Is this what Cloward-Piven looks like?

The New Neo Posted on by

Are we seeing the Cloward-Piven strategy in action?

If not, why is Obama accelerating his drive to stir up “fear itself?”

President Barack Obama used his first prime-time news conference to paint an extraordinarily bleak picture of America’s future if Congress fails to move quickly to pass stimulus legislation, warning that inaction “could turn a crisis into a catastrophe.”

He told Americans not yet suffering from the economic downturn that they could soon face the same fate as the down and out in Elkhart, Ind, a city he visited today as part of a campaign aimed at convincing Americans to press Congress to pass the recovery legislation.

Obama may not be especially consistent. But this is one topic on which he’s been exactly that, sounding a single depressing note from the very beginning of the financial crisis till the present time. Back on September 16, 2008, I wrote:

Obama’s response has not only been more partisan [than McCain’s], it is also more alarmist. Felix Salmon of Finance Blog compares and contrasts the candidates’ statements on the crisis, and Obama’s comes up short in more departments, including one area I had also noticed: Obama has publicly labeled it “the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression.”

So far it isn’t. But if Obama keeps talking like this, he might do his bit to contribute to its ultimately fitting that definition…Obama is reckless to speak as though a such a catastrophe has already occurred, drumming up fear rather than attempting to calm it through a realistic appraisal of what we are facing right now.

Of course, Obama supporters will say he was merely prescient.

Sometimes…

The New Neo Posted on by

…I just get a yen to look at some ugly dresses.

This particular bunch were featured at this year’s Grammys. Feast your eyes, and ponder how it was that these women came to choose these particular duds.

First up, Phoebe Price—and the Price isn’t right. Who is Price, you might ask? Her major claim to fame seems to be showing up in outrageous outfits at red carpet events. It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it, and Ms. Price seems up to the task:

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But we’re just warming up. Next we have the supposedly multitalented M.I.A., an artist previously unknown to me. She’s pregnant here, but that doesn’t go very far towards explaining the following:

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And lastly we have Bai Ling, an actress also previously unknown to me (that’s a fairly large set). The following dress would have been somewhat unattractive even without the bow. But that embellishment happily and resoundingly catapults it into the category of the deeply and spectacularly silly:

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A wrinkle on weight

The New Neo Posted on by

A study of identical twins and their wrinkles can tell us something about the aging process. Differences between such twins as they get older must be due to environmental causes.

The article linked above says researchers found a “surprising” relationship between weight and aging. I find it utterly unsurprising; anyone who notices such things would find it hard to miss, actually: before the age of forty, excess weight makes women look older. But after that point, it makes them look younger.

Well, duh. I’ve noticed this phenomenon time and again. My mother often remarked on it as she aged; among her friends, the principle seemed to hold true. My mother (aged ninety-five now) also has an oft-stated philosophy about the whole process: “As you get older, you can either be a thin old lady or a fat old lady.”

Obama takes to the road

The New Neo Posted on by

It was a short honeymoon after all. Short and not all that sweet, although the courtship seemed to promise a love for the ages.

It’s a subtle thing, since President Obama’s approval figures remain quite high. But support for his stimulus package is falling, and the uniformly positive press he’s used to receiving has taken a sour turn.

It’s the latter that must especially worry and frustrate him. Because he must know that the press was his matchmaker with the American public during the campaign, and if the press deserts him, the people may follow.

Ah, the campaign! It must seem like a thousand years ago to Obama, although it’s only been a few months. It wouldn’t be surprising if he were longing to return to the days when all he had to do was speak, and the love flowed.

And so Obama has decided to take his show on the road, since it’s not been playing as well as he’d hoped in DC. As the Telegraph’s Toby Harnden notes:

…[Obama] is returning to one thing in his political career that he has perfected—campaigning. In Elkhart, Indiana, today and Fort Myers, Florida, tomorrow, Mr Obama will try to seize back control of the political agenda with question-and-answer sessions with voters in two of the swing states that gave him victory.

Harnden also points out that Obama is now being perceived as passive, uncertain, and inexperienced;

But making decisions and operating the levers of power is something completely new to him. And it shows.

