functional missile defence system, never used, fixer-upper...) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:54 PM by Patrick Belton  

THE UN AT 60, YESTERDAY: Brookings take a look. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:45 PM by Patrick Belton  

TIMES WATCH: David Aaronovitch surveys how today's Guardian, BBC, and Mail on Sunday would have covered, once teleported back in time, a Herr Hitler trial in 1946 (with the defendent importantly being not dead, or at very least undead). Meanwhile, William Rees Mogg has a long memory. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:17 PM by Patrick Belton  

TERRY EASTLAND, IN THE WILSON QUARTERLY: 'Though most existing news organizations will probably survive, few if any are likely to enjoy the prestige and clout they once did.' (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:13 PM by Patrick Belton  

SYRIA WATCH: Bidisha Banerjee and crew review ways that nice Assad family down the street might be getting into a little trouble; rumours are whispered they may have to move soon, poor things. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:01 PM by Patrick Belton  

TNR DEBUTS A NEW BLOG: A number of posts up on the Plame game, namely, who was the source for the Cheney-Libby story in the NYT today, Scooter's career as a novelist, and George Will's vivisection of Republicans supporting Miers. Warm welcomes to the blogosphere, we'll be reading! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:55 AM by Patrick Belton  

HEAVENS, I just discovered there were lyrics written about me. Viz,

The slow writer types a little slower.
Slow writer, is a real goer.

Hey.

Slow writer knows every street, yeah.
Slow writer, is the one to meet, yeah.

Slow writer don't use no ink now.
The slow writer don't type too fast.

Type a little bit, type a little bit
Type a little bit and see.
Take a little coffee, take a little coffee
Take a little coffee with me.

Guess we're more popular than Jesus Harry, your friend from kindergarten - less controversial! -ed.. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:39 AM by Patrick Belton  

ARE YOU FAMOUS? And a female role model, and would like to be in my friend's book, which needs to be in the printers in a week? Then get in touch!

Hey, it was worth a try. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:15 AM by Patrick Belton  

INTERESTING NEW DATA SET WATCH: This, over a listserv I participate in, and which I thought might interest some of our readers.

From: Gary King

I thought you might be interested in a newly updated dataset of almost 10 million individually coded international events (1990-2004). Each event is summarized in the data as "Actor A does something to Actor B", with Actors A and B coded for about 450 countries (and other actors) and "does something to" coded in an ontology of about 200 types of actions. The data are coded by a computer "reading" millions of Reuters news reports. Will Lowe and I wrote an article* that evaluated the software system (produced by VRA) that performs this task and found that for the numbers of events it was possible to convince humans (trained Harvard undergraduates) to coded by hand, the machine did as well as the humans. However, in part since there is only so much pizza you can feed undergraduates, the machine clearly dominates for larger numbers of events. We previously released a dataset with 3.5 million events; this one is bigger, more accurate (since the software has been improved), and covers a longer time period.

Most international relations data are limited to analyses aggregated to the year or month. Yet, as we say in the article, when the Palestinians launch a mortar attack into Israel, the Israeli army does not wait until the end of the calendar year to react. We think there is much to be learned about international relations from data like these.

For the data, documentation, and our article, see

http://gking.harvard.edu/events/

Gary

*Gary King and Will Lowe. 2003. "An Automated Information Extraction
Tool For International Conflict Data with Performance as Good as Human
Coders: A Rare Events Evaluation Design" International
Organization, 57, 3 (July, 2003): Pp. 617-642.


---
Gary King
David Florence Professor of Government,
Director, Institute for Quantitative Social Science
Harvard University, 1737 Cambridge St, Cambridge, MA 02138
http://GKing.Harvard.Edu

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:50 AM by Patrick Belton  

SITTING ON TOP A MOUNTAIN WITH YOUR GOAT? LOOKING FOR VIEWING MATERIAL? Well, get your basket of fondue popcorn. In a clash of titans and frequently hilarious debate, Harvey Mansfield climbs into the ring with William Galston to debate whether America should have a liberal or conservative future. To take a Churchillian comment, this is precisely the sort of public intellectual engagement up with which more I wouldn't mind to put. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:22 AM by Patrick Belton  

WE WOULDN'T BE OXBLOG IF WE DIDN'T LINK THIS: Namely, Roy Foster, in the TLS, on the historiography of 1916. It's like we should link to it three times. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:15 AM by Patrick Belton  

WELL, THE INTELLIGENT DESIGN CREW DON'T GO TO PUBS ANYWAY: Guiness, not only good for you but also the official drink of evolution and original primordial sludge! (Hat tip: the nice lads down at CT. All of them.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:12 AM by David Adesnik  

IN MEMORIAM: ROSA PARKS. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:49 PM by David Adesnik  

AN EXTRAORDINARY EXCHANGE: Last Wednesday, ex-SEAL Matthew Heidt of Froggy Ruminations posted an extensive critique of a PBS Frontline broadcast about acts of torture committed by American soldiers. Much of the Frontline report rested on allegations made by Spc. Anthony Lagouranis, a military interrogator who served at Abu Ghraib. (Hat tip: Blackfive)

Surprisingly, even though Heidt accused Lagouranis of "buddy f*cking his own" among other things, Lagouranis decided to respond in the comments section of Heidt's post. Moreover, Lagouranis didn't just respond once, but engaged in an extended debate with numerous critics who continually attacked him in a very personal manner. Good for him. That takes courage.

The issues at play involve a level of military detail far beyond my ken, so I won't venture to say which side got the better of the debate. However, what I would ask is whether, before there was a blogosphere, it would ever have been possible for audience members to cross-examine someone who had appeared on television. Moreover, not just run-of-the-mill audience members, but those with considerable expertise in the same line of work.

Score one for accountability (with an assist from the blogosphere). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:18 PM by David Adesnik  

ADVICE FOR A BUDDING OMBUDSMAN: On Sunday, Deborah Howell published the first column of her tenure as the WaPo's new ombudsman, replacing.

Howell brings to her post more than four decades of experience as an editor and correspondent. I'm not sure that this kind of one-dimensional background provides the best education for an ombudsman, however.

Although extensive experience as a journalist is necessary to ensure that an ombudsman understands journalism from the inside out and can speak with authority to the WaPo staff members she must criticize, I would prefer to have an ombudsman who has also been on the receiving end of the journalistic profession.

Someone, perhaps, who has worked as a congressional staffer or for a state government. Because in order to be an effective ombudsman, I think one should know first-hand what it is like to be misrepresented and misquoted.

But Ms. Howell can't change her past, so my objections are purely academic. Thus my advice to her is as follows: read a lot of blogs. Blogs from the left and blogs from the right.

In her inaugural column, Ms. Howell says that she reads three different newspapers a day, sometimes more. But newspapers tend to teach you as much about media criticism as White House briefings teach you about candor. By reading multiple newspapers, journalists tend to reinforce their own perception of their profession as one of noble Davids battling the politicians' Goliath.

By entering the blogosphere, Ms. Howell will discover a world where journalists benefit from no presumption of intelligence, good faith and competence. Naturally, bloggers are often unfair to their cousins in the print trades.

But the unpleasant truth is that only when journalists see themselves being treated unfairly by bloggers, do they begin to understand how the subjects of their coverage feel about them. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:27 PM by David Adesnik  

VIETNAM ALWAYS GOOD FOR A LAUGH: The lead story in Monday morning's WaPo is entitled Enemy Body Counts Revived. Here are the first two sentences:

Eager to demonstrate success in Iraq, the U.S. military has abandoned its previous refusal to publicize enemy body counts and now cites such numbers periodically to show the impact of some counterinsurgency operations.

The revival of body counts, a practice discredited during the Vietnam War, has apparently come without formal guidance from the Pentagon's leadership.

These opening sentences are rather misleading, since no one in the military, "eager" or not, made a decision to release body counts as part of public relations strategy. Rather, commanders have occasionally decided to release body counts in order to illustrate the size of certain engagements.

How this story made it onto the front page, I have no idea. It provides some information worth knowing, but goes far out of its way to make the Army seem ignorant of its historical experiences. If anything, this should have been an "analysis" column somewhere inside the A section. Or perhaps an op-ed. Or even just a post on some moderately popular blog.

I think the real lesson of this article is that journalists are unable to comprehend Iraq except through the prism of Vietnam. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:48 PM by Patrick Belton  

JUST CURIOUS: Incidentally, is there a good reason why googling 'women' returns, say, the website of the National Organisation for Women, while googling '(ethnic group) + women' (black women, for instance, or latinas) generally returns a much higher proportion of sites one might not want to access at a place of work, or even one of worship for that matter? (Justification for knowing this: I was looking for websites in 'Latina', by the way. See following.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:14 PM by Patrick Belton  

CUTTING-EDGE JOURNALISM OF THE DAY: Courtesy of the Times, 'ever fewer people outside the Vatican understand Latin.' Non, illa non potest essere! (Tomorrow's headline, sneak preview: Anglo-Saxon native fluency dwindling; remedy sought in schools.) Latvian cardinal Janis Pujats is the last stalwart to speak only in Latin at episcopal synods, leading JP2 to quip, 'Paupera lingua latina, ultimum refugium habet in Riga.' The new pope should have them read Wikipedia in Latinam. Nunc 3,715 articuli sunt. Iei! Urei! Et tu quoque adiuvare potes! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:46 PM by Patrick Belton  

THE NAKED IRISH CHEF RETURNS: Today's themes are Italian, and hell. Open with creamy zuchini soup, with Italian deviled eggs as a side or atop the soup. Main is prawns fra diavolo over pasta, with a dry white. Top it off with lemon ice cream and strawberries in a white wine sauce. And watch where you point that thing. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:08 AM by Patrick Belton  

'NOW THAT I'M TRENDY, WHAT THE HECK DO I DO WITH THIS IPOD' OxTip of the Day: Though it looks like an ill designed porn site and has with somewhat endearing inexplicability badly rendered clip art festooned atop of a kalishnikov and Imperial Storm Trooper (or is it a welder's?) helmet, a plug here for AudioBooksforFree.com. I've already downloaded from there a huge number of Wilde and Saki short stories, along with some Swift, Nietzsche, Borges and Wodehouse, and not to mention Kipling's Man Who Would be King, Conrad's Secret Agent, the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and the Communist Manifesto (perhaps I was getting a bit carried away at the end.) Though the website is poorly designed and the copy resolutely pitched along the low brow (not to mention my copy of Dorian Gray is by 'Oscar Wild'), the reader's accent is intelligible, inoffensive estuary, and the holdings are both copious and wonderfully free. Do go visit. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:03 AM by Patrick Belton  

GONE CLIMBIN' PAINTIN': One of the pleasant rewards of painting house in the alps is seeing Swiss German speakers in mountain gear clambering up and down side walls wearing harness and rope. Another pleasant reward is pumpkin soup.

An open letter to the Most Rev the Lord Archbishop of York, bashed out with painted fingers after reading that this truly heroic man, a former Ugandan dissident opponent to Idi Amin turned Midlands C of E cleric, has been receiving racist mail, to include letters smeared with excrement, after announcement of his appointment to Bishopthorpe Palace.

21 October 2005
Schlosseck
Wengen, Switzerland



The Most Rev the Lord Archbishop of York
Bishopthorpe Palace
Bishopthorpe
York YO23 2GE


Dear Archbishop Sentamu,

After reading of your election and recent news coverage, and writing as someone for whom Britain has as well become an adopted home, I had wanted humbly to offer my warmest congratulations and prayers in the period before your inauguration. I have for some time found considerable inspiration in your life as a Ugandan liberal dissident turned socially activist Midlands cleric, and I believe in that regard I speak also for the readers of a small publication I co-edit, OxBlog.

I was wondering if I might note in passing that a fellow doctoral student at Oxford and I shall be editing a volume on racial integration in Britain and the United States later in the year. It would be our great honour if we might contact you when the project is slightly closer at hand both for your advice, and perhaps also to ask if you might consider contributing prefatory remarks.

I repeat my humble congratulations and prayers for an archepiscopate which I trust will prove quite a strong inspiration to your people.


Yours sincerely,


Patrick Belton

Do your own, just sign your own name, because that would be a bit odd. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:58 AM by David Adesnik  

DANIEL DREZNER IMPISHLY ASKS whether the convergence of left- and right-wing opponents of the war in Iraq under the banner of "realism" can possibly survive the vicissitudes of, well, reality.

Dan's case in point is Azerbaijan, where the Bush administration has so far been highly content to praise a regressive pro-American dictatorship flush with oil. Presumably, conservative realists have no qualms about this sort of behavior. But as Dan implies, liberal realists just don't have the stomach to get behind this such a ruthless pursuit of narrow, national self-interest. As Henry Farrell warned some time ago,

But leftwingers who rush too quickly to embrace their new friends on the right should meditate upon the malign example of Henry Kissinger, and the implications of Realpolitik for the causes and issues that they’re committed to.

Henry's right. (Farrell, I mean, not Kissinger.) All I can add to his point is a bit of historical perspective. Much of the incoherence at the heart of Jimmy Carter's foreign policy reflected an inability to reconcile realist anti-interventionism with an idealist commitment to human rights. Today we tend to think of Carter as exclusively a dove and an idealist, but his strongest supporters included liberal realists such as Harvard's Stanley Hoffmann.

