tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43426518550899747222024-03-12T23:19:23.766-04:00OldRull old!Stephen Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12118017106106571684noreply@blogger.comBlogger558125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342651855089974722.post-19590821603861778152010-09-27T17:29:00.002-04:002010-09-27T17:31:58.578-04:00Moving on...<p>So, you've probably already noticed that I've more or less given up on this blog...I've had it for years but it never really got much readership. I've been blogging recently at <a href="http://marketurbanism.com">marketurbanism.com</a>, a blog about urban planning and the free market, and I post pretty often, so if you're interested, add it to y'all's feed readers. And, of course, if you've got any job offers for a recent graduate, email me! (smithsj -at- gmail -dot- com)Stephen Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12118017106106571684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342651855089974722.post-58594776707491239242010-08-18T14:05:00.004-04:002010-08-18T14:12:52.695-04:00Israel eases its Gaza blockade, smuggling tunnels go unused<p>I've written <a href="http://rationalitate.blogspot.com/search?q=tunnels">quite a bit</a> in the past about the flourishing smuggling tunnels between Gaza and Egypt which supplied the blockaded territory with goods not available through legitimate trade (one source put the number at <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/22/hamas-gaza-tunnels-smuggling-egypt">90%</a>, though I can't vouch for this figure). The tunnels were dangerous and Hamas was known to tax them, but they served their purpose.<br /><br />It looks like now, however, they are falling into disuse as Israel has <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE67G1U520100817">eased its blockade</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote>"Israel now allows more food, different kinds of it, juice, electrical equipment and even fridges, therefore merchants shifted their business to the old regular way and abandoned tunnels," he added.<br /><br />Israel relaxed its restrictions in June in the wake of its raid to halt a blockade-running flotilla from reaching Gaza in a military operation that killed nine activists and drew widespread international condemnation.</blockquote><br /><p>While counterfactuals are difficult, this easing appears to be a direct result of the Gaza flotilla raid and the attention that it brought to the situation. At the time, I thought the activists were drawing more attention to themselves than anything else – there were <em>way</em> more people on the "aid" boats than there needed to be, and the used clothing and toys that made up the bulk of the cargo were relatively useless. But I suppose now that the blockade has been eased, I stand corrected.Stephen Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12118017106106571684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342651855089974722.post-39341976365188284952010-08-14T00:53:00.007-04:002010-08-14T01:17:21.247-04:00The FHA picks up where Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac left off<P>As if New York City's rent control (which regulates rents in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_control_in_New_York#cite_ref-15">about half</a> of all units in the five boroughs) hadn't done enough damage to the city's housing stock and renters' wallets, the Federal Housing Administration is currently <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-13/manhattan-luxury-condos-embrace-federal-help-in-game-changer-for-sales.html">doing its part</a> to ensure that no luxury Manhattan condo goes unsold:<br /><br /><blockquote>At least nine Manhattan condo developments south of 96th Street have sought approval for FHA backing since the agency loosened its financing rules in December, according to a database of applications maintained by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The change allows the FHA to insure loans in new projects where only 30 percent of units are in contract, down from at least 50 percent. About 1,900 apartments in New York’s most expensive neighborhoods would be covered by the applications.</blockquote><br /><p>This is precisely the sort of mission creep that led Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to move outside their core mission of offering home loans to the needy, and which eventually brought down the two companies, and likely played a key role in bringing down the world's economy. One economist's assessment of the risk the FHA is taking on sounds pretty familiar:<br /><br /><blockquote>Caplin testified before Congress in March, arguing that FHA may need a taxpayer bailout because the agency relies on overly optimistic assumptions on unemployment, home prices and loan performance to predict losses.