;)
The Commentariat -- January 3, 2014
Internal links removed.
Steven Rich & Barton Gellman of the Washington Post: "In room-size metal boxes, secure against electromagnetic leaks, the National Security Agency is racing to build a computer that could break nearly every kind of encryption used to protect banking, medical, business and government records around the world. According to documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the effort to build 'a cryptologically useful quantum computer' -- a machine exponentially faster than classical computers -- is part of a $79.7 million research program titled, 'Penetrating Hard Targets.' Much of the work is hosted under classified contracts at a laboratory in College Park." ...
... Margaret Sullivan, the public editor of the New York Times: The Times editorial of yesterday, calling for Edward J. Snowden to be offered clemency or a plea bargain [generated a great deal of heat]. By midday, it had already drawn well over 1,200 online comments, as well as articles about it in other media outlets, including Politico, Fox News, The Nation, and USA Today. Andrew Rosenthal, The Times's editorial page editor, told me Thursday that the editorial had been under discussion by the editorial board for weeks." ...
... Greg Sargent: "Of course Snowden is the reason why the debate unfolded as it has. Indeed, you don't have to look any farther than the initial pages of the report released by the Obama-appointed panel for clear proof of this." ...
... Kevin Drum of Mother Jones: "I wouldn't defend every last thing Snowden has done. But life is messy, and you don't always get to control events with precision. Realistically, your choice is between (a) approving of what Snowden did, warts and all, or (b) approving of the status quo, with all of us none the wiser about what our government is doing. I'd say the choice is obvious." ...
... CW: That's ridiculous: a good example of the "false dilemma" fallacy. Obviously, there's a Choice (c): approving of some of what Snowden has done & disapproving of the some of what Snowden has done. One need not embrace warts. In addition, despite the limits of the Times editorial board's imagination -- they argued Snowden had no other choice than to go public after his supervisors demonstrated they shared none of his concern about the surveillance state -- Snowden had the option to take less drastic action. As I suggested some while back, he could have taken some or all of his data dump to Sen. Ron Wyden's national security guy, for instance. Or he could have released to U.S. media only those documents that made a case that the NSA was overstepping its legal, Constitutional and/or ethical authority. Drum is arguing, "I hadda kill the guy because he stole my pencil." Would Snowden have gotten into legal trouble if he'd taken my suggestions? Probably so. But he also would have been a hero to everyone but the NSA & their supporters. It would have been much more politically problematic to prosecute somebody who exposed only wrongdoing than it is to prosecute somebody who has released embarrassing (at the least) national security secrets to a host of foreign press. ...
... CW: I've avoided linking Ruth Marcus's Washington Post column for two days because I'm not a Marcus fan. But I do think she mostly gets it right about Snowden: "Time has not deflated Edward Snowden's messianic sense of self-importance. Nor has living in an actual police state given the National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower any greater appreciation of the actual freedoms that Americans enjoy.... The Snowden of Gellman's interview is seized with infuriating certitude about the righteousness of his cause. Not for Snowden any anxiety about the implications for national security of his theft of government secrets, any regrets about his violations of a duty of secrecy.... The whistleblower personality is rarely an attractive one.... And personality would not matter -- at least it would not be so grating -- if Snowden's behavior were more upstanding and his actions more justified." ...
... OR, as contributor Diane wrote yesterday, " I'm stickin' with my original assessment, he's an immature little prick." ...
... ALSO, Charles Pierce doesn't like Ruth Marcus. AND he thinks Snowden is as deserving of living in the U.S.A. as are Elliott Abrams & Ollie North. CW: This is the "two wrongs make a right" fallacy. One of you pro-fessional debaters may come up with a more appropriate fallacy. But it's a fallacy: "George Zimmerman beat a murder rap so every murderer should get off scot-free."...
... ** Digby has a very good piece on "the necessary give and take between government power and a free press." Also of note, Gellman claims that "Snowden gave all the documents to the three journalists, Gellman, Greenwald and Poitras, and they have all been going through institutional news organizations with editors and lawyers and other journalists vetting the material in consultation with experts. Snowden has nothing to do with how the material is being released."...