When Reagan embarked on a crusade against communist Nicaragua, his liberal critics often invoked the realist principle of respecting state sovereignty as a justification for leaving the Nicaraguans alone. Yet the exact same liberals eviscerated Reagan for supporting a brutal right-wing dictatorship in nearby El Salvador.

What the Democrats have constantly been searching for is a synthesis of realism and idealism, a proverbial Third Way that would allow them to anchor their situational preferences in a coherent and consistent doctrine. My sense is that they are no closer to finding this golden mean than they were when Jimmy Carter was in the White House. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:21 AM by David Adesnik  

WHAT DEMOCRATS BELIEVE: Earlier this week I participated in a sort of focus group for Democratic activists designed to clarify the party's core beliefs. Not that I am a Democratic activist, but I took part because the participants in the focus group consisted specifically of moderate/DLC types committed to restoring the party's credibility on national security issues.

Liberal commentators, including OxBlog favorites such as Kevin Drum and Matt Yglesias , often observe that Democrats, unlike Republicans, don't have a simple set of core beliefs that can be summarized in an "elevator pitch", i.e. a 30 second speech that you could give to someone while riding in an elevator.

With this shortcoming in mind, the leader of our focus group asked the ten or so participants to write down in three sentences or less what the Democratic party stands for. A few months ago, Kos wrote:

Ask 10 people what the Democrats stand for, and you'll get 10 different answers. Ask me what the Democrats stand for, and I'll stare back speechless.

Yet in our focus group, almost every answer was exactly the same. The purpose of the Democratic party is to help the poor and the disadvantaged.

Most participants added that the federal government is the Democrats' preferred mechanism for helping the disadvantaged. More than one participant justified this focus on the disadvantaged by arguing that the free market structure of American society ensures that there will always be a significant numebr of Americans who are disadvantaged.

The organizer's response to this unexpected consensus was both sympathetic and devastating. On the one hand, this consensus suggested that there is a foundational commitment on which Democrats can build. On the other hand, if the purpose of the Democratic party is to help the disadvantaged, what can the party possibly offer to the overwhelming majority of Americans who see themeslves as middle class?

Adding insult to injury, I said that no one at the table had listed either national security or defending the United States as one of the core purposes of the Democratic party. Thus, how could anyone expect undecided voters to think of the Democrats as the party strongest on security issues if even the most committed Democrats don't define security as one of the party's most important missions?

(To be fair, one or two participants sought to extend the principle of helping the disadvantaged to the international arena. Of course, calling for more foreign aid is hardly the way to win middle class votes.)

After identifying why the party's core message failed to resonate with more voters, the discussion turned to the question of whether the answer to this problem is to "frame" its agenda differently or whether the substance of the party's agenda had to change. On this point, there wasn't much of a consensus.

Take the issue of being pro-market, for example. Not one person at the table listed a commitment to either entrepreneurs or free markets as a core part of the Democratic agenda. Yet everyone at the table was basically pro-market and pro-business BUT believed that America must pay more attention to those left behind by markets and businesses.

Given that Republicans always identify themselves as the party of markets and entrepreneurs, could Democrats make any headway with this kind of "yes, but" approach to the subject? But if framing isn't enough, how can Democrats alter the substance of their agenda without simply becoming more like Republicans?

In the final analysis, there was no answer to this question. Even a table full of Ivy League-educated Democratic activists couldn't come up with an answer to the question of what the Democrats want to offer America as a whole, and not just the disadvantaged. But the question itself is important, because it has the potential to force the Democrats to approach every major policy debate from a fresh perspective. (1) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:14 PM by David Adesnik  

OXBLOG FILM CLASSICS: REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE. A few days ago, for the first time, I saw the immortal James Dean play Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause (RWaC). RWaC is one of those films that just seems so bizarre to the modern eye that one almost begins to wonder whether the entire thing is a parody.

One might describe RWaC as an accidental cocktail of Beverly Hills 90210, Freudian psychoanalysis, and morbid existentialism with just a dash of Boyz N the Hood. These days, we think of juvenile delinquency as the result of broken homes and economic deprivation. Yet poor Jim Stark has grown up in a two parent, Ozzie & Harriet home where his mother cooks him bacon and eggs for breakfast on school days.

In order to explain the breakdown of this suburban fantasy, the film invokes the good Dr. Freud. Jim, it seems, is prone to violence because he has to compensate somehow for growing up with a domineering mother and emasculated father. Of course, based on what we see in the film, one might describe his father as mildly hen-pecked and his mother a tad overbearing, but in no way would one consider either condition to be pathological.

Even so, poor Jim is so distraught that he has to defend his delicate masculinity by partaking in knife fights and playing chicken with stolen cars. Meanwhile, Jim and love interest Judy (Natalie Wood) speculate about whether life is worth living since it is inherently meaningless.

This point gets driven home by the most surreal moment in the entire film, in which Jim's school goes on a field trip to a planetarium where the students watch a film narrated by a spooky old man who tells the kids that the earth will one day be destroyed by fiery explosions, thus renering pointless the existence of all mankind. Perhaps things had changed by the 1980s, but when I was a kid, most planetarium shows tried to be a little more uplifting.

Oh, and did I mention the homoerotic subtext to the film, primarily involving the relationship between Jim and his sidekick Plato? Jim's dad also gets thrown into the mix during an extended scene that involves him wearing his wife's frilly apron.

All in all, RWaC is so bizarre that I find it impossible to imagine what contemporary audiences thought of the film. Was it daring and subversive? Or was it a mostly unremarkable depiction of suburban life in the 50s? Given James Dean's status as icon, I wouldn't be surprised if there is an extensive literature, both popular and academic, that addresses such questions.

In fact, if you do an Amazon search for "James Dean biography" you get a very, very long list of results. Sadly, OxBlog does not have either the time or energy to undertake a detailed exploration of popular culture in the 1950s. However, if any of you saw RWaC when it first came out, I would be glad to post your reminiscences about what kind of reactions it provoked.

UPDATE: The veritable methuselah known as MD writes that:

Suffice to say I and my classmates in high school thought this was one of the more ridiculous stories ever told regarding us. Of course, the girls went to see Dean, and we guys went to see Natalie. Steve McQueen and the kids in "The Blob" were more believable as teenagers than anyone in RwaC.

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# Posted 2:11 PM by David Adesnik  

ALI G. IN DA NBA: Check it! New commercials for da NBA wit Ali G., featuring Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:49 AM by Patrick Belton  

I WANT MORE OF THE OXBLOGGERS, BUT DON'T KNOW HOW TO GET IT: We sympathise. So, you could either stalk us, or you could join one of two lists we run, on racial integration and democracy assistance and democratisation. Or you could do both. Decisions. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:33 AM by Patrick Belton  

TWO NEW HEANEY POEMS: In Guardian Books , courtesy of the excellent NI blogger Slugger O'Toole. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:12 AM by Patrick Belton  

WAR BLOGS WATCH: GlobalSecurity has a list of bloggers writing from Iraq, and one or two other theatres. My personal favourite of the moment: Never heard of this place till now!!!, at cantbelieveivolunteeredforthis.blogspot.com. ('I am about to begin a journey to Uzbekistan Afghanistan. If you don't know where that is at. Join the club.') (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:02 AM by Patrick Belton  

WHAT A PALESTINIAN WANTS, WHAT A PALESTINIAN NEEDS: Pollster Khalil Shikaki looks at Palestinian public opinion in the wake of the Gaza pullout. Survey says: prior to the Gaza withdrawal, Palestinians gave 'ending the occupation' as their top priority. Now, 'for the first time, after the Gaza disengagement, we have economics coming on top…And the second one is in fact a virtual tie between fighting corruption and fighting occupation. The gap between the first, which is improving economic conditions, and the second, which is corruption and ending occupation, is wide. It’s 15 percent.'

On another note, Yossi Beilin says we should ditch the Road Map, because with no party having fulfilled its commitments, it's traversed the security corridor dividing reality based diplomacy from fiction. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:46 AM by Patrick Belton  

IT’S BROUGHT ME NOTHING BUT TROUBLE; I’M JUST GOING TO CUT IT RIGHT OFF, AND THROW IT OUT THE WINDOW: But before I send PowerBook down the alp, a few notes about things that struck me as worth reading:

• Brummies come last in a UK courtesy poll. Ah gerrot, shut yer cake hole.

• Harriet Miers launches a blog. ('JUST THOUGHT OF SOMETHING: Does anyone have any good recommendations of general books on Constitutional Law, history of the Supreme Court, etc? THANX!!!') Talk of the Town interviews her via IM.

Dallasharriet44: Do I get to see the story early? I PROMISE I won’t blog it.
TOTT: In a word, no.
Dallasharriet44: O.K., then I won’t tell you how I’m going to rule in cases that come before the Court.

• Via Galley Slaves, 'when it comes to the future most Russian women are voting with their foetus: 70 per cent of pregnancies are aborted. [...] It has the fastest-growing rate of HIV infection in the world...at least 1 per cent of the population. [...] Most of the big international problems operate within certain geographic constraints: Africa has Aids, the Middle East has Islamists, North Korea has nukes. But Russia’s got the lot: an African-level Aids crisis and an Islamist separatist movement sitting on top of the biggest pile of nukes on the planet'. Though I believe Mark Steyn might be underestimating the strength of Russian nationalism or the domestic revanchist lobby if he believes Russia will sell Eastern Siberia to China, irrespective of how bad the AIDS crisis gets.

• Remember Haiti? Randy Paul points out it's still there, and surveys other goings-on in Latin America while he's at it. (Remember to back up? If not, let Randy be a lesson to you about bad things that can happen to nice people. Um, we do all the time.)

• Nathan points to a new blog from Uzbekistan, and to Ariel Cohen's summary of Condi's Central Asian trip. Also, the Beeb's Jenny Norton has been barred from Uzbekistan for her reporting on Andijan.

• Over at Volokh, David Bernstein asks why we insist upon Marx's Jewishness if his parents converted and he was raised as a Christian - apart from serving the interests both of those who care to perjoratively trace socialism to yids, or those who care to, um, give credit for socialism to yids.

• Kevin, insightful always, comments on Matt and Sam Rosenfeld's TAP article attacking liberal hawks who argue that the Iraq War was a good idea prosecuted badly . ('Because Sam and Matt's arguments against democracy building are technical, they beg a question: what if we corrected the problems they allude to? After all, it's not impossible to have a bigger army, or to have an army that's better at policing and counterinsurgency')

• Kieran, enjoyable as always, catches out Leon Kass being particularly grumpy. (LK: 'For why would a man court a woman for marriage when she may be sexually enjoyed, and regularly, without it?' KH: 'Well, it’s not as if I’m going to make my own pot roast, now is it?') (1) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:53 AM by Patrick Belton  

HAPPY 200TH ANNIVERSARY, Lord Nelson.



Thank God, I have done my duty. Kiss me, Hardy. (1) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:13 PM by Patrick Belton  

NON-SPAM WEBSITE OF THE DAY: The 30-Second Bunnies Repertory Theatre, wherein a troupe of bunnies re-enact a collection of films in 30 seconds a half minute - lexical variety - ed.. My particular favourites are Titanic and It's a Wonderful Life, though housemates preferred to watch Pulp Fiction or The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Fun for hours 30-seconds, but infinitely repeatable! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:55 AM by Patrick Belton  

SPAM MAIL OF THE DAY AWARD, coveted prize that (judging mostly from the number of entrants) goes to this one inviting the OxBloggers to try for the Doyles footie side in Dublin. Ethnically appropriate and unusual, four stars! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:57 AM by Patrick Belton  

REJECT HER WATCH:

Meanwhile, several constitutional law scholars said they were surprised and puzzled by Miers's response to the committee's request for information on cases she has handled dealing with constitutional issues. In describing one matter on the Dallas City Council, Miers referred to "the proportional representation requirement of the Equal Protection Clause" as it relates to the Voting Rights Act.

"There is no proportional representation requirement in the Equal Protection Clause," said Cass R. Sunstein, a constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago. He and several other scholars said it appeared that Miers was confusing proportional representation -- which typically deals with ethnic groups having members on elected bodies [ed.: actually, it typically deals with political parties having members on elected bodies, but who's counting] -- with the one-man, one-vote Supreme Court ruling that requires, for example, legislative districts to have equal populations.

(WaPo, also confused over what proportional representation means.)

Also, Will and the Crescat kids have some crazy good posts up on the Miers nomination, including this precious quote from Judge Kozinski:

[A]ll arguments that intensive questioning violate judicial independence confuse cause and effect or derive from other fallacies.... Or, as Judge Kozinski once put it, "Well, what the hell are you supposed to ask? Who do you like to sleep with? Girls? Boys? Will you sleep with me? Of course you'll ask them how they'd rule!"

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# Posted 2:28 PM by Patrick Belton  

NAOMI WOLF NEEDS TO GET OUT MORE. Even if she did show very good taste in doing stints eating both pizza and kebab during her educational career. See Scott Burgess:

In her Guardian article, Ms. Wolf seems to imply that, were it not for a TV show "that can acclimatise Americans to a woman in power" (this just after a sole, parenthetical mention of Condoleezza Rice), a Clinton candidacy would be doomed by the inability of the unacclimatised to accept a female President. In her eagerness to credit the TV show with an unlikely importance (it "... could change US politics for ever", as the subhead hyperbolically puts it), she paints herself as out of touch with current political reality - in fact, a May poll found a majority "likely" to vote for Sen. Clinton, even before being instructed to by the producers of Commander-in-Chief. And a more recent poll indicated that 79% of Americans "felt comfortable with a female president".

