Month: December 2009

Greg Sargent notes a "dispiriting postscript" to Palin's climate change op-ed, "a piece that has been widely criticized as riddled with falsehoods":

I’m told by the paper’s insiders that her piece was one of the most-read WaPo opinion pieces of the year, coming in 21st in page views out of literally hundreds of opinion articles. An earlier Palin Op ed in the paper on the same topic was the third most read of the year. A lot of this is probably driven by heavy outside linkage. But still, the fact that Sarah Palin, of all people, is able to command such attention for her views on the science of climate change, of all things, is kind of amazing.

Johann Hari is disgusted by carbon reduction sleights of hand. One example:

The nations of the world were allocated permits to release greenhouse gases back in 1990, when the Soviet Union was still a vast industrial power – so it was given a huge allocation. But the following year, it collapsed, and its industrial base went into freefall – along with its carbon emissions. It was never going to release those gases after all. But Russia and the eastern European countries have held on to them in all negotiations as "theirs".

Now, they are selling them to rich countries who want to purchase "cuts". Under the current system, the US can buy them from Romania and say they have cut emissions – even though they are nothing but a legal fiction. We aren't talking about climatic small change. This hot air represents 10 gigatonnes of CO2. By comparison, if the entire developed world cuts its emissions by 40 per cent by 2020, that will only take six gigatonnes out of the atmosphere.

David Link, with his customary nuance, examines the question:

Warren is all over the map on gay equality. On her show last night, Maddow clearly nailed Warren’s incoherence, both on Prop. 8 and on his role in Uganda. But that is where I think a bit of empathy may be in order (and I know this will be controversial). Like so many other heterosexuals of his age and older, Warren is

caught in a bind.

He believed the lies and misperceptions about homosexuality that history, particularly as embodied in his religion, have taught him. He relied on those distortions, and built his belief system around them. For many years, we did too. It was hard to realize and then live out the truth about our own lives against those perversions of truth.

But as the Catholic church learns daily, you cannot deny nature long without paying a price. Sex and intimacy are fundamental to human beings, and cannot be either renounced or faked. We learned that the hard way, and are trying to correct the record so it doesn't happen again. Warren is obviously struggling with that. His conversation after Prop. 8 with Melissa Etheridge may have been a turning point. But his loyalty to the lies history taught him about us still permits him to blind himself to the lies he tells himself. And no lies are more persuasive then those.

Josh Shahryar illustrates the student protests of 16 Azar. Masoud adds:

This has to be troubling for the regime, as the knee-jerk argument that protests are confined to the "bourgeois of northern Tehran" is now clearly false. This has become a national movement.

Amazingly, the Pentagon has not offered a formal response to the Seton Hall Study of three alleged prisoner suicides at Guantanamo Bay, as detailed here. Since the allegations of obvious misconduct are very serious, one wonders why the Pentagon has just gone silent. And whether they can stare down the incriminating evidence of – at minimum- grotesque incompetence as if it doesn't exist.

It's been a very long time coming – longer than it took to bring actual (if flawed) democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan. Yesterday, this happened:

House and Senate conferees have come up with a compromise conference agreement that would provide funding for most federal departments and agencies.  But unlike past years, there is no provision that would prevent D.C. from legalizing medical marijuana.

In 1998, D.C. voters approved a referendum that would allow the possession of and usage of medical marijuana.  Republicans in Congress swiftly blocked the referendum by placing a provision in funding bills that prevents D.C. from enforcing or implementing the law.  That provision has appeared each year until this year's funding bill. The conference agreement must be adopted by the full House and the full Senate.  Neither chamber can amend the bill; it's a straight up-or-down vote.

This could actually mean that citizens of the United States are allowed to hold a referendum – and have the results enforced by law! Imagine that!

Previously, Americans (unlike Iraqis or even Afghans) were allowed to vote in the District of Columbia but were not allowed to have those votes actually affect public policy. Because the District's inhabitants were too black liberal for some of the more hardcore Republicans and Democrats from other parts of the country to allow them to govern themselves. The vote to legalize medical marijuana in 1998 arrived at a 69 percent majority in favor. This was not a narrow vote – it was an overwhelming popular majority more than ten years ago, long before the big increase in public support for medical marijuana over the last ten years.

I'm not entirely sure what the procedural steps are when Proposition 59 is allowed finally to take effect. But it seems to me that the moment the appropriations bill passes, and the block on Prop 59 falls, medical marijuana must become legal in the district.

A reader writes:

You might want to read this. It's an opinion piece in one of the major Ugandan newspapers and basically shows you the fallacy-ridden argument that has gained so much traction in Uganda against gays within its population. You may be happy that Tom Coburn and Rick Warren are all belatedly distancing themselves from the happenings in the country, but let's not be fooled; (1) Their silence, as a reader of yours said, was quite eloquent, as is their saying it to an American public. I would be more convinced if they took that message to Uganda; and (2) This bill is really quite popular. You underestimate the number of people who think homosexuality is a "white disease" and therefore resistance to such is seen as resisting some sort of neocolonialism. Ridiculous, I know, but what of all this isn't?

Minxin Pei makes the case:

Chinese leaders seem unconcerned with their inability to translate strength into real gains on the international stage. That's because they're far more concerned with domestic stability. Yet here again the news is hardly reassuring. Antigovernment riots and collective protests throughout China are on the rise. Corruption remains rampant. More than a dozen senior officials, ranging from a vice minister of public security to several CEOs of giant SOEs, were arrested in 2009. The political maneuvering for the next succession, due in 2012, has already begun, making Chinese leaders all the more cautious—even a tiny misstep between now and then could be politically catastrophic.

Fallows had some vaguely related thoughts yesterday.

(Hat tip: Judis)

"I’ve got a fulltime job reading bills in Congress without reading the bills in another 190 countries,” – Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), asked if he would condemn the Uganda bill. Civil rights groups believe he has been involved in handling African affairs as a member of The Family.

In honor of the Iranian protesters, Minnesota Public Radio and Kermit the Frog update a classic Muppets song: