IT'S NOT UNLIKELY THAT THE REACTION WILL CHANGE THE UNICORN RIDER'S MIND...:

Sen. 'Big Mouth' Biden for Obama's Veep? (Paul Bedard, 8/19/08, US News)

[W]hen he junked his last presidential campaign and Sen. Barack Obama emerged, some floated Biden's name as a potential secretary of state, in part because he chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and is a very comfortable on the world stage. But it was dismissed by other Democrats who thought the popular Delaware senator's wordy style and knack for sometimes saying the wrong thing was less than ideal for the world's top diplomat. So why would Obama consider Biden as a vice presidential choice? Well, in a word, say Democratic sources, because of his mouth. The thinking is that Biden could take on Sen. John McCain's Straight Talk Express with his own blunt style while allowing Obama to continue his more thoughtful and cerebral style.

...but it's interesting to consider what a Biden choice says about Mr. Obama. Our best recent presidents have gone for men of some heft as their running mates: Ronald Reagan was willing to run with a former president, until Gerald Ford got overly ambitious; Bill Clinton ran with a more responsible version of himself; and W ran with a former chief of staff. On the other hand, Richard Nixon and George H. W. Bush signaled their own insecurity by picking featherweights and Jimmy Carter just went with a Beltway hack. Mr. Obama seems ready to follow the latter group rather than the former, with Mr. Biden, who has no executive experience, has run two profoundly inept presidential campaigns, and is so poorly thought of by his other peers that he wasn't even considered for a cabinet spot by Bill Clinton.

While Mr. Obama's unwillingness to share the ticket with a person of substance is revealing, his particular choice is deeply troubling. Readers of Richard Ben Cramer's generally favorable portrait of the Senator in What it Takes will recall that Mr. Biden comes across as more or less of a con man, a lovable one, but nontheless a complete b.s. artist. His modus operandi is to try and bury listeners under a barrage of verbiage and hope he can charm them enough that they won't pay too close attention to what he just said. It's been his bad fortune that any time he's been exposed to the public spotlight--his campaigns, the judiciary hearings he chaired, etc.--he's imploded under the glare of attention. The question for Mr. Obama is: can we trust the judgment of a prospective president who doesn't see through even so obvious a carny barker as Joe Biden?

After all, if he was just looking for a cipher who the Beltway thinks has foreign policy cred he could have taken someone harmless like Sam Nunn. Mr. Nunn's resume may be just as skimpy, but he's considerably less oleaginous. Or, were he not afraid of suffering by comparison to the undercard, Mr. Obama could have picked Bill Richardson, a womanizer by all accounts and a slob, but a governor and someone with genuine foreign policy experience.

The Democrats are hurt here by having such a short bench, but it's hard to believe there was a worse choice available.

MORE:
Obama and Running Mate To Hold Joint Event Saturday (Jake Tapper, August 19, 2008, ABC News: Political Punch)

Senator Barack Obama, D-Illinois, and his yet-to-be chosen Vice Presidential running mate will hold an event at the symbolic old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois – the site where Obama kicked off his own presidential run eighteen months ago.

“This will be the kickoff to our trip to the convention,” Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki says of the midday event.

---

THE GRIEVANCE INDUSTRY:

Canada’s Human Rights Gestapo (Deborah Weiss, 8/19/08, FrontPageMagazine.com)

During Ezra’s hearing with the commission, [the publisher of the now defunct Canadian magazine Western Standard] was asked what his intent was when he published the cartoons. Visibly upset, he insisted that his magazine should be able to exercise unbridled free speech without regard to intent. With provocative statements, he practically begged the commission to convict him, so that he could bring the case to a “real court” and destroy the credibility of the Human Rights Commissions altogether. Ezra’s legal written response to the complaint explained that the article and the cartoons merely constituted objective news published in a news magazine.

On July 29, 2008, the Human Rights Commission (“HRC”) issued a report on its investigation, and ECMC’s complaint was dismissed. The commission ruled that in balancing free speech rights against the laws that prohibit discrimination, the Western Standard’s publication of the cartoons, “in its full context” did not warrant a trial. Yasmeen Nizam, a civil litigation attorney and an ECMC director, disagreed. She believed that Western Standard should have been brought to trial “regardless of the context.” As she stated, the goal in filing the complaint was “to educate people” on the increased “risk” of discrimination against Muslims in a post-9/11 world.

In the meantime, the HRC’s investigation of the Western Standard article was completed to the tune of 500,000 dollars in taxpayers’ money, and 100,000 dollars to Ezra and his magazine. Had the complaint been filed in a Canadian civil court, the loser would have been required to pay Ezra’s attorney’s fees. But in HRC cases, the complainant doesn’t even have to pay for his own attorney’s fees. The investigation is conducted at taxpayer expense. Had the complaint been filed in a Canadian criminal court, charging the magazine with criminal incitement of hatred, then Ezra would have been entitled to due process and a speedy trial. Instead, he was dragged through the mud at the Alberta’s Human Rights Commission for 900 days, at the mercy of a bunch of bureaucrats.

Currently, there are fourteen Canadian Human Rights Commissions, employing 1000 people, with a budget of 200 million dollars annually. Together, they function as a parallel court system, often at direct odds with laws administered through the Canadian civil and criminal courts. While the establishment of the Human Rights Commissions and Tribunals may have started out with good intentions, over time they have become so extreme that they regularly side with radical Islamists. In a crusade to stamp out offensive language, they stifle free speech. Additionally, the legal fees for respondents can be astronomical. When they win, their speech constitutes exorbitantly expensive speech, not free speech. Soft jihadists purposely use these nuisance suits as lawfare to shut people up and prevent them from voicing their opinions. The process is the punishment. As Ezra protested: “[t]he process I was put through is a warning to journalists who would defy radical Islam.” In effect, the commissions judge both speech and thought. Worse, they preclude open political debate about the nature of radical Islam and the west’s enemy in the war on terror.

