So awesome

The Friedman Bubble

I'm not sure when my Tom Friedman Bubble burst. I used to really enjoy reading him. While I often disagreed with him about the need for military action against Iraq back in 2002-03, I thought he was at least making cogent arguments. And while he used to back up his claims about the Middle East by quoting the one or two people in Saudi Arabia he actually knew, that was one or two more Saudi Arabians than any other big name columnist knew, so it gave him some credibility.

Anyway, it's hard to believe I once found arguments like this persuasive:



Seen in hindsight, Friedman appears to be either clinically insane or just a child with a moustache. And now his columns all seem to be some variation of, "The war [I cheered for] is going poorly, but Bush can save it by doing the following ten politically suicidal things: 1) Pass a $4/gallon national gas tax; 2) Appoint Muqtada al-Sadr to the U.S. Supreme Court...." And then, of course, when Bush does none of these things, he says we should give Bush another six months, which is renewable ad infinitum.

So part of this is unmasking Friedman as a bit of a fraud. But it's also a reminder that he, like a lot of us in the year or so after 9/11, was a bit loopy.

A common theme among Bush's defenders these days is that liberals don't realize what a dangerous world we live in, but another terror attack would snap us all into line. Well, that's probably true, but that doesn't make it desirable. Terrified people can overlook their differences and band together, but that doesn't mean that they'll make wise decisions.

The Meat Lady who Wouldn't Leave

We had a visit today from a representative of Town and Country Foods. They're a meat and produce wholesaler. They produce what appears to be very high quality meat, flash-freeze it, and send it out to you at reasonable prices. And they give you a freezer full of the stuff - enough to last for six months. Then you pay by the month.

I have to say it was a good sales pitch. The representative explained the exploding costs of supermarket foods, the problems of pesticides and food borne illness, etc. By producing high quality foods and shipping it directly to customers, this company can keep prices modest and consumers can avoid some of the problems of modern food production.

But as this pitch went on - for more than an hour - my wife and I realized that, even while we liked the idea of the plan, we'd have to change our eating style substantially for this to make economic sense to us. We'd have to eat a lot more meat and get used to eating more frozen vegetables. Hey, I love beef, but to me it's an occasional treat. We just don't have it in the house that often. And we love our fresh veggies. Town and Country won't get us heirloom tomatoes or morels. So I think what would end up happening would be that we'd spend a lot of money on meat that would just sit in our freezer for years, and we wouldn't save anything off our regular food budget. Either that, or we'd start eating like red staters. Neither is optimal.

But the meat lady didn't want to leave. I don't have much experience in sales, but I get the fact that once you leave someone's house, your chance of making the sale drops precipitously. So she digs in. Keep in mind it's about 7:45 PM. The kids' bedtime is rapidly approaching and we'd promised them ice cream. The kids were really being angels this whole time, but they were starting to lose it. So the meat lady says that she can just wait for us to put them to bed and can draw us up a menu and a contract while we're doing that. We say we want to think it over. She keeps asking if we have questions. We finally had to kick her out.

Now, she did leave us with an enormous quantity of sample meat - two T-bones, 2 lbs. of chuck, some burger patties, 4 pork chops, and some chicken. It looks good. If we really end up liking it, we'll think about the massive meat freezer. But I don't think this is going to happen.

My moment of Zen

"Sharks - A Family Affair"

Oh, I have got to watch this. From the Slate review:

It finds shark expert Craig Ferreira gearing up a vacation with his family of five in South Africa's Shark Alley, notorious for its concentration of great whites. "In preparation for the trip, Craig has a surprise for his children," says the anemic narrator. "Craig wants his boys to observe sharks on their own terms, and to do this, he has designed the first-ever children's shark cage." On the preview reel, Craig unloads the cage in his driveway and his wife says, "That. Is. Awesome."

"The boys are very excited," Craig says. I won't argue the point: Once the cage was settled in the backyard hot tub, and the boys were caged in it, they scampered about like monkeys on a jungle gym. But the sober narrator intervened to remind us that this isn't all fun and games: "Once out at sea, it will be a big psychological challenge for the boys." Adding depth to the daddy issues, we have Craig's father, Theo, said to hold the world record for single-handedly killing great whites. Theo is a touch saddened to say that he approves of the work Craig put into the cage: "It's far better than I'd thought it'd be. … I came here to criticize." Wouldn't it be great if you own parents were that straightforward?

Friday, August 3rd, on Discovery. Be there.

Edwards' little advantage

Pew recently conducted a pretty fascinating survey in which they asked registered voters to evaluate the presidential candidates in terms of their ideological positions. Check out this graph:
Among Democrats, Edwards is perceived to be the most conservative. Both Republican and Democratic respondents agreed with this ranking. This is fascinating because, if you've been listening to the guy talk about the war or about poverty, you know that he's probably the most liberal of the leading candidates. All this testifies to the power of demographics. Voters look at Edwards and see a white male with a southern accent - they infer that he's more moderate than the female or black candidate.

This is a totally unfair advantage for Edwards, but it is what it is. And what that means is that the party could nominate him and get the liberal policies it wants without most voters thinking the Democrats have gone socialist.

Edwards gets it