We are all doomed

Drive to drop paper coffee cup brews in Seattle

by Sandi Doughton

Along with whalebone corsets and mimeograph machines, another anachronism will be displayed in museums of the future if Karin de Weille has her way: the disposable cups that fuel today's culture of coffee and convenience.

Against odds that would discourage a less optimistic soul, de Weille on Saturday launched a campaign in the heart of caffeine country to get people to kick the paper habit.

"I think Seattle can push the frontier," she said at Green Festival, the two-day celebration of eco-friendliness where the effort got its official start.

Seattle City Council President Richard Conlin endorsed the initiative, which urges participants to whip out their own reusable cups for mochas on the go, and opt for ceramic over paper when ordering "for here."

"Let's show that we can do this, and our success will be duplicated in other cities," Conlin said in a statement.

Co-sponsors of the initiative include Sustainable Seattle, Zero Waste Seattle, Caffe Ladro and several other local coffee shops.

Americans go through 56 billion paper cups every year, according to statistics compiled by International Paper. Starbucks alone gulps up 3 billion.

The thin plastic coating that keeps most cups from turning to mush complicates recycling. Only a handful of cities try, including Seattle. But even if cups are recycled, it still requires enormous amounts of energy and resources to manufacture and ship them, de Weille said.

"Because we recycle, it actually becomes easier to throw stuff away," she said. "But recycling should be a last resort."

Cultural shifts can take generations, but psychological research suggests it takes only about three weeks for individuals to change a habit. So de Weille set up an online platform called New World Habits where people can sign on to the challenge for three weeks and chart their collective progress.

"Even if you believe in it, something like kicking the cup habit is easy to put off," she said.

Setting a three-week deadline provides motivation, as does knowing you're not alone. New World Habits also offers tips on getting coffee shops and bistros involved.

Disposable cups are an expense and hassle for businesses, said Laura Musikanski, executive director of Sustainable Seattle. Most coffee shops already offer discounts to people who bring reusable cups. For the disposable-cup challenge, Caffe Ladro raised the rebate from 10 to 25 cents at its 13 locations.

De Weille didn't try to get Starbucks on board, but the coffee giant is struggling to boost recycling and reduce the use of paper cups. Less than 2 percent of Starbucks beverages are served in reusable cups, and the company's website says it may not be able to meet the goal of increasing that fraction to 25 percent by 2015.

Many folks are in the habit of toting reusable grocery bags, but the scene at Green Festival showed how deeply entrenched disposables have become, even at an eco-conscious event. Vendors served samples of soy milk, blood-orange juice and wine in paper and plastic. Cleanup crews hauled away bags bulging with cups.

Nicole Robbins, of Kitsap County, sipped a latte from a paper cup and admitted Americans have become addicted to convenience. "We're very conditioned to it," she said.

She uses a glass water bottle regularly, but as an infrequent coffee drinker hasn't made the leap to a reusable mug. "Somebody needs to make a mug that folds down, that you can fit in your purse," she said with a laugh.

Lori Bonner, of Kenmore, had her stainless-steel coffee mug. She's been using it for three years, and usually keeps it tucked in her bag despite occasional drips. "I feel bad if I forget it," she said.

When de Weille was weaning herself off disposable cups, she relied on sticky-note reminders. When she forgot her mug, she would walk back to the car to fetch it — using the mindful stroll to reinforce the new habit.

Now she always carries spare mugs in the car. Her small backpack has a cup holster. And she doesn't beat herself up for occasional lapses.

"We don't have to be perfectionists," she said. "But this something we can all 

King's Gambit

“Bibi” Votes Republican

by Patrick J. Buchanan

Not since Nikita Khrushchev berated Dwight Eisenhower over Gary Powers’ U-2 spy flight over Russia only weeks earlier has an American president been subjected to a dressing down like the one Barack Obama received from Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday.

With this crucial difference. Khrushchev ranted behind closed doors, and when Ike refused to apologize, blew up the Paris summit hosted by President de Gaulle.

Obama, however, was lectured like some schoolboy in the Oval Office in front of the national press and a worldwide TV audience.

And two days later, he trooped over to the Israeli lobby AIPAC to walk back what he had said that had so infuriated Netanyahu.

“Bibi” then purred that he was “pleased” with the clarification.

Diplomatic oil is now being poured over the troubled waters, but this humiliation will not be forgotten.

What did Obama do to draw this public rebuke? In his Thursday speech on the Arab Spring and Middle East peace, Obama declared:

“We believe the borders of Israel should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states. … Israel must be able to defend itself — by itself — against any threat.”

Ignoring Obama’s call for “mutually agreed swaps” of land to guarantee secure and defensible borders for Israel, Netanyahu, warning the president against a peace “based on illusions,” acted as though Obama had called for an Israel withdrawal to the armistice line of 1967.

This was absurd. All Obama was saying was what three Israeli prime ministers — Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert — have all recognized.

To get Palestinian and international recognition for a united Jerusalem and Israel’s annexation of the settlements around the city, Israel will have to trade land for land.

Obama was not saying the 1967 borders were to be the end of negotiations but the starting point. Indeed, where else would one begin land negotiations if not from the last recognized map?

Undeniably, Netanyahu won the smack-down. The president was humiliated in the Oval Office, and in his trip to AIPAC’s woodshed he spoke of the future peace negotiations ending just as Israelis desire and demand.

Nor is this the first time Obama has been rolled by the Israeli prime minister. Obama came into office demanding an end to all new or expanded settlements on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, and subsequently backed down from each and every demand.

Fed up, his Mideast peace negotiator George Mitchell has quit.

Politically, too, the president has been hurt. To the world, and not just the Arabs, he appears weak.

In Israel, Netanyahu is seen as having stood up for Israel’s vital interests and forced an American president to back down. His right-wing coalition is cheering him on.

Indeed, the issue is not whether Obama has been hurt, but why Bibi, raised in the U.S.A., who knows American politics better than any previous Israeli prime minister, did it. Why wound Obama like that?

Why would the leader of a nation of 7 million that is dependent on U.S. arms, foreign aid and diplomatic support choose to humiliate a president who could be sitting in that office until 2017?

The one explanation that makes sense is that Netanyahu sees Obama as more sympathetic to the Palestinians and less so to Israel than any president since Jimmy Carter, and he, Netanyahu, would like to see Obama replaced by someone more like the born-again pro-Israel Christian George W. Bush.

And indeed, the Republicans and the right, Mitt Romney in the lead, accusing Obama of “throwing Israel under the bus,” seized on the issue and, almost universally, have taken Netanyahu’s side.

This could be a serious problem for the president and his party in 2012. For, consider:

In 2008, Obama won the African-American vote 95 to 4, or 16 to 1. He won the Jewish vote 78 to 21, by 57 points, a historic landslide.

These are arguably the two most reliable of Democratic voting blocs.

And while the Jewish vote may be only one-seventh of the black vote, it has proven decisive in the crucial state of Florida. Moreover, Jewish contributions, by some estimates, may make up half of all the contributions to the Democratic Party.

If, after hearing an Israeli prime minister berate Obama for ignorance or indifference to the cold realities the Jewish state faces, Jewish folks decide Obama is bad for Israel and close their checkbooks, the impact in a tight election could be critical.

On the other hand, for African-Americans to see the first black president treated like some truant third-grader by a prime minister of Israel whose nation is deeply dependent on this country has to grate.

In the short run, Bibi won the confrontation, hands down. Like no other leader before him, he humiliated a U.S. president in front of the world, forced him to revise his remarks of four days previous, then graciously accepted the revision.

But a second-term Obama is unlikely to forget what was done to him.

Feral Progressive State

Supreme Court Backs Cuts In California Prison Population

May 23, 2011 

The Supreme Court on Monday narrowly endorsed reducing California’s cramped prison population by more than 30,000 inmates to fix sometimes deadly problems in medical care, ruling that federal judges retain enormous power to oversee troubled state prisons.