... CW: Gellman's assertion seems to conflict with Greenwald's hints that Snowden has "access to a trove of pilfered documents stored on a data cloud":
[Snowden] has taken extreme precautions to make sure many different people around the world have these archives to insure the stories will inevitably be published. If anything happens at all to Edward Snowden, he has arranged for them to get access to the full archives. I don't know for sure whether has more documents than the ones he has given me... I believe he does. -- Glenn Greenwald
New York Times Editors: "A careful review of ... Justice Sonia Sotomayor's perplexing decision to issue a temporary injunction against requiring an order of Colorado nuns to fill out paperwork required by the health care reform law's contraception mandate ... should persuade Justice Sotomayor and her Supreme Court colleagues, who may also become involved now, that the alleged threat to religious liberty is nonexistent and the stay should be lifted while litigation proceeds in the lower courts.... The audacious complaint in this case is against the requirement that such groups sign a short form certifying that they have religious objections to providing coverage for contraceptive services, a copy of which would go to their third-party insurance administrator.... Adding a level of absurdity to the controversy, Little Sisters of the Poor's insurance plan qualifies as a self-insured 'church plan.'... In this case, contraceptives would not be made available even indirectly to the nuns' employees." ...
... Rebecca Shabad of the Hill: "Eleven GOP attorneys general say the Obama administration is breaking the law by repeatedly making changes to ObamaCare without going through Congress. The attorneys general specifically criticize President Obama's executive action that allowed insurance companies to keep offering health plans that had been canceled for not meeting ObamaCare's more rigorous standards.... HHS did not respond to a request for comment." ...
... Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times: "Supporters of President Obama's health care law had predicted that expanding insurance coverage for the poor would reduce costly emergency room visits as people sought care from primary care doctors. But a rigorous new study conducted in Oregon has flipped that assumption on its head, finding that the newly insured actually went to the emergency room more often.... The finding casts doubt on the hope that expanded insurance coverage will help rein in rising emergency room costs just as more than two million people are gaining coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Instead, the study suggests that the surge in the numbers of insured people may put even greater pressure on emergency rooms and increase costs."
James MacPherson of the AP: "Following a string of explosive accidents, federal officials said Thursday that crude oil being shipped by rail from the Northern Plains across the U.S. and Canada may be more flammable than traditional forms of oil. A safety alert issued by the U.S. Department of Transportation warns the public, emergency responders and shippers about the potential high volatility of crude from the Bakken oil patch. The sprawling oil shale reserve is fueling the surging industry in eastern Montana and western North Dakota, which is now the nation's second-largest oil producer behind Texas."
"Paul Krugman is off today," so I bring you instead a lecture from Ruth Marcus's BFF David Brooks on the Evils of Weed. ALSO, how Brooks overcame his habit: "I smoked one day during lunch and then had to give a presentation in English class. I stumbled through it, incapable of putting together simple phrases, feeling like a total loser." As a result of his abstention he became a "more integrated, coherent and responsible" person and totally not a loser. ...
... ALSO, if this government publication is right, then so is Brooks.
... CW: Update: After I ID'd Ruth Marcus as Brooks' BFF, I turned to the Washington Post, & what should I find but a new Marcus column titled "The Perils of Legalized Pot." I didn't read past her confessional.
Tom Kludt of TPM: "Chris Kluwe, formerly of the Minnesota Vikings, wrote in Deadspin on Thursday that his public support for same-sex marriage played a role in his release from the team. Specifically, Kluwe identified 'two cowards' and a 'bigot' at the Vikings organization who were behind his release." ...
... Here's Kluwe's account. CW: I found it pretty compelling reading. ...
... David Atkins of Hullabaloo: "... to those who say we've nearly won the fight on gay rights, realize there remains an incredible amount of work to do even in the entertainment industry. Something is still very wrong when a child-marriage-advocating bigot like Phil Robertson gets to stay on the air on A&E of all places, while Chris Kluwe gets blacklisted from the NFL." ...
... John Aravosis of AmericaBlog: "If two coaches, at least, were acting in a homophobic manner, and one coach was rabidly homophobic, and nothing was done about it -- other than to fire someone who was pro-gay -- then the Vikings have a serious problem with homophobia in the management of that team."
Okay, here's your Krugman fix. Paul Krugman: "We could have a debate about whether rising inequality is a problem, and whether measures intended to curb it would do more harm than good. But we can't have that kind of debate if the anti-populist side won't acknowledge basic facts -- and it won't. In his [Wall Street Journal] piece Bret Stephens trashes Obama, accusing him of making a factual error when he did no such thing; then proceeds to commit just about every statistical sin you can imagine in an attempt to minimize the rise in inequality. In the process he leaves his readers more ignorant than they were before. When this is what passes for argument, how can we have any kind of rational discussion? Oh, and just FYI: this is the kind of journalism that the great and the good deem worthy of a Pulitzer Prize." ...
