i can't believe something actually went well before new years day.
we met noz jr. yesterday. it's still a slow process. we'll be in kaz for at least another month, maybe two. but at least we are finally on track for a happy ending.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
wifi?
since baji managed to find (see comments) a restaurant with wifi in aktobe, can anyone find me a hot spot in taraz? there doesn't seem to be any here.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
the trip to taraz
"where is N?" i ask
"he is getting the tickets printed." replied our in-country coordinator.
we were sitting in N's car in the almaty train station parking lot. we had just arrived in almaty the night before and were immediately told that we should go to taraz. as we waited our program coodinator explained why we needed to get there right away. the problem was that because of the new years holiday all the plane and train tickets were sold out. but N, the coordinator's guy, could somehow score us some train tickets while we waited in the parking lot.
after some waiting, N appeared, grabbed one of our bags and practically ran into the station with them. we grabbed our remaining bags and went after him. he ran across the train tracks, then threw the bag under a standing train and crawled after it to the other side. me, mrs. noz and the coordinator did the same with our remaining bags.
on the other side, people were boarding the train. we weren't sure what to do because we still didn't have tickets. then a conductor and N appeared at one of the train doors and told us to get onboard. N. took us to a compartment, shoved our bags in the storage areas and then asked for money for the "tickets."
as mrs. noz paid, i said, "where are the tickets?" don't worry about it" said the coordinator. "this is normal in kazakhstan."
they left the train and we started to move. we had no tickets but they had gotten us on the train.
the problem with bribing your way onto a sold out train is that eventually someone will show up with a ticket for your seat. just a few minutes into the trip we stopped at the other almaty train station and that is just what happened. the conductor who helped bring us on the train mediated and found a seat for me in another part of the train. i moved several cars away from mrs. noz, while she stayed with our luggage in the original compartment.
ten minutes after i found my new seat, mrs. noz showed up. she said that a police officer had taken her passport and that he was demanding to see her husband. i was about to follow her when the conductor came by and promised to get back her passport without my help. they both went back to the other part of the train.
a few minutes after that, the police showed up at my compartment. they wanted to see everyone's passport and train ticket. all i had was my passport. they took my passport and had me follow them to a small room at the end of the car. for the next ten minutes i was crammed in that little room with an old cop and a younger cop. the older cop yelled at me in russian while the younger one glared at me. i thought the younger guy was going to hit me. all i did is repeat over and over that i didn't speak russian and did not understand. the younger officer sometimes would make a gesture with his hands like he was eating. it felt just like that time in samarkand in 2003.
at one point the older officer got on his cell phone and made a phone call. when he hung up and wrote "100$" on a newspaper. he pointed at the number and said something to me in russian. i put on the blankest look i could muster and said "no ruskie, i don't understand." the officer kept pointing and pointing, i just kept pretending that i didn't know what he was talking about.
eventually he gave up, tossed my passport back at me and let me go back to my seat. the rest of the trip was mostly uneventful (well, except for mrs. noz making friends with half the train).
"he is getting the tickets printed." replied our in-country coordinator.
we were sitting in N's car in the almaty train station parking lot. we had just arrived in almaty the night before and were immediately told that we should go to taraz. as we waited our program coodinator explained why we needed to get there right away. the problem was that because of the new years holiday all the plane and train tickets were sold out. but N, the coordinator's guy, could somehow score us some train tickets while we waited in the parking lot.
after some waiting, N appeared, grabbed one of our bags and practically ran into the station with them. we grabbed our remaining bags and went after him. he ran across the train tracks, then threw the bag under a standing train and crawled after it to the other side. me, mrs. noz and the coordinator did the same with our remaining bags.
on the other side, people were boarding the train. we weren't sure what to do because we still didn't have tickets. then a conductor and N appeared at one of the train doors and told us to get onboard. N. took us to a compartment, shoved our bags in the storage areas and then asked for money for the "tickets."
as mrs. noz paid, i said, "where are the tickets?" don't worry about it" said the coordinator. "this is normal in kazakhstan."
they left the train and we started to move. we had no tickets but they had gotten us on the train.
the problem with bribing your way onto a sold out train is that eventually someone will show up with a ticket for your seat. just a few minutes into the trip we stopped at the other almaty train station and that is just what happened. the conductor who helped bring us on the train mediated and found a seat for me in another part of the train. i moved several cars away from mrs. noz, while she stayed with our luggage in the original compartment.
ten minutes after i found my new seat, mrs. noz showed up. she said that a police officer had taken her passport and that he was demanding to see her husband. i was about to follow her when the conductor came by and promised to get back her passport without my help. they both went back to the other part of the train.
a few minutes after that, the police showed up at my compartment. they wanted to see everyone's passport and train ticket. all i had was my passport. they took my passport and had me follow them to a small room at the end of the car. for the next ten minutes i was crammed in that little room with an old cop and a younger cop. the older cop yelled at me in russian while the younger one glared at me. i thought the younger guy was going to hit me. all i did is repeat over and over that i didn't speak russian and did not understand. the younger officer sometimes would make a gesture with his hands like he was eating. it felt just like that time in samarkand in 2003.
at one point the older officer got on his cell phone and made a phone call. when he hung up and wrote "100$" on a newspaper. he pointed at the number and said something to me in russian. i put on the blankest look i could muster and said "no ruskie, i don't understand." the officer kept pointing and pointing, i just kept pretending that i didn't know what he was talking about.
eventually he gave up, tossed my passport back at me and let me go back to my seat. the rest of the trip was mostly uneventful (well, except for mrs. noz making friends with half the train).
Saturday, December 26, 2009
and suddenly we're in almaty...
...and tomorrow we've been told we're boarding a train for taraz.
confused? join the club.
confused? join the club.
deep thoughts
i hope this nigeria bomber guy hid the explosives in his underwear when he boarded the plane. the pre-board screening in the u.s. just hasn't been intrusive enough since that shoe bomber attempt.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
so what the hell is going on with us?
yesterday, on our one visit to an internet cafe that day, i found that i was blocked from accessing this site. it looked like whoever had blocked atrios and mustang bobby had noticed me, probably because i wrote about those two being banned. d'oh!
on the other hand, the ban only seems to be in effect at public internet cafes. i can get on with wifi on my own laptop (as i am now). but the hot spots in this town are fewer and farther between, so it means posting has been sparser than i would have wanted.
but there's another reason i haven't written much about our experience here. it's mostly because a lot of the stuff that has happened to us and thus most of what i have been thinking about, is not something i should or want to post on the internet. let's just say that the reason we came here in the first place is not going well. as a result we have spent a lot of time either doing stuff i can't talk about or waiting around for calls in our internet-less (and voicemail-less) apartment. that stuff doesn't just affect my online time, it also means that i haven't seen or done much that is worth posting.
as of last night, it's been clear that our time in aktobe is coming to a close. we are trying to transfer to a different region, which will take some time. but while we wait there is no reason to stay in this small provincial city of 300k with little to see when we could be anywhere in kaz. so either tomorrow or the next day we will fly to almaty, a much more cosmopolitan city of 2 million. that means a trip clear across the country, away from the foothills of the ural mountains and russian border, and over to the tien shien mountains, near the chinese and kyrgyz border. we could take the train instead of flying, but that would take 2 days. this really is a vast empty country.