How could it be otherwise? These character traits were in evidence earlier, for anyone with eyes to see. In fact, it’s the sort of thing Hillary Clinton famously played on during her own campaign. But those in love with Obama weren’t interested in facing the possibility that, despite his glamour and glibness, she might indeed be correct.

Somehow, I can’t escape the feeling that Obama wants out.

Obama: again with the exhaustion

The New Neo Posted on by

Only this time it’s his staff. And they’ve only been in place two and a half weeks:

I’ve written about the theme of Obama and exhaustion before, here and here. It’s a theme that’s been coming up more and more lately.

Why? I think it’s because Obama lacks stamina, I think he’s exhausted from the campaign, and I think (along with Ann Althouse—see her comment at that link at 10:19 AM) that he’s frightened and is suddenly aware that he may be an example of the Peter Principle at work.

Well, so what? Who wouldn’t be both tired and scared at this point, facing what he’s facing?

The problem is that, just as there’s no crying in baseball, there’s no exhaustion or fear in the presidency. Oh, both may exist, all right. But it’s never a good idea to own up to either, because doing so undermines public trust, and creates a sense of doubt and panic. And that’s the last thing we need right now.

It occurs to me that…

The New Neo Posted on by

…as she gets older, Madonna is starting to resemble Mae West. Not physically, not really: Madonna is thin and wiry, Mae West was curvier. But both have made careers out of pushing the envelope of how much overt sexuality a woman is allowed in entertainment without being pornographic, although each operated in a different climate of what was previously acceptable.

One huge difference is that Mae West had a sense of humor.

The Lancet gives truth the shaft

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s not been a real good week for The Lancet, the well-known medical journal based in London and New York.

Remember the famous Iraq casualty study, researched by one Gilbert Burnham of Johns Hopkins, and published in Lancet’s pages back in October of 2006? The one that found deaths far exceeding all previous estimates, and was quoted favorably by the antiwar crowd?

Now the American Association for Public Opinion Research has accused author Burnham of violating its code of ethics in failing to disclose his research methods, and Johns Hopkins is studying to see whether Burnham violated its research guidelines as well.

As for Burnham, he’s refusing to come clean, even now. Being secretive about such things is in and of itself a huge violation of standards: research must be transparent if it is to be considered valid, because it cannot be evaluated, tested, or perhaps replicated without this vital information. And Lancet is keeping mum as well about its role.

Now still another hugely influential piece of research originally published in Lancet has become exceedingly suspect. There is growing evidence that Andrew Wakefield, the man who popularized the idea that there is a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, and whose 1998 research caused a resultant drop in the number of parents willing to have their children immunized, fudged his results.

This sort of thing happens in research periodically, amd it is always a disgrace. It goes to the heart of trust in science and violates its most basic tenets. The special problem here is that both studies had a great hand in shaping public opinion on controversial and important topics, as well.

A widely-read and highly-respected periodical such as Lancet has a profound duty to subject its articles to proper peer review. In recent years it appears to be falling down badly on the job. Could it be that the periodical is more interested in circulation and stirring up controversy than promoting proper science?

[NOTE: I have previously discussed the misconceptions about the so-called “autism epidemic,” as well as the fears that keep parents from vaccinating their children, here and here.]

The Madoff whistleblower: it’s the math, stupid(s)

The New Neo Posted on by

Just call him Cassandra.

Who? Harry Markopolos, that’s who, the man who tried to blow the whistle on Bernie Madoff for nine long years. But nobody heard—or, rather, nobody who was actually in a position to do anything heard him clearly enough.

Markopolos, an accountant and former investment manager from Boston, is having his moment in the sun, that long-awaited chance to say “I told you so.” Although it may give him some personal satisfaction to be vindicated, I doubt it does a whole lot to assuage the frustration he feels at having failed to stop Madoff’s Ponzi scheme before more people got taken in and more damage was done.

Markopolos says as much:

Why would people think I feel good about this?” Markopolos asked at one point in a series of recent interviews. “People think I’m a hero, but I didn’t stop him. He stopped himself.”

