Gulfstream

http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/iciss-ciise/report2-en.asp Canadian Government-sponsored report on “when, if ever, it is appropriate for states to take coercive—and in particular military—action, against another state for the purpose of protecting people at risk in that other state” (synopsis, pdf)—a response to a question Kofi Annan directed at the international community: “if humanitarian intervention is, indeed, an unacceptable assault on sovereignty, how should we respond to a Rwanda, to a Srebrenica—to gross and systematic violations of human rights that affect every precept of our common humanity?” 14:42

http://www.adl.org/mwd/suss1.asp “Idiot Legal Arguments: A Casebook for Dealing with Extremist Legal Arguments.” I wish this was formatted better; the table of contents includes:

Objections to name typed in block letters (all-capitals)
Insisting on having name typed with strange punctuation
Arguments based on fringe on courtroom flag
Similarly, on eagle on flagpole
Similarly, on so-called “American Flag of Peace” 12:37

http://slate.msn.com/id/2086427/ Great James Surowiecki piece on the Policy Analysis Market that specifically deals with the moral objections: “Let’s admit there’s something ghoulish about betting on an assassination attempt. But let’s also admit that U.S. government analysts ask themselves every day the exact same questions that PAM traders would have been asking … If it isn’t immoral for the U.S. government to be asking these questions, it’s hard to see how it’s immoral for people outside the U.S. government to ask them.”

I don’t quite like the argument that “[allowing] terrorists to bet on themselves, thereby letting them profit from their own misdeeds, [is] a pure red herring.” The problem is not with, for example, a 10 September 2001 bet that two planes would hit the WTC at about 10 o’clock the next day (insider-trading?!), but bets made by terrorists to compensate for the intrinsic “volatility” of their business. There is some small chance that Al Qaeda’s training bases will be, say, decimated by air strikes—so why not manage this risk by betting that this will in fact happen? If it doesn’t, you have your training base; if it does, you have the money to build a new one. 11:31

http://slate.msn.com/id/2086422/ Short and demoralising summary and history of rape laws: “We have created a system that is bad for everyone. The legal rules for rape have been ‘reformed’ to the point that defendants have few of the usual presumptions of innocence while victims are still humiliated and exposed at trial.” 11:27

http://slate.msn.com/id/2086315/ “The Pentagon scraps its startling plan for a terrorism futures market.” “Startling” is about right—politically, there was no way the program could survive. Even Paul Wolfowitz declared: “I share your shock…”

Gross says that though “on its face, the market is not a preposterous idea,” it would ultimately fail because “many of the figures who would have driven the pricing of PAM securities [e.g. Arafat, Bin Laden, suicide bombers] are not what international relations types refer to as ‘rational actors.’” There are two responses to this argument.

First, markets are much better at taking uncertainty into account than he suggests. Though the balance sheets of publicly-traded companies are (thanks to SEC rules, etc.) more open than, say, Hezbollah’s, a company’s value depends on much more than this. Among other things, investors have to be able to predict whether a particular product (Tablet PCs, the new Ford Falcon) or drug (cure for cancer, AIDS) will or won’t succeed in order to accurately value a company—and in this they would seem to have about as much information at their disposal as those predicting the timing and form of terror attacks.

Second, the business of predicting terror attacks is clearly not impossible (e.g. suicide attacks are more likely in Israel than Australia): and making these sorts of predictions is, in fact, exactly what intelligence agencies are supposed to do. Why not force them to quantify the strength of their beliefs by “selling” them in a market? What is the probability that Iraq tried to acquire yellowcake from Africa? If the only odds the CIA will accept are those that imply a probability of less than 5%, then maybe they aren’t so sure after all.

A market would allow decision-makers to separate the experts from the charlatans: if a supposed expert is continually losing money, then perhaps their predictions aren’t so hot after all. (Though in actual fact—if the market ever did run—decision-makers would most likely take their leads from the probabilities the market itself assigned, rather than the predictions of any one analyst.) To some extent, a market would also reduce the influence of ideological biases in the same way that footy tipsters, if they want to win, sometimes have to tip against their own team. Wishful thinking won’t do when your reputation is on the line. James Surowiecki, in an article published in March, put it like this: “Decision markets also skirt the political and personal issues that so often clog the flow of information within organizations. Because people are rewarded only for being right, they have no incentive to hide information, pursue agendas, or go along with the crowd.” 10:54

