It is estimated that there are between 100 and 200 Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan combined. Most of our activity in either country is directed against the Taliban rather than against Al Qaeda.
Afghanistan is planning to reintroduce public stoning as punishment for adultery 12 years after the Taliban was ousted from power, according to a new draft penal code.
The move has shocked human rights campaigners and will dismay donors who have poured billions of pounds into the country for reconstruction.
It will be viewed as another backwards step at the end of a year that has seen women’s rights undermined, with a slew of legislation and murders of prominent women.
California has 5.3 million uninsured eligible to buy in the exchange with half estimated to be subsidy eligible.
California is cancelling another 1.1 million people of which Covered California has estimated 510,000 qualify for a subsidy they can only get if they go to Covered California. At least 80% need to act by December 23 to avoid losing their coverage.
The state is spending $250 million in federal money to get people signed up––dramatically more than any other state.
The Covered California goal is to sign-up 500,000 to 700,000 subsidy eligible people by March 31.
Why should we be so impressed with Covered California because they have signed-up 80,000 people so far? Or, even that their goal is to sign-up 500,000 to 700,000 of the state’s 6.4 million people––half subsidy eligible––who are uninsured or having their insurance canceled?
Looking at these numbers, if they don’t have well more than 500,000 people signed up by December 31, I would have to think the number of uninsured in California would have grown.
It’s too early to declare victory.
If there aren’t fewer people without healthcare on April 1, 2014 than there were on January 1, 2010, I think it’s fair to consider the entire project as a flop. If a substantial number of the newly-covered people are enrolled in Medicaid and were qualified under the old rules, I think it’s fair to consider it a pyrrhic victory.
Even if securing healthcare insurance for more people is a roaring success, that still leaves the task of getting healthcare for them. That getting more people covered by insurance will result in more people receiving care is an article of faith. Not my faith but an article of faith nonetheless.
I still don’t know what to make of the incipient agreement among Iran, the United States, and remainder of the so-called “P5+1”. It seems me that the reactions, especially the exaggerated reactions in either direction, depend strongly on your assumptions and notions of risk and reward.
As I understand the agreement, Iran has agreed to suspend enriching uranium beyond 5%, LEU, and grant additional access to international inspector in exchange, in effect, for a relatively small amount of money, something like $16 billion dollars. One way I’ve heard the deal described is that the Iranians have agreed to delay their “breakout” capability by about a month in exchange for about five weeks of oil revenues.
The Iranians have not agreed to comply with any of the many United Nations Security Council resolutions respecting their nuclear development or long-range missile programs, they have not agreed to grant inspectors complete unrestricted access, and, judging by the statements from the Iranian regime since the agreement was announced, it’s not the first step towards any sort of detente. We have not agreed to lift sanctions against them.
This is where the assumptions come in. If you assume that the Iranians are completely forthcoming, have no intention of producing a nuclear weapon, and even if they had one don’t threaten us, it’s a good deal. They’re giving not much, we’re giving not much, it kicks the can down the road a bit, and it might be better there.
If you assume that the Iranians are lying, are actively producing a nuclear weapon, we don’t know where all of their nuclear weapons development facilities are, and possession of a nuclear weapon by the present Iranian regime would be very, very bad, it’s a bad deal. They’ll keep right on developing and be that much closer to having their nuclear weapon and we’ve taken the heat off them for a while.
I try not to make assumptions but I do draw conclusions. There is no reason for the Iranian regime to have the very large number of centrifuges in their possession other than to make highly-enriched uranium. There are no peaceful uses of highly-enriched uranium. The most benign explanation I can think of for the Iranians’ actions is that they want us and the Iranian people to believe that they’re developing nuclear weapons, somewhat as Saddam Hussein wanted us to believe that he had large stockpiles of chemical and bacteriological weapons.
I also think the present Iranian regime’s possession of nuclear weapons would not be a good thing. On this I’m in pretty good company since the last three American presidential administrations have all believed the same thing. I consider that a conclusion rather than an assumption. At the very least it would lead to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East and, honestly, I don’t believe all of the regimes there are stable enough or have the civil infrastructure necessary to secure whatever nuclear weapons they might come to possess.
