Later On

Interesting:

The rules are simple: don’t talk about politics, religion, sex, certainly not masturbation, and definitely don’t question how someone parents their children. After all, what are you going to do if the person you’re talking to is unwilling to appreciate your point of view? Can you handle a violent argument or an exhausting bout of strained silence? Out of fear, people hide from a number of important issues and a lot of relationships never build the strength to tolerate the intense emotions that arise during disagreements. As a clinical psychologist, I can tell you that handling conflict is essential to our well-being, healthy relationships, healthy workplaces, and healthy communities.

The truth is conflicts are inevitable. Human beings were never designed to live in the densely packed settings of modern society. With so many people in our personal space, so many emotions to read from so many faces, disagreements and arguments are unavoidable. It could be a romantic couple bickering on a regular basis about how to discipline their children. It could be a financially unstable business trying to negotiate a purchase with a stubborn buyer. It could be two nations that are inches away from war. Usually there is some value in negotiating some common ground to prevent conflicts from escalating into violent endings.

Researchers at Stanford University tested a simple idea for how to create successful outcomes during tense negotiations or conflicts. The reason that arguments can quickly turn ugly is that people don’t feel as if they’re being understood. Thus, make sure that each party feels as if they are being carefully listened to.

If people show that they are curious and willing to learn more about someone else’s opposing view, this might be the key to diplomacy. That is, ask a single clarifying question about what another person’s view is about. That’s it. One question with a few important guidelines: …

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This post points out that the interviewer knows no more about climate change than Dr. Dyson.

The site is here, and from it, this post:

The Final Report of the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy

Highlights| comments »

After a year of researching, interviewing experts, holding meetings and debates, the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy publishes its final report, evaluating the current Drug Policy and its impacts on the Region. From the struggle against narcotics to the international interactions associated with this issue, including the efforts to curb illicit drug production, transportation and commerce, this document sets the Latin American countries in the international drug trafficking context, exposing failures and successes, and shedding light on ways to end this scourge.

To read the full Report, click this link

An opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal written by: Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the former president of Brazil; César Gaviria, a former president of Colombia; and Ernesto Zedillo, a former president of Mexico. It begins:

The war on drugs has failed. And it’s high time to replace an ineffective strategy with more humane and efficient drug policies. This is the central message of the report by the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy we presented to the public recently in Rio de Janeiro.

Prohibitionist policies based on eradication, interdiction and criminalization of consumption simply haven’t worked. Violence and the organized crime associated with the narcotics trade remain critical problems in our countries. Latin America remains the world’s largest exporter of cocaine and cannabis, and is fast becoming a major supplier of opium and heroin. Today, we are further than ever from the goal of eradicating drugs.

Over the last 30 years, Colombia implemented all conceivable measures to fight the drug trade in a massive effort where the benefits were not proportional to the resources invested. Despite the country’s achievements in lowering levels of violence and crime, the areas of illegal cultivation are again expanding. In Mexico — another epicenter of drug trafficking — narcotics-related violence has claimed more than 5,000 lives in the past year alone.

The revision of U.S.-inspired drug policies is urgent in light of …

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Jefferson Morley in the Washington Independent:

When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told Bloomberg today that “it’s absolutely essential that we come out of this year with a substantial health-care reform,” and “the best prospect for that to happen is to do it under reconciliation” — the process by which legislation would only need 51 votes to pass, rather than the 60 votes ordinarily required to end debate — she was obliquely referring to what is fast emerging as the central issue in health care reform: the so-called “public plan.”

President Obama laid out  the idea in his “Open for Questions” online town hall Thursday.

If you’ve got a preexisting condition you’re not going to be excluded but you’re going to be able to obtain health insurance.  And if you can’t obtain it through a private plan then there is going to a public plan that is available in some way to give you insurance, or insurers are obligated to provide you with insurance in some way. Now that’s a principle.

It’s a principle that opponents of the strongest health care reform plans hate. While supportive of the general idea of expanding coverage, leaders of the  insurance and pharmaceutical industries stepped up their attacks on the public plan concept this week. It’s also why Howard Dean’s Democracy for America launched its health care reform campaign yesterday with the demand that the inclusion of a public plan in any upcoming health care legislation must be “non-negotiable.”

For Obama and sympathetic left-liberal policy wonks, the question is what form the public plan should take in order to insure congressional approval. Ezra Klein of the American Prospect sketched three options, while Harold Pollack, University of Chicago researcher and blogger for The New Republic, identified the central political reality:

“Among the many components of candidate Obama’s proposed healthcare plan, the public plan is the one most likely to be thrown under the bus in negotiations seeking a final bill.”

