Jonathon Delacour writes about social forces and influence and the Blogosphere as a result of the discussion on the WizBang awards.#

I accept that male bloggers are less likely to link to female bloggers: whatever the topic being debated, technology-related or not. But I referred to "men's alleged reluctance to link to women bloggers" because running through the entire discussion is the unstated assumption that, even though men might not be actively colluding to ignore women, the situation could be turned around if they were made aware of their "unfair" (albeit unconscious) behavior. Yet it is abundantly clear (to me, anyway) that linking practices have far less to do with gender than with deeply ingrained human behavior.

In his book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert Cialdini, a professor of psychology at Arizona State University, identifies six principles of persuasion—reciprocity, commitment/consistency, social proof, liking, authority, scarcity—discussed by Cialdini in this interview and explained here in the context of cult recruitment.

Those six different principles can all be applied to weblogs. The most important one to Jonathon is Social Proof: Thinking that because other people do something, it would be the best thing for you to do. In the weblog world, this means link to those people who many other people link to.

Social Proof ensures that those who either lack the time to thoughtfully investigate the alternatives or lack the capacity to think for themselves can make decisions quickly, easily, and—above all—correctly since, as Cialdini points out: "The greater the number of people who find an idea correct, the more the idea will be correct."

Jonathon proposes a means of resisting the "tyranny of Social Proof" based on something that Steven Den Beste: Rotating your blogrolls and your linking to favour those people that are deserving of linking because of their quality, rather than just what everyone else links to.

This idea is commented upon by Burningbird who is in turn quoted by Jonathon to support the idea and to show why it is difficult, but fruitful, to do.

Nor do I think there's anything to be gained by attacking awards, no matter how predictable or ill-considered the basis upon which they are bestowed. Better to do what Burningbird, after reflecting on the problem, suggested:

Disregard my earlier rants about the Wizbang awards. Instead, go out there and look at the lists. From each, find the sites with the fewest links in Technorati, visit them. For those you like, leave a comment or two, and then vote for them.

Notice that following Burningbird's suggestion will require time and effort—and it's exactly our reluctance to thoughtfully consider the alternatives and think for ourselves that Social Proof depends on and therefore that created the current situation. (You might also want to be careful—in choosing the weblogs "you like"—to recall Cialdini's principle of Liking and resist the temptation to select those who are similar to you, have praised you, or are associated with events or projects you'd like to be a part of.)

This is a discussion of intellectual activity over intellectual sloth. Be free to think for yourself and resist the herd. If you stopped here, you might be inclined to believe what is being proposed is a focus away from the A-list bloggers, as if they wouldn't actually be of any quality if links were done for quality rather than Social Proof. I don't think that is what is being proposed.

The idea of having a rotating blogroll is not to suggest that these are the only people who are of any quality - in fact it is the opposite of that because the list rotates thus implying that other people who are good no longer need linking and that there will be more great blogs in the future. Instead, the basis of the rotating blogroll is that people should be as helpful as possible to the people whose quality they adore and who make our travels in the Blogosphere worth it. Rather than link them and let them be lost in the a flood of a blogroll (like to the right of my weblog,) what should be done is a way of giving new bloggers a little push towards success.

I think it's a great idea and I think I will move to add another type of blogroll section to my blogroll.

Stirling Newberry at Draft Clark '04 writes about the transformation of politics and Gore's endorsement of Dean.#

Many of my comments from past pieces about this will still apply, although Stirling comes from an angle that is not so "Ra-ra" Dean.

Stirling first tackles the idea the because Dean has been endorsed by such a highly visible politician it means that the race is essentially over and that he is a shoe-in for the democratic nomination. Stirling's argument is that this is only true if the other candidates do not consolidate their efforts and work for a single one rather than against each other (and the people, IMHO.)

The very divided nature of the response from Kerry, and Lieberman — and almost assuredly the others in the race — dooms their efforts. Only by choosing a single standard bearer for the attempt to halt Dean's march to the nomination, is there a realistic chance to defeat him. And the very nature of the old politics is that each politician is a political loner, and ultimately a careerist. It is impossible for them to unify, trapped as they are in an old era.

The new era sees how forces will unfold, and seeks to apply pressure before the crisis is reached. Gore's endorsement does not end the contest for the Democratic nomination, but it does clearly demonstrate that there is a new politics - born of old urgency, raised on new liberties, and devoted to a more perfect unity - arrayed against an old politics, which increasingly has nothing to say, and nowhere to go. Unable to set aside personal ambition for a greater goal, the individual competitors with Howard Dean face the likely prospect of being defeated ad seriatum.

