“There is a proposal from the secretary-general of the Arab League to form a joint mission for Syria in coordination with the United Nations, and it will be presented before the planned Arab foreign ministers’ meeting on Sunday in Cairo,” the Arab League’s deputy head, Ahmed Ben Helli, told reporters today.

The upcoming ministerial meeting in Cairo may also issue a statement on China and Russia’s veto of a U.N. Security Council Resolution last Saturday, reports Reuters. The resolution was based on an Arab peace plan that had the support of the rest of the Security Council but China and Russia’s veto brought criticism from both Western and Arab nations.

The ongoing artillery bombardment of Homs, a recently leaked report detailing the failures of an Arab League observer mission, and the Russian and Chinese veto have left the Arab League and the United Nations looking for new strategies to halt the bloodshed.

Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby announced this week that a new mission would need international backing, better equipment and more observers than the Arab League mission. Yesterday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon confirmed that Elaraby had proposed a joint mission.

Consultations will be held with the Arab League and Security Council members “before fleshing out the details,” said the U.N. chief. But Western powers offered a lukewarm response to the proposal. Agence France-Presse reports that France said there would have to be “guarantees” for the mission and Germany called it a “very serious” idea but emphasized that conditions would have to be met before such an effort could be launched.

While diplomats discuss what steps to take next, Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged the Syrian government to stop shelling residential areas of Homs. “Those responsible for such horrific attacks will have to answer for them,” HRW’s Anna Neistat in a statement earlier today.

Rights groups estimate that more than 6,000 people have died since protests began eleven months ago.

The French nuclear safety body says one person died and another was seriously injured Monday in an explosion at the Marcoule nuclear site in southern France.  The Nuclear Safety Authority said there have been no radiation leaks outside of the plant, which treats nuclear waste with little radioactivity.  Three other people were injured in the explosion, the statement said.

This is a breaking story, so details are scarce.  I welcome any links or comments from readers in France.

Here is the official internal translation of the statement from the French nuclear safety authority (ASN):

ASN has activated its emergency center at 12:30 (located at its headquarters in Paris XII) following an accident at the nuclear facility Centraco (Center for processing and packaging of low-level waste) located at Codolet commune near the site of Marcoule (Gard).

According to preliminary information, it is an explosion of a furnace used to melt the metallic radioactive waste of low and very low activity.

A first assessment reported one dead and four injured including a serious one.

There are no release[s] outside the installation.

The operator has activated its emergency plan in accordance with the procedures.  Centraco is operated by SOCODEI. The installation is dedicated to the treatment of waste of low or very low level either by fusion for metallic waste, or by incineration of incinerable waste.  The ASN is in constant contact with the prefecture of the Gard and the operator. It mobilized its division of Marseille … and has sent inspectors to the prefecture and the site.”

More details will be posted as they come.

UPDATE:  Here is a second statement by ASN:

The event that occurred this morning in Centraco, nuclear installation located near Marcoule site (Gard) is considered as closed.

The explosion of a furnace dedicated for the melting of the metallic radioactive waste triggered a fire that ended at 13h00 (11.00 UTC)

The building where the explosion occurred was not damaged. Injured people do not suffer from any radiological contamination and all measures conducted by the licensee outside of the building have shown no trace of radioactive contamination.

One worker died and 4 others have sustained injuries, one of whom suffered deep burns.

This event does not involve any radiological issue and no protective actions was required for the population.

ASN, the French Nuclear Safety Authority, has suspended its emergency organization; ASN is still in permanent contact with the prefecture of Gard and the licensee Socodei. ASN will conduct dedicated inspections in liaison with Labour inspection in order to analyse the reasons of the accident.

Centraco is owned by SOCODEI. The installation is dedicated to the treatment and conditioning of low level radioactive waste, either by melting of metallic waste or by incineration of incinerable waste.

Related Post:

• After Fracking Ban, France Turns to Offshore Wind. But a Nuclear Phase Out? Sacré Bleu!

The rhetoric over raising the debt ceiling has become increasingly harsh as Democratic and Republican congressional leaders trade barbs back and forth. But as the U.S. inches closer to defaulting on its debts for the first time in history, criticism of Congress is starting to come from beyond our own borders. From France and Germany to China and India, countries around the world are angry that American politicians play with the possibility of a U.S. default like a yo-yo with little regard for the international economic system that depends on American solvency.

Despite China’s traditional preference of staying out of the domestic affairs of other nations, senior Chinese officials’ frustrations are growing louder and louder. Stephen Roach, the non-executive chairman of Morgan Staley Asia, said senior Chinese officials told him the debt ceiling debte in the U.S. is “truly shocking.” “We understand the politics,” a Chinise official said, “but your government’s continued recklessness is astonishing.” And newspapers around the world are voicing discontent with Congress’s handling of the debt ceiling:

Conservative German Die Welt: “[T]here are few signs of self-doubt or self-awareness in the U.S. … [The Tea Party movement] sees the other side as their enemy. Negotiations with the Democrats, whether it’s about appointing a judge or the insolvency of the United States, are only successful if the enemy is defeated. Compromise, they feel, is a sign of weakness and cowardice.”

The German mass-circulation Bild: “What America is currently exhibiting is the worst kind of absurd theatrics and the whole world is being held hostage… Most importantly, the Republicans have turned a dispute over a technicality into a religious war, which no longer has any relation to a reasonable dispute between the elected government and the opposition.”

French newspaper Le Monde:”The American politicians supposed to lead the most powerful nation in the world are becoming a laughing stock.”

Chinese state-owned newspaper Xinhua: “Given the United States’ status as the world’s largest economy and the issuer of the dominant international reserve currency, such political brinksmanship in Washington is dangerously irresponsible.”

The founding documents of many nations around the world take their inspiration from and quote the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution. But now, foreigners don’t seem to be too inspired watching the intransigent wing of one political party that controls one house of one branch of the federal government hold the entire U.S. hostage. American soft power has taken a self-inflicted hit as a result of the debt ceiling debate.

Even if Congress manages to forge a deal against the wishes of the Tea Party and deliver a bill to President Obama’s desk raising the debt ceiling before default, the damage to our international standing has already been done. Other nations won’t forget how some members of Congress were so careless to allow the international economy fall into another financial disaster in order to score a few political points.

Earlier this month, the French Parliament voted to ban fracking, a controversial drilling method that has enabled a global boom in natural gas. Now, the country is turning its attention to offshore wind – opening up a bidding program for five marine zones that could host up to 3 GW of projects. The first round of bidding is part of an effort to build 6 GW of projects from 2015 through 2020.

These two developments come as officials in the country are openly considering a long-term energy plan that would phase out nuclear power over the coming decades. Considering that France gets around 75% of its electricity from nuclear – the highest penetration in the world – this announcement, as reported by Reuters, is significant:

Energy Minister Eric Besson announced on radio Europe 1 the launch of a study on Friday on the country’s energy mix by 2050, with options including a complete exit from nuclear production, a cut in the share of nuclear to 50 percent and a progressive reduction of total electricity production in France.

“We will study all possible scenarios for what we call the energy mix,” he said. “It will be done with total objectivity, in full transparency, without avoiding any scenario (…) including the scenarios of a nuclear exit.”

An energy ministry official told Reuters one scenario would consider a total exit from nuclear by 2050, or even 2040.

Of course, a theoretical “study” doesn’t tell us how France will act in reality. But French officials say the country’s focus on nuclear will be around safety enhancements of the existing fleet – not on building new plants – while the focus on renewables will be rapid deployment of new projects. France has a target of procuring 23% of its energy from renewables by 2020, with 18 GW coming from onshore wind, and 6 GW coming from offshore.

Some in France have criticized offshore wind, which they say is too expensive compared with nuclear. But a recent report from a leading European trade association shows that program like France’s could help drop the cost of offshore wind by up to 30% to around 16 US cents/kWh.

We know the costs of offshore wind are too high. The industry is committed to driving down the cost of offshore wind energy. We can reduce costs by as much as a third over the next decade. But this will need a large enough market to promote competition and drive innovation. Working with the government we can deliver 20GW by 2020 if costs fall.

The whole-life cost of energy from UK offshore wind projects is expected to be driven down by more than 15% in real terms between 2011 and 2022, under normal market conditions. Under favorable conditions, such as increased competition, lower exchange rates and stable commodity prices, the decrease in costs would be as much as 33%.

The next step in France’s long-term energy plan will depend on the country’s experience developing 5.4 GW of solar PV, 24 GW of wind and installing 5 million solar hot water systems on residential buildings around the country. And if neighboring Germany is successful in phasing out its nuclear fleet, perhaps the country with the world’s highest penetration of nuclear will be consider moving away from the technology as well.

The likelihood is low, but it’s an interesting bit of news nonetheless.

Energy companies that plan to use fracking to produce oil and gas in France will have their permits revoked and its use could lead to fines and prison, according to the law passed by a vote of 176 in favor, 151 against by the senators in Paris.

Under the bill approved yesterday, companies with exploration permits will have two months to declare whether they intend to use hydraulic fracturing. If they do, their permits will be revoked.

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, pumps water, sand and chemicals underneath shale formations to force out trapped gas or oil. The discovery of massive reservoirs around the U.S. has caused a shale gas boom, driving down prices and encouraging additional investment in natural gas infrastructure. While the U.S. and Canada lead the market, Australia, China India and various European countries have also started using the fracking technique for shale gas.

While some organizations like the IEA call this “The Golden Age of Gas,” the environmental issues around fracking have tainted the resource’s image:  some communities around the U.S. are complaining of contaminated water; researchers have reported on methane leaks in water supplies and also suggested that the lifecycle GHG footprint is higher than assumed; and a recent examination of industry documents suggests that estimates of shale gas reservoirs may be over-estimated – with one analyst suggesting they were “a giant Ponzi Scheme.”

At the same time, a mix of natural gas and renewables is a powerful combination in knocking older, dirtier coal plants out of the mix. Some analysts believe that could be a strong driver of clean energy, while others worry low natural gas prices will harm renewables.

It’s unclear whether the French ban on fracking will embolden political leaders or environmental groups in other countries to do the same. In the U.S., New York is opening itself up to more fracking.  In New Jersey, legislators passed a ban on the technique, even as the state seeks to build 2 GW of new natural gas plants.

This latest ban in France shows just how divided people are over harnessing the resource.

Below are the earlier comments from the Facebook commenting system:

Andrew Revkin

Surfacing and catching up with lots of stuff. Could French decision have been swayed by its ample supply of nuclear generated electricity? Kind of inverse policy to that signaled by New York Gov. last week:
Cuomo Clarifies Fracking and Nuclear Plans – http://nyti.ms/jOJpTv.

July 7 at 7:14pm

Bob Ferris

Tres bon.

July 7 at 7:16pm

Maxine Unikel Cook

How do we explain this? “Toreador to continue oil shale work in France despite fracking ban” | http://www.platts.com/RSSF​eedDetailedNews/RSSFeed/Na​turalGas/8083470

July 7 at 7:22pm

Eric Roston

I think they were just upset that it’s not spelled “fracqing.”

July 7 at 7:29pm

Stu Miller

France 2, USA 0 (the first point was Iraq).

July 7 at 3:58am

wht_grgg

Yeah. France wanted to keep a brutal dictator in place to torture and kill hundreds of thousands. Fortunately, we stepped in, as we did in Germany and Japan, and gave them Democracy. Shame on the USA. Yahoo France.

July 9 at 4:43pm

Prokaryotes

“At the same time, a mix of natural gas and renewables is a powerful combination in knocking older, dirtier coal plants out of the mix.”

I Disagree, because latest science have shown otherwise.

Studies Agree: Shale gas full cycle greenhouse gas emissions are higher than coal.
http://www.postcarbon.org/​report/390308-life-cycle-g​reenhouse-gas-emissions-fr​om

July 7 at 12:10am

Cathy Knight

Way to go.

July 8 at 2:53pm

Sonni Will

Viv’ La France.

