And 2 of the 3 boys are here, getting ready to go out to dim sum with me this morning.

I’d say that being a father is probably the most wonderful thing most of us will ever do – it’s certainly the most wonderful thing I’ll ever do (being a husband is probably the most fun thing I’ll ever do…)

Here’s some evidence:

…and some more…

…and some more…

…and some more…

…and some more…

…and lots more to come, I’m sure.

From this morning’s Daily Breeze:

A Torrance man has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city for its long-standing policy of not issuing concealed weapons permits.

Also named in the suit were Torrance Police Chief John Neu and all seven members of the City Council.

they go on:

…when he applied for a permit in Torrance, he was issued an application form, but at the same time received a letter from the Police Department stating that “we do not have records on the issuance of any such permits, since it has been the long-standing practice of our chiefs of police not to issue such permits to citizens.”

TG and I haven’t applied for a CCW because we’re aware that the city flatly doesn’t grant them. No city in urban California does; they all have similar policies – they’ll take the application, but they make it clear that they will not be issuing any such permit.

I think that’s a bad policy for a variety of reasons; I’ll note with amusement the legal precedent that no city has an affirmative duty to protect its citizens. Nor, apparently, do they have a duty to allow them to protect themselves.

Update: See Clayton Cramer’s outlook on this (‘comments’ was too alliterative)

Here’s Andrew Moravcsik – a real political scientist explaining why (pdf) the EU don’t need no steekin referenda to have legitimacy with the people (h/t Henry Farrell, with whom I actually agree today – see his quote at the end of the post)…

The draft European constitution sought to legitimate the EU by inducing more popular deliberation about Europe’s future. This strategy was doomed to failure because it is inconsistent with basic empirical social science about how advanced democracies work. Salient political rhetoric and increased opportunities to participate do not, as a rule, generate more intensive and informed public deliberation or greater public trust, identity and legitimacy – particularly where the issues in question are not highly salient. Two conclusions follow. First, the failure of constitutional reform is, paradoxically, evidence of the success and stability of the existing “European constitutional settlement.”

The rhetoric of federalism has not changed to reflect this new reality. Second, prescriptive analysis of real-world constitutional reform requires that normative theorists draw more heavily on empirical social science in order to ascertain to what extent institutions actually have the consequences ideally ascribed to them.

In other words, creating opportunities for public discourse and obtaining the consent of the people as a pre-requisite for government really doesn’t matter all that much.

Because the people – they are pretty happy with their leaders. Ask any political scientist and they’ll let you know (just don’t ask a pollster).

This diagnosis fails to heed the fundamental lessons of the five-year constitutional detour. The effort to generate participation and legitimacy by introducing more populist and deliberative democratic forms was doomed to failure because it runs counter to our consensual social scientific understanding of how advanced democracies actually work. There is simply no empirical reason to believe, as the advocates of constitutional reform clearly believed, that opportunities to participate generate greater participation and deliberation, or that participation and deliberation generate political legitimacy. These social scientific errors are the focus of my analysis below, but before turning to them I want to underscore two broader implications, one for EU policy analysis and one for political philosophy.

The political philosophy position is especially risible:

For political philosophers engaged in normative analysis of real-world constitutional systems, the implication of this episode is to counsel skepticism toward those who recommend politicization, deliberation and mass plebiscitary democracy as panaceas to promote political legitimation and effectiveness. Even in a “politicized” environment, there is no reason – particularly, as we shall see, when dealing with the sort of issues the EU handles – to assume that increases in opportunities to participate necessarily generate participation, deliberation, legitimacy, or popularity. Nor is there any normative reason to favor such arrangements. All modern constitutional systems politicize some functions and depoliticize others, and they do so for deliberate reasons that are normatively, as well as pragmatically, justifiable. In arguing for constitutional reform in real-world constitutional democracies, therefore, the critical challenge is rarely how to increase our adherence to some ideal of participatory democracy. Instead it is how to design institutions that politicize and depoliticize politics functions in a way that generates more accountability, more desirable outcomes, and more long-term popular support – a set of goals that have real normative weight (Majone 2005; Moravscik 2002: 613-614; Pettit 2004; Grant/Keohane 2005). From this perspective, I assert, the existing European constitutional settlement is not just pragmatically more successful, but also normatively more desirable, than politicization through “democratic” reform.

Part of me wants to ask if the guy has read Habermas, part of me just wants to snark: I guess that when the peasants start bringing tumbrels to Brussels, they’ll start paying attention.