---

THE MISTAKEN FAITH IN ENVIRONMENTALISM:

Re-Assessing Obama’s “Under-Performance” in the Polls (Jeff Jones, 8/19/08, Gallup)

There have been only five non-incumbent presidential elections in the modern polling era. I'm largely evaluating the political environment for each using the outgoing president's approval rating, since Gallup has data for that going all the way back to the 1940s, and we know approval is correlated with other political environment ratings such as satisfaction and ratings of the economy.

*
In 1952, Democratic incumbent Harry Truman had historically low approval ratings and Republican Dwight Eisenhower easily defeated Democrat Adlai Stevenson for president. The political environment explanation would predict a solid Republican win, and that is what happened.
*
In 1960, Eisenhower was very popular when he left office after eight years (58% approval in the last measurement before the election), but John F. Kennedy and the Democrats won a closely contested election (winning the popular vote by less than a percentage point) to replace Eisenhower instead of choosing his vice president, Richard Nixon. The political climate model does not seem to apply to this election.
*
In 1968, the Democrats were trying to win an election with an unpopular president (Lyndon Johnson) waging an unpopular war (in addition to other problems going on in the country), but Republicans only narrowly won. A political conditions interpretation would suggest a big Republican win in 1968, not a 1-point win. It's possible that George Wallace's strong third-party showing made things closer than they otherwise would have been.
*
In 1988, Ronald Reagan was a popular incumbent (51% approval), though he was not as popular as Eisenhower in 1960 or Bill Clinton in 2000. The elder George Bush won what many perceived as a third Reagan term, and by a healthy margin.
*
In 2000, Clinton had high approval ratings (57% at the time of the election) and national satisfaction was near record levels, yet Al Gore won the popular vote by only the narrowest of margins.

Whereas a political climate explanation seems to work so well in incumbent presidential elections and midterm elections, on the surface it doesn't seem to explain the outcomes of non-incumbent elections that well, in terms of either the margin or the winner.

---

BARRACK OBAMA, THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING...:

We still won't believe this until we see it. Such a huge unforced error seems too much to hope.

MORE:
Loose Lips Sink . . .: Biden's Leadership Is Lost in All His Talk (Richard Cohen, January 12, 2006, Washington Post)

The only thing standing between Joe Biden and the presidency is his mouth. That, though, is no small matter. It is a Himalayan barrier, a Sahara of a handicap, a summer's day in Death Valley, a winter's night at the pole (either one) -- an endless list of metaphors intended to show you both the immensity of the problem and to illustrate it with the op-ed version of excess. This, alas, is Joe Biden.

The reviews for Biden's first crack at Samuel Alito, the humorless Supreme Court nominee, were murderous. The New York Times had Biden out on Page One -- normally a position to kill for -- only this time it was not a paean to his considerable merits, but an account of how it took him nearly three minutes of throat-clearing to ask his first question and then took the rest of his allocated 30 minutes just to get in four more. He concluded with about half a minute still left to him -- something of a personal best that even he had to acknowledge.

"I want to note that for maybe the first time in history, Biden is 40 seconds under his time," he told Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, no clipped speaker himself.

The Post had a similar account of Biden running off at the mouth. In that piece, Dana Milbank wrote that during Biden's round of questioning, he "spoke about his own Irish American roots, his 'Grandfather Finnegan,' his son's application to Princeton (he attended the University of Pennsylvania instead, Biden said), a speech the senator gave on the Princeton campus, the fact that Biden is 'not a Princeton fan,' and his views on the eyeglasses of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)."

The tragedy is that Biden, who is running for president, is a much better man and senator than these accounts would suggest. But his tendency, his compulsion, his manic-obsessive running of the mouth has become the functional equivalent of womanizing or some other character weakness that disqualifies a man for the presidency. It is his version of corruption, of alcoholism, of a fierce temper or vile views -- all the sorts of things that have crippled candidates in the past. It is, though, an innocent thing, as good-humored as the man and of no real policy consequence. It will merely stunt him politically.

What Democrats Should Be Saying (David Ignatius, August 19, 2005, Washington Post)

The Democrats' problem is partly a lack of strong leadership. Its main spokesman on foreign policy has become Sen. Joseph Biden, a man who -- how to put this politely? -- seems more impressed with the force of his own intellect than an objective evaluation would warrant. Listening to Biden, you sense how hungry he is to be president, but you have little idea what he would do, other than talk . . . and talk.

Biden His Time: Is there room for one more Democratic senator? (Jim Geraghty, 1/22/03, National Review)

"Much like Gary Hart, he's identified more with the party's presidential past than its present or future," said political scientist Larry Sabato, a professor at the University of Virginia. "He was, after all, forced out by a mini-scandal which would come up again."

In 1987, Biden quit the Democratic primary race early after the revelation that he had delivered, without attribution, passages from a speech by British Labor party leader Neil Kinnock. A barrage of subsidiary revelations by the press also hammered Biden's image: a serious plagiarism incident from his law-school years, boastful exaggerations of his academic record at a New Hampshire campaign event, and the discovery of other quotations in Biden's speeches pilfered from past Democratic politicians.

In the post-Clinton era, plagiarism may seem like small potatoes. But, Sabato explains, the key to a scandal is how it counters — or in the case of Biden, reinforces — his public image.

"The reason it became such an issue was that it reinforced the Biden image that already existed among the press, that he's a blowhard, a guy who talked before he thought," Sabato says. "Now, he's a little older and more experienced, but do people really change that all much after they reach adulthood? I've rarely seen anybody change that much, and I've taught thousands of college students over the years."

