"One must think, do they want their daughter, their sister, or their wife to appear in this way. Of course, no one would accept this."

This, meaning pictures of (fully clothed) women in the newspaper. Spoken by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. "The youth are driven by emotion ... and sometimes they can be lead astray. So, please, try to cut down on this."

(Surely, he was speaking in Arabic, so don't blame him for the misspelling of "lead," only for his leaden remarks.)

"Their foolish attempt to create a titillating logo..."

"...actually presents the clearest possible image of the castrating female."

Out of the noise/into the noise.

Just a noisy walk on State Street today, beginning under the scaffolding and ending in a café.

"I propose a regime of free love."

A political campaign in Cyprus:

A strapping man with piercing blue eyes, [Costas Kyriakou] draws on ideas from Plato and Christian apocalyptic scriptures for his ideal city-state where people live in communes and share everything....

"The men will see it as a system of free love, the women as a matriarchy... they will be able to carry the sperm of the most handsome men, and give the child her name."

For this idea of Utopia, he's nicknamed Utopos. Presumably, he himself is one of the "handsome men" he's talking about.

"The group-blogging experiment was nice while it lasted..."

Lorie Byrd drops out of Polipundit after receiving an email saying: "From now on, every blogger at PoliPundit.com will either agree with me completely on the immigration issue, or not blog at PoliPundit.com." She writes:

What is really ironic about this is that the split is over the immigration debate and that is not even one of "my issues." I always deferred to Polipundit on the issue due to his background and passion on the subject. Lately most of my posts have not even dealt with immigration, but the ones that have were more about how I thought the tone and tenor of the debate had gotten out of hand, rather than the actual policy positions.

I haven't been reading PoliPundit or, really, any of the debate about immigration in the blogosphere. If I had been, I probably would only write about "tone and tenor of the debate." I consider immigration a complex policy problem, and I steer clear of ideologues spouting on the topic. I hear the President gave a speech on the subject last night and that he sounded moderate. Good. He's fending off the ideologues -- I hope.

But I'm interested in this dispute between Byrd and Polipundit and the problem of group blogs. Group blogs, like marriages, can break down, and when they do, they can dissolve quietly and present an unreadable face to the world, or they can let the ugliness show. When that happens on a very prominent blog, we're all going to look. So let's look.

Polipundit has this response:

So far, I’ve allowed the guest bloggers here to write pretty much what they pleased about all issues, including illegal immigration.

But on the illegal immigration issue, I now find myself having to contend with at least three out of four guest bloggers who will reflexively try to poke holes in any argument I make.

Suppose three out of four columnists at the Old York Times were pro-Republican. You can bet publisher “Pinch” Sulzberger would do something about that right quick.

Suppose a Bush administration official came out openly against amnesty. The Bushies would show him the door.

Similarly, the writers at PoliPundit.com need to respect the editorial position of PoliPundit.com on the most important issue to this blog, as the “publisher” sees it - illegal immigration.

Wow! What a lame defense! I'm the publisher, so let me speculate on what a publisher I hate would do, and justify myself by saying I'm only doing that. How unappealing! The commenters over there are letting him have it.

Why is immigration suddenly making everyone crazy? The problem has been with us forever.

"It was force and diplomacy, not force or diplomacy that turned Gadhafi around . . . a combination of steel and a willingness to deal."

Said Bruce W. Jentleson ("a foreign-policy adviser to Al Gore in the 2000 presidential campaign and professor at Duke University, who has written the most detailed study of why Col. Gadhafi abandoned WMD"). He's interviewed by Judith Miller in the first part of a two-part article about what changed Moammar al-Gadhafi.

[A] review of confidential government records and interviews with current and former officials in London, Tripoli, Vienna and Washington suggest that ... a heretofore undisclosed intelligence coup--the administration's decision in late 2003 to give Libyan officials a compact disc containing intercepts of a conversation about Libya's nuclear weapons program between Libya's nuclear chief and A.Q. Khan--that reinforced Col. Gadhafi's decision to reverse course on WMD.

While analysts continue to debate his motivation, evidence suggests that a mix of intelligence, diplomacy and the use of force in Iraq helped persuade him that the weapons he had pursued since he came to power, and on which he had secretly spent $300 million ($100 million on nuclear equipment and material alone), made him more, not less, vulnerable. "The administration overstates Iraq, but its critics go too far in saying that force played no role," says Bruce W. Jentleson, a foreign-policy adviser to Al Gore in the 2000 presidential campaign and professor at Duke University, who has written the most detailed study of why Col. Gadhafi abandoned WMD: "It was force and diplomacy, not force or diplomacy that turned Gadhafi around . . . a combination of steel and a willingness to deal."

Much more at the link.

"Everyone around the world come on!"

Editor & Publisher found out Condoleezza Rice's musical top ten:

1. Mozart --Piano Concerto in D minor ...

2. Cream -- 'Sunshine of Your Love' ...

3. Aretha Franklin -- 'Respect'

4. Kool and the Gang -- 'Celebration' ...

5. Brahms -- Piano Concerto No 2

6 Brahms -- Piano Quintet in F minor

7. U2 -- Anything ...

8. Elton John -- 'Rocket Man' ...

9. Beethoven -- Symphony No 7 ...

10. Mussorgsky -- Boris Godunov

If you're a big Condi Rice fan and are thinking of putting that in your iPod and listening in that order... well, I think you're going to find it a little annoying.

I'm annoyed by the failure to identify an individual U2 song. If you can pick "Sunshine of Your Love" out of all the acid rock you "loved ... in college," you can pick one U2 song.

I note that "Rocket Man" is about being separated from your loved one for a "long, long time," while stranded in outer space, and "Sunshine of Your Love" is also about being separated from your loved one and "waiting so long" -- also set in an astronomical context ("I'll be with you when the stars start falling").

Finally, "Celebration" is an excellent Secretary of State song: "It's time to come together, it's up to you/What's your pleasure/Everyone around the world come on!" So's "Respect" for that matter: "I'm about to give you all of my money/And all I'm askin' in return, honey..."

Noticing "the saggy" and the eye-rolling.

That was a rather good episode of "The Apprentice" tonight. I really appreciated the judgment of the guys from WalMart and Microsoft. Sean and Lee had an unfinished exhibit. It was missing its "roof" and that made the walls sag embarrassingly. But they had a more commercial idea for the presentation. The women's team created a more finished-looking display, but it was really a tacky living room sort of place, where kids would park themselves in the comfy chairs and keep fast-moving money-spenders from entering at all. It's easy to imagine how Sean and Lee could have been excoriated for their messy hut, but the women's team lost. The big issue for the women was the eye-rolling. It's not eye-rolling, it's eye-raising. Allie and Roxanne went into high-school mode, disrespecting Tammy at every turn of the shopping cart. And since Roxanne also made the the lame signage, it looked for sure as if Roxanne would go down. Maybe even both Roxanne and Allie. But, no, it was Tammy who got fired. She just didn't lead. Now get out of here. Go.

It's hard being a plaintiff...

It's hard being a plaintiff who:

1. files a case in state court,

2. has the defendant remove the case to federal court,

3. moves to remand the case on the ground that you don't seem to meet the requirements for standing in federal court,

4. loses that motion,

5. litigates the case in federal court and ultimately wins in the Court of Appeals,

6. has the Supreme Court grant certiorari and now must argue that you do have standing in order to preserve the victory, and

7. loses when the Supreme Court decides that you don't have standing.

That happened to the plaintiffs in DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno, decided today. The Court held unanimously that state tax breaks to business don't injure state taxpayers in a sufficiently "concrete and particularized" way to create a "case or controversy," as required by Article III of the Constitution. Standing in state court, where the plaintiffs originally filed, is governed by state law. It remains unanswered whether the states violate the Commerce Clause when they offer tax breaks to lure businesses into the state.

