Hoyer: AMT might not get fixed this year

Okay, this may just be a trial balloon or an attempt to put pressure on the White House. But if you want to read something that could provoke a mob march on Washington and burn it down, consider the words of House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer:

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) hinted Tuesday that Congress may not be able to stop a big tax increase from hitting 23 million Americans.

Hoyer, pressed on whether Congress would resolve disputes over the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), said, “Maybe.”

Now the question isn't as simple as it seems. President Bush has demanded that the AMT be fixed -- but has vowed to veto any measure that raises other taxes to make up for the lost revenue. Easy for him to say, because he doesn't have to craft the legislation to deal with the problem.

Democrats don't have the votes to overcome a veto, and apparently don't have the stomach to stand firm on this issue. Thus the current compromise, such as it is, is a Senate plan to simply add the missing millions to the federal deficit. That's what passes for fiscal discipline in Washington, and it ignores Congress's own "pay-as-you-go" rules in the bargain.

Indeed, Minority Leader John Boehner gets today's award for partisan disingenuousness:

Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) pounced on the news, calling Hoyer’s remarks “another reminder that the Democrat majority’s priorities do not reflect those of the American people.”

“Democrats created the AMT, repeatedly voted against Republican efforts to abolish it entirely, and have failed to stop it’s impending assault on 23 million middle-class American taxpayers,” he said.

Right, because the American people want to keep running up the deficit.... Never mind Boehner ignoring the Republican role in blocking a deficit-neutral fix.

There's plenty of blame to go around here, starting with Bush's Catch-22 and Democratic cowardice. But there are two things that absolutely have to happen for Congress to have any credibility:

1. The AMT must be fixed, at least for this year;

2. PAYGO rules must be followed.

Whether #2 happens with tax increases or spending cuts, I don't much care. But Republicans should be ashamed of their "add it to the credit card" alternative, and Democrats should be ashamed that they don't have the guts to stand up to Republicans on this. Deficit-fighting rules like PAYGO don't have much teeth if they can be tossed overboard on something like this.

Hoyer's comments offer some hope that the House won't take the easy way out, setting up an interesting three-way confrontation between the House, Senate and White House. May the interests of the nation win.

Hoyer, AMT, politics, midtopia

BBC bleeps Shane

The 1987 classic "Fairytale of New York," by the Pogues, is hands down the favorite holiday song at our house -- though we try to keep the kids from listening too closely. It's irreverent and foul-mouthed, but surprisingly sweet, too. And it's a great tune. Really, who couldn't love a song that begins "It was Christmas Eve, babe.... In the drunk tank"?

But I understand why the BBC -- amid a national grassroots campaign to make the tune Britain's #1 song for the holidays -- decided it had to censor the lyrics during radio play.

The word they bleeped -- faggot -- is easily the most offensive word in the song. But there are enough others -- scumbag, arse, "cheap slut on junk" -- that it's hard to imagine the song ever getting mainstream airplay in this country. First Amendment or no, our Puritanical roots tend to put the kabosh on things like that.

Which is why I'm a bit bemused at the torrent of criticism the BBC's decision has unleashed. You'd think the BBC had declared war on Christmas or something.

In the end, the outcry led the BBC to reverse its decision. So a song that couldn't possibly be played uncut in this country is once again being broadcast in full in Britain.

Somewhere, Shane McGowan is smiling and downing his third pint of bitter.

Fun "Fairy Tale" fact: In Britain, when the song was performed live on BBC's "Top of the Pops", producers made the band change the word "arse" to "ass", which they apparently considered less offensive. The reverse, of course, is true here.

music, Pogues, politics, midtopia

Public documents are -- get this -- public

You may recall that in January, we discovered that the White House's penchant for secrecy had reached such an extreme that they had classified the White House visitor logs, elevating West Wing visits to the level of state secrets.

At the time, I hoped that Bush would be forced to retract the move. Today, I get my wish.

White House visitor logs are public documents, a federal judge ruled Monday, rejecting a legal strategy that the Bush administration had hoped would get around public records laws and let them keep their guests a secret.

The administration, true to form, is expected to appeal the ruling. In addition, they went venue shopping:

The Bush administration had sought to have the case moved to another judge by consolidating it with a similar lawsuit before U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer, an appointee of President Bush.

Lamberth, who served in the Justice Department before President Reagan put him on the federal bench, has roiled Democratic and Republican administrations alike with rulings rejecting government secrecy claims.

