A discussion of secession and devolution.
The author does somewhat of a decent job, and even I learned something from the article.
He doesn't get into how the phrase "territorial integrity" was so important, even if most of you didn't notice it, during American pronouncements concerning Iraq and Afghanistan, and Saudi pronouncements, and the pronouncements of others.
Still, in the end, he gets it wrong, claiming that it was a religious divide that separates the North and the South of Sudan. He doesn't mention US evangelical involvement in the separation, but, in any event, it is a linguistic divide, and has been for centuries.
Links to my site on Sudan, also mentioned in the article, Somalia, Rwanda, and this graphic about how the scramble for Africa happened.
2011-01-23
It's sh*t like this, Israel, America
Tzipi Livni, Israeli Prime Minister: "Israel takes more land [so] that the Palestinian state will be impossible"; that "the Israel policy is to take more and more land day after day and that at the end of the day we'll say that is impossible, we already have the land and we cannot create the state". She conceded that it had been "the policy of the government for a really long time".
At the end of 2007, though, "it is still the policy of some of the parties but not the government".
Erekat: "Short of your jet fighters in my sky and your army on my territory, can I choose where I secure external defence?"
Livni: "No, in order to create your state you have to agree in advance with Israel – you choose not to have the right of choice afterwards."
But the documents show US officials unmoved by such claims. Why were the Palestinians "always in a chapter of a Greek tragedy", secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, asked at a meeting with Erekat in Washington in the autumn of 2009.
Her predecessor, Rice, had been even more dismissive.
Very little on Earth makes me as miserable as the evil perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinians. For decades Israel has been pretending to negotiate a two-state solution, but here we find out that they've been trying to prevent the two-state solution the whole time. We learn that nothing short of Israeli jets in Palestinian airspace and the Israeli Army inside Palestinian land will be enough. American contributors sounds like a couple ignorant fools.
Source
2010-12-18
2010-10-31
My Jon Stewart Rally Wrap-up
My hair looked awful.
I didn't run into anyone I knew, or maybe they saw my hair from a distance and turned in the other direction.
If you look at this image of the crowd I was about 1 inch below and 1.5 inches to the right of the center of the giant grass cross. I could see small people on the stage if they went most of the way stage left.
I did not think much of the Roots/John Legend set. The first song was mediocre. John Legend was either having a bad day or can't sing well. One of the songs contained a lot of ignorance with lines like "Everything is made in China now, are we all Chinese?" America is still the #1 manufacturing nation in the world, and how would we become Chinese from buying their goods? One of the other songs was about giving hope to ghetto boys, which obviously directly resonated with the urban and suburban, middle class, white audience.
A pretty neat moment was during the MythBusters wave experiment. It started at the front and people around me were happy and confused, like me, when 15 seconds later we still didn't see it coming over the horizon.
I liked a sign that said "Death To Nobody."
Father Guido Sarducci's benediction was nice.
I really didn't know about the one, bad call by the umpire which prevented a Yankee ballplayer from pitching a perfect game and while I was impressed by his handling of the situation, I still don't think he should have asked for a bigger strike zone, next time. John Stewart gave him a deserved award.
Apparently ABC, NBC, the New York Times, NPR and other organizations didn't allow their employees to attend the event because it was political. Seems odd, to me. Anyway, Stephen Colbert gave them an award, but since they weren't in attendance, gave it to someone with more courage... a seven year old girl.
I liked, and will someday listen to again, Stewart's final monologue.
I liked Tony Bennett's unaccompanied rendition of God Bless, America. It might even have been an extraordinary rendition.
I talked to a half dozen or more people after who had attended about their experience and of the 6 none could see anything and only 2 (a forensic psychologist and Columbia student who had won the tickets from Oprah) could hear anything (about half or 70%). It makes me wonder how many people left because they couldn't see or hear anything. It's only important for the crowd estimates.
I didn't run into anyone I knew, or maybe they saw my hair from a distance and turned in the other direction.
If you look at this image of the crowd I was about 1 inch below and 1.5 inches to the right of the center of the giant grass cross. I could see small people on the stage if they went most of the way stage left.
I did not think much of the Roots/John Legend set. The first song was mediocre. John Legend was either having a bad day or can't sing well. One of the songs contained a lot of ignorance with lines like "Everything is made in China now, are we all Chinese?" America is still the #1 manufacturing nation in the world, and how would we become Chinese from buying their goods? One of the other songs was about giving hope to ghetto boys, which obviously directly resonated with the urban and suburban, middle class, white audience.