Not only can the candidates not conceive of actually fighting on for the people, rather than themselves. They cannot even imagine fighting for each other if that is the most likely may of getting parts of their agenda across and saving face for themselves. What makes us think that people with no honor, unity, or leadership who have no interest in the anything but their careers will be the best leaders for this country to bring it forward? It seems completely absurd to me.

Again, what makes Dean different is that he attempts to empower the people - or attempts to make the people feel empowered. Newberry puts it very well,

What was [the Dean] message? It was a message for people to realize that the old balances no longer applied and that they had the power, not on primary day, but right this very instance. "You have the power" became one of the most quoted Dean phrases, it, along with "Take the country back", which appeals to the same essential new political dynamic. Dean spoke to the new, through the new means of political organization. At first he sought this new politics out because of necessity: as a small state governor with no access to the old mechanisms of power, he was forced to take a different road. It was a road which others had taken before, in that small state governors thrice reached the Democratic nomination by building their own organization. However, a funning thing happened on the way to the Manchester Union-Leader's presidential forum: the same political organization which Dean needed to win the old game, destroyed it — just as Kennedy, understanding the dynamics of national nominating conventions, so expanded the role of what had been "beauty contest" primaries, that he destroyed the importance of the convention itself. Dean and his core advisors understood.

This echoes of Jay Rosen and Jefferson on "public freedom" and the Liberty that is inherent to our souls. He writes what the people around Dead campaign want, what everybody wants really, but it is not necessarily so that the Dean campaign makes good on this desire,

The people who made the Dean movement, are not ordinary individuals, but individuals upon who extraordinary circumstances made extraordinary demands. They sought a spokesman, an individual who less lead, than expressed, their frustration with an established order which seemed neither to offer them a choice of policy, nor a chance at altering the shape of the government in power. It is a revolt, it seeks to become, should it find victory, a revolution at the ballot box.

The new type of politics that is in its adolescence today after a long childhood is a rebellion, a revolt, against the old politics that Stirling describes thus,

The old politics was the politics born of the top down society - a message was created by a small core of individuals, disseminated by a media machine which was almost hermetically sealed from the reach of the vast majority of Americans - and then homogenized down to the fragments which could be remembered. Lincoln had the Gettysburg address to frame his idea of government. George Bush Sr. had "Read my lips, no new taxes." Six words, each of one syllable. The new politics is born of a nation where even the most humble grocery clerk commands the power of a computer that would have filled a room in 1955. The new politics is born of a people who can strike back at power, not by burning a flag or a book - but by creating a tapestry of ideas, and publishing them online. Protest against authority, has given way to the ability to contest the power of those in authority.

Every person desires to know when they are wronged and have a say in making sure that wronging does not occur again. The de facto censorship of the media monopoly and the attempted censorship de jure of the CDA and other attempts hiding behind the "War on Terror" are stifling our freedom and seek to make sure we do not know when we are wronged. And the old political system of barriers and bribes is the control structure that focuses on making sure our shackles are solid and unable to be removed. When we open up the communication networks between people and allow them the Liberty to organize themselves, the wrongs are righted and we can work towards the ideal world again.

Striling ponders about the nature of the new politics, whether it exists at all and how it will be rendered,

The question is not whether there shall be a new politics, but in what form it will be asserted. Dave Winer, of the Berkman Center at Harvard University, long before most, saw the transformative power of finding a means to network together the thousands of individual voices that self-publishing on the internet allowed, into a coherent "flow" of information. This flow, and its shape, created new political structures every day, the world of words transformed with every morning's headlines.

The core concern with how everyone is talking about the new politics, as Stirling sees it, is ensuring the system stays open and that it is as responsible as the system left behind:

It is a force, and it has been harnessed first to end run old constitutional balances, much as the force for nationalism was used by the Federalists to circumvent the restrictions in the Articles of Confederation. This is why when Dean talks about power, there is something missing in his political vocabulary - checks and balances, restraint. It is why the word "grass roots" is, in fact, inadequate, it is an attempt to evade responsibility and accountability - "who is responsible?" No one and any one and every one.

The New Politics takes the power of self-organization, individual autonomy and mass organization - and gives it the specific and focused edge which internet communication and digital technology allows. Every one a publisher, thinker, writer and politician. Now it must find a shape, a means for playing out of political forces, it is not enough to airily wave ones hand and say that the nature of grass roots conversation itself will restrain it.