... Cockroaches, Zombies & Nonsense. Krugman again: "Consider three arguments one might make against 21st-century populism: 1. Inequality isn't increasing. 2. OK, inequality is increasing, but it's not a problem. 3. OK, it would be nice to have lower inequality, but any proposed solutions would do more harm than good. Which of these arguments does the right choose, when making its stand? The answer is, all three."
Peter Beinart in the Atlantic: "Democrats in 2014: the Party of John Edwards.... It was Edwards, during his 2004 presidential run, who returned the focus to inequality by flipping Clintonism on its head. In his 1992 campaign, Clinton had talked a lot about 'rewarding work.' Democrats, he insisted, would help people who 'played by the rules' -- for instance, via an expanded earned income tax credit for the working poor -- but they would stop coddling welfare recipients. In 2004, Edwards took that judgmental tone but redirected it. In his narrative, the people disrespecting work were not welfare mothers but trust funders, people who lived off their investments rather than the sweat of their brow."
"How can there be snow if there's global warming?"
... Commenters today mentioned the segment above. The short segment that preceded it is quite good, too:
... Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "... behind the scenes at the State Department [Secretary of State John] Kerry has initiated a systematic, top-down push to create an agencywide focus on global warming. His goal is to become the lead broker of a global climate treaty in 2015 that will commit the United States and other nations to historic reductions in fossil fuel pollution." ...
... Laura Barron-Lopez of the Hill: "Climate change and energy will be a major policy battleground in the 2014 midterms, advocates on both sides of the issue promise. Republicans like Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) plan to go on the attack against President Obama's climate action plan, which they have dubbed a 'war on coal.'" ...
... Mike Ciandella of News Busters: "The Russian ship, Akademic Shokalskiy, was stranded in the ice while on a climate change research expedition, yet nearly 98 percent of network news reports about the stranded researchers failed to mention their mission at all. Forty out of 41 stories (97.5 percent) on the network morning and evening news shows since Dec. 25 failed to mention climate change had anything to do with the expedition." CW: May be true of print media as well. I linked two AFP stories on the rescue effort; one never mentioned the group's makeup, & the other called it a "scientific expedition" with "tourists," but never hinted the party was gathering climate change data.
Local News
Maura Dolan of the Los Angeles Times: "A Mexican immigrant without a green card on Thursday won the right to practice law in California, an unprecedented ruling that could permit others in similar circumstances to become lawyers. The state Supreme Court agreed unanimously that Sergio C. Garcia -- who passed the bar examination four years ago -- should receive a law license while awaiting federal approval of his green card application. The court, which has the final word on licensing lawyers, said it was able to approve Garcia's admission to the state bar because the Legislature had passed a law last year that cleared the way."
Freeeedom! Jim Forsyth of Reuters: "Magpul Industries, a manufacturer of ammunition magazines, is moving its corporate headquarters to Texas, making good on its threat to leave its base in Colorado because of new restrictions on guns. 'Moving operations to states that support our culture of individual liberties and personal responsibility is important,' Magpul Chief Executive Richard Fitzpatrick said in a statement on Thursday. Magpul threatened last year to leave in response to new state laws that ban ammunition magazines that hold more than 15 rounds, require universal background checks for gun buyers and force gun buyers to pay for their own background checks.... Texas Governor Rick Perry welcomed Magpul.... 'In Texas, we understand that freedom breeds prosperity, which is why we've built our economy around principles that allow employers to innovate, keep more of what they earn and create jobs,' Perry said in a statement." CW: "Freedom" + "personal responsibility" = firearms that hold more than 15 rounds. "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear repeating rifles and semi-automatic shotguns, shall not be infringed."
Congressional Race
Chris Johnson of the Washington Blade: "Gay singer and 'American Idol' runner-up Clay Aiken is actively considering a bid to represent North Carolina's 2nd congressional district in the U.S. House, according to two Democratic sources familiar with his plans."