Over the past nine years, Markopolos sent detailed and multiple reports to the SEC pointing out red flags in Madoff’s fund operation, all to no avail. He could not get the New York office to understand what he was saying, and it was New York that had jurisdiction.

In an even more ironic note, the SEC head in Boston, Mike Garrity, was listening, understood, and told Markopolos that if he’d had oversight of the case “he would have had an inspection team inside Madoff’s operation the very next day.” But although Madoff’s investors were nation- and world-wide, Boston’s opinion didn’t count.

What was the problem in New York? Why did the top brass at the SEC there ignore what Markopolos colorfully describes as “the equivalent of Major League Baseball player batting .966 and no one suspecting a cheat?”

It’s hard to say for sure, since the former head of the New York SEC (she left the job for personal reasons before the Madoff scandal broke), Meaghan Cheung, seems to be forbidden at this point to say precisely what steps she followed in her investigation of the Madoff threat after she received a heads-up from Markopolos in 2005.

Markopolos thinks Cheung’s problem was that she was mathematically challenged:

In my conversations with her, I did not believe that she had the derivatives or mathematical background to understand the violation,” Markopolos wrote…

As for Markopolos’ reference to her supposed lack of mathematical acumen, Cheung said, “Investigations are conducted by lawyers and examiners and investigators. We have experts available to help us.”

Cheung is a lawyer, not an economist or an accountant or a financial expert. I don’t know how SEC investigations usually work. But if her investigation of Madoff did not involve her calling on the help of a very able accountant or accountants who were trained to detect fraud, then IMHO she would be guilty of gross negligence.

Yes, the math is complex. And yet Markopolos was able to do it. What’s more, Markopolos had given her “a map and a flashlight” to the problems, and yet she could not see them.

How did Markopolos come to believe so strongly in Madoff’s guilt? It was the math, stupid.

In 2000, Markopolos was the resident math whiz at Boston’s Rampart Investment Management when he was asked by his boss to figure out a way to match Madoff’s fabulous double-digit returns by figuring out how Madoff did it. But that proved much easier said than done:

“I’d say, ‘Hey Harry, how come you can’t run a program like this?,’ ” said Frank Casey, a former Rampart colleague who now runs a consulting firm for hedge fund investors.

For Markopolos, though, it was no joke. Again and again he could not simulate Madoff’s returns, using information he had gathered about Madoff’s trades in stocks and options. Madoff seemed to make money whether stock markets went up or down, a red flag to Markopolos.

“You can’t dominate all markets,” Markopolos said. “You have to have some losses.” Also, Madoff seemed unusually secretive, even to his own clients—another warning sign.

But although Markopolos saw the warning signs—and warned about them—it is curious that so few people understood what he was saying, or what to do about it. Markopolos seems to be an unusually tenacious sort of person, motivated by a sense of fairness and justice, as well as intellectual curiosity and excellent math chops. Unfortunately for him, the nation, and Madoff’s clients, these seem to be rare qualities.

The entire mess reminds me somewhat of the plight of Roger Boisjoly, the man who tried to warn of the problems with the space shuttle’s O-rings in the 80s, to no avail. The result? The Challenger explosion. Boisjoly has spent some time afterwards as a speaker on workplace ethics. Would that the New York SEC office had been on his engagement list.

Inexcusable and irresponsible

The New Neo Posted on by

Obama said it would be “inexcusable and irresponsible” if Congress doesn’t act immediately on his stimulus bill.

On the contrary. It’s “inexcusable and irresponsible” to rush it through without ascertaining whether its provisions are truly designed to stimulate the economy, and without eliminating the Democrat special-interest giveaways sandwiched in among the better proposals in the bill. The American people demand it, and a thoughtful approach requires it.

War on Guantanamo

The New Neo Posted on by

The charges against Cole bombing suspect Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri have been dropped—for now.