I'm not sure how to answer the concern of constraint. At least with the assumption the government will remain as coercive and immoral as it is now, despite there being a better way of electing the leaders who will be at the front of the torture. If a truly Libertarian country were created, then justice and constraint would prevail as they are fundamental for their to be a world where our benefits and successes are shared - which is the world promoted by Liberty and the market.

The second part of the future that is uncertain that Stirling has alluded to in the past is whether the new politics is only interesting and good for people because it is new and not yet corrupted. If everyone jumps on board with the Internet, Meetups, and engaging real people will it's value be debased?

Institutions will have to be opened to public participation, because people will rapidly find that a closed campaign that has a web site, or a closed organization that has a large mailing list, is no more responsive than any other closed institution. Openness is what we have sought - an open chance to voice ideas, and open society to live in, and open decisions in the important questions of life and death.

And do not doubt that this will be the first model tried, because, it already is being tried. The vision of those who are from the old system is that the new system will be of the same sort - there will be small groups of people who will make content, and the rest of the population that will be the consumers of that content. Perhaps a 527, a kind of not for profit corporation, will replace the DNC, perhaps there will be a new network, but it will operate by the same means of excluding others and gaining control of a channel that worked in the days of broadcast networks. Gain a monopoly of the microphone, and then pour whatever message into it was desired.

What this means is that it is not enough to simply have a website or a blog or a mailing list or a Meetup. What matters is that there are people who care using them, and people will only care if they feel like they are having an impact, and that feeling will be misleading and eventually found out if your blog is just a marketing ploy. As Stirling writes, engaging one group of people should not be the means to buy the rest of populace from the media and proceed to coerce them into accepting your message.

The future is more power to real people. They know what they want. They know what they don't want. And they don't want to be forced to do things they don't want. Sometimes they want leaders, and that is okay. But it is unjust to force someone to do something without consent, no matter how many people have voted for you or how much money you have paid as a return to the rest of the populace.

Jay Rosen writes about the New York Times Magazine article on "The Dean Connection."#

Jay starts by talking about the evolution of the political system of the United States and the way that power has moved between different hands over time.

Somehow the American nation remembers civic traditions eclipsed by the strange system we have for electing presidents. This system has been building strength since 1952, when television was new and the state primaries began to take nominating power out of the hands of party chiefs.

That power was distributed around— to primary voters, to the press, to the polls, to the people with money who could fund the new system, to candidates running on their own, to television, to perceptions like "frontrunner" and thought clouds like "inevitability," and to the wizards of control who were able to orchestrate all this into a winning message.

The problem was that you could certainly help out the candidates that you liked by volunteering or sending money. But you were powerless to create the candidates that spoke for you. Because the media and controllers of politics got to decide who could run successfully and who could not, the people had no true voice, no access to a campaign that truly needed them because once a campaign was given the go it was simply an auction.

The result of this was a very strange sort of campaign in 2000...

Well before the chaos in Florida, the contest between Al Gore and George W. Bush had reached one of its logical ends— ideological dead center, where two almost identical campaigns, reading from the same data about the same issues, shouting at the same undecided voters in the same toss up-states, tried to ride slightly different catchwords into the White House.

A control revolution, which took almost 50 years to play out, had by 2000 completed most of its work. Both campaigns were able to restrict the candidate to message-speak. At times, the two nominees sounded like tracking polls with vocal chords. Bush and Gore made themselves pitifully small for us—button pushers for the tiny portion of uncommitted voters the pros had identified as everything. But 95 percent of the country lay outside this everything. And somehow that fact too had gotten away from them.

By only listening to polls, not voices. Only hearing numbers, not people. The candidates fought for 5% of the population that could be beaten and won over by buzzword upon buzzword and meaningless issue after meaningless buzzword.

Jay next talks about how somehow Howard Dean sent out a beacon signal for anyone who felt disenfranchised and like they needed something in their life. The article suggested that because three of the "geeks" with the campaign needed girlfriends in their life, this meant that the Dean came was something to replace a loss in your life with. Jay thinks this is slightly accurate, only confused about what loss was being replaced,

Howard Dean is one adult in the system who, when he doesn't know how to connect more people to politics, will ask a 20 year-old, who might in fact know. Zack grasped that in five minutes. Is that an event in his private life? Certainly. And it has public significance. But do events with his girlfriend have public significance? No.

