Month: December 2011

Ever so slightly:

[R]eleases from prison exceeded admissions in 2010 for the first time since 1977. This means that many prisons are not operating at full capacity. Twenty-eight states are operating at or below their highest capacity. Mississippi, for instance, operated at 46% above its top capacity in 2010. The same holds true at federal prisons where are operating at 36% of its highest reported capacity. It is not all good news. Black men still have a horrifically high imprisonment rate—nearly seven times higher than while males. But this is an encouraging first step on a very long march.

A big news day in Syria – over 100 people were murdered including 70 Army defectors gunned down en masse, the regime releases detained blogger Razan Ghazzawi (discussed here and here), and Assad allowed [NYT] Arab League monitors to enter Syria. James Miller skeptically connects the dots:

In recent days, the main-stream media has been focused on negotiations between Assad and the Arab League. The Syrian regime pledged to allow international observers, a move that could have led to the end of the violence. But this is not the first time we've seen such a move. Syrian President Bashar al Assad has already pledged to remove his troops from his cities, but then immediately increased the troops in some cities. The regime then explained that they were now allowing peaceful protests, per the demands of the Arab League, but they were trying to restore security and put down insurgency and terrorism. In other words, the regime had no intention of ending its siege in places like Homs.

However, each time such an agreement has been made, the opposition has staged large rallies in order to test the words of the Assad regime. This rally, this large, during the day, this close to Damascus, in arguably the most important neighborhood in the capital – this was the test. The security forces opened fire. The Assad regime has failed this test.

David Mepham takes a close look at the appalling military whose conduct the Arab League will be observing. POMED summarizes a Congressional hearing on Syria, while Barry Rubin gets angry at Obama for not doing enough to help Syria. Erica Chenoweth conveys 10 pieces of advice for how civilians can help even if their governments won't. Among them:

Help the nonviolent opposition publicize successes: Syrians need to see that civil resistance is working to discourage them from giving up, taking up arms, or waiting for outside military intervention.  Every regime concession (e.g. release of prisoners, allowing in monitors, etc.) and concrete sign of regime isolation needs to be credited to the courageous nonviolent resistance.  Embassies should publicly credit the nonviolent opposition for successes and help them publicize victories over the TV, radio and other channels of communication.

Merel Van Beeren spotlights an art exhibit that attempts to publicize Assad's repression. Reuters compliles a timeline of the revolution. This boy was shot in the head by Assad's army:

This is a big protest in Hama:

Hama is also where 10 year old girl Amira al-Ahmad was mutilated beyond recognition:

GQ snagged an interview with the guy who made it happen in New York:

Andrew Cuomo: Look, there are issues that come across your desk…that you just say, "This is absurd." Marriage equality changed life for people. When we did the gay-pride parade after the passage? I can't tell you how many family members, friends, sisters, and brothers… It provided a level of acceptance for millions of people. And their families. 

GQ: And you got the activists to work together—

Andrew Cuomo: Yeah. Because they were a fractured group. But I mean, you look at the injustice of the issue. [switches voices, mimicking the opposition] "You can't get married if you're gay." Why? "Well, because you're gay." And? "And, well, you can't make babies." That's the argument. Oh, really? So then we should change the law to say, "Only people who can and want to make babies can get married." So an infertile man can't. A woman who can't, she can't get married. People who don't want to make a baby, they can't get married. So let's change the law so it says, "Only people who can and will make babies." "Well, we don't want to do that. You can get married if you don't want to make a baby or if you can't—except if you're gay!" There's no logic.

Laura Nahmias covered Cuomo's recent speech to the Empire State Pride Agenda suggesting the governor is preparing to ride the momentum of marriage to the presidential stage in 2016:

"[Marriage equality in New York] was a universal victory," Cuomo said to the assembled crowd. "Now we are going to go forward with the rest of the equality agenda. Nationwide there are no federal antidiscrimination laws for LGBT and there need to be. There are no federal antidiscrimination laws for housing or employment. DOMA has to go away once and for all!"