I'm happy to report, however, that that move failed:

On Monday, Collyer and Lamberth agreed to consolidate the two Abramoff-related cases before Lamberth, even though Collyer, in accordance with long-standing courthouse practice, would have dealt with both because the case she was hearing was the older of the two.

I suspect Collyer didn't want the hassle of ruling on a case involving the man who appointed her.

In any case, the principle of open records has been preserved for now. We'll see if the administration decides to push it further up the ladder. They may decide to give it a try just to string the case out until Bush's presidency ends, after which interest in Bush's visitor list will shrink significantly. That's obnoxious, but it's their right. My main concern is that the openness be preserved in the end, so that future inhabitants can't pull the same shenanigans.

White House, secrecy, politics, midtopia

Northstar Line moving forward

Lots of good mass transit news will be arriving in Minnesota in time for the holidays, all of it having to do with the soon-to-be passed transportation bill.

The three big items contained in it:

1. $195 million to help rebuild the collapsed I-35W bridge.

2. $55 million for the Northstar commuter rail line, part of about $162 million in federal money that will eventually come our way to help pay for the $320 million project. It's on track to break ground in 2008, with a scheduled opening in 2009. And once the new Twins stadium is built, Northstar riders will be able to use the stadium station to switch to the Hiawatha light-rail line, giving them carless access to downtown Minneapolis, south Minneapolis, the Mall of America and the airport.

3. Speaking of light-rail, the bill also contains about $10 million for the planned Central Corridor extension of the system, which will connect downtown Minneapolis with downtown St. Paul.

By the way, the Northstar line, besides easing the need for additional highway lanes in the northern suburbs, is expected to produce about $1 billion in economic development along its route.

light rail, mass transit, politics, midtopia

Cameras proposed to fight non-existent crime

Welcome to Buhl, Minn. Population 1,000. It's a small, sleepy community where nothing much ever happens. Indeed, it disbanded its police force in 1999.

Which is why it clearly needs surveillance cameras to keep the peace.

Local law enforcement officials are pushing a plan to place six surveillance cameras around this Iron Range town of less than a thousand people.

Sgt. Pat McKenzie of the St. Louis County Sheriff's office, which has overseen law enforcement in Buhl since the city disbanded its police department in 1999, said it'd be a tool for solving and deterring crime. But some residents are asking: What crime?

The main plan is to put cameras on the three roads into town, to ensure that any out-of-town criminals are caught in videotape as they arrive. But they'd also put cameras at City Hall, the city beach and an industrial park.

If the good citizens of Buhl want cameras, of course, they can have them. But does anyone here think the surveillance society has gotten a little out of hand?

civil+liberties, surveillance, politics, midtopia

A principled stand on gay marriage

A handful of liberal churches are taking a principled step in support of gay marriage -- refusing to perform civil ceremonies for anyone, gay or straight.

These churches, and a handful of others around the country that took the same step, will still hold a religious ceremony to bless the unions of straight and gay couples -- but straight couples must go separately to a judge or justice of the peace for the marriage license.

In other words, they're taking the first practical step toward separating religious marriage and civil marriage, which have become intertwined to the detriment of both.

I've argued before that the way to settle the gay marriage debate is to get the government out of the marriage business: civil unions (and the benefits thereof) to everyone who qualifies, and religious marriages for people who want one and can find a church to perform the ceremony.

Now these churches have taken the first step toward making that a reality.

Right now, it's just a handful of liberal churches. But there should be a compelling interest among conservative churches, as well, who may want to start refusing civil ceremonies in order to avoid association with gay marriage, or pressure to perform same-sex ceremonies.

"I know there are clusters of conservative pastors in Massachusetts who have discussed refusing civil ceremonies so as not to be under pressure to perform same-gender ceremonies," said Runnion-Bareford, who himself believes that government and the church have a joint interest in promoting traditional marriage as a societal good.

One can only hope. I don't support (or anticipate) pressure on conservative denominations to perform same-sex marriages. But I do think that gay marriage will become more and more accepted, and in the end the only way opponents can "protect" the word "marriage" is to decouple it from the civil ceremony and make it a purely religious undertaking. So as time goes on, I think you'll see an odd coalition of churches supporting such a move.

civil unions, gay marriage, politics, midtopia

New Jersey abolishes the death penalty

New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine signed a law, passed last week by the legislature, abolishing the death penalty in that state.