   The court said in a 5-4 decision that the reduction is “required by the Constitution” to correct longstanding violations of inmates’ rights. The order mandates a prison population of no more than 110,000 inmates, still far above the system’s designed capacity.

   There were more than 143,000 inmates in the state’s 33 adult prisons as of May 11, meaning roughly 33,000 inmates will need to be transferred to other jurisdictions or released.

   Justice Anthony Kennedy, a California native, wrote the majority opinion, in which he included photos of severe overcrowding. The court’s four Democratic appointees joined with Kennedy.

   “The violations have persisted for years. They remain uncorrected,” Kennedy said. The lawsuit challenging the provision of mental health care was filed in 1990.

   Justice Antonin Scalia said in dissent that the court order is “perhaps the most radical injunction issued by a court in our nation’s history.”

   Scalia, reading his dissent aloud Monday, said it would require the release of “the staggering number of 46,000 convicted felons.”

   Scalia’s number, cited in legal filings, comes from a period in which the prison population was even higher.

   Justice Clarence Thomas joined Scalia’s opinion, while Justice Samuel Alito wrote a separate dissent for himself and Chief Justice John Roberts.

   Michael Bien, one of the lawyers representing inmates in the case, said, “The Supreme Court upheld an extraordinary remedy because conditions were so terrible.”

   State officials did not immediately comment on the ruling.

   Eighteen other states joined California in urging the justices to reject the population order as overreaching. They argued that it poses a threat to public safety. State attorneys general said they could face similar legal challenges.

   Alito said he, too, feared that the decision, “like prior prisoner release orders, will lead to a grim roster of victims. I hope that I am wrong. In a few years, we will see.”

   The California dispute is the first high court case that reviewed a prisoner release order under a 1996 federal law that made it much harder for inmates to challenge prison conditions.

   The case revolves around inadequate mental and physical health care in a state prison system that in 2009 averaged nearly a death a week that might have been prevented or delayed with better medical care.

   The facilities were designed to hold about 80,000 inmates.

   The state has protested a court order to cut the population to around 110,000 inmates within two years, but also has taken steps to meet, if not exceed, that target. Kennedy said the state also could ask the lower court for more time to reach the 110,000-inmate target.

   Earlier this year, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill that would reduce the prison population by about 40,000 inmates by transferring many low-level offenders to county jurisdiction. The state legislature has yet to authorize any money for the transfer.

   A person appointed by federal judges now oversees prison medical operations, but the judges have said the key to improving health care is to reduce the number of inmates.

   At the peak of the overcrowding, nearly 20,000 inmates were living in makeshift housing in gymnasiums and other common areas, often sleeping in bunks stacked three high. Another 10,000 inmates were in firefighting camps or private lockups within California.

   In 2006, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger used his emergency powers to begin shipping inmates to private prisons in Arizona, Mississippi and Oklahoma. More than 10,000 California inmates are now housed in private prisons out of state.

   Schwarzenegger also sought to reduce the inmate population by signing legislation that increased early release credits and made it more difficult to send ex-convicts back to prison for parole violations. Another law rewards county probation departments for keeping criminals out of state prisons.

   One result of those changes is that the state has been able to do away with nearly two-thirds of its makeshift beds, although more than 7,000 inmates remain in temporary housing.

"Reality is not optional"

Greek protesters: Ready to face reality about the debt crisis?

Greek protesters are angry and in denial. But there’s no denying the consequences of spending beyond your means.

By Donald J. Boudreaux

Dear Angry Greek Protesters:

Your country is hailed as the cradle of Western civilization. This honor is justified, not least because of the unprecedented flowering there, 2,500 years ago, of that most wonderful, unique, and useful of all human abilities: reason.

Alas, your behavior over the past few days will severely tarnish Greece’s reputation as a home to reason. You are behaving childishly and thoughtlessly – that is, unreasonably.

Screaming in the streets, waving banners, and tossing homemade explosive devices at the police do absolutely nothing to address the very real problem your country faces. That problem is that your country is not as wealthy as you would like it to be. Nor is it as wealthy as your government led you (and others) to believe it was.

