Adventures in Bureaucracy
Another reminder of why I don't watch television news regularly any more: Elizabeth Vargas gives us yet more to worry about with different scenarios for the end of the world on "
Last Days". I caught the end of it tonight, with the top three threats to humanity as (in ascending order) nuclear war, plague and global warming.
I kind of thought it was odd that the nuclear war scenario was the big exchange of nuclear arsenals a la "The Day After", but how likely is that these days? But no matter. A suitcase bomb here or there won't destroy the entire planet, but if all the nuclear bombs went off at once, it would be enough to kill the entire population of the earth several times over, and all the debris would blot out the sun. If it happens, I hope I'm in Sydney or Wellington at the time.
Then there was the spot on global warming. You knew it had to be that, but the way it was presented was totally insulting. The entire scientific community agrees that global warming is real and that mankind is causing it. Any disagreement is exactly the same as Holocaust denial, and the people who deny it are the same kinds of shills who denied that nicotine was addictive. Sorry, I thought this was a news show. Instead of putting on people to discredit the opposition, how about showing - it IS the sciences, after all - charts, or graphs, or statistics, or some sort of EVIDENCE. But no, the viewer should accept global warming is real and manmade because all the scientists say so. And then the big gun is trotted out - Al Gore. You can't disagree with him, can you? Apparently not, since there was no apparent attempt to demonstrate it's actually happening. It's just that if you deny it, you're a nutter.
Let's try to find some presumably raw data on the subject.
Here's a NOAA chart with global temperature variances from the 150 year mean. That's the period for which there is reasonably accurate measured data.
Wikipedia has a chart with reconstructed temperatures from the last thousand years. How hard was that to find? Why couldn't anything like this be shown in the report?
So let's accept that we're on a warming trend. Is it conclusively a manmade phenomenon? Who can say? Again, there was no attempt to demonstrate it in the report.
Al Gore (looking a bit Botoxed to me) then goes on to talk about the millions of tons of carbon dioxide put into the air every year, and the ice sheets are melting, and the next thing you know, London will be under forty feet of water. How can we stop this? Apparently by driving hybrid cars - things kind of broke down in the chain of reasoning here. Elizabeth Vargas did ask a good question: even if the United States does cut back on carbon emissions, what about growing economies like China and India? Response: our moral leadership will compel the Indians and Chinese to follow us on the path to a carbon-neutral lifestyle. Right. Ask Richard Gere and the Dalai Lama how effective that whole moral leadership thing has been with Tibet.
So pretty much the whole report takes global warming on faith, as
described right here. No attempt to convince the uncoverted, and that part really irritated me.
I guess the whole premise of the "the-world-is-ending-because-of-climate-change" crowd doesn't really convince me. I've seen enough documentaries to know about drastic changes on the Earth over time. The climate is ALWAYS changing. If it were a static system, there would be no life on this planet. Ten thousand years ago sheets of ice covered most of the good bits of North America. Three thousand years ago the Sahara was savannah. It's not like all climate changes have taken place outside of human history. How many ancient cities are now under the sea or found in deserts and jungles? So what is it that supposedly makes the current warm spell different? Are we as humanity really causing it, or is it just part of some 100,000 year cycle?
And how are little things like driving more fuel-efficient cars or alternate means of electricity going to reduce temperatures on a global scale? Not to be overly glib, but it sounds like it's going to take something big to make any difference. Like, say, blasting some nukes just as mentioned in the #3 most likely apocalypse scenario to put a lot of dust and debris into the atmosphere and cut the amount of sunlight we get.
Whatever happened to the whole idea of progress? I firmly believe that human ingenuity can come up with the solutions to any problem we face. Sure, any solution to global warming will probably bring on a whole different set of unforeseen problems, but that's what happens. If the sea levels are rising, do we let the waters inundate southeastern England? They've got a bunch of Dutch people right across the Channel who have figured out how to keep their lands dry. Water from the glaciers raising sea levels while the snow packs that supply water to southern California disappear? It just becomes a problem of moving the water from point A to point B.
So after catching the tail end of this, I was left wondering why so many people are worried about potentially bad things happening fifty years from now, but yet apparently unconcerned over more immediate problems like a nuclear Iran or psychopaths who think they'll get to Heaven by killing themselves and taking a bunch of other people with them.