I have no problem with the death penalty in principle, as long as its use is restricted to very clear, very extreme circumstances. Timothy McVeigh, for instance, was a perfect candidate for it. As are serial killers and the like.

My problems with it are entirely practical. First, it is applied to far too wide a spectrum of crimes. Second, it's irreversible. Throw a guy in prison for life, and if he turns out to be innocent, you can release him. Execute a guy, and if he turns out to be innocent, all you can do is apologize to the family.

Neither of those problems would be fatal if it weren't for the third problem: the fact that innocent people are sentenced to die far too often. Our judicial system is fallible; it seems silly to rely on a fallible system to determine whether someone lives or dies.

Corzine invoked a moral opposition to the death penalty:

"This is a day of progress for us and for the millions of people across our nation and around the globe who reject the death penalty as a moral or practical response to the grievous, even heinous, crime of murder," Corzine said.

But New Jersey's decision was mostly decided on practical grounds. From the legislative report accompanying the bill:

New Jersey has spent at least a quarter billion dollars ($253.3 million) on its death penalty system since the state reinstated capital punishment in 1982. Since that time there have been 197 capital trials and 60 death penalty convictions in the state of which 50 were reversed. There have been no executions, and currently 10 men are housed on New Jersey’s death row.

In 25 years the state has spent $250 million, and all it has to show for it is 10 men on Death Row. But it hasn't managed to actually execute anyone since 1963.

Death-penalty proponents will say that the problem is the lengthy appeals process, which makes cases both expensive and ensures that it can take decades to execute someone. They have a point -- but then the argument goes back to problem #3: the fallibility of the justice system. Unless you're willing to execute a few innocent people along with the guilty, death cases will always be expensive and drawn out. Complaining that it is so is tantamount to complaining about making sure someone is really, truly guilty before offing them.

So, good for New Jersey. I predict that this move will have exactly zero effect on the state's crime rate. And while some evil people will live instead of die, they will do so in the confines of a brutal prison system from which they will never leave. That hardly strikes me as coddling.

Corzine, death penalty, New Jersey, politics, midtopia

Torture is in the eye of the beholder

President Bush declares "we don't torture." But that's only true if you accept his definition of the term -- which apparently doesn't include several techniques that most other people consider torture. Dan Froomkin writes:

The bill would require U.S. intelligence agencies to follow interrogation rules adopted by the armed forces last year....

Those rules explicitly prohibit "forcing detainees to be naked, perform sexual acts, or pose in a sexual manner; placing hoods or sacks over detainees' heads or duct tape over their eyes; beating, shocking, or burning detainees; threatening them with military dogs; exposing them to extreme heat or cold; conducting mock executions; depriving them of food, water, or medical care; and waterboarding."

Okay, I'll side with Bush on the forcing to be naked and sexual posing. That's humiliating, and shouldn't be allowed, but it's not torture.

But the rest?

Bush relies on the sophistry of "not telling our enemies what methods we use" as his excuse for opposing such clear bills. But that makes little sense. Yes, you don't publish a manual of interrogation methods. But if you can't label a given technique torture, then you can't meaningfully apply a law that outlaws torture -- and thus any claims that "we don't torture" are meaningless and unenforceable.

Froomkin also covers the contempt of Congress citations issued to Karl Rove and Josh Bolten for refusing to turn over documents related to the U.S. attorney firings. Interestingly, Republican senators Arlen Specter and Charles Grassley voted in favor of the citations -- deflating to some extent accusation that the charges are purely politically motivated.

For its part, the White House repeated its meaningless offer to let Rove and Bolten be interviewed without oaths or transcripts. And it vowed that the Justice Department would not enforce the contempt citations, preventing the issue -- which, questions of right or wrong aside, boils down to a separation-of-powers spat -- from being heard in the courts.

As Froomkin writes:

The White House position, of course, exposes an amazing conundrum: That the same Justice Department whose politicization is being investigated is also in a position to hand out get-out-of-testifying-free cards.

This may be within the executive's power, but it's not right. Both sides should agree to have the matter reviewed by the judiciary, which can rule on whether Congress has the power of oversight in this matter. If so, the documents must be turned over; if not, they don't.

But the scorched earth stonewalling by the White House serves no legitimate purpose.

torture, Bolten, Rove, politics, midtopia

Iraqi oil production hits prewar levels

Put increased oil output down as yet another benefit of the improving security situation in Iraq.

