When All Shouldn't Be Quiet on the Western Front

When Saddam was captured, Bush's approval ratings went up. Beyond some empty psychological need for closure, that favor was groundless. There is little evidence that Saddam was the mastermind behind the attacks on American soldiers. Indeed, American troops in Iraq continue to be killed every day.

I've really been wrestling with the war because Saddam was a horrible leader who deserved what he got. But the reconstruction has been a botched affair from the beginning.

Remember that $87 billion reconstruction plan for Iraq? The administration would like you to forget that its original estimate back in April was only $1.7 billion. That was the number given by the director of USAID (the federal agency principally in charge of foreign assistance) in an interview with Ted Koppel. USAID recently removed that transcript from its website.

Yet Paul Wolfowitz and others in the Bush administration can't acknowledge the mistake. They doggedly repeat that regime change needed to happen without addressing the fact that they were hugely wrong about the difficulties of reconstruction.

Warheads Roasting on an Open Fire

Probably the most interesting piece of literature put out by a federal agency was released today by the Washington Post.

This little Christmas ditty was written by the singing group at the the State Department's Bureau of Arms Control and International Security.

Sung to the tune of "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" is the State Department's own, "Coping With a Nuclear Iran."

Note: Natanz is the site Iran is building to process highly enriched uranium (HEU) for bombs or low-enriched uranium for nuclear energy. DPRK is the lunatic Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea).

In Natanz, they're enriching,
As their story keeps switching,
Each day something new,
Like lost HEU,
Coping with a nuclear Iran.
Do they need centrifuges?
Do they think we're just stooges?
They're going the way
Of DPRK,
Coping with a nuclear Iran.
Let's go to the IAEA chairman,
If it seems the board might let us down,
Are they in compliance? He'll say, 'No, Man!
But no one wants to say that in this town!'
We convinced some friendly nations
To report the violations,
But that didn't fly
With ElBaradei,
Coping with a nuclear Iran.

Blogging for Blokes

The Guardian has announced its list of the country's best bloggers.

Redemption the Congressional Way

$225,000 to fix a pool in Sparks, Nevada. That's one Congressman's idea of setting this country right for fiscal year 2004. Rep. Jim Gibbons (R-NV) stuck on the item in the Omnibus Spending Bill because he's felt guilty ever since he clogged the pool up with tadpoles when he was ten.

Perhaps Rep. Gibbons has forgotten that most children in Iraq don't even have running water.

The most revolting part of the appropriations process is how individual congressmen dole out funding to frivolous pet projects. Instead of asking federal agencies or local governments to award grant money in a competitive process, Congress bypasses that process and gives money out to grant seekers who have the most effective lobbyist or someone else to curry a Congressman's favor. If the Senate approves the bill in January, total spending on these little critters will total about $23 billion.

Kidneys, 50% off!

This Christmas season, buy the gift that keeps giving: an organ.

Unfortunately you can't. Almost every country in the world prohibits the sale of transplant organs.

Early this month, police in South Africa and Brazil arrested people who ran voluntary organ markets where mostly poor individuals sold their kidneys for around $10,000. No small pittance. Even the police noted that the poor could "probably buy a house or a small business with that money."

This just doesn't make sense. In the United States, there are around 83,000 people who are in need of kidney transplants. Yet while women can sell their eggs and men can sell their sperm, we will not permit the creation of an incentive for potential organ suppliers. If a procedure involves a serious inconvenience and entails some health risks, all the more reason we should pay people for the trouble.

Keep Your Eye on the Prize

Financing: France and Germany Join U.S. in Effort to Reduce Iraq’s Debt

Despite the US snub to exclude France and Germany from reconstruction bids, both EU countries have agreed to excuse a substantial portion of Iraqi debt. Thankfully, France and Germany have Iraq's welfare in mind and not political vendettas as the Bush administration does.

On another note, an NYT op-ed from a terrorist expert at the RAND corporation notes that, "In the end, Qaeda's real interest in Iraq has been to exploit the occupation as a propaganda and recruitment tool for the global jihadist cause." With great footage of American soliders firing at Iraqi civilians and destroying homes, Al-Qaeda won't have to do much to get others riled up. The US certainly cannot leave Iraq in its current condition of political and social instability but Bush isn't helping by banning bids from Europe's top economies.

Dildolicious

If I ever became a legislator, my first priority would be get rid of the stupid laws that came from our more paternalistic past. I don't care if they're not enforced anymore. 1) They make it more confusing for your average joe to know what the law is if he has to look up court history. 2) Simply having the laws on the books gives an opportunity for wacko bored enforcement officers to harass people.

Case in point: Texas' criminal law on selling vibrators. Police in Cleburne, Texas arrested a Texas woman for the horrible offense of the intent to promote the use of "obscene articles."

Here's an excerpt from a court opinion on this statute:

CURTISS BROWN, Justice, concurring.
Here we go raising the price of dildos again. Since this appears to be the law in Texas I must concur.

Regalado v. State, 872 S.W.2d 7 (1994).