When was the last time a frontrunner in the race for a major party nomination got his edge over other contenders by trusting in the superior grasp of twenty year-olds with zero experience? And how often do college sophomores, hacking away with their buddies over the summer, synthesize new intellectual capital that more experienced political professionals adapt to, and begin to exploit to a candidate's strategic (not just tactical) advantage? Knowing about the three Julies doesn't add to our understanding of that.

The loss being replaced was Liberty, or public freedom. Jay refers to Thomas Jefferson and the 'ward' system to increase the amount of public influence that each citizen had.

While Jefferson understood that elected representatives were necessary in a large republic, he also saw the Constitution as incomplete, for it provided no forum, or, as Arendt put it, no "public space" in which citizens could learn the art of democratic politics themselves, instead of watching advertisements about it.

With public affairs in the hands of distant representatives, the people might turn their attention exclusively to private concerns, and begin to look upon the public world as a bore or nuisance. Did this not happen to our young?

How does this relate to Dean?

And maybe the weblogs of Dean (and Clark) are ways to the wards of Thomas Jefferson. Maybe what's missing in people's private lives is not only girlfriends and boyfriends, but something larger, "public happiness"-- the opportunity to participate in a meaningful way and show the system a thing or two.

It is my belief that the ideas of the people who find themselves attached to Dean campaign are ideas that sing of the idea of connecting to people and creating true involvement in the country. But, the Dean campaign itself is only concerned with making people feel like they have public freedom. It wants to create the facsimile of Liberty by giving people a "say" in how the campaign runs the campaign. It wants to create a false idol out of Donation by allowing people to donate money in to the left hand of the Beast that steals it back from the Right. But it ignores any attempt to actually changes the politics of Dean so that he becomes their voice, not just the centre of their worship.

The Howard Dean campaign wants you to look at it with each other. Rather than at each other with it.

A candidate who truly believes in democracy will care less about getting elected and more about getting someone elected who will be the public voice for the people. The candidates should all work together to help find out what America wants, rather than try to convince America that it wants what they want.

A society of Liberty cannot be founded by a Government of Control that is populated is populated by officials who seek to work for themselves rather than the people who were told they could vote for them or not at all.

Dean Esmay writes up some predictions for the 2004 Election and his thoughts on Howard Dean.#

Something that has been obvious to me for a while is that if certain candidates hope to get ahead, they need to sharply differentiate themselves from Howard Dean, and to attack him. This has also been something I've hoped for, since Dean has always disturbed me. Alas, the other candidates have all, until very recently, held their ammo and treated him with kid gloves. This bothers me because, win or lose the Presidency, I believe Howard Dean is an unhealthy force.

I suppose some will suggest that I only say all this because I think Dean will topple Bush. Uh, no. At least four of the current Democratic candidates have at least as good a chance of that, if not better. If I had to choose who I wanted, it would be Lieberman, because I think he would make a good President, and is the only one who's still talking anything like good sense about the war. My problem is that I believe the Dean campaign is more of a cult than a political movement, and he's on the wrong side of too many issues.

One of the big problems that Esmay has with Dean, that I agree with, it the focus on the money and that this is something that can and should be praised:

Here's a free tip, guys: it's ideas that win campaigns, not money. People don't follow the guy with the money; money follows the guy with the people. You need enough money to be credible. Then, if what you're saying catches people's imaginaton, and you look like you could win, more money will flow to you naturally.

I would argue that money should not matter, but that it unfortunately does so that the only money that should matter is that money with real people behind it. It is the votes and the people who matter, not your fundraising prowess, regardless of how that money can be used to coerce people into 'supporting' you.

Esmay believes that Dean is not really the person many people see him as. This is an example of a the cult-think of the Deanniacs.

However, Sullivan misses a key point. So do many others, who continually think of Howard Dean as a bleeding heart lefty. While Dean has done much to embrace those people, he isn't really one of them. If he sews up the nomination early, he's got literally months and months to redefine himself.

I suspect that he will, if given the opportunity, make a Nixon-style pivot, and drive hard to the right for the remainder of his campaign. Given that his following is so cultlike, he would not lose most of them by doing so. A few would walk away, shattered and disillusioned, but most will either not notice, or will find some way to rationalize it.

Esmay then goes on to illustrate what sort of things Dean will do to secure the presidency, rather than support the people who are propping him up.

Raymond Smullyan writes up a discussion between God and Mortal with the heading, "Is God a Taoist?"#

God is talking to a Mortal who wishes to be rid of free will so he will stop sinning and an interesting discussion ensues...

God: Hm! So let me get this absolutely straight. I take it you no longer wish me to remove your free will.

Mortal (reluctantly): No, I guess not.