In short, your economic pie is too small to satisfy all of your demands. Railing madly against this reality, however, does nothing to increase that pie’s size. Resources and wealth are produced neither by angry sloganeering nor by simplistic denials of the facts. Quite the contrary.

For decades your country has lived well beyond its means. Thirty years ago, your government’s debt-to-GDP ratio was 34.5 percent. Today that figure stands at 154 percent. In other words, for decades your government borrowed money to provide you with goods and services that you couldn’t afford.

Living on credit is fun while it lasts. But reason tells us that it cannot last forever. Now that the bills are coming due, you must somehow pay them. This requirement is unavoidable.

No reasonable adult is shocked or angered when the bill for the lavish meal that he enjoyed last week arrives in his mailbox today. Paying that bill is never pleasant, but it must be done. The reasonable adult pays. He doesn’t scream in anger at the bank that loaned him the money to pay for the meal. He doesn’t blame others for his debt obligations. And he doesn’t demand that people who are in no way responsible for his decision to buy that expensive meal, and who didn’t share it with him, nevertheless help him to pay for it.

The reasonable adult also knows that if he refuses to pay his debt, he might keep a few more euros in his pocket today, but only by sacrificing his future ability to borrow. And he knows that his resulting reputation for forcing others today to pay his expenses will diminish the willingness of others tomorrow to deal with him economically.

In short, the reasonable adult doesn’t clamor for something-for-nothing. Instead, he works and saves, knowing that, over the long-run, nothing is free.

In your defense, I realize that the steady stream of goods and services that your government bestowed upon you until recently seemed to come out of nowhere. This illusion perhaps misled you into supposing that whenever government borrows to pay for goods and services, it does something fundamentally different from what private individuals do when they borrow to pay for good and services.

In fact, though, reason informs us that government, being a human institution, is subject to all the laws and constraints that bind every other human endeavor. Despite appearances, the past few decades’ massive spending of resources that allowed you to consume more than you produced has made you poorer today (for those resources are now, well, spent – gone – used up). And this deficit spending has burdened you with debt from creditors who quite justifiably wish to be repaid.

While I do not excuse your government for misleading you about its powers to spend without constraint, I cannot excuse you – you from reason’s crib – for your present stubborn and mad refusal to accept the reality of your government’s near-bankruptcy.

Your government simply does not have available to it all of the resources that are required to satisfy all of your demands.

Your only reasonable course of action, then, is to work harder, save more, and adopt wiser public policies that promote wealth creation. Chief among these policy changes is to reject the socialism that you have been infatuated with for too long now. You need greater respect for private property. You need entrepreneurship. You need competition. In short, you need free markets. Without these, you will never become more prosperous.

If you wish, of course, you can continue to deny this reality – a reality that is now slapping you in your face. But as the economist Thomas Sowell is fond of pointing out, reality is not optional. He is both right and reasonable.

‘Anarchist’ Idiocy

 By David Boaz 

The Washington Post splashes a story about “anarchists” in Greece ^[1] across the front page today. The print headline is “Into the arms of anarchy,” and a photo-essay online ^[2] is titled “In Greece, austerity kindles the flames of anarchy.” And what do these anarchists demand? Well, reporter Anthony Faiola doesn’t find out much about what they’re for, but they seem to be against, you know, what the establishment is doing, man:

The protests are an emblem of social discontent spreading across Europe in response to a new age of austerity. At a time when the United States is just beginning to consider deep spending cuts, countries such as Greece are coping with a fallout that has extended well beyond ordinary civil disobedience.
Perhaps most alarming, analysts here say, has been the resurgence of an anarchist movement, one with a long history in Europe. While militants have been disrupting life in Greece for years, authorities say that anger against the government has now given rise to dozens of new “amateur anarchist” groups.

Faiola does acknowledge that the term is used pretty loosely:

The anarchist movement in Europe has a long, storied past, embracing an anti-establishment universe influenced by a broad range of thinkers from French politician and philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon to Karl Marx to Oscar Wilde.

