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Requests Thread
16 Jun 2008 03:11 pm
Comments (71)
What it means, if anything, that Gore is finally endorsing Obama.
The future of agriculture at $350/barrel.
Still want to know why you think success in Afghanistan is important and achievable in a way that success in Iraq isn't (and also what 'success' would mean in the former case).
Is this something I need to read your book for? Or did you blog it and I missed it?
Given equal footing, (i.e. water shallow enough for a bear to maneuver adequately and a shark to maneuver adequately), who wins in a fight, a bear or a shark?
Failing that, your predictions for our energy future 5, 10, 15, 20 and 50 years from today.
Also want to hear about agricultural subsidies, and please no stock urban liberal sweeping statement about how we just need to do away with them when the rest of the world either has subsidies (EU, Japan), curbs exports (India, China, Vietnam), distorts the market (Korea) and/or imposes tariffs (just about everyone).
What is the best strategy for ensuring that the world has the cheapest, best food supply in 1) an ideal world and 2) the real world?
I'm still wondering why NH Governor John Lynch wouldn't be a great Veep for Barry.
Given equal footing, (i.e. water shallow enough for a bear to maneuver adequately and a shark to maneuver adequately), who wins in a fight, a bear or a shark?
Failing that, your predictions for our energy future 5, 10, 15, 20 and 50 years from today.
Sorry for the double-post. :(
This thread is too tempting a place to post jokes...
Seriously, though, how about this: Wasn't Scalia's line in his habeas dissent really over the top ("this decision is almost certainly going to cost lives"), to the point of being unrealistic, and have you being hearing talk among law students or lawyers about how ungrounded and odd it was for him to say that.
Can we get a single page that lists all your McCain flip flop posts?
It seems like there have been at least four or five in the past few weeks. A single page would be useful and emphasize his flip-floppiness.
How the campaigns measure up on the issue of maintaining competitiveness in science and tech. That is, positions on expansion of federal funding for science research, including stem cell research. How this ties into their position on immigration, vis-a-vis expansion of the H1B visa quota.
Clinton was well liked by many in the research community for coming out in favor of a tripling of graduater research fellowships awarded by the NSF, arguably one of the most successful programs for funding talented students in American universities. How will Obama match up now that Clinton is out?
On a related note, where science and tech lie as a campain issue. Many in the blogosphere and in the science community have long bemoaned the elimination of the Office of Technology Assessment and the minor role played by the Science Advisor during recent administrations. Do you think this issue will become more prominent in the near future? Can we expect tangible change during an Obama or McCain presidency?
What's a reasonable position for us to expect from Obama on trade? You keep hinting that you're more free trade than the Democratic party as a whole.
Buffalo's favorite son has passed away. Over the weekend, I thought it'd be interesting to read a post mortem on Buffalo itself.
Upstate New York through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, etc - these economies are on the skids with no real encouraging signs.
Russert's sad passing might be an opportunity to do an interesting look at how the rust belt is faring and what its future might hold.
Look, I've got certain
information, certain things have
come to light, and uh, has it ever
occurred to you, man, that given the
nature of all this new shit, that,
uh, instead of running around blaming
me, that this whole thing might just
be, not, you know, not just such a
simple, but uh--you know?
tpa-
I have a McCain Flip Flop list, but I need to do some updating. It's extremely difficult to keep up, and I'm not joking when I say that.
On the basketball/Sabrmetrics front:
It seems to me from what little I know about the increased use of statistics in basketball/baseball that the statistics we have are much better at measuring offense than defense. There's something to record when you get a hit or make a basket, but there's not much to record when you get an out where another player wouldn't have made the play (but wouldn't have gotten an error for) or when you play bad defense and it results in a basket for the other team.
Is there something to this argument? If so, what does it imply about how we should evaluate players who are particularly good or bad defensively? Also, what does it imply about the way we think the market values these players?
To follow-up on Swan, compare the current moment in Supreme Court contention to, say, the death penalty decisions, the era immediately after the Switch In Time that Saved Nine, any other periods where there was little legal consensus, etc.