God: All right, I agree not to. But I am still not exactly clear as to why you now no longer wish to be rid of your free will. Please tell me again.

Mortal: Because, as you have told me, without free will I would sin even more than I do now.

God: But I have already told you that without free will you cannot sin.

Mortal: But if I choose now to be rid of free will, then all my subsequent evil actions will be sins, not of the future, but of the present moment in which I choose not to have free will.

God: Sounds like you are pretty badly trapped, doesn't it?

Mortal: Of course I am trapped! You have placed me in a hideous double bind! Now whatever I do is wrong. If I retain free will, I will continue to sin, and if I abandon free will (with your help, of course) I will now be sinning in so doing.

God: But by the same token, you place me in a double bind. I am willing to leave you free will or remove it as you choose, but neither alternative satisfies you. I wish to help you, but it seems I cannot.

God talks about people's misunderstanding of "him"...

God: Fortunately, I have not been exposed to the tirades of Mr. Jonathan Edwards. Few sermons have ever been preached which are more misleading. The very title "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" tells its own tale. In the first place, I am never angry. In the second place, I do not think at all in terms of "sin." In the third place, I have no enemies.

Mortal: By that do you mean that there are no people whom you hate, or that there are no people who hate you?

God: I meant the former although the latter also happens to be true.

Mortal: Oh come now, I know people who have openly claimed to have hated you. At times I have hated you!

God: You mean you have hated your image of me. That is not the same thing as hating me as I really am.

In the discussion of why humans were given free will, God talks about supposed angels, sinners, and saints.

Mortal: Well now, I once asked this question of an Orthodox rabbi. He told me that the way we are constituted, it is simply not possible for us to enjoy salvation unless we feel we have earned it. And to earn it, we of course need free will.

God: That explanation is indeed much nicer than your former but still is far from correct. According to Orthodox Judaism, I created angels, and they have no free will. They are in actual sight of me and are so completely attracted by goodness that they never have even the slightest temptation toward evil. They really have no choice in the matter. Yet they are eternally happy even though they have never earned it. So if your rabbi's explanation were correct, why wouldn't I have simply created only angels rather than mortals?

Mortal: Beats me! Why didn't you?

God: Because the explanation is simply not correct. In the first place, I have never created any ready-made angels. All sentient beings ultimately approach the state which might be called "angelhood." But just as the race of human beings is in a certain stage of biologic evolution, so angels are simply the end result of a process of Cosmic Evolution. The only difference between the so-called saint and the so-called sinner is that the former is vastly older than the latter. Unfortunately it takes countless life cycles to learn what is perhaps the most important fact of the universe -- evil is simply painful. All the arguments of the moralists -- all the alleged reasons why people shouldn't commit evil acts -- simply pale into insignificance in light of the one basic truth that evil is suffering.

Remember: Tomorrow's Berkman meeting will be webcast!#

Dave Winer reminds us...

We're going to webcast tomorrow night's meeting too, Murphy-willing, and I'll bring my Rhomba and will try recording it that way too.

Jim Moore writes about the Dean campaign and new politics.#

Winning the election is not the only important thing. Dave pointed out something to me: The important thing is winning in a way that sets up the conditions that make it possible for the president to ask the American people to accept sacrifice, collaborate and share, and innovate and create in order to make a better world.

A president who wins the campaign by using a cynical $200 million dollar TV campaign, and promising to send men to the moon, is not connected to the people. Bush has no ability to ask Americans to stop smoking, exercise, control guns, drive safer cars, or create more cohesive and emotionally open families in order to reduce health care costs. And yet these are the emergent movements that are most important to health, and to reducing medical costs.

Most of our serious problems do not require technical fixes, they requre cooperative social change. Education, health care, jobs, personal safety, and freedom from racism, sexism and ethnocentrism, all require social commitment. Bush does not have the trust or the connection to the nation to ask for real behavior change--unless he compells it. So he takes military action, conscripts citizens to fight in his wars, and reduces civil liberties. This is the only way he can act, at all.

Seth Gordon writes about the Bible referring to God in a terrifying way.#

From the various other places where the word is used, it doesn't seem unreasonable to translatepachad Yitzchak as "the mind-numbing terror of Isaac". Isaac is the only person who is paired with the word pachad in this way to refer to God. Of course, Isaac is the only person who came within a hair's breadth of being sacrificed to God by his own father, so I suppose it's understandable that his relationship with God, and nobody else's, would be described in these terms.

