With my move to Brisbane drawing ever closer, blogging is likely to be terse and sporadic for a while. I’ll briefly note

• Tim Dunlop’s new site Very nice looking and yet another instance of the general exodus from Blogger. I’ll look into the shift as soon as I get time (Ha!) But meanwhile I have to update my links
• Don Arthur and Ken Parish have nice posts on equality of opportunity. I’ll make just one observation here. A highly unequal society like today’s US typically gives the appearance of great social mobility without the reality. The appearance is encouraged by the frequent (but still unusual) observation of individuals going from ‘rags to riches’. One case of this kind is more impressive than 100 instances of transition from working to middle class in a society where few people are either very poor or very rich. But highly unequal outcomes give well-off parents the means and the incentives to buy substantially better life opportunities for their children, thereby ensuring inequality of opportunity.
• Finally, Steven Den Beste is obviously plugged-in to the thinking of the war faction in the US Administration, or maybe, the influence of the blogworld is such that they get their ideas from him. His suggestion that attacks on planes patrolling the no-fly zone could be construed as a material breach and therefore a basis for an invasion has apparently been echoed by some US officials at the UN.
  I dismissed this cursorily, but was apparently premature. To spell out my reasoning let me make the point that the only approach to the interpretation of UNSC resolutions that makes any sense is ‘original intent’. The understanding of the resolution was clearly that it meant that Saddam must accept unfettered inspections or face invasion. In the absence of some court that could interpret the language, using some spurious interpretation of the text as a basis for war is the same as, or worse than, repudiating the resolution and will be seen that way by all parties.
  The whole point of going to the UN was to show that the US was prepared to accept a peaceful settlement leading to Iraqi disarmament and thereby to build support for a war if there was no alternative. Dumping this process and going to war anyway will mean the US has less support than if it had never gone near the UN