by hilzoy
We are in need of an open thread. I’m too busy to write anything substantive now, but this I can manage.
Special bonus: what I was up to in the UK.
50 thoughts on “Open Thread”
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Right after Dolly the Sheep went public, I recall a lengthy article in a UK newspaper all about how cloning wasn’t just science-fiction any more, and that meant that we had to start thinking seriously about real issues to do with human cloning.
I had to go re-read Cyteen (C.J.Cherryh, 1988) to remind myself that we science-fiction fans had, in fact, been thinking seriously about real issues to do with human cloning for many years before anyone out in the “real world” was thinking about it at all.
Octavia E. Butler died this weekend: on Friday, I believe, though I didn’t see it in the news till Sunday. A terrible loss: she was only 58, and one of the really great science-fiction writers.
I’m confused. The Republican blog for grownups, Redstate.com, has a post up about how the NY Times is publically warning foreign leaders not to aid the United States.
The evidence for this is the Times publishing a story, widely available elsewhere, that the German intelligence service provide the United States with Saddam’s operational plans for the defence of Baghdad. “Nick Danger” muses:
No link to the NY Times story is provided, though you may find it here.
My confusion stems from exactly who is warning who.
spartikus –
Clicking your google link simply pulls up a whole battery of stories reporting on the Times report; hardly evidence that the information was “widely available elsewhere.” The Times, for its part, cites a “classified study by the United States military.”
My point isn’t that RS is right in characterizing the NYT’s motives; my point is that the Times should be defended whether they broke the story or not. As for RS’s magical ability to divine the intent of the Times story, and to characterize the Times as some sort of sovereign entity “warning” other sovereign governments not to aid terrorists, well, that is either self-evident or self-refuting, depending on whether you are or are not crazy and stupid.
“crazy and stupid”
In my experience that would be an apt description of “Nick Danger,” and a lot of the other editors over at RS (with notable exceptions, of course).
hardly evidence that the information was “widely available elsewhere.”
Other papers around the world chose to reprint it….are they not also “guilty”
Anyways, that’s not particularily central, nor is it much of a revelation that RS is “crazy”.
I just thought I’d pass it along…..
st: As for RS’s magical ability to divine the intent of the Times story, and to characterize the Times as some sort of sovereign entity “warning” other sovereign governments not to aid terrorists, well, that is either self-evident or self-refuting, depending on whether you are or are not crazy and stupid.
I think it is a mistake to think that either those making the claim or those who allow themselves to believe it are crazy or stupid. Willfully blind and/or intellectually dishonest, sure. But neither crazy nor, for the most part, stupid. They are simply waging a war of attrition against the independent press. It’s a quite sane and, sadly, effective method of achieving their policy goals by discouraging public dialog about those goals.
“”crazy and stupid”
In my experience that would be an apt description of “Nick Danger,” and a lot of the other editors over at RS (with notable exceptions, of course).”
I thought he walked into the Baxter Building one time too many.
Gromit –
I don’t disagree at all that there is a concerted rightist “war of attrition against the independent press.” However, every war needs footsoldiers, and just because the people who set this movement in motion may themselves be cold-eyed rationalists, doesn’t mean that Mr. Danger does not, himself, believe every crazy and stupid word of it. No doubt he sees it everywhere.
As for the distinction between those who, while otherwise rational, fervently and unshakeably believe things that are crazy and stupid, and those in whom such attributes are innate; well, I leave that particular census of microscopic angels to others.
Remember those dreadful wimpy Germans who wouldn’t help us fight Iraq? Turns out they gave us Saddam Hussein’s warplan.
In view of the lower volume of posts to the blog, could I humbly suggest the following to be invited as a co-blogger:
http://www.steveverdon.com
He’s on the right, but seems an honest enough chap, and does pretty good stuff on economics and evolution and game theory.
I think Slarti is a fan of Steve’s.
“I had to go re-read Cyteen (C.J.Cherryh, 1988) to remind myself that we science-fiction fans had, in fact, been thinking seriously about real issues to do with human cloning for many years before anyone out in the ‘real world’ was thinking about it at all.”
Cyteen and Carolyn Cherryh in ’88? How about Kate Wilhelm and Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang in 1976? (Best Novel Hugo Winner — not obscure.)
