@Scott, for one, he's not their leader. I think he's more puppet and court jester than actual king.

It's tough to know for sure whose really in charge, but my sense is that the certain factions of the Revolutionary Guard are. Sanctioning them sees like a bad action given that state of affairs (imo). But they've built themselves for years on trying to gain power I'm not sure why they would waste that power once they get it.

My sense of Iran is they want a bomb so they can prevent any future US and/or Israeli regime change/attack and they want major power status in the region. I don't think they want to use said bombs.

@Nob Akimoto, exactly. thanks for the link.

@Michael Drew, good point.

@Roberto, I know we keep going back and forth on this one, but I think Lind is partially correct (though overblown) in the idea that there is a big difference between multi-racial reality and multiculturalism. The latter is a strategy as to how to deal with the reality of the former. The first is factual.

The question then is: how to deal with it. And in Lind's mind, the early Civil Rights movement is a better marker for the later 70s/post 70s multiculturalism model, which has (in his mind) tended to isolate and segregate.

As I said I think he's overestimating the degree to which multiculturalism is causal (instead of admitting challenges and trying to live with them), but as a political project I agree with him that it's day has come and gone. Particularly given what is occurring in Arizona. I think the multicultural thing has isolated Hispanics (a possibly questionable category to begin with I would say) and then left the Democrats gun shy to respond to the rather abysmal law. Beyond perfunctory calls as wrong, etc. The Dems look like they want to pass immigration reform so they get another "group" into their coalition of interest groups. Instead of articulating a nation-wide vision and being the political party that will seek to bring that vision to reality.

D,

This is a very helpful emendation (correction?) to my post. Thanks.

@Nob Akimoto, that's an interesting point re: further regulation down the road. What do you think is the likelihood of that occurring?

@Dave, the obstructionism and stupidity part of the GOP is true fo' sure. But like with health care, I imagine we are going to see a deal that however much on one level it regulates the industry and hurts some of their more gambling sides, it's not going to really hurt them. Like in this analogy the health insurance industry which bitched and moaned about the guv'ment coming down on them, but at the end of the day, the bill was a major boon for their business no?

@Scott, I have no idea what Blankfein thinks. I wouldn't want to be in that crazy man's head for even a second.

The problem as I see it is that the speculation innovation outpaces any norms (legal and political) and any regulation is always ex post facto.

At a deeper level, I think the financialization of our economy is the wrong way into a post-industrial economy (leaving everyone else in service sector). I don't think protectionism will bring back heavy industrialization but I also don't think this cheap credit economy creates real value.

I'd like to see the financial sector totally disentangled from banking and essentially disentangled from the real economy rather than their pseudo-casino economy.

I can speak somewhat to this from the side of the adopted child (being one). Though some qualifications are in order: 1. I was adopted as a baby so that's very different than being raised in various foster homes/orphanages. 2. I'm the same color as my parents, so no one immediately caught on I was adopted. 3. My close-knit wider family (cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents) always accepted me and my sister as just part of the family.

My family and friends "knew" but it wasn't really a big deal in my youth. I've only ever talked to a few cross-racial adoptees, so I'm not really sure how much my experience overlaps (or doesn't) with their experience.

Yeah other kids (even adults) will tell you rather baseless and stupid things like they know for sure their mothers loved them more than my mother loved me because they came out of their (raised) mom's body. Whereas I came out of another woman's body.

Mostly I think it's a fear reaction, it's an unknown and people aren't comfortable with ambiguity, so they want/need some immediate framework to make sense so they spout whatever nonsense comes to their minds. Like Bryan Caplan has done, making himself look both a dumbass and a jackass simultaneously.

There is the experience that many adopted children experience as they grow into adolescence & adulthood however which is the have a difficult experience relating to their family as adults. Adoptees don't have a monopoly on this issue, of course but it is a significant issue for adoptees.

