Friday, February 19, 2010
Thursday, October 8, 2009
U.S. Most Admired Nation, Poll Finds
What a difference an election makes. The National Brand Index, a ranking of countries on the basis of their perceived position in culture, governance, people, exports, tourism, landscape and education, has just released its results for 2009. The United States has reemerged as the most admired nation on earth, leaping seven slots from its 2008 position.
“What’s really remarkable is that in all my years studying national reputation, I have never seen any country experience such a dramatic change in its standing as we see for the United States for 2009,” said Simon Anholt, the founder of NBI, which measured the global image of 50 countries each year. He believes that during the previous administration of George W. Bush the United States suffered in the world ranking with its unpopular foreign policies but since Obama was elected, and despite the recent economic turmoil, the country’s status has risen globally. “There is no other explanation,” Anholt said.
When the editors at the Weekly Standard are finished celebrating Chicago’s failure to secure the 2016 Olympiade, it will be interesting to see how they characterize this. The rightwing Bizzaro World has tended to portray being despised by foreigners as a demonstration of national strength and character, and being admired as a demonstration of weakness.
From Harper's: http://harpers.org/archive/2009/10/hbc-90005847
“What’s really remarkable is that in all my years studying national reputation, I have never seen any country experience such a dramatic change in its standing as we see for the United States for 2009,” said Simon Anholt, the founder of NBI, which measured the global image of 50 countries each year. He believes that during the previous administration of George W. Bush the United States suffered in the world ranking with its unpopular foreign policies but since Obama was elected, and despite the recent economic turmoil, the country’s status has risen globally. “There is no other explanation,” Anholt said.
When the editors at the Weekly Standard are finished celebrating Chicago’s failure to secure the 2016 Olympiade, it will be interesting to see how they characterize this. The rightwing Bizzaro World has tended to portray being despised by foreigners as a demonstration of national strength and character, and being admired as a demonstration of weakness.
From Harper's: http://harpers.org/archive/2009/10/hbc-90005847
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Good Advice
"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public
debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered
and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed
lest Rome become bankrupt. Bankers must again learn to work, instead of
living on public assistance."
- Cicero - 55 BC
debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered
and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed
lest Rome become bankrupt. Bankers must again learn to work, instead of
living on public assistance."
- Cicero - 55 BC
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Remembering the Real War President
By Scott Horton
http://harpers.org/archive/2009/02/hbc-90004390
Today is Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, and it deserves to be commemorated in a fashion other than a shopping trip. He was America’s real war president, and he was also a giver of laws for war. Indeed, the notion of humanitarian law, as it emerged from the American Civil War and developed over the following 150 years, can hardly be imagined without the guiding hand of Lincoln. But that effort was part of Lincoln’s resolve to wage an aggressive and ultimately successful war to reinstate the Union, and it was driven by acceptance of the Kantian notion that war can bring about good, but that it requires rules and discipline, and a guiding vision of the just to do so. My Columbia colleague John Faber Witt offers a short essay on Lincoln, the giver of laws of war, at Slate. It’s a salve for difficult times. Here’s a snippet:
The code reduced the international laws of war into a simple pamphlet for wide distribution to the amateur soldiers of the Union army. It prohibited torture, poisons, wanton destruction, and cruelty. It protected prisoners and forbade assassinations. It announced a sharp distinction between soldiers and noncombatants. And it forbade attacks motivated by revenge and the infliction of suffering for its own sake. Most significantly, the code sought to protect channels of communication between warring armies. And it elevated the truce flag to a level of sacred honor.
In the spring of 1863, Lincoln’s code was given not just to the armies of the Union but to the armies of the Confederacy. The code set out the rules the Union would follow—and that the Union would expect the South to follow, too. For the next two years, prisoner-exchange negotiations relied on the code to set the rules for identifying those who were entitled to prisoner-of-war status. Trials of Southern guerilla fighters and other violators of the laws of war leaned on the code’s rules for support. The Union war effort became far more aggressive than it had been under McClellan’s rules. As the Union’s fierce Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman put it, Lincoln brought the “hard hand of war” to the population of the South. But this more aggressive posture was not at odds with Lincoln’s new code. It was the code’s fulfillment.
