So now the New York Times has hired Bill Kristol as a weekly columnist.
Can it be true? Sure sounds like it.
In one sense it doesn't matter. What's one more or one less reactionary on the op-ed page.
But there is one troubling aspect. What is it with the Times and the now thoroughly discredited neocons?
I think this week’s TPM discussion of Facebook and privacy demonstrates how the basic conception of privacy is evolving. So for starters, before the public decides whether this change is good, we have to figure out what defines the “new privacy.” Otherwise people will just talk past eachother in these debates.
A simple baseline for traditional privacy is that information is only private until you share it. In this model, privacy is binary. Secrets are either kept or disclosed. In “The Right To Privacy,” a seminal 1890 article in the Harvard Law Review, Louis Brandeis and Samuel Warren declare:
…disclosure is the one immutable limit on privacy. The right is lost only when the author himself communicates his production to the public – in other words, publishes it.
The assassination of Benazir Bhutto is a shock that was, unfortunately, not entirely shocking. Given the chaotic political situation in Pakistan and her multiple enemies -- from jihadists to elements of the Pakistani military and intelligence services -- the danger that she would be killed on the campaign trail was ever present. And Pervez Mushharaf himself must be condemned for sins of omission, in the form of the inadequate security provided to Bhutto from the moment she re-entered Pakistan to the day of her death.
No one knows who killed Benazir Bhutto, although rumors and accusations are already flying. An independent investigation is urgently needed, ideally involving both the FBI and representatives of the UN, to ensure international legitimacy to any results the ensue. And efforts must begin now to ease the Musharraf regime from power, even if it takes a year or more to successfully do so. What cannot be permitted is for Musharraf to use this tragedy to tighten his grip on power under the guise of providing "stability."
Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said that on Friday, the government recorded an”intelligence intercept” in which militant leader Baitullah Mehsud “congratulated his people for carrying out this cowardly act.”
He also let us know that she died from hitting her head. Amazing how Pakistani authorities could know such a thing since no autopsy was performed. Must be the equivalent of psychic healing. Worth noting that the physician who examined her at the hospital emergency unit appeared to indicate that she had a hole in the side of her head.
Does anybody remember the Levin amendment?
Offered 10 hours before the final vote authorizing the Iraq war, it would have postponed the use of force until the President went to the United Nations and received authorization. If the UN failed to act, the President could come back to Congress, explain why action was needed anyway and, at that point, Congress could authorize war.
Former Senator Lincoln Chafee, the one Republican to support it, described it earlier this year in the New York Times:
Senator Levin’s amendment called for United Nations approval before force could be authorized. It was unambiguous and compatible with international law. Acutely cognizant of the dangers of the time, and the reality that diplomatic options could at some point be exhausted, Senator Levin wrote an amendment that was nimble: it affirmed that Congress would stand at the ready to reconsider the use of force if, in the judgment of the president, a United Nations resolution was not “promptly adopted” or enforced. Ceding no rights or sovereignty to an international body, the amendment explicitly avowed America’s right to defend itself if threatened.
I thought then, and I think now, that there was no reason anyone at all skeptical about going to war would oppose it. After all, it kept the war option alive; it simply would have slowed down the rush.
Exactly 23 Democrats voted for it.
We got her now. It is bad enough that she whacked Vince Foster (at least that's what the rightwing crazies say), but she has now crossed the line. She helped kill Benazir Bhutto, a Pakistani woman promoting democracy. That's downright heinous. Thank God that Senator Obama's spokesman was on the job today and ensured that Hillary would not escape from another murder. According to Obama's mouthpiece, David Axelrod:
Obviously, one of the reasons that Pakistan is in the distress that it’s in is because al-Qaeda is resurgent, has become more powerful within that country and that’s a consequence of us taking the eye off the ball and making the wrong judgment in going into Iraq. That’s a serious difference between these candidates and I’m sure that people will take that into consideration.” . . . “She was a strong supporter of the war in Iraq, which we would submit, was one of the reasons why we were diverted from Afghanistan, Pakistan and al-Qaeda, who may have been players in this event today, so that’s a judgment she’ll have to defend,” Axelrod said.
One thing is clear from the tragic events in Pakistan today. The Bush White House's policies in that part of the world are a miserable--and dangerous failure. This is not news, alas, but with instability on the rise in Pakistan and the security situation worsening there as militant Islam ascends, we now face a situation with two failed states, side by side-Pakistan and Afghanistan, with U.S. troops and politicians occupied off in Iraq instead of in Afghanistan, where they should have been all along.
The corruption of the Pakistani military is nothing new, though as recent NYTimes stories show, there appears to be some in positions of power who are willing to leak their frustration to the media. Bhutto's assassination was a failure of the security services, who are lavishly paid by the U.S. government.
TPM contributor Adam Levitin has an op-ed this morning in the Chicago Tribune that makes a terrific point: Complex credit card pricing prevents consumers from knowing the true cost of credit and, as a result, prevents the invisible hand of the market from working its magic.
In all the resistance to "regulation" of any credit product, it is easy to overlook the simple point that Adam drives home so forcefully. Markets work on full information. The implications are powerful: If a consumer can't figure out the features of a product, then the market won't price those features appropriately.
Why would young people publicize the very information they want to keep private?
Critics argue that privacy does not matter to children who were raised in a wired celebrity culture that promises a niche audience for everyone. Why hide when you can perform? But even if young people are performing, many are clueless about the size of their audience. That's because the new generation is often proficient with technology it doesn't fully understand. The Carnegie Mellon study found that one-third of students don't realize that it is easy for nonstudents to access their Facebook profiles. And 30 percent of students did not even know they had an option to limit access to their profile.
Most people don't use the privacy settings to limit access to their Facebook profile. Four out of five simply accept the default setting, which allows their whole network to see the entire profile. In the UCLA network, that's 50,400 people. The Boston network has 312,404 people. For comparison, the city's tabloid, the Boston Herald, has a circulation of 201,503. Users may think they're only sharing with the friends they can see, but they're actually publishing with the reach of a newspaper.
How much do we subsidize alcohol consumption? In his book, Paying the Tab, economist Philip Cook notes that, when adjusted for inflation, taxes on alcohol have dropped by 33 percent since 1992. Alcohol use impose costs on everyone else--17,000 drunk driving deaths annually, 65,000 other alcohol related deaths, plus child and spousal abuse and medical costs for those who survive. Alcohol taxes, at least theoretically, cover the alcohol-related costs of police enforcement and public health care.
David Leonhardt argues in today's New York Times that we should continue alcohol sales, but the costs should be borne by those who buy and use alcohol. And that means raising taxes on alcohol sales.
Facebook is under mounting public pressure over how the company manages and monetizes the personal information of its 58 million users. Fights over how people “control” their online identities are especially important now, since the growth of social networking coincides with a resurgence of government surveillance, including a massive N.S.A. domestic spying program that is widely believed to be illegal. (Senior Bush administration officials have said as much explicitly, in James Comey’s Senate testimony, and implicitly, in their fight to grant retroactive immunity to the telcos.) So naturally, several people have responded to my Facebook article by raising the important connection to government surveillance. TPM reader Reece argues that Facebook qualms are dwarfed by the real Big Brother in Washington:
...neither Facebook nor Visa can toss me in jail. Neither Facebook nor Visa can prosecute me for anything. Neither Facebook nor Visa can accuse me of being a terrorist or keep me in a secret detention center or subject me to torture. I have no doubt that we need more regulation of personal information in the hands of private businesses, and I would like to see that legislation. But I'm always going to be more concerned about the government than I am about Facebook.
A satirical riposte from Wonkette turned on a similar premise:
When one of America's largest electronic surveillance systems was launched in Palo Alto a year ago, it sparked an immediate national uproar. The new system tracked roughly 9 million Americans, broadcasting their photographs and personal information on the Internet; 700,000 web-savvy young people organized online protests in just days. Time declared it "Gen Y's first official revolution," while a Nation blogger lauded students for taking privacy activism to "a mass scale." Yet today, the activism has waned, and the surveillance continues largely unabated.
Generation Y's "revolution" failed partly because young people were getting what they signed up for. All the protesters were members of Facebook, a popular social networking site, which had designed a sweeping "news feed" program to disseminate personal information that users post on their web profiles. Suddenly everything people posted, from photos to their relationship status, was sent to hundreds of other users in a feed of time-stamped updates. People complained that the new system violated their privacy. Facebook argued that it was merely distributing information users had already revealed. The battle--and Facebook's growing market dominance in the past year--show how social networking sites are rupturing the traditional conception of privacy and priming a new generation for complacency in a surveillance society. Users can complain, but the information keeps flowing.
When one of America's largest electronic surveillance systems was launched in Palo Alto a year ago, it sparked an immediate national uproar. The new system tracked roughly 9 million Americans, broadcasting their photographs and personal information on the Internet; 700,000 web-savvy young people organized online protests in just days. Time declared it "Gen Y's first official revolution," while a Nation blogger lauded students for taking privacy activism to "a mass scale." Yet today, the activism has waned, and the surveillance continues largely unabated.
Generation Y's "revolution" failed partly because young people were getting what they signed up for. All the protesters were members of Facebook, a popular social networking site, which had designed a sweeping "news feed" program to disseminate personal information that users post on their web profiles. Suddenly everything people posted, from photos to their relationship status, was sent to hundreds of other users in a feed of time-stamped updates. People complained that the new system violated their privacy. Facebook argued that it was merely distributing information users had already revealed. The battle--and Facebook's growing market dominance in the past year--show how social networking sites are rupturing the traditional conception of privacy and priming a new generation for complacency in a surveillance society. Users can complain, but the information keeps flowing.
Things have not gone well on Wall Street this year. Depending on the year-end news, the stock market looks at best to have eked out a small gain for the year. The record setting pace of mergers and buyouts in the winter and spring had dwindled to a trickle in recent months. And, some of the great citadels of Wall Street, like Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley, have been forced to eat billions of dollars in write-downs on the complex financial instrumentals they had peddled to their customers.
The bad news also showed up in stock prices. Morgan Stanley’s stock is down almost 20 percent for the year. Lehman Brothers stock was down a bit more than 20 percent. And Citigroup’s stock price is down almost 50 percent from its level at the beginning of the year.
With a year like this, you might have expected that most of the Wall Street gang would be waking up on Christmas morning to find lumps of coal in their stockings.
Happy holidays, TPM’ers!
Here’s an economic year-end round up, where I get to pick the categories, the winners, and what it all means. There's lots to bemoan, a few things to cheer about, and a potentially happy ending.
See if you agree.
Several of you are wondering who I am backing to be the next President. I have not decided on a final choice because, to be candid, I have little say in the matter. I live and vote in Maryland. By the time primary season rolls around in my neck of the woods and bay inlets, the die will be cast.
Of the current field of democratic candidates I like three in particular–Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards. If I were participating in an Iowa caucus or voting in New Hampshire, I’d go for Joe. But he is not getting any traction. So that leaves me with Hillary and Edwards.
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