Ms. Wolf's perspective provides an amusing glimpse into the attitudes of the liberal would-be elite - in this case, that the masses acting on their own are too backward to do something as progressive as to vote for a female presidential candidate, and therefore must be educated by dramas presented via television and film - "where political change takes place and political momentum solidified". Readers are left wondering just which Hollywood dramas effected the changes in the political landscape that brought the Republicans to power.

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# Posted 12:58 PM by Patrick Belton  

THE OTHER A. SULLIVAN in the blogosphere points out Egypt is about to build a fence around Sharm El Sheik as an anti-terrorist measure; when it was pointed out that bedouin would be cut off from their places of work, a security official told the AFP news agency the fence was 'not meant to stop any particular group of people but prevent terrorist attacks.' Bloody copycats. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:01 PM by Patrick Belton  

PREGAME AT RICE UNIVERSITY: The Backbencher's dreams apparently feature a President Rice, decked in leather (if, you know, she wanted), fairly less than this blog's. Nonetheless, the hon. scrivener surveys the 'Draft Condi' movement in this week's newsletter:

The thought of a woman in the White House has naturally captured the
Backbencher's imagination in recent days. Hell, why not let Harriet Miers run? And even though the Condistas aren't doing themselves any favours (http://www.rice2008.com/), the success of Arnold Schwarzenegger in California surely proves that acquiring a reputation for single-minded destruction can only boost one's electability. With Condi refusing to admit she wants the job, however, her supporters have been forced to threaten her with the draft (http://www.americansforrice.com) unless she runs in 2008. You
can buy the usual T-shirts and baseball caps here (http://www.americansforrice.com/Apparel.htm), unless you're Canadian: "We regret that we cannot ship to Canada due to multiple unexplained returns by the Canadian Postal Service." Odd, that. "Also, while everyone's taste is different, and we all show our support in our own way, our respect for Dr Rice prevents us from carrying any 'bobbleheads' or undergarments."

Frankly, this was disappointing. (Bobbleheads, by the way, are ceramic dolls that nod, like toy dogs in cars, at their owner.) Who wouldn't love a pair of Condi knickers? The captioning possibilities are endless. "That's Ms President"? "Is that a weapon of mass destruction, or are you just planning to invade Iraq?"

This from the same anonymous backbench MP whose 17 November newsletter carried the title 'For Fawkes' Sake'. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:30 AM by Patrick Belton  

AND MORE* IRA BLOGGING: Anthony McIntyre, who did 17 years in the Maze for being an IRA operative, gives advice to the Blair government on penetrating terrorist organisations after 7/7.

* Actually, Dessie's in the INLA, as someone kindly pointed out. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:41 AM by Patrick Belton  

MORE GOOGLE. I also note that we seem to be getting a rather large number of hits from people googling Dessie O'Hare, for whom on some searches we seem to be the first result. I just wanted to clarify, for the purposes of any IRA folk out there on their keyboards, that we think he's just a grand lad. Any suspicions to the contrary were wholly due to lousy editing. By my coauthor. In fact, he's welcome to come skiing anytime. The address is: 59 Calle P O'Neill, Buenos Aires, Argentina. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:46 PM by David Adesnik  

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# Posted 10:30 PM by David Adesnik  

MORE HE SAID/SHE SAID JOURNALISM: In theory, journalists give unwarranted credibility to those who are wrong and/or ignorant by quoting them along side those who are right and well-informed, because there must be two sides to every story. This alleged phenomenon is known as he said/she said journalism, and liberals rely on it to explain how liberal journalists unintentionally do the bidding of conservative Republicans.

Anyhow, this theory came to mind when I read the first paragraphs of the top story in today's WaPo, entitled Iraqis Say Airstrikes Kill Civilians:

BAGHDAD, Oct. 17 -- A U.S. fighter jet bombed a crowd gathered around a burned Humvee on the edge of a provincial capital in western Iraq, killing 25 people, including 18 children, hospital officials and family members said Monday. The military said the Sunday raid targeted insurgents planting a bomb for new attacks...

The U.S. military said it killed a total of 70 insurgents in Sunday's airstrikes and, in a statement, said it knew of no civilian deaths.

At Ramadi hospital, distraught and grieving families fought over body parts severed by the airstrikes, staking rival claims to what they believed to be pieces of their loved ones. [Emphasis added. Duh!]

In theory, this is an example of he said/she said journalism. But you'd have to pretty thick not notice the Post's hints that the Iraqis, and not the US military, are telling the truth.

As WaPo correspondent Mike Allen once observed in a moment of accidental candor, journalists shade their coverage so that "discerning readers" know who to believe and who is lying. Now in this instance, the Post may very well have put the correct spin on the story. I mean, you'd think families would know if their children were killed. But my purpose here isn't to challenge the facts of a specific story. It's just to demonstrate that liberal journalists know how to get their message across without breaking the rules of the game. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:04 PM by David Adesnik  

WHAT THE ARMY WANTS YOU TO READ: Since army officers have lots of free time, the Chief of Staff (currently Gen. Peter Schoomaker) maintains a Professional Reading List on the Army's homepage. The list is divided into four sections, according to rank, from cadet all the way up to general.

The list for cadets includes classics such as John Keegan's Face of Battle, which I must admit to having not read, although it is very high on my 'to read list'. Yet the list for generals starts of with some trendy bits of pundit-puff such as The Clash of Civilizations and The Lexus and the Olive Tree.

(Sorry, Tom, you're a great columnist and a friendly guy, but that book just got on my nerves. Not that you care. You're rich and famous, so you can wear floral-print Hawaiian shirts in public or even have a kooky haircut.)

On the bright side, the generals' reading list does gets much better as it goes along. The highlight, of course, is Donald Kagan's account of the Peloponnesian War. If only our generals had time to read the original four-volume edition... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:48 PM by David Adesnik  

ONLY MILLIONAIRES CAN AFFORD KOOKY HAIRCUTS: One of the great things about being rich (not that I would know) is that you can be eccentric without worrying about the cost of being mocked. For example, see below for what kind of haircut multi-millionaire Malcolm Gladwell currently sports. And then see if you can recognize the man in the photo to the left.

Yup, that's also Malcom Gladwell, except before he was rich and famous. So watch out: as soon OxBlog gets rich and famous, the Jewfro will become inevitable. Actually, I don't have the hair for it. But in high school I did have a ponytail for a while. So you might say that what being a millionaire really lets you do is relive your adolescence, except without parents there to prevent you from doing anything really stupid. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:22 PM by David Adesnik  

AND YOU THOUGHT THE GUYS AT OXBLOG WERE NAIVE OPTIMISTS: The haircut alone says that Malcolm Gladwell is an optimist. But it's hard to beat this quotation, from a roundtable on technology in the current issue of Time:

One of the big trends in American society is the transformation of the evangelical movement and the rise of a more mature, sophisticated, culturally open evangelical church.

Ten years from now, I don't think we're going to have the kinds of arguments about religion that we have today. Even the fight over intelligent design, to me, is a harbinger of a trend, which is that the religious world is increasingly willing to put its issues on the table and discuss them in the context of the secular world.

Go back to Gladwell's first sentence for a moment. How often do you hear a Blue State intellectual use the words 'mature', 'sophisticated' and 'open' in the same sentence as 'evangelical'?

On the other hand, what Gladwell's saying is that right now, all of the trouble America has with religion is because evangelicals are immature, unsophisticated and culturally closed. That sort of condescending generalization almost makes me wonder whether secular Americans might in some small way be responsible for the conficts we have about religion.

Anyhow, let me counter Gladwell's optimism with some of my own: I predict that there will fewer arguments about religion ten years from now because secularists will become increasingly respectful, patient and socially generous. Cool, huh? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:42 PM by David Adesnik  

IN MEMORIAM: PENN KEMBLE. I first met Penn almost two years ago while conducting research for my doctoral dissertation. In order to develop a better understanding of US-Central American relations in the Reagan era, I sought to interview those who were closely involved the policymaking process.

Certainly, Penn had more important things to do with his time than give interviews to graduate students. Yet he was always generous with his time. Less than twelve months ago, after Penn had already begun his struggle against brain cancer, he suggested that I conduct my follow-up interview over dinner at his home in Georgetown.

Over a home-cooked meal, Penn spent more than an hour passionately recounting the battles of old, even though his surgery was so recent that the scars on his head were still visible. It was that kind of living passion that nourished my interest in a facet of American politics and diplomacy that has few students left today, in spite of its historic importance.

For a more detailed account of Penn's life and accomplishments, I strongly recommend reading the obituaries published by the Washington Times and the New York Sun. Although one might infer from the names of those papers that Penn was an arch-conservative, he was, in fact, a life-long Democrat appointed to high offices by Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright. Yet Penn never hesitated to challenge his party and support the other when he believed that it the GOP was doing more to promote democracy across the globe.

Thus, Penn always led an uncomfortable existence in the center, preferring principle to partisanship. It is a position with which I can certainly empathize. But more importantly, Penn's tremendous success in life suggests that one may achieve the most by staying true to oneself.

I wish all the comfort in the world to his wife, Marie-Louise, in her time of loss. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:05 AM by Patrick Belton  

I’M SINGING THIS WHOLE THING WRONG BECAUSE I GOT HIGH DEPARTMENT: Part n + 2(rope length) of a series. I spent a lovely weekend up between 7,000 and 8,500 feet, overnighting in a small alpine refuge with a wood stove where I made some soup and a refreshing cup of tea (Oxford breakfast), and did a spot of work on a book review by candlelight. Oddly, cinema may not in retrospect be the best preparation for life in the actual world. For instance, I spent an entire night in an unlocked desolate cabin on top of an alp, and never once encountered a psychiatric patient with a chainsaw, or even a ski mask. He could have come; there was plenty of tea.


the plane, the plane!


this would have been even lovelier had it not been from an icy ridge in twlight whilst encircled by a pack of wild marmots.


and you really thought all this time I was making the goat up.


New readers




You would think…um, wood…would be easier to set fire to.


Sefinenfurgge, 8500 ft. and in ice, for the greater glory of the blogosphere. And other things mum wouldn’t approve of



On the descent, my knees formally gave notice that they would be seceding from the rest of my body, and would in the future quite like to be referred to by international bodies as FKOPB.


One hand, fine for showing off. Zero hands, maybe a little less so.

And my dear housemates and professors in alpinism, who have helped me over many an Everest - Barbara Bader and Dominic Blaettler, quite certifiably the sweetest people in the world:


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# Posted 8:28 AM by Patrick Belton  

BIRTH OF A NATION, OXBLOG VERSION: The scene, Wessex, c. 700 a.d..

First speaks Lear, wearing the horns of office. All right lads, so listen; we’ve got 800 years to get to run the world. Can someone help me roll over the next slide? I had a late night reinventing the wheel for these. Now, as some of you might have noticed, we’re here, wearing animal skins, and they’re over... here, developing calculus. So we’ve got some catching up to do. My suggestion – first, we’re going to need some boats to go with the sailing songs Worthy Brother Edmund came up for us last week; Edmund, well done. Then, we import some members of the opposite sex from the tribe of the Thongii, the ones whose midriffs and underwear stick out. You all remember that one down at the pub last Thursday. (Witena gemot nod in approval.)

Next we’ve got to decide how to make a body of law, to run the world with. My suggestion is that we always just do what we did last time; then we can lose all our decisions in the mists of time, which is, basically, now. As far as strategy, I say first we go left, over here, and secure our Guinness supply lines. Then, we go over here (drawing a line) and pick up some chicken curry; intelligence reports from that chap Brendan the Navigator suggest it goes down well with the Guinness. Finally, we keep going around here (continues line) and make a stop for cigarettes to go with the alcohol. (‘That’s a grand strategy!’ ‘Shut up, Alfred, you kiss-up’).

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# Posted 7:42 AM by Patrick Belton  

DEPARTMENT OF INTERBLOG CORRESPONDENCE: So we were engaging in amicable diplomatic correspondence with another blog whose name I won't drag into the mud except to note that it prominently features Chicagoans-turned-Yalies, and has a funny name. I relate the following exchange.

PB: (after several pages wherein he complains about the paucity of goats to be had above 8,500 feet)) Also, after my TLS article i seem to be a one-man european muslims industry these days, which really cracks me up given that i don't know any, although i came really close to getting one's number at a bar once.

INTERLOCUTOR: Bars, yes, always the best place to meet European Muslims.

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# Posted 5:17 AM by Patrick Belton  

SEN ON INDIA: Taking on his natal country in a new collection of essays, Amartya Sen defends India as an assimilative nation marked principally by its heterogeneity and openness. For Sen, therefore, the Hindutva movement has entered into a confrontation with the idea of India itself. See reviews by Shashi Tharoor, Pankaj Mishra, Pavan Varma, Salil Tripathi, and NPR author interview. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:10 AM by Patrick Belton  

SEX, PHILOSOPHY, AND READING GLASSES: At least they're writing about Sartre and Simone rather than Brad and Angelie. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:01 PM by Patrick Belton  

GET PEOPLE LAID -> BIGGER BUDGET! It's scribbled somewhere on an upper management chalkboard at Broadcasting House. Q.v. here, and here. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:40 PM by Patrick Belton  

THAT'S WHAT THEY SAID ABOUT GRAD SCHOOL GETTING TENURE: In 1993, the FBI was assisting in a health care fraud case which involved seizure of a large number of records from the Southwood Psychiatric Hospital in Chula Vista. The records turned out to be more voluminous than had been expected, and to feed his workers the agent in charge attempted to order pizza, making the folowing telephone call.