</blockquote><br /><p>This trend is not necessarily new – I noticed it first <a href="http://rationalitate.blogspot.com/2008/11/fha-tries-to-reinflate-housing-bubble.html">two years ago</a> – but the fact that the FHA is still growing its housing portfolio suggests that whatever meager recovery the US housing sector has managed may not be sustainable. History is full of people repeating mistakes, but America's housing czars seem downright amnesiac.Stephen Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12118017106106571684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342651855089974722.post-35275820615362151252010-08-13T17:52:00.004-04:002010-08-13T17:58:56.221-04:00Nothing green about fake meat<p>Caring for the environment is the latest and most trendy reason to go vegetarian (or...*gasp*...vegan!), but apparently if you're making up for meat by eating a lot of fake meat, you might be <a href="http://motherjones.com/environment/2010/07/is-vegetarian-diet-green">hurting Mother Earth more</a> than if you'd stuck to chicken and fish:<br /><br /><blockquote>In general, Eshel says, it's true that raw veggies are an excellent nutritional bargain: For every 100 calories of energy put into producing conventional beef, from farm to supermarket shelf, you get only six calories back to eat. Compare that with apples, which yield 110 calories, or raw soy: an amazing 415. In terms of greenhouse gases, switching from a diet that includes red meat to a plants-only one is roughly equivalent to <a href="http://www.wepapers.com/Papers/48709/Diet,_Energy_and__Global_Warming_Gidon_Eshel_and_Pamela_Martin">trading in your SUV for a Camry</a>.<br /><br />But a girl can only eat so much roasted kale before she starts craving protein: tofu, veggie burgers, and the (okay, creepy) occasional piece of fakin' bacon. But coaxing soy into a red-and-white rectangular strip takes work—which is why Eshel believes most veggie burgers are the caloric equivalent of "shooting yourself in the foot." A 2009 study by the Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T6V-4X3W44N-3&_user=10&_coverDate=08%2F29%2F2009&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1297963947&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=1e653a43db9065fa316ab3a0d6e072d3">found</a> that while producing a plate of peas requires a fraction of the energy needed to produce the same number of calories of pork, the energy costs of a pea-burger and a pork chop are about equal.<br /><br />That's not the only issue with fake meat. Consider the process that keeps your veggie burgers low in fat: The cheapest way to remove fatty soybean oil <a href="http://www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/hlthef/hexane.html">is with hexane</a>, an EPA-registered air pollutant and suspected neurotoxin. A 2009 study by the Cornucopia Institute, a sustainable-farming nonprofit, found that Boca, Morningstar Farms, and Gardenburger (<a href="http://cornucopia.org/soysurvey/OrganicSoyReport/behindthebean_color_final.pdf">among others</a>) market products made with hexane. The finding was enough to turn Cornucopia researcher <a href="http://www.cornucopia.org/about-us/">Charlotte Vallaeys</a> off of fake meat. "I can't think of a single meat-alternative product where I could explain how every ingredient is made," she says. "With a grass-fed burger, well, there's one ingredient. And with grass-fed burgers I actually might be doing something good for the environment."</blockquote>Stephen Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12118017106106571684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342651855089974722.post-87440988146433135742010-08-13T08:12:00.000-04:002010-08-13T08:12:00.677-04:00Mormons and Mexico<P>The Economist has an otherwise-not-very-interesting <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/16743623">article</a> about Utah Republicans' decidedly non-Arizonan attitude towards immigration, but I thought this part about Mormons was interesting:<br /><br /><blockquote>It might also have helped that virtually everybody at the table was Mormon. The Arizona state senator who sponsored SB1070, Russell Pearce, is also Mormon, which has led to speculation that this is why the Mormon Church has not yet expressed a moral opinion on the matter. But as Mormons, many of Utah’s politicians have either been in Latin America as missionaries in their youth or have loved ones who were. Mr Herbert’s son has been to Puerto Rico. Mr Sandstrom once proselytised in Venezuela and says he even has a permanent-residency permit there (through a fluke of paperwork). He once sponsored a Venezuelan family to come to America legally.</blockquote><br /><P>Mexico looms large in the history of the Mormons – it was one of the original destinations of East Coast Mormons like Jospeh Smith fleeing persecution in the 1840's back when what is now the American Southwest was Mexico. Even after Mexico lost California and Mormons found a home in the Salt Lake Valley, migration to Mexico became appealing again in the 1880's, when Mormons were forced to renounce polygamy in order to join the Union. The Mexican Revolution eventually forced the Mormon families out of Mexico in the early 20th century and back to the US where they became leading members of the Mormon church (including <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Romney">the Romneys</a>).