Here’s Ferrell, speaking much more articulately:

But there are, in my eyes, clear indications that Moravcsik’s preferred model of legitimation doesn’t work either. People don’t understand the EU – but as best as I can make out, their trust in the guidance of political elites has waned dramatically too. The argument that mainstream politicians are representing Ireland’s best interests is meeting with decided skepticism. The No side have been hammering home again and again the argument that pro-Treaty politicians are anti-democratic – they don’t trust voters to decide on this Treaty anywhere except in Ireland where they have to. The empirical claim (if not necessarily the anti-democratic bit) seems to be resonating with the public, for the simple and obvious reason that it’s undeniably true.

Leftier-than-me professor Jeff Weintraub swings the bat for the US on his own blog and on HuffPo, making the same point I did (more eloquently and with more research) about European racism and Obama:

But having followed the European media with some care since my arrival in Vienna on June 1, I have seen very little acknowledgement of one inconvenient complicating reality. Obama, or someone with Obama’s social background and political style, would have a hard time getting elected dog-catcher in any of these European countries, let alone President or Prime Minister (or, in Germany, Chancellor).

There are various reasons why that’s true. Despite the swooning praises of Obama from the western European chattering classes, the reality is that someone in their own countries with Obama’s political style would actually turn them off. A European candidate with Obama’s message of hope and idealism would make a lot of European journalists, intellectuals, and politicians roll their eyes. And in western European countries with established party systems, it would be almost impossible for a political outsider like Obama to vault over a party hierarchy so dramatically.

But the most fundamental reasons run deeper. A number of European countries have elected women to high political office, even the highest. (Score that one for the Europeans, at least some of them.) But as Jerry Karabel and I pointed out, none of them has ever elected a non-white person of any extraction to its highest political office–that is, head of state or head of government. (Actually, no predominantly-white country in the world has ever elected a black person to its highest political office.)

He makes another point in passing:

Along with the world-wide impact of this year’s US election drama in general, which shouldn’t be discounted, the Obama factor in particular probably helps explain developments like these:

A BBC global poll released in April showed that views of the U.S. had improved in 11 of 23 countries from a year ago, including a big gain in France. A recent poll for ARD-TV showed that German confidence in the U.S. soared by 21 percentage points to 53% from last year.

While I don’t doubt that the thought of another Clinton or Obama in office warms the hearts of the Europeans lots, I can’t help but wonder the extent to which the drumbeat of good news out of Iraq – oh, sorry, the silence of the media on Iraq – combined with the realization that the European countries have some work to do on the Islamist issue, and that it isn’t the fevered product of Doug Feith’s imagination – might not have something to do with it.

They are certainly no more pro-war in Iraq than they were before. But the war in Iraq shows signs of quieting to the level of the tolerable Bosnian crisis. And that might just be livable to the typical Parisian.

And, yes, they might get eight more years of Bill Clinton or eight years of Barak, the most European of candidates not remotely electable by, you know, actual Europeans.

I tagged this in Del.icio.us yesterday, and now it’s on Instapundit, so let me take a moment to kick Tyler Cowan in the shins over his NYT column on globalization, “This Global Show Must Go On“.Here’s the meat of his argument:

Despite these enormous advances, however, there is a backlash against globalization and a widespread belief that it requires moderation. Ordinary people often question the benefits of international trade, and now many intellectuals are turning more skeptical, too. Yet the facts on the ground show that the current climate of economic doom and gloom simply isn’t warranted. The classic economic recipes of trade, investment and good incentives have never been more successful in generating huge gains in human welfare.

Look, I support wider global trade, in no small part because – as Cowan points out:

More than 400 million Chinese climbed out of poverty between 1990 and 2004, according to the World Bank. India has become a rapidly growing economy, the middle class in Brazil and Mexico is flourishing, and recent successes of Ghana and Tanzania show that parts of Africa may be turning the corner as well.

But to blithely suggest that domestic opponents (in whatever country) should ’embrace the suck’ that global trade may impose on them personally, because 100 million Chinese are better off, is just dumbfounding. Because the problem is that the benefits of increased trade are unequally distributed, with some getting lots, some getting little, and lots not getting but losing.

Cowan suggests that the impacts of globalization on the US economy are trivial, and are offset by the lower cost of jeans at Wal-Mart:

Those benefits will take time to arrive, but trade with China has already eased hardships for poorer Americans. A new research paper by Christian Broda and John Romalis, both professors at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago, has shown that cheap imports from China have benefited the American poor disproportionately. In fact, for the poor, discounting in stores such as Wal-Mart has offset much of the rise in measured income inequality from 1994 to 2005.

And in the paragraph that causes me to question his judgment or sanity, he suggests that globalization isn’t the issue for the US economy:

Yes, the benefits of a good safety net are well established, but globalization is not the primary source of trouble for most American workers. Health care problems, bad schools for our children or, in recent times, bad banking practices have all produced greater disruptions – and these have been fundamentally domestic failings.

You’re kidding me, right? The impact of the subprime credit bubble is greater than the impact of, say, the collapse of the labor component of the manufacturing economy in the last twenty or thirty years?

What planet is he on?

Look I think his fundamental argument – that the worldwide benefits of prosperity & innovation will ultimately be better for the world and for us – have some validity. But to make a claim like his leaves me gobsmacked, and leaves trade advocates positioned as fools or liars – not the best way to make the case to the people who aren’t tenured professors and NY Times writers.

The challenge is how we manage the transition, and how we both don’t play King Canute by standing in the way of the tides, but also channel them to do the least damage and the most good (did I mention that I was a liberal?). I’m not sure what those policies are – I’m not even sure we can have successful policies around this.

But I am sure that the political damage from creating a new class of winners and losers within the US will be more than we can bear – and that the fallout of us choosing not to bear it will be terrible here and globally.

…I need to weigh in on the Obama/anti-Semetic web page brouhaha. The critics need to chill before they badly embarrass themselves on this one.While there are legitimate grounds to poke Obama on his issues wrt Israel and Jews (and in response to being poked, he’s made pretty much all the right noises – enough that it’s not a Top Ten issue for me), this is absolutely, unqualifiedly not one of them.

Here’s why. Any registered user of mybarakobama.com can post a blog – which this was. There’s no advance moderation, because – I imagine – they can’t afford it, and they want to keep the site ‘spontaneous’.

I could post something bizarre and controversial, and it’d stay up until someone saw it and complained. People saw it, made noise, it was pulled.

Now a few things about that – it could be a RF (dirty trick) or just a nutty poster. Doesn’t matter – it tarnishes the brand.

But how much? Look the fact that McCain has a few obnoxious supporters is not reason I wouldn’t support him. The same is absolutely true of Obama. It’s becoming ridiculous that someone who simply self-identifies as a supporter (as opposed to an adviser, ally, or someone one of the candidates has actively worked with) makes one iota of difference in my views – and why should they matter to yours?

Now since I design systems and the business processes like this for my clients, I’ll make a few suggestions for the campaign.

1. Get moderation on text postings – doesn’t have to be in advance, you can have a ‘new content’ queue and have someone go through it. With my commercial clients, I often suggest offshoring this to another English-speaking country – India or the Philippines where someone can look for simple pornography or otherwise inappropriate content, and flag questionable things to be reviewed by a local staff with domain knowledge. That won’t work for Obama (for obvious reasons) but he could build a volunteer pool big enough that no post would be up for more than a few hours before someone had eyes on it.

2. Moderate image postings in advance. Sorry, gotta have some eyes on those in advance – today ‘Jew Senator Lieberman’ – tomorrow kiddie porn or snuff images. As above, build a moderation queue and have volunteers or low-wage employees moderate them.

3. Use mojo or some other rating system to allow users to build ‘trust’ – i.e. identify the posters who are trusted by the campaign because they have been valuable posters and identify their content. Let users know who has some credibility in the community and steer new readers to their content.

Please read the whole thing; it’s not what you think, and the favor I’m asking isn’t either.

Last night Long Beach Opera did a production of Frid’s Anne Frank in West Los Angeles. It was – again – an amazing and heartrending show. We’ll (I’m on the Board, be grateful I’m not singing or playing) be doing it again Sunday night in Long Beach – sold out, thankfully.

The performance was amazing, and wrenching. Our artistic director contacted Laura Hillman – a poet and herself a young Holocaust survivor – to read from her own writings as an interplay with the soprano’s singing of Frid’s work and readings from Anne’s diary.We’re kind of a shoestring organization, so we divvy up responsibilities – mine for this performance was to purchase the refreshments – about $200 worth of cookies and veggie platters, sodas, juice and ice.

I was late doing the shopping, worried that I wouldn’t get the food there in time, and hustling to the venue through sticky Los Angeles traffic when I passed a homeless man, laying in the gutter on Westwood Boulevard near Ohio. I registered him as a Land Rover juked left to avoid running him over and passed him by, worried for a moment that the platters of cookies in my back seat would fall over as I maneuvered.

I picked up my cell phone and called 911, finally getting through to the CHP operator who transferred me to the local LA firehouse who would take the call. I explained that he was laying in traffic, and I was worried that he’d be hit by a car, and they promised to go out and take care of him.

And I drove off to deliver my cookies and juice, vaguely disquieted but unsure why.

And today, reading this, I realized why. I had the duty and capability to intervene, and I didn’t.

All I had to do was go around the block, stop my car, and put on my hazard flashers while I waited for the fire department to show up. I didn’t have to deal with picking the drunk and filthy man up, or treating him as the firefighters would. I could have sat for a few minutes and been late with the cookies – no one would have died. I could have taken fifteen minutes.

