No wonder the Brits still have a Queen...

If this is the best the republicans (anti-Queen forces) can do in response to the wedding.

Their press release excoriates the Royal Family for inviting representatives of "Saudi Arabia, Oman, Brunei, Qatar, Swaziland, Lesotho, Bhutan and Kuwait, all of which have poor human rights records, limited political freedoms and histories of state violence."

The problem with this list is that two of the eight countries they mention are democracies. Bhutan and Lesotho are not perfect democracies, but they can't be described as having poor human rights records or histories of state violence. Bhutan's current King has actually been instrumental in insisting on free elections, and is currently roughly 1/3 of the way through personally walking the entire country so he can meet everyone. It's not a free country yet, but it's getting there.

Lesotho has been a free country in previous years, but a bitter electoral dispute has reduced it's ranking. In the meantime Lesotho shocked the world by being 8th in gender equality.

Regardless Republic implied both countries are dictatorships run by their royal families. This is simply not the case. I'd guess somebody thought due diligence was looking at the Freedom House rankings without reading them. Unfortuneately for them the mistake looks racist. Not just a little racist, either. It looks like they believe that nobody can run a black or brown nation without being as evil as the Saudis.

The Debt Ceiling

Conservatives like to claim they run the government like it was a business. Let’s try to relate the debt ceiling debate to a business.

But we’ve got a problem already: no business has anything like Congress. They have boards of Directors who work part-time. If the CEO disagrees with them on a major issue they fire him by simple majority vote. OTOH the US Congress is always on, consists of 535 members constantly looking for CEO mistakes, and about half of the time most of Congress wanted another guy to be CEO. Moreover if the company spends a dime it has to be traced to a budget they passed. Let’s just say we’ve got an Active Board.

Nine days ago Congress approved a budget. They knew that to actually implement the budget the company would need new lines of credit (ie: a higher debt ceiling). But they didn't approve those. Now, an entire nine days later, they're refusing to approve those lines of credit because they think the CEO spends too much. In the budget they approved.

They don't really know what is gonna happen if they don't approve the lines of credit. They tell themselves the CEO will "prioritize" spending and the banks will ignore the fact they're schizo as long as current creditors are paid off.

You get the idea.

I know it's not Obama's style, but IMO here's what he should do:
Insist that the debt ceiling be abolished completely since it's stupid, and tempts otherwise sane Congressman into doing stupid things. In the meantime he should reduce all spending by x% (where x% is the number required to keep going without new borrowing), including combat pay, social security, and his salary. The x% will be made up when Congress approves a) increasing the debt ceiling without conditions, or b) abolishing it.

The signal this would send to the market is that a grown-up is in charge and there's nothing to worry about.

Why we don't switch to Metric

This just came up on Slashdot. It seems to really baffle foreigners. Partly that's because they don't understand what's gong on. They think we're clinging to "Imperial" units of measurement. We actually got rid of the British Empire decades before they invented the Imperial system. We're clinging to a "Customary" system that happens to be quite similar to the Imperial system because they're both based on the Avurdupois system.

As for why we do it, the answer's pretty simple:
They work fine, and everybody already knows them.

You say "But this also applies to every other country that ever switched!" To which I respond: The only country larger then the US that actually switched was China. And they didn't have t break a filibuster in the US Senate to do it.

Libya Again

The stalemate continues. In some ways this is a good sign for the rebels, because it indicates their military preparations allow them to stop Gaddafi's advances. In other ways it's a bad sign because it gives a canny operator the ability to play for time. Recently Gaddaifi tried to take Ajdabiya, but the rebels seem to have driven him back after losing some ground.

In terms of pointless diplomacy the African Union has a peace plan that has been accepted by Gaddafi. They are really serious, so they sent a bunch of big guns, including several presidents, to deliver the plan. The problem is that a) Gaddafi's accepted cease-fires before, so it's not exactly surprising that he says he'll go along with their plan, b) the rebels have given no indication they;d prefer elections to just killing Gaddafi, and c)the AU's biggest gun (President Zuma of South Africa) left before he could meet said rebels.

So basically nothing is happening.

