Afghanistan and Market Reef

I doubt those two locations have often been tied together in a blog post or other web page! My friend Don Parrish has recently posted his reports on his trips to Afghanistan and Market Reef. As with all of his trip reports, the writeups and photos are very interesting.

Iranian Censorship

Yet another interesting series of photos from the Amazing Things site. This one is Iranian Censorship: How Famous Magazines Look in Iran. Assuming this is true... it really is amazing indeed.

North Korean News Site is Hilarious

I find this website both sad and funny -- News From Korean Central News Agency of DPRK. Sad for obvious reasons, but funny because of both the English used and the ridiculous claims made and propaganda used. Many of the stories are a funny read, here is one example: Japan Assailed for Seeking "Triangular Cooperation Mechanism for Pressure". Here is a great segment:

This is, however, nothing but the way of thinking of a bat-blind person who has neither political sense nor judgment. The above-said cooperation mechanism had been sought by its master the U.S. as early as in the 1980s only to meet bitter frustration. It is a ridiculous and foolish daydream for Japan to try to build the above-mentioned mechanism, taking advantage of the changed political situation in south Korea, in a bid to pressurize someone and achieve its sinister political aim. This only betrays Japan's ignorance of the DPRK, diplomatic inability and anachronistic way of thinking.

On Ethiopia

If you are like me then you have kept up with the news in recent years out of countries in East Africa such as Sudan and Somalia. Often involved in these stories has been Ethiopia, a country that it seems has been helping the US in various matters in the region. In the Nov. 3 issue of The Economist there was a good "briefing" article "A brittle Western ally in the Horn of Africa". It gives a good overview of recent history of that country, both improvements made in recent years and the many troubles still faced. The last half is mostly about the near-term strictly political issues, but what I found more interesting are the long-term and quite devastating economic (and political) issues. Here is that section:

The fact is that for all the aid money and Chinese loans coming in, Ethiopia's economy is neither growing fast enough nor producing enough jobs. The number of jobs created by flowers is insignificant beside an increase in population of about 2m a year, one of the fastest rates in Africa. Since every mother has about seven children, it is conceivable that Ethiopia, with 75m-plus people today, could overtake Nigeria (now 140m-strong) as Africa's most populous country by mid-century. Just to stand still, let alone make inroads into poverty, the country must produce hundreds of thousands of jobs a year.

It is hard to see where they will come from. The government claims that the economy has been growing at an impressive 10% a year since 2003-04, but the real figure is probably more like 5-6%, which is little more than the average for sub-Saharan Africa. And even that modestly improved rate, with a small building boom in Addis Ababa, for instance, has led to the overheating of the economy, with inflation moving up to 19% earlier this year before the government took remedial action.

The reasons for this economic crawl are not hard to find. Beyond the government-directed state, funded substantially by foreign aid, there is—almost uniquely in Africa—virtually no private-sector business at all. The IMF estimates that in 2005-06 the share of private investment in the country was just 11%, nearly unchanged since Mr Zenawi took over in the early 1990s. That is partly a reflection of the fact that, despite some privatisation since the centralised Marxist days of the Derg, large areas of the economy remain government monopolies, closed off to private business.

This is where Ethiopia misses out badly. Take telecoms. While the rest of Africa has been virtually transformed in just a few years by a revolution in mobile telephony, Ethiopia stumbles along with its inept and useless government-run services. Everywhere else, a plethora of South African, home-grown and European providers has leapt into the market to provide Africans with an extraordinary array of cheaper and more efficient services, now used even by the poorest of farmers, for instance, to check spot prices for agricultural goods in markets miles away. And the mobile-phone revolution has created thousands of new livelihoods; at times it seems as if every boy on a street corner is hawking a top-up card. Not in Ethiopia.

It is the same story in financial services, where, despite the growth of some smaller private banks, no foreign banks are allowed. Micro-finance schemes have expanded exponentially, but it remains almost impossible to find start-up loans for small or medium businesses.

There is no official unemployment rate, but youth unemployment, some experts reckon, may be as high as 70%. All those graduates coming out of state-run universities will find it very hard to get jobs. The mood of the young is often restless and despairing; many dream of moving abroad. It was this mood of resentment that the opposition tapped into in 2005, and the capital's maybe 300,000 unemployed young men proved a combustible force on the streets. The ruling party, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), underestimated the degree of disillusion with its policies, and thus overreacted when the opposition polled much better than expected.

Unless the private sector is allowed to create jobs, the country's problems will continue to mount and the gains of development may be squandered. Sooner rather than later, 2m more people a year will overwhelm a state that is trying to provide most of the jobs itself.

Hurdles for Bloggers from Cuba

Here is an interesting article about the hurdles that bloggers in Cuba face. And yet there are some in America who still praise the totalitarian Communist regime that causes so much misery in Cuba.