but before we leave aktobe, there are a few things i can say about the place. first, aktobe is a lot nicer than i imagined it would be. sure, it is cold, but it is remarkable how quickly we have gotten used to dealing with the sub-zero weather. it's just a matter of encasing your body in down. and while the architecture here is mostly either drab soviet-era block apartment buildings or ostentatious large constructions, the kazakhs seem to have made the best of what they inherited from the soviet union. our apartment building is fairly ugly on the outside, with a crumbling dank concrete staircase. but inside it is quite comfortable and fairly modern. we certainly are not roughing it here in any sense of the world. it feels a lot more like the first world than the third when we are in the apt.
kazakhstan definitely seems richer than uzbekistan was 6 years ago when i was there. i'm not sure if it's just the passage of time between 2003 and now, or if kazakhstan's oil and mineral wealth is the culprit, but even in a small city like this, the people do not seem poor. unlike uz in 2003, most of the cars are modern and western. i have seen very few ladas on the road.
yesterday we did go out of the city, to the smaller town of algha, which definitely displayed some poverty. it looked more like what i expected aktobe to be. but we never entered the soviet-block apartments there. for all i know, they could have been like our aktobe place on the inside.
despite our week here, i still feel like we really haven't seen the place. and yet, i am not sorry to go. as much as it exceeded my expectations, the city has an air of sadness for us that will be hard to get around. i am looking forward to a change of scenery if nothing else.
on the other hand, the ban only seems to be in effect at public internet cafes. i can get on with wifi on my own laptop (as i am now). but the hot spots in this town are fewer and farther between, so it means posting has been sparser than i would have wanted.
but there's another reason i haven't written much about our experience here. it's mostly because a lot of the stuff that has happened to us and thus most of what i have been thinking about, is not something i should or want to post on the internet. let's just say that the reason we came here in the first place is not going well. as a result we have spent a lot of time either doing stuff i can't talk about or waiting around for calls in our internet-less (and voicemail-less) apartment. that stuff doesn't just affect my online time, it also means that i haven't seen or done much that is worth posting.
as of last night, it's been clear that our time in aktobe is coming to a close. we are trying to transfer to a different region, which will take some time. but while we wait there is no reason to stay in this small provincial city of 300k with little to see when we could be anywhere in kaz. so either tomorrow or the next day we will fly to almaty, a much more cosmopolitan city of 2 million. that means a trip clear across the country, away from the foothills of the ural mountains and russian border, and over to the tien shien mountains, near the chinese and kyrgyz border. we could take the train instead of flying, but that would take 2 days. this really is a vast empty country.
but before we leave aktobe, there are a few things i can say about the place. first, aktobe is a lot nicer than i imagined it would be. sure, it is cold, but it is remarkable how quickly we have gotten used to dealing with the sub-zero weather. it's just a matter of encasing your body in down. and while the architecture here is mostly either drab soviet-era block apartment buildings or ostentatious large constructions, the kazakhs seem to have made the best of what they inherited from the soviet union. our apartment building is fairly ugly on the outside, with a crumbling dank concrete staircase. but inside it is quite comfortable and fairly modern. we certainly are not roughing it here in any sense of the world. it feels a lot more like the first world than the third when we are in the apt.
kazakhstan definitely seems richer than uzbekistan was 6 years ago when i was there. i'm not sure if it's just the passage of time between 2003 and now, or if kazakhstan's oil and mineral wealth is the culprit, but even in a small city like this, the people do not seem poor. unlike uz in 2003, most of the cars are modern and western. i have seen very few ladas on the road.
yesterday we did go out of the city, to the smaller town of algha, which definitely displayed some poverty. it looked more like what i expected aktobe to be. but we never entered the soviet-block apartments there. for all i know, they could have been like our aktobe place on the inside.
despite our week here, i still feel like we really haven't seen the place. and yet, i am not sorry to go. as much as it exceeded my expectations, the city has an air of sadness for us that will be hard to get around. i am looking forward to a change of scenery if nothing else.
hedy epstein
this morning i was watching our one english language channel and suddenly, my friend hedy epstein appeared on the screen. hedy and i met in 1994, when i was a law student in st. louis and had an clinical internship at a civil rights law firm where hedy worked as a paralegal. hedy lived down the street from me and so i started giving her rides to the office. we hit it off pretty well and soon i was dropping by every sunday morning for coffee. i ended up being hedy's date at her retirement party with the law firm. it was an odd friendship, she a 70-something holocaust survivor/human rights campaigner, and i a 20-something law student. she would tell me stories about being a jewish girl in nazi germany, her evacuation to england on the kindertransport just before the war, the bombing of london, her work as a translator during the nuremberg trials, her emigration to the u.s., and her work as a human rights campaigner and public speaker about the holocaust since then.
i haven't seen hedy in 15 years. when i graduated from law school hedy wasn't really a computer person which made it harder to stay in touch. but every once in a while she seems to pop up. a few years back she appeared in the middle of a documentary about the kindertransport that was made by a relative of mine. but i was completely surprised to be sitting here in this small city in kazakhstan and see hedy appear on the french news channel. apparently hedy is heading to gaza to protest the israeli blockade.
i haven't seen hedy in 15 years. when i graduated from law school hedy wasn't really a computer person which made it harder to stay in touch. but every once in a while she seems to pop up. a few years back she appeared in the middle of a documentary about the kindertransport that was made by a relative of mine. but i was completely surprised to be sitting here in this small city in kazakhstan and see hedy appear on the french news channel. apparently hedy is heading to gaza to protest the israeli blockade.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
drinking liberally-aktobe
it's tuesday, so mrs. noz and i shared an efes beer over dinner. i wanted to get the moldovan wine instead, but we don't have a cork screw and i was running out of time.
otherwise, we're still just waiting. maybe i'll post something useful when i actually know what's going on.
otherwise, we're still just waiting. maybe i'll post something useful when i actually know what's going on.
Monday, December 21, 2009
ugh
it seems weird to not post about what is going on here. but it also doesn't feel right posting about what is going on here either. so i guess i will just write a vague post about how i don't know what to post.
how stinky is it?
one thing about being here that i was really looking forward to is getting a bit of a break from the frustrating world of politics.
we don't have internet from home. the only online access are a bunch of internet cafes that are a short hike through the permafrost in -15 degree weather. we don't generally do that more than once or twice a day. and when we do, i tend not to spend a lot of time reading news. we're getting a ton of messages we need to respond to every day.
other than that, our only news from the outside world is our TV. we get about 70 channels, but they are all in russian or kazakh. except one. we get france-24's english channel for some reason. it seems like an odd choice if you're going to provide only one foreign-language channel, but it does give us some news source for when we're sitting around at home.
so yesterday i saw a brief piece about how senator nelson signed on to be the 60th vote for the plan. it just didn't say which plan it was talking about. so how shitty is this plan? because lieberman was apparently onboard already (he wasn't when i left), it probably was a pretty crappy watered-down plan. is there any good summary out there that i can read if i'm nostalgic for a little frustration and don't have a lot of time?
we don't have internet from home. the only online access are a bunch of internet cafes that are a short hike through the permafrost in -15 degree weather. we don't generally do that more than once or twice a day. and when we do, i tend not to spend a lot of time reading news. we're getting a ton of messages we need to respond to every day.
other than that, our only news from the outside world is our TV. we get about 70 channels, but they are all in russian or kazakh. except one. we get france-24's english channel for some reason. it seems like an odd choice if you're going to provide only one foreign-language channel, but it does give us some news source for when we're sitting around at home.
so yesterday i saw a brief piece about how senator nelson signed on to be the 60th vote for the plan. it just didn't say which plan it was talking about. so how shitty is this plan? because lieberman was apparently onboard already (he wasn't when i left), it probably was a pretty crappy watered-down plan. is there any good summary out there that i can read if i'm nostalgic for a little frustration and don't have a lot of time?
