Limits of American Power

We've got carrots...but where are the sticks:

What can the United States offer its allies? Throughout the Cold War, the answer was simple: the United States guaranteed its allies security from the Soviet Union. But this question - which seems so basic - is difficult to answer today.

...

From Tokyo to Paris - and many places in between - it is not so much the lack of American power that is the problem (it still has plenty), but rather the fact that its bargaining position is paradoxically undermined by its extraordinary role.

Read the entire, short, post.

Thinking Doesn't Translate into Climate Action

From the NYT:

The example illustrates a basic principle in social psychology: that people's attitudes do not translate into action. But most environmental activism remains centered around the assumption that changing behavior starts with changing attitudes and knowledge.

And only 35% of people think climate change is man-made! So, of course education (and stopping mis-education) is key to improving that number. But this article is good at describing how we must re-focus how we set priorities and market adoptable behavior to the general population.

Brooks Gives Obama High Marks on his First Test

David Brooks thinks, in retrospect, that Geithner et al. did a great job handling the financial meltdown.

But Yglesias isn't as thrilled with the performance.

Today in Global Warming/Peak Oil

(via Syd O and Medium) First, check this out from E&E's ClimateWire:

Last ice age froze Europe in a few months (Tuesday, November 17, 2009)

It only took six months to plunge Europe's warm climate into the last ice age, according to new research.

Previous research had suggested it took some 10 years for the slowdown of the Gulf Stream that allowed ice to spread southward and plunge the Northern Hemisphere into a deep freeze 12,800 years ago.

The new findings suggest "it would have been very sudden for those alive at the time," said William Patterson, a geological sciences professor at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada, who carried out the research. "It would be the equivalent of taking Britain and moving it to the Arctic over the space of a few months."

To conduct the research, Patterson scraped mud deposits from a lake in western Ireland and studied each 0.5-millimeter-thick layer. The mud indicated that the temperatures had abruptly chilled, with the lake's plants and animals rapidly dying over just a few months.

The finding reinforces a series of studies that suggest that the Earth's climate is highly unstable and can flip between warm and cold very quickly under the right conditions (Jonathan Leake, London Times, Nov. 15)

Second, check out this Letter to the Editor in the Guardian responding to the article they ran the other day discussing how the IEA has been overestimating oil reserves. The author has been involved in exploration and oil reserve research for years and has some great insights.

Maybe My Favorite Cartoon of All Time

Fat Women are H.O.T.T. (with 2 "T's")

...in Mauritania, West Africa. Check out this Marie Claire article on how young girls are force-fed so they get obese and covered in stretch-marks - a big turn on for Mauritania men. It's a sign of wealth in a country where many starve to death. Although the practice was dying off, recently, after an Islamic coup that pushed more traditional lifestyles, some girls are going to 3month summer camps where they are force-fed 16,000 calories a day by a headmaster who tortures and whips them if they chow down.

Tijanniya wants to become a French teacher, but Elhacen says her parents have already arranged a marriage for her. "Her job will be to make babies and be a soft, fleshy bed for her husband to lie on." To this end, she intends to fast-track Tijanniya's weight gain by serving her cups of pure animal fat. "The stomach flab should cascade, the thighs should overlap, and the neck should have thick ripples of fat," says Elhacen. The ultimate sign of beauty, however, is silvery stretch marks on the arms. "Parents will give me a bonus if a girl develops stretch marks."

Bring Em On

Even before AG Holder announced that KSM and a few other Gitmo terrorists would be held for trial in NY I had thought that if I were a Senator I'd have been on the floor touting our justice system, screaming "Bring em to Supermax - we're not afraid of em ... you think we can't handle a few scheming pilots?". Along with stating the obvious (that our prisons hold way more dangerous prisoners) I think it'd bring attention and commerce to the state and be a source of pride.

Check this Colorado Pols post on the subject ... apparently IL is going to hold them for trial, and they're looking at ADX for long term imprisonment.