Strange Women Lying in Ponds links to some interesting new research by those crazy scientists.#

Physicists say they have brought light to a complete halt for a fraction of a second and then sent it on its way, an achievement that could someday help scientists develop powerful new computers.

[...]

Harvard University researchers have now topped that feat by truly holding light and its energy in its tracks - if only for a few hundred-thousandths of a second. "We have succeeded in holding a light pulse still without taking all the energy away from it," said Mikhail D. Lukin, a Harvard physicis

Dean Esmay links to a very important message from Chief Wiggles in Iraq.#

Today in the course of what was to be a very normal day, a man knocked on my door with a very special request. At first he was obviously a little uneasy, not sure if he should enter through the large double doors into the spaciousness of my office. As he reluctantly stepped in he looked around to see if anyone else was in the office. It was already late in the day, the others having left much earlier; I was alone to receive the man's inquiry.

I motioned for him to sit down, puzzled by the mans late arrival. I was curious of the man's intentions at such a late hour and anxiously asked if I could help him. He said he had a very serious matter to discuss and a very big favor to ask of me. As I usually do I responded with an affirmative "yes, please continue and we will see what I can do." By his words it appeared he had spoken with others regarding my humanitarian efforts for the Children of Iraq.

Jeremey Bowers writes about ends and means.#

The standard question "Do the ends justify the means?" can be broken down into two parts: "How much evil can be justified if the end result is good?", and "Is the goodness of an action determine by its result, or the nature of the action itself?" They're interrelated but first is concerned with "collateral damage" and assumes the goodness and evilness of actions are known, where the second is concerned about how one determines whether actions are good or evil. For this section, we concern ourselves with the latter: How do we determine whether an action is good or evil, by the nature of the action itself or the results?

This is only an interesting question when the results are quite uncertain, which is very often.

Many people, including myself, would say that the nature of the action should figure in very heavily if the outcome is fairly uncertain. In rational terms, morality and common sense provide time-tested heuristics that have the net result of preventing disasterous outcomes, and ignoring this wisdom is just arrogance. Thus, if someone makes a moral or common-sense decision, we would still say in the abstract that that was the right decision.

Kevin Drum links to Maher Arar's story.#

I describe my cell in Syria as a grave because it was just 3 feet wide, 6 feet long, 7 feet high and unlit. While I was there I sometimes felt on the verge of death after beatings with a black electrical cable about two inches thick. They mostly aimed for my palms but sometimes missed and hit my wrists. Other times, I was left alone in a special "waiting room" within earshot of others' screams. At the end of the day, they would tell me that tomorrow would be worse. In those 10 1/2 months I lost about 40 pounds. I never saw, but only heard, the agony of my fellow prisoners.

I am sympathetic to the fact that we will sometimes make mistakes and arrest the wrong people. I am not sympathetic to the fact that we refuse to back up serious accusations with evidence. And I'm decidedly not sympathetic to the fact that we ship people off to brutal dictatorships to be tortured.

The war on terror does not require us to behave like animals. After all, if we descend to their level, what's the point of the fight? The government owes both Arar and Canada an explanation for what happened here.

John writes about Mandy Moore's cover cd.#

This will wreck my street credibility, but I have to say that the more I listen to Mandy Moore's Coverage, the more I like it. It's an album of covers, which is generally never a good thing for your pop star types -- they're usually lazy contractual obligation-fillers that make you aware how disposable pop stars actually are -- but in this case I think this is arguably the most ambitious album made by someone in this current generation of squealy pop divettes. Faint praise? Perhaps. But regardless, it's good.

A lot of this estimation comes from the fact that the songs Moore covers are actually songs worth covering, that have not been already covered to death, including XTC's "Senses Working Overtime," the Waterboys' "Whole of the Moon" and Joan Armatrading's "Drop the Pilot." The idea that Moore (or her producer, whoever) might actually try to slip in tunes created somewhat close to the time Moore was actually born is, for this sort of album, a stunning development. It's also heartening that these songs are passed on. It would be nice if your average 14-year-old girl listened to XTC or the Waterboys on her own, but she doesn't, and it's a bit much to expect her to. This is the next best thing.

I think Mandy Moore is fairly amazing. I've been watching "How To Deal" like a madman since yesterday.

Kevin Werbach is one of the many who is amazed at the most recent move by the RIAA.#

Fox News: "Bradley A. Buckles, who served ATF for 30 years and was named director in 1999, will come head of the Anti-Piracy Unit of the Recording Industry Association of America, the trade group announced Tuesday. [...]"