Via The Volokh Conspiracy and Instapundit.

Washout

My law school has a shuttle to take you to Union Station, a long 5-minute walk away. I always thought it was ridiculous.
Perhaps not.

Washington DC has the 5th highest violent crime rate in the country (Detroit was first).

In theory, DC has home rule but any of the city's legislation can be rejected by Congress. This past summer Congress vetoed DC's commuter tax which would have given the city at least $500 million in revenue. About 70% of DC's workforce is from the suburbs. Congress can even pass laws for the city, for example the school voucher bill that the Senate will vote on in January. How is the federal government going to increase national security when it can't even help get rid of the average mugger?

On another note: New York was the nation's safest big city.

Get That Man a TV

Give the homeless a posh pad and they'll want a job.

At least that's what the Doe Fund thinks.

The non-profit fund responsible for the "Ready, Willing and Able" work program for homeless men will be running the new 400-bed shelter in Brooklyn. The shelter will cost the city about $8 million dollars a year to run, or about $20,000 per bed. But with the Doe Fund buying 36-inch flat screen TVs, I would seriously question its ability to spend the money wisely.

Hard Up for Endorsements?

Part of the reason why I want a third party is to have more provocative debates about policy. The other reason is because most presidential campaigns are downright boring. At least with local mayoral campaigns, for example Baltimore's in 2001, you get the ex-felon, the councilman with twenty unpaid traffic tickets...etc.

But this year, Kucinich has very kindly filled in the kooky candidate spot.

Please witness for the first time ever, an endorsement for the next president of 2004 by Grandfather Twilight and the "creatures of the forest."

Via Joanne McNeill.

Steel This Album...

No more.

Bush has actually ended steel tariffs.

Wow.

Although before we give him too much credit, Europe had threatened sanctions against citrus products if Bush didn't budge. And a certain key election state would have been very unhappy about that.

Steel tariffs were an abominable dole out to the American steel industry by all of us, who were denied the option to buy cheaper foreign steel because of US-imposed tariffs.

Via Lawrence Lessig's blog.

Did He Say the M-word?

An Oklamhoma congressman wants to punish the DC Metro for allowing an ad that read, "Enjoy Better Sex. Legalize and Tax Marijuana." Rep. Ernest Isotook Jr. (R-OK) would like to knock off about $92,000 from Metro funding next year for Metro's promotion of "illegal activity."

Hmm, I didn't know legalization or taxation was illegal.

Snide comments aside, Metro, a government entity, cannot censor or reject a message simply because it's controversial. In this case, Metro didn't charge anything for the ad because of its policy of providing free space to nonprofit groups for public service announcements. Perhaps that policy should be changed. But if Isotook gets his way, Metro's removal of the ad could cost thousands of dollars in litigation once the ACLU rightfully charges Metro with a violation of the First Amendment. No taxpayer should have to subsidize the frivolous sensitivities of a congressman or anyone for that matter. While the government doesn't need to give space away, it absolutely cannot prohibit free speech --even if it's to promote better sex.

"No Way to Make Friends"

Criticism of Bush's ineptitude in foreign diplomacy often gets brushed aside as just a stylistic difference or sometimes even flipped around as a good thing: that his bumbling is the sign of a genuine guy. But there's really more to Bush's ignorance of foreign issues than just a slip of "the nation of Africa."

Newsweek editor, Fareed Zakaria, compares Bush's appearances abroad to Chinese president Hu Jintao's. In Australia, the two made back to back visits. Between the leader of a totalitarian communist country and the leader of a country that stands for freedom and capitalism, who got the standing ovation from the Australian Parliament? Not us.

At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Thailand, Hu was similarly loved and Bush hated. Zakaria quotes one Malaysian writer, who explains it best: "Bush came to an economic group [APEC] and talked obsessively about terror. He sees all of us through that one prism. Yes, we worry about terror, but frankly that's not the sum of our lives. We have many other problems...We're trying to address health, social and environmental problems. Hu talked about all this; he talked about our agenda, not just his agenda."

If Bush is so obsessed with making the US look strong, he certainly doesn't accomplish that goal with confronting each country as a possible terrorist haven. In fact, the US looks paranoid. The true sign of a nation's strength is its ability to concern itself with more than just survival.

Bush's Department of Peace?

The Pentagon is considering setting up a permanent division of peacekeeping forces,an exciting prospect except that no plan calls for more than 30,000 troops. Iraq currently has 130,000 US troops, who are barely able to maintain order.

Find a husband with marketing tools from Harvard Business School

An amusing ditty on how women over 35 should construct their personal brand to find a spouse.

Via Arts and Letters

Back to the Future

The terror futures market is scheduled to open on March 2004.

The Policy Analysis Market (PAM) was the brain child of former admiral John Poindexter, head of the military's Total Information Awareness Office, who resigned last August because of popular outrage (mostly from legislators) at the plan. PAM is a market where traders place their bets on future political and terrorist events. The government hoped to use the market to predict attacks and assasinations based on the cumulative insight reflected in prices.