Sunday, December 20, 2009
blocked?
i haven't had a lot of time to goof around on the internet yet, but at least some of the blogs i visit don't seem to load here. for example, eschaton and bark bark, woof woof. they weren't blocked when i was in far more restrictive countries than this one, like syria. we shall see if they still don't load if i try them from a different internet cafe, or use the mythical aktobe hotspot.
luckily, i haven't had any problem getting on this site.
UPDATE (12/21/09): i'm at a different internet cafe on a different browser and so i tried going to eschaton again. i got this:
but i managed to find a work-around. i went to google translate to find out what the above message says. rather than cutting and pasting the above russian into the translate field, i put the url, http://www.eschatonblog.com/. that didn't give me a translation, it, it just directed me to atrios' page. that trick seems to work for all the blocked sites. woo-hoo!
luckily, i haven't had any problem getting on this site.
UPDATE (12/21/09): i'm at a different internet cafe on a different browser and so i tried going to eschaton again. i got this:
Вы попытались получить доступ к адресу http://www.eschatonblog.com/, который сейчас недоступен. Убедитесь, что веб-адрес (URL) введен правильно, и попытайтесь перезагрузить страницу.
Убедитесь, что соединение с Интернет активно, и проверьте, работают ли другие приложения, использующие это соединение.
but i managed to find a work-around. i went to google translate to find out what the above message says. rather than cutting and pasting the above russian into the translate field, i put the url, http://www.eschatonblog.com/. that didn't give me a translation, it, it just directed me to atrios' page. that trick seems to work for all the blocked sites. woo-hoo!
Saturday, December 19, 2009
aktobe
we finally stopped traveling about an hour ago when we reached our flat in aktobe (i'm calling it a flat. i'm allowed to because it's not in the u.s.) the travel seemed endless, but it is finally over, about 80 hours after we left our house on wednesday.
i'm pretty freaking tired. i've only gotten about 8-9 hours of sleep since we started.
but we're here. and it's cold. they told it's -17 C right now. when our last flight took off, from almaty on our way to aktobe, the city of almaty quickly gave way to endless snow-covered steppe. when we went over the clouds, it didn't look all that much different from the ground.
i'm pretty freaking tired. i've only gotten about 8-9 hours of sleep since we started.
but we're here. and it's cold. they told it's -17 C right now. when our last flight took off, from almaty on our way to aktobe, the city of almaty quickly gave way to endless snow-covered steppe. when we went over the clouds, it didn't look all that much different from the ground.
Friday, December 18, 2009
vampyre wyll syrve tyme
i think my favorite vampyre is moving on from politics.
also "rocky flash"? when did sharkey start calling himself that? i've been following this closer than anyone, dammit! how could i miss an new pseudonym?
also "rocky flash"? when did sharkey start calling himself that? i've been following this closer than anyone, dammit! how could i miss an new pseudonym?
Thursday, December 17, 2009
are we there yet?
our single day in frankfurt is drawing to a close. when i was a kid i had a dream, a simple dream really, and that was to eat a hot dog in frankfurt and a hamburger in hamburg. i've never been to hamburg, and before today i had never been to frankfurt (other than transiting through the airport). when i arrived this morning, out of loyalty of the lil noz of days-gone-by, i fully intended to find and eat a hot dog. or at least some kind of sausage that i could call a hot dog.
the problem is that over the intervening years, i've pretty much lost my taste for hot dogs. i had a chance this afternoon, but i decided instead to just have some glühwein. somewhere in time, the old me is disappointed. but luckily the new me doesn't really care.
tomorrow, we finally board a plane that will actually take us to kazakhstan, but not the city where we will be living for the next two months (give or take). to get there, we need to take yet another plane. it feels like we've been traveling forever. but in terms of total time, it's only halfway done.
the problem is that over the intervening years, i've pretty much lost my taste for hot dogs. i had a chance this afternoon, but i decided instead to just have some glühwein. somewhere in time, the old me is disappointed. but luckily the new me doesn't really care.
tomorrow, we finally board a plane that will actually take us to kazakhstan, but not the city where we will be living for the next two months (give or take). to get there, we need to take yet another plane. it feels like we've been traveling forever. but in terms of total time, it's only halfway done.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
happy kazakhstani independence day!
six years ago, i arrived in uzbekistan just after that country's independence day. i guess arriving right after that celebration is what i do with all the central asian countries.
we're leaving home in about an hour and a half. we have 1.5 days in frankfurt and then we continue to almaty, 11 time zones away, and then switch planes again and back up to aqtobe only 10 time zones away. i do plan to post while i'm away, i just don't know how often that will be.
we're leaving home in about an hour and a half. we have 1.5 days in frankfurt and then we continue to almaty, 11 time zones away, and then switch planes again and back up to aqtobe only 10 time zones away. i do plan to post while i'm away, i just don't know how often that will be.
i gave in
i paid for the friggin upgrade. i wouldn't have done it if i weren't leaving for kazakhstan today. oh well, that ten bucks at least buys me a year to find another free comment service that i like.
meanwhile, echo is importing all my haloscan comments now. i have no idea what will happen when it's done. if i need to tweak the settings when it does finish, it may take me a few days to get around to it. i got more important stuff to deal with right now.
meanwhile, echo is importing all my haloscan comments now. i have no idea what will happen when it's done. if i need to tweak the settings when it does finish, it may take me a few days to get around to it. i got more important stuff to deal with right now.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
true more-or-less transcript of the telephone conversation i had with my health insurance company this morning
me: "hi, i will be spending the next two months in kazakhstan and i'm calling to find out what kind of health coverage i will have when i'm there."
co. rep: "where are you going?"
me: "kazakhstan."
co. rep: "what state is that in?"
me: "no, it's not in the united states. kazakhstan is another country. i'm calling to find out what health coverage i would be eligible for when i am in kazakhstan, outside the united states."
co. rep: "oh, okay. hold on a minute."
[time passes on hold]
co. rep: "i need to clarify, what part of mexico will you be in?"
me: "what? mexico?"
co. rep: "when you're in mexico will it be a resort town, or somewhere else."
me: "did you connect to the right person? i'm asking about kazakhstan, not mexico."
co. rep: "right, that's what i said."
me: "i'm confused. what was your question?"
co. rep: "wait, are you going to mexico or not?"
me: "no, i'm going to kazakhstan"
co. rep: "can you spell that?"
me: "k-a-z-a-k-h-s-t-a-n"
co. rep: "please hold"
[more time passes on hold. then out of the blue she comes back]
co. rep: "yes, but only for emergencies."
--------
UPDATE: at drinking liberally tonight, mithras suggested that the co. rep. probably thought i was saying cozumel. which makes her apparent fixation with mexico seem a bit less random. i honestly never thought of that.
co. rep: "where are you going?"
me: "kazakhstan."
co. rep: "what state is that in?"
me: "no, it's not in the united states. kazakhstan is another country. i'm calling to find out what health coverage i would be eligible for when i am in kazakhstan, outside the united states."
co. rep: "oh, okay. hold on a minute."