Goldstone Recants (kinda)

Here's a criticism of the Goldstone report from a recent pro-Israeli article:

And we noted the disturbing tone of the report, which employed inflammatory language against Israel, while treating Hamas so tenderly that it never once, in the course of its 575 pages, acknowledged that Hamas is a terrorist organization under international law, that it had carried out suicide bombings, or that it explicitly seeks the destruction of the state of Israel.

The criticism is simply stupid. A legal report on whether a crime took place doesn't have to list every crime anyone involved has ever committed in the past. If it did it would also have to include Israeli crimes like the assassination of the first UN Envoy to the region, the Israeli President's subsequent decision to pardon the men who killed him, and that the current Israeli Prime Minister's idol gave the murderers a medal in the 80s. In other words a report that treated both sides fairly and included the crap they say they're fighting over would be thousands of pages long.

It's pretty clear what the authors are doing. They don't want to try to defend their countries actions, because a) they didn't read the Goldstone report (I haven't, but then I'm not writing about it in a prominent magazine of international affairs) or b) they can't. So they're shifting the debate to one they can win.

It goes on to sayy:

While Israelis are delighted by the measure of vindication, President Shimon Peres expressed the sentiments of many when he opined the weekend after Goldstone's op-ed appeared that Goldstone still owes the state of Israel an apology. In many respects, the report's damage to Israel's reputation and the attendant boost to Hamas's legitimacy are irreversible.

In many ways this section is microcosm of Israel's problem internationally:
They focus so much on the little stuff they forget there's a big picture. Nobody decided to turn on a country that's been righteous for 60 years out of it's 63-year existence because of one report. Nobody decided a terrorist organization that spent the 90s murdering innocent people were nice guys because one report said they'd been war-crimed for three weeks.

Here's the big picture:
In 1948 you guys murdered the UN envoy sent to solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem. You went on to spend the entire rest of your existence being very nice to the race you'd chosen to protect, the actual Chosen People, but not particularly caring what happened to anyone else. In the process you drove hundreds of thousands who were the wrong race from their homes, gave all their stuff to people who were of the right race, feigned shock when the race you'd driven out decided you'd started a race-war, and repeated the process on a smaller scale every day to construct settlements.

This whole time you're claiming to be as righteous as Sweden, which has refused to fight any war with anybody since Napoleon, has never demanded the Finns return the ethnic Swedish Aland islands, and is 1/7 foreign born largely because it lets refugees from anywhere in. You let refugees in, but only if they're the proper race.

Yes I freely admit that last paragraph leaves out a lot of context. That you were understandably fucked up due to the Holocaust, that thousands of people of the wrong race stayed in Israel and prospered, that the side with more reprehensible tactics in your race war is the Palestinians, etc. But I wasn't trying to prove that you guys are Hitler. I was trying to show you that this stupid little report is not the reason people like me are extremely skeptical of Israel. The reason is everything your country has done since it's founding.

You guys could solve some of those problems if you stopped playing the role of Universal Defender of all Jews, and started acting like Sweden does, but according to the authors that's unlikely:

What Goldstone's newfound forthrightness will not do, however, is bring about a rebirth of the peace process. The Middle East is in upheaval, the Palestinian Authority is currently boycotting talks, and, thanks in part to the Goldstone Report, Israeli doves are discredited. The Israeli left had justified Israel's 2005 unilateral withdrawal from Gaza on the "pragmatic" grounds that greater Palestinian freedom would lead to better relations with Israel and that the international community would support Israel if it needed to defend itself in the case that things didn't go as planned. Hamas's takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007 disproved the first argument. The Goldstone Report in 2009 helped bury the second. The Israeli electorate will not easily be convinced to withdraw from the West Bank on the basis of such arguments in the future.

I can't say I'm sympathetic.

As a first step it wasn't bad. But you didn't really give anything up. After all you kept the right to invade, and blockade.

This is actually one reason I find the South Africa comparison is apt. The Whites of SA would decide to make some concession to the international community, such as formally giving up sovereignty over the areas where most blacks lived, and then they'd destroy it by only giving the new countries land nobody wanted and making people who hadn't been home to the country for three generations citizens of the new Bantustan. They then claimed they were perfectly Democratic because only the whites were technically citizens of South Africa. Then when it didn't work they'd get defensive, vote conservative, and blame the anti-western enemy of the day: Communists.

