Geoplasma

Wired news has an article on using plasma incineration to dispose of municipal solid wastes. Interestingly, I had assumed that the massive electrical inputs needed would mean that plasma was destined to be a net energy loser. It seems I may have been wrong:

FORT PIERCE, Florida -- A Florida county has grand plans to ditch its dump, generate electricity and help build roads -- all by vaporizing garbage at temperatures hotter than parts of the sun.

The $425 million facility expected to be built in St. Lucie County will use lightning-like plasma arcs to turn trash into gas and rock-like material. It will be the first such plant in the nation operating on such a massive scale and the largest in the world.

Supporters say the process is cleaner than traditional trash incineration, though skeptics question whether the technology can meet the lofty expectations.

The 100,000-square-foot plant, slated to be operational in two years, is expected to vaporize 3,000 tons of garbage a day. County officials estimate their entire landfill -- 4.3 million tons of trash collected since 1978 -- will be gone in 18 years....

Synthetic, combustible gas produced in the process will be used to run turbines to create electricity -- about 120 megawatts a day -- that will be sold back to the grid. The facility will operate on about a third of the power it generates, free from outside electricity.

The syngas can also, according to other companies, be used to make liquid fuels such as ethanol or diesel.

Given that it's a form of waste disposal and electrical generation that doesn't require any kind of fossil-fuel inputs, I'm beginning to think that plasma incineration will play a pretty big role in the future. The one caveat here is that so long as all of our plastic junk is made from oil, any incineration of that stuff is, by necessity, going to create greenhouse gas emissions.

Finland? Cool.

You scored as Finland. Your army is the army of Finland. You prefer to win your enemy by your wit rather than superior weapons. Enemy will have a hard time against your small but effective force. Finland 81% British and the Commonwealth 63% Poland 63% France, Free French and the Resistance 63% United States 56% Italy 50% Soviet Union 38% Germany 25% Japan 19% In which World War 2 army you should have fought? created with QuizFarm.com

Weirdly, I score as 81% for the Finns, but only 25% for the Germans - whom the Finns were allied with. It does make you wonder what France, the UK, and Poland all have in common.

Or, maybe Internet polls aren't that reliable.

(via LGM.)

The body of satire has been dug up, shot, and buried again.

BAGHDAD - The U.S. military did not count people killed by bombs, mortars, rockets or other mass attacks - including suicide bombings - when it reported a dramatic drop in killings in the Baghdad area last month, the U.S. command said yesterday.

The decision to include only victims of drive-by shootings and those killed by torture and execution, usually at the hands of death squads, allowed U.S. officials to argue that a security crackdown that began in the capital Aug. 7 had more than halved the city's murder rate.

But the types of slayings, including suicide bombings, that the United States excluded from the category of "murder" were not made explicit at the time. That led to confusion after Iraqi Health Ministry figures showed that 1,536 people died violently in and around Baghdad in August, nearly the same number as in July.

How bad are things when excluding all the deaths except those from death squads roaming the streets with impunity is your best PR ploy?

Funny Headline Watch

I know we left it somewhere around here...

Marines deny losing Iraq's biggest province
By Peter Graff

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The commander of the U.S. Marine force in Iraq on Tuesday denied his troops had lost control of the vast province they patrol, after newspapers reported his intelligence chief had written a bleak report.

Is Senate reform Constitutional?

Vues D'ici asks a simple question about Harper's proposal to make our Senate elected: Is it Constitutional?

Note for American readers: Yes, we inherited an aristocratic fossil from the British. Our Upper House is named by the PM. Feel free to mock us. Of course, at least our Senate wasn't expressly designed to reinforce slavery and it's successive white supremacist policies. So there.

So like the giant nerd I am, I go to the actual document (Constitution Act, 1867 baby!) and see what it says about the Senate. It's a relatively short section, which you can find at Sec. 21 here. The key requirements for a Senator are that s/he own $4,000 in property and be at least 30 years old, so I don't qualify on either count. The candidate also needs to reside in the Province the represent. But the actual naming of the Senators uses interesting language:

The Governor General shall from Time to Time, in the Queen's Name, by Instrument under the Great Seal of Canada, summon qualified Persons to the Senate; and, subject to the Provisions of this Act, every Person so summoned shall become and be a Member of the Senate and a Senator.

Notice the legal fiction that it's the GG that names the Senators. The reality is that the PM names Senators, so there's at least a possibility that "the GG" could be instructed by law to name only Senators who had won elections in their provinces. The problem seems to come with the fact that Senators are named for life or their 75th birthday. Now, the same law that elected these Senators could simply have some language about term limits and we could all hope that was sufficient to keep Senators behaving, but the simple fact is that if a Senator decided to fight an election loss and keep their senate seat, the Constitution gives them a pretty solid footing to stay until they've blown out the 75th candle. It would also allow a replacement Senator to be named on a temporary basis until any election was resolved - the Senate can theoretically be expanded to as much as 113 Senators (currently holds 105.)

One creative solution: Make staying past your elected mandate a "treason, felony, or infamous crime" and any Senator who broke the law would be automatically disqualified from their seat under Sec 31 (4). This would, however, pretty clearly contravene the stated language of the Constitution, though arguably no more than electing Senators in the first place.

None of this addresses whether Senate reform is actually a good idea, much less the incremental ideas that Harper is proposing. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see him try.

UPDATE: Duuhh, I'm a PoliSci student. I only spent 4 years learning about Canadian politics, so maybe I should have looked at the proper document - Constitution Act 1982, not 1867. (Thanks, cdntarheel.) Looks like Constitutional Amendment is Stephen's only way out. Moreover, Harper needs a much larger minority than even the Constitution demands, because of Chretien's Amendment Act.

So you disagree, cont.

It's a funny thing: the most impressive argument against my view - expressed here - that Canada should not withdraw precipitously from Afghanistan comes from an American who usually restricts his comments here to energy issues. But his argument is a strong one, and I'm going to reprint it here (with the special bits highlighted by me) because I don't trust any of you to read it otherwise:

Gar Lipow said...

I think you are making a fundamental policy mistake here.

On your major point: you suport the Gerard Kennedy position that Canada should stay in Afghanistan support a different policy. The problem is Canada has zero influence on U.S. policy in Afghanistan. (Heck as a U.S. citizen I have zero influence on U.S. policy in Afghanistan.) If you stay there you are not supporting nor even doing anything to advance some other policy. You are supporting the current U.S. policy as actually executed under the control of George W. Bush. You can't expect a significant change in this in the next two years - not even in the unlikely even that the Democrats take back one or both houses. The Afghanistan war, unlike the Iraq war is still popular in the U.S. - based on most U.S. citizens knowing nothing about it, but assuming that unlike Iraq we are kicking bad-guy ass there.

Your second point is that Canada gave its word. My question there is: was this word given unconditionaly? If the U.S. decided to arrest every fifth Afghani male and sacrifice them to Moloch would you still be obliged to stay and help? Well, that is not quite what is happening, but it is pretty bad. The U.S. carries out the same policies of collective punishement and support of death squads we do in Iraq. As in Iraq we arrest huge numbers of people (a large percent of whom are innocent), hold and torture them without trial- releaseing some but not all. In addition Afghanistan has become one of the major centers for holding people kidnapped by U.S. or for the Europe in Europe, Pakistan, the Phillipines ect. I don't think your nation gave its word to suport anything like this. Given that you can't stop it or ameliorate it in any way, the NDP is right to advocate that you no longer be an accomplice. If you disagree, you would need argue I think either than the occupation of Aghanistan is not as much of a net horror as I am describing or that Canada's staying in will ameliorate what I am describing in some significant way.

It is, as I say, a strong argument, especially the bit about Canadian impotence in the face of American State Sadism. Given that I have mocked and ridiculed Blair's belief that he could steer America in the right direction by staying on Bush's team, it would be wrong for me to believe that Harper - obsequious as he is - can positively affect Bush's policies, even if he were so inclined.

I guess I have a number of questions to ask about Afghanistan for now. In no particular order:

1) Is there any further utility to military force, especially Canadian military force? (Always my first questions.)

2) Even if there is utility there, is it supporting an otherwise insupportable war, on the lines of Iraq? (Evidence trending towards yes.)

3) If an alternative strategy would be more useful or more prone to success, does Canada know what it is? Do we have the means to change the direction of NATO? (Possibly no on both counts.)

I should say that, even before these posts, I was coming to the view that some form of a) ceasefire with the Taliban and b) withdrawal of NATO troops was probably the best course we could hope for in the coming years. Given my oft-repeated admonition that if America is going to lose in Iraq anyway, we might as well leave now and save some lives, a similar application of that principle would seem to argue that we should get out of Afghanistan, now.