The public jockeying over the idea of packaging health care reform in a budget resolution that doesn’t require 60 votes for Senate consideration is the opening phase of these negotiations. With Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) opposed to a public plan, any reform package that includes it is unlikely to get 60 votes — but it might get 51. To put it another way, if Obama forgoes the reconciliation process in pursuing health care, the public plan is much more likely to go under the bus.

While the US buries its head in the sand. Glenn Greenwald notes:

One of the problems for the U.S. Government in releasing Guantanamo detainees has been that, upon release, they are free to talk to the world about the treatment to which they were subjected.  When the Bush administration agreed to release Australian David Hicks after almost 6 years in captivity, they did so only on the condition that he first sign a documenting stating that he was not abused and that he also agree — as The Australian put it — to an "extraordinary 12-month gag order that prevent[ed] Hicks from speaking publicly about the actions to which he has pleaded guilty or the circumstances surrounding his capture, interrogation and detention," a gag order which "also silence[d] family members and any third party."

Last month, in response to increasing pressure in Britain over reports of British resident Binyam Mohamed’s deterioration in Guantanamo, the Obama administration released him back to Britain.  Ever since, he has been detailing the often brutal torture to which he was subjected over several years, torture in which British intelligence officials appear to have been, at the very least, complicit.  As a result, despite the efforts of both the British Government and the Obama administration to keep concealed what was done to Mohamed, the facts about his treatment have emerged and a major political controversy has been ignited.

That’s because torture is illegal in Britain, as it is in the United States.  But unlike the United States:   Britain hasn’t completely abandoned the idea that even political officials must be accountable when they commit crimes; their political discourse isn’t dominated and infected by the subservient government-defending likes of David Ignatius, Ruth Marcus, David Broder and Stuart Taylor demanding that government officials be free to commit even serious war crimes with total impunity; and they don’t have "opposition leaders" who are so afraid of their own shadows and/or so supportive of torture that they remain mute in the face of such allegations.  To the contrary, demands for criminal investigations into these episodes of torture (including demands for war crimes investigations from conservatives) span the political spectrum in Britain: …

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I discovered this jewel via Michael O’Hare’s post on The Reality-Based Community.

Check it out. More info (and additional educational resources) here.

A while back I blogged a link to a guy who became more interested in the Kindle once he viewed it as a text-oriented Netbook with free wireless. Now MakeUseOf.com has an interesting post on the opposite tack: view a Netbook as a Kindle with computer capabilities. Go read. Ponder.

This sounds absolutely delicious:

12 ounces black beans, washed and picked over for stones, soaked in 2 quarts water for six hours or overnight
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 teaspoons lightly toasted cumin seeds, ground
4 large garlic cloves, minced
Salt, preferably kosher salt, to taste
2 canned chipotle chiles in adobo, seeded [? she must be kidding – LG] and finely chopped
12 ounces (two bags) baby spinach
1/2 cup chopped cilantro, plus additional for garnish if desired

1. Soak the beans in the water for at least six hours. If they will be soaking for a long time in warm weather, put them in the refrigerator.

2. Heat the oil over medium heat in a large, heavy soup pot or Dutch oven, and add the onion. Cook, stirring, until it begins to soften, about three minutes, and add half the garlic and the cumin. Cook, stirring, until fragrant, about one minute, and add the beans and soaking water. They should be covered by two inches of water. Add more water as needed, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, and skim off any foam that rises. Cover and simmer one hour.

3. Add the salt, chipotles, remaining garlic and half the cilantro. Continue to simmer another hour, until the beans are quite soft and the broth is thick and fragrant. Taste and adjust seasonings. Let sit overnight in the refrigerator for the best flavor.

4. Partially purée the soup using an immersion blender, or puree 2 cups of the beans with a small amount of broth in a blender or a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Stir back into the soup. Bring to a simmer. Add the spinach, a handful at a time, and simmer for five minutes. Stir in the remaining cilantro, and taste and adjust seasonings. Serve with warm corn tortillas, garnishing each bowl with queso fresca.

Yield: Serves six

Advance preparation: The cooked beans will keep for three to four days in the refrigerator, and they freeze well. Bring back to a simmer and add the spinach before serving.

Good review of the new Prius. Many nice refinements, plus better mileage.

Of course, that probably won’t stop them, but still… This is from ThinkProgress:

President Obama has signaled that he is open to using the tactic of budget reconciliation to advance health care reform and cap-and-trade. Reconciliation allows some legislation to be protected from filibusters and passed by a simple majority vote. Speaking at the Heritage Foundation today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) conceded that when Republicans were in power, they had laid the “groundwork” for reconciliation by frequently employing the procedure to pass major Bush agenda items:

MCCAIN: I fully recognize that Republicans have in the past engaged in using reconciliation to further the party’s agenda. I wish it had not been done then, and I hope it will not be done now that the groundwork has been laid.

