On What Obama Should Say To Iran

I'm a few days behind in sharing this link, but it is still very worth reading: What Obama Should Say To Iran, by Debi Ghate.

On Twitter and the Iran Riots

See this interesting short article about the role Twitter is playing in getting the word out about the unrest in Iran following the recent "election."

On Jackie Chan's Recent Comments

I was saddened to hear of Jackie Chan's recent comments. It might not be good for over a billion people to have freedom? I don't assume that moving a country that size away from single-party rule and a relative lack of individual rights will be easy or could be done overnight. But to say what Mr. Chan is saying? Ugh.

Best Visual Representations of Stats Ever

This is likely the best visual representation (animated even!) of statistics I've ever seen:

Hans Rosling: Debunking third-world myths

Great demonstration of what is possible with various kinds of graphs and charts, and then animated the data over time.

For more, see the website www.gapminder.org

Guess What? North Korean Elections Are Free and Kim Jong Il Is the Best Leader

My latest review of the official news coming out of North Korea turned up several gems.

For instance, did you know that elections in North Korea are free and fair? Yes indeed, as Superior Election System of DPRK makes clear. Of course, no mention of the single-party nature of their system. Say hello to the elephant in the room.

And did you know that Kim Jong Il is the best modern leader? For many examples of why this is so, see Kim Jong Il, Greatest Leader of Present Era. The over-the-top language used in this article is hilarious, what with the talk of "miracles" and "innovations" (presumably like the ones involving blackouts and starvation.) The staff at The Onion couldn't have done better if they tried.

As I've said before, it will be very interesting for social scientists to study what will eventually be a "great awakening" for the people of North Korea: at some point, the communist regime there will be toppled, and this great period of darkness (literal) and misery will reverse course. It will take time for them to learn of the reality of the world and the silly and malicious nature of their government all these years, but it would be a very interesting process to watch and study when it happens.

On Hollywood and Cuba

Few things are more sickening to me than those iconic Che Guevara T-shirts (or any item with that famous image of him). Ugh... so many people are so very ignorant of what Guevara did and what he stood for.

Helping to educate on this point, and on Cuba more generally, the Dec. 29th Wall Street Journal had a great column by Mary Anastasia O'Grady entitled "Hollywood Celebrates Che Guevara". While I agree it would be nice if Hollywood would produce movies that told the truth about Cuba, I'm not holding my breath.

A 100 Trillion Dollar Bill, and 231 Million Percent Inflation

Yes, the title of this posting is describing the latest economic news from Zimbabwe. These numbers are just incredible. As this news item notes, the country recently introduced a nwe 100 Trillion Zimbabwe dollar note. This is necessary because of inflation, which is officially at 231 million percent, in but reality is much higher.

Books from North Korea

I checked the latest "news" from North Korea, and two book publishing articles caught my attention.

"Complete Collection of Kim Il Sung's Works" Vol. 78 Off Press - Wow... 78 volumes? It seems this isn't all written material, as it includes transcriptions of what were no doubt many speeches he gave during his reign. Included are such speeches/essays as "The DPRK Represents Genuine People's Power and Is a Banner of the Unity and Solidarity of the Masses" and "Let Us Shatter Imperialist Moves towards Aggression and War and Safeguard Peace and Independence".

New Books Published - This article is just too funny not to provide to you in full. The choice of over-the-top language is just stunning.

The Pyongyang Publishing House has of late brought out new books. Among them are the books "Great Man and Music" and "Questions and Answers on Songun Politics" and the full-length novel "River Rimjin" (Part one "Woman of the North").

"Great Man and Music" gives an impressive description of the peerless greatness and immortal feats of General Secretary Kim Jong Il who has left footmarks of great leadership, accompanied by music.

"Questions and Answers on Songun Politics" gives a comprehensive account of the creation and development in depth of Songun politics, its validity and invincible vitality in the question-and-answer form.

The full-length novel "River Rimjin" (Part One "Woman of the North") portrays through a vivid artistic depiction a woman who happened to part with her husband during the Fatherland Liberation War. She, with her children, grows to be a full-fledged master of the country in the bosom of the DPRK and enjoys a worthy life and happiness, living stoutly with an ardent desire for the reunification of the country.

It is hard to imagine the sense of "awakening" that citizens of North Korea will feel once their long, cruel time living under communist dictatorship finally comes to an end.

Don Parrish's Latest Travels

As his Year in Review 2008 indicates, my friend Don Parrish continues to travel all around the globe. I've linked to some of his trip reports here in the past, so I wanted to do the same for his end-of-the-year review. It is a fascinating read: long (as he admits), but worthwhile. Included are numerous photos -- hand-picked ones from the 8,000 photos he took over the year!

I continue to be impressed by Don's travels. In fact, he reports that he is now among the top 300 travelers on planet Earth.

And I appreciate Don's writing style as well: direct, and to the point, but with the occasional bit if provocative wisdom (e.g., reporting on his travels in Western Africa, in Gambia in particular, he notes "The irony of slavery: the descendents of slaves in America are so much better off than the descendents in Africa of the black enslavers." His writing is also positive and optimistic in a way that I find refreshing, and comes with appropriate pro-American patriotism. By that I mean that Don, like me, is proud of America for its essential characteristics -- while still being critical of much both "at home" in our country and of many of our government's actions abroad.

Thanks again Don, for taking the time to share your travel experiences with us!

Some stats on North Korea and South Korea

Sometimes a few numbers helps to make already clear distinctions that much more so. The Sept. 27th issue of The Economist magazine had a series of articles on North and South Korea. A sidebar in one of the articles had some numbers that are quite striking:

• North Korea Population: 22.9 million
• South Korea Population: 48.5 million

So North Korea has 47.2% of the population that South Korea has.

• North Korea GDP: 25.6 billion ($)
• South Korea GDP: 957.1 billion ($)

So North Korea has only 2.7% of the GDP that South Korea has! Wow. This works out in GDP per capita to $1,118 for North Korea and $19,751 for South Korea.

Another interesting difference is Power Generation, measured in kWh, 100m:

• North Korea: 225
• South Korea: 3646

Again, that works out to North Korea producing only 6.2% of what South Korea does. No wonder night-time satelite images of North Korea always appear so completely dark!

And while there are no doubt a variety of factors involved in life-expectancy, I would assume that if Korea had been one country for the past 50+ years, the life-expectancy between people in the north and people in the south would be fairly similar. Instead, it seems safe to assume that the policies of the North Korean communist regime are greatly reducing the life expectancy of its people: North Korea's is 67.3 and South Korea's is 78.6.

I'm no expert on North Korea. I learned a lot from my friend Don Parrish's trip report, and from what I gather from news sources, the people in North Korea have systematically lied to for many decades and are very, very isolated. If/when the North Korean Communist regime falls, and the country opens up and attemptes to reintegrate with the rest of the world... what will it be like for the common individuals of that country? It is hard to imagine... and sad to think about... but I just hope we have some good reporters and/or social scientists on the ground when it happens to chronicle it all.

On Chinese Censorship and the Continuing Popularity of Mao

Here is an interesting post from someone visiting China: Shadow of Mao: There's no memory of democracy's brief bloom in China. And then here is another one, on a similar subject.

Granted, the average person on the street in the US isn't particularly knowledgeable of politics and world events -- Jay Leno's "Jaywalking" routines have demonstrated that time and again.

But you would think that people in China -- people standing in Tiananmen Square, mind you -- would know of the student protests and use of tanks by the government there in 1989. But apparently not. Just how powerful is the censorship machine in China? Surely it doesn't rival that of the completely closed off North Korea. But this article is enlightening, not only for the street interviews but also for the report on Google successes and failures: searches for democracy, free Tibet, and so on bring back zero results, while "Mao is great" bring back plenty.

And on the subject of Mao, how long will it be before the Chinese decide that he wasn't so great, that instead he was responsible for the murder of tens of millions of Chinese people? When will they stop gleefully getting their photos taken with Mao posters, stop selling Mao-merchanidize, and start understanding the true history of their country during the 20th century? Apparently it will take a while, given the many levels of censorship in place.

On Chinglish

The July issue of Wired had an interesting short article "Anyone Here Speak Chinglish?". Michael Erard describes how English is evolving into a global lingua franca, and how the living language is changing as a result. He notes that with current trends "By 2020, native English speakers will make up only 15 percent of the estimated 2 billion people who will be using or learning the language."

This raises many interesting questions, including what will the language sound and look like in 20 or 30 years. And what will be considered "good" or "acceptable" English usage in schools. Read his article for many examples of such changes likely because of the numbers of people who will be speaking "Chinglish" -- English as spoken by native Chinese people.

WSJ Series: Your U.N. at Work

Spread out over a year now, the Wall Street Journal has run the occasional brief opinion piece under the title "Your U.N. at Work". These items are all rightfully critical of the United Nations. They've done four of these so far, and here are the links:

• March 30, 2007 -- describes the incredible Hillel Neuer's (from the NGO U.N. Watch) performance at the Human Rights Council where he notes the council's fixation with Israel, and is then threatened with future censorship by the council president.
• May 19, 2007 -- reports that Zimbabwe was elected to chair the Commission for Sustainable Development (no, that is not a headline from The Onion). Only slightly less bizarre was the election of Iran as vice-chair for the Disarmament Commission.
• August 31, 2007 -- more on human rights, including that Libya was put in charge of organizing an anti-racism conference.
• June 7, 2008 -- this is the one that caught my eye, and since it was labelled "IV", led me to discover the three previous entries above. This time around, we learn that a former Nicaraguan Sandinista regime official (also a priest) was elected president of the UN General Assembly. And that Burma's government has been given one of the VP spots. This one ends with:
  
  "Speaking after his election, Father d'Escoto called for greater "democracy" at the U.N. – an odd remark coming from a former servant of a communist dictatorship. He also called for the U.N. to take a stand against "acts of aggression, such as those occurring in Iraq and Afghanistan." That would be American aggression, not the Taliban's, the Mahdi Army's or al Qaeda's.
  
  A former Lenin Prize winner as General Assembly president and cruel Burma as vice president – another sick joke from the U.N."

Good stuff! I wish the WSJ would do more of these! I assume they have a much broader readership than the website of UN Watch, and so could have more of an impact on people's views of the UN.

As I've raised before on this blog... I really wish the US would get out of the UN. If we must have such an international organization (I'm open to that), then membership should have strict requirements. To start with, only democracies that protect basic individual rights would be allowed as members. If the benefits of membership were great enough, this alone might get some of the smaller non-democracies to abruptly change their approach to government. The bigger ones would thumb their nose at us -- or even band together to form their own club: "United Monarchy, Dictatorship, Communist, Fascist, and other inherently rights-abusing Statist Nations". Contrast that group with the countries that would be in the "United Democratic and Individual-Rights Respecting Nations". That would make quite clear what is currently obscured by intentional UN fog.

Saudi Arabia: Why develop Nuclear energy rather than Solar?

An opinion piece in the June 10 WSJ by Edward J. Markey asks a very good question: Why is Bush Helping Saudi Arabia Build Nukes?

First off, this would seem to have a very real potential for disaster down the road. I'm no expert on Saudi Arabia and the chances of the regime their falling and Islamic radicals taking over. But is that a chance worth taking?

But Markey makes another point that I hadn't thought of before:

Saudi Arabia has poured money into developing its vast reserves of natural gas for domestic electricity production. It continues to invest in a national gas transportation pipeline and stepped-up exploration, building a solid foundation for domestic energy production that could meet its electricity needs for many decades. Nuclear energy, on the other hand, would require enormous investments in new infrastructure by a country with zero expertise in this complex technology.

Have Ms. Rice, Mr. Bush or Saudi leaders looked skyward? The Saudi desert is under almost constant sunshine. If Mr. Bush wanted to help his friends in Riyadh diversify their energy portfolio, he should have offered solar panels, not nuclear plants.

