ThinkProgress (“EXCLUSIVE: Conservative Board Unanimously Condemned Gaffney’s ‘Reprehensible’ And ‘Unfounded’ Attacks“):

 A year ago, anti-Sharia conspiracy theorist Frank Gaffney leaned against a column in the basement of CPAC as he warned ThinkProgress about how Muslim extremists had infiltrated the annual gathering of conservative activists in Washington — conspiracy theorizing that had made Gaffney unwelcome upstairswhere the official panels and keynote speeches were held, as ThinkProgress first reported.

Gaffney’s attacks on conservative stalwarts like Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform, andSuhail Kahn, a Bush administration offical, as agents of the Muslim Brotherhood has made him a bit of a pariah among conservatives. David Keene, the then-chairman of the American Conservative Union (ACU), which puts on CPAC, and the current head of the NRA, told ThinkProgress last year that Gaffney “has become personally and tiresomely obsessed with his weird belief that anyone who doesn’t agree with him…[must be] dupes of the nation’s enemies.”

This year, the ban on Gaffney’s official participation remained in effect, but he was able to purchase a side room at the conference through TeaParty.net, giving him unofficial but proximate access to the conference. Conservatives are hesitant to speak ill about each other in public, but a source close to CPAC told ThinkProgress that Gaffney, already on thin ice, made CPAC leadership “livid” by attacking Norquist during his panel Saturday.

The degree to which conservative leaders have tried to distance themselves from Gaffney and his Shaira conspiracy theories is especially apparent given two documents obtained exclusively by ThinkProgress.

Last September, the board of the ACU unanimously passed a resolution (read it here) condemning the “false and unfounded” attacks Gaffney had made against Norquist and Kahn, both board members, after having another board member, Cleta Mitchell, look into Gaffney’s serious charges of sedition and abetting an enemy.

In a letter to the ACU board (read it here), Mitchell, a prominent and very conservativeattorney, said she reviewed the “evidence” Gaffney presented (including a lengthy PowerPoiint presentation and DVDs smearing Norquist and Kahn), and found Gaffney’s “ceaseless war” to be “reprehensible.”

[...]

The unanimous ACU board — which includes neoconservatives like U.N. ambassador John Bolton — endorsed the letter and resolved that Gaffney’s claims against Kahn and Norquist were “false and unfounded,” writing that the board “profoundly regrets and rejects as unwarranted the past and on-going attacks upon their patriotism and character.”

This is welcome news, indeed.

The Republican/conservative track record on this particular issue is mixed. On the one hand, President George W. Bush has been almost universally lauded for immediately and repeatedly emphasizing in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks that America is not at war with Islam, that the overwhelming majority of Muslims are peaceful, and so forth. On the other, prominent conservatives have embraced such outrages as the shameful campaign against building a Muslim community center a few blocks from Ground Zero.

Some of the leaders of the latter movement are welcomed with open arms at CPAC. Yet, apparently, there’s a point where anti-Muslim bigotry crosses a line and is unwelcome in the movement.

via  Ben Smith via Blake Hounshel

Whitney Houston, once one of the biggest stars in American popular culture, has died.

AP (“Whitney Houston, superstar of records, films, dies“):

Whitney Houston, who ruled as pop music’s queen until her majestic voice and regal image were ravaged by drug use, erratic behavior and a tumultuous marriage to singer Bobby Brown, has died. She was 48.

Houston’s publicist, Kristen Foster, said Saturday that the singer had died, but the cause and the location of her death were unknown.

News of Houston’s death came on the eve of music’s biggest night — the Grammy Awards. It’s a showcase where she once reigned, and her death was sure to cast a heavy pall on Sunday’s ceremony. Houston’s longtime mentor Clive Davis was to hold his annual concert and dinner Saturday; it was unclear if it was going to go forward.

“I am absolutely heartbroken at the news of Whitney’s passing,” music producer Quincy Jones said in a written statement. “I always regretted not having had the opportunity to work with her. She was a true original and a talent beyond compare. I will miss her terribly.”

At her peak, Houston was the golden girl of the music industry. From the middle 1980s to the late 1990s, she was one of the world’s best-selling artists. She wowed audiences with effortless, powerful, and peerless vocals that were rooted in the black church but made palatable to the masses with a pop sheen.

Her success carried her beyond music to movies, where she starred in hits like “The Bodyguard” and “Waiting to Exhale.”

She had the perfect voice, and the perfect image: a gorgeous singer who had sex appeal but was never overtly sexual, who maintained perfect poise.

She influenced a generation of younger singers, from Christina Aguilera to Mariah Carey, who when she first came out sounded so much like Houston that many thought it was Houston.

