Wrong. Just Wrong.

What in the name of God is wrong with Florida?

Alligators have clashed with nonnative pythons before in Everglades National Park. But when a 6-foot gator tangled with a 13-foot python recently, the result wasn’t pretty.

The snake apparently tried to swallow the gator whole — and then exploded. Scientists stumbled upon the gory remains last week.

“They were probably evenly matched in size,” Mazzotti said of the latest battle. “If the python got a good grip on the alligator before the alligator got a good grip on him, he could win.”

While the gator may have been injured before the battle began — wounds were found on it that apparently were not caused by python bites — Mazzotti believes it was alive when the battle began. And it may have clawed at the python’s stomach as the snake tried to digest it, leading to the blow up.

The python was found with the gator’s hindquarters protruding from its midsection. Its stomach still surrounded the alligator’s head, shoulders, and forelimbs. The remains were discovered and photographed Sept. 26 by helicopter pilot and wildlife researcher Michael Barron.

In the interest of good taste, I’ll refrain from displaying the picture on this blog. For those with strong stomachs and freakish urges, click here.

Something this hideous can only by Jeb Bush’s fault.

Hockey Blogging: It’s Not Just For Michael Berube Anymore…

Ah, Opening Night, and it is with both pride and sorrow that I note that the noblest franchise in sports has been, somewhat shockingly, picked by Sports Illustrated as the #1 team in the league. Whether I would go that far I don’t know, but they have 1)the best player in the league, 2)excellent goaltending, 3)the best defense corps in the conference (although Regehr’s injury is a concern), and 4)several forwards with the wheels to take advantage of the new rules. Oh yeah–the new rules. I would say that I like get rid of the two-line pass, am fine with the rules restricting goaltenders, and hate the shootout, although at least it goes away in the playoffs. (Seriously, I don’t mean to knock soccer–I’m sure I would be a fan if I lived in most other countries–but there are distinct upper limits of respect I can have for a sport that allows its most prestigious events to be decided by shootouts, which is just abominable. It’s like playing 10 innings of Game 7 of the World Series, and then just deciding the thing with a home run derby.)

Alas, being picked by SI as a league’e best team is a serious problem–ask the 1987 Indians.

When I was looking up the odds for my baseball picks, I notice that the Vegas favorite to lead the league in scoring is none other than the tanned, rested, and beautifully named Mario Lemieux. Granting that he’s one of the best ever and the Pittsburgh offense looks pretty stacked, “sucker bet” seems too generous…

And It’s Not Just Frum…

You would like to think that the patently untrue assertion that Bush v. Gore was a 7-2 decision (the first one in history, apparently, with 4 dissenters who did not join any part of a majority or concurring opinion) would be limited to particularly dishonest conservative hacks trying to deny the self-evidently partisan nature of the decision. But the Con Law casebook I used to use made the same claim (although I haven’t checked the new edition yet.) Ugh. I mean, I can understand a reporter in the immediate aftermath of the decision making that mistake, but after you have time to look at it, it’s just a question of being able to count. (And as iocaste notes, it’s not even true in any informal sense; “there is an equal protection problem so…we’ll just shut it down and go with a count that by our own logic is just as flawed as the one we’re saying is unconstitutional” is an entirely different position from “there is an equal protection problem so let’s send it back to the Florida Courts so they can supervise a constitutional recount,” and it’s ridiculous to pretend otherwise.)

…UPDATE: I notice that the new edition of O’Brien does claim that the equal protection claim was “upheld by a vote of 7-2 [my emphasis].” So I will continue to boycott it when I teach the “organizing government” Con Law class…

Avian Influenza

1918 Spanish Influenza? The one that killed between 20 and 40 million people, including almost a million Americans? Turns out that it was bird flu. Very similar, in fact, to the type of avian flu that we’ve been seeing recently in Vietnam and China.

In short, the bird flu is always present among birds. Sometimes it spreads to people, with devastating results. What made 1918 so bad was that the flu mutated such that it could jump from person to person, rather than from bird to person.

Interestingly enough, scientists were able to resurrect the virus because of Abraham Lincoln.

It had seemed hopeless, though, to discover what that virus looked like. Viruses had not been discovered in 1918 and so no one had isolated and saved the one causing that flu. But Dr. Taubenberger recalled that his institute had a warehouse of autopsy tissue, established by President Abraham Lincoln, who had ordered that every time a military doctor examined a patient and took a tissue sample, a sample must also be sent to and stored at the pathology institute. Dr. Taubenberger wondered if he could find lung tissue from soldiers who died of the 1918 flu and, if so, if he could extract the virus.

