Tue - May 20, 2003
Buffet on Tax
Warren Buffet, perhaps the greatest investor in the
history of Wall Street, has published an op-ed
that completely rips apart Bush's tax plan. Using himself and his receptionist
as real life examples, he first points out that they both pay about 30% of their
income in taxes right now. Now, the fact that a CEO and a receptionist are taxed
at the same rate already shows how regressive the current tax system is. Now,
let's assume that dividends are tax free and that Buffet gets $300 million in
dividend payments. Then Buffet's tax rate falls to 3%, while the receptionist
still pays 30%.
(This reminds me of ancien regime France described in Les Miserables, a world in which aristocratic landowners paid no taxes while the serfs broke their backs to pay taxes that financed the King's wars...)
Even more importantly, Buffet points out that exempting dividends from taxation will have no stimulus effect on the economy. Currently, many corporations pay no dividends to avoid taxes. If dividends are not taxed, corporations will pay out more dividends, and shareholders would invest the money. But if no dividends are distributed, the corporation hangs onto the money, and would also invest it. It is the same bundle of cash whether or not it is held by the corporation or by shareholders, and moving the bundle from corporations to shareholders will make no difference to the economy.
Buffet, who is also a prominent advocate for expense accounting of stock options, has long been a beacon of sense and reason in the investment community. I hope that others in the business community will join him to stop this outlandish tax cut.
(This reminds me of ancien regime France described in Les Miserables, a world in which aristocratic landowners paid no taxes while the serfs broke their backs to pay taxes that financed the King's wars...)
Even more importantly, Buffet points out that exempting dividends from taxation will have no stimulus effect on the economy. Currently, many corporations pay no dividends to avoid taxes. If dividends are not taxed, corporations will pay out more dividends, and shareholders would invest the money. But if no dividends are distributed, the corporation hangs onto the money, and would also invest it. It is the same bundle of cash whether or not it is held by the corporation or by shareholders, and moving the bundle from corporations to shareholders will make no difference to the economy.
Buffet, who is also a prominent advocate for expense accounting of stock options, has long been a beacon of sense and reason in the investment community. I hope that others in the business community will join him to stop this outlandish tax cut.
Posted: May 20, 2003 8:23 Read More Email Comments
Sun - May 11, 2003
WMDs, Race, and War
The Washington Post reports
today that US task force responsible for searching for WMDs in Iraq is winding
down operations after finding no evidence of such weapons. Due to lack of work,
the task force is already cutting staff and shedding equipment, and much of its
personnel has already been directed to other tasks unrelated to the WMD mission
(such as looking for evidence of war crimes).
This is just further evidence that this war was built on brazen lies. Like most governments around the world, the Bush administration never believed that Iraq and its alleged weapons program posed an imminent threat to the United States. As David Corn pointed out, the strategy and tactics of the Pentagon's WMD search mission is utterly inconsistent with the imminent threat hypothesis. The WMD search was not a high priority in the war plan, and the military made no effort to secure suspected weapons sites during the war. If the administration was really worried about Iraqi WMDs falling into the hands of terrorists, and given that the chaos of war would have afforded terrorists a golden opportunity to seize WMDs from sites abandoned by the Iraqi army, the Pentagon should have made it a priority to secure weapons sites. In stead, the sites were left unprotected and most of them have been looted, while troops were quickly dispatched to guard oil wells.
Apparently the WMD search is as high on the Bush's priority as protecting ancient pottery in the Iraqi national museum. But at least the administration took considerable criticism for failing to secure the museum. Curiously, even as international opinion continues to mock the US failure to find banned weapons in Iraq, domestic criticism has been all but muted. But perhaps this should not be surprising.
Even before the war it was known that Bush's claims about the Iraqi threat were either outright lies or audacious exaggerations. The supposed Iraqi plot to purchase uranium from Niger, repeated in accusations by top administration officials and by Dubya himself, was proven to be false.The alleged smoking gun document was found to be a forgery by the UN inspectors and admitted as such by the US government itself; and this was before the war started. The alleged chemical weapons lab in northern Iraq described by Colin Powell in his UN speech was shown to be merely run-down civilian factory by journalists from major domestic and international news agencies. Why didn't the American public pick up on these facts, which were reported in the media? Why was there such a great gulf between domestic and international perception of the Bush administration's credibility?
The sad truth is the American public was not fooled. They did not care about WMDs. During the war, a Los Angeles Times poll reported that about half of Americans believed the war would be justified even if no WMDs were found. That's right, for a war that was supposedly justified by the WMD threat, the public believed it should have been fought regardless of the reality of the threat. So why did so many Americans support the war? Perhaps they favored the overthrow of dictators and the promotion of democracy. But that is implausible. Suppose instead of attacking Iraq, Bush had invaded Burma solely on the ground of topping the oppressive military junta. Would the public has been as supportive? I doubt it.
Regardless of what the administration's real motives are (oil, empire, etc.), public support for the war could only be explained by racial stereotyping of Arabs as terrorists. In the same poll, a majority of Americans continued to believe that Iraq was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. A Guardian columnist laid out the basic logic behind public support for the war: it's Arabs who crashed those planes right? Well, let's kick some Arab ass! This is the depressing reality behind the WMD charade and the public's continuing support for the war.
This is just further evidence that this war was built on brazen lies. Like most governments around the world, the Bush administration never believed that Iraq and its alleged weapons program posed an imminent threat to the United States. As David Corn pointed out, the strategy and tactics of the Pentagon's WMD search mission is utterly inconsistent with the imminent threat hypothesis. The WMD search was not a high priority in the war plan, and the military made no effort to secure suspected weapons sites during the war. If the administration was really worried about Iraqi WMDs falling into the hands of terrorists, and given that the chaos of war would have afforded terrorists a golden opportunity to seize WMDs from sites abandoned by the Iraqi army, the Pentagon should have made it a priority to secure weapons sites. In stead, the sites were left unprotected and most of them have been looted, while troops were quickly dispatched to guard oil wells.
Apparently the WMD search is as high on the Bush's priority as protecting ancient pottery in the Iraqi national museum. But at least the administration took considerable criticism for failing to secure the museum. Curiously, even as international opinion continues to mock the US failure to find banned weapons in Iraq, domestic criticism has been all but muted. But perhaps this should not be surprising.