JOE BIDEN CAN’T SHUT UP… (GQ)

Then came that August day at the Iowa State Fairgrounds when Biden simply became British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock—acting out, without any attribution, Kinnock’s entire working-class shtick: “Why is it that my wife…is the first in her family ever to go to college? Is it because they didn’t work hard? My ancestors, who worked in the coal mines of northeast Pennsylvania and would come up after twelve hours and play football for four hours?” Campaign aides spun it as an homage, even though Jill Biden was not the first in her family to attend college and Joe Biden, unlike Kinnock, did not have coal-mining ancestors. And when it later came to light that Biden had failed to cite Bobby Kennedy in a speech, that he’d also claimed (falsely) to have attended Syracuse University law school on a full academic scholarship and to have graduated in the top half of his class, and that he’d received an F in a law-school class for an apparent act of plagiarism…well, “homage” didn’t quite cover it. At best, Biden was a careless, immature overstriver. At worst, he was a liar. Either way, as Republican consultant Eddie Mahe told The New York Times that year, “What all of this means in a nutshell is that Joe Biden will never be elected president of this country.”

On plagiarism (James Fallows, 2/19/08, Atlantic Monthly)

respect and admire Joe Biden, but his "similar" case in 1988 was completely different, and actually bad. On the stump he was telling someone else's personal story -- as it happened, Neil Kinnock's -- as if it were his own. That is not the kind of detail you just swap into and out of a stump speech to make it more powerful. Indeed, the mystery is how anyone could actually utter words -- "My daddy was a coal miner," "there I was, at Valley Forge" -- knowing them not to be true. And -- mentioning again that I respect and admire Biden -- the incident wounded him because in fact he had been a weak student in college and law school. Not, say, the president of the Harvard Law Review.

Biden Stumbles at the Starting Gate: Comments About Obama Overtake Bid for President (Dan Balz, 2/01/07, Washington Post)

Biden sought to highlight his experience on the day he declared his candidacy, but an interview he gave to the New York Observer, a weekly newspaper, overshadowed his announcement.

In the interview, Biden described Obama as "the first mainstream African American [presidential candidate] who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."

Asked during an afternoon conference call with reporters to explain his choice of words, Biden said he meant no offense in describing Obama the way he did, then lavished praise on the Illinois senator as a "very special guy" who has caught "lightning in a jar" like no politician he has seen before. "This guy is a superstar," he added.

Biden also said that he had called Obama after the remarks became public and that Obama had taken no offense from them.

Obama later issued a statement that absolved Biden only in part. "I didn't take Senator Biden's comments personally," he said, "but obviously they were historically inaccurate. African-American presidential candidates like Jesse Jackson, Shirley Chisholm, Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton gave a voice to many important issues through their campaigns, and no one would call them inarticulate."

Military experience rare among '08 candidates (Andy Sullivan, 6/25/07, Reuters)

Democrats Bill Richardson, Joe Biden and Dennis Kucinich failed their physical examinations, as did Republican Tom Tancredo.

N.B. If anyone sees a clip of the C-Span bit can you send me a link...thanks.

---

EVERYONE CAN SWIM, ONE GUY FLEW:

Four decades later, Bob Beamon still soaring (John Meyer, August 18, 2008, The Denver Post)

Forty years after his gargantuan long jump in Mexico City obliterated the existing world record by nearly 2 feet, Bob Beamon's "Perfect Flight" remains one of the greatest achievements in Olympic history.

But few realize what a leap it was for him to get there from the New York City borough of Queens, where he was an aimless, troublemaking teen before discovering track and field.

That's how he begins telling his story: Being unable to read or write when he was 14. Being a delinquent and going to an "alternative" school, where he was frisked and locked inside from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Yet even then he had a strange feeling he would do something special some day.

On Oct. 18, 1968, Beamon flew 29 feet, 2½ inches, inspiring the creation of the word "Beamonesque" to describe seemingly superhuman feats. But before he could shock the world, he had to find himself. It is a message he promotes today through the Bob Beamon Organization for Youth, with a goal of getting troubled kids pointed in the right direction.

"I always look back at when I didn't have a dream, when I didn't have a spirit," Beamon said. "I didn't know what the Olympics was all about. I was just hanging out on the street. I was not humble. I was not a nice person, doing things that were socially unacceptable.

"When you can't read or write, at 14 or 15, in most cases you're headed for trouble, and trouble was finding me."

He found his calling when he was 15. Using borrowed shoes in a Junior Olympics meet, he jumped 24 feet, 1 inch, and fell in love with flying.

---

NO ONE IS UNIQUE:

The Education of McCain (David Brooks, 8/19/08, Der Spiegel)

McCain started out with the same sort of kibitzing campaign style that he used to woo the press back in 2000. It didn’t work. This time there were too many cameras around and too many 25-year-old reporters and producers seizing on every odd comment to set off little blog scandals.

McCain started out with the same sort of improvised campaign events he’d used his entire career, in which he’d begin by riffing off of whatever stories were in the paper that day. It didn’t work. The campaign lacked focus. No message was consistent enough to penetrate through the national clutter.

McCain started his general-election campaign in poverty-stricken areas of the South and Midwest. He went through towns where most Republicans fear to tread and said things most wouldn’t say. It didn’t work. The poverty tour got very little coverage on the network news. McCain and his advisers realized the only way they could get TV attention was by talking about the subject that interested reporters most: Barack Obama.

McCain started with grand ideas about breaking the mold of modern politics. He and Obama would tour the country together doing joint town meetings. He would pick a postpartisan running mate, like Joe Lieberman. He would make a dramatic promise, like vowing to serve for only one totally nonpolitical term. So far it hasn’t worked. Obama vetoed the town meeting idea. The issue is not closed, but G.O.P. leaders are resisting a cross-party pick like Lieberman.

McCain and his advisers have been compelled to adjust to the hostile environment around them. They have been compelled, at least in their telling, to abandon the campaign they had hoped to run. Now they are running a much more conventional race, the kind McCain himself used to ridicule.

The man who lampooned the Message of the Week is now relentlessly on message (as observers of his fine performance at Saddleback Church can attest). The man who hopes to inspire a new generation of Americans now attacks Obama daily. It is the only way he can get the networks to pay attention. [...]