The IEA said Iraqi crude production is now running at 2.3 million barrels per day, compared with 1.9 million barrels at the start of this year.

This could be a biggie, for two reasons.

1. Oil infrastructure -- consisting as it does of a lot of pipelines running through the middle of nowhere -- are particularly susceptible to sabotage. Security measures help, but a sustained decline in such sabotage only comes about when fewer people feel like sabotaging the equipment. So it's an indicator of changing attitudes among Iraqis, not just tighter security measures.

2. Increased production means increased oil revenue, which means increased revenue-sharing between Sunni, Shiite and Kurds. A sustained increase and equitable sharing would give all sides a big financial incentive to seek peace in order to keep the largesse flowing. And payments to Sunnis and Kurds help buy goodwill and give the minority groups -- particularly the Sunnis, who have few oil deposits in their territory -- incentive to remain a part of Iraq rather than attempt to go their own way.

As I've noted before, the improved security is only as strong as the allegiance of key Sunni tribal leaders. Recently discovered mass graves in former Al-Qaeda strongholds graphically demonstrate why those tribal leaders switched sides -- AQ is as self-destructively deadly as Ebola. But there's nothing keeping them from resuming their own insurgency if they are not satisfied with the benefits of cooperation. Keeping them on board remains the key task in Iraq.

oil, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Is privatization really cheaper?

Buck Naked Politics has a great post exploring the idea that privatization always saves money. A taste:

Why does anyone still blindly assume that corporate employees are more efficient?

Enron employees, for example, thought a corporate art collection would be a fine use of 20-million shareholder dollars. Former Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski spent a million shareholder dollars on his wife's weekend birthday bash (he relocated to prison after looting Tyco of $600 million).

Examples such as those, which are hardly uncommon, should cast doubt on the notion that corporate employees are, by nature, more careful than government employees with other people's money.

Moving on to actual government contractors, it continues:

contractor profits -- even reasonable ones -- add to the taxpayers' costs of privatizing government services. Consider Booz Allen Hamilton, a major contractor in intelligence and defense. Booz Allen charged us taxpayers $42 - $383 per hour for its employees to do the same work that government employees would do for about half that pay range.

Blackwater CEO Erik Prince told a congressional committee that about 10% of its roughly $1 billion in State Department security contracts was profit. (See hearing video.) That's $100 million. Blackwater paid its security guards about $600 a day and billed the government about $1,200. Basically, Blackwater acted as an employment agency. If the State Dept. directly hired those same security guards for $600 a day, the taxpayers' costs would drop significantly.

The critique leaves out one main motivation of hiring contractors: when the work goes away, it's easier to dismiss a contractor than to fire government employees. And contracting can give you access to a higher quality of talent than you can sometimes find on a government payroll. In addition, sometimes contractors have a particular expertise that is worth paying for because it's either unavailable within government or saves money in the long run. That's why we hired Red Adair to put out burning oil wells after the end of the first Gulf War. We don't tend to keep Hellfighter teams hanging around the federal services building.

But the overall point is solid. Outsourcing work sometimes makes sense. It can sometimes save money. But it doesn't always. And it certainly isn't true to the extent that some people have fetishized it into a mantra -- along with the idea that the answer to any fiscal problem is to always cut taxes.

The former turns the reasonable principle of "a government only as big as necessary" into the unreasonable "always shrink government." Similarly, the latter turns "taxes only as high as necessary" into "always cut taxes."

Privatize when it makes sense. But make sure it makes sense.

privatization, politics, midtopia

Follow the money

Christmas has come early for political bloggers, in the form of USASpending.gov, a new web site that contains a searchable database of every federal contract -- including who got paid, when, how much and what for.

It's a government site, but it's the result of a remarkable bipartisan effort by the conservative Heritage Foundation and the liberal group OMB Watch to make government more transparent and accountable, which culminated in Senate passage of a bill sponsored by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., to create the site.

Combined with new databases on FEC reports and earmarks, we now have an unprecedented ability to follow the money trails that wind in and out of government. It isn't perfect -- it still takes a fair bit of legwork, and the databases aren't linked -- but it's far better than what existed (or rather, didn't exist) before.

One hitch is that you have to search by contractor name, which is usually a company, not a person. For instance, you need to know that Sen. Dianne Feinstein's husband, Richard Blum, owns Perini Corp. -- a construction contractor -- before you can plug the company name into the database and find out that the company lands millions of dollars worth of federal contracts every year: from a low of $24 million or so in 2002 to a high of $459 million in 2004 (and declining since).