It’s certainly not for lack of evidence. It’s due to the fact that President Obama isn’t keen on the way the Bush administration handled those captured in the so-called war on terror, and one of his big campaign promises was to close down Guantanamo and find a different way than military tribunals to try the enemy combatants there. He says he needs time to review all the cases. In order to do that for al-Nashiri, he needed to stop his military trial before it began. This would protect the right to try him later and not violate the double jeopardy law.

Will al-Nashiri ever come to trial? We don’t know. But if he does, it’s a good guess that if Obama has his way it will be in an ordinary court of justice, subject to all the legal protections (and liberal rules of discovery) such a venue guarantees. As an expert on the subject, Andy McCarthy, writes, this would be a very bad idea:

Obama will discover…evidence for his own belief that terrorism cases belong in the civilian justice system, where they were before 9/11. That would be a lamentable outcome. The military commissions have not performed well, but the paradigm of detentions and prosecutions under the laws of war””whether administered by the military or by a new hybrid system with civilian judicial oversight””is essential to our security.

If we go back to a September 10 way of doing things, under which only those who can be convicted under daunting civilian court standards may be detained, we will get September 11 results.

McCarthy, by the way, wrote one of the best articles I’ve ever read on the problems inherent in treating enemy terrorist combatants under our non-military criminal justice system. Here’s an excerpt:

In the constitutional license given to executive action, a gaping chasm exists between the realms of law enforcement and national security. In law enforcement, as former U.S. Attorney General William P. Barr explained in congressional testimony last October, government seeks to discipline an errant member of the body politic who has allegedly violated its rules. That member, who may be a citizen, an immigrant with lawful status, or even, in certain situations, an illegal alien, is vested with rights and protections under the U.S. Constitution. Courts are imposed as a bulwark against suspect executive action; presumptions exist in favor of privacy and innocence; and defendants and other subjects of investigation enjoy the assistance of counsel, whose basic job is to thwart government efforts to obtain information. The line drawn here is that it is preferable for the government to fail than for an innocent person to be wrongly convicted or otherwise deprived of his rights.

Not so the realm of national security, where government confronts a host of sovereign states and sub-national entities (particularly terrorist organizations) claiming the right to use force. Here the executive is not enforcing American law against a suspected criminal but exercising national-defense powers to protect against external threats. Foreign hostile operatives acting from without and within are not vested with rights under the American Constitution. The galvanizing national concern in this realm is to defeat the enemy, and as Barr puts it, “preserve the very foundation of all our civil liberties.” The line drawn here is that government cannot be permitted to fail…

As Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has observed, weakness is provocative. The fecklessness of meeting terrorist attacks with court proceedings””trials that take years to prepare and months to present, and that, even when successful, neutralize only an infinitesimal percentage of the actual terrorist population””emboldened bin Laden. But just as hurtful was the government’s promotion of terrorism trials in the first place. They were a useful vehicle if the strategic object was to orchestrate an appearance of justice being done. As a national-security strategy, they were suicidal, providing terrorists with a banquet of information they could never have dreamed of acquiring on their own.

Under discovery rules that apply to American criminal proceedings, the government is required to provide to accused persons any information in its possession that can be deemed “material to the preparation of the defense” or that is even arguably exculpatory. The more broadly indictments are drawn (and terrorism indictments tend to be among the broadest), the greater the trove of revelation. In addition, the government must disclose all prior statements made by witnesses it calls (and, often, witnesses it does not call).

This is a staggering quantum of information, certain to illuminate not only what the government knows about terrorist organizations but the intelligence agencies’ methods and sources for obtaining that information. When, moreover, there is any dispute about whether a sensitive piece of information needs to be disclosed, the decision ends up being made by a judge on the basis of what a fair trial dictates, rather than by the executive branch on the basis of what public safety demands.

It is true that this mountain of intelligence is routinely surrendered along with appropriate judicial warnings: defendants may use it only in preparing for trial, and may not disseminate it for other purposes. Unfortunately, people who commit mass murder tend not to be terribly concerned about violating court orders (or, for that matter, about being hauled into court at all).

Andrew McCarthy should know. He was the prosecutor for the 1993 WTC bombing case.

