Month: July 2010

Dave Roberts watched Reid pull the plug yesterday. His prediction:

Big Coal will be back begging for cap-and-trade: No, really. Right now there are EPA rules in the pipeline that are going to shut down a third or more of the existing coal fleet. No new coal plants are going to get built — they're not cost-competitive with natural gas or wind, and every one runs into a buzzsaw of grassroots opposition. In other words, carbon caps or no carbon caps, Big Coal is in trouble. Sooner or later, the industry will realize that the funding it can get from cap-and-trade, to support carbon capture and sequestration, is its only path to survival. Robert Byrd tried to tell the industry the truth before he died. Byron Dorgan tried to tell it the truth just the other day. By 2012, certainly by 2015 when many of the rules kick in, the industry will be forced to acknowledge this basic truth. And they'll come begging Congress for cap-and-trade.

Bradford Plumer makes the same point.

Fred Kaplan reflects on the series and defends the WaPo against all criticism:

One thing to say on behalf of the Post series is that nobody in the government could have produced the data its reporters put together. No office has such data on hand. That says it all.

Every year, some readers ask me what I recommend if you're coming to the end of Cape Cod. I'm conservative so stick with what I know, and there may be new joints worth exploring that I haven't found yet. But here goes.

Entertainment: Dina Martina is in a class of her own, in my opinion: total, dark, hilarious performance art. I'm going for the third time tonight. Slap And Tickle is a new play at the Provincetown Theater (tix here). Aaron is in it so discount this as bias if you want. But it's rare to see such a candid, and funny take on gay men's pathologies and vulnerabilities. The play is too dark, I think, for today's gay world and needs a less trivial title, but it is not Kushner-style propaganda or gay drama dreck. And some of the performances stay with you. Great reviews. One act: just an hour and twenty minutes.

Food: Devons, Edwige, Victors, Sake, Cafe Heaven for sit-down; Frappo66 for amazing fast but gourmet food, served cafeteria style.

Coffee: Wired Puppy.

Bakery: Relish.

Deli: Far Land and Angel Foods.

Weekly mass: Showgirls at the Crown and Anchor.

Browsing: Tim's Used Books

Clothes/Tchotchkes: Rogue's Gallery, All American Boy, Wa, Pulp, Southstream Design, and, of course, the legendary Marine Specialties.

Let’s call it what it is, shall we? And God bless Shep Smith and the honest, decent people who work at Fox who resist this and try to do a decent job:

RFE/RL provides personal accounts of women throughout the Muslim world (and complements an old Dish thread lacking such testimonials).

Catherine Rampell compares people unemployed for more than six months to people unemployed for under six months:

Perhaps those who were unemployed longer were less desirable job candidates to begin with, which would explain both why it took them so long to find work, and why, when they did found new work, the job was relatively crummy. Or perhaps people who have been job-hunting for a long time are more desperate to take any job that becomes available, so they end up in less attractive positions. Or maybe the gaping holes on their resumes start to look more and more suspicious to employers, so the job options become narrower and narrower.

Or perhaps those who’ve been out of work longer have become so embittered by the experience of unemployment that any new job they take will be viewed as a disappointment.

Jay Cost looks to November:

The best case scenario for Democrats at this point is a nominal majority where the median member is not a terribly reliable ally of the party's liberal leadership. Something similar is set to occur in the Senate, where a Republican gain of at least five seats will push the filibuster to more conservative ground, from Brown/Collins/Snowe to Alexander/Cochran/Murkowski. Barack Obama ran for and won the Presidency in 2008 based upon a pledge to pursue bipartisanship, and the results in 2010 are effectively going to force him to do just that, at long last.

Not just him.

An Israeli reader writes:

A point which is rarely mentioned in the coverage of the “rape by deception” case – either by Israeli or foreign media – is that the case started out as a regular rape case. The woman claimed she was forcibly raped by Kashour. Once on the stand, however, the defense demolished her story and she admitted she lied and that they had consensual sex. She admitted that after learning Kashour lied to her, she felt humiliated and went to the police. It was at that point the prosecution came up with the plea bargain. A normal court would have just acquitted Kashour, but this court decided to convict.

Several further points:

1. If the woman had told the true story to the police in the first place, there would have been no trial, not to mention any conviction.

2. Kashour has no earlier convictions. In another “rape by deception”” case, which involved a lesbian masquerading as a man in order to have sex with women, she received only six months of suspended sentence. Kashour got 18 months of incarceration.

3. One of the three judges is Moshe Drori, who was embroiled in a scandal last year, when he refused to convict a very well connected yeshiva boy who admitted – and was filmed – running over a security guard with his vehicle. The security guard was an Ethiopian woman. Drori, a Jewish Orthodox, forced the guard to accept the apology of the yeshiva boy, and then invoked a judgment by 12th century scholar Maimonides (I shit you not), which says once an apology is accepted by the victim, the case is closed. And he closed the case. He is apparently a Maimonidas affectionado. The case was overturned in the Supreme Court, and this schtick cost Drori his chance at becoming a Supreme Court justice. Let’s say that a non-Jew masquerading as a Jew won’t stand much of a chance in the court of Judge Drori.

Couldn’t resist: