7.2.04

Bush's Weapon Of Kerry Destruction

There's been some speculation about whether President Bush will come out strongly in favor of the Federal Marriage Amendment, now that the Massaschusetts SJC has ruled that full-fledged gay marriage is the only acceptable choice. I think that, strategically speaking, Bush would be a fool not to campaign hard on the FMA.

In one fell swoop, he would shore up his wavering base of support among social conservatives. The people who were feeling unenthused about a second Bush term because of his big government boondoggles like the Medicare bill, the deficit, and the Mars mission will fall into line once he offers them a big government regulation they like. Indeed, it will not only make them favor Bush, but it will make them get excited about promoting his candidacy. On the other side, I doubt he'll lose many swing voters over it. While swing voters may be uneasy about the drastic measure of amending the Constitution, gay rights isn't a major issue for them. It won't be the last straw that pushes them over into the Democrat's camp. They may even admire Bush for at least being unequivocal about where he stands and not trying to waffle and have it both ways.

The FMA will also reinforce the main slams against John Kerry. Kerry is said to be an elitist New Englander, out of touch with the values of the real Americans in the south and west. This is consonant with the charge that same-sex marriage is being foisted upon us by elitist judges. Being from Massachusetts -- where the offending court is -- won't help him, either. If Kerry takes the morally right stance and comes out in favor of same-sex marriage, he'll dig his own political grave. If he comes out in favor of the FMA, he'll still get attacked as if he opposed it because of his vote against the Defense of Marriage Act, and have to face the additional charges of flip-flopping and pandering. The most likely course is that he'll say "I'm against same-sex marriage, but I'm also against bigotry and against the FMA." This position doesn't distill into a simple sound bite, and will lead to the same sort of accusations that he got hit with for his "nuanced" position on the Iraq war.
Stentor Danielson, 11:28,

Monkey Culture

No real comment, except to say this is really cool. It also reminds me of a paper I did on baboons for 10th grade biology. I recall being impressed by their social organization.

"Hot Tub Monkeys" Offer Eye on Nonhuman "Culture" When Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) began receiving food handouts more than 50 years ago? freeing them from the daily grind of foraging for food?they invented "cultural activities" to fill their newly acquired leisure time, researchers say. ... Many cultural differences, independent of human interference, have been observed between monkey troops living around Japan. The troops differ in eating habits; for instance, monkeys in some regions eat bird's eggs. Social behaviors between macaques from disparate regions also vary; only in some troops do males engage in paternal care for infants. In other troops social rank is sharply defined; males behave more aggressively towards one another. ... "Stone handling [playing games with stones] is particularly fascinating because it doesn't seem to have any function, it doesn't seem like a useful thing to do, so it is more convincing that this behavior is being passed on through social learning," said Andrew Whiten, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

Stentor Danielson, 01:43,

Political Ecology Of Malaria

John Quiggin has posted several times recently about DDT, specifically the controversy over restricting its use because of its ecological impacts versus using it to combat malaria (he summarizes his view, which strikes me as reasonable, here). He also points to a letter from The Australian in response to the attempt to blame environmentalists for deaths due to malaria. What caught my attention was this paragraph:

Malaria is a major, ongoing disease problem in much of the developing world. Increases in the incidence of the disease have occurred for complex reasons. Reduced insecticide usage is one, but others include the resistance to treatment in both the parasite and the mosquito vectors, changes in land use that have provided new mosquito habitat, and the movement of people into new, high-risk areas.

I did some brief searching around to find out what these land use changes were. It looks like there are two major factors:

1. Expansion of intensive rice cultivation. Water is a breeding ground for mosquitoes, so irrigation -- especially when water isn't used efficiently and is allowed to sit on the land -- encourages increases in their population. The expansion of irriation is driven by devlopment projects that seek to "modernize" third world farmers' practices, often including large capital investment schemes such as building dams to provide the irrigation water. These sorts of projects generally do raise agricultural yields, but at the expense of undermining local strategies for coping with risk (for example, by undercutting women's traditional de facto rights and powers) and making people more vulnerable. The malaria factor seems to add to the problem.