But by the end of her career, Houston became a stunning cautionary tale of the toll of drug use. Her album sales plummeted and the hits stopped coming; her once serene image was shattered by a wild demeanor and bizarre public appearances. She confessed to abusing cocaine, marijuana and pills, and her once pristine voice became raspy and hoarse, unable to hit the high notes as she had during her prime.

A tragic waste.

Mitt Romney won the annual straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), edging Rick Santorum and well ahead of Newt Gingrich.

Washington Times (“Romney wins The Washington Times/CPAC Straw Poll”)

Mitt Romney won The Washington Times/CPAC Presidential Straw Poll on Saturday, and also nipped Rick Santorum as the top choice of conservatives nationwide, according to a new version of the poll conducted for the first time this year that suggests Mr. Romney retains strong support among self-identified conservatives.

Mr. Romney won 38 percent of the straw poll, which counted the votes of 3,408 activists gathered for the Conservative Political Action Conference, which ran from Thursday through Saturday at a hotel in Washington.

Mr. Santorum was second with 31 percent, Newt Gingrich was third with 15 percent and Rep. Ron Paul was fourth with 12 percent — far below his showing the last two years, when he won with 31 in 2010 and 30 percent in 2011.

[...]

The poll results have no official meaning in the GOP’s presidential nomination battle but do give Mr. Romney a boost as he seeks to regain the momentum he appeared to have lost last week as Mr. Santorum swept Tuesday’s three contests.

Mr. Romney’s 38 percent of the vote among CPAC activists is the highest of any candidate since George W. Bush won 42 percent of the vote in 2000, en route to the nomination and the White House. The poll wasn’t held from 2001 through 2004, but has been held every year since then.

My position on the CPAC straw poll–and, indeed, straw polls in general–is that they’re an insipid waste of time yielding little to no useful insight. That remains true this time. CPAC, in particular, is not remotely representative of even the Republican primary electorate (it’s incredibly DC-centric and dominated by college students and activists in their 20s). And the vote is easily manipulable by organization. Ron Paul routinely does much better than his national numbers–and won the last two polls coming it to this year. (This year, he finished dead last, apparently having decided for whatever reason not to flood the convention with supporters.)

What’s worth noting here, though, is that this isn’t the first time Romney topped this poll. While Ed Morrissey is “severely surprised,” he shouldn’t be.

For Mr. Romney, his victory marks a return to the top. He won the straw poll here from 2007 through 2009, when he was seen as the conservative choice as he prepared, fought and then lost his nomination battle with Sen. John McCain.

This is a point I’ve made time and again: While Romney’s conservative bonafides can reasonably be called into question–I’ve done it myself–he was in fact the “conservative alternative” as recently as 2008. I was at CPAC four years ago when he made his announcement that he was ending his campaign and endorsing John McCain and was bemused that the CPAC crowd considered Romney conservative and McCain a moderate when their records indicated the opposite. Indeed, Romney won the straw poll after withdrawing from the race and when McCain was unquestionably going to be the nominee.

The related point is how much the goal posts on American conservatism have moved in just four years. While I’d still contend that Romney is a moderate in relation to McCain, he’s unquestionably a conservative in the grand scheme of American politics. Yet, in the era of the Tea Party, it’s probably impossible to find a candidate who will fit the bill. Rick Santorum passes the litmus tests on the social issues but he’s not a fiscal conservative by Tea Party standards. He’s voted for all sorts of big spending programs, supports ear marks, and even endorsed Arlen Specter voted to confirm Sonia Sotomayor to the federal bench. Gingrich is a Big Government Conservative with all manner of absurd projects in mind.

In response to a reader query wondering if Rick Santorum’s strong showing in El Paso County in last week’s Colorado Caucus demonstrated a “military problem” for Mitt Romney that could come into play on Super Tuesday, Andrew Gelman points to some research by political scientists Jason Dempsey and Bob Shapiro from several years back showing a bifurcation within the military ranks.

It is true that the upper echelons of the military tilt right. My own research confirmed that about two-thirds of majors and higher-ranking officers identify as conservative, as previous studies found. But that tilt becomes far less pronounced when you expand the pool of respondents. That is because only 32 percent of the Army’s enlisted soldiers consider themselves conservative, while 23 percent identify as liberal and the remaining 45 percent are self-described moderates. These numbers closely mirror the ideological predilections of the civilian population. . . .

The political differences between officers and enlisted personnel can be partly explained by a demographic divide. Whereas officers are predominantly white, have at least a bachelor’s degree, and draw incomes that place them in the middle or upper-middle class, the enlisted ranks have a higher proportion of minorities, make less money than officers, and typically enter service with only a high school diploma. Nevertheless, even when controlling for factors like race and gender, officers are significantly more likely than soldiers to identify as conservative. . . .

