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Showing posts from July, 2011

President Obama, defuse this Republican pipe bomb

Josh Marshall : But for future reference let's remember that the entire concept of a debt limit ceiling is ridiculous. If the Congress votes to spend more than it will take in in tax revenues, that is a vote to borrow money . Period. For Congress to vote once to borrow the money and then have to vote again to borrow the same money is silly. That's not to say this has any constitutional relevance; Congress has broad latitude to do stupid things. But this was always a silly way of doing business -- which is the reason why no other major country has a similar procedure -- a time bomb waiting for one of the two parties to decide to play Russian Roulette with the nation. Right now, the House is moving to reject Harry Reid's stupendous giveaway to conservatives before it is even passed (assuming they can get past a Republican filibuster).  There seem to be two easy fixes to this: the President invokes the 14th amendment , or mints a couple trillion-dollar platin

The South African skills crisis close up

I'm really looking forward to abandoning the camera on my phone. This crappy picture is of a bunch of textbooks my host sister is currently reading.  They're for a correspondence course in several subjects having to do with school administration and the like, obtained from North West University, and I helped her download several supporting documents.  Paging through the books, the courses seem at least somewhat legitimate—not obviously a diploma mill-style efforts, at least.  There are repeated instructions to help people avoid common South African mistakes, like copying the textbook verbatim.  My sister applied for course because if she passes, she will get a R1000 salary increase. She has no chance of passing.  The courses assume a passing familiarity with the academic gearshifts—computer and internet skills, ability to parse legal and academic language, and most importantly good writing skills.  My sister did not know the meaning of the word "legislation."  H

What the heck is this thing?

It looks like a praying mantis, but with some kind of weird upturned abdomen. Any guesses?

Collected links: debt ceiling distraction

Well, these aren't really good news... 1. Hillary Clinton is an excellent Secretary of State . 2. Terrible pictures from the famine in East Africa . 3. An anti-gay preacher is suing Rachel Maddow and MSNBC for $50 million . 4. How to deliver the smackdown to the Mexican drug cartels . 5. A sane conservative meditation on the Oslo killer . 6. A Korean rap star from Stanford was the victim of a crazed denialist persecution .  A bizarre story, but similar to the the anti-vaccine or anti-global warming movements.

Guest post: The Cyclotwistorator!

[ This is an onion-style piece from my dad. ] Dateline June 24, 2011. Washington, DC. Reports that climate scientists have been apprehended igniting cataclysmic forests fires in 14 states have been difficult to confirm. “ Many of these science types are actually quite clever,” said Senator James Inhofe, chief the upper chamber’s climate change deniers. “They’ll be up in Minot breaching dikes in the morning and lighting a 60,000 acre wildland fire in Florida the afternoon. Senator John Kyl noted that he a personally chased off a suspicious person dressed in a lab coat and carrying a test tube when he went to see if his cabin had been consumed by the fire that has blackened 900 square miles of Arizona and continues to burn. Sarah Palin’s blog reported that climate scientists have discovered a way to cause the formation of class 5 tornadoes by use of a top-secret “cyclotwistorator” device that is about the size of a toaster. The machine was accidently plugged in at a top-s

Painting the roof white

One of Sullivan's readers makes a good point about white roofs, which I explored myself awhile back: Another points to a post by Duke scientist Bill Chameides, who says that "if white roofs became ubiquitous [worldwide], the extra energy needed for heating in the winter would exceed the energy savings in the summer." An innovative solution: A group of recent M.I.T. grads, as  reported  on the school’s web site, has developed a temperature-sensitive tile — it’s black when temperatures are cold and white when temps are warm. It’s a chameleon roof tile — so adding the Greek word for  heat  to the English word for the colorful lizard, they named their invention Thermeleon. It's true, a white roof doesn't make sense for every climate.  I reckon it would work best in a very hot place like Phoenix that requires little or no heating during winter.  My village in the Kalahari is actually rather temperate—yesterday it was freezing cold—but given that most peopl

Collected links: happy 900 posts!

I was sort of hoping I'd hit 1000 posts before I went home, but that looks pretty unlikely.  Still, 900 isn't too bad.  Here are some links to celebrate! 1. A train ride with history .  Dude made it through Stalingrad! 2. Towards wrenching the US system in a parliamentary direction . 3. The campers that saved dozens in Norway . 4. A video game as a religion ? 5. Seven really creepy, but possibly useful, experiments .

What happens to the Peace Corps if we hit the debt ceiling?

Kevin Drum has an alarming post (chart borrowed from the same): But starting on May 16, when we reached the debt ceiling and Congress did nothing about it, no more bonds could be sold. For the past couple of months Treasury has been playing games to stay in business, mostly by raiding other accounts or suspending payment of securities that could be held off temporarily. But that's done, and now we're headed inexorably to zero. On August 3rd we go into the red and we stop paying a whole lot of bills. Which bills? Well, the tea partiers never say. But if you're expecting a check from the U.S. government after next Tuesday, you might want to make a contingency plan. As it turns out, the government owes me something like $7000—my readjustment allowance, to be paid when I leave the country on August 19th. The idea is for every month in service Peace Corps will hold a bit of cash that they will pay out upon my end of service to ease my reintroduction into America, or wherev

Ugh

I'm normally an extremely even-keeled sort (as in, I've been called a robot by more than one ex-girlfriend).  But wrapping up my service here is inducing all kinds of emotional turmoil.  The volunteers in my group are dropping like flies— my neighbor is gone, so I'm again alone in the valley.  Cooper over in Cambodia, one of my fellow Peace Corps blog-obsessives , has closed up shop .  I keep thinking about all the things I will likely never do again.  It's strange and disorienting, and I just want it to be over already.  Eish!

