Iran and the US after Soleimani

Increased violence will probably follow the US assassination of Qasem Soleimani. Iran will retaliate, probably through regional proxies like Hezbollah or the Houthis. If Trump escalates in response, things could get very bad, so I hope a new shiny object distracts him.

Either way, the only winners here are defense contractors and oil extractors. Russia is a big oil producer, and the Moscow stock exchange hit an all-time high on the news of the assassination.

This is a moment when the differences between Democratic and Republican foreign policy are clear. Obama had the opportunity to assassinate Soleimani several times, but didn't do it. For one thing, Iran would quickly replace Soleimani. The replacement might not be as skilled, but Iran would be more angry at America, and retaliation would be the first order of business.

For another thing, Obama wanted Iranian leaders to agree to a nuclear nonproliferation deal, and killing their colleagues with missiles would complicate negotiations. After taking over from Bush, who branded Iran part of the "Axis of Evil", Obama repaired relations and got his deal. International inspectors verified that Iran was abiding by its commitments, and enriching uranium only at the level required for a peaceful program.

Then Trump came. He withdrew from the Iran deal and reimposed sanctions. With the deal dead, Iran has grown its enriched uranium stockpile beyond what was allowed. And now Trump has committed an assassination.

Iran is full of cool young people who don't want to live in a theocracy. I hope that someday they'll get their wish, and Iran will be a liberal democracy in a big international alliance with the US. (I hope we'll be a liberal democracy then too.) But what we've become and what we've done makes that happy future less likely than it used to be.

$10,000 for poor people through GiveWell

If you're looking for a last-minute Christmas gift for humanity, my #1 pick is the GiveWell recommended charity fund. I just gave $10,000. They've researched the most cost-effective ways of helping people, and settled on basically four things:

Deworming: Parasitic worms are a huge health problem in developing countries, causing problems from malnutrition to blindness. Fortunately, a year's supply of worm pills costs only 25 cents. That makes deworming one of the most cost-effective educational improvements -- kids go to school more often and do better when they aren't sick with worms.

Malaria prevention: Partly because of good work by aid groups, the malaria death toll has been halved to around half a million people per year over the last decade. Pills and mosquito nets are about the cheapest way we have to save lives. We just need more of them.

Nutrition: In places where a limited food supply prevents people from getting essential nutrients, a simple solution is to just add them to flour at grain mills. Rich countries are already doing this, and it's easy enough to set up in poorer countries with a little money.

Direct cash transfers: A simple and scalable solution to poverty is to just give the poorest people money. GiveDirectly can do that with great efficiency. Research detects substantial improvements in children's health, and in adults' earning capacity five years later.

In the past I'd donate to the specific charities involved here -- for example -- Deworm the World, SCI, the Against Malaria Foundation. Now I donate through GiveWell's fund because it keeps in touch with the charities to see who's in best position to use money. This avoids inefficiencies where one charity got more than it can use and another got less.

At this link, you can donate as I did, pick individual charities, or click "GiveWell" at the top to find out more about the organization. The depth and detail of their research into the effects of giving to various organizations is better than anything I've seen anywhere else, and it makes sure that your money is really helping people.

Trump is impeached, McConnell is sidelined, Pelosi is in control

Trump may never get an impeachment trial in the Senate. And that's just wonderful.

The House impeachment vote went well, as expected. Nearly every Democrat voted for both articles. It was a firm rebuke of Trump, and a good sign for Democrats hoping to move major legislation in 2021.

(Tulsi Gabbard surprised me by voting present in what she called "a stand for the center". I suppose she has to briefly take up centrism in her spiritual journey through all human ideologies. She's done pacifism, homophobia, and Hindu nationalism. Maybe next month it'll be feudalism!)

Pelosi's masterstroke came after the vote. She won't name impeachment managers or send the articles to the Senate until it's clear that McConnell will set up a fair trial.

Legal theorist Laurence Tribe had floated the idea of not even going to the Senate, which I thought would look silly and negate the impact of the House's impeachment vote. But Pelosi timed it perfectly. She held the vote, let the media put up the large-font impeachment headlines, and then revealed her move in a press conference afterwards.

I opposed impeachment until late September of this year when Pelosi went forward with it, because I was worried about what would happen in the Senate. I knew the House part would go well. But I expected McConnell's Senate to deliver a majority-vote acquittal that resembled a Trump birthday party more than a trial.

Now we've had the House vote. Trump is howling on Twitter for his Senate acquittal. But McConnell can't give it to him. Pelosi still controls whether things move forward.

Maybe McConnell will agree to a trial that satisfies Pelosi. But maybe he won't, and the issue will dissolve into partisan bickering over whose fault that is. Then House Democrats will have had their moment in the spotlight to accuse Trump, and Senate Republicans won't have had their moment to absolve him. Trump will go into the election besmirched by impeachment, with his corrupt extortion of an ally revealed to all, and without the closure of an acquittal.

After 14 years of faith in Pelosi's leadership, I trusted her again on impeachment in September. It wasn't exactly blind trust, but I didn't see what could be done about the Senate. Turns out she had tactics for everything.

UK election postmortem

Feeling terrible for my UK friends. Some worked hard campaigning for Labour; many will be harmed by the policies of the victorious Tories.

Jeremy Corbyn and Hillary Clinton don't have a lot in common. But the common lesson of their defeats is: don't run a candidate with net favorability polling deeply in the negative. Corbyn is at -30 while Johnson is at -14; Clinton and Trump both were around -13 on election day. I don't trust unmoored electability speculation, but poll results are good at simulating election outcomes.

A great deal of this isn't Corbyn or Clinton's fault. The media deserves plenty of blame. But part of winning modern elections is interacting well with whatever twisted media dynamics haunt your era. When that isn't going well for a candidate, as measured by polling averages, the party needs to find someone else.

How primaries go

16 years ago, eventual Democratic primary winner John Kerry was at 6% nationally, behind four other candidates. Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt led him in Iowa. They attacked each other for the next month, letting Kerry and Edwards emerge. I see this data (Nov-Dec 2003 from Pew) as a caution against making too much of small differences in current primary polls.

This year it's been hard for anyone to take a lasting lead, partly because other candidates attack the leaders to prevent a runaway victory. We might see a minor candidate rise or a major candidate fall, but otherwise I expect things to remain basically stable until Iowa. Then there's a wild media frenzy with losers dropping out and their support rushing to winners.

Narwhal facts

After hearing about the heroic chef from the London fishmarket fending off the knife guy with a narwhal tusk, I've been looking up narwhal facts. So here are narwhal facts:

"The tusk is an innervated sensory organ with millions of nerve endings connecting seawater stimuli in the external ocean environment with the brain. The rubbing of tusks together by male narwhals is thought to be a method of communicating information about characteristics of the water each has traveled through, rather than the previously assumed posturing display of aggressive male-to-male rivalry. In August 2016, drone videos of narwhals surface-feeding in Tremblay Sound, Nunavut showed that the tusk was used to tap and stun small Arctic cod, making them easier to catch for feeding."

Deflationism about the Harris campaign

This was from before Kamala Harris dropped out of the race. I'm doing the political commentary, Matthew Yglesias of Vox makes the philosophy jokes, and replies invoke the t-schema and formalizing claims in predicate logic.

As this implies, I'm on Twitter and you're invited to follow me there.

Elijah Moore, urine trouble

The story of yesterday’s “Piss and Miss” game may entertain even people who don’t care about college football.

Mississippi’s Elijah Moore scored a touchdown and celebrated by mimicking a urinating dog. He went down on all fours in the end zone and lifted one leg to the side. This was to mock the rival Mississippi State Bulldogs.

Pantomiming canine urination was not a novel way to celebrate scoring against the Bulldogs. Another Mississippi player had done similarly in 2017. Referees gave Mississippi a 15-yard unsportmanlike conduct penalty for Moore’s obscene and unoriginal display.

The ensuing extra point would tie the game. Kickers nearly always score extra points, and can usually kick them from 15 yards back. But this time, penalized 15 yards, the kicker missed to the right. Mississippi lost 21-20. Moore had pissed away the game.

Big big poll average says Democrats are fine

I'm thankful for the highest quality favorability polling I've seen this primary. It shows that people like the plausible Democratic nominees well enough. Here are favorability, unfavorability, and net scores (which are negative for all politicians polled):

Warren: +39.4% 41% (-1.6%)
Buttigieg: +32% 33.7%  (-1.7%)
Sanders: +41.1% 44.3% (-3.1%)
D Party: +42.8% 46.9%(-4.1%)
Biden: +39.2% 45.5% (-6.3%)
Trump: +40.7% 53.1% (-12.3%)
R Party: +36.8% 52.2% (-15.4%)
Bloomberg: 21.7% 40.8% (-19.1%)

There's more below, averaged from the last month and a half of Economist / YouGov polls. 538 thinks they typically underestimate Dems by 1 and the GOP by 2, so maybe best to add those corrections. The sample size is much bigger than typical 3-day polls that get their own news stories. And it's a better measure than the outlier polls that typically get shared by gleeful or terrified social media friends.

If I had to predict the candidates' favorability numbers on Election Day, I'd guess these (and guess that undecided voters follow decided ones). Opinion of Trump doesn't change much. The Democratic nominee will probably get pulled down during the primary, spring up during the healing unityfest of the convention, and get pulled back down by messy general-election campaigning.

For reference, at this point four years ago, Hillary Clinton was around -10 and Donald Trump was around -12. And this time, our nominee won't have been the target of a 25-year smear campaign! Obviously the next year will be full of unpredictable events. But I expect we'll do better.

Bloomberg is icumen in, lhude sing cuccu

Steyer and now Bloomberg running for President are an argument against the sort of capitalism practiced in America.

They're badly misjudging the primary. Steyer blew $20 million making barely a ripple in the polls, which I expect will be precedent for Bloomberg doing the same. Most Democratic primary voters have at least one option they like already and will scowl at you for trying to buy the nomination. If you want to stop Warren / Sanders, you should donate to Pete or whoever rather than fragmenting the moderate vote further. It's a dumb plan, on any plausible construal of what they might want.

So letting billionaires who make plans like this have the vast power over society and the economy that American capitalism does -- are we expecting that to turn out well?