I Made Fun Of Megan McArdle’s Looks Before It Was Cool

If you’re coming here from bloggingheads tv, I need to clear a few things up. 1) Unlike most of left blogistan, I like Megan McArdle, I read her blog regularly and all my blogospheric interactions with her have been nothing but pleasant. 2) I have never seen McA below the neck (I’ve only seen the blogging head), so my comments on the infamous white jeans were purely speculative. More importantly, the post wasn’t specific, I never said “Gosh, that retarded ivy league ditz, how dare she wear white jeans when they probably look awful, I hate her” (which is basically the level of much of left blogistan’s McA commentary) 3) What I said about white jeans was not a malicious personal attack intended to degrade her, unlike what some other people have said. Basically, I’m not a hater.

What I said about the inadvisability of wearing white jeans was reflecting the aggregate experience of those people that have worn white jeans who aren’t runway models or coke addicted rock stars. Though there may be outliers, like Megan, for statistically meaningfully purposes no one looks good in white jeans. Just because Shane McConkey can ski off 1000 ft vert cliffs, do two back flips and not die doesn’t mean you, or any meaningful other number of people, can as well.

Whippersnappers - They’re Everywhere

Like Athena leaping out of Zeus’ skull, Alexander Dietz has emerged fully formed from the shapeless abyss of the blogosphere.  He’s not just a smart writer, but also quite the videographer.  Check his site out.

Ross Douthat is a Total Badass

The evidence speaks for itself

Picture by Ross Douthat  (If he hasn’t granted everyone the permission to reproduce this picture,  then he just doesn’t know much about self promotion.  I mean, seriously, if this isn’t the The Party of Sam’s Club cover photo, I’m not reading the book)

Pax Americana

Pax Americana is totally sweet.  Not only does it have some of the best artwork/design of a wordpress blog, the writer is exceedingly kind to yours truly.  Could work on a the spelling a bit, but who am I to make that accusation?

A Carbon Auction?

Robert Reich (hopefully one day my future employer… has a lil commentary up on TAP proposing a novel idea for reducing carbon emissions, a “carbon auction”

Companies would have to bid for the right to pollute. And, most ingeniously, the money raised in the auction would be shared equally by all citizens in the form of yearly dividend checks — just like the residents of Alaska now get yearly dividends for their share of the state’s oil revenues.

While this proposal sounds all well and good to progressive ears (make corporations spend money and give that money to the people), it does nothing to reduce carbon emissions from transportation, which account for 511.6 million metric tons of carbon and 1/3 of US emissions.  Not to mention reducing other negative externalities from more people driving. I’m also sceptical is any broad based carbon reduction strategy will be able to survive the inevitable gutting and corruption from various afflicted interests.  Surely there will be some indutsry specific shenanigans for a carbon auction, and while a carbon tax may not be perfect, it is the most likely of any proposal to be applied across the broadest base of carbon emitters.  It’s also unclear how the auction would be implemented, and Reich, probably because this was originally a radio commentary is quite sparse with the details:

In a carbon auction, companies would have to bid against other companies for a portion of the atmosphere they intend to use — within overall limits that reduce pollution levels.

Umm, how exactly would this work.  Part of the atmosphere? Would the government apportion cubic miles of atmosphere that can have X tons of carbon emitted into them?  The one part of this commentary I agree with is that a carbon tax is likely to hit the working and middle classes hardest, but that’s doesn’t have to be a problem.  A carbon tax could be revenue neutral, the revenue from the could be used to cut the payroll tax, increase the EITC and a whole host of other progressive and redistributionist tax strategies.  Furthermore, using the revenue to increase the EITC would actually be more progressive than Reich’s idea of distributing auction income to all citizens, the EITC increase would necessarily be means tested and progressive.   Us liberals should know that just because Greg Mankiw supports something, doesn’t necessarily make it a bad idea.

The Somewhat Landed Gentry

For me, “gentrification” has mostly been an annoying catchphrase used to describe yuppies moving into San Francisco’s Mission District.  It never really meant anything that substantive to me, and since I’ve never actually rented an apartment before, I couldn’t say the issue has ever really effected me that much.  I was, however, oftentimes a little annoyed and bemused that it was often well off white people complaining about “gentrification,” and never those who are able to move into better neighborhoods, see their blocks become safer, and sell their homes for a hefty profit.

