Month: May 2011

Boehner’s Demands

Boehner wants spending cuts in the "trillions" before he agrees to raise the debt ceiling. Yglesias wants specifics. I think that negotiating a deal using the debt ceiling as leverage is profoundly irresponsible, however important it is to cut entitlements and defense. But one of the least conservative aspects of contemporary conservatism is its contempt for institutions and mechanisms that keep societies stable – like paying your debts on time. Ezra watches the road ahead:

Boehner's got a big number, but it's not, over time, an impossible number. All of the major long-term budgets cut and raise more than $2 trillion over the next 10 years, so Boehner's demands, though impressive in the abstract, are actually in the center of deficit-reduction consensus. What's more questionable is his timetable.

It's very unlikely that Congress will be able to cut a multi-trillion dollar deal on deficit reduction before early-August, when the Treasury runs out of financial gimmicks to delay a default. And if Boehner and the Republicans won't accept fiscal rules as a downpayment on deficit reduction, that leaves us with few options save for a series of hard-to-negotiate, short-term increases in the debt ceiling — which is to say, an extremely extended period of uncertainty for the market.

Map Of The Day

Screen shot 2011-05-10 at 10.09.43 AM

The Census Bureau has a nifty, interactive map that lets you follow the center of the population through American history:

The center is determined as the place where an imaginary, flat, weightless and rigid map of the United States would balance perfectly if all residents were of identical weight. … Historically, the center of population has followed a trail that reflects the sweep of the nation's brush stroke across America's population canvas. The sweep reflects the settling of the frontier, waves of immigration and the migration west and south. Since 1790, the location has moved in a westerly, then a more southerly pattern. In 2000, the new center of population was more than 1,000 miles from the first center in 1790, which was near Chestertown, Md.

(Hat tip: Mother Jones' Tumblr)

End The Loopholes

Michael Tomasky points to tax expenditures, deductions and loopholes for individuals and corporations, as the way out of our deficit trouble. He's obviously right. It's rare that you get a chance to reduce tax rates and increase tax revenues. You'd think this would be a Republican dream, as it was for Reagan in 1986. But not the vast majority of today's GOP:

Eliminating deductions is really hard. Lowering overall rates is really easy. And politicians tend to do what’s easy, especially when one of the two parties considers the hard work to be a venal sin. Republicans have classified elimination of tax expenditures as tax increases, and they won’t do it. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) might. Two other GOP senators might.

Of all 287 elected Republicans in Washington, just those—three—have indicated that they might support elimination of some loopholes. Besides which, powerful lobbies are organized to keep that home-mortgage deduction in place, to say nothing of the corporate ones. This is why tax expenditures are so important. They cost $1.1 trillion a year, and given that we’re not going to increase income taxes much if at all, putting the squeeze on the deductions is the only way to generate revenue and prevent asphyxiating cuts to the domestic budget.

I favor some asphyxiating cuts to entitlements as well. But the beauty of tax reform is that it has Reagan's imprimatur, cuts the deficit in serious ways and also takes aim at the army of lobbyists whose entire job it is to retain those corporate and personal give-aways. It beats me why Obama and the Dems don't simply offer this proposal along with a cut in payroll taxes. That's a very progressive avenue for debt reduction, don't you think?

The Big Lie: Torture Got Bin Laden, Ctd

Marc Thiessen claims I'm twisting the truth and then proceeds to paper over the difference between CIA interrogations and CIA interrogations involving torture. This is not a minor distinction. It is the entire distinction. Marcy Wheeler fisks him. Much of the Thiessen column just avoids any discussion of how torture helped us get bin Laden, as well it might. But here's Marcy's dismemberment of the non-argument:

So to summarize Thiessen’s spin of how al-Libi helped nab OBL:

Al-Libi told the CIA that at a time when he was a key messenger for OBL, he had been in Abottabad

Al-Libi told the CIA how important couriers were

Al-Libi managed to hide the name of the all-important courier through whom we eventually found OBL, even under torture

Okay, Marc, so what did the CIA do with that intelligence? As Jose Rodriguez (who was head of Clandestine Services at the time) helpfully explained, they concluded from al-Libi’s interrogation that OBL was just a figurehead.

Al-Libbi told interrogators that the courier would carry messages from bin Laden to the outside world only every two months or so. “I realized that bin Laden was not really running his organization. You can’t run an organization and have a courier who makes the rounds every two months,” Rodriguez says. “So I became convinced then that this was a person who was just a figurehead and was not calling the shots, the tactical shots, of the organization. So that was significant.”

