Morning Roundup

Here's the good stuff:

• Iran's presidential election has produced a run-off vote between semi-reformer Rafsanjani and semi-fascist Ahmadinejad. Rafsanjani will probably win, but there seems to be a good chance that the election was rigged to get Ahmadinejad into the running. I hope this pisses off the Iranians enough that there's enough public will and political impetus for more reform.



• Over at Left2Right, Elizabeth Anderson talks about the difference between formal freedom of action and the freedom afforded by a larger opportunity set, and why the latter is more important than the former:

  If the only kind of freedom that matters is that no one intentionally interfere with one's formal freedom of action, and not that one's opportunity set be large and full of worthwhile options, then freedom-lovers would have to oppose traffic laws, stop lights, and so forth, for interfering with freedom of movement. The result of a lack of such laws, however, is not actual freedom of movement, but, in areas of high traffic density, gridlock. (And, in areas of high traffic flow, grave danger.) To be sure, in a state of gridlock, one has the formal freedom to choose any movement in one's opportunity set--which amounts to being able to rock forward and back a couple of inches from bumper to bumper, getting nowhere. Some freedom! By contrast, if we give up certain formal freedoms--to run red lights and stop signs, to drive indiscriminately across lanes--we get in return a vastly expanded opportunity set, including the ability to actually get to places one wants to go, more safely and quickly than if we hadn't given up those freedoms. The point of formal freedom of movement--the right to move around, without coercive interference by the state or other people--is that it is instrumental to expanding actual opportunities to move around where one wants to go. Merely formal freedom of movement, with nowhere to move to, or nowhere worth moving to, is not an end in itself.

  Modern American liberals frequently are accused of having abandoned classical liberalism because they support state interference. I think this is incorrect - liberalism to me was never about minimizing government power or action, but rather it was about creating a government which would maximize the freedom of the citizenry. If that can be done without government intervention, fine. If it can be done with government intervention, fine.



• Kevin Drum has some fun with Scott McClellan's "last throes" daily briefing.



• Here's What's Left points to some wingnuttery about the Downing Street Memos - "these memos which say things which we don't like are suspicious in some ways and the only possible explanation is that they're fake!" - which sounds a lot like the wingnuttery surrounding Creationism Intelligent Design - "evolution hasn't explained everything yet and the only possibly explanation is that there's a God who created everything!" - in other words, the old "without any proof, as long as a question has not yet been answered, I'll just assume what I've already assumed". Kevin Drum explains the evidence for the Memos being real, Pandagon has more on the memos, and Digby points out that even when presented with evidence, wingnuts don't care and just go on believing whatever crazy thing it is they already believe. I like being a member of the reality-based community.



• The first solar sail-powered spacecraft is being launched tomorrow. Neat!

That's it for now.