And the inescapable fact is: It is working.

The 2008 presidential campaign features a Northern liberal vs a Southwestern conservative. All else is noise.

---

IT'S EXACTLY THIS EASY...:

Could the Redeem Team beat the Dream Team? (JOE POSNANSKI, 8/19/08, The Kansas City Star)

[T]hat leads to the second argument for Redeem Team: They are young. They are hungry. The players are ascending. By the time Dream Team played in 1992, Larry Bird was 35 and retired from the NBA. Magic Johnson was almost 33 and had not played an NBA game for more than a year. There was only one guy on Dream Team who was younger than 25, and that was Christian Laettner, who was a college guy brought along to sit on the bench and enjoy the experience.

This year’s team has six players younger than 25, including the two big men (Dwight Howard and Chris Bosh) who have been overpowering. Paul is 23 and already one of the best players in the world. And, of course, James is only 23, too.

So you could certainly argue — and people here are arguing — that because the players are younger, because the players still have a lot to prove, Redeem Team plays with a higher energy level than the Dream Team, Redeem Team plays much fiercer defense, Redeem Team has a sense of purpose that Dream Team didn’t need.

It’s a fascinating argument. Personally, I think Dream Team would beat Redeem Team for a couple of reasons. First, I think they had more ways to beat you. Redeem Team is a terrific team, I’ve really been blown away by how hard they play, but they don’t have much shooting and they’re not at their best when slowed down. They beat teams with intensity and pressure and defense and, again, that sense of purpose.

Dream Team, with 10 of the best players of all time, brought more variety. Take Magic’s leadership, Bird’s presence, Barkley’s power, David Robinson’s dominance around the basket, Chris Mullen’s shooting, John Stockton’s passing to Karl Malone ... that team could beat you just about every way possible.

The second reason I think Dream Team would win, the big reason, is, of course, Michael Jordan. He was in his prime in 1992 — the best basketball player who ever lived, I think. He was more than great, too; he willed his teams to championships. Whatever it took ... he would score, he would rebound, he would shut people down, he would trash talk, he would take over.

...put all the same players on the two teams but play 7 games with MJ on the Dream Team and 7 with him on the Redeem Team (and Kobe on the Dream Team) and the Jordan led team wins both series.

---

WHY NOT HASTEN THE COLLAPSE AND AVOID THE SCRAMBLE...:

North Korean collapse? (Richard Halloran, August 19, 2008, Washington Times)

Will the collapse be a "soft landing" in which Mr. Kim's regime gradually falls apart with the pieces picked up by the South Koreans, or will it be a "hard landing" in which Mr. Kim's regime implodes and chaos sweeps the land?

The consequences of a regime change in Pyongyang could be staggering. Immediately, U.S., South Korean and Chinese troops could charge into North Korea to secure its nuclear facilities - and confront each other. Midterm, reviving North Korea could cost South Korea, Japan, China and the United States enormous sums. Long term, a reunited Korea would change the power balance of East Asia - but unpredictably.

Analysts everywhere point to a decade of hunger that has left 7-year-old North Korean children 8 inches shorter and 20 pounds lighter than their South Korean cousins. North Korean soldiers in a regime that gives priority to the military forces have been reduced to two skimpy meals a day. Factory workers nap on the floor for lack of food and energy.

...by taking out the nuclear facilities pre-emptively.

---

60-40 NATION FILES (via Bryan Francoeur):

Many think God's intervention can revive the dying (Lindsey Tanner, 8/19/08, ASSOCIATED PRESS)

When it comes to saving lives, God trumps doctors for many Americans.

An eye-opening survey reveals widespread belief that divine intervention can revive dying patients. And, researchers said, doctors "need to be prepared to deal with families who are waiting for a miracle."

More than half of randomly surveyed adults — 57 percent — said God's intervention could save a family member even if physicians declared treatment would be futile. And nearly three-quarters said patients have a right to demand such treatment.

When asked to imagine their own relatives being gravely ill or injured, nearly 20 percent of doctors and other medical workers said God could reverse a hopeless outcome.

Yet the Unicorn Rider cites as one of his biggest mistakes helping, too briefly, to save Teri Schiavo from her husband. Of course, that wasn't the mistake he mentioned to Rick Warren.

---

ROVEBOTS IN CONTROL:

Obama tells McCain to lay off character (AP, 8/19/08)

Addressing the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention, Obama reaffirmed his early opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq and said the so-called "surge" strategy of sending 30,000 additional troops to Iraq last year had not produced the political reconciliation necessary to achieve lasting peace in the country. McCain supported the Iraq invasion and was an early champion of the surge.

"These are the judgments I've made and the policies that we have to debate, because we do have differences in this election," Obama said. "One of the things that we have to change in this country is the idea that people can't disagree without challenging each other's character and patriotism. I have never suggested that Sen. McCain picks his positions on national security based on politics or personal ambition. I have not suggested it because I believe that he genuinely wants to serve America's national interest. Now, it's time for him to acknowledge that I want to do the same.

Hot on the heels of wasting two news cycles accusing Maverick of cheating in the Rick Warren event, because he thrashed the Unicorn Rider so badly, and having plagiarizes POW experiences, which merely called attention to details of Mr. McCain's heroism that he tends not to talk about enough, Senator Obama now calls attention to the way his mistaken opposition to US policy seems like a lack of patriotism and gives his opponent an opportunity to mouth a few reassuring but back-handed platitudes. Whose idea was it for the Democrats to nominate such a neophyte?