Even before the war it was known that Bush's claims about the Iraqi threat were either outright lies or audacious exaggerations. The supposed Iraqi plot to purchase uranium from Niger, repeated in accusations by top administration officials and by Dubya himself, was proven to be false.The alleged smoking gun document was found to be a forgery by the UN inspectors and admitted as such by the US government itself; and this was before the war started. The alleged chemical weapons lab in northern Iraq described by Colin Powell in his UN speech was shown to be merely run-down civilian factory by journalists from major domestic and international news agencies. Why didn't the American public pick up on these facts, which were reported in the media? Why was there such a great gulf between domestic and international perception of the Bush administration's credibility?
The sad truth is the American public was not fooled. They did not care about WMDs. During the war, a Los Angeles Times poll reported that about half of Americans believed the war would be justified even if no WMDs were found. That's right, for a war that was supposedly justified by the WMD threat, the public believed it should have been fought regardless of the reality of the threat. So why did so many Americans support the war? Perhaps they favored the overthrow of dictators and the promotion of democracy. But that is implausible. Suppose instead of attacking Iraq, Bush had invaded Burma solely on the ground of topping the oppressive military junta. Would the public has been as supportive? I doubt it.
Regardless of what the administration's real motives are (oil, empire, etc.), public support for the war could only be explained by racial stereotyping of Arabs as terrorists. In the same poll, a majority of Americans continued to believe that Iraq was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. A Guardian columnist laid out the basic logic behind public support for the war: it's Arabs who crashed those planes right? Well, let's kick some Arab ass! This is the depressing reality behind the WMD charade and the public's continuing support for the war.
Posted: May 11, 2003 20:53 Read More Email Comments
Tue - May 6, 2003
The Face of Jingoism
A disturbing entry
supporting national origin discrimination has appeared on the Yale Law
Republican blog. A Danish restaurant owner who refused to serve French and
German nationals from has been sued for discrimination. The writer approvingly
states:
It is nice to see a European willing to standup for us like this . . . hopefully some people who agree with him fill find a way to chip in to help him out with the fine and the legal fees.
By the same logic, wouldn't the writer would also approve if some restaurants in New Haven "stand up for America" and stop serving French and German citizens, many of whom are our law school class mates? Wouldn't it be "nice" to see that also? For that matter, what about African-Americans? Polls show that an overwhelming majority of African-Americans opposed the war, and black politicians (Barbara Lee, Jon Conyers. etc.) have been among the most vocal critics of the war. Well, sure enough, a pro-war hate flier was found at the Yale Afro-American Student Center a couple weeks ago. What did the writer think of that? I hope the reaction wasn't secret approval.
This is just another sign of the depressing jingoism that has enveloped the country.
Note: Isn't it ironic that many Republicans preach color-blindness when it comes to affirmative action (when color awareness favors minorities), but condone racial profiling in criminal law enforcement, or, in this case, restaurant service (when color awareness hurts minorities or foreigners).. .
It is nice to see a European willing to standup for us like this . . . hopefully some people who agree with him fill find a way to chip in to help him out with the fine and the legal fees.
By the same logic, wouldn't the writer would also approve if some restaurants in New Haven "stand up for America" and stop serving French and German citizens, many of whom are our law school class mates? Wouldn't it be "nice" to see that also? For that matter, what about African-Americans? Polls show that an overwhelming majority of African-Americans opposed the war, and black politicians (Barbara Lee, Jon Conyers. etc.) have been among the most vocal critics of the war. Well, sure enough, a pro-war hate flier was found at the Yale Afro-American Student Center a couple weeks ago. What did the writer think of that? I hope the reaction wasn't secret approval.
This is just another sign of the depressing jingoism that has enveloped the country.
Note: Isn't it ironic that many Republicans preach color-blindness when it comes to affirmative action (when color awareness favors minorities), but condone racial profiling in criminal law enforcement, or, in this case, restaurant service (when color awareness hurts minorities or foreigners).. .
Posted: May 6, 2003 9:55 Read More Email Comments
Thu - May 1, 2003
The Future Arrives
Apple finally unveiled its much anticipated music
download service, the iTunes Music
Store . After trying it over the last couple of days, I am convinced
that this will be remembered as a revolutionary moment in the history of digital
music. Apple has introduced the first viable business model for legally
distributing music online. Buying a song from the iTunes store is easier than
buying a book from Amazon. It works not from a browser window but straight from
the iTunes 4 jukebox software. It took me about 10 seconds to find the song I
want, buy it, and download it onto my hard drive. At 99 cents per song, iTunes
downloads are significantly cheaper than CDs in brick and mortar stores. And the
best part is that you own the music you buy. You can burn it to CDs, transfer it
to iPods, and move them to other macs, just as if you have ripped the music from
a CD. Encoded in Dolby's AAC format, the sound quality is fabulous. I've heard
conflicting opinions about whether AAC sounds a lot better or only a little
better than MP3's; anyway, they sound great to me. There is a good chance that I
will never buy a CD again.
Glowing reviews have also been issued by the NY Times and the WSJ.
The puzzle is why no one has thought of this before. The major labels' own music download services, PressPlay and MusicNet, are notoriously cumbersome and hard to use. Their subscription model forces users to rent, rather than own, the music. Once you stop paying the monthly fee, the music disappears from your hard drive. Moreover, layers of copy protection technology make it very difficult to move the music to CDs or MP3 players, so basically you can only listen to it on your computer. No wonder they have been abysmal failures. While Apple's business model is vastly superior, it is the labels, not Apple, that controls the licensing and copyright terms. Why they would agree to far more lenient licensing terms for Apple than for their own shops is a mystery.
Currently iTunes 4 work only on macs running OS X. Ever since I bought my powerbook two years ago I've always felt a great deal of sympathy for Windows users who have no idea what they are missing. But I've never felt so sorry for Windows users as I have over the past two days. Apple has promised a Windows version of the service by the end of the year, but no doubt the user experience will be inferior to the mac version, just like how Windows iPods are inherently less enjoyable than their mac counterparts. Using Windows is just a miserable experience, and there is nothing Apple can do about that.
Glowing reviews have also been issued by the NY Times and the WSJ.
The puzzle is why no one has thought of this before. The major labels' own music download services, PressPlay and MusicNet, are notoriously cumbersome and hard to use. Their subscription model forces users to rent, rather than own, the music. Once you stop paying the monthly fee, the music disappears from your hard drive. Moreover, layers of copy protection technology make it very difficult to move the music to CDs or MP3 players, so basically you can only listen to it on your computer. No wonder they have been abysmal failures. While Apple's business model is vastly superior, it is the labels, not Apple, that controls the licensing and copyright terms. Why they would agree to far more lenient licensing terms for Apple than for their own shops is a mystery.
