Today would have been the 64th birthday of Frank Zappa.

Some take the bible
For what it’s worth
When it says that the meek
Shall inherit the Earth
Well, I heard that some sheik
Has bought New Jersey last week
‘N you suckers ain’t gettin’ nothin’

“The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing,” from You Are What You Is.

(þ apostropher.)

Dear Carl,
I would like to congratulate University of Roches on its upcoming 15th Anniversary. Few companies reach this important milestone. Promoting your experience and success is the number one way to generate new business and reinforce existing relationships. That's why it's important to promote your anniversary with our Foil Embossed Anniversary Seals.

I’ve added Dean Edwards’ IE7 hack to the blog on a quasi-experimental basis; the good news is that it fixes a lot of Internet Explorer’s rendering bugs, while the bad news is that it seems to introduce some quirks of its own and exposes IE’s lousy fallback behavior for missing Unicode characters. My general advice for IE users is to download and use Mozilla Firefox instead.

Apologies for the light blogging; I found out Monday I have a “second degree” separated left AC joint, which is doctor-speak for a separated left shoulder. I’ve been spending most of the past 24 hours in a sling, with a bit of physical therapy added. Allegedly I’ll be mended by the week after New Year’s.

Great book review by Virginia Postrel. The author of the book, David Hackett Fischer, is apparently hostile to any individualist notions of liberty:

New England Puritans pursued ’‘ordered liberty,’’ or community self-government, which could impose substantial restrictions on individual freedom of action or conscience. Southern cavaliers believed in ’‘hegemonic liberty,’’ a status system in which liberty was a jealously guarded aristocratic privilege that entitled some men to rule the lives of others. By contrast, Delaware Valley Quakers subscribed to ’‘reciprocal liberty,’’ in which every person was recognized as a fellow child of God, entitled to self-determination and freedom of conscience. Finally, the largest group of immigrants, the borderlanders often called Scotch-Irish, adhered to ’‘natural liberty,’’ a visceral, sometimes violent defense of self and clan. In foreign policy, Fischer’s ’‘natural liberty’’ maps directly to the ’‘Jacksonian America’’ outlined by the political scientist Walter Russell Mead—isolationist by preference but relentlessly violent when attacked.

’‘Liberty and Freedom’’ expands greatly on that earlier book’s discussion, adding other ethnic influences, particularly that of German refugees who sought ’‘a freedom that would allow them to establish their own way of life in security and peace.’’ For German-Americans, the icons of freedom were the fig tree and vine, alluding to the biblical prophecy that ’‘they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid.’’ This dream, Fischer observes, ’‘was an image of a world without violence, very different from the bellicose ways of British borderers but similar in a desire to be left alone by government.’’

Its goal, one government official said, was ’‘to re-establish the common ground of all Americans’’ and ’‘to blend our various groups into one American family.’’ Fischer visited the train as a child in Baltimore, and it made a lasting impression: ’‘The train itself and its streamlined cars were emblems of modernity, and its big locomotive (number 1776) was a symbol of American power. By contrast, the documents seemed old and fragile. They were symbols not of power but of right, and their condition made clear their need to be protected in a dangerous world. Altogether the Freedom Train expressed the material strength and moral resolve of a united people.’’