CHE Highlights

I've been getting caught up recently on The Chronicle of Higher Education from the past couple of months. Here are some items I found interesting for various reasons... worth a read if you have an interest in any of these topics (some require subscription to access directly at CHE's site, so I'll try to provide links to free versions online):

"Don't Require Colleges to Spend More of Their Endowments", an 11/9 opinion piece that responds to the 11/2 cover news story. Many good points are made about legal and other technical hurdles to government proposals to force Harvard or others with huge endowments to spend more of that money sooner. Nor is it likely that a group of government bureaucrats will know best how and when such funds should be spent. However, the biggest question isn't raised: why should government be telling colleges how to spend their endowments? This is not a proper use of government force! This essential moral point is, as usual in such situations, not brought up. Otherwise, this is a good opinion piece though.

"Are Sacred Texts Sacred? The Challenge for Atheists", a 9/21 piece by Carlin Romano. Lots interesting stuff here, including much that should give bible literalists pause to say the least. But I agree with the Letter to the Editor in the 10/12 edition, from John T. Goldthwait (Prof. Emeritus of philosophy at SUNY, Plattsburgh), that Romano "gets the rules of the debate wrong". Romano's conclusion and suggestion is that Atheists should be polite to believers, and that is fine as far as it goes -- but it doesn't go very far. No need for an atheist to go out of his way to cruelly attack believers and the texts they call sacred -- but that doesn't mean that critics (Dawkins, Hitchens, et al.) of religions and their texts can't go on the offensive in books or articles they write. Believers aren't forced to buy those books or read those articles if they will find them offensive. Here is part of Goldthwait's letter on this matter:

Romano writes, "That behooves atheists, then, to have a clear definition of the sacred... and also a clear definition of text or book." But it is not up to the atheist to supply those definitions. The believer is the one who has claimed that a text -- some version of either the Old Testament, the New Testament, or the Koran -- is a sacred text and a source of revealed religion. That is what needs proving... Romano suggests characteristics for a sacred text. However, he assumes that there are such things as sacred texts... If there isn't any God, what becomes of a text whose alleged value is that it relates to God? The believer has the responsibility to establish the meaningfulness of his claim by establishing the existence of the referent of this explanatory term. If he cannot thus support his claims, we do not owe him our attention. Romano has not put before us a serious challenge, but merely a nice lesson in politeness.

Agreed. I look forward to writing some further thoughts on concepts like "sacred" in the future, but for now, I'll let this go.

The Intellectual Responsibility of Educators. In this brief "On the Contrary" piece, David Horowitz takes on the issue of indoctrination in the classroom, and is critical of the new report "Freedom in the Classroom" from American Association of University Professors.

Veiled Politics, by Joan Wallach Scott (11/23). Some interesting background on an issue (Islamic women, the veil, and rights) that is big in Europe, but that we don't hear as much about as a major political issue here in the USA.

The Two Faces of Al-Qaeda, by Raymond Ibrahim (9/21). The author makes clear the two types of messages that Al-Qaeda leaders send, and the importance of the message intended for their own followers and would-be recruits (the radical, theological message and the anti-Western civilization message) as opposed to what is intended for Western readers (criticism of USA foreign policy, etc.).

Rigid Scholarship on Male Sexuality, by Camille Paglia (9/21). Though I'm usually only in partial agreement with her views, Paglia is one of those authors that I always find interesting to read (like Christopher Hitchens). This review of three related books on male sexuality didn't disappoint. I haven't read any of these books, so I can't say whether her analysis of them is on-target or not. But I did like her taking one of them to task for postmodernist jargon, fashionable namedropping, and making leftist-academic assumptions common in so many social science and humanities departments these days -- I trust Paglia's opinions on that issue, bigtime.

The Choc Doc, by Piper Fogg (9/14, Academic Life). An interesting article about Patrick Fields, a professor who studies and teaches about the history and culture of chocolate. Fields treats chocolate as seriously as many people treat wine.

Saudi Arabia Puts Its Billions Behind Western-Style Higher Education, by Zvika Krieger (9/14). This article gives a lot of info on the increased funding of higher ed in Saudia Arabia, including the creation of the first co-ed institution in the country, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. While there are many good signs here, I consider the prospects for real success to be quite poor. The goal is to create a highly educated workforce, and more importantly, to create critical thinkers, creative thinkers, and entrepreneurs. That seems pretty unlikely, given the repressive and restrictive culture of Saudi Arabia (mostly because of its brand of Islam). Consider another university that is getting a lot of funding right now, in the hopes of reaching those goals:

Alfaisal [University] will also be coeducational, a big improvement for female
students, many of whom are taught by men through closed-circuit television at the country's women's colleges. Unlike at King Abdullah University, though, men and women will not be allowed to interact, in accordance with the country's legally mandated gender segregation. The university will have split-level classrooms, where women attend the same lectures as men but from balconies surrounded by one-way glass. An underground entrance for women — dropped off by their drivers — will lead directly to stairwells, elevators, and floors strictly segregated by gender. But since even those accommodations would raise many eyebrows in Saudi Arabia, Alfaisal is starting with male students only to gain social credibility first. "Philosophically, I would like to see women from Day 1, but the reality is difficult," Mr. Goodridge says. "We're probably a little ahead of where they're going."

