Week of May 6, 2002
[Note: Some now-dead links have been removed from archived items.]

NO HANDS: Brink Lindsey does a nice job dissecting Charles Krauthammer's latest anti-therapeutic cloning article, so I won't repeat him. I'll just make one point about Krauthammer's misleading and inflammatory word choice. Allowing cell cloning to go forward, he writes, "will sanction the creation of an entire industry of embryo manufacture whose explicit purpose is not creation of children but dismemberment for research." To "dismember" something means to tear off its limbs. As you can see in the hugely enlarged image below, a blastocyst does not have limbs. It does not even have differentiated tissues.

As Dan Pink has noted, "if people actually knew what an embryo was, this debate would be over—and the anti-therapeutic cloning crowd would have to slither away." [Posted 5/10.]

THE POINT OF PETITIONS: In response to my campaign to get people to sign the Franklin Society petition against making cell cloning a crime, some readers—and my radio pal Hugh Hewitt—have questioned whether there's any point to signing petitions.

Obviously I believe there is. But it's not a simple story in which Senator Jones sees that 500 people have taken some position and is suddenly swayed to adopt that position himself. With public opinion polling, you can take a far more scientific measure of what the general public thinks.

So what's the point of petitions? The first, as I told Hugh on his radio show last week, is "common knowledge." If you sign a public petition that I can read, you know that I know what you think and I know that you know that I know. (This is related to my most recent NYT column on "rational rituals" that create common knowledge.) The most important reason for a petition like ours is simply to demonstrate that lots of people across the traditional political spectrum believe that the bill the Senate is considering is wrong—and that they are willing to say so in public. If you agree with us, you're in good company. Our petition has already sparked enormous amounts of discussion in the blogosphere, leading many bloggers to take a stand against the ban. That, in and of itself, is significant.

Take a look at the Franklin Society petition and you'll see who's willing to say publicly that scientists should not be put in prison for cloning cells. With a little looking around, it's easy enough to find out who's on the other side and why. Then, if you're clever, you can also figure out what prominent figures appear to be hiding, hoping the subject will just go away.

Of course, there are reasons other than cowardice that people might not want to put their names on petition: cynicism and inertia, to name a couple. That's where peer pressure comes in. A petition forces the issue. Unlike writing an opinion article, signing a petition doesn't require specialized knowledge. You just have to be a reasonably well-informed citizen. The Franklin Society petition doesn't ask anyone to decide a scientific question, any more than a stance against steel tariffs requires you to know how to run a steel mill. The issue is one of law. The Senate is not debating whether therapeutic cloning will cure diseases. It is debating whether to allow scientists to find out whether therapeutic cloning will cure diseases—or whether to put scientists in prison for trying to find out. The question is a lot simpler, up or down, than what to do about the Middle East.

So, peer pressure: If your name is missing, I encourage you to add it. If you notice the absence of someone you think ought to be on the list, I encourage you to inquire (and send me a copy of your inquiry). Maybe that person just isn't aware of the issue or the opportunity to sign. Or maybe that person is lying low and hoping no one will notice.

Another purpose of petitions is to begin to measure intensity. The willingness to sign shows at least a little commitment to the issue. If you then follow up (perhaps with a little prodding from my emails) with a phone, fax, or email to your senator, that shows even more concern. So does asking others to sign and to make calls. Savvy politicians know that elections are won and lost on intensity and organization, not just on how many people tell a pollster yes or no on some issue.

"I will not vote for or financially suppport any candidate who does not support ESC [embryonic stem cell] and SCNT [somatic cell nuclear transfer, or "therapeutic cloning"] research," writes petition signer W.C. Rainey, M.D., of Abilene, Texas, who describes himself as "Catholic, conservative, pro-life." That's the sort of intensity that makes a difference politically.

This brings me to a good point raised by reader Rachel Childs, who writes:

As someone with a severe disability, I can't thank you enough for the work you're doing in the service of scientific research.

I have been trying to get people to sign the Franklin Society Petition, and while I have had some success, people often say that online petitions are useless, an opinion I normally share.

There is even an essay at Snopes about how they are of minimal value in general: http://www.snopes2.com/inboxer/petition/internet.htm

I went ahead and signed it, based on the assumption that you and Milton Friedman wouldn't waste my time, but perhaps you could address this on your site for the recalcitrant?

The Internet is indeed full of bogus petitions (and unscientific, go-nowhere polls). Most of these petitions are designed just to build site traffic or, at best, to educate the general public about an issue. These petitions, which are the ones the Snopes site discusses, are highly automated and are never delivered to anyone in a position to act on the petitioners' views. They also tend to be about general problems, rather than specific legislation.