Currently iTunes 4 work only on macs running OS X. Ever since I bought my powerbook two years ago I've always felt a great deal of sympathy for Windows users who have no idea what they are missing. But I've never felt so sorry for Windows users as I have over the past two days. Apple has promised a Windows version of the service by the end of the year, but no doubt the user experience will be inferior to the mac version, just like how Windows iPods are inherently less enjoyable than their mac counterparts. Using Windows is just a miserable experience, and there is nothing Apple can do about that.
Posted: May 1, 2003 17:53 Read More Email Comments
Fri - April 25, 2003
New Zealand!
Mark's pictures from his winter trip to New Zealand are now online. They are stunning. Check it out. It's worth it.
Posted: April 25, 2003 13:25 Read More Email Comments
Thu - April 17, 2003
Spring Photos
Pictures from my spring vacation in Taiwan have finally made it to my web site. I've divided them into two pages: the nature page features photos from the national nature preserves of Alishan and Lake Riyue, and the city page consists of images from Taipei and Tainan. Enjoy.
Posted: April 17, 2003 19:7 Read More Email Comments
Fri - April 4, 2003
Delusions of Power
According to conventional wisdom, we live in a
unipolar world which the US dominates as its sole super power. The US is so
powerful, the story goes, that it is beyond super - hence the appellation
"hyperpower." The assumption of unparalleled American power now underpins all
mainstream political discourse. From the most warlike hawks on the right to the
anti-globalization movement on the left, few dispute this assumption. Instead,
they disagree only on its policy implications. Neocons, drunk with delusions of
empire, boast and gloat about using American power to impose their values on the
world. Liberals and progressives, genetically skeptical of and uncomfortable
with the idea of power itself, fail to offer a coherent theory of how American
power should be exercised or, depending on political inclinations, diminished.
But a crucial question remains unanswered. What exactly do we mean when we talk
about power? What is the nature and basis of US hyperpower? The answer, I argue,
is highly damaging to the neocon
vision.
Casual invocations of American power obscures a fundamental fact: American military power is grossly disproportionate to its underlying economic strength. US military expenditure dwarfs that of the next ten biggest spenders combined. In terms of aggregate GDP, however, the US economy is roughly comparable to the EU, and less than double that of Japan. In real terms, China's aggregate GDP probably already exceeds that of Japan, and may reach US and EU levels within the next two decades. In other words, if Europe and Japan have chosen to, they could easily have funded war machines competitive with that of the US. But they have instead willingly conceded military primacy to the US. And this fact speaks to the nature of US power in the post Cold War world.
American power is the power of a leader, not that of a hegemon. In the early postwar period, with Europe and Japan in ruins, the US did enjoy hegemonic status. Its economy accounted for nearly half of world GDP. But by later stages of the Cold War the US has lost its economic primacy. Rather than relying on brute force, US power has been sustained by the acquiescence and support of its allies. Europe and Japan could confidently trust the US to wield its influence to advance not its parochial interests, but the common interest of the Western alliance as a whole. Europe and Japan did not have to arm because they did not need to, given the promise and reality of American protection, and the assumption that US power would never be used against their interests. Like a leader in a voluntary association, the US owes its power to the deference of its followers, who trust the leader to take actions in their common interest. The US has not wielded power as a hegemon, who overawes the weak with brute force and intimidation. But what if the leader, in a fit of delusion, forgets about the nature of his power and begins to act like a hegemon? What happens when the followers lose their trust in the leader?
The US war in Iraq, while an awesome display of American power, also threatens to undermine it fundamentally. Far from welcoming US power as a a force for their interests, other countries may begin to see it as a dangerous, threatening, or at best neutral factor in world politics. The Western alliance, no longer unified by the communist threat, will only vitiate further with each display of American arrogance and unilateralism. Classical IR theory suggests that a grand realignment would begin as second tier powers build up armaments to balance against the hegemon. The problem will be exacerbated for the US because, as the economic facts indicate, it is not even a real hegemon, but a temporary pretender.
As if they are young boys playing with action figures, neocons are spellbound by the visual brilliance of American military power but forgetful of that power's geopolitical basis. There are others in the world with the wealth and the technology to build militaries competitive with the United States, and they have only chosen not to do so. While the EU is far from being a competitor of the US, this once unthinkable scenario is now very much in the realm of the possible. It is worth noting that as war began, Belgium, France and Germany also started discussions on integrating their armed forces. Some neocons are now clamoring for expanding the war to Syria and Iran; if they desire power for the US, they should be careful what they wish for.
Casual invocations of American power obscures a fundamental fact: American military power is grossly disproportionate to its underlying economic strength. US military expenditure dwarfs that of the next ten biggest spenders combined. In terms of aggregate GDP, however, the US economy is roughly comparable to the EU, and less than double that of Japan. In real terms, China's aggregate GDP probably already exceeds that of Japan, and may reach US and EU levels within the next two decades. In other words, if Europe and Japan have chosen to, they could easily have funded war machines competitive with that of the US. But they have instead willingly conceded military primacy to the US. And this fact speaks to the nature of US power in the post Cold War world.
American power is the power of a leader, not that of a hegemon. In the early postwar period, with Europe and Japan in ruins, the US did enjoy hegemonic status. Its economy accounted for nearly half of world GDP. But by later stages of the Cold War the US has lost its economic primacy. Rather than relying on brute force, US power has been sustained by the acquiescence and support of its allies. Europe and Japan could confidently trust the US to wield its influence to advance not its parochial interests, but the common interest of the Western alliance as a whole. Europe and Japan did not have to arm because they did not need to, given the promise and reality of American protection, and the assumption that US power would never be used against their interests. Like a leader in a voluntary association, the US owes its power to the deference of its followers, who trust the leader to take actions in their common interest. The US has not wielded power as a hegemon, who overawes the weak with brute force and intimidation. But what if the leader, in a fit of delusion, forgets about the nature of his power and begins to act like a hegemon? What happens when the followers lose their trust in the leader?
The US war in Iraq, while an awesome display of American power, also threatens to undermine it fundamentally. Far from welcoming US power as a a force for their interests, other countries may begin to see it as a dangerous, threatening, or at best neutral factor in world politics. The Western alliance, no longer unified by the communist threat, will only vitiate further with each display of American arrogance and unilateralism. Classical IR theory suggests that a grand realignment would begin as second tier powers build up armaments to balance against the hegemon. The problem will be exacerbated for the US because, as the economic facts indicate, it is not even a real hegemon, but a temporary pretender.