Another entry in the category of things that needed to be said, and I agree with at least seven of the nine. Old, but still good.
Interesting story of the moment:
former Iranian president Khatami is granted a visa to visit the United States.
This announcement has stirred up a lot of people, who are wondering what in the world the Department of State is doing, and coupled with revelations on the whole Plame affair it's enough to make you wonder whether
the Department has decided to strike out and pursue its own policies independent of the administration.
I'm curious about the mechanics of the whole thing. Which post issued the visa? You know it wasn't some junior officer sitting at the window when suddenly an Iranian entourage appeared clutching visa applications. I'm sure that there was a huge amount of cable traffic between whichever place it was and main State.
I also wondered about what kind of visa was issued. There's enough residual knowledge of immigration left over to remember the C-2 visa, which was for undesirable foreign diplomats to travel to the United Nations. It was kind of an elegant solution to the problem of having the U.N. enclave surrounded by U.S. territory. All the "C" visas are for transit, and the C-2 allows transit - more or less from JFK to the United Nations building and back - for diplomats from countries we do not recognize diplomatically. Remember Saddam Hussein's Ambassador's press conferences from New York? C-2 visa. The odd part about this category was the condition that anyone with a C-2 visa must stay within 25 miles of Columbus Circle in Manhattan. I don't know how this was enforced, but it was one of those fun facts from the imm law classes that is lodged permanently in my brain.
Other diplomats come in with either "A" visas (for representatives of a foreign government to the United States) or "G" visas (for representatives of or to international organizations). I thought I remembered something about former heads of state or government still retaining the "A" classification even after they had left office, but no Iranian would qualify for that.
Khatami got a G-4, since he's apparently part of a U.N. panel. Most of the "A" and "G" visa holders are exempt from most of the legal reasons we have to keep people out, so foreign policy interests trump everything else.
It should be an interesting visit.
Interesting story of the moment:
former Iranian president Khatami is granted a visa to visit the United States.
This announcement has stirred up a lot of people, who are wondering what in the world the Department of State is doing, and coupled with revelations on the whole Plame affair it's enough to make you wonder whether
the Department has decided to strike out and pursue its own policies independent of the administration.
I'm curious about the mechanics of the whole thing. Which post issued the visa? You know it wasn't some junior officer sitting at the window when suddenly an Iranian entourage appeared clutching visa applications. I'm sure that there was a huge amount of cable traffic between whichever place it was and main State.
I also wondered about what kind of visa was issued. There's enough residual knowledge of immigration left over to remember the C-2 visa, which was for undesirable foreign diplomats to travel to the United Nations. It was kind of an elegant solution to the problem of having the U.N. enclave surrounded by U.S. territory. All the "C" visas are for transit, and the C-2 allows transit - more or less from JFK to the United Nations building and back - for diplomats from countries we do not recognize diplomatically. Remember Saddam Hussein's Ambassador's press conferences from New York? C-2 visa. The odd part about this category was the condition that anyone with a C-2 visa must stay within 25 miles of Columbus Circle in Manhattan. I don't know how this was enforced, but it was one of those fun facts from the imm law classes that is lodged permanently in my brain.
Other diplomats come in with either "A" visas (for representatives of a foreign government to the United States) or "G" visas (for representatives of or to international organizations). I thought I remembered something about former heads of state or government still retaining the "A" classification even after they had left office, but no Iranian would qualify for that.
Khatami got a G-4, since he's apparently part of a U.N. panel. Most of the "A" and "G" visa holders are exempt from most of the legal reasons we have to keep people out, so foreign policy interests trump everything else.
It should be an interesting visit.
Interesting comentary from Consul-at-Arms on a new personnel assignment policy at the Department of State. The prospect of spending long stretches of my career in places like Conakry and Monrovia is one of the reasons I keep shying away from the Foreign Service. Not that I'm clawing to get out of Homeland Security at the moment, but let's face it, State has a certain cachet to it that DHS just doesn't.
I can certainly sympathize with some of the issues for Foreign Service Officers. Just when you think you've got your career mapped out, surprise! They've decided to use a new map! Been there. In fact, I'm still there.
Then there's the whole way that rotations are handled. I can definitely understand the point for the organization. People in headquarters become stale because they no longer have any working knowledge of what happens in the rest of the organization, and that does not make for good policies (again, we're talking generally here, not about DHS), so it makes sense not to keep people in the same jobs forever. And an organization obviously doesn't want to leave its people marooned in some of the nastier parts of the world for years on end, because that would probably lead to a high turnover, and the recruitment process for new hires in the federal government is glacial.
