Hiatus

Sorry for the blogging vacation; without going into maudlin detail, there have been a few health issues in the extended family of late, which have combined with the day job to make free time a little less free. Perhaps this week will be less pressing.

Kant, the last Scholastic?

Justo Gonzalez on Albertus Magnus:

Philosophy operates on the basis of autonomous principles, which can be known apart from revelation, and seeks to discover truth by a strictly rational method. A true philosopher does not seek to prove what the mind cannot understand, even if the question at hand is a doctrine of faith. * * *

On the question of the eternity of the world, for instance, Albert frankly confesses that as a philosopher he cannot prove creation out of nothing. At best he can offer arguments of probability. But as a theologian he knows that the world was made out of nothing, and is not eternal. What we have here is a case in which reason cannot attain truth, for the object of inquiry is beyond human reason.

Not much of a step from that to the antinomies. Kant's novelty would seem to be his replacement of "theology" by "practical reason."

Cadavers? Naked women? Electric shocks?

"No bad ideas when you're brainstorming," say the Imagination Movers, but perhaps they weren't thinking of the CIA.

Sunday's WaPo looks at the interrogations of Abu Zubaydah, an article described by Emptywheel as "basically a summary of information already out there, supplemented by one "former US official" involved in the torture discussions who seems prepared to do just what I said--implicate the architects of the torture program."

Actually, if you imagine an equally dense but morally depraved Imagination Movers, in black jumpsuits I guess, that's about the level of thought we applied to the interrogation problem:

Agency officials had no firm notion of what a post-Sept. 11 interrogation of a terrorism suspect should look like.

"It was not a job we sought out," said one former senior intelligence official involved in early decisions on interrogation. "The generals didn't want to do it. The FBI said no. It fell to the agency because we had the [legal] authorities and could operate overseas."

In Mitchell, the CIA found an authoritative professional who had answers, despite an absence of practical experience in interrogating terrorism suspects or data showing that harsh tactics work.

"Here was a guy with a title and a shingle," recalled the participant in the Langley meeting, "and he was saying things that others in the room already believed to be true."

I would take with a grain of salt that part about "FBI said no," btw.

Jack Vance in the New York Times

And it's not his obituary, thank god. The NYT Mag actually has a writeup on Vance, born in 1916 and the last great writer of his great generation. Pretty good, especially in that it actually quotes a bit of his work:

‘I can resolve your perplexity,’ said Fianosther. ‘Your booth occupies the site of the old gibbet, and has absorbed unlucky essences. But I thought to notice you examining the manner in which the timbers of my booth are joined. You will obtain a better view from within, but first I must shorten the chain of the captive erb which roams the premises during the night.’

‘No need,’ said Cugel. ‘My interest was cursory.’

This of course when Cugel is casing the booth. I also liked the author's imagined interview with Vance:

I tried to banish the irrational expectation that Vance and I would exchange Vancian dialogue. Me: “Why did you persist in writing hurlothrumbo romances of the footling sort favored by mooncalfs?” Him: “The question is nuncupatory. I grow weary of your importunities. Begone.”

(Via Bookslut, which in other news tells us, "Raymond Chandler had a cameo in the 1944 film Double Indemnity — and nobody noticed for 65 years." Hidden in plain sight, reading a book.)

AY-yi-YI-yi-YI, as Ricky would say

Political Wire:

Then you would have some 'splaining to do.

-- Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), doing his best Ricky Ricardo impression at Judge Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearing.

Is it possible, do you think, that Senator Coburn simply has never spoken before to a real live Hispanic-American, at least one who wasn't mowing his yard or bringing him salsa?

When I think what strong support the GOP should be able to get from a largely assimilationist, strongly Roman Catholic, entrepreneurial and hardworking minority group, and then see how the GOP has treated the immigration issue and the Sotomayor nomination, I shake my head in wonder at the mysteries of God.

The quest for certainty

Once, after McNamara had rattled off the odds for the success of various military operations -- 65 percent for this one, 30 for that -- [George] Ball had joked that perhaps the figures were actually 64 percent and 29 percent. He saw that such teasing did not amuse the defense secretary.

-- A. J. Langguth, Our Vietnam: The War 1954-1975 at 367.

Sotomayor seems to be an "Annie Hall" fan

Via Yglesias, this is sweet:

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), seeking to discredit Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s judicial philosophy, cited her 2001 “wise Latina” speech, and contrasted the view that ethnicity and sex influence judging with that of Judge Miriam Cedarbaum, who “believes that judges must transcend their personal sympathies and prejudices.”

“My friend Judge Cedarbaum is here,” Sotomayor riposted, to Sessions’ apparent surprise. “We are good friends, and I believe that we both approach judging in the same way, which is looking at the facts of each individual case and applying the law to those facts.”

Cedarbaum agreed.

“I don’t believe for a minute that there are any differences in our approach to judging, and her personal predilections have no effect on her approach to judging,” she told Washington Wire. “We’d both like to see more women on the courts,” she added.