Am I the only person who thought Kathleen Sibelius's SOTU response was not bad? I thought it struck an appropriate tone: sort of a big sigh. I thought it made sense because by that point the President had become so ridiulous and irrelevant that it wasn't worth getting angry about his inane speech. I more fiery response might've been appropriate in early years, but I thought she did just fine.
How about a post explaining why you called Kobe Bryant a rapist?
How about a "request thread" meta-post? Which other bloggers would you like to see adopt it? Will it influence the future of the medium? etc.
Do you have any interest in, or awareness of, music other than today's indie-rock bands and The Clash? I mean like jazz, classical music, what have you.
Your thoughts on the likely success of making China a "responsible stakeholder" in the Western-made international order. Will they play by the rules or ultimately seek to write their own?
I wrote: This thread is too tempting a place to post jokes...
I wasn't cracking on Joel's post (which had a joke), or anything, though, it may look like I was-- his post just got put up before I saw it. I was more remarking on my own propensity to post jokes.
It looks like the Supreme Court's decision just lets some guys get habeas. There is no way that "almost certainly is going to cost lives." How hard is it to legally detain people? Or to liquidate them, investigate them, or foil their terrorist plots without actually detaining them?
Scalia's line make sense as a piece of propaganda, but otherwise, it doesn't.
I enjoy reading the transit and urban-oriented posts. Perhaps a deeper look at the two candidate's urban policies as well as various interesting developments in American cities.
Last year, MattY told us the NAFTASuperhighway was just a myth:
matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/08/the_highway_that_wasnt_there.php
This year, BHO said more than his handlers would want him to:
there's this highway being built in Texas that will facilitate more transportation and travel between Mexico and the intercontinental United States, on up to Canada
Please explicate, explain, spin, dodge, or whatever suits you best.
Why you're out of ideas.
That whole "Kobe Bryant is a rapist and that's why nobody likes him" was good times. Maybe more on that?
We're supposed to have things like habeas to separate us from being arbitrary, tyrannical regimes, by the way (that ware run by groups like the Ton-Ton Macoutes or the Stasi or the Gestapo). Unless you want to live in country that is run by soldiers and cops whose every decision is justified only by their own physical, rather than legal, power to act, we need to keep our regime of these kinds of protections effective.
And if you think I'm saying that something like habeas alone is the whole difference by itself, I'm not: rather I'm saying that if you keep taking protections away, one day you wake up and find out you've giving the cops the power to do anything they want, because there is no longer a way to review them, to find out what they're doing, or a judge left who is independent enough to fairly listen to that kind of a review.
In Nazi Germany, by the way, they passed a law saying the SS could murder any person they wanted to! They actually had a judge rule on it and say it was ok. Pretty disgusting. Like modern institutions authorizing the practices or barbarism. If you think any of this kind of stuff is cartoonish, unreal stuff, it has actually happened and there are people who actually want it. You can read about the Nazis and find loads of examples of it. That all happened just around 70-60 years ago, and times change, but people are the same all over the world, and they don't change too much too quick.
Your thoughts on Obama's economic stimulus speech in Flint would be appreciated. It's on a issue that is vital to most Americans and is more detailed than most of his past speeches., I'm curious as to why there seems to be little media attention from it.
Swan
No harm, no foul. It wasn't even my joke, It belongs to Chris Bachelder. But it is a good way to work your brain into the mental equivalent of a möbius strip.
I'd like to read more about McCain's disasterous economic policies (not to be biased) and the ties he has to Phil Gramm who apparently is his go to guy on everything to do with domestic economic issues.
This hasn't been discussed enough in my opinon.
This is not politics or current events but I'd like to know how many time zones there are on the moon. Anyone know?
Something happy. Also things about the Supreme Court.
Susan
I'm not quite what you'd call an authority, but I would think that given the limited human population on the moon they'd probably just reference the time data of the place on earth where they came from. But, given the preponderance of weird data in this world, there probably is one. My google-fu can't fund it, though.
I'd like hear your thoughts on the technological divide we see between older and younger people in the U.S. We probably all have older family or friends who are not computer- or technology-literate, or even dislike dealing with technology. It's still possible to do almost everything you want to do (perhaps aside from talking to a person when things go wrong with some service or product you've ordered from a company) without relying on technology more complex than a telephone, but this may not continue to be the case. Will technology literacy produce a class divide? Has it already? On a related point, I'd like to hear your thoughts on whether being left behind with respect to familiarity with current technology is something that every generation will be subject to.