Your legal obligation not to act

Funny that Scalia should bring up a hypothetical on libertarians not wanting to save someone....In Torts class, we have arrived at the sticky area of affirmative duty: what the law will require you to do for others. That may seem like nothing new. Laws always seem to be requiring us to do things like wearing seat belts and paying taxes. However, most laws require you NOT to do things to others, i.e. not to hit them, not to crash your car into them, not to trespass on their property...etc.

But should the law require you to rescue someone? Consider this hypothetical: you walk by a stranger who's passed out and lying face-down in a shallow pool of water. You could save him from suffocating if you just turn him over.

Traditional tort law would say you have no obligation to turn him. Libertarians would strongly agree; individual autonomy is of the utmost importance.

This rationale seems cold-hearted and even selfish that someone should die because a damn libertarian didn't want affirmative duties imposed on him.

But individual liberty has social worth. Once the state requires good acts, "it becomes impossible to tell where liberty ends and obligation begins." Add to that obligation the threat of imprisonment and the obligation starts sound less and less like good law.

The quotation above comes from the author of my Torts case book, a self-proclaimed libertarian, Richard Epstein, professor of law at the University of Chicago.

30 Libertarians and One Suicidal Man...

In an oral argument before the Supreme Court yesterday, Justice Antonin Scalia was questioning an attorney on duty. The justice proposes a hypothetical to him: Suppose a man jumps into the sea and intends to committ suicide. Thirty people each with a life preserver at their feet stand on the dock. They refuse to do anything. "I don't know," Scalia explains, "Maybe they're 30 libertarians."

Get This Man a Candidate!

George Soros is on a mission to oust Bush. One of the wealthiest men in the world, Soros has spent about $15 million to unseat W. And he's willing to spend more:

"Asked whether he would trade his $7 billion fortune to unseat Bush, Soros opened his mouth. Then he closed it. The proposal hung in the air: Would he become poor to beat Bush?

He said, 'If someone guaranteed it.'"

Why Not to Vote

Every election year, my economist friend tries to dissuade me from voting. Beyond the cost-benefit analysis of time spent versus the effect of my vote, this friend says our election system (of choosing one candidate and the one with the most votes wins) is horrible at electing individuals we want.

Here's an article from Science News that explains why.

Former Iraq Captive Jessica Lynch: 'I'm No Hero'

Jessica Lynch refutes Army reports of her heroic combat against Iraqis. In her interview with Diane Sawyer, Lynch responds, "I'm not about to take credit for something that I didn't do... It hurt in a way that people would make up stories that they had no truth about. Only I would have been able to know that because the other four people on my vehicle aren't here to tell that story."

The Canadian and British media were the first to reveal that government reports about Private Jessica Lynch were beefed up. Although her soon-to-be-released biography written by NY Times Rick Bragg quotes a medical report that Lynch was raped, she has no memory of the event. Shoshanna Johnson, a black army private also taken captive in the war and was injured in combat, will receive less than half the percentage of disability benefits of Lynch.

And Now For This Public Service Announcement....

If I ever run for office, I would want to be a mayor.

Last spring, Bogota's mayor established a Friday night curfew for men to combat the city's crime rate. Men weren't allowed out unless they had a special pass but most stayed home with the kids while their wives partied. Violence was down 40% that night.

Antanas Mockus, the mayor of Bogota Colombia, is a mathematician and semiotician who three months before he was elected got kicked out of his university because he mooned some unruly students. Besides Women's Night Out, he has gone on TV in his boxers to show people how to save water when they shower; he dressed up as a carrot and passed out stuffed versions to promote his 1am closing ("Carrot Hour") for bars and restaurants (a carrot is a geek in Colombian slang). People who participated in his gun-exchange program got flowers and a certificate of thanks.

This quirky form of governance seems a bit out of place in a country most known for the war on drugs and where terrorism is a part of daily life. But Mockus' "theatre politics" have worked. Since he became mayor, Bogota's murder rate has been halved, an accomplishment which Mary Roldan,who's working on a book about Colombian violence, says is largely attributable to Mockus. Being a pedestrian in Bogota used to be a risky affair but now there are well-maintained sidewalks and bike lanes. Even the taxi drivers stay clear of street crossings (for which they are awarded stickers that say "gentlemen of the zebra," slang for crosswalk).

In a fascinating article from the Atlantic Monthly, Mockus explained how his background in semiotics influenced his approach to governance. He drew three boxes labeled, "legal power," "moral power" and "cultural power." The latter two he defined as "power derived from one's own standards and power derived from the shared values of the citizenry":

        At first," Mockus told [the reporter], "I had the illusion that if I
        wrote new laws, those words would become reality. But it soon
        became clear that if you want to change society's habits, law is
        only one of the means. Most people prefer internal mechanisms
        for determining for themselves what is right and what is wrong,
        but perceive other people as needing to be regulated by laws.
        The question I asked was how to reduce the difference
        between the laws and cultural and moral means of self-
        regulation." A governing style that could fairly be summed up as
        theater-as-politics was the result.