This is the big one that health security professionals worry about. Even though I’m not the sort to be afraid of military intervention in US politics, I’m not convinced that this is a good idea; I doubt very much that a tight enough quarantine could be established to justify all the shooting of panicked people that would almost certainly happen.

Good Boy!

Shorter Fred Barnes: If it feels this good being used, you can keep on using me until you use me up.

This article does tell us what Bush’s strategy of invoking the Souter bogeyman by reassuring people that she “won’t change” may prove to be very effective. While I’m happy for conservatives to believe this, I think this is an odd misunderstanding of the “problem” (from their perspective) with Souter. He has, perhaps, changed a little bit in his tenure on the Court, as he has further grappled with federal constitutional issues. But, really, I don’t think he’s changed to any significant degree. Souter has always been an incrementalist moderate like his hero, the second Justice Harlan; there was never any chance he was going to start voting to routinely overturn popular decades-old precedents. (And, of course, Harlan thought that the Connecticut ban on contraception was the most flagrantly unconstitutional law he had seen in his time on the bench, and he wrote what some people consider to be the most powerful case for its unconstitutionality. I don’t think there’s any evidence that Souter ever opposed the Griswold/Roe line of cases.) And, of course, Casey came after Souter had been on the bench for less than 3 years–how much can you “evolve” over that time? The problem with Souter, if you’re a reactionary, is not that he changed but that he never agreed with you in the first place, and this the danger of appointing judges with little track record in federal constitutional cases. There are certainly instances of judges changing over time–Blackmun certainly did. But, again, with respect to the case Blackmun is most famous for, I don’t think there was significant “evolution”; if there’s any evidence that he ever thought that a blanket bans on abortion was constitutional, I haven’t seen it. It’s not that Nixon screwed up, it’s that–like, I suspect, the first Bush, who was a pro-choicer until he ran for president–he didn’t particularly care about abortion. Which is why 3 of Nixon’s 4 appointees voted with the Roe majority, and Rehnquist apparently dissented because he’s generally unsympathetic to individual rights claims, not out of any particular affinity with the pro-life cause.

None of this is to compare Miers to Souter. First of all, the latter is a Rhodes Scholar and a very scholarly man who had served on New Hampshire’s Supreme Court (and as its Attorney General), and also had served (albeit briefly) in federal appellate court; it’s frankly outrageous that some people are comparing the two in terms of credentials. And it’s a good bet that Miers will prove to be significantly more conservative. But about how she’ll rule in any particular case, nobody knows, and not knowing can cut both ways.

Defining Qualifications Down

Belle Waring finds this gem from “The American Thinker(sic),” approved as “persuasive” by Glenn Reynolds:

As the court’s new junior member, the 60 year old lady Harriet Miers will finally give a break to Stephen Breyer, who has been relegated to closing and opening the door of the conference room, and fetching beverages for his more senior Justices. Her ability to do this type of work with no resentment, no discomfort, and no regrets will at the least endear her to the others. It will also confirm her as the person who cheerfully keeps the group on an even keel, more comfortable than otherwise might be the case with a level of emotional solidarity.

But there is much more to it than group solidarity, important though that ineffable spiritual qualty may be. Ms. Miers embodies the work ethic as few married people ever could. She reportedly often shows up for work at the White House at 5 AM, and doesn’’t leave until 9 or 10 PM. I have no doubt that she will continue her extraordinary dedication to work once confirmed to the Court. She will not only win the admiration of those Justices who work shorter hours, she will undoubtedly be appreciated by the law clerks who endure similar hours, working on the research and writing for the Justices. These same law clerks interact with their bosses in private, and their influence intellectual and emotional may be more profound than some Justices might like to admit.

So, Harriet Miers is qualified for the Supreme Court because 1)she was willing to bring pastry to Sunday School, and 2)she works hard. Of course, by these criteria a fairly large percentage of the country is qualified to sit on the Supreme Court–think how qualified she would be if she would only pet kittens and say nice things about babies on a regular basis!–but since I don’t have an MBA I guess I don’t understand these strategic complexities.

