Politics of Perception [Ben]

Here's an interesting graph pulled from a study on political decision making by Larry Bartels and Christopher Achen. I haven't actually read the whole thing, just a quick summary courtesy of Matthew Yglesias.

The graph plots respondents' desire, left to right, for more government services to reduction of spending. Vertically, it plots how closely the respondent feels their position maps with the view of the Republican party.

Two things are clear immediately: Party affiliation is much stronger than any grasp of political reality, and compared to Democrats, Republicans are frankly delusional.

To the first point, if reality had any sort of sway over political perceptions, both of these lines should track each other relatively closely. In what I would consider a reasonable world, people with certain feelings about how the government should allocate resources would be able to use abundant publicly available data to determine which party currently acts closest to their ideal. What we actually have is the exact opposite. No matter what people's views on spending are, they always think their party aligns most closely with what they advocate. Consider the Republican line on the graph. Even Republicans harboring a distinctly communistic (kidding) yearning for more government services, feel that Bush has their back. Perhaps they consider domestic spying, torture and corporate welfare to be services? Realistically, this is unsurprising, but it startling to see graphical representation of just how uninformed and partisan the electorate is.

On the second point, I think the Democratic line tracks fairly reasonably with reality. It's clear that the Democrats are in favor of increasing government services in certain sectors, while the current administration remains violently and irrationally opposed to even the most uncontroversial and beneficial government programs, like expanding insurance for children not covered by Medicaid. Anyone with even a tenuous grasp on the facts is also aware that Bush and his first term Republican congress "presided over the largest overall increase in inflation-adjusted federal spending since Lyndon B. Johnson." This corpulence remains even when disregarding increases in military and homeland security expenditures.

I don't even really believe that, on the whole, Democrats are more well-informed politically than Republicans, they just have the benefit of supporting a party that isn't as inherently dishonest, and avoiding Republican media outlets that would rather baldly lie than even allude to a Democratic action being in any way commendable. Or you could also just conclude that the Republicans with the most extreme views on spending are also the most irrationally partisan, but you probably didn't need a graph for that.

Disneyland Politics [Ben]

Not sure if anyone watched the famed "YouTube" Democratic debate a few days ago, but Obama's and Hillary's responses to the question of how they would treat with foreign leaders currently on Bush's "no talkee" list elicited quite a bit of retarded commentary. A typical excerpt from a letter sent by a Republican to Andrew Sullivan's blog:

"Even though I hate to admit it, Hillary consistently wins these debates. My partner and I were watching it last night and I was trying very hard not to like anything Hillary said. But finally, I told my partner, "is it just me or does she seem more...." My partner finished my sentence -- "responsible" [in her answers]. Particularly with question about meeting with our enemies directly. Rather than take the knee-jerk, get-an-applause response by advocating face-to-face meetings with Syria and Iran, she gave a responsible disclaimer that she would make sure these meetings were vetted properly so as not to become a propaganda tool."

Ah, where to begin. That people might seriously discuss the prospect of the POTUS meeting with foreign leaders as some sort of propaganda coup is ridiculous in the extreme, and serves to highlight just how superficial the office of President has become under Bush. His extreme incompetence, and general belligerence , coupled with an inability to appear knowledgeable about even the most basic issues, renders him diplomatically useless except for the photo op. Bush is effectively Micky Mouse. Put your arm around him honey, I'll make sure I get the castle in the background.

What you're witnessing is a Republican attempt to shoehorn this administration's complete lack of diplomatic initiative into some sort of rational framework. It's not enough to simply be the most powerful nation in the world, you must also condescend to a degree commensurate with your status. This is now commonly referred to as seriousness. Politicians such as speaker Pelosi, who conjure the temerity to travel to countries not in our best graces and meet with their leaders, are unserious, dilettantish officials. Unwittingly, they allow foreign leaders to bask in the sheen of our democratic freedoms and principled decorum. Their foolish subjects might even start to believe that we somehow approve of them, even slightly! My dear, how positively incomprehensible that they might assume such airs! This is what they consider propaganda, and so we've assumed the diplomacy of Mr. Darcy.

(Incidentally, these are the same people who argue that we shouldn't worry about the Muslim world's perception of our occupation of Iraq because "they hate us no matter what we do". The cognitive dissonance would be jarring, but after six years it's mostly white noise.)

And so Hillary collects the very grudging accolades of some Republicans, and many of the "moderates" in the press who spend their time propping up whatever the current Administration position is on any given issue, and with whom the veneer of "seriousness" resonates particularly strongly. These accolades are purely a function of Hillary's relative proximity to the current Republican position in relation to the other Democratic candidates, rather than being based on any actual assessment of policy. Neither Hillary or Obama elaborated on what concessions/agreements they might work toward in hypothetical discussions with foreign leaders, which is what actually matters. It seems as though a large portion of the political establishment would like to extend the insubstantial pageantry that passes for presidential campaigning to our diplomatic relations. President Ahmadinejad, do you take your silent glare of disapproval with a side of freedom fries?

Debate background.
A more articulate post by typically astute Matthew Yglesias here.

HEY EVERYONE [Liam]

Matt has an iPhone!

Windbreaker, pt. 1 [Liam]

Some time ago, I stopped giggling at the term "windbreaker," at least when used to refer to a jacket. A little while later I completely stopped wearing the things. For probably about 5 years I've gone without owning a lightweight, weatherproof jacket of man-made materials, and for some inexplicable reason I've simply never thought to look back. Throughout my childhood I always owned a go-to jacket (I think everyone did), and it was always at that time the most characteristic single garment of my wardrobe.

In preparation for this post I actually ran through a mental "greatest hits" montage of the jackets of my youth: I had a fairly cyclical run of London Fog and Pacific Trail for more than a decade that I haven't considered once until just now. It's somehow very disquieting how old I feel thinking about this.

Around 4th or 5th grade I owned a bright red "Pac Trail" jacket with a blue collar liner that looked exactly like the jacket from Baywatch. I had an MIS patch stitched onto the sleeve that I got from my Grandpa (MIS Vet). The Military Intelligence Service mascot logo was a weasel-like animal with an Indian-style chieftan hat of feathers. Eventually the sun began to turn this jacket a bright pinkish-orange. The elements eventually rendered this garment completely unusable.

A couple years later, in the dark ages of my middle school career, I owned a black windbreaker of unknown make with a purple inner collar (somehow this was ok). It was in this jacket that I experimented with maintaining horrible moustache fuzz and mullet-length hair and was once mistaken for a girl by a nurse who was giving me injections.

I owned a dark green London Fog jacket for winter months at the end of my time at Alvarado, with a leather collar. While wearing this jacket I got robbed for as much as $30 in front of Brian Siu's house by a variety pack of Pacific Islanders during Winter Break. I remember being embarrassed by how much crap I had in the pockets.

I could go on for quite a while, as each of these storied pieces of "outerwear" defined a small stage of my life in Union City. But what I'm really hung up on now is what has changed exactly in me from being a jacket person to being a sport coat/cardigan/pullover/non-motorcycle motorcycle/peacoat person.

I'm tempted to try to answer this right now, but I told myself I was going to post something tonight.

Gooooooooo!!!!!

He must have tried it at home before he drew the comic, because it's true, 8 feet really is pretty much as far as you can go. (I had to try it immediately after reading it.)

Dawn thinks it would be better to have the competition going upwards, since it's more useful (I guess it is), but I think going outward is a better challenge.

...

On a more administrative note, someone else really needs to update soon. As the amy-concentration increases here, the more and more the Brog starts to resemble a tv station that relies entirely on the syndication of one half-rate show.

Post something. Anything.