Month: May 2011

Stephen Grenville unpacks China's 5.3% inflation rate:

The 11.5% increase in food prices over the past year would be of more concern to Beijing than the overall inflation index. As was demonstrated in Egypt, food price rises are the stuff of revolutions. Food makes up one third of China's inflation index, twice the weight typical in Western indices, though even this high weight would not adequately reflect the importance of food in the consumption basket of the vast bulk of the poorer Chinese population.

A guide to political intimidation of the media, including character assassinations, mass email campaigns, lobbying of the "referees" and on and on. Yes, it's Arnold. The goal is to make the perpetrator the victim of a gotcha media, rather than as a liar or predator or lunatice. While we're on the subject of this media jujitsu, here's the mother of them all, explaining what might prevent her from jumping into the GOP race:

“It’s a matter for me of some kind of practical, pragmatic decisions that have to be made. One is, with a large family, understanding the huge amount of scrutiny and the sacrifices that have to be made on my children’s part in order to see their mama run for president. But yeah, the fire in the belly — it’s there.”

You mean the scrutiny of the intensely private Bristol of DWTS fame and now with her own reality show? The kids, brought up by this brittle narcissist, seem to have picked up their own propensity for fame-whoring, rather than, say, going to college, as a way to make a living. Or is she referring to something else she may at one point blame on the evil lamestream media? For the curious, by the way, if you haven't read this latest post from Laura Novak, it's worth your time.

A reader makes an important point:

You've been writing things like the following piece of sarcasm:

"Obama committed a foul by actually stating out loud that the 1967 border is the obvious line around which a territorial settlement can be made. He violated the Washington consensus that the American president must let Israel direct and guide his entire relations with every other power in the Middle East."

Let's be fair here. The "US policy" you speak of isn't so much a US policy as it is a US attempt to "direct and guide" Israel's "relations with other powers in the Middle East."

Now, that's not to say I'm against you. The outrage against Obama's position is inexcusable, but that's not because Obama's positions are strictly an American concern and Israel doesn't get a say. It's inexcusable simply because Obama's position is so sensible that nobody should oppose it, regardless of whose mouth it comes from.

I'm also not trying to say that we should follow the lead of one side or the other. America and the international community play an important part in any attempts to broker peace, and if there's to be any hope of achieving this, we and other nations must be able to suggest compromises and exert diplomatic pressure in their support.

What I'm saying is that I think it's important that we see the issue clearly. America is a major power using its influence to interfere in affairs where it has no legitimate state interest. This is justified on humanitarian grounds. (The following are American policy interests which do not morally justify our interference: propping up a useful ally, vindicating our embarrassing past failure to help solve this issue, or pandering to American voters and AIPAC.) All of this is fine, and is nothing to be ashamed of. I would go so far as to say Israel and Palestine themselves should be grateful that the international community is willing to play a role in solving the problems they can't solve themselves.

But I think we lose credibility when we treat the borders of other nations as a "US policy" issue and claim that those nations have no right to criticize this policy. It starts to look like imperialism. And there's just no reason for it: least of all on this issue where we're so obviously right. Wouldn't we be better served by a humble stance which would accentuate how badly the hard right is overreacting?

Tactically, yes, which is what Obama is doing. Strategically, yes, as long it isn't interpreted as weakness or lack of will. But here's my core disagreement with my reader: I do think that a two-state solution in Israel-Palestine is a legitimate state interest. I didn't a few years ago. I thought that the whole morass was so fucked up we'd be better off ignoring it.

Two things changed my mind: the realization after 9/11 and the Iraq war that we cannot readjust our relations with the Muslim and Arab worlds by military force alone, that the legacy of the Bush administration was potentially catastrophic without a major re-set, and that Obama's presidency and then the Green Revolution and Arab Spring have given the US a uniquely propitious moment to advance our interests across the globe, defang Jihadism and make strategic advances in the war on terror. The alternative is one Gaza war or Abu Ghraib after another.

And this is a second reason for urgent change. The corruption of permanent warfare, the damage it does to our moral standards, the polarizing effect it has everywhere, the dangers it poses to our constitution: these have persuaded me that we really do have to make a change – as an urgent matter of national self-interest. I see Obama as a providential vehicle for that change. Which is why I want him so desperately to persevere and why I am furious at Netanyahu's Cheney-like contempt for him.

And whether it is fully justified or not, Israel's refusal to agree with a real, contiguous, independent, demilitarized Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem gets in the way. It is the concrete wall between our being able to defuse and defeat Jihadism and our being at its permanent mercy. Sticking to this alliance as doggedly as we have in the past is not helping us and not helping Israel. Obama has been brave in stating this fact, something that is integral to his global promise. He is not just representing the US, he is representing a global generation that will not tolerate this brutalizing kind of dead-end neo-colonialism any longer.

It may well be that the Palestinians will squander yet another golden opportunity. In fact, that seems more than likely. But it is in our core national interest to keep the opportunity alive. It seems to me that the reason Netanyahu is so recalcitrant is that he is afraid that he might get yes for an answer from the Palestinians this time. Hence his desperate attempt to outlast Obama and this window of hope.