---

WHICH IS WHY GALILEO ESCAPED JUSTICE WHEN HE DODGED THE STAKE:

Where Are They?: Why I hope the search for extraterrestrial life finds nothing. (Nick Bostrom, May/June 2008, Technology Review)

I begin by reflecting on a well-known fact. UFO spotters, Raëlian cultists, and self-­certified alien abductees notwithstanding, humans have, to date, seen no sign of any extraterrestrial civilization. We have not received any visitors from space, nor have our radio telescopes detected any signals transmitted by any extraterrestrial civilization. The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has been going for nearly half a century, employing increasingly powerful telescopes and data-­mining techniques; so far, it has consistently corroborated the null hypothesis. As best we have been able to determine, the night sky is empty and silent. The question "Where are they?" is thus at least as pertinent today as it was when the physicist Enrico Fermi first posed it during a lunch discussion with some of his colleagues at the Los Alamos National Laboratory back in 1950.

Here is another fact: the observable universe contains on the order of 100 billion galaxies, and there are on the order of 100 billion stars in our galaxy alone. In the last couple of decades, we have learned that many of these stars have planets circling them; several hundred such "exoplanets" have been discovered to date. Most of these are gigantic, since it is very difficult to detect smaller exoplanets using current methods. (In most cases, the planets cannot be directly observed. Their existence is inferred from their gravitational influence on their parent suns, which wobble slightly when pulled toward large orbiting planets, or from slight fluctuations in luminosity when the planets partially eclipse their suns.) We have every reason to believe that the observable universe contains vast numbers of solar systems, including many with planets that are Earth-like, at least in the sense of having masses and temperatures similar to those of our own orb. We also know that many of these solar systems are older than ours.

From these two facts it follows that the evolutionary path to life-forms capable of space colonization leads through a "Great Filter," which can be thought of as a probability barrier. (I borrow this term from Robin Hanson, an economist at George Mason University.) The filter consists of one or more evolutionary transitions or steps that must be traversed at great odds in order for an Earth-like planet to produce a civilization capable of exploring distant solar systems. You start with billions and billions of potential germination points for life, and you end up with a sum total of zero extraterrestrial civilizations that we can observe. The Great Filter must therefore be sufficiently powerful--which is to say, passing the critical points must be sufficiently improbable--that even with many billions of rolls of the dice, one ends up with nothing: no aliens, no spacecraft, no signals. At least, none that we can detect in our neck of the woods.

Now, just where might this Great Filter be located? There are two possibilities: It might be behind us, somewhere in our distant past. Or it might be ahead of us, somewhere in the decades, centuries, or millennia to come. Let us ponder these possibilities in turn.

If the filter is in our past, there must be some extremely improbable step in the sequence of events whereby an Earth-like planet gives rise to an intelligent species comparable in its technological sophistication to our contemporary human civilization. Some people seem to take the evolution of intelligent life on Earth for granted: a lengthy process, yes; ­complicated, sure; yet ultimately inevitable, or nearly so. But this view might well be completely mistaken. There is, at any rate, hardly any evidence to support it. Evolutionary biology, at the moment, does not enable us to calculate from first principles how probable or improbable the emergence of intelligent life on Earth was. Moreover, if we look back at our evolutionary history, we can identify a number of transitions any one of which could plausibly be the Great Filter.

For example, perhaps it is very improbable that even ­simple self-replicators should emerge on any Earth-like planet. Attempts to create life in the laboratory by mixing water with gases believed to have been present in the Earth's early atmosphere have failed to get much beyond the synthesis of a few simple amino acids. No instance of abiogenesis (the spontaneous emergence of life from nonlife) has ever been observed.

The oldest confirmed microfossils date from approximately 3.5 billion years ago, and there is tentative evidence that life might have existed a few hundred million years before that; but there is no evidence of life before 3.8 billion years ago. Life might have arisen considerably earlier than that without leaving any traces: there are very few preserved rock formations that old, and such as have survived have undergone major remolding over the eons. Nevertheless, several hundred million years elapsed between the formation of Earth and the appearance of the first known life-forms. The evidence is thus consistent with the hypothesis that the emergence of life required an extremely improbable set of coincidences, and that it took hundreds of millions of years of trial and error, of molecules and surface structures randomly interacting, before something capable of self-replication happened to appear by a stroke of astronomical luck. For aught we know, this first critical step could be a Great Filter.

Conclusively determining the probability of any given evolutionary development is difficult, since we cannot rerun the history of life multiple times. What we can do, however, is attempt to identify evolutionary transitions that are at least good candidates for being a Great Filter--transitions that are both extremely improbable and practically necessary for the emergence of intelligent technological civilization. One criterion for any likely candidate is that it should have occurred only once. Flight, sight, photosynthesis, and limbs have all evolved several times here on Earth and are thus ruled out. Another indication that an evolutionary step was very improbable is that it took a very long time to occur even after its prerequisites were in place. A long delay suggests that vastly many random recombinations occurred before one worked. Perhaps several improbable mutations had to occur all at once in order for an organism to leap from one local fitness peak to another: individually deleterious mutations might be fitness enhancing only when they occur together. (The evolution of Homo sapiens from our recent hominid ancestors, such as Homo erectus, happened rather quickly on the geological timescale, so these steps would be relatively weak candidates for a Great Filter.)

The original emergence of life appears to meet these two criteria. As far as we know, it might have occurred only once, and it might have taken hundreds of millions of years for it to happen even after the planet had cooled down enough for a wide range of organic molecules to be stable. Later evolutionary history offers additional possible Great Filters. For example, it took some 1.8 billion years for prokaryotes (the most basic type of single-celled organism) to evolve into eukaryotes (a more complex kind of cell with a membrane-enclosed nucleus). That is a long time, making this transition an excellent candidate. Others include the emergence of multicellular organisms and of sexual reproduction.

If the Great Filter is indeed behind us, meaning that the rise of intelligent life on any one planet is extremely improbable, then it follows that we are most likely the only technologically advanced civilization in our galaxy, or even in the entire observable universe.

We all believe in the homocentric universe now.