What do I make, then, of the statements by the Iranian regime that they would never produce nuclear weapons? I can only come up with three explanations. Either they’re engaging in gamesmanship along the lines of the “benign explanation” above, they’re equivocating, or not everybody in the Iranian regime is in agreement on the issue. None of those strike me as particularly cheering.
So, as I say, I don’t know what to make of the agreement.
We loved the production, i.e. the sets, staging, and particularly the costuming, some of which you get a flavor of in the picture above. The picture is from the first act and they’re about to launch into the famous drinking song, Libiamo, one of the opera’s greatest hits.
We felt there was something missing in the performance and I can’t really put my finger on just what it was. The tempi were quite fast and nearly everything was performed a tempo, i.e. in strict time. For example, the rising note in the 38th bar of the Libiamo (and the same figure when repeated elsewhere) is typically performed with a portamento in the rising note which is held in a slight fermata. Not so in this performance: it was performed strictly in time. The effect of this, at least to me, was somewhat cold, even perfunctory.
The principals definitely had the chops to sing their parts beautifully but failed to thrill. No one took their octaves. The performances did improve as the opera progressed. Violetta’s third act aria, Addio del passato, for example, was quite lovely. All in all it was an adequate performance but I can’t honestly say I was delighted.
A striking beauty blessed with a bright, ravishing timbre and top notes like laser beams, Rebeka had what it took to nail her big aria (with its restored second verse) and florid cabaletta in Act I. The rest of her performance disappointed. The emotionally buffeted Violetta of Act 2 and the dying Violetta of Act 3 needed more oomph in the middle and bottom registers and a keener sense of dramatic involvement in the characterization. Neither Violetta’s noble act of self-sacrifice nor her farewell to earthly things, the aria “Addio del passato,” really tugged at the requisite heartstrings.
Not that the emotional punch of the Violetta-Germont confrontation in Act 2 was helped by Kelsey’s somewhat growly, if voluminous sound and the condescending smugness and lack of sympathy with which Alfredo’s father treated his son’s lover. Fortunately the Ryan Center alumnus was able to warm and soften his timbre for a winning “Di Provenza il mar,” in which dad tried to comfort his grieving son by awakening nostalgia for their home in Provence.
I found Mr. Kelsey’s performance cold and I thought he was lacking in stage presence, important for the older Germont.
One would have thought that Italian conductor Massimo Zanetti’s scattershot and unconvincing approach to Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor†at the Civic Opera House two seasons ago would have been enough to persuade local leadership to look elsewhere for direction of such canonical works. But here we are again with constant and unnecessary racing, tweaking, arbitrary accents and ritards, none from the score and none adding anything to Verdi’s work. Balances with the singers were a bit better than in the orchestrally overpowering, uncoordinated “Lucia.†But after Muti’s “Macbeth,†“Otello†and frequent Requiems with the CSO here, why do we need to hear the second- or third-rate at a house of Lyric’s level and importance?
Casting, too, is problematic. Lyric has tapped the Baltics for a physically winning soprano, in this case Latvian Marina Rebeka. But after Violetta’s Act 1 half-hour mini-opera, the wan singer just does not have the voice for the next two highly demanding acts. She is even almost inaudible in the famed letter-reading introduction to the Act 3 signature, “Addio del passato,†normally a chance for acting chops to make up for any limitations as a singer.
Quinn Kelsey, the Hawaiian baritone and Ryan Center alumnus who is a local favorite — and a favorite of mine too — also fails to stake his claim on the elder Germont, the father of Violetta’s lover, who demands that the courtesan abandon his son thus sending the opera on its tragic way. While Kelsey becomes more well-rounded in the Act 2 “Di Provenza il mar,†he is generally hulking, skulking and one-dimensional in both his singing and in his acting.
Clealry, both Messrs. Von Rhein and Patner saw the same opera that we did.
Wednesday night it was the turn of Marina Rebeka, a relatively little known singer stateside, who was making her company debut. And while the Latvian soprano seemed to take a while to find her vocal footing opening night, with a boost by the terrific Joseph Calleja as Alfredo, the two principals sparked a vibrant and impassioned performance in what is Lyric’s most vocally successful show so far this season.