So why my learning disability? Well, two things I suppose. The first is that I have been pretty shamefully bad in keeping up on the news from Afghanistan and consider myself far, far, far less informed than I should be, so making any kind of decisions about that theater of war is not something I'm comfortable doing. The second is a bit less reasonable on my part, a bit more emotional. I really, really, really would like to be able to see the last five years having produced something - anything, really - not blackened and shamed by the Bush Administration. I think part of me was hoping - maybe irrationally so, I admit - that Afghanistan could at least be held up as an example of a positive accomplishment.

First Sony, now Microsoft?

The PS3 looks to be a catastrophe in the making, and now Microsoft's Vista may be, as this author calls it, the end of Microsoft's Monolith:

Microsoft also released details of US pricing for the new operating system. The 'Home Basic' version will cost $199. 'Home Premium' comes at $239. 'Vista Business' is priced at $299. And 'Vista Ultimate' weighs in at a whopping $399. Security vulnerabilities come free with all versions. There is also to be a 'Vista Starter' edition which will be marketed to people in poor countries in a futile attempt to stop them pirating Vista Ultimate and selling it on the streets of Shanghai, Bangkok and Singapore for a dollar a pop....

The difficulties in developing Vista stemmed from its monolithic structure and the need for 'backwards compatibility', ie ensuring that software used by customers on older versions of Windows will work under Vista. This vast accumulation of legacy applications acts like an anchor on innovation. The Vista trauma has convinced some Microsoft engineers that they will have to adopt a radically different approach....

Up next - Sony ships a new competitive operating system for PCs, while Microsoft corners the home electronics market with the Xbox 360. Apple - looking for something to spend all that iPod money on - buys Disney, and re-writes The Path to 9/11 so Steve Jobs punches Mohammed Atta in the face.

Why not?

The left is right about everything, even when I'm not

Like Matt, I had these exact same arguments at university:

For all that anger, though, I recall that I also took it for granted that "we" -- the country, the government, the military, the CIA -- at a minimum were going to manage to get the bastards who did that. It hasn't, of course, worked out like that. We got some folks, but the ringleaders got away. We toppled the Taliban, but didn't really finish them off. And I remember self-righteously assuring the far-left types on campus who opposed the Afghan War that of course the USA would be fully committed to reconstructing Afghanistan -- it was a case where our moral obligations aligned almost perfectly with our narrowest interests in safety.

It's not terribly common for me to be out-lefted on my politics, and I remember dismissing arguments that the US would do more harm in Afghanistan than good. But if the Bush Administration has proven anything, it's that you can never be too cynical about their competence.

Something relevant to Canadian contemporary politics, from Atrios yet again:

We truly had an opportunity to Do The Right Thing - the Grand Military Humanitarian Intervention that the Peter Beinarts of the world dream about - and we didn't in large part because the "liberal hawks" thought it was more important to head to Baghdad than to do it right in Afghanistan.

I don't entirely understand how this was possible. I suppose they, like Yglesias, were so convinced that of course we would do the right thing as anything else defied comprehension, even as unfolding evidence to the contrary was everywhere.

The war in Iraq, the war that Michael Ignatieff supported - does he still support it? - was not the great war for Civilization they hoped it would be. Indeed, that Bad War was waged at the expense of something that could have been a Good War. For that, if nothing else, Ignatieff and his supporters still need to answer.

The NDP on Afghanistan

I've been trying to figure out what bothered me so much about the NDP's recent decision on Afghanistan - to remove Canadian troops immediately. I've made no secret of my support of the NDP - indeed, I've been quite vocal about it. But I would like to think that I've also made it clear that my support for the NDP is based on reason and the fact that my beliefs coincide best with those of the NDP, not blind partisanship.

(Side note: In the US, blind partisanship - supporting Democrats, whatever their views - is certainly a defensible position. Ending Bush's destruction of the Constitution is a necessity, and the GOP simply won't do it. In Canada, our Parliament affords us more flexibility and honesty in our voting.)

So what do I do when - like now - I find myself disagreeing with the NDP's policies on a matter that's pretty important, and central to the problems the next government will face? Like Mike at Rational Reasons, I find myself much closer to Gerard Kennedy's views on Afghanistan than to the view that Jack Layton is propounding. But more unsettling to me has been the form this debate has taken within the NDP. I couldn't put my finger on it until a few days ago, watching Layton speak about Afghanistan, when he called it "George Bush's war."

On the surface, I suppose that's a fair label. Of course, it was also Jean Chretien's war, and Paul Martin's too. Hell, I supported the war, and Canada's involvement in it. Doesn't that make it my war as much as theirs? (Obviously, I'm not slinging a rifle in the Hindu Kush, but then neither are Dubya, Paul, Jean, or Stephen.) Nevertheless, the attempt to smear this war as something akin to Iraq - the obvious intent - disturbs me, and actually disturbs me more than the NDP adopting a policy that a slim majority of Canadians now favour.

I should say that I have a number of reservations about our war in Afghanistan, basically all of them revolving around two key questions: 1) What are we doing there? 2) Can we succeed? I fear that whatever the answer to #1 is, if we flat-out refuse to accept a political solution with the Taliban, the answer to #2 will be a simple "no". Even our Conservative defense minister seemed to accept that conclusion, until someone from Sussex Drive put a horse's head on his pillow.

But back to Jack. For Layton to try and label this "Bush's war" is a way of reducing the complexities of the real world in to a sound bite. It's an either-or dichotomy that doesn't exist in the real world. It is also insulting the intelligence of the Canadian voter, who have enough brain cells to decide whether this war is worthwhile or not, notwithstanding the American connection. It is, in short, about as useful and realistic a category as the "Axis of Evil" or "Islamofascists", and I hate to see my party using the linguistic tricks of the Republicans.

And on the merits of a precipitous withdrawal, I think the NDP policy is flat wrong, for the simple reason that Canada has committed to at least 2009. Like it or not, we made a committment. Withdrawing without giving our allies a long period of advance warning - at a time when NATO is calling for reinforcements, no less - would, I think, be the final nail in the coffin of Canada's international credibility.

On the flip side, the NDP have just given the Liberals the nicest present an opposition party could ask for. Want to paint the NDP as loony-tunes and knee-jerk anti-American when it comes to the real world? Knock yourselves out, guys. But Afghanistan isn't terribly popular at the moment - in fact, it's about as unpopular here as Iraq is in the US - and you'll have a hell of a time turning it around without supporting Harper.

Or, you could elect Gerard Kennedy leader, walk away with half of the NDP vote, and win the next election. Your choice.

Dittos

What Atrios sez:

But, anyway, just a big hearty fuck you to the White House and the news media who have decided this day is largely a personal narrative about George Bush, a man who was almost entirely absent on that day then had a big giggle before falling asleep early. It isn't about him, and unless you were in New York or Washington or were close to people who were directly affected, it's probably not about you either.

Bush spent 9/11 hiding, and only surfaced to give one of the worst speeches of his career. (Remember, the address to Congress was designed to wash the stink of Bush's first appearance out of our brains.) By September 12th, the offices of the President and Vice President were already beavering away to attack... Iraq. The war in Afghanistan did not have, and has never had, their full attention like it deserved.

The idea that the calamity of that day has somehow been re-written to make Bush look like he was actually some kind of decent President is an indictment on us all.

Somebody get me James Dobson!

The Communists are learning about teh sexx, and the results are... interesting:

The young listener said that he and his girlfriend had experimented sexually the month before, but "both of us wore underwear." He wanted to know what to do. "What if she's pregnant?" he asked. "Will her life be in danger if we have an abortion? Which hospital can guarantee a successful abortion?"...

"Tonight's Whisperings" targets college students but enlightens thousands of younger teenagers who are hard-pressed to find answers to their questions elsewhere. It also worries anxious, tradition-bound parents who believe too much information about sex will corrupt their children.

No kidding. Snark aside, this is an alarming paragraph:

In Shanghai, a hotline for pregnant girls that opened last summer was immediately flooded with calls, including from girls as young as 13, according to the Shanghai Youth Daily. A year later, the hotline has handled 11,000 calls; 47 percent of the cases involved first-time abortions, 35 percent second abortions, and 18 percent of the callers had had three or more abortions....

Girls are too embarrassed to buy condoms and worry that carrying them will ruin their reputations, said Su, the 17-year-old high school student. Boys never think to bring them and don't like to use them, she said.

Here's hoping that Chinese public education can bring in some serious sex ed. Of course, the next step is for Dan Quayle and Pat Buchanan to go to Beijing and yell about the Culture War facing China. Of course, China already had one Cultural Revolution, so the GOP might want to be careful about that...

Newtonian War

Action:

FORT EUSTIS -- Months before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld forbade military strategists from developing plans for securing a post-war Iraq, the retiring commander of the Army Transportation Corps said Thursday.

In fact, said Brig. Gen. Mark Scheid, Rumsfeld said "he would fire the next person" who talked about the need for a post-war plan.