---

FUNNY THAT NONE OF THE NATIVISTS ARE NATIVE (via Mike Daley):

Open the Gate: a review of Let Them In: The Case for Open Borders by Jason Riley (James Kirchick, Policy Review)

On one side of the immigration debate are what might fairly be called “pro-business” conservatives and libertarians, who argue that an ever-larger pool of skilled and unskilled workers enables employers to hire at lower salaries and in turn give consumers cheaper products, benefiting the overall American economy. This is a rather straightforward argument, and it has been made, vociferously, for decades on Capitol Hill by various business lobbies. Bill Gates, for instance, recently proposed that the government eliminate entirely the cap on hb-1 visas, the coveted spaces allotted to high-skilled workers in technology fields. Many Christian evangelicals, a critical gop constituency, also take a liberal stand on immigration, forming their opinion based upon biblical dictates about caring for the poor and dispossessed.

On the other side are immigration restrictionists, centered at a small set of issue-specific Washington think tanks and advocacy groups, who have widespread support in talk radio land. Many restrictionists oppose not only illegal immigration but also any “natural increase” in legal immigration. Some, like the paleoconservative eminence Pat Buchanan and Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, favor closing our borders to immigrants altogether. From these two irreconcilable schools is the war over immigration being waged.

Into this contentious debate enters Jason Riley, a member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board and the author, presumably, of that newspaper’s fiercely pro-immigration masthead editorials. Here, in Let Them In: The Case for Open Borders, he puts forth the most persuasive, sustained case for a liberal immigration policy yet published.

Riley begins by showing that however hyperbolic their reaction to resurgent anti-immigration sentiment may be, it is not for nothing that present and former Bush administration officials have characterized opposition to the immigration bill as an expression of “racist” or “nativist” sentiment. This is because the immigration restrictionist movement is demonstrably tied to white supremacists and eugenicists. For instance, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (fair), the leading anti-immigration group in Washington, has received $1.5 million from the Pioneer Fund, a eugenicist philanthropic organization. John Tanton, the preeminent funder of anti-immigration efforts, has openly speculated, “As Whites see their power and control over the their daily lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night?” Riley documents how much of modern day anti-immigration sentiment is predicated on centuries-old Malthusian fears of overpopulation proffered by long-since discredited population theorists like Paul Ehrlich. Careful students of American history will notice that the language of restrictionists — characterizing immigrants as shiftless, lazy, and crime-prone — borrows motifs from the openly racist arguments leveled against southern and eastern European immigrants in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Immigration critics frequently protest that people like John McCain and his colleague Lindsay Graham unfairly characterize them as racists and nativists. The problem is that so many of them are. [...]

Riley admires the work ethic of Hispanic immigrants. Hispanic males have the highest labor-participation rate in the country, he reports, a figure that must astound the likes of Patrick Buchanan and Lou Dobbs. Riley, who is black, contrasts this positive feature with the high unemployment and welfare roll rates for native-born African Americans. All this matters because an unlikely ally of the anti-immigration crowd has been poor blacks, attracted by the argument that newly arrived Mexicans willing to work for very little are taking their jobs. Riley argues, however, that 1960s Great Society programs have ingrained a welfare culture among many black males, and while the economy grew dramatically in the 1980s and 1990s, work force participation among less-educated black men actually fell. African-Americans have to look deeper, Riley argues, to find the causes of persistent black unemployment rather than blame hardworking fellow ethnic minorities, as some African-American political leaders have done. [...]

Ultimately, illegal immigration appears to be a concern more for media elites than it does average voters. A Pew poll conducted last year found that only 6 percent of voters place illegal immigration as their top issue of concern, far behind the Iraq War, terrorism, and the economy. And beneath the din of talk radio demagoguery and sparring matches between intellectual conservative publications, there actually appears to be something of a right-of-center consensus on the issue. A New York Times poll taken during last year’s immigration debate found that 66 percent of Republicans supported the McCain-Kennedy bill’s legalization provisions. Another poll, commissioned by the Wall Street Journal and nbc News, reported that 75 percent of Republicans believed it was “not realistic” to make undocumented immigrants go back to their home countries in order to seek legal status here in the United States (a key concession sought by conservative opponents of the bill), and 81 percent found it impractical to demand their outright deportation. A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll last year found that 60 percent of Americans supported “allowing illegal immigrants who have not committed crimes to become citizens if they pay fines, learn English and meet other requirements ” — essentially the provisions of the McCain/Kennedy “amnesty bill.” The American people, and even supposedly nativist conservatives, it seems, are naturally pro-immigration, which is hardly surprising given the unique history of our country.

At the point where white Catholic immigrants want to bar brown we don't need much debate over what their objection is.

MORE:
Henry Cejudo captures gold and a piece of the American dream: The son of undocumented Mexican immigrants wins Olympic freestyle wrestling title at 121 pounds. (Kevin Baxter, 8/19/08, Los Angeles Times)

Henry Cejudo called it the American dream.

The son of undocumented Mexican immigrants who had to work two jobs to keep food on the table, Cejudo gave the U.S. its first Olympic gold medal in freestyle wrestling in Beijing with a stunning win Tuesday over Japan's Tomohiro Matsunaga in the 55-kilogram (121 pounds) final.

"I'm living the American dream right now, man," Cejudo, wrapped in an American flag, said moments after his win. "The United States is the land of opportunity. It's the best country in the world and I'm just glad to represent it."

---

BECAUSE THEY'RE SUCH BLUNT INSTRUMENTS...:

For Obama, Taxes Are About Fairness (William McGurn, August 19, 2008, Wall Street Journal)

[W]hile Mr. McCain was at first shy about giving a specific number, in the end he did allow that someone who had an income of, say, $5 million could pretty definitely be said to be rich.

Yesterday's Politico hooted that with this response Mr. McCain handed his opponent the perfect fodder for a TV commercial. That, of course, overlooks those who might actually find attractive Mr. McCain's fuller explanation. "I don't want to take any money from the rich," he said, "I want everybody to get rich."

