An Idiot's Guide to Distinguishing the Baga attack from the Paris attack

It seems someone needs to write this because some writers have exposed themselves as idiots who can't tell the difference between the attacks in Baga and Paris without making ugly racist accusations. 

1. Paris is a world capital in a country that generally believed itself not at war on its own territory. Combat breaking out in such a capital is big news. When capitals fall, regimes fall. Baga is a remote border town that is not even the capital of its local state. It has come under attack within the past two years and it's likely to happen again during the next two years as things go. 

2. Boko Haram is a significant military force that at least sort of fits within the standard framework of how people go to war in the modern age. The irregulars attacking in Paris are an example of a systemic threat to the Westphalian system that has undergirded how nations interact with each other since the peace of Westphalia in 1648. If Westphalia goes, a lot of things change. If Boko Haram takes even a province or two, nothing systemic changes. 

3. Nigeria's rulers have decided that it is in their interest to minimize the tragedy of Baga. France's rulers have decided that it is in their interests to play up the tragedy of Paris. The rest of the world's leadership rightfully take cues from the leader of the country in which the attack has taken place. 

4. There is a political affinity between France's governing party (socialist) and the marxists that put out Charlie Hebdo. There is a political rivalry between the muslim north (where Baga is) and the christian south (where the current government is drawn from). This naturally leads to different treatment. While it's unfortunate, race has nothing to do with it in either case. 

Judas in University Administration

It started this morning (as it often does) with Instapundit's item on bogus sexual assault numbers which pointed to Mark Perry's analysis that the rate of sexual assault (1 in 5 during university) combined with the rate of reporting (12%) didn't work. It isn't even politics, but just poor math that means at least one of those two White House numbers are wrong.

This was shortly followed by a piece examining the left's creeping totalitarianism on due process. What caught my attention is the phrase that Harvard could withstand the loss of federal funds while they fought for due process. It occurs to me that the amount of federal funds at risk, the endowment of the university, the male population being betrayed by university administration is all public information. You could make a judas index to measure how much money your rights are worth betraying.

There could be an app for that. It would be pretty useful when it comes time to pick schools.

Flipping the party

Republicans are used to unfair hit pieces that blow mistakes up into evidence of conscious evil. New York's Mayor de Blasio is likely less accustomed. Apparently he's part of a line of lefty animal killers:

Yet another defenseless creature was slaughtered by a left-wing politician, the New York Post revealed on Thursday. Adorable groundhog Staten Island Chuck was “chucked” to his death during an appearance with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, a raging liberal, back in February. Officials sought to cover up the creature’s demise, so as not to fuel public outrage over the disturbing trend of liberal politicians murdering cute animals. They even lied about the true identity of the victim.

 We're still in the field of good clean fun mocking the phenomenon. The number of low information voters fooled into taking this seriously as evidence in a left-wing war on animals is likely to be very low. We are, however edging towards it not being a joke and having the right join the left in the type of unfair assaults that have been predominantly running from the left to the right for as long as I've been alive. It'll be a shame when it happens but not much of a surprise.

The weakness of Piketty's critics

I have not had the opportunity to read all of Piketty's critics so it is quite possible that I am unjust but the ones that have gotten the most play are weak critiques to my view and are doomed to failure because they grant Piketty too much credit. The FT critique, which I find interesting, is useless without challenging Piketty much earlier in the book, which they fail to do. The numbers work is great, as is to some extent Piketty's. The fatal problem with Piketty was alway going to be elsewhere.

I'm going to be doing a bit of fisking on Piketty's book. I think I can manage it if I write while I read. Absent that, somebody would have to pay me for the necessary time and then I would put out a much better product. Since the likelihood of manna from heaven is slight, I'm just going to have to risk critiquing as I go along and retracting/correcting if later chapters fill the gaps and errors I spot.

Other Crises

We are currently on crisis overload. The mass media can't handle the number of simultaneous crises and they should change their operating procedures to fix that but they don't. Instead they just pick the biggest crisis or two and let the bottom crises just fall off the radar. So let's do a quick review of the full roster of countries that are burning:

Ukraine, Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Brazil, Venezuela, at least, all have active mobs in the streets. Argentina has a currency crisis. North Korea is always in crisis. The South China Sea is in crisis with multiple participants and an unpredictable chance for sudden war among prickly, prideful locals of several countries. Russia's still dealing with violence in the Caucuses. Mexico still does not have control over all of its territory as narcotrafficantes challenge for supremacy in various ways.

What should be happening is a stress induced reform of how journalism is handled with crisp delivery of more dense information flows so the american people are well informed without having to drop what we're doing to stave off our own chance for a break in our system to watch the news 24/7. It's not happening.

News density seems not to have budged at all. This is a travesty. This is a failure of imagination and an industry that has given up on reinventing itself in a meaningful way by increasing its utility to the public.