As for the argument that they'll get off on a technicality? No chance. Sure, they'll argue waterboarded confessions were coerced - but Holder is a prosecutor, and he must know that there is plenty of other evidence to convict so they won't have to rely on tainted evidence.

As for the argument that it'll be a circus? Sure. So was OJ.

As for the argument that the trial will become a target? Maybe, but again, do we not think the NYPD or the Nat'l Guard, etc. will be able to handle it?

The hypocricy on the right is outstanding - they decry international law, tout our legal and moral superiority, but don't think we can handle a few murderers?

UPDATE: NPR ran a story today and it's spot on.....the GOP "fears" bringing detainees to IL and Democrat Dick Durbin says (in essence) "bring em on!"

KSM: Warrior or Criminal

This Yglesias post makes an excellent distinction and argument for categorizing "terrorists" as criminals.

Alongside the various nonsensical efforts to convince people that KSM is too scary to be put in trial, the right objects to bringing him to justice on the grounds that this represents a problematic “law enforcement” approach to terrorism. I think it’s pretty clear that international terrorism has some dimensions that go well-beyond ordinary law enforcement, but if you have to put the whole thing in either the “crime” box or the “war” box, there’s a pretty strong case for erring on the side of crime.

In political terms, the right likes the war idea because it involves taking terrorism more “seriously.” But in doing so, you partake of way too much of the terrorists’ narrative about themselves. It’s their conceit, after all, that blowing up a bomb in a train station and killing a few hundred random commuters is an act of war. And war is a socially sanctioned form of activity, generally held to be a legally and morally acceptable framework in which to kill people. What we want to say, however, is that this sporadic commuter-killing isn’t a kind of war, it’s an act of murder. To be sure, not an ordinary murder—a mass murder—but nonetheless murder. It’s true that if al-Qaeda were something like the “blowing up train stations” arm of a major country with which we were otherwise at war, it might make the most sense to think of al-Qaeda as fitting in with spies and saboteurs; criminal adjuncts to a warrior enterprise.

After all, do we really want to send the message to the world that a self-starting spree killer like Nidal Malik Hasan is actually engaged in some kind of act of holy war? It seems to me that we don’t. A lot of people in the world are interested in glory, and willing to take serious risks with their lives for its sake. Insofar as possible, we want to drain anti-American violence of the aura of glory. And that means by-and-large treating its perpetrators like criminals.

If You're Angry About the Stupak Amendment - Here's Your Outlet

Katha Pollitt makes the right points in the Nation. A Taste:

You know what I don't want to hear right now about the Stupak-Pitts amendment banning abortion coverage from federally subsidized health insurance policies? That it's the price of reform, and prochoice women should shut up and take one for the team. "If you want to rebuild the American welfare state," Peter Beinart writes in the Daily Beast, "there is no alternative" than for Democrats to abandon "cultural" issues like gender and racial equality. Hey, Peter, Representative Stupak and your sixty-four Democratic supporters, Jim Wallis and other antichoice "progressive" Christians, men: why don't you take one for the team for a change and see how you like it?

For example, budget hawks in Congress say they'll vote against the bill because it's too expensive. Maybe you could win them over if you volunteered to cut out funding for male-exclusive stuff, like prostate cancer, Viagra, male infertility, vasectomies, growth-hormone shots for short little boys, long-term care for macho guys who won't wear motorcycle helmets and, I dunno, psychotherapy for pedophile priests. Men could always pay in advance for an insurance policy rider, as women are blithely told they can do if Stupak becomes part of the final bill.

Update: Here's TPM's take on what the practical effects may be...which will be all the poor-to-middle-class women who will take part in the Exchange...and 21Million are expected to partake....the Jist:

What conclusions to draw from this? The uncertainties are substantial, but it's safe to say that, initially, a minority of women, and a minority of abortions will be impacted by the Stupak amendment. Those women will be very disproportionately poor and middle-class. And their ranks will grow as the exchanges open to larger businesses and a greater percentage of the population.