Generally my sense is there is a reticence to talk about that difficulty for fear it will be taken to prove the idiotic views of people like Caplan. I think it's definitely possible to admit that there are (for a goodly number but not all) adoptees a significant pain or confusion about life that is never quite resolved or only resolved after long work AND still hold that their families loved them and they were not second best or somehow less loved beings. To me, it's not that hard to hold those two elements together, but in my experience for others it's like theoretical astrophysics or something.

In the background of this topic I think is always this need to (over?)valorize adoption which for me is trying to sidestep the elephant in the room: the pain of not being in one's biological family. Which is NOT the same as saying adopted families are derivative families or adopted children are inferior beings or adoptive parents are these super-human moral saints who've taken "pity" on us poor adoptees. It's just recognizing the reality. Also it's hard to discuss I think because adoptees are (naturally, like pretty much all children) concerned that if they discuss those issues it will be taken by their parents to mean they wished they had never been adopted. And they don't want to appear ungrateful or hurt their parents whom they love.

People like Caplan, to the degree they are at all plugged into this, will take it as proof of their thesis that there is some normative biological family unit and in the case of adoptees it's not achieved and the pain is the consequence. I would say it's more a psychological rupture at a particularly early phase of development that is hard to get at because it occurred at a pre-verbal stage of development.

Though I should add in my case there's an added twist which was I was pretty sick as an infant so I wasn't able to be taken by my parents until I was about 2 weeks old. During those two weeks I was (given it was 1979) pretty much kept in an incubator (as far as I understand it) and fairly isolated. That's not the case in every adoption, particularly I gather more recent ones. In other words, I think that early isolation is the more cause of pain for some than any non-normative biological pseudo-selfish gene hypothesis.

@Jason Kuznicki, I got it off piratebay. I recommend it. The episode is quite good regardless of the *Censored* person in context. Too bad that the controversy will override the episode.

Warning: It's pretty f'ed up in regards to what happens wrt to the revelation of Cartman's dad.

Plus they get yet another fantastic shot in on Tom Cruise.

@Chris Dierkes, but the music is getting dreadful.

@Chris Dierkes, the only redeeming quality was there were still some zippy one liners. I love the stupid blonde cheerleader girl.

@Mark Thompson, seconded.

While I agree (in principle) with the policy, it's important to remember the various insurgencies in Af-Pak (including but not limited to Taliban) have multiple sources of funding. Kidnapping, local taxation, charities mostly from The Gulf, weapons smuggling. Drugs is only a slice of their income stream.

@Roberto, good question and one I've struggled with myself in terms of his writings.

As I understand it, mostly he's talking about moving away from a race-based affirmative action system to one that is classed based. In that sense he sees raced-based affirmative action tending towards racial balkinization and he's talking about a cross-racial economic alliance. Jim Webb has made similar comments. Lind might be wrong about (or probably over-estimating) the degree of such balkinization, but that's the idea. He talks about the earlier elements of the civil rights movement as an example.

In terms of immigration I would support massively increased legal immigration, moves to integrate and legalize those already in the country, shift that legal immigration more to high tech/higher wage immigration, and then see about what realistically and humanely can be done about proper enforcement.

@Simon K, I disagree. The health care proposals Lind supports would have completely done away with the employer based system. The only Democrat I can think of who supported such a notion was Ron Wyden.

The immigration policy would shift to high tech immigration not the current policy favored by both parties.

The education reform would create a larger federal umbrella (equalization payments) at the same time that it would allow for more school choice (not supported generally by the Democratic party).

Lowering the corporate tax rate at the same time as having a federal consumption (progressively balanced) is not exactly where the Democratic party has been going (under Obama or Clinton) vis a vis taxes.

@North, quite the contrary. he was (from what I could tell) some dumbass straight guy.

@Mark Thompson, My sense of Blue Dogs is that they are center-right economically. They are neoliberals in the economic sense. It was to get buy in from that crew that in many ways forced Health insurance reform to stick with the employer system (which Lind opposed).