A pretty neat moment was during the MythBusters wave experiment. It started at the front and people around me were happy and confused, like me, when 15 seconds later we still didn't see it coming over the horizon.
I liked a sign that said "Death To Nobody."
Father Guido Sarducci's benediction was nice.
I really didn't know about the one, bad call by the umpire which prevented a Yankee ballplayer from pitching a perfect game and while I was impressed by his handling of the situation, I still don't think he should have asked for a bigger strike zone, next time. John Stewart gave him a deserved award.
Apparently ABC, NBC, the New York Times, NPR and other organizations didn't allow their employees to attend the event because it was political. Seems odd, to me. Anyway, Stephen Colbert gave them an award, but since they weren't in attendance, gave it to someone with more courage... a seven year old girl.
I liked, and will someday listen to again, Stewart's final monologue.
I liked Tony Bennett's unaccompanied rendition of God Bless, America. It might even have been an extraordinary rendition.
I talked to a half dozen or more people after who had attended about their experience and of the 6 none could see anything and only 2 (a forensic psychologist and Columbia student who had won the tickets from Oprah) could hear anything (about half or 70%). It makes me wonder how many people left because they couldn't see or hear anything. It's only important for the crowd estimates.
2010-09-12
Things Run Better on Merit
Napoleon's Army, the Civil Service exams in China, and, previously, America; it seems things thrive when they are rewarded for effort. What might it look like if we rewarded people for political effort? I don't really know, but I'll throw out some ideas.
Learning the language of your current country is pretty much required, as a first step? To enter the infantry of your country's democracy you would need to be able to find out what is going on. To read is, perhaps, the next step, because the serious ideas are all written down. I could never be convinced that someone who received their news only from the American radio or television news services knew very much. Of course, some people could be told about the government, the different jobs of the different elected offices, without reading about it, and someone else could learn to read and only ever read movie star gossip.
Fuller participation involves writing and public speaking, knowing more details about what the government does, about the different departments, and about the laws and elected officials currently in place.
All these things seem like they could add up to form a "merit score" for a citizen in a democracy. Perhaps certain offices would only be voted on by people with a suitably high score. Similarly, particularly low merit might be a bar to seeking certain offices.
Learning the language of your current country is pretty much required, as a first step? To enter the infantry of your country's democracy you would need to be able to find out what is going on. To read is, perhaps, the next step, because the serious ideas are all written down. I could never be convinced that someone who received their news only from the American radio or television news services knew very much. Of course, some people could be told about the government, the different jobs of the different elected offices, without reading about it, and someone else could learn to read and only ever read movie star gossip.
Fuller participation involves writing and public speaking, knowing more details about what the government does, about the different departments, and about the laws and elected officials currently in place.
All these things seem like they could add up to form a "merit score" for a citizen in a democracy. Perhaps certain offices would only be voted on by people with a suitably high score. Similarly, particularly low merit might be a bar to seeking certain offices.
2010-08-06
Gut Flora Bleg
Almost sounds German. Do any of you know much about gut flora? I know it refers to the trillions of bacteria, along with fungi and protozoa, that live inside every person's gastro-intestinal tract. I understand most of it is just 30-40 types in each person, but how many, of the hundreds or even thousand of different types might be one of the 30-40 types that are most numerous? Is there a list of their secretions somewhere? Do we know what types of things (things that might normally happen inside a gi-tract) can kill each type? Do we know the effects if, say, your ABC bacteria group is actually sub-type 3a of ABC which often succumbs when the person has a high fever, and it all dies?
2010-08-04
What laissez-faire really means... the sudden collapse of the entire economy
To the amateur and professional laissez-faire economist government interference in the economy is a bad thing.
Interestingly, and it will also turn out paradoxically, this same group, politically usually Republicans, libertarians, or economic conservatives, value concepts like Original Intent, have a tendency to call themselves Classical Liberals, and have their lawyers organize themselves in a group called the Federalist Society.
What did early Americans think about government interference in the economy? Then, as now, there were usually two political parties with two divergent opinions, but none of these opinions match the views of the modern laissez-faire aficionados.
Later, things did change. After the Civil War and the birth of the giant corporation in the 1870s, after the 1886 Santa Clara cases which effectively gave human rights to corporations, but before that there were basically three positions, represented in the ideals of the Federalists, who were the most mercantilist, the Democratic-Republicans, who championed the individual farmer, free markets, the end to monopolies, and who hated corporations and stock markets, and the Whigs, who thought a few corporations were alright, in the hands of the elites, and thought the government should interfere in the economy with tariffs to protect manufacturers, as had Alexander Hamilton.
