Iraq: Were We Lied To?

The trigger for this is a recent discussion over on Ta-Nehesi Coates blog looking back at the decision to invade Iraq.  Most of the comments trend liberal, which is usually okay because that's what I am.  But some of them assert the administration lied us into the war, which troubles me.

Yes, there was exaggeration and probably the occasional lie, but I don't believe there were many conscious lies.  What was going on was people believed what they wanted to believe was true; they deluded themselves and then they deluded the rest of us.

I won't support my position by rehashing the events in 2002/3; that's tedious.  I would point to a parallel I see in more recent events:

It seems apparent that the Romney campaign and many media figures on the right fully believed that Romney was going to win the election.  They told us so repeatedly.  In my surfing I'd hit Fox News and see Pat Caddell et. al. confidently predicting victory.  After election day I don't recall anyone saying: "I knew all along Romney was doomed to defeat, but I lied to our audience just to keep spirits up."   Now there's no reason for a pundit to make a prediction he knows to be false and which will be proved to be false within a week or a month. That wouldn't be rational. [ed.--who says people are rational?]

So I can only conclude they were self-deluded, just as I think GWB and Cheney et.al. were back in 2003.

Maybe the Best Place to Work Shouldn't Be?

Government Executive has a piece on the 12 best small federal agencies to work at.  Topping the list is:

In 2012, the Office of Navajo and Hopi Indian Relocation topped the very small agency list with a Best Places to Work job satisfaction and commitment score of 90.1 on a scale of 100. Its mission is to assist Hopi and Navajo Indians impacted by the relocation that Congress mandated in 1974 for members of the tribes who were living on each other’s land.

 Now I applaud their accomplishment in being the best place to work in the government.  But the thought does pass through my mind: there's 39 years between the Congressional mandate and now.  While I understand relocating people is a long process, shouldn't it have been finished maybe 10 years ago?

30 Gigs of Email?

I can't believe that, but apparently Ezra Klein has almost 30 gigs, because that's all Google would sell him space for.  See this Drum commentary, which quotes Klein.

Banks and the Agriculture Committee

Here's a Salon article on how the banking industry loves the Agriculture Committees.  Why?  Because they oversee "derivative trading", which farmers know as "commodity futures".  Hat Tip Wonkblog.

FSA Makes Progress

I commend the MIDAS people for displaying metrics on their posts (i.e., how many visits the page has seen and how many today).  This update from the manager is an example.

Nostalgia Day

John Fea labels this image: "Prehistoric Googling".

Best Sentence of the Day

"I have always been quite happy with the skin I’m in, though I will now admit that there is more of me in the skin than before."

Beauregarde on growing older.

FSA and Drones

Here's a NYtimes blog post on the proliferation of drones in civilian life.  We already have a college offering a bachelor's degree in them.  One of the uses people imagine for them is agriculture.  And there's this from an article in the print Times on the same subject.

"Mr. Anderson, in contrast, said that later this year, his company would introduce a helicopter for agricultural surveillance that would sell for less than $1,000. “That’s not per hour, that’s for the helicopter,” he said."

 Sounds to me like aerial photography is going to see a paradigm change.

A Good Sentence on Rome

"There were customs duties, credit mechanisms and even the odd 'pop-up' shop for merchandise that had fallen off the back of a chariot…." from Brad DeLong, quoting from a piece describing the variety of markets in ancient Rome.

The Mysteries of France

From Mr. Beauregarde's blog:

" In France we have three choices of fuel at the pump – two star and four star unleaded petrol – which in France is classified by its octane content 95 for 2 star and 98 for 4 star – we also have diesel. A staggering two thirds of French cars run on diesel, and with good reason, a litre of diesel at the pump is on average 20 Euro centimes cheaper than a litre of petrol."

"successive governments ran scrappage schemes to try and get as many petrol cars off the road as possible. Well, petrol (although unleaded) was dangerous. Petrol fumes were far more harmful than diesel fumes, so via a system of generous « cashbacks » motorists were encouraged to trade in their old petrol guzzling cars for « cleaner » diesel cars. At the height of the scrappage schemes, anyone owning a petrol driven car over eight years old, could trade it in for a brand new diesel car and get a 1000 Euro cashback, generally given in the form of a reduction on the new car. Many dealerships often doubled the premium. The results were twofold. Not only did we all buy diesel cars, but also we bought small « economical » cars."

Why is gasoline  so much higher octane than in the States?