And later that same year, the CIA shut down its dedicated hunt for OBL.

So the torture of Al-Libi led to the Bush administration's abandonment of the hunt for bin Laden, a grotesque abdication of responsibility which president Obama rectified as soon as he became president. Why? because tortured information is often misleading – and led us away from finding OBL. The only other cases of torture in searching for bin Laden produced admitted lies about his couriers. And the use of torture, far from disabling terrorists, has, according to those in the front line, been the biggest source of Jihadist recruitment. Here's Will Wilkinson's perspective on the bizarre re-ignition of the torture debate in the wake of Obama's triumph:

It is not clear to me which, if any, version of the story is definitive. At the same time, it doesn't seem to me necessary to know for certain in order to render a reasonable verdict on the rightness or wrongness of torture. To my mind, the mere fact that it is plausible Mr bin Laden was discovered without the help of torture is more than enough to justify the claim that the use of torture in the attempt to find him was wrong. Because, you see, torture is wrong. And if there are circumstances in which the rule forbidding torture is defeated, they are circumstances in which there is simply no other way. 

It also strikes me that writers like Thiessen need to be identified in their columns as having a vested interest. Those implicated in the torture program, like Thiessen, are given platforms to defend their crimes – without even a disclosure that they helped enable those crimes when in office. Would the Washngton Post have given G. Gordon Libby or Chuck Colson columns after Watergate constantly reiterating that they committed crimes in what they believed was the national interest?

Somehow I don't think so. But that was when the Washington Post was run by people with scruples.

Jewish And Democratic

Israel, unless it withdraws from the West Bank and ends its illegal occupying settlements, will soon have to choose between remaining a Jewish state or a democratic one. Peter Beinart disagrees with Tony Kushner but thinks "there’s something valuable about his challenge":

There are only two intellectually honest positions. Either you believe so strongly in a Jewish democratic state that you actively oppose everyone who opposes that vision, or you widen the public discussion to include both those who want a democratic state that is non-Jewish and those who want a Jewish state that is non-democratic. Either would be better than what we have now: organizations like Hillel and figures such as Wiesenfeld who pay lip service to democratic Israel but only defend Jewish Israel. If Tony Kushner lays bare that hypocrisy, he will have more than earned his honorary degree.

It looks like Kushner will get his honorary degree after all. I wonder if he has space on his wall.

Sarah Palin’s Greatest Accomplishment

Josh Green thinks it was the tax on oil companies she signed into law – the Alaska’s Clear and Equitable Share (ACES):

It's no exaggeration to say that ACES has made the state one of the fiscally strongest in the union. Flush with cash, Alaska produced large capital budgets that blunted the effects of the recession. Moody's just upped the state's bond rating to AAA for the first time. While other states reel under staggering deficits, budget cuts, and protests, Alaska has built up a $12 billion surplus, most of it attributable to Palin's tax. Galvin estimates that it has raised $8 billion more than Murkowski's tax would have. But given the corruption that plagued the PPT, a better benchmark might be the tax it supplanted–the one put on the books after the Exxon Valdez spill. By that measure, Palin's major achievement has probably meant the difference between a $12 billion surplus and a deficit.

She should run on raising taxes in a socialist state. That should bring the Tea Party out in force.

Single-Payer In America, Ctd

It's no surprise that Suderman doesn't like the idea. A reasonable point:

The law has a plan—a sort of super-sized, super-powerful version of ObamaCare’s Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), the board of federal bureaucrats charged with holding down Medicare’s spending—but the authors of the legislation left out some of the OMG-how-will-we-pay-for-this?!?! details.  Like, for example, the financing mechanisms. That’s right; the law’s authors didn’t actually get to that part. Crazy? Maybe a bit. But not entirely. After all: There is a study group! They’re totally working on it.

The View From Your Window Contest: Winner #49

Vfyw-contest_5-7

A reader writes:

Amazing how many AIAs there are out there.  The only one that really scares me is “Arizonans in Action.”  (We have seen enough of that, thank you.)  But I must be on the wrong track because somehow I don’t see ocean going vessels anchored off the coast near Tucson.  For no particular reason, I am going with Veracruz.

Another writes:

The architecture suggests Iberian colonial Africa.  The oil tankers suggest that we are most likely describing Equatorial Guinea or Angola, which likely means that the “AIA” on the building at right could be the Angolan Industrial Association on Rua Fernando Cladiera in Luanda. Photo appears to have been taken from two blocks north of there which would be a building on Rua … oh, hell I don’t have time to waste on any more wild hunches, since I can’t win without an engaging story and have no entertaining connections other than a former student from Luanda who was on a Sonangol scholarship and once shared some photos of her hometown. Time to return to real life.