But once you know that, you can freely dream up conspiracy theories that the contracts are somehow related to Feinstein's Senate perch.

There's also an "Assistance" tab, which lets you find out who are the recipients of federal grants, loans, etc. You can search by name, congressional district, type o recipient and other criteria.

So thank Santa for the gift and go investigate your favorite politician or company. I've added the link to my "Resources" list in the sidebar so it's easy to find.

spending, politics, midtopia

Sharpton under scrutiny

The FBI is taking a close look at the finances of the Rev. Al Sharpton, subpoenaing 10 aides and associates and demanding to see his financial records for the last six years.

The subpoenas are in support of two separate probes:

The FBI and IRS are investigating whether Sharpton improperly misstated the amount of money he raised during his 2004 White House run to illegally obtain federal matching funds, a source familiar with the probe said....

The feds are also looking into allegations of tax fraud, including whether Sharpton commingled funds from his nonprofit National Action Network with several of his for-profit ventures, the source said.

The first charge doesn't appear to be all that serious -- the major penalty would be forcing Sharpton to return some matching funds. But the second could be a biggie. The IRS has had a lot of its teeth pulled in recent years, but it can still deliver a nasty bite when aroused. But a lot will depend on whether the impropriety, if any, was deliberate or simply negligent.

Me, I consider Al to be an occasionally substantive blowhard whom I still haven't fully forgiven for his antics in the Tawana Brawley case -- though he has grown up a bit since then. It wouldn't surprise me much to find out he played fast and loose with his finances.

But he still deserves his day in court. If that ever arrives; given the complexity of things, I'd expect any charges to eventually be settled out of court unless Al pisses someone off.

Sharpton, politics, midtopia

The terror plot that wasn't

You knew it, I knew it, now finally the government knows it: The doofuses known as the "Liberty City Seven", who were arrested last year and charged with plotting to blow up the Sears Tower, were not exacly poster children for terrorism. Their trial ended today, with one acquittal and deadlocks on the remaining six defendants.

I'm all for stopping terrorist plots before they get anywhere near the operational stage, but from the beginning it seemed obvious that these jokers not only weren't anywhere near operational, it would have taken a minor miracle for them to have gotten there -- if indeed that was their goal.

That being obvious, it was exceedingly foolish of the government -- in the personage of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, who personally announced the "foiling" of the plot -- to put its credibility on the line with this case, insisting that the group was "emblematic" of the future face of Al-Qaeda, practically Public Enemy Number One.

Even back then, the flimsiness of this case -- and the apparent incompetence of the defendants -- led many to conclude that the government's description of the terror threat was overblown. Today's verdict will simply reinforce that, and mean the government will have a harder time getting people to take real threats seriously.

To be sure, the verdicts weren't an exoneration of the defendants. The acquitted man, Lyglenson Lemorin, had left the group months before the arrests. The deadlock over the other six is neither conviction nor exoneration. Clearly, at least some jurors thought there was enough evidence to convict each of them. And the government has vowed to retry them.

If the government seriously believes they were a threat, then it should do so. But it should take a good hard look at the evidence and decide if that's truly the case. High-profile prosecutions of ineffective wannabes undermines the fight against terrorism in the long run.

Liberty City Seven, terrorism, politics, midtopia

Water and weirdness on Mars

Our Mars program has made two interesting discoveries.

SILICA-RICH ROCKS
So what, you ask? Because high concentrations of silica form under only two known conditions: a hot spring, or a fumarole of acidic steam. On earth, both areas teem with life. In other words, conditions on Mars were once favorable for supporting life.

"SPIDERS"
That's the name for multi-legged gullies like the one in the picture above, which radiate out from a central point.

Turns out the gullies are caused by carbon dioxide ice thawing and then flowing *uphill* to concentrate at the center, where they erupt in geysers, then freeze and fall back to the ground as carbon dioxide snow.

Just a reminder that, however Earthlike Mars might have been in the past, it sure isn't now.

science, Mars, politics, midtopia

Muslim saves Jew

For those who view Islam and Muslims as the problem, I bring you this: A Muslim man who saved a Jewish man from a religion-related beating on a Brooklyn subway.

A Brooklyn man whose "Happy Hanukkah" greeting landed him in the hospital said he was saved from a gang of Jew-bashing goons aboard a packed Q train by a total stranger - a modest Muslim from Bangladesh.