Wow. They are going ridiculous lengths they are going to segregate the education of women from that of men. And that is just one example of why I just don't see how "throwing money at the problem" is really going to lead to major success. Consider this other blurb about Saudi Arabian culture:

But the country is a tough sell: Most public entertainment is prohibited (there are no movie theaters, for instance), alcohol is banned, and women must cover themselves almost completely in public and are not allowed to drive.

I have to agree with the Letter to the Editor from Ayesha Razzaque in the 10/12 issue -- it seems unlikely that we'll see major success in Saudi Arabia until significant cultural changes occur. A huge amount of educational content won't be taught, even at these new "liberal" schools, either because of outright bans or because of fear that the professor would get in trouble for even broaching the subject. How is free thought, critical thinking, creative thinking, and so on ever going to flourish in such a climate?

Few Things Annoy Me More Than Che T-Shirts

Not a lot of things really annoy or upset me in life. In fact, my personality is such that I often laugh at things that most others would never laugh at -- serious, horrible, bad things, which I agree are serious, horrible, and bad, but that are also so ludicrous that my initial reaction is just to scoff and laugh at them. I'm one of the few people I know who have that as a personality trait -- and for many people, it can confuse them at times.

But there are a few things that I don't react that way to, a few things that just immediately annoy, upset, or anger me. Any everyday object that has Che Guevara's image on it -- you know the one, the sillohuette-style image that is a modified version of Alberto Korda's famous photograph -- is one of these things for me. You see this image everywhere: most of all on T-Shirts and other clothing, but also on posters, coffee-mugs... just about common items that can have symbols or images applied to them.

When I see a young kid with a Che Guevara t-shirt, I just think: "You ignorant kid, don't you know what Che did, how many people he murdered and ordered to be murdered? Don't you realize what he truly stood for? Don't you realize the horrible, long-lasting, anti-democratic and anti-growth effect that the reverance for this man has had for the people of Latin America? Educate yourself and throw away that T-Shirt!"

For any adult of 30 years or older, especially anyone 50 years or older, that I see with Che-garb, the thoughts in my head are much stronger than just "you ignorant person". A couple of times I've almost struck up accusatory conversations with complete strangers over this issue -- something quite out of character for me.

What prompted this post today? Two short items in the October 13 issue of The Economist that I've finally gotten around to reading. First is the editorial "A Modern Saint and Sinner: Why the Che Myth is Bad for the Left" and then the short article about Venezuela's new education reforms that enforce socialist/communist ideological indoctrination (including a reverance for Che).

Romney On the United Nations

Since he's a conservative Republican, there are many things that I disagree with Mitt Romney about. But there are some areas of agreement too, and his recent statements about the United Nations seem to be on the right track. See Romney Calls UN an 'Extraordinary Failure'.

I agree that the UN has been a huge failure over the years, on many dimensions. Not that it hasn't done any good for anyone at any time -- surely it has here and there. But overall, I think it has done far more harm than good. And I don't just mean the obvious, direct harms -- such as UN workers raping women in the Congo, or massive corruption schemes like Oil for Food, or the many other items that have grabbed headlines.

I'm also talking about the apparently less obvious harms that arise from actually having a body that is composed half of democratic, relatively rights-respecting nations, and the other half literally populated by criminals. And make no mistake, that is what nations run by dictators, tyrants, monarchs, communists/socialists, and so on are -- they are nations run by criminals. Such statist regimes deny individual rights by their very nature -- some worse than others, but all to such a degree that they are different in kind than the relatively-free nations of the world like the USA, Britain, Canada, and so on.

So I'm glad to hear a Presidential candidate in the US call for "a coalition of 'free nations' as an alternative to the UN." Good for Mitt. Much of the news on this story centered around the UN's Human Rights Council, which the US has boycotted from the perspective of diplomacy and membership, because it insanely allows countries with horrible human rights records to be members.

But the HRC is not the core problem -- the UN as a whole is. I mean, what sense does it make to invite practically all nations of the world to gather to discuss issues, when so many of these nations are ruled by criminals? Do our police sit down a big table with known criminals to discuss issues in our cities? Uh, no. Too simplistic of an analogy? I don't think so.

One other thing to note about the MSNBC article linked above in particular, as it includes the following: "The comments highlighted the deep mistrust of the UN among many US conservatives, who view the organisation as an obstacle to US interests and a constraint on US power." While there might be some "conservatives" who bemoan obstacles and constraints to US interests and power in the world, this is a misunderstanding -- or blatant misrepresentation -- of the complaint that most conservatives, libertarians, Objectivists, and others have about the UN.