(U.S. President Barack Obama speaks to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on May 22, 2011 in Washington, DC. Obama spoke to AIPAC reaffirming U.S. support for Israel and calling for Israelis and Palestinians to seek a two-state solution.By Joshua Roberts/Getty Images.)

Two words they cannot say: revenue and evolution. Next up: gravity. Jake Weisberg also catches this memorable exchange between a relatively sane, eloquent, charismatic Republican and what he now has to say to appease the fundamentalist base:

At a press conference last week, someone asked Chris Christie for his views on evolution vs. creationism. "That's none of your business," the New Jersey governor barked in response.

Lorenzo DiTommaso worries about it:

[A] person does not have to be a hard-core believer to sense that things like the environment, the economy, and the political system are appallingly broken. From there, it is only a short step to the view that the entire system is verging on a catastrophic collapse or must be completely swept away, or that any solution to these problems requires something outside normal human agency, such as an idealized or divinized form of humanity, a mysterious, hidden-hand “force” or “law” (such as the “forces” of history or the market), or a human figure of whom extraordinary deeds are expected. This is the “Daddy” complex: a belief in or need for something or someone greater than ourselves, who will solve our problems for us. …

The great danger here is that end-time expectations can be used to create and sustain a present-day social climate that legitimates policies such as the dehumanization of enemies and the exclusion of others.

The Dish is more than a little down. To have had an election between two sane adults over the direction of the country would have been … well I once said that about a McCain-Obama contest, and look how that turned out. And perhaps for these reasons – and because of his interrupted marriage and shoe-boxes of pot in his youth – Daniels realized he could never appease or win over the foam-speckled brigades of the far right, which now seem to control the party. Jonathan Martin's take:

Without Daniels, … it’s the mainstream Republicans not named Mitt Romney who stand to benefit.

Huntsman and Pawlenty become the non-Romneys. Palin and/or Bachmann become the post-Huckabees. Meanwhile, Palin has reiterated she has "fire in her belly" and is "seriously considering" a run. And now this:

Confirmation of a Palin house purchase in Scottsdale likely would rekindle chatter about whether Palin might run a political campaign out of Arizona, the home state of U.S. Sen. John McCain, who plucked her from relative political obscurity in 2008 to be his vice-presidential running mate.

She may have concluded she simply couldn't run for president based in Wasilla. So she has picked the state with the most polarized population between the older, whiter America and the newer, browner one. Guess which side she's on.

(Photo: Shawn Thew/Getty.)

Think of the power differential: the head of the IMF and a caviar socialist vs an immigrant woman and lowly maid. Keep that in mind as you come to terms with the vileness of what he did:

The luxury-hotel maid … was found by a supervisor in a hallway where she hid after escaping from the former International Monetary Fund director's room. Hotel workers described her as traumatized, having difficulty speaking, and immediately concerned about pressing charges and losing her job, according to sources familiar with the investigation.

The maid also repeatedly spit on the walls and floors of the suite in front of her hotel colleagues as she alleged that Strauss-Kahn locked her in his room and forced her into oral sex acts. That saliva is being tested for DNA markers and could become a crucial piece of evidence in the case, the sources said.

The act of seduction:

She told supervisors she was startled when Strauss-Kahn emerged naked from a bathroom. She said she apologized to him and turned away from him, but that the IMF chief grabbed her from behind and, as The Daily Beast reported Friday, touched her breasts, remarking she was beautiful, the sources said.

The woman alleged Strauss-Kahn slammed the door to the suite and engaged the indoor latch to lock it, trapping her inside. She alleged that he dragged her deeper inside the suite, and when she slipped trying to get away, he forced her head down to perform oral sex acts, the sources said, as The Daily Beast reported Friday.

If these allegations are true, DSK really is a disgusting, despicable monster.

A farmer sits in a home at the Qintong village on May 18, 2011 in Ninghai, China. Various activities in local famous historic sites are being held to mark the day 'China Tourism Day' on May 19. By Lintao Zhang/Getty Images.

Two pleas for empathy rather than derision:

Laughing at religious fanatics is nothing new. And, at some level, there’s nothing wrong with it. But this story didn’t just take off in popularity because people wanted a quick laugh or some insight into a quirky subset of our country. There’s a cruelty underlying our desire to laugh at this story—a desire to see people humiliated and to revel in our own superiority and rationality—even though the people in question are pretty tragic characters, who either have serious problems themselves or perhaps are being taken advantage of, or both.

I agree on two points. There has been something a little smug about how eager so many are to humiliate the end-timers; and there is a poignancy in the evangelical nuttery. But to ask a country not to laugh at such idiocies seems more than a little quixotic to me. And the Rapture nutters are not orthodox Christians – but rather Book of Revelations crackpots. They are not examples of religious faith but of marginal nutballism. Such nutballism begs to be made fun of.

A new study adds musicians to the list:

New research shows that musicians’ brains are highly developed in a way that makes the musicians alert, interested in learning, disposed to see the whole picture, calm, and playful. The same traits have previously been found among world-class athletes, top-level managers, and individuals who practice transcendental meditation.