In addition to its ideological moderation, the Army is not as partisan as popularly portrayed. Whereas 65 percent of Americans think of themselves as either Republican or Democrat, according to the Annenberg survey, my study shows that only 43 percent of the military identifies with one of the two major political parties. Two out of three officers consider themselves either Republican or Democrat, but only 37 percent of enlisted personnel do so.

Officers tend to be not only more partisan, but also more Republican, with GOP affinity strongest among the highest ranks. While I [Dempsey] was unable to fully parse the reason for this, the evidence strongly suggests the pattern is generational. Today’s senior officers entered the Army during the late 1970s and 1980s, a time when the Republican Party had a strong advantage on issues of national defense and the Democratic Party was seen as antiwar if not anti-military. By contrast, junior officers who joined the Army after 2001 are almost as likely to be Democrats as they are Republicans, foreshadowing a possible shift in officer attitudes.

Joshua Tucker posts a note from Major Jim Golby, a Stanford PhD and West Point instructor.

To my knowledge, there are no current polls about military preferences for the GOPcandidates. There are a few unscientific polls done by a newspaper, The Military Times, that measure military approval of the president, but that is it. They show approval for president Obama within the military at around 25%.

I have done some research in this field, however [paper available here]. One of the main take-aways from my research is that Republican officers in the military and elite veterans are no different, on average, than Republican civilian elites once we control for demographic factors. Although my work focuses on senior officers and veterans, Jason Dempsey’s book,Our Army, and Jeremy Tiegen’s paper support this general claim for soldiers and veterans, respectively.

[...]

[T]here is no evidence suggesting that any GOP nominee would have trouble winning the ‘military vote’ since there really is no such thing. There are not many Democrats in the military and there are even fewer liberals in the ranks; in general, most Democrats in the military are moderate or conservative Democrats (especially in the higher ranks).

In the comments, our own Chris Lawrence observes,

I’d caution against conflating officers and enlisted personnel; officers do tend to be overwhelmingly Republican, but NCOs and lower enlisted are much more mixed in partisanship and ideology, although also much less likely to vote, particularly in the E-1-4 ranks, probably in large part due to age. As Jim suggests probably a large part of the differences between the military and the public at large are due to ethnicity, SES, and region (the officer corps of the Army and Air Force, at least, tend to be substantially more southern than the public at large).

As far as the “military vote” might go, given the relatively small size of the officer corps and their lack of political organization or geographic concentration (military people, including their spouses and other dependents, tend to retain residency in their hometowns rather than registering to vote locally when reassigned, so even “military towns” will have few active-duty military/dependent voters), I doubt it could ever be all that influential even if their turnout was much higher.

There’s a lot to unpack here but the takeaways would seem to be:

1. The military, and especially its senior officers, are more Republican and conservative than the country as a whole. But the extent of this is grossly exaggerated, because the media naturally focuses on the attitudes of the officer corps, particularly more senior officers.

2. These differences are almost entirely explainable by the demographic makeup of the military, which is self-selected.

3. As with the rest of the country, the younger cohorts of the military–including its officer corps–are less Republican and less conservative. See, for example, the enormous swings in attitudes on gays in the military over the last 20 years.

4. The notion that the “military vote” plays a major role in choosing our presidents is vastly overstated. In addition to the issues Lawrence notes, a third of the states essentially disenfranchise military personnel by mailing absentee ballots too late. The caveat is that, because a disproportionate number of military personnel claim Florida as their home of record in order to avoid paying state income taxes, they could potentially serve as a decisive swing vote in an incredibly close contest along the lines of the 2000 election. Those are, of course, quite uncommon.

Heather Horn reveals that, contrary to the hype created by a new book an a WSJ column based on it, French mothers do not have some magical formula for raising well behaved children. Rather, it appears that the American author based her research on three or four minutes of casual observation of some rich French women.

Marion Nestle of Food Politics points to a sign of our times: “Pepsi cuts 8,700 jobs; 4th quarter profits rise.” He cites these numbers from a Reuters report:

Pepsi reports increases in:

• Annual dividends: 4%
• Expenditures on advertising: an additional $500 million
• Expenditures on display racks: an additional $100 million
• Fourth quarter profits: from $1.37 billion a year ago to $1.42 billion
• Earnings per share: from 85 cents a year ago to 89 cents
• Revenues: up 11% to $20.2 billion

Nestle rails at the juxtaposition of rising profits and “adding 8,700 out-of-work people to an already depressed job economy” and figures “public pressure and regulation” are in order.