So that’s, let’s see, a self-styled anarchist who was anti-state and anti-private property, the father of totalitarianism, and a witty playwright jailed for his homosexuality.

Defined narrowly, the movement includes groups of urban guerillas, radical youths and militant unionists. More broadly, it encompasses everything from punk rock to WikiLeaks.

And what are these various disgruntled groups opposed to?

The rolling back of social safety nets ^[3] in Europe began more than a year ago, as countries from Britain to France to Greece moved to cut social benefits and slash public payrolls, to address mounting public debt. At least in the short term, the cuts have held back economic growth and job creation, exacerbating the social pain.
And Greece is not the only place in which segments of society are pushing back.

So these “anarchists” object that the state might cut back on its income transfers and payrolls. That is, they object to the state reducing its size, scope, and power. Odd anarchists, as George Will told the crowd ^[4] at the 2010 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty dinner:

It leads to the streets of Athens, where we had what the media described as “anti-government mobs.” Anti-government mobs composed almost entirely of government employees going berserk about threats to their entitlements!

Realism in action

On 60th anniversary of Tibet's incorporation, China 'owns' the history books

Western media aren’t paying much attention to what happened in Beijing 60 years ago today, which means the People’s Republic of China are free to have a field-day with it. If the 17-point agreement signed on May 23, 1951, was indeed a good thing for Tibet, then there’s never been a better example of history belonging to the victors.

“History will be kind to me for I intend to write it,” Winston Churchill once said. Which was kind of a watered-down version of his more famous utterance on the subject, the one that achieved the aphoristic in its claim that “history belongs to the victors.” And given that Churchill himself could make such statements, what’s to stop the central government in Beijing – or anyone else for that matter – from putting them into action? Because if the headlines in China’s major state media organs are to be believed, today (May 23, 2011) is the 60th anniversary of Tibet’s emancipation from a feudal and repressive political system.
“Tibet marks 60th anniversary of peaceful liberation,” Xinhua, the People’s Republic’s largest newswire, proclaimed. The piece opened with a description of pilgrims prostrating themselves at the foot of the “stunning” Potala Palace in Lhasa, “under the five-star flag”. It then went on to quote Qiangba Puncog, chairman of Tibet's regional legislature, who said: "[May 23] is a historic date for all the Tibetans. It opened a new chapter in Tibet's history... and ushered in a new period of national unity and rapid development." After remarking on the flowers presented at a monument commemorating the peaceful liberation in 1951, the piece noted that “the crowd went silent to mourn the heroes who died in the fight for Tibet's liberation, socialism building and economic development.”
It was this last part that CCTV, the leading national television network of the People’s Republic, focused on most strongly. Interviewing students at the Chengguan Primary School in Lhasa, the network highlighted how Chinese intervention is preparing young Tibetans for a global marketplace. “Why do you want to study English?” the reporter asked one student. “Because I want to study abroad,” he answered. According to the 11-year-old, “those who study abroad are really cool” and “have a lot of style.” The television report, which was titled “Tibetans rediscover their roots,” ended with a less-than-subtle claim that the digitisation of the Tibetan language (under the auspices of Beijing) is reintroducing students to their fading mother tongue. 
Of course, the “Free Tibet” association views the consequences of the events of May 23, 1951, slightly differently. This famous not-for-profit points out on its website that in early October, 1950, 40,000 Chinese soldiers invaded Tibet and overran its small army; when the Tibetan appeal to the United Nations was blocked by India and Britain, the country had no option but to negotiate with the Chinese People’s Government. According to Free Tibet, the preamble to the 17-point agreement, which was signed in Beijing on May 23, 1951, “stressed that Tibet had a ‘long history within the boundaries of China,’ outlined the aggressive imperialist forces in Tibet that needed to be ‘successfully eliminated,’ and claimed that both parties (Tibetans and the Chinese People's Government) had, as a result of talks, agreed to ‘establish the agreement and ensure that it be carried into effect’.” The agreement paved the way, as per the organisation, for widespread human rights abuses – including the torture of political prisoners, and mass restrictions on religious freedom and freedom of speech. As a consequence, an average of 3,000 Tibetan refugees are said to cross the Himalayas into exile every year.
But then why the international media’s silence on the issue? As of this writing, at about noon on the 60th anniversary of the signing, Google news is registering less than a dozen articles on the subject – and most of these dozen are from the abovementioned official Chinese sources. In another Xinhua article, China's top political advisor, Jia Qinglin, was quoted saying that “Tibet is an inseparable part of China,” and the headline again employed the phrase “peaceful liberation”. Does Western media believe this to be true, or is China’s political and economic influence now so large that it impinges on the West’s ability to see the wood for the trees?
The answer, most probably, is neither of the above. According to a Tibetan activist quoted in an article in the Canberra Times (of all places), the day is nothing more than a “propaganda exercise” for the People’s Republic – and a low-key one at that. For the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile, by far the more important day is the anniversary of the March 10, 1959, uprising, when a popular revolt erupted in Lhasa. Given that on this day the international media also appears relatively interested in the plight of Tibet, the same can most likely be said of them too