The primary complaint about the UN is not because it lessens US interests, but because it is inherently corrupt and does more harm than good -- objectively speaking. The UN is rotten at its core, because it allows nations ruled by criminals -- tyrants, dictators, monarchs, and so on -- to have seats at the table, chairs on the Human Rights Council, and positions from which to negotiate with the relatively free, rights-respecting nations of the world. That is the issue, and that is why the UN should be abandoned, and if any organization is created to replace it (debatable), it should be formed with far higher standards of admission.

Photos of Africa

My friend and colleague Basia recently made a trip to Africa, to follow the wildebeest migration. She has been posting some incredible photos of her trip -- a "Top 5" series thus far. Here are the links to each post... enjoy!

• Flamingos
• Got Blood?
• Fresh Kill
• Wildebeest Migration
• Leopard

India and Ayn Rand

Lately I've been reading some interesting blog postings on the topic of Ayn Rand/Objectivism and the country of India. This started with a posting simply titled India by blogger Myrhaf. The comments to this posting are as interesting as the posting itself, and include comments from blogger Ergo Sum, an editor from India. I had recently been reading his blog anyway, so this coincidence led me to read several dozen of his recent posts, and also a few older ones specifically on his views of life in India (including his criticisms of many aspects of the country. Particularly interesting posts include:

• August 28, 2007: Indians and Ayn Rand
• August 15, 2007: The Contradictions of the Indian Constitution
• August 13, 2007: What Can India Be Proud Of?
• Sept. 16, 2006: Why is Ayn Rand Respected More in India?

More on the Terrorism/Drug War Connection

Jacob Sullum wrote a nice column on the continuing connection between the Taliban and America's drug war policies, America's Taliban-Support Program. Nothing new for me here, except some updated numbers. But this is an important item to read if you are a supporter of the "drug war" policies in the USA.

Revolutionary Guard Not the Real Problem

Here is an interesting posting, The Bush Administration's Latest Deadly Evasion, on the topic of labelling the Iranian Republican Guard as a terrorist organization. The author is critical of this, though not for reasons that others are. The analogy here to the Mafia hitmen and Navy of the Nazis, is one I hadn't heard elsewhere. And then here is a question from a reader and response from the author.

80% Unemployment and 100,000% Inflation

No surprise, but the news out of Zimbabwe just keeps getting worse. The August 11 issue of The Economist has an article about the increasing number of people fleeing Zimbabwe for South Africa. There the unemployment rate is "only" 25-40%, which sounds awfully high until you learn that the rate in Zimbabwe is 80%. It also notes that, according to the IMF, the inflation rate is "heading for 100,000%". No wonder there are "severe shortages of meat, sugar, and cooking oil". This situation almost sounds like someone is trying to set records in Guinness or something.

120-Man Row Boats

My friend and colleague Basia, who continues her superb blogging from Chennai, India, has reported on an incredible boat race. Would you believe row boats with 120 men? Take a look at her amazing photos!

From Relative Bread Basket to Basket Case

Each time I read about the declining situation in Zimbabwe, I post a blog entry about it. And each time I think that it can't get much worse. And then I read how it has gotten worse a few weeks later. I need to stop being amazed at this.

The latest I've read is from the July 14th issue of The Economist, "How to stay alive when it all runs out" (which I only got around to reading tonight). There are some amazing items in this brief article. Oops, there I go again, being amazed by the economic numbers and dismal reports.

If anyone ever creates a Hall of Government Shame, Dictator Robert Mugabe could easily be a unanimous selection in the first round of inductees! The sad thing is, unless someone with near perfect economic policies becomes the next leader of Zimbabwe, it will take quite a long time to recover -- even after a radical shakeup in leadership occurs. And to think that at one time Zimbabwe was referred to as the "breadbasket of Africa". As I've said before, it is now the "basket case of Africa."

From a Former Fanatic

Here is an interesting piece in The Daily Mail titled "I was a fanatic...I know their thinking, says former radical Islamist" (thanks to Shawn Klein for the link). Written by a former member of what he calls the "British Jihadi Network", the author argues that the primary reason for Islamic terrorism is not the foreign policy of the USA/Western countries, but rather Islamic theology (or at least their interpretation of it). This is of course a vital perspective, and runs counter to what so many on the left argue (and sadly, a great many libertartians, like Ron Paul in the Republican debates a while back). So often we hear that "they hate us because of our foreign policy". Well, the US and other Western countries have certainly made many foreign policy mistakes over the years, and the current Bush administration obviously has too. But people like this author make the point quite clear that these actions are not the primary engine of their violent ways -- their ideology is. The primary issue is cultural/philosophical, not foreign policy.

Machan on Islam "Insulted"

Read the comments from Philosophy professor Tibor Machan on the recent outrage from Muslim leaders in response to Britain's bestowing honors on Salman Rushdie. He makes several very obvious distinctions that seem to be eluding many folks, including many in the media.

Wafa Sultan's 2006 Al-Jezeera Appearance

For some reason I thought I had blogged about this last year, but after doing a search of my blog it seems I didn't. So this isn't new material, just a late posting about something that I found amazing to watch.