Taxi cartels, ctd

My thinking on the taxi issue here in South Africa has been shaped a lot by Yglesias' posts on taxi medallions and barber licensing .  I know he catches a lot of flak for being a sellout on those issues, but I think it might be illustrative to consider the different situations here and back home, because (and I suspect Yglesias would agree) the solutions are exactly the opposite. Via Wikipedia The standard "neoliberal" story about taxi medallions goes like this: taxi drivers try to get the government to erect barriers to entry, to restrict competition and drive up prices.  The solution is to not grant medallions and instead allow as many taxis as the market will bear, subject to some more basic regulation about vehicle safety, driver's licenses, and so forth.  However, so far as I can tell, in South Africa there are no legal grants of association status for taxi organizations.  Instead there is market failure driven by insufficient government regulation (most o

A melancholy anniversary

Two years ago today I landed in Oliver Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg.  It was the first time I had set foot outside North America.  Three weeks from today I'll leave my village forever, and if House Republicans don't manage to destroy the US, I'll fly home that following Friday.  The times, they are a'changin.

Taxi cartels, ctd

This isn't a very good picture, but it illustrates some of what I'm talking about when I mention taxi system inefficiency. This is the Rustenburg taxi rank, and one of the striking things you notice on walking in is the staggering number of idle taxis sitting around. There's probably upwards of two hundred in this rank alone. I asked a few people about that, and of course they had various reasons for it, but I cannot imagine this doesn't represent a huge waste of resources, both in terms of unused potential and just in that so many empty taxis are quite literally clogging up the rank.

The technocrat personality

There's been an interesting debate going back and forth between Yglesias , Henry over at CT and a few others about neoliberalism and the technocratic school on American left.  It's a bit strained at times, but I think still illuminating.  Here Henry says the technocrats lack a theory of politics: Hence, it’s a problem if neo-liberalism doesn’t have a theory of politics. This not only means that it can’t think about long-term change in any coherent or useful way; it means that neo-liberals have difficulty thinking about the interactions between short-term policy proposals that they like and the political conditions that might make these and other proposals achievable, and sustainable after they have been brought through. One might reply that the technocrats (like Yglesias, and especially Ezra Klein) have begun writing more about unions recently—as I understand it on the strict economics even someone like Krugman would say the case for unions is weak, but on the politics i

Aqueous cream?

One thing I appreciate about South Africa is that you can get a lot of simplest-possible products, with none of the frills, doodads, or slick advertising campaigns that are almost impossible to avoid back home. This Stalinist tub of lotion, for example, cost about $1.30.

Taxi cartels

[ Edited and expanded for clarity. ] The South African taxi industry forms the backbone of the daily transport service across the country, especially for the poorer areas, and it is relatively cheap and reliable.  For Americans, "taxi" usually conjures up the classic New York yellow cabs, but here it's a bit different.  A taxi here is usually a medium-size van, most often the Toyota Quantum (pictured), usually carrying 10-22 people.  While there is a brisk business just carrying people around cities, I'd say the majority of the industry is intra-city or -town transport.  People arrive at the taxi rank (the taxi nexus for the area) with a destination, and when there are enough to fill every seat (and sometimes then some), everyone pays and they can go. However, there is a high degree of cartelization in the industry, something that I've really noticed in the last few months. Every area I've visited is dominated by one or a group of taxi associations, which

A further thought on the camp

Thinking again about the camp I recently helped with I was struck by a couple things.  First was that overall it went off very well.  The kids got there on time, the food was sufficient and cooked on time, the activities went off more or less how they were planned—and most of all, the kids had a great time.  I'd say it was one of the best organized and best executed events I have attended here in South Africa. The second thing is that the stress of the event nearly gave the volunteer organizing it ulcers.  The key thing I noticed here is that the actual logistics weren't the stressful bits.  It was the thankless, selfish, and petulant attitude evinced by a large fraction of the people involved with the camp.  Beforehand, people who agreed to help or contribute often went back on their word or didn't keep their promises.  A local politician who had agreed to organize transport reacted to inquires about said organization with disbelieving fury—only later did it come out tha

Lobola

Recently I had the illuminating experience of participating in a lobola negotiation for my host sister. Lobola is a word for bride price—money the groom's family must pay in order to proceed with a marriage.  Traditionally the payment was in animals, usually cattle, but as those are increasingly expensive often people just use cash, or mostly cash, these days.  Now, technically someone like me would not be allowed to sit on the negotiation panel, because only those who are already married are supposed to participate. However, they decided that because I'm a visitor the rules could be stretched a bit. The process is governed by a set of rules whose origins are somewhat mysterious. For example: the groom's family must go to the bride's family's house in the middle of the night—we started at about 2 in the morning. All the negotiations must be finished—the lobola agreed to and paid, the groom's family fed by the women of the bride's family—before the s