I firmly believe that Lincoln’s experience has much to offer our nation at this time. Here’s what Witt has to say on that score:
For the past seven years, America has repeated the journey Lincoln completed in 24 grueling months. Strong majorities of Americans now call for the dismantling of detention facilities at Guantanamo. Even stronger majorities oppose the use of torture in interrogations. As a nation, we have walked in Lincoln’s footsteps, down an uncertain path from skepticism about the laws of war to a rediscovery of their pragmatic mix of toughness and humanity. President Obama, in his inaugural address, pledged to reconcile our interests and our ideals. This is precisely what Lincoln’s laws of war sought to accomplish, rejecting lawlessness while relentlessly pursuing threats to our way of life.
Well said. The current administration is right to summon Lincoln’s image, his words, and his resolve. They can be an essential part of the elixir to cure our current woes. They give us a nation that stood as a beacon for democracy when it was all but eclipsed from the earth. We would be dishonest with ourselves if we did not recognize that our nation has strayed from that beacon.
http://harpers.org/archive/2009/02/hbc-90004390
Today is Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, and it deserves to be commemorated in a fashion other than a shopping trip. He was America’s real war president, and he was also a giver of laws for war. Indeed, the notion of humanitarian law, as it emerged from the American Civil War and developed over the following 150 years, can hardly be imagined without the guiding hand of Lincoln. But that effort was part of Lincoln’s resolve to wage an aggressive and ultimately successful war to reinstate the Union, and it was driven by acceptance of the Kantian notion that war can bring about good, but that it requires rules and discipline, and a guiding vision of the just to do so. My Columbia colleague John Faber Witt offers a short essay on Lincoln, the giver of laws of war, at Slate. It’s a salve for difficult times. Here’s a snippet:
The code reduced the international laws of war into a simple pamphlet for wide distribution to the amateur soldiers of the Union army. It prohibited torture, poisons, wanton destruction, and cruelty. It protected prisoners and forbade assassinations. It announced a sharp distinction between soldiers and noncombatants. And it forbade attacks motivated by revenge and the infliction of suffering for its own sake. Most significantly, the code sought to protect channels of communication between warring armies. And it elevated the truce flag to a level of sacred honor.
In the spring of 1863, Lincoln’s code was given not just to the armies of the Union but to the armies of the Confederacy. The code set out the rules the Union would follow—and that the Union would expect the South to follow, too. For the next two years, prisoner-exchange negotiations relied on the code to set the rules for identifying those who were entitled to prisoner-of-war status. Trials of Southern guerilla fighters and other violators of the laws of war leaned on the code’s rules for support. The Union war effort became far more aggressive than it had been under McClellan’s rules. As the Union’s fierce Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman put it, Lincoln brought the “hard hand of war” to the population of the South. But this more aggressive posture was not at odds with Lincoln’s new code. It was the code’s fulfillment.
I firmly believe that Lincoln’s experience has much to offer our nation at this time. Here’s what Witt has to say on that score:
For the past seven years, America has repeated the journey Lincoln completed in 24 grueling months. Strong majorities of Americans now call for the dismantling of detention facilities at Guantanamo. Even stronger majorities oppose the use of torture in interrogations. As a nation, we have walked in Lincoln’s footsteps, down an uncertain path from skepticism about the laws of war to a rediscovery of their pragmatic mix of toughness and humanity. President Obama, in his inaugural address, pledged to reconcile our interests and our ideals. This is precisely what Lincoln’s laws of war sought to accomplish, rejecting lawlessness while relentlessly pursuing threats to our way of life.
Well said. The current administration is right to summon Lincoln’s image, his words, and his resolve. They can be an essential part of the elixir to cure our current woes. They give us a nation that stood as a beacon for democracy when it was all but eclipsed from the earth. We would be dishonest with ourselves if we did not recognize that our nation has strayed from that beacon.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Friday, January 9, 2009
Where lack of Regulatory Oversight Gets Us
Toxic coal ash piling up in ponds in 32 states
WASHINGTON – Millions of tons of toxic coal ash is piling up in power plant ponds in 32 states, a practice the federal government has long recognized as a risk to human health and the environment but has left unregulated.