Walter Adler was touched that Hassan Askari jumped to his aid while a group of thugs allegedly pummeled and taunted him and his three friends. So Adler has invited his new friend over to celebrate the Festival of Lights.

The two new pals - Adler, 23, with a broken nose and a fat lip, and Askari, 20, with two black eyes - broke bread together and laughed off the bruises the night after the fisticuffs.

You gotta love the religious ignorance of the attackers:

One of the group immediately hiked up his sleeve to reveal a tattoo of Christ.

"He said, 'Happy Hanukkah, that's when the Jews killed Jesus,' " said Adler.

No, that would be Good Friday, Braniac.

religion, politics, midtopia

The problem with Creationists....

.... is that many of them are stunningly ignorant.

Which is why Mike Huckabee's professed support for creationism, however cautiously expressed and however carefully separated from his political policies, is going to keep causing him political trouble. It might not be totally fair, but such a position makes it hard not to wonder about his judgment in other matters.

Meanwhile, click on the link above and enjoy the stupidity.

And if you want more, follow author John Scalzi on his tour of the Creationism Museum. The essay is okay; the pictures are the real ticket.

creationsim, politics, midtopia

The Death of the K Street Project?

The Hill has an interesting bit of lobbying news: Trent Lott, the former Republican senator, appears to be joining forces with former Democrat Sen. John Breaux to create a new and powerful lobbying firm in Washington.

Sen. Lott recently indicated a partnership is likely: “John Breaux and I have been friends for 38 or 40 years. We were both staff members in the ’60s. In the ’70s and ’80s, we lived across the street from each other. Our children played together. They were at each other’s weddings.

“A bipartisan firm would be fun,” Lott said.

Not only would it be fun, but it might also represent a final knife in the back of the K Street Project. When two politicos as powerful as Lott and Breaux form a bipartisan lobbying firm, it's going to be difficult to tell other firms that they have to toe a party line.

Which is a good thing. While there are plenty of problems with the role of lobbyists in our politics -- namely, they allow the interests of the few-but-highly-interested to trump the interests of the many-but-unaware -- it's better to have lobbying firms that are independent and bipartisan than to turn them into wholly-owned, money-making subsidiaries of the two main political parties. Otherwise you're never sure whose interests the firm is actually representing, a potential conflict of interest that would undermine whatever public trust the system still has.

The K Street Project was a bad idea. If Lott and Breaux become one reason that it dies and never returns, more power to them.

lobbying, Breaux, Lott, politics, midtopia

An easy, if illogical, appeal

There's a big global-warming conference getting underway in Bali, with 10,000 attendees from around the world.

Whatever you think of the conference subject -- or the likely results, if any -- I'm getting tired of one easy-but-ignorant criticism routinely aimed at such conferences. To wit:

Critics say they are contributing to the very problem they aim to solve.

"Nobody denies this is an important event, but huge numbers of people are going, and their emissions are probably going to be greater than a small African country," said Chris Goodall, author of the book "How to Live a Low-Carbon Life."

It's an interesting datum, made more interesting in that it's coming from someone who clearly thinks global-warming is real and serious. But as far as ethics or policy, such a criticism is mindless.

The implication is that the attendees are hypocrites, because they're preaching global-warming alarm while jetting around the world.

But such a stance is nonsense. If we were to accept the premise, then people concerned about global warming could never hold global discussions because of the emissions involved in putting such meetings together. Apparently, the effort to combat global warming is supposed to be fought by people meeting locally in outdoor venues reached only by bicycle or on foot. Or handled entirely by telephone and e-mail.

Which is utter bilge, of course.

For one thing, the amount of emissions involved are relatively small -- as the story notes, the 12-day conference is expected to produce about as much carbon as the city of Marseilles produces in one day. That one-time bump in emissions isn't even a rounding error in the scheme of things.

For another, few if any of the people involved are advocating a return to caveman days. These aren't zero-emission fanatics, who think that taking a ski vacation in Colorado is an unforgiveable crime against the planet. There's a reason it's called emissions "reduction," not "elimination"; emissions are an unavoidable part of human activity. So expecting delegates to be entirely carbon-neutral in every aspect of their lives is silly.

It's much like a dieter, who is trying to reduce -- but not eliminate -- his caloric intake. Do you call him hypocritical if he stays within his caloric goal but eats a sugar cookie? No. Doing so relies on a crabbed definition of dieting that completely ignores the big picture.

