One of the tried and true (and tragic) behaviors of hardline dictatorships is to reaction to internal disasters as if either they didn’t happen (something that is increasingly difficult to do these days) or to downplay the need for help from the outside (if not to reject it outright). It has to do with control (of information as well as what the population might learn) as well, I suspect, with embarrassment over the state of the country. No doubt there is a healthy dose of xenophobia thrown in for good measure.

The case of the military junta in Burma is a remarkably sad case in point.

Via the BBC: Burma shuns foreign aid workers

Burma’s military junta says the country is not ready to accept foreign aid workers, amid mounting criticism of its response to the devastating cyclone.

The foreign ministry said Burma was happy to accept aid, but insisted it would control the distribution itself.

The statement follows pressure from the United Nations to speed up the issuing of visas to foreign relief experts.

All of this despite the fact that

Hundreds of thousands of people have no food, water or shelter. International aid agencies on the ground say they have reached only 10% of those that need help.

[...]

Although reports suggest troops have begun to distribute significantly more aid, experts agree that the military regime lacks the resources to co-ordinate an effective relief effort.

The whole thing is tragic on a number of levels, but clearly the situation is being made worse by the government’s recalcitrance.

Yes, Virginia, regime type does matter.

Note: previous entries in the Dictatorship for Dummies files include: here, here and here

He was promoted to full professor this week–which is pretty good, considering it was less than three years ago that he was denied tenure and promotion at Chicago. Much was made at the time of whether his blogging was part of the problem, but I guess it wasn’t such a big deal after all. As Dan notes in his post:

(suck on that,Ivan Tribble!!)

At any rate: congrats to Dan (whose comments are broken at his site¹ ).

1. Indeed, his trackbacks have been busted for years and the comments haven’t worked for weeks. Time to ditch the Moveable Type blog, Dan–it’s sooo early 2000s! [↩]

Via USAT: Clinton makes case for wide appeal

“I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on,” she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article “that found how Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”

“There’s a pattern emerging here,” she said.

I am pretty sure that the most important pattern emerging is that Obama has more pledged delegates, and that it is unlikely to change. Ultimately, the pattern at hand is simply one in which there is a very competitive race between two well-matched candidates. Oh, and the most salient characteristic of the pattern at this moment, is that Clinton is going to lose.

So, let’s find a new metric, shall we? The “big state” argument didn’t work, nor did the “primary states are better than caucus states” argument work either. As the previous post noted, the “popular vote” metric has sunk, so what we have now is “my coalition of voters is better than your coalition of voters.”

While Clinton’s attempt here is to play on the behavior of superdelegates, but I think that the real target for her argument is herself: she needs to convince herself that has a really good reason to keep running.

As I have noted before, the notion that the behavior of voters in the candidate selection process has some sort of direct correlation to how they will behave in the general election makes no sense. These are different contests, held under different rules with different purposes. While a lot of Hillary supporters may currently feel very strongly about their candidate, I am guessing that given a little time to get over the loss, they will look at McCain and Obama, and choose Obama. The notion that only Clinton can deliver lower-class white voters is ridiculous.

However, let’s deal with the pattern that Clinton is most interested in, which is that she thinks she attracts voters who are more important (or useful) in terms of the November elections.

Indeed, the new shift to a focus on the nature of the electoral coalition, made me think of this (noted on Balloon Juice):

Via the Miami Herald: Counting Florida’s votes won’t close Clinton-Obama gap.

Hillary really wants those votes:

”I am running to be the president of all of America — north, south, east and west, and everywhere in between. That’s why it is so important that we count the votes of Florida and Michigan,” she said in Indiana, as the crowd chanted, “Count the votes!”

”It would be a little strange to have a nominee chosen by 48 states,” added Clinton, though she, like Obama, agreed to boycott Florida and Michigan before their January primaries.

However:

even her campaign acknowledges that the state can’t deliver her the Democratic nomination.

Squeezing all of the votes out of Florida’s Jan. 29 primary still leaves her trailing Barack Obama — and Florida Democrats are willing to settle for half as many.

[...]