Mr. Obama, by contrast, started out much more directly, suggesting that if you make $150,000 or less you may be poor or middle class. A family with an income above $250,000, he went on to say, is "doing well." And if you find yourself in that category, he's going to target you for a tax hike -- all in the name of creating "a sense of balance, and fairness in our tax code."

In fact, the idea of fairness is at the heart of his whole economic argument. And he goes back to it in almost every public appearance.

He talks about it as a general theme: "It is time for folks like me who make more than $250,000 to pay our fair share."

He invokes it as a solution for Social Security: "[W]e will save Social Security for future generations by asking the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share."

He points to how it guides his energy policy: "The first part of my plan is to tax the windfall profits of oil companies and use some of that money to help you pay the rising price of gas."

And he stuck to it on capital gains, even after ABC's Charlie Gibson noted that the record shows increased taxes on capital gains -- which would affect 100 million Americans -- would likely lead to a decrease in government revenues: "Well, Charlie, what I've said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness."

Translated into ordinary English, what that means is that it doesn't really matter whether a tax increase actually brings in more revenue. It's not about robbing from the rich to give to the poor. Robbing from the rich will do, especially if it's done in the name of fairness.

...taxes are pretty bad at producing what we want but effective at punishing what we don't. Raise taxes on liquor, tobacco, and gas, for instance, and people will use less.

It's revealing then that what Mr. Obama wants to punish is profits and income.

---

BELIEVING YOUR OWN PRESS:

McCain's moment: Arizona senator outshines Obama at forum (San Diego Union-Tribune, August 19, 2008)

Barack Obama got a thumpin' at the forum at Saddleback Church in Orange County.

The hint was when liberal bloggers insisted that, despite Pastor Rick Warren's claim that John McCain was in a “cone of silence” while Obama was being interviewed, the Arizona senator must have heard the questions beforehand and thus was more at ease in answering them. How sad. What these bloggers forget is that McCain has been in Congress since 1983 and has probably learned a thing or two about communicating. And what they won't accept is what the rest of the country saw so clearly: McCain shined with answers that were crisp and precise, while Obama meandered with answers that seemed thoughtful but unoriginal.

Even inside the Obamabubble they seem well aware that they have to keep their candidate away from situations where he's not giving set-piece speeches from a script. That's why they ran from Maverick's townhall challenge like the Scarecrow from fire.

But it does seem possible that they're headed for a Beltway induced disaster in the form of Joe Biden for vp. Even setting aside how ill-suited Mr. Biden is for a presidential campaign--see Richard Ben Cramer's What it Takes, nevermind the chain of succession--the campaign apparently believes that because they all know about what a train wreck he made of his '88 presidential bid and that no one they know holds it against him any longer that the rest of America remembers it and has likewise moved on. But even amongst a politically aware group like we have here, how many really remember just how ugly it was? Sure, most of us remember that he not just plagiarized Neil Kinnock's stump speech but appropriated the Labour leader's life as his own--inventing coal-mining ancestors and disinventing college-attending ancestors for his wife--but do even wonks recall the rest, Biden Admits Errors and Criticizes Latest Report (E. J. DIONNE JR., 9/22/87, THE NEW YORK TIMES)

Most of Mr. Biden's statement was in response to a report in this week's issue of Newsweek magazine on a tape recording made by the C-SPAN network of an appearance by Mr. Biden at a home in Claremont, N.H., on April 3. It was a typical coffee-klatch style appearance before a small group. The network regularly records and broadcasts such events as part of its coverage of the Presidential campaign.

The tape, which was made available by C-SPAN in response to a reporter's request, showed a testy exchange in response to a question about his law school record from a man identified only as ''Frank.'' Mr. Biden looked at his questioner and said: ''I think I have a much higher I.Q. than you do.''

He then went on to say that he ''went to law school on a full academic scholarship - the only one in my class to have a full academic scholarship,'' Mr. Biden said. He also said that he ''ended up in the top half'' of his class and won a prize in an international moot court competition. In college, Mr. Biden said in the appearance, he was ''the outstanding student in the political science department'' and ''graduated with three degrees from college.'' Comments on Assertions

In his statement today, Mr. Biden, who attended the Syracuse College of Law and graduated 76th in a class of 85, acknowledged: ''I did not graduate in the top half of my class at law school and my recollection of this was inacurate.''

As for receiving three degrees, Mr. Biden said: ''I graduated from the University of Delaware with a double major in history and political science. My reference to degrees at the Claremont event was intended to refer to these majors - I said 'three' and should have said 'two.' '' Mr. Biden received a single B.A. in history and political science.

''With regard to my being the outstanding student in the political science department,'' the statement went on. ''My name was put up for that award by David Ingersoll, who is still at the University of Delaware.''

In the Sunday interview, Mr. Biden said of his claim that he went to school on full academic scholarship: ''My recollection is - and I'd have to confirm this - but I don't recall paying any money to go to law school.'' Newsweek said Mr. Biden had gone to Syracuse ''on half scholarship based on financial need.''

And can an Obama campaign that's already sliding amidst questions of who the nominee really is afford to come out of its convention week with the entire focus on a vp pick who serially lied about who he is?

Obviously a candidate who's in as far over his head on foreign policy/national security as the Unicorn Rider needs some help in that regard, but what has Joe Biden ever done besides hold hearings on these questions? How can a guy who practically never had a job outside of Congress carry a message of changing the culture inside the Beltway? How does he help a nominee who has a frightening lack of executive experience when he has none himself?

No matter how many times the Great Mentioner tosses up his name, it's hard to believe that even as closed a campaign as Mr. Obama's can seriously be considering a blunder of such epic proportions.

---

BUT WAIT, YOU HAVEN'T HEARD MY NUANCES YET...:

Barack Obama, Abortion Extremist: His reasonable-sounding rhetoric on abortion is at odds with his record. (Rich Lowry, 8/19/08, National Review)

Asked by Pastor Rick Warren when a baby gets rights, Obama said, “I’m absolutely convinced that there is a moral and ethical element to this issue.” This is a crashing banality couched as thoughtfulness. If Obama is so sensitive to the moral element of the issue, why does he want to eliminate any existing restrictions on the procedure?