2. Dense forests. For the most part, malaria is a forest disease. Mosquitoes like puddles in the forest. Colonial and postcolonial land management in the third world has tended to promote the persistence of patches of dense forest by favoring a strong distinction between natural land (often fenced off into parks and reserves) and used land (where cultivation is intensified). This cuts down on human disturbance of the forest through swidden agriculture and surface fires that open up the understory. For the people who live near these now less managed forests, the malaria risk is increased.
Stentor Danielson, 00:57,

6.2.04

Mandatory Voting

PinkDreamPoppies suggests a number of reforms that might improve the American electoral system. Some are no-brainers that will never get passed, like eliminating the electoral college and instant-runoff voting. Others I'm not so sure about -- for example, mandatory voting. I'm against mandatory voting primarily because I see it as an act of responsibility to stay home on election day if you don't know enough to cast an intelligent vote. If nothing else, it saves society the cost of all those people taking the time and gas to go to the polling station and cast a meaningless vote. I certainly don't buy PDP's idea that benefitting from government services implies a responsibility to contribute to the system at the ballot box -- taxes and obeying the laws seem sufficient reciprocation.

One additional argument that I initially thought weighed against mandatory voting was the effect of get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts. In the present American system, because people have the option of staying home, candidates have to invest effort not only in making people prefer them over their opponent, but in making people care enough to show up to vote. This can help keep parties loyal to their base, because if they focus too much on the center, the base may figure it doesn't matter who wins and stay home. But if the government is doing the work of GOTV, candidates can count on their base to see them as the lesser of two evils. Further, they don't have to inspire people, to create the (granted, usually fraudulent) image that they can bring big and meaningful change to the cynical ways of politics as usual.

On the other hand, mandatory voting would also stifle efforts designed to depress voter turnout. Often politicians will make the race as cynical as possible in the hopes of turning off most voters, if they calculate that smaller turnout would be beneficial because the more committed voters lean differently than the larger population.

The effect would be somewhat nullified if we accepted PinkDreamPoppies' additional suggestion of allowing a vote for "nobody." It wouldn't be quite the same, though, because the cost of picking a real candidate versus voting "nobody" is equal, the cost of picking a real candidate over staying home is significant, and thus the threshold of caring is shifted. If people have to be there anyway, they're more likely to figure they might as well pick the guy with the nicer haircut. Voting "nobody" is more symbolically meaningful, and thus less likely to be done out of apathy, than just not bothering to show up -- indeed, that's the reason many people want the "nobody" option. Incidentally, I would think that an instant runoff system that allowed "nobody" votes (or any instant runoff system) should allow as many "nobody" votes as you want. So for example, you could say "I prefer Nader, second choice Gore, and if neither of them cross the threshold throw my vote out" instead of being forced to say "I prefer Nader, second choice Gore, third choice Bush, fourth choice Buchanan" and get stuck contributing to the Bush vs. Buchanan battle if they turned out to be the last two remaining.
Stentor Danielson, 13:58,

5.2.04

Kennewick Man

Kennewick Man Can Be Studied, Court Rules Scientists may study the Kennewick Man -- 9,200-year-old remains found in Washington state -- despite the objections of some American Indian tribes, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. Northwestern tribes consider the bones sacred and want to bury them. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit agreed with a lower court that found that federal grave-protection law does not apply because there is no evidence connecting the remains with any existing tribe.

I lean toward the tribes' side on this issue, on the grounds of restoring confidence between archaeologists and Native Americans. But I think the worst damage is done not by who gets to keep the bones in the end, but by the fact that it had to be settled in an adversarial courtroom process.

The court case seems to confirm the tribes' underlying fears about what the issue means. They have an understandable concern that archaeologists are trying to appropriate the status of legitimate interpreters of their heritage. This was amplified in the Kennewick case by the fact that the skeleton didn't look like modern Native Americans -- it looked, according to early reports, like a white person (Patrick Stewart to be exact). While scientists have backed off the use of the word "caucasoid" and the related implication that Kennewick man is non-Indian (and perhaps the tribes will be pleasantly surprised at the final scientific verdict), in the public imagination the idea constitutes a threat to radically change the perception of Native American history and legitimacy. The court ruling relied on Western-scientific ideas of what constituted a relationship between the skeleton and the tribes, rather than the tribes' judgement of what is culturally significant. The tribes' position is doubtless politically motivated, as a win in the Kennewick case would have created a strong legal precedent for their control over the past.
Stentor Danielson, 18:12,

4.2.04

Ohio Legislature Votes To Ban Same-Sex Unions The Ohio Legislature gave final approval on Tuesday to one of the most sweeping bans on same-sex unions in the country, galvanized by court rulings in Canada and Massachusetts that have declared gay marriage to be legal. ... In approving the measure, the Republican-controlled Legislature rejected concerns raised by some of the state's largest corporations and colleges, including Ohio State University, that the ban would hurt the state's business image and undermine their ability to recruit skilled workers. Supporters of the bill, which passed overwhelmingly in the House but on a closer vote in the Senate, argued that the measure was not meant to be discriminatory, but reflected their conviction — borne out by some polls — that most people wanted marriage defined in the traditional sense: as between a man and a woman. That desire has intensified, they said, in the months since courts in Massachusetts and Canada ruled that gays should be allowed to marry.

So their rationale is "we aren't discriminating, we're just respecting the will of the discriminatory people." Way to pass the buck.

I also find it interesting that the pro-gay argument was framed as a business issue, not a civil rights issue. On the one hand, that framing has the potential to be more effective given that Republicans are pro-business, so it may convince those with stronger libertarian and crony capitalist leanings, while giving rhetorical cover to those who already want to vote against the ban but don't want to anger their constituents. On the other hand, it doesn't squarely address the cultural question, implicitly ceding the point that ceteris paribus the traditional familiy is better, arguing that ceteris-not-paribus it's a sacrifice we should be willing to make.

This article also contains an interesting response to the argument that the Federal Marriage Amendment is a betrayal of conservative federalist principles. Apparently it's pro-gay people's fault for turning it into a federal case:

"The homosexual community has raised the issue and pushed it to the point that it has become a national issue," said State Senator William J. Knight, a Republican from Southern California who opposes gay marriage. "The issue is here to stay, until and unless the federal government addresses it."

Stentor Danielson, 13:22,

3.2.04

Trust Fund Fraud Down Under

Aborigines Rorted Of Millions Of Dollars Tens of millions of dollars may have been kept from indigenous people in NSW and some funds may have been stolen by public servants, according to a report prepared for state cabinet. A draft report - dated April 12, 2001, and prepared for cabinet by the former community services minister Faye Lo Po' - says state governments appeared to have deliberately resisted returning money from trust funds to its rightful owners. ...Many did not know the money existed and up to 11,500 could be eligible for payments. An analysis by the accounting firm Ernst & Young estimates the Government could be liable for between $11.8 million and $69.4 million. ... In the report, Ms Lo Po' wrote that records of the funds - held by Treasury and the Department of Community Services - were so appalling that any claims made by indigenous people ought to be believed on face value.

Wow. The parallels with the case of the Native American trust fund in the US are striking. The biggest difference, it seems, is in the origin of the money. In the US, Native ownership of large areas of land was theoretically recognized even though control rested with the federal government, so the trust fund money came from royalties from ranching, mining, and so forth on nominally Native land. In Australia, however, terra nullius was the law of the land up until 1992, so there would have been no reason for revenues from crown lands to be earmarked for Aboriginal groups. The Australian funds came from non-land sources such as "pensions, child endowment, compensation payments, apprentices' wages and inheritances". This means the environmental element of the situation is separated out for Australia.
Stentor Danielson, 14:37,

2.2.04

A Democratic George Bush?

My cynical side is showing in my latest contribution to Open Source Politics: Bush Is Gone -- Now What?
Stentor Danielson, 12:06,

More Edwards

I felt a connection with Howard Dean over his stinginess. Now I feel a connection with John Edwards over his security experiences:

Edwards's Pocketknife Seized At Airport Senator John Edwards of North Carolina had a penknife confiscated Saturday as part of a stepped up security search that caused a one-hour delay for the Democratic presidential candidate and others boarding his chartered plane. ... A small knife was confiscated from Mr. Edwards's luggage. "It was a pocketknife," he said. "I didn't even know it was there." Mr. Edwards said he was told it would be returned to him later. -- via Pandagon

They didn't return my knife. Presidential candidates get all kinds of perks.
Stentor Danielson, 12:05,

1.2.04

Foolish Questions

Edwards Rules Out Vice-President Role Senator John Edwards, who trails in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, categorically rejected today the possibility of becoming the vice-presidential running-mate to front-runner John Kerry. Asked how he would respond if party leaders implored him to take the second spot on the Democratic ticket to his Senate colleague from Massachusetts, Edwards told CBS television: "I will say no." "To bring the change that I believe needs to be brought to this country ... I need to be president of the United States. That's what this is about for me," said Edwards, 50, who has won praise for his warm campaign demeanor.

Why would you bother asking a candidate whether they'd accept the #2 spot? Of course they're going to say no, because saying yes requires them to address the possibility that they may lose -- something that no candidate will do until their concession speech. Further, if Edwards had said yes, that would have weakened his support, because people would feel like they had the "safety net" of getting him to be vice-president even if he didn't win. The most this reporter did was to make it harder for Edwards to take the vice president nomination because he was forced to go on record declining it.
Stentor Danielson, 21:59,