Right Wing World
Space Aliens! Invading Canadians! And Chinese! Brian Tashman of Right Wing Watch: "Jim Garrow today appeared on [Fox "News" contributor] Erik Rush's radio show..., where he predicted that President Obama will try to distract Americans from his supposed scandals ... by claiming that he is now in touch with alien life. This must be Obama's Plan B, as Garrow previously claimed that Obama almost launched a devastating nuclear attack on the US with the goal of killing 90% of Americans in order to help George Soros make money.... Another guest, Nancy Smith of the Tea Party news show 'Politichicks,' said ... 'Personally I've already heard some other sources saying the very same thing that you're saying.' ... As for the Americans who rise up against Obama and aren't deceived by his alien plot, Rush predicted that patriotic civilians and soldiers will fight Obama's Chinese-United Nations army. Garrow even said that Obama will send in troops from Canada to bring down the insurgency." With audio. CW: I invite you to read the whole post because, yes, there's more. Via Charles Pierce. ...
... Doktor Zoom of Wonkette is very concerned.
Canadian News
I've been the best mayor that this city's ever had. -- Toronto Mayor Rob Ford ...
... Daniel Dale of the Toronto Star: "As he had promised, Ford was the first candidate to register for the 2014 race. Immediately after he filed his nomination papers at city hall Thursday morning, he revealed his early communications strategy: a relentless focus on money matters, a refusal to address questions about his behaviour while in office."
News Ledes
Los Angeles Times: "Phil Everly, who with his brother, Don, made up the most revered vocal duo of the rock-music era, their exquisite harmonies profoundly influencing the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Byrds and countless younger-generation rock, folk and country singers, died Friday in Burbank of complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, his wife, Patti Everly, told The Times. He was 74."
Washington Post: "A rejuvenated al-Qaeda-affiliated force asserted control over the western Iraqi city of Fallujah on Friday, raising its flag over government buildings and declaring an Islamic state in one of the most crucial areas that U.S. troops fought to pacify before withdrawing from Iraq two years ago."
AP: "... starting Sunday tundra-like temperatures are poised to deliver a rare and potentially dangerous sledgehammer blow to much of the Midwest, driving temperatures so far below zero that records will shatter. One reason? A 'polar vortex,' as one meteorologist calls it, which will send cold air piled up at the North Pole down to the U.S., funneling it as far south as the Gulf Coast." ...
... AP: "A blustering winter storm that dropped nearly 2 feet of snow just north of Boston, shut down major highways in New York and Pennsylvania and forced U.S. airlines to cancel thousands of flights nationwide menaced the Northeast on Friday with howling winds and frigid temperatures. The brutal weather -- which brought plummeting temperatures to some areas that forecasters predicted could see highs just above zero and wind chill readings of minus 10 degrees and colder by early Friday -- dumped 21 inches of snow in Boxford, Mass., by late Thursday and 18 inches in parts of western New York near Rochester. Up to 7 inches fell in New York City by Friday morning."
New York Times: "Months after diplomats declared that they had come up with a plan and a timetable to dispose of Syria's lethal chemical weapons -- and with the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the weapons inspectors -- the centerpiece of the mission, a workhorse American military ship that will ferry the weapons to sea for destruction, remains [in Portsmouth, Virginia], waiting like a sad bride for her groom.... Late last month, the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the group charged with the removal efforts, said in a joint statement that security conditions in Syria had 'constrained planned movements' and that bad weather had foiled plans to move the weapons out by the target date of Dec. 31. "
New York Times: "Amid the chaos of Syria's civil war, Hezbollah has been moving long-range missiles to Lebanon from bases where it had stored them inside Syria, including long-range Scud D missiles that can strike deep into Israel, according to an Israeli national security analyst."
AP: "An Australian icebreaker carrying 52 passengers who were retrieved from an icebound ship in the Antarctic was told to halt its journey home on Friday after concerns that a Chinese vessel involved in the dramatic rescue may also become stuck in the heavy sea ice."
Cute Baby Story. ABC News: Three sets of New Years twins will have a lifetime of explaining to do. In each case one baby was born on Dec. 31 and the other on Jan. 1. They're twins, yet they were born in different years." CW: One is a tax deduction for 2013; the other is not.
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Reader Comments (16)
RE; The emergency room. If you need to see your Dr. right now forget about it. The telephone message you get from most Dr. offices is " If this is an emergency, hang up and dial 911. "
In this area they may squeeze you in if they get a cancellation. I had a graft collapse and the Dr. gave me a hard time for calling him and not going straight to the ER.
Medicaid patients also need help finding a Dr. that accepts Medicaid and they know that the ER must accept the Medicaid payment. Their visits are now paid for by Medicaid so they are not a burden. States that have accepted federal expansion of Medicaid will suffer less from indigent patients.