Meet reaction:

The chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in Iraq recently filed an unusual secret report concluding that the prospects for securing that country's western Anbar province are dim and that there is almost nothing the U.S. military can do to improve the political and social situation there, said several military officers and intelligence officials familiar with its contents....

One Army officer summarized it as arguing that in Anbar province, "We haven't been defeated militarily but we have been defeated politically -- and that's where wars are won and lost."

The Washington Post is kind enough to provide a map of Anbar Province. Don't worry, I'm sure it's a tiny, out-of-the-way place with no strategic value:



Oops. A third of the country, bordering Saudi Arabia and Syria (two countries implicated in fuelling the insurgency) and the US has totally failed to secure the peace there. Heckuva job, Rummy.

The anonymous Army officer has it exactly right - the US has been defeated politically in Anbar, and that's effectively it - defeat. We need to scourge from our minds the artificial and useless distinction between "military" and "political" defeat. It serves nothing but to salve some bruised Vietnam-era egos. The reality is that if the military is undefeated but not a single political goal is accomplished - roughly speaking, the status quo in Iraq - then you've been defeated, period.

Once again, linear time matters

Kevin Drum writes:

I was emailing with Jeff Weintraub a couple of days ago about this subject, and he emailed back a link to a speech that Al Gore made a few months after 9/11. Gore is, for me, one of the guys I mentioned above. His judgment on foreign affairs has been pretty good through the years, and he's someone worth listening to.

I don't agree with everything Gore says in this speech. But it's worth reading regardless. Liberals may be uncomfortable fitting his words into their current-day view of Gore as anti-war prophet...

But I don't see why any liberal should have a hard time with this speech. Why? Well, two things. One, the speech was made on February 12, 2002. Pre-inspection, pre-crappy UN presentation, pre-election campaign. Gore is supporting a theoretical war against a country who he believed presented a threat to the United States. Fine. But far more important is this caveat that Gore adds:

In 1991, I crossed party lines and supported the use of force against Saddam Hussein, but he was allowed to survive his defeat as the result of a calculation we all had reason to deeply regret for the ensuing decade. And we still do. So this time, if we resort to force, we must absolutely get it right. It must be an action set up carefully and on the basis of the most realistic concepts. Failure cannot be an option, which means that we must be prepared to go the limit. And wishful thinking based on best-case scenarios or excessively literal transfers of recent experience to different conditions would be a recipe for disaster.

Rather than conflicting with my views of Gore as a "prophet", those words fit quite nicely. This is especially so given that we know that Gore came to oppose the war, despite originally supporting it (in theory.) Gore saw early the disaster that the neoconservatives' theories about war were going to create, and warned against it. Finally, when the inspections revealed there was no WMD threat, Gore publicly broke with this administration.

A President who changes his mind with the evidence? Unthinkable, I know.

Things I Remember Thinking Five Years Ago Today

-"Well, that second plane pretty much scotches my 'accident' theory."

-"Ten thousand? Merciful Jesus, let it not be ten thousand."

-"Oh fuck, my aunt lives in New York!" [she was fine.]

-"If ten thousand Americans died today, the only question is where and when Bush starts dropping nukes." [so very glad to be wrong about that one.]

-"Where the fuck is the President?"

Things I didn't think five years ago today

-"I really, really hope George W. Bush takes this opportunity to attack Iraq."

-"You know what would be swell? If we attack the country that harbored these criminals, and then totally fuck up the war so that five years from now the Taliban are on the offensive again."

-"Boy, the election fiasco in Florida is certainly irrelevant now. After all, if there's any time when knowing who the legitimate President is, it's certainly not times of war."

-"Just goes to show you can't trust Muslims. We should invade their countries, convert them, and kill their leaders."

-"We need to suspend constitutional protections for prisoners in this new war. After all, the terrorists hate us for our freedoms."

This has been an installment of "John's thoughts during crucial moments in history". Collect the whole set for your kids!

A Serious Plan for Oil Independence

The idea that we can drill our way to independence, or even keep America's oil production from further declines for any serious period of time, is hallucinatory. Any serious plan for oil independence has to have, at it's foundation, a plan for using less oil. Period.

Fortunately, the journal Science has recently published such a plan, and it's one that should be treated very, very seriously.

I haven't read the study, sadly, because my University cut off my access to online journals due to some silly technicality about me "not attending this institution anymore." However, James Fraser at The Energy Blog has a basic rundown of the plan, which involves much more than just oil - it's a comprehensive plan to de-carbonize the entire US economy. Some details:

• By far the largest share of oil (and CO2) savings would come from electrifying transport wherever possible. Trains would be electrified (as is near-universal in Europe) and cars would be plug-in hybrids or fully electric cars. This would eliminate approximately 2/3 of transportation-related oil consumption in the US. The biggest untouched slice of the pie would presumably be air travel, for which there is no electric substitute. (Yet.)


• This switch (from petroleum to electrons) requires a major investment in electrical generation and transmission. New generation would be either renewables (hydro, solar, wind) or nuclear. Much as I am loath to admit it (being pretty anti-nuclear) powering light-duty cars and trucks is an excellent role for nuclear.


• Where electrical substitution is impossible, petroleum would be replaced with synthetic fuels using Fisher-Tropsch chemistry, a more efficient (though currently uneconomical) process than current fermentation methods.


• The total price tag is estimated to be $170-$200 billion a year for 30 years.

Now, before you balk at that price tag, the lower estimate is about what Bush has raised US defense spending above Clinton-era levels. For those extra billions, the US has lost the aura of invincibility it had after the Kosovo War. If you accept Joe Stiglitz' estimates for the total costs of the Iraq war, they come to about half of this plan - and this plan promises something the Iraq War was supposed to deliver, namely cheaper gas prices.

While it's an impressive long-term plan, what's most important is that the biggest, fastest, and cheapest savings (the low-hanging fruit, as it were) comes from plug-in hybrids. The authors state that this alone would replace 80% of gasoline use. If my math is right, and if I'm reading Jim's summary right (two possible sources of error) that could be as much as a 40% chunk of US total petroleum consumption substituted away for electricity. Much, though not most, of that can be had without building any new power plants.

This is the most important thing to take away from this and any other plan: any pundit, politician, or other author who talks about reducing oil use without mentioning some form of electrification is just wasting your time. If they're a public servant, they're wasting your money, too. Even people who don't drive plug-ins will benefit from the lowered demand in the market, though that's admittedly speculative. Chinese and Indian demand has grown so quickly lately that it would probably pay for everyone to get a plug-in soon.

Now we just need somebody to make the bloody things.

Exactly Right

Kevin Drum nails it, and in the process shows he hates freedom:

There's an easy question that provides some moral clarity here: If someone else did this to American prisoners, would you consider it torture? If you would, then it's torture when we do it too.

Silly Kevin. Didn't you listen when the President said it? America does not torture. So if America does it, it's not torture. Iran tortures people, so when the Iranians do it, it is torture.

What's so hard about that?

Why do all the troublesome countries start with I?

Just got back from seeing a movie at the Toronto Film Festival, Ken Loach's The Wind That Shakes the Barley. It's about the Irish war of independence and the Civil War that followed, with Cillian Murphy (you know, Scarecrow from Batman Begins) as the main character.

It tells the story of a young Irish student (Murphy) who, before he's about to go to London and practice medicine, has a few too many run-ins with the much hated Black and Tans. Radicalized, he joins up with the IRA and fights in the wars - first for national independence, second in rejection of the treaty which created the Irish Free State.

It's a fantastic movie, and you should all see it when you have the chance. But it did get me thinking about the nature of the Irish conflict, and what the debate in London must have been like back in the 1920s during the time the movie is set in.

If you were an imperialist, you could argue that London had brought the Irish democracy and free elections, and that the British Army should stay in Dublin to protect those civil liberties. The staunchly Catholic Irish were likely to restrict people's freedoms in the name of religion. You would be correct. All the same, today only an idiot would argue that the British should have stayed in Ireland.

You could - again, accurately - argue that if His Majesty's Army pulled out of Ireland, the most likely result was a devastating civil war. This in fact came to pass. Nevertheless, you would be an idiot to argue that the British should have stayed in Ireland.

You could even argue that the British had to fight the IRA "over there" so they didn't end up fighting them "over here" - that is, with bombs going off in London. Again, you would be correct. Still, you would be an idiot to argue that the British should have stayed in Ireland.

You could argue that negotiating with the IRA was only going to legitimize them, embolden them, and weaken the British Empire. Again, you would be correct. But even despite all this, you would be an idiot to argue that the British should have stayed in Ireland.

