Years ago, at a lunch with Kevin Drum, I kind of outraged him by suggesting that we simply ought to close LAUSD down, fire everyone, clean and update the buildings, and start over.

Here’s news from Rhode Island:

CENTRAL FALLS, R.I. – The full force of organized labor showed up in Central Falls Tuesday, with several hundred union members rallying in support of the city’s teachers and bringing plenty of harsh words for the education officials who were about to fire the entire teaching staff at Central Falls High School.

Why?

Gallo and the teachers initially agreed they wanted the transformation model, which would protect the teachers’ jobs.

But talks broke down when the two sides could not agree on what transformation entailed.

Gallo wanted teachers to agree to a set of six conditions she said were crucial to improving the school. Teachers would have to spend more time with students in and out of the classroom and commit to training sessions after school with other teachers.

But Gallo said she could pay teachers for only some of the extra duties. Union leaders said they wanted teachers to be paid for more of the additional work and at a higher pay rate – $90 per hour rather than the $30 per hour offered by Gallo.

And from Los Angeles:

Los Angeles Unified School District, with its 885 schools and 617,000 students, educates one in every 10 children in California. It also mirrors a troubled national system of teacher evaluations and job security that U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan says must change. Recent articles in the Los Angeles Times have described teachers who draw full pay for years while they sit at home fighting allegations of sexual or physical misconduct.

But the far larger problem in L.A. is one of “performance cases” – the teachers who cannot teach, yet cannot be fired. Their ranks are believed to be sizable – perhaps 1,000 teachers, responsible for 30,000 children. But in reality, nobody knows how many of LAUSD’s vast system of teachers fail to perform. Superintendent Ramon Cortines tells the Weekly he has a “solid” figure, but he won’t release it. In fact, almost all information about these teachers is kept secret.

I still believe it. Fire them all, and start over.

Personally, I think that districts need to be smaller – our home district in Torrance has 4 high schools, which seems to be about the right size for a school district, and offers the chance for parental engagement at the school board level, which is necessary to maintain accountability.

But basically, there’s a point when an organization just isn’t functioning and is harming those it is supposed to help.
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At a dinner over the weekend , a more-liberal friend asked what I thought we ought to do about climate.

I gave a short version of the 3% solution argument, and then added that we need to take a breath, step back, and redo the last decade of climate science in a calm, fact-based, transparent way so that we had – at minimum – a set of temperature data that we could all rely on as a baseline for modeling.

Well, this morning, guess what?

At a meeting Monday of 150 climate scientists, representatives of Britain’s weather office proposed that the world’s climatologists start all over again and produce a new trove of global temperature data that is open to public scrutiny and “rigorous” peer review.

…what a great idea!!

Here’s the actual wording (pdf).

Faster, please.

Memorandum leads me to a Newsweek review of a book that aims to challenge the credibility of climate skeptic Bjorn Lomborg.

Now, I’m a big believer in challenging people’s credibility – that’s how we dig away to something approaching truth.

But Newsweek science editor Sharon Begley torpedoes her own credibility and undermines the credibility of the review in her lede:

In naming roustabout, lumberjack, ironworker, and dairy farmer America’s “worst jobs,” CareerCast.com omitted one whose awfulness is counterbalanced only by its public-spiritedness: fact-checking Bjørn Lomborg.

Why is fact-checking Lomborg awful? Because you …ewww … have to read him?

Sorry, Sharon, but that’s just unworthy of anyone who would claim to be ‘NEWSWEEK’s science editor.’ Or if not, it tells me something about Newsweek.

Look, I don’t think Lomborg has a chokehold on truth in this complex issue. Nor do I think Steve McIntyre – or Phil Jones – does.

But I do think that the story is clear – that Jones et alia undermined the necessary process of science – through error cascade, groupthink, or deliberate policy – enough to move AGW into the ‘possible but unproven’ category.

What we need is constructive, transparent, respectful discussion that tries to sift the facts from the claims.

In her review, she makes reasonable claims that three of Lomborg’s claims are not supported by his citations. That’s serious. It would be more serious if she’d taken the time to map out Lomborg’s arguments and claim that – as a hypothetical – he makes 15 major claims and 10 minor claims and that of the 5 major claims that were checked, 4 of them were unsupported by his footnotes.

As it is, we have a science writer who is apparently virulently anti-Lomborg (see lede) citing a media critic’s anecdotal claims that several of Lomborg’s claims aren’t supported by his citations.

Lomborg responded on his website (pdf)…it’s worth checking out. If reading him doesn’t curdle your stomach, as it appears to do to Ms. Begley.

Update: Just read the Lomborg reply, and it’s pretty scathing about Friel’s claims. The fact that Begley doesn’t address the direct hits Lomborg seems to make further undermines not his credibility, but hers.

Instapundit visitors – check out the good news on climate research…
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Kevin Drum has jumped into the issue – on my side. Interesting comments, as well.

I’ll suggest a further distinction. Terrorism has a political dimension which blind rage lacks, and calls for a different set of responses.

If you believe that we need the same responses to disgruntled, depressed computer jocks as we do to the Aryan Nation and Al Qaeda, then the distinction doesn’t matter to you. At some level, this is an interesting parlor game – but until it can be tied to sensible policies, it is really just an argument over semantics.

It matters to me…
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…Jerry Bruckheimer is already making the movie, and if not…call me anytime Jerry and I’ll give you a plot.

So in the blogs and in the comments below, we’re wrestling about what to call – and how to react to – the crazed guy who flew a private plane into the local IRS headquarters.

The usual suspects on left and right are trying desperately to tie him to the Tea Party movement or to socialism (based on one incoherent suicide note).

Juicebox Matt and Sully are patting everyone on the back, saying that it’s clearly terrorism and the reaction to this incident is a model for how we should react to terrorist acts.

John Robb says this is a canary in a coal mine (and I worry that he’s right).

Patterico and I disagree; he says it’s clearly terrorism, I say no it’s not.
I’m left really, really uncomfortable that we’re looking at this in the right way.

Here’s a CNN interview with the filmmaker Pierre Rehov, who made the great documentary ‘Suicide Killers‘

You get a clear sense of the ideology that grows terrorists as a deliberate tool in its combat with the wider world.

Both terrorists and muckers (see definition) do the same things – if you take the actions out of context, they look alike. But that’s just it – by taking the actions of of context, you’re depriving them of their meaning, and in doing that I’ll argue one risks making some serious mistakes.

Muckers arise from anomie; from the spiritual/philosophical crisis that seems to run through modernity (one reaction, and one belief, is the orgasmic self-destruction contained in the Romantic ideal at the heart of Bad Philosophy). Muckers are essentially random, and somewhat self-generating. They will be triggered by personal issues (I’m hearing that the Austin mucker’s wife was leaving him after a trail of business failures and tax crises), but a generalized ‘failure to thrive’ socially. they may hang their actions on a hook – anti-cop in the case of the Washington or Oakland muckers – but there is no coherent philosophy behind muckerdom and there is no social change we could make that would accommodate them.

And, more importantly, there is no organized social movement working to grow them.

Terrorists, on the other hand, act less out of anomie than out of belief; out of a social construct that extends well past them and lionizes their behavior – thereby helping grow the next generation.

Rehov’s film is about Islam, but there are other ideologies that have done this; early militant Christianity certainly did, and today you see it in the black nationalist movement and their counterparts in the various white power movements; they key word here isn’t ‘black’ or ‘white’ or ‘Islamic’ – it’s movement.

The pressures of modern society shake loose a certain number of people who finally go amok; but certain belief systems are growing up that not only want to harness that drift, but seek to encourage it so that they can harvest the violence that it breeds.

The crazy antitax movements that the Austin mucker (I deliberately obscure his name) was on the fringes of didn’t have in their core doctrines the belief that you should blow up tax buildings. When they do – when that becomes a part of the pernicious beliefs that get espoused there – then these acts will have moved to the category of terrorism and we should treat them as such.

What I’m trying to say is that there is no acceptable government security response to muckers. I think that there are a number of things that government should do to improve the economy, to improve its own legitimacy, to help rebuild a narrative of America that we can participate in emotionally and spiritually.

But practically? not so much.

There are a number of appropriate responses to movements that mean to grow muckers, however. Working to dismantle those movements is absolutely the right thing to do, and the possibility of dismantling the movements at the root or terrorist acts is what distinguishes terrorism from simple acts of mindless rage.
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Joseph Stack burned down his house and then flew his small plane into the local IRS office building, after having left a ‘manifesto‘ which is really an incoherent cry of rage.

I’m hearing things from reliable sources that suggest that what we’re seeing is more the fallout from the collapse of a life – a broken marriage, failed businesses – than a passionate blow by some antigovernment ideologue. I’d carefully watch the news tomorrow on this before taking a position…

…and this ties into David Niewert, who is anxious to tie this into his “big truth” about Angry White People.

Because we have a problem; we are growing muckers, who individually may just decide to go shoot someone, or a cop or four, or people in an airport. Or they may get together with a few others – in a kind of crazy underground cell – and blow up a building.

Or fly their small plane into one.

And some of these muckers are bound by ideology…white nationalist, black nationalist, salafist…and they tend to find each other (the Internet is very good for that).

And so we have a problem in our society – in our world.

It goes back to the roots of what I’ve talked about for some time – my big idea, I guess – about Bad Philosophy. Until we find beliefs that can mend hearts, I fear that we are in for a lot of this…
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Somehow I thought of this last night…

Milo carefully said nothing when Major —- de Coverly stepped into the mess hall with his fierce and austere dignity the day he returned and found his way blocked by a wall of officers waiting in line to sign loyalty oaths. At the far end of the food counter, a group of men who had arrived earlier were pledging allegiance to the flag, with trays of food balanced in one hand, in order to be allowed to take seat sat the table. Already at the tables, a group that had arrived still earlier was singing “The Star Spangled Banner” in order that they might use the salt and pepper and ketchup there. The hubbub began to subside slowly as Major —- de Coverly paused in the doorway with a frown of puzzled disapproval, as though viewing something bizarre. He started forward in a straight line, and the wall of officers before him parted like the Red Sea. Glancing neither left nor right, he strode indomitably up to the steam counter and, in a clear, full-bodied voice that was gruff with age and resonant with ancient eminence and authority, said:

“Gimme eat.”

Instead of eat, Corporal Snark gave Major —- de Coverly a loyalty oath to sign. Major —- de Coverly swept it away with mighty displeasure the moment he recognized what it was, his good eye flaring up blindingly with fiery disdain and his enormous old corrugated face darkening in mountainous wrath.

“Gimme eat, I said,” he ordered loudly in harsh tones that rumbled through the silent tent like claps of distant thunder.

Corporal Snark turned pale and began to tremble. He glanced toward Milo pleadingly for guidance. For several terrible seconds there was not a sound. Then Milo nodded.

“Give him eat,” he said.

Corporal Snark began giving Major —- de Coverly eat. Major —- de Coverly turned from the counter with his tray full and came to a stop. His eyes fell on the groups of other officers gazing at him in mute appeal, and with righteous belligerence, he roared:

“Give everybody eat!”

“Give everybody eat!” Milo echoed with joyful relief, and the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade came to an end.

“Give everybody eat!”…if only it was somehow that simple.
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John Judis just shreds Stephen Walt’s – endlessly repeated – claim that Israel was a key factor in the decision to invade Iraq.

I’ll point out that in my reading of their book, their entire argument is as thinly reasoned (I can’t say that they misrepresent sources as baldly because I haven’t looked). It’s all a part of the “just make s**t up” school of political argument that we’re all suffering under these days.
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The last month or so hasn’t been very good for me as a blogger…I feel like I’ve lost the will to write, and what has always been very easy for me (writing) suddenly became very hard.

I was mulling over why this weekend, deciding what to do, and kind of came to a conclusion about why, at least.

It’s just massively depressing.

While few Democratic bloggers are big fans of mine, I have always at core been a Democrat. I really did believe that a new President, who followed the dicta of openness and who put down the partisan cudgels might be able to make desperately-needed change happen in Washington.

I really did believe that my leaders in Sacramento would wake up as the car approached the edge of the cliff and turn us away.

And I was naive on both counts – first, for believing that Obama meant what he said, or that the clowns sitting in the California Legislature were capable of change.

I really didn’t want to write anything about this, because it just seemed – whiny and unhappy.

But my more-mainstream-liberal friend Kevin Drum broke the ice for me today…

…rejecting the eminently qualified and reasonable Maldonado for the inconsequential job of lieutenant governor – apparently because Dems were unwilling to allow a Hispanic Republican to gain a higher profile – was both stupid and loathsome. And making the repeal of Prop 11 [the antigerrymandering proposition – AL] their highest priority is – well, let’s just go with stupid and loathsome again. These guys aren’t really worth a trip to the thesaurus.

The depth of California’s political suckitude is hard to fathom. It’s like a contest from hell, where both parties try to outdo each other in sleaze and contemptibility. Republicans have a pretty big lead, but it’s not insurmountable. Apparently Democrats are out to prove it.

I feel like I’m watching all my worst predictions come true…the hollowing out of the US job markets and economy…the political and business elites ignoring the impending crises in order to cling (bitterly) to power and advantage…the reinforced ‘iron rice bowl’ of rent-seeking by public sector employees, politicians, and corporations – all seeking to mutually reinforce their positions on the backs of the rest of us.

It’s going to stop. It’ll stop when we finally gather the political will to do something about it, or else it will stop when it simply can’t go on any further and crashed to the ground. I’d prefer the former…

We are led by good people who are trapped within a system that transforms them into the ‘stupid and loathesome.’ We need to fix that…
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Guest post by Mark Buehner, in response to my “Can’t Quit” post. An invitation to Coldtype for a guest post is still open.

“He who seeks to be strong everywhere will be strong nowhere.” – Military truism

By Mark Buehner

The budget of the United States is on a collision course with its mounting debt. Entitlement and interest payments are set to overwhelm the budget, and no sector of government spending will be exempt from radical re-examination. The sooner we make difficult choices, the more thoughtful we can be, and the better result we can expect.

Defense is no exception. In 2010, over 680 billion dollars have been budgeted for the Defense Department, in addition to as much as $350 billion in defense related spending outside the DOD. This accounts for over 40% of military spending across the globe. It is immaterial whether this level of spending is justified, as it is simply unsustainable given our level of debt. It is in our national interest to examine our current defense philosophy and attempt to craft an intelligent new policy in line with the realities of a new century.

With the Cold War long over and the Terror War simmering, America must first reexamine our place in the world and commitment to power projection. Winning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is a trillion dollar enterprise that the country shows little appetite for repeating, and once they are decided we would do well to rethink our projection posture before launching a knee-jerk procurement course in expectation of similar wars in the future. This, along with the (expensive) relics of our Cold War era thinking will overwhelm our resources and leave less room for confronting more likely threats in the coming years. Intercontinental ballistic missiles and up-armored humvees are not going to deter rogue nations or a resurgent China, largely because we will not be conducting a preemptive nuclear strike, nor another IED riddled occupation, and everybody knows it.

Instead we should be focusing on the realistic ways our technology can justifiably deter these enemies at much more sustainable costs. UAVs and smart weapons are not the wave of the future, they are the reality of the present, and they have changed our ability to project force like nothing since the invention of the airplane. These systems are affordable, humane, and proven, and they should be the front line deterrent of a new defense doctrine.

The traditional American concept of warfare may be to meet and defeat an enemy upon the (foreign) fields of battle, but it needs to be recognized that such warfare, no matter how successful, is a result of multiple failures of diplomacy, foresight, and deterrence. Perhaps the most ancient truism regarding warfare is that the greatest victories are won before a shot is fired. America needs to re-embrace this fact and rely upon our unrivaled powers and the threats of those powers long before an actual fight can break out.

In a sense, the Bosnian War should be a model for future conflicts. We can reliably and nearly instantly reduce a belligerent nation’s ability to provide for the basic needs of its people by destroying power, infrastructure, communications, and ultimately natural resource production. Coupled with embargo and interdiction, this makes provoking the military might of the United States a losing proposition whatever the potential gain in question. All this can be done for virtually no risk to American lives and less expense than a month fighting in Afghanistan.

This strategy, like any, has caveats. One certain criticism is a recognition that airpower has never won a war. This is true and will remain true in our traditional definition of conventional total victory. However, historically speaking, the idea of defeating an enemy on the battlefield and forcing his unconditional surrender is more the exception than the rule. Worse, these types of victories often plant the seeds of the next war.

Hence, classic capitulation is not necessarily a wise goal in this context. Unconditional surrender is expensive in both blood and treasure. Many times, simply being willing to leave your enemy in worse shape than you are and walk away is a more credible threat than marshalling the resources needed for regime change (much less occupation). As it is our enemies may well feel a sense of security in recognizing our binary approach to warfare, ie either peace or conquest. It is easy for rogue regimes like Iran to play at brinkmanship with us so long as they fail to incite us into full scale conventional warfare with the expectation of total victory.

On the other hand, if a rogue regime like Iran had reason to fear a limited American strike (but not too limited, as often demonstrated in our past) that would truly cripple the enemy but leave America hardly troubled, we might actually see our security and interests better protected. This requires far more than simple pinpricks, but far less than actual regime change.

International cooperation and (ideally) consent is critical, both materially and morally. A rogue nation must feel isolated and helpless for the full psychological effect to take hold. Ultimately, the physical weakening of the regime combined with the isolation and destitution of the populace (or threat thereof) will be enough to either bring a favorably negotiated conclusion, or (as in the case of Bosnia) full scale regime change.

None of this is to say we won’t fund our more conventional and traditional forces, particularly ground forces. We must and will, and they must be prepared for the worst. But full scale land battles must be a last resort, and not the first.

The United States is certain to undergo a difficult and painful reckoning in the near future. Every aspect of our relationship with government will be examined and will very likely see a reduction in accustomed resources. If this is done in an ad hoc manner, particularly regarding defense, our national security will suffer in unpredictable ways. This is not to say we should ever think to abandon the traditional winning tools of a professional multi-branch military, but instead to examine every element of these entities with a careful eye towards a forward looking strategy. And this must mean tough decisions and excepting that we cannot afford every weapon systems even if it might serve quite well. In the bigger picture, it will cost us more dearly than we think.

Now is the time to reexamine our strategic vision for our projection of power, and to reassess the tools and strategies we have developed and are developing. By embracing the technological and practical realities we are faced with, we can come through this period with a stronger defense and more robust deterrent, and indeed a safer and more peaceful world.
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