Another thought or three on the perfectly predictable rise in emergency room visits said to be due to the millions of newly insured:
First, those who have needed treatment for some time can now get it for the first time without certain bankruptcy, and in an ER they can get it NOW. We're watching a dam holding back pent up demand crack.
Second, since the majority of the newly insured are of the population who could formerly get treatment only in ER's, they could be expected to go to the place they know, the ER, where the system has trained them to go when they need to see a doctor.
Third, since the formerly uninsured population generally doesn't have a long history of navigating the-make-an-appointment-to-family practice-to-referral-to-make-another-appointment-with-specialist(s) roadmap of our complicated system, they naturally avoid all those daunting twists and turns and take the direct route.
That that route may be the most direct, but unless their condition is a genuine emergency, is seldom the best for the long term management of their health is a lesson it will take much longer for those untrained in our system's complications to learn.
And since that lesson has as great a cultural as it does a medical component, it may well take a generation.
I wonder what tomorrow's perfectly predictable shocking news will be?
.." In legalizing weed, citizens of Colorado are, indeed, enhancing individual freedom. But they are also nurturing a moral ecology in which it is a bit harder to be the sort of person most of us want to be."
Dear David Brookstone-
Are you really the person you wish to be? Yikes! And did you get that self-righteous, elitist, judgmental, smug, etc. etc. moral ecology by giving up weed? If so--please pass the Columbian Gold!
One point you failed to make--among many--is that legalizing Mary Jane may eventually put the DEA out of business and stop our insane war on drugs. And possibly some of the murder and mayhem leaking from the murderous power wielded by our greedy, sadistic drug kingpins. Not to minimize, of course, the wonderful moral ecology of our greedy, sadistic prison system. How would all of those sweet, moral guards and wardens find employment if we stopped throwing M.J. users in prison? And what in the fuckin' world would we do with all those empty prisons?
Oh yeah, and that cognitive degeneration due to smokin' weed. I don't think you needed that particular drug, dear David, to acquire your particular form of "CD." I think it has been there all along-- nurtured through the years by the folks at NY Times and The PBS News Hour, who really get it off on your moralistic babble. Truth to tell, for a "regular" guy, you have been shittin' in pretty high cotton. Just think how much higher your moral ecology might have risen if you'd toked a bit more on that little green glow?
Adding to yesterday's comments, concerning "moderates" and voter ignorance, I was reminded of the etyomology of the word "idiot." The following is excerpted from Wikipedia.
"An idiot in Athenian democracy was someone who was characterized by self-centeredness and concerned almost exclusively with private—as opposed to public—affairs.[6] Idiocy was the natural state of ignorance into which all persons were born and its opposite, citizenship, was effected through formalized education.[6] In Athenian democracy, idiots were born and citizens were made through education (although citizenship was also largely hereditary). "Idiot" originally referred to "layman, person lacking professional skill", "person so mentally deficient as to be incapable of ordinary reasoning". Declining to take part in public life, such as democratic government of the polis (city state), was considered dishonorable. "Idiots" were seen as having bad judgment in public and political matters. Over time, the term "idiot" shifted away from its original connotation of selfishness and came to refer to individuals with overall bad judgment–individuals who are "stupid". "
Those Athenians were really solons, no? Plus ca change and all that.
Etymology. Doh!
Man 'o man, reading that Brooks piece (of shit) was tough to get through. Impressive enough I suppose that he owns up to having inhaled the wacky tabacky and even publicly recollecting upon his girlish giggles with his friends. His conservative brethren must be very disappointed. But that aside he leaves out the giant gorilla in the room that I see Kate Madison already exposed: Incarceration Nation.
What kind of moral ecology are we sewing among our population when we toss a harmless pothead in jail and mix 'em with actual criminals. Yeah, they probably learned some lessons from their time in jail, but probably not the lessons they were sent their for. Add to that the bad rap sheet, the gaping black hole in your résumé and months/years stunting personal development, and one petty joint leads to a lifetime of consequences. And hopefully your skin color is as white as Santa or these negatives have a tendency to multiply.
As in everything in society, costs and benefits must be balanced and I'm willing to bet this experiment will reveal itself as a net positive.
Sure some young "losers" may fall in love with Mary Jane and resign themselves to underachievement and fall into the restaurant industry work for life (8 years personal experience, has its ups and downs but overall its tough full-time work and 90% of the employees are stuck in dead end, low wage jobs, so compliment the chef when due and please tip your waiter/waitress). But that must be balanced with the potential scholarship candidate who likes to get high every now and then but came across the wrong cop at the wrong time. Whereas a big fat fine could send the adequate message, he goes to jail and kisses that bright future goodbye. I've seen both cases personally so it's not a white and black argument as Brooks would like to paint it. And let's not forget Brooks' GOP homeboy snortin' Colombian coke but he's keen on keepin' his job.
