Country to Emulate!

East Germany.

They know how to close their border. Here is Tea Party candidate Joe Miller on how to solve our immigration problem, based on his military time on the German border:

During that time, he said, "East Germany was very, very able to reduce the flow" from one side of the border to the other. "Now, obviously, other things there were involved. We have the capacity to, as a great nation, obviously to secure our border. If East Germany could, we could."

And, indeed, we could. If we want to be like East Germany.

the picture is an example of how the East Germans closed the border with the Berlin Wall (and shooting anyone who got near it).

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More on Journalism

I think I'll start a new feature: careers I love to trash, or something like that. Jack and I made a good start on English profs (who are, of course, completely different from History profs or Math profs), and I occasionally might mention some others. Though since my general thesis is that all professions have been disgraced and delegitimated during the first decade of the 21rst c., it is probably redundant.

So here I'll just continue to beat on the dead horse of journalism, courtesy of a "Letter from Washington" by Conor Friedersdorf guest writing at andrewssullivan.com. Here is my favorite intemperate blast:

There is this idea among movement conservatives—especially the rank-and-file—that Washington DC journalism is populated by a lot of disingenuous, careerist sell outs. These elites write to enrich themselves, to inflate their sense of self-importance, and to garner social capital, invariably measured by invitations to the dread “Georgetown cocktail party.” Thus they are unconcerned with truth, intellectual honesty, or the actual interests of anyone outside the New York to DC corridor.

This narrative is largely true!

It picks up steam from there. Friedersdorf ends up pointing it at mainly conservative hacks, of which there are plenty, but I think it is a much broader critique than that. If there is an underlying theme to the First Decade it has been careerism and the intellectual corruption it instills.

corruption: a family value.

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When Conservatives fight

It can look pretty nasty. Not, I must admit, as nasty as when liberals like Hilary and Barack go at it, and at it, and etc. But still, it's nasty enough for some genuine entertainment [btw: Hilary just got her clock cleaned here in North Carolina, and Barack is about to lose it in Indiana, even as I write]

Where were we? Oh yes. Over on National Review Online Derbyshire panned Ben Stein's movie Expelled without ever having seen the movie. Purely in the interest of science, I posted his review. And because I thought it was hilarious.

But the Steinians (Steinists? Steinistas?) aren't going to take this laying down! David Berlinski has fired off a post claiming that the Derby's effort "is an exercise of striking vulgarity" in which he "writes foolishly." Well, I must modestly admit that I have been pointing that out about the Derby for some time. But do I get any credit from the Creationists?

He then goes on to show that the Derby has his facts wrong, wrong, wrong about the movie: They did SO create their own cartoons and Yoko Ono did NOT have to give her permission for the use of a John Lennon song! What those two points have to do with the central thesis of the Derby's writing, or of the movie, I will leave to your imagination. Read the whole thing here.

Not to be outdone, a staunch supporter of the Derbyist Side, one Jim Manzi, also posts a defense of science called "Show me the science." Manzi doesn't waste any time leveling the meanest put down of all in his very first lines:

Expelled seems to me to be the right-wing analog of Fahrenheit 9/11. Stylistically, it is almost an homage to Michael Moore:

I don't think I've enjoyed reading NRO so much since D'Souza claimed that liberals caused the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

Global Warming: Far left, far out, and the Woo-factor?

[Courtesy of Andrew Sullivan]

A delicious send up of the cranks on the Left, who are at the very least as, well, crank-like, as those of the Right, at least when it comes to Global Warming. In this case it is a deconstruction (as in 'demolition') of Alexander Cockburn's bizarre tirades (aka 'lunatic ravings') against the science of global warming. The key conclusions to a very long post:

It's important to remember both the left and the right have anti-scientific tendencies, the left's just tend to be less religious, less world-threatening and more woo-based. My brother recently told me about moving to California, "they don't believe in Jesus here, just bullshit" in reference to the woo-based beliefs of large portions of the population. The risk of unscientific tendencies is when people with potential to become cranks see a scientific theory as a threat to some overvalued idea they hold dear. Sometimes the over-valued idea isn't even a bad quality, it can be compassion - but taken to an extreme. If the left starts to see global warming policy as a money-grab by the elites, expect to see more left wing crankery and climate denial based on conspiratorial beliefs about carbon markets.

I suspect this is what has happened to Alexander Cockburn, a lefty who has gone over the deep end, on what appears to be suspicions of a conspiracy to further defraud and hurt poor countries using global warming science.

This leads me to three questions:

1) Since both the Left and the Right can be completely crockers, who can I, the founder and president of the Hezbollah wing of the Uncommitted, trust on anything?

2) Why does The Nation publish such nonsense?

3) What the hell are 'woo-based' beliefs?