Why would the Saudi's want to develop nuclear energy, instead of solar? If any country could make Solar energy work, you'd think it would be the sun-baked peninsula of Saudi Arabia. To me, this either means that solar energy is much farther away from being economically viable on a large scale than many environmentalists would like us to believe AND/OR Saudi Arabia really isn't interested in only expanding their energy supply and energy diversity. The latter is the conclusion feared by Markey, as he notes that Saudi Arabia is quite possibly thinking ahead to when Iran (their biggest rival in the region) gets a nuke or two.

Must Read: Infidel, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Speaking of books that changed my life (see my previous post)... I just finished reading Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book, Infidel. This book is one of the best, most interesting, and most important books I've ever read. (To read an overview of the book, see the Infidel page at the AEI site.)

If you are like I was until about a month ago, then you have perhaps heard of her (from the news several years ago) or of this book (it is a NYT bestseller). You have likely heard of Theo Van Gogh, perhaps only because he was murdeed by an Islamist in The Netherlands (after he and Ayaan created a movie critical of Islam's treatment of women in many countries and cultures). If you are like I was, then that is about all you know about her (which says something negative about the news media in this country!).

That said, rarely has a book impacted me in the way this book has. In fact, I had some trouble composing this blog posting -- as it seems no words describing this book, or Ayaan as a person -- will be sufficient. Simply stated, she is a heroine of the rational mind, of liberty, and of women's rights. Indeed, on that last point, while reading this book I found myself many times thinking: "If Ayaan Hirsi Ali continues her current work, then she should go down in history as one of the most important advocates for women's rights."

I strongly urge my friends reading this blog posting to go out and read (or listen to the audio version) this book, Infidel. If you are like me, you have a long list of books -- or a stack of books already purchased -- that are waiting for your time. I understand that. After you finish the book(s) you are already reading, I just urge you to read Infidel next.

This book was extremely educational for me -- it gives a first-person perspective, with many concretes, etc., that you just don't get from newspaper or TV news stories about the "war on terror", "Islamic radicals", and so on.

In reading this book, I found myself pausing every few pages to reflect on what I just read. At times I was shocked with horror; at other times I smiled as I learned of Ayaan's courage and followed her mental development. The writing style of this book is easy to read, but on a more substantive level, this book is both an easy and difficult book to read.

I want to thank Ayaan for this book and for her ongoing work (I look forward to reading her online articles), and my way of doing so is by writing this blog post, and sending out emails to friends, to encourage more people to read her book.

I could go on an on. Please, when you do read this book (notice I didn't say "if"), I hope you'll email me or blog about it -- as I'm interested in the reactions of friends to it, especially if they picked it up based in part on my recommendation and urging.

For more info on Ayaan Hirsi Ali, here are some good links to get you started:

• Ayaan's page at AEI - Includes links to her latest writings, events, etc.


• A good overview of Infidel - provided at the AEI site


• A good review of Infidel - by Gina Ligget, published in the March issue of American Atheist (thanks to NoodleFood, where Ligget is a blogger, for providing access)


• Ayaan speaking - A one-hour AEI event from Feb. 2007, first half her speaking, second half is Q&A (though when I tried the video version, I didn't get an audio -- so I only heard it as MP3 audio).


• Wikipedia for Ayaan Hirsi Ali - for general background, and also many links to interviews with her

Bread and Butter? That will be 27 billion dollars, please

Each time I blog about Zimbabwe, I wonder how much it will get -- both the political crisis and the economic crisis. Check out the latest inflation numbers and prices in this article, Zimbabwe has shortage of food, abundance of zeros.

The price of a loaf of bread is $2 billion Zimbabwe dollars (or $15 billion on the black market) and 17.5 ounces of butter is $25 billion. A car battery, by the way, will run you 2.4 trillion dollars (which is about $240 US dollars). Other similar prices are listed in the article -- but amazing as these all sound, they all assume you can even find these goods available at all.

And yet... Brian Raftopolous, a South African-based economic researcher, notes "As bad as things are, it can get worse." I wonder what the next set of inflation and price numbers will look like?

Zimbabwe Has Some Inflation

Understatement of the year candidate? This AP news item included the following ridiculous tidbit:

On Thursday, Zimbabwe's central bank unveiled a new half-billion Zimbabwean dollar bank note.

The new bill and three others for 5 billion, 25 billion and 50 billion Zimbabwe dollars, called "special agro" checks intended for purchases and sales involved in farm production, were going into circulation next Tuesday, the central bank said.

Earlier this month, the bank floated the local currency exchange rate through commercial banks, where a single U.S. dollar sold Wednesday for around 240 million Zimbabwe dollars, slightly higher than the dominant black market rate for hard currency.

That change saw prices of goods soar, with unofficial estimates putting annual inflation at more than 700,000 percent.

Official inflation was given in February at 165,000 percent, and no further official figures have been released.

"Prices are now doubling every week instead of every month, and it is hard to see how we can survive to the end of June or how an election will be feasible at all if things continue to deteriorate at this pace," Harare economist John Robertson said.
The central bank said the "agro" checks, similar in appearance to the nation's existing range of bills, will be accepted by retailers and banks up to the end of the year.

The previous highest denomination bill was for 250 million Zimbabwe dollars, enough to buy about two loaves of bread.

As of press time, no word yet on whether there are any plans to start producing gazillion or kajillion dollar bills next. LOL

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 facing:

His [Chavez'] government's woes are compounded by massive structural problems of a key road bridge linking the capital city, Caracas, to Venezuela's main international airport. The other day, President Chavez admitted that attempts by engineers to save the bridge from collapse had failed. Tens of thousands of motorists now face misery as they try to negotiate a bumpy road from and to Caracas. Trucks carrying goods from the airport now face a four-hour journey to the shops of the capital city, whereas the old route via the bridge took only 90 minutes. A new bridge will not be ready before the year 2010 according to government estimates.

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 lastly, here is a brief item about another industry in Venezuela being increasingly regulated, and partially nationalized: the electricity industry.

Prediction: electricity shortages (e.g., brownouts, blackouts) will increasinly occur in Venezuela as long as Chavez continues in this direction. Any one wanna bet with me on this? LOL

Muslim Yankees

The January 15th issue of BusinessWeek had an interesting article titled "They're Muslims, And Yankees, Too". Nothing to do with baseball, as Yankee here just means American. The article talks about a large segment of Muslim Americans, and then spotlights four individuals in particularly, devoting a few paragraphs each to their stories. I found these tidbits about Muslim Americans interesting:

...As a group, they offer a model of assimilation and material success. An astounding 59% of Muslim adults in the U.S. have a college degree, compared with only 28% of all American adults. Surveys show that median family income among America's Muslims exceeds the national figure of $55,800. And four out of five eligible Muslims are registered to vote, slightly higher than the overall rate.

And then these two paragraphs about one of the four profiled individuals (a newspaper publisher in Michigan) are insightful I think:

Siblani, a pro-business, anti-abortion Republican who drives a sleek black Mercedes and lives in a comfortable house complete with white pillars in front, helped organize Arab American support for George W. Bush in 2000. But the President's "war on terror" after 9/11 left him feeling that his adopted country had turned against Muslims. He abandoned Bush in 2004 and publicly branded the current administration the "Taliban in Washington."

Siblani reflects the complexity of American Islam, an intricate mixture of creeds and cultures: immigrant and native-born, devout and secular, moderate and radical. By comparison, most immigrant Muslims in such countries as France, England, and Spain have remained poorer, less well educated, and more marginalized. Europeans encouraged Muslim immigration as a source of menial labor, but until recently did little to integrate workers as citizens. And more generous welfare benefits in Europe allow Muslims and other immigrants to live indefinitely on the periphery of society. The American combination of a comparatively modest social safety net with greater economic opportunity appears to have drawn Muslims willing to adjust to new customs and acquire education needed for good jobs. So the ideologically motivated violence that has erupted in Muslim enclaves in Western Europe so far hasn't surfaced from within the U.S.

Indeed.

Rolling Stone on Tibet

I am currently getting a free subscription to Rolling Stone Magazine. We signed up for this when we visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last August.

In the latest issue, there was a long article titled The End of Tibet. The subhead summarizes the main theme of the article:

As China tortures monks and drives Tibetans into poverty, many young activists are renouncing the Dalai Lama and resorting to violence. Is one of the world's most ancient cultures facing extinction?

I found the article to be quite interesting: full of anecdotes, and good descriptions of the egregious past (and to some extent, present) mistreatment of native Tibetans by the Chinese. There are clearly some biases in the article -- such as vague assertions of growing wrongs against Tibetans that might actually just be markets (or something approaching markets), technology, and capitalism being introduced by the Chinese. Not enough detail is given on these issues, so one can't tell from the article. And one doesn't get the sense that they are attempting to show both sides of the issues involved. Then again, in most the most egregious cases -- especially those of the past -- there really just is the one side that deserves to be heard, the other side being the Communist regime blatantly violating the rights of the Tibetan people (including torture, murder, and so on).

So I recommend the article as an interesting read at least. But my big question is this:

What is this article doing in Rolling Stone magazine? There was absolutely no connection whatsoever to music, or even entertainment more broadly. I guess I'm just new to this magazine -- it is extremely leftist politically, so I guess any favorite causes of the left can get lengthy writeups in Rolling Stone?

And this raises something, more seriously now, that I find curious. The entire Tibet/China situation is very puzzling when you think about it in terms of traditional political ideologies in the West. I mean, the activist left has for several decades fought to improve the lives of the Tibetan people, even striving to gain them independence... from... a brutal Communist regime. But... Communism and Socialism are, or at least were, the pride and joy of the political left. Remember all those in America and elsewhere who fell for, and created and perpetuated, the propoganda myths of how wonderful life was in the USSR and China, and how evil capitalism (and the USA) were by contrast. Not to mention academics who argued for (and a smaller number who still do argue for) the superiority of such statist systems.

And then there is the odd situation that by fighting to protect the culture of the Tibetan people, those on the left are actually fighting to preserve one of the most deeply religious cultures on the planet (or so it seems). And yet, in the US and elsewhere, the most religious tend to be on the political right, the conservatives. So why isn't it members of the American Republican party who are the most vocal about freeing Tibet -- since that would be both a fight for religion and a fight against communism, two things that American conservatives have long believed in. Oh, right... it is a different religion. Oops. I'm not asserting that no conservatives have stood up for the rights of Tibetans -- no doubt many have. But if the Tibetans had an ancient and deeply Christian-based culture, instead of a Buddhist one, presumably such conservatives from the West would be greater in numbers, and perhaps even leading the activist rallies for the Tibet cause?

Its enough to make your head spin...

LifeStraw: A Brilliant Idea

Skimming through the USA Weekend supplement to my local paper, I came across a two-paragraph blurb about a product called LifeStraw. It uses filters and other components to purify water as someone sucks it through a tube -- thereby making it very easy for people to get clean (or at least much cleaner) drinking water very easily. This is a brilliant invention, and sounds like it could really improve the health of millions who suffer from water-borne illnesses in third-world nations. They cost only $3.50 each, and the article said that international development agencies were developing. If this really does what it claims to do then, congratulations to Vestergaard Frandsen, the European company that developed the device!

Selling Spectacles to the Poor

A few months ago I wrote briefly about the great trend towards microfinancing to aid the poor. In the Jan. 13 issue of The Economist they had a brief article on a similar concept. Often poor people need something as simple as a good pair of eyeglasses to greatly improve their ability to earn a living. And yet often aid money doesn't reach them at all, or reaches them in a way that helps with something else -- but doesn't get them the eyeglasses they need so that they can become self-supporting. But this article describes Scojo Vision, an American optical firm that produces eyeglasses and makes them available for just a few dollars to the world's poorest. While $3 is a lot to the poorest in third-world countries, it is a no-brainer investment for such indivduals because it enables them to earn much more due to improved vision. Another great instance of the market helping the poor where government continues to flounder.