Agent: "Hello. I would like to order 19 large pizzas and 67 cans of soda."
Pizza Man: "And where would you like them delivered?"
Agent: "We're over at the psychiatric hospital."
Pizza Man: "To the psychiatric hospital?"
Agent: "That's right. I'm an FBI agent."
Pizza Man: "You're an FBI agent?"
Agent: "That's correct. Just about everybody here is."
Pizza Man: "And you're at the psychiatric hospital?"
Agent: "That's correct. And make sure you don't go through the front doors. We have them locked. You will have to go around the back to the service entrance to deliver the pizzas."
Pizza Man: "And you say you're all FBI agents?"
Agent: "That's right. How soon can you have them here?"
Pizza Man: "And everyone at the psychiatric hospital is an FBI agent?"
Agent: "That's right. We've been here all day, and we're starving."
Pizza Man: "How are you going to pay for all of this?"
Agent: "I have my checkbook right here."
Pizza Man: "And you're all FBI agents?"
Agent: "That's right. Everyone here is an FBI agent. Can you remember to bring the pizzas and sodas to the service entrance in the rear? We have the front doors locked."
Pizza Man: "I don't think so."

Via Snopes. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:46 AM by Patrick Belton  

KNOCKDOWN ARGUMENTS: Yaël Ronen, an Israeli student at Cambridge, summarises the governing legal arguments on the demolition of Israeli synagogues in the Gaza Strip:

A final benchmark for examining the demolition of the synagogues, by either Israel (had it been carried out) or the Palestinians, is supplied by the general standards of religious tolerance required under international law. Most of these standards appear in instruments that are not formally binding under international law, but they nevertheless have normative content and are widely accepted. The dissenting judge of the Israeli High Court of Justice quoted UN General Assembly Resolution 55/254 of 11 June 2001, in which the General Assembly “condemns all acts or threats of violence, destruction, damage or endangerment, directed against religious sites as such, that continue to occur in the world.” This Resolution, adopted in response to the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, extends beyond its immediate circumstances, and reflects general standards concerning religious tolerance. These standards have been elaborated in the 1981 Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief, in the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights,[25] in the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action[26] and in UN action. Resolution 2003/54 of the Commission on Human Rights on the Elimination of all forms of religious intolerance,[27] for example, calls on all States “to exert the utmost efforts, in accordance with their national legislation and in conformity with international human rights standards, to ensure that religious places, sites and shrines are fully respected and protected and to take additional measures in cases where they are vulnerable to desecration or destruction.”[28]

[25] Adopted 25 June 1993, UN Doc. A/CONF.157/23, Part II, paragraph 22 (12 July 1993).
[26]Report of the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance Durban, 31 August - 8 September 2001, UN Doc. A/CONF./189.12.
[27] 24 April 2003, UN Doc. E/CN.4/2003/L.11/Add.5.
[28] Paragraph 4(3).

So perhaps not formally speaking illegal, but at any rate still a fairly nasty thing to do.

UPDATE: A reader questions whether the removal of the Torah scrolls prior to the Israeli withdrawal may have effectively deconsecrated the synagogues under the texts quoted above. Anyone?

I believe that the UN Resolution refers to buildings functioning as religious venues. My understanding was that once the Torahs were out of the building it was just a building, i.e., like a deconsecrated church. What one does with the building afterwards has no meaning, except in this case as an example of self-damaging spite. The Palestinians could have turned the buildings into schools, clinics, community centers, or the like; instead they trashed them.

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# Posted 10:57 AM by Patrick Belton  

WRITING IN THE PAGES OF COMMENTARY, Bruce Thornton deftly takes apart the cult of 'therapism' which is at odds with each nobler virtue - 'self-reliance, stoicism, courage in the face of adversity, and the valorization of excellence.' For him and for the authors he reviews, post-tramautic stress syndrome, and its treatment through self-preoccupation and psychic release, has become archetypal for the experience of adversity in western cultures - with the precise effect of marginalising ways those who suffer can find sustaining meaning in heartbreak through reliance on classical, sterner virtues, and ultimately, and ironically, quite skillfully disempowering them. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:09 AM by Patrick Belton  

OH, E: The Beeb looks at the trajectory of a public school education in British politics. It seems to be making a comeback; get up to speed on your wall game. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:38 AM by David Adesnik  

BLOGGING AND TENURE: Daniel Drezner reflects on what has been going through his mind this past week, after learning that he won't be staying at Chicago. One has to wonder about a profession that treats its extraordinary young talents in such a capricious manner.

In the private sector or even in most government jobs, the idea of letting go a proven performer would be considered absurd. I think the entire tenure system is flawed. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:25 AM by David Adesnik  

JUDITH MILLER/PLAME-GATE ROUNDUP: Joe Gandelman is comprehensive and balanced as usual. Kevin Drum parses the details here, here and here.

Personally, I'm appalled by this entire circus. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:28 PM by David Adesnik  

WHAT ARE THE SUNNIS REALLY THINKING? Initial returns suggest that Sunni voters overwhelmingly rejected the constitution -- by a margin of 8 or 9 to 1 -- in two of Iraq's eighteen provinces. In provinces with mixed populations, Sunni opinion was harder to discern. The question is whether the Sunni vote tells us anything about how Sunnis will react now that the constitution seems to have passed.

News analysis columns in both the NYT and WaPo focused much more on how the referendum will play in Washington rather than Iraq. Still, the respective expectations of the optimists and the pessimists are fairly clear. The White House asserts that

"increased participation by Sunni Arabs will draw them into the political process."

Critics, represented in this instance by Ken Pollack's quote in the NYT, respond that

"The theory that democracy is the antidote to insurgency gets disproven on the ground every day."

I would argue that neither the results of the referendum nor the fact of extraordinary Sunni participation tells us much at all. What we need to understand is how the Sunnis understood the meaning of their vote.

Although we have no systematic knowledge of Sunni motivations, I think that American journalists' spot interviews of Sunni voters emerging from the polls provide some very important clues. What the White House would want to hear from such voters is that they believe the poltical process is giving them a fair chance to make their voice heard. It would've been nice, but that's not what they said.

If the critics are right, Sunnis should've explained their "no" vote as an act of resistance against the US occupation and the Shi'ite dominated government. But that didn't happen either. As Anthony Shadid emphasized in his dispatch from Baghdad, Sunni voters kept saying again and again that they were voting "no" in order to preserve Iraq as a unified state.

One might consider such talk of unity to simply be a code for the restoration of Sunni dominance. But why bother talking in code to an American journalist? Typical dispatches from both Sunni and Shi'ite regions of Iraq often include quotes from named individuals saying horribly nasty things about both the United States and other Iraqis. If Sunnis wanted to say that this was a vote against America, they could have. And some of them did. Instead, many of them said things like:

"I had to vote," [Mehdi] said, "to prove that we're still one nation -- Sunni and Shiite."...

"We can't underestimate the value of Iraq. We want it to stay one, united," said Ibtihaj Ismail...

"As Iraqis, as people of Adhamiyah, we are united, we have one word, one voice. As Iraqi people, we can't recognize this document. There are so many mistakes in the constitution. There are paragraphs in it that will destroy Iraq."

Of course, some Sunni voters said what one might expect:

"Do we vote for the [American] massacres of Fallujah, for the massacres of Qaim?"...

"This is to the constitution and to the people who drafted the constitution," [Ali] said, raising [his ink-stained middle finger] in the air.

So, then, what does it mean that so many Sunnis seemed to think of their vote in terms of preserving a unified Iraq rather than in terms of giving the Americans the finger?

At first glance it may almost seem nonsensical, or even the height of chutzpah. How could the supporters of a sectarian insurgency say with a straight face that what they value is national unity?

One might speculate that Iraqi Sunnis are so used to thinking of Iraq as theirs that they can't distinguish between true unity and Sunni domination. But I consider that degree of self-deception to be implausible. I think Sunnis know quite well that Iraq is in the midst of a low-intensity sectarian war.

Thus, I am inclined to intepret Sunni talk of national unity as an indication of their desire -- almost certainly hesitant -- for some sort of national reconciliation. Will that desire translate into less support for the insurgents? Probably not anytime soon.

But I do now expect the Sunnis to turn out for the national elections in December. More broadly, I expect the Sunnis to try and get what they can from the political process without abandoning the insurgents. Some might consider this a cynical exercise to get concessions from the Shi'ites and the Americans by pretending to buy into the political process.

In contrast, I think the Sunnis have decided that they should give the political process a chance in order to see whether it produces better results than the insurgency -- while using the insurgency to improve their position at the bargaining table, just as Arafat used suicide bombings as an adjunct to the negotiating process rather than a substitute for it.

Of course, Arafat was never willing to abandon violence no matter how many concessions he secured. Yet for Arafat, peace represented a serious threat to his mini-dictatorship. Arafat was also able to draw on a major reserve of international support, both political and financial.

In contrast, the Sunnis control nothing and get only few shreds of support from Syria, et al. They have a lot more to gain from peace. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:53 AM by David Adesnik  

WHAT THE GERMAN ELECTION MEANT: A superb essay by Timothy Garton Ash, via Andrew Sullivan. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:44 AM by David Adesnik  

WANT SECURITY IN IRAQ? HAVE A REFERENDUM EVERY DAY! From the NYT:

About a half-dozen polling centers came under attack; one of them was in the predominately Sunni town of Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad, where insurgents attacked a polling center and stole a ballot box...

On Jan. 30, when more than eight million Iraqis went to the polls to choose the Shiite-led transitional government that led the drafting of the constitution, American military commanders reported nearly 350 insurgent attacks, including numerous suicide bombings, the highest level of violence for any day of the war.

It seems safe to infer that the insurgents no longer feel as confident as they once did about opposing elections.

One might argue that their acceptance of the vote is merely tactical. Of course it is. One might argue that the insurgents consider the referendum to be a win-win proposition; either the constitution fails, or it passes in spite of Sunni opposition, which demonstrates that democracy cannot serve Sunni interests.

But even that kind of thinking is far different from the blithe confidence required to slaughter prospective voters, as the insurgents did in January. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:20 AM by David Adesnik  

WaPo VS. NYT: WHAT HAPPENED TODAY IN IRAQ? Was turnout high or low? Were the voters subdued or celebrating? It's hard to figure out even that much if you read both the NYT and WaPo. Under the headline Turnout Is Mixed as Iraqis Cast Votes on Constitution, the NYT reported the following:

Turnout appeared to be highest in Shiite and Kurdish areas, although in many places, including Baghdad, it seemed not to approach the levels seen in January...

The mood on the streets of many Iraqi cities, even in Shiite areas, appeared markedly less enthusiastic than on Jan. 30, when millions of Iraqis braved an onslaught of violence to cast ballots and celebrate in a vast outpouring of pro-democratic sentiment.

In contrast, the WaPo reports the following in articles entitled On the Streets of Iraq, Scenes of Joy and Determination, In a Sunni Quarter, A Day of Emotion, and Sunni Turnout Is High In Vote on Iraqi Charter:

Through the day, the referendum unleashed paroxysms of emotion among many in the Sunni Arab community...

In Baghdad's heavily Shiite, middle-class Karrada district, thousands of children spilled out onto the streets, bicycling and wobbling on roller skates down deserted thoroughfares...

Voting en masse for the first time since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, Sunni Arabs cast ballots in large numbers, according to electoral officials and witnesses. Turnout in areas populated by the country's Shiite majority and ethnic Kurds, whose political leaders drafted the proposed constitution, was described by officials as low.

I guess the answer to my confusion is obvious: only read one newspaper, and then the world will seem like a much more orderly and rational place. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:13 AM by Patrick Belton  

GONE CLIMBIN' (What, again?) Hey, gotta make use of the weather while it lasts. Photographs Sunday, unless I fall off a ridge and am eaten by a cow with a bell on its neck, in which case enjoy David!

One mountain goat to another, in a classic New Yorker cartoon: 'They're climbing it because it's there. But why are we climbing it?'

OxBlog: providing base camp since 2002! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:57 PM by Patrick Belton  

WAPO REPORTS THAT In the District of Columbia, a driver can be arrested with as little as .01 blood content. Lushes. Victorino Matus wonders if church wine counts... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:47 PM by Patrick Belton  

CORPULENT AUSSIE has bashed out a few thesis chapters and is now bashing down the voices of inanity with the righteous fury of a wounded, unusually ethnoreligious kangaroo set loose on the fields of Flanders. (You'd have to read his thesis.) A taste:

Incidentally, apparently President Bush said "And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East'. And, by God, I'm gonna do it."

There is some doubt about whether he actually used these words. But if he did, good on him. Unlike many 'progressives' in US politics he has openly called for a Palestinian state in public, which is no small thing, though the death of Arafat probably accelerated it.

There will probably be the usual sniggering and sniping against people in politics who have strong religious backgrounds. And glib statements about how invariably toxic religion is in public life. Yeah sure. Just take Lech Walesa, Desmond Tutu, Gandi, Martin Luther King, Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo and Oscar Romero. Foam-flecked murdering god-botherers to a man.