Pretty close to a real-life Marshall McLuhan moment. (And yes, googling up the Wiki link, I found that dKos noted the parallel as well. Originality is fleeting in the Google Age.)

As the article and Yglesias go on to note, Cedarbaum was an especially odd choice for Sessions, since he and she were both nominated at the same time to the federal bench, but his nomination floundered over his kind words for the KKK. Way to transcend there, Jeff.

... I'm not sure what's funnier, Sotomayor's pointing to Judge Cedarbaum, or 10,000 liberals on the internet simultaneously going, "wow, that's just like in Annie Hall!" Probably the latter.

Free-market health care advice: Just die!

Matt Yglesias mocks The Corner (not his biggest challenge of the day, surely):

... Obama’s proposed reforms--unfortunately--wouldn’t actually make American health care much like French health care. That said, the moral of the story is that in France no matter how poor you are, or what pre-existing conditions you have, or what happened to your job amidst the latest recession, or whatever else if you get sick 75 percent of doctors will treat you and the government will pick up the tab. In the conservative free market utopia, as I understand it, what would happen to you is that you would just die.* [...]

*Now in the current American status quo you might be able to sign up for Medicaid (socialism!) or else go to the ER and get some unpaid-for health care once your condition deteriorates enough. But it is worth being clear that the free market solution to someone being poor and sick is for them to die. If you’re too poor for HBO, you go without watching True Blood. If you’re too poor for a MacBook Pro, you make do without one. And if you’re too poor for statins you get a heart attack. And if you’re too poor to get your heart attack treated you die. Whether or not anyone in the United States actually wants to implement such a system isn’t clear to me, but that would be what a free market health care system looked like--like free markets in other things.

Anyone who thinks this an unfair depiction of a certain conservative mindset, should've heard the nice-as-can-be neighbor of mine at the pool on Sunday, who was recounting her argument with some liberal acquaintances on health care. "Sometimes you just die. People die! I mean, I'm a Presbyterian, that's how we think."

She also complained that people without health insurance should just get jobs. TBA placed inter-neighbor amity over making the point that some people work full time without being able to afford health insurance.

From the annals of ill-considered public statements

Quincy Adams relates:

Reportedly, Turkish PM Erdogan has labelled as genocide the recent events in Xinjiang, and the Chinese he demanded he take back his words.

If Erdogan sticks to his guns, he will be a shining example to Western heads of state.

Too much news, too little time

The day job has been rather insistent lately, and there's too much news for a busy person to assimilate.

Last week's Friday afternoon dump was of course the IG report on the secret surveillance program, link via ObWi, where Publius describes how John Yoo gave very good value for being the only OLC lawyer consulted on whether the President could ignore FISA. Good value, that is, for criminal conspirators plotting to abuse OLC's "get out of jail free cards," as I remind a troll here (click only if you need spelled out why Yoo is a bad or dishonest lawyer).

Then there's the secret CIA assassination program, which apparently Cheney told CIA not to trouble Congress's pretty head with. Some background here.

And, widely reported, we have escalating rumors that Eric Holder may actually remember his oath of office and conduct a torture investigation, provided that is that no one significant is actually investigated. But perhaps a special prosecutor, if appointed, would follow the evidence where it leads. Scott Horton rounds up some links and discussion.

TBA notes its disgust with the ability of Axelrod and Emanuel to squash any DOJ investigation. That is not at all materially different from what Rove did for Bush. Political types do not need to be making those calls.

... In less exalted news, the Fifth Circuit reversed a decision against the Republic of Venezuela, whose attorney had apparently agreed to settle claims against Venezuela for $70 million. Venezuela said it had never granted its attorney authority to settle the case. Who was this attorney? Richard F. Scruggs.

(The court doesn't mention Scruggs's recent adventures in court, but its footnote 4 may be taken as a dry acknowledgement that Scruggs's word is not his bond:

According to Scruggs, he was initially “contacted by the Podhurst firm at the request of Venezuela with the request that I seek quick resolution of the money issues” in early September 2005. He further alleges that “the specifics of said [settlement] authority were confirmed through a telephone conference which included members of the Podhurst firm, Aquiles Mendez and me.” Notably, Scruggs does not allege that any member of the Venezuelan government participated in this telephone conference or directly contacted him regarding a settlement. Moreover, Podhurst attorney Marks disputes Scruggs’ version of events. According to Marks, “while there may have been a misunderstanding with Mr. Scruggs concerning the discussions that he was to pursue directly . . . , I was never given authority to settle the case on solely monetary terms and do not believe that I provided such authority to Mr. Scruggs.” Based on our review of the record, no individual has corroborated Scruggs’ claim that he received express permission to settle the dispute.

Some of us would expect to get something in writing before giving away $70 million of our client's money ... but not Dickie. Who, btw, sued Venezuela for his attorney fees as well.)