Fascinating Travel Log of Iran

National Geographic Adventure magazine had an interesting article in its November 2006 issue: Iran: Travels in Hostile Territory. It is a bit long, but worth it.

On BW's Chinese "Sweatshops" Article

I found the article Secrets, Lies, and Sweatshops: How Chinese Suppliers Hide the Truth from U.S. Companies in the Nov. 27 issue of BusinessWeek to be rather poorly written. But I've come to expect this level of reporting from BusinessWeek, as say, compared with the generally far superior weekly, The Economist.

The cover shows a dark image of an apparent "sweatshop", with two lines of seated female workers, heads-down, producing something in a factory, but with one worker's head turned around and looking somewhat distressed. The article's main points may very well be true (if not particular enlightening). The article describes at some length that the audit processes put in place by major American and other Western companies (Wal-Mart, Sears, JC Penney's, Nike, etc.), in the wake of protests against "unfair" labor practices in China and other such countries, are not always having the desired results. And that this is because the contracted factories (not typically owned by the Western firms, but rather by Chinese businessmen) are finding ways around the rules, regulations, etc., and can fool the auditors and pass the inspections even while making little, if any, real improvements to labor practices. The examples discussed are admittedly not so much of the clear rights-violating variety, such as slave labor, workers forced against their will, or even child labor, but rather things like skirting minimum wage laws, not paying two or three times regular wages for overtime worked, and not giving appropriate vacation allowances. I'm not in a position to contest any of these asserted facts, and frankly, it wouldn't surprise me to hear that some (or even many) factories in China or other countries with large numbers of low-skilled workers are trying to get around the laws imposed by their governments or the rules imposed by their contracted Western companies.

What I want to comment on are the many important facts that this article failed to report, data it failed to give the reader, and questions it failed to even ask. And not for want of space: the article was the cover story and the longest in the issue. Here are a few of the things that irked me about this article:

• We are told that, depending on which figures you use, the average wage in the Chinese manufacturing sector is 42-65 cents an hour. But this tells the reader virtually nothing. What does that buy in China? Not much, I'd assume. But more than it would in the USA or Europe. Couldn't the article spend two sentences noting what that really amounts to for the Chinese worker, in buying power?
  
• The article notes that while some factories are getting away with faking their audits, some others have been investigated and closed down due to failing to follow Chinese labor laws or the rules set forth in recent years by Wal-Mart, Nike, etc. But I see no mention of what happens to the hundreds or thousands of workers who had been working, voluntarily, in those factories, and are now (temporarily, one hopes) out of work. What wage will they be making in their next job, and how long on average will it take for them to get that job? Or must most of them choose to return to the poor rural life they were hoping to escape?
  
  This is the inherent tension in these kinds of labor laws and rules, because they don't, as such, protect actual individual rights, but rather restrict the workers freedom to voluntarily exchange their labor for the wage the market will bear (i.e., their skills relative to demand). Up to a point, labor laws such as these might not have a negative effect on those they are intended to help (i.e., raising a minimum wage by a nickel might not lead to a loss of jobs), but at some point they do. In the case where the factory closes down, and the people return to the rural countryside they were trying to escape -- how is that helpful to them exactly?
  
• Also on this point, at the very end of the article the authors note "Chang says he regularly loses skilled employees to rival factories that break the rules because workers are eager to put in longer hours then he offers, regardless of whether they are paid overtime rates." This is a critical point, so it is a shame that it is buried at the end of the article. These workers would love to make 2x or 3x their regular salaries for overtime they work -- who wouldn't? But short of that -- and with good reason since the profit margins at the factory in question have been slashed from 30% to 5% over the past 18 years -- the workers would "eagerly" work extra hours at the same regular pay rate they get for their normal hours... if only they were allowed to. When they aren't allowed to do so, they quit and sign on with another factory in town -- one that will give them the overtime hours, while breaking the rules against it.
  
  Noting this more prominently in the article, and continuing down with that logic a bit further, would have made for a far more enlightening article. It does get mentioned again in the sidebar titled "How to Make Factories Play Fair", under the heading "Worker Demands". That makes it sound like the workers are demanding a reprieve from inhumane treatment, and on some level they are -- but not what many readers would initially guess. Instead we find out "Many young Chinese production workers want to earn as much as they can in a few years and then return to homes in the countryside. They often insist on logging as many hours as possible, even if they don't get full overtime pay." But their desires are being thwarted, because leftists laws and rules say "No, you can't do this work for the wage you are agreeing to be paid."
  
• Also in that sidebar, it reads "The question is whether such new approaches will improve the lot of the average Chinese worker. Issues like nonpayment of wages, overtime without extra pay, ..." Stop right there! Presenting those two issues as though they are of the same general kind is ridiculous. The first is a clear violation of the individual rights of the worker -- they agreed to do X work for Y wages, and now the factory isn't paying them. But the second issue is only a violation of an arbitrary law of the government, or a rule from a Western company, not an individual right of the worker. And as noted above, the workers are willing to work the extra hours for the same pay as their regular hours!
  
• Another failing of the article is that in the examples it discusses it doesn't do a good job of making clear which of the "labor laws" are actuall laws enforced from the Chinese government, and which are not actually laws, but perhaps rules that the Wal-Mart or Nike expect their factories to now follow (after so much pressure was put on them in recent decades). This is an important distinction for the reader to understand. The former speaks to the massive government control and intervention in the economy (even while China reforms away from hardline communism), while violating the latter (through fake audits and so on) amounts to a breach of contract between the Chinese factory and the Western companies such as Wal-Mart and Nike. It is important that the types of violations involved get clearly made to the reader.
  
• And the last thing I'll mention... in a few spots in the article we are told that "Americans expect ever-lower prices for many goods, driving the demand for cheaper supplies from China." But this is just asserted, and worse, it isn't true, at least not as strongly as worded. Individuals qua consumers are price-conscious and that is as it should be. Rational consumers, whether American or otherwise, want the most for their money. In some cases this can result from lower prices, but it can also result from improving quality. A lot of goods are not going down in price in recent years, not to mention "ever-lower". But they are going up in quality -- computers with more power, clothes that are more durable or color-fade-resistant, and so on. It can also result from things being provided in a timely manner -- time is important to consumers, as they will pay more (up to a point) to get something they want when they want it, instead of having to wait. This is the old trio of production management -- cost, time, quality -- but as considered from the perspective of the consumer.

Hammer and Tickle: Jokes under Communism

I was browsing around the Moving Picture Institute's website today. This is the organization that supports the production of movies and documentaries that have a pro-liberty theme. I noted one of their productions in this earlier blog post, namely the very provocative movie Mine Your Own Business.

But the main reason for this posting is that I followed a link from MPI's site and found this very well-written item from May 2006 in Prospect magazine, Hammer and Tickle. Here Ben Lewis tells the story of jokes under Communist rule in the Soviety Union and elsewhere. Read the article to not only laugh at the many example jokes he gives, but to also be amazed again at just how ridiculous and terrible communism and socialism are. I mean... people in the thousands put in jail for telling jokes? Hundreds of thousands? I could quote many very nice passages from this article, but I prefer to just recommend that you read the entire thing.

Russia and the Lack of Freedom

The latest issue of Imprimis had an interesting piece titled "Freedom vs. Non-Freedom: A View from Russia", adopted from a speech by Andrei Illarionov, former chief economic advisor to Vladimir Putin. Full of facts and data, he chronicles the decline of freedom in Russia over the past several years. Given the bad news he has to report in this area, I have to wonder how much longer his "independent free market think tank in Moscow" will be allowed to operate.

Don Parrish's Trip to 13 Countries in the Middle East

My friend Don Parrish went on a trip to 13 middle-eastern countries in 30 days this past fall. He is a member of the Travellers Century Club, which has a membership requirement that you have been to 100 or more countries! He recently posted his overview and highlights from this trip, which is a fascinating read with lots of great data about the countries he visited. See especially the section called "Overall Observations".

But that is not all... he is going to provide a separate report for each country he visited on this trip, complete with photos from each! He has started with Iraq, and if the others are anything like the one he tackled first, I can't wait to read them all.

And if you enjoy these trip reports, see his many others from over the years... starting with his outstanding one on his trip to North Korea (that's right... he went there recently... a rare event for an American). This one page is packed with so much great info and wonderful photos... a real gem. And see also his additional report on Arirang in North Korea, which includes amazing photos too.

Keep up the good work Don!

Foreign Aid, and Planners vs. Searchers

Johann Norberg writes that in his view the book The White Man's Burden, by William Easterly, is book of the year for 2006. He begins:

Politicians like Gordon Brown say that it is a shame that people die in poor countries when it could have been prevented with medicines that costs twelve cents, and suggest big new development aid projects to finance this. William Easterly points out that there is another problem: "This is the tragedy in which the West spent $2.3 trillion on foreign aid in the last five decades and still had not managed to get twelve-cent medicines to children".

With facts and studies, anecdotes and stories and both passion and a sense of humour, Easterly shows that the problem is that foreign aid has been dominated by Planners who have plans and promises, but don't motivate anyone to carry them out, and is never held accountable when they fail. That is why the $2.3 trillion reached tyrants in countries like Zaire, Sudan and Pakistan, but they rarely bought medicine for the children. In the Planners' place, Easterly puts Searchers, with local knowledge, step-by-step solutions, exposed to competition and held accountable for the results.

Needless to say, this book has been added to my reading list.

Violence is Decreasing in the World

Given the media bombardment of bad news, one might think the world is increasingly violent -- or at least no less violent than most decades of the 20th Century -- afterall, there is Iraq, Darfur, Israel, Afghanistan, Somalia, and so on. But Johann Norberg reports some interesting statistics regarding violence in the world. He draws these from the Human Security Brief 2006. He summarizes some key bits as follows:

• Between 2002-2005, the number of armed conflicts in the world was reduced by 15 percent, from 66 to 56.
• Between 2002-2005, the number of battle-deaths was reduced by almost 40
  percent (see graph below).
• In 1989 there were 10 ongoing genocides worldwide, in 2005 there was one (Darfur).
• The number of displaced persons declined by 6 percent between 2003-2005.

At the same time, some problems have grown worse, especially attacks on civilians:

• Between 2002-2005, the number of international terrorist incidents increased threefold (mostly in Iraq), and is now back where they were before the Cold War ended.
• Campaigns of organised violence against civilians have increased by 56 percent since 1989.

So the story here is mixed, but the graph he provides covering 1950-2005 is quite striking. Take a look!

Pacifism, Self-Hatred, and Complacency

Daniel Pipes' Dec. 26th column, How the West Could Lose, offers an analysis of how the West could lose its battle with Islamism (defined as persons who demand to live by the sacred law of Islam, the Sharia), because of the triple affliction of pacifism, self-hatred, and complacency. An interesting read and also includes several bullet points that nicely summarize the formidable capabilities of the Islamists.

Ethical Relativism vs. Women's Rights

I read two things recently on the issue of the individual rights of women around the world. First, the November 27th issue of US News and World Report had a brief item in their "The World" section. Titled "A Limited Win for Women in Pakistan", here it is in full:

Despite strong opposition from Islamic religious parties, Pakistan's National Assembly adopted the much-anticipated women's rights legislation reforming rape laws, which previously made it all but impossible for a woman to successfully bring charges against her attacker. Now, judges will have the discretion to send a rape case for trial in secular court under criminal laws rather than in an Islamic court using the Hudood laws that require a rape victim to produce four male Muslim witnesses or potentially face adultery charges herself based on her own testimony.

The new law maintains consensual sex outside marriage as a criminal act punishable by up to five years in prison, reduced from the old maximum punishment of death. A leader of the six-party religious alliance-which is threatening to create a political crisis by pulling its 53 members out of the 342-seat National Assembly-fretted that the legal changes will turn Pakistan into a "free-sex society."

This is good news, I guess... but the title is correct, as this is a very limited "win" for the individual rights of women in Pakistan. The rights of both men and women are still being violated on a massive scale though, since the new law "maintains consensual sex outside of marriage as a criminal act punishable by up to five years in prison." And the notion that this new law, which eliminates the death sentence as punishment for having such sex, will turn Pakistan into a "free-sex society" -- that would be laughable if it weren't so sad and ridiculous.

The other item was the brief writeup titled The Condition of Women, on page 7 of the latest issue of The Independent, the newsletter of The Independent Institute. It summarizes the work of Michelle Fram Cohen's "The Conditions of Women in Developing and Developed Countries" (Fall 2006), which is 13 pages long and includes figures. Cohen explains how in the 19th and 20th centuries, the status of women improved the most in economically progressive areas dominated by Western culture. In developing areas dominated by non-Western culture, however, women remain more or less subjugated, and in some countries they are stripped of any rights. And here is a bit more from the summary:

Oppression can take several forms, including the denial of property rights, “honor” killings, dowry-related subjugation, and lack of legal protections. Often these injustices are widely accepted norms handed down from generation to generation.

Poverty and custom in developing countries drive extended families to live together under the same roof, making young couples subordinated to the traditional values of their parents and grandparents.

Unattached women, in particular, face stiff economic disadvantages. In some countries where subsistence farming is the main source of livelihood, customary law prevents women from owning land unless their fathers have no male heirs. If widowed, a wife loses access to her husband’s land, and must therefore spend even more hours each day fetching water.

Shockingly, “honor” killings, committed by relatives for “shame” brought on a family, claim the lives of thousands of women each year, mainly in predominantly Islamic countries. “In 2005, the Pakistani government rejected a pro-women bill that sought to strengthen the law against the practice of honor killing,” Cohen writes. Although Turkey has passed a law imposing life sentences on those convicted of honor killings, a survey shows that almost 40% of respondents supported the practice.

The overall picture of women in developing countries contrasts sharply with the growing educational and professional opportunities for women in developed countries. “Sweeping legal reforms have opened many doors for women in Western countries, but women have not always taken full advantage of these reforms,” Cohen writes. “As in developing countries, customary law may still prevail over the formal law. It is up to both men and women to challenge the traditional norms to bring about a genuine change in women’s condition.”

Indeed it is. But I'd like to make another point here, which is that far too often people, especially some on the political left, will excuse horrors around the world by resorting to ethical relativism. This is the notion that what is "right", or what is at least morally permissable, is entirely relative to a culture or a society, and that people from outsideof it cannot assess moral blame using their (equally relative) norms and pronouncements. This is most often stated indirectly, as an implicit charge against the West, the developed world, or even more specifically the United States, who are still portrayed as imperial powers, trying to oppress the rest of the world in various ways -- including through cultural or ethical bullying.

What this kind of view denies of course is that individuals -- qua individual persons -- have absolute rights, ones that are not relative to a society, a culture, or anything else. But individuals do have such ethical rights, have always had them, and will always have them -- based on their status as moral persons, and regardless of whether any particular government, culture, society, or legal system recognizes those rights or not.

Women have such individual rights -- qua individuals persons -- just as much and as fully as men do. This is true in the same way that brown-eyed people have them just as much blue-eyed people do, or blondes as much as brunettes as much as red-heads. People of each racial group, ethnic group, nationality, religious belief -- all individuals have individual rights. These are not rights based on group membership either, as moral rights are not collective-based, but are rather individual-based, and are hence identical for all individual persons, for all times.

As a thought experiment to see just how horrific the unequal treatment of women in Pakistan and elsewhere really is, just think how absurd it would be if a society or culture decided that any people (male or female) born each year between January and June would for all times have far fewer rights -- and would have all the injustices perpetrated on them as described by Cohen above -- as compared to those born between July and December. Assume that this splits the population roughly in half and you have the same split in numbers that we have between men and women in the world. Is there any more logic or good reason to limit the rights of women as there would be people born between January and June? Of course not! The fact that some religions or other cultural institutions "have always done it this way" is not one bit of reason to make it anything less than a horrific injustice.

So I urge you... if you ever find yourself saying or thinking something like "Well, that is just how that society or culture does things. We have no right to object, that is just their way."... remember this thought experiment and think carefully about the nature of individual rights.

Tragically Meek Pretense at War

Elan Journo voices a view of the Iraq and broader Middle East situation that is rarely heard. The title of my blog post comes from this section of Journo's article:

We triumphed over both Japan and Germany in less than four years after Pearl Harbor. Yet more than five years after 9/11, against a far weaker enemy, our soldiers still die daily in Iraq. Why? Because this war is neither assertive nor ruthless—it is a tragically meek pretense at war.

Consider what Washington has done. The Islamist regime in Iran remains untouched, fomenting terrorism. (And now our leaders hope to "engage" Iran diplomatically.)

We went to battle not with theocratic Iran, but with the secular dictatorship of Iraq. And the campaign there was not aimed at crushing whatever threat Hussein's regime posed to us. "Shock and awe" bombing never materialized. Our brave and capable forces were hamstrung: ordered not to bomb key targets such as power plants and to avoid firing into mosques (where insurgents hide) lest we offend Muslim sensibilities. Instead, we sent our troops to lift Iraq out of poverty, open new schools, fix up hospitals, feed the hungry, unclog sewers—a Peace Corps, not an army corps, mission.

It is true that the "war on terror" is being waged as something different than traditional wars. But the reasons most give for amount to a dangerous mistake. Consider:

Those who say this is a "new kind of conflict" against a "faceless enemy" are wrong. The enemy Washington evasively calls "terrorism" is actually an ideologically inspired political movement: Islamic totalitarianism. It seeks to subjugate the West under a totalitarian Islamic regime by means of terrorism, negotiation, war—anything that will win its jihad. The movement's inspiration, its first triumph, its standard-bearer, is the theocracy of Iran. Iran's regime has, for decades, used terrorist proxies to attack America. It openly seeks nuclear weapons and zealously sponsors and harbors jihadists. Without Iran's support, legions of holy warriors would be untrained, unarmed, unmotivated, impotent.

Destroying Islamic totalitarianism requires a punishing military onslaught to end its primary state representative and demoralize its supporters. We need to deploy all necessary force to destroy Iran's ability to fight, while minimizing our own casualties. We need a campaign that ruthlessly inflicts the pain of war so intensely that the jihadists renounce their cause as hopeless and fear to take up arms against us. This is how America and its Allies defeated both Nazi Germany and Imperialist Japan.

One crucial mistake the US continues to make in its "war on terror" is to not aggressively target those individuals -- the government and religious leaders -- who actually sponsor and foment terrorism. We have tried to go after Osama Bin Laden and that is good to do. But whenever Iran and Syria are mentioned, inevitably it is said that "military options are not on the table". And in Iraq, while we have successfully gone after some terrorists and their supporters, what about Moktadr al-Sadr?

Another crucial mistake that the US continues to make is to push primarily for "democracy". While Bush speaks of "liberty" and "freedom" almost ad nauseam, he really doesn't understand what those concepts are and what they require and presuppose on the ground. This comes out everytime he, or a member of his adminstration, says they are in favor of spreading "democracy" and a "constitution" for Afghanistan, Iraq, etc., but that they don't have to be patterned on the USA version of a consitutional republic that protects individual rights. That is, they don't need to be modelled on western values, they don't need to be even remotely capitalist, or strongly respectful of women's rights, minority rights, religious rights, and so on. Such a "democracy-is-what-matters" viewpoint is doomed to failure. As Journo notes:

When asked whether he would accept just such an outcome from the elections, Bush said that of course he would, because "democracy is democracy."

And that is exactly the problem. Democracy is not the end-game that leads to peace. Constitutionally governed republics, that respect individual rights, and are at least moderately laissez-faire capitalist, are what produce peaceful, prosperous societies. Democracy is just one small aspect of that -- necessary, to be sure, but far, far from sufficient.

On Bhutan

My friend and colleague Basia Kruszewska (about) maintains a fascinating blog named India Ink. There she describes her experiences, travels, and so on while working in India (we both work for Element K, a global e-Learning company). She started the blog back in 2003, so she has a wealth of great material online, and has actually drawn quite a wide readership beyond the humble beginnings of friends and family. This is in part because included in many of her posts are incredible photographs. Basia is a very talented photographer, and India -- and many other Asian countries she has visited -- provide ample opportunity to take photos of people, places, and things that most Americans and other Westerners (such as myself) will likely never see in person.

I wanted to mention her blog to my readers, in part because I think you will find it very interesting -- check out some fo her archived postings, especially those with the great photography. I would wager you could spend hours getting caught up her blog, and find every minute of it fascinating.

But in particular, I thought I'd plug her recent posts on her trip to the small and unique nation of Bhutan. See her posts on this subject here:

• A Quirky Little Country
• Where No One Wears The Pants in the Family
• Long Live the King
• Keep Those Traffic Lights out of our Country
• Buddhist Festival
• Flying Phallus
• Laid Back Ulcer Land
• Buddhist Bhutan

If you like that series, then I encourage you to check out some of her other postings. See the categorizations on the right (scroll down a bit, and see esp. the ones for her various travel locations).

Insight on Darfur

Insight on the situation in Darfur, Sudan, comes from Anne Applebaum at Slate (thanks to Stephen Hicks for the link). In particular, consider these paragraphs:

I can offer no scientific explanation for why the tragedy of Darfur conjures up the specter of history's judgment and why other tragedies do not. But the answer must lie in the fact that this conflict has so few strategic or geopolitical implications. Because it seems to be in no one's "interest" do so so, a call for a U.N. intervention in Darfur surely feels—at least to Americans and Europeans who haven't followed China's involvement in Sudan's oil industry—like an act of real charity and not more evidence of the West pursuing its interests.

Equally important is the fact that Sudan plays no real role in Western domestic politics. Any discussion of North Korea will still evoke the Cold War, any conversation about Iran must touch on radical Islam. By contrast, when most of us look at Sudan, all we see is what Jan Egeland, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator, last weekend called "acts of inexplicable terror." Taking a stand against genocide in Sudan does not require anyone to take a parallel stand on communism, the war on terror, or the war in Iraq. It does not imply that you are left wing, right wing, pro- or anti-Bush. Once the United Nations is there, this may change: The U.S. intervention in Somalia immediately politicized what had also appeared to be an apolitical conflict. But at the moment, it is still possible to think of Darfur as an appropriate target for neutral humanitarianism.

None of this, I should emphasize, is meant to disparage the work of the extraordinary Darfur coalition, which has pushed an obscure and terrible war into the center of the international spotlight. Nor do I mean to deny that "history will judge us," for surely it will. But when future generations look back on this era, they will judge us not only for how we responded to the most primitive and the most apolitical of horrors. They will also judge us by the consistency with which Western and international institutions battled sophisticated totalitarianism in all its forms: That is, they will judge us by the United Nations' application of its own declarations on human rights, by America's ability to live up to the rhetoric of its leaders, by Europe's willingness to stand behind its stated values. The creation of an international coalition to end genocide is a stunning achievement, but its goals are still not deep or broad enough.

On American Giving

A very interesting column by John Stossel on American charitable giving and foreign aid. He first notes the well-reported facts that America gives less than many other Western countries in foreign aid as a percentage of GDP. However, he then correctly notes that this is equating "American giving" with only government giving -- i.e., only the giving that is forced giving. It doesn't include the much larger voluntary giving done by individuals. When you factor in charitable giving from the private sector, you get a very different picture.