In 2007, Obama told the Planned Parenthood Action Fund that the Freedom of Choice Act would be the first piece of legislation that he would sign as president. The act would not only codify Roe v. Wade, but wipe out all current federal, state and local restrictions on abortion that pass muster under Roe, including the Hyde Amendment prohibiting federal funding of abortion. This is not the legislative priority of a man keenly attuned to the moral implications of abortion.

To paraphrase John Kerry: "How do you ask a baby to die for a mistake?"

---

THE LEFT EXISTS ONLY TO AMUSE US:

An Election Just Like Any Other (David Harsanyi, 8/19/08, Real Clear Politics)

At some point, though, we need to hear where candidates stand on policy. This is where Obama struggles. Politics is about divisions.

The first sign of trouble was energy. As soon as gas prices approached $4 a gallon, Republicans, sensing real anger, demanded more domestic energy production. Democrats found themselves in a dangerous spot; as sentinels of Earth's well-being, they were unwilling to cede that more drilling should even be part of a solution, calling it a "gimmick" and "hoax."

Well, now nearly every Democrat, including Obama, supports this "hoax." It's the sort of convenient policy shift that reminds us of . . . well, of every politician who has ever walked the planet.

Such political calculations have been the trademark of Obama. On public finance for his campaign, immigration policy, international trade and retroactive immunity for phone companies, it's been about political expediency.

Obama recently told evangelical preacher Rick Warren that the most difficult decision he's ever made was his opposition to the Iraq (while in the Illinois legislature). Yet, even with his defining issue, Obama has modified his position as polls dictate.

So when we throw the bums out for the sake of change, what will we be changing to? What kind of policies would take the place of the ones wrought by those bums?

Politics as usual.

There's an exquisite irony in the fact that the Democrats' problems are a function of racialism. The only case that was ever made for Senator Obama being an agent of change was that he "doesn't look like the other guys on our currency." But pigment isn't policy and so Republicans have had little trouble pointing out that he's just the next in long line of Northern liberals--Adlai, McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, Kerry--who've been ritually rejected by the American people. Democrats are obsessed with an insignificant difference--ethnicity--while ignoring the overwhelming sameness.

---

DON'T NEED BILL AYRES TO KNOW WHICH WAY THE WIND BLOWS...DAVID GERGEN WILL DO:

Is the tide turning? (David Gergen, August 18, 2008,
CNN)

Heading into the candidates’ appearances on Saturday night at Saddleback Church, the conventional wisdom in politics was Barack Obama should have a clear upper hand in any joint appearance with John McCain — one the young, eloquent, cool, charismatic dude who can charm birds from the trees, the other the meandering, sometimes bumbling, old fellow who can barely distinguish Sunnis from Shiias.

Well, kiss that myth goodbye.

McCain came roaring out of the gate from the first question and was a commanding figure throughout the night as he spoke directly and often movingly about his past and the country’s future. By contrast, Obama was often searching for words and while far more thoughtful, was also less emotionally connective with his audience.

Hardly seems like it can have only been two weeks since Mr. Gergen was claiming that such talk about the Unicorn Rider was coded racism.

---

OBAMA REX:

Poll Shows Obama's Lead Is Slipping in New York (ROSS GOLDBERG, August 19, 2008, NY Sun)

Mr. Obama is currently eight points ahead of Mr. McCain in New York, down from a 13-point lead in July and an 18-point lead in June. The chairman of Mr. McCain's New York campaign, Ed Cox, said that the Republican senator is making gains in the state largely because of his credibility on national security issues.

"For the presidency, this is going to be a national security election, and national security is a nonpartisan issue," Mr. Cox said. "New York becomes a purple state and not a blue state."

In the 2004 election, the Democrat, Senator Kerry, defeated President Bush in New York by a 19-point margin.

Like his hometown Chicago Bears, Mr. Obama's campaign is all defense. At this point the only question is whether he can contain the margin of loss enough not to do damage to the congressional candidates.

MORE:
Battle of Pennsylvania (SETH GITELL, August 19, 2008, NY Sun)

While political observers and Web sites, such as slate.com, which designated Pennsylvania as a "safe Dem," are putting the state firmly in the Democratic column for November, it is still up for grabs. The Real Clear Politics poll average for the state has dwindled to a 6.8% advantage down from an average of 9%.

Less noticed was the Franklin & Marshall College Poll from August 12, which put Senator Obama ahead of Senator McCain by just 5% among likely voters. Despite the apparent structural advantages Mr. Obama would have here — the poor economy, an unpopular president — voters have not warmed up to him yet.

None of this poll data is to suggest that Mr. McCain is likely to win Pennsylvania, a state that went for Ronald Reagan but has been won by Democrats in the last four elections. But Republicans do believe they have a chance here. Mr. McCain has visited Pennsylvania 10 times since the contentious Democratic primary.

"I think McCain still has a chance," the chairman of the Allegheny County Republican Committee, James Roddey, said. "We're hearing from more and more Democrats that they're just not going to vote for Obama."

Part of the quandary for Mr. Obama is that Hillary Clinton defeated him by 9.2% in the April primary.

---

GOT YOUR PICK IN?:

Exclusive: McCain to name VP on Aug. 29 (MIKE ALLEN, 8/18/08, Politico)

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) plans to celebrate his 72nd birthday on Aug. 29 by naming his running mate at a huge rally in the battleground state of Ohio, Republican sources said.

That’s a week from Friday, and the day after his rival, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, accepts the Democratic nomination at a 70,000-person spectacular in a Denver stadium.

The campaign has begun building a crowd of 10,000 for Dayton, Ohio, according to an organizer. McCain is scheduled to appear with his running mate at a large-scale event in Pennsylvania shortly thereafter.

---