Rebeka is a gifted singer and makes an attractive presence onstage but she seemed ill at ease and nervous in the opening minutes Wednesday night with her words almost indecipherable in the Brindisi. Rebeka’s phrasing was choppy in Un di felice and she sang Ah fors’e lui with pure tone yet tip-toed dexterously through the final bursts of coloratura.
Whether a directorial decision or the singer’s own idea, singing Sempre libera as a tortuous confession rather than the joyous declaration of free living Verdi intended didn’t work dramatically at all. Though Rebeka began to show us what the advance notices are about, singing with creamy tone and impact, albeit eschewing the optional E flat.
The soprano seemed a different person after the first intermission, acting with greater subtlety and singing with consistent lovely gleaming tone and touching expression in Dite all giovine. From there she rose from strength to strength, affecting as the unjustly accused victim of Alfredo’s wrath, and bringing a tragic dignity to the final scene with a rendering of Addio del passato that was beautifully sung, pure-toned and heart-rending.
Several of the critics mentioned the elliptical set. I wonder if the designer realized that when the singers faced upstage at some angles they could be heard quite clearly but at others they were inaudible, depending on how the set reflected the sound?
Lyric really should be better than this. Once again we noticed a large number of empty seats in the orchestra section. For La Traviata?
Spanish excavations in Can Sadurnà cave (Begues, Barcelona) have discovered four human skeletons dated to about 6,400 years ago. The skeletal remains of the individuals are particularly important as they are in a very good state of preservation.
An archaeological campaign carried out previously identified other individuals which were not so well preserved but belong to the same stratigraphic layer.
Archaeologists excavating in 1999, also discovered within the cave, evidence for the earliest European beer, which may have been included as part of the death ritual.
The 24,000 year old remains of a boy found near Lake Baikal in Siberia have cast new light on the genetic origins of the earliest human inhabitants of the Americas:
A Texas A&M TAMU Times report notes that a DNA study of skeletal remains believed to be that of a young boy who lived and died about 24,000 years ago in Siberia, could turn the archaeological world on its head. DNA sequencing of the ancient child’s genome shows that while up to one-third of his ancestry can be traced back to Europe, nearly 30 percent of modern Native Americans’ ancestry also came from this youngster’s gene pool. Which suggests that First Americans came directly from Siberia, according to a research team that includes Dr. Kelly Graf, an assistant professor in the Center for the Study of First Americans and Department of Anthropology at Texas A&M.
[…]
A Science magazine article by science writer Ed Jong, entitled “America’s natives have European roots,†reports that the palaeolithic era skeleton, along with flint tools, a beaded necklace and what appears to be pendant-like items, all apparently placed in the burial as “grave goods,†first discovered in the late 1920s near the village of Mal’ta near Lake Baikal in south-central Siberia, and excavated by Russian archaeologists over a 20-year period ending in 1958 †The remains, since then referred to as “the Mal’ta child,†add a new root to the family tree of indigenous Americans. While some of the New World’s native ancestry clearly traces back to east Asia, sequencing of the 3 to 4 year old Mal’ta boy’s genome — the oldest known of any modern human — reveals that up to one-third of that ancestry can also be traced back to Europe.
I find this report very interesting in the context of so-called “Kennewick Man”. As you may recall, that’s the name given to the 8,000 year old remains of a man found on on federal lands around 15 years ago that resulted in so much controversy and, eventually, a law suit that made it all the way to the 9th Circuit. The remains, anatomically quite different from modern indigenous peoples in the area, have been found to have some notable similarities to Europeans.
That this boy who lived so long ago in the remotes of central Siberia, whose genome shared much with indigenous American people but also with European people, as does “Kennewick Man”, tells a new story on the human settling of the Americas.
As you study the history of human settlement if there’s one thing that’s clear it’s that the settlement patterns, who lived where, 500 years ago were dramatically different from those of today. The settlement patterns 2,000 or 5,000 or 10,000 years ago were just that much more different.
We’re all from somewhere else. But we’re here now. We should just learn to deal with that on a day-forward basis.
