Andrew Barwig recalls "instances when Arab regimes under duress used the guise of electoral reform to maintain control":
[W]e should pay careful attention to the rules that govern upcoming elections in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen. If history is any guide, protestors and reformists may be left out in the cold if transitional electoral systems simply diffuse power and reinforce clientelism rather than alter the rules of the game in a fundamental way.
Atlanta, Georgia, 10 am
Felix Salmon hopes homeownership gets knocked off its pedestal:
Richard Florida likes to talk about how it will take decades to reshape the American psyche into something where renting an apartment in the city is considered even more desirable than owning a house in the suburbs. I’m hopeful that one consequence of the housing bust will be an increase in the number of nice suburban houses being rented out… Which means that it might not be necessary to re-architect the national lifestyle to one which is much denser and more urban before we can start seeing renting becoming increasingly prevalent in white, middle-class neighborhoods. After the renters move in to the place in McLean and their neighbors start getting friendly with them, perhaps the stigma associated with renting might start to erode.
The Libyan dictator spoke to the Italian prime minister over the phone today, "telling him that Libya is fine and the truth about events in the country are being shown on state media." Robert Mackey takes a look at their friendship:
On Monday, Mr. Berlusconi had
saying that he did not want to "disturb" Colonel Qaddafi during the bloody crackdown on protesters. On Tuesday, Bloomberg News explained that the Italian and Libyan economies are closely linked. "Italy's trading ties with Libya make it the most exposed European Union country to any collapse in Muammar el-Qaddafi's regime," Bloomberg reported. …
The close ties between the Italian and Libyan leaders became the subject of closer scrutiny and mockery last year, after an Italian newspaper reported that a young woman told Milan police that Mr. Berlusconi called sex parties at his home "bunga bunga," in reference to a rite of Colonel Qaddafi's harem. That led an Italian opposition party to put up posters in Rome showing Mr. Berlusconi's "evolution" into a version of the Libyan leader.
Maybe there is some systemic difference between Hispanic women with bachelor's degrees and 20 years of work experience who put in 52-hour weeks in the public sector and Hispanic women with bachelor's degrees and 20 years of work experience who put in 52-hour weeks in the private sector. If anyone has some evidence for that, I'm open to hearing it. But the EPI study is aimed at a very specific and very influential claim: that Wisconsin's state and local employees are clearly overpaid. It blows that claim up. Even in Manzi's critique, there's nothing left of it. So at this point, the burden of proof is on those who say Wisconsin's public employees make too much money.
General Abdul Fatah Younis, Libya's minister of interior and Qaddafi's No. 2, resigned today and gave a fascinating interview to Al Arabiya. Sultan Al Qassemi translates via Twitter (tweets are strung together):
I am not a two-faced man. I worked with Gaddafi for 42 years, I was shocked at his speech today. I wish Gaddafi had instead said a prayer for the fallen youth in his last days in office. Our plan now it to support the youth in Tripoli so that it is liberated like Benghazi was. I offer my condolences to the fallen martyrs (reads a statement of support for the youth revolution). I begged Gaddafi not to send planes, I called him. Now of course we don't speak, I have joined the revolution.
More insight into Younis' defection:
There was a crowd of people outside my office, I was with my cousin. A bullet then went next to my right cheek, it hit my cousin who is in a very bad case now. Gaddafi, that dirty man, wanted to say that I was killed by protesters so that my tribe, the Obeidat, will stand by him.
Al Jazeera asks in regards to the interview excerpt below, "Is Younis positioning himself to take over?"
From my knowledge of Gaddafi, he won't leave, he will stay to the end, but he will stay alone. Who will aid him? Everyone has abandoned him. The Eastern & Central Provinces have abandoned him. To Gaddafi I tell him: Please end your life by praying for the martyrs, ask for God's forgiveness and the people's. To Libyan people, you are a brave people, stand courageously, Libya will become a strong country. What I know is that the Free Officers of Libya have stopped their support of Gaddafi, his Security Battalion remain. Stand courageously, people of Libya, and those in Tripoli and Zawya and all over the country.
(Photo: A picture of a screen taken from the television on February 22, 2011 shows the Libyan leader gesturing while delivering a nationwide address in Tripoli. Qaddafi says he will stay in Libya as world powers mobilised to try to halt the bloody showdown between protesters and his security forces suspected of 'crimes against humanity'. By Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images)
Larison's case against one:
Not only would the U.S. very directly be taking sides in an internal Libyan conflict to which we are not party, but should enforcing such a no-fly zone could turn into a prolonged commitment that will be one more mission added to the burden of an already overstretched military. No-fly zones are the sort of easy-sounding response to an immediate problem that can turn into an endless policy. If the reason for the no-fly zone is to halt Gaddafi’s assault on civilians, it probably won’t be long before the no-fly zone evolves into an air war against Gaddafi’s ground forces to achieve the same end, and that might escalate into a new war for regime change. Libya’s internal conflict is just the sort of situation that Americans should have learned to avoid by now.
Courtesy of Alexis:
Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has done an admirable job building out a digital document archive from his time in the government on his website, Rumsfeld.com. While I was watching the events in Libya unfold, I decided to search his papers to see what he'd written on the country. In so doing, I ran across a document that left me flabbergasted. It's a message (probably an email) that Rumsfeld sent to then Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith on April 7, 2003. …
The memo's tone is so casual about such complex and important topics that it prompted Technology Review editor Jason Pontin to ask me on Twitter, "Is this a parody?"
But no, the memo is real.
Wylie profiles seven Iranians arrested after the 2009 protests who are still in jail.
Will Wilkinson is wondering:
Supposing that Mr Walker and not the SEIU is the vanguard of history—supposing that America is headed toward the stable non-union equilibrium—what is the next-best scenario from a progressive perspective? What is the answer if resurgent unionism is not? Is there one? I hear plenty of progressive rhetoric to the effect that only a rehabilitated union movement can save America from plutocracy and middle-class stagnation, but my sense is that this is a lot like conservative rhetoric to the effect that only a return to constitutional principles will save America from sclerotic socialist decline. Do progressives, like their conservative counterparts, really believe their own hype?
Steinglass thinks it a good question but doesn't have an answer.
The Dish 