In February 2006 Wafa Sultan, an Arab-American (Syrian-born) Psychiatrist, made this appearance on Al-Jezeera. Her thesis is that it is wrong to claim that we face a "clash of civilizations", but rather a clash between the mentality of the middle ages and that of the 21st century. She is extremely articulate and forceful in this speech.

For more information about her, see the Wafa Sultan entry at Wikipedia (with of course the necessary caveats about potential errors in Wikipedia content, esp. a controversial figure like Sultan). She seems to be a very courageous person!

RCTV Censored, Turns to YouTube

Venezuela's dictator Hugo Chavez recently shutdown (by not renewing their license for political reasons) the longest standing television station in Venezuela, RCTV. This made news worldwide, with many free-speech advocate groups, governments, and others condemning the move. But when I read a version of this AP article in my local paper, I was pleased to learn the good effect that the Internet can continue to have on the world. This time it is YouTube which is providing the journalists at RCTV a means to continue to broadcast their viewpoint, even when they have been otherwise silenced by a tyrant.

After days of street protests by students and others, against the move by Chavez to shutdown RCTV, and after many other mounting problems in the country -- including food shortages, even though the nation is flush with oil revenue -- it is easy to ask the obvious question: when will this nation erupt into a major class between the people and the government? True, Chavez has many supporters, as he hands out money and services to many of the poor in the country, even while keeping the country from growing because of his socialist economic policies. Will there be a violent clash between the poor and the middle-class? or between the middle-class and opposition parties and the government and military? How many more egregious acts by Chavez will it take to push this beyond the breaking point I wonder?

Scarcity Amid Abundance

The April 14-20 issue of The Economist again has a good article about the situation in Venezuela, and the economic problems being caused by Chavez and his policies. I couldn't think of a better title for this than what they used: Scarcity Amid Abundance. As I've noted in earlier blog postings, such as in Let Them Eat Chicken Feet, the price controls imposed by the Chavez regime are leading to ridiculous shortages. This latest article also points out the very high inflation rates in Venezuela, which only makes the price-control-causing-shortages issue that much more pronounced and guaranteed to occur (since people will be much more careful with their goods and their money, knowing it will be worth far less in the coming months).

Maximize Absolute Rate of Growth, Not Relative Rate

The April 14-20 issue of The Economist had a good, brief editorial "Come in Number One, Your Time is Up" (subscription required, but also available here). It discusses the various ways that America is being pushed off its economic pedastal, whether by some European countries, China, or whoever. The last two paragraphs, subtitled "A Winnner in Second Place", are worth quoting:

There will be plenty of hand-wringing in the years ahead. But does being the biggest economy matter? It helps to ensure military superiority; it gives a country more say in fixing international rules; and as the issuer of the main reserve currency, America can borrow more cheaply. But being number one cannot be an end in itself. The goal of policy should be to maximise a country's absolute rate of growth, not its relative rate.

Losing top place in the economic league is different from being beaten in sport, where for every winner there is a loser. Economic competition is not a zero-sum game. China's economy will overtake America's not because the United States is in terminal decline, but because China is catching up. And faster growth in China and other emerging economies will benefit America's economy, not harm it. If an obsession with remaining number one foolishly caused America to adopt protectionist policies, that would reduce America's growth as much as China's. It is better to be number two in a fast-growing world than number one in a stagnant one.

India's Growth and Low-Hanging Fruit

Stories of the fast growth of both China and India abound. There are of course many important differences in their growth stories, and one that is often mentioned is the generally abysmal state of India's infrastructure (roads, utilities, rural services, and so on). A recent BusinessWeek cover story, The Trouble with India, does a good job of describing this. There are many "online extras" linked from this page, that weren't in the print magazine too. But for me the most interesting bits of data were those in the chart "How the Global Giants Stack Up". Here we see Population, National Expressways, Major Airports, Electricity Production, Internet Penetration, and Port Shipments compared between India, China, and the US. I would have liked to have seen Europe and Russia included as two other "giants", but even just this three-way snapshot is interesting. India and China each have around 4 times the population of the US. The US has twice as many expressways as China, and more than 12 times as many as India. The US has more than three times as many airports as China, and 11 times as many as India. The US has 1.5 times as much electricity production as China, and 6 times as much as India. Internet penetration is nearly 7 times greater in the US than in China (and far less regulated!), and nearly 20 times greater than in India. China of course has far more port shipments -- two times as many as the US, who in turn as over three times as many as India. See the chart for the numbers.