In the same way you guys give up jack-squat in Gaza, claim your perfectly democratic and noble because you just gave up Gaza, elect Netanyahu, and then blame the west's current enemy (Islamic Terrorists) when it doesn't work.

You want a gesture that would convince me you're a democracy? You annexed East Jerusalem, and with it you obtained hundreds of thousands of Arabs. But they can't get citizenship because they don't want to pledge allegiance to the country that conquered them. They get residency instead. Just waive the Oath of Allegiance requirement in East Jerusalem. Heck just say residents are citizens. And remember, the whole point of a gesture like this is that it's something a normal country wouldn't do, and it's a big deal.

What Obama Should do re: the Shutdown

He should let it happen.

Right now the problem is that House and Senate can't agree on a bill. Formally he can't do jack. Informally he could persuade, offer trades, etc., but he can't actually force these guys to agree. That's kinda the point of Separation of Powers. He should go on TV, and explain that.

He should also explain exactly why the GOP proposal is a bad idea.

War Update

A lot's going on. The Turks sent a ship in to help evacuate Misrata, which has managed to hold off Gaddafi's forces for several weeks. Conditions were so bad they had to be escorted by 10 F-16s and teo frigates, but had to retreat almost immediately. Gaddafi seems to have decided he's not gonna get the big players in the war to stop shooting at him, so he's sent somebody to Greece. It's possible he'll get a favorable hearing in Greece, as he's got money and the Greeks are desperate for it. There's widespread speculation the war is a stalemate. The rebels are organizing an army.

According to her father Eman al-Obeidy has disappeared. Gaddafi's people swear she's free, maybe at a woman's shelter, or with her family, but apparently her parents haven't seen her. They claim they were offered a substantial bribe if she'd change her story.

Overall it's good news for the rebels. Turks aren't likely to turn on them after the incident in Misrata showed them how bad Gaddafi is, and the al-Obeidy situation won't help the regime much either.

More importantly the rebels are holding, which means the trick Gaddafi used to rout them a few days back has stopped working, and they seem to be making progress building an army. If true the speculation over the stalemate is premature, and Gaddafi's regime will probably collapse in a few weeks.

Detroit still extremely segregated

The big surprise?

We're only #4. Milwaukee, New York, and Chicago are all worse.

Rebel Peace Offer

Some folks seem to think the rebel's latest peace offer is evidence they think they've lost. The Christian Science Monitor, for example, has the headline Libyan rebels offer cease-fire. Does Qaddafi have the upper hand?. These people are wrong.

Here's the rebel's offer: Qaddafi has to offer Libyans freedom, and his troops have to leave the cities. Since Gaddafi is in power giht now solely because of the troops in the cities, and nobody has tried to use freedom to do anything bit oust Gaddafi for 40 years, it's hard to believe he'd last a week after agreeing to these terms. Which means he's not going to agree to them.

The rebels military sucks, but the rebellion is chock-full of people who are former members of Gaddafi's cabinet. They know he can't say yes. That means the offer is political posturing, intended to show that they aren't mere western stooges out to get an anti-western leader.

If the rebels wanted to give up the smart thing to do would be take up Gaddafi's offer of partitioning the country. If it's still good saying yes would save them from his retribution. Since they aren't accepting the offer it's apparent they don't think Gaddafi is about to crush them. They think they've got a decent chance of winning the war, and are keen to try.

Libya Again

The overall situation hasn't changed for the better. Gaddafi stormed the western-most city that was defying him, according to the opposition he destroyed it in the process, but nobody can confirm that one way or the other because Gaddafi isn't letting troops in.

There's goodish news in that the rebels have apparently (finally) made some officers. They've got an effort to retake the land Gaddafi took over the past few days that seems to be fairly organized.

Apparently we're pulling most of our jets out. In some ways that isn't a surprise -- now that the no-fly zone is established most of what the USAF is doing can be done by other countries. Specfically:

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told Congress the U.S. will “significantly ramp down our commitment” to Libya except for electronic warfare, aerial refueling and surveillance.

It's not a total withdrawal of combat aircraft. If NATO really needs an A-10 for something all they'll have to do is ask. But since 20 of the 28 NATO member states and Qatar are contributing aircraft our boys don't need to be on the front lines anymore.