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.