Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Those oldies but goodies, pt. 1
I like Chinese (and yet...)
Just got my hands on December's Harper's, which has an insightful, truly frightening article about China, its "industrial revolution" and the environment. I cannot but think that this is the biggest challenge facing the world going forward.
According to the writer, China has more than 100 cities with 1 million inhabitants. It is adding an urban infrastructure equivalent to Houston every month. Environmental degradation, poisoning of natural resources, is becoming commonplace. There may be up to 70,000 protests in China every year, many of them about toxic factories. Every year, it adds the equivalent of Brazil's entire generating capacity to its electrical grid, but 24 of 31 provinces had power shortages in 2004. China already produces 16% of the world's CO2, against the US's 25%, and will overtake the US sometime in the next 25 years.
What's really scary is how difficult it will be to reverse any of this: massive processes like urbanisation and industrialisation are so hard to turn around, for any number of reasons, including inertia, human behaviour, sociology and even morality - why shouldn't the Chinese get the benefits of modernity?
The argument (upheld 95-0 by the US Senate in 1997 and by the pusillanimous John Kerry in 2004*) that this means China has to make the same cutbacks as the developed world in Kyoto and other instruments like it, also doesn't wash. For one, it's hard to see how China really could. For another, as the author (Bill McKibben) eloquently writes:
As he says, this means we face an actual tragedy "because, right now, a rapidly growing China is actually accomplishing some measurable good with its growth. People are enjoying some meat, sending their brothers to school, heating their huts." And he doesn't see America making major changes to its way of life (I don't either).
I have no suggestions. I just feel it's terribly depressing.
* The same pathetic man, remember, who didn't mention Guantanamo once in his "campaign".
According to the writer, China has more than 100 cities with 1 million inhabitants. It is adding an urban infrastructure equivalent to Houston every month. Environmental degradation, poisoning of natural resources, is becoming commonplace. There may be up to 70,000 protests in China every year, many of them about toxic factories. Every year, it adds the equivalent of Brazil's entire generating capacity to its electrical grid, but 24 of 31 provinces had power shortages in 2004. China already produces 16% of the world's CO2, against the US's 25%, and will overtake the US sometime in the next 25 years.
What's really scary is how difficult it will be to reverse any of this: massive processes like urbanisation and industrialisation are so hard to turn around, for any number of reasons, including inertia, human behaviour, sociology and even morality - why shouldn't the Chinese get the benefits of modernity?
The argument (upheld 95-0 by the US Senate in 1997 and by the pusillanimous John Kerry in 2004*) that this means China has to make the same cutbacks as the developed world in Kyoto and other instruments like it, also doesn't wash. For one, it's hard to see how China really could. For another, as the author (Bill McKibben) eloquently writes:
[M]easuring by people, when China passes the United States as the world's largest carbon emitter, the average Chinese will still be producing only a quarter as much carbon as the average American. And of course it goes deeper than that--the reason the atmosphere is filled to the danger point with carbon is because we've already been filling it for two centuries, burning coal and oil to get rich while the Chinese have been staying poor. As Ma Jun, a daring environmentalist who's taken big risks to write his books, told me one day, "Nearly 80 percent of the carbon dioxide has come from 200 years of the industrial world. Let's be realistic. Those historic burdens have to be shouldered by those counties that have enjoyed the benefits."
As he says, this means we face an actual tragedy "because, right now, a rapidly growing China is actually accomplishing some measurable good with its growth. People are enjoying some meat, sending their brothers to school, heating their huts." And he doesn't see America making major changes to its way of life (I don't either).
I have no suggestions. I just feel it's terribly depressing.
* The same pathetic man, remember, who didn't mention Guantanamo once in his "campaign".
Naches to all
A lot of friends have had great joys in their life recently, and I thought I'd share them with y'all.
- Elyse and Alan had their first child, Annika.
- Jason and Ilana had their first child, Gad.
- Jorge and Leyla had their third child and first son, Jorge (who is thus Jorge Peña III).
- Greg and Bianca got married.
- Stephen and Jenny christened Sam (more on that later).
Mazeltov to all of them!
Overheard at the ICTY
"... persecution complex. I've had it. David* must stop calling himself my friend."
Spken (probably predictably) by an Englishman.
* Names have been changed to protect the guilty.
Spken (probably predictably) by an Englishman.
* Names have been changed to protect the guilty.
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Fun with arbitration
I know everyone's much more interested in the hallucinogenic tea case, but yesterday's case on arbitration has some funny aspects to it, and shows that Roberts has a bit of a wicked sense of humour.
The case is Buckeye Check Cashing v Cardegna, but to tell the story, we must first go back to 1995's watershed Allied-Bruce Terminix v Dobson. That case affirmed Southland v Keating, a hoary old precedent (1984) which ruled that the FAA applies to state courts. Justices Thomas and Scalia argued in Allied-Bruce that Southland was incorrect in this ruling. Thomas, showing remarkable restraint, did not quote either The Federalist or Is That a Parrot on Your Shoulder or Are You Just Happy To See Me?:The Best of Long Dong Silver, but did quote Erie, other federal cases from 1924, 1914 and 1847, a 1931 law review article, a 1935 treatise, a 1921 district court case, an 1840 Alabama case and a case intriguingly named Aktieselskabet Korn-Og Foderstof Kompagniet v. Rederiaktiebolaget Atlanten (better known, owing to a typographical error, as The Korn-Dog).