Actually reading the linked report, however, presents a different picture.

PepsiCo outlined a plan on Thursday that included cutting thousands of jobs and increasing advertising in an effort to revive the company’s soft drink business in North America. The company’s chief executive, Indra Nooyi, said that it would have a larger-than-expected decline in near-term earnings.

PepsiCo, based in Purchase, N.Y., expects to cut 8,700 jobs, or 3 percent of its global work force, across 30 countries as part of a plan to save $1.5 billion over the next three years. It also plans to raise advertising and marketing spending by $500 million to $600 million this year, centering on 12 brands including Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Gatorade, Tropicana, Quaker and Doritos. It will spend an additional $100 million this year to improve delivery and display racks.

Ms. Nooyi, whose five-year tenure has been marred by the global financial crisis, recession and higher commodity costs, also took responsibility for a series of management missteps including underinvesting in some brands and overpromising Wall Street.

[...]

Ms. Nooyi has come under pressure from Wall Street for a stagnant stock price and a lagging North American beverage business. She has been criticized for taking her eye off the core business of sodas to expand into healthier products, such as hummus and drinkable oatmeal.

The company said its earnings in 2012 would decline 5 percent from 2011. It forecast an additional 3 percentage point decline from foreign exchange rates.

So, the 4% dividend boost is designed to bolster investor confidence and the company is actually down 5% from last year. And facing a 7% increase in commodity costs in the coming year. On the face of it, then, it’s perfectly reasonable that Wall Street would be putting pressure on the company to increase performance vis-a-vis its competitors (notably, of course, Coca-Cola) by getting rid of money losing distractions.

On the other hand:

PepsiCo reported a fourth-quarter profit of $1.42 billion, up from $1.37 billion. Earnings per share rose to 89 cents, from 85 cents a share in the same quarter a year earlier. Excluding items, PepsiCo earned $1.15 a share, topping analysts’ average estimate of $1.13 a share, according to Thomson Reuters. Revenue rose 11 percent to $20.2 billion.

So, while earnings for the year were down, earnings were up slightly from the same quarter. More interestingly, revenues were up fantastically even if profits aren’t. Presumably, that’s a function of the sales of such things as “hummus and drinkable oatmeal” bringing in a substantial amount of gross but netting very little or even losing money. Apparently, the money is in the established junk food brands “Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Gatorade, Tropicana, Quaker and Doritos.”

One of our recurring discussions on the late, lamented OTB Radio program was whether companies had an obligation, especially in tough economic times, to keep as many employees as revenues allowed. Should CEOs continue to seek maximum efficiency–cutting employees and marginally profitable departments and subsidiaries to wring out the last amount of profit? Or should they instead keep such things as a lagging drinkable oatmeal plant going so long as they can afford to?

Certainly, all the pressures on the CEO are in the direction of the former. That’s especially true of a huge corporation in a globalized economy, where the business really isn’t a part of the community in a meaningful way and has no sense of obligation to anyone other than the shareholder.

Story via John Personna. Business image via Shutterstock.

Bryan Caplan makes an amusing point in favor of the idea that education is more about signaling than learning:

If I’d failed Spanish, I couldn’t have gone to a good college, wouldn’t have gotten into Princeton’s Ph.D. program, and probably wouldn’t be a professor.  But since I’ve merely forgotten my Spanish, I’m sitting in my professorial office, loving life.

Don Novello, most famous as Father Guido Sarducci on “Saturday Night Live” many moons ago, had a great stand up bit called Five Minute University based on the simple idea that, in five minutes, he could teach everything the average college student would remember five years after he left school:

There’s a lot of truth to this idea. A decade or so ago, I looked back at my undergraduate transcript and noted that I had gotten an “A” in at least one class that I literally don’t recall ever having taken. It’s not simply that I don’t recall whatever it was that I was supposed to have learned (as is true of my calculus classes) but that I had no recollection of who taught the course or ever having gone.

And, yet, I’ve applied for jobs since then when they insisted on a copy of my undergraduate transcript. A quarter century and two graduate degrees later.

Indeed, there are surely courses that I took in graduate school twenty years ago where the information that I still retain is modest at best. And I’m not even counting the requisite stats classes and the coding that I learned for now long-defunct mainframe statistical packages. These were courses that I chose to take in a field that I had tremendous interest and aptitude and yet, over time, most of what I learned has been relegated to bits and pieces and, hopefully, shape my general sense of “what I know” even if I can’t recall particulars.