<br /><br />Despite its history as a sanctuary for white fundamentalist Mormons, vast majority of the 1.2 million Mormons living in Mexico today are Mexican converts and do not practice polygamy. Despite the Economist's rosy picture of international travel breeding tolerance, I have a feeling Utah's tolerance of immigration relative to Arizona has more to do with it not being a border state and Mexicans' propensity to convert to Mormonism.Stephen Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12118017106106571684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342651855089974722.post-55347152906396297852010-08-08T02:15:00.003-04:002010-08-08T02:20:58.446-04:00Kids don't talk on the phone anymore<p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/07/AR2010080702848.html">Weird</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote>Nearly all age groups are spending less time talking on the phone; boomers in their mid-50s and early 60s are the only ones still yakking as they did when Ma Bell was America's communications queen. But the fall of the call is driven by 18- to 34-year-olds, whose average monthly voice minutes have plunged from about 1,200 to 900 in the past two years, according to research by Nielsen. Texting among 18- to 24-year-olds has more than doubled in the same period, from an average of 600 messages a month two years ago to more than 1,400 texts a month, according to Nielsen.<br /><br />Young people say they avoid voice calls because the immediacy of a phone call strips them of the control that they have over the arguably less-intimate pleasures of texting, e-mailing, Facebooking or tweeting. They even complain that phone calls are by their nature impolite, more of an interruption than the blip of an arriving text.</blockquote>Stephen Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12118017106106571684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342651855089974722.post-92187998165533701082010-08-06T09:02:00.000-04:002010-08-06T09:02:00.232-04:00New York City's many Chinatowns<p>This isn't breaking news, but I thought it was interesting: Queens has two Chinatowns, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinatown,_Flushing">Flushing</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmhurst,_Queens#Demographics">Elmhurst</a>, and Flushing has a larger Chinese population than Manhattan's Chinatown. Brooklyn also has <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinatown,_Brooklyn">its own Chinatown</a> in Sunset Park, which is dominated by immigrants from Fujian Province. This is not to be confused with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Broadway_(Manhattan)#Fuzhou_Immigrants_and_Community_Establishments_in_New_York_City">Little Fuzhou</a>, an enclave in Manhattan's Chinatown of immigrants from the capital and largest city of Fujian Province. There is apparently a budding Chinatown in Edison, NJ, though it's more like a downsized version of Monterey Park rather than the traditional crowded urban Chinatowns. Monterey Park was the first suburban Chinatown, which has expanded such that Asians constitute a majority of the population of the sprawling San Gabriel Valley east of Los Angeles (which, of course, has a more traditional downtown Chinatown).Stephen Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12118017106106571684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342651855089974722.post-50340969299008610912010-08-05T01:04:00.003-04:002010-08-05T01:08:37.565-04:00The Republicans who legalized gay marriage<P>Well, I'm not sure if he's a Republican, but he sure has a conservative pedigree. <a href="http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2010/08/04/reagan-appointed-judge-strikes-down-gay-marriage-ban/">Quoteth</a> David Boaz, via Reason:<br /><br /><blockquote>In other words, this “liberal San Francisco judge” was recommended by Ed Meese, appointed by Ronald Reagan, and opposed by Alan Cranston, Nancy Pelosi, Edward Kennedy, and the leading gay activist groups. It’s a good thing for advocates of marriage equality that those forces were only able to block Walker twice.</blockquote><br /><p>He also notes that two other very prominent pro-gay marriage judges – the one involved in Iowa's surprise gay marriage legalization and the one in Boston who overturned DOMA – were also appointed by Republicans.Stephen Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12118017106106571684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342651855089974722.post-54558328051987393032010-08-02T08:19:00.000-04:002010-08-02T08:19:00.548-04:00The culture that is Kuwait<p>Apparently Ramadan <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/world/middleeast/02domestic.html">ain't so great</a> for the live-ins:<br /><br /><blockquote>And in the coming weeks, when Ramadan starts, the number of maids seeking protection is expected to grow, perhaps by the hundreds, straining the capacity of the improvised shelters, embassy officials say. With Kuwaiti families staying up into the early hours of the morning, some maids say they cook more, work longer hours and sleep less.