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August 01, 2005

because. . .

Because after a long odyssey, my camera and I were finally reunited.

Below the fold, the obligatory cat blogging of my favorite Mysik. Unfortunately, he disappeared. I cannot but suspect the dogs that were bigger than I am.

Below that, a mosque featuring an intriguing mural of two men fighting. Not what you expected, you say?

And below that, before the cows come home in the evening, they must leave. This herd headed off to pasture about the same time I arrived at school, and our paths often crossed.

(Apologies for the animals; I don't like posting photos of people on the internet for all to see, and I have very few photos that include no living beings.)

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Concessions

Donald at All Deliberate Speed complains about Judge Posner's opinion in Walker v. Abbott Laboratories:

The next thing that Judge Posner writes is surprising: "[Walker] does not deny that his all-round qualifications for a higher salary grade were inferior to Smith’s." Without reading the briefs, it's difficult to know what Judge Posner means by this. Does he mean that Walker has conceded all of the facts just recited, which must mean that he concedes Smith was better qualified? Or does it mean that Walker's attorneys actually wrote in their brief "Smith was more qualified for the position than Walker"? The latter seems highly improbabl(e)

Curiosity piqued, I looked at the briefs in the case and there was no such concession. But I believe Judge Posner is referring to a concession made at the end of plaintiff's oral argument, 9.5 minutes into the MP3 you can download here:
Posner: (Smith) got it because he was better qualified than the people who met the formal requirement.
Counsel: If we ignore the formal requirement of education, your honor.
Posner: Precisely.

This seems to meet Posner's claim that counsel conceded Smith's "all-round qualifications" were better. The plaintiff was mostly arguing that Abbott Labs had been ignoring an internal but not particularly useful functional requirement.

N.B. Later on in the argument you can hear Judge Easterbrook tease Judge Posner: "Even a degree in English literature from Yale might qualify one for law . . . and of course you don't know whether I was emphasizing about the English literature part or the Yale part."


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"Vladimir, You're Wrong" - GWB

Bush, I believe presumptuously, was right, though I have no means of proving it. The quote is from a private meeting between Bush and Putin in May 2002:

Now Putin was confronting Bus about the supposed poor quality of the poultry sent to Russia.

"I know you have separate plants for chickens for America and chickens for Russia," Putin told Bush.

Bush was flabbergasted. "Vladimir, you're wrong."

But Putin would hear none of it. "My people have told me this is true."

Kremlin Rising, Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, p. 221

The authors, Washington Post journalists themselves, go to no trouble to investigate the veracity of Putin's assertion. Nor do they write anything in support of Bush's assertion. Their narrative continues with this episode standing as an example of irrational mistrust.

I have no proof that America does not reserve its poorer-tasting fowl for export to overseas markets; I simply suspect it is not so. (My suspicion is that American mass-produced poultry tastes worse than free-ranging street chickens, and Russians can't believe Americans content themselves with the flavorless stuff. The chicken that arrives in Russia is probably appropriate for the price point, and mostly likely is not a pampered organic Vermont bird.) I'm not sure how many hoops I would need to jump through to disprove the claim—to be admitted to factories, observe the processing, track the packaging, and so forth. I think it could be done, to separate out certain bad drumsticks for the Russian market; even admitting its possibility, I don't believe in the existence of the malicious chicken plot.

Why?

It would, after all, be only a variant of shady accounting practices, though different even from fraudulent spreadsheets in that selling lower echelon chickens to Russia is probably not illegal (pure speculation; I have not investigated this). Enron took a while to unravel: many Americans had a stake in Enron being an aboveboard company and would have theoretically supported an investigation that taught them to be cautious sooner; a smaller set of people had a great interest in profiting from deviousness. Most Americans have very little interest in the poultry industry so long as reasonably tasty birds are available for their dinner tables. That the American drumsticks available for purchase on the Russian market don't taste as good is, well, of little concern; perhaps even of less concern than the living conditions for factory-raised chickens. A small coterie of poultry CEOs who profit from the hypothetical plot have a great stake in preventing any investigation that would minimize their profits state-side and abroad. I say this to submit that an expose of the poultry industry is not likely.

Given that I don't trust the media to report on the existence of a chicken conspiracy—though I do trust the media to dig out whatever dirt may exist about Judge Roberts or any other controversial political figure—why do I still not believe in a dual-plant system? Other examples of targeted production and marketing exist, such as many tailored flavors of Coca-Cola. Perhaps there are certain regulations (or lack thereof) for chickens sold in Russia or non-WTO member states; enforcing the separate production regime in overseas-only plants could be a sound economical decision (until the Russian public discovers that a higher parts-per-million of roach parts is permitted in their poultry, and quits buying American). Maybe it's just easier to pack it and ship it and get it through customs if it comes from a smaller number of plants.