An Associated Press analysis of the most recent Energy Department data found that 156 coal-fired power plants store ash in surface ponds similar to the one that collapsed last month in Tennessee.
Records indicate that states storing the most coal ash in ponds are Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Georgia and Alabama.
The man-made lagoons hold a mixture of the noncombustible ingredients of coal and the ash trapped by equipment designed to reduce air pollution from the power plants.
Over the years, the volume of waste has grown as demand for electricity increased and the federal government clamped down on emissions from power plants.
The AP's analysis found that in 2005, the most recent year data is available, 721 power plants generating at least 100 megawatts of electricity produced 95.8 million tons of coal ash. About 20 percent — or nearly 20 million tons — ended up in surface ponds. The remainder ends up in landfills, or is sold for use in concrete, among other uses.
The Environmental Protection Agency eight years ago said it wanted to set a national standard for ponds or landfills used to dispose of wastes produced from burning coal.
The agency has yet to act.
As a result, coal ash ponds are subject to less regulation than landfills accepting household trash. The EPA estimates that about 300 ponds for coal ash exist nationwide. And the power industry estimates that the ponds contain tens of thousands of pounds of toxic heavy metals.
Without federal guidelines, regulations of the ash ponds vary by state. Most lack liners and have no monitors to ensure that ash and its contents don't seep into underground aquifers.
"There has been zero done by the EPA," said Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W. Va., chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. Rahall pushed through legislation in 1980 directing the EPA to study how wastes generated at the nation's coal-fired power plants should be treated under federal law.
In both 1988 and 1993, the EPA decided that coal ash should not be regulated as a hazardous waste. The agency has declined to take other steps to control how it is stored or used.
Rahall plans to introduce legislation this Congress to compel the EPA to act. "Coal ash impoundments like the one in Tennessee have to be subject to federal regulations to ensure a basic level of safety for communities," Rahall said.
At a hearing held Thursday on the Tennessee spill, Senate Democrats called for stricter regulations.
"The federal government has the power to regulate these wastes, and inaction has allowed this enormous volume of toxic material to go largely unregulated," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who chairs Senate committee that oversees the EPA.
The agency says it is working toward a national standard and that there has been no "conscious or clear slowdown" by Bush administration officials who have run the agency since 2001 and often sided with the energy industry on environmental controls.
"It has been an issue of resources and a range of pressing things we are working on," said Matthew Hale, who heads the agency's Office of Solid Waste.
Over the years, the government has found increasing evidence that coal ash ponds and landfills taint the environment and pose risks to humans and wildlife. In 2000, when the EPA first floated the idea of a national standard, the agency knew of 11 cases of water pollution linked to ash ponds or landfills. In 2007, that list grew to 24 cases in 13 states with another 43 cases where coal ash was the likely cause of pollution.
The leaks and spills are blamed for abnormalities in tadpoles. The heads and fins of certain fish species were deformed after exposure to the chemicals. In 2006, the EPA concluded that disposal of coal waste in ponds elevates cancer risk when metals leach into drinking water sources.
Among the facilities listed by the EPA as potentially causing environmental damage were three run by the Tennessee Valley Authority, the same utility that operates the pond in Tennessee that failed last month.
Hale said the national standard would require monitoring for leaks at older, unlined sites and require the company to respond when they occur.
The industry already runs a voluntary program encouraging energy companies to install groundwater monitors. Industry officials argue that a federal regulation will do little to prevent pollution at older dump sites.
"Having federal regulations isn't going to solve those problems," said Jim Roewer, executive director of the Utility Solid Waste Activity Group, a consortium of electricity producers based in Washington. "What you have to look at is what the current state regulatory programs are. The state programs continue to evolve."