Cloning was big in ’76; there was also Ben Bova’s The Multiple Man. Arthur Clarke’s Imperial Earth came out in ’75. Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War won the Hugo and Nebula in ’74. Ursula Le Guin had her famous short story “Nine Lives” in 1969. Richard Cowper’s novel Clone was published in 1972.
Not to mention that some guy named “Aldous Huxley” wrote something or other in 1932. And van Vogt’s World of Null-A featured human cloning in 1945. Make the cortical-thalmic pause.
There are plenty of other examples, but I particularly shouldn’t neglect Pam Sargent’s Cloned Lives in 1976.
60 Minutes had a big story on the promise of stem cell research last night, by the way.
And I forgot to mention Herb Varley’s “The Barbie Murders” in ’77. Earlier, Gene Wolfe’s short story and then novel, “The Fifth Head of Cerberus.”
Some Butler links.
“Other papers around the world chose to reprint it….are they not also “guilty””
Were it indeed a great secret being revealed in the Times, that other papers reprinted it wouldn’t mean that the Times hadn’t broken the big secret, of course.
But in point of fact, the Times is just reporting what Gordon and Trainor have in their new book, and as the Times notes, information on this has indeed been circulating and printed in various news media for some time.
Further, the Times notes:
The events were three years ago. Years-old stuff doesn’t stay secret, nor should it. And public reports, say, it’s almost as if they were “public.”
That traitorous German government! How dare they betray themselves! Why, it’s almost as if they might want a little credit now. Naaaaaahhhh.
“Not to mention that some guy named “Aldous Huxley” wrote something or other in 1932. And van Vogt’s World of Null-A featured human cloning in 1945. Make the cortical-thalmic pause. ”
Argghh. Huxley’s vision seemed all that the folks writing the op-ed pieces knew about, presumably ‘cos it was the only piece of sci-fi they’d had to read during their liberal arts course. One wanted to scream “FFS, read more sci-fi! The authors have been thinking about this for years!”.
“That traitorous German government! How dare they betray themselves! Why, it’s almost as if they might want a little credit now.”
Doubt that. Liaisons between furrreign governments are very sensitive, and kept as confidential as a Republican politican’s extra-martial liaisons.
I can hardly believe there’s nothing in the NY Times about this yet…
handy Google news search
I wonder how many of the “highly trained Iraqi troops” fall into this category.
A quote by Octavia Butler, remembered today on Democracy Now!:
“Liaisons between furrreign governments are very sensitive, and kept as confidential as a Republican politican’s extra-martial liaisons.”
Um, did you miss the part where the Times mentioned, and I mentioned that the Times mentioned, that the German government released a public report on this last Thursday?
“I can hardly believe there’s nothing in the NY Times about this yet…”
I can easily believe it; a) the information about the death squads out of the Interior Ministry have certainly been well-reported many times in the Times (not that if a new news hook comes along it shouldn’t be run with; but the basic fact isn’t news), and b)the piece you link to seems to have original quotes with John Pace (if they’re not, that New Zealand paper is badly fudging/glossing their sourcing, which is, of course, entirely possible; in fact, actually they seem to have clearly picked it up from The Independent, which acknowledges picking it up from The Times of Malta, and are indeed glossing, and not crediting the Maltese paper’s original reporting; tsk); such news, if picked up by other publications, generally takes a day or so to be picked up. No mystery to that. Especially given the vast attention with which the world breathlessly awaits The Times of Malta every day.
I’d give it a few days, but most papers are reluctant to pick up quotes that they don’t themselves have from another paper; that’s standard news practice, so don’t be surprised if you don’t see more until someone else interviews Pace. Since he’s in Australia, if you want to see a non-Australian paper cover it, they’ll have to send their Australian correspondent to talk to him, or at least they’ll have to reach him by phone. To get him to simply repeat the same story — which is just the same story countless other people have supplied, and which has been well reported: not very surprising if that doesn’t happen, at least until some other news hook comes around, and he’s convenient to reach; there’s no political aspect to that; it’s just how the news business works.
And, sorry, I didn’t spot that the New Zealand paper actually just reprinted Andrew Buncombe’s report from The Independent — I’m used to seeing credits at the top of a story, not the bottom. So it’s even less of a mystery; the New Zealand paper presumably has a standard contract to pick up material from The Independent.