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/27/magazine/27SANCTIONS.html 16:32

http://slate.msn.com/id/2086136/ 13:18

http://slate.msn.com/id/2085915/ Michael Kinsley: “Nevertheless, watching on television, I found myself feeling, briefly, that politics mattered to me and I, as a citizen, mattered to politics. These are the feelings that Americans feel the lack of when they complain about politics and politicians. How did Blair do it?” 12:26

http://slate.msn.com/id/2085997/ Wow, Moussaoui trial not going at all well for the Justice Department. 10:53

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s908804.htm “The deal only applies to Mr Hicks. Separate arrangements will have to be negotiated for Mamdouh Habib if he is named as eligible for trial.” Why on earth would you negotiate trial conditions (i.e. not sentences) for Hicks and Habib separately? They’re both Australian, right? It seems, well, racist. 10:03

http://www.engagestudio.com/helvetica/ 16:06

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?conversation “Conversation” is … “an exchange similar to conversation”? (Definition 2c.) You can do this? 12:39

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-levine22jul22,0,4952758.story?
coll=cl-home-more-channels Blind characters suddenly feature in three different ads. (Interesting side issue about whether blind actors should play the blind characters. I don’t see that they necessarily should (actors do act, after all), though this might not leave many jobs for blind actors…) 11:46

http://www.absolutearts.com/cgi-bin/portfolio/art/your-art.cgi?
login=gnomie&title=Untitled-1055913477t.jpg A photo of this image, with artist Naomie Sunner standing in front of it, is on the front page of this week’s Yarra Leader: “Sunner’s image of a family sitting down to a meal of over-sized corn on the cob is presently plastered on a billboard on the corner of Smith and Gertrude streets. The billboard art project was funded under Yarra Council’s arts development program and is intended to generate debate about genetically modified food.”

I quite like this picture, though I don’t find it as disturbing as I think I’m supposed to. Does Sunner know that corn cobs were once about half an inch long, and that it is only through selective breeding that they’ve got to the size they are today? That Mexican Indian farmers had developed six-inch cobs by A.D. 1500? (This information comes from Jared Diamond’s excellent Guns, Germs, and Steel, which, even more incredibly, says cabbage, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower and broccoli were once the same plant.) 23:02

http://slate.msn.com/id/2085779/ About Billboard’s new digital download chart: (1) the top-selling single sold only 1,500 copies, meaning that (2) a great variety of tracks must be being downloaded, since Apple are claiming their iTunes store is selling 500,000 tracks a week. 15:18

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/story.php?storyID=13752 Nation-building seldom successful (and less so when unilateral). (If anyone wants to organise a rally in support of responsible nation-building in Iraq, I will go…) 15:08

http://nymetro.com/nymetro/news/media/features/n_8974/ New York writers on how they got their start. Jonathan Franzen: “The lamest assignment I ever took was to write a piece for Details about buying my first suit. The deal was for $2,000 plus a free suit. I wrote the thing and got a suit from Barneys which I still wear. The real bonus, though, was that Details never ran the piece.” 10:09

http://www.theonion.com/onion3925/bush_asks_congress.html Attorney General John Ashcroft: “We’ve become too complacent … We’ve grown accustomed to thinking of criticism as something that only happens to people in other political parties. But this administration needs this funding to counter a very real threat to its reputation.” 16:11

http://www.defectiveyeti.com/archives/000690.html The “Corsair,” an erogonomic keyboard for pirates. 10:41

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57390-2003Jun13 “Any smoker is socially allowed to talk to any other smoker at any time, to ask for a cigarette or a light. The most successful opening line in the known universe—male or female—is ‘Can I bum a cigarette?’ It’s non-threatening, instantly personal and highly sympathetic. All smokers know what it’s like to crave a cigarette and be without one, and so they are always willing to help, always empathetic and egalitarian. No other social phenomenon is quite like it.” 09:59

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2003310256,00.html “Shocked six-year-old Leah Lowland checked out a mystery bulge on her Incredible Hulk doll—and uncovered a giant green WILLY.” 13:54

http://slate.msn.com/id/2085402/ “Costing an Arm and a Leg: The victims of a growing mental disorder are obsessed with amputation.” The author thinks this is partly a social phenomenon: “What needs particular attention are the reasons why some people come to be sexually attracted to amputees or to the image of themselves as amputees. The form paraphilias take differs not merely among individuals, but from one culture and historical period to another. When Richard von Krafft-Ebing was writing about paraphilias in 19th-century Vienna, he described men who were sexually obsessed with handkerchiefs. That paraphilia has largely disappeared. Yet many others have emerged. What is it about our own time and place that has helped create an obsession with amputees?”