For that matter, most of the material that I still remember quite well probably has much more to do with my years teaching the material after leaving grad school than from the student experience itself. Being able to spout the professor’s material back to him on a test–integrating it with the myriad outside readings, of course–actually requires much less understanding than being able to explain it to a clueless undergraduate who can’t fill in the blanks on his own.

On the other hand, my hunch is that Bryan remembers a lot more of his high school Spanish than he lets on. In my own case, my conversational German has atrophied so much that it’s embarrassing. Yet, I was surprised that I’d retained enough ability to read German as to be quite helpful in navigating streets, shops, and menus in Holland–which doesn’t use German! While spoken Dutch is, to me, absolutely unintelligible, the written language is close enough to German that I was able to glean quite a bit.

Then again, I’ve long been of the belief that, unless you’re training for a technical specialty, higher education is not about learning the material but grappling with it and learning how to learn. I haven’t had to do

Via Alex Tabarrok. Education image via Shutterstock.

Doctor Science reacts to a proposal “giving all couples a civil union and leaving marriage up to churches and other religious institutions.”

 I have been civilly married for almost 25 years. In what respect is my marriage not “marriage” enough to keep the name — and the protection of a very large and well-established system of law? I haven’t been able to find good numbers, but I saw a vague estimate that 1/4 to 1/3 of US marriages are civil ceremonies. Have the people saying “government should get out of the marriage business and leave it up to the religions” completely forgotten about secular, civil marriages? Or do they really, in their hearts, believe that my marriage isn’t important, that I wouldn’t lose anything if it was defined away?

My late wife and I were married in a civil ceremony as well and, naturally, considered ourselves to be “married.”

As I understand such proposals, however, all that would change is the label. That is, all of the legal rights that currently go along with “marriage,” whether performed in a civil or religious ceremony, would continue to exist–we’d just call them “civil unions” or “domestic partnerships” or something other than “marriage.”

The rationale for this is that, for some very large segment of the society–likely an overwhelming majority, although it’s inexorably shifting in the other direction–have religious or moral objections to same-sex marriages and strongly believe that “marriage” is an institution that should consist of “one man and one woman.” Referenda on this question inevitably pass overwhelmingly, even in relatively liberal states like California. So, libertarians argue, we solve the problem by giving equal civil rights to all unions, whether same- or opposite-sex, and use the more religious label “marriage” within the confines of various churches.

When this notion started being bandied about eight or nine years ago in response to the first states legalizing same-sex unions, this struck me as a sensible solution to the problem. The more I’ve thought about it, though, the sillier it seems.

First, as Doctor Science makes clear, some very large number of people would be outraged at being told that they’re no longer “married” but in an identical relationship with a less hallowed name. The notion of “marriage” is simply too ingrained into our culture at this point to strip it away at this point.

Second, it’s a hell of a big change to go through to make a few people feel better about themselves. While I’ve long since stopped giving a damn about whether a couple of dudes got married, I get that it’s an issue that others have incredibly strong feelings about. But so what?

Third, it’s a transparently silly notion. People who feel strongly that people of the same sex shouldn’t be allowed to marry one another aren’t going to be fooled by being patted on the head and told, “No, no–they’re not “marrying” one another, they’re just getting married. I mean, civil unioned.” The underlying prejudice, revulsion, or moral outrage isn’t going to disappear.

Via Patrick Appel. Gay marriage image by Shutterstock.

Mitt Romney has apparently realized that people don’t like him much, so he’s working to come across as less robotic.

That notion was the opening theme of today’s “Morning Joe” and the network’s First Read column hammers it home.

Beginning with Romney’s speech on Tuesday night, we can point to four examples how he and his allies have begun to retool his biographical message, trying to expand it beyond the simple “economic fix-it man.” So in his address on Tuesday night, he talked about his father’s humble roots and past work as a carpenter. (It was a little forced and the “pointy end forward” nails example is not his best stump moment, but we digress). Then the campaign released a statement yesterday commemorating the 10^th anniversary of the Salt Lake City Olympics and reminding everyone of Romney’s role with it. (“I was deeply honored to have been asked to lead the Olympics and am proud that the games were such a memorable success,” Romney said in the release.) Then, campaigning in Atlanta, he talked about his time as a Mormon lay pastor, something he rarely does. (“In that capacity, I had a chance to work with people who lost their jobs, in some cases, or were facing other financial distress.’) And finally, his son Tagg tweeted an article about how Romney rescued a 14-year-old kidnap victim (a story we heard more about in the ’08 race than the ’12 one). You add up these four things, and it’s an obvious attempt in a 24-hour span to humanize Romney and add more texture to his biography — beyond the guy who’s good at giving a PowerPoint presentation.