I have a feeling if we sent some DEA agents into the homes of all the Wall Street tycoons and traders and the Richy Riches of Park Avenue they'd probably find some harder and more socially destructible drugs than a little marijuana.
But they wear white collars so they're exempt. And the disastrous 'War on (certain) Drugs' continues...
@Patrick; Thanks for the word history. We give our idiots the right to vote and they don't. From democracy to "idiot-cy." "I'm voting by not voting."
Re: The NSA is the best government you've never known. There is this; Most commentary I've read about our dirty little data diggers never projects the future. Harmless bytes of information, no worries here, for now. How about fifty years from now when the United Corporations of America decide your life for you?
I know, science fiction. What's benign today maybe cancerous tomorrow.
JJG: Very true, that bit about worrisome trends.
By no means a great writer, but in my estimation a great prognosticator, mid 20th C. American SF writer Mack Reynolds is worth more than a passing look. When I first read him in my teens I had no idea he was a committed socialist, (there was a distinct absence of examples in my family for comparison) but sensed the revolutionary tropes of his sociological, technical, political fictions that questioned the direction of some of the paths we were already taking. In the "if this goes on...." mode, when it came to what you call the United Corporations of America and other trends, fifty years ago Reynolds certainly had much of it right.
Forewarned is supposed to mean forearmed, but that works only if you're paying attention.
Now we're back to talking about the idiots.
Re: Climate Change. Chris Hayes had the noted climatologist Michael Mann as a guest. Before he introduced Dr. Mann, Chris quoted several global warming deniers, among them The Donald. They all said "It's cold outside, so global warming can't be happening." Dr. Mann said that climate scientists have a term for cold weather: it's called Winter. These idiots still don't understand the difference between weather and climate.
They're so fixated on their own corner of the world, they fail to notice that when it's winter in the northern hemisphere, it's summer in the southern hemisphere. Australia is experiencing temperatures of 120 degrees, which is HOT in anyone's book.
These peoples' anti-science stance is troubling. Mann and colleagues founded the site http://www.realclimate.org where scientists can counter their claims.
Dr. Mann is the one good ol' Ken Cuccinelli unsuccessfully attacked for Mann's work at the University of Virginia. The Wiki entry for Michael E. Mann is worth a read (not the "Miami Vice" Michael Mann).
@Barabarossa: you took the words right out of my fingers. Since I am ensconced in nature's white blanket here on the east coast the climate is not only stinging my cheeks and freezing my tootsies, but reminding me of most winters where amazingly there is SNOW and COLD. I, too, watched Chris last night and was going to remark on those deniers whose gloating ignorance sends me over the top. I'm also irritated that Kerry and Obama aren't getting enough credit for their efforts at trying to deal with this issue–––you rarely hear about this. So I was gratified to find this front page article in the Times: "Kerry Quietly Makes Priority of Climate Pact."
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/03/world/asia/kerry-shifts-state-department-focus-to-environment.html?ref=todayspaper
A bit more on idiocy; and its antidote.
Kudos to Marie for pointing the spotlight of reason and clear thinking at two (of the many) logical fallacies blotting the punditorial landscape today. There are scads more lying in wait for the unsuspecting and those whose abilities to parse poor arguments ranks with the ability of David Brooks to say something not obvious or worthless (or obviously worthless). Notice that I dispensed with an ass-covering "likely" in my observation. It's unnecessary. There's no likely about it. It's a certainty. Why? Because of all the opinions and poor arguments masquerading as truth that parade by each day, aimed at an audience of poor receptors unable to tell a fallacious argument from a knock-knock joke.
The core difficulty is sloppy thinking which produces sloppy arguments which in turn lead to bad decisions and even worse outcomes, accounting, in large measure, for the big bag of shit we find ourselves in most of the time. Of course, ofttimes the thinking is willfully sloppy especially when the goal has nothing to do with clarity.
Most of us are susceptible, at one time or another, to unclear thinking and/or poorly worded arguments which obscure the point both for us and any audience we may attract. I've been found guilty on both counts on a number of occasions, as has been pointed out by kindly souls out here on RC. Because of that I try to avoid fallacious arguments and stentorian declamations that employ heady but heedless use of absolutes: always, everyone, never, etc. (Unless, of course, there's a good laugh to be had.)