Personally, I'm rather fond of the idea of a Blues Brothers president. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:51 PM by Patrick Belton  

BROOKINGS'S KENNETH POLLACK testifies before Congress on Iran:

'As President Ahmedi-Nejad's recent speech at the United Nations made clear, key Iranian leaders remain hostile to the United States and to the West; they have refused to embrace the norms of the international community; they are determined to overturn the status quo; and we must be prepared for them to pursue all of these goals with the same mix of rhetoric, diplomacy, bullying, subversion, and terrorism that they employed throughout the 1980s and '90s.

[I]f Iran acquires a nuclear deterrent, it will believe that it is no longer vulnerable to external (that is, American or Israeli) conventional military retaliation and so can revert back to the aggressive, anti-status quo foreign policy it pursued in the early 1990s.

Because many countries fear that once Iran acquires nuclear weapons it will pursue an aggressive foreign policy, if and when Tehran crosses the nuclear threshold, other Middle Eastern countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, might decide to follow suit to deter an Iranian attack.'

Of course, we could always ignore it and see if it might go away. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:49 PM by Patrick Belton  

THUS RAND: 'To continue to attract high-quality personnel, recruits could be given the option to attend college without the risk of being activated with their Reserve units.' (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:09 PM by Patrick Belton  

AND, SATIRE OF THE DAY: This time, of iProduct: '"I buy Apple products. It just makes me feel special." - Fipi Lele, ethnic looking clip-art model.' (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:02 PM by Patrick Belton  

POLITICAL WRITING QUOTE OF THE DAY: From the Times's birthday tribute to Baroness Thatcher - 'Talleyrand said: “I am more afraid of a hundred sheep led by a lion than a hundred lions led by a sheep.” Conservatives in the 1980s were, in fairness, more than simple sheep. Their leader was, though, an awesome lion.' (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:36 PM by Patrick Belton  

FOGGY BOTTOM WATCH: From today's State Department Press Briefing.

QUESTION: Change the subject? There's a report in The Post today that there's a whole shipment of British MREs that's sort of languishing in a warehouse because of fears of mad cow and I think the State Department is supposed to be making some efforts to dispatch them. Can you describe to where?

DEPUTY DEPT SPOKESMAN ADAM ERELI: Well, let me -- again, in the interest of clarity, see if I can't make some points to help you look at this issue. First of all, fears of -- it's not an issue of fear of mad cow. It's an application of U.S. law. There are legal requirements that dictate how we treat this material. So we are bound by U.S. law governing British beef imports. And so that's point one. There's sort of an objective criteria here that we have a statutory obligation to follow. Now, in the wake of Katrina, there was a worldwide appeal for assistance, based on a request from the Foreign Emergency Management Agency, which we sent out. As you know, the response was overwhelming and very moving for the United States. Among the offers of aid were MREs from a number of countries, including Britain. The State Department's role was to coordinate the reception and handling of the foreign aid, which we did. We received these MREs, some of them based on needs that were communicated to us by FEMA, were distributed to people in need. Others, because of U.S. legal restrictions, were not distributed; they remain in a warehouse, and we would certainly hope that other countries in need or other needy populations would be able to make use of them. And we certainly invite any countries that see a need to contact us. Meanwhile we will do what we can to see if we can't find deserving recipients of this stuff.

QUESTION: But not recipients in this country?

MR. ERELI: I mean there's no need in this country. I mean, let me put it this way, the need for MREs, as a result of Hurricane Katrina, was met in the first few days. And unfortunately, supply exceeded demand in this regard. And now we have an excess of supply that we're going to try to dispose of in a responsible way, giving it to people who need it. But again, there are legal restrictions as to our ability to distribute it in the United States.

QUESTION: Can I have one?

MR. ERELI: Yeah, sure.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:37 PM by Patrick Belton  

SUNSET, 7,000 FEET: From a Japanese chemist I met while climbing last weekend, who sends this in from that evening by email.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:58 AM by Patrick Belton  

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BARONESS. Without you, we would lack among other things for frozen ice cream, which I think people from across the political spectrum can join me in agreeing is a good thing. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:06 AM by Patrick Belton  

FILM WATCH: Isaac Baranoff live-blogs Birth of a Nation, amusingly. Excerpt: '7 minutes and 50 seconds into the film: another shot of the damn dogs. Okay, we get it. Southerners own animals AS WELL as Africans. ... (several minutes later:) We get the picture! You're racist, okay?' (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:48 AM by Patrick Belton  

FOREIGN POLICY SOCIETY WATCH: Our foreign policy society has a new paper out on the Franklin espionage case, by Stéphane Lefebvre in our intelligence studies programme. We also have a large number of other working papers out on our website, and we'd love to hear your comments about any of them. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:33 AM by Patrick Belton  

GOODNESS, I SUPPOSE I REALLY LIVE ON THE CONTINENT WATCH: I'd already accustomed myself quite well, thank you, to the neatly autoparodic language, the somewhat greater prevalences of body hair (I refer to the females of the species only), and being regarded askance for my troglodyte upright urinatory tendencies. But somehow, I still retained some anglophone shock left to register this morning when I looked down and realised the shampoo in my hands read 'douche energy for men.' Perhaps I should just quickly have a go at reading that label a bit more closely....

suspiciously enthusiastic... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:32 PM by David Adesnik  

A SUPERB BATMAN PAPERBACK: While we're in pop culture mode here on OxBlog, let me recommend the Batman comics collection entitled As The Crow Flies. Although I refuse to pay for comic books on the grounds that each one provides only 10 minutes of entertainment, I do enjoy going to B&N or Borders, taking Batman or Superman off the shelf and finding a comfortable chair.

Although comic books tend to be thought of as childish, As The Crow Flies is far more sophisticated -- psychologically, artistically and emotionally -- than Hollywood's mediocre Batman Begins, which millions of certified adults had no reservations about paying ten dollars to see.

Of course, if you're comics fan, it will hardly come as a surpise to find out that superheros are much more sophisticated on the printed page than on the silver screen. But even if you are a fan, As The Crow Flies is well worth a read.

Above all, the collection stands out because of the extraordinarily unusual relationship between Batman's enemies du jour, the Penguin and the Scarecrow. Instead of gleefully teaming up on the Dark Knight as supervillians are wont to do, Penguin and Scarecrow wrestle psychologically with one another while physically assaulting the Batman.

Plus, there is a priceless sequence of events where Robin dresses up in drag and gets hit on by men. What more do you want? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:16 PM by David Adesnik  

OXBLOG FILM CLASSICS: I just saw The Dirty Dozen for the very first time. Even though it was made in 1967, I think it compares favorably with most of the action films that benefit today from super-high-tech special effects.

This comparision of The Dirty Dozen to today's action films, rather than military films such Band of Brothers and We Were Soldiers, is intentional. In terms of authenticity, it isn't in the same league. But I'm not sure it's supposed to be.

The premise of The Dirty Dozen is that it's just before D-Day and the Army needs twelve men to go on a sabotage mission so dangerous that it's only fit for criminals, who would risk anthying to avoid life in prison or death on the gallows.

As you can probably tell, plausibility isn't the main concern here. Instead, The Dirty Dozen puts its own clever spin on the classic Hollywood tale of raw recruits whipped into shape by a tough-as-nails officer. The script is solid, the acting is solid, and the film never loses its momentum.

Prepare to be entertained. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:53 PM by David Adesnik  

THE CLARION CALL OF CENTRISM: In-the-know Democrats are buzzing about this major report by William Galston & Elaine Kamarck, which calls for a return to the center, including a more positive attitude toward religion and getting tough on national security.

Kevin Drum yawned at the obviousness of this advice, only to find himself under heavy attack from his left for selling out Democratic ideals. Although David Broder is on Kevin's side, I'm not either one is going to be on the winning side on this one.

But even if the Democrats did unanimously decide that they need to get tough on national security, do they even have the slightest idea of what that would entail? The party's hawks, not to mention its doves, find Bush's version of getting tough to be anathema. But if there's a Third Way for getting tough about security, no one seems to know what it is.

UPDATE: And if all this weren't enough to get Mr. Drum in trouble with the Democratic base, he has also taken it upon himself to contradict his own guest bloggers, a pair of liberal scholars who insist that the GOP is extreme even on domestic politics. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:13 PM by David Adesnik  

THE ONLY THING WORSE THAN AN IRAQI ARMY THAT CAN'T FIGHT is an Iraqi army that can. Drawing on this report by an American journalist who patrolled with Iraq's best soldiers, Kevin Drum argues that Iraq's US-trained, Shi'ite-dominated forces are simply biding their time until they can take their bloody revenge on Iraqi Sunnis.

I'd say that the report provides some very clear indications that the new Iraqi army is, in many respects, a Shi'ite political force. But I would caution Kevin not to underestimate the tolerance of the Shi'ites. Both their religious and political leaders have a strong record of moderation in spite of the horrific slaughter of Shi'ite civlians by Sunni terrorists. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:52 PM by David Adesnik  

A LIBERAL HAWK SORT OF, ALMOST, PARTIALLY REPENTS: In the LA Times, George Packer regrets being pro-war while saying that those who were fully anti-war from the beginning were even more wrong. That is a position whose nuances could only be matched by the junior senator from Massachusetts.

Packer also insists that in spite of all the bad that has come of the occupation, the Iraqi people deserve our support, although he refuses to come out four-square against the bring-them-home crowd. In another Kerryesque turn of phrase, Packer writes that

There can be no phased withdrawal from the future of Iraq.

Being a liberal hawk ain't easy. If you truly consider other Democrats to be your peer group, then you will find yourself, like Packer, consistently under siege.

I once thought of "liberal hawk" as the label that came closest to fitting my own political profile. But with liberals showing so little concern for the people of Iraq, I have a hard time identifying with the label any more. Of course, I'm still a big fan of George Packer. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:05 PM by Patrick Belton  

WHILE BEING BOOKY, just curious why Routledge file 'Irish politics' as a subcategory under 'British politics'. Just asking. If Routledge want to expiate this categorical disimperative, they could, for instance, give me a contract and advance for The Epistemology of Bad Jokes, things Patrick finds interesting series, vol. 6. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:57 PM by Patrick Belton  

BOOK I WOULDN'T WANT TO GET ON THE WRONG SIDE OF OF THE DAY:
Bouncers: Violence and Governance in the Night-Time Economy. by Dick Hobbs, Philip Hadfield, Stuart Lister, and Simon Winlow, all of whom quite large and willing to frisk you for side arms. Standing outside a door of OUP 2005. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:23 AM by Patrick Belton  

GETTING HIGH REDUX: I'm off to take a tour of Novartis, one of the larger Swiss biotechnology firms, courtesy of OxBlog's Mad German Scientist correspondent. Novartis's claim to fame, among others I'm sure, is that its parent company Sandoz was the first synthesiser of LSD in 1938, churning it out as a psychiatric miracle cure from 1947 until the Establishment started using it to control the minds of British rockers and thereby rule the world. ( was I not meant to say that - yes, I'll take it right down.) Basel chemist Albert Hofmann had been looking for alkaloid derivatives, and only found out he'd made something interesting five years later when he accidentally ingested a bit of it on the workbench. History records that he did quite a bit of further investigation of his results. Just to be on the safe side.
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:36 PM by David Adesnik  

MEANWHILE IN AFGHANISTAN: From correspondent Peter Baker's column in WaPo Outlook:

The last time I saw Hakim Taniwal, I thought he was a dead man walking.

A slight, aging sociology professor with gentle manners, Taniwal returned to his homeland from exile in Australia after the fall of the Taliban to help build a new Afghanistan. When I ran across him in the spring of 2002, he had been dispatched by Hamid Karzai, the new Afghan president, to the untamed frontier to take over as governor and dislodge a brutal local warlord who ruled over these parts. Taniwal had no guns, no army and seemingly no chance. It seemed like a suicide mission.

When I saw him again here two weeks ago, he was sitting in the provincial governor's office and the warlord was somewhere in the countryside, out of power, his militia largely disbanded. I reminded Taniwal of our first meeting, when he could not even get into the governor's house because it was occupied by the warlord's family and dozens of his thuggish guerrillas, bristling with Kalashnikovs and grenade launchers.

Taniwal looked at me and smiled. "Things have changed," he said with satisfaction.

Wow. Again: Wow. And don't forget to read the rest of Baker's article, which includes a half-dozen other success stories that are almost as stunning.

Sometimes, I think of Afghanistan as what Iraq would be without powerful insurgents. For all of its persistent maladies, Afghanistan as it now stands is living proof that American armed forces often are the heralds of true liberation.

Nonetheless, it would be impossible not to temper with caution this sort of optimisim. Baker himself fills the remainder of his article with a multitude of caveats:

Even the most optimistic Americans here acknowledge that the job of stabilizing Afghanistan is nowhere near finished, and they worry that it might come unraveled again if a distracted Washington averts its attention too soon...

Most Afghans still grind out the same subsistence lives they did under the Taliban, living in mud houses, growing their own food, maybe selling soap or shoes in the bazaar. Poppy harvesting and the drug trafficking it spawns still account for roughly half of the Afghan economy. Corruption is endemic...

In fact, beyond the hotel and mall, most of Kabul looks no different than it did under the Taliban, a sometimes apocalyptic streetscape. The crumbled sections of town laid waste by fratricidal shelling between warlords in the 1990s are still little more than rubble.