I can think of potentially valid reasons for separate chicken plants and yet I don't believe in them because it sounds too Soviet. There is no great American conspiracy to dump shoddy syringes and mis-dyed Levis on the Russian market for the sake of harming the populace and profiting off of materials the domestic market won't purchase. My greatest argument against a malicious chicken plot is that the Russians would discover it, dislike it, and distrust America. It would harm our image, and it would harm our bottom line.* That, combined with the absurd throwback of the accusation itself, is sufficient suggestion for me that George is right.

* I realize, though, that the widespread suspicion of American-quality and Russian-quality poultry has already taken hold, justifiedly or not. There is now no longer such a great incentive to avoid the impression, especially as it may be quite difficult to break.


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Habeas?

Ted Frank will be debating the merits of Habeas Corpus review on Legal Affairs this week. He defends proposed attempts to limit federal habeas review, but it is unclear how limited of a review he envisions permitting. I will also be interested to see how he defends the bill against any complaints based on Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution ("The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it").


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Atkins fails

Just a notable detail I just saw - Atkins Nutritionals has just filed for Chapter 11. Obviously, this doesn't mean that the Atkins diet is dead (unfortunately), but I do kind of congratulate myself for having guessed privately that the fad was dying.

My guess for the next vogue likely to die is poker. If I had money, I'd sell all those poker companies that went public in the last few months short. It's not that I dislike poker. It's a great game. But there's simply no way its popularity stays at the current pitch for much longer.


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Back

I spent the weekend and this morning at the Institute for Justice's Law Student Conference tangling about economic liberties, the proper scope of the police power, the irrationality of the Louisiana Horticulture Commission, and so on, hence the lightish blogging, although I did notice that Raffi managed to rake in over 50 comments in response to his questions about abortion.

I'm also done blogging at the Conglomerate (all my posts are collected here), so things are back to business as usual.


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Chinese food?

Also, all this evolution shoveling is tiring. I'm going to be in New York tomorrow, and I'm craving Chinese food. Do people have suggestions for a) the best version of Americanized chinese in Manhattan and b) some authentic chinese? Honestly, I'm craving a) more than b) at the moment, but tips on either are welcome.


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A first response on evolution.

Many thanks to all those who wrote helpful answers to my questions about evolution. I'm thinking hard about them. My initial responses are relatively simple - first, I haven't been persuaded at all that there's something so fundamental about evolutionary biology that thoughtful scientists can't be made without teaching it in high school, or even by teaching it wrongly in high school. Don't get me wrong - there's no doubt to me that teaching creationism is scientifically wrong and constitutionally forbidden. But why not simply teach, as Sudeep (a biology Ph.D candidate, after all) argues, good scientific method - those that have an interest in science will eventually use those basic tools to understand for themselves that evolution is backed by the great body of evidence.

To me, the question is not much different than the major controversies in teaching history, many of which center in this country around what colonists did to American Indians when they arrived. Personally, I think it's a great travesty to teach that period without acknowledging that the American Indians were powerful and tenacious enemies - hardly the victims they're usually made out to be. Many others believe it central to teach that Indians were subjects of racial cleansing. But it seems clear to me that the best way to teach history is to teach the tools of history - the deep scepticism and suspicion that make up a historian's response to any claim. Biology has its equivalent -fundamentally, that's what kids should be taught, and presumably most of them will come to the correct conclusions eventually. Insisting that particular facts be taught, on the other hand - most of which are rapidly forgotten by children more inerested in video games - is at least suggestive of a politically driven agenda.

Second, I do wish I had been able to unearth a strong religious defense of creationism. I think commentators presented some of the best arguments for creationism from a religious perspective, but I'd like to have heard it from the horse's mouth. In any case, my assumption in all matters is that people with whom I disagree are smart, well informed, and equal partners in our democratic project. That I (and many) find their beliefs to be wrong does not disturb any of those assumptions, and so I'd like to have heard the best possible case. Someone did point me towards Cardinal Schonborn's argument apparently opposing evolution in the New York Times of July 7, but Schonborn's opposition was both largely repudiated by most other catholics and wasn't unequivocal enough to capture the full scope of the argument. In any case, I'd be glad to read a more academic evangelical defense of biblical creation, if anyone has one in mind.


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