And even Reynolds isn’t buying this claim that because Robert Jackson didn’t have a law degree, Harriet Miers must therefore be well-qualified. (Incidentally, like Mark Tushnet I’m not really inclined to go along with the idealization of Jackson that seems to permeate these debates, although I guess that’s a subject for another post.)

Reputation and Terror

Bill Petti of Duck of Minerva writes the post on reputation that I’ve been planning to write for some time. In short, the Norm Podhoretz justification for the War on Iraq (we needed to fight it in order to demonstrate resolve, because terrorists respect resolve) depends heavily on a deeply compromised theory of reputation. It assumes that other will understand our actions in the same way that we do and will react to them in the ways that we would. I also wrote about it here.

The first big problem with fighting a war for a reputation is that actions do not speak for themselves, and do not always tell the same story. Consider, for example, the reputational impact of the Vietnam War. Did our involvement there indicate to our friends and enemies that we were weak, irresolute, and could be defeated given sufficient investment? Did it indicate that we were tough, bullheaded, and willing to expend massive blood and treasure for a strategically useless patch of ground? Or did it indicate that we were dumb enough to be lured into stupid wars that would cost lots of money and kill lots of people?

The answer, of course, is all three. Like the Gulf War, or the US experiences in Somalia or Lebanon, the Vietnam War does not offer clear, unambiguous lessons. Different people learn different things, and they most often learn what they want to believe. Fighting a war for reputation, to the extent that Iraq fits this mold, is pointless because we cannot control how others understand our actions.

The second big problem is that, even if you buy that our reputation is under our control, the reputational argument justifies all wars at all times. A theory of warfighting or of intervention only works if it discriminates. That is, some wars must be a good idea at some times, and other wars must be unwise. This is why pacifism fails as a theory of intervention; all wars are bad all the time. The reputational argument tells us that all of our commitments are interconnected (somebody is always watching, trying to tell whether our resolution is flagging), and thus that perceived weakness in one area will lead to real weakness in other areas. It follows that appearing weak in any circumstance could be disastrous. This leads to a situation in which the actual issues at stake in a conflict (oil, democracy, human rights) are secondary to the forthright conduct of the conflict itself. Perversely, conflicts that involve virtually no vital interests become the most critical, because they most clearly demonstrate our resolve (if we can show the enemy that we’ll fight for worthless territory occupied by people we don’t like, then they’ll know we REALLY mean business).

The best that can be said for Podhoretz, Cheney, and their ilk is that they at least have a theory about how the other side thinks and why the other side acts. Were we to listen to Chris Hitchens, we would discard even these limited efforts at understanding the enemy. For Hitch, asking why terrorists do what they do is akin to excusing their actions. Hitch would discard even the old “terrorists only understand force” line in his effort to track down suspect leftists.

The Bill O’Reilly comedy hour

Frustrated by Cano’s three run double, I flip to Fox News in disgust. (I know, I know). I stick around for a few minutes of O’Reilly’s “the blogs! they’re eeeeeevil!” His guests: An American Spectator buffoon who can commiserate about how difficult it is to live in a world in which people (some of whom may be affiliated with George Soros!) record what you actually say. The other guest is some guy named David Kline, on to promote his book about blogs. O’Reilly is on a roll blathering on about how all the big lefty bloggers (and Michael Moore!) think George Bush orchestrated the 9-11 attacks personally, and Kline, trying jump in on the “those kwaaazy internet nuts” bandwagon, says some thing to the effect of “And some of the bloggers seemed to think the Clintons had Vince Foster killed!” O’Reilly made a verbal gesture of agreement, and quickly moved on to a new question, but for a split second the look on his face said it all. Let’s step into our time machine and revisit the heady days of December 1999, when beating DOA conspiracy theories about the Clintons with a bloody 2×4 just a little bit harder than those MSM wussies was what made Fox News so special. That well known Clinton co-conspirator Ken Starr was trying to dodge the topic. Here’s our Bill:

O’REILLY: Now, some of your investigators have told us off the record that they believe Vince Foster did not commit suicide and that your office was not aggressive enough in investigating the Vince Foster situation. How do you reply?
STARR: Bill, you didn’t get that from my investigators. I don’t know who you got it from.
O’REILLY: I did.
STARR: Oh, I –
O’REILLY: I did.
STARR: They — they did not think that –
O’REILLY: I got it from one of your investigators, I have to tell you. I would never say an untruth on this program.
STARR: All right. OK. All right. Let me just say this.
O’REILLY: Go ahead.
STARR: We looked at every aspect of that invest — of that death, and we came unanimously — those of us involved in it, so I will look forward to finding out who this person was.