Another:

Port town, clay tile roofs, the building with the letters AIA, which is some type of Asian insurance company, and the tightly clustered houses.  Feels like Viet Nam, but which city? I’m going with my hometown, Nha Trang, a beautiful seaside city full of charm.  Best part of growing up there?  The school was minutes from the beach.  There was no such thing as recess, but that didn’t stop us kids from taking a swim any chance we get.  Good times, good times.

Another:

The picture was taken in Malad East, a suburb north of Mumbai. I googled AIA buildings and scanned the images. Two of them popped up on junk URL squatters, so I ran Whois searched to get the addresses if the URL owners. I didn’t get addresses but did get names, one of whom has a Facebook profile and a bunch of Indian-looking friends with Indian-sounding names. I then googled images for AIA India, and quickly found contact information on AIA.com. I don’t have the skills to triangulate the location of the building from which the shot was taken, but Google and I got the town down in about six minutes. I won’t win, but I had fun.

Another:

I hate this fucking contest.

I am addicted to it and wait for Saturday and Tuesday 1PM.  I always hope and pray that the picture is not familiar to me in any way possible, so that I can get back to my mundane chores.  But once in a while, the buildings and scene are familiar.  And then I spend hours and hours and HOURS hunting for the exact location.  It’s a ridiculous search, brought on by pure hubris, hoping that I can match all those well traveled and/or tech-savvy folks who come up with the stunningly accurate locations.

India.  Mumbai.  Indira docks in the background.  A view taken from the Bombay stock exchange building perhaps.

How is this consequential in any way, shape or form?!  I am HOURS behind schedule.  I will have nothing to show for it, except intense regret that I wasted so much time.  I will probably not be on the right continent.  Who cares.  This is the LAST time I will spend time on it.  (ha ha! Ya right.)

Another:

This looks like Johor Baharu, Malaysia looking over the Singapore Strait.  I lived in Singapore for six years and my husband’s family is there, so we still make an annual visit to that part of the world and are always taken by seeing the ocean going vessels offshore.

Another:

Georgetown, Malaysia is my guess based on the location of the water, the AIA sign and the mixture of architecture.  I am off for a great Saturday visit with friends I have not seen in years, so I am not going to fall into my usual VFYW mania of flickr searches and obscure googling.  I have gotten a few in the past, but I have been on quite the cold streak recently.  Here is to hoping I’m back on track!

On the right track, but this reader has the correct Malaysian city:

This view is of Melaka (or Malacca Town) in the state of the same name in Malaysia, looking roughly south-southwest out to the Strait of Malacca from an upper floor of the Putra Specialist Hospital. The roofs are what got me; I was lucky enough to live nearby once. Oh, the food!

Another:

I’m an American living in Singapore, and this photo has the look and feel of Malaysia.  I thought either Melaka or Penang. I think I can see the Flor de la Mar (replica of the Portuguese ship which sank in the waters off Melaka).  So I’ll go with Melaka.

As I think the real genius of VFYW is the perspectives it gives on different geographies, I’ll give an insight into living in the region.  Melaka is about a 3.5 hour drive from Singapore and I believe about 2/3 hours south of Kuala Lumpur.  It is a common tourist spot as an old port town with interesting Portuguese and British colonial history.  Its quite common to travel back and forth from Singapore to Malaysia.  At one time I was driving up into southern Malaysia (about a 45 min drive + some time at immigration) to play golf every weekend.  When I went back to the US for Christmas in 2001, I got pulled aside and was asked why I have so many passport stamps for Malaysia, a Muslim country.  Going every weekend to play golf must have seemed like an odd answer, but eventually I was let go and luckily avoided a cavity search.

Another:

Hotel00

Having spent an absurd amount of hours triangulating things from people’s tourist snaps of the Maritime Museum, the Chinese quarter, the peculiar curved building in white, the absence of the ferris wheel, I finally realized that the AIA corporation’s website actually just spelled Melaka a different way than my previous google searches. Attached is a screenshot pinpointing the AIA building; a google search revealed the Renaissance Melaka Hotel‘s distinctive building-gills and palm tree-topped roof (attached).

Close, but the photo wasn’t taken from the Renaissance, as many readers guessed. Another:

This week’s VFYW was way too easy … taken from either the Putra Specialist Hospital or the Bayview Hotel in Jalan Bendahara, 75100 Melaka, Malaysia, looking SW toward the Straits of Malacca.