<br /><br />Rosflor Armada, who is staying in the Philippines Embassy, said that last year during Ramadan, she cooked all day for the evening meal and was allowed to sleep only about two hours a night.<br /><br />“They said, ‘You will work. You will work.’ ” She said that she left after her employers demanded that she wash the windows at 3 a.m.</blockquote>Stephen Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12118017106106571684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342651855089974722.post-67341708369335126712010-07-27T07:04:00.000-04:002010-07-27T07:04:00.232-04:00Deportations rise under Obama<p>The increase hasn't been dramatic, but it's there, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/25/AR2010072501790.html?">reporteth</a> the Washington Post:<br /><br /><blockquote>The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency expects to deport about 400,000 people this fiscal year, nearly 10 percent above the Bush administration's 2008 total and 25 percent more than were deported in 2007. The pace of company audits has roughly quadrupled since President George W. Bush's final year in office.</blockquote>Stephen Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12118017106106571684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342651855089974722.post-50667745690260253432010-07-24T01:46:00.004-04:002010-07-24T02:05:04.321-04:00Why drilling in American waters is good for the environment<P>As much as I despise big oil survives for it reliance on government transportation policies and not market forces, all things equal, I think it's best for the environment to drill in American waters. Why? Because if you don't, things like <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cf31acce-969d-11df-9caa-00144feab49a.html">this</a> happen:<br /><br /><blockquote>BP will start deep-water drilling off the coast of Libya within weeks in spite of concerns about the UK group’s environmental and safety record after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster. [...]<br /><br />Barack Obama’s imposition of a moratorium on deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico has highlighted the growing importance of new exploration across the Mediterranean. Diamond Offshore, a US deep-water driller, is moving a rig from the Gulf of Mexico to Egypt, while Australia’s APX started drilling last week between Tunisia and Italy. Shell plans to start exploring soon off western Sicily.<br /><br />Italy has speeded up its procedures and granted 21 new exploration permits. New limits imposed on near-shore drilling in response to the Gulf of Mexico spill apply only to future operations and barely affect the most promising areas off Sicily.<br /><br />With cash-strapped governments courting Libya’s oil-fuelled sovereign wealth funds, countries such as Italy, Greece and Malta – all within a radius of 500km (310 miles) of the Gulf of Sirte – have refrained from commenting on Libya’s plans.<br /><br />However, environmentalists and politicians have expressed concerns. A proposal by Günther Oettinger, Europe’s energy commissioner, for a moratorium on deep-water drilling in European Union waters failed to get a response from Mediterranean states.</blockquote><br /><p>If a rig like Deepwater Horizon exploded and started spewing oil off the coast of Libya, I doubt it would be contained within three months. Apparently oil has been leaking into the Niger Delta <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/30/oil-spills-nigeria-niger-delta-shell">for decades</a> and shows no signs of slowing. It's possible that environmentally-minded northern EU countries would step in and force Gaddafi and Berlusconi to take an oil spill seriously, but if BP thought that way, I'm not sure they would have bothered moving.Stephen Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12118017106106571684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342651855089974722.post-89708430830535441812010-07-24T01:20:00.003-04:002010-07-24T01:33:26.152-04:00Ted Haggard's new ministry<p>Ted Haggard, the disgraced Evangelical megapastor caught doing meth with a gay prostitute and last seen hocking <a href="http://rationalitate.blogspot.com/2009/01/where-are-they-now-ted-haggard-edition.html">debt reduction software</a>, has started up a new church in his backyard. The whole article is almost too good to excerpt, but I'll try:<br /><br /><blockquote>He acknowledged grave lapses of judgment in the episode he refers to as "my crisis." But Mr. Haggard also said that in his sorrow and shame, he accepted too much guilt after the scandal broke.<br /><br />"I over-repented," he said. [...]<br /><br />He portrays his encounter with the prostitute as a massage that went awry and said he doesn't have same-sex attractions. He dismisses as a "witch hunt" the findings of his former church that he engaged in a pattern of misconduct, including sordid talk and inappropriate relationships. (He said his only fault was cracking a few crude jokes.) [...]<br /><br />Mr. Haggard plays up his new regular-guy image. At the picnic, he asked a friend whether anyone noticed he had said "hell" in the sermon—and not in a Biblical context.<br /><br />"I cuss now," he said proudly.