And all day I’ve been vaguely ashamed that I didn’t – somehow more ashamed after sitting and listening last night to stories of inhumanity set to haunting music.

So listen. The next time you have a chance to intervene – especially at such a small cost to yourself – please do. That request is my way of shedding some of the shame I’ve been feeling, and apologizing to the sad and helpless man I left exposed to cars in the street.

Sometimes I do read things that mainstream liberals write and wonder what the hell I’m doing associating with them.

Over at Think Progress, associate editor Matt Corley has a charming little piece up reflecting the black core at the heart of liberal Bad Philosophy. And it’s something that burns me but good, because one reason I chose to become a liberal – or a progressive – or whatever – back in my formative years was that they were the ones who believed in free expression, they believed in the liberating power of debate. Liberals tried to kick down the barriers that conservatives had erected to make sure that ‘bad people’ had no voice. When the hell did we become the bad guys?

Because Corley is surely one of them. He approvingly cites Richard Clarke (yes, I know he’s not a liberal) on Olbermann’s show:

CLARKE: Well, there may be some other kind of remedy. There may be some sort of truth and reconciliation commission process that’s been tried in other countries, South Africa, Salvador and what not, where if you come forward and admit that you were in error or admit that you lied, admit that you did something, then you’re forgiven. Otherwise, you are censured in some way.

I think he means something like this:

Look, it’s not (just) that something like this is aimed at me (good luck, fellas!!); it’s the notion that somehow one’s participation in the political process is conditional on having your thoughts vetted by the Right People.

F**k that.

There’s a long and messy conversation to have about Iraq and what it means, what led to it, and where it will lead.

And it’s just as fair to point out that people said things that were patently wrong as it is to say that history isn’t baked well enough for us to say just yet.

But the notion that some people should be excluded from the political process – that

… we can let these people back into polite society and give them jobs on university boards and corporate boards and just let them pretend that nothing ever happened when there are 4,000 Americans dead and 25,000 Americans grieviously wounded, and they’ll carry those wounds and suffer all the rest of their lives.

…is just effing outrageous.

What we need to do, he’s saying, is have a hunt to find the people with evil thoughts or judgment. Maybe we can put them on a list and make sure they don’t find any work until they have stood on the Mall in Washington with a sign around their neck for a week or so.

Look, it doesn’t matter which side of this issue you’re on, you should be absolutely as mad as I am about this. Because once we set that style of politics in place – once we ‘ban’ people until they have passed some kind of smell test, our politics are no better than Zimbabwe’s. This isn’t a matter of who sits in the big chairs and who in the small, it’s not the division of power and spoils that happens every time there is a change in who governs here. It’s a call for the exclusion of the people who aren’t on top, whose ideas are not popular, who don’t pass the test of whatever the Establishment nomenklatura feels at the moment. And so, obviously, we should Photoshop them out of the pictures, and not let them live near the capital. WTF is this, a Martin Cruz Smith novel?

Look argue the points as aggressively as you choose to, call Wolfowitz and Feith names – they’re big kids, they can take care of themselves. Argue them down, and drive down their stock as policymakers and public intellectuals if you can.

But when you talk like this, the only thing I can think to ask is “Have you no shame, sir? Have you no shame?”

Because once they’ve shut them up, they’ll come shut me up, and soon you’ll be looking over your shoulder as well.

Because I’m traveling so much, I voted absentee for the first time ever last Tuesday.

Here’s a letter about it that I sent to the LA Times, the LA County Registrar-Recorder, my County Supervisor, and Sec. Bowen:

For the first time, I voted absentee in this election.

I was shocked to discover that what I had was a computer card, covered with over 100 numbered bubbles in somewhat erratic columns, and a brochure that listed the candidates and measures, and told me which numbered bubble to fill in. As someone who spends a fair amount of time reviewing the usability of systems by people, I’ve got to say that this is one of the worst that I have ever seen.

The potential for error by able, alert voters is overwhelming; I cannot imagine how difficult and error-prone these must be for elderly or disabled voters. If the ‘butterfly ballot’ scandal in the 2000 Florida election was based on ballots that were difficult to comprehend – what upcoming electoral scandals and lawsuits will this County face because ours are incomprehensible? Why can’t we deliver a simple, easy to understand and validate absentee ballot to our voters?

I’ve made inquiries, and NO OTHER county has absentee ballots like these; in every case the ballot itself is human-readable with a candidate’s or measure’s name next to the bubble to be filled out.

Los Angeles needs ballots like these before the November election. Period.

Marc Danziger

Here’s the reason why (my neighbor’s unused ballot, not mine…)

…and because someone is going to claim it’s my ballot…

Brad Friedman, over to you – go gettum…

The craters are still visible at Pointe du Hoc.

Rangers lead the way, indeed.