No British politician, cleric, aristocrat, or leader of any stripe today argues that, if only they'd stayed in Ireland everything would have been better. Similarly, nobody argues that if they'd just tortured those Fenian bastards a bit more thoroughly it all would have worked out. Most would probably concede that the Irish should have been negotiated with sooner, rather than have the war break out as it did. Giving Ireland Dominion status shortly after Canada invented the idea would have been a grand idea, but every single attempt at Home Rule failed politically thanks to Conservatives, which left the Irish no alternative to war.

It's been popular in books like Empire Lite or Colossus to argue that the history of the British Empire holds lessons for the American Empire today. Authors like Ignatieff and Ferguson write that the Americans have a role to play in the world today, and that role needs to be informed by history.

I thoroughly agree: learning from history is crucial. The question is, have our modern imperialists in fact learned anything?

Cue the freakout

The Chinese Ambassador to Zambia has apparently decided that the people of Zambia better be careful who they vote for, because, you know, accidents happen:

The Chinese government has intervened in Zambia’s upcoming presidential election in a forceful sign of the commodity-hungry country’s growing economic and political clout in Africa.

Li Baodong, China’s ambassador in Lusaka, said Beijing might cut diplomatic relations with Zambia if voters elected Michael Sata, an opposition candidate, as president, Zambian media reported on Tuesday.

Now before we all decide to start World War Whatever to Liberate Zambia from the Butchers of Lusaka, I would hope (probably in vain) that Americans and other Conservatives would remember, say, this:

SAN SALVADOR – On the stump the right-wing presidential candidate touts his tight relations with the United States government and warns of a communist threat. The left-wing party is running a former guerrilla commander and avowed communist. The US is taking sides....

In February, Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega told voters to "consider what kind of a relationship they want a new administration to have with us." He met with all the candidates except Mr. Handal.

The threats to El Salvador were not, shall we say, subtle. Otto Reich came out and said that El Salvadorans living in America could be deported if the Handal won.

In any case, the actual dispute in Zambia is entirely predictable:

Mr Sata is challenging Levy Mwanawasa, the incumbent president, in the September 28 election. Mr Sata has been quoted calling Taiwan a “sovereign state,” angering China, and has also spoken out against Chinese labour practices in Zambia. Recognition of Taiwan would mean turning away from the country’s ties with Beijing.

Nevertheless, I'm sure that the American media can be counted on to claim that the Zambian government is a puppet of Beijing and that Mwanawasa is the next Mugabe or whatnot. This is, after all, the media that uncritically praised the coup in Venezuela.

Let Operation Zambian Freedom begin!

The Neocons continue to be wrong about everything, always

About a country where 98% of the population is Muslim, Michael Ledeen writes:

...Islam is very unpopular in Iran nowadays... but Zoroastrianism is surging.

Words fail me.

Zoroastrianism? Really? Surging? From what base? Did Iran's lone Zoroastrian recruit two of his cousins?

I must stop following links to The Corner, even if they come via Rob at LGM.

Some math for Liberals

Between the 2004 and 2006 elections, the New Democratic Party of Canada increased it's vote by 462,194 Canadians nationwide. This was less than a 2% increase in it's overall vote share.

Between those same elections, the Liberal Party of Canada lost 399,417 votes in Quebec alone through that party's incompetence and corruption. This loss in Quebec made up more than 80% of the Liberal Party's national decline between 2004 and 2006. Nationally, the Liberals lost only about another 100,000 votes.

(All of these figures come from Elections Canada. 2004 results here, 2006 here.)

Here we have a pretty close call - one party gained more than 400,000 votes by advocating policies that, you know, appealed to Canadians. The other party screamed that the Conservative opposition was going to rain hellfire and damnation on us all if they were elected. They were so remarkably successful in that pitch that close to the same number (and even 100,000 Canadians not directly affected by Liberal corruption) were turned off.

Now I'm sure that a sophisticated Liberal can explain to me why Gomery was ultimately all Jack Layton's fault. Hell, if they tried, I'm sure they could convince us all that all of AdScam was Jack's fault. Further, I'm sure a sophisticated Liberal can tell me how, without Jack Layton, the people of Quebec would have re-elected the Liberal Party in Quebec with an overwhelming majority. I'm sure, to put it bluntly, that whatever the numbers are, whatever the facts are, whatever reality is, it's all Jack Layton and the NDP's fault.

Oh, and a finale: 1.3 million more Canadians voted for the Conservative Party in 2006 than in 2004. This dwarfs any potential fratricide alleged to occur between the NDP and the Liberals.

I need to lie down

I think, if you had told me in 2000 that throngs of MTV-watching youths would literally cheer and scream at the sight of Al Gore, I would have punched you in the face.

Oh dear me. I think I'm getting light-headed...



(via Gristmill)

We always negotiate with terrorists, cont.

It's silly to pretend we won't, even if I'm not wild about this actually happening:

Islamabad, Pakistan (AHN) - After signing a truce with pro-Taliban militants on its border with Afghanistan, Pakistan is now extending the olive branch to America's most wanted man; Osama bin Laden.

Pakistani officials tell ABC that the leader of the terror group al-Qaeda, and the mastermind of the September 11th attacks in the U.S. will not face capture if he agrees to lead a "peaceful life."

Major General Shaukat Sultan Khan says that "as long as one is being like a peaceful citizen" bin Laden "would not be taken into custody."

There's already some pushback by the Paksitani government over what this all means, but given that even before the truce, the Pakistani military and intelligence weren't, shall we say, fighting tooth and nail, I think it's pretty clear what's going on.

Large GoMex oil "find"

So Chevron claims to have found an oil field with approximately 15 billion barrels in the Gulf of Mexico. Good for them, but once more, I'd like to caution everyone not to get too excited. Every little bit helps, but this is not even a drop in the bucket.

One analyst quoted by CNN says:

"At best we're not going to see a drop of oil for five years, maybe seven years," said Fadel Gheit, oil analyst for Oppenheimer. "It's great news for Chevron and even more so for Devon. But you can't hold your breath waiting for it."

In five years, the United States will have used more than 35 billion barrels of oil. In five years, the world will have used 150 billion barrels of oil. So by the time this field comes on stream, we will have already used ten times as much oil as is under the waters. What I'm saying is we're not even treading water with discoveries like this - we're (barely) slowing the rate of descent.

And that, of course, assumes that this find proves to actually have as much oil as they suspect today - remember earlier this year, Mexico announced a 10-billion-plus field that turned out to be so much gas.

Most amusing have been the news anchors breathlessly reporting that this find could expand the US's oil reserves by "a whopping 50%"!!! Carefully left out of the picture is the reality that the US reserves are something like 60-70% depleted, and it's a sign of how meager they are, not how large this find is, that a number like that has any relevance.

Too good to pass up

Maybe David Horowitz has finally found some common ground with the Muslim world:

TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Tuesday for a purge of liberal and secular teachers from the country's universities, urging students to return to 1980s-style radicalism.

"Today, students should shout at the president and ask why liberal and secular university lecturers are present in the universities," the official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying during a meeting with a group of students.

Zakaria on Iran, Munich, whatever

Fareed Zakaria needs to be read more frequently:

To review a bit of history: in 1938, Adolf Hitler launched what became a world war not merely because he was evil but because he was in complete control of the strongest country on the planet. At the time, Germany had the world's second largest industrial base and its mightiest army. (The American economy was bigger, but in 1938 its army was smaller than that of Finland.) This is not remotely comparable with the situation today.

Iran does not even rank among the top 20 economies in the world. The Pentagon's budget this year is more than double Iran's total gross domestic product ($181 billion, in official exchange-rate terms). America's annual defense outlay is more than 100 times Iran's. Tehran's nuclear ambitions are real and dangerous, but its program is not nearly as advanced as is often implied. Most serious estimates suggest that Iran would need between five and 10 years to achieve even a modest, North Korea-type, nuclear capacity.

Washington has a long habit of painting its enemies 10 feet tall—and crazy....

And here, Kevin Drum has close to the right caveat:

It is not quite right to say that "Washington" has a habit of doing this. Zakaria should instead say that "hysterical Republican hawks" have a habit of doing this.

Accuracy is important in these matters. For the record, then: "Team B" was a creation of George H.W. Bush and included such members as Richard Pipes, Paul Wolfowitz, and Edward Teller. The Cox Commission was the brainchild of congressman Christopher Cox (R–Calif.). And Saddam's nuclear bombs were the fantasy product of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Bush, et. al.

The hysterical impulse is not solely a Republican trait - Milosevic was compared to the Nazis more than once by spokespeople for Clinton - but it's close enough to be an axiom.

Iraq

While I was busy writing about silly Liberals, Iraq took a major step for the worse. The country's foremost cleric, Al-Sistani, has basically washed his hands of the country's politics.

Sistani has, with decreasing success, been playing the role of the bouncers on the Jerry Springer show - not powerful enough to keep the chairs from flying, but trying hard to keep order nonetheless.