The classical laissez-faire position held by the Democratic-Republicans saw limited liability, the right of the owners (stock holders) of a corporation not to be legally responsible for the companies actions, as a distortion of the economy. Does anyone think modern Republicans want all the corporations dismantled? I think they want all government interference except corporate limited liability to be done away with, and that's why they aren't free marketeers, they are corporatists. Some corporations provide goods and services for the public efficiently, but all the biggest ones use that same power to change the law in their favor.
What follows are a couple quotes from T. J. Stiles Puliter Prize and National Book Award winning biography of Cornelius J. Vanderbilt who once had assets roughly equal to 1 in every 9 dollars in the entire United States.
Interestingly, and it will also turn out paradoxically, this same group, politically usually Republicans, libertarians, or economic conservatives, value concepts like Original Intent, have a tendency to call themselves Classical Liberals, and have their lawyers organize themselves in a group called the Federalist Society.
What did early Americans think about government interference in the economy? Then, as now, there were usually two political parties with two divergent opinions, but none of these opinions match the views of the modern laissez-faire aficionados.
Later, things did change. After the Civil War and the birth of the giant corporation in the 1870s, after the 1886 Santa Clara cases which effectively gave human rights to corporations, but before that there were basically three positions, represented in the ideals of the Federalists, who were the most mercantilist, the Democratic-Republicans, who championed the individual farmer, free markets, the end to monopolies, and who hated corporations and stock markets, and the Whigs, who thought a few corporations were alright, in the hands of the elites, and thought the government should interfere in the economy with tariffs to protect manufacturers, as had Alexander Hamilton.
The classical laissez-faire position held by the Democratic-Republicans saw limited liability, the right of the owners (stock holders) of a corporation not to be legally responsible for the companies actions, as a distortion of the economy. Does anyone think modern Republicans want all the corporations dismantled? I think they want all government interference except corporate limited liability to be done away with, and that's why they aren't free marketeers, they are corporatists. Some corporations provide goods and services for the public efficiently, but all the biggest ones use that same power to change the law in their favor.
What follows are a couple quotes from T. J. Stiles Puliter Prize and National Book Award winning biography of Cornelius J. Vanderbilt who once had assets roughly equal to 1 in every 9 dollars in the entire United States.
[The Democratic-Republicans] criticized the patricians[Federalists] for using their political power to grant themselves special privileges. Corporate charters usually went to the well-connected. Many early banks extended credit only to a closed network of relatives and cronies. Government intervention in the economy largely consisted of special rewards to officeholders and favored men.
The aristocrats saw no conflict of interest in using public office to enrich themselves. As society's natural leaders, they reasoned, they should be entrusted with economic stewardship as well. This outlook, this merging of private and public roles of the elite, was the essence of mercantilism, in which the state empowered private parties to carry out activities thought to serve the public interest. [p. 41]
The Bank War [between Andrew Jackson and President of the 2nd Bank of the United States, Nicholas Biddle] spun American politics into a centrifuge, concentrating the two impulses of the day into distinct parties. On one side were Jackson's followers, the Democratic Party, or the Democracy, as they called it, -- the party of individual equality and limited government. Under the slogan "Jackson, Commerce, and Our Country," they celebrated a market economy of real persons and a republican simplicity. In opposition arose the Whigs, who were more trusting in the beneficial role of active government. At the time, the division between the two seemed as natural as a canyon. The Democrats had emerged out of the resistance to the eighteenth-century patricians and their culture of deference, out of battles against the limited franchise, aristocratic privileges, and mercantilist monopolies. Though their elected leader would often make use of the government's economic power, the most radical among them -- especially New York's "Locofoco" faction (nicknamed after the brand of matches they used when their rivals at a tumultuous party meeting doused the lights) -- championed laissez-faire as their definition of equal rights. The Whigs (such as Hone) inherited some of the ordering, top-down outlook of the old elite, and a deeply moral version of the role of the state. They believed that measures to assist the most enterprising, such as corporate charters or public works, would grace everyone; as historian Amy Bridges writes, they believed "the state should guide interdependent interests to a common good." As development-minded modernizers in a young and growing country, they saw competition as a destructive force that punished entrepreneurship.[pp. 98-99]
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