ATF is the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. The symbolism here is just surreal. Listening to music you didn't pay for is apparently in the same category as shooting someone, using an addictive drug, or drunk driving. Come on. The latter three result in hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths each year.

Atrios comments on Christopher Hitchens and other Right-Wingers who are opposed to past American foreign policy.#

But, of course, if I had written (and I wouldn't) something like "I am only slightly embarrassed to tell you that this was a feeling of exhilaration. Here we are then, I was thinking that finally an event had happened which cause America to rethink its foreign policy and fight on the side of good," I would have been condemned as an evil American-hating Lefty. But, of course, what I just wrote in quotes (mostly stolen from Hitchens) isn't saying something which is a sort of Lefty parody of what Hitchens said, it essentially is exactly what Hitchens is saying. I didn't specify which of our foreign policies was at fault, nor why, nor what it would mean to fight on the side of good. What our imagined American-hating Lefty and Hitchens are both saying is, "good, now we can get down to business and do what I think we should have been doing." The confirms their world-view (right or wrong), and all is well. For some reason, saying "Our foreign policy has been wrong and has led to this horrible event!" is okay as long as it's followed by "We must start kicking the shit out of more people!" but isn't if it's followed by "We should stop kicking the shit out of so many people!" Aside from the merits of either statement, both are blaming America's foreign policy for what happened. Why does Hitchens hate America?

Amy Skurt gave me some advice last night about Krystal. She's a nice girl.#

Henry Farrell writes about Brian Leiter's defense of Noam Chomsky.#

As I read Leiter, he's claiming that politics and foreign relations are trivia - they present no serious problems for someone like Chomsky, who has a really first rate intellect. Nor even for someone with a decent undergraduate education in a serious subject; Leiter has already informed us that "a BA in philosophy apparently puts you well ahead of a PhD in political science."

Leiter isn't noted for his belief in civil discourse, and I've no desire to start a flame-war. Nor do I want to tip-toe delicately around the fact that he's talking complete smack. In his posts, Leiter gives us the (perhaps inadvertent) impression that there's no problem in politics so vexing that a crack squad of linguists and philosophers couldn't sort it out. Even if this isn't what he's trying to say, his claim that politics presents only modest intellectual demands is stuff and nonsense. Politics is complicated and messy; there aren't any easy answers, and as a consequence it is an intellectually demanding subject matter. Perhaps too demanding; I'm the first to admit that scholars of politics haven't provided good answers to most of the important questions. But I'm profoundly unconvinced that philosophers of Leiter's particular bent are likely to do any better. Or linguists for that matter; Chomsky's unwillingness to grapple with the complexities of politics is perhaps the reason why he's a first rate linguistic theorist, a second rate polemicist, and a fifth rate political scientist. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and on the evidence to date, there ain't much eating there.

Chris Bertram questions the ethics of paying more attention to your own children when you are watching other's children.#

I confess that I never thought of anything beyond which kid would fit best and separating the ones most likely to fight if seated adjacently to one another myself. [The discussion was based on where to seat kids in a car.] But Cohen's reasoning here is entirely wrongheaded. Sure, there are times when it is right to put your own children first (such as reading bedtime stories), but when you are in loco parentis for other people's the duty is, if anything, when it comes to avoiding real harms, to take special care of theirs. And beyond that, duties of justice quite generally don't permit us to favour those close to us over strangers (there isn't a stronger duty to repay a debt to a close relation than to a distant one or to an non-relative).

Jane writes about game censorship and the power of truth in video games.#

I think it's pretty clear that there is a massive, and willful, misunderstanding here. The game does not urge players of the game to kill Haitians. It's improbable that the game developers have a grudge against ethnic minorities in the United States. What's happening here is that game is engaging in very dark satire of American racism and race politics. Imagine a character in a movie saying this line - it's entirely dependent on context whether or not you believe the director or writer of the film actually agrees with such a statement. More often, they use the medium to point out how fucked up the world really is, that there can be characters in it who act and believe in this way.

The thing is, the Haitian community in the United States is discriminated against, sometimes violently, as are so many ethnic minorities. I would argue that the game exposes this blatantly, and that's what's scary to people. In post-Affirmative Action America, we don't like to have our deep-seated racial tensions thrown in our faces like that. We'd rather have a game - which after all is only entertainment, it's not supposed to make you uncomfortable or, god forbid, make you think - that presents that world as a less violent, less racist place than it really is.