For example, he notes that "After the Asian Tsunami two years ago, the U.S. government pledged $900 million to tsunami relief. American individuals donated $2 billion -- three times what government gave -- in food, clothing, and cash. Private charities could barely keep up with the donations."

Aside from the fact that I don't understand the "three times" remark (isn't it barely over two times based on the numbers he cites?), the important fact is clear: Americans as individuals give a lot to charity. And that charity helps the poor and in this country and the poor around the world.

Stossel gives a few examples to argue that voluntary, charitable giving is usually more effective too. This is important. Because presumably if you want to help the poor you want to actually help them, not just spend money with the intention of helping them. So to compare apples with apples, and do so on the relevant dimension, we should try to quantify the actual improvement in the lives of the poor as a result of charity and foreign aid. Money spent that is squandered by corrupt governments or money given that is absorbed through "administrative costs" of a charity or bureaucracy should be discounted relative to the money that is given and is less wasteful -- that is, that does more to actually help the recipient.

Consider this other interesting tidbit from the Stossel column: "Syracuse University professor Arthur Brooks's new book, Who Really Cares, points out that Americans give more than the citizens of any other country. Individually, Americans give seven times more money than people in Germany and 14 times more than Italians give. We also volunteer more."

Wow... impressive numbers indeed. So keep those numbers and issues in mind the next time someone bemoans the relatively low foreign aid from the USA as a percentage of GDP. Ask them what the total giving by American individuals is, including both their forced giving and their voluntary giving. And then ask them to please provide the data not in terms of total money given, but to factor in the amounts wasted by administrative or bureaucratic costs, or that is lost through corrupt governments int he receiving country, thereby arriving at comparisons of the actual good that is done for the intended recipients of the charity/aid.

Remembering Stalin's Mass Murders

Mara D. Bellaby's brief AP article was picked up in my local Rochester paper. She describes a recent gathering in Kiev, Ukraine to mourn the 10 million Ukrainians "killed by a famine orchestrated by Soviet leader Josef Stalin" in 1932-33. As she describes it: "Stalin provoked the famine to coerce peasants into giving up their private farms and joining agriculture collectives being formed across the Soviet Union. Villages were ordered to provide the state with set amounts of grain, but the demands typically exceeded crop yields. As village after village failed to meet their quotas, officials seized all food and residents were barred from leaving -- condemning them to starve. Farmers in Ukraine, which was the breadbasket of the Soviet Union, fiercely resisted and bore the brunt of the human-caused disaster."

It is bad enough when, centuries ago, bad weather caused famine and starvation. Or today, in poor countries, when bad weather in conjunction with poor government policies, corruption, and/or cultural/societal mistakes lead to famine and starvation. But when it is entirely orchestrated as it was by Stalin and his regime... the evil of that is barely fathomable.

There is debate in the Ukraine about whether to call this horrible part of their history "genocide" or not. Some there are siding with Russian leaders who don't want to "politicize" it, saying that it should instead be termed "a tragedy". But calling it merely a "tragedy" would -- I think intentionally by some -- obscure moral responsibility (by Stalin and those in his regime) for what occurred.

One dictionary definition of tragedy -- "a lamentable, dreadful, or fatal event or affair, a disaster" -- is certainly accurate, but doesn't imply anything about whether it is a natural disaster (and hence not open to moral evaluation) or a man-made disaster (and hence open to moral evaluation).

Another definition of tragedy identifies the ancient Greek genre of play: "a dramatic composition, often in verse, dealing with a serious or somber theme, typically that of a great person destined through a flaw of character or conflict with some overpowering force, as fate or society, to downfall or destruction." So again, this sense of the word (while obviously used metaphorically in this case, since the slaughter was all to real and not merely a play) would obscure moral responsiblility because it leaves open that Stalin simply had a character flaw, or that the 10 million Ukranian dead was just fate, or caused by a complex societal conflict, and not something that can be blamed on the choices of Stalin and those in his regime.

That said, I'm not sure that "genocide" really applies either. The article notes that Stalin didn't specifically target Ukranians, and that numerous Russians and Kazakhs were also affected.

But the description that clearly does apply is "murder", in fact, "mass murder".

I'll note further that I don't see what is gained by classifying a mass murder as genocide or not. This is often politically motivated, and it usually seems to at least implicitly give merit to some form of collectivism -- as though membership in a group of some kind or other (race, religion, ethnicity, etc.), and being targeted because of that group membership, is somehow worse than simply being killed as individuals. In reality of course, only individuals exist and all forms of collectivism and collectivist thinking are, in the end, damaging and often deadly. Regardless of the intentions of the muderer, the act of murder is the murder of an individual person -- not the murder of a unit of some sort of collective entity. Individuals are alive and have the right to live, collective entities of this sort don't "live" and have no rights as such in this context.

So I say, lets just call it what it was -- what its essence was -- mass murder of individuals by evil people who had evil ideas.

And finally, while reading this article I couldn't help but think of the various people in the US in the 20th century, who argued (including while the mass murder was occuring) that communism, including the Soviet Union in particular, was the morally superior system to capitalism. From Hollywood to Academia to Politicians, that sentiment was widespread and argued for time and again. How horrible!

Scambaiting

Here is something I had not heard of before... Scambaiting. You know all those spam emails that offer some scheme that will make you rich if you just help someone in a foreign country get around some law or whatnot to get money out of their country? Most infamous are the ones coming from Nigeria (or claiming to be), but not all of them are.

Well, now some people are fighting back. To learn more about it, you can read their Ethics of Scambaiting article. Or you can just view the often funny (given the context) photos of the scammers in the "Trophy Room", sometimes doing rather odd things or holding up rather odd signs in the hopes of a bick ripoff payoff if they comply. See also the letters archive and the audio archive they have.

This is a very creative way to fight back against con artists and scammers!

IM TXT OK IN NZ, LOL

For me, this falls under the "Nearly a laugh, but really a cry" category for sure: New Zealand students may 'text-speak' in exams.

As the article begins: "New Zealand's high school students will be able to use "text-speak" -- the mobile phone text message language beloved of teenagers -- in national exams this year, officials said."

Thankfully, English exams will be an exception. But apparently you can use the increasingly common cell-phone and IM abbreviation language in exams for history, government, science, math, and so on.

And for those who don't know, my subect line of course means "Instant messaging text is okay in New Zealand. I'm laughing out loud."

Self-Interest Helping the World's Poor

Check out this brief article in the Oct. 23, 2006 issue of US News and World Report: A Man With a Very Different Kind of Bank. I've read a few articles in recent years about the growing trend of "micro-lending", especially in third world countries, and especially to poor women. This particular article is about Muhammad Yunus, who along with his Bank was given the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in this area. Efforts such as this are having great results, pulling tens of millions of people out of poverty by helping them help themselves.

And it is great that this article correctly identifies self-interest as being at work here. Yunus' bank, Grameen, made a profit last year -- so that is clearly self-interest. But it is also an approach that relies on the self-interested actions of the person receiving the micro-loan: these people, often women, are entrepreneurial and use the money to start small businesses or otherwise improve their lives in ways that will lead them and their families to be self-sustaining in the future, and this then lifts them from poverty. I really like the final paragraph:

"Charity is not an answer to poverty," he writes of the company's business model, which last year helped Grameen log $15 million in profits. "It only helps poverty to continue. It creates dependency and takes away individuals' initiative to break through the wall of poverty. Unleashing of energy and creativity in each human being is the answer to poverty."

Italy's Lawmakers Must Beware the Makeup Artist

Read this great little blurb in the October 23, 2006 US News and World Report. Scam interviews successfully highlighted "legislative hypocrisy after the parliament earlier this year toughened Italy's drug laws." It turns out that of 50 lawmakers who unknowingly had their perspiration tested for drug use in the past 36 hours, 12 were positive for cannabis, and 4 for cocaine. Oh the hypocrisy. LOL.

Handful of Iraq Suggestions

The always-a-good-read Daniel Pipes provides several interesting proposals in his recent posting In Iraq, Stay the Course - But Change It.

The Next Time You Hear the Name "Big Oil"

In recent years, and especially this year, the name "Big Oil" has been used ad nauseam, and often in a derogatory way by folks on the political left. The most common refrain has no doubt been decrying the "big profits of Big Oil". The referents of "Big Oil" almost always seem to be the big corporations, such as Exxon Mobil, that are well known in America and the rest of the West. Debate is sometimes had over just how big the profits have been in the past year or two -- with one side focusing on how much total profit was earned, while the other side notes that the profit margins that are being earned aren't really that high compared to many other industries.

But what I almost never hear or read is anyone use the name "Big Oil" to describe the truly big oil corporations of the world. Yes, Exxon Mobil is the world's most valuable listed company, with a market capitalisation of $412 billion. What doesn't get mentioned often though is that Exxon is only 14th amongst big oil companies in terms of how much oil it has left in the ground. And the 13 higher-ranked companies are not other large Western oil corporations like BP for example. So who are they? They are National Oil Companies (NOCs): partially or wholly state-owned firms through which governments retain the profits from oil production.

I've always known, in a vague sense, that this was the reality. But an August 12th article in the Economist, "Oil's Dark Secret" (sorry, subscription required), really made clear just what that reality is. The sub-head for the article summarizes it nicely: "Most of the world's oil reserves are in the hands of state-run companies, many of which are run badly." Or how about this as a summary, from the first paragraph: "Because these national champions control as much as 90% of the world's oil and gas, they can do far more than the likes of Exxon to assuage the current worries about supply and to influence the accompanying record prices. But like most state-owned firms, they are prone to over-staffing, underinvestment, political interference and corruption."

Which countries are the ones that have these truly massive "Big Oil" so-called companies? I'm sure you could guess: Saudi Arabai, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, Nigeria, and others.

The article begins with some description of the problems of Venezuela's PDVSA entity. It also highlights problems in other NOCs. One example is Iran, "which has more oil and gas than all other countries save Saudi Arabia and Russia, [but] pumps less today than it did in 1979, when the new Islamic government threw foreigners out." Several similar examples are given; consider this amazing case: "Underinvestment is the most widespread problem of all. Indonesia has become a net importer of oil, despite big reserves, thanks to the failure of state-run Pertamina to develop new fields. The fact that NOCs are sitting on the vast majority of the world's oil but pumping only about half of global output suggests a systematic failure to invest."

And what are the prospects for improvement? Short of something radical happening, "The NOCs will gradually become even more dominant as oil production dwindles in areas which are open to all comers, such as the North Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. New oil is most likely to be found in the NOCs' territory, precisely because it is largely out of bounds to multinationals such as Exxon or BP, and so has not yet been thoroughly raked over. In the future, therefore, oil production will be even more concentrated in the hands of the national firms of Russia and the Persian Gulf."

So the next time you hear the name "Big Oil" tossed around, just remember that Exxon Mobil and its brethren -- as large as they are -- are blips on the map compared with the truly "Big Oil" companies that are run by statist governments, and generally quite badly run at that. And ask yourself: why do the businesses from the relatively capitalist nations get accused of profiteering and controlling gas prices, but there is no mention of the truly big oil companies that are run by such governments?

The Middle East: 5,000 Years in just 90 Seconds

And another thanks to Diana for linking to this awesome animation showing the various empires and such that have ruled the Middle East over the past 5,000 years.

What Is and What Should Never Be

I have recently written (here and here) about the United Nations and why I think it is not just problematic at present, but flawed at its core, and that the US should immediately announce our intention to leave the world body by a set date (say, six months from now). But of course, my primary criticism of the UN -- that it sanctions countries 'led' by criminals (dictators and other statists who deny, on principle and by their very existence, individual rights on a massive scale) -- also applies to some actions and policies of the US (and other countries) in our direct dealings with such criminal leaders.