As if they are young boys playing with action figures, neocons are spellbound by the visual brilliance of American military power but forgetful of that power's geopolitical basis. There are others in the world with the wealth and the technology to build militaries competitive with the United States, and they have only chosen not to do so. While the EU is far from being a competitor of the US, this once unthinkable scenario is now very much in the realm of the possible. It is worth noting that as war began, Belgium, France and Germany also started discussions on integrating their armed forces. Some neocons are now clamoring for expanding the war to Syria and Iran; if they desire power for the US, they should be careful what they wish for.
Posted: April 4, 2003 15:35 Read More Email Comments
Thu - April 3, 2003
Snow Country
My friend Mark's photo collection "Late Afternoon Ski" has been published by 28mm.org. The pictures are really wonderful, and I would urge everyone to check it out.
Mark, of Hamilton, NY, is an exiled Californian web designer and photographer, and a colleague from my dot com days....
Posted: April 3, 2003 16:36 Read More Email Comments
Sat - March 29, 2003
Rififi
Steven published a dismissive review of Rififi, the
classic black and white crime drama, as "boring" and "uninspired." Naturally, I
feel compelled to defend what is, in my estimation, one of the greatest action
flicks ever made. In particular, Steven took issue with the celebrated heist
scene:
"I kept waiting for something really clever to show up, but nothing ever did. I mean, come on: they broke into an unguarded jewelry store, and then broke into a safe (in the most literal meaning of the word) with very conventional tools--and that's it ."
Sure, Rafifi offers nothing exceptional in terms of story line. But that is precisely the source of its greatness. Without outrageous crime schemes or make-believe gadgets, Rififi generates a world of excruciating psychological intensity. The heist, like Ravel's Bolero, holds the tempo steady while tension ratchets up and up. The determined but nervous expression of the thieves, shown in repeated close-ups and interspersed with shots of the ticking clock, captured perfectly the mood of premeditated crime. The close-ups created a sense of intimacy between the movie and the viewer; sitting in the theater, I felt at times that I was at the scene myself. In the final car chase, repetitive, alternating close-ups of the baby and the driver had the same effect. The film was superbly edited, coupling a smooth and persistent pacing with explosions of dramatic tension.
Moreover, Rififi portrayed its characters realistically, humanely, and empathetically, with only the lightest traces of caricature. The criminals were motivated by common place emotions -greed, fear, love, loathing - each of which rose and fell appropriately with twists and turns in the plot. One cannot help but empathize with the characters and their predicament.
Steven's review reveals a preference for cleverness and technology. But I doubt that Rififi would be a better movie if the safe was broken with a science-fiction gadget rather than with "conventional tools." Gadgets in themselves add little to the drama. Clever stories help to keep the audience guessing, but they do not in themselves give a movie heart. And above all, heart is what makes a movie great, even for the action/thriller genre.
My favorite action scene come from the black and white era - the famous chase in the woods in Kurosawa's Rashomon. Working with relatively primitive technology, Kurosawa created visually dazzling and emotionally riveting cinema. In Rashomon's chase, the victim's sense of fear was palpable and even overwhelming. There is nothing clever about the chase, but for dramatic effect I think the scene continues to have few equals. Another memorable scene is the field work sequence in No Regret for Our Youth, Kurosawa's debut feature. What could be more boring than watching people plant rice? The key was that Kurosawa made us feel what the heroine felt, her determination, sorrow, and loneliness, all expressed without dialogue and as pure visual drama.
I am not sure how much technology has changed the basic visual vocabulary of cinema, but I would guess not very much. Modern movies look good, even brilliant, but in what really matters - feelings - they do not have an advantage over the classics.
"I kept waiting for something really clever to show up, but nothing ever did. I mean, come on: they broke into an unguarded jewelry store, and then broke into a safe (in the most literal meaning of the word) with very conventional tools--and that's it ."
Sure, Rafifi offers nothing exceptional in terms of story line. But that is precisely the source of its greatness. Without outrageous crime schemes or make-believe gadgets, Rififi generates a world of excruciating psychological intensity. The heist, like Ravel's Bolero, holds the tempo steady while tension ratchets up and up. The determined but nervous expression of the thieves, shown in repeated close-ups and interspersed with shots of the ticking clock, captured perfectly the mood of premeditated crime. The close-ups created a sense of intimacy between the movie and the viewer; sitting in the theater, I felt at times that I was at the scene myself. In the final car chase, repetitive, alternating close-ups of the baby and the driver had the same effect. The film was superbly edited, coupling a smooth and persistent pacing with explosions of dramatic tension.
Moreover, Rififi portrayed its characters realistically, humanely, and empathetically, with only the lightest traces of caricature. The criminals were motivated by common place emotions -greed, fear, love, loathing - each of which rose and fell appropriately with twists and turns in the plot. One cannot help but empathize with the characters and their predicament.
Steven's review reveals a preference for cleverness and technology. But I doubt that Rififi would be a better movie if the safe was broken with a science-fiction gadget rather than with "conventional tools." Gadgets in themselves add little to the drama. Clever stories help to keep the audience guessing, but they do not in themselves give a movie heart. And above all, heart is what makes a movie great, even for the action/thriller genre.
My favorite action scene come from the black and white era - the famous chase in the woods in Kurosawa's Rashomon. Working with relatively primitive technology, Kurosawa created visually dazzling and emotionally riveting cinema. In Rashomon's chase, the victim's sense of fear was palpable and even overwhelming. There is nothing clever about the chase, but for dramatic effect I think the scene continues to have few equals. Another memorable scene is the field work sequence in No Regret for Our Youth, Kurosawa's debut feature. What could be more boring than watching people plant rice? The key was that Kurosawa made us feel what the heroine felt, her determination, sorrow, and loneliness, all expressed without dialogue and as pure visual drama.
I am not sure how much technology has changed the basic visual vocabulary of cinema, but I would guess not very much. Modern movies look good, even brilliant, but in what really matters - feelings - they do not have an advantage over the classics.
Posted: March 29, 2003 18:43 Read More Email Comments
Tue - March 4, 2003
the sadnessof things, or, 物の哀れがあるね
My friend Andrew is recording the sounds
of nature on the icy coast of Hokkaido, Japan. There, the melancholy sounds of
a realm 20 degrees below zero has apparently opened a window into the sadness of
the world (according to the news
article in the Hokkaido Shinbum, translated liberally:). Andrew's CD
of the natural sounds of Japan will be released later this
year.Posted: March 4, 2003 0:0 Read More Email Comments
Mon - March 3, 2003
What does it mean to kill for oil?
Critics of the coming war, myself included, see the
war as an immoral sacrifice of human lives for oil. Hawks, in contrast,
generally do not address this question, because they contend that the war will
be fought not for oil, but for non-proliferation and democracy. The debate has
not been productive, because progressive accusations have simply been met by
conservative denial. But the question can be resolved by defining more
concretely what it means to wage war for
oil.