Scalia said: "I shall not in the future dissent from judgments that rest on Southland. I will, however, stand ready to join four other Justices in overruling it." Thomas said nothing of the sort.
Fast-forward to this week's decision. Thomas is still arguing (into a void - no-one has joined him) that the FAA doesn't apply to state courts. I still find it a little unbelievable how one can have a Supreme Court justice who doesn't believe in stare decisis at all - the man clearly has no idea what it means to be a judge.
Everyone else is for reversing the lower case. So Roberts, of course, gets to pick the writer. Who does he give it to? Yup, little Nino, who now has to write an opinion using Southland. I don't know about you, but I think that's a sly little bit of judicial humour.
(Also, I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but except for 2 Thomas dissents - his other one, weirdly, said in effect that you can sue the Post Office if you slip and fall on an empty mailbag but not a full one (I really think he's either insane or an idiot) - and 2 Stevens dissents, 1 joined by Kennedy, the last 9 cases have all been unanimous. Roberts must be a uniter, not a divider (and Alito hasn't taken part in one of them).)
The case is Buckeye Check Cashing v Cardegna, but to tell the story, we must first go back to 1995's watershed Allied-Bruce Terminix v Dobson. That case affirmed Southland v Keating, a hoary old precedent (1984) which ruled that the FAA applies to state courts. Justices Thomas and Scalia argued in Allied-Bruce that Southland was incorrect in this ruling. Thomas, showing remarkable restraint, did not quote either The Federalist or Is That a Parrot on Your Shoulder or Are You Just Happy To See Me?:The Best of Long Dong Silver, but did quote Erie, other federal cases from 1924, 1914 and 1847, a 1931 law review article, a 1935 treatise, a 1921 district court case, an 1840 Alabama case and a case intriguingly named Aktieselskabet Korn-Og Foderstof Kompagniet v. Rederiaktiebolaget Atlanten (better known, owing to a typographical error, as The Korn-Dog).
Scalia said: "I shall not in the future dissent from judgments that rest on Southland. I will, however, stand ready to join four other Justices in overruling it." Thomas said nothing of the sort.
Fast-forward to this week's decision. Thomas is still arguing (into a void - no-one has joined him) that the FAA doesn't apply to state courts. I still find it a little unbelievable how one can have a Supreme Court justice who doesn't believe in stare decisis at all - the man clearly has no idea what it means to be a judge.
Everyone else is for reversing the lower case. So Roberts, of course, gets to pick the writer. Who does he give it to? Yup, little Nino, who now has to write an opinion using Southland. I don't know about you, but I think that's a sly little bit of judicial humour.
(Also, I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but except for 2 Thomas dissents - his other one, weirdly, said in effect that you can sue the Post Office if you slip and fall on an empty mailbag but not a full one (I really think he's either insane or an idiot) - and 2 Stevens dissents, 1 joined by Kennedy, the last 9 cases have all been unanimous. Roberts must be a uniter, not a divider (and Alito hasn't taken part in one of them).)
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Bicycle race bicycle race bicycle race bicycle race
Well, not quite, but last weekend I decided to put my money where my mouth was and go for a real ride with my friend P-O. We went for a 40km ride through the dunes north of The Hague to a seaside resort called Katwijk. One of the hilliest rides one is likely to take in Holland (it is through dunes, after all), it was some fine exercise and at times quite pretty scenery. But yaera castini (sp?) it was cold. Fine once we're riding, but whenever we stopped or even slowed down (ie, when I was going up any sort of hill), the icicles* started forming on my eyebrows. The national park where the dunes were was full of other riders, all of whom seemed to be faster and less mindful of the cold than I. Not quite Dutch yet.
* Recently, I spelled that word "icycle". It looks a bit strange, but maybe that's the kind of icicle you get when you ride on your bicycle. ha ha.
* Recently, I spelled that word "icycle". It looks a bit strange, but maybe that's the kind of icicle you get when you ride on your bicycle. ha ha.
Israel
I only do politics sometimes on this blog, and there are certain areas in there that I tend to stay away from in many spheres: Israel is one. There are only certain people that I will discuss Israel and the Palestinians with because it is an extremely emotive issue for me and others, and as a Jew I can't help but make it personal, so I can end up imputing all sorts of motives and lack of sensitivity to others, which (I am sure) are usually untrue, so it's best I avoid it. I recognise that this might be cowardly, or avoiding the issue, but there you go. However, Ostrow and Scott alerted me to some incredible pictures taken during the dismantlement of a Jewish settlement on the West Bank, one of which I am putting up without comment. There are more here (click inside the box that says photos).