The latest example I've seen is reported in the Sept. 25 issue of US News and World Report, in the article "Dictator and Diplomat". It shows a grotesque picture of Sec. of State Rice shaking hands with Equatorial Guinea (see Wikipedia entry on EG) "President" Teodoro Obiang Nguema. The sub-headline reads: "Why is this man smiling? Here's a hint: It has something to do with oil."

So of course this is just another example of the US playing friendly with oppressive regimes because of our interest in the oil they have. Such supposed "pragmatism" is standard practice for the US, for many, many decades, especially it seems in dealings with third-world countries.

I won't make the same arguments here that have been made many times before... that the US shouldn't deal with such regimes, even given their value as oil providers (including the more difficult cases -- due to the size of the oil reserves in question -- such as Saudi Arabia). I only mention this case because again, if the US were to make a radical break from its past policies, and announce a completely new set of policies -- and hence its plans to leave the flawed United Nations -- I can't help but wonder what kind of changes such an earthquake would cause in the various dictatorships of the world. It would vary from country to country, but I wonder if the US did this, and if a few other major countries came along with us in doing so (say Britain, Australia, et al.) -- would some of the smaller thug states not look at the new reality and decide to radically reform? It is not at all easy to predict, and I'm sure most people would think I'm being naive and entirely too optimistic, but I wonder about this. I doubt Saudi Arabia or various other large countries would change their ways very quickly, but a puny country like Equatorial Guinea?

Afterall, the US is currently the only military and economic super-power in the world. Couldn't we use that position to change the world for the better by setting a new path, much as our founders did when they created the country? This would be for both our own benefit and for the benefit of all those whose individual rights are being violated on such a massive scale.

Walter Williams on Foreign Trade

Walter Williams makes many good points about foreign trade and the US trade deficit, and along the way rightly criticizes protectionists like Pat Buchanan. And I really liked the end of this column:

Buchanan, like so many others, points to the government subsidies and tariff protections given to businesses in other countries, a practice from which we can’t plead complete innocence. Protectionists call for “free trade but fair trade.” They call for a “level playing field.”

In effect, they’re saying that if other governments rip off their citizens with business subsidies and import duties, forcing them to pay higher prices, our government should retaliate by using the same tools to rip off its citizens.

The next time I see Pat, I might ask him what he would do if we both were at sea in a rowboat and I shot a hole in my end of the boat. Would he retaliate by shooting a hole in his end?

The Iraq War Certainly Is Something

This editorial by Frank J. is hilarious. I was laughing throughout, but then lost it when I got to the line near the end "The Iraq war certainly is something." While reading this I had visions of the countless news reports and pundit roundtables I've seen in the past several years from FoxNews, CNN, PBS, and more. Well done...

Anecdotes on (mostly) Eastern Europeans

Stephen Browne, who lived and travelled for many years in various Eastern European countries, offers many interesting anecdotes about the people there, and especially how they differ from Americans, what their views of America are, and related issues. This is a really interesting post, full of fascinating anecdotes. If I had to pick one favorite, it would be this one though:

Perhaps it’s not so odd that our real friends in Europe are in the East. For one thing, they know about dictators here and cry no tears at the fall of onemore murderous s.o.b. And for another, they are not shocked at the prospect of American forces crossing another country's borders to get that dictatorwhen for two generations they would have been overjoyed to see those forces pouring across their borders.

I once stated that point in a conversation with an Englishwoman who still admired the Soviet Union and said the crimes of the USSR were "just Stalin". She poo-poohed the idea, "You're just looking at the world through your American goggles." I nodded towards the two Poles at the table and said, “Ask them.” She turned to them and said, “Is this true?” They both nodded, “Oh yes, of course.” She looked uncomfortable and changed the subject.

Protecting the Good Name of Genghis Khan

Robert Bidinotto reports on the odd bit of news that Mongolia's parliament is trying to ban the use of "Genghis Khan's name or portrait in a degrading or insulting manner, or to serve the interests of political parties or non-governmental bodies". He is seen very differently in Mongolia than just about anywhere else in the world (see Wikipedia entry).

George Bush: End the Genocide Now

I have recently seen several commercials demanding that George Bush (and by extension, the US) "End the Genocide... NOW", referring of course to the horrific situation in the Darfur region of the Sudan.

I'll first note that the ads imply that the genocide in Sudan is somehow George Bush's fault -- as though he is responsible, instead of or at least in addition to, the actual murderers in that country. This faulty reasoning relies on flawed premises -- that are quite common -- in which lack of action is somehow presented as a form of causation. Sometimes this is explicit (as it is in some philosophical literature), but other times it is more nuanced, where the argument is couched in causation terms, but really what is being argued is that the lack of an action equates to moral responsibility for the events that occur. No doubt, there are some very limited circumstances where this can occur, e.g., a lifeguard at a pool who does nothing as a child drowns in front of them. But such cases are quite limited and there is always a strict context where the expectation and responsibility to take a positive action is what allows moral blame to be given when the person does not. But I don't see such a context in this case with Sudan: It can't be expected that the US will somehow prevent all murderous regimes from killing hundreds of thousands of their own people. Not when leftists around the world whine over US "imperialism" and complain whenever the US tries to impose itself, even in the slightest way, in the affairs of other, so-called "sovereign" nations (so-called because countries ruled by dictators and other thugs are not actually deserving of such a respectful designation).

But even more interesting to me about these ads is the explicit argument (request... demand!) they give. They don't demand that George Bush (the US) directly do something to solve the Sudan problem and stop the killing and raping. For example, it doesn't suggest that the US should invade the Sudan, temporarily take over that country, and directly fix the situation. That would work, though it would cost some US lives and would have other problems -- and I'm not here advocating for that.

Rather, I note that these commercials are actually demanding that George Bush step up and go to the United Nations, and get that organization to do something to fix the situation. So what is curious about this? Well, why get upset with Bush on this score? Why not instead expect the United Nations to do this on its own? Why does the UN only seem to do things of this kind when the US presses them to take actions? That is the assumption of these commercials! How weak and inefficacious can this world body be? It baffles the mind. All the more reason to think that the US should abandon the UN (as I argued here, and again a bit here).

Analysis of the Culture Clash Continued

A few weeks ago I linked to Part 1 of Stephen Browne's "Observations on Arabs". He has now provided another seven points, which again I found to be worthwhile reading given his first-hand experience in Saudi Arabia.

Could NATO Expand and Replace the UN?

After my recent post suggesting that the US should abandon the UN, I was glad to read Daniel Pipes' posting about NATO. It is a discussion of a study by FAES, the think tank of former Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar, titled "NATO: An Alliance for Freedom". The ending of Pipes piece is particularly worth quoting here I think:

NATO's mission, therefore, must be "to combat Islamic jihadism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction mainly, but not exclusively, among Islamic groups and governments." This means "placing the war against Islamic jihadism at the center of the Allied strategy" and that defeating Islamic jihadism will remain the organization's "key mission" for many years.

A second key recommendation in NATO: An Alliance for Freedom: That NATO
invite for full membership countries that are both liberal democracies and able and willing to contribute to the war against Islamic jihadism. The study emphasizes bringing Israel into the Alliance as "an extremely important step," and it endorses Japan and Australia for full membership. I might propose, in addition, Taiwan, South Korea, and Chile. To encourage other, struggling, states, the study suggests an associate membership for countries like Columbia and India. To which I suggest that Mexico and Sri Lanka could join their ranks.

One topic that FAES does not explicitly take up but hints at: that NATO could replace the United Nations as the key world body. As the UN sinks from one low spot to ever-slimier depths, it becomes increasingly obvious that for an international organization to behave in an adult manner requires limiting its membership to democratic states. A new organization could be created from scratch, to be sure, but it is easier, cheaper, and quicker to build on an existing structure especially one with
proven capabilities. NATO offers itself as the obvious candidate, especially as
reconceptualized by FAES.

Mr. Aznar and his team have produced the best plan yet for confronting radical Islam. Will politicians take it up?

Provocative Video To Help The World's Poor

Here is a provocative video intended to help the world's poor... its likely does not have the message you would guess it would, or that you have seen anywhere else. (HT: Robert Bidinotto)

The US Should Leave the UN

Last week sure was full of craziness at the United Nations. With each new headline I kept thinking... when will the USA pull out of the UN altogether?

Many would agree that the UN has problems, like all major international organziations do, but claim it does much good work too. I won't sit here and assert that the UN has never done anything good for anyone. I don't need to make such a sweeping (and no doubt false) statement. But folks who argue that the US should continue as part of the UN (while perhaps trying to slowly reform it) need to consider these important questions:

1. Does the UN, right now and in the forseeable future, do more good than harm, or more harm than good? And for who? When considering the question of whether the US should be in the UN, the answer to the "for who" question must obviously be "for America and American interests". And this can certainly include our wanting to see poverty-stricken people of the world improve their living conditions, freedom spread to those who don't have it, and so on -- not just "American interests" in a narrow, economic sense.
2. In principle, should the USA sit down together with countries that are not democracies (i.e., they are statist dictatorships, fascist, monarchies, one-party-rule communist/socialist, and so on), do not respect basic individual rights (for all people, both men and women, and of all groups), and do not participate -- that is, do not allow their citizens to participate -- even semi-freely in capitalist globalization and free-trade?

The first question is debatable. Like I said, I won't deny that the UN -- with all its various programs and things it has done since its creation -- hasn't helped some people at some times. But it has also done a lot of outright harm as well. Plus we must consider the opportunity cost that its existence represents -- if it does some good things, but does them inefficiently, then the funds and resources it uses could have been used to help more people if the UN didn't exist.

So this is a complicated question. However, some of the reasons I think that the good the UN has done over the years is not enough reason for the US to continue to be a part of it can be found in articles such as Mark Steyn's superb "America and the United Nations". Very impressive, and highly recommended!

The second question is the more fundamental, and it is why I have always been against the America's involvement in the UN, and why I don't think it should ever have existed in the way that it has.

On principle, I don't think that countries such as the US, Great Britain, Australia, Canada, Germany, France, and many others should be members of international bodies that also have as members countries such as North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe, Sudan, and so on. Any country that doesn't meet the minimal criteria I mentioned earlier should not be included in such a gathering of nations: some form of democratic elections on a regular basis, a constitution or similar mechanism that limits the government and protects basic individual rights (the principle of the rule of law vs. the rule of men), and some sort of at least partially capitalist system that respects property rights, free trade, and so on. Even very small countries that have monarchies that are unelected, but whom the people don't have major grievances with, alas, such countries should not be included either -- they don't meet all the minimum qualifications.

It should be noted that the leaders of countries that violate individual rights as a matter of policy and routine and who do not have fair and open elections, such countries are actually ruled by criminals. Such leaders do not have the right to lead their countries.

Think of this by analogy to regular criminals and their relationship with the citizens they prey on and with law enforcement. We do not sit down with those who violate our rights and negotiate our differences; we don't sit down at a big table or in a massive lecture hall and hear the points of view of murderers, thieves, kidnappers, and rapists. So why do we pay respect to, and give sanction to, the illegitimate leaders and representatives of countries who deserve no such respect, who by their very nature as the kind of leaders they are (or as representatives of those kinds of governments) necessarily commit crimes by violating individual rights?

We should instead shun them completely. No ambassadors, no official government connections of any kind, and no fellow membership in the same international organizations. Until they change their ways of course.

I'll note that if private individuals or companies want to do business in such countries (tourism, trade, etc.), that should, for the most part, be up to them. But at the same time, if something happens to them in such countries, the US government shouldn't be responsible for stepping in to save such folks either.