The other side of the issue is the expertise of the people who work for the organization. A one-year assignment isn't a whole lot of time to figure out local conditions and build up a level of experience, and it's been my experience that there is no good way to transmit that knowledge what rotation time comes around. The language issue shows one problem with quick rotations. How can someone develop any degree of fluency without a constant, long-term exposure to a language over time? You might get pretty good at a language after a year, but unless you are reassigned to another country using the same language (easier with the Arab countries, than, say, Pashto or Dari), the fluency atrophies quickly.
Then there's the matter of local contacts. In a lot of places, if you want to get things done, you need to know who to deal with, and that person needs to know and trust you. That's true in the U.S. government, and doubly so in many foreign countries. Again, one year is a very short time for this. It's difficult to build those lasting relationships with a welcome meeting, an invite to the embassy Fourth of July party, and a farewell lunch.
There's a lot to be said for leaving people in place so that they can grow into their positions, and even though the field would be fairly sparse for candidates wishing to stay in Baghdad for a full five-year assignment, I think some people could be found with the right incentives. I think the usual carrots State dangles before its new FSOs have been (1) think of all the shopping you can do on these assignments (I've been in the homes of some FSOs and seen the huge collections of furniture and handicrafts that they've amassed) , and (2) you'll do OK financially without rent or a mortgage, plus the home leave and other benefits, and (3) if you go to Baghdad now, you can go to Berlin later.
Changing "Berlin" to "Bujumbura" doesn't exactly make it more enticing.
Ultimately State has to find a way to make the best use of its people without driving them off to new jobs, and as Consul-at-Arms pointed out, filling the hardship posts with brand-new officers isn't the best way to do things. It's enough to make me glad I didn't go into Personnel.
Enough of the government stuff. If you want to end the day with a new skill, check out the
tutorial on making Slovenian blueberry schapps at Glory of Carniola.
But before you think that the government is totally dysfunctional, ICE and Citizenship and Immigration Services seem to work together pretty well. Case in point:
Haitian immigrant sentenced to eight years for mail fraud and immigration violations.It seems he was charging $450 to file immigration applications for Africans and Caribbean islanders, among others, for employment authorization. Over 10,000 such applications were identified, which netted a pretty nice chunk of change.
Which gives me ideas for ways to supplement my income when I retire. You know, once all those federal ethics briefings wear off.
And yes, I AM kidding about that, but it's a testament to the confusion about the immigration system. All the information anyone needs can be found on the websites of USCIS or the Department of State. If you qualify, it becomes mostly a matter of waiting out the process.
While on the subject of Immigration and Customs Enforcement,
the Heritage Foundation put out some recommendations on ICE and Customs and Border Protection, saying the two entities should work together seamlessly. Right now they get on about as well as cats and dogs.
Over the weekend I half-way paid attention to the whole JonBenet thing, and the one thing that I can't figure out is:
How did Immigration and Customs Enforcement get involved in all this?
The ICE attache in Bangkok was at the press conference announcing the arrest of the suspect, and two ICE agents flew with him back to Los Angeles. What's the connection? The guy is an American citizen suspected of murder in the United States, so on its face it doesn't seem to have a nexus to either immigration or customs issues.
Naturally I have a couple theories.
It could be that the case is a turkey right from the get-go, so the FBI, which would ordinarily hog all the press if it looks like good news, is staying as far from this one as possible. This leaves ICE, which is desperate for any good press at all, holding the bag.
Or it's because the guy was under suspicion for involvement with child pornography, which ICE does handle (not exactly a national security issue, but it is part of the customs function). When he got picked up as a potential pedophile, the whole rest of the story came out.
Or it could just be that the Thai government has handled it as an immigration matter, and they wanted to be rid of an undesirable alien, so they contacted their American counterparts in the immigration business. Ordinarily repatriations are a State Department function, but maybe everyone in Citizen Services was on summer vacation at the time.
I'm sure all answers will be revealed in the next departmental newsletter.