Perhaps I should have gone to grad school for semiotics instead of law school.

Mock-Us continued

If you don't want to read the Atlantic Monthly article, listen to an interview with Mary Roldan, who's working on a book about violence in Colombia, on what she thinks of Antanas Mockus' administration.

Also on this same show, The Next Big Thing, produced by PRI, there's a great retrospective on public service announcements.

E-COLI, just as meddlesome

Blogger Joanne McNeil asked why Alaska's cost of living was so high according to the seemingly accurate source of the Missouri Economics Research and Information Center. My classmate Brian Simmonds found the answer. (Caveat: he was also trying to defend the honor of his home state of Oregon.)

"The Missouri propaganda you cite is based upon an average of ACCRA data for each city surveyed in a given state. Because the cities are self-selecting, the number of cities participating in a given state varies widely. Furthermore, the number of cities surveyed does not even necessarily correlate with the number of metropolitan areas in a state. For example, the index only tracks three Oregon cities: Portland, Corvallis, and Lincoln Co., leaving out most of the state’s less expensive population centers.

In addition, it’s impossible to talk meaningfully about a state’s cost of living. If San Diego is cheap, it doesn’t make San Francisco any cheaper."

ACCRA (not an acronym), "producer of the nationally renowned Cost of Living Index (COLI)," is a non-profit based out of George Mason University.

The Truth Comes Out!

Since day one of contract law, our professor has told us that the rules of contracts are meant to establish the law, because law is better than justice. Then we learn an exception, and then another exception and another until finally the rule doesn't mean much anymore.

For instance, the parol evidence rule limits a court to the written agreement to determine what's included in a contract. So if Big Company tells the little guy, "Hey, sign this lease and I'll throw in a car too," and then doesn't provide the car, the little guy can't go sue Big Company for not giving him the car because it wasn't in the written agreement. In the written agreement, little guy promised to pay $10K a month to rent a closet in Big Company's building. The court could say that the closet was worth $10K a month to the little guy because that's what's in the agreement and both parties have equal power to contract. Simple, right?

Ah, but not so fast. The car was part of the incentive to sign. Moreover the little guy's not very sophisticated compared to Big Company lawyer. He didn't know an oral promise didn't count as much as what's on paper. He didn't even know what was on the paper. He just signed that 100 page agreement. No one would really pay $10K a month to rent a closet.

Now enter the rule of unjust enrichment (Big Co. gets thousands of dollars for basically nothing), non-disclosure (Big Co. purposefully did not tell little guy that car promise would not be enforced), unconscionability (inequality in bargaining power) and other exceptions that will help the little guy get out of the contract or get the car, depending on what he'd prefer.

Really the whole rule of law thing has been a front. The numerous exceptions "bring justice out of the closet," as my contract text says.

But do they? The malleability of the laws make them easy to manipulate for whatever purpose, just or not. And the person more likely to win the word game is usually the one with the bigger legal fund. Maybe the rule of law really is better.

A Shoutout to the Rookies

For some refreshing radio, tune in to Radio Rookies, a wonderful program at WNYC that teaches young people how to tell their stories through the microphone. The station is broadcasting these amazing pieces throughout the week.

(To be completely objective: WNYC is my old employer and Sophie Rand was my awesome mentee.)

I Told You So

Mike Davis is one controversial meatcutter. The former blue collar worker now Californian urban theorist has recently caught attention for his 1998 book, Ecology of Fear, in which Davis argued most development in southern California never should have happened. You can read excerpts through Amazon's new "search inside the book" option or read "Let Malibu Burn", a precursor to the book.

The Ultimate Business Decision

A provocative though disturbing piece on Slate about how suicide could ever be a rational economic choice.

Once Upon a Time, a Little Aryan Man...

The next time you want to cozy up with a nice bedtime story (and pump some fire into you), try Grandmother Elizabeth's Reading Hour for White Children weekdays at 7pm-8pm.

Host Elizabeth Wheeler is wife of Lovell Wheeler, a Baltimore man who was arrested earlier this week for charges including reckless endangerment. In a "no-knock" search of the Wheeler home, the police found 16,000 rounds of ammunition, 62 pounds of gunpowder and 22 guns. Mr. Wheeler is also a member of the National Alliance, a white supremacist group founded by the author of the Turner Diaries, a book that describes a white insurrection against the US government.

Some civil liberatarians say the man is a political prisoner. But if "court documents" are correct, Wheeler told white police officers to join him in some sort of upcoming war that would start in Baltimore and encouraged the officers to read, Who Rules America? Here is an excerpt: "We must shrink from nothing in combating this evil power [Jewish power] that has fastened its deadly grip on our people and is injecting its lethal poison into their minds and souls. If we fail to destroy it, it certainly will destroy our race."

While no one should be arrested or fined for the possession or promotion of literature like this, if the man demonstrated any plan to act on this message, he should be locked up.

But what I want to know is: Why did this man move from Arkansas to 64% black Baltimore?