It should be said - and by no means do I mean to say this decision by Sistani is all America's fault, but here I go - that the US did a lot to undercut Sistani during the first two years of the occupation. Specifically, Sistani was one of the earliest and most constant voices calling for early and direct elections, something the US quite clearly and publicly decided wasn't going to happen until Sistani put a few hundred thousand activists in the streets.

The problem for Sistani is that the Iraq Shia are increasingly caught between obeying the dictates of Washington and the contest between Washington and Tehran. For a moderate nationalists like Sistani, there's not really a lot of leverage.

Metaneurogenesis

Neurogenesis: The creation of new neurons in the brain.

Metaneurogenesis: The physical sensation of your brain growing as you read about neurogenesis.

Via Angelica, this is a simply astonishing article in Seed Magazine about the relatively new, and still a bit heretical field of adult neurogenesis. It's definitely "read the whole thing" material, but to summarize: A few plucky scientists have overturned the long-held belief that primates' brains do not create new neurons as adults. Their discoveries have shown that not only does the brain continue to form new neurons, but that it is immensely susceptible to environmental conditions. Stress and depression in particular retard the growth of new neurons, and this is doubly true in children - young marmosets who've been subjected to youth trauma show their neurological "scars" much later on in life.

As one of the pioneers in the field (Dr. Elizabeth Gould) says:

“Poverty is stress,” she says, with more than a little passion in her voice. “One thing that always strikes me is that when you ask Americans why the poor are poor, they always say it’s because they don’t work hard enough, or don’t want to do better. They act like poverty is a character issue.”

Gould’s work implies that the symptoms of poverty are not simply states of mind; they actually warp the mind. Because neurons are designed to reflect their circumstances, not to rise above them, the monotonous stress of living in a slum literally limits the brain.

Imagine, for a moment, that Al Qaeda were surreptitiously slipping a non-fatal neurotoxin in to the breakfasts of our children every morning that retarded their mental development. Is there anything we wouldn't do to destroy them, anything we wouldn't dare do to protect our children from harm that would stay with them the rest of their lives?

That's what poverty is doing, now, here, today, in Canada. And we yawn.

On a less rant-prone note, the article also notes how lethargic the academy can be to change:

Beginning in 1962, a researcher at MIT named Joseph Altman published several papers claiming that adult rats, cats, and guinea pigs all formed new neurons. Although Altman used the same technique that Rakic [a traditionalist] would later use in monkey brains—the injection of radioactive thymidine—his results were at first ridiculed, then ignored, and soon forgotten.

As a result, the field of neurogenesis vanished before it began. It would be another decade before Michael Kaplan, at the University of New Mexico, would use an electron microscope to image neurons giving birth. Kaplan discovered new neurons everywhere in the mammalian brain, including the cortex. Yet even with this visual evidence, science remained stubbornly devoted to its doctrine. Kaplan remembers Rakic telling him that “Those [cells] may look like neurons in New Mexico, but they don’t in New Haven.” Faced with this debilitating criticism, Kaplan, like Altman before him, abandoned the field of neurogenesis.

We could have been working on this stuff decades ago, and the scientific community ridiculed it out of serious study until the evidence finally piled up to the point where it was indisputable. Scientists will tell you this is responsible, that the community can't chase down every new heresy and accept it without criticism. And they're right. But Kaplan's story makes it clear he wasn't even taken half-seriously, and science paid the price.

Anyway, read the whole thing.

No, really. Read the whole thing.

What are you still doing here? Read the whole thing already.

Comedy day continues

From my father, in email:

NEW YORK -- A public school teacher was arrested today at John F.Kennedy International Airport as he attempted to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square, a slide rule and a calculator. At a morning press conference, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said he believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-gebra movement.

He did not identify the man, who has been charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction. "Al-gebra is a problem for us," Gonzales said. "They desire solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in search of absolute values.

They use secret code names like 'x' and 'y' and refer to themselves as 'unknowns', but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country.

As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, 'There are 3 sides to every triangle'.

"When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, "If God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, he would have given us more fingers and toes."

White House aides told reporters they could not recall a more intelligent or profound statement by the president.

The real problem for the Liberals

From SES, Canadians are asked (paraphrased) "How comfortable are you with the Harper Conservatives forming a majority government?" (Poll PDF here) The answer? The "comfortable" and "somewhat comfortable" numbers add up to 52%. The "comfortable" outnumber the "uncomfortable" 33-29, and the "somewhat comfortable" outnumber the "somewhat uncomfortable" 19-16.

The Liberals have not, since the Harper victory in January, managed to convince Canadians that Harper is worth evicting. But, even more damning for anyone who thinks the NDP is to blame for Harper's government, is the fact that the Liberals have not even managed to convince all Liberals that Harper deserves evicting. When self-identified Liberals were asked how comfortable they were with Harper, the "comfortable" and "somewhat comfortables" add up to 39%.

Let me say that again: 39% of Liberals are "comfortable" or "somewhat comfortable" with their most powerful political rivals forming a majority government in the next election. The equivalent number for the NDP is 32%, for Bloc voters it's 31%. Now, these are liable to be small samples so we can probably say that all these three parties are within the margin of error of each other. Except, possibly, in one case: The NDP respondents outnumber the Liberal respondents who say they are flat-out "uncomfortable" with a Conservative majority by 11% (50-39). That's a pretty clear indication that yes, the NDP voters are even more worried about Harper than the Liberals are. (It would have to be a pretty huge margin of error.)

These numbers show us two things: 1) The Liberals need a leader and some unity, fast-like. I know some Liberals thought an early leadership campaign was a bad thing, but I think these numbers show how desperately the Libs need to make their case. 2) The Liberals still have a huge opportunity to "steal" (to use their language) NDP voters by making a genuine progressive appeal to NDP voters. Whether they waste this opportunity or not is up to them, as always. I'm not optimistic.

Nevertheless, if the Liberals want to scream at the rest of us about how we should all surrender to Big Red for the greater cause of defeating the Harper conservatives, they should maybe, for the sake of honesty if nothing else, achieve some kind of unanimity themselves.

So... you disagree?

Apparently, when I wrote - not for the first time since he was elected - that Stephen Harper "is making this country worse every day he's Prime Minister", this translates in to Liberalese as "I love you, Stephen Harper! Let me have your babies!"

The idea, expressed in the amusingly-named Lobster Thermidor's post, that I represent "NDP bloggers" is laughable. I speak for myself, and if other people agree than bully for me. I associate myself with the NDP because they most closely match my views, but I certainly don't claim to represent them.

Something I left in LT's comment thread, and I think it deserves a wider discussion: What was the progressive argument for voting for Paul Martin on his own merits? The man spent most of a decade as one of the most conservative finance ministers in Canada's history, slashing spending and delivering tax cuts to the rich. As PM, he ran away from gay rights until the Supreme Court made it impossible: in their decision, the Supremes made it clear they didn't appreciate being used as political cover for a government that was so anxious about actually enforcing the promise of the Charter.

If the Liberals want progressives to vote for them, here's a wild idea: Run a progressive campaign. Believe me, most Canadians aren't wild about Jack, and I believe his recent statements about Afghanistan will hurt the party more than help. The Liberal party could - if they expressed even the slightest progressive belief - walk away with a huge chunk of the NDP's vote. You know, like they did in every election during the 1990s?

Instead of whinging about how unfair it is that Canadians insist in voting their conscience, why doesn't the Liberal party actually treat me with a modicum of respect?

Comedy classics

Stephen Colbert's finest moment. Yup, the one with the banana.

I'm not sure Mark Steyn was thinking straight

That Mark Steyn is an idiot with the moral core of a plague bacillus is not surprising, especially if you've been reading Glenn Greenwald lately. But I was shocked - honesly shocked - to see Steyn write the following:

One hundred ten years later, for the Fox journalists and the Western media who reported their release, what's the big deal? Wear robes, change your name to Khaled, go on camera and drop Allah's name hither and yon: If that's your ticket out, seize it. Everyone'll know it's just a sham.

But that's not how the al-Jazeera audience sees it. If you're a Muslim, the video is anything but meaningless. Not even the dumbest jihadist believes these infidels are suddenly true believers. Rather, it confirms the central truth Osama and the mullahs have been peddling -- that the West is weak, that there's nothing -- no core, no bedrock -- nothing it's not willing to trade.

As I say, I was shocked. What Steyn is saying here is that Americans in the public eye should conduct themselves with at least some thought to how their actions will be perceived in the Islamic world. This is quite the admission for a Bush-lover.

I expect Steyn will next call for Ann Coulter's hateful dialogue to be silenced, so as not to jeopardize the war on Terror. I expect him to call for Bush to apologize for the "Islamic Fascist" bs he's been spewing lately. I expect Steyn to call for Condoleeza Rice's resignation after her careless, thoughtless "birth pangs" remark. Finally, I expect Steyn to call for Donald Rumsfeld's dismissal - not resignation - and prosecution for allowing the violations of American and international law at Abu Ghraib prison.