[time passes on hold]
co. rep: "i need to clarify, what part of mexico will you be in?"
me: "what? mexico?"
co. rep: "when you're in mexico will it be a resort town, or somewhere else."
me: "did you connect to the right person? i'm asking about kazakhstan, not mexico."
co. rep: "right, that's what i said."
me: "i'm confused. what was your question?"
co. rep: "wait, are you going to mexico or not?"
me: "no, i'm going to kazakhstan"
co. rep: "can you spell that?"
me: "k-a-z-a-k-h-s-t-a-n"
co. rep: "please hold"
[more time passes on hold. then out of the blue she comes back]
co. rep: "yes, but only for emergencies."
--------
UPDATE: at drinking liberally tonight, mithras suggested that the co. rep. probably thought i was saying cozumel. which makes her apparent fixation with mexico seem a bit less random. i honestly never thought of that.
leaving liberally
i just got the word that we are leaving tomorrow for kazakhstan. they gave us a whole 27 hours notice. woo-hoo!
but just because i'm leaving the country for two months tomorrow doesn't mean that i won't be at drinking liberally tonight! okay, i'll only be there for the first hour. this will be my last DL for a while (aside from DL-aktobe, of course), so if you've been meaning to show up and beat the shit out of me, you better be there between 6 and 7 this evening. if, on the other hand, you've been thinking of going to the philly DL but haven't because that annoying noz guy is always there, come late.
but just because i'm leaving the country for two months tomorrow doesn't mean that i won't be at drinking liberally tonight! okay, i'll only be there for the first hour. this will be my last DL for a while (aside from DL-aktobe, of course), so if you've been meaning to show up and beat the shit out of me, you better be there between 6 and 7 this evening. if, on the other hand, you've been thinking of going to the philly DL but haven't because that annoying noz guy is always there, come late.
Monday, December 14, 2009
reconciliation doesn't have to be used to be effective
this points us down the path of either an extremely shitty health care reform bill, or no bill passing at all.
just to be clear, i'm not saying reconciliation has to be used if we want real health care reform. the democratic leadership doesn't necessarily have to go the reconciliation route, they just have to be serious about using it if people like lieberman, nelson and landrieu demand too many concessions. reconciliation would mean cutting them out of the process. not completely, of course. they would still have a vote, they just wouldn't be the swing vote anymore. none of the so-called "moderates" want to lose the enormous sway they already have. just making a serious threat of reconciliation is likely to produce better behavior from those senators.
if they're not afraid of losing their swing-vote influence, they'll never see the need to stop asking for another concession. at some point the bill will get whittled down to a level where progressive senators are going to feel pressured to vote against the it. unless the democratic leadership stands up to the moderates and uses the reconciliation threat, there won't be a real health care overhaul. at best, we'll have a sloppy band-aid of a bill, rather than real reform. more like HIPAA than landmark legislation.
just to be clear, i'm not saying reconciliation has to be used if we want real health care reform. the democratic leadership doesn't necessarily have to go the reconciliation route, they just have to be serious about using it if people like lieberman, nelson and landrieu demand too many concessions. reconciliation would mean cutting them out of the process. not completely, of course. they would still have a vote, they just wouldn't be the swing vote anymore. none of the so-called "moderates" want to lose the enormous sway they already have. just making a serious threat of reconciliation is likely to produce better behavior from those senators.
if they're not afraid of losing their swing-vote influence, they'll never see the need to stop asking for another concession. at some point the bill will get whittled down to a level where progressive senators are going to feel pressured to vote against the it. unless the democratic leadership stands up to the moderates and uses the reconciliation threat, there won't be a real health care overhaul. at best, we'll have a sloppy band-aid of a bill, rather than real reform. more like HIPAA than landmark legislation.
this is nuts
i'd just like to take a moment to note the sheer insanity of having mrs. noz and i move to central asia for two months with what may be only 24 hours notice. as if that isn't complex enough, we also have to have everything ready to return home with a baby.
any minute now i'll get an email telling us that we also have to swing on vines across an alligator pit before we get on the plane. but they won't tell us which pit until their next email.
any minute now i'll get an email telling us that we also have to swing on vines across an alligator pit before we get on the plane. but they won't tell us which pit until their next email.
comment service suggestions?
haloscan, the comment program that i have been using ever since i got comments on this blog, is trying to get me to upgrade to echo. i like the simplicity of haloscan's comments better than the newfangled echo features. also, while haloscan is free, echo costs $9.95 per month year. unfortunately my haloscan account is being phased out over the next two weeks so i need to either buy the echo service that i don't want before then or export all my comments to some other comment service.
does anyone out there have an suggestions for an alternative comment service? ideally something free and really really simple? i guess i could use the blogger in-house comments. they didn't exist when i started this blog, which is why i went with haloscan. then when it started up, i liked haloscan better. is there anything else i should consider?
meanwhile, this blog maintenance crap is falling on my lap at the worst possible time. we are possibly 48 hours away from moving to kazakhstan until about february. or maybe we are 12 days away. they're not telling us until tomorrow.
UPDATE: i meant to write "$9.95 per year" but i originally wrote "per month" instead. thanks anon for catching it!
does anyone out there have an suggestions for an alternative comment service? ideally something free and really really simple? i guess i could use the blogger in-house comments. they didn't exist when i started this blog, which is why i went with haloscan. then when it started up, i liked haloscan better. is there anything else i should consider?
meanwhile, this blog maintenance crap is falling on my lap at the worst possible time. we are possibly 48 hours away from moving to kazakhstan until about february. or maybe we are 12 days away. they're not telling us until tomorrow.
UPDATE: i meant to write "$9.95 per year" but i originally wrote "per month" instead. thanks anon for catching it!
it's time for reid to drop lieberman
in a rational world, this would get harry reid to take back all the concessions he made to get lieberman's vote and then use reconciliation to force the bill through with a 50 vote majority.
but we don't live in a rational world. or at least harry reid doesn't.
there has been a lot of hostility directed at lieberman for demanding concession after concession to get his vote. but if harry isn't willing to pull the reconciliation trigger, what incentive does lieberman have to not demand everything he wants? yes, lieberman is a terrible senator, but given that lieberman is lieberman, why would he compromise when there is no risk to not compromising?
UPDATE: i didn't see what yglesias said until after i wrote the above post. he makes a similar point.
but we don't live in a rational world. or at least harry reid doesn't.
there has been a lot of hostility directed at lieberman for demanding concession after concession to get his vote. but if harry isn't willing to pull the reconciliation trigger, what incentive does lieberman have to not demand everything he wants? yes, lieberman is a terrible senator, but given that lieberman is lieberman, why would he compromise when there is no risk to not compromising?