Feeling off-balance

An April 2003 Wall Street Journal op-ed noted that in the past six years, Georgetown law professors gave approximately $ 180,000 to Democrats, $ 2,000 to Republicans and $ 1,500 to the Greens.

This political preference of the faculty comes across most clearly in my Constitutional law class. In discussing Lochner v. New York, the professor said that "we now know that" the government must equalize the bargaining power of disparate income groups through work-hour limits.

I just hope we don't get tested on this.

Give or Take a Few

USA Today carefully notes that 104 American troops have been "killed by enemy fire" in Iraq since the President declared the end of major combat on May 1. During the war between March to May, 110 troops were "killed in action."

"Action" sounds more vague than "enemy fire." According to the Dept. of Defense dictionary, "killed in action" is a "casualty category applicable to a hostile casualty" excluding terrorism. So the postwar numbers may be quite higher. If the Defense department itself is using these categories, I hope reporters are noticing the switch.

Legalese

Those books that encourage lawyers to use plain language seem to be helping but there are still words remote from common knowledge that judges and lawyer insist on using. Here are some examples with my initial impression of them followed by what they really mean.

Dispositive: not positive

Legalese meaning: adj. when an object or fact is enough in itself to prove the whole argument


Res ipsa: closest laymen pronounciation "Ray's a hipsta!"

Legalese meaning: usually res ipsa loquitur, "the thing speaks for itself" in Latin, a type of negligence claim


Intestate: some really unhappy intestines

Legalese meaning: "adj. referring to a situation where a person dies without leaving a valid will. This usually is voiced as 'he died intestate,' 'intestate estate,' or 'intestate succession.'" from Law.com's Dictionary

The Real COLA

The Senate voted yesterday to keep its COLA (Cost of Living Act) 2.2% pay increase for next year despite the efforts of Senator Russ Feingold. As the House had also voted to keep the raise, lawmakers' current salary of $154,703 will go up to $158,103 on January 1.

With the $480 billion deficit and increasing costs in the reconstruction of Iraq, the pay raise seems a bit gratuitous . On the other hand, inflation is usually around 2% so the salary increase really isn't much. Federal civilian workers who are getting a 4.1% increase, however, are living it up.

What Ever Happened to That Other Country We Attacked?

Most papers report that $87 billion in aid will be going to the reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan with much attention on how that money will be spent in Iraq. But did you notice how much of that money is going to Afghanistan?

The answer: $1.2 billion.

Both countries have comparable populations (about 29 million in Afghanistan and 24 million in Iraq). Although the war technically ended in December 2001, Afghanistan is no where near getting back on its feet. An article from Roll Call (requires a subscription) included comments from Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.) on his trip to Afghanistan about two weeks ago. He described the situation as "chaotic."

"Our embassy there is ringed with barbed wire and barriers," he said. "That pretty much says it all."

And that's in Kabul, the city with the most peacekeeping troops in the country. Taliban attacks continue especially in southern Afghanistan. Only last week the UN Security Council vote to expand NATO troops beyond Kabul. The Washington Post has a series of videos that give you an idea of what the country looks like now.

What's distressing is that this same neglect led to the rise of the Taliban about five years ago. Though Afghanistan is extremely poor and undeveloped (about 80% of its labor force is in agriculture), the country posed just as great a threat to US security as Iraq.

I'm Sorry, So Sorry. Please Accept My Apologies.

As a law student I read many cases about people suing because their feelings were hurt, suing because someone broke a promise or suing because someone made an honest mistake. I sometimes wonder whether all the legal nastiness couldn't have been prevented by a simple heart-felt apology --maybe accompanied by some roses too.

My friend, Matthew, passed this link along grouphug.us. It's a site for confessions, a sort of apology line. Here are some examples:
"I am utterly selfish. some part of me wants my friends to fail and get fat and be useless so I am better than them. I also take stuff that isnt mine and dont work at my job. I see everything as a competition."
"A few years ago, I fell pregnant and had an abortion. I lied to myself and everyone around me by saying it was because of medical reasons rather than through choice."

At first reading these confessions seems a bit of schadenfreude, an expression I just learned this week, "a delight in the misery of others." But the confessions make you more apt to apologize yourself or at the very least to recognize the harm you've done to others.

The radio show, This American Life, did a piece about an apology line in New York. The line was set up in 1980 by a man named Alan Bridge and lasted until his death in 1995. It's the first piece of radio that made me cry. This segment starts about 46 minutes into a provocative program about justice which includes a report on the Yugoslav war tribunal and an interview about truth commissions.

A Castronian Theory of Language

Fidel Castro has a book review for the autobiography of his good friend, "Gabo" Garcia Marquez.

Tyler Cowen, a professor of economics at George Mason University, points out that Castro's theory of language may not be so different from his approach to politics. Castro writes: "He [GM] and I share a scandalous theory on the relativity of words in language. Also, as a public man obliged to write speeches and narrate events, I agree with the illustrious writer on the delight of finding the exact word - a kind of shared and inexhaustible obsession - until the phrase fits our criteria. Above all, I admire the fact that when an exact word doesn't exist, he calmly invents one. How I admire that licence of his!"