These numbers are striking. I don't think India's growth can be accurately called a "bubble", in the way the Internet bubble was clearly a "bubble" several years ago -- and this article doesn't argue for such a label either. But the article, and these numbers, do lead me to think that India's growth is not sustainable at the 8-10% clip we have seen recently. I'm far from an expert on such matters, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if we see less growth in India at some point. Stating the obvious? Perhaps. But my point is that the reason for such slower growth will be because the "low-hanging fruit" will have all been picked. That is, generally speaking, I would assume that the easiest and most profitable ventures occur first. This is a univeral rule, but generally speaking if two ventures are similar but one has far fewer government hurdles, requires few if any bribes, doesn't involve building facilities and infrastructure in the surrounding area (hospitals, schools, roads, etc.), well, that venture will be the one undertaken. This leaves other areas of the country, and other more difficult projects, for a later day -- if ever. Hopefully the bureaucracy in India will continue to change, and many of the bigger and harder problems the country faces will be increasingly addressed over time, but doing so is the steeper hill to climb, and so I assume progress will become slow.

This is not necessity of course, but it is what I'd predict right now. The country -- like any country -- could of course get its act together, and make wise decisions across the board: economically, politically, socially, culturally, and so on. They could promote rational individualism, free markets, entreprenuerialism, and so on (in a word, capitalism) in a consistent way -- and thereby really turn around their country fast, including helping the hundreds of millions of poor. But alas, that doesn't seem likely any time soon.

Some Background on Mr. Mugabe

The March 31 issue of The Economist (subscription only) continued to keep the focus on Zimbabwe's criminal ruler Robert Mugabe, by including both an editorial and a longer article. The latter was particularly interesting because it goes beyond noting the latest horrors and gives some background on Mugabe's childhood and development. This helps to give a fuller picture of this criminal in charge of a country that was once relatively well-off and now is a basketcase (see my earlier blog item).

And the April 7 issue gives a sad update regarding an African leaders summit that was held on March 29th, where it was hoped that Mugabe would finally be told, politely but firmly, that it was time for him to go. But alas, this is far from what happened.

Astonishingly, Mr. Mugabe got more bouquets than brickbats. The assembled heads of state called for sanctions to be lifted to take the pressure of their comrade, and declared the grubby presidential election of 2002 free and fair. With this sort of endorsement rining in his ears, Mr. Mugabe smartly returned to what he knows best: intimidating his opponents. He called the beating of the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, not only "deserved" by promised more of the same. To cap his perfect week, Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF party said Mr. Mugabe would be its presidential candidate in next year's election.

From Breadbasket to Basketcase

The overall situation in Zimbabwe seems to be getting worse and worse. In June of last year I blogged about Zimbabwe, about a PBS special on the country in particular. Now the March 17-23 issue of the Economist provides both an editorial, Toppling a Tyrant , and an article, "The Face of Oppression", (both require subscription) about the latest news. The rule of Robert Mugabe (now 83 years old) continues on, and he talks of wanting to stay in power for many more years. Members of the Movement for Democratic Change (an opposition group) were beaten recently by Mugabe's henchmen. And then consider these latest numbers:

Once the bread-basket of southern Africa and one of the continent's wealthiest countries, Zimbabwe is now a basketcase and suffers a severe shortage of food. It is also the world's fastest-shrinking peacetime economy, with unemployment now standing at 80%. Its inflation rate is the world's highest: currently 1,730%, although the IMF thinks that figure could rise to over 4,000% by year's end. From infant mortality to life below the poverty line, the country's unhappiest trendlines run remorselessly upwards. To stifle dissent and quash opposition, Zimbabwe has been turned into a police state where elections are routinely rigged.

As I've said in previous postings, nations like this are actually being run by criminals -- and I mean that literally. Mugabe is a "President" name only. Since he and his fellow rulers violate the individual rights of the people on a regular basis, and quite intentionally, they are properly seen as moral criminals. Too often the words "dictator" and "tyrant" are used, and people don't grasp that what these words actually mean is "criminal who has power over the people in his geographic area".

And I'll also add (again) that countries such as Zimbabwe should not be in the United Nations, or any other international body, in which the USA, Great Britain, Australia, Canada, et al., are members. Whoever represents Zimbabwe at the United Nations is representing the criminals (meaning right-violators) in the government of that country -- so by sitting down with such a person, and negotiating on this or that issue (trade, aid, whever), are we not sanctioning this regime as even minimally legitimate? One might think that including such countries in the UN is better than not doing so, because it helps in some way the poor people of such countries. But consider the long-term picture here: consider how many of these countries, run by criminal dictators, continue on that path for decades, with no end in site!

Is "working with" the ruling government, to try to minimize the damage they do to their own people, really helping the people in those countries over the long-run? Might it be better to take a principled stand, kick all countries run by kings, tyrants, dictators, etc., out of the U.N., refuse to have any diplomatic or government-supported dealings with them, and isolate them as much as possible in all other ways (economics, etc.)... and see what happens to such criminal-led regimes then? Ideally, that would have been the principled-stand taken in the first place, when the U.N. was first created. Being the optimist that I am, it is never too late to correct this mistake...

Places to Sleep

My friend Basia has written a post with lots of pictures of all the places she has slept in the past three years. She travels a lot, so I suspect few people have slept in as many odd and exotic locations as she has! Check out her collection...