15 arts critics...

... are blogging about what blogging is doing to arts criticism.

A wet spring.

It's really soggy around here.



I thought it seemed to be lightening up, but turning my head to look out the window seemed to operate a dimmer switch.

"Copies of isolated books, bound between inert covers, soon won't mean much."

Read this article, by Kevin Kelly of Wired. It's long, but well worth the read. Key passage:

What is the technology telling us? That copies don't count any more. Copies of isolated books, bound between inert covers, soon won't mean much. Copies of their texts, however, will gain in meaning as they multiply by the millions and are flung around the world, indexed and copied again. What counts are the ways in which these common copies of a creative work can be linked, manipulated, annotated, tagged, highlighted, bookmarked, translated, enlivened by other media and sewn together into the universal library. Soon a book outside the library will be like a Web page outside the Web, gasping for air. Indeed, the only way for books to retain their waning authority in our culture is to wire their texts into the universal library.

Kelly takes the extreme position that copyright holders will have to give up on the outmoded practice of making money from selling copies. No matter how much they've been able to get their needs served by legislators, the sheer force of technology will defeat them in the end.

[T]he economic model built on [copies] is collapsing. In a regime of superabundant free copies, copies lose value. They are no longer the basis of wealth. Now relationships, links, connection and sharing are. Value has shifted away from a copy toward the many ways to recall, annotate, personalize, edit, authenticate, display, mark, transfer and engage a work. Authors and artists can make (and have made) their livings selling aspects of their works other than inexpensive copies of them. They can sell performances, access to the creator, personalization, add-on information, the scarcity of attention (via ads), sponsorship, periodic subscriptions — in short, all the many values that cannot be copied. The cheap copy becomes the "discovery tool" that markets these other intangible valuables.

How painful it must be to the average author -- an introvert -- to hear that the new way of making money will be selling personal access to you.

Kelly is very good at getting us excited about how great it will be to have all of humanity's writing in position for infinite linking, but way too blithe about the burden to be inflicted on writers. In his technology triumphalism, he goes so far as to say:

Having searchable works is good for culture. It is so good, in fact, that we can now state a new covenant: Copyrights must be counterbalanced by copyduties. In exchange for public protection of a work's copies (what we call copyright), a creator has an obligation to allow that work to be searched. No search, no copyright.

So Kelly would not even permit the author with a highly saleable book to opt out of being scanned into the system. That's harsh. Maybe it's a bargaining chip for the legal dealing that is going on. But he's very convincing when he talks about the benefits to most authors, whose works go out of print and lose economic potential. For them, moving from oblivion into a lively system of linkage is a great benefit.

Audible Althouse #49

Whoa! Almost up to 50 in this crazy podcasting endeavor. Number 49, get it while it's hot. Subscribe, or stream it here.

The aversion to politics -- including insect politics. Rabid bats. Emotional support animals. Animistic beliefs about a volcano. The passive aggressive strategy of the holdout juror... and of God. Walking out of the forest -- and the Stone Age -- but venturing back in -- for monkeys.

UPDATE: Here's the passage from Benjamin Franklin's "Autobiography" that I talk about in the podcast. He's just discussed his role in providing for street sweeping and streetlamps:

Some may think these trifling matters not worth minding or relating; but when they consider that tho' dust blown into the eyes of a single person, or into a single shop on a windy day, is but of small importance, yet the great number of the instances in a populous city, and its frequent repetitions give it weight and consequence, perhaps they will not censure very severely those who bestow some attention to affairs of this seemingly low nature. Human felicity is produc'd not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day. Thus, if you teach a poor young man to shave himself, and keep his razor in order, you may contribute more to the happiness of his life than in giving him a thousand guineas. The money may be soon spent, the regret only remaining of having foolishly consumed it; but in the other case, he escapes the frequent vexation of waiting for barbers, and of their sometimes dirty fingers, offensive breaths, and dull razors; he shaves when most convenient to him, and enjoys daily the pleasure of its being done with a good instrument.