I don’t claim to have any special insights into Romney’s personal life but my strong sense is that this “retooled” Romney is the real Romney. That is, he’s a strong family guy who’s strongly shaped by religious faith and its command to minister to those less fortunate–and yet comes from a cultural tradition that counsels against bragging about one’s good works.

He’d hoped to be able to sail on to the Republican nomination on his strength as a manager and fixer without having to resort to anything more personal and schmaltzy than singing “God Bless America.” Now, it’s clear that he’s not going to be able to do that and he’s reluctantly–and perhaps a little awkwardly–opening up.

When Newt Gingrich was his chief threat, his campaign quite reasonably decided to focus on Gingrich’s bountiful weaknesses. Now that Rick Santorum has seemingly become the “conservative alternative,” he can’t do that. Santorum’s weakness is some rather extreme positions on social issues that make him unelectable in the fall. But Romney can run against those, since they’re actually popular with a wide swath of the Republican nominating electorate. And, while Gingrich is inherently unlikable, Santorum comes across as a really decent guy with a compelling personal narrative.

So, Romney has no choice but to dispel the notion that he’s an out-of-touch rich guy with no personality, no core beliefs, and no soul. It may be too late to do that and he may simply not have it in him to open himself in public.

I’m actually not incapable of disagreeing with people without insulting their intelligence, motives, or other qualifications. I especially enjoy debating the most intelligent and interesting conservatives, like Ramesh Ponnuru, Ross Douthat, and David Frum, not to mention numerous liberal writers I respect.

Now, de Rugy is a bright gal, possessed of a PhD in economics from the University of Paris-Sorbonne. But that’s a great setup for a column.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti admitted publicly what many have been whispering about: the fight over the eurozone crisis is opening some old wounds. Essentially, Northern Europeans, led by Germany, are angry at what they perceive as sloth in the South while Southern Europeans, particularly those Greece, Italy, and Spain, are resentful of being told what to do by those in the North.

Monti says, “the euro zone crisis has indeed brought about quite a bit of misunderstandings and the re-emergence of old phantoms about prejudices between the North, the South of Europe, and a lot of mutual resentment.” Taking this to its logical conclusion, he observed, “And it is very, very important that we all take this with great attention in order to avoid that something that was meant to be the culminating point of the European construction — namely, the single currency — turns out to be, through psychological negative effects, a factor of disintegration of Europe.”

In my New Atlanticist piece, “Italian PM Warns of European Disintegration From Mutual Resentments,” I commend Monti for speaking the truth. I close:

On the one hand, “Europe” will remain a fantasy so long as differences in cultures which have existed independently for centuries can not be accommodated. On the other, the common currency and deeper political integration can not work if Europeans don’t all play by the same basic sets of rules.

More at the link.

Photo credit: Reuters Pictures.

To increase selectivity (one of the statistics that go into U.S. News’s secret mumbo-jumbo formula to produce an overall ranking), many colleges deliberately encourage applications from students who don’t have a prayer of getting in. To increase average SAT scores, colleges offer huge scholarships to un-needy but high scoring applicants to lure them to attend their institution. (The Times story mentioned that other colleges have been offering payments to admitted students to retake the test to increase the school average.)

One of my favorite bits of absurdity was what a friend on the faculty at Case Law School told me they were doing a few years ago: because one of the U.S. News data points was the percentage of graduates employed in their field, the law school simply hired any recent graduate who could not get a job at a law firm and put him to work in the library.

Their other tactic was pure genius: the law school hired as adjunct professors local alumni who already had lucrative careers (thereby increasing the faculty-student ratio, a key U.S. News statistic used in determining ranking), paid them exorbitant salaries they did not need (thereby increasing average faculty salary, another U.S. News data point), then made it understood that since they did not really need all that money they were expected to donate it all back to the school (thereby increasing the alumni giving rate, another U.S. News data point): three birds with one stone!

[...]

As someone who knew a little math, what really drove me bonkers about the college guide was:

(a) the logical absurdity of adding together completely unrelated statistics to produce a single measure of merit—the key point being that you can produce an astonishing range of different results depending  on the relative weight  each component factor is assigned. And there is simply no logical, a priori basis for establishing such a weighting objectively. Do SAT scores count 30% of the total score? 32.2%? 18.78234%? (How about zero?) It’s the classic apples + oranges – bananas/kumquats  = fruit salad approach to statistics, and is completely meaningless.