</blockquote>Stephen Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12118017106106571684noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342651855089974722.post-46496270865672575992010-07-14T00:52:00.003-04:002010-07-14T00:58:56.859-04:00Tea Party tacitly backs states' rights to gay marriage<p>I've written about the Tea Partiers' surprising amount of principles <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/13/AR2010071301436.html">before</a>, and it looks like they're <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/13/AR2010071301436.html">at it again</a>, bein' all principled and such:<br /><br /><blockquote>While many conservative organizations immediately decried a federal judge's decision last week to invalidate the federal ban on recognizing gay marriages, tea party groups have been conspicuously silent on the issue.<br /><br />The silence is by design, activists with the loosely affiliated movement said, because it is held together by an exclusive focus on fiscal matters and its avoidance of divisive social issues such as abortion and gay marriage. Privately, though, many said they back the decision because it emphasizes the legal philosophy of states' rights.</blockquote><br /><p>One hopes that if California's Prop 19 passes and there's a California vs. federal government showdown over legalized marijuana, the Tea Party will side with California, or at least not touch the issue.Stephen Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12118017106106571684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342651855089974722.post-25877663988924084022010-07-08T09:24:00.000-04:002010-07-08T09:24:00.066-04:00Drugs in North Korea<p>An excerpt from <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/07/12/100712fa_fact_demick">this</a> New Yorker article, available only to subscribers:<br /><br /><blockquote>Many of the teen-agers, Song-hee included, didn't go to school regularly and often hung out at home. Sometimes they did drugs, usually the cheap amphetamine known as "ice," which was produced in North Korea and was readily available. If one of them had electricity, they would gather at that person's house to watch pirated DVDs smuggled in from China. It is illegal in North Korea to watch foreign DVDs, and radios and televisions are set to government stations. Nevertheless, illegal DVDs were easy to find in Musan. "I saw a lot of Chinese films, Indian films, Russian films," Song-hee told me. "We watched action movies and sometimes porn. Only American and South Korean movies we couldn't get. You could really get in trouble for having those."</blockquote><br /><p>Song-hee was a relatively well-off 17-year-old from a city near the Chinese border, but not well off that white rice with a fried egg on top was eaten more than a dozen or two times a year.<br /><br />North Korea is a notorious exporter of (meth)amphetamine, but this still surprised me. Especially the implication ("<em>usually</em> the cheap amphetamine...") that there are other drugs available.Stephen Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12118017106106571684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342651855089974722.post-4743991362601731992010-07-07T16:28:00.001-04:002010-07-07T20:27:08.169-04:00Russian media and the spy story<P>It looks like the acerbic Yeltsin years were a rare glimmer of press freedom, as Putin's Russia has descended <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704178004575351033461486698.html">back into authoritarianism</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote>On Russia's main national state-run television channels, the spy story led broadcasts only on the first day the news broke. The reports, delivered in a neutral manner, focused on official statements from Russia and the U.S. As both the Kremlin and the White House played down any impact from the scandal on relations, it faded from newscasts in Russia. The reports that did run adopted the ironic tone set by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who joked about the cloak-and-dagger nature of the accusations in a meeting with former President Bill Clinton.<br /><br />"Americans Don't Understand Who the FBI Has Caught," was the July 1 headline in the official Rossiiskaya Gazeta newspaper on a story about reports in the U.S. that questioned whether the accused spies had obtained any sensitive information.</blockquote><br /><p>Meanwhile, the public apparently has a sustained interest for the story, as the WSJ's chart indicates that online searches about the scandal haven't abated since the story broke a week ago. Broadcast TV is by far the most common source of media in Russia, and the government generally doesn't try to censor smaller news outfits and those existing only online who repeat stories (though it does <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Politkovskaya">come after their reporters</a>).