Month: March 2011

Balko is unimpressed by the government's actions to address the crime:

As part of the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003, Congress created a commission to study how to best address and prevent prison rape. In a wonderful display of a government commission acting with expediency to address an horrific and ongoing problem, that commission delivered its report . . . in June 2009. The law then required the Justice Department to issue recommendations based on the commission's report within 12 months. DOJ still hasn't delivered, and isn't expected to until the end of this year—at the earliest. In its preliminary responses, the DOJ has watered down most of the commission's recommendations. Even after all this is done, the recommendations are still just recommendations. There is unlikely to be any enforcement mechanism.

A reader asks:

Why does all the discussion about assisting the rebels in Libya center on military intervention? The biggest thing we could do for those fighting Qaddifi would probably be to get food supplies into the eastern part of the country.  Libya imports most of its food, so we wouldn't even be impacting food producers there.  And food supplies are already getting tight.

The second biggest form of assistance would probably be supplying ammunition for the weapons that the rebels already have.  Beyond that, we could even supply more weapons (especially anti-aircraft – give the rebels the means to create their own No Fly Zone).  But neither of those constitutes a military intervention of the kind that would raise hackles in the rest of the Muslim world.

Just a thought.  There are more ways to help than just sending in the troops.

In fact:

The first delivery of food aid into Libya since the fighting began is due to arrive in Benghazi [last night] after a convoy of trucks entered the country from Egypt [on Monday], the UN World Food programme said. It said the convoy is carrying 70 metric tonnes of high-energy, fortified date bars. Additionally, a shipment of 1,182 metric tons of wheat flour which was turned back from Benghazi last Thursday amid security concerns, set sail for Libya again [yesterday].

(Photo: Men who recently crossed into Tunisia from Libya wait in line for food in a United Nations displacement camp on March 08, 2011 in Ras Jdir, Tunisia. As fighting continues in and around the Libyan capital of Tripoli, tens of thousands of guest workers from Egypt, Tunisia, Bangladesh and other countries have fled to the border of Tunisia to escape the violence. The situation has turned into a humanitarian emergency as fledgling Tunisia is overwhelmed with the workers. By Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Ross Douthat thinks Romney will win by default. Among the populist and establishment candidates Ross believes unlikely to run: Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Mitch Daniels, Jeb Bush, and Chris Christie:

[S]ometimes the “person who can win” decides not to run, and you’re left to choose between people who can’t. The last time the Republicans made big gains in the mid-term elections and then faced a vulnerable-but-formidable Democratic incumbent two years later, they found themselves choosing between Bob Dole, Lamar Alexander and Pat Buchanan in the primaries, while figures like Colin Powell and Dick Cheney (now there would have been a primary campaign!) stayed on the sidelines. It could happen again: Just because the Republicans seem to need a better candidate than Mitt Romney doesn’t mean they’ll get one.

This logic also applies to a certain former half-term governor …

A reader writes:

Don't mind the anti-beard rants.  If someone doesn't like your posts, they can skip them.  Last week I gave the beard-nod to a man with a mature, well-kept 8-incher.  He seemed to understand instantly. The connection lasted a split second and we kept going our own way.  It's like a secret handshake for grown-up men.

(Image: Busted Tees)

Wired has the backstory on Rovio, the creator of the Angry Birds empire. The company was near bankruptcy in early 2009:

One afternoon in late March, in their offices overlooking a courtyard in downtown Helsinki, Jaakko Iisalo, a games designer who had been at Rovio since 2006, showed them a screenshot. He had pitched hundreds in the two months before. This one showed a cartoon flock of round birds, trudging along the ground, moving towards a pile of colourful blocks. They looked cross. "People saw this picture and it was just magical," says [Niklas Hed, who co-runs the company]. Eight months and thousands of changes later, after nearly abandoning the project, Niklas watched his mother burn a Christmas turkey, distracted by playing the finished game. "She doesn't play any games. I realised: this is it."

Alexis chimes in:

I've long thought casual games are like pop songs. Everyone knows roughly what they're supposed to sound like, but getting everything just right is stupendously unlikely. Since nearly every single casual game or pop song won't be a hit, the key skill seems to be the right ear (or fingers) to feel when something isn't good, but great. Or maybe you just have to get lucky.

A girl has makeup applied during carnival celebrations in Galapa, Colombia, Sunday March 6, 2011. Alan Taylor collects other carnival images from around the globe. By Fernando Vergara/AP.

Greg Scoblete summarizes a study:

According to a new report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Saudi Arabia devotes the greatest percentage of its GDP (some 10.5 percent) to defense. The U.S. comes in second at a little over 4.5 percent. China sizes up at under 2 percent of its GDP. The U.S. continues to spend the most in absolute dollars, accounting for 60 percent of the world's total defense spending. 

The Economist graphs these numbers.

"There's no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate," – Newt Gingrich.

On Ash Wednesday, we are reminded that every sinner has a future and every saint has a past. And I don't think the fact of three wives and two divorces should be salient to running for public office. I think the cruelty of two of the divorces is what is at stake. Nonetheless, Gingrich's request for forgiveness is always answered by a loving God if the request is sincere.

But one does not confess sin by finding excuses for it, as above. And it seems to me that someone who has legally had three marriages should not be campaigning against some people being barred from having even one.

Former Iraqi PM Iyad Allawi doesn't pull punches:

Steve Kornacki is still betting that Romney will be the Republican candidate:

When you look back at other competitive nominating contests in the modern era, the reality is that the GOP tends to nominate candidates who began the campaign with potentially severe problems with the base.

John McCain, who was championing a Ted Kennedy-backed immigration reform plan when the '08 process began (and immigration was hardly his only problem), is the extreme example.  Bob Dole, once dubbed "the tax collector for the welfare state" by Newt Gingrich, was hardly a perfect fit for the rabidly anti-government Republican Party of 1996. Nor was George H.W. Bush the ideal option for conservatives in 1988, even if he was Ronald Reagan's vice president. After all, he owed the vice presidency to a compromise after the 1980 primaries, in which he'd run to Reagan's left as a pro-choice opponent of trickle-down (or, as Bush put it, "voodoo") economics. Bush had been nothing but loyal to Reagan as V.P. (and had dutifully switched his positions on abortion, tax cuts and other issues), but the "New Right" hardly trusted him — and Reagan himself actually stayed neutral in the GOP primaries.