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Kevin Drum challenges us to come up with a two-axis system of political temperament classification that makes sense. OK, I'll bite.

Preferatory, I'll note that I think it's important that the ends of the axes are non-pejorative. The Libertarian quiz fails because the questions are slanted. Any useful system can't be biased towards one result. That's propaganda, not political science.

So: axis one is Freedom vs. Safety. What's more important to you? There's no "right" answer to this question, in my book. I have my own strong preferences. That's me. Someone else might have different preferences. Note that this isn't a question about rights; I might think that everyone has a natural right to be safe but personally prefer to give up that right for the sake of freedom.

OK, but what about the question of freedom for /me/ vs. safety for /you/? You can't talk about freedom and safety in the abstract. You have to acknowledge that sometimes the question is whether you're willing to compromise someone else's freedom in order to secure your safety. Do you think it's OK to remove the Afghani government (compromising their freedom) in exchange for greater safety for the US?

I was thinking that this is the Personal vs. Global axis, but I'm not sure if there's really a range there. I can't think of a case in which you'd take someone else's freedom in order to increase your own; same goes for safety. It's easy to find cases where you compromise someone else's safety for your freedom, or their freedom for your safety, but if you're already on one side or the other of that axis then there's no difference between the personal decision and the global decision.

There's the nugget of something there. I think the question of whether you consider rights to be universal or personal is important. Just not sure how to phrase it.

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Daily Kos asks how Southerners get away with displaying the Confederate flag. Well, you know, it is a symbol of Southern pride. Recognizing that is just as important as recognizing that US arrogance pisses off the rest of the world, sometimes.

The issue here is that the Confederate flag has two meanings, and the second darker meaning is not inherently associated with the first. It's not safe to assume that those who care about the first meaning also care about the second. It is possible to be proud of one's heritage without being proud of slavery. It's futile to tell an entire region that their entire heritage is crap because of one prominent blemish.

It is equally important for those flying the flag to recognize that it's deeply painful to another group of people. Maybe I don't associate the flag with slavery; that doesn't mean it's wrong for you to make that association.

Beating people over the head isn't going to solve the problem. Gotta step back, say "I understand that you are flying the flag for reasons other than racism" or "I understand that the flag has very bad connotations for you," and work from there.

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I cannot believe that they're giving Alfonso Cuaron the reins to the Harry Potter movie franchise. I honest to god officially can't believe it. Not that I think it's a bad thing, but I have to wonder: how many of his movies has J. K. Rowling seen?

The thing is, I watched Great Expectations over the weekend, and it just blew me away. Cuaron had the chutzpah to turn Dickens into a sensual, almost erotic reverie. It's a movie about passion, and passion lost, and passion recovered. It's a movie about how much people mean to one another: Finn to Estella, Estella to her mad aunt Ms. Dinsmoor, Finn to his brother-in-law Joe, and so on.

It's thematically a match for Y tu mama tambien, which generated buzz based on the forthright sexuality of the story and earned that buzz based on its quality. However, that movie, too, was about human relations. It's just that Cuaron knows full well that sex is often an important component of such matters.

What surprised me in Great Expectations, though, is that Cuaron is willing to acknowledge the tension that can exist between the young. There's a scene where Finn and Estella kiss at a fountain, at a very young age. It's daring in today's society. It's not in any way repellent or voyeuristic; it's just the first note in the emotions that grow between them.

So... I guess I should go rent A Little Princess and see how he handles kids there. I love his movies. It's just not clear to me that he's going to be a good match for Harry Potter -- or, I should say, the third Harry Potter movie. I have no doubts that Rowling is going to tackle romance in the later novels, but man, it's not exactly a strong component of Prisoner of Azkaban. What's a lush, romantic director like Cuaron to make of Hogwarts?

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Glenn Reynolds notes that North Korea supports US unilateralism, but somehow fails to miss the irony inherent in the idea that this new supporter of Bush's policies is one of our biggest foreign policy headaches. Me, I find it amusing. "You were right, guys; the North Koreans are in our corner!"

OK, OK, some real commentary. This is kind of interesting. Who does North Korea want uninvolved? Answer: Japan and of course South Korea. Japan in particular is likely to be more worried about North Korea than we are, because Japan is a lot closer and definitely within North Korean missile range. In fact, Japan is strongly considering sanctions against North Korea. That'd have a fairly major impact. North Korea would love it if the US discouraged Japan from taking action. Japan's more likely to take painful action (from the North Korean standpoint) than is the US.

Meanwhile, South Korea is criticizing North Korea for ignoring the world community; it's no surprise that North Korea would react to that by taking the opposite position.

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"In sports, the New England Patriots win the Super Bowl, thus using up all the sports luck that New England has been accumulating for decades, and thereby guaranteeing that the Red Sox will not win the World Series for another 150 years."

Dave Barry's year-end report is up.

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As pretty much everyone who cares knows by now, Sean Penn recently visited Iraq and was promptly used by Saddam Hussein for propaganda purposes. You have to hope he wasn't surprised by this. I thought it might be interesting to see what he actually said, though, since it's been somewhat under-reported. Quotes are from various sources; search Google (for the next 30 days or so, at least) for cites.

"I am a citizen of the United States of America. I believe in the Constitution of the United States, and the American people. Ours is a government designed to function ‘of’-‘by’-and-‘for’ the people. I am one of those people, and a privileged one."

I have to admire his awareness of his own privilege. He knows he's a star. He knows he gets special treatment.

"He declined to renew his criticism of Bush on foreign soil, saying he would reserve political comments for his return home."

Laudable.

"Absolutely I think war can be avoided, but obviously it's going to take enormous commitment on the part of the Iraqi government as well as the United States."

Can't find much to object to here, honestly. He's explicitly saying that Hussein has work to do if he wants to avoid war.

"I'm here for a simple reason, which is because I'm a patriot and an American who has benefited enormously from being an American, and because I had areas of personal concern and conscience that led me to come to Iraq. I believe, however I vote and whatever my perspective, that I do deserve the government I get."

"And if there's going to be blood on my hands, I'm determined that it's not going to be invisible. That blood is not just Iraqi blood, it's the blood of American soldiers."

And these two I like most of all. He's in a position to find out more about what's going on, he's aware that he's lucky to be able to do that, and he's not going to sit around Hollywood talking about stuff he hasn't seen personally. He's going to check it out and see what he can learn. He knows war kills people. He knows our troops will die if there's a war. He has the chance to understand better what American troops are dying for -- on his behalf -- and he takes it.

I don't have to agree with his politics, and I suspect there are issues where he and I might differ. I do have to admire his willingness to accept his personal responsibility for the government in which he participates.

"In response to these privileges I feel, both as an American and as a human being, the obligation to accept some level of personal responsibility for the policies of my government, both those I support and any that I may not."