Or maybe Steyn wasn't meaning what he was saying.

James Laxer is old, cranky, and is bothering me

(Alternate title: The Left's own Nazi problem. Long post ahead!)

The most dangerous thing about the Bush administration - and the neoconservatives more generally - is their desire to see themselves as the last, best hope for civilization. This belief of theirs - and in this group, I include alleged "liberals" such as Michael Ignatieff - is what justifies their abandonment of civil rights, their ceaseless emperor-worship, and their utter, total confusion as to why anyone, anywhere, questions their moral vision. It is also why they are so quick to demonize their critics as appeasers and collaborators - not just because it is useful (if cynical) political language, but because they sincerely believe that someone who criticizes their means (unending war, unlimited torture) also criticizes their ends (the protection of the innocent.)

This belief - this claim to unitary moral clarity - is not the neoconservatives' alone. There are far too many old leftists, it seems, who can't forget the Nazis, either. Enter James Laxer.

Laxer, some of whose books I own, have read, and enjoyed, was born in 1941 and raised by avowedly Marxist parents. I don't use this as a slur in the slightest - rather, I'm trying to illustrate what I believe Laxer's fundamental problems are. While I haven't read Laxer's biography ("Red Diaper Baby") I'm familiar enough with other men and women of his generation that I'll describe some common beliefs. (If Laxer, or anyone, believes I've applied these beliefs to him unfairly, please correct me.)

The left of Laxer's generation, and of his parents generation, was still able - for a short time - to believe that Communism represented truly new, better ways of organizing societies. It was not until the coming of World War II - and Stalin's pact with Hitler - that North American Communists began to abandon that authoritarian state. Of course, the wider breech would happen after Stalin's death and Khruschev's airing of the worst of Stalin's crimes. Later still, the Gulag Archipelago would be the final nail in the coffin of respectable Western Communism.

What's at issue here is not, however, Laxer's view on Stalin, but Laxer's views on Hitler and the right more broadly. One of the heroic myths of the fight against European Fascism is the story of the Popular Front - the coalitions of parties who tried, unsuccessfully, to stem the tide of the Right in Europe before the war. Most important of all in this mythology is the French Prime Minister Leon Blum, France's first Jewish, and first Socialist Prime Minister. Blum tried to keep the French right at bay, to the point of voting against giving Petain the dictatorial powers the Nazis demanded. Other leftists, and other Jews, might have tried to keep a low profile and not risk their own deaths so publicly. Not Blum.

Obviously, the story of the Popular Front is not a happy one. The fascists were not stopped, the war engulfed all of Europe, and the Nazis came dangerously close to victory. Unfortunately, I believe Laxer is under the impression that if only the PF had been more successful - if the Left hadn't been so riven with it's own divisions - that the Nazis could have been stopped. Left out of this belief is the reality that French anti-semitism and anti-communism could not abide Blum or the Socialists in power, and that the divisions within France were at least as great as the divisions within the French left. While too much is made of France's occupation, it is enough to say that the resistance to the Nazis was hardly unanimous.

But if you were, like Laxer, born in the 1940s, and raised on stories of the fight against Fascism (like all children his age, not just the left, were) the lesson is clear: the forces of the Right need to be fought, vigorously, and with as much unity as the left and center can muster. It's an inspring call to battle, every time. Except that it's now been at least three generations since the Nazis were defeated, and it's been almost a full 20 years since Communism began to crumble. To put it bluntly, metaphors from the 20th century - even the mid- and late 20th century - are rapdily losing their utility.

So that why I have absolutely no sympathy for Laxer - and other leftists, my fellow travellers - who write things like this:

... there are times in history when truly reactionary political formations come along. Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party is such a formation. While thankfully, it is not overtly racist in the manner of the far right parties in Europe, apart from that it shares all of the views and instincts of a far right party. Harper himself, as his speeches and writings reveal, would be very much at home in the Republican Party and in the American neo-conservative movement. To blur the differences between this political formation and a run-of-the-mill liberal capitalist party, as the NDP has done, is a blatant denial of the truth. The Harper government threatens all of the societal innovations the NDP and the CCF before it have inspired.

If Laxer believes this, then - and I wish there were a more charitable way to put this - he's taken leave of his senses. The Harper government exists in the most precarious minority position of any government since Canada's founding. If Harper sincerely tried to take the axe to national health care, the Canadian Pension Plan, or even gay marriage, his government would fall, and the Liberals could ride to victory in the next election. If, that is, they had competent leadership. But more on that in a moment.

The problem with this belief - that Harper presents a new, malignant force in Canadian politics - is that there's precious little evidence for it. Look at their policies: warmed-over Manningism and a barely restrained social conservatism, kept tightly bound beneath the surface lest they alienate Ontario. There's nothing new here - prairie populism and social conservatism are as old as Canada, and they are (temporarily, one hopes) ascendant because of Alberta's recent boom in numbers and wealth. We could try and draw a line in the sand against Harper, but for what? A misguided and mistaken belief that we can stamp out homophobia, racism, or misogyny in the Conservative mind? I've had enough crusades this decade, thank you.

But for Laxer - and too many leftists, it seems - it was a great betrayal for the NDP to run against the Liberals in the last election. Harper is a scary conservative, I admit. But these disillusioned Marxists are forgetting a simple fact - the Conservatives will always be scary. Stockwell Day was far more frightening to me than Harper is. What Harper has that Day lacked is political success. But the NDP can't be asked to unilaterally disarm every time the Conservatives look close to victory. That's what Laxer is advocating for, and all that means is the NDP - indeed, all genuinely progressive parties - should simply disband and their members join the Liberal Party of Canada. This is, needless to say, an absurd position for a man of the Left to take.

This is especially the case when the Liberal Party lacks any kind of competent leadership. Paul Martin - and this needs to be said, along with all the aspersions against the NDP - was one of the most incompetent politicians of his generation. While Chretien was regularly able to surprise observers who thought too little of him - think back to the 2000 election - Martin had the reverse "gift": constantly amazing his supporters with his poor performance. The man led his party to lose seats in the 2004 election, and blithely assumed that his minority government could proceed as if it had won a majority. When the NDP actually - shockingly, in the view of some - demanded some kind of concession for it's continued support, Martin waited until the last possible minute to swallow his pride and accept a deal. When Jack Layton made clear that his support was not unconditional, and that further concessions would be asked for further support (and this is really the least Layton could possibly have demanded) Martin - not Layton - walked away from the ad hoc coalition, and forced the election. Is the NDP required to follow the Liberals in to defeat, because of one old man's petulance?

The response of the Liberal Party to Martin's idiotic self-immolation has been instructive. While a number of progressive candidates are seeking the leadership, the Big Red Machine has swung decisively in support of the neo-imperialist, neoconservative Michael Ignatieff. What possible reason does the left have to support a party whose leaders so clearly want to ignore and abandon the left?

Well, if you believe that Harper is the next incarnation of the fascists, that's reason enough. But such comparisons are as spurious as they are common. Comparing Harper to Bush is just about as un-enlightening. Harper nominally supports capital punishment, the war in Iraq, and eliminating gay marriage. This doesn't just put him in the Republican Party, it puts him squarely in the conventional wisdom of the Democratic Party, circa 2004. But somehow I don't think that comparison keeps Laxer awake at night.

What was lost in all the hullaballoo of the 2006 Federal Election was a very simple fact: Canadians replaced one minority government with another, even weaker, minority government. Harper has shown no great ability to make friends in the other parties, and still the Liberals have supported this government as much as the NDP or the Bloc have. For Laxer to believe that Harper presents a unique and novel challenge to the Canadian way of life, he'd have to believe that not only did Harper have massive public support for his alleged nefarious aims, but that all of the institutions of Canadian governance - from the public service to the Governor General and the Senate - were willing to lie down for him. I've read Laxer before, and I believe him to be an otherwise intelligent and rational man. So it's a total and complete mystery to me how he could believe this. But his writings make it clear that he does, in fact, believe this.

Now, I believe in a certain amount of pragmatism when it comes to voting. I've made no secret of my disdain for the Provincial Ontario NDP, and I believe I've stated before on this blog that in the last provincial election I voted Liberal. Why? Because the NDP have shown no ability to actually win seats for several electoral cycles in Ontario now, and in the last Provincial election Dalton McGuinty seemed to be a genuinely successful candidate who had - importantly, in my view - become more progressive-minded since his 1999 defeat. So I have no intrinsic problem with the idea that the left should, on occasion, support centrist candidates. But the awfulness of the Right is less important, in my view, than two other considerations:

1) Has the center tried to actively appeal to the left? McGuinty did in 2003, Martin staunchly refused to, and the Liberal party machine continues to push their preferred Right-wing candidate, Ignatieff. I have no obligation to vote for politicians who actively disdain my views.