More great places on the internet, via
Father Jim: Wikipedia in
the language of the Veneto. And there's so much more to Italy than Italian. The sidebar shows Corsican, Friulian, Ligurian, Lombard, Neapolitan (apparently it's more than a pizza and the tri-colored ice cream) and more. The standard language of Italy is a Tuscan dialect, and supposedly the best Italian is
lingua toscana in bocca romana - 'the Tuscan tongue, in a Roman mouth'. But Tuscan hasn't stamped out the other children of the Latin language quite yet.
More great places on the internet, via
Father Jim: Wikipedia in
the language of the Veneto. And there's so much more to Italy than Italian. The sidebar shows Corsican, Friulian, Ligurian, Lombard, Neapolitan (apparently it's more than a pizza and the tri-colored ice cream) and more. The standard language of Italy is a Tuscan dialect, and supposedly the best Italian is
lingua toscana in bocca romana - 'the Tuscan tongue, in a Roman mouth'. But Tuscan hasn't stamped out the other children of the Latin language quite yet.
Oh God,
here's another one: "Diving for Dinner", an article about people who scavenge dumpsters for food. Not because they're destitute, mind you. No, it's a political statement.
"
A half-dozen longtime divers said such Web sites as Meetup.com, which connects people looking for activity partners, have seen a huge increase in the number of curious first-timers seeking fellow divers. And disillusionment with the Bush administration's environmental policies has pushed some young people to everyday forms of protest. "
It's not anti-social behavior, it's a form of protest! Hey guys, some news for you people who think you're helping animals or the environment: the animals are dead BEFORE they sell the meat in stores, and the nasty chemicals and wasteful packaging are already there BEFORE the stuff went on sale. Pulling it out of the garbage can doesn't stop any of these things. It just means you're cheap and disgusting for eating out of the garbage, so stop trying to ennoble what is an inherently dirty and repellent act.
Just ask George Costanza.
This was almost enough to make my head explode: an interview with the man who brought us the "World Citizen Guide", filled with helpful tips to make Americans seem, well, less American. He's been in marketing for fifty years, and he thinks the USA brand is in trouble.
Oy.
"
He says surveys taken in 17 countries in 2002 showed that people think that global U.S. businesses are exploitative, that Hollywood promotes messages that conflict with local cultural and religious values, and that Americans are materialistic, arrogant, loud and uninterested in other cultures."
I think a good chunk of the American population would probably agree with the statement about Hollywood, but we'll let that go for now. "Materialistic, arrogant, loud and uninterested in other cultures" is a stereotype from forty years ago, and it's one of many that hasn't yet changed with how things have evolved over time. You know, like the stereotypes of warlike Germans, stiff-upper-lip Brits or craven French (OK, maybe not that last one).
"
The first point is to try to sensitize certain U.S. key constituent groups to the problem. There is still not widespread knowledge or agreement that we really have a problem with our reputation and image around the world."
Translation: Americans must be made to understand that other countries hate them!
"
The second part of our plan is to transform or change those parts of America and Americans that we can influence. . . . If the perception is that we are loud, arrogant, insensitive, ignorant -- we can change that."
Translation: Americans should care what other people think about them, and try to ingratiate themselves in any way possible.
"
In marketing, what you do if a brand is in trouble is you get all of the perceptions and you put all of the positive perceptions over here and you say, "How can we amplify those?" Then you divide the negatives into two piles: Negative perceptions that are true -- you have to change the product. Negative perceptions that are not true -- you have to clarify the communication.
So our strategy is change the product. Make Americans less arrogant, better world citizens. Maybe more than 17 percent of us should have passports. Maybe we should get out and see the world. So that's the part we're trying to change. And then the visa and the entry policies. That's changing the product. The market will decide."
Change the product??? Better world citizens?!?!?
The advice given to prospective world citizens (PDF file) does bear that marketing touch, in that it seems extremely shallow and tries to dress up common sense as something new and profound. Here's my advice: when you're overseas, be polite and behave like your mother is in the same room. No need to feign interest in soccer or bypass a McDonald's if you're in the mood (especially if you're looking for a decent bathroom that's more than a hole in the ground with a foot pedal on either side). And I'm not going to be "celebrating our diversity" while I'm on vacation either. What does that mean anyway? Should I start talking about Maya Angelou's writings to poor unsuspecting foreigners? That would just make them hate us more! As for advice like "Be a traveler, not a tourist" and "Be a student" - feh. I believe I have made my feelings on the Rick Steves school of travel clear enough in previous posts.