Christopher Lydon writes about the success of the Internet with regards to the Dean campaign.#

It would be nice if the New York Times would say it--at least say it now. Are they trying to stretch out a story that has suddenly died in Dean's premature victory? Or are they unable to face that fact that the old trials, the old media inquiries and Establishment hurdles, have all been swept aside. It's a new day, and we are not going back to the pre-Internet rules. The larger divide of understanding is wider than ever, it seems to me. That is, Matt Stoller's understanding of "space" as the issue in 2004--the freedom to create identity and make connections in the world--is closer than ever to the real point. All the other framings of the Dean challenge seem to me wrong-headed. He's not McGovern. He's not Goldwater. He's not in any fundamental way the candidate of anger. He is a very capable creature of the vastness of Internet imagination. He snapped his fingers and found that he owned the Democratic nomination. So what do we and the Internet have to do to win the presidency?

Moxie has an alternative opinion of Gore's endorsement.#

Mom:
Did you hear what that creep Al Gore did?

Moxie:
You betcha

Mom:
Lieberman really handled it well, he's too classy to be associated with Gore.

Moxie:
I'm not sure why Gore did that but having an endorsement from the loser of the last Presidential election isn't exactly like getting a gold star

Mom:
That's all they've got

Tony Pierce doesn't like the bias of Drudge.#

heres the problem with drudge. he's not interested in news unless it will be beneficial to his political point of veiw, his boss's political point of view, his sexual preferences, and his views on race.

people, smart people, go to his web site to find out news. even journalists go to his site to try to find out the latest breaking news. but all he presents are items that agree with his agenda.

Tony Pierce captures the horror that his staff of monkeys felt because of Average Joe.#

ast night two men remained: the final average joe, and the last handsome dude.

the monkeys complained that it was obvious that the former cheerleader was going to pick the average joe, especially once it became known to her that he was a self made millionaire and was loved by all his friends and family and coworkers.

they screeched that like duh she was gonna pick the funny, sincere, normal one instead of the prettyboy who lived at home who became her bitch immediately while they ate their jerk chicken next to the sea.

[...]

then when we least expected it she picked the pretty boy and youve never seen such pissed off primates.

Tony Pierce is on a super roll recently. He writes about "fucking kwanzaa."#

one thing black people can do well is praise jesus. we do it better than anyone in the world. the music we make when we do it might be the most magical of all music, the preachers we have might be the best there ever were, and the clothes we wear to church are the sharpest.

then on the flip side we have our brothers and sisters who are muslim, and watch them pray. they win at praying. they win at pilgrimiging. they win at letting their spirituality become a solid and regular part of their lives.

with those two options, theres no need for any damn kwanza. some watered down bullshit made up strip mall phony holiday so you can wear a koofi? fuck that shit. we need to focus up on the biggest birthday of the year. we dont need no stinkin kwanza getting in the way.

Welcome, Mr. Thief.#

Michael Feldman announces his endorsement of Howard Dean.#

After prolonged consideration, and barring the appearance of a modern day Cincinnatus, the Dowbrigade has decided to endorse Howard Dean for President. Although we doubt he will ever return to private practice, at least the man knows what it's like to work for a living, having lived a rather full and regular life before becoming a politician. Most of the rest of this sorry lot appear to have decided to run for President in the 1st grade.

Of course, astute pundits and prognosticators should note that historically the endorsement of the Dowbrigade is the presidential kiss of death. Quite frankly, we haven't backed a winner since Jimmy Carter, and we all know how THAT turned out. In the past three elections we have backed Dr. John Hagelin of the Natural Law Party, an MIT physics professor who claims he can solve all of humanities problems if every person on the planet will kick in 10 cents and practice an hour of Transcendental Meditation every day.

Richard quotes Willian Tyndale:#

Willian Tyndale, p. 174: "he that bindeth himself to the Pope and have lever have his life and soul rule by the Pope's will than by the will of God and by the Pope's word than by the word of God, is a fool. And he that had lever be bond than free is not wise. And he that will not abide in the freedom wherein Christ hath set us, is also mad. And he that maketh deadly sin where none is and seeketh causes of hatred between him and God is not in his right wits. Furthermore no man can bind himself further than he hath power over himself. He that is under the power of another man cannot bind himself without licence, as son, daughter, wife, servant and subject. Neither can thou give God that which is not in thy power. Chastity canst thou not give God further than God lendeth it thee: if thou cannot live chaste thou art bound to marry or to be damned. Last of all what purpose thou bindest thyself must bee seen. If thou do it to obtain thereby that which Christ hath purchased for thee freely, so are thou an infidel and hast no part with Christ and so forth."