Strange Doctrines

Spare the Rod

...and pour the water instead. Such has long been my counsel.

And I am most gratified to learn that, at last, a forward-looking head of household appears to have taken heed of my call.

Let it not be gainsaid: one can make a difference.

You Are Not Qualified to Have an Independent Opinion

I keep meaning to do a long, thoughtful post on scientific pseudoscandals like "Climategate" and the fatal socio-epistemological problems for lay skepticism about consensus theories. But...time and all that, you know.

In the meantime, this post at the Economist captures the spirit of the problem:

[W]hat am I supposed to do the next time I wake up and someone whose name I don't know has produced another plausible-seeming account of bias in the climate-change science? Am I supposed to invest another couple of hours in it? Do I have to waste the time of the readers of this blog with yet another long post on the subject? Why? Why do these people keep bugging us like this? Does the spirit of scientific scepticism really require that I remain forever open-minded to denialist humbug until it's shown to be wrong? At what point am I allowed to simply say, look, I've seen these kind of claims before, they always turns out to be wrong, and it's not worth my time to look into it?

Well, here's my solution to this problem: this is why we have peer review. Average guys with websites can do a lot of amazing things. One thing they cannot do is reveal statistical manipulation in climate-change studies that require a PhD in a related field to understand.

Bubblin' Crude

Michael O'Hare distills Dubai-ity.

Simple Answermongering Blogging

A Media Matters post sports the headline "New Low: Beck and Right-Wing Media Minions Fearmongering About Kids to Attack Progressives." Eugene Volokh queries whether terms like "fearmongering" are "rhetorically over the top?" The answer is No. Next question?

Comparative Parliamentary Decorum 101

Seminar here.

The Right to Jump the Shark

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to brandish assault rifles near the president shall not be infringed. Or so the usually (but unfortunately not this time) excellent Will Wilkinson argues.

Best Teddy Hagiography

Goes to Anne Laurie. Dashed with a splash of cold water by Koz at the first comment.

(Via Thomas Levenson.)

That First Step's a Doocy

Shorter Steve Doocy: One mustn't be rude to the brownshirts.

(H/T Rob Sica.)

Giving Birthers a Wide Berth

A TPM reader makes a funny: "Isn't it awfully convenient that a man with no discernable British accent suddenly claims that he is British just after it's pointed out the the UK health system would have euthanized him as a child?"

(Background here.)

The GOP Singularity

The guiding stars of the Republican Party are as black holes, so intellectually dense that no light can escape.

Accordingly, hyperlinks are out of the question; I wouldn't want anyone getting spaghettified by teh Stupid.

And of course if I can't link to them, it just wouldn't be fair to blog about them.

The Crazification Constant

So 28 percent of the Republican Party are Birthers. Should the speed of light ever change, I guess we have a ready back up. Few other measurements are as constant through so many multiple frames of reference.

Call it the GOP's Twain Majority. ("Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? and ain't that a big enough majority in any town?")

And Yet So Many of Them Are Still Birthers...

How much of a whack job do you have to be for Ann Coulter to call you a "crank"?*

(Answer: This much.)

*I apologize to whack jobs for any unintended offense the comparison to Birthers may cause. Apologies also to the stillborn.

A Simple Plan

Shorter Charles Krauthammer: We should leverage our success in Iraq to bring about regime change in Iran so that we can be greeted as liberators.

Pausing to Answer

You've probably heard about Tom Tancredo's former speechwriter and PAC executive director  Marcus Epstein, now infamous on the Ethernets for having karate chopped an African-American woman on the head while calling her a "Nigger."

Bay Buchanan was taken aback - not by Epstein's action, but by his critics. She writes, "They had wounded an adversary and drawn blood -- without pausing to ask how so talented a young man could have found himself in such a mess."

It's pure speculation on my part, but I would guess that Epstein found himself in the mess by karate chopping an African-American woman on the head while calling her a "Nigger."

The Land of Opportunity

I disagree with Mark Kleiman: if "[p]anic is not a defense for trammeling the constitution, attacking political opponents as unpatriotic, or self-defeating policies," what is?

"Pro-Life"

The term really is a lot more complex than you'd think.*

*And don't for a minute think I'm painting with a broad brush. It's more like a spray gun.

Save It

Nate Silver beautifully disposes of Greg Mankiw's takedown manqué of Sotomayor in a single headline: "Grandmother of World's 23rd Best Economist Posthumously Offended by Sonia Sotomayor's Spending Habits; Will Obama Withdraw Nomination?"

And besides, how easily Mankiw forgets -- if we save, the terrorists will win.

(Via Jonathan Zasloff.)

Spinning Sotomayor Sotto Voce

Kieran Healy's got it.

Obama Administration Greeted as Liberators

Just now on CNN's news ticker:

'Liberating feeling' to be out of office, says Bush.

Bad for the Jews

Ilya Somin points us to poll results that suggest that 18.4 percent of Republicans and 32 percent of Democrats blame "the Jews" for the financial crisis.

It goes without saying that if the poll results are reliable, they are disgraceful for the Democratic Party, the party of "tolerance." (I shudder to think what the result would have been had they been asked about how much they blamed "the Negro.") But I guess I should also note that this evidence is a clear rebuff to my argument a few years back, contra Pejman Yousefzadeh, and in defense of Noam Chomsky, that there is a meaningful "a sense in which it is perfectly reasonable to say that anti-Semitism 'scarcely exists anymore.'" Not on these data there isn't.

UPDATE: The authors of the survey research have an interesting response to some of the reactions to their piece, hosted by John Holbo at Crooked Timber.