Here, in suitable obscurity, is my one and only comment ever on Larry Summers etc.:
I have no idea at all what the backstory is, having assumed that if anyone I knew knew anything about it, they’d know it in confidence, and that therefore it would be both wrong and (given the people in question) pointless to ask.
I have, however, been struck by the number of people who seem to imagine that they know exactly why Summers resigned. Some of them may know what they’re talking about, but I can’t imagine that all of them do. And yet they are, apparently, completely certain.
It reminds me of the time, back in the day, when all sorts of people were absolutely certain that the only reason Hillary Clinton was sticking with Bill was because of blind ambition, and that if they were wrong about this, there was one thing they absolutely knew for certain: that it could not possibly be because the Clintons loved each other and were trying to work it out. I never assumed that this was the reason — the details of the Clintons’ marriage are (thank God) unknown to me. But I always thought it was striking that so many people who didn’t know them any better than I did (i.e., at all) were absolutely certain that this wasn’t the reason.
Of course, it would have been different if people, even ambitious people, had never previously been known to stick together for that reason. But since they have, the sources of people’s certainty were completely unclear to me. Likewise here.
“I wonder how many of the “highly trained Iraqi troops” fall into this category.”
O. The guys with guns who operate out of the Interior Ministry aren’t the Iraqi Army. Period. These are the Iraqi Army brigades.
Tut, Gary. The Iraqi police are often grouped together with the army forces in estimates of the number of “trained Iraqi troops.”
Hilzoy, that’s no fun at all, but thanks. Possibly the strong opinions have more to do with using an event to advance an agenda than with trying to understand the event?
Hilzoy, if you’re authorized to leak by anyone who might know something, you know we’ll be interestest to hear it.
I’m pretty sure that there’s more to it than “the feminists did it,” though.
“Here, in suitable obscurity, is my one and only comment ever on Larry Summers etc”
We in flyover country are about as interested in Larry Summers as we are in Harvard basketball. I should perhaps only speak for myself, but in this case I have confidence I speak for millions.
“The Iraqi police are often grouped together with the army forces in estimates of the number of “trained Iraqi troops.””
In someone or other, speaking for the U.S. government, making general claims, perhaps yes. Not in the ratings of the Iraqi battalions as Level 1, 2, or 3, which is what I thought was the topic of discussion.
As the quote you quote specifically mentions, you’re referring to what the habit was prior to the “the new approach” as of mid-2005.
See?
That’s another thread. But OK, I take your point.
Jackmormon: Like I said, I have nothing to leak. Honest — it’s something we’ve honed to a fine art over the decades: not asking one another to violate confidences. And Bob M: yeah, I know. I wouldn’t have said anything were it not for the many opinions voiced with inexplicable confidence.
Actually, I don’t think the operative thing in cases like this is just wanting to draw a political conclusion. I sometimes think that some people have altogether different rules of inference when it comes to public figures/institutions than when it comes to normal people. When normal people e.g. get divorced, we all know that there are zillions of reasons why this might have happened, and (often) restrain our willingness to leap to conclusions accordingly. When a public figure does, on the other hand, many people are a lot quicker to assume that they know why.
Likewise, when some political figure does something, a lot of people assume they know why, despite the fact that they don’t know him. Consider, for instance, the claim that Bush really invaded Iraq for the oil, or that Clinton only really cared about his own popularity, not policy or the country.
To any conservatives who may be reading this: my views of Bush are tempered by thinking about this, and not wanting to make unwarranted assumptions. Believe it or not.
“When a public figure does, on the other hand, many people are a lot quicker to assume that they know why.”
It’s a weird dynamic, or at least so it has always seemed to me.
Some of it may be due to somehow, because of endlessly seeing public figures in the news, or in the case of “celebrities,” in movies, tv, on magazine covers, and with the sort of endless breathless coverage one sees about Brad And Jen every week on tabloid/magazine covers while standing in line at the supermarket, people develop the illusion that they “know” these people, although of course they know squat, and, of course, as you indicate, most sane people would be hesitant to be very firm about their conclusions on the inner workings of couples and people they’ve known for decades.
(God knows I’ve never been in a couple-relationship where all sorts of vital information wasn’t something only the two of us were privy to, and which even the two of us might have highly divergent versions of.)