"Obviously, from a party point of view we want to get in and do things, but I'm talking about the ideal political thing."

Adam Nagourney notes that winning Congress might not do the Democrats much good.

[S]ome Democrats worry that the worst-case scenario may be winning control of Congress by a slim margin, giving them responsibility without real authority. They might serve as a foil to Republicans and President Bush, who would be looking for someone to share the blame. Democrats need a net gain of 6 seats in the Senate, and 15 seats in the House. "The most politically advantageous thing for the Democrats is to pick up 11, 12 seats in the House and 3 or 4 seats in the Senate but let the Republicans continue to be responsible for government," said Tony Coelho, a former House Democratic whip. "We are heading into this period of tremendous deficit, plus all the scandals, plus all the programs that have been cut. This way, they get blamed for everything."

Mr. Coelho quickly added, "Obviously, from a party point of view we want to get in and do things, but I'm talking about the ideal political thing."

Worse:

"It's going to be very difficult to lead, because the loudest voices in both parties will be those that feel the strongest about their certitude," [Bob Kerrey, the former Democratic senator from Nebraska who is president of the New School said.] "That's going to be the left: Impeach him! Investigate him!"

Doesn't it make you want to avert your eyes? Let see. What are the monkeys doing today? How about bats? Hyenas?

Insects?

You have to leave now, and never come back here. Have you ever heard of insect politics? Neither have I. Insects... don't have politics. They're very... brutal. No compassion, no compromise. We can't trust the insect. I'd like to become the first... insect politician. Y'see, I'd like to, but... I'm afraid, uh...

I don't know what you're trying to say.

I'm saying... I'm saying I - I'm an insect who dreamt he was a man and loved it. But now the dream is over... and the insect is awake.

No. no, Seth...

I'm saying... I'll hurt you if you stay.

"The energy and karma is being boomeranged back on these people."

Says Sally Regenhard, an opponent of the design for the World Trade Center memorial. The project is in disarray:

The current rethinking has been prompted by a report leaked May 5 estimating the project's cost at $1 billion. But criticism of the design had mounted on such grounds as safety, symbolism and the order in which victims' names would be listed in underground galleries. Last week, representatives of the city, state and private agencies in charge of rebuilding at ground zero returned to the drawing board, looking at alterations that would cut the memorial's estimated cost in half....

Last year, [Michael] Arad's design underwent another change, reducing the number of ramps descending into each void from four to two — one entrance and one exit — after consultants said visitors would find his design too confusing. Arad, who is contractually prohibited from discussing the process, is said to have been unhappy with the decision.

What the present crisis over cost means for the design is "very unclear," said Frederic Bell, executive director of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects. But Bell said he has been troubled by suggestions that the underground portion of the memorial could be eliminated. That change, Bell said, would be "the last straw" for Arad's original design.

Does it not seem wrong to spend so much money on a memorial? Isn't simplicity, not extravagance, what is called for? But the design is simple. Surely, it's not ornate. It's expensive because of the scheme of moving people underground:

"That's what Michael's scheme is about. It is about going down and separating from the street life and hurly-burly," [Frederic Bell, executive director of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects] said. "The lack of descent would be the irreconcilable change that would finally cause the scheme to lose its meaning."

Shouldn't they have thought this through long ago? Or would any design have embroiled us in boomeranging energy and karma like this?

The depravity expert.

"When is a murder like many other murders and when is a murder truly the worst of the worst?" says Dr. Michael Welner, an NYU forensic psychiatrist who's designed a "depravity scale":

In 39 states, including New York, judges and juries can mete out harsher sentences for crimes described with words such as "depraved," "vile" and "atrocious."...

Using a Web-based poll (www.depravityscale.org), Welner asks 25 nuanced questions that gauge why a person thinks one crime is more depraved than another.

A web-based poll? Isn't that an atrocious research method? I'll analyze the comments to this post in my quest to become a reseach methods expert. And I'm counting on you to keep it nuanced.