The way to look at emissions reductions is from a cost-benefit angle. If the conference adds 1 percent to this year's emissions, but results in agreements that cut long-term emissions by 5 percent, it clearly is an emission-friendly endeavor.

Naturally, the real picture is more complex than that, because emissions-reduction is a slow, slow process. It's more like this conference, plus the next one and the next one and the next one, will, over a period of years, lay the groundwork for the next Kyoto-like agreement, expected in 2012. But the logic is the same.

One can question whether the effort is worth it, or is likely to produce anything of value. And there are legitimate criticisms of this conference in particular -- why Bali, for instance, instead of a more accessible location? Though that answer is not simple, either, because there are issues not only of emissions but also relative wealth: it's economically more feasible to have wealthy Westerners fly to Bali than to have poor Asian countries send people to Europe, even if the latter is better for the carbon balance sheet. And, of course, there are political reasons to hold meetings of global importance all over the globe in question.

But it's simply silly to expect the effort itself to be carbon-neutral from the get-go.

global warming, politics, midtopia

A little humor goes a long way

You gotta hand it to Mike Huckabee. He didn't bobble the priceless opportunity that fell in his lap, although he's about as funny as a marble statue.



A few more commercials like this might make the primaries bearable.

Huckabee, politics, midtopia

Catching up

Some quick thoughts on current events:

IRAQ
The surge is working from a military perspective. With all due credit to our troops and Gen. Petraeus' solid planning and execution of a competent strategy, however, the turnaround is mostly due to thousands of Sunni tribesmen switching sides, joining the U.S. to fight Al-Qaeda militants.

The switch is partly due to AQ's self-destructive tendency to attack other Sunnis. When AQ stepped up attacks against fellow Sunnis, it marked the beginning of the end of their fall. Particularly because Iraqis are not, by and large, extremist material.

But because the improvement is largely based on a change of allegiance, the improvement is fragile: if the Sunni tribes switch back, the improvement could disappear as quickly as it appeared.

Which underscores the main challenge remaining in Iraq: achieving the political changes that will make the security improvements permanent. And progress there has been slow.

Whether the invasion, even in hindsight, was justified or worth the cost is not the question here; we're concerned only with achieving the best end we can now that we're in Iraq. In that context, Petraeus and Bush have achieved enough to stave off demands for withdrawal; they've earned a chance to demonstrate that they can make the changes stick. I hope they can, but it's way too early to declare victory.


IRAN
The CIA has thrown the administration's Iran rhetoric into disarray with a new intelligence estimate that indicates Iran's nuclear weapons program has been frozen since 2003.

Some blindsided neocons, like Norman Podhoretz, were reduced to floating conspiracy theories -- that the new NIE is an attempt by the CIA to undercut the administration for political purposes, as if the CIA is so politicized that they're willing to let Iran get nukes if it lets them make Bush look bad in the short run.

For my money, though, this doesn't really change things much. It's good news if true, and it certainly short-circuits the premature (and hopelessly naive) drumbeat for war that was being beaten in certain quarters. Fact is, thanks to the ongoing mess in Iraq, this country has no appetite for war with Iran unless and until they actually drop a bomb on somebody.

But Iran still has a program, even if it's in mothballs. And we still need an intrusive inspection regime and other concrete assurances that Iran cannot and will not develop a nuclear weapon. So all the NIE does is put the ball firmly in diplomacy's court, where it should have been all along. I support limited military action to avoid a Persian Bomb, but that necessity is still a long way off.

As an aside, I love watching how people accept or don't accept the NIE as credible based on its contents. Up until now, many administration critics have all but accused Bush and Cheney of making up the NIEs to support their policy -- while administration supporters pointed to the NIE as authoritative grounding for our Iran policy. Now the shoe is on the other foot, and the roles are reversed. Not everyone is playing that game, of course -- Hot Air is doing a pretty good job, for example, despite linking to lots of people who aren't. But those who do demonstrate that partisanship has pickled their brains.

THE ELECTION
I'm still not seeing anything to love. My biggest fear is that we'll get a Rudy-Hillary matchup in the general. On the one hand this wouldn't be too bad, because they're both basically centrists. On the other hand, they have the highest negatives of the candidates, and both can be fairly criticized for blowing with the political winds. So if they clinch the nominations, we will see perhaps the most negative presidential campaign in history, and the lowest voter turnout in decades.

Giuliani, Hillary, Iran, Iraq, politics, midtopia