UPDATE: i didn't see what yglesias said until after i wrote the above post. he makes a similar point.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
everybody's a winner! (well, not me)
how 'bout that! the half of bajira! that i didn't go to law school with is winner #1 of the wondermark thanksgiving project contest and winner #4 is none other than my old friend and frequent commentator, CaTHY!
but wait, there's more! winner #3 is a famous fantasy writer who i once inadvertently harassed via skype (okay, i was advertently harassing CaTHY. robin was collateral damage). yes, all, or at least 30%, of the winners are all about me! except that i seem to be the one who didn't win. i blame that on the soft bigotry against people who didn't enter the contest.
but wait, there's more! winner #3 is a famous fantasy writer who i once inadvertently harassed via skype (okay, i was advertently harassing CaTHY. robin was collateral damage). yes, all, or at least 30%, of the winners are all about me! except that i seem to be the one who didn't win. i blame that on the soft bigotry against people who didn't enter the contest.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
the redshirts of al qaeda
i can't believe they're going back to claiming they killed al qaeda's third in command. that whole scene is soooooooo bush administration. remember when the bushies announced #3's demise just about every other week?
it's never #1 or #2 (i.e. bin laden or zawahiri). we've already heard of them. #3 is always some dude who hasn't been in the news prior to the bragging about his death. it sounds high enough in the organization to be important, and yet not enough for anyone to really know whether he really matters. but if the #3 guy is so powerful, why do they all die as often as a star fleet security officer? i bet the smartest mujahideen ask not to be promoted higher than #4. no one ever kills them.
it's never #1 or #2 (i.e. bin laden or zawahiri). we've already heard of them. #3 is always some dude who hasn't been in the news prior to the bragging about his death. it sounds high enough in the organization to be important, and yet not enough for anyone to really know whether he really matters. but if the #3 guy is so powerful, why do they all die as often as a star fleet security officer? i bet the smartest mujahideen ask not to be promoted higher than #4. no one ever kills them.
that's one crazy oil field
link:
A partnership of Royal Dutch Shell and Petronas, a state-owned Malaysian company, won the larger field, Majnoon, in southern Iraq, which contains an estimated 12.6 billion barrels of recoverable oil.
Friday, December 11, 2009
LOI
got it. "about 60 days" is kazakh for 170 days and the extreme frustration of this week is officially over. now i can almost taste the horse.
i'm not sure how i will be able to focus on anything in the office though.
i'm not sure how i will be able to focus on anything in the office though.
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
إنّ الله مع الصابرين إذا صبروا
this checking my email every 10 seconds thing is getting to be pretty annoying.
i'm mad that people did what i'm doing!
the TSA accidentally posted its security manual online, thus revealing its security protocol and making it easy for a potential terrorist to look for loopholes.
ABC news downloaded the accidentally posted manual reported on the breach.
debbie schussel gets pissed off at the TSA for its accidental manual posting and at ABC news for downloading and posting it. then she goes on to post it herself and give detailed, if sarcastic, instructions to would-be terrorists about how to evade the TSA's security procedures.
(via memeorandum)
ABC news downloaded the accidentally posted manual reported on the breach.
debbie schussel gets pissed off at the TSA for its accidental manual posting and at ABC news for downloading and posting it. then she goes on to post it herself and give detailed, if sarcastic, instructions to would-be terrorists about how to evade the TSA's security procedures.
(via memeorandum)
ping-pong
why would this be a "democratic delusion"?
the piece seems to have it completely backwards. i assume it uses the word "democrats" as a shorthand for people wanted health care reform. but what the pro-reformers is not to endlessly vote on proposals, it's to pass a final bill. people opposed to health care reform, on the other hand, don't want a bill to be passed, so a potentially endless ping-pong of votes back and forth between the two chambers is to their advantage, not the pro-reform democrats.
what's weird is that the article doesn't quote a single democrat who is actually in favor of ping-pong. instead we have a quote from brendan daly, spokesperson for nancy pelosi who completely rules out going the ping-pong route. so are there any actual pro-reform democrats in congress who want to ping-pong? it looks to me that david herszenhorn just came up with a wonky procedural idea, got mixed up about who exactly his wonky idea would benefit, and then couldn't find any democrats in congress to go with the idea. instead of dropping it, he was so attached to the clever ping-pong concept that he ran with it anyway, still misattributing who would stand to benefit.
clearly someone has a delusion about ping-pong. i'm just not convinced it's the people herszenhorn has in mind.
the piece seems to have it completely backwards. i assume it uses the word "democrats" as a shorthand for people wanted health care reform. but what the pro-reformers is not to endlessly vote on proposals, it's to pass a final bill. people opposed to health care reform, on the other hand, don't want a bill to be passed, so a potentially endless ping-pong of votes back and forth between the two chambers is to their advantage, not the pro-reform democrats.
what's weird is that the article doesn't quote a single democrat who is actually in favor of ping-pong. instead we have a quote from brendan daly, spokesperson for nancy pelosi who completely rules out going the ping-pong route. so are there any actual pro-reform democrats in congress who want to ping-pong? it looks to me that david herszenhorn just came up with a wonky procedural idea, got mixed up about who exactly his wonky idea would benefit, and then couldn't find any democrats in congress to go with the idea. instead of dropping it, he was so attached to the clever ping-pong concept that he ran with it anyway, still misattributing who would stand to benefit.
clearly someone has a delusion about ping-pong. i'm just not convinced it's the people herszenhorn has in mind.
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
reconciliation
once again, i wonder what exactly is the down side to using reconciliation to pass health care reform? is there any?
cap or cap and trade?
as have written before, conservative opposition to cap and trade never made any sense. in 2007 the supreme court ordered the EPA to regulate carbon emission. under the clean air act, the EPA really has only one way of doing it, setting a cap on carbon emissions. the bush administration lost that battle before the supreme court and then bush' EPA dragged its feet and stalled issuing the regulations for the last two years of bush's term. it was clear from the start that the new administration wasn't going to stall, but was willing to go the market-based cap-and-trade route rather than an outright ban.
so that's the situation we are in right now. it's a choice between a top-down ban or a cap-and-trade system. there will be a cap; the only question was whether there will also be trade. if we had a rational conservative party in this country, they would throw their support behind cap-and-trade to avoid the top-down ban. after all, cap-and-trade was originally a republican idea for dealing with environmental issues that was adopted by the democrats in the 1990s. but we don't have a rational conservative party in this country. instead of dealing with the real regulate vs. cap-and-trade choice, they pretended that the choice was between cap-and-trade and nothing, and chose nothing. which isn't actually one of the available choices and is probably impossible for them to get.
with cap-and-trade stalled, the obama administration is moving ahead with the cap, as they are legally obligated to do by order of the supreme court. will that be enough to pull conservatives out of the alternate reality they have built themselves around this issue? i suspect not.
so that's the situation we are in right now. it's a choice between a top-down ban or a cap-and-trade system. there will be a cap; the only question was whether there will also be trade. if we had a rational conservative party in this country, they would throw their support behind cap-and-trade to avoid the top-down ban. after all, cap-and-trade was originally a republican idea for dealing with environmental issues that was adopted by the democrats in the 1990s. but we don't have a rational conservative party in this country. instead of dealing with the real regulate vs. cap-and-trade choice, they pretended that the choice was between cap-and-trade and nothing, and chose nothing. which isn't actually one of the available choices and is probably impossible for them to get.
with cap-and-trade stalled, the obama administration is moving ahead with the cap, as they are legally obligated to do by order of the supreme court. will that be enough to pull conservatives out of the alternate reality they have built themselves around this issue? i suspect not.