July 6 at 8:03pm

Prokaryotes

My take on this story.
Climate Action: France Bans Fracking for Shale Gas.

http://climateforce.wordpr​ess.com/2011/07/07/climate​-action-france-bans-fracki​ng-for-shale-gas/

July 7 at 12:19am

Prokaryotes

In order to combat climate change we have to ban fossil exploitation.

July 6 at 3:48pm

wht_grgg

Well, we could follow France’s lead and get more of our energy needs from nuclear.

July 9 at 4:46pm

It’s because 17th century France was actually a reasonably interesting place, and the real Comte d’Artagnan, Charles Ogier de Batz de Castelmore, was actually a reasonably interesting person. And that doesn’t even take into account Cardinal Richelieu. I’m sort of surprised Showtime hasn’t knocked off The Three Musketeers and Aldous Huxley’s Grey Eminence and done a saucy behind-the-scenes look at the old Cardinal.

In any case, when you’ve made the 1993 adaptation of The Three Musketeers starring Keifer Sutherland, Oliver Platt (who declares at one point: “If you’re to be a true Musketeer, boy, you must excel at the manyly art of wenching.”), Charlie Sheen, and Chris O’Donnell look dignified, you’ve really accomplished something.

Welcome to Justiceline, ThinkProgress Justice’s morning round-up of the latest legal news and developments. Remember to follow us on Twitter at @TPJustice.

• The Washington Supreme Court holds that an employee can be fired for medical marijuana use, even if they are doing so with a state-sanctioned prescription.

• The Supreme Court wants you to know that fleeing police in a car chase is a really, really bad idea.

• Oklahoma federal Judge Ronald White was formally reprimanded for appointing his unqualified friends to preside over settlements.

• The European Union’s highest court threatens sanctions against France if the French do not provide adequate protection to prevent a rare species of hamster from going extinct.

• Iowa state Sen. Shawn Hammerlinck (R) thinks college students who actually want to get an education are part of a grand Democratic Party conspiracy.

• The Mississippi Supreme Court formally reprimands a state judge for jailing an attorney who wouldn’t say the Pledge of Allegiance.

• And, finally, for the three people in America who just can’t get enough of Sharron Angle — she has a new, self-published autobiography.

Katherine Shaver’s Washington Post article about French firm Keolis’ bid to manage Maryland commuter rail trains being possibly derailed by lack of disclosure about payments received for transporting Jews during the Holocaust is interesting on a number of dimensions. One of them, not Holocaust-related, is that Keolis is a subsidiary of SNCF (Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français) which is a state-owned firm. So Maryland is considering following the lead of a number of other American jurisdictions and “privatizing” a public function by contracting it out to the government of France.

For the past thirty years a broadly neoliberal tide has swept all over the world, but France has gone much less neoliberal than other developed countries. As a result, it’s seems to have developed comparative advantage in state-owned firms and now has a lot of economic specialization in activities that are either inherently non-competitive (managing trains and electrical grids) or incredibly capital intensive (airplanes and nuclear power plants). My guess is that if everyone tried to copy France, it would be a disaster for everyone, but that to the extent that the bulk of the world has moved in the other direction this constitutes a broadly beneficial kind of specialization.

Just a reminder that political myth-making isn’t just something Rush Limbaugh invented one day.

Marine Le Pen is the leader of the far-right National Front party in France (and the youngest daughter of its founder) and looks like she may be poised to outpoll incumbent Nicholas Sarkozy in the French presidential election next year. Russell Shorto has an excellent profile of the woman in the new NYT Magazine that naturally includes reflections on the broader electoral success far-right European parties have been having. As he puts it on his blog, the new far right is “mixing frank right-wing anti-immigrant policies with a very left-wing social agenda, which includes a critique of capitalism and a call for a return to state regulations.”

Here’s Le Pen laying it out:

Signaling a clear break from her father and the right in general, she has come out with a detailed critique of capitalism and a position promoting the state as the protector of ordinary people. “For a long time, the National Front upheld the idea that the state always does things more expensively and less well than the private sector,” she told me. “But I’m convinced that’s not true. The reason is the inevitable quest for profitability, which is inherent in the private sector. There are certain domains which are so vital to the well-being of citizens that they must at all costs be kept out of the private sector and the law of supply and demand.” The government, therefore, should be entrusted with health care, education, transportation, banking and energy.