Tax expert Alan Viard has some advice on tax reform that probably won’t be good news to much of his audience. Here are his main points:
We’ll probably have higher taxes in the future than we do now.
Taxing investment income at the same rate as labor income is a really bad idea.
The “Fair Tax”, a national sales tax with a prebate to introduce some progressivity into the system, won’t work.
A flat tax won’t work.
Taxes in the U. S. probably won’t come to resemble those in Europe any time soon.
IMO increasing our taxes from 17% of GDP to 21% of GDP is much, much more easily said than done and it’s not even easily said. I’d like to see the proposals from those who want to increase taxes to 21% of GDP on how they plan to do it. Raising nominal rates is not enough.
Our tax policy remains mired in the past as does so much of our federal policy. When personal income tax rates were north of 90% a maximum tax on capital gains tax of 25% was a real incentive. When the top personal income tax rate is 39%, a capital gains tax of 23.8%? Meh. A little incentive but not much.
I agree with Mr. Viard that a progressive consumption tax, presumably administered as a value-added tax, makes a lot of sense. I just don’t see how we get from where we are to there.
I’ve made a conscious decision to reduce the volume of my posting on the PPACA until after the end of the month. I’ve largely said my piece and won’t have much meaningful to say until after the deadline for Healthcare.gov’s “working for the vast majority of users” set by the president. If the site is obviously not working at that point, he’ll set another deadline and take whatever other remedial action is necessary, e.g. issuing waivers, pushing back dates, etc. He really has no other alternative.
I did want to point out the Wall Street Journal’s article about the future hurdles the law faces even if its entry portal is fixed. Here’s their list:
Technology woes beyond Dec. 1.
More cancelled health plans.
Small business insurance disruption.
The viability of the exchanges.
Rate shock round two.
The viability of the exchanges.
You can’t even keep your ObamaCare plan.
. . . or your Medicare Advantage plan.
And maybe not your doctor.
Physician dissatisfaction.
November 30th won’t mark the end of a process but, under the very best of circumstances, the beginning of one. The PPACA’s timeline goes right through 2020 and there are bound to be revisions to the regulations that have been promulgated, revisions to the revisions, and so on. The only way that November 30th will mark the end of a process is if Healthcare.gov falls on its face again. That prospect has been maximized by the tight timeframe that’s still in place and the unrealistic expectations that have been placed on the site.
If Healthcare.gov flops again, the level of panic in the Congress we’ve seen to date will pale by comparison with the panic that will ensue. So we’re all but certain to be faced with substantial disruption in healthcare insurance if not the healthcare system for the foreseeable future. Sadly, it’s not the disruption we need. That is yet to come.
I don’t have much to say about the Senate Democrats’ move to end filibusters on presidential appointments. IMO the Republicans have overused their holds and filibuster capability on appointment. I believe that presidential appointments should, as has traditionally been the case, be accorded particular deference.
However, I don’t think it’s a great triumph for democracy, either. A century ago there were no limits on debate in the Senate and we were plenty democratic. More so than now if anything.
And there will inevitably be consequences. The Democrats may not hold the Senate in 2014 and they may not hold the White House in 2016. I see this entire sorry subject as a continuation of the loss of decorum and breakdown of fundamental working relationships in the Congress.
I’m honestly a bit puzzled about why the Obama Administration is negotiating a status of forces agreement with the Afghan government to enable the U. S. to maintain forces in Afghanistan after 2014 at all. There are probably fewer than 100 Al Qaeda members in Afghanistan at this point and they’re incapable of mounting serious attacks within Afghanistan let alone elsewhere. Most of our military activities for years have been against the Afghan Taliban who pose no threat to us, at least as long as they don’t decide to support Al Qaeda actively.
I recognize that without foreign troops Afghanistan is incapable of protecting its borders. It will also be incapable of protecting its borders next year, five years from now, or twenty years from now. And there will be Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan next year, five years from now, or twenty years from now. That’s as sure as saying “there will be people with brown eyes in Afghanistan”.
At the very least I think we should ask what his intentions are with respect to Afghanistan. Colony? Outpost a la Germany from 1945 to the present? Outpost a la Fort Apache?