(Via The Volokh Conspiracy)

Did I Say That?

Steven Landsburg has written a followup to his piece on how the gender of children affects divorce rates. This one is called, "Maybe Parents Don't Like Boys Better." Landsburg settles on a less controversial explanation for the difference in divorce rates of parents who have sons versus daughters: the importance of inherited wealth. Perhaps wealth is more important for a boy than a girl because a man's mating potential is strongly determined by wealth and because a man is more likely to be entreprenurial. Consequently, parents will be less likely to have other kids (which dilutes the wealth) and won't get divorced.

This answer seems less intuitive. I should have read the study itself because the difference in divorce rates is only about 4%. Moreover, the trend has been changing: developing countries tend to have a larger disparity than developed. I will leave the discussion at that.

Ghettofabulous

A cross between Monopoly and gangsta culture, Ghettopoly was created by a Taiwanese-American who lives in Pennsylvania and loves rap videos. The game sold briskly when it was released a month ago but has been censured by the NAACP and Urban Outfitters, which removed the game from its stores because of picketing.

If the creator of the game were black or Latino, the protests might not have been as vociferous. I admit that the game is more palatable to me because the idea originated from a non-white person. But for most Americans, there's no difference between an Asian or a white.

The New South?

Last weekend was my first trip to Mississippi. As we drove past Jefferson Davis' last home of Beauvoir, I happened upon what I thought was a huge traffic jam in Gulfport, Mississippi. The even stranger part was that tons of people were sitting in lawn chairs facing the street and watching the traffic, occasionally roused by noise and exhaust. Eventually I pulled down the window and asked what was going on. "It's Cruisin' the Coast! I'll tell you when to reve your engine!" was the reply. I kid you not. Read a meticulous account of the events at the Biloxi Sun Herald.

Before I left for the trip, I was told to count the number of times someone mentioned the Civil War. It was good advice. In addition to being called "the unfortunate disagreeent between the North and the South," I also heard "the Great War," "the War between the States," or just "The War."

Most of these references were during my visit to Natchez, a small town that's known for its antebellum homes, several of which are kept in pristine order. The town used to be one of the wealthiest before the Civil War. It fell into a depression afterwards from which it's never fully recovered although tourism seems to be a new outlet. Mix tourism with a painful past and you hear references to "servants" as opposed to slaves and other euphemisms. My visit was during the Fall Pilgrimage when the homes are open to the public. Pilgrimage is a strange term which I never got around to figuring out. In the Spring Pilgrimage, there's a pageant, a local tradition since the 1930s, in which the King and Queen of the Pilgrimage dress in Civil War attire, the man in a Confederate uniform and a woman in a hoop-skirt dress.

To be fair, however, most of Jackson looked like any small town suburb...which is almost kind of sad in a way.

Taiwan on for a Change

Taiwan's presidential elections are next March which means we can expect some Chinese missile testing to arrive also. What's surprising this time round, however, is that the ex-president, 80 year-old Lee Teng-Hui has been actively campaigning for Taiwanese independence. Lee was chairman of the Nationalist Party, the intractable former ruling party that insisted for more than 50 years that it was the rightful government of all of China. The Washington Post had a nice profile of him this weekend.

For those not in the know, Taiwan is a country floating in diplomatic limbo since mainland China won't allow any state to recognize the sovereignty of this island. Up until Nixon's visit to China in 1972, the United States recognized Taiwan as the official government of China. Now none of the world's major powers have official relations with Taiwan, a country with a population of about 23 million people.

Iraq Up the Dough

NPR's Morning Edition had an excellent report this morning by Guy Raz about fraud and corruption in Iraq's reconstruction bids. Raz interviewed an Iraqi who said he was hired by Kuwaiti contractors for a bid they won from Americans. This all sounds fine except that the Kuwaitis made him write down a bill for over $10K more than it really cost. According to an article in the Houston Chronicle, many foreign contractors don't even hire Iraqis. It does make you wonder when you hear about million-dollar contracts being awarded to large foreign companies and yet protests and rioting by unemployed Iraqis.

For all of Bush's talk about being honest and earnest, Iraq's reconstruction seems like anything but with some of the largest contracts having been awarded in non-competitive bidding to well-connected companies. Even the Senate's concerned and added an amendment to their spending bill that would require the administration to notify Congress when it arranges sole-source contracts.

Girls Are Dandy

An economics study published by Gordon Dahl and Enrico Moretti found that couples with only daughters were more likely to divorce than those with sons. A response to this study was posted on Slate magazine by Everyday Economics columnist, Steven Landsburg, who asks,""Do daughters cause divorce?"

The title is catchy but I think inaccurate. Beyond the expected grumbling about yet another article about why boys are better, let me probe a bit deeper. First off, framing the question as whether daughters cause divorce is misleading. It's not that daughters are evil and break up marriages. A more likely story is that society's higher value on men leads couples to feel less obligated in providing a two-parent home for a daughter than a son.