I think that when the far-right has been successful, it’s almost always by pairing the politics of violence and racism with a critique of laissez faire capitalism. It’s not a coincidence that Mussolini was a dissident socialist before he was a fascist, and Hitler, too, forged an alliance with the German business community while remaining critical of free markets as such. The common thread here is that this is what happens when the elites running a capitalist political economy fail. And a failure of the elites who run the system is exactly what the US and Europe are living through right now, and we lived through a bigger one in the 1930s. There’s been a bit of a bloggish contretemps lately over whether or not JM Keynes was in some sense an advocate of “central planning,” and this reality is the right lens through which to view his intellectual project. His idea was that only through accepting the need for an important government role in economic stabilization could the underlying project be saved. Otherwise, if crisis is inevitable and all efforts to fix it are counterproductive, then Marx or Le Pen or Hitler or someone is right and the system has to be torn down.

Brian Beutler notes the irony of conservative affection for socialism when it comes to the subject of nuclear power. He quotes John Boehner:

But there are nuclear reactors operating all over the world. Eighty-two percent of the electricity produced in France comes from nuclear sources, and has done so successfully for decades. Only 20 percent of the electricity in the United States comes from nuclear sources. So I think let’s learn the lessons, let’s understand what safeguards if any additional safeguards need to be put in place. But let’s not just say like we have for the last 30 years, we’re not even going to look at it because we’re afraid of it.

I think it’s important to be clear about this. It’s not just that France has high taxes and trains and “socialism.” France, almost uniquely in the modern world, features large state-owned enterprises. In particular, both Électricité de France, the world’s largest utility, and Areva, the world’s largest builder of nuclear plants, are largely owned by the French government. As of today, they’re formally organized as S.A. private firms rather than E.P.I.C. state-owned firms, but the state owns majority stakes in both of them.

Now maybe France is doing this right, but it’s a strange model for conservatives to be pushing, especially since they don’t even seem to know what the model is.

Obviously the fallacy here is thinking that conservatism has something to do with reduced spending, circumspection, or free markets. There’s no evidence that conservatives care about any of these things, and the conservative affection for nuclear subsidies is just one of hundreds of counterexamples to the “conservatives support free markets and low spending” thesis. That said, Lovins is right to think that stigmatizing nuclear subsidies in conservative circles would be a good thing to do. I think, though, that what he should do is focus less on the economics and more on France. At one point he observes:

A Maryland reactor’s developer reckoned just its requested federal loan guarantee would transfer $14.8 billion of net present value, comparable to its construction cost, from American taxpayers to the project’s 50/50 owners—Électricité de France (EDF), 84 percent owned by the French government, and a private utility 9.5 percent owned by EDF. The project’s builder, AREVA, is 93 percent owned by the French state, yet has been promised a $2 billion U.S. loan guarantee for a fuel plant competing with an American one.

If subsidies are socialism, then all energy sector players are socialists. What makes nuclear special is the dominant role played by French state-owned enterprises. I see no evidence that conservatives have any kind of problem with subsidies but there’s plenty of evidence that conservatives don’t like France. In fact, conservatives hate France so much that National Review’s John J Miller even wrote a book called Our Oldest Enemy: A History of America’s Disastrous Relationship with France. I think that when you combine the France angle with the fact that (non-German) environmentalists don’t really hate nuclear power as much as they used to, that suddenly conservatives will abandon their affection for the stuff.

Gwen Sharp explains:

The three chosen names were Khadija Diouf (an easily-recognizable Muslim first name, while Diouf is well-known as a common last name in France’s Senegalese community), Marie Diouf (to represent a Christian Senegalese name), and Aurélie Ménard (a common French name with no particular religious associations). To highlight the religious differences, “Khadija” had worked at Secours Islamique, a non-profit, “Marie” had worked for Secours Catholique, another religious non-profit, and “Aurélie” hadn’t worked for any religious-affiliated employers.