Our petition isn't like that. It's about a specific Senate bill, to be voted on shortly. It's not highly automated; even with the new easy-to-use form, I review all signatures to screen out duplicates, obvious false names (no Bart Simpsons here), and the occasional well-meaning but politically irrelevant Canadian. (So far Canadians are the only foreign citizens to try signing.) We didn't just use off-the-Internet software. Franklin Society Associate Jeff Wolfe programmed a system for our specific purposes, including avoiding spamming. Lots of commitment there.

More important, this petition isn't just going to continue forever collecting names. It will be delivered on Monday to relevant senators' offices, with appropriate publicity. (The Senate is expected to vote sometime between Tuesday, May 14 and Friday, May 24.) So if you want to sign, sign now. And if you've already signed, enlist others to sign in the next couple of days.

Do I think the Franklin Society petition will determine how the Senate votes? Not exactly. Fortunately, there are real professional lobbyists at work, representing large groups of patients, scientists, and physicians. But this is going to be an extremely close vote, which means that every marginal contribution matters—even if all you do is sign your name. [Posted 5/10.]

WHAT ABOUT AL? Reader John Thacker makes a good point in response to the item below: "Doesn't Al Hunt still write for the Wall Street Journal? Of course their page is going to look even more partisan if Lying in Ponds leaves off the token liberal."

I wasn't actually sure whether Al Hunt did still write for the WSJ, since it's been ages since he was interesting. But, sure enough, there he is in today's paper. Including Hunt wouldn't make the page any less partisan, but it would add a partisan Democrat to the mix. Wonder why LiP left him off? [Posted 5/9.]

PARTISAN COMMENTARY: The American Prospect's Tapped blog points readers to this interesting analysis of "partisanship" in punditry. The site scores regular columnists at the WSJ, NYT, and Washington Post on how frequently they boo or cheer politicians by party. The results won't surprise many readers: The most partisan page is the WSJ, but the most partisan individual pundit is Paul Krugman.

The WSJ list isn't comprehensive—Holman Jenkins and Mary O'Grady are WSJ regulars, for instance—but the difference seems to lie in definitions. The ratings are only for "political" columnists. Jenkins is an economics columnist, while O'Grady covers the Americas. But dropping these less partisan pundits from the WSJ mix, while including Thomas Friedman of the NYT, skews the results. Just because Jenkins doesn't turn his columns into anti-Democrat screeds doesn't mean he isn't doing the same thing Paul Krugman is supposed to do. (The WSJ's 2001 Pulitzer Prize winner, Dorothy Rabinowitz, also isn't included, but she doesn't write on a regular schedule.)

Now here's one of those interesting facts I'm not sure what to make of: Of the eight NYT regulars listed, one is female (girly-girl Maureen Dowd); of the 17 Washington Post regulars, one is female (old-guard liberal Mary McGrory); and of the nine WSJ regulars, four are female (Collin Levey, Claudia Rosette, Peggy Noonan, and Kimberley Strassel). For you bean counters, that's 12.5 percent, 6 percent, and 44 percent, respectively. Somehow I don't think the WSJ's female columnists were hired to fill quotas. Everybody knows you only need one female columnist to do that. [Posted 5/9.]

KAUS SELLS OUT: InstaPundit breaks the news that Mickey Kaus is taking his blog into Slate's universe. This isn't exactly shocking, since Kausfiles has always had a major Slate presence. But the news gives me an idea for how Microsoft can burnish its reputation in geekdom: Get Mickey to do deep links to the Dallas Morning News. A lot of them, featured prominently. Make the media magnates at Belo Corporation stop picking on little guys and take on Microsoft. (Don't worry, Mickey. I know it's impossible to find anything interesting on the DMN website, but I can feed you articles using the printed paper as a cue.)

As the required cynical aside (with a nicer ending), let me note that critics who think the blogosphere is full of people mentioning their blogger pals should take a look at the pal-promoting alumni of The Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and The Harvard Crimson. These three largely overlapping sets, which all have serious Slate ties, largely account for the Big Media attention paid to blogdom. (Without Mickey and Andrew Sullivan, the rest of us wouldn't rate the ink except in the tech ghetto.) Mickey is one of the few guys in that crowd willing to slum around with those of us who went to Princeton, Stanford, and Yale, not to mention the blogosphere's great college dropouts. A genuine believer in social equality and a real mensch. I hope Slate is paying him well. [Posted 5/8.]

DOWNTOWN FIXATION: My latest D Magazine column takes on the local establishment's fixed belief that every great city has a single center (quite the opposite is true) and that downtown Dallas needs (yet another) centrally developed plan to fix what ails it. Unless you live here, you can't quite appreciate how radical the column is—but read it anyway. [Posted 5/8.]