2) Does the candidate - regardless of ideological stance - stand a chance of success? Martin did not, McGuinty did, and so did Jack Layton. That's right - there was only one left-wing party that added seats in the 2006 general election, and that was the NDP. The Bloc and the Liberals both lost seats. Why should NDP voters reward failure?

If the Liberal machine fails to annoint their boy-king, and someone other than the repulsive Ignatieff actually leads the Liberal Party of Canada in the next election, even I may consider voting Liberal, if only because a) I agree with many of Laxer's disagreements over the increasing centralization of power in the NDP, and b) I still genuinely find Harper to be, as I've said before, making this country worse every day that he's Prime Minister.

But if the Liberal Party gives the anti-war, socially-progressive part of Canada the finger by choosing Ignatieff, any dream of a popular front against Harper is doomed. Not because of the intransigence of the Left, but because the Liberals will have decided that it's better to fight against the left with the Conservatives than fight the Conservatives with the left. Or to put it in language that Laxer would understand, the Liberals will have sided with Petain and Hitler, not Blum and the Republic.

But as I said, such comparisons are silly.

Iraqis, Russians, and Saudis use oil, too

One underappreciated aspect to the recent spike in oil prices: Saudis drive cars, too. What happens when Saudi Arabia (as just one example) gets flooded with oil dollars because the price has gone up nine times since the lows of 1998? Well, the Saudis buy more cars, that what happens. So do the Venezuelans, the Russians, the Qataris, etc.

The fact that oil exports are dropping even faster than production in some provinces - as a result of higher domestic consumption - means that America has an even bigger problem than the (as-yet hypothetical) oil production peak. After all, production means diddly squat (for an American, at least) if the oil never makes it to US shores.

Adding to the complications, in many exporting countries the domestic price for oil is kept artificially low, meaning consumers have no reason to change their habits. It's possible that, until the Saudis and Russians start being net oil importers, they'll have no reason to remove the subsidies and tariffs that keep prices so low.

The new Democratic Foreign Policy

Ezra's TAP-mate Mattew Yglesias is writing a book, and good for him. (Where's my book contract, I ask you?!) I think Matthew is probably better-equipped to write a good book about Democratic foreign policy than any other blogger I read, so good luck.

That said, I desperately want to read his book now (many months, I imagine, before it's complete) because this isn't nearly enough:

Read More...

[Matt's book] advances the argument that the political problem for contemporary progressives has been a failure to convince the American public that the Democratic Party offers a coherent and viable approach to national security policy. It denies that the issue here is that liberals need to "get tough" or some such thing. Rather, the problem has been a failure to advance a principled and coherent alternative to Bush-style hegemonism.

The good news is that such an alternative is fairly readily available in the form of traditional liberal internationalism as has historically, albeit with some missteps, been the lodestar of Democratic thinking throughout the twentieth century. The bad news is that just as it was more necessary than ever to articulate the meaning and utility of this doctrine, a giant portion of the movements leadership... found themselves abandonning it in favor of support for an invasion of Iraq that cannot be reconciled with it.

There are only two problems with this that come to mind. The first is trivial, and essentially amounts to a marketing campaign: Too many Americans, I think, have internalized the belief that 9/11 changed everything. This makes the idea of returning to 20th-century liberal internationalism sound quaint to my ears. But maybe savvy marketing can convince Americans otherwise.

The larger problem is more fundamental, and it really depends on what Matt means be "traditional liberal internationalism". If, by that, he means the impulse to build and contribute to multilateral institutions, collective security agencies like NATO, and working on expanding global trade, then I think Matt's on a solid footing.

The problem is that's not the only part of "traditional liberal internationalism", because at least during the Cold War, all of the above strategies were also part and parcel of the effort to combat Soviet Communism. This worked - very well - against the Soviets in the 20th century. My worry is that the liberal internationalism that Matt is advocating for could too easily be transformed (through no fault of his own) in to a policy of "containment" against China.

Before you think I've taken leave of my senses and totally jumped topics, let me just note that the Pentagon, despite the momentary concentration in Iraq, is still very much in the "contain China" mindset. The most recent example comes from ArmsControlWonk, who notes that - of all the Deputy Assistant Secretaries to be promotes, the Pentagon chose the DASD for Asia-Pacific (China.) As Jeffrey notes, "Oh, sure, sure, you have no exit strategy for Iraq and you are sizing up air defenses around Tehran, but c’mon … real men hate on China."

As we saw with the latest National Security Strategy, even though the Pentagon is abandoning the more hostile language towards China, it is still maintaining the defense priorities that only make sense if your long-term expectation is a Big Fight with China.

More broadly, one of the most interesting non-GWOT aspects of Bush's foreign policy (and to a lesser extent, Clinton's) has been the strategic encirclement of China. One of the best writers on this subject is Gwynne Dyer, who wrote an excellent article for The Walrus magazine a while back. Sadly, it isn't available online, but you can get a feel of his writing from a shorter article cached here.

Dyer overstates it when he says that "Nothing in the Chinese Communist government's behavior over the past 50 years, or in China's cultural traditions over the past several thousand years, suggests that a more powerful China would be territorially expansionist", but nevertheless he's correct to say that nothing - absolutely nothing - in China's recent past makes the kind of "encircle and contain" policy of the Bush Administration necessary.

What does this have to do with Matt's book? Well, two things. First, a return to 20th century liberal international foreign policy, or as the rest of us call it, "sanity", is welcome. But I'm wary that too many Dems think that America will have the same role in the 21st century as it did in the 20th. Liberal internationalism in the 20th century was largely a fighting doctrine to contain the Soviets, and the American foreign policy scene (at the moment, at least) is most definitely geared up for a fight with China.

This is the crucial second point: America needs to find some way to "make room" in the international arena for China, India, Japan, even countries like Brazil, Russia, and maybe Nigeria or South Africa to play larger roles. This is absolutely compatible with "traditional liberal internationalism", but it may not be compatible with "America's national interest" as it has been traditionally defined.

More importantly - for Matt's book, at least - there is no historical example from which American foreign policy thinkers can draw a lesson of how to do this. Well, maybe except one: The change in international leadership between the UK and the US during the mid-20th century. Unfortunately, that change largely was the result of the Luftwaffe bombing a large part of Britain to the ground, and the post-war loss of India. America has precious few colonies to lose, and there's got to be a better way to make room in the international arena than bombing DC, right?

Well, maybe Matt can put a chapter in his book on that subject.

China Stands Up at the UN, cont.

There's an interesting article in the NYT Magazine about China's growing role at the UN, particularly China's role in blocking any sanctions on Sudan for the ongoing genocide in Darfur.

While the article is generally very good, the author - as is common for American analysis of Chinese diplomacy - largely discounts the modern-day relevance of China's history.

James Traub, in explaining China's stubborn refusal to allow Security Council sanctions against Sudan, writes:

And in China, where memory of “the century of humiliation” at the hands of Western imperialists runs deep — and where the state’s right to abuse its own citizens is not to be questioned — sovereignty has long been a fighting word. During the 90’s, the Chinese abstained on, or publicly criticized, key resolutions authorizing the use of force to dislodge Saddam Hussein from Kuwait and establishing or fortifying peacekeeping missions in Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Haiti. China is now more flexible in practice, but the doctrine of absolute sovereign rights remains central to its foreign policy.

Now, obviously, there's a certain amount of cynical self-preservation at work when China objects to international enforcement of human rights. Nevertheless, I think it's crucial to understand that for the Chinese leadership, this is also very much a matter of principle. But to understand this, we need to have a bit of a better picture of modern Chinese history.

After the Opium Wars with England, China (as well as other Asian countries) was forced to sign the first of what would be many Unequal Treaties. These treaties eventually would rob the Qing Dynasty of various powers such as tariff collection, criminal prosecution, and generally anything that got in the way of western economic interests.

Needless to say, these treaties were all signed at the barrel of many guns. All of the major European powers at the time (Germany, England, France especially) extracted spheres of influence in China. In particular, the diplomatic concept of "extraterritoriality" was imposed on the Chinese. This forbade the Chinese government from prosecuting westerners for crimes committed in China, because it was said that Chinese law and governance was not "civlized" enough to try westerners.

The point of all this is to say that for the Chinese government, the idea of multinational forces invading and imposing their own self-serving economic interests, all the while wrapping their conquest up in the florid language of "human rights" isn't a paranoid fantasy, but a historical fact.

How relevant is this today? Very. It is often (mistakenly) said that China has replaced dogmatic Maoism with a more pugnacious form of nationalism. This misses an obvious point - Chinese Communism was always mostly about national self-determination. The leadership of the Chinese Communist Party today see themselves as the inheritors to not just Mao, but also Sun Yat-sen. Not only do the Communists see China's national sovereignty as something to be protected at all costs, but it is also a crucial aspect of the Communist Party's continuing legitimacy.