What wants should society encourage, discourage, forbid? Alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, coke? Fast cars, safe cars, no cars? Homosexuality, sex-reassignment surgery, amputation? (Link from the past: “Tiresias redux,” in which my favourite conservative writer, Theodore Dalrymple, complains about Professor Donald N. McCloskey’s decision to become a Deirdre.) 13:43

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030627.html Curious: during WWII thousands of Russians deserted to fight for Germany. “Some say Vlasov and the other Russians who collaborated with the Nazis aren’t worth crying over—they were traitors, after all. But I’d say they deserve a little sympathy. They could fight for either Hitler or Stalin, and life offers few choices more dismal than that.” 12:43

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/07/arts/design/07REVO.html I’m getting interested in what various people think of Mao: see Masterkill. 09:18

http://slate.msn.com/id/2085355/ “Chatterbox is a Democrat because (among other reasons) Democrats are the party of toleration. A small but telling illustration is the name of Sen. Joe Lieberman’s new communications director. It’s Matt Gobush. …” 09:17

http://www.bl.uk/services/publications/onlineshop.html/Catalogue_
ISBN_0712305173_427.html CD of poets reading their own poems. (An Atlantic Monthly article links to some similar recordings, including Sylvia Plath reading “Lady Lazarus.”)

Update: Great review at Slate. 16:44

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/magazine/06MITIGATION.html Jurors are increasingly deciding to not execute those convicted of a capital offence, in part because defence lawyers “have become more skilled and resourceful in persuading jurors that the lives of their clients are worth saving.” A jury convicted Jeremy Gross of a particularly brutal murder of a convenience store clerk; but when the defence laid out the circumstances of his life before them, the twelve jurors (who had indicated that they supported the death penalty) sentenced him to life without parole. 09:32

http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/?030707crbo_books Julian Barnes reviews Michel Houllebecq: Atomised/The Elementary Particles “was very French in its mixture of intellectuality and eroticism; it was reminiscent of Tournier in the evident pride it took in its own theoretical bone structure. It also had its faults: a certain heavy-handedness, and a tendency for the characters to make speeches rather than utter dialogue. But, in its high ambition and its intransigence, it was clearly superior to the other immediate contender for the [Prix Novembre], a novel that was very French in a different way: elegant, controlled, and old-fashioned…”

Also: “The literary world is one of the easiest in which to acquire a bad-boy reputation, and Houellebecq duly obliged. When the (female) profiler from the Times visited him, he got catatonically drunk, collapsed face down into his dinner, and told her he’d answer further questions only if she slept with him. Houellebecq’s wife was also enlisted, posing for the photographer in her underwear and offering a loyal quote of treasurable quality. ‘Michel’s not depressed,’ she told the interviewer. ‘It’s the world that’s depressing.’” 09:21

http://slate.msn.com/id/2085127/ Michael Kinsley says: privatise marriage. (I really like this idea—as he explains, it solves a whole lot of problems all at once. True, the institution of marriage is embedded into various laws and regulations, but as Kinsley says, “in all these areas, marriage is used as a substitute for other factors that are harder to measure, such as financial dependence or devotion to offspring.” And since we’re having to figure out how to measure these factors in order to recognise de facto relationships, why not go the whole way and abolish government-sanctioned marriage altogether?) 10:02

http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=000007F0-
6DBD-1ED9-8E1C809EC588EF21 Bottled water is neither safer nor tastier than tap water. (Also: Coke and Pepsi both “charge more for their plain water than their sugar water.”) 12:24

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2003/s891703.htm Tony Jones interviews Christopher Hitchens. It’s all interesting (as you might expect)—here’s how Hitchens distinguishes between Iraq and Zimbabwe: “I think in order for international action to be taken … about four things have to happen.” The state must: (1) have “a proven record of attacks on neighbouring countries and the intention to do so again”; (2) sponsor terrorist and gangster groups; (3) be in violation of the genocide convention and/or be a major threat to the survival of one’s own people; and (4) be searching for “weapons that violate all known non-proliferation treaties.” 17:35

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/sfo/13033371.html “What part of ‘I’m f--king sorry’ don’t you understand?” 16:07