Ah, the good old days. The closer the book gets to the present, the less it discusses popular culture or visual symbolism. It loses its early, charming tone and becomes instead a dutiful, sometimes cranky march through the political movements of the late 20th century. Cliffs Notes versions of ideas and individuals appear, but iconography and material culture almost entirely disappear. Fischer doesn’t mention the Adam Smith neckties conservative activists adopted in the late 1970’s or explain how triangles and rainbows came to symbolize gay liberation. He has room for a mention of Shulamith Firestone’s radical, intellectual feminism but none for Marlo Thomas’s popular record and television special, ’‘Free to Be You and Me.’’ He provides a dumbed-down version of Friedrich Hayek’s classical liberalism but doesn’t mention Ayn Rand’s blockbuster novels. He devotes pages to Stokely Carmichael but says nothing about Afros, dreadlocks or cornrows. He misses the chance to consider California as a symbol of freedom across the political spectrum. In short, once the apparent uniformity of World War II dissolves, ’‘Liberty and Freedom’’ loses interest in popular culture. This absence may reflect the author’s fatigue as the book moves beyond its 500th page. Or perhaps it is simply harder for Fischer to take a sympathetic interest in the mental and material lives of those contemporaries with whom he disagrees. He seems to resent all these contentious people (except for consensus civil rights heroes) who insist on disturbing established institutions and ideas with their demands for liberty and freedom.

Indeed, he implies that they’re downright dangerous. ’‘If a free society is ever destroyed in America, it will be done in the name of one particular vision of liberty and freedom,’’ he concludes. But not, of course, his own.

(þ: Knowledge Problem)

Rachel Lucas offers a rather amazing photo of Kirsten Dunst; she’s quite grown up from her Interview with the Vampire days. Wow.

Professor Bainbridge has a lengthy post where he dissects the EU triumphalists. I went into this at some length the other day and won’t do so again.

What I will do is note that I agree with Professor Bainbridge—we referenced the same Economist article for Europe’s median age problem—though I don’t find the EU quite as bothersome as he seems to. The EU is a declining power for the time being and will continue that way just due to demographics. Even if they were economically ascendant, I wouldn’t find it all that troublesome since economics isn’t zero-sum (they would have to undo their labor market rigidities and limit their fiscal burdensand would still have a hard time growing as fast as the U.S. in the coming decades). On foreign policy, they won’t spend what’s necessary to build a military so there’s no threat there. The only problem I’m aware of is their recent decision to start selling weapons to China. More than a little troubling ($).

You know that the EU ascendancy meme has jumped the shark—along with that phrase—though when Jeremy Rifkin and others start getting worked up over it ($):

Eurocrats are understandably flattered by this unusual American praise for the grand European project; Mr Rifkin’s book has gone down well in Brussels. But the mood of real “builders of Europe” is often decidedly more pessimistic. This week European leaders are likely to take a big step towards admitting Turkey to the EU, a decision about which many of them have deep misgivings. Mr Reid’s argument that there is an inexorable historical logic driving forward European unity is often made by Brussels federalists too. But these same people are also well aware of the fragility of a process of political integration that has very shallow popular support.

Then there is the economy. Europe’s economic growth continues to lag that of the United States, let alone China and India. And Europe’s population is ageing and shrinking. Two-thirds of the way into his book, Mr Rifkin interrupts his dream to note that “the sad truth is that without a massive increase in non-EU immigration in the next several decades, Europe is likely to wither and die.” This looks like a fairly big qualification to the book’s general mood of sunny optimism. But no matter: within a few pages we are back to the “politics of empathy”.

Awareness of the depth of the political and economic challenges that lie ahead accounts for the fact that many European officials are more inclined to troubled pessimism than to Rifkinesque optimism. This European willingness to be self-critical is, as it happens, a genuine strength. Unfortunately, there is a lot to be self-critical about.

(þ: The Professor)

Brad DeLong has a great entry on Adam Smith. One of the many interesting points is when he mentions “market fundamentalism”. It reminded me of this Cannan edition of Wealth that is annotated, just like a Bible. You can quote it chapter and verse.

What still strikes me about Smith is how broadly he saw things: he didn’t just write a book on economics, he drew a very broad picture that encompassed both the morality and the funtionality of the marketplace. Contrary to one of the commenters, I think Smith would be quite pleased with what he would see today. Is it perfect? No, but it’s a far shout from where he was in his day and much of the progress since then is due to him (and Cantillon).