<br /><br />Interestingly enough, Russia Today – the government's English-language channel shown abroad – has maintained focus on the story, which seems like an obvious (but effective) way to portray Russian media and society as open:<br /><br /><blockquote>One Russian state-run network has stayed with the story: Russia Today, the Kremlin's English-language news channel mainly distributed outside Russia. "Ever since the first reports....this has been the top story on RT," Margarita Simonyan, Russia Today's editor-in-chief, said in an email. "More than 250,000 people have watched RT videos about the spy scandal on YouTube," she said.</blockquote>Stephen Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12118017106106571684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342651855089974722.post-74508768005499082452010-07-07T12:28:00.001-04:002010-07-07T12:28:00.330-04:00Drug smuggling in 1970<p>From a <a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,904284-2,00.html">Time article</a> published in 1970 about Americans locked up abroad for drug smuggling:<br /><br /><blockquote>Often the youthful smugglers are suckers from the start. In Lebanon, tourist guides around Baalbek's famous Roman ruins sidle up to adventurous-looking American kids and sell them not only cheap hash but identical cheap cardboard tourist suitcases to carry it in. Airport customs officials are so familiar with the suitcases that they almost yawn as they arrest the tourists who show up with them.</blockquote><br /><p>Then there's this:<br /><br /><blockquote>Beirut's notorious Sands prison, where seven Americans are currently awaiting trial, is filled with rats, homosexuals and filth.</blockquote>Stephen Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12118017106106571684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342651855089974722.post-68355306703129300972010-07-07T02:24:00.003-04:002010-07-07T02:29:21.078-04:00Planting the Disney seed in China<P>Whoa, so <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4d6cfd1a-8932-11df-8ecd-00144feab49a.html">this</a> headline from the Financial Times is pretty weird – "Disney to expand language schools in China" – but the cynical take on it is even weirder:<br /><br /><blockquote>The growing Chinese middle class means there is no shortage of parents willing to pay $2,200 a year for tuition of two hours a week. But the schools also enable Disney to forge a bond with a new generation of consumers who may be unaware of the company’s characters and stories.</blockquote><br /><p>The president of Disney Publishing Worldwide tries, unconvincingly, to downplay that part:<br /><br /><blockquote>“We wouldn’t enter this business just to use it as a marketing tool to get Disney in front of people,” he said. “But there’s no doubt that a side benefit is broader exposure to Chinese consumers and to build familiarity with the rich heritage of Disney storytelling.”<br /><br />Government media controls and quotas restricting the number of films shown in cinemas have prevented Disney from establishing its brand in China in the way it has in Europe and the US.<br /><br />The success of the programme has convinced the company to explore other markets. “The next 12 months will be focused on rapid expansion [in China],” said Mr Hampton. But it was also “a very exciting time to invest in Brazil”.</blockquote>Stephen Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12118017106106571684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342651855089974722.post-67511882874512868832010-07-07T01:14:00.003-04:002010-07-07T01:50:29.055-04:00An investment for Robin Hanson<P>InTrade.com's got a contract on its own existence that last traded at 94.9, redeemable for 100 if InTrade.com is still "open for business" by the end of 2010. (InTrade pages are hard to link to, but you can find it by going to <a href="http://intrade.com">intrade.com</a>, clicking "InTrade.com" under the "The Prediction Markets" heading in the left-hand column, and then clicking on the one contract listed.) Each contract pays out $10 if it's successful and charges $0.10 as commission for in-the-money predictions, meaning that if InTrade's still in business, you paid $9.49 for something that would be worth $9.90, for an annualized return of 9.11%. And with the bid at 90 and the ask at 94.9, there may be room to negotiate. Does <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hanson">Robin Hanson</a>'s portfolio average 9.11%, and if not, why hasn't he invested yet?Stephen Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12118017106106571684noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342651855089974722.post-21982893944410284832010-07-06T15:07:00.001-04:002010-07-07T01:12:02.028-04:00Obama aides get no invites to teachers' union conventions<P><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/05/education/05teachers.html">Quoteth the NYT:</a><blockquote>For two years as a presidential candidate, Barack Obama addressed educators gathered for the summer conventions of the two national teachers’ unions, and last year both groups rolled out the welcome mat for Education Secretary Arne Duncan.<br /><br />But in a sign of the Obama administration’s strained relations with two of its most powerful political allies, no federal official was scheduled to speak at either convention this month, partly because union officials feared that administration speakers would face heckling.