No Oil for Pacifists

UPDATE: Wednesday's WaPo handicaps the selection:

With few cities and searing heat, Qatar wasn't taken seriously in the initial campaign. But FIFA has begun to warm to the idea of introducing a World Cup in the Middle East for the first time. Qatar has won support for its proposed stadium innovations: air-conditioned facilities that, after the tournament, would be disassembled and donated to needy countries.

As previously mentioned, Qatar is bidding for the 2022 World Cup. At the moment, every spare square meter is painted with bid reminders:



Qatar's biggest problem: the heat. The Cup's always staged in June and July; when I was here in June, the temperature was as much as 127.4 degrees F. Qatar's answer?: it proposes to air condition each outdoor stadium to be used in the tournament, keeping the air no warmer than 27 degrees C (80.5 degrees F).

A winner will be selected on December 2nd. There's lots of arguments back and forth about whether winning would be good for Qatari values, but my guess is that losing would be worse--a crash in property values.

In that order:



For the curious, I'm reading Jennifer Homans's Apollo's Angels (2010), a history of ballet.

A day off for you and for the blog; first day of the work-week for me.

I've always been of the Mike Ryoko school of travel: all folk wisdom comes from taxi drivers. So getting into a cab is getting into a conversation. And here in Qatar, the first topic almost always is Doha's famous Zig-Zag towers:


source: Flikr

And the punchline usually is identical: "Do the elevators zig-zag too?"

Obviously not, but rumor has it the towers -- which are apartments -- are a poor place to live--even at "ghetto prices".

Like everything in Qatar, the Zig-Zag towers today are dolled-up with signage exhorting success in Qatar's bid to host the 2022 World Cup. Here's the towers now (forgive my poor night-time snapshot from a cell-phone camera):



Nice plumage, the Qatari football Zig-Zag.

From the "India page" of the November 25th Gulf Times (Doha):

Village bans cell phones for unmarried women

A local council in northern India has banned unmarried women from carrying mobile telephones to halt a series of illicit romances between partners from different castes, media reports said yesterday.

The Baliyan council in Uttar Pradesh state decided to act after at least 23 young couples ran away and got married over the last year against their parents’ wishes.

"The panchayat (village council) was convinced that the couples planned their elopement over their cell phones," village elder Jatin Raghuvanshi told the Telegraph.

The rules of inter-caste marriages are complicated and extremely rigid in many rural communities in India, with some lovers even murdered in "honour killings" by relatives trying to protect their family’s reputation.

"All parents were told to ensure their unmarried daughters do not use cell phones. The boys can do so, but only under their parents’ monitoring," said Satish Tyagi, a spokesman for the village council.

I impersonate the captain of the Washington Capitals:



I mean, doesn't everyone ice skate in the desert?:

A few weeks ago, MaxedOutMama linked to a New York Times interactive graphic allowing you to eliminate the deficit. The page provides options for both spending cuts and tax hikes.

M_O_M's suggested approach is here; she proposes a mix of 68 percent spending reductions plus 32 percent tax increases. My similar suggestion is here; I chose to rely 79 percent on spending cuts, 21 percent on higher taxes.

The biggest differences?: foreign aid (M_O_M would cut in half, I wouldn't); farm subsidies (she retains, I eliminate); state aid (she retains, I cut by 5 percent); troops in Afghanistan and Iraq (she would reduce to 60,000 by 2015, I retain); Social Security retirement age (she retains, I raise to 68); taxes (she supports President Obama's proposals on estate tax and income tax increases for >$200k earners, I oppose both); and mortgage interest deduction for high earners (she eliminates, I retain). Both M_O_M's and my "plans" cover the shortfall in 2015 as well as 2030 although, as she notes, "the numbers given are not realistic. In fact net savings would be less."

What's your suggestion? Try your hand here. Or try the Pajamas Media version here. And the Economist magazine compares deficit reduction plans here.

I've left DC again; back to picture posts mainly.

The Guardian (U.K.), March 11, 2009:

Global warming will wreck attempts to save the Amazon rainforest, according to a devastating new study which predicts that one-third of its trees will be killed by even modest temperature rises. . .

The study, which has been submitted to the journal Nature Geoscience, used computer models to investigate how the Amazon would respond to future temperature rises.

It found that a 2C rise above pre-industrial levels, widely considered the best case global warming scenario and the target for ambitious international plans to curb emissions, would still see 20-40% of the Amazon die off within 100 years. A 3C rise would see 75% of the forest destroyed by drought over the following century, while a 4C rise would kill 85%.

The Guardian (U.K.), November 11, 2010:

According to a study of ancient rainforests, trees may be hardier than previously thought. Carlos Jaramillo, a scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), examined pollen from ancient plants trapped in rocks in Colombia and Venezuela. "There are many climactic models today suggesting that . . . if the temperature increases in the tropics by a couple of degrees, most of the forest is going to be extinct," he said. "What we found was the opposite to what we were expecting: we didn't find any extinction event [in plants] associated with the increase in temperature, we didn't find that the precipitation decreased."