What is most amazing about Afghanistan in a certain way is that no one can attribute its success to the genius of American planning. American officials such as Zalmay Khalilzad may have done quite a lot for the occupation, but Washington certainly never prepared for the task of nation-building.

In spite of its negative sound, that statement doesn't carry much in the way of partisan connotations because no one could have expect the Bush Administration to do much planning in the two months between September 11 and the fall of the Taliban.

But how, then, could Afghanistan have succeeded? After all, isn't Bush & Rumsfeld's total lack of planning the principal cause of the ongoing chaos in Iraq?

Yes and no. I think the relative success of Afghanistan demonstrates just how much influence unexpected circumstances have had on both occupation efforts. If you had asked the experts before 9/11 whether it would be harder to occupy and democratize either Iraq or Afghanistan, the experts would have declared both to be impossible, with one, perhaps, being more impossible than the other.
But the importance of luck hardly exonerates the White House for what's going on in Iraq (even if I am more optimistic about the situation there than most). What the relative success of Afghanistan demonstrates, I think, is that serious planning might, just might, have made a major difference in Iraq. Or not.

But given the potential for success, the failure to plan is profoundly regrettable.

UPDATE: In contrast, Josh Marshall agrees with Matt Yglesias that there was probably never any chance of things going right in Iraq at all. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:14 PM by David Adesnik  

WHAT I WANT IS TO BE COMPLETELY WRONG: I never saw much virtue in amending Iraq's draft constitution in order to enhance Sunni support. I never thought that any of the Sunni political organizations were looking for anything more than a pretext to destory the state-building process -- either because they opposed it or because they were afraid of the insurgents.

But today's news suggests that an enduring compromise may have been brokered. The precise nature of the compromise is not yet apparent, but the most important Sunni organization are indicating that they will endorse the constitution once the Shi'ite parliament ratifies the deal.

Until now, I have thought of Iraq' s constitutional referendum as necessary, but as not able to provide any more democratic legitimacy for the government than the January elections already gave it. But if some or even most Sunni voters ratify the constitution, it could change the entire ballgame. As Robert Worth, a NYT correspondent in Baghad, asserts in his latest dispatch,

The [Sunnis'] new support is likely to undercut the widespread notion that the constitution was being forced on an almost uniformly hostile Sunni Arab population.

Thus, I think Worth is absolutely right to describe the new deal as "a major victory for American officials" (even if that kind of editorializing doesn't exactly belong in a straight-news column).

It's possible that the constitution will fail in spite of the Sunni endorsement. Sunni public opinion may simply be against it. Or those who support the constitution may be afraid to vote, while those against it may have less to fear from Ba'athist insurgents (although not the foreign fighters).

But now I have my fingers crossed. The insurgency may find it much harder to operate without even the pretense of Sunni support.

UPDATE: The optimistic Publius says he knew it all along. Glenn Reynolds says he almost knew it. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:01 AM by Patrick Belton  

WHERE WERE YOU WHEN WE WERE GETTING HIGH DEPARTMENT: So I just climbed two 7,000 ft ridges and hiked 30 miles, and boy, are my legs tired. (Hey, that's kind of like a joke, except it's not funny. It has the formal structure of a joke while lacking the substantive, funny, character of a joke.) As a special web exclusive, I thought you all might like to come along, for a behind-the-scenes tour of what the back lot of OxBlog Sound-of-Music Bureau looks like.


Mind the gap.


I live on the back of a chocolate wrapper, so what of it?


Where's Waldo?


Couldn't I sell this as a poster if I were to put 'success' or 'chastity' or something along those lines at the bottom?


'Thrift'
Hey, I'm a Victorian. What did you expect?


'filial piety'


Eiger North Wall for fun and profit. It's the new Bikram Yoga!


Really lads, I've got my thesis in here, so let's at another one

My camera ran out there, so you all get off easy and don't have to come the rest of the way. Slogan for the t-shirt: 'at 1 am solo on the Eiger glacier with an expiring torch, no one can hear you sobbing inarticulately for mother.'

Hottie of the day honours: though not technically a hot water bottle, these would have to go to my thermos, thanks to which I had a refreshing cuppa of Darjeeling at the top of the first ridge, to which I invited a cluster of nice new goaty friends.

There's no joke there. Stop looking for it.

Until I have a ph.d., all of our readers have a chalet in the Swiss alps. It's absolutely brilliant up in the mountains, and I can't wait to get up there again, even if shortly after the photographs stop and the sun went down the soundtrack in my head did gradually shift from the first of the Enigma Variations to Dylan's 'Take a load off fanny' (v. imp. n.b.: Am., not Br. Eng.). (Relevant favourite quote from mountaineer Joe Simpson, stranded on Siula Grande: 'Bloody hell, I'm going to die to Boney M.') I summitted at sunset, hiked to the Eiger glacier by starlight and then down to Grindelwald for the night by 1:30 am, and then up Kleine Scheiddeg and through Biglenalp on the way back to Wengen in the morning. En route, I met OxBlog's new Mad German Scientist correspondent (chiefly Ir. Eng., but not exclusively), whose name is Margit and does outlandish things to mice. My friends had bubbly waiting for me when I got back, being of course incredible and annoyingly perfect sweethearts, and I fell asleep to Evelyn Waugh and dreams which seem to have featured sheep.

UPDATE: My Swiss friends accuse me of making a clever pun on Wald within the Where's Waldo caption. I must protest I did no such thing. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:45 PM by Patrick Belton  

TERRORISM READING OF THE DAY: The Saban Center at Brookings hosted a symposium on new directions for both counterterrorism and Al Qaeda. Something for everybody. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:40 PM by Patrick Belton  

TNR BEGINS A 'Today in Despotism' series - go read. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:28 PM by Patrick Belton  

HAPPINESS IS A JOHN BANVILLE BOOKER: His crystalline prose and wry humour have long made him one of my favourite novelists; I am glad it's now made him one of the Booker panelists' favourites, as well. The official announcement is here. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:24 PM by Patrick Belton  

OUR LOVELY ARTSY FARTSY correspondent, the fetching Máire Greaney, motivates a link for Arts Ireland, a monthly newsletter the latest edition of which has just appeared. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:48 PM by Patrick Belton  

OXBLOG'S NEW SWISS MILE-HIGH-CLUB CORRESPONDENT, Monsieur Alain Juillerat sends us in this photograph from his cockpit over Greenland from Moscow to Washington. Merci viumau, Alain - das isch ja krass!

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:29 PM by David Adesnik  

STUDENTS FOR GLOBAL DEMOCRACY: A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a couple of OxBloggers expressed that the hope that there would someday be a student movement committed to spreading democracy across the globe.

Thus, I am extremely gratified to report that Students for Global Democracy (SGD), founded by Charlie Szrom at Indiana University, has already organized chapters at twelve different universities in six different countries, including, remarkably enough, Nepal.

SGD's signature effort is its BELL campaign, whose purpose is to support the non-violent democratic movement struggling to push out Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenka, aka "Europe's last dictator". (Photo above)

Next Saturday, SGD will lead a Worldwide Walk for Democracy in Belarus. It purpose is to raise awareness of repression in Belarus as well as to raise funds to help the opposition. As part of the event, SGD chapters across the globe will lead 12-kilometer walks, one kilometer for each year Lukashenka has been in power.

If you are a student and you want to do something that really matters, get involved with SGD. See if there's a chapter near you. If not, start your own.

If you're not a student, why not send a few dollars to SGD so that they can keep up the good work? I'll be sending them $50 as soon as I'm done with this post.

If you're a blogger, go to SGD's website, read about the organization, and then post about it, because they deserve to be better known.

Oh, and in case your're wondering whether SGD is effective, Lukashenka's thugs have already started to harass SGD's friends in Belarus. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:23 PM by David Adesnik  

EARTHQUAKE ROUND-UP: Including lots of first hand accounts from local bloggers, via Joe Gandelman. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:15 PM by David Adesnik  

TODAY'S NAVEL GAZE: IS BLOGGING JOURNALISM? An undergraduate majoring in communications sent me an e-mail on Wednesday asking if blogging is journalism. Here's what I had to say:

I think that most political blogging falls into the category of opinion journalism. Although not regimented into 800-word columns, blogging resembles very closely what one sees on the editorial page of America's major newspapers. It consists of analysis based on facts compiled by others.

So, one might ask, are Tom Friedman and Jim Hoagland still journalists? Or did they stop being journalists once they became commentators? It's hard to say, since no one really has official control of who is considered a journalist. What most bloggers certainly are not is correspondents. Few of us provide first-hand reports from places where news is happening.

Then again, sometimes we do. OxBlog recently covered the anti-war protests at the White House and last year it covered the anti-war protests at the GOP convention, as well as the convention itself. More signficantly, there are many bloggers who regularly provide first-hand reports from far-flung places such as Lebanon, Iraq and elsehwhere.

What bloggers almost never do is simulate the authoritative, detached voice of most professional correspondents. We have no intrest in writing just-the-facts-ma'am reports that attempt to provide information without offending the reader. Why not? Well, one reason is that we instinctively distrust full-time journalists' pretensions of non-partisanship and objectivity. Another is that we usually have pretty strong opinions and no incentive to hide them.

I think its extremely important not to think of blogging and journalism as competitors or polar opposites. A lot of early coverage seemed to suggest that blogging aspired to replace journalism. This angle seemed plausible because so many bloggers, myself included, are almost obsessed with the mistakes, misperceptions and alleged bias of the "mainstream media".

In truth, blogging is a medium whereas journalism is an activity. Thus, in the final analysis it will always be misleading to ask if one is the other and vice versa. Some bloggers have no interest in politics or current events. They use their blogs to trade recipes or write about their boyfriends and girlfriends. Some journalists consider blogging to be a good way to cover their subjects.

But if the question is inherently misleading, why is it asked so often? Again, this comes back to bloggers' habit of criticizing journalists. If you argue that bloggers are not journalists, then you are suggesting that bloggers aren't qualified to criticize journalists, just as patients aren't qualified to criticize doctors.

If one could make a persuasive argument that journalism is a well-defined profession, such as medicine or the law, perhaps I would be inclined to criticize it less. But from where I stand, journalism seems to consist of little more than common sense, which is often quite uncommon even among journalists.

Best,
David

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:34 PM by David Adesnik  

RED MAN IN A BLUE HOUSE: Jamie Kirchick describes John Bolton's recent visit to the Yale Political Union. In response to a question about Abu Ghraib, Bolton said that the United States can investigate and punish its own war crimes. The predictable hissing that followed this response

prompted Bolton to inquire, “I'm just curious, those of you who are hissing, who do you think will judge better than us?”

Canada, presumably. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:55 AM by Patrick Belton  

NOW LANDSMEN ALL, WHOEVER YOU MAY BE, IF YOU WANT TO RISE TO THE TOP OF THE TREE WATCH: My participation in the United States and Britain consists of serious professional and academic work as a, well, perhaps 'Anglo-American foreign policy intellectual' isn't sufficiently pretentious, but I'll think of something; and anyhow it's what I scribble about, and together with a handful of friends I run a think tank dedicated to emerging issues in British and American foreign policy.

My participation in Irish society consists, conversely, mostly of bad jokes.

Quick quiz of the day: which is more likely to elicit an invitation to an ambassador's residence shortly after arriving in Switzerland?

Answer: another guiness brownie, excellency? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:13 AM by Patrick Belton  

GONE CLIMBIN'. Be back this evening tomorrow eventually, with photographs to share of Männlichen and environs.

Also, my housemate Barbara has just made a machine that makes mooing noises, a useful invention for a heavily bovine rural area. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:19 PM by Patrick Belton  

I KNEW I WAS MISGUIDED. I also knew that several parts of my anatomy were apparently abnormally large. But not until I checked google lately did I know that one of us, and therefore David, is the cleverest man on earth! But he's taken, ladies. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:38 AM by Patrick Belton  

THE STORY BEHIND AN IMAGE: Thus photographer Charlie Cole, describing how he captured an image of a man with a shopping bag standing down a column of tanks:

'[W]hen the moment came his character defined the moment rather than the moment defining him. He made the image, I just took the picture. I felt honoured to be there.'

The man in the image has been named as Wang Wei Lin, though without certainty. He has never been heard from again.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:09 AM by Patrick Belton  

WANT TO FIND OUT WHO WILL BE THE NEXT TORY LEADER? GO ASK A DUBLIN BOOKMAKER! Paddy Power gives David Cameron 5-6 odds, David Davis 13-8, Ken Clarke 9-2, Liam Fox 12-1, and noble Malcolm Rifkind, god love him, 80-1. After watching the speeches, I'll use my Irish Single Transferable Vote to jump on to the David Cameron bandwagon, for my second choice after Ken Clarke.

Why? Mark me down alongside the fetching Camilla Cavendish,

By the time I got to Blackpool on Monday I was wondering how difficult it would be to start a new party. That weekend a Populus poll had found that 49 per cent of voters agreed with the statement “British politics would be better off if the Conservative Party was replaced by a new right-of-centre party” — a palpable level of frustration that is the very reverse of apathy.