Who's your favorite character on Smash Brothers?
More posts where you name your high school and college. Those are terrific.
More vegetable blogging. Your post on asparagus was excellent.
Tiger!!
New Orleans : Iowa :: Black People : White People
Whom does GWB care less about?
Besides the afghanistan question posed by ryan--which I would like to hear--I really want you, as critically thinking journalist, to address the reality that Barack Obama is not committed to a real "troop withdrawal" at all.
Instead, he advocates removing "combat brigades" within 16 months of office. Problem is, combat brigades represent only about half of our troops. That means it is a very real possibility that he merely supports a troop reduction, not a "withdrawal" or end to the occupation. A huge distinction. Further, as Samantha Powers (oh how we miss her) admitted before her premature departure, this 16 month contingency plan is subject to developments on the ground.
Also delegitimizing his supposed plan to end the war, as Jeremy Scahill pointed out in the Nation, Obama is very willing to increase the number of "contractors" (read mercenaries) to offset this imbalance. And Scahill discovered that Obama supports maintaining the green zone encamped American embasssy, the largest embassy in the world.
Finally, among the troops Obama will keep in Iraq, many will remain for "training" purposes, or, the 'ole iraqization model for the conflict, which we definitely know will not work.
Given this rather uncontroversial information about Obama, I would like to see you address the veracity of the claims that Obama will end the occupation, addressing these points in the process.
Now, I know you may want to stray from such a topic during an election season, but I think if you are actually a journalist and not merely a partisan cheerleader, it is imperative that you either deal with the merits of these important issues or at least refute them. I thoroughly enjoy your work and find you quite willing to depart from dogma, but I have noticed a tendency to let Obama slide a bit. And considering the substance of your last book, I think you ought not avoid this. Thanks
How about a "request thread" meta-post?
Yeah. I'd like to know how you determine which of the questions posted on the thread to answer.
More vegetable blogging.
MY's vegetable love will grow,
Vaster than empires, but more slow
After the 5-4 decision, how scary is Scalia and his ilk? Can Obama run on the "I'm going to make sure Scalia writes dissenting opinions for the rest of his career" platform?
Also, you ignored the monkey attacks in India. Now they are spreading to the Phillipines.
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/bac/2008/06/16/news/residents.on.alert.vs.wild.monkey..html
What is McCain going to do to save us?
The "mid"season finale of Battlestar: Galactica.
Something about the transportation benefits of having more local farmers markets
A Foreign Policy Question:
Why not reconceive of the "war on terrorism" as a war on the means of terrorism? Or, to put another way:
If the question of international order is the grand international theory question - as we read in Heads in the Sand - then why not conceive of terrorism as a problem of international disorder, regardless of motivating ideology, and a priori to the threats from Al Qaeda or other Islamic terrorists?
And, of course, to suggest why I ask the question, a prospective answer:
If terrorism is seen primarily as a problem of international disorder, then policymakers would be more likely to focus on those issues of order - proliferation, network technology, international institutions, police work and intelligence - that if not solved might enhance a terrorist danger motivated by any ideology, whether the current radical ones now, or future ones later - instead of simply demonizing Muslims and saber-rattling abroad.
Write some more posts commenting on or bickering with your commenters. Seriously. You do after all, claim to read the threads "all the time".
Is there any way to make a full, public accounting of the sins of the Bush administration's treatment of detainees without tearing the country apart politically?
When was the last presidential candidate one could describe as "urban?" What would an urban president mean?
Let's see... it's been a while since you posted any drunken knife-fight pictures.