Monday, December 07, 2009
decade's end
remember ten years ago, in late 1999, when everyone was planning some big "turn of the century/millennium" celebration? inevitably some smart alec would come along and say "december 31, 1999 isn't really the turn of the century, the century (and/or millennium) doesn't begin until january 1, 2001." the annoying thing about those smart alecs is that they were right. it didn't make them less annoying, but it is true that the 21st century and 3rd millennium technically began on the night that 2000 became 2001, and not the night when 1999 turned to 2000.
recently i've noticed that the smart alec is back, with a new but similar point. just this morning i was listening to the radio and one called in. they were talking about the end of the current "aught" decade. the smart alec's new point is that the "aught" decade doesn't really end later this month. he said that it really ends one year from now, on december 31, 2010.
while he may have been right in 1999, this time the smart alec is wrong.
if i may attempt to out-smart the smart alec: the reason why the smart alec's trick works when he was talking about the turn of the century is because usually when we speak about centuries we describe them with ordinal numbers, e.g. "seventh century", "eighteenth century", "twentieth century." when you use ordinal numbers you're suggesting a count from some beginning point. it's not just #21, this is the 21st century since we started counting A.D.
if we're counting a century, we're really counting a block of 100 years. the first century is the first hundred years, which is year 1 through 100. the second century is the second hundred years, the year 101 through 200. and so on. the pattern that emerges is that only the last year does the number of the century correspond to the beginning of the written out year. which can be confusing. for the first 99 years of each ordinal century seems to be ahead of itself.
however, there are times that people use cardinal numbers to talk about centuries. for example, sometimes they say stuff like: "the eighteen-hundreds." "the eighteen hundreds" (unlike "the nineteenth century") is referencing the century by citing the beginning digits of the written date. it's not counting the centuries from the beginning, it's referring to the digits used to write the year. it's a different system for referring to centuries, a system that uses the cardinal numbers from our date notation system, not ordinal numbers.
because that system, the "eighteen hundreds" system, doesn't use cardinal numbers, it doesn't produce the same one-off effect you get a cardinal system like the "nineteenth century". the "eighteen hundreds" refers to every four digit year that starts with an "18". that is, from 1800 through 1899. note that 1800 is in the eighteen hundreds even though it's not in the nineteenth century, even though all the other years in the eighteen hundreds are.
essentially we have two different systems for talking about centuries. the most common when we speak is the ordinal system ("twenty-first century"). but we usually think about dates in terms of a cardinal number ("2000"). it's the switch between the two that make this so confusing. the two different systems treat the dates ending with double-zeros differently. under one system they're in the same century of the preceding year and under the other they're in the same century of the succeeding year.
so that's why the smart alec was right in 1999. why isn't he right anymore?
it's because when we talk about decades we only use cardinal numbers. this decade is the "aughts" or the "zeros", whatever you want to call it. but no one ever calls it the "first" (if we were counting from the beginning of the 21st century) or the "two-hundred and first" (if we were counting the decades from the beginning of the AD calendar). when we refer to decades we are not counting how many decades there have been since some starting point. instead we identify decades by referencing the cardinal number in the tens column in the written year.
thus, the "seventies" went from 1970 through 1979 and not from 1971 through 1980, because it refers to the dates with 70 in it. likewise, the "aughts" run from 2000 through 2009 because those are the years with a zero in the second to last digit when we write the date. when it comes to decades, there is no quirky effect as you get with the ordinal system of discussing centuries.
the smart alec was assuming that decades and centuries are conceptualized the same way. they are not. bad smart alec!
recently i've noticed that the smart alec is back, with a new but similar point. just this morning i was listening to the radio and one called in. they were talking about the end of the current "aught" decade. the smart alec's new point is that the "aught" decade doesn't really end later this month. he said that it really ends one year from now, on december 31, 2010.
while he may have been right in 1999, this time the smart alec is wrong.
if i may attempt to out-smart the smart alec: the reason why the smart alec's trick works when he was talking about the turn of the century is because usually when we speak about centuries we describe them with ordinal numbers, e.g. "seventh century", "eighteenth century", "twentieth century." when you use ordinal numbers you're suggesting a count from some beginning point. it's not just #21, this is the 21st century since we started counting A.D.
if we're counting a century, we're really counting a block of 100 years. the first century is the first hundred years, which is year 1 through 100. the second century is the second hundred years, the year 101 through 200. and so on. the pattern that emerges is that only the last year does the number of the century correspond to the beginning of the written out year. which can be confusing. for the first 99 years of each ordinal century seems to be ahead of itself.
however, there are times that people use cardinal numbers to talk about centuries. for example, sometimes they say stuff like: "the eighteen-hundreds." "the eighteen hundreds" (unlike "the nineteenth century") is referencing the century by citing the beginning digits of the written date. it's not counting the centuries from the beginning, it's referring to the digits used to write the year. it's a different system for referring to centuries, a system that uses the cardinal numbers from our date notation system, not ordinal numbers.
because that system, the "eighteen hundreds" system, doesn't use cardinal numbers, it doesn't produce the same one-off effect you get a cardinal system like the "nineteenth century". the "eighteen hundreds" refers to every four digit year that starts with an "18". that is, from 1800 through 1899. note that 1800 is in the eighteen hundreds even though it's not in the nineteenth century, even though all the other years in the eighteen hundreds are.
essentially we have two different systems for talking about centuries. the most common when we speak is the ordinal system ("twenty-first century"). but we usually think about dates in terms of a cardinal number ("2000"). it's the switch between the two that make this so confusing. the two different systems treat the dates ending with double-zeros differently. under one system they're in the same century of the preceding year and under the other they're in the same century of the succeeding year.
so that's why the smart alec was right in 1999. why isn't he right anymore?
it's because when we talk about decades we only use cardinal numbers. this decade is the "aughts" or the "zeros", whatever you want to call it. but no one ever calls it the "first" (if we were counting from the beginning of the 21st century) or the "two-hundred and first" (if we were counting the decades from the beginning of the AD calendar). when we refer to decades we are not counting how many decades there have been since some starting point. instead we identify decades by referencing the cardinal number in the tens column in the written year.
thus, the "seventies" went from 1970 through 1979 and not from 1971 through 1980, because it refers to the dates with 70 in it. likewise, the "aughts" run from 2000 through 2009 because those are the years with a zero in the second to last digit when we write the date. when it comes to decades, there is no quirky effect as you get with the ordinal system of discussing centuries.
the smart alec was assuming that decades and centuries are conceptualized the same way. they are not. bad smart alec!
Sunday, December 06, 2009
corruption puzzle
i was listening to the planet money podcast about organized crime in japan. what's remarkable is how openly and semi-officially these organizations operate there. which i guess i kind of knew. except this is also japan, a country that has a squeaky-clean reputation when it comes to corruption. indeed, japan scores pretty high, higher than the u.s., in the 2009 CPI index.1 the CPI is only a measure of how corrupt the country is perceived to be. it's harder to measure actual corruption.
but how did japan get to maintain it's clean image when criminal syndicates weren't even outlawed until 1993 and since then have continued to serve in a semi-official capacity in the japanese economic system? the podcast recounts how the yamaguchi-gumi fleeced lehman brothers out of $350 million, and yet the organization works so much in the open that there are signs outside its headquarters in kobe. it took only a quick search to find the organization's headquarters, clearly marked, on google earth.
you'd think such open criminal activity, with little government reaction, would severely damage the country's image, especially when it preys off of foreign investors. and yet, lehman brothers is now gone, yamaguchi-gumi is still around and has never been penalized for stealing money from them, and japan gets rated one of the least corrupt countries in the world.