The al-Nashiri case isn’t about a suspect being held indefinitely without a trial—al-Nashiri was about to face trial, and now his trial is delayed while he remains imprisioned. But al-Nashiri was apparently subject to the controversial practice known as waterboarding, which could make his confession suspect. He’s certainly pleading that he only spilled the beans because of the waterboarding, and that he takes back his admissions.

Waterboarding was not the basis of the government’s decision to withdraw the charges, though. That had to do with the more general question of how and where these enemy combatants should be tried. At some point Obama will need to make up his mind about that, but that time may be a way off.

In the meantime, how about extraditing al-Nashiri to Yemen, where he already drew the death penalty in 2004 when he was tried in absentia for the Cole bombing?

Bill Gates and his mosquito moment: fighting malaria

The New Neo Posted on by

A showboating Bill Gates caused a momentary flurry of fear when he released a bunch of mosquitoes at the high-powered TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference, indicating to the prestigious movers and shakers he was addressing there that they should get a taste of what it might be like for poor third-world denizens of countries subject to mosquito-borne malaria (“there’s no reason only poor people should get malaria”). After they squirmed a bit, he let them know the mosquitoes weren’t infected.

Funny guy, that Bill. I guess his stunt came under the “entertainment” heading in the TED acronym. Next up on the agenda, no doubt, is a sort of shantytown set up on the grounds of the conference, where the leaders will experience what it’s like to live in hovels with no indoor plumbing.

What’s up with Gates? My guess is that he honed his skills teasing his sisters during his formative years (he’s a middle child and only son, with one older and one younger sister). But whatever the possible deep and murky psychological motivations for his approach, the thrust of his talk itself was to emphasize how many people in Africa still die of the disease, most of them children.

Gates has a plan:

He called for greater distribution of insect nets and other protective gear, and revealed that an anti-malaria vaccine funded by his foundation and currently in development would enter a more advanced testing phase in the coming months.

‘I am an optimist; I think any tough problem can be solved,’ he said.

All are laudable actions and very laudable goals. Funny thing, though; there’s a pretty good approach already for this particular tough problem—if environmentalists would stop discouraging the use of DDT. It’s a very effective means of controlling the insect vector that spreads the disease.

In 2006 WHO lifted its ban on the insecticide, and many believe the substance’s adverse environmental and health effects have been greatly exaggerated. For example, South Africa found that it was a very effective tool in the anti-malaria arsenal, with no seeming ill effects. And, as even this environmental group observes as it reluctantly agrees that wider use of DDT would be a good thing, “we believe that the benefits derived from eliminating malaria through the use of DDT far outweigh any dangers.”

Although I don’t have a full transcript, Gates seems to have ignored the entire question of DDT when addressing the TED crowd. Developing a vaccine is great, but in the meantime DDT would be a good stopgap approach:

Where DDT is used, malaria deaths plummet. Where it is not used, they skyrocket. For example, in South Africa, the most developed nation on the continent, the incidence of malaria had been kept very low (below 10,000 cases annually) by the careful use of DDT. But in 1996 environmentalist pressure convinced program directors to cease using DDT. One of the worst epidemics in the country’s history ensued, with almost 62,00 cases in 2000. Shortly after this peak, South Africa reintroduced DDT. In one year, malaria cases plummented by 80 percent. Next door, in Mozambique, whick doesn’t use DDT, malaria rates remain stratospheric. Similar experiences have been recorded in Zambia and other African countries.

No other chemical comes close to DDT as an affordable, effective way to repel mosquitos from homes, exterminate any that land on walls, and disorient any that are not killed or repelled, largely eliminating their urge to bite in homes that are treated once or twice a year with tiny amounts of this miracle insecticide. For impoverished countries, many of which are struggling to rebuild economies wracked by decades of disease and civil war, cost and effectiveness are critical considerations. For poor African countries, cost alone can be determinative.

Gates is a philanthropist, with a great concern for the poor in Africa. But it’s ironic that he doesn’t seem to be advocating the use of the most effective—and cost-effective—way of combating the problem that we have today, in addition to trying to develop newer and better approaches.