Even in science absolutes are somewhat rare. Water freezes at 32 degrees. Right? Well, mostly. Sometimes it don't. The reasons are many (impurities, saline content, pressure, supercooling effects, etc.) but it seems that water freezes at 32 degrees often enough to make it a benchmark. It's a bit different in math because axioms and theorems are somewhat tautological. In other words, a right angle can never be anything other than 90 degrees because that's the definition of a right angle. There isn't a way that the angles of a triangle can add up to anything other than 180 degrees. At least in this universe. Dunno about what goes on at the quantum level. Methinks quantum mechanics would give Euclid hives.
But in politics, absolutes get you into trouble and lead to bad thinking, poor arguments and terrible policy. Which is why it is vital that voters be able to discern the holes in bad arguments which, unfortunately, are legion.
Marie points out a couple of the most common logical fallacies, the two wrongs fallacy which hinges on a view of morality, and the all too quotidian false dilemma fallacy used ad nauseam by demagogues and idiots: with us or against us, dead or alive, if you don't go along with us you're for the terrorists, etc, etc, etc. And this is one case in which both sides do it, if not in comparative numbers. The 60s liberal student mantra "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem" sounds great but contains a boatload of difficulties that precludes clear thinking. First, what is the problem? Is there only one? Is there only one solution? Can you be part of a problem but also part of a solution? Buried in all of these arguments is, as Marie points out, the excluded middle argument(s). But 'nuff said about that.
The right seems particularly susceptible to logical fallacies. It's not always clear that these poor arguments are employed out of ignorance or as part of a larger hypocritical scheme to bully or bluff voters, but the end result is always bad.
I don't want to get into a whole big megillah about education theory here but I'm partially convinced that the sort of test-mad solutions proposed by right-wing educational policies embedded in laws like No Child Left Behind (No Child Actually Educated is more like it) in which teachers are handcuffed by rote methods at the expense of teaching students how to think critically serves the conservative cause much more than it serves the cause of actual education. The Texas textbook wars in which authoritarian members of the Christian right have attempted to seize upon an opportunity to inculcate revisionist history, science, and social studies into public school curricula is not exactly the same thing because here the attempt is to infect young minds with pre-approved right-wing narratives but it certainly has the secondary (and much more parlous) effect of diminishing--actually outlawing--the capacity for critical thought.
In fact, I've thought for many years that two classes should be required for all students who will become future voters in the Republic. First, a course specifically designed to teach critical thinking techniques. How to spot bad arguments and how to avoid them yourself. Second, as a corollary to the critical thinking course, one that refines those new skills by looking at communication. How the media conveys information. How and why stories are written, how television packages are edited, and the roles of producers, writers, reporters, editors, managing editors, and media ownership.
The founders believed that education was the most vital component of a healthy democracy. Conservatives do not. Thus the war on education and public schools and public school teachers, and the love for private (non-secular) education and charter schools where what is taught can be controlled.
If logical fallacies could be outlawed Fox would have to close up shop within the hour. Drudge, Breitbart, Beck, would disappear without a trace (except for the whiff of sulfur left behind them).
Fallacious, illogical arguments and uncritical thinking is the mother's milk of right-wing world. Unfortunately, that milk is force fed to millions of viewers and readers every day so each time someone makes the effort to interrupt that flow there's a momentary blip of good health for the Republic.
Thanks, Marie. And thanks to everyone else out here in Reality land who upend the bullshit and strive to keep us off intellectual life support.
Akhilleus, your prescription is classic. Rhetoric, logic, mathematics, history = wisdom, virtu (italicize that) and happiness. Plato, Aristotle, Socrates & Co. had it right.
Trouble is, it is hard to sell the idea that a classical education "gets you a job." Which is BS, but that's another discussion.
BTW I am not a Graecophile, just trained by Dominican nuns and Christian Brothers, who pretty much followed Aquinas' neo-Platonism in their curricula. By high school they were even incorporating Vatican II principles in the religion classes, so it was VERY classical.
Perhaps the most prevalent fallacy is post hoc ergo propter hoc, illustrated by the esteemed Brooks citing putative cognitive dysfunction with chronic MJ consumption. Unless, as Kate implies, he's being autobiographical.