Despite improvements in state programs, many states have little regulation other than requiring permits for discharging into waterways — as required by the federal Clean Water Act.
In North Carolina, where 14 power plants disposed of 1.3 million tons in ponds in 2005, state officials do not require operators to line their ponds or monitor groundwater, safety measures that help protect water supplies from contamination.
Similar safety measures are not required in Kentucky, Alabama, and Indiana.
And while other states like Ohio have regulations to protect groundwater, those often don't apply to many of the older dumps built before the state rules were imposed.
Government enforcement has been spotty, leaving citizens who suffered from the contamination to file lawsuits against power companies.
In May, the owners of a Montana power plant — storing more ash in ponds than any other facility in the country — agreed to pay $25 million to settle a lawsuit filed by 57 plant workers and nearby residents. The plant's ponds were blamed for contaminating water supplies in subdivisions and a trailer park.
Many of the ponds at the Colstrip, Mont., plant were in place before regulation. State environmental officials say the operator, PPL Montana, is working to fix leaks.
Just last week, a judge in Baltimore approved a $54 million lawsuit settlement against a subsidiary of Constellation Energy. The company was accused of tainting water supplies with coal ash it dumped into a sand and gravel quarry.
Neither of these made the EPA's 2007 list of 67 cases of known or possible contamination stemming from power plant landfills or holding ponds.
"The solution is readily available to the EPA," said Lisa Evans, an attorney for Earthjustice, an environmental advocacy group. "We wouldn't like it, but they could say that municipal solid waste rules apply to coal ash. They could have done that, but instead they chose to do absolutely nothing."
WASHINGTON – Millions of tons of toxic coal ash is piling up in power plant ponds in 32 states, a practice the federal government has long recognized as a risk to human health and the environment but has left unregulated.
An Associated Press analysis of the most recent Energy Department data found that 156 coal-fired power plants store ash in surface ponds similar to the one that collapsed last month in Tennessee.
Records indicate that states storing the most coal ash in ponds are Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Georgia and Alabama.
The man-made lagoons hold a mixture of the noncombustible ingredients of coal and the ash trapped by equipment designed to reduce air pollution from the power plants.
Over the years, the volume of waste has grown as demand for electricity increased and the federal government clamped down on emissions from power plants.
The AP's analysis found that in 2005, the most recent year data is available, 721 power plants generating at least 100 megawatts of electricity produced 95.8 million tons of coal ash. About 20 percent — or nearly 20 million tons — ended up in surface ponds. The remainder ends up in landfills, or is sold for use in concrete, among other uses.
The Environmental Protection Agency eight years ago said it wanted to set a national standard for ponds or landfills used to dispose of wastes produced from burning coal.
The agency has yet to act.
As a result, coal ash ponds are subject to less regulation than landfills accepting household trash. The EPA estimates that about 300 ponds for coal ash exist nationwide. And the power industry estimates that the ponds contain tens of thousands of pounds of toxic heavy metals.
Without federal guidelines, regulations of the ash ponds vary by state. Most lack liners and have no monitors to ensure that ash and its contents don't seep into underground aquifers.
"There has been zero done by the EPA," said Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W. Va., chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. Rahall pushed through legislation in 1980 directing the EPA to study how wastes generated at the nation's coal-fired power plants should be treated under federal law.
In both 1988 and 1993, the EPA decided that coal ash should not be regulated as a hazardous waste. The agency has declined to take other steps to control how it is stored or used.
Rahall plans to introduce legislation this Congress to compel the EPA to act. "Coal ash impoundments like the one in Tennessee have to be subject to federal regulations to ensure a basic level of safety for communities," Rahall said.
At a hearing held Thursday on the Tennessee spill, Senate Democrats called for stricter regulations.
"The federal government has the power to regulate these wastes, and inaction has allowed this enormous volume of toxic material to go largely unregulated," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who chairs Senate committee that oversees the EPA.
The agency says it is working toward a national standard and that there has been no "conscious or clear slowdown" by Bush administration officials who have run the agency since 2001 and often sided with the energy industry on environmental controls.