If a war for oil means direct seizure of Iraqi oil fields and their placement under permanent American government or corporate control, then the war will not be fought for oil. Hawks adamantly deny the war-for-Exxon conspiracy theory, and they are probably right. Direct seizure, although not impossible, will provoke intolerable political outrage and is unlikely to be seriously contemplated by the Bush administration. More likely is that the fields themselves will still be run by the Iraqis, with considerable American influence in pricing and output decisions.
But at a fundamental level, it is impossible to deny that US policy in the Persian Gulf is motivated by an underlying strategic interest in secure access to oil. Every significant aspect of the Middle Eastern political order, from the borders drawn by European imperialists 80 years ago to contemporary US alliances with Gulf monarchies, have been conditioned and structured by the Western interest in oil. Generally, direct control has not been necessary for the West to protect its access. It is sufficient to populate the region with weak states who are happy to sell their oil and who will not contemplate using oil as a strategic weapon against the West. (That there is no need for direct control is a fact missed by war-for-Exxon conspiracy theories). A corollary is that the US needs to prevent the emergence of any Arab or Iranian state with the power and ambition to challenge US predominance in the Middle East. The rise of such a power would undermine the US interest in secure access at reasonable prices.
Historically, US access to Gulf oil has been predicated on its alliance with and support for Gulf monarchies. The US gets its oil, and the Arab and Iranian dynasties get their cash, and all sides are happy. All sides, that is, except for people of the Middle East. The old order began to crumble in 1979 with the popular overthrow of the Shah; the process accelerated with the first Gulf war and the installation of a permanent American military presence in the region.
The US oil interest today faces two primary challenges. First is the threat posed by states with ambitions to challenge US geopolitical preeminence in the region. Both Iraq and Iran fall into this category. While both governments are happy to sell their oil, they may also be willing to use oil as a geopolitical weapon. To maintain secure access to oil, the US needs to contain, or destroy, both states. Second is the threat posed by anti-dynastic discontent in the proverbial Arab street. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism as a popular political force poses a grave threat to the American oil interest. The overthrow of the Arab monarchies in an Iranian-style revolution is a nightmarish scenario for US planners.
Invading Iraq is an attractive solution to to both problems, from the perspective of hawks in the Bush administration. First, the creation of an Iraqi client state would both eliminate a direct geopolitical threat to the oil interest and facilitate more effective containment of Iran. Syria, the lone remaining Arab nationalist state, would also be effectively checked. The postwar Middle Eastern system will consist of pro-American states without geopolitical ambitions and devoid of a plausible Arab claimant to regional hegemony. To play on an old adage about NATO, regime change in Iraq will keep the Americans in, keep the Iranians out, and keep the Arabs down. Second, neo con hawks hope that a liberal democratic Iraq will provide a political alternative to Islamic fundamentalism throughout the Arab world. Dissatisfaction with the corrupt dynasties will be diverted from political Islam into a pro-Western alternative. This will prevent popular politics from impinging on the US oil interest.
Therefore, Bush's war on Iraq will be a war for oil in the sense that the invasion is a means to develop and sustain a political order that ensures American access to Gulf oil. This is an undeniable fact. The first Bush administration would not have been so resolute in rushing to Saudi Arabia's defense in the first Gulf war if not for the strategic imperative of preventing an aspiring power from gaining control over the world's oil supply. Hawks have been busy offering moral and humanitarian justifications for the Iraq war, but American geopolitical behavior simply cannot be explained by moral concerns. Had Saddam Hussein been dictator of Burma, Bush would not be amassing troops to deliver the gift of democracy. The US will gladly condemn human rights abuses abroad in Senate resolutions and in State Department reports, but it has rarely been willing to take costly action for purely humanitarian causes. The US has been far more wiling to bear the costs of action when strategic interests, especially oil, is at stake.
Given the above analysis, there should be little doubt that Bush's war will be fought for oil. American soldiers will kill, and be killed, to create a new Middle Eastern political order whose primary purpose is to protect the US oil interest. That is immoral.
ps. this post is meant to answer the title question, but it also addresses in part Tim's comment about the dominoe theory.
If a war for oil means direct seizure of Iraqi oil fields and their placement under permanent American government or corporate control, then the war will not be fought for oil. Hawks adamantly deny the war-for-Exxon conspiracy theory, and they are probably right. Direct seizure, although not impossible, will provoke intolerable political outrage and is unlikely to be seriously contemplated by the Bush administration. More likely is that the fields themselves will still be run by the Iraqis, with considerable American influence in pricing and output decisions.
But at a fundamental level, it is impossible to deny that US policy in the Persian Gulf is motivated by an underlying strategic interest in secure access to oil. Every significant aspect of the Middle Eastern political order, from the borders drawn by European imperialists 80 years ago to contemporary US alliances with Gulf monarchies, have been conditioned and structured by the Western interest in oil. Generally, direct control has not been necessary for the West to protect its access. It is sufficient to populate the region with weak states who are happy to sell their oil and who will not contemplate using oil as a strategic weapon against the West. (That there is no need for direct control is a fact missed by war-for-Exxon conspiracy theories). A corollary is that the US needs to prevent the emergence of any Arab or Iranian state with the power and ambition to challenge US predominance in the Middle East. The rise of such a power would undermine the US interest in secure access at reasonable prices.
Historically, US access to Gulf oil has been predicated on its alliance with and support for Gulf monarchies. The US gets its oil, and the Arab and Iranian dynasties get their cash, and all sides are happy. All sides, that is, except for people of the Middle East. The old order began to crumble in 1979 with the popular overthrow of the Shah; the process accelerated with the first Gulf war and the installation of a permanent American military presence in the region.
The US oil interest today faces two primary challenges. First is the threat posed by states with ambitions to challenge US geopolitical preeminence in the region. Both Iraq and Iran fall into this category. While both governments are happy to sell their oil, they may also be willing to use oil as a geopolitical weapon. To maintain secure access to oil, the US needs to contain, or destroy, both states. Second is the threat posed by anti-dynastic discontent in the proverbial Arab street. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism as a popular political force poses a grave threat to the American oil interest. The overthrow of the Arab monarchies in an Iranian-style revolution is a nightmarish scenario for US planners.