Then on Tuesday, I watched David Cameron. And I started to think that maybe the Tories could skip a generation and get away with it. Cameron was, frankly, inspirational. He did not drone on about Labour failures, nor did he exaggerate them. He filled the room with hope: with a picture of Britain as a compassionate place that does not have to put up with failing schools, ever-higher taxes, rampant crime and fraying social cohesion. He spoke about education with a fury and a determination that we have not heard since the early days of new Labour. For only by freeing and improving education can we recreate opportunity. And Labour’s passion has ebbed away.

For too long the Conservatives were carried away by an obsession with individualism that implied that there was only one remedy for all problems: the free market in larger and larger doses. That made them sound lunatic on health, for example, and completely unable to address subjects like social cohesion or climate change. It left them looking like half a party, and meant that even humane and intelligent free-market ideas were derided as cheapskate capitalism. The Conservatives talked a lot about aspiration, but seemed unable to grasp that people do not just aspire to material wealth. The new generation understands instinctively that many of us also aspire to leave a better world behind us. As the mood shifts away from consumerism and individualism, Mr Cameron is offering ways to strengthen society and reverse dwindling social mobility and social cohesion. And he is doing it with conviction.

Hear, hear. Mercifully the right flank's banner-bearer David Davis self-destructed after giving delegates a sense of what they could have watched during PMQs for five years. Another parliamentary bumbler far to the right of the nation would have given Labour too easy a ride, and politics would have (continued to have) been the poorer. Cameron's take on One Nationism leaves one hoping he might offer Britain what it hasn't had for ages - a credible Opposition for Her Majesty which promises for the UK what in 1998 a candidate Schröder long past had once portended for Germany, a new debating partner and a new middle. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:58 AM by Patrick Belton  

THE LEFT PRESS is having a field day with Bush's purported 'I'm on a mission from God' comment; entirely neglected is the more important journalistic question of whether or not he said it with the appropriate accent. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:16 PM by David Adesnik  

HE SAID IT MUCH BETTER THAN I DID: Henry Farrell has a superb article in The Chronicle of Higher Education on the value-added that blogging has for scholars. I agree, but lack anything to compare with Henry's eloquence. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:56 PM by Patrick Belton  

MY KIND OF TORY. Sir George Sinclair, imperial administrator, skilled parliamentarian, and progressive reformer, in pace. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:32 PM by Patrick Belton  

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL POETRY DAY! Go out and hug a poet. Being, as we try to be, a poetry-friendly blog, we have another Norman MacCaig poem chosen for us for the occasion by Máire, our artsy fartsy west of Ireland correspondent:

Aunt Julia

Aunt Julia spoke Gaelic
very loud and very fast.
I could not answer her-
I could not understand her.

She wore men’s boots when she wore any.
-I can see her strong foot,
stained with peat,
paddling with the treadle of the spinningwheel
while her right hand drew yarn
marvellously out of the air.

Hers was the only house
where I’ve lain at night
in the absolute darkness
of a box bed, listening to
crickets being friendly.

She was buckets
and water flouncing into them.
She was winds pouring wetly
round house-ends.
She was brown eggs, black skirts
and a keeper of threepennybits
in a teapot

Aunt Julia spoke Gaelic
very loud and very fast.
By the time I had learned
a little, she lay
silence in the absolute black
of a sandy grave
at Luskentyre
But I hear her still, welcoming me
with a seagull’s voice
across a hundred yards
of peatscrapes and lazybeds
and getting angry, getting angry
with so many questions
unanswered.

(Rings on a Tree 1968)

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:08 AM by Patrick Belton  

YOU'RE MY HEROIN WATCH: From the Department of Fun Maps, the BBC has a list of drug source and transhipment routes for your drug of choice, if you're planning your next vacation to Colombia. (If your tastes lie more toward buying a dodgy passport, Sunday Times is your man. The Bulgarian vintages are reputed quite good these days, carrying a subtle hint of Russian flavours.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:14 AM by David Adesnik  

AS BLOGGING BECOMES RESPECTABLE: The University of Chicago Law School now has an official faculty blog. Although individual professors have taken a leading role in the blogosphere since the very beginning, my own experience has been that American universities, as institutions, have been very reluctant to take blogging seriously.

As such, I find it quite remarkable that the top item right now on the UC law school homepage is an announcement of the faculty blog's existence. Earlier this year, a research center with which I was affiliated briefly entertained a proposal to start a blog for the faculty and graduate students. The idea went nowhere, I think, because even those who liked it didn't really believe that enough people would take the idea seriously.

What the issue comes down to, I think, is the perception that blogging is inherently unbecoming of a scholar. Posts are brief and rapid-fire. But what I hope that more faculties are beginning to discover is that blogging can serve as an important complement to the traditional forums for scholarship.

No one thinks that blogging should replace books or journal articles. But I think it can serve as an invaluable means of allowing scholars to apply their knowledge to current situations without having first to write a 30 or 300 page manuscript. Thus, I wish the UC faculty bloggers all the best and hope that their example will demonstrate that blogging is anything but the academic equivalent of lese majeste. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:15 PM by David Adesnik  

MICHAEL BLOOMBERG'S NEW JACK CITY: This morning, I read an article in the Times that began as follows:

New York City's police force has fewer officers, less money and more work than it did four years ago. Yet, by almost any measure, the city is safer today than it was before Michael R. Bloomberg became mayor in January 2002.

If that sounds like grist for a campaign commercial, it is. Public safety has emerged as Mr. Bloomberg's not-so-secret weapon as he goes about pressing his case for re-election.

This afternoon, I watched New Jack City, a film best described as Scarface set in Harlem, starring Wesley Snipes instead of Al Pacino. Although mostly a primitive shoot-'em-up, New Jack City (NJC, for short) also has pretensions of serving as a commentary on Reaganomics' responsibility for the urban crime wave of the 1980s.

The strange thing about watching NJC in hindsight is trying to empathize with the pervasive fear of drugs and street crime that once made living in New York so emotionally draining. Even as a child at the time -- or perhaps precisely because I was a child at the time -- I had a very sharp perception of my middle-class, family-centered way of life being under siege.

And most disturbing thing of all was the knowledge that the situation could never get better, only worse. There had once been a golden age for New York City, but I knew that it never would return. (By the same token, sophisticated intellectuals in the 1980s believed that America's golden age was dead and gone, never to return. See Kennedy, Paul.)

Now I certainly don't give Giuliani or Bloomberg all of the credit for stamping out crime in New York. But my point here isn't about who deserves credit. It is about the changed mindset made possible by a safer New York.

According to this morning's Times, crime is down 20% since 2001, with murders down from 714 in Giuliani's last year to 572 in 2004. But what has happened in New York over the past decade and a half transcends statistics. It is about living in a city which you are proud of, in which one feels that public spaces truly belong to the public and not to the threat of criminal violence.

The crime wave of the 1980s gave rise to an entire genre of black, urban crime stories: New Jack City (1991), Colors (1988), Juice (1992), Boyz N The Hood (1991), Menace II Society (1993). Although, unlike NJC, some of those films were excellent, I think that they were all made possible by a cultural moment in which Americans felt that they were losing control of the cities they lived in.

Of course, gangsta culture hasn't disappeared. It continues to inspire an unending array of million-selling albums purchased by kids in the suburbs. But the success of these albums doesn't depend on their threatening the listener, the way the films mentioned above threatened their audience. In this sense, gangsta culture has become more tame, even as it glorifies the mindless self-destruction of young black Americans. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:00 PM by Patrick Belton  

SIGH. Protestants.... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:34 PM by Patrick Belton  

VICIPÉID AS GAELIGE: Cuir iontas ar do chuid cairde! Cuir mearbhall ar na comharsana! Measaim go bhfuil sé go hiontach. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:50 PM by Patrick Belton  

MURDER INC: UK officials have indicated that Iran was behind the deaths of all eight British soldiers killed in Iraq this year. According to this dislosure, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards have been providing explosive technology to radical Shi'a militants based in the country's south, including cleric Moqtada Sadr's Mehdi army, by way of Hezbollah in Lebanon. See Times, and the Weekly Standard for more on the Revolutionary Guards, truly a nasty bunch of chaps.

For more nasty chaps, see this WSJ piece on al-Manar, the Hezbollah telly network which is your first stop on cable for unbiased trustworthy information on Jewish ritual child murder, the underrated joys of jihad and DIY martyrdom in Iraq in five easy steps. Nissan and Tefal advertise on the network; for shame. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:39 AM by Patrick Belton  

BAGHDAD BROADCASTING CORPORATION takes on Tehran: Frances Harrison, a lovely intelligent journalist from Cambridge and presently the Beeb's correspondent in Tehran, recounts what it's like on her beat in an account not lacking for either humour or wit - it's available as the latest in the World Service's From our Foreign Correspondent series of podcasts. In general, Auntie along with NPR are at the forefront (unlike, ahem, some) of making intelligent, supremely listenable content available in podcast form for convenient listening on the way up to visit the goat. Or, treadmill, for those of you who live in the real world. Or for other reasons haven't got a goat to visit.

Also worth listening to in podcast form - BBC's recent series on the future prospects and promises of the larger developing countries, Brazil, Russia, India and China, the so-called BRIC nations. Though personally, and perhaps it's because it's roundabouts lunchtime, I prefer the BLT nations of Brazil, Lebanon, and Turkey. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:54 AM by Patrick Belton  

'THROW SOME WATER ON THIS MAN, HE'S ON FIRE!' WATCH: Bruce Reed, having newly set up shop over at Slate, reminds us all just how it's done. Though if he ever wants to get back to his roots, he's always welcome to come blog here at OxBlog. (Have him bring the big guy!) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:17 AM by Patrick Belton  

HOTTIE OF THE DAY:



There's something strangely British about this hottie, which we haven't been able to quite put our fingers on. But that doesn't mean you'll be able to keep yours off: this stiff upper lip has got the slyest hint of a pout, and if there's reserve on the outside, I think you'll find things heat up quite a bit underneath. We hope this hottie comes over to warm up our dark, wet, dank, dreary, influenzal countryside nights. Sob. Mother? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:34 PM by Patrick Belton  

MIERS BRIGGS, PART DEUX: She has a perfectly valid law degree from Southern Methodist University, and served for three years on the Dallas City Council. I think it's fairly intuitive she only had one step left for her in her career: the Supreme Court. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:13 PM by Patrick Belton  

GREENSPAN TO RETIRE: Bush tipped to pick Dallas corner store owner, whom he met at church once and 'had a good feeling about.' (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:01 PM by Patrick Belton  

I LIKE (TORY, NOT RED) KEN: (Barbie available separately.) And this for the same reason I endorse Lieberman candidacies whenever they briefly exist and I have the chance: Ken Clarke strikes me as a man of intellect and moderation, likely to instil a politics of ideas and reasoned debate; he also is the only candidate for Tory leadership who looks even roughly like a Dublin publican, an even greater virtue. When 80 per cent of British voters feel that the Conservative Party is to the right of them, it is high time for the Tories to reinvent themselves or hock the place and go out of business - and an intelligent man at the political centre who promises no spin and straight talking may just be the one to do it. Proxime accessit: Sir Malcolm Rifkind. Shame he's out of the running watch: David Willetts. Favourite opposing view: David Aaronovitch, for fellow David David Cameron, but don't read if you're somewhere you can't afford to be heard laughing uproariously. Anybody but: Liam Fox, David Davis. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:00 PM by Patrick Belton  

I WAS GOING TO MAKE FUN OF JUDITH MILLER, UNFORTUNATELY BACK OUT ON THE STREETS: but Dan Froomkin does it for me. And he writes for the WaPo, here quite justifiably ribbing on the grey lady's grey lady herself. It's just delicious. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:56 PM by Patrick Belton  

BE ON OXBLOG! EAT CHOCOLATE! Swiss chocolates and fame immemorial through mention in this space to the adroit and intrepid reader who can tell us what colour automotive touch-up paint matches the (inside, principally, but I think it's much of a muchness) trim on an aluminium PowerBook G4. TiPaint didn't quite do it for me - not a very good colour match, I found - no chocolate for them.

Yum. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:48 AM by Patrick Belton  

MAIL BAG 4: BUT, CAN TURKEYS BE COMMANDOS? AHA, DIDN'T THINK SO...

Thought you might be interested in learning a little bit more about the Guardian's expert on the killer dolphins.

George Walser

I still think it was a damned good caption. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:45 AM by Patrick Belton  

MAIL BAG 3: BLOODY TURKEYS, OLD CHAP:

Mr. Belton, (regarding Michael Lind in Prospect. ah, go on - all my friends call me 'm'lord' - ed.)

Have you ever read "The Big Test" (ed: review, review) by Nicholas Lemann? What he points out is that the ideals of service, of graduates of places like Yale ending up as intelligentsia, aren't necessarily commensurable with a meritocracy: that if you are poor and suddenly get a good education, you'll want to make money; whereas if you come from old money and get a good education you'll be happy to go into service. This is not a crippling objection, but it certainly calls into question simplistic battle cries for a liberal arts educated elite. We had that kind of elite because of specific social circumstances, which no longer entirely hold. Plus, I'm not entirely sure that technocrats are entirely ignorant of the pulls of populism. But that is a separate argument.