"It has been an issue of resources and a range of pressing things we are working on," said Matthew Hale, who heads the agency's Office of Solid Waste.
Over the years, the government has found increasing evidence that coal ash ponds and landfills taint the environment and pose risks to humans and wildlife. In 2000, when the EPA first floated the idea of a national standard, the agency knew of 11 cases of water pollution linked to ash ponds or landfills. In 2007, that list grew to 24 cases in 13 states with another 43 cases where coal ash was the likely cause of pollution.
The leaks and spills are blamed for abnormalities in tadpoles. The heads and fins of certain fish species were deformed after exposure to the chemicals. In 2006, the EPA concluded that disposal of coal waste in ponds elevates cancer risk when metals leach into drinking water sources.
Among the facilities listed by the EPA as potentially causing environmental damage were three run by the Tennessee Valley Authority, the same utility that operates the pond in Tennessee that failed last month.
Hale said the national standard would require monitoring for leaks at older, unlined sites and require the company to respond when they occur.
The industry already runs a voluntary program encouraging energy companies to install groundwater monitors. Industry officials argue that a federal regulation will do little to prevent pollution at older dump sites.
"Having federal regulations isn't going to solve those problems," said Jim Roewer, executive director of the Utility Solid Waste Activity Group, a consortium of electricity producers based in Washington. "What you have to look at is what the current state regulatory programs are. The state programs continue to evolve."
Despite improvements in state programs, many states have little regulation other than requiring permits for discharging into waterways — as required by the federal Clean Water Act.
In North Carolina, where 14 power plants disposed of 1.3 million tons in ponds in 2005, state officials do not require operators to line their ponds or monitor groundwater, safety measures that help protect water supplies from contamination.
Similar safety measures are not required in Kentucky, Alabama, and Indiana.
And while other states like Ohio have regulations to protect groundwater, those often don't apply to many of the older dumps built before the state rules were imposed.
Government enforcement has been spotty, leaving citizens who suffered from the contamination to file lawsuits against power companies.
In May, the owners of a Montana power plant — storing more ash in ponds than any other facility in the country — agreed to pay $25 million to settle a lawsuit filed by 57 plant workers and nearby residents. The plant's ponds were blamed for contaminating water supplies in subdivisions and a trailer park.
Many of the ponds at the Colstrip, Mont., plant were in place before regulation. State environmental officials say the operator, PPL Montana, is working to fix leaks.
Just last week, a judge in Baltimore approved a $54 million lawsuit settlement against a subsidiary of Constellation Energy. The company was accused of tainting water supplies with coal ash it dumped into a sand and gravel quarry.
Neither of these made the EPA's 2007 list of 67 cases of known or possible contamination stemming from power plant landfills or holding ponds.
"The solution is readily available to the EPA," said Lisa Evans, an attorney for Earthjustice, an environmental advocacy group. "We wouldn't like it, but they could say that municipal solid waste rules apply to coal ash. They could have done that, but instead they chose to do absolutely nothing."
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Life in Gaza
The Gaza Fallout
By Ken Silverstein
From Marc Lynch:
However this round of violence ends — and it’s hard to see any scenario in which it produces remotely positive results for anyone involved — the outcome at the regional level will likely be to further exacerbate these conflicts and to undermine the chances for the incoming Obama administration to make early progress. While Arab regimes will almost certainly survive the latest round of popular outrage, the regional atmosphere may prove less resilient. Syria has reportedly broken off its indirect peace talks with Israel, for instance. A bloody Hamas retaliation against Israelis seems highly likely, and if Abbas is seen as supporting the Israeli offensive against his political rivals then Hamas may well emerge from this even stronger within Palestinian politics. The offensive is highly unlikely to get rid of Hamas, but it will likely leave an even more poisoned, polarized and toxic regional environment for a new President who had pledged to re-engage with the peace process. Obama has scrupuously (and wisely) adhered to the “one President at a time” formula in foreign policy up to this point… but you have to wonder how long he can sit by and watch the prospects for meaningful change in the region battered while the Bush Administration sits by and cheers.
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