Invading Iraq is an attractive solution to to both problems, from the perspective of hawks in the Bush administration. First, the creation of an Iraqi client state would both eliminate a direct geopolitical threat to the oil interest and facilitate more effective containment of Iran. Syria, the lone remaining Arab nationalist state, would also be effectively checked. The postwar Middle Eastern system will consist of pro-American states without geopolitical ambitions and devoid of a plausible Arab claimant to regional hegemony. To play on an old adage about NATO, regime change in Iraq will keep the Americans in, keep the Iranians out, and keep the Arabs down. Second, neo con hawks hope that a liberal democratic Iraq will provide a political alternative to Islamic fundamentalism throughout the Arab world. Dissatisfaction with the corrupt dynasties will be diverted from political Islam into a pro-Western alternative. This will prevent popular politics from impinging on the US oil interest.
Therefore, Bush's war on Iraq will be a war for oil in the sense that the invasion is a means to develop and sustain a political order that ensures American access to Gulf oil. This is an undeniable fact. The first Bush administration would not have been so resolute in rushing to Saudi Arabia's defense in the first Gulf war if not for the strategic imperative of preventing an aspiring power from gaining control over the world's oil supply. Hawks have been busy offering moral and humanitarian justifications for the Iraq war, but American geopolitical behavior simply cannot be explained by moral concerns. Had Saddam Hussein been dictator of Burma, Bush would not be amassing troops to deliver the gift of democracy. The US will gladly condemn human rights abuses abroad in Senate resolutions and in State Department reports, but it has rarely been willing to take costly action for purely humanitarian causes. The US has been far more wiling to bear the costs of action when strategic interests, especially oil, is at stake.
Given the above analysis, there should be little doubt that Bush's war will be fought for oil. American soldiers will kill, and be killed, to create a new Middle Eastern political order whose primary purpose is to protect the US oil interest. That is immoral.
ps. this post is meant to answer the title question, but it also addresses in part Tim's comment about the dominoe theory.
Posted: March 3, 2003 0:0 Read More Email Comments
Sun - March 2, 2003
Koffee?
So instead of briefing my admin law cases I've
decided to write a review for Koffee? on Whitney street, since I am sitting
there latte and laptop in hand. I should start off by saying that the latte is
not very good. It's not as good as Book Trader, which is inferior to Atticus,
which is in turn second fiddle to Starbucks on Chapel. And the food selection is
truly wanting. The absence of croissants is fatal, and the quiche that I had
once I could not finish, because the free samples at Costco are considerably
better. At least Costco has microwaves powerful enough to actually warm up a
quiche.
Food and drinks aside, Koffee? hands down has the best decor in New Haven. In the main reading room two glass walls providing panoramic views of a small park is complemented by a bright ceiling window, basking the space in ambient natural lighting rain or shine. Natural lighting is probably the most important factor in designing a study space. I almost never study at the law school because its medievally pretensions, concretized by thick stone walls and tiny windows, produced an interior so devoid of natural lighting that it feels more like a dungeon than a school. Koffee?, in contrast, in modern and relaxing. When I study here I feel connected to the natural space beyond the cafe's walls. If I am going to sit at a cafe all day, it might as well look good. Even if one choose not to look outside, Koffee? has red and white brick walls decorated with paintings from local artists. The atmosphere is informal, open, and relaxing. Even the bathrooms are tastefully covered with bright colors and graffiti.
Furniture constitute the weakest link of Koffee's interior. They are wobbly and flimsy, as if they were salvaged from undergraduate apartments. Two leather sofas rest comfortably across from the register with an eclectic complement of aged tables and chairs, but they are not really big enough to each accommodate two people.
The music is mostly rock and pop, which sounds ok but easily distracts, which is part of the reason I am writing this review instead of working. The patrons match the music well. A wholesome graduate student crowd, generally with natural hair colors, jeans, and sweaters/sweatshirts. Not the place to go for stylistic inspiration, for sure, but then no cafe in New Haven is.
If Koffee? were in Berkeley I would place it in the same league as Milano and Roma, but below Med, Nefeli, Mocha Lisa, Strada, and of course, my true love, now defunct Wall Berlin. In terms of visual experience Koffee can probably compete in Berkeley, but the overall user experience is weighed down by the food and the music. Like Wall Berlin, Koffee serves bad food and bad drinks, but Wall Berlin's offerings were so bad, so unabashedly, shamelessly, confrontationally bad, that they transcended their badness and became good. Koffee is merely bad without pride.
Food and drinks aside, Koffee? hands down has the best decor in New Haven. In the main reading room two glass walls providing panoramic views of a small park is complemented by a bright ceiling window, basking the space in ambient natural lighting rain or shine. Natural lighting is probably the most important factor in designing a study space. I almost never study at the law school because its medievally pretensions, concretized by thick stone walls and tiny windows, produced an interior so devoid of natural lighting that it feels more like a dungeon than a school. Koffee?, in contrast, in modern and relaxing. When I study here I feel connected to the natural space beyond the cafe's walls. If I am going to sit at a cafe all day, it might as well look good. Even if one choose not to look outside, Koffee? has red and white brick walls decorated with paintings from local artists. The atmosphere is informal, open, and relaxing. Even the bathrooms are tastefully covered with bright colors and graffiti.
Furniture constitute the weakest link of Koffee's interior. They are wobbly and flimsy, as if they were salvaged from undergraduate apartments. Two leather sofas rest comfortably across from the register with an eclectic complement of aged tables and chairs, but they are not really big enough to each accommodate two people.
The music is mostly rock and pop, which sounds ok but easily distracts, which is part of the reason I am writing this review instead of working. The patrons match the music well. A wholesome graduate student crowd, generally with natural hair colors, jeans, and sweaters/sweatshirts. Not the place to go for stylistic inspiration, for sure, but then no cafe in New Haven is.
If Koffee? were in Berkeley I would place it in the same league as Milano and Roma, but below Med, Nefeli, Mocha Lisa, Strada, and of course, my true love, now defunct Wall Berlin. In terms of visual experience Koffee can probably compete in Berkeley, but the overall user experience is weighed down by the food and the music. Like Wall Berlin, Koffee serves bad food and bad drinks, but Wall Berlin's offerings were so bad, so unabashedly, shamelessly, confrontationally bad, that they transcended their badness and became good. Koffee is merely bad without pride.
Posted: March 2, 2003 0:0 Read More Email Comments
Sat - March 1, 2003
Christmas in February
My friend Tim has written a cogent reply to my multilateralism post. He
makes three arguments: 1) The US is not acting unilaterally because it is
supported by a coalition of the willing; 2) The Bush administration has good
reasons to hide information about the extent of the Iraqi threat; 3) The was is
justified by some variant of a dominoe theory about democracy sweeping through
the Middle East, starting with Bagdad.
