Don't tell Ted Cruz

Not that this should surprise anyone, but when my CLE seminar got to the Affordable Care Act, the speaker opened by saying "I don't care what you see politicians saying in the news, the Affordable Care Act will not be stopped by Congress and will go into effect next week."

It's worth noting that both the speakers and the crowd at this two day employment law conference are extremely Republican. At lunch the same speaker told me that the EEOC won't "go back to normal until Hillary loses in 2016."

Why don't more developing countries go waive the visa requirements for tourist from developed countries?

I don't understand why countries like Kazakhstan don't make travel from all richer countries visa free. Why just extend visa-free travel to EU members? Why not make it easier for tourists from the U.S., Canada, Japan, South Korea, etc? If the Kazakhstanis are afraid of foreigners coming distort their job market, they can limit the visa-waivers to short-term tourism-related stays (which is what the U.S. does), but I don't think they are particularly worried about Americans coming to Kazakhstan to take jobs from their nationals. That concern is reserved for Uzbekistanis and Kyrgyzstanis, who ironically do not need a visa to enter Kazakhstan.

(I realize I am biased from my experience. The fact that our visas expired every 3-6 months during our year in Kazakhstan was a major pain in the ass for both Mrs. Noz and I during our Kazakhstan year. See e.g. these posts from those days of yore.)

Sochi

So why exactly is Russia holding the winter Olympics in Sochi? I mean, as opposed to somewhere else in its country. Russia his huge, almost all of it has winter weather, and Sochi is actually pretty far South--at least for Russia. It also happens to be next to the Caucasus, where Chechnya, Dagestan, Ossetia, and Ingushetia, all of which have had violent insurgencies and/or terrorism issues. So why not put the Olympics somewhere else? I guess you need mountains, and Sochi has the Caucasus Mountains. But Russia has other mountains. Surely there are resorts in the Urals, the Altai, or all those others I have never heard of before. If they don't have a resort yet, surely the Russians could have built one. Sochi was awarded the 2014 Olympics in 2007, and the city must have applied some point before that. Russia had plenty of time to build a world-class facility somewhere else that didn't pose such a security risk.

The only reason for choosing Sochi instead of another Russian city is to show off how well Russia as pacified the Caucasus rebellions.  But that has a real danger of backfiring. A lot can happen in the years between the announcement of an Olympic site and the games themselves. But I guess if you're overconfident of your own victory that means you're overconfident.

Trends

I've been going to employment-law related CLE classes for more than a decade. This year, for the first time, the lecturer paid significant attention to issues related to the Fair Labor Standards Act and volunteers/interns. Actually, I believe this is the first time the issue was raised at all. I guess all the recent press about unpaid internships is starting to pay off.

The Answer is September 23, 2013

The question is here.

I am spending all day today and tomorrow piling up continuing legal education credits. Yes, I am very proud of the fact that I will finish my annual CLE requirement 99 days before the deadline. This really is unprecedented for me.

Yoots

It's interesting to see the contrasting spin about the Nairobi Westgate Mall attack: does it show al-Shabab's resilience or its desperation? I tend to see it as the latter. I guess it could be both.

Brendan's Upworthy Rant

It went up a few days ago, but I didn't have a chance to watch it until now. Yay Brendan!