The fictional CVs were then sent out to employers who listed secretarial and accounting jobs with a national employment agency in the spring of 2009; the jobs were matched in pairs based on industry characteristics, size of the employing company, and the specific position. Every position was sent a copy of the CV for Aurélie; for each matched pair of jobs, one got Khadija’s CV while one got Marie’s.

Being perceived as Muslim seems to carry a significant cost:

My casual-ish impression is that in 2010 racism is generally a bigger problem in Western Europe than in the United States. We’re obviously far from perfect in this regard, but progressives can I think legitimately count substantial progress in fighting bias as a major achievement and the European experience as illustrating the fact that the challenge is a non-trivial one.

Via Henry Farrell, Art Goldhammer observes that the controversy between French President Nicholas Sarkozy and the EU over Sarkozy’s desire to expel Roma from France has taken a pretty astonishing turn. First Sarkozy claimed to have the support “total et entier une fois encore d’Angela Merkel sur cette question comme sur tellement d’autres.” He’s saying once again has full and complete support from the German Chancellor on this issue as on many others.

The Germans fired back with a statement totally contradicting this:

La chancelière Merkel n’a parlé ni lors du Conseil européen, ni lors d’entretiens en marge du Conseil avec le président français Sarkozy de prétendus camps de Roms en Allemagne, et en aucun cas de leur évacuation.

They’re saying that Merkel hasn’t discussed the Roma issue with Sarkozy at all, either inside or outside the Council of Europe. Goldhammer remarks:

The idea that Sarkozy would simply have invented an exchange with Merkel and that he would have invoked her “total and entire” support without having cleared it with her beggars belief. A president who behaves in this way permanently discredits himself. Plummeting in polls, attacked for human rights violations, chastised by the Pope, sued by Le Monde, and now slapped in the face by Merkel, Sarkozy seems to be coming unhinged, prepared to say anything and do anything to retain his increasingly tenuous hold on power. How long before an open revolt breaks out in his own party?

One might also note that in January, former Prime Minister and former rival for the party leadership Dominique de Villepin was acquitted of charges that were brought at Sarkozy’s behest. Imagine the situation Barack Obama would be in today if instead of making Hillary Clinton Secretary of State, he’d tried to have her thrown in jail and lost the case.

Car-sharing schemes have a lot of promise, in my opinion. Automobiles are extremely useful devices, so people generally want to be able to have access to them. Thus insofar as the only reasonable way to have access to a car is to buy one, people will tend to buy cars. Then, having bought a car and already committed to incurring most of the price of ownership (sale price, insurance, etc.) you may as well drive it a lot. Convenient short-term car rentals change the calculus—the amount you pay is pretty strictly proportional to the amount you drive, so you’ll still drive in circumstances when car-use is genuinely valuable to you, but in other circumstances you won’t drive. That leaves more money in your pocket for other uses and less pollution in the air.

Paris is getting in on the act:

Paris plans to launch the world’s largest electric car access scheme in September of next year. The city is hoping to emulate the popularity of its easy rental system for bicycles, known as Velib.

This time around, Autolib, which stands for auto liberte, will allow Parisians to rent an electric vehicle whenever they need to, with the goal of cutting down on car ownership, traffic and pollution.

I do think it’s a mistake to think programs like this will significantly reduce traffic congestion in major cities. Traffic congestion is caused by the same thing that causes bread lines in the Soviet Union—underpricing of a valuable resource. To curb congestion in a serious way, you need to do congestion pricing. But car-sharing has a lot of virtues.

The current French tax system deducts from individuals’ pay immediately, so that there is no need for an April 15th, “tax day.” Because of this, people often do not process how much they are really paying out to the government… or perhaps they just accept it. “[The tax rates are] really not as bad as most people think it is, but US tax rates don’t begin to compare,” claims Amy, a 23-year-old American living and working in Paris, privy to all of the costs and benefits of la sécurité sociale.