I address the first two points in this post. I'll save my response to the third for another day as I am feeling hungry and in need of a latte and croissant.
First, the US is not acting with a coalition of the willing; it is acting with a "coalition of the sullenly acquiescent," to borrow a term from Chas Freeman. Bush has gotten his "allies" not on the basis of a genuine common cause, but through old fashioned geopolitical horsetrading. So Turkey bargained for a cool $26 billion; Bulgaria has been promised new trade benefits; Poland gets subsidized fighter jets; Spain wants US help to suppress its Basque insurgency; and more cold cash is on the way for Egypt and Jordan. This is a coalition decisively different from the first Gulf War. W's allies today offer their support not because they agree on the strategic imperative of war, but because they want pork barrel favors from the US. It's like Christmas in February. If these allies really believe war with Iraq to be in their interest, there should be no need for the US to buy them off with gifts. Instead, money should be flowing the other way around, as it did in the first Gulf War, when allies financed the US war effort.
My argument is that multilateralism can serve as a signaling mechanism for evaluating Bush's "type." If he has made a really convincing case for war, we should expect other countries to agree without having to be bought off. But, if there is little international support for war, we can properly infer that Bush's case that Iraq is an imminent threat is not convincing and that he wants to invade Iraq for other reasons.
Second, there may be good reasons for W to conceal intelligence information (protecting sources, etc.), but that should not be an excuse to keep the public misinformed. It is not an excuse for spreading baseless allegations trying to link Iraq to Al Qaeda, shamelessly exploiting Americans' grief over 9/11. Waging war is the gravest, most serious decision a president can make. The burden is on Bush to demonstrate that Iraq poses an immediate threat to the United States. Simply saying "trust me" is not good enough.
The Bush administration has shown a cavalier attitude toward the truth in its domestic politics, particularly in selling its budgetary policies. In spite of what they say, Bush's economic team cannot honestly believe that cutting taxes and increasing spending will not disastrously increase the deficit. More likely, they are obfuscating the real economic impact of their radical budgetary policies to deflect attention from their real objective: to permanently reduce the size of the federal government by massively increasing the deficit to starve it of revenue. Faced with a mammoth deficit, even liberal administrations in the future will have to scale back federal government programs in order to cut spending. Just read the conservative press; this goal and strategy is very openly talked about everywhere except for in official White House press conferences.
Likewise, we can expect the same from this administration on foreign policy. We need to go beyond the administration's rhetoric to figure out what their motives are. Signals from allied behavior indicate that Iraq is really not an imminent threat to the the United States. So either Bush has irrationally concluded from insufficient facts that Iraq is an immediate threat, or that the war effort is principally motivated by something else. That "something else" could be to secure and reinforce American access to Middle Eastern oil, to spread democracy in the Middle East, or some other goal. Regardless of the merits of these objectives, they are not likely to win broad domestic and international support, so Bush instead relies on the Iraqi threat theory and the Saddam-and-Osama-are-fishing-buddies theory to sell the public on war.
I will address these objectives in a later post.
I address the first two points in this post. I'll save my response to the third for another day as I am feeling hungry and in need of a latte and croissant.
First, the US is not acting with a coalition of the willing; it is acting with a "coalition of the sullenly acquiescent," to borrow a term from Chas Freeman. Bush has gotten his "allies" not on the basis of a genuine common cause, but through old fashioned geopolitical horsetrading. So Turkey bargained for a cool $26 billion; Bulgaria has been promised new trade benefits; Poland gets subsidized fighter jets; Spain wants US help to suppress its Basque insurgency; and more cold cash is on the way for Egypt and Jordan. This is a coalition decisively different from the first Gulf War. W's allies today offer their support not because they agree on the strategic imperative of war, but because they want pork barrel favors from the US. It's like Christmas in February. If these allies really believe war with Iraq to be in their interest, there should be no need for the US to buy them off with gifts. Instead, money should be flowing the other way around, as it did in the first Gulf War, when allies financed the US war effort.
My argument is that multilateralism can serve as a signaling mechanism for evaluating Bush's "type." If he has made a really convincing case for war, we should expect other countries to agree without having to be bought off. But, if there is little international support for war, we can properly infer that Bush's case that Iraq is an imminent threat is not convincing and that he wants to invade Iraq for other reasons.
Second, there may be good reasons for W to conceal intelligence information (protecting sources, etc.), but that should not be an excuse to keep the public misinformed. It is not an excuse for spreading baseless allegations trying to link Iraq to Al Qaeda, shamelessly exploiting Americans' grief over 9/11. Waging war is the gravest, most serious decision a president can make. The burden is on Bush to demonstrate that Iraq poses an immediate threat to the United States. Simply saying "trust me" is not good enough.
The Bush administration has shown a cavalier attitude toward the truth in its domestic politics, particularly in selling its budgetary policies. In spite of what they say, Bush's economic team cannot honestly believe that cutting taxes and increasing spending will not disastrously increase the deficit. More likely, they are obfuscating the real economic impact of their radical budgetary policies to deflect attention from their real objective: to permanently reduce the size of the federal government by massively increasing the deficit to starve it of revenue. Faced with a mammoth deficit, even liberal administrations in the future will have to scale back federal government programs in order to cut spending. Just read the conservative press; this goal and strategy is very openly talked about everywhere except for in official White House press conferences.
Likewise, we can expect the same from this administration on foreign policy. We need to go beyond the administration's rhetoric to figure out what their motives are. Signals from allied behavior indicate that Iraq is really not an imminent threat to the the United States. So either Bush has irrationally concluded from insufficient facts that Iraq is an immediate threat, or that the war effort is principally motivated by something else. That "something else" could be to secure and reinforce American access to Middle Eastern oil, to spread democracy in the Middle East, or some other goal. Regardless of the merits of these objectives, they are not likely to win broad domestic and international support, so Bush instead relies on the Iraqi threat theory and the Saddam-and-Osama-are-fishing-buddies theory to sell the public on war.
I will address these objectives in a later post.
Posted: March 1, 2003 0:0 Read More Email Comments
Fri - February 21, 2003
Why Multilateralism
The Iraq debate is often framed as a contest between
unilateralism and multilateralism. But why? If the Hussein government is really
a grave threat, should not the U.S. go to war regardless of what the U.N. does?
As American right-wingers adamantly point out, is not the N.N. a morally
bankrupt organization in which dictators and tyrants wield intolerable
influence?
All true. The Russian and Chinese governments have no moral credibility, and do not even attempt to disguise or justify their own brutality. French foreign policy even more cynical and cold-blooded than Americas. Not to mention to mention the numerous tyrants represented in both the Security Council and the General Assembly. But there is still a powerful reason to insist that war should proceed only under multilateral auspices.