So, with that viewpoint in mind, what would happen if the US announced a position such as this, and intentions to leave the UN because of it? What if a US president, at some point in the future, gave an historic speech in which he announced the above principles and that, unless the UN self-reformed along these lines (by kicking out a great many nation states), the US would be pulling out of the organization in, say, six months? What would happen? Perhaps the UN would buckle and reform along such lines. But I think more likely, the six months would pass by, the US would pull out, several other nations woulf follow, the UN would have to relocate to some city other than New York (we could give them a bit more time to do that), and the US would then work to have strong relations with countries that have the positive attributes outlined above. Potentially, we might work with Great Britain and others to start up a new UN-like organization, if we all thought it was worthwhile to do so. Or we could devote more effort and resources to private charities that attempt to help third world countries, help stop human rights violations, etc.

Think about this while you read the article by Steyn linked above (which I strongly recommend).

Or think about it in relation to the newly formed Human Rights Council (which replaces the disgraced Human Rights Commission). The United States rightly voted against (along with only Israel, Palau, and the Marshal Islands) the formation of this council due to its serious deficiencies. For instance, how is it that the first group of 47 members includes Cuba, Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia, whose inclusion is absurd, as well as major countries with mixed human rights records in recent years such as China and Russia? And consider that several of its first major actions have been to begin investigations into Israel's alleged human rights violations in the recent war with Lebanon/Hezbollah, while not taking similar actions to look into Hezbollah's actions? This is exactly the kind of thing that brought criticism to the old HR Commission! (See the Wikipedia entry on the new HRC for some quick info about the new organization.)

Of course, I don't see the US making such a bold decision and taking such a course of action with regards to the UN anytime soon. Sadly, to get our government and the sentiments of a majority of US citizens to that point, I think it would take several more incidents (of various kinds, perhaps) of the magnitude of 9/11. And I don't wish for that of course.

One Man's Take on the Culture Clash

Stephen Browne has posted part one of a very interesting column over at the Atlasphere, Observations on Arabs. Having lived and worked in Saudi Arabia for a year, he is able to make cultural comparisons that most Americans cannot.

Outstanding Comments on Pope and the Reaction

Lee Harris at TCS Daily has provided some excellent commentary regarding the reaction to the Pope's recent controversial speech. In particular, the analogy he gives is just outstanding! (Much thanks to Stephen Hicks for this link.)

Then philosopher Lester Hunt has two good posts on this issue, here and here. Plus he points me to Anne Applebaum's excellent Washington Post column. Her final three paragraphs our superb:

"By this, I don't mean that we all need to rush to defend or to analyze this particular sermon; I leave that to experts on Byzantine theology. But we can all unite in our support for freedom of speech -- surely the pope is allowed to quote from medieval texts -- and of the press. And we can also unite, loudly, in our condemnation of violent, unprovoked attacks on churches, embassies and elderly nuns. By "we" I mean here the White House, the Vatican, the German Greens, the French Foreign Ministry, NATO, Greenpeace, Le Monde and Fox News -- Western institutions of the left, the right and everything in between. True, these principles sound pretty elementary -- "we're pro-free speech and anti-gratuitous violence" -- but in the days since the pope's sermon, I don't feel that I've heard them defended in anything like a unanimous chorus. A lot more time has been spent analyzing what the pontiff meant to say, or should have said, or might have said if he had been given better advice.

All of which is simply beside the point, since nothing the pope has ever said comes even close to matching the vitriol, extremism and hatred that pour out of the mouths of radical imams and fanatical clerics every day, all across Europe and the Muslim world, almost none of which ever provokes any Western response at all. And maybe it's time that it should: When Saudi Arabia publishes textbooks commanding good Wahhabi Muslims to "hate" Christians, Jews and non-Wahhabi Muslims, for example, why shouldn't the Vatican, the Southern Baptists, Britain's chief rabbi and the Council on American-Islamic Relations all condemn them -- simultaneously?

Maybe it's a pipe dream: The day when the White House and Greenpeace can issue a joint statement is surely distant indeed. But if stray comments by Western leaders -- not to mention Western films, books, cartoons, traditions and values -- are going to inspire regular violence, I don't feel that it's asking too much for the West to quit saying sorry and unite, occasionally, in its own defense. The fanatics attacking the pope already limit the right to free speech among their own followers. I don't see why we should allow them to limit our right to free speech, too."

The Reason for Opium Explosion from Afghanistan

Jacob Sullum does a nice job of explaining the increasing poppy-growth in Afghanistan that is coinciding with the resurgence of the Taliban.

Tibor Machan on the Situation in Hungary

One of my favorite contemporary philosophers, Tibor Machan, was smuggled out of Hungary in 1956 at the age of 14. I was hoping he would comment on the current crisis in that country, and he did so recently in this column posted at the Atlasphere. Good stuff.

Hitchens on the Pope's Recent Speech

Christopher Hitchens is always a worthwhile read. His Slate article last Monday, in response to the Pope's speech (that many Muslims reacted violently to), is no exception. A great analysis, and one that ends with the following excellent bit that refocuses the reader on the key issue of reason vs. faith:

...throughout [the Pope's] address to the audience at Regensburg, the man who modestly considers himself the vicar of Christ on Earth maintained a steady attack on the idea that reason and the individual conscience can be preferred to faith. He pretends that the word Logos can mean either "the word" or "reason," which it can in Greek but never does in the Bible, where it is presented as heavenly truth. He mentions Kant and Descartes in passing, leaves out Spinoza and Hume entirely, and dishonestly tries to make it seem as if religion and the Enlightenment and science are ultimately compatible, when the whole effort of free inquiry always had to be asserted, at great risk, against the fantastic illusion of "revealed" truth and its all-too-earthly human potentates. It is often said—and was said by Ratzinger when he was an underling of the last Roman prelate—that Islam is not capable of a Reformation. We would not even have this word in our language if the Roman Catholic Church had been able to have its own way. Now its new reactionary leader has really "offended" the Muslim world, while simultaneously asking us to distrust the only reliable weapon—reason—that we possess in these dark times. A fine day's work, and one that we could well have done without.

Bernard Lewis on Freedom and Justice in Islam

Princeton's Bernard Lewis, who is arguably the most influential scholar on Mid-East Studies and Islam, has written "Freedom and Justice in Islam" (adapted from a lecture he delivered on July 16, 2006). I recommend this article for historical background you might not have gotten elsewhere.

From Iranian "President" Ahmadinejad: Bow and Surrender

The following is from a speech from Iranian "President" Ahmadinejad:

If you want to have good relations with the Iranian people in the future, you should acknowledge the right and the might of the Iranian people, and you should bow and surrender to the might of the Iranian people. If you do not accept this, the Iranian people will force you to bow and surrender.

And somehow, the USA is the big "imperialist" country, huh? Far too few people understand what the word "imperialist" means.

See video clip at MEMRI. (Hat tip to Diana)

Random Thoughts on World Statistics

One of the benefits of subscribing to The Economist magazine, besides getting a generally fine magazine each week, is receiving the Pocket World in Figures booklet. Split into two sections, World Rankings and Country Profiles, it provides statistics on a wide variety of things, from standard things like population and size, to other things such as environmental health and percentage of homes that own televisions.

As kids my brother and I both loved to peruse books of lists like this (too bad we didn't have the Internet at our fingertips back then). So I've enjoyed skimming through the first section (World Rankings) of the 2007 edition of this Pocket book from The Economist. And I thought I'd share the things that jumped out at me. No doubt your own list of salient points would be very different, as some of what I found striking is based on my own misperceptions and what surprised me in the data. Other things I include here are in line with what I thought, but are things I just found worthy of comment anyway. So for what its worth:

Population. In 2004, Poland (38.6m) has a larger population than Canada (31.7m). Morocco (31.1m) has almost as many people as Canada. Venezuela (26.2m) and Taiwan (22.7m) have more people than Australia (19.9m). I've always known that both Canada and Australia were large but relatively sparsely populated, but I wouldn't have guessed these comparisons correctly.

Future Population Estimates. China, India, and the USA were the three biggest in 1950, and still are in 2004. By 2050, the prediction is that they will still be the three largest, but India will takeover as #1, with nearly 1.6 billion people. Other big increases include India neighbor Pakistan that will nearly double in size from 157.3m in 2004 to 304.7m in 2050 (from 6th to 4th place), Nigeria which will go from 127.1m to 258.1m (10th to 6th), Congo-Kinshasa which will go from 54.4m to 177.3m (23rd to 9th), and Uganda which will go from 26.7m to 127m (39th to 13th). Of course, a lot can happen between now and 2050.

Slowest Population Growth. Most of the countries in the top 15 are either former USSR countries or other Eastern European countries. Their predicted negative population growth in percentage terms from 2004-2050 ranges from Ukraine -45.2% to Czech Republic -16.7%.

Asylum. The "Origin of Asylum Applications to Indust. Countries" list is not one a country would want a high ranking on. The top 10 countries are Russia, Serbia, China, Turkey, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, and Congo-Kinshasa. The opposite list, "Asylum Applications in Industrialised Countries", is the list a country can be proud to be on, and here the top 10 are: France, United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Austria, Sweden, Belgium, Switzerland, and Slovakia.

City Population. Tokyo is huge. The listing is based on "Urban agglomerations", and they note that "Data may change from year-to-year based on reassessments of agglomeration boundaries." But even so, Tokyo is listed as #1 at 35.3 million, and second place is Mexico City at 19.0 million, with New York City coming in a close third at 18.5 million.

The so-called G8. Based just on GDP of economies, there is a glaring problem with the current "G8". The USA is by far the largest economy, with 11.7 trillion. Then Japan is solidly in second place at 4.6. Germany has 2.7, UK has 2.1, and France has 2.0. Italy is a bit smaller at about 1.7, and Canada smaller still at 978 billion in GDP. Russia is by far the smallest, with just 581.4 billion. The trick here is that Italy ranks 7th, Canada 9th, and Russia only 15th in the world. So I can understand calls by some nations to make this gathering broader. China, afterall, ranks 6th in GDP with 1.9 trillion, plus their economy is growing at a fast rate in recent years. Spain has a case with just over 1 trillion and ranking 8th. Then countries that rank 10-14 are India, South Korea, Mexico, Australia, and Brazil. And barely below Russia is, surprising to me, Netherlands with 579 million in GDP. After that there is a big drop off, so I can see having it be a G16 rather than a G8.

Purchasing Power and the G8. Another way to consider possible expansion of the G8 is by looking at Purchasing Power in addition to just GDP. Here, the USA is first at 11.6 trillion GDP PPP, but China with its huge population rockets up the list to second at 7.6 trillion. Japan is third, and India jumps up to fourth. Then come Germany, UK, France, and Italy. Ranked 9-14 are Brazil, Russia, Spain, Mexico, Canada, and South Korea. At that point there is a noticeable gap, so perhaps a G14 would make sense: this would omit Australia which is 13th in GDP and 17th in PP, and Netherlands which is 16th in GDP and 19th in PP. Anyway, I can at least understand the complaints of various countries for not be included, most notably China and India.

Highest vs. Lowest GDP per Head. It is quite striking to compare the highest and lowest GDP per Head. Luxemborg is #1 at $69,420 (USA is ninth at $39,430). The lowest are Burundi at $90, Ethiopia at $110, and Congo-Kinshasa at $120. And there are 20 with $330 or lower. Yikes!

Deficit vs. Deficit as percent of GDP. Although no date is given, the list shows the USA with by far the largest deficit: $668 billion. Second place is Spain with "only" $49 billion as a deficit. But what is interesting is that the USA isn't even in the top 40 for Deficit as a percent of GDP. On this list, 16 countries have a deficit that is at 10% of their GDP. Yikes again!

Inflation. As I've blogged about before, Zimbabwe has had ridiculously high inflation in recent years due to the policies of dictator Robert Mugabe. In 2005 the consumer price inflation was 140%. And that wasn't a fluke, as the average annual CPI from 2000-2005 was 106%. Yikes yet again!