(þ: Marginal Revolution)

The blogosphere’s own LaShawn Barber has a column in NRO about the smaller corners of the blogosphere that haven’t gotten the attention of Power Line and LGF. They deserve the attention and she talks about a couple of my favorites: The Shape of Days, run by a fellow Macophile Jeff Harrell, and Cassandra, now of Villainous Company. Jeff has a good post on why he prefers Macs and it has to do with the concept of “kerning” (big issue in Ra^therGate). LaShawn apparently missed Cass’s departure from Jet Noise, but be sure to check out her new digs.

(þ: The Professor)

Raise your hand if you didn’t see this one coming:

Iran has drawn up secret plans to make large quantities of a gas that can be used to produce highly enriched uranium, despite promises to suspend enrichment activities.

Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, Iran’s atomic energy chief, has authorised construction of a plant to make Anhydrous Hydrogen Fluoride (AHF), a gas that has many uses, from petrochemical processing to uranium enrichment.

Cash money says the latter use is far more likely than the former. Ugh. (þ: memorandum).

Fellow Jacksonian Shawn Lea is compiling a directory of Mississippi bloggers and blogs about Mississippi.

Steven Taylor’s latest print column looks at the new frontier of municipal pork: Birmingham suburb Hoover’s addition of a new “Department of Homeland Security and Immigration,” complete with a $110,000-a-year director’s job. They’ve gotta protect the SEC baseball tournament from terrorists, after all… (þ: PoliBlog, of course.)

Blatant fabrications by their leading media outlets might be part of the explanation. (þ: OxBlog)

The Steelers pulled out a nail-biter yesterday and the Boston Globe is writing about the significance of home-field advantage in the playoffs. The Patriot fans are apparently quite concerned about this, but it doesn’t seem to matter:

Since the inauguration of the cap, home-field advantage in the conference championship games has been of little or no statistical importance. Since 1992, when the cap went into effect, there have been 24 conference championship games. In the AFC, half have been won by the visiting team. In the NFC, five of the 12 games have been won by the visiting team. Thus, in a statistical sense, at least, the advantage of home field as it relates to a Steelers-Patriots showdown would be minimal.

Since the dawn of the new millennium, it’s been the same story. The visitors have won a trip to the Super Bowl in half of the eight conference title games, including the last two in the NFC. Perhaps more significant, the Steelers are a lowly 1–3 in AFC title games since 1992, despite hosting the game four times—1994 (lost to San Diego), ‘95 (beat Indianapolis), ‘97 (lost to Denver), and 2001 (lost to Patriots).

What is clear is that home-field advantage throughout the playoffs meant a lot more in the conference title games prior to the advent of the salary cap, hinting that increased parity has changed considerably the disparity of talent between top teams.

From the first year of the AFL-NFL merger to the final year without the cap (1978–91), home teams dominated the 28 conference title games. In the AFC, the home team was 11–3, the only losses coming in 1980 when the Raiders beat the Chargers in San Diego, 1985 when Raymond Berry’s Patriots upset the Dolphins in Miami, and in 1986 when the Broncos needed a 98-yard John Elway-led drive to beat the Cleveland Browns as time was running out in old Cleveland Stadium.

Statistically it might not matter who has home field advantage in the playoffs, but the Steelers team that the Patriots faced in 2001 lacked the confidence, I think, that the current team has. The game against the Giants should serve as a wake-up call—they’re not unbeatable.

On an unrelated subject, Cass has started blogging again at Villainous Company. I’ve been remiss in not blogrolling her and bookmarking her. That has now been fixed.

Cool Mozilla Firefox extension of the day (at least for Windows): ForecastFox. Under Linux, the GNOME Weather applet is more generally useful, although ForecastFox has the advantage of taking up otherwise-useless space in the Firefox status bar.

Apparently the blogosphere has gotten the better of Michael Kinsley, in this round anyway. He plans a more detailed response for next week’s WaPo, but this week is simply a concession that some bloggers got the better of him, i.e. made him think twice about dissing Social Security privatization. Here’s a quote:

That conference was the last straw. Last week, to vent my frustration, I sent an e-mail to some economists and privatizing buffs saying, look, either show me my mistake or drop this issue. Refute me or salute me. Disprove it or move it. Or words to that effect.