Watch it:

McCain has a mixed record on reconciliation bills. Though he opposed the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts passed through reconciliation, he supported other Bush agenda items passed through reconciliation, such as legislation to reduce spending on Medicaid.

McCain’s comments today stand in stark contrast with the central argument being made by other Republican Senators on reconciliation — that it is somehow a radical shift in Senate procedure. For example, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), the GOP ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee, compared reconciliation to “running over the minority, putting them in cement and throwing them in the Chicago River.”

McCain is right that Republicans laid the groundwork for using reconciliation. Since 1995, Republicans have pushed everything from the Contract with America, to welfare reform, to tax cuts targeted at the rich, to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, using reconciliation. Republican leaders even fired successive Senate parliamentarians who disagreed with their use of reconciliation.

Will other Republican Senators wake up from their political amnesia and accept that they have no standing to reject budget reconciliation now?

Daphne Eviatar in the Washington Independent:

It’s interesting to note the contrast when someone charges government complicity with torture in the United Kingdom, versus here in the United States.

Ever since Binyam Mohamed — the Ethiopian-born Guantanamo detainee who claims he was tortured as part of the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program (and whom I’ve written about previously here) — was returned to Britain, his case has caused an uproar there because he claims that the British intelligence agents colluded with the United States government in his torture.

Today, Baroness Patricia Scotland QC  — said she would refer the evidence, both classified and not, to the police, to begin an investigation.

“I have expressed to the Commissioner the hope that the investigation can be taken forward as expeditiously as possible given the seriousness and sensitivity of the issues involved,” she said in a statement released today.

Meanwhile, here in the United States, despite repeated calls for the attorney general to launch an investigation into the CIA’s extraordinary rendition practices and the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib, Bagram and Guantanamo Bay, Attorney General Eric Holder has equivocated (as has President Obama) and no such criminal investigation has begun. (The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, on the other hand, is investigating the CIA’s practices, as I’ve reported, but not for criminal culpability. And a previous Senate Armed Services Committee investigation, despite damning results that orders for abusive and inhumane conduct came from the highest levels of the Bush administration, has likewise not led to a criminal investigation.) …

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A really terrific shave today. The lather, from Vintage Blades’s own shaving soap worked up with the Rooney Style 2 Finest, was excellent, but the star of the show was the aged Gillette NEW, 88 years old this year, with a Gilolette blade. I’m now thinking that the Gillette NEW, with the longer comb (as shown), might be the best beginner razor, since the comb seems more protective than the straight bar. Just a notion, not a fact. At any rate, the razor did a superb job, and Stetson’s Sierra was a fine finish—I really like that fragrance.

Froomkin is uncharacteristically flip in this post. The offensive part:

The White House’s first online town hall mined the discontents of a nation upset about schools, worried about mortgages and college costs, despairing over lost jobs, eager for universal health care — and, oh yes, yearning for the legalization of marijuana.

Okay, the marijuana question was a good example of the downsides of Internet voting. But overall, I would say that this experiment was a roaring success.

If you look through the comments, you will quickly see that Froomkin’s attitude (and Obama’s) was not well received. It was a serious question, but within the Beltway, the thing to do is to make fun of the question and hope it goes away.

Very disappointing.

Stopped by the library to pick up a couple of young adult novels written in Spanish. One was Como Agua Para Chocolate.

I got four duck legs to try this recipe by Mark Bittman:

Braised Duck With Green Beans, Thai Style

Yield 4 servings

Time 1 1/2 to 2 hours

If you can find duck legs in the store, go with those. If you can buy only a whole duck, the procedure for cutting it up is almost identical to that for cutting up a chicken. The joints are a bit trickier to find, but they are in the same places.

• 4 duck legs or 1 duck, cut into quarters
• Salt and pepper
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 1 tablespoon minced ginger
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 or 2 small chilies, seeded and minced, or crushed red chili flakes to taste
• 1 1/2 pounds green beans, trimmed
• 1 tablespoon sugar, or to taste
• 2 tablespoons nam pla or soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons lime juice, or to taste
• Coarsely chopped fresh cilantro leaves for garnish, optional

1. Remove excess fat from duck or duck legs. Season with salt and pepper, and put in a skillet that will fit it comfortably; turn heat to medium, and cover. Check once you hear sizzling: duck should be simmering in its own fat and exuding liquid. Adjust heat to create a steady simmer.

2. Once bottom browns, turn. Eventually liquid will evaporate and duck will cook in fat only; at this point, lower heat and continue to cook duck, turning once in a while, until it becomes tender, about an hour.

3. Transfer duck to a plate. Pour off all but a couple of tablespoons of fat. Turn heat to medium high, and add onion; cook, stirring occasionally, until it softens, about 5 minutes. Add ginger, garlic and chilies and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds. Add beans and sugar and turn heat to high; cook, stirring occasionally, until beans begin to brown, about 5 minutes.