Another part of it, I think, is the normal desire of people to fit all information into understandable patterns; it’s comforting; it’s part of why people are so prone to conspiracy theories of every kind — because, of course, they offer explanations, rather than leaving eventss as patternless and random, or uncertain, as they often are in a universe full of randomness.
But it’s incredibly stupid.
When people self-confidently assert that they Know The Real Reason for such and such, or The Real Story, it’s often a sign that you should tend to ignore what they have to say, since they clearly are demonstrating, in many cases (not all, of course), that their judgment is obviously unreliable, and that they’re prone to generalize and reach conclusions on clearly inadquate information. (People with a great deal of knowledge of a subject drawing possible observations or tentative assumptions to your attention because of their greater knowledge than yours, are another story, of course; but that’s not the case for what most people do.)
Blogs, and blog comments, of course, are a wonderful source of such eye-rolling assertions.
Morning all,
Open thread stuff
Great to hear from hil. Question, were there any South Korean (or Asian) researchers there? If so, any details (what were there arguments, how were they treated, etc) What worries me is that we will see Asia veer off from the western consensus on limitations of research (in a sense, they already have).
Other members of the crew ok? Slart, von and Seb? As I said, I don’t hang around in the comments of any other blog, so if they are popping up there, never mind. (though a note here that they are alive and well would be appreciated)
I found the Bagdhad defense plans story a lot more meaningful (and therefore depressing) than my impression of what other people seem to think, in that one might give the Bush admin a partial pass because while all these countries were saying no, no, no, they were passing a note with a phone number saying call me. I’m not so naive to be surprised that countries can profess to act one way and then do the opposite, but this seems bigger than having the Italians first help then pretend to not know about the CIA abduction. I still think that the admin is responsible, but if you had all of these governments saying well, we are opposed to it, but here’s the keys, it gives the whole situation a different gloss.
This being an open thread, I feel permitted to raise this question again:
Why does an intelligent person – and I mean you, hilzoy – hang out with a loser like Charles?
(Actually, there being few losers like Charles, I really wonder why you hang out with that loser Charles. Would it not be more dignified to paint your nose red, and impersonate Queen Elizabeth at the White Tower?)
Woo-hoo, blew right past those posting rules. I guess you didn’t see the sign.
I’d point out that hilzoy was here before Charles got here, so one question is who should leave. I’d also point out that the process of getting Charles was akin to the free-agent market. This is not to make any claims about other conservatives versus Charles, but, to paraphrase Rummy, you blog with the conservatives you have, not the conservatives you want.
Also, having Charles here is the way we liberals convince ourselves that we are more open-minded than conservatives. So you could view him as a talisman or a lucky charm. If that is too difficult, you are welcome to visit HoCB
but if you had all of these governments saying well, we are opposed to it, but here’s the keys, it gives the whole situation a different gloss.
It’s not entirely clear from the story whether German Intelligence was acting on it’s own initiative. Perhaps I’m reading too much into it, but it certainly sounds like they handed over the plans without consulting the government…who sound a bit taken aback.
That’s a fair point, but when you apparently had Egypt providing bases, the clarity of argument is muddied quite a bit. Not that I expect reality to be as clear cut as a morality play, but if we reach a point where the Iraq war is viewed as simply the mistake of a small cabal, I think we will have lost the most important thread of all.
Lose Lose Equals Mission Accomplished
Eric Martin of American Footprints tries to analyze the Sistani statement about militias, etc and determine the overall state of play in Iraq and the consequences. I guess just a long think-piece. Perhaps the most interesting speculation is that Iraq is descending so far, so fast that Sistani thinks he needs large-scale personal protection from Sadr and SCIRI.
lj: there were people from SK, the PRC, and Japan; also India and a bunch of other places. The deal was that I don’t get to attribute any comments to specific people, though, so I can’t speak to specifics. We all did sign on to the consensus document, though.
Bob,
I just wanted to say how much I appreciate the links you provide and your thumbnail analysis.
hil,
Is there a link to the document and the signatories? And can you discuss where the difficulties in the consensus document were without mentioning names?
My entry into all this is seeing the interaction between research and academic standards. frex, the SK scandal was partially due to the fact that the junior researchers were unable to go against the senior researcher. Recently, we’ve had a series of academic scandals here in Japan of forged results. Part of the problem, at least for Japan, is a massive drop in the number of college entering students, which, coupled with a desire by the Ministry of Education to ‘upgrade’ education, leads to a lot of short cuts.