All that being said, Garance Franke Ruta, who I’ve probably been overly critical of before,  has a fucking slam dunk post on the subject.  Read the entire thing, it’s excellent.  In fact, the only good way I can describe it is by comparing it to this:

The Advantages Of Blogging - Amanda Marcotte Edition

Now, I know I’ve been harsh towards Amanda Marcotte, especially how her complaints about marriage seem to be centered on it’s patriarchal nature, seemingly in total ignorance of how these views filter down and then hurt the poor, for whom divorce rates are going up etc and how liberals concerned with what keeps the poor impoverished and income inequality shouldn’t be bashing marriage.

Amanda’s most recent post, however,  her own personal testimony about why she doesn’t like the institution and her own personal experience about being engaged, really is excellent.  I understand about how me haranguing (mostly) women to essentially be silent about the patriarchal residue of marriage (I’d dispute just how damaging the rituals are and how patriarchal the institution is in it’s evolved form) could be seen as insensitive, imperious and somewhat offensive. As my commenter “the opononax” so eloquently put it, the post and it’s underlying attitude may have been “deeply icky.”

Amanda sure is a polarizing figure and her own words about marriage certainly illicted a strong reaction in me, seeing as this is an issue I care a lot about (being an unmarried, non-poor dude, this could surprise some people, but whatever).  I don’t really have any major amendments to make the substance of my post, but just that people’s personal experiences with certain institutions are clearly very important.  And when engaging with views shaped by those experiences - I, as an example, as someone who will never wear a diamond engagement ring, can’t understand- I should respect those views and experiences, instead of essentially mocking and ignoring them.

This entire episode, for me at least, illuminates one of the great things about blogging, in general.  If Amanda were just, say, a columnist for a newspaper - she could have written her screed against engagement rings and that would be it.  But due to feedback and posts about the issue, she wrote another post expanding on her own personal experience and feelings about marriage, engagement rings and the whole shebang. It’s difficult to see such a scenario playing out in any other medium.  Of course, I’m really complimenting myself by imaging there’s any give and take or engagement between me and Amanda - for all I know, she’s not even aware of my blog and has never read any of my posts concerning her and will never read this one, but one can hope.

PS - Continuing the Amanda Marcotte compliment crusade, I don’t know if she was aware of my serial Pandagon bashing, but when I commented early on her “Harry Potter speculation” post, there was no sign of animus or ill will, jut two fans recklessly speculating about the fate of our dear friend Harry.  Of course, she probably wasn’t aware of those posts, but again, one can only hope.

PPS - I understand if the langauge of this post could be taken as condescending or insensitevly over coddling Amanda, I mean she doesn’t need me to stand up for her.  If it is, I’m sorry, I’m just trying to express myself as best I can.

Shameless Plug for “Democracy”

Say what you will about Ken Baer’s Iran article and his Ezra bashing, but I’m still a big fan of Democracy. It’s not so clear what the long term political or electoral benefit of such a Journal is, but as someone who’s more interested in policy as opposed to politics, the articles are generally well written and substantive. I have 5 tabs open with 5 different articles open, just waiting for me. Summertime really is the greatest, this issue should produce plenty of forthcoming posts.   By the way, to any and all Democracy staffers reading (probably zero, but if I can get GFR to link to me, dreams really can come true) any internships available?

Moving the Goalposts - Climate Change Edition

First off, I have to give some big thanks to Yglesias, Ezra, Megan, Garance and D-Larison. I know this is going to sound cocky, but the blog had an amazing day yesterday thanks to their links and y’alls subsequent comments; my hits and feed adds have already crashed, I guess Chanukkah only comes once a year. Hopefully I’ll manage to hold on to some of y’all that were lead here by my blogging betters. Now if I can only actually engage a flamewar with a right winger, that would really bring in the numbers…anyone mind sending a link to Mickey? I think the way it goes is that you came here because someone linked here, but you’ll stay for the content, or something like that… Well, here’s the content.

You can almost set your watch around demagogic populists moaning about the summer bringing high gas prices and how the perfidious oil companies are “price gouging.” Now, it’s bad when libertarians and conservatives say the Left is “economically illiterate,” this is just a lie, Brad DeLong, Dani Rodrik and Paul Krugman are hardly “economically illiterate” and using that terminology is really just a way to close off discussion over, generally, inequality, which many libertarians and conservatives want to do anyway. They do, however, have a point, when we hear the demagogues talk about the evil oil companies screwing over the good ole American consumer because gas consumption goes up every year and prices necessarily follow the increase in demand; this can only be descrbed as economic illiteracy, and all lefties that know better should point it out and demean it. On the actual policy front, Yglesias is right, the idea that a major public policy goal should be the insurance of low gas prices seems rather daft in a world where we all know transportation is one of the largest sources of carbon emissions. But there’s a few reasons we can’t just wish politicians demagoging for low gas prices to go away.