Grade Complaints

Scott’s post on grade complaints gives me the excuse I need to post this:

But I need this grade to a) keep my scholarship, b) get into law school, c) get into business school, d) get into grad school.

Ideal Response: Really? If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have given you a 2.4. . .

Actual Response: The good people at Yale Law have accorded me a sacred trust. I would be violating that trust if I allowed someone like you to enter their program.

But how do you know it’s a 3.2? Why not a 3.3 or a 3.4?

Ideal Response: You’re right. Because the system of evaluation is ambiguous, there’s no real reason to give you this grade.

Actual Response: Why not a 3.1? Or a 3.0? Or a 2.4?

You don’t like this paper because you’re a a) Republican, b) Democrat, c) Realist, d) Marxist, e) Liberal, f) Asshole.

Ideal Response: Clearly, my ideological preconceptions have clouded my evaluation of this paper. Let me give it a higher grade.

Actual Response: This might be a problem if your argument was coherent enough for me to understand and disagree with. . .

But I really feel like I worked hard enough to get a higher grade.

Ideal Response: Well, if you really worked that hard, I guess that you should get a higher grade.

Actual Response: Really? Well, you’ve discovered that hard work does not unproblematically transform itself into good results. Congratulations.

But I studied with a) Joe, b) Stephanie, c) Bill, d) Tracy, e) six other people, and he/she/they got a different grade.

Ideal Response: I see. Well, let me raise your grade to that standard, just for the sake of consistency.

Actual Response: Hmm, you’re right. I’ll have to reduce their grades accordingly.

But I’ve never been given a grade below a)3.7, b)3.8, c)3.9 before in my life!!

Ideal Response: Obviously your other professors are more clear-headed than I. Let me adjust your grade upwards.

Actual Response: Well, there’s a first time for everything, I guess. Everyone has a lowest grade ever. . .

But you don’t understand that I a) work 60 hours a week, b) am taking 28 credits this term, c) volunteer for my church, d) captain the Crew team, e) am a state senator, and therefore don’t have time to work as much on this as I otherwise might.

Ideal Response: Well, given that you work so hard in every other part of your life, I don’t see how I can object to giving you a higher grade.

Actual Response: I understand that you’re busy, but I can’t give you credit for work that you don’t do. Everyone has to juggle responsibilities. Learning how to do that is part of your education.

I see your point, but what I meant to say was. . .

Ideal Response: Well, if that’s what you meant to say. . .

Actual Response: I can’t grade based on intentions, or on my beliefs about your knowledge, only on what you actually give me. Next time, say what you meant to say.

Grade Complaints

An old-skool response, which I mean as praise…

"He says he’s fine"

Hmm.

Matt Clement
Pre All Star Break: 3.87 ERA, 97 K, 35 BB
Post All Star Break: 5.72 ERA, 49 K, 35 BB

Not good.

The Conservative Race Contradiction

I notice that Atrios just linked to it, which makes my link somewhat pointless, but there is one element of Roy’s extremely persuasive critique of Bill Bennett that’s worth highlighting:

The actually offensive part of Bennett’s statement was his assertion that mass black fetuscide would, of necessity, cause crime to drop. Bennett’s defenders do not dispute this idea — in fact, they appear to consider it beyond dispute.

It’s strange that so many public intellectuals think the condition of black folks will not improve in another generation. In a way I am more surprised by the conservatives than by the eventheliberals. We are constantly assured by them that Iraq will swiftly improve, indeed, will soon flower into an oasis of democracy. If that shitstorm can subside, why not black crime stats?

Right. The assumption made by liberal like Yglesias or DeLong that crime rates will be higher among African-Americans in the next generation can be easily explained by the assumption of most progressives that 1)racism remains a stubborn problem, especially where criminal justice is concerned, and 2)even is individual prejudice and the worst formal inequalities are lessened, the structural effects of racism persist. But conservatives, of course, generally disagree with these premises. At any rate, conservatives who defend Bennett’s premises have two options:

1)They can believe that black people are inherently more likely to commit crimes. (Or, in other words, they are racists.)

2)They can concede that the general conservative dismissal of the continuing importance of racism–whether direct or structural–is wrong.

There is no third option.