One reader went with Bayview:

After panning around Penang for an hour proved hopeless, I turned my eyes on Melaka (where I had visited in 2008) and was shocked when after five minutes of searching, the four courtyards with the tiled roofs came up! The white building in the Melaka Photo for TVFYW contest-7 May 2011left of the picture is the Northwest corner of the Renaissance Melaka Hotel service wing (with a pool on top that the potted palms on the roof overlook).

Now from where is the photo actually taken? That’s a little harder, as the obvious location is taken up by a parking lot. Either the Google Maps view is out of date and a building has since been constructed there to provide the window for the view, OR the picture is taken with a telephoto lens from the Bayview Hotel Melaka OR the Putra Specialist Hospital, both located one block away on Jalan Bendahara. Since the poster is more likely a tourist, I’m betting on the Bayview Hotel, on a lower floor (6th, perhaps). I have attached a screen shot that has the location and the direction of the view of the photo.

Another guessed the hospital:

This one was a particularly challenging contest, but through a few key clues I was able to solve it! On the billboard on the right-hand side of the photo I was able to make out the word “anda,”  which is an Indonesian or Malay word for “you” or “your.” This MM 2nd Eye Melaka view whittled down my prospect list to either Indonesia or Malaysia. Another clue was the oil barges as this photo was obviously taken at a city with an oil port. I was very close to going with Jakarta (and wanted to since I am Dutch-Indonesian), given its location on the sea and the “old city” style roofs in its Dutch quarters.

However, I needed more confirmation. I searched and searched and searched for that AIA office in Jakarta, but could not find it. I decided to do a quick google search of AIA locations near the sea in the Indonesia/Malaysia region, and found many AIAs to be in Malaysia. One particular AIA branch stuck out to me in my search. It was situated in the city of Melaka, which is located on the Malacca Strait, where many pirates are known to wreck havoc on passing ships. Wanting to give city a chance, I saw the distinctive quadruple rectangle-orange-roof building on the google maps, matching the roof on the bottom part of the photo and in close proximity to the AIA building.

The photo was taken behind the Renaissance Hotel (the white building on the very left), facing out towards the “old town” section of the city and the Malacca Strait. In the contest photo towards the water, you can notice a bridge, which actually spans a canal entering in from the strait (photo attached). I believe the photo was taken from a hospital – just like last week’s! – that lies behind the hotel.

So close, but not the hospital. Another reader nails the right building:

This had a familiar look from my childhood years in Singapore, so I was immediately thinking of that part of the world. AIA, among many other things, turns out to be the American International Assurance company, which operates throughout southeast Asia. The billboard outside the AIA building looked to be in Malay or Indonesian (does it really say something about blood sugar level??), so we are looking for a busy port in Indonesia or Malaysia – not enough skyscrapers to be Singapore. Looked around Penang for a while without finding a match, but then I matched up the white building in the left middle distance with this one in Melaka (or Malacca). From there it was just a matter of lining up buildings to get the viewpoint. The building cutting off the view on the left is part of the Renaissance Hotel, so this was taken from the Majestic Hotel, looking about SSW towards the Melaka river and the sea:

Clip_image002

A few readers correctly guessed the Majestic, but only the following one guessed the exact floor of the hotel:

This has to have been the hardest of these I’ve done, let alone gotten. Starting with that AIA building (they serve primarily South-East Asia), I was able to narrow my search down to about 100 cities which had an AIA office and were near the coast. Korea didn’t have palm trees, and Vietnam never looked quite right (it was too densely populated, I think). Seeing that bridge over the river at Melaka, followed by the tall-ship once I googled some pictures, convinced me I was in the right place, finally.

As for the window itself. The white building to the left of the frame is the Hotel Renaissance Melaka, and we’re looking at the top couple stories of its nine-or-ten floor base, and we’re looking from nearly directly north. The buildings immediately across the street from the Renaissance don’t seem to be nearly tall enough to give that sort of view (although I can’t tell! Google maps has failed me here!). The one that is most likely seems to be part of the Hotel Majestic, a part which so new that it doesn’t appear on google maps, but can be seen here.  I’d guess on the 8th floor. The address is 188 Jalan Bunga Raya, Melaka.

After having got Paris and Barcelona on the basis of spotting details I recognised, I think I’ve got this one through repetitive hard work. At least, I hope I have.

You have!  A window view book is on its way.

(Archive)