4. Add 2 tablespoons water and nam pla or soy sauce. Put duck on top of bean mixture and bring to a simmer. Cover and cook until both beans and duck are very tender, 15 to 30 more minutes, adding a little more water if necessary to keep mixture moist. (You can prepare dish in advance up to this point; cover and set aside until ready to eat, then reheat.) Uncover and stir in lime juice; taste and adjust seasoning, then sprinkle with cilantro and serve.

I see I didn’t get the green beans. Oh, well: the duck legs have to thaw overnight anyway.

A top constitutional scholar says, "Yes" in an interview with Naomi Wolfe. Ms. Wolfe begins:

In early March, more shocking details emerged about George W. Bush legal counsel John Yoo’s memos outlining the destruction of the republic.

The memos lay the legal groundwork for the president to send the military to wage war against U.S. citizens; take them from their homes to Navy brigs without trial and keep them forever; close down the First Amendment; and invade whatever country he chooses without regard to any treaty or objection by Congress.

It was as if Milton’s Satan had a law degree and was establishing within the borders of the United States the architecture of hell.

I thought this was — and is — certainly one of the biggest stories of our lifetime, making the petty burglary of Watergate — which scandalized the nation — seem like playground antics. It is newsworthy too with the groundswell of support for prosecutions of Bush/Cheney crimes and recent actions such as Canadian attorneys mobilizing to arrest Bush if he visits their country.

The memos are a confession. The memos could not be clearer: This was the legal groundwork of an attempted coup. I expected massive front page headlines from the revelation that these memos exited. Almost nothing. I was shocked.

As a non-lawyer, was I completely off base in my reading of what this meant, I wondered? Was I hallucinating?

Astonished, I sought a reality check — and a formal legal read — from one of the nation’s top constitutional scholars (and most steadfast patriots), Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has been at the forefront of defending the detainees and our own liberties.

Here is our conversation:

Naomi Wolf: Michael, can you explain to a layperson what the Yoo memos actually mean?

Read the rest of this entry »

Very interesting presentation. The intro:

Nearly all of the economic analyses we see today have as their basic premise a view that the current financial crisis is a temporary aberration. We will have a V or U shaped recovery, especially if enough stimulus is applied, and the economy will soon be back to Business as Usual.

I believe this assumption is basically incorrect. The current financial crisis is a direct result of peak oil. There may be oscillations in the economic situation, but generally, we can’t expect things to get much better. In fact, there is a very distinct possibility that things may get very much worse in the next few years.

In this post, I will put together some of the pieces I see. This post is based on a presentation, so includes more than the usual amount of graphics. The post repeats many things I have said before, but I wanted to bring more of the pieces together into more of an overview article. This is a link to a PDF version of the presentation. This is a link to the PowerPoint version.

Worth reading:

A few things struck me in the “resignation letter” of Jake DeSantis, an executive vice president of the American International Group’s financial products unit. (People don’t normally forward their letters of resignation to The New York Times)

First, of course, is his justified sense of outrage at having been abandoned by his boss, AIG chief Ed Liddy, before Congress and at having his bonus essentially taken away. “Like you, I was asked to work for an annual salary of $1, and I agreed out of a sense of duty to the company and to the public officials who have come to its aid. Having now been let down by both, I can no longer justify spending 10, 12, 14 hours a day away from my family for the benefit of those who have let me down.”

But a few other sentences stand out in my mind as emblematic of the mindset that has created some of this mess.

“I was in no way involved in — or responsible for — the credit default swap transactions that have hamstrung A.I.G.” The list of who to vilify grows ever smaller. Even colleagues in the financial products unit are determined to distance themselves from the credit default swaps. These were highly profitable products produced by highly compensated (and, I would guess, much celebrated) people when times were good. Now, it would appear that a handful of largely anonymous—and now departed—executives are responsible for AIG’s downfall, not an institution that fostered and rewarded a culture of risk.

“The profitability of the businesses with which I was associated clearly supported my compensation.” This is the argument that …

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Very interesting:

Kalan Gazar, Afghanistan – In this remote area amid the rough-hewn mountains of northern Afghanistan, a man gingerly steps forward at a village assembly.

"Why did you spend so much money on cement?" he asks village leaders – the first time he has so openly questioned authority.

They check their records and reply: "The cement is high quality, and it was the best deal we could find."

The man sits back down, apparently satisfied.

This bland exchange – one of many at a meeting where local officials must defend their use of public funds – is part of a ground-breaking program to bring accountability to a nation ranked one of five most corrupt by Transparency International, a corruption watchdog. The problem extends from top officials to local village leaders, and it’s fueling anger at the government and building support for the insurgency.

Now, villagers trained by an international nonprofit are tackling corruption at the local level through "social audits." They gather to …

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