Le Parti Socialiste (Socialist Party), who – as of last month – gained a sweeping political majority in France’s regional elections, is now advocating a further increase in taxes in order to offset rising healthcare costs. Le Parti Socialiste is proposing an increase in the bouclier fiscal (~ tax limit), which currently states that “direct taxes paid by a taxpayer may not exceed 50% of taxpayer’s revenues” in Article 1 of the Internal Revenue Code.

While there is no doubting that the overall level of care and minimal costs are aspirational, the French universal healthcare system is not without its drawbacks. Just as the U.S. is currently suffering from a lack of sufficient, available healthcare and money, so is France. Though the French system offers many short-term and long-term benefits, it is clearly not without its short-term and long-term costs.

If we’re talking health care, though, it’s important to look specifically at French health care spending. According to the OECD it’s expensive by world standards but thrifty compared to the United States:

It’s true that French public sector health expenditures are somewhat higher than ours as a share of GDP (though far smaller in per capita terms) but overall their system is doing an excellent job of controlling costs largely by paying less for services rather than providing fewer services. All countries are grappling with health care costs, but we’d be lucky to have France’s problems.

First, the menus are really limited. There’s a steak, a piece of veal, a chicken, maybe a cut of lamb. Two fishes. That’s it. I’m aware that this is the tradition. But some traditions are bad. It’s not too much to ask that there be several choices on a menu.

I don’t really think tradition is the issue here. A brief menu is a good idea. As a diner, there’s nothing I like less than walking into an unfamiliar restaurant only to be confronted with a giant array of choices. I’ve never eaten here before, how on earth should I know what it’d be good to order? It’s much better to see a chef prepare a relatively small number of dishes that he really stands behind. Tons of choice, to me, indicates that you’re preparing food with a client-base in mind that doesn’t really care about food and would rather eat “what they want to eat” rather than something good. I want something good! And I want a staff that’s cooking for people who want something good.

Sheri Berman (author of an excellent and totally unrelated book) has an interesting piece in Foreign Affairs positing that it’s useful to take a look at state-building in early-modern Europe in order to get a clearer view of the challenges and possibilities of state-building in contemporary Afghanistan without an orientalist lens. Consider, in other words, a time when instead of “warlords” we just had “lords” and centralizing monarchs wanted to create a unitary state.

Corruption was involved:

During the second half of the seventeenth century, accordingly, he and his ministers focused on buying off and winning over key individuals and social groups that might otherwise obstruct their state-building efforts. Adapting and expanding a common practice, for example, they repeatedly sold state offices to the highest bidders; by the eighteenth century, almost all the posts in the French government were for sale, including those dealing with the administration of justice. These offices brought annual incomes, a license to extract further revenues from the population at large, and exemptions from various impositions. The system had drawbacks in terms of technocratic effectiveness, but it also had compensating benefits for the crown: selling off public posts was an easy way to raise money and helped turn members of the gentry and the emerging bourgeoisie into officeholders. Rather than depending on local or personal sources of revenue, these new officeholders eventually developed new interests connected to the broader national system.

Louis XIV and his ministers also adopted what would now be called targeted tax breaks. Nobles were freed from the hated taille (a direct levy on property), and the church was allowed to keep the revenue it earned from the land it owned (between six and ten percent of the country’s territory) in exchange for modest gifts to the king. The church was also permitted to collect the tithe — one-tenth of every person’s livelihood.

As was seemingly wasteful spending:

Another tactic designed to secure the state’s authority was the construction of Louis XIV’s glittering palace at Versailles, which was officially established as the seat of the French court in 1682. The luxury of the palace was more than merely a celebration of the wealth and power of the Sun King; it was also a crucial weapon in his battle to domesticate the obstreperous French nobility. Louis XIV made the aristocracy’s presence at Versailles a key prerequisite for their obtaining favor, patronage, and power. By assembling many of the most important local notables at his court, he was able to watch over them closely while separating them from their local power bases. The tradeoff was clear: in return for abandoning their local authority and autonomy, nobles were given handsome material rewards and the opportunity to participate in the court’s luxurious lifestyle.

Her bottom line: “Despite all the ways the contemporary world differs from the past, there is little reason to expect that history’s lessons about state building no longer apply: it can be accomplished almost anywhere, but only after a long, hard slog.”