Best,
Isaac

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:08 AM by Patrick Belton  

MAIL BAG 2 - PATRICK VOCÊ PERU: OxBlog's friend and fiendishly clever Latin America blogger Randy Paul, who frequently restores me to sanity whenever I temporarily lose command of my wits, points out that to the truly cool, Brazil will never go out of style. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:54 AM by Patrick Belton  

MAIL BAG 1 - PATRICK, YOU TURKEY: I've been eager to support the accession of Turkey to the EU on this blog, believing it as I do to be the correct course for reasons both of principle (viz, taking a stand Europe is more about liberal democracy than it is about either race or religion; rewarding and encouraging a speedily reforming Muslim-majority democracy which passes the 'Roman ruins test') and pragmatic considerations of policy (e.g., Turkish contributions to the labour markets and pension funds of a greying Europe). A friend and reader of ours, Mathieu Vasseur, a bonafide Frenchie, writes in with a witty and well-rendered set of counterarguments to represent the other side of the question. I still hold to my support for Turkey, but yield for equal time to my right honourable friend from la France:

Hello Patrick

Tu quoque, you are jumping on the Turkey-in-Europe bandwagon!

I find it extraordinary that, 3 months after our political leaders admirably faked humility and said, for the umpteenth time that, from now on, "we have to listen to the people, we cannot make Europe against their will" etc., they go on with a policy that is fervently opposed by an overwhelming majority of the Europeans. And nobody can pretend that it is "too difficult to be properly understood by the people", this time, since the question is quite simple. A great gift to Eursoskeptics I must say.

The EU is a club. Any club can choose its members. Nobody has offered to sponsor me for membership of the Rotary Club, so I am not a member of it. That is their right. Likewise, France is not a member of the Commonwealth. That is OK too. On the other side, the UK has not been offered membership of "la Francophonie". Fine. If you want to start a silk-painting group, you will choose who may belong to it. So what is wrong with telling Turkey: "sorry, you are very nice, but we don't think that you would quite fit in"? That would make us a "Christian club"? OK, so what? I am not allowed to visit the Mecca, since I am not a Muslim, and I completely respect that.

As for the argument that "Turkey would provide a sharply greying Europe with a massive infusion of cheap, young labour which it desperately needs": frankly, let's be honest, I don't think that a massive Muslim immigration would be quite advisable, do you? Try polling the French, the Germans, the Dutch or the Belgians and ask them if they want it, and prepare to be pelted with tomatoes. A great gift for all European Le Pens out there. Anyway, if we do want mass Muslim immigration, we can get it very easily, we don't need to have Turkey in Europe. As a Frenchman, I am quite sure that France could easily get 3 or 4 million immigrants per year just by opening its borders, if that is what we want (we don't!!!). Moroccans died recently, because they were desperately trying to get into Spain. There is no shortage of willing candidates, don't you worry. Anyway, if mass immigration is what our leaders want, let them say so! Come on, Mr Chirac, please go on TV and say it!

Then you hear the argument that "Turkey has made great progress, it is liberal and secular" etc. Great, until you hear the same people warning you darkly that "if we turn our backs on Turkey, they risk becoming preys to Muslim fundamentalism". So, not so liberal after all, if all that keeps them on the "right" path is the EU carrot, as opposed to their own inclination? Or we hear that they made such efforts to liberalise and democratise, it would be unfair to spurn them now. If liberalism and democracy are such a burden for them, then I am worried. Freedom should be its own reward, if the EU has helped them reaching it already, they should be grateful to us, not consider that we "owe" them somehow.

When Erdogan proposed to criminalize adultery, he was apparently supported by 80% of the population. Well, can you imagine France without adultery? The economy is gloomy enough, please let us retain a few pleasures!

I am all in favour of free trade and good relationships with Turkey, but sharing supranationality with it, which means accepting that they will have a say in our internal matters (especially since they will be the biggest member), quite frankly, no. Would Americans accept to pool sovereignty with Mexico? E.g. 3 out of 9 Supremes would be named by Mexico [does that mean I'd get Gonazales? put me down for that one! sorry, i'm interrupting my right honourable friend, i yield back - ed.], social law would have to be decided in common, foreign policy would be pooled etc.? So why can't they bloody well let us, Europeans, decide who we want to pool sovereignty with?

Turkey's accession to the negotiating table is a perfect example of the cowardliness and the dodging of accountability that comes from committee decision. Everybody hopes that the negotiations will fail, politicians make commitments on the basis that it is their successors who will have to honour them, by which time of course these successors will claim that it is too late to renege, the people seethe with anger, democracy is trampled upon and Europe falls into contempt. And all the time, the self-proclaimed elite arrogantly proclaims, based on spurious and half-baked arguments, that they represent reason and enlightenment, and all their opponents are "populists" who rely upon "fear" and "ignorance".

As Maggie once said, in a different context: "No, no, no".
Matthieu

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# Posted 8:51 AM by Patrick Belton  

NOT A PROTEST SONG BUT:* As a chicken-hawk, my impression of aircraft is generally this: they are slow, sluggish machines which are inside filled with bad food and evilly tiny portions of alcohol. However, then I moved to a writer's dacha in Switzerland, that hotbed of military muscle and home of acolytial Top Guns wearing flightsuits purportedly designed by Michelangelo. Switzerland, like many countries who watched Top Gun in the 80s, maintains an air force. Switzerland, like Singapore, maintains an air force which spend most of their time turning. One advantage, then, of being in das rural Berner Oberland is that one wakes each morning to flight shows of aircraft bursting through sonic booms, and performing manoeuvres of an unlikeliness of speed and deftness of turn that seem to approach physical impossibility, if not miracle. Must check expedia for a seat on one of those next time I head to Heathrow....

* Dylan reference. For Dylangate, incidentally, see here for underwhelment of the left and here for the underwhelment of the right with Scorsese's latest. (1) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:11 AM by Patrick Belton  

HOTTIE OF THE DAY:


OxBlog's answer to page 3. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:03 PM by Patrick Belton  

MIERS NOMINATION: I'm sure she's quite nice. But have we made it impossible for anyone with any judicial record at all, or discernible past espousal of any opinion, to join the highest court? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:45 PM by Patrick Belton  

THE DUBLIN FRINGE FESTIVAL came to an end today. It was noteworthy, among other things, for including for the first time a play written and produced by prisoners. Which I support, actually - it's taking away precisely these sorts of things that drive rates of recidivism up. (Participants in prisoner education programmes, for instance, have a recidivism rate that is 29 percent lower than nonparticipants.)

We would have sent our brand new west of Ireland artsy fartsy correspondent, but she's oddly on the wrong end of the country. Máire did file by 'phone this evening, however, to tip Charlie Byrne's to take over Kenny's mantle as bibliophile must-see site when in Galway. (Very very unrelated word of the day in her honour: 'jailteacht,' to describe IRA prisoners' autodidacticism of Irish in H-Block and elsewhere.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:09 PM by Patrick Belton  

ODD POLITICAL WEBSITE OF THE DAY: www.pimpmyparty.co.uk, engaging you meaningfully in the political process by permitting you to place your choice of racer stripes on a car meant to represent the Tory party. The Guardian calls the site excruciating. I'm inclined to agree, but I gave it a go anyway. (My selections: a green Morris Minor, with Lady Thatcher at the wheel and a 'Land of Hope and Glory' bumper sticker. Better than William Hague cranking up the ignition after fourteen pints.)

Elsewhere, at the convention today Francis Maude said the party must change or die, frontrunner David Davis seemed to disagree (oops), Rifkind made a call for one-nation conservatism, q.v., and Ken Clarke, whom I happen to quite like and who is as close to a Heathian Tory as there is out there at the moment, had to reassure party members that he really didn't like Europe all that much; actually, it was more of a fling, really. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:57 PM by Patrick Belton  

WE HAVE REACHED AGREEMENT. INSHALLAH, WE ARE DEPARTING FOR LUXEMBOURG: Thus FM Abdullah Gul announcing his country's having reached a deal with EU counterparts over the start of accession talks. Austria withdrew its obtuse call for invention of a second-tier status for Turkey within the EU after the Turkish government threatened to stay home if the latter option were on the table. Quote of the day, from a (judging, probably UK) diplomat: 'To have negotiations, you really have to have someone to negotiate with.'

'When Clinton did it, it looked about like this...' (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:47 PM by Patrick Belton  

BBC WEBSITE QUOTE OF THE DAY: 'I know someone who ate an apple a day. The acid has eroded his front teeth down to stubs.' Comment to an article arguing junk food is a myth. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:52 PM by Patrick Belton  

INCIDENTALLY, L'SHANAH TOVAH TO ALL of our friends and readers today celebrating a beginning to a New Year! For those who know me personally, the Tevye speech from Lebowski comes to mind. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:24 PM by David Adesnik  

THE RABBI READS OXBLOG: I am in NYC with my family to celebrate Rosh Hashana. If you are in NYC and have nowhere to attend services tomorrow morning, may I recommend Ohel Ayalah?

It is a free service designed specifically for those who don't have plans to go elsewhere. There are 100 places available for walk-ins. Tell the folks at the door that OxBlog sent you and you'll get a smile. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:21 PM by Patrick Belton  

THE STATUS OF THE TURKISH ACCESSION BID: CFR has a fact sheet.

Also at CFR today, Ambassador Sestanovich looks to who's in position to succeed Putin. (Hat tip: Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces have announced an anti-Kremlin alliance, starting with Moscow city council elections this autumn. Putin for his part looks to step down to influence from 'the ranks', a la Lee Kuan Yew or Deng Xiaoping from the Central Military Commission, though not Jiang Zemin)

And finally, Charlie Kupchan says Europe is having quite a bad hair day: the pace of integration and economic growth will be further slowed by a weak government in Berlin, and the demise he foresees for Turkey's accession prospects (occulted under a facade of hollow negotiations) will cultivate nationalism there. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:44 AM by Patrick Belton  

REWRITING THE BEATLES, PART I: If the KJV can be modernised, nothing in the English canon is safe. Not today, and not Yesterday:

Yesterday,
All those backups seemed a waste of day.
Now my chapters have all gone away.
Oh I believe in yesterday.

I...pushed...something wrong
What it was I could not say.
Now my thesis is gone
and I long for yesterday-ay-ay-ay.

Suddenly,
There’s not half the files there used to be,
And there’s a deadline hanging over me.
Office crashed so suddenly.

Yesterday,
The need for back-ups seemed so far away.
I knew my thesis was all here to stay,
Now I believe in yesterday.

Gotta give credit where credit is due: Jerry Pournelle (minor degradations mine) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:02 AM by Patrick Belton  

TURKEY ON THE TABLE: The beastly Austrians are pushing a proposal tonight that Turkey settle for something less than full membership in talks scheduled to begin tomorrow. Taoiseach says, correctly, EU must stick by its word, given of course under his watch. Solana tells Bild am Sonntag this morning that he's confident there will be a last-minute agreement, saying 'decisions that involve Turkey were always reached at the last minute in the past' (the Germans don't note the presence or absence of humour in that last comment).

I'm quite for Turkish membership, promoting Europe as an example of diverse peoples living under liberal democracy, and taking at European level a principled stand against the populist rhetoric surrounding discussion of Turkish membership in Austria, Germany and France. Turkey would provide a sharply greying Europe with a massive infusion of cheap, young labour which it desperately needs, and with subsidies from Brussels probably having peaked following the recent round of enlargement, it (unlike France) is unlikely to siphon off much from European treasuries in the form of structural aid and other subsidies. And this is a sharp moment in Turkey's own political evolution, determining whether its recent political, economic, legal and civil rights reforms will be rewarded or spurned by neighbours whose moral legitimacy turns not on their being a club of prosperous white Christians, but on upholding precisely those sorts of reforms and rights.

So here's one for hoping that meeting tonight in Luxembourg, EU foreign ministers do the right thing. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:21 AM by Patrick Belton  

DON'T TRY THIS IN NEW YORK WATCH: 'In the former Soviet Union, during the worst shortages of the 1980s, shoe polish sandwiches were used as a cheap way to get intoxicated, due to the shortage of alcohol. The method was mainly used by young men. Cheap shoe polish would be spread on a slice of bread and allowed to remain on there overnight. The next day, the polish would be scraped off, but the bread would have absorbed much of the alcohol and toxins. This would then be eaten. Three slices would produce a suitably intoxicating effect.' (from Wikipedia) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:02 AM by Patrick Belton  

IN: SLAVS. (Out: Brazilians. Sorry, lads.) And it's not only the style desk of the NYT who have lately developed Volga fever - the staff of the Wall Street Journal in this at least are in firm agreement, meaning Russians have conquered New York in a way in which Vova and Nikita could only have dreamed.

Elsewhere in the papers:

The New Criterion notes the NYT's cultural coverage is really rotten while meanwhile in Britain, intellectuals beat up men of letters. Christopher Andrew has a lovely charming piece on spies and Indira. Frequent TLS contributor Ronald Aronson opines gimme that old-style atheism, while Carlos Fuentes, developing further some material I heard him lecture with in London, looks to nominative uncertainty within Don Quijote for wellsprings of the novel as democratic polyforum, the public square where everyone has a right to be heard but no one has the right to exclusive speech. ("Religion is dogmatic. Politics is ideological. Reason must be logical. But literature has the privilege of being equivocal. The quality of doubt in a novel is perhaps a manner of telling us that since authorship (and thus authority) are uncertain and susceptible of many explanations, so it goes with the world itself.") And finally, Rebecca Saxe, a lovely brainy lady who studies brains, examines the potentialities of cognitive science to offer descriptive theories of universal moral reasoning. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion