A touching tale between mentor and student.

Thank God. We weren't going to survive much longer without an Obama thread.

Question: does Obama hate all women who ever feel down, or just Hillary? If Angela Merkel tells him that she's feeling down, will this freak him out and cause him to start bombing Germany?

I think the fact that Obama refuses to commit to building concentration camps for Republicans makes him suspicious. It's much safer for liberals to choose the candidate who votes for Republican positions but who occasionally talks like she's mad at the Republican Party.

I have to admit that if there were a candidate advocating building concentration camps for Republicans, they'd probably get my vote. That must be where Romney's campaign went wrong.

No no no, Obama loves women, especially white women, so he's going to sleep with your wife, also Hillary.

Based on our conversations about the primary, I think it's more likely that my wife will sleep with Hillary.

You know, now that I think about it, I love white women too. Obama and I have so much in common; he's got my vote.

I am honored , but otherwise ir is too early in the morning. And anyway, on three hours sleep I wake up to the ogged/Kotsko thread and confronting the horror. Fuck me.

It is unacceptable to objectify white women by describing them as things white people like.

Q: Why did the white person lead a life calculated to bring suffering to billions?

A: So some day he could assuage his guilt by donating to Obama.

The whitest thing that Ogged and Kotsko did was to start caring about how other people feel "morally superior."

Fuck me.

That's only going to distract you from the horror for so long, bob. Fun as it is, it's not a real solution.

it's not a real solution

Depends on what problem you're trying to solve.

hey, apo, I was wondering, if you, like, had a black friend or something (this is just hypothetical, obvs), and he happened to come to dinner, and you had been planning to have fried chicken and watermelon before you knew, would you throw out the fried chicken and watermelon and hastily prepare something whiter, like expensive sandwiches?

ala, you just slap those bad boys on panini bread, and you're good to go.

I would say "I want to have alameida's babies" but besides being biologically impossible, it could be interpreted as a threat of kidnapping. Still.

15 was me.

And if this is a political thread I saw last week that Cass Sunstein is an advisor to Obama. Obama does not make it easy for me, ya know?

Sort of on-topic: unlike most years, I have not yet donated to either Democrat. I have a preference in the current race but I know I'm going to vote for whichever one gets nominated. Is there a way to simply donate to a party fund that will be available to whichever nominee gets the nod? Or would it be wiser to donate to my preferred candidate now as a vote of confidence? I'm not naming candidates here out of a desire to remain capable of reading the thread.

19: Primary and general funds are separate, but I'm not sure what happens to someone's general fund when they don't get the nomination. If you don't care enough about the difference between the candidates to donate in the primary, I'd wait the month? until the winner is clear, and then donate to the winner's general fund. But someone who knows more probably has better advice.

And if this is a political thread I saw last week that Cass Sunstein is an advisor to Obama. Obama does not make it easy for me, ya know?

I admit I don't like that much, either, if it's true.

I have a pretty strong preference but everything is so up in the air regarding who's going to get the nomination that, in light of limited ability to donate, I want to make sure my donation gets used by someone who's going to be going all the way. (By which I guess I answered my own question.)

Also, the stark realization of the day yesterday: I'm going to be an election judge in NC's primary and, oh wait, we're going to have actual turn-out and it's going to be super-busy. Wow. Exciting! And scary!

14:

Alaneida:

Along those lines. was the donation given in favor of Obama or against Bob?

darn my mispelling. Sorry Alameida.

would you throw out the fried chicken

I don't waste fried chicken. Oh, hell no.

Did Alameida mean to pour oil on the fires, or is "pouring oil on the waters" an figure of speech with which I am simply unfamiliar?

The latter. If you pour oil on rough water, something about the surface tension smooths out the ripples.

18- Bob, nothing you link to is ever as interesting (or entertaining?) as what you write. Just go with what's in your head. It's working for you.

Sunstein's early work on the administrative and regulatory state is really good. His recent stuff on polarization isn't so much, but it's not something I'd worry about.

Yeah, why are we supposed to hate/fear Sunstein? I thought he was considered to be a generally right-thinking guy.

Is the problem that he's Martha Nussbaum's boyfriend?

29:His recent stuff on polarization isn't so much, but it's not something I'd worry about.

see 4. I would also have to do research, but as I remember Sunstein is not 100% our friend on Executive Power issues. Generally I view him, at least in the arguments of the last few years, as center-right.

And Obama shows a pattern in his advisors.

And Obama shows a pattern in his advisors.

Specifically, the Fibonacci sequence.

Sunstein is kind of lousy on rule of law/exec. power arguments. I don't know if he's actually a prominent advisor or just a famous academic supporter (unlike say, Goulsbee, who I don't think bob actually knows much about but is actually a very influential advisor). Laurence Tribe & Martha Minow & a whole lot of law professors support Obama. I think he's clearly the best candidate in the race on exec. power/rule of law issues.

unlike say, Goulsbee, who I don't think bob actually knows much about but is actually a very influential advisor

He knows that Goulsbee is from the University of Chicago, which, if my knowledge of history is correct, contains a Hellmouth in the former squash court.

a Hellmouth in the former squash court.

I believe it's an atomic Hellmouth.

Specifically, the Fibonacci sequence.

Suppose Obama started with just 2 newborn advisers, that each pair of advisers becomes fertile after their second month of life, and that each month every fertile pair of advisers produces another pair of advisers. Then the total number of advisers in Obama's campaign at the nth month is F(n), the nth member of the Fibonacci sequence.

I believe it's an atomic Hellmouth.

That's the worst kind! Irradiated vengeance demons swarming out to help Pinochet manage the Chilean economy and everything!

I have a terrible habit of thinking "Leon Kass" when I read "Cass Sunstein", and then wondering how anyone can possibly think that he's reasonable.

38: I really enjoy telling people about how there's a member (is he the head? I forget) of the Presidential committee on bioethics who believes that eating ice cream in public is a sign of the barbarousness of American society.

39: Especially interesting considering that was how Barack's first date with Michelle ended, with them eating ice cream and sitting on a curb. Barbarous!

Kass stepped down from the Presidents Council on Bioethics a while ago, but my google-fu isn't up to figuring out when. He is no longer listed on the Council's webpage though.

I believe when he stepped down he said he wanted to "spend more time berating my family"

hereKass stepped down in 2005 because his grandchildren were getting to be the age where he has to tell them not to dress like hussies.

Are Sunstein and Nussbaum still together? He is decamping for Harvard but she refused to go along, I thought.

Rob, you're killing my good anecdotes. I suppose I'll add "former." It's been linked here before (I'm pretty sure I learned about it here) but here's what he says about ice cream.

Also, if the next President is going to have a Council on Bioethics (did Pres. Clinton?) can I officially start the Committee to Have Eligible Academics who blog as hilzoy appointed To it (CHEAT)?

Clinton did have something (NBAC) which said dumb things but not as dumb as the Kass-headed PBC. Man, I was just thinking that it's really, really outrageous that Kass, with no background in ethics (his PhD is in some form of biology, I think), could have a career bloviating about this stuff in a way that actually affects policy. I mean, his writing on these issues is really, really bad.

Clinton's bioethics commission was the NBAC, headed, I think, by Herold Shapiro. The documents from the former bioethics commissions are all online here

It is actually rare for philosophers to have many jobs on these things (note that Kass is not a philosopher, he is an activist with an MD).

Also, I vote for Zombie James Rachels for President Obama's bioethics commission.

Zombie James Rachels would be awesome. "Must...clone...braaiiiiiinnsss."

who I don't think bob actually knows much about but is actually a very influential advisor

I read the Goulsbee papers on corporate taxation effects on organization/executive compensation. I skipped the Internet ones. Didn't see much that helped me see what kind of CEA he would run.

Here ya Go

Like I said, I didn't study them all, but I spent time on for instance This pdf and others trying to uncover an attitude or ideology. Blandly liberal, at best, tho his choice of subject matter/specialty doesn't feel that liberal.

I am not thrilled with putting that cv in charge of the macro-economy. Doesn't look like a macro policy guy.

Okay, maybe macro, but more taxes and investment rather than poverty, retirement, aggregate demand stuff. I found his work reasonably congenial, but I can't tell from it how he would react to a recession.

It just isn't that revealing, and he looks young and specialized.

You are full of shit Katherine, and quit the hostile ad hominem attacks.

that all sounds reasonable enough; this was a response to the week when the major reason to vote against Obama was that Goulsbee was plotting to destroy social security.

or Goolsbee, even.

I don't know what Goolsbee plans, or understands about the long term consequences of raising the cap. I know experts in Social Security who tell me it is a very bad idea, in that will put a serious economic hit (say $6k on $150k) on the upper middle class professionals who are almost at the level of really not needing SS.

Are Sunstein and Nussbaum still together? He is decamping for Harvard but she refused to go along, I thought.

They are not.

And the Obama economic program does have more tax credits & breaks and less direct subsidies and gov't programs than I would prefer. Looks like Goolsbee.

As far as what Goolsbee recommends when the crunch comes, if it comes, I see little evidence of privatization, but I see no evidence of populism.

56: Obama looking to lock up the 3 "P"s vote: Populism, Privatization and Plagiarism.

I believe it's a football field.

55: Is Martha available then? She's been trading down ever since Sen. Maybe we can set her up with Teo.

All I know is that she's no longer with Cass. It couldn't hurt to try, though; teo probably just has to say something like "you know I learned so much from reading Henry James' late novels, about how to really see people", and then fix her with those baby blues of his*, and he's in like Flynn.

*eye color may differ from model.

58: The hellmouth? Rhodes isn't searchable and my copy is at home.

59: Poor Senator Maybe! He had such promise, but he could never quite shake off his image as a waffler.

60: Hmm, Henry James is a lot of reading to do in order to prepare for a date. Even if you are trying to woo an A-list philosopher, it may not be worth the work.

Yeah, the hellmouth. Stagg Field. But apparently the hellmouth itself was discovered under a "racquets court", whatever that is.

60: Short stories are made of such things! When the terms "Cass" and "Martha" started sounding in the same breath, I first took it for "Kass" and was duly horrified. I like her. Many do not. (And there are, oh, two pages of my dissertation about a particular way she -- and a few others -- are wrong about something.)

64: Which is now under the Reg. Totally hellmouthy.

I think I posted here once about my desire to write a Dan Brown style pseudo intellectual thriller that opens with a secret assassin from the Committee for Social Thought taking out the one person who knows The Secret. Also featured, Scientiology, Opus Dei, and the secret cabal of Leo Straus followers.

The big secret: Xenu wrote the book of Mormon.

Hey oudemia, are you Doctor Oudemia now? I know you weren't for a while, and then I stopped keeping track.

You know there are lots of people on the ComSocTht who aren't Straussians, including its current head.

The Straussians are very ripe for such a thing. I mean, "unwritten teachings"? Come on!

68: Nope! There was something of an interceding nervy b in there. But all is well and I am almost done.

69: Some of my best friends are Social Thinkers! (This is actually true.)

I suppose that would all be part of the intrigue, though.

Redfield claims that in Strauss's classes, there was literally an inner circle of favored students.

There is or was a social thinker who's related to Learned Hand. Can't remember his first name. Dr. Hand, if he's gotten his degree by now. Knew a lot about Hobbes, as I recall.

I suppose that would all be part of the intrigue, though.

Yes, yes.

The international Strausian cabal has a team of secret assassins. The committee on social thought has a team of secret assassins.

But are they the *same* team of secret assassins? Do they take their orders from the same people? Do they have overlapping membership? Are they numerically identical? If H2O were really XYZ would they still be the same team of secret assassins?

74: Yes. Things have changed. There are now members of the International Straussian Cabal that have graduated from "dictators with training wheels" (h/t John Leonard) and now, you know, might really know some assassins. Perhaps B-b P-pp-n can lead the forces of light against them.

Let's go through the faculty and speculate as to what weaponry they might use in their adventures. Tar/cov: piercing reedy voice causes target to bleed from ears.

Oooh, shiny new uchicago.edu.

76: Oooh -- Wendy D channels avatars of Kali! Danielle is just smarter and nicer than everyone else!

Fogel strikes me as an ax guy.

Ax s/b cross.

Danielle is just smarter and nicer than everyone else!

You don't seem to understand how the whole "special weapons and/or super-powers" genre works.

Lets look at Kass. I say he's a two handed fighter. In his right hand is a finely crafted sharp blade which you think would be the thing to watch in combat. Really, though, Kass just spends his time hitting you with the club he carries in his other hand.

Then he eats your remains while walking.

Actually, I don't know enough about any of the other CST faculty to make fun of them. The history of science stuff by L/orain D/aston's that I have read is nice enough. But even there, I haven't thought about it critically.

Pippin is a sharp dresser and, uh, cuts you? I'm at a loss here too.

I did read a really good article by Da/ston and Gali/son once. It was, y'know, really good!

All this means is that my dan brown-style novel will be harder to write than it first seemed. Perhaps I should return my attention to the opera based on the original Night of the Living Dead I wanted to write.

Let's do the time warp and ponder the weirdness of Kass.

Not just the uneducated rustic but children of the cultural elite are now regularly seen yawning openly in public (not so much brazenly or forgetfully as indifferently and "naturally"), unaware that it is an embarrassment to human self-command to be caught in the grip of involuntary bodily movements (like sneezing, belching, and hiccuping and even the involuntary bodily display of embarrassment itself, blushing).

Or maybe this:

Though the walking street eater still moves in the direction of his vision, he shows himself as a being led by his appetites. Lacking utensils for cutting and lifting to mouth, he will often be seen using his teeth for tearing off chewable portions, just like any animal.

Clinton's bioethics commission was the NBAC, headed, I think, by Herold Shapiro

Harold Shapiro. President of Princeton in the 90s. Bonus cool fact that makes it worth bringing up: Shapiro was head of the commission on cloning, and is an identical twin. Bonus bonus fact: His twin brother was President of McGill at the time.