The national party is slated to reconsider counting the delegates from Florida and Michigan on May 31. But Clinton campaign officials acknowledged that the best possible outcome wouldn’t close her 150-plus delegate gap with Obama.

Clinton would net 38 delegates if Florida got back its entire slate of 188 pledged delegates to the convention; the appeal to the national party asks for half, or 94.

Plus, Florida no longer helps Clinton in the the vaunted (yet meaningless) “popular vote” metric, as adding Florida to the current popular totals still gives Obama an edge of 417,285 votes (click here and scroll down to see a table with te various permutations of the popular vote totals).

Via the LAT: Border busts coming and going

U.S. border authorities no longer apprehend illegal immigrants only as they enter the country. Now they’re catching them on the way out.

At random times near the Tijuana-San Diego border, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers have been setting up checkpoints, boarding buses destined for Mexico and pulling off people who don’t have proper documentation.

[...]

“If our officers come upon people who are here illegally . . . regardless of whether they’re leaving the country, we detain them, make a record of the fact they were here illegally and return them to Mexico,” Bond said.

This strikes me as nonsensical from a policy perspective. It is clear that we do not have the resources to stop persons from illegally entering the country, so we are going to divert what limited resources we do have so as stop people who are in the process of leaving so that we can, well, make them leave?

As Greg Weeks notes:

In other words, such individuals are mere minutes from deporting themselves, but the U.S. government wants to spend tons of money to do it instead.

More from the article:

Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center of Comparative Immigration Studies at UC San Diego, said he was not aware of similar crackdowns in the past. The checkpoints make sense for intercepting contraband, but targeting illegal immigrants voluntarily leaving the country is a “bizarre” way of handling the illegal immigration question, he said.

Bizarre, indeed.

Again: as a deployment of scarce resources, this is a clear waste. Further, if part of the overall policy is to get those in the country illegally to leave of their own accord, surely the possibility of being arrested on the way out will dissuade them from trying to go home in the first place, yes? Can we therefore say “counterproductive”?

All I can figure, aside from simple stupidity, is that this a sop to those who say that the government isn’t doing enough in terms of enforcement. Indeed, it is classic politics: if one cannot actually accomplish the main policy goal, do something visible within that overall policy area, even if it doesn’t make much sense. At least people will see that one is doing something.

Via the AFP: Father in Austria incest case: ‘I’m no monster’.

Indeed. “Monster” is too kind a term for the man.

Source

It just goes to show: pets is trouble.

(Or, as I like to say, “you can’t spell ‘pest’ without ‘pets’”)

Via The Hill: Feinstein to ask Clinton for her primary game plan

I, as you know, have great fondness and great respect for Sen. Clinton and Im very loyal to her, Feinstein said. Having said that, Id like to talk with her and [get] her view on the rest of the race and what the strategy is.

File that under “meetings and discussions one doesn’t have with a candidate one thinks still has a real chance of winning.”

Indeed, more one can add to that file:

“I think the race is reaching the point now where there are negative dividends from it, in terms of strife within the party,” Feinstein said. “I think we need to prevent that as much as we can.”

I watched the first several minutes of Clinton’s speech last night, and I had a similar reaction to that of Andrew Malcolm:
Hillary and Bill Clinton in defeat and victory: When pictures tell the story

Bill’s glum puss, standing there right behind her, competing for the eyes of every television viewer everywhere, throughout the candidate’s remarks visibly contradicted virtually every hopeful, positive word she said.

The post has a pic, and here are two others:

None of them are as good as the video itself (an excerpt of which can be viewed here). The very beginning isn’t there, unfortunately. But one can see that he isn’t too pleased especially when she is talking about going all the way to the White House (around :36).

Via Time: McGovern, Former Clinton backer, Urges Her to Drop Out

Former Sen. George McGovern, who backed Hillary Rodham Clinton, is urging her to drop out of the Democratic presidential race.

McGovern said Wednesday he has decided to endorse Barack Obama.

After watching the returns from the North Carolina and Indiana primaries Tuesday night, McGovern says it’s virtually impossible for Clinton to win the nomination.

It would seem that a consensus is building that the race is over. The question becomes: how long until the Clintons recognize that fact?