AND: an argument about what health care means to women, irrespective of the abortion debate.

IEA Has Been Lying About Oil Reserves - Things Are Worse Than They Claim

(via Syd O) Read this article from the Guardian UK. Scary.

The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying.

The senior official claims the US has played an influential role in encouraging the watchdog to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding new reserves.

The allegations raise serious questions about the accuracy of the organisation's latest World Energy Outlook on oil demand and supply to be published tomorrow – which is used by the British and many other governments to help guide their wider energy and climate change policies.

In particular they question the prediction in the last World Economic Outlook, believed to be repeated again this year, that oil production can be raised from its current level of 83m barrels a day to 105m barrels. External critics have frequently argued that this cannot be substantiated by firm evidence and say the world has already passed its peak in oil production.

Now the "peak oil" theory is gaining support at the heart of the global energy establishment. "The IEA in 2005 was predicting oil supplies could rise as high as 120m barrels a day by 2030 although it was forced to reduce this gradually to 116m and then 105m last year," said the IEA source, who was unwilling to be identified for fear of reprisals inside the industry. "The 120m figure always was nonsense but even today's number is much higher than can be justified and the IEA knows this.

"Many inside the organisation believe that maintaining oil supplies at even 90m to 95m barrels a day would be impossible but there are fears that panic could spread on the financial markets if the figures were brought down further. And the Americans fear the end of oil supremacy because it would threaten their power over access to oil resources," he added.

A second senior IEA source, who has now left but was also unwilling to give his name, said a key rule at the organisation was that it was "imperative not to anger the Americans" but the fact was that there was not as much oil in the world as had been admitted. "We have [already] entered the 'peak oil' zone. I think that the situation is really bad," he added.

Cars Have Gotten Better In Everything Except Fuel Economy

This is why when I hear "Best fuel economy in its class" - and the commercial is referring to 20mpg - and my 10yr old car gets the same - I'm pretty discouraged about our long term prospects.

Yglesias:

From 1980 to 2004 the fuel economy of U.S. vehicles has remained stagnant despite apparent technological advances. The average fuel economy of the U.S. new passenger automobile fleet increased by less than 6.5 percent, while the average horsepower of new passenger cars increased by 80 percent, and their average curb weight increased by 12 percent. For light duty trucks, average horsepower has increased by 99 percent and average weight increased by 26 percent over this period. But there’s more to this story: in 1980, light truck sales were roughly 20 percent of total passenger vehicles sales — in 2004, they were over 51 percent.\

In Automobiles on Steroids: Product Attribute Trade-Offs and Technological Progress in the Automobile Sector (NBER Working Paper No. 15162), Christopher Knittel analyzes the technological progress that has occurred since 1980 and the trade-offs that manufacturers and consumers face when choosing between fuel economy, weight, and engine power characteristics. His results suggest that if weight, horsepower, and torque were held at their 1980 levels, fuel economy for both passenger cars and light trucks could have increased by nearly 50 percent from 1980 to 2006. Instead, fuel economy actually increased by only 15 percent.

The First Marriage

A great article on the Obama's marriage in the NYT Magazine yesterday.

Arnold Says F-U to the Assembly

(via Medium) Is this a coincidence? Check out the first letter of each line.

Public Option Opt-Out

(via VH1) The word is that Harry Reid may have 60 votes to pass a health care bill that includes a public plan with an optional opt-out for states. If Reid pulls this off he'll jump up a ton of spots in my mind. Nate Silver has the reasons why this would be a great policy and political win.

Modern Man: The WORST EVER

(via Snead303) Check out this report from Reuters:

Many prehistoric Australian aboriginals could have outrun world 100 and 200 meters record holder Usain Bolt in modern conditions.

Some Tutsi men in Rwanda exceeded the current world high jump record of 2.45 meters during initiation ceremonies in which they had to jump at least their own height to progress to manhood.