PROPERTY TAX SWINDLE: The same issue of D with my downtown column takes an interesting look at the sweeping powers of local property tax appraisers, who have a nasty tendency to overvalue property and leave homeowners with no appeal except to sue at great expense. To cut that expense, D's lawyers took an editor's case pro bono and the magazine is making the pleadings available on its website for others to copy. [Posted 5/8}

MALE PREGNANCY: In today's Daily Princetonian, biologist Lee Silver satirizes the argument that we must ban therapeutic cloning because if we don't a single cloned baby might sneak through and upset the natural order of things. (In an accompanying article, Lori Andrews argues for male pregnancy.) Posted 5/8.}

REMEMBER THE LEGS: FoxNews.com says high-tech swimsuit construction means never having to say you're fat: "New fabrics and designs make extra hours at the gym seem silly when today's swimwear can make tummies look tighter and cleavage fuller." Reporter Amy C. Sims and her fashion-industry sources seem to have forgotten that swimsuits have a tendency to reveal bare thighs. [Posted 5/7.]

BOOKS UPDATE: If you ordered a signed copy of TFAIE via PayPal by last Friday, your book is on its way. If you'd like to order a copy, click the cover to the left. Please be sure to note to whom you want it signed. (PayPal provides a space for comments; use it!) I also accept mail orders. Email me for the address. I have 38 copies left. Thanks for all the interest. [Posted 5/7.]

WAIT AND SEE: Am I the only person who wants to know who likely killed Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn before drawing conclusions about the ramifications of his assassination? What if it was some nut who thought killing someone famous would impress his favorite actress? Assassinations are always politically traumatic, but they don't always have deeper meaning. And even when political crime is politically motivated, the motives people expect are often not the ones at work. Who thought Robert Kennedy would be killed because of his views on Israel? Or that the Oklahoma City federal building had been blown up by a right-wing extremist?

And how about that anthrax scare? I don't know much about biological warfare, but I do know writing, and I always thought the notes sounded like an American imitating the style he imagined an Islamist terrorist would use. The case hasn't been solved, but it looks like I was right. Some commentators were ready to declare war, whether or not the military was positioned to open a new front, on the assumption it was an Iraqi attack.

Sometimes the best policy is to withhold comment until more facts are in—or at least to base the commentary on what's known, not what's interesting to imagine. Of course, that may presume that you'd rather be right than read. [Posted 5/6.]

BIG SURPRISE: Thanks to a link from John Leo's U.S. News column, Glenn Reynolds is finally beginning to realize what I'm (cruelly) always trying to tell less-jaded bloggers: There's a reason they call it Big Media. The blogosphere is interesting and growing. It has an intensely involved readership. And it's orders and orders of magnitude less influential than whatever nonsense Anna Quindlen decides to spew on the back page of Newsweek, which in turn is nothing compared to the audience of a network TV show with lousy ratings. Francis Fukuyama's WSJ nonsense last week reached millions. The blogosphere dissection of it reached, at best, tens of thousands. Numbers matter. [Posted 5/6.]

BLATANT DISREGARD: The Dallas Morning News may not like "deep linking," but how else am I supposed to let the world outside North Texas know about this story on a priest who was not only kept on the job after accusations of sexually abusing children but after pleading guilty in a criminal prosecution? Maybe it's been reported elsewhere—I don't read every one of these priest-abuse stories—but I haven't seen it. Brooks Egerton reports:

In the annals of clergy sexual abuse, the Rev. Norman Rogge is a familiar character. He has been accused of groping a young teen at a movie, of fondling others during swimming lessons, of exposing himself to an 11-year-old boy on a weekend trip and soliciting oral sex.

What makes the 77-year-old former Dallas priest unusual is that he has been criminally prosecuted twice for child molestation. He pleaded guilty the first time and no contest the second.

And—as some Catholic leaders are calling for a "one-strike" abuse policy and priests are being removed from ministry almost daily—Father Rogge remains in good standing, working at a Jesuit retirement home in New Orleans.

All the charges against him were "incorrect," he said Friday, declining to elaborate.

Read the whole story. I'll be expecting pro bono counsel from all my cyberlawyering pals when the DMN comes after me. [Posted 5/6.]

HAND-SELLING CHOMSKY: Independent bookstores and their boosters always boast that these stores can make bestsellers of books the evil chains ignore. According to this little-noticed piece in Saturday's NYT, one of their latest successes is Noam Chomsky's 9-11. The independents aren't the whole story, of course. The well-packaged, well-priced book is doing well in other outlets as well. But independents aren't just putting Chomsky next to Bernard Lewis and letting the buyer beware. Reports Michael Massing:

Seeking to explain the book's success, booksellers cite its succinct title, striking cover (a stark black-and-white picture of the twin towers before the attacks), low price ($8.95) and accessible question-and-answer format. "People are coming in every day, asking, 'What can I read that can give me some understanding of what's happening?' " said Virginia Harabin, the floor manager at the Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington. "This is the one I recommend."

[Posted 5/6.]

LIGHT POSTING: I'm recovering from a weekend computer catastrophe and won't be posting much while I finish the article I expected to spend yesterday writing. [Posted 5/6.]