Polls have shown that presidential popularity is often tied to gas prices, despite what the commentariat has to say about global warming, people are rather short sighted about costs and benefits and just see how much paying for gas takes out of their pocket. Many also think that the governemtn really has a large input in the week to week, month to month price flucuations. We’ve all heard stories of Nixon and Bush trying to pressure the Saudis to lower gas prices right around election time, the populace just cares about it. ( I would search for links but its 2:42 in the morning and I have a full set of graduation fetes to attend tommorow - sorry).

Most of the people not living on the NR’s Planet Gore blog accept that burning fossil fuels is bad, and that we should burn less of them. It would be advisable policy to institute a Pigovian tax on Carbon emmissions, fast track and build more nuclear power plants, pay China to build nuclear power plants, buy up rain forests and phase out coal fired power plants and incandescent light bulbs. Those policies, many of which would increase costs on the lower middle and working classes, aren’t feasible right now, considering that only Democrats will try to enact them and the people hurt by them the most, in the short term, are Democratic voters. Not to mention the fact that GM’s man in Congress, John Dingell, chairs the House Commerce and Energy Committee.

For better or for worse, the America that has been built since the Eisenhower administration has been based on the possibility of middle class families being able to move out into the suburbs, commute to work in cities, and have a fair amount of space to live and cheap gas to drive. This model is entrenched in America, and it will take some wrenching to move to better land use policies and an overall vision for how we live to lower carbon emissions. Enacting a carbon tax, or increasing the gas tax, moving highway investment to public transportation or rezoning so as to build higher density in cities will be moving the goalposts in the middle of the game. We’ll essentially have to rebuild America, and not everyone is going to be happy about it.

PS - Chris Rock has a great bit where he says that all Americans want is “some cheap motherfuckin’ gas!” - I’m afraid that for the time being, he’s right, and those Americans are mostly black and working class Democratic voters, so, I’d say invest in a boat, the sea is only getting higher…

The Bends!

Wow, Ezra Klein is the gift that keeps on giving. Much thanks to Matt Yglesias for his shout out and even Garance’s slightly mocking one. I’ll take what I can get. Apparently I should post more. But I’m going to be in Providence for the weekend, so posting may be light. I guess i have to kill my small fan-base one way or another! In all seriousness, this is more blogospheric attention than I ever imagined getting, who knows, maybe one day Mickey will link to me!

I Have Seen the Future, and His Name Is Ezra

Welcome Ezra Klein readers. I know he claims to be an atheist and all, but with a name like Ezra Klein, I feel perfectly comfortable calling him a mensch. Now, I know what you’re all thinking, if Ezra likes you, you must really love labor unions, nationalized health care and 18 year old girls in porno flicks. Well, I’m pretty agnostic about labor unions, and I’ve inherited some Kaus like feelings about teacher unions, I’m very much in favor of some sort of government supported health care for everyone and I actually am “finding the present raunch culture wanting, [and]posit a need for an even more sex-saturated media environment.” Well don’t get scared away, I’m still something of a liberal, and I created this blog to make Mickey’s hair fall out (oh wait…). Knowing the superwonk Ezra is, I guess I’ll have to talk about something of substance to keep at least a few of his readers hanging around

Ezra links to Howard Fineman calling McCain a “warrior. He knows the world, its dangers and wonders; he knows the military, its powers and its limitations.” Of course, Ezra being the great blogger he is, jumps all over Fineman, pointing that McCain has supported the Iraq war vociferously.