Any Neanderthal woman could have beaten former bodybuilder and current California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in an arm wrestle.

These and other eye-catching claims are detailed in a book by Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister entitled "Manthropology" and provocatively sub-titled "The Science of the Inadequate Modern Male."

McAllister sets out his stall in the opening sentence of the prologue.

"If you're reading this then you -- or the male you have bought it for -- are the worst man in history.

"No ifs, no buts -- the worst man, period...As a class we are in fact the sorriest cohort of masculine Homo sapiens to ever walk the planet."

Delving into a wide range of source material McAllister finds evidence he believes proves that modern man is inferior to his predecessors in, among other fields, the basic Olympic athletics disciplines of running and jumping.

His conclusions about the speed of Australian aboriginals 20,000 years ago are based on a set of footprints, preserved in a fossilized claypan lake bed, of six men chasing prey.

Rule of Unintended Consequences

Charles Duhigg has an excellent series in the NYT called "Toxic Waters" - a 3 part series on the unintended consequences of environmental legislation. Cleaner air means dirtier water, regulating CAFOs means dirtier water, coal mines mean dirtier water, and greener lawns means dirtier water.

Not Done Yet

Jon Cohn provides his Top 10 list of things that still need improvement as the health care bill moves on.

Thanks But No Thanks

(via VH1) TNR thinks that letting Olympia Snowe vote "yes" in committee was a mistake - it gives her too much control over the rest of the process - whereas she probably would have voted for (or at least not blocked) the final bill anyway!

Toons

The Poverty Cycle and Obesity

I found this really interesting - Ezra Klein talking about the persistent relationship betweent obesity and unhealthiness and poverty.

Coates agrees [about the many daily "pleasures" available to the middle class]. His 20s were a rough period. And aside from the support of his family, "I have two words for you -- Breyer's and Entenmann's. It sounds disgusting when I write it. But that little a'la mode pick-me-up made things a little more bearable."

This reminds me of Charles Karelis's "The Persistence of Poverty." The basic argument is that the wealthy misunderstand the mental state of the poor, which leads them to make conceptual errors when creating policies to address poverty, or, in this case, obesity. Think of a bee sting, he advises. If you have a single bee sting, you'll go buy some salve to take away the pain. Now imagine three bee stings, a sprained ankle, a burn, a cut, a crick in your neck, a sore throat, and arthritis. Does the bee sting matter anymore?

Karelis argues that this is more the situation of someone in poverty. Obesity is bad, but it may be just one of many bad things. Overdue bills. A horrible part-time job. Endless commuting time on the bus. A mother with diabetes. A child running with the wrong crowd. A leaking roof. In that scenario, slowly reversing your weight gain might be a good idea, but it hardly makes a dent in the overall crumminess of the conditions. It won't replace pain with pleasure. So you do things that are surer to replace pain with pleasure, like have a delicious, filling, satisfying, salty, fatty meal. That may make your overall situation more unpleasant, but then, making that situation pleasant didn't seem like an option in the first place.

This, he would say, is fundamentally different than the situation of someone who is fundamentally happy with his life but thinks he should lose 30 pounds. For that person, those 30 pounds are the main thing standing between him and perceived happiness. It's one bee sting instead of a dozen ailments. The condition seems manageable, and so it gets managed. Conversely, if the aggregate condition does not seem manageable, people are less likely to manage any individual part, because it will not bring obvious reward -- life will still be pressuring and difficult. The things that will bring obvious reward, however, often make the underlying situation worse -- think spending, overeating and drinking. But then, that's why they call poverty a cycle, and obesity fits there, too.

The Next Glenn Beck: Alex Jones

TNR profiles a right-wing (full circle lefty) wacko from Texas named Alex Jones in the context of how the fringe conservatives are now very much a part of main-stream conservatism.

Until recently, Jones’s search for mainstream allies has been less than fruitful. During the Bush years, when the conservative movement acknowledged Jones at all, it was to mock and revile him. In March 2006, Sean Hannity ridiculed Charlie Sheen for spinning September 11 conspiracy theories on Jones’s show. In May 2007, Michelle Malkin argued that Ron Paul’s associations with Jones and the 9/11 Truth movement should disqualify him from participating in GOP primary debates. Last year, Bill O’Reilly ran outtakes from Jones’s interview with fellow Truther Willie Nelson on a segment about "the dumbest things that have been said in the past three months."

But, since Obama’s election, the ridicule has died down. On March 15, Jones released a documentary called The Obama Deception, which has been widely advertised in conservative media and viewed more than four million times on YouTube. The Obama Deception is basically a more detailed version of the dystopian scenario promoted night after night on Beck. Arguing that Obama is the front man for an oligarchy working to create a planetary totalitarian state, it is like The Protocols of the Elders of Zion stripped of any reference to Jews.

Larry Summers and the Financial Crisis

Ryan Lizza profiles Larry Summers and the White House economic team in this week's New Yorker. It's long....so plan ahead.

UPDATE: Here's a good point from Yglesias on how Obama ended up enacting policies that were too timid by Romer et. al's standards because the economic advisors were policy wonks, and they offered proposals that were politically impossible.

Tax and Spend for the General Welfare

(via Snead 303) Erwin Chemerinsky has an op-ed in the LAT about how health care reform is constitutional. It's mostly a "duh" argument (but that won't stop opponents of mud-slinging). I mostly wanted to link it because Erwin is famous - conlaw his book is famous - and he is the most boring lecturer ever. ("Little two!")

Out of Chaos Comes Order

NYT reports on an interesting study in the journal of Psychological Science on how feelings of disorientation or absurdity can throw the brain off - and encourage the brain to look for patterns (meaning) in life - and therefore lead to enhanced creativity.

“We’re so motivated to get rid of that feeling that we look for meaning and coherence elsewhere,” said Travis Proulx, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and lead author of the paper appearing in the journal Psychological Science. “We channel the feeling into some other project, and it appears to improve some kinds of learning.”

Researchers have long known that people cling to their personal biases more tightly when feeling threatened. After thinking about their own inevitable death, they become more patriotic, more religious and less tolerant of outsiders, studies find. When insulted, they profess more loyalty to friends — and when told they’ve done poorly on a trivia test, they even identify more strongly with their school’s winning teams.

In a series of new papers, Dr. Proulx and Steven J. Heine, a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, argue that these findings are variations on the same process: maintaining meaning, or coherence. The brain evolved to predict, and it does so by identifying patterns.

When those patterns break down — as when a hiker stumbles across an easy chair sitting deep in the woods, as if dropped from the sky — the brain gropes for something, anything that makes sense. It may retreat to a familiar ritual, like checking equipment. But it may also turn its attention outward, the researchers argue, and notice, say, a pattern in animal tracks that was previously hidden. The urge to find a coherent pattern makes it more likely that the brain will find one.

Keep Meddling in Afghanistan

(via Ezra) Andrew Sullivan has a good article in the Sunday Times make the point that there's no reason to choose between the McCrystal/Biden poles at a time when the strategic situation in Afghanistan and Iraq and Pakistan is most uncertain. The best route is to continue a middle, meddling, path. He quotes Marc Lynch on this:

“Why choose between escalation or withdrawal at exactly the time when the political picture is at its least clear? Why not maintain a lousy Afghan government which doesn’t quite fall, keep the Taliban on the ropes without defeating it, cut deals where we can and try to figure out a strategy to deal with the Pakistan part, which all the smart set agrees is the real issue these days? Why not focus on applying the improved counterinsurgency tactics with available resources right now instead of focusing on more troops? If the American core objective in Afghanistan is to prevent its re-emergence as an Al-Qaeda safe haven, or to prevent the Taliban from taking Kabul, those seem to be manageable at lower troop levels.”