I hope Dave is right and I'm wrong on the SEC filing against GS. For an argument as to the kind of thing I had in mind as to why it might not matter all that much here via John Robb

@Jason,

In regards to why bring it up I don't think it's scaremongering so much as (for me anyway) another data point in the ongoing inquiry as to whether financial capitalism is creating real wealth. Begging the question of course what is real wealth, but when we've reached a place where we're betting on bets worth a Quadrillion, what does that even mean? Have these economic transactions reached such a de-materialized position that they aren't really connected to any physical, tangible, of human benefit--that is until they sink and bring other markets down with them.

If it were to go systemic, then given the order of its greater magnitude in comparison to CDOs, CDS, etc., it is worth considering the ramifications. I think at least.

@Will, I switched it to the Automatic Earth link which has the full text without all the "other" elements.

@greginak, well that's good, but the question is how exactly to control/regulate them? This isn't a derivatives only question given that we have massive instantaneous global flows 24/7....how does a national gov't regulate such a reality?

@Bob Cheeks, I'm not sure lots of people do. It's gotten so ethereal ("opaque" in financial-ese) that there's a real question of the intrinsic value (and therefore ability to properly rate) all these "instruments".

@Michael Drew, that's a good point. undoubtedly there will have to be write-offs. The question I think is more exposure and the inter-linking and cascades. Also I don't see any evidence that we would be headed for anything other than another round of gov't (i.e. tax payer sponsored) bailouts. But where is that going to come from?

@Cynic,

On Hezbollah, it's also moved into the position of being a vehicle for Shia Arab Lebanese uplift. Not the only one (Amal). It's entered electoral politics. It also (like any crew over there) exists to funnel money, influence to your cronies. I assume all of those could still exist after a presumed peace deal.

I don't think such a deal is at all likely to happen but I don't think the deal is in principle impossible. If something ever were to happen with the Lebanese gov't, that would really isolate Hezbollah. Perhaps they would balk, but that could leave them seriously left out of the economic future. That doesn't guarantee their actions, but I think it would shape them.

Do you really think Syria is going to launch a pre-emptive strike with some Scuds on Israel? Whether via Hezbollah or on their own? Particularly after the public announcement by the Israeli Defense Minister that Israel knows Syria gave them away?

If there ever were an attack with Scuds, the Israelis are clearly signaling they will retaliate against Syria. As would be their right. Hezbollah is many things, but dumb is not generally one of them.

As to civilian casualties this is a pretty specious point. If there ever were an all out war between Syria and Israel, Israel is going to drop bombs from airplanes that will kill civilians. War in the 20th and 21st centuries does not (ever) separate between civilian and non-civilian in any fundamental sense. Partly this is because non-state actors hide in civilian areas. Partly this is because aerial assaults inevitably cause "collateral damage."

It's deterrence (I think) in the sense that all of Syria's actions in helping arm Hezbollah act as deterrence. It gives them a more weaponized ally that has a common enemy, potentially making Israel think twice about an attack.

I agree with you that Syria (and also Iran) are trying to shift the balance of power in the Middle East. I think that shift is occurring anyway for all kinds of reasons (ideological, demographic, economic). I'm not supporting the Syrian or Iranian regime. I don't want to see conflagration in the Middle East.

As I've said before, I think that shift will apex if and when the Iranians get a nuclear weapon. I think such an action would require (likely) an American nuclear shield guarantee to the Gulf, Israel (who doesn't need it per se), Saudi Arabia, etc.

What I see Syria doing is just a smaller scale version of the Iranian regime's efforts over the last years.

Daniel Larison the last few days has been quoting Peter Scoblete on how with the rise of democracy in the Middle East we are likely to see increasingly oppositional (if not directly confrontational) regimes relative to US/Israel in the region.

This puts the US/Israel in a short term lose-lose: either support autocracies for short term peace or accept more democratic regimes that will likely sap some of their regional dominance.

I favor (generally though not in all specific cases) the latter option.