Canon-bashing bashed

Via Bookslut, which lavishly praises this literature site The Second Pass, we find their list of books that ought to be ditched from The Canon. I'm willing to grant that White Noise, however amusing, is overrated (though judging whether it's "funny" by whether there are any "laughs" suggests a level of appreciation better suited to Jim Carrey movies than to literature). And I haven't read some of the titles. But some of the criticisms are just absurd.

Absalom, Absalom!: "festering bushels of dud coinages, Biblical bluster, and diarrheal sentences that do nothing but draw attention to their over-toasted ornamentation." Oh wait, the book sounds like Faulkner. Having read aloud a good portion of AA, I can say that Faulkner's prose works if you will listen to it rather than skim it. And the trivial "what it's about" misses completely the book's overarching subject, the South's original sin of slavery and the corruption it worked. Sounding like a bored freshman frat-rat is not the way to criticize Faulkner's masterpiece.

The Rainbow: Not enough sex, but "a long section on the early marital squabbles of young Will and Anna Brangwen, 40 pages in which the two struggle and storm within themselves and almost nothing actually happens. In the rest of the book, which spans some 65 years, other characters make their way onstage to storm and struggle and do next to nothing." Good lord. Lawrence breaks into his characters' souls and lays out on his page levels of emotion and conflict that a century of Victorian novelists scarcely guessed at, and we are told that nothing happens. Guess what: if you have no feelings and no soul, nothing will ever happen to you, no matter what you do or whom you fuck.

Jacob's Room: Whoever gave them the idea that Jacob's Room was in The Canon in the first place? Did they think that was an automatic result of being published in Penguin Classics? The book is a fairly dreary experiment with stream-of-consciousness after the tedious social-comedy realism of Night and Day, and a journeyman's labor that set up Woolf for her real additions to the canon, Dalloway - Lighthouse - Waves. It's like they wanted to bash some Woolf novel and this is the one they found bashable.

Obama's surveillance program

His eyes are everywhere!

(Gotta say, I'm glad not to be surrounded by cameras catching every time that my eyes are lured astray by a passing female.)

Terrorism is a crime -- treat it like one.

Mark Kleiman thinks that Glenn Greenwald has his panties in a wad over the "preventive detention" of Taliban/Qaeda members:

Whether someone has committed war crimes, and can be proven to have committed them beyond reasonable doubt under the rules of evidence that apply in a criminal trial, is one question. Whether he's a fighter for the other side in a war is a completely different question. Someone can be innocent of any war crime and still be an enemy fighter.

The basic rule of criminal justice is "innocent until proven guilty." The basic rule about prisoners of war is that combatants can be held as long as the conflict lasts.

This works for the Taliban, not so much for al-Qaeda, it seems to me. Kleiman:

Arguably it was criminal to be a member of al-Qaeda, which was an organization devoted to mass murder, but proving membership and the requisite scienter (that he knew, or had reason to know, what his group was up to) with respect to any given individual might be hard, for example if the evidence is tainted by torture.

I think membership at least creates a presumption of criminal intent. It's like saying I joined the Mafia but didn't know it was criminal.

Kleiman may hamper himself here by his "devoted to mass murder," which is more than needs to be proved. In an update, he writes:

Al-Qaeda isn't the army of any state, or of an insurgency that is trying to take over any state. But it is an entity devoted to carrying out attacks on both civilian targets (which is, generally, a war crime) and military targets such as the USS Cole (which is not, generally, a war crime, though al-Qaeda's lack of uniforms, a formal command structure, and a government to report back to may make even its attacks on military targets unlawful). Al-Qaeda has been waging war on the United States at least since 1998. That, too, might end, though only if al-Qaeda ceased to exist as an organized entity.

Here, Kleiman correctly notes that al-Qaeda has been engaged in bad acts for quite a while, and with some reputation for doing so. But he goes off the rails on his framing of the issue in military terms.

Al-Qaeda was a criminal organization. It's theoretically possible for us to come to peace with the Taliban and to release its soldiers in our custody. But what would "peace with al-Qaeda" look like? Can we sign a peace treaty with the Mafia? Could we have signed one with Timothy McVeigh?

Joining a terrorist organization is a crime (just ask Jose Padilla) and can be punished as a crime. If we have prisoners who are thought to be members of al-Qaeda, then let's put them on trial. But if we have people whom we just kinda *think* might be terrorists, that's not good enough.

... Deborah Pearlstein has some good thoughts on the subject.

"It's very powerful, this Allspark."

Unfortunately for me, I can attest that this Transformers 2 "FAQ"/review is completely accurate in every detail.

(Hey, it was the 14YO's birthday, and his mother took him to the last one. What was I gonna say? "Get some fucking taste, kid"?)

Maybe he should assign a final paper instead

TPM notes that Alberto Gonzales has a job lined up at Texas Tech -- in poli sci, not law, ha ha -- and passes along this reader comment:

Please tell me there's at least one Texas Tech political science student with the guts to answer "I do not recall" to every test question. Maybe even "I do not recall remembering."

Worth the F, I'd say.