And even AK underestimates how ambiguous science can be; much based on 'big data' and multivariant statistics has confused cause and effect - witness the recent course corrections for cancer screening, hypertension and lipid therapy. Paradoxically (pardon an adverb), climate prediction models, also statistical, may be more rigorous than epidemiology, as the inputs are all based on physical estimates which, while soft, are derived from long-validated physical constants, and have defined uncertainties.
What galls me most about climate change deniers is their assertion that the climitologists are using their conclusions to gain grant income. As a veteran of that game, I can assure them that 1. They struggle and scrap for every penny and 2. The struggle would be over for any one who could refute, with convincing data, the anthropogenic model. Unless things have changed in the year since I retired, the height of success in science is overturning the establishment.
Patrick,
Interestingly the tenets and ideas developed at Vatican II have been chipped away for decades as the church moved quickly away from John XXIII's vision of more openness, tolerance, and accessibility, because fuck that shit.
The current boss seems to be much more aligned with Roncalli and less with Ratzinger. Heh-heh. The righties are NOT happy!
Your mention of Aquinas raises a perfect example of how a more nuanced approach to the world can become, in the hands of demagogues and, well, idiots, hide-bound and black and white.
Aquinas, in an effort to inject rationality into his understanding of a religiously demarcated world view helped to develop an intellectual framework (Scholasticism) that attempted to recognize and incorporate earlier philosophical advances (which, as you point out, becomes Neo-Platonism).
One can poke some serious holes in Aquinas' arguments but at least the guy made an effort at critical thinking, the kind of which would be rejected by many subsequent theologians in favor of the "It's right because we say it is" school, the kind so much favored by current conservative thinkers (and Ratzinger-approved theologians). Aquinas' idea that if something is true it doesn't matter if you find it in the Koran, the Bible, or Detective Comics #317 (Remember? The one about the flying Bat Cave?) was a non-starter for the wingnuts. And Medieval wingnuts must have been more fun than a barrel of santorum.
But anyway, as a completely useless aside, and speaking of Medieval philosophy, here's one of my many theories (of the non-conspiracy sort): In order to be admitted to the ranks of philosophers in late antiquity and the Middle Ages, your name had to begin with an "A".
To wit: Aquinas, Avicenna, Averroes, Augustine, Abelard, Anselm, Albertus Magnus, Alcuin, Aureolus, a couple of guys named Artie, and I think Andy Hardy is in there somewhere. Also, even though he was much earlier, Aristotle is never far from Medieval thought processes so he makes the list by proxy. There were some other guys too, but I think A names were the way to go.
How's that for a kick-ass Thomist analysis?
Whyte,
You're right on about the Post Hoc fallacies. They're everywhere in right-wing world, and it's probably the silliest of all. I wore a purple tie on Tuesday. It rained. The purple tie caused the rain.
Climate change deniers, in their never ending attempt to "prove" that humans have nothing to do with any change (even if there was one), have, for years, been trying to disconnect increases in carbon dioxide from climate change, saying that CO2 has never been a cause of global warming. It was only evident after a warming trend. This is a perfect Post Hoc analysis. It completely overlooks the possibility that carbon dioxide could have been present before any spikes in temperature. But oh well, why ruin a perfectly good line of bullshit?
But on further reflection, the primary logical fallacy employed these days by wingers, the Big Kahuna of Contentious Crap, the Doyen of Diabolical Disputations and Disabled Dialectics, is the Ad Hominem attack.
If the name (shhhh....) Obama is connected with it, it must be wrong, or socialist, or communist, or fascist, or Islamic, or Hitler, or Black Panthers, or...you name it, baby, it's wrong. And BAD. Oh, wicked bad. If he showed up with the cure for cancer these bozos would reject it. Just because.
Brilliant, in'it?
Unfortunately, wingnuts do not have a monopoly on post hoc fallacies. During fifty years in natural sciences and biomedical research I have witnessed top shelf investigators drawn in by the correlation siren. The more valuable, perhaps the only legitimate, use of correlation is the analysis of how well data fit a model and, if the data do not fit (correlate), being ready and able either to re-evaluate the assumptions (constants and parameters) in the model, or abandon the model. I had to address this on my PhD qualifying exam. Climatologists do this constantly. Prof. Krugman deals with this almost daily and the sharpest political bloggers, such as Cole or Chomsky, avoid the trap. You see obvious post hoc errors overrepresented in the right wing media simply because higher education is underrepresented. Apropos, the claim that research universities discriminate against Republicans because they are so rare on their faculties.