(b) the fact that the entire exercise was designed to emphasize noise over signal: tiny, random fluctuations from year to year would result in regular changes in the final rankings. Even within its own absurd methodology no one ever dared broach the question of the actual statistical significance of the differences between the “No. 1″ school and say the No. 5 school. In fact, there was pretty clearly none. It is of course ridiculous to think that when Harvard, Stanford, Yale, whoever changed places from one year to the next in the final rankings this reflected any actual sudden change in the underlying quality of the schools. But the only way to keep selling the damned guide each year was to make sure things kept changing from year to year.

What’s amazing is not that the magazine used this gimmick to increase sales or that some try to game the system but that almost all the colleges and universities in America willingly went along with it. I can sort of understand why a 2nd or 3rd tier institution would tout its rankings in some tertiary category (Best value of any medium sized liberal arts college in the Southwest!) as a means of claiming prestige. But what did Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and the like have to gain by playing along?

Rick Santorum, who has been an afterthought since his (belated) win in Iowa, swept three states that are off the media radar screen. Will it revive his campaign?

The media narrative of the race is that Iowa and New Hampshire winnow the race to the serious candidates, South Carolina is the first big contest, Florida the first big state, and then there’s a lull until Super Tuesday for the two top teams to get reorganized for the stretch run. Until some polls came out yesterday showing that Santorum was doing well, I was only vaguely aware that Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri were having non-binding primaries and caucuses.

Doug Mataconis noted that no delegates were technically at stake yesterday. That’s true. But, as I pointed out in the comments, “I’m not sure that delegates really matter at this stage. Otherwise, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul would be right when they argue that there are still 46 states to go and nothing has been decided. In reality, the outcome of each race leads to a shift in the media narrative and voter expectations.”

Will the narrative change? Or will the media stick to its pre-approved script? The early indications are the former.

The Washington Post uses the headline “Santorum’s hat trick in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri jolts GOP presidential race” to frame an AP story subtitled “SANTORUM HAT TRICK.”

Rick Santorum swept Tuesday night’s nominating contests, providing a jolt to the GOP race. Speaking at a rally in Missouri, Santorum cast his wins as a victory for conservatism.

“Conservatism is alive and well in Missouri and Minnesota,” Santorum said. A visibly jubilant Santorum spoke before his third victory, in Colorado’s nominating caucuses, was certain. Santorum’s victories validated a decision he made to campaign lightly in Florida and Nevada, which preceded Tuesday’s votes, and focus on Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri.

It marked a stunning comeback for Santorum, whose hopes seemed to fade after a narrow victory in Iowa was followed by losses in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida.

Santorum and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney both focused their speeches on President Barack Obama, deriding the man they hope to run against in November. Santorum called Obama a “radical” and worked to tie Romney to Obama on policy grounds. But Santorum was careful to show a general election focus.

“I don’t stand here to claim to be the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney,” he said. “I stand here to be the conservative alternative to Barack Obama.”

Romney congratulated Santorum on his victories, but said flatly he still expected to be the GOP nominee. He then ignored Santorum, spending his speech ripping into Obama’s leadership.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has been jostling with Santorum to be Romney’s principal opponent for the GOP nomination, tried to ignore poor showings in Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri by largely staying out of sight. Instead of waiting for Tuesday’s results in one of the states voting, as the other candidates did, Gingrich plowed forward to Ohio, where he planned to campaign Wednesday. In third or fourth place in each of the states voting, Gingrich didn’t make a public statement about the results. Instead, at campaign stops in Cincinnati, Dayton and Columbus, he criticized both Romney and Obama and linked Ohio’s Wright brothers to his own call for an improved U.S. space program.

Politico went with “Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado results: A sweep for Santorum.” WaPo‘s own headline declares, “Santorum revives campaign with wins in Colorado, Missouri and Minnesota.” NYT is more subdued with “Another Twist for G.O.P. as Santorum Fares Well.”

Nate Silver headlined an afternoon piece (written before the outcome was certain) “The High Stakes in Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri.”

A cynic might say that tonight’s Republican contests in Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri deserve an asterisk. In Minnesota and Colorado, which will hold caucuses, voters will pick their preferred presidential candidate in a nonbinding straw poll, while picking delegates to county and regional conventions in a separate vote. In Missouri, no delegates are on the line at all; the state will hold a separate caucus for that purpose on March 17.

The results, nevertheless, will provide an important test of how robust Mitt Romney’s coalition is on less favorable terrain than in states like New Hampshire or Nevada. And they could potentially revitalize the campaign of one of Mr. Romney’s opponents, Rick Santorum.

Nor should one go too far in dismissing the results. The process that Minnesota and Colorado use, holding separate votes for presidential preference and delegate selection at their caucuses, is essentially the same one that was used in Iowa. Missouri is a more debatable case, but as the first primary of any kind held in the Midwest — perhaps Mr. Romney’s weakest region — it may tell us something about how states like Michigan and Ohio are likely to vote when they hold key primaries on Feb. 28 and March 6, respectively.