In a study published today in Science, Jaramillo and his team studied pollen grains and other biological indicators of plant life embedded in rocks formed around 56m years ago, during an abrupt period of warming called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. CO₂ levels had doubled in 10,000 years and the world was warmer by 3C-5C for 200,000 years.

Contrary to expectations, he found that forests bloomed with diversity. New species of plants, including those from the passionflower and chocolate families, evolved quicker as others became extinct. The study also shows moisture levels did not decrease significantly during the warm period. "It was totally unexpected," Jaramillo said of the findings.

Conclusion: "Unexpected" means climate change science isn't settled. Remember that when considering the U.N. push for global taxation (!) to raise $100 billion for "climate financing."

(via Watts Up With That?)

John Hawkins of Right Wing News has assembled "The 25 Best Ann Coulter Quotes About Liberals." Here's a few:

24) It's the famous liberal two-step: First screw something up, then claim that it's screwed up because there's not enough government oversight (it's the free market run wild!), and then step in and really screw it up in the name of "reform."

18) Liberals don't believe there is such a thing as "fact" or "truth." Everything is a struggle for power between rival doctrines.

16) Liberals don't mind discussing who is more patriotic if patriotism is defined as redistributing income and vetoing the Pledge of Allegiance. Only if patriotism is defined as supporting America do they get testy and drone on about 'McCarthyism.'

9) The reason any conservative's failing is always major news is that it allows liberals to engage in their very favorite taunt: Hypocrisy! Hypocrisy is the only sin that really inflames them. Inasmuch as liberals have no morals, they can sit back and criticize other people for failing to meet the standards that liberals simply renounce. It's an intriguing strategy. By openly admitting to being philanderers, draft dodgers, liars, weasels and cowards, liberals avoid ever being hypocrites.

2) Liberals hate religion because politics is a religion substitute for liberals and they can't stand the competition.

Read the whole thing.

From N.A.M. Rodger, The Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain, 1649­-1815, at 366 (2004):

The fourth strand of imperial policy derived from an aspect of the British judicial system, which had a large number of capital crimes, and sentenced many criminals to death, but executed only a small minority of them. Most death sentences were commuted to transportation to a remote and unpleasant part of the world, namely Virginia.

From a November 12th Wall Street Journal editorial:

Democrats think they know how to run the insurance industry better than the insurance industry, and they're getting the chance to prove it under ObamaCare. Consider the early returns on its plan to insure Americans denied coverage for pre-existing conditions.

To judge by President Obama's rhetoric, the insurance industry's victims have been wandering the country like Okies in "The Grapes of Wrath." Thus ObamaCare gave the Health and Human Services Department the power to design and sell its own insurance policies. The $5 billion program started in July and runs through 2014, when ObamaCare's broader regulations kick in.

Mr. Obama declared at the time that "uninsured Americans who've been locked out of the insurance market because of a pre-existing condition will now be able to enroll in a new national insurance pool where they'll finally be able to purchase quality, affordable health care--some for the very first time in their lives."

So far that statement accurately describes a single person in North Dakota. Literally, one person has signed up out of 647,000 state residents. Four people have enrolled in West Virginia. Things are better in Minnesota, where Mr. Obama has rescued 15 out of 5.2 million, and also in Indiana--63 people there. HHS did best among the 24.7 million Texans. Thanks to ObamaCare, 393 of them are now insured.

States had the option of designing their own pre-existing condition insurance with federal dollars in lieu of the HHS plan, and 27 chose to do so. But they haven't had much more success. Combined federal-state enrollment is merely 8,011 nationwide as of November 1, according to HHS.

This isn't what HHS promised in July, when it estimated it would be insuring 375,000 people by now, and as many as 400,000 more every year. . .

The government didn't need to annex a sixth of the economy and create a multitrillion-dollar entitlement to help 8,011 people.

Agreed. As Ed Morrissey summarizes: "HHS falls short of pre-existing coverage prediction by . . . 97.8%"

(via readers Doug J., Warren)

Joel Kotkin in the November 15th Forbes:

In the future, historians may likely mark the 2010 midterm elections as the end of the California era and the beginning of the Texas one. In one stunning stroke, amid a national conservative tide, California voters essentially ratified a political and regulatory regime that has left much of the state unemployed and many others looking for the exits.

California has drifted far away from the place that John Gunther described in 1946 as "the most spectacular and most diversified American state . . . so ripe, golden." Instead of a role model, California has become a cautionary tale of mismanagement of what by all rights should be the country’s most prosperous big state. Its poverty rate is at least two points above the national average; its unemployment rate nearly three points above the national average. On Friday Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was forced yet again to call an emergency session in order to deal with the state’s enormous budget problems.