Charity begins (and ends) at home

How the BBC spends Britain's international aid

A little-known charity run by the BBC is spending more than £15 million from the UK taxpayer on “international aid” projects including “educating” Africa on climate change and a “romantic” soap opera for Indian radio.
The charity, the BBC World Service Trust, employs nearly 600 staff based in London and around the world. It gets a further £800,000 a year in financial backing from the BBC, as well as funding from other sources.
Last year it spent more than £28 million on “changing lives through media and communication”. It also produces foreign sex education films, including one staring an Asian beauty queen emerging from a bath and seductively encouraging men to use a condom.
The revelation comes in the wake of the row over the Government’s decision to protect Britain’s overseas aid budget while imposing huge cuts on defence and other public spending.
On Saturday the disclosure was condemned by MPs who questioned why taxpayers’ money was being spent in this way and whether the Trust’s relationship with Whitehall departments, business donors and foreign governments damaged the BBC’s independence.
“You imagine that our foreign aid budget is being spent to save lives by pumping fresh water to a drought-ridden village, not to make soap operas,” said Philip Davies, a Tory member of the Commons culture committee.
In recent years the Trust has spent millions of pounds from the taxpayer including:
£2.6 million on “Sanglap” a satellite television and radio programme in Bangladesh which is described as “Question Time-style ... enabling audiences to hold politicians to account”.
£2 million on a radio soap opera, “Mandalay Road”, about health care and Aids in Burma
Daily reports from the war crimes trial of Charles Taylor, the former Liberian leader, with the BBC sending experienced correspondents to mentor African reporters covering the case
£2.5 million on a project highlighting “the importance of Information and Communications for Development”.
The BBC Trust gets additional public money from the Foreign Office-funded British Council, the European Union and the United Nations, as well as cash from Microsoft founder Bill Gates’s charitable foundation.
The charity is separate from the Foreign Office-funded BBC World Service, which runs the Corporation’s long-established foreign language stations around the world, and which broadcasts some of the Trust’s programmes.
Whilst the World Service is facing massive budget cuts, the Trust appears to have been unaffected so far by the economy drive. It has seen its budget grow tenfold since it was set up in 1999, including spending more than £5 million a year on salaries.
Caroline Nursey, its executive director and a former senior official at Oxfam, earns between £90,000 and £99,000 a year. At least three other executives are paid more than £80,000.
Its board of trustees is headed by Peter Horrocks, the director of the BBC World Service, and includes George Alagiah, the presenter of the Six O’clock News on BBC One.
Despite its rapid growth, the Trust is currently carrying out a “rebranding” exercise to raise awareness of its work within the BBC. Last year the charity sent a “sensory tent” with “a soundscape featuring ... voices by Sir David Attenbourgh (sic)” on a tour of the Corporation’s regional offices.