But Silver also buttresses my “media narrative” argument, noting that, “We haven’t run forecasts in any of the states. The FiveThirtyEight forecast model was ‘trained’ on past cases in which at least three different pollsters were active in a state in the closing days of the election.” That is to say: nobody was paying an attention to these races until yesterday.

The results were nonetheless surprising. It’s not just that Santorum won but that he won in blowout fashion. In Missouri, which Silver reckoned to be “the closest contest, but probably leans slightly toward Mr. Santorum,” he won by a ridiculous 30 point margin.

I’m not sure what’s more surprising here: That Santorum, who most had written off, won all three contests (and thus has as many wins as Romney and Gingrich combined)? That Romney finished so far back in all three? Or that Gingrich, who the media had positioned as the conservative alternative to the establishment Romney, finished dead last in all three races–even behind Ron Paul.

My guess is that this will give all of us something to talk about for a couple of days but really won’t change anything. Santorum still doesn’t have any money or organization and it’s going to be nearly impossible for him to compete on Super Tuesday.

The next contest is the Maine Caucus on Saturday. There’s then a long lull until the Arizona and Michigan primaries on the 28th (3 weeks from yesterday). Washington holds a caucus on March 3rd (the following Saturday) and then Super Tuesday comes four days later with contests in Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vermont, and Virginia. That’s going to be a hell of a gauntlet.

Last night’s results reminded us that there’s very little enthusiasm among the hard core Republican base for Romney. And, apparently, none outside the Deep South for Gingrich. But, with Gingrich not going anywhere, I don’t see how Santorum can rally the base and beat Romney.

Joe Scarborough argued this morning that yesterday was a perfect storm for Santorum, the most socially conservative of the Republican candidates. The Komen-Planned Parenthood story, which was a huge win for the abortion rights forces, galvanized the base. Then there was the flap over the Obama administration’s boneheaded decision to force Catholic hospitals to provide contraceptives and abortifacients to their employees, which galvanized Catholics. And then the 6th Circuit came out yesterday and overturned a statewide referendum in California banning gay marriage. But I’m not sure any of that will have a lasting impact on the primary contest.

Photo: Reuters Pictures

Erik Loomis points to a report of growing sales of Scotch whisky in Latin America as incomes rise, which leads him to reflect on the social class status of various alcoholic beverages.

Scotch is, presumably because of its cost and boutique diversity, a universal signifier of success. It’s simply much more expensive at comparable quality levels than other spirits, which serves as a huge barrier to entry. Also, the vast differences in flavor between Scotches of different regions–and even the individual distilleries within the same region–creates fierce loyalty, snobbery, and debate.

I haven’t detected a comparable fetishization of any of the other spirits.

I’ve recently become aware of boutique bourbons but Jim Beam still dominates the market and is probably what most people think of as the standard variety, with Maker’s Mark, Wild Turkey, and a couple others that to me are virtually indistinguishable.

Jack Daniels is by far the dominant brand of Tennessee whiskey, the other American varietal. And most think of it as a type of bourbon, Lincoln County Process or no.

There’s some byplay among the various Irish whiskys, mostly among Americans who think there’s some Protestant-Catholic divide among brands (there isn’t). Canadian whiskey gets all of the attention of anything else Canadian.

There are some very pricey high end rums and tequilas out there but, at least in the United States, there’s little prestige associated with those spirits.

Vodka and gin are poor man’s booze, although plenty of it finds its way into rich people’s martini glasses. There’s been a trend in recent years towards higher end labels, with Grey Goose and Bombay Sapphire exemplars; but they’re still cheap compared to even a basic single malt Scotch.

There are all manner of other spirits out there (applejack, absinthe, etc.) but they’re novelty beverages, at least in my circles.

Then, of course, there’s wine snobbery and the recent advent of microbrew beers and the associated snobbery. But that’s a whole ‘nother topic.

Scotch and cigars image via Shutterstock

After the American troops departed in December, life became more difficult for the thousands of diplomats and contractors left behind. Convoys of food that were previously escorted by the United States military from Kuwait were delayed at border crossings as Iraqis demanded documentation that the Americans were unaccustomed to providing.

Within days the salad bar at the embassy dining hall ran low. Sometimes there was no sugar or Splenda for coffee. On chicken wing night, wings were rationed at six per person. Over the holidays, housing units were stocked with Meals Ready to Eat, the prepared food for soldiers in the field.

The horrors.

via Andrew Exum, Jeremy Scahill, and others laughing hysterically as they tweeted