</blockquote><br /><p>Normally I'd take this is a good sign, but unfortunately, from what I understand of Obama's education policy, the teachers are being misled by a PR machine. He's big on bashing unions in public, but has no problem saddling up to them in private. Then again, despite <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/22/AR2010062204487.html">allowing the DC voucher program to die</a> and <a href="http://spectator.org/archives/2010/01/29/teachers-union-spending-spree">showering public schools with cash</a> as "stimulus," his $4.3 billion Race to the Top program has been <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703483604574630423614312770.html">pissing off teachers unions</a>, so maybe he is doing something right?Stephen Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12118017106106571684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342651855089974722.post-58328690119017434382010-07-04T04:48:00.006-04:002010-07-04T04:52:57.352-04:00SVR defector/double agent may be at heart of Russian spy bust<p>With the recently busted Russian spy ring collecting no information of actual value and having no real access to policymakers, I often asked myself how they got caught in the first place. <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100630_dismantling_suspected_russian_intelligence_operation">Stratfor</a> (search for the article title on Google to access for free) thinks it has the answer:<br /><br /><blockquote> The criminal complaint did not suggest how the U.S. government came to suspect these people of reporting back to the SVR in Russia, although we did notice that the beginning of the investigation coincides with the time that a high-level SVR agent stationed at Russia’s U.N. mission in New York began passing information to the FBI. Sergei Tretyakov (who told his story in the book by Pete Earley called “Comrade J,” an abbreviation of his SVR codename, “Comrade Jean”), passed information to the FBI from the U.N. mission from 1997 to 2000, just before he defected to the United States in October 2000. According to the criminal complaint, seven of the 11 suspects were connected to Russia’s U.N. mission, though evidence of those links did not begin to emerge until 2004 (and some as late as 2010). The timing of Tretyakov’s cooperation with the U.S. government and the timing of the beginning of this investigation resulting in the arrest of the 11 suspects this week suggests that Tretyakov may have been the original source who tipped off the U.S. government. So far, the evidence is circumstantial — the timing and the location match up — but Tretyakov, as the SVR operative at Russia’s U.N. mission, certainly would have been in a position to know about operations involving most of the people arrested June 27. </blockquote><br /><p>This poses another question, though: if the Russians knew he defected and knew knew that he knew about the illegal program, why didn't they dismantle it? I can think of a few explanations: they didn't know he knew, they're incompetent, or they're playing a deeper game and did this all on purpose.Stephen Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12118017106106571684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342651855089974722.post-87867622955517802882010-07-01T21:12:00.002-04:002010-07-01T21:16:40.722-04:00Loyalty to the Russian Federation?<p>While I understand the motives for most of the recent Russian spies – basically, money and power – what I can't understand is Juan Lazaro's <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/07/01/russian.spies.hearing.delayed/index.html?video=true&hpt=T2&fbid=uzeogLzWCCu">insistence</a> that he's still loyal to "the Service" (i.e., the SVR, or the Foreign Intelligence Service):<br /><br /><blockquote>He allegedly told federal agents that he was not born in Uruguay, that "Juan Lazaro" is not his real name, that his house in Yonkers, New York, had been "paid for by the 'Service' and, although he loved his son, he would not violate his loyalty to the 'Service' even for his son," he said after he waived his Miranda rights, prosecutors say.</blockquote><br /><P>What values exactly is he staying loyal to? As heinous and murderous as the Soviet Union was, at least they had nice platitudes that you could pretend they upheld. But the Russian Federation? What, does he just really hate Georgians or something?<br /><br />My best guess is that it's just a bargaining tactic, but it sure would be odd if he really truly believed in Putin's Russia.Stephen Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12118017106106571684noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342651855089974722.post-72611760822366102010-06-23T19:37:00.000-04:002010-06-23T19:38:53.827-04:00No comment<a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/06/affordable_care_act_popular_am.html"><center><img src="http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/6499/75701660.png"></center></a>Stephen Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12118017106106571684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342651855089974722.post-49095861582988288352010-06-21T07:00:00.000-04:002010-06-21T02:50:22.361-04:00Al-Qaeda's new video: apparently they read the newspaper!