The reason is this: the Bush administration has appearantly convinced itself of the case for war, the public is not. How can ordinary citizens tell whether Bush is lying or not? What his war aim is not really to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, but to secure oil resources or to protect Israel? One way to assess the credibility of the Bush administration is to observe the behavior of other countries. If Hussein is so scary and poses lethal threats to world peace, governments and peoples in the region should also be supporting a pre-emptive strike. People in Saudi Arabia and Jordan should be even more bellicose than Americans are, because they are more vulnerable to Iraqi attack. Well, guess what, popular opinion in the Middle East is decidedly against war. The irony is that the country that seems to feel most threatened by Iraq is also the world's most powerful nation, militarily invulnerable to any Iraqi threat.
Why don't other countries feel threatened enough to support a pre-emptive strike? One possibility is that the US has information about the Iraqi threat that other countries do not, and that they too would support war if they truly knew about Saddam's nasty secrets. But this just begs the question of why the US is not sharing such information to win international support. In fact, it is more likely that no such information exists, considering that Tony Blair had to relied on plagiarizing internet sources to justify the war, and that Powell's claims in his UN presentation was promptly rebutted by independent journalists.
The other, more likely, answer is that Bush is going to war over some reason other than Hussein's purported danger to the world. What is that reason? Who knows? W himself speaks only in terms of tired and vague cliches (democracy, freedom, fighting evil, motherhood, apple pie...). And apparently when he met a group of Iraqi exiles in January they had to spend a good deal of time explaining to him that there were actually two groups of Arabs in Iraq, Sunnis and Shites....
W's own ignorance aside, the US war goal is likely some variant on the imperialism so beloved of the neo-cons surrounding Rumsfeld and Cheney. These people have been salivating over an Iraqi was for a decade, and Wolfowitz apparently wanted to invade Iraq immediately after 9/11, shamelessly exploiting the political opportunity open by the attacks even in the absence of any evidence linking Iraq to the attacks. The drive for empire is a topic for another day.
ps. in game theoretic terms, my interpretation of multilateralism means that is is basically a signaling mechanism for deciphering W's type. the world starts out less skeptical at the beginning of the game (early-mid 2002), but opposition intensifies (early 2003) after observing the signals and updating its beliefs about W's type. some of you game theorists out there can create a nice little model out of this.
All true. The Russian and Chinese governments have no moral credibility, and do not even attempt to disguise or justify their own brutality. French foreign policy even more cynical and cold-blooded than Americas. Not to mention to mention the numerous tyrants represented in both the Security Council and the General Assembly. But there is still a powerful reason to insist that war should proceed only under multilateral auspices.
The reason is this: the Bush administration has appearantly convinced itself of the case for war, the public is not. How can ordinary citizens tell whether Bush is lying or not? What his war aim is not really to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, but to secure oil resources or to protect Israel? One way to assess the credibility of the Bush administration is to observe the behavior of other countries. If Hussein is so scary and poses lethal threats to world peace, governments and peoples in the region should also be supporting a pre-emptive strike. People in Saudi Arabia and Jordan should be even more bellicose than Americans are, because they are more vulnerable to Iraqi attack. Well, guess what, popular opinion in the Middle East is decidedly against war. The irony is that the country that seems to feel most threatened by Iraq is also the world's most powerful nation, militarily invulnerable to any Iraqi threat.
Why don't other countries feel threatened enough to support a pre-emptive strike? One possibility is that the US has information about the Iraqi threat that other countries do not, and that they too would support war if they truly knew about Saddam's nasty secrets. But this just begs the question of why the US is not sharing such information to win international support. In fact, it is more likely that no such information exists, considering that Tony Blair had to relied on plagiarizing internet sources to justify the war, and that Powell's claims in his UN presentation was promptly rebutted by independent journalists.
The other, more likely, answer is that Bush is going to war over some reason other than Hussein's purported danger to the world. What is that reason? Who knows? W himself speaks only in terms of tired and vague cliches (democracy, freedom, fighting evil, motherhood, apple pie...). And apparently when he met a group of Iraqi exiles in January they had to spend a good deal of time explaining to him that there were actually two groups of Arabs in Iraq, Sunnis and Shites....
W's own ignorance aside, the US war goal is likely some variant on the imperialism so beloved of the neo-cons surrounding Rumsfeld and Cheney. These people have been salivating over an Iraqi was for a decade, and Wolfowitz apparently wanted to invade Iraq immediately after 9/11, shamelessly exploiting the political opportunity open by the attacks even in the absence of any evidence linking Iraq to the attacks. The drive for empire is a topic for another day.
ps. in game theoretic terms, my interpretation of multilateralism means that is is basically a signaling mechanism for deciphering W's type. the world starts out less skeptical at the beginning of the game (early-mid 2002), but opposition intensifies (early 2003) after observing the signals and updating its beliefs about W's type. some of you game theorists out there can create a nice little model out of this.
Posted: February 21, 2003 0:0 Read More Email Comments
Mon - February 17, 2003
Welcome to Jeff's Blog
A relentless swirl of wind and snow has entombed New
Haven. Looking out my 6th floor window window, I see nothing but masses of white
particles flooding the air. My afternoon class has been cancelled. An
appropriate day, then, to start my first blog entry.
Salmon Reel does not signify anything in particular, other than the fact that I have a craving for ABP's salmon salad. I expect to populate the blog primarily with political commentary, since the sad state of the world these days has forced much thinking on my part. But I will also include vignettes about movies, food, travel, and random academic rambling about law and social science. In the coming week there will be much about the Iraq situation, American reactionaries, a little note on the relationship between legal fiction an idol worship, and more.
ps. I have no great love for the term blog. It sounds like an insect. But the sound of it, to me at least, also suggests persistence, peskiness, and disorganization, all good traits for a daily journal.
Salmon Reel does not signify anything in particular, other than the fact that I have a craving for ABP's salmon salad. I expect to populate the blog primarily with political commentary, since the sad state of the world these days has forced much thinking on my part. But I will also include vignettes about movies, food, travel, and random academic rambling about law and social science. In the coming week there will be much about the Iraq situation, American reactionaries, a little note on the relationship between legal fiction an idol worship, and more.
ps. I have no great love for the term blog. It sounds like an insect. But the sound of it, to me at least, also suggests persistence, peskiness, and disorganization, all good traits for a daily journal.
Posted: February 17, 2003 0:0 Read More Email Comments
About Me
I am a graduate student in New Haven, CT. Check out My Website
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