As an afterthought, I sent copies to a couple of blogs (kausfiles.com and andrewsulllivan.com). What happened next was unnerving.

A few days later, most of the big shots hadn’t replied. But overnight I had dozens of responses from the blogosphere. They’re still pouring in. And that’s just direct e-mail to me. Within hours, there were discussions going on in a dozen blogs, all hyperlinking to one another like rabbits.

Just so I don’t sound too naive: I am familiar with the blog phenomenon, and I worked at a Web site for eight years. Some of my best friends are bloggers. Still, it’s different when you purposely drop an idea into this bubbling cauldron and watch the reaction. What floored me was not just the volume and speed of the feedback but its seriousness and sophistication. Sure, there were some simpletons and some name-calling nasties echoing rote-learned propaganda. But we get those in letters to the editor. What we don’t get, nearly as much, is smart and sincere intellectual engagement—mostly from people who are not intellectuals by profession—with obscure and tedious, but important, issues.

On a somewhat related note, I thought I remembered a quote by JFK, about the WaPo no less, regarding getting in a fight with people that buy ink by the barrel. Turns out it was Clinton:

Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.

You can send your views electronically to a blog in less time than it takes to find a stamp, let alone type a letter.

Apparently, in Arianna’s world, a guy that creates a company from scratch in his dorm room—enriching millions in the process—is a demon when it becomes economical to offshore 3000 jobs to India:

MICHAEL “DUDE, YOU GOT OUTSOURCED!” DELL

Name: Michael S. Dell
Company: Dell Computers
Title: Chairman and Former CEO (Chairman and CEO until July, 2004)
Crime Against America: Dell’s Bangalore and Hyderabad, India, facilities employ close to 3,000 people.
Partner in Crime: Dell has contributed $3,000 to the Bush campaign in 2003 and 2004, plus an additional $25,000 the Republican National Committee, and $10,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee. Dell CFO James M. Schneider is a $25,000 contributor to the RNC.

Tyler Cowen has been beating the drum against social security privatization for a good while, and it has finally sunken in with me. After thinking about it enough, it appears that he is right: we will end up with two programs if we transition to private accounts and it won’t reduce the unfunded liability, which is the central problem. Presumably, when the actuaries refer to an unfunded liability they are referring to an excess in the present value of all cash outflows versus the present value of all inflows. If the first number exceeds the second, you have a liability. We’ve promised to pay too much and benefits will have to be reduced, or taxes raised, to bring the system into balance.

Private accounts alone won’t change the unfunded liability. However, Tyler offers an intriguing solution to part of that problem: auction off the right to leave the system. An auction provides a great mechanism to separate those that are risk averse from those that are not; those with financial savvy from those with none. It also creates a logical break point to show where they have left the system and have acknowledged that the system owes them nothing, though they have paid into it. They should similarly understand that they will need to save enough for their own retirement and will have to keep working without enough savings.

There would be an initial inflow of money that could be used to retire debt—thereby enabling future borrowing for the government to cover shortfalls—and presumably an increase in savings from those that leave the system; no more payroll taxes, higher disposable income. The system could then transform into a poverty program for the elderly, which should be far [Ed.: got a little carried away.] smaller than in its current setup.

I’m sure the details would need to be hammered out by actuaries—how many people would pay to leave the system, how much would they pay (meaning how much current debt could we retire) and how much would the unfunded liability would be reduced. Even with these questions, it seems like a sounder suggestion than getting people into a forced savings program where the government still implicitly takes responsibility for everyone’s retirement and the unfunded liability is unchanged.

Cass has more here.

I’ve seen this poll in a number of places, but Volokh conspirator Orin Kerr is the first I’ve seen that really dissects the results. Do 44% of Americans really want to curtail the civil liberties of Muslims in America? It doesn’t sound like it.

