Polis Under Construction

Talkorgins.org, U. of Berkeley, and the National Academy of Sciences has put together what they title “A Survey of Public Understanding of Evolution.”  It’s quick, easy, and offers the possibilty of a look at the data when it’s all wrapped up.  Go to it.

I’ve noticed murmurs for a while that the major problem faced was public perception/inaccurate conceptions of evolution; this looks to be the newest way to respond.

I’ve been blogging, off and on, for a while now.  I enjoy it a lot; it’s great to put words out there, find little pieces of information, and watch people flock to them.  There’s a reason I keep coming back.  Of course, there’s a reason I keep leaving as well.

I’ve tried several times.  Originally, I treated it as an anonymous, personal space.  I mixed anecdotes and subtle references to offline friends with generic political opinion.  It was fun, but it didn’t really keep me interested.  It takes a certain level of arrogance to think that others want to know your minutiae, and political opinion is easy to find online.

So I tried again.  I’m fascinated by politics, especially on a macro level, and the interactions it has with society.  I stripped out a lot of personal navel gazing and dug for stories that seemed to receive less attention, looking for patterns.  The series of public protests that occurred in the Ukraine, Lebanon, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, and Burma were remarkable to me, especially for their limited successes in Ukraine, Lebanon, Kyrgyzstan, and recently Nepal.

But massive public participations heralding a possible rejuvenation of democracy only happen so often.  If 2-3 posts are going up every day it’s too easy to devolve into the same old echo chamber much of the blogging community seems to be.  There are excellent blogs, and I enjoy reading several regularly.  But, it seems that too often a blog becomes little more than a news aggregator; collecting and distributing bits on cute animals, technology news, and (US) politics with personal opinions attached.

That, I think, is what ended my blogging in the past.  We already have news aggregators, better ones than a one man blog could ever be.  And I have an inherent distrust of the packaging of opinion as a unique product.  If that is all that a blog is adding to a story it ripped from the New York Times (while criticising the media for hiding the story), I don’t see why I shouldn’t go there instead, unless the blogger adds some special experience or perspective.  If I’d rather read a primary source, how can I expect readers to come to me?

For the most part, the blogging community, though, apart from a few high profile writers, does little more than pass around stories grabbed from someone else.  There is a reason that people like Lessig, Doctorow, Mankiw, Scoble, and Drudge have the success they do.  They either have the experience to provide perspective or information that can’t easily be found elsewhere.  A blogging community that revolves around a few high profile sources does not live up to its claims that it democratizes media.  Access is certainly far better when anyone can get online and publish, but that benefit is lost if everyone is posting the same thing.

This isn’t the way it should be. Read the rest of this entry »

Holy.. Clinton must be feeling desperate. She told Tim Russert Sunday that if elected, she would begin withdrawing troops within 60 days– 1-2 brigades per month.

Edited: Also, Tim Russert is actually acting like a journalist. He’s dragged up (clips from) Clinton and Obama’s speeches on the actual war resolution.

Again: Now he’s asking her about her failure to read the NIE estimate on Iraq.  She’s saying there were so many other briefings it didn’t matter much.

AIDG blog today has a short link to SciAm’s story on solar energy in the US.

In an extensive article, the writers argue that in 40 years, solar energy could provide more than half of needed US electricity.  But, it’s not without cost.

To provide electricity at six cents per kWh by 2020, cadmium telluride modules would have to convert electricity with 14 percent efficiency, and systems would have to be installed at $1.20 per watt of capacity. Current modules have 10 percent efficiency and an installed system cost of about $4 per watt. Progress is clearly needed, but the technology is advancing quickly; commercial efficiencies have risen from 9 to 10 percent in the past 12 months.

They suggest dedicating over 30.000 square miles of land to solar cells, an area they say is “less than that needed for a coal-powered plant when factoring in land for coal mining.”  Energy would be stored during night and cloudy days by pressurizing air or using the molten salt that Solar Reserve is pioneering.

However, their plan calls for significant subsidies, over 400 billion through 2050.

Al Qaida is as media savy as ever.

Al-Qaida video messages of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri can now be downloaded to cell phones, the terror network announced as part of its attempts to extend its influence.

Of course, part of the reason may be decreasing sympathetic coverage elsewhere. Al Jazeera has been partially muzzled by a deal between the Qatar and the Saudis.

The new policy is the latest chapter in a gradual domestication of Al Jazeera, once reviled by American officials as little more than a terrorist propaganda outlet. Al Jazeera’s broadcasts no longer routinely refer to Iraqi insurgents as the “resistance,” or victims of American firepower as “martyrs.”

Suddenly found this quote while paging through an intriguing flickr album.