Also, Landsburg says that because single mothers are less likely to remarry if they have daughters this "suggest[s] that daughters are a liability in the market for a husband." Is something a liability if there is just less demand? A similar study conducted by Shelly Lundberg and Elaina Rose found that a single mother's confidence in parenting was a significant factor in her decision to remarry. Generally, mothers felt capable in raising daughters and even thought a male presence was intrusive. However, mothers prefered to raise a son with a male parent.

The Puritanical FCC

The Federal Communications Commission is fining Infinity Broadcasting Corp. for an offensive segment that appeared on a radio show last August. The segment broadcast a couple having sex in New York's St Patrick's Cathedral.

Not that I would normally defend crap radio from big media but why is the government regulating speech? Especially when it's not promoting violence? Unfortunately, the Communications Act of 1934 which established the FCC includes a vague clause about regulating media for "the public interest" which the agency interprets how it wishes.

The most infamous example is FCC v Pacifica, a case that went before the Supreme Court in 1978. Pacifica radio got a slap on the hand from the agency for broadcasting comedian George Carlin's monologue, "Filthy Words" (a transcript of the monologue is included in the court opinion).

I have no clue how Howard Stern gets away with what he does.

Black, White and Red All Over

This morning, a federal judge ruled that the Washington Redskins can keep their name. While the judge didn't deny the fact that "redskins" might be offensive, she said Native American activists significantly weakened their case by waiting until 1992 to sue.

Will someone please start a team named the Tighty Whities? Oh, someone actually has. Or at least, it's close enough. To point out the ridiculous stereotyping used in sports logos, a group of Native Americans and sympathetic non-Indians at the University of Northern Colorado started an intramural basketball team named the Fighting Whites.

Read an example of the amazing insight demonstrated by the NFL attorneys who admit that Anglo and Native Americans don't have the best relations but hey, the name of their team was promoting mutual understanding because "in the 21st century, the beloved hometown team has changed the connotation of the word 'Redskins' to one that is 'powerfully positive' -- associated more with touchdowns than tomahawks."

Bleeding-Heart Libertarianism

The term seems almost like an oxymoron. But Ram Ahluwalia sent me an interesting article about why the welfare state doesn't help the poor.

What I find most palpable in the article is the idea that a consumption tax is better than an income tax. Consumption is a more accurate marker of well-being. If wealthy people are not spending their money to buy things but instead are investing it (which means it's getting used as capital or loans), that is a good thing. I'd also rather reward thrifty living instead of having a low income. When I was working, I thought it was wacky that I would sometimes make more money when I worked less because of our "progressive" tax structure.

Of course, if you're really wedded to an income tax, you could get rid of the distortionary effect by having a flat tax. But that's another matter.....

The Other Dinh

I just attended a debate between two of Georgetown's constitutional scholars, Viet Dinh and David Cole. Dinh, former assistant attorney general for legal policy under Ashcroft, was the prime architect of the Patriot Act. Cole has been a vocal critic of the administration's war on terror especially the treatment of foreign nationals, a critque he summarizes in his new book, Enemy Aliens.

The audience clearly had their favorite. After praising the Georgetown community, Dinh paused for applause but received none. "There's a lot of love in the room today," he joked. But although many students and professors who attended the debate agreed with Cole, I suspect that the majority came to hear Dinh, who, for all the variety of opinion at the law school, is a minority voice on the faculty.

Dinh's Republican views were shaped by his family's hardship in Vietnam. His father was held as a political prisoner by the Vietnamese communists in the late 70s. Dinh escaped with his siblings and mother as boat refugees to Malaysia where they were welcomed by gunshots from a patrol boat. They later moved to southern California where Dinh worked in a sewing shop and fast food restaurant. Partly because of the Republican party's hardline stance against communism, Dinh became an active member participating in the Whitewater investigations.

Dinh said he started out at the Justice Department with the intention of reforming immigration law in two ways: one in establishing a "return to the rule of law in immigration policy" and another in liberalising the policy to allow more immigrants. While significant improvements had been made in enforcement, Dinh admitted that the relaxation of immigration laws had not happened.

To Cole's mention abuses during the detention of hundreds of immigrants, Dinh responded, "Mistakes will happen."

But overall, Dinh was unapologetic for the Bush administration's policies: "The President should have the power to detain an enemy combatant during a war against terror where combatants are not always in the battlefield. Make no mistake about it, September 11th was an act of war."

The Law Equivalent of Medical Student Syndrome

Medical student syndrome is a psychological condition where a student's frequent study of illnesses leads her to believe that she in fact suffers from these conditions. A similar phenomenon occurs with law students although I wonder if they ever recover. Law student syndrome is when the frequent study of cases about often vindictive and obsessive people leads the student to take on these characteristics.

And That Goes for You Too

Bush is expected to sign the Do Not Call List into law today. Bush's spokesperson, Scott McClellan, says the president thinks people "should have the right to prevent unwanted telemarketing calls that are intrusive and annoying." But this act only allows you to block commercial calls and not those from non-profits or -surprisingly enough- calls from political parties. Why are sales calls anymore annoying than someone calling for campaign donations or firemen calling about tickets for a fundraising ball? If Congress and the president were really interested in preventing annoying intrusions, they should apply it to themselves.