Tom and Jerry Cartoon Conspiracy

Consider if you will this video at YouTube of an Iranian "scholar" giving a lecture to students (or conference attendees, I'm not sure) giving his views on how the Tom and Jerry cartoon was created as a Jewish conspiracy.

Or consider if you will this video at YouTube of an Iranian "scholar" giving a lecture giving his views on how various Hollywood blockbusters like the Alien series, Jurassic Park, Predator, and others... are actually attacks against Islam.

I could quote many laughable claims, and entire syllogisms that are just beyond belief, from these two videos, but you can just view them for yourself.

Oh, the interpretative hoops these guys go through! These are great examples of what happens when postmodernism combines with premodernism. Here we have an "anything goes" postmodernist approach to interpretation and "critical" analysis of something, combined with the essentially premodern mentality that is religion (and in this case, a particularly paranoid advocate of his religion). And the offspring is of course utter irrationality. Not surprising, since you are adding one irrationality onto another -- what else could result but something laughably ridiculous and illogical?

There are many, many more videos like these two at YouTube -- many linked directly from the two pages above. And I'd like to take this opportunity to point out the source of these great clips... The Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI. Check out their awesome website for loads of great translated videos that you simply won't find anywhere else -- certainly not on any of the major news channels on TV. And be sure to see their relatively new blog as well (started in December). Great stuff...

The Colors of India

My friend and colleague Basia Kruszewska has recently compiled together over a hundred photographs from her travels in India and other Asian countries. They are arranged by color... that is, by the significant color in each image. To start the photo tour, start with Red. Then you can click on each color box at the top of the page to see the other colors' pages. Good stuff!

Venezuela Blogger from the Inside

This morning I posted my thoughts on the recent news of food shortages, and other major problems, that are increasing in Venezuela as a result of Hugo Chavez' socialist and rights-violating policies. If you haven't read that post yet, do so before continuing with this one...

Then notice the anonymous comment I was sent to that posting. Here it is in full for your convenience:

"Im glad to find an article that tells reality and dont just celebrate Mr Chavez socialist project because it "helps the poor"..You said at the end "90 minutes turns into 4 hours, and it won't be fixed until 2010 at the earliest. When will the majority of people in Venezuela figure out it doesn't have to be this way?".. and for now, i must tell you the answer is No.... About your predictions well im thinking of buying candles and stuff. I think you will find interesting to read my blog (just started makin it, so it looks like crap now but anyways) and would be interesting to keep a discussion / reflection about this events with a foreigner. Anyways my blog is... http//antipatrioticvenezuelan.blogspot.com "

Even with the poor English, her meaning is clear. It turns out she is a college student desperate to finish her major, and hopefully leave her rapidly deteriorating country.

Next, I encourage you to check out her new blog at antipatrioticvenezuelan.blogspot.com. She speaks of difficulties concentrating on her studies, the recent food shortages, the rigged elections in her country, and much more. Her posting "Too late" ends quite passionately: "too late my friends, just too late." Her posting "Why Im Against?" includes this: "I am, after all, an intelectual, so everyday is more hard for me to see how my country collapsed, and how I lose my freedom."And be sure to read her first posting (bottom of her blog page) titled "So do we". Powerful stuff!

Outsourcing to the Villages

I recently blogged about an innovative approach to getting eyeglasses to the poor, and before that I blogged about nobel-prize-winning Yunus and his micro-lending bank. This week I read of another development of how capitalism helps the poor.

The Jan. 22 issue of BusinessWeek had an interesting article "Outsourcing Heads to the Outskirts". This article describes that while outsourcing has mostly involved large cities in India and elsewhere, there is now a growing trend to send the work to much smaller -- and much poorer -- villages in the countryside. If you thought $2,000 - $5,000 a year for an outsourced job was cheap, how about the $800 that is paid to the extremely poor villager? If he or she can be trained and if enough infrastructure can be put in place to make it feasible, why not? The article describes one company in particular:

They're working for GramIT, a 16-month-old nonprofit that's seeking to transplant India's tech services boom to some of the country's 600,000 villages.

And before you gasp at that $800 a year salary for the Indian villager, take in the following:

Workers in Ethakota earn a fraction of what the outsourcing troops in Bangalore do, but they're not complaining. Srinivas Ruddireddy makes twice as much money arranging car services online for people in Hyderabad as he does from the two-acre rice plot he tends in the early morning. He now plans to send his 4-year-old son to private school. "My lifestyle has entirely changed," says the 30-year-old. "But I'm able to stay in the village."

Yet again we see the benefits of capitalism. Not only is it the only politico-economic system that protects the actual rights of individuals, it of course will improve the lives of people too -- and relatively speaking, the poorest people most of all -- if only given the chance. The standards of living for the world's poorest can be tremendously raised through big Western companies looking to save money on relatively simple tasks. Outstanding!

