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LA Times echoes A-Sides
In the last 50 years, $2.3 trillion has been spent to help poor countries. Yet Africans’ income and life expectancy have gone down, not up, during that period, while South Korea, Singapore and other Asian nations that received little if any assistance have moved from African-level poverty to European-level prosperity thanks to their superior economic policies.
and
Any real solution to Africa’s problems must focus on the root causes of poverty × mainly misgovernment. Instead of pouring billions more down the same old rat holes, maybe the Live 8 crew should promote a more innovative approach: Use the G-8’s jillions 2 hire mercenaries 4 the overthrow of the 6 most thuggish regimes in Africa. That would do more to help ordinary Africans than any number of musical extravaganzas.
Oddly enough, Adam expressed the same idea, in nearly the same words last Sunday. Strange.
And as I do a spell check of this post, It tags “misgovernment” as a misspelling, and wants to replace it with “McGovern”.
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Three Things
- When all is said and done, I think the London bombers will be more in the mold of the Columbine shooters than the 9-11 attackers, just some maladjusted Muslim losers who are just “too real” for the world.
- It will be revealed that Middle Eastern countries are emptying out their prisons into Iraq both as a way to tie up US troops and purge their society of unwanted persons.
- On another note, I’m just got back from night photography with Mark as protection, we got some incredible shots, look for a new gallery soon.
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Got the I-Sticker
A few days ago I got the “i” (for individualism) stickers from this site. The sticker seems to be of good quality and is pleasantly tasteful. I have seen the counterpart of this sticker (the yellow and blue “=”) which is intended to represent egalitarianism in a subtle way. May all bumper sticker debates be this civil.The whole thing seems to be the brainchild of one Sean Rife, who evidently works in a sign shop and can produce these at a low cost and can give them away. Thanks Sean!
I see by reading his blog that he’s attending (or just finished) an IHS Seminar, which I think is one I went to in 1998. I hope he finds it as helpful as I did.
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Photo galleries now online
You can get there by clicking the “Photo Gallery” link on the right. Below is a sample from the weird abandoned (or perhaps moved) church up the street. I’ll be putting everything else photo wise on there as well.
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Thursday round up
I realize I stole the “rapid-fire” notion from Defense Tech.
- < $800 Swarmable Robots – this could be the start of something wonderful, especially in agriculture and environmental cleanup. It has Linux, Bluetooth, the works. HT: Make Blog
- Roomba API – on a similar note this could be an actually workable version of the above. I still need to get a Roomba. Or else resort to vacuuming.
- The Counter Terrorism Blog – seems fairly interesting.
- The Aristocrats is coming out soon (HT the Agitator)
- Neighbors Subdue Man Stabbing Woman on NW Street
The first neighbor sprinted when he heard the screams of a woman being slashed on his Northwest Washington street. He jumped on a knife-wielding man, and the two fell to the ground, wrestling furiously in a spreading pool of the victim’s blood.
Soon, a second neighbor joined the fight, followed by three more. The assailant kept slipping from their grip and attacking the woman until they overpowered him and held him for police Tuesday night.
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London
I think, when all is said and done, that the body count was low compared to what it could have been (FoxNews now claims that they found two unexploded bombs) Considering it has a population of seven and a half million, the casualties seem thankfully low.
From the Belmont Club
From the amount of damage caused, the explosive devices used appear to have been in the tens, rather than the hundreds of pounds. This is good news. It also means that the enemy has not grown in overall capability since the days of 9/11 and 3/11.
I wonder if the time was selected to coincide with the G-8 meetings, presumably a lot of the British security people would be concerned with that this week.
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Wednesday Rapid Fire
- Yahoo News with Yahoo Maps – I’ll give Google 5 days to do this too. HT: Make
- Google Maps with Transparencies – HT: Make
- A glut of flat screen technology – which would be cool.
- Google Maps Walking Distance
- New MS Money
- Mencken
“All the extravagance and incompetence of our present Government is due, in the main, to lawyers, and, in part at least, to good ones. They are responsible for nine-tenths of the useless and vicious laws that now clutter the statute-books, and for all the evils that go with the vain attempt to enforce them. Every Federal judge is a lawyer. So are most Congressmen. Every invasion of the plain rights of the citizens has a lawyer behind it. If all lawyers were hanged tomorrow, and their bones sold to a mah jong factory, we’d be freer and safer, and our taxes would be reduced by almost a half.”
- Tom G Palmer has some nice words about Admiral Stockdale, clearly the classiest guy to run for national office in quite some time.
- Yet another review of Freakonomics, this time by James Q Wilson, the authors are on the Charlie Rose program tonight. Money quote
“…quoting someone whose name I have forgotten: social scientists should never try to predict the future; they have trouble enough predicting the past.”
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Any dog in a storm…
I get back from the Luxury Kings show last night and find out that Drex has had a …. strong reaction to being alone when there’s thunder outside. It is a nice picture of the two of us together. Note the hole in the wall (about two thirds of it was already there, but still, this was a bit excessive.) There are new teeth dents in the doorknob too.
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Live 8
A very good post from the Agitator about this current foolishness
It’s all the more perverse when you consider that corporate farms in Europe, Japan, and the U.S. are a big reason why Africa remains so poor. In heavily subsidized crops like cotton and corn, farmers in these countries can sell their crop on the international market for less than what it costs them to grow it. There’s simply no way poor farmers in emerging economies can compete with that. So lavish subsidies in rich countries keep poor countries from competing, which in turn keeps them poor. The rich countries feel guilty, so they sap taxpayers to come up with aid projects that don’t work, and really only benefit the exact same industries that benefit from the subsidies. All the while, each time public aid does fail, it makes private donors think Africa’s a lost cause, and therefore makes them less likely to give. Which is tragic, because private aid does seem to work. It’s more likely to find its way around the corruption, and hit the people who need it.
Which brings us back to Live 8. The whole purpose of the event, Geldoff kept telling us, was not to raise private funds for Africa. Rather, it was to encourage the citizens of developed countries to lobby their governments for more public aid. Oh, and also to make spoiled rock stars feel better about their respective social consciences.
There is also this very good post from Josh Trevino who’s reporting on the G-8 protesters
But the true believers exist, and they are capable of organizing themselves. A counterintuitive thing, one would think, but the anarchist/hard left capacity for assembling at set times and doing set things is a well-proven one. Just like libertarians availing themselves of public services, the contraindicating intersection of reality and ideology is often employed, but never acknowledged. As at Seattle, DC, and Genoa, so too Edinburgh: the city is overrun in a well-planned influx from across the developed, Western, wealthy world to protest developed, Western, wealthy things.
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An Evening at Blind Willie’s
Where surprisingly few photos turned out that well. Here is one.