On a not entirely unrelated note, I'd be interested in a follow-up on the Ethiopian incursion into Somalia, which you criticized pretty strongly at the outset.
biofuels and other bio-products. good, bad, what?
i was looking for a way to reduce plastic and styrofoam use in my local cafeteria and i came upon this:
http://greening.usda.gov/CafeteriaReport7-31.pdf
is the USDA a good guy here? or am i missing the point?
then a local restaurant posted an angry notice about the unavailability of spelt flour (um, yeah, i live in very spelt-friendly neighborhood) because they said "the government is paying farmers to grow corn for fuel"
i could use some help separating the wheat from the chaff here, so to speak.
biofuels and other bio-products. good, bad, what?
i was looking for a way to reduce plastic and styrofoam use in my local cafeteria and i came upon this:
http://greening.usda.gov/CafeteriaReport7-31.pdf
is the USDA a good guy here? or am i missing the point?
then a local restaurant posted an angry notice about the unavailability of spelt flour (um, yeah, i live in very spelt-friendly neighborhood) because they said "the government is paying farmers to grow corn for fuel"
i could use some help separating the wheat from the chaff here, so to speak.
Do we still live in Nixonland?
Would an Obama victory in November mean that we've evolved from the bitter partisan divide Rick Perlstein describes in excruciating detail in his latest book? Or will an Obama presidency mean that even if the Franklin tribe is ascendent, the toxic hatred between Franklins and Orthogonians is still inevitable in the next generation? (Read Perlstein's book, or Garry Wills's masterpiece "Nixon Agonistes," for a description of Franklins and Orthogonians. It's a much more useful description of America's chief political schism than Democrat v. Republican, or even liberal v. conservative.)
Talk about the Sonics-Seattle trial that started today, the role of sports teams in building community and how Stern is douche.
where is Obama on gay rights? Between his SC fiasco, horrendous response to it, and lack of support for gay marriage, what can gay people expect from such a seemingly progressive and inclusive candidate?
What is your opinion of Obama's transportation policies? I am surprised you have not blogged about this, since you care so much about the issue, but then again, maybe I missed it.
"More vegetable blogging."
That would be his whole blog.
"You do after all, claim to read the threads 'all the time'."
He's a-lying to you.
"Yeah. I'd like to know how you determine which of the questions posted on the thread to answer."
He looks to see if it wasn't my two Iran questions.
"but I think if you are actually a journalist and not merely a partisan cheerleader, it is imperative that you either deal with the merits of these important issues or at least refute them."
He's not a "journalist" at all - he's a wannabe pundit.
And dealing with the merits of important issues - such as Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan - is something he simply can't handle.
TLB: "Please explicate, explain, spin, dodge, or whatever suits you best."
No, he'll just ignore it, as he does every question too embarrassing to answer.
Ryan: "Still want to know why you think success in Afghanistan is important and achievable in a way that success in Iraq isn't (and also what 'success' would mean in the former case)."
He's clueless on this subject.
"Is this something I need to read your book for? Or did you blog it and I missed it?"
The one time he made a substantive post on Afghanistan, it was so clueless as to be embarrassing. So now he ignores the subject, as he ignores Iran and Pakistan, arguably the three most important foreign policy subjects - and the Palestinian situation makes four - which he also ignores since he's Jewish and can't afford to upset the AIPAC crowd if he wants to keep his job here - while still claiming to be a "pundit" on "foreign policy".
How is one a "pundit" on foreign policy while ignoring the four most important foreign policy issues facing the country today?
Answer: He isn't. He's a wannabe.
he ignores the subject, as he ignores Iran and Pakistan, arguably the three most important foreign policy subjects - and the Palestinian situation makes four - which he also ignores since he's Jewish and can't afford to upset the AIPAC crowd if he wants to keep his job here - while still claiming to be a "pundit" on "foreign policy".
Gee, Hack! Too bad all the major outlets were unaware of your vast brain and stellar past deeds. How else to explain the hiring of the likes of Yglesia and a lesser luminary like me (columnist in 6 US media outlets, one Canadian, two corporates) - over you??
***************************
An interesting thing to write on is the discovery the (Swiss) Tinner family of the AQ Network had two Pakistani nuclear bomb blueprints, derived it appears from tested Chinese variants. We knew about the first from Libya. The second one turns out to be a very sophisticated one designed for transport and delivery in a small boat, pickup truck, small airplane, or on a missile tip. The second weapon is a U-235 implosion weapon weighing 500KG and yielding 10-15KT without tritium boosting, 40-60KT with it.
The IAEA, USA, and Euros have suspicions that the 2nd design was transferred to Iran and N Korea by the Tinners.