Nahmias also shows how Cuomo is building Obama-like bipartisan cred with the GOP-controlled senate. More on his cross-party appeal:

Cuomo’s first post-gay marriage poll found that 53 percent of Republicans approved of his job performance, and, even more surprisingly, a May poll found that two-thirds of Tea Partiers gave Cuomo positive marks on his handling of the state budget. National Review‘s Michael Tanner described the Democrat as "Reaganesque" in his approach to tax cuts and state spending, while his colleague Reihan Salam thinks a Cuomo presidential run would represent "an excellent outcome for fiscal conservatives."

(Hat tip: Taegan Goddard. Photo: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo marches during the Gay Pride parade on June 26, 2011 in New York City. The parade took on extra significance following Friday night's legalization of same-sex marriage in New York, often regarded as the birthplace of the gay rights movement. Cuomo was a leading force behind the legislation. By Mario Tama/Getty Images)

An Egyptian reader describes the scene:

A protester is holding books he just rescued from the burning building of the Scientific Community in downtown Cairo while protecting his head with a plastic chair from the rocks thrown by the security forces. The Scientific Community building is holding thousands of rare ancient books, one of them is said to be "Description de l'Egypte" written by the French scientists that accompanied Napoleon to Egypt in 1798. Clashes between the security forces and protesters started when Army soldiers attacked the sit-in in front of the HQ of the Egyptian Cabinet (commonly known on Twitter as #OccupyCabinet). These clashes differ from the ones before in the participation of Army forces instead of Police forces, the high number of attacks against women, and the lack of tear gas. Hundreds were injured and at least 10 were killed.

A new study (pdf) logged data from 86 different countries and debunked the common assumption:

First, in many countries, there's no gender gap at all both at the average and very high levels of performance. Some countries, including the United States, do show a gender gap, but that gap has decreased substantially over the last few decades, and some test scores suggest American girls have already caught up to their male counterparts. …

All of these findings argue strongly that the apparent gender gaps are really just disparities in education and cultural expectations, not evidence of some deeper biological mechanism. 

Greg Scoblete wonders how it will play out during the general election:

[I]t's worth considering how the discussion (I won't call it a debate) on Iran would play out between the GOP nominee (assuming it's not Paul) and Barack Obama. GOP Nominee X will declare his or her intention to bomb Iran if it came to it, and President Obama will say that he's definitely open to the possibility.

What's significant in this, I think, is the extent to which the idea of preventative war has been rejuvenated – if it was ever truly discredited.

Chart from Pew.

Your single-serving tumblr of the day:

Inevitable update: The heir gets his own tumblr:

looking at industrial equipment

Alex Pareene has updated his list. Mark Halperin takes highest dishonors:

Halperin is so dedicated to being wrong about everything that, upon his return to the airwaves, he actually made a point of mentioning that, had he been on TV during his suspension, he would’ve been wrong about something.

Jennifer Rubin was a close second:

Here’s a brief list of greatest hits: Her legendarily dumb column “wondering” why American Jews were largely repulsed by Sarah Palin, which concluded that it was because, as we all know, American Jews are rootless cosmopolitan elites who spend their time sneering at real Americans like hardscrabble blue-collar working mom Sarah Palin. … Frequently endorsing and retweeting the blatantly racist and occasionally eliminationist anti-Arab writings of her friend Rachel Abrams. Regularly getting things wrong and quoting things out of context and never apologizing. Being awful.

The entry on Bernard-Henri Levy, who finished a respectable third, is especially cutting:

He’s prospered in intellectual circles despite his tragic inability to button a shirt in part because he’s a successful businessman, born into wealth and friends with the French corporate elite. He writes with the self-assuredness of someone quite convinced of his brilliance, and that self-assurance perhaps explains why he so regularly makes shit up and gets shit wrong.    

Full list here.