I found him at a pro-Hezbollah rally in Paris. I asked if I could take a photograph of his interesting face. He tapped his ear, looked sideways, and then said I could take his picture even though “you have the blue eyes.”

I hadn’t realised that political issues surrounding Hezbollah had made such a leap to ethnicity.

One quick, interesting story.

The LA Times yesterday reported that Barron Hilton, Paris Hilton’s grandfather is giving away 97% of his fortune, about 2.3 billion.  Half is going to the family foundation now, and the rest after his death.

Story here (registration required).

The foundation receiving, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, funds the largest annual humanitarian prize in the world.

This is the third incarnation of a blog begun in 2005, and continued with one of the spottier records in the blogosphere.

Now, I begin again, with a few changes.  Polis, as always, is dedicated to political and economic changes around the world.  But I also hope to focus on international development issues, democratization, and world stories to a greater degree than before.

Personally, I’m a university student in the US studying Political Science and Economics.  I’m interested in, what else, international development and democratisation.  I was extraordinarily happy when the Colour Revolutions were taking place, but that has dimmed.  Kyrgyzstan’s expulsion of Akayev seems to have caused little progress, Ukraine remains locked with an increasingly assertive and authoritarian Russia, and the protests of Burma’s monks seem to have been alarmingly easily silenced.

To my knowledge, Nepal has been the most successful democratiser of any country these past few years.  Gyanendra’s seizure of power was resisted, the parliament has reduced the King to a constitutional monarch, and Nepal is on track to become a republic in 2008.

It is not that I am an endless cheerleader for democracy.  I have a laundry list of complaints about the system here at home.  But I desire freedom, and that other people have it.  To have it requires both political and economic capabilities, and so those then interest me.

So that is the topic of this blog.

Via Greg Mankiw. Anyone with a passing understanding of national politics and primaries knows that some states matter more than others, but here comes the first attempt to quantify that lead I’ve come across. Two Brown economists say they’ve estimated the numerical benefit of an Iowa or New Hampshire vote compared to those cast in later primaries, finding up they’re worth up to 20 times other votes.

The paper is located here, and I’m still picking through it. A quick glance indicates that they’re arguing that at least a portion of the marginalization of later voters stems from their likelihood to follow the cues given by early primaries. Later voters base part of their opinion of a candidate on how they perceive others’ opinions.

Most responses so far are looking at this in a negative light. Lawrance Lux points to this disproportion as a source of dysfunctional democracy. Josh Patashnik on The New Republic goes further than the paper and pessimistically ascribes no influence to many states in 2004.

In 2004, at least, given that all the major candidates besides John Kerry dropped out after Super Tuesday, didn’t all the subsequent states have essentially no influence on the process? Shouldn’t the number be a little closer to, you know, infinity?

On the other hand, the argument put forward by a number of New Hampshirites is that the conditions that have existed in New Hampshire allow a small number of educated citizens to question candidates, and are not replicable elsewhere. That’s part of the reason this 2002 paper is interesting me (pdf). In studying the 96 primary in New Hampshire, the authors looked at the impact various forms of candidate contact had on voter opinion.

Our results indicate that candidate contacts are an important influence on primary
voters’ knowledge and attitudes. Meeting the candidates face-to-face, receiving direct
mail, and getting phone calls on behalf of candidates all have systematic effects on
voters’ uncertainty, knowledge, and attitudes about candidates. Voters’ personal
interactions with candidates are most important in reducing their uncertainty about how
to rate candidates.

It’s complicated, and not at all suited to blog interpretation. The sheer number of primaries held on Super Tuesday this year may take away some of the discussion.

Salon.com’s War Room has a write up of Giuliani’s appearance on Meet the Press Sunday. Nothing really big there, but he does make an odd set of statements regarding the release of his financial information. I don’t remember any recent financial issues for Giuliani, aside from the $9.11 for Rudy disaster and rumours that the California ballot initiative was a “front” for Giuliani’s campaign. Still, there’s this..

Giuliani on financial disclosures he’s willing to make: “We do all the financial disclosures. I did a very complete financial disclosure, I think it was in May. I’ll do some more complete financial disclosures. But I’m, I’m not going to do more than what is absolutely required, and we’ll go further than that.”

Shall we parse that?

• We do all the disclosures
• In May, we did a “very complete” disclosure
• We will do more of those complete disclosures
  • Less charitable interpretation, we’ll do a more complete version of the very complete version we already did
• But, we’re not going to do a bit more than legally necessary
• However, we’ll go beyond what’s legally necessary

Naturally, he then goes on to avoid the question of whether he’ll release his tax returns, saying that while his standards are “pretty darned high,” he’ll have to wait and see what everyone else does.