On Thursday, the Texas Transportation Commission announced a private contract to build a 316-mile toll road parallel to the congested I-35 corridor. Spanish toll road builder and operator Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte will pay the $6 billion construction cost and an additional $1.2 billion in concession fees to the state of Texas for improvements to other highways; in exchange, Cintra will collect tolls on the route for 50 years.

In North America, Cintra is one of the investment partners in the 407 ETR bypass of Toronto and recently made an agreement to operate the Chicago Skyway toll road (a section of I-90 connecting downtown Chicago to the Indiana Toll Road) for the next 99 years. TxDOT has an overview of the statewide Trans Texas Corridor plan; more details on this particular project are here and here if you can read Spanish.

Christie Todd Whitman gets it:

A clear and present danger Republicans face today is that the party will now move so far to the right that it ends up alienating centrist voters and marginalizing itself.

On the other hand, the eternally vapid Kathryn Jean Lopez proves her need to stick to pimping subscriptions (☣) rather than attempting to make political commentary, while the new-to-me Ed Driscoll apparently also needs to make the steep investment in a copy of Downs. Barring such expenditure, at the very least they should realize that telling moderate Republicans to go fuck themselves until their votes are next needed in November 2006 is a bit rude. (þ: memeorandum)

I just watched I, Robot (DVD, Book) and have a couple of questions for you sci-fi buffs out there. Not surprisingly, the movie is no better on its second viewing than on the first. However, it did make me want to read the book—which is one of my holiday to-do items—and it’s not bad as pure entertainment.

Having me question sci-fi logic is about as useful as watching a Hollywood movie discuss economics, which this one does—badly. Even so, I have a question: why not just modify Asimov’s first law to say that a robot shall not harm the life or liberty of a human? Because it might ruin the potential for future books pondering this dilemma?

Next question: one of the reviews of the copy of I, Robot (the book) says Asimov is part of the “ABCs” of sci-fi, with the others being Bradbury and Clarke. Why not extend it by one letter and have “D”, as in Dick, Philip K.? Is he not as respected as the other three? If not, why not?

Sign up for the one, the only Dead Pool 2005, and tell Lair we sent you—we’re currently tied for second in the referral contest, so every roster counts!

Greg Goelzhauser has returned from haïtus at Crescat Sententia with some thoughts in response to Dan Herzog on whether or not the public is “incurably ignorant” about politics. My general thought on such matters, oft-repeated here, is that any democratic society in which it might be rational for the public at large* to not be ignorant about anything beyond the most trivial of political matters would be incredibly unstable politically.

That said, Greg’s point about social norms is well-taken; knowing things about politics is excellent fodder for cocktail-party discussion, even if the details don’t matter for voting behavior one whit.† Clearly the answer, then, is to invite more people to attend cocktail parties, a program I’d fully support.

I hate these f*cking guys. They’re as bad as Illinois Nazis. Not only do they use opposition to the Iraqi war—which can be done in a principled fashion, as it is by many—as a means for bringing, Trojan-horse-like, xenophobia to mainstream outlets that would otherwise be revulsed by it; now, it’s come to include homophobia.

To begin with, I’ve had run-ins with these idiots before. They worship Rockwell—whom I despise, it’s no secret—and lose all sense of proportion when his views are challenged. They’ve been big supporters of antiwar.com, and have used it as a means of pushing rather radical notions: every attempt to support democracy abroad is seen as interference; every foreign supporter is a neocon stooge, or quisling. Even Pat Tillman, who died with the idea of protecting his country in mind, is fodder for their ends. It’s disgusting.

I would write more, but this is getting me a bit angry. Plus, it’s getting late; I was hoping for a peaceful cruise across the blogosphere before bed. Tom has more here and here. Read the comments; follow the links.

(þ: Volokh)

Currently listening to: Dio