In fact, his proposed solution to the Iraq debacle is putting in even more troops. Knowing the readiness state and overstretch of our military, it’s unclear if he actually knows anything about the military. But he was a fighter pilot, and was tortured for five years by the Viet Cong, so we have to give him some respect, right? Yes he was, but that doesn’t make up for what can only be called preposterously bad judgment. I know the media and public likes to say that anyone whose served any time in the service is an “expert” on the military, despite their level of combat experience, rank, or time in the military. Unless you’re John Kerry, then you’re just a pussy because you didn’t get wounded enough. But McCain was a flyboy, and he was only that because his father and grandfather were admirals in the Navy and he wasn’t cut out for the commanding officer track. Sure, he was shot down and tortured, but how does this at all qualify him to talk about the best policy to pursue in Iraq? He’s never fought a counter insurgency, has shown no familiarity with the literature or an academic interest in how to extricate us from this disaster of a war, except for more force, more troops and more Green Lanterns. Not to mention the fact that flyboys tend to be the most hotheaded, impetuous and self centered people in the military. Their entire line of work is taking enormous risks with a possibility of death every time they step into the plane. And if you’re good at it, you’ll just get cockier. Hardly the type of leadership we need from our politicians at this time.

Let’s say it together now, McCain has shown awful judgment on the Iraq War and is a super hawk, it’s about damn time we stopped giving him a free ride because the Viet Cong wouldn’t.

Daniel Larison is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.

The Whippersnapper struggle continues. Too bad Jean Baudrillard is dead, because getting any attention for one post with no analytical content and a hastily written ‘about me’ is clearly something that’s only possible with layers upon layers of simulacra and fantasy. But I’ll let blogosphere superhero Daniel Larison speak.

As a young fogey who supports the aspirations of whippersnapper bloggers (isn’t that a redundant description?) to trouble the more esteemed and well-known pundits, I point you to the blog of Matt Zeitlin:….

[whippersnapper] is in one sense a perfect word to use for all bloggers, who are, in the grand scheme of things, pretty insignificant and who also presume to hold forth on matters great and small, but it might just as well be applied to all columnists and pundits. An important part of good blogging, it seems to me, involves reminding better-known pundits and columnists that they are not necessarily all that important and authoritative and that they have no monopoly on driving the debate.

In all honesty, I really like Daniel Larison’s stuff and I’m really interested in the crack up between paleocons and neocons on foreign policy, and he’s, in my humble, uninformed opinion, one of the best for the paleo view on most things. So yeah, thanks a lot Daniel, you’re really my first blogospheric fan. I guess I might be getting some love from the TAC and Chronicles crowd, so it looks like I’ll need to bone up on my Kirk, Chesterton, Maistre and Eliot. I already like Burke, and I’m not a huge fan of this Iraq fiasco, so maybe being a paleocon is the way to go. On second thought, maybe no, I’d probably just end up like Alexander Konetzki.

Again, another post with no real content of the type I hope to provide soon. I was literally in the midst of writing a post about Robert Kagan, but I guess that will have to wait.

Daniel Larison, don’t let anyone tell you that you’re not a hero.

The Whip’s First Crack

I guess this is my first post, so some explanation is in order. First, to the certain disappointment of some intrepid googlers, this is not an S&M blog, despite the fact that reading certain blogs (hopefully not this one!) can only be described as sadistic.

Like so many bloggers, writers, thinkers and infantile scribblers before me, I am the product of those brave souls who preceded me. Now, I’ve been an active lurker in blogosphere and occasional commenter (matt z) on some blogs, namely Yglesias and Garance, but only recently have I been inspired to get in the game. I was inspired primarily by the Methuselah of the blogosphere, Mickey Kaus. In a series of posts and a bloggingheads kvetch fest Kaus feared the rise of the “whippersnappers” - young bloggers and journalists who never went through the standard apprenticeship and rise to punditry, and instead just pollute the blogosphere with their sophomoric (literally!) thoughts.

Two of the most prominent whippersnappers, bloggers whose faces should be carved onto a digital Mt. Blogsmore (and the bad jokes just keep on coming….) Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias, promptly responded to Kaus‘ shofar blast of derision and concern. Yglesias promptly went on to crush my dreams - The good news / bad news is that I suspect the whippersnapper window is closing. Ezra, in his response, offered some reassurance and also provided me with the title for this very blog!

So here I am, the youngest, most infant terrible, least experienced, least qualified blogger out there. Hopefully I have plenty of whip and snap as well.

Who knows if I’m Kaus‘ mythical “generation of post-Bush, anti-Kos neolibroots rebels comes online? These people are, like, only 12 at the moment.” I was a neolib in my past life, like when I was 14 or so, so who knows…and despite Kaus‘ curmudgeonly, House-like charm, I tire of his constant assault on liberals…well, I’ve probably said too many nice things about him for being a leftie blogger, so I’ll just stop now.

Don’t worry my adoring legions of fans, posts with real content and analysis will be forthcoming.