----------------------------------------------
1-yes, i know that's got RAS syndrome. so what?
but how did japan get to maintain it's clean image when criminal syndicates weren't even outlawed until 1993 and since then have continued to serve in a semi-official capacity in the japanese economic system? the podcast recounts how the yamaguchi-gumi fleeced lehman brothers out of $350 million, and yet the organization works so much in the open that there are signs outside its headquarters in kobe. it took only a quick search to find the organization's headquarters, clearly marked, on google earth.
you'd think such open criminal activity, with little government reaction, would severely damage the country's image, especially when it preys off of foreign investors. and yet, lehman brothers is now gone, yamaguchi-gumi is still around and has never been penalized for stealing money from them, and japan gets rated one of the least corrupt countries in the world.
----------------------------------------------
1-yes, i know that's got RAS syndrome. so what?
Saturday, December 05, 2009
graymail
i've always thought that erik prince had the perfect name for the head of a mercenary outfit. he sounds like someone who would be a james bond villain.
and now it seems that maybe he is a bit of a villain in the spy world. it's not a good state of affairs but it somehow seems appropriate for mr. prince.
my one beef with the nation article is that the author managed to spell "kazakh" two different ways, both of them wrong, in the same sentence. obviously, i'm not usually a stickler for spelling, but the same sentence!
and now it seems that maybe he is a bit of a villain in the spy world. it's not a good state of affairs but it somehow seems appropriate for mr. prince.
my one beef with the nation article is that the author managed to spell "kazakh" two different ways, both of them wrong, in the same sentence. obviously, i'm not usually a stickler for spelling, but the same sentence!
Thursday, December 03, 2009
beyond vietnam
it seems like vietnam comparisons are all the rage among people criticizing obama's escalation in afghanistan. but why is it always vietnam?
now that we have iraq as part of our national history, we don't need to rely on "vietnam" every time we want an example of a pointless costly war. it seems to me that iraq is a much better one to use. pretty much everyone who is politically aware now has some first-hand memories of iraq, most don't have any first hand memories of the vietnam war.
i'm forty years old and i don't. i learned about that war through books, movies and history class. the iraq war i understand as a contemporary. these days it's just a better paradigm for a fucked up war.
now that we have iraq as part of our national history, we don't need to rely on "vietnam" every time we want an example of a pointless costly war. it seems to me that iraq is a much better one to use. pretty much everyone who is politically aware now has some first-hand memories of iraq, most don't have any first hand memories of the vietnam war.
i'm forty years old and i don't. i learned about that war through books, movies and history class. the iraq war i understand as a contemporary. these days it's just a better paradigm for a fucked up war.
obama's afghanistan policy
i meant to write something about the president's big afghanistan speech but never got the time yesterday.
the bottom line is that as much as i am opposed to an "afghan surge" it's been pretty much inevitable since the election. also the fact that it would be a 30,000 troop increase had leaked out prior to the speech. really the only thing that i was interested in hearing is: (1) an explanation of what the president thinks the u.s. is trying to accomplish in afghanistan, and (2) a clear end game (that is, a clear articulation of how and when the u.s. will leave).
with regard to #1, the president basically repeated the explanations that i think, quite frankly, don't hold up to any serious scrutiny. denying al-qaeda safe havens doesn't make much sense because there are so many potential safe havens out there, the u.s. can't possibly deny them every one. if we assume that the u.s. could somehow completely eliminate all safe havens in afghanistan, anti-u.s. militants would just move to the tribal areas of pakistan, or somalia, or southern algeria, or northern mali, et cetera. the cost of relocating operations for al qaeda is low and the cost to the u.s. to clear a safe haven is high. that's a game of whack-a-mole that can't possibly be won by the u.s., even if we assume that completely "eliminating safe havens" is ever possible anywhere. it's a fool's errand.
which brings me to #2. with a goal that can never be completely achieved how can we have an end game? the president answer is that we won't have to achieve it because eventually we'll turn over the job to afghan forces. that "eventually" will begin in roughly 18 months.
on the one hand, i'm glad he set a vague timeline for when forces should expect to leave. but i'm only glad about that because of the low low bar set by the prior administration of refusing to talk about leaving in any fashion. topping george bush in articulating an end game to a military operation is like beating a blind man in a vision test. and it's pretty amusing to watch the right slam obama for giving even his tepid 18 months figure. the right spent much of the 1990s slamming clinton's military excusions in the former yugoslavia and somalia (although technically, that was originally bush the first's excusion) because they had no clear exist strategy. the W years seem to have made "no exit strategy to military operations" one of those unbreakable principles of rightwing doctrine, like the idea that cutting taxes is appropriate under every circumstance.
but i digress.
getting back to obama's strategy, his goal of beginning to remove troops after 18 months just isn't good enough, especially because the goal (eliminating safe havens and propping up the karzai government) can never be definitively achieved 100%. likewise with the training of afghan forces. who can say when that's done? the president has promised to "begin" to bring troops home after 18 months, but hasn't said when that will finish. when we hit that 18 month mark it will be very easy to delay because someone can always point to some remote region of the country and say "what about those safe havens over here?" or to some dilapidated afghan army unit to argue that the training mission needs more time.
by view of where afghanistan went wrong is basically what matthew yglesias said last week:
there probably wasn't a speech the president could give that would satisfy me. it looks like it may have satisfied some people. but the glow of the speech will quickly fade and we're still left with afghanistan. one thing i am reassured by is the fact that the 18 months runs out in mid-2011, just as the 2012 presidential election season will be getting started. i predict that the afghan war will still be unpopular then and that will give the president some incentive to follow through and remove forces. i just don't see how all the deaths in the meantime will be worth it.
the bottom line is that as much as i am opposed to an "afghan surge" it's been pretty much inevitable since the election. also the fact that it would be a 30,000 troop increase had leaked out prior to the speech. really the only thing that i was interested in hearing is: (1) an explanation of what the president thinks the u.s. is trying to accomplish in afghanistan, and (2) a clear end game (that is, a clear articulation of how and when the u.s. will leave).
with regard to #1, the president basically repeated the explanations that i think, quite frankly, don't hold up to any serious scrutiny. denying al-qaeda safe havens doesn't make much sense because there are so many potential safe havens out there, the u.s. can't possibly deny them every one. if we assume that the u.s. could somehow completely eliminate all safe havens in afghanistan, anti-u.s. militants would just move to the tribal areas of pakistan, or somalia, or southern algeria, or northern mali, et cetera. the cost of relocating operations for al qaeda is low and the cost to the u.s. to clear a safe haven is high. that's a game of whack-a-mole that can't possibly be won by the u.s., even if we assume that completely "eliminating safe havens" is ever possible anywhere. it's a fool's errand.
which brings me to #2. with a goal that can never be completely achieved how can we have an end game? the president answer is that we won't have to achieve it because eventually we'll turn over the job to afghan forces. that "eventually" will begin in roughly 18 months.
on the one hand, i'm glad he set a vague timeline for when forces should expect to leave. but i'm only glad about that because of the low low bar set by the prior administration of refusing to talk about leaving in any fashion. topping george bush in articulating an end game to a military operation is like beating a blind man in a vision test. and it's pretty amusing to watch the right slam obama for giving even his tepid 18 months figure. the right spent much of the 1990s slamming clinton's military excusions in the former yugoslavia and somalia (although technically, that was originally bush the first's excusion) because they had no clear exist strategy. the W years seem to have made "no exit strategy to military operations" one of those unbreakable principles of rightwing doctrine, like the idea that cutting taxes is appropriate under every circumstance.