There's a piece in TimesOnline in which Bush has intensified the hunt for the capture Bin Laden to protect his legacy and increase his party's chances to win the election. If Bin Laden be captured(which of course is a good thing but the timing would be cynical)how do think Democrats should respond to this in an election year?
Peak oil. Where crude is going this winter, how to stay warm in the northeast this winter. In my state 80% of houses are dependent on heating oil.
Is this inflation? Stagflation? Comments on the book The Long Emergency, currently sweeping like wildfire through the message boards and blogs? Is this time to panic and stockpile? What is the way forward?
Not so much a topic as a general request: on topics such as transit policy, I don't know that much, except that I'd like to see better policies implemented. I'd love to see you cite to good sources (not just another person's blog post, but books, etc.) because I'd like to be educated on the subject.
Which bike trail do you like better, Capital Crescent or Mount Vernon?
At last. I have been waiting for this.
I would like a post on how political journalism is like basketball with an invisible hand joke.
The idea is that often when people seek their own advantage they contribute to the public good as if an invisible hand ...
One case is a journalist who wants to be rich and famous edited by an editor who wants to sell papers. To achieve these selfish aims they attempt to report important news which is not otherwise available. Good invisible hand.
Or else the reporter could decide to work as a Flack stenographer for a powerful person. That way we have to read the reporter's article to find out what the powerful person is running up the flag pole to see who salutes. This is totally socially useless as the powerful person will get his talking points out somehow, but the reporter privately benefits because they came through his pc.
A failure of the invisible hand.
In basketball players try to get rich and famous. They can do this by trying to make their team win. or they can try to score a lot. For the team it doesn't matter whose hands last touched the ball before it went through the hoop.
Stenographer journalists are like ball hogs.
Also journalists report pointless stories from say Drudge. This is like scoring in garbage time. I don't know if, when you were in Boston, the globe still awarded the golden trash can to the player who had run up the score most absurdly the past day.
I'd say a golden trash can for the journalist who reports the most pointless news that will got attention would be worth awarding.
Not sure if this is worth doing, but you are the only guy with enough combined political and basketball expertise to pull it off.
Ku Klux Klan minor Dragon (or more properly, Scrawny Lizard) Ford babbles:
"like me (columnist in 6 US media outlets, one Canadian, two corporates)"
Which media outlets would these be? The Illinois Nazis?
Bomb plans are irrelevant to the discussion. The Pakistanis also sent plans for other nuclear devices, which the Iranians turned over to the IAEA, claiming they were simply included in the materials the Iranians received from Pakistan. And the IAEA confirmed that an identical document exists in Pakistan. So the Iranians told the truth.
None of which alters the likelihood that the Iranian military has a nuclear weapons DATABASE program, like every other significant military on the planet, not a program to develop and DEPLOY nuclear weapons.
Nothing to go to war over. But Matt of course doesn't agree, because he has this fantasy about "militant nonproliferation policy" as a "liberal internationalist" (read: "crypto liberal hawk").
Does this also mean we got to bomb the Swiss for their contribution to spreading WMD's and weapons-related program activities?
Quick! Buy up the Toblerone before it goes through da roof!
We often hear about subsidies (er, incentives) received by the oil companies. What is the precise nature of these subsidies?
Matt, do you have anything to say about the Louisiana legislature doubling its own salary to $37500 (plus allowances)?
I don't understand the outrage: California legislators get triple that. Its absurd to pay powerful politicians a pittance unless you really really want them to be corrupt. Yet all the articles I've seen condemn the raise. What am I missing?
The arguments against it are along the lines of: its a part-time job, teachers get less, other Southern state legislatures pay less etc. All of which seem like empty posturing to me.
El Cid
TOBLEROWNED!
Resolved: the NBA should eliminate the 6-fouls-and-you're-out rule and thereby allow coaches to determine who plays when, not capricious officials.
Agree or disagree?
Maybe I'm a little late on this, but I'd like to know if any other country pays KBR/Halliburton type companies so much money to feed and perform services for their soldiers. Is anyone else in the world outsourcing what the troops used to have to do themselves? If so, is it more or less cost effective?
Comments closed June 30, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
Your position on agricultural subsidies!
Posted by MrProliferation | June 16, 2008 3:16 PM