As I said at the beginning, there is undoubtedly a certain cynicism to China's maneuverings at the UN, but the Chinese leadership gives every indication of sincerely believing what it says, and China's history gives them good reason to. If America is going to have to deal with China - as it manifestly needs to today - then the US needs to understand why China is doing what it does.

Hidef DVD morgue watch, cont.

The looming failure of both HD-DVD and Blu-ray continues. via Boingboing:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Hollywood is hoping high-definition DVDs will reignite a slowing market for movies at home, but they have drawn mixed reviews from retailers and analysts due to technical issues and a bitter format war....

"High expectations were set. At every meeting with Sony, every demonstration was spectacular," Dybdahl said.

"Then along comes the first Blu-ray player from Samsung and that's when my expectations were hurt. When we put the disc in, all the sales people looked around and said it doesn't look much better than a standard DVD," he said.

This is going to be the big problem for both these standards. Your average consumer is simply not going to invest in the equipment until he's sure there's a big enough difference to warrant the expense.

We've never done a digital-to-digital transition in the media industry before, with the exception of the ongoing transition away from CDs to MP3s, and I don't think that will ever be complete. It does show, however, what the next video format needs to be if it's going to have serious commercial appeal: MP3s have a huge market now because of the immense convenience they add when you listen to music. It becomes a snap to organize your collection, play what you want, etc.

Consumers have adopted MP3s, and this is crucial, even though MP3s are lower-fidelity. This is the same reason TV piracy isn't going to go away - people will download episodes (whole seasons, even) of TV, even though the fidelity is crap sometimes, because it's easier and more convenient.

The next next video standard is going to have to take reality in to account.

Judicial decisions I'd like to write

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - A Chinese court has rejected a woman's claims for compensation for her sex life, which was ruined when her husband was injured in an accident, the Shanghai Daily reported on Thursday.

Wei Suying, 31, whose husband has suffered from erectile dysfunction since a 2003 workplace accident, filed suit in a Shanghai court asking for 220,000 yuan ($27,650) in compensation from the shopping center where the accident occurred, it said.

...

But the court ruled that Chinese law does not define an individual's sex life as a protected right. Relatives can only ask for mental anguish compensation when a victim dies, the report said.

New post at Grist

My latest at Gristmill - which you should all be reading, even when I'm not there - is about that most-misunderstood of books, The Limits to Growth.

Good news in the military?

Gays and Lesbians are, apparently, more and more welcome in the ranks of the US armed services. And if you don't believe that this has anything to do with critical manpower shortages because of Iraq, I've got a bridge for you...

This actually mirrors the effects of the Korean War on racial segregation in the armed forces. While Truman ordered the desegregation in 1948, it was only when all-white frontline units took heavy casualties in the opening months of Korea that blacks began to be integrated in to combat units.

So now they can enjoy their right to go die overseas in illegal wars of empire, just like any other outcast American group! (/snark.)

All you need to know

Charles Krauthammer writes in the Washington Post:

"We did not think, even 1 percent, that the capture would lead to a war at this time and of this magnitude. You ask me, if I had known on July 11 . . . that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely not."
-- Hasan Nasrallah, Hezbollah leader, Aug. 27

So much for the "strategic and historic victory" Nasrallah had claimed less than two weeks earlier. What real victor declares that, had he known, he would not have started the war that ended in triumph?

For Krauthammer, the idea that a leader who led his forces in to a costly war with an indeterminate outcome would actually admit his miscalculation, and further say that if given the chance, he would avoid said mistake, is a sign of grave weakness and defeat.

Suddenly, the modern conservative makes total and complete sense. And that's all that really needs to be said about that, I think. Of course, me being me, it is not all I have to say about that.

The only useful tidbit to take from K's column is that Hezbollah's post-war popularity bubble seems to be popping fast. If true (and there's no reason to suspect Krauthammer has any proximity to the facts) this is most definitely a good thing. But what's funny is that Krauthammer can, with no sense of irony, write the following paragraph:

In a country this weak, outsiders can be decisive. A strong European presence in the south, serious U.S. training and equipment for the Lebanese army, and relentless pressure at the United Nations can tip the balance. We should be especially aggressive at the United Nations in pursuing the investigation of Syria for the murder of Rafiq Hariri and in implementing resolutions mandating the disarmament of Hezbollah.

Only in America can pundits who - not more than a year ago - scorned, mocked, and slandered both Europe (full of anti-American anti-semites, it is!) and the UN (oilforfoodoilforfoodoilforfood!) now place their hope in those same institutions. Even more depressing for them - if they had any self-consciousness whatsoever - is the fact that the dream of America unilaterally imposing it's will on the Middle East is (by their own implications) dead, rotting, and just waiting to be buried.

The War Tapes

Watched this movie last night, and it was fantastic if depressing. Some thoughts:

-The US soldiers profiled in this movie hate Halliburton, and are just as cynical about KBR's role in this war as any Nation or TAP reader.

-They are not, by and large, as cynical about the war overall - with the exception of one Lebanese-born soldier who, reflecting that Bush was likely to be re-elected, mutters "I guess Operation Iranian Freedom is coming soon."

-The other two soldiers basically seemed to agree that if America was in Iraq for oil and nothing else, that was okay by them. Indeed, one said something to the effect of "somebody other than Cheney better be getting some fucking money out of this war."

More broadly, I was saying to my father (who I saw the movie with) that while I believe Iraq will, in the largest sense, be a far more important strategic defeat for America than Vietnam, I also believe that Vietnam will remain far more traumatic for most Americans. There's a number of reasons for this, mainly the absence of a draft (so far!) and the structure of the modern military which limits impacts on the general public.

Aside from this movie, I haven't seen a very good cultural presentation of how this war is ruining lives, even when people come back (relatively) unharmed. Bizarrely, the most "popular" presentation of how awful this war is may very well come from the video for Green Day's When September Comes.

Nader's Triumph

I think (could be wrong) Ezra said it first, but listening to the rhetoric of major Democratic thinkers, I can't help but think that Ralph Nader was right, after all: Electing Bush was the best way to get the Democratic Party to take the left seriously. Latest example comes from Thomas Frank, writing behind the New York Times' firewall:

What we have watched unfold for a few decades, I have argued, is a broad reversion to 19th-century political form, with free-market economics understood as the state of nature, plutocracy as the default social condition, and, enthroned as the nations necessary vice, an institutionalized corruption surpassing anything we have seen for 80 years. All that is missing is a return to the gold standard and a war to Christianize the Philippines.

Historically, liberalism was a fighting response to precisely these conditions. Look through the foundational texts of American liberalism and you can find everything you need to derail the conservative juggernaut. But dont expect liberal leaders in Washington to use those things. They are New Democrats now, enlightened and entrepreneurial and barely able to get out of bed in the morning, let alone muster the strength to deliver some Rooseveltian stemwinder against economic royalists.

Mounting a campaign against plutocracy makes as much sense to the typical Washington liberal as would circulating a petition against gravity. What our modernized liberal leaders offer - that is, when theyre not gushing about the glory of it all at Davos - is not confrontation but a kind of therapy for those flattened by the free-market hurricane: they counsel us to accept the inevitability of the situation and to try to understand how we might retrain or re-educate ourselves so we will fit in better next time.

"Mounting a campaign against plutocracy makes as much sense to the typical Washington liberal as would circulating a petition against gravity." Remember, when Gore (too-late in his campaign) began running against entrenced corporate interests, the Press mocked him and said it was just another sign of his dishonesty.

They mocked Gore's dishonesty. In 2006, there's something perverse and disturbing about that.

Of course, Nader wasn't actually right. Electing a Republican president may have moved the rhetoric of the Democratic thinkers to the left, but there's precious little evidence of it actually shifting the positions of Democratic politicians to the left. (See Clinton, Bill or Hillary.) Moreover, the fundamental assault Nader brought against Gore was the wholly-fictional charge that "there was no difference" between Gore and Bush, or the GOP and Dems in general.

Maybe Nader can't be blamed for not forseeing 9/11, and the illegal war that Bush would launch that Gore would not have. But foreseeing 9/11 was unnecessary. The PNAC crew made it clear - as early as 1998, for those who were listening - that they didn't care what precipitated it, but America needed to go to war against Iraq and the President (whoever that was) should take advantage of whatever crisis was available. Given that one of the PNAC-ers in chief (one Richard Cheney) had, if I recall correctly, a minor role in Bush's campaign, that alone should have made any Nader voters rethink their support.

Sadly, it didn't.

Oh, and Frank is absolutely right. Maybe - just maybe - electing a pile of new (not New) Democrats to their respective houses will help tilt the balance in favour of more populist politicians. Even if it doesn't, subpoena power is a fun toy, and Dems should enjoy using it.