Venezuela: Let Them Eat Chicken Feet

This Associated Press story about food shortages in Venezuela gave me a laugh. Although the situation is not good for many in that country, how can you not chuckle at this opening line:

Meat cuts vanished from Venezuelan supermarkets this week, leaving only unsavory bits such as chicken feet, while costly artificial sweeteners have increasingly replaced sugar, and many staples sell far above government-fixed prices.

Naturally I found the reference to chicken feet funny. But beyond that, I got a laugh because this effect is so entirely predictable because its cause is so pathetically, blatantly obvious. You have a socialist demagogue soon-will-be complete dictator in Hugo Chavez ruling the country. What do people there expect? Are they entirely ignorant of the world's history (recent history of socialism in particular)? Are they likewise ignorant of basic economic theory? Have they been duped by the rhetoric and promises of the seemingly-always-smiling Chavez?

I do feel bad for anyone in Venezuela who has fought against Chavez' rise to power, and have done so for the right reasons -- those who know his policies violate individual rights, and are destined to lead to economic ruin. But for all the others -- anyone who has supported Chavez even partially, not to mention enthusiastically and fully -- I just can't feel bad for you now that the, uh, chickens (or at least their feet) are coming home to roost.

And its not just meat that is in short supply. The article notes that many other products have seen sporadic shortages in Venezuela for the past several years, such as milk, sugar, coffee, and so on. Why? Chavez has been regulating prices for over 400 products! Price regulation is a cause of shortages. Not only is it anti-market and economically devestating, but it is also morally evil because it violates the rights of individuals to sell products at prices that they set, and the rights of consumers to purchase products that they want through voluntary exchange.

Think about it: There are people in Venezuela who are willing to pay X for a product, say coffee, and other people who are willing to sell it for X. But the government is violating the individual rights of both parties by saying "No. You can only perform this transaction if the price is lower - it cannot be higher than Y." And of course that price Y is in some cases so low that the seller can't even break even, much less make any level of profit (the incentive to produce or acquire the products to sell in the first place).

Why does Chavez do this? Well, my understanding is that he has been elected partially through the votes of the poor, and the poor need food and by definition can't afford (some of) the food at market prices. So because they need it and want it, Chavez will (attempt to) give it to them through force imposed on everyone in the country. This is, infamously, a key axiom of communism and a theory that Chavez has publicly applauded as a goal for his regime: From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. Sadly, what ends up happening is food ceases to be available at any price.

Besides trying to help the poor, another goal of Chavez's dictates is to control inflation. But the article states:

Yet inflation has soared to an accumulated 78 percent in the past four years in an economy awash in petrodollars, and food prices have increased particularly swiftly, creating a widening discrepancy between official prices and the true cost of getting goods to market in Venezuela.

And then there are the other side effects that such a system produces, like black markets and people wasting their time (thereby not helping the economy be productive):

The state runs a nationwide network of subsidized food stores, but in recent months some items have become increasingly hard to find.At a giant outdoor market held last weekend by the government to address the problems, a street vendor crushed raw sugar cane to sell juice to weary shoppers waiting in line to buy sugar.

And of course the government inevitably resorts to outright lies to try to fool the people and prevent panic. This happened throughout Soviet history, and has happened in countless other socialist and communist countries. Consider this example from the article:

"They say there are no shortages, but I'm not finding anything in the stores," grumbled Ana Diaz, a 70-year-old housewife who, after eight hours, had filled a bag with chicken, milk, vegetable oil and sugar at official prices.

Here is a similar report from the BBC, this one focused on coffee beans and the shortages in that area. The following quote from Eduardo Bianco, a senior executive at Cafe Madrid, Venezuela's largest coffee producer, tells the story:

"Would you sell your products on the open market if you were sure you were going
to make a loss?"

Good point. But sadly, the nature of the brute force involved here has recently been made clear:

Venezuela's leftwing leader has authorised the use of the National Guard to "find every last kilogram of coffee" being stockpiled by coffee roasters. He even raised the prospect of nationalising the industry as a last resort.

"As far as the law is concerned, we're absolutely within our rights to seize coffee which is deliberately being withheld from sale," insists Samuel Ruh, a government appointed monitor of consumer rights.

"In fact, we have already carried out several successful raids at premises illegally holding thousands of tonnes of coffee."

Note the knee-jerk reaction... government policy violates the rights of individuals and along the way ruins an area of the economy, so obviously we must then nationalize that sector! That will fix it!

And notice the false assumption by Mr. Ruh -- that consumers have a right to coffee. This complete inversion and misunderstanding of individual rights is a root problem here to be sure.

This BBC article does go beyond coffee, noting:

Yet several food stores in Venezuela's capital city Caracas say the coffee raids are not addressing the fact that shops are also running low on sugar, maize, powdered milk and beans. Store managers insist they are not being supplied with new stock from wholesalers and importers, who were also complaining that the prices set by the government are too low.

And then it goes beyond even food-related problems that Venezuela is fa