Question for the marketing guy: New Coke was a marketing scheme to "change the product" and expand its global appeal. How'd that work out?
I think they refer to these as "
push factors" in discussions of migration issues. And in the comments section, a link shows that South Africa does not have much in the way of "
pull factors".
Over at Open Book:
But there are many in the middle of that spectrum, who observe the world, listen to those prelates, reflect on Catholic teaching, and pace, ambiguous and confused. And I'd like to venture an opinion on what confuses and worries even those who believe that what the Pope says on this is to be taken more seriously than, say, his "prudential judgment" on whether it is going to rain tomorrow.
I think it is that in these statements, there seems to be a sort of distance from the reality raging around us. There is no direct engagement with the fundamental issues: the commitment to cripple the West and impose the radical, fundamentalist Islamist ideal in its stead. A total contempt for freedom and the intrinsic value of human life. And the determination and will to do this, by any means necessary.
In which "peace" means something different to those instigating the war than those defending themselves, in which there is no desire for co-existence or dialogue.Well said.
Proof that your high school English teachers were right when they said that punctuation really IS important. (via
INDC Journal)
Today's Post has
a big front page article on homeland security -- more as an issue than on the Department. Turns out that a big reorganization didn't in and of itself solve every problem. Who'da thunk it?
A discussion of the global language at Geographic Travels ends with a chilling prophecy:
If the American dominance of English continues look for the downfall of civilization. It would not be the English one heard from the read letters of Ken Burn's Civil War but the "English" spoken and utilized by teenage girls! Teenage girls "are the most dominate force in the evolution" of my mother tongue. That's like totally like not cool.Which brings up a question that has bothered me for quite some time: when and how did California Val-speak become the national idiom? Was it all those surfer movies with Frankie and Annette? Did Gidget have something to do with? Or was it that Frank Zappa song that introduced Moon Unit to the world?
Just hearing the number of "likes" that pepper every-day speech drives me bonkers, and I want to know where I should direct my wrath. Or at least send a complaint letter.
The Archbishop of Milwaukee says a woman facers excommunication for participating in an "ordination" ceremony.
Her response:
"That doesn't mean I'm excluded from the church. Only I can exclude myself," she said.Actually, there's this guy in Rome who can exclude her too...
U.S. Weighs Relaxing Cuban Immigration.
Sounds like somebody's been thinking about ways to prevent Mariel II.
Border Patrol agents convicted with the testimony of a drug smuggler.
Border Patrol has what is probably the toughest job in law enforcement, because they have a rough job and don't get much support. But this just seems astonishing to me:
According to the U.S. attorney who successfully prosecuted the agents, the man they were chasing didn't actually have a gun, shooting him in the back violated his civil rights, the agents didn't know for a fact that he was a drug smuggler, and they broke Border Patrol rules about discharging their weapons and preserving a crime scene.
Even more broadly, Assistant U.S. Attorney Debra Kanof said, Ramos and Compean had no business chasing someone in the first place.Chasing people is what Border Patrol officers are paid to do. That's the job. And they were prosecuted because they "didn't know for a fact" the man they were chasing was a drug smuggler? Talk about second-guessing! I suppose all the other drug smugglers operating across the border wear some sort of easy-to-see identification so that Border Patrol officers will know which ones they can go after. Or flag down or wave over, seeing as how they aren't actually supposed to pursue anyone.
Now let me say here that I am not saying that the two officers in question did nothing wrong, or that they shouldn't have been prosecuted. Discharge of a firearm while on duty is a serious matter, and it looks like the two officers tried to cover it up after shooting at someone.
But violating civil rights in a crime of violence? Border Patrol officers are routinely subject to assault, and there are always threats of violence from the smugglers, the gangs and other criminals that operate in the border areas. They have to make split-second decisions in matters that can involve their own lives, and they've got good reason to be concerned about their own lives because of what so many news reports put down as a general state of lawlessness along the Mexican frontier. After hearing shots being fired and then seeing what at first glance appears to be a weapon... well, that sounds like one of those justified shooting situations they talked about at the academy.
The really nice part here is that the "victim" is given medical treatment and full immunity. Just what WAS he doing in the first place? I guess that part doesn't matter. (via
Debbie Schlussel)
"In my heart, I'm already an American in every way."
Which he proves by
filing a lawsuit against Citizenship and Immigration Services.