Of course, this plugs into a notion that Asian researchers are not as ‘creative’ as Western researchers (and depending on where one locates the locus of creativity, I would disagree or agree with that). Because of lower barriers to doing research, you are going to have a problem similar to nuclear proliferation.
It’s not entirely clear from the story whether German Intelligence was acting on it’s own initiative. Perhaps I’m reading too much into it, but it certainly sounds like they handed over the plans without consulting the government…who sound a bit taken aback.
I can comment because I don’t have any inside information on this. A couple of things to keep in mind about German government: (1) many fewer political appointees than in the US, and more senior bureaucrats, makes for policy continuity not necessarily closely linked to the policies of the governing politicians; (2) the government in 2003 was fairly new, as your average senior intelligence/defense bureaucrat would look at things; and (3) the government now is different, mostly. And of course, there is just as much tendency in Germany to put on exaggerated shows for the rubes as there is in the US, only in Germany nobody thinks the rubes have any power/say.
lj: you can get the consensus statement from the BBC page (under the sidebar headed: related links). It’s a word document. It also contains the list of people involved.
I’m not sure I should say what the difficulties were, and in any event a lot of them concerned wording and such (more than I would have thought, going in.)
Here’s the duly requested John Pace interview/quote/news story.
Does anyone want to discuss this video and the President’s failure of imagination on the subject of Katrina’s ability to breach New Orleans’ levees? Or is that just par for the course for this administration?
I would say “par for the course.”
This is reminiscent of Rice’s assertion that no one ever imagined that terrorists would use planes to fly into buildings.
The ability of this administration to deny knowledge of or responsibility for somewhat obvious things is amazing.
There is also, of course, Bush’s denial of Kerry’s statement that Bush had said he really didn’t think about UBL any more just 6-9 months after 9/11, even though there was plenty of video and audio transcriptions of the fact.
I believe that DHS said yesterday about the tape that it really doesn’t show anything new and shows that the President was actively involved the entire time.
Wonder what their definition of “actively involved” is.
There is an odd phenomenom in human affairs that I have noticed: people can get away with the most horrendous misbehavior only to be brought down by something relatively small. Remember James Watt? The horrible Sec of the Interior who was looting and pillaging public resources to benefit special interests? The religious fanatic who thought God put redwoods on earth so people could make lawn furniture out of them? It wasn’t his extremism or his appalling record of abusing the public interest that brought him down. He got the boot for making a stupid joke.
I think the same thing is happening to Bush right now. He has been and indefensibly awful President in every aspect of his Presidency, but it’s the port security issue and Katrina that finally tipped things for a lot of people. Ironically it is probably a good idea to give the port security contracts to the U.A.E company, but Bush has been sewing xenophobia for years and now he is reaping it.
Nothing stinks like a loser and Katrina made him look like one.
Well I guess that’s just life if a horribly corrupt, incompetent, overly ideological President gets brought down not by his corruption or his bad ideas, or even his incompetence, but by inadvertently offending the jingoism and xenophobia of his own base.
hil,
thanks for pointing me to that, I’m not a big BBC reader and missed that. One thing that I worry/wonder about is that the 2 Korean participants seem to be lower ranked professors, one at a US uni and another not involved in research at a Korean uni. I think that the mix of attempting to catch up along with the hierarchical nature of the Korean uni system created the scandal. That mixture of national pride and ability to force lower ranks to acquiesce is going to be dangerous mix.
Anyone have an informed opinion about cord blood? We’ve gotten a couple of pamphlets from companies offering to store rilkekind’s for future use. It’s less than a month of day care at Stanford.
By the way, how the hell did they know we’re expecting?
rilkefan: as far as I know, the odds of rilkekid’s needing his or her cord blood are very, very small, but the odds that if you put the cord blood in a public bank, someone will need it are a lot larger. (Public banks being afaik free, but no reason to think that rilkekid will get to use it. Sort of like making the rilkekid a bone marrow donor, only without the agonizing bone marrow transplant.)
And lj: here’s coverage from yesterday’ Post.
Very late to the open thread; but, I stumbled across this today.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/02/27/synfuel.tm/index.html
Business as usual, or what? Any thoughts?