but i digress.
getting back to obama's strategy, his goal of beginning to remove troops after 18 months just isn't good enough, especially because the goal (eliminating safe havens and propping up the karzai government) can never be definitively achieved 100%. likewise with the training of afghan forces. who can say when that's done? the president has promised to "begin" to bring troops home after 18 months, but hasn't said when that will finish. when we hit that 18 month mark it will be very easy to delay because someone can always point to some remote region of the country and say "what about those safe havens over here?" or to some dilapidated afghan army unit to argue that the training mission needs more time.
by view of where afghanistan went wrong is basically what matthew yglesias said last week:
The main reason policy toward Afghanistan is so vexing, in my view, is that we basically failed in our main mission back in 2001 and 2002. Demands were made on the Taliban to hand over key al-Qaeda leaders, the Taliban refused, we went to war, and even though we succeeded in marginalizing the Taliban we didn’t succeed in achieving for ourselves what we’d been demanding the Taliban do. Having failed at that mission, we then shifted gears into a hazily defined effort to remake Afghanistan.despite obama's laudable insistence on having an exit strategy, he is still basically meandering along that hazy goal of remaking afghanistan, a project with no definable end point.
there probably wasn't a speech the president could give that would satisfy me. it looks like it may have satisfied some people. but the glow of the speech will quickly fade and we're still left with afghanistan. one thing i am reassured by is the fact that the 18 months runs out in mid-2011, just as the 2012 presidential election season will be getting started. i predict that the afghan war will still be unpopular then and that will give the president some incentive to follow through and remove forces. i just don't see how all the deaths in the meantime will be worth it.
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
ugh
you know it has been a long day when the highlight is the part when you get swine flu squirted upyernoz.
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
quick change
i've been holding off commenting on obama's plan for afghanistan, notwithstanding the fact that all or most of it seems to have leaked out already. but what i find remarkable is how quickly public sentiment about the war in afghanistan has changed.
from late 2002 until this year, afghanistan has been mostly ignored in american discourse. to the extent it came up, it was almost always as the "good war" contrast to the "bad war" of iraq. that's why obama ran on the idea of escalation in afghanistan. in his famous 2002 iraq was speech he said: "I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars." iraq was the "dumb war" but to prove it, he need a not-dumb war. and that was afghanistan.
which was a pretty safe choice. lot's of iraq war critics had used that same iraq = bad war/afghanistan = good war formulation. john kerry criticized george bush for taking his eye off the ball of afghanistan to invade iraq when he ran in 2004. the good war/bad war dichotomy had been used for years. it allowed them to freely slam iraq war policy without being lumped in with the hippies.
but then it changed. in 2008 iraq started to fall off the headlines. the war correspondents who spent years in baghdad started going back to kabul. with iraq disappearing from the public's radar, the good war/bad war thing didn't work anymore. without the mess of iraq as a foil, afghanistan just doesn't look very good on its own.
also after obama was elected, that freed up a few conservatives to call for a withdrawal from afghanistan, something that would have been unthinkable when their guy was in the white house. at the same time, obama's announcement of the pullout from iraq freed up antiwar people to rediscover that other conflict. suddenly, support for the war in afghanistan went from being one of the safest political choices you could make to one that was fraught with complications. polls started showing the "good war" to be unpopular, and it seems pretty unlikely that will change. the good war has completely transformed into just another quagmire.
i'm still surprised by how quickly it happened.
from late 2002 until this year, afghanistan has been mostly ignored in american discourse. to the extent it came up, it was almost always as the "good war" contrast to the "bad war" of iraq. that's why obama ran on the idea of escalation in afghanistan. in his famous 2002 iraq was speech he said: "I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars." iraq was the "dumb war" but to prove it, he need a not-dumb war. and that was afghanistan.
which was a pretty safe choice. lot's of iraq war critics had used that same iraq = bad war/afghanistan = good war formulation. john kerry criticized george bush for taking his eye off the ball of afghanistan to invade iraq when he ran in 2004. the good war/bad war dichotomy had been used for years. it allowed them to freely slam iraq war policy without being lumped in with the hippies.
but then it changed. in 2008 iraq started to fall off the headlines. the war correspondents who spent years in baghdad started going back to kabul. with iraq disappearing from the public's radar, the good war/bad war thing didn't work anymore. without the mess of iraq as a foil, afghanistan just doesn't look very good on its own.
also after obama was elected, that freed up a few conservatives to call for a withdrawal from afghanistan, something that would have been unthinkable when their guy was in the white house. at the same time, obama's announcement of the pullout from iraq freed up antiwar people to rediscover that other conflict. suddenly, support for the war in afghanistan went from being one of the safest political choices you could make to one that was fraught with complications. polls started showing the "good war" to be unpopular, and it seems pretty unlikely that will change. the good war has completely transformed into just another quagmire.
i'm still surprised by how quickly it happened.
iphone question
i'm trying to figure out what to do about my iphone when i'm in kazakhstan. i basically have three options:
(1) go to kazakhstan with the iphone and pay the AT&T international roaming charges
the roaming rates absolutely suck. it's $4.95/minute1 for both making and receiving calls, and data costs $0.0195/KB (in the u.s. data is free, which is what 99% of my phone usages is). those charges are on top of the $70 monthly charge i'd still have to pay for my regular monthly allotment of minutes that i won't be able to use.
(2) jailbreak my iphone, get a kazakh sim card and take advantage of the much-lower local cell phone rates
i'm a little worried about messing with the operating system in a place where internet access may not be easy and where i'll have a lot of other things i'll want to deal with other than a bricked iphone. i'm also wondering how reversible the jailbreak would be when i get home.
(3) leave the iphone home, and get cheap kazakh phone while we're there
this is the option i've been leaning towards. but 2 months is a long time. i'm gonna miss it. and what about my precious podcasts? i'll fall hopelessly behind!!!
any thoughts?
----------------
1-AT&T has a "world traveler" plan that would add $5.99 to my regular monthly fee and would get me discounts to the roaming rate in a lot of countries. but in kazakhstan the "world traveler" rate is $4.95/min. and $0.0195/KB, exactly what it is if i didn't pay the extra $5.99 add-on.
(1) go to kazakhstan with the iphone and pay the AT&T international roaming charges
the roaming rates absolutely suck. it's $4.95/minute1 for both making and receiving calls, and data costs $0.0195/KB (in the u.s. data is free, which is what 99% of my phone usages is). those charges are on top of the $70 monthly charge i'd still have to pay for my regular monthly allotment of minutes that i won't be able to use.
(2) jailbreak my iphone, get a kazakh sim card and take advantage of the much-lower local cell phone rates
i'm a little worried about messing with the operating system in a place where internet access may not be easy and where i'll have a lot of other things i'll want to deal with other than a bricked iphone. i'm also wondering how reversible the jailbreak would be when i get home.
(3) leave the iphone home, and get cheap kazakh phone while we're there
this is the option i've been leaning towards. but 2 months is a long time. i'm gonna miss it. and what about my precious podcasts? i'll fall hopelessly behind!!!
any thoughts?
----------------
1-AT&T has a "world traveler" plan that would add $5.99 to my regular monthly fee and would get me discounts to the roaming rate in a lot of countries. but in kazakhstan the "world traveler" rate is $4.95/min. and $0.0195/KB, exactly what it is if i didn't pay the extra $5.99 add-on.
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