Most injured in road accidents. I don't think I've ever seen a list like this... so I was surprised to see that Qatar was way out in front with 9,681 people injured per 100,000 of population. Second place Kuwait is far behind at 2,155 per 100K. By the way, the USA is 10th on the list with 704 per 100K population.

Life expectancy. I love to hear of increasing life expectancy numbers, and the highest now is in little Andorra with a 2005 estimate of 83.5 years. Japan is second at 82.8, with the USA sadly coming in at only 40th place at 77.9. But just as impressive, but in a bad way, is the list for lowest life expectancy. Here Swaziland is at the top with a 29.9 years! Yikes... if I lived there, then on average, I'd be dead already. Others with overall LE numbers below 40 include Botswana, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and the Central Africa Rep.

Highest Health Spending. As a percent of GDP, the USA spends by far the most, 15.2%. Next are Switzerland 11.5% and Germany 11.1%.

CD Players per 100 Households. I found the statistics in this area (TV, telephone, CD, computer, mobile phone) to all be interesting. For CD Players, USA ranks only 16th with just 59.6% of households owning one. That seems really low to me. Top on the list was Norway at 90.1 and Denmark at 90.0.

Defense Spending. As a percent of GDP, North Korea is quite ridiculous of course. They spend 25% of GDP on defense, far ahead of country #2 Oman at 10%. Also not surprising, given the unstable nature of the region, many of the top 15 are from the middle east.

Environmental Performance Index. This listing gives a score based on a 100 point scale covering these six areas: environmental health, air quality, water resources, biodiversity and habitat, productive natural resources, and sustainable energy. I'd want to learn a lot more about what these categories mean and how "points" are awarded before I relied too much on these numbers. New Zealand tops the list with a score of 88, Sweden is next at 87.8, and then Finland at 87. The USA comes in 28th place with a 78.5 score, just behind Netherlands and just ahead of Cyprus. It is interesting to note that most of the countries in the top 30 or so are Western industrialized countries, which is exactly in line with what Bjorn Lomborg and others have been preaching for the past several years, namely that to improve the environment in the long-run money should be put into countries to support market reforms that pro-capitalist, pro-growth, and that reduce poverty. Such actions produce wealthy countries, and such countries are the ones that can then spend time and money focusing on environmental concerns (because the people are, for the most part, not concerned with day-to-day survival, political upheaval, etc.). The list of countries with the lowest scores in this area also buttresses this notion: Niger 25.7, then Chad, Mauritania, Mali, Ethiopia, Angola, Pakistan, Burkina Faso, Bangladesh, Sudan, and Nigeria all with scores below 45. Given their huge populations, it is unfortunate that India is also quite low at 47.7 (16th lowest) and China with 56.2 (40th lowest), and their air-quality subscores are particularly low. But at least their economies are growing at rapid rates because they are introducing pro-market reforms, so hopefully their environments will improve in the near future.

Forests. The USA is simply not losing its forests, so if you hear otherwise, don't believe it. The US is fourth in the world in forested land with 303.1 million hectares. Given this, if the USA was loosing its forests you'd expect to see it somewhere near the top in average annual loss of forested land, but they aren't. Between 2000-2005, Brazil is way out in front with an average loss of 3.1 million hectares (they are still second in the world with 477 million hectares). Indonesia is second in loss with 1.87 million hectares per year and then Sudan at 589 million. The USA, on the other hand is fourth on the list of biggest forested land gains. China has seen the biggest gains, by far, but the USA has averaged 159,000 more hectares of forested land per year from 2000-2005. Them is the facts.


Two lists that I would have loved to see and comment on, but were disappointing because of the way they were measured (based on my limited knowledge from the book) are Obesity and Highest Cost of Living. The Obesity ranking uses Body Mass Index (BMI), which I think is a pretty useless measure. And cost of living uses New York City to represent USA, and then uses the USA as an index score of 100, so that seems very strange to me -- cost of living varies widely across the USA.

WHO Supports DDT Use for Malaria Control

Finally... some sanity on the issue of DDT use for Malaria control in Africa. Its about time!

On Friday the World Health Organization announced that it "that indoor spraying with DDT and other insecticides will once again play a major role in its efforts to fight malaria. WHO is now recommending the use of indoor residual spraying not only in epidemic areas but also in areas with constant and high malaria transmission, including throughout Africa." (see also AP coverage, such as in Wash. Times).

And kudos to US Senator Tom Coburn as well (quoting the WHO release):

“Indoor spraying is like providing a huge mosquito net over an entire household for around-the-clock protection,” said U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, a leading advocate for global malaria control efforts. “Finally, with WHO’s unambiguous leadership on the issue, we can put to rest the junk science and myths that have provided aid and comfort to the real enemy – mosquitoes – which threaten the lives of more than 300 million children each year.”

This has been long called for and necessary -- it could have been done long ago. See this brief item from Cato last year for some good information on the issue.

Not World War III... But Suggested Steps?

I have to agree with Ted Galen Carpenter when he writes of the "War on Terror" that It Is Not Another World War. The numbers and scope just don't add up to that, at this time.

Having said that, I'll also note that I don't think much of what most "libertarians" have to say about terrorism and foreign policy these days. Contrary to their isolationist-leaning views, in late August Craig Biddle (an Objectivist) posted some ideas that I doubt you'll have heard or read from anyone else: How To Solve America's Terrorism Problem in 5 Easy Steps. He begins with favoring pulling out of Iraq, but not quite for the reasons that the Left is. Then his other four steps are ones not being actively discussed in the mainstream media, or even the Neo-Con media. Whether you agree with any of these ideas or not, they are eye-openers for sure... and you thought Bush, Rumsfeld... surely Cheney were hawkish!

My step #1 would be different... the US should announce its intentions to pull out of the UN (in say, 6 months time), give reasons why, and suggest that any countries that wish to join the US in a new multinational "roundtable of nations" can join us in setting up a new organziation that will only admit countries that meet certain basic minimums in areas such as democracy, defense of liberty and individual rights, free-trade, and capitalism. The US can certainly do better in these areas itself, but it and a few dozen other countries meet certain basic minimums, such that an organization to discuss global issues can make sense, if done right. But the UN (in addition to having member states run by dictators, etc.) has done it wrong, in so many ways, on such a scale, on so many issues, for so long... that it seems unrepairable at this point. More on that... I'll save for a future blog posting.

Memri Video About 9/11 Conspiracy Theories

MEMRI has created an impressive video, about the conspiracy theories that have come from Middle East media, political, and religious leaders about who was responsible for 9/11. It is narrated by actor Ron Silver, and is very well done. Even at 40 minutes, it is well worth your time to watch. Very interesting...

Khatami at Harvard is a Disgrace

Recently former Iranian "president" Mohammed Khatami gave a speech at Harvard titled "Ethics of Tolerance in the Age of Violence". As reported by Harvard's Gazette, he did denounce Bin Laden. But he characterized America as imperialist, similar to pre-WWII Europe. This demonstrates a serious misunderstanding of America's intentions and what "imperialist" means. America has no plans or desire to take over any country on the planet, period. We are interested in trade, not in takeovers -- and this is the key distinction -- the trader principle vs. the initiation of force.

The Gazette notes that "Khatami repeatedly praised the international spread of democracy, calling it the 'discourse of our time' and repeatedly condemned violence." Well, 'discourse of our time' is very vague. And emphasis on and promotion of democracy, much to the shame of the Bush Administration, is not what we should be doing. Far more important than democracy, we should be promoting liberty, individual rights, justice, free-trade -- in a word, capitalism. There is a big difference between that and just "democracy".

Quoting a bit more: "He called on the Islamic world and the Middle East to embrace democracy and to modernize, but cautioned that those changes can't just be copied from the West." I suspect that this is exactly the problem: he favors voting for people and policies that are anti-liberty, anti-individual-rights, anti-free-trade, and anti-capitalism. (Hamas, for example, was elected recently via democracy -- thereby proving that "democracy" is not even close to being sufficient.) Further, "modernize" is vague. Terrorists don't mind using modern technologies: cell phones, video cameras, weapons of various kinds, even nuclear technology. What he needs to mean by "modernize" is, again, exactly what I think he means by 'Western-style changes' -- which he is apparently against: being pro-liberty, individual rights, justice, free-trade, capitalism, etc.

I agree with the Ayn Rand Institute's release on this visit and speech: it is outrageous and a disgrace.

Jimmy Wales and Wikipedia Say No to China

Thanks much to this post from Josh Zader at the Atlasphere regarding the news (reported here in the Guardian) that Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, has defied the Chinese government by refusing to bow to censorship of politically sensitive entries. Unlike Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, and other big companies, Jimmy has a spine and is acting on principle. The excerpt by Josh quotes Jimmy making a great point too: while China wants to keep entries on conflicts with the government and on topics such as Falun Gong out of their citizens' reach, they also end up keeping Chinese citizens from sharing their culture, ideas, influence, and so on (he uses the example of a small village that has a wonderful local tradition that won't be able to share this through Wikipedia).

I'm very happy to hear of Jimmy's position on this. And he is going to meet with senior Chinese officials to try and get them to reverse their position and unblock Wikipedia from the Chinese people. Good luck Jimmy... I hope you can pull it off!

Images of Pulikkali in Kerala

My friend Basia provides some great photos of the Pulikkali in Kerala, India. Very impressive tiger-themed body painting and costumes.

A Very Brief History Lesson

Back in April Peter Cresswell blogged very succinctly (brief bullet points) on 14 lessons of history, ones often ignored or evaded. An interesting list (thanks to Stephen Hicks for the link).

Updated Warning Levels for Various Countries

Diana Hsieh had a very funny post that quotes some fake "warning level" systems for various countries. This includes the Britains increasing their warning level from "Irritated" to "A Bit Cross", and the French raising theirs from "Run" to "Hide" (with further levels being "Surrender" and "Collaborate"). The levels for Italy and Germany were funny as well. And then Diana's addition for America's alert levels are superb:

1. Refuse to identify the enemy
2. Demand concessions from your allies to your enemies
3. Fight half a war in the wrong place
4. Appease while quaking in fear of barbarians at the gate

I especially like that third one.

An Approach to North Korea

Ted Carpenter of Cato had a nice post last week about what to do in the face of the latest antics of North Korea's Kim Jong Il (further missile launches, etc.). He suggests that "it's time to test the radical alternative of encouraging China to overthrow Kim's regime, in return for America agreeing to end its military presence on the peninsula." Since the US should be systematically ending its defense of South Korea anyway (they can defend themselves against the North, and we need to deploy our troops in other areas that are actually relevant to defending America today). . . this sounds like a great idea to me.

Microlending, Markets, and the Future of Charity

The July 31 issue of BusinessWeek had an interesting brief article, "A Little Money Goes a Long Way". It describes Kiva and other online systems that, through the power of the free markets, have connected people with money to those who need money. And the amounts we are talking about here are very small -- loans of $100 or even just $25. Such amounts aren't much to folks in the US, but they can mean a lot to those in third-world countries such as African nations.

People in those countries can describe why they need the loan, what they will do with it, and how they plan to pay it back. And so far, many of them are successfully creating businesses and so on and in fact paying back the micro-loans. The story about what the woman from Uganda was able to do with her $500 loan is very positive.

And another beauty of this approach to lending money, and similar sites that no doubt exist for outright donations/charity, is that inefficient banks are bypassed. But far more important, evil and corrupt governments are bypassed, so your money actually makes it to the person who needs it. And you get to pick and choose who is receiving the loan, thereby allowing you to only give to those you think are deserving (e.g., if you prefer to support entrepreneurial activities in a third-world country, then you can loan only to those individuals starting up a business; or if you would prefer to give money to help a small town provide clean water, then you can do that).