Congress Should Leave DC Alone

Yes! A cogently written advocation for an end to Congressional exploitation of Washington DC. DC's need for authority over local issues is something both right and left should agree. The Capitol has no Congressional representation and doesn't even have the power to decide issues outside of federal affairs.

You'll notice that the authors served in Republican administrations and hence would support gun ownership and school vouchers, both ideas that Congress is considering implementing. But despite their agreement with these policies, they still find it incredibly unjust that DC citizens do not have any say in the matter.

Edward Said Has Died

Columbia Professor Edward Said, author of the classic "Orientalism," died today.

No Smoking on Board

While New York's smoking ban in bars and restaurants went too far in regulating privately owned space, I appreciated the benefits of having smoke-free havens. But a bill pending in the New York Assembly would even prohibit smoking in your car. Granted this is only for folks with kids, but still it's an utterly ridiculous measure. The government is trying to regulate what you do in a place you bought, you maintain and on top of that, it's trying to do the parenting for you.

In response to criticism about the NFL kickoff event on the Mall, the Senate passed legislation to limit advertisement in the park. You can read the text of the amendment.

Microsoft is cutting back on its free unsupervised chat rooms. The company says the closings are meant to prevent access to pedophiles. I'm skeptical.

Music downloaders are facing possible jail time in Australia. The country passed amendments to their copyright laws which now allow criminal prosecutions for copyright infringements. The three men, ages 20 and 19, plead guilty to the charges although it is unclear whether the record industry there will ask the court to mete out prison sentences. Slight snag for the record companies though: the guys did not charge anything for the file sharing.

In the US a lack of profit-making does not prevent successful criminal prosecutions. Amendments to federal copyright laws in 1997 made piracy a criminal offense even if there was no monetary gain. Last year, at least six music downloaders were handed five year prison sentences. Despite the media's bizzare tendency to make this group sound like a cult ("And their world is highly structured, with a strict hierarchy and rules." according to one New York Times article), we all know that most guilty parties are just averages schmos.

On a more serious note, the lack of profit-making shouldn't be overlooked. Music piracy is not like stealing physical property; my use of a song does not prevent your use of it. These men probably couldn't have charged much even if they wanted to because media files are readily available. Moreover music downloading is so ubiquitous that it seems even inappropriate for the law to prosecute such activity. Moreover, the music industry's campaign against individual downloaders only fuels more resentment and piracy.

Walking back from dinner, I heard trance music coming from -surprisingly enough- Capitol Hill. A DC-based organization, ROAR! (not an acronym), organized a 12-hour dance party to protest Democratic Senator Joseph Biden's Rave Act. The legislation was passed as a last minute addition to the Amber Alert Act this past spring, which makes me ask what the ROAR organizers plan since their website doesn't prescribe the next step nor has any legislator proposed undoing the act.

The Rave act makes it a crime for anyone to knowingly and intentionally "open, lease, rent, use, or maintain" a place where there is drug use or distribution. Those convicted can get up to 20 years in jail and pay $250,000 or more in fines.

On a related note, the NY Times reports that a highly controversial study which found that one night's dose of Ecstasy caused permanent brain damage has been retracted. The researchers had used speed (which is known to injure the dopamine system) instead of Ecstasy.

Finally, the event has arrived: the NFL Kickoff event and the Britney Spears concert. Construction workers, tractors and 20-foot tall speakers have occupied most of the green space of the promenade for days accompanied by a nauseating announcer saying over and over, "SERVE YOUR COUNTRY, VOLUNTEER ON AMERICA'S PUBLIC LANDS," "VANILLA PEPSI, THE NOT SO VANILLA DRINK" and "IT'S NOT JUST A SPORT, IT'S HISTORY IN THE MAKING." The Army calls it, "Operation Tribute to Freedom."

The combination of the military, pro-football and a soft drink is America at its worst. It's bad enough that the kickoff event follows up the anniversary of the Civil Rights March with ads for the Not-so Vanilla Pepsi. On top of that is the headache of timing this event at 6pm during rush-hour...though maybe I should be comforted by the prospect of Britney singing, "Oops, I Did It Again," to all the military folk.

A report in the New York Times today detailed the increasing number of people who live below the poverty line ($17,960 for a household with two parents and two children).

But the cost of living varies widely from state to state. Comparing different towns even within the same state would also show a similar discrepancy. I'm still checking out whether or not this national marker determines your eligibility for things like welfare or federal housing. I hope it doesn't.

The first day of law school was not as scary as people made it out to be. Professors called on volunteers and didn’t grill students who had incomplete answers. The professors also made sure to correct us of certain expectations of law school: “We don’t do truth, justice and equity. We do the law.”

It seems strange that you could talk about the law without discussing justice but perhaps it’s too abstract for the purposes of becoming a lawyer.