This state of crisis is likely to become the norm for the Golden State. In contrast to other hard-hit states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Nevada, which all opted for pro-business, fiscally responsible candidates, California voters decisively handed virtually total power to a motley coalition of Democratic-machine politicians, public employee unions, green activists and rent-seeking special interests.

(via reader Doug J.)

John Hawkins of Right Wing News polled right-of-center bloggers on the 2010 election and aftermath. He asked for the most and least valuable player in the election cycle: Jim DeMint, Sarah Palin, the National Republican Congressional Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Republican Governor's Association or the Republican National Committee. Further, he wondered whether the impact of the Tea Party movement was positive or negative. Plus a few more similar questions.

His results are here: Palin was awarded the MVP, the Senatorial Committee as the disappointment, and the Tea Party rated "extremely helpful."

I was among the bloggers polled. I gave the MVP to the RNC (given that I have no Senator or Congressman, my contributions went to the RNC and NRCC); I didn't cast a vote for most disappointing; and rated the Tea Party "generally positive." My remaining answers were:

4) No
5) A
6) Not sure
7) Not sure
8) Yes
9) Speaker
10) Continue

Full results here; TigerHawk's interpretation here.

Europe over the centuries, in a video, is here.

(via reader Michael Y.)

From writer/blogger Norm Geras:

Why is it that those on the receiving end of tyrannical practices often seem to have a surer grasp of their weight, their moral significance, than a certain kind of Western intellectual who somehow loses sight of that when making comparisons with the much freer society in which he or she lives? The question is rhetorical. Please don't send me answers on a postcard. It's because a certain kind of Western intellectual is, in this special context, stupid. The victims of tyranny, in the same context, can't afford to be.

UPDATE: below

Back in May, I blogged about over-broad state campaign finance laws requiring registration and disclosure of (relatively small) contributions to "grass-root" advocacy groups. I argued that such limits violated First Amendment freedom of association. Earlier this month, a Federal Appellate court voided Colorado's disclosure obligations as applied to committees supporting or opposing ballot initiatives--finding an impermissible burden on association rights. Sampson v. Buescher, Nos. 08-1389 and 08-1415 (10th Cir. Nov. 9, 2010).

Colorado law requires political committees, including issue committees, to register with the secretary of state and report "the name and address of each person who has contributed twenty dollars or more" and "the occupation and employer of each person who has made a contribution of one hundred dollars or more." Colo. Rev. Stat. § 1-45-108(1)(A)(I-II). A committee is defined as "two or more persons," Col. Const. art. XXVIII, § 2(10), thus covering only concerted political action, not individual speech. Committees must report such contributions individually within five days. 8 Code Col. Reg. 1505-6 §§ 3.1, 4.1. Failure to comply with Colorado's reporting requirements can result in civil penalties "of fifty dollars per day for each day that a statement or other information required to be filed . . . is not filed." Colo. Const. art. XXVIII, § 10(2)(a).

Karen Sampson and her neighbors:

first learned about Colorado’s campaign finance laws when they organized to oppose the annexation of their neighborhood into the adjacent town of Parker. The group talked to neighbors, circulated postcards and planted yard signs. . . Because Sampson and the others failed to register with the government before speaking, the principal proponents of the annexation used Colorado’s campaign finance laws to sue them.

When the suit was filed, "[p]laintiffs had raised less than $1,000 in monetary and in-kind contributions for their cause." Sampson v. Buescher, Slip Op. at 3-4.

In Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976), the United States Supreme Court upheld ceilings on contributions to candidates for political office as consistent with the First Amendment because of the government's interest in preventing corruption:

To the extent that large contributions are given to secure a political quid pro quo from current and potential office holders, the integrity of our system of representative democracy is undermined.

424 U.S. at 26-27. However, two years later, the Court acknowledged that "[t]he risk of corruption perceived in cases involving candidate elections . . . simply is not present in a popular vote on a public issue." First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765, 790 (1978). Relatedly, the Court thereafter emphasized associative rights to address ballot measures:

There are, of course, some activities, legal if engaged in by one, yet illegal if performed in concert with others, but political expression is not one of them. To place a Spartan limit -- or indeed any limit -- on individuals wishing to band together to advance their views on a ballot measure, while placing none on individuals acting alone, is clearly a restraint on the right of association.

Citizens Against Rent Control v. Berkeley, 454 U.S. 290, 296 (1981).

In Sampson v. Buescher, Judge Harris L. Hartz, speaking for a unanimous three-judge panel, recognized "a legitimate public interest in financial disclosure from campaign organizations," but also found "that this interest is significantly attenuated when the organization is concerned with only a single ballot issue and when the contributions and expenditures are slight." Slip Op. at 26. Indeed, the opinion contrasted campaigns for candidates with referendums or ballot initiatives:

No human being is being evaluated. When many complain about the deterioration of public discourse--in particular, the inability or unwillingness of citizens to listen to proposals made by particular people or by members of particular groups--one could wonder about the utility of ad hominem arguments in evaluating ballot issues. Nondisclosure could require the debate to actually be about the merits of the proposition on the ballot.

Id. at 20-21.

The Court found that:

the burden on Plaintiffs’ right to association imposed by Colorado’s registration and reporting requirements cannot be justified by a public interest in disclosure. The burdens are substantial. The average citizen cannot be expected to master on his or her own the many campaign financial-disclosure requirements set forth in Colorado’s constitution, the Campaign Act, and the Secretary of State’s Rules Concerning Campaign and Political Finance. Even if those rules that apply to issue committees may be few, one would have to sift through them all to determine which apply. As the Supreme Court recently observed in rejecting a proposed intricate interpretation of the term electioneering communication in 2 U.S.C. § 441b: "Prolix laws chill speech for the same reason that vague laws chill speech: People of common intelligence must necessarily guess at the law’s meaning and differ as to its application." Citizens United, 130 S. Ct. at 889 (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted). . .

Here, the financial burden of state regulation on Plaintiffs’ freedom of association approaches or exceeds the value of their financial contributions to their political effort; and the governmental interest in imposing those regulations is minimal, if not nonexistent, in light of the small size of the contributions. We therefore hold that it was unconstitutional to impose that burden on Plaintiffs.

Id. at 26-27, 30. The opinion declined to specify a "a bright line below which a ballot-issue committee cannot be required to report contributions and expenditures," deciding only that Colorado's disclosure requirements were unconstitutional as applied to small expenditures on simple ballot measures. Id. at 30-31.

Conclusion: The 10th Circuit got it right. I generally oppose campaign finance rules as impermissible restrictions on free speech, preferring simple disclosure. Yet, this is a circumstance where financial disclosure isn't appropriate. Citizens groups like Ms. Sampson's or Ms. Murakami's embody, not undermine, representative democracy.

And I support the 10th Circuit's limited ruling. Properly, the court chose not to opine on facts not at issue--such as California's controversial Proposition 8 referendum or spending on ballot measures by corporations. My initial view is that disclosure of citizen contributions isn't appropriate in any ballot measure--for the pro-debate reasons set forth by Judge Hartz, as confirmed by the 9th Circuit's ban on releasing Prop. 8 donor lists. Perry v. Schwarzenegger, No. 09-17551 (9th Cir. Dec. 11, 2009). And despite the Citizens United opinion upholding the First Amendment interest in corporate speech on candidates, there might be some wisdom in disclosing corporate contributions to speech on ballot measures, at least where a corporation would be directly affected--but it would be the worst sort of judicial activism to address that issue absent a full factual record.

In sum, I side with the winning attorney, Steve Simpson who reasoned:

Freedom of speech means that citizens, not government, get to decide whether to disclose their identities when they speak out about ballot issues. For those who don’t trust anonymous speech, the solution is not to listen to it.

MORE:

MaxedOutMama's reaction to the case:

This is a very important issue, because just as businesses have difficulty starting due to regulation, average people have difficulty engaging in politics when politics becomes regulated by the state. Effectively, this is a back-door abrogation of First Amendment rights.

(via Volokh Conspiracy)

(I'm back for a bit--it's Eid, so the country's closed for a week.)

From Saturday's Washington Post (letters to the editor):

In 1978, my CIA affiliation was exposed by Philip Agee in his book "Dirty Work II." I'm nothing special; more than a few colleagues have been exposed at one time or another. I went on to serve nearly 34 years.

As luck would have it, I was at one point charged with looking into possible damage in one location caused by Valerie Plame's outing. There was none.

So enough with the overwrought claims of injury that "Fair Game" suggests. Those claims devalue the resolve of the officers who have overcome truly dangerous exposure, and they cheapen the risk from laying bare their very real achievements.

It was wrong to expose Plame. It was ludicrous for her to claim that the exposure forced an end to her career in intelligence. In the words of my favorite poet, A.E. Housman: " 'Tis sure much finer fellows have fared much worse before."

R.E. Pound, Reston

The writer served in the CIA from 1976 to 2009.

. . . he found himself changed into a monstrous bureaucrat:


source: my office

What's going on at the Sheraton this week:

A Nonny Mouse--Bingo:



Note the flag flying over the building.

Of where I am: the construction crane:



Especially given the above, I can't fault A Nonny Mouse's reasoning. But that guess, too, is wrong--albeit closer.

I'm the one on the right.

This picture should dispel MaxedOutMama's supposition about where I am. As for A Nonny Mouse's reasoning, I'll address that in my next pic post.

This pic should dispel Whitehall's guess about where I am.