<p>Al-Qaeda's got a new video out, and this one's in English! Produced by al-Qaeda's media arm and featuring its American spokesman Adam Gadahn, you can find it in three parts on YouTube (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUkJ26AdviI">1</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUGPh6HYos4">2</a>, and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAjUGIwX3LM">3</a>).<br /><br />It starts out with the order that "We Do Not Permit Musical Accompaniment With Our Productions," just as a reminder to those slack terrorist-sympathizing Muslims that the revolution will not be remixed. "Barack," Adam Gadahn begins, "I know that as you slither snakelike into the second year of your reign as a purported president of change, you are finding your hands full with running the affairs of a declining and besieged empire and — in the process — proving yourself to be nothing more than another treacherous, bloodthirsty and narrow-minded American war president..."<br /><br />It goes on like that for a while (that particular sentence wasn't even half over). It's clearly targeted towards an American audience, and sounds sort of like it's come from a drunk Nation writer who hasn't spoken English in a decade; I have a feeling that their Arabic-language videos place a bit more emphasis on killing Americans and Israelis. (Antiwar.com's <a href="http://news.antiwar.com/2010/06/20/al-qaeda-spokesman-gadahn-proposes-peace-conditions-with-us/">story</a> is titled "Al-Qaeda Spokesman Gadahn Proposes Peace Conditions With US.")<br /><br />Gadahn tries to show us he's been keeping up with the news, dissing the Democrats for losing Ted Kennedy's Senate seat and even making an inadvertent plug for the Salahis' <a href="http://gawker.com/5568128/white-house-crashers-are-on-real-housewives-of-dc-after-all">new reality show</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote>And honestly, Barack, as a president who has proven himself to be incapable of keeping intruders out of his own executive mansion, do you really expect anyone to believe that you will be successful in your attempts to keep the Mujahideen away from an entire continent?</blockquote><br /><p>The personal attacks against "Barack" abound, including this stinger: "Make no mistake about it Barack, you're no longer the popular man you once were."<br /><br />His analysis of American politics falls flat when he tries to claim that Obama's falling popularity is due not to healthcare and his domestic policies, but rather to foreign wars. The video then cuts to clips of American veterans criticizing Obama's ongoing wars, thus ensuring that no veteran will ever say anything like <em>that</em> again, out of fear that they'll be coopted by al-Qaeda.<br /><br />Overall, I think Adam Gadahn could benefit from an editor – that guy just doesn't know when to shut up.Stephen Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12118017106106571684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342651855089974722.post-39022179136207049372010-06-18T12:14:00.001-04:002010-06-18T12:16:55.990-04:00Hugs kill terrorists<P><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/05/the-case-for-calling-them-nitwits/8130/">This</a> is the best thing I've read in a while, via <a href="http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/06/the_continuing_3.html">Bruce Schneier</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote> In Afghanistan, as in many cultures, a manly embrace is a time-honored tradition for warriors before they go off to face death. Thus, many suicide bombers never even make it out of their training camp or safe house, as the pressure from these group hugs triggers the explosives in suicide vests.</blockquote>Stephen Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12118017106106571684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4342651855089974722.post-13868434503039562162010-05-23T09:13:00.000-04:002010-05-23T03:49:41.412-04:00The NYT's shitty drug war coverage<p>Despite the paper's supposedly liberal slant, the New York Times' drug reporting is oddly deferential to the government's pro-drug war line, and its reporting suffers either as a cause or an effect. Though they line their articles with caveats and doubts, they spend the bulk of their time repeating the claims of the government, and don't seem to look very far to find opposing point of views to include.<br /><br />Take as an example <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/world/asia/23poppy.html">this article</a> in Saturday's paper about Afghanistan's poppy problem. While opium poppy has been a lucrative crop in Afghanistan for decades, a recent combination of disease and poor weather has stunted this season's yield, shrinking it by as much as half. Rather than a sober discussion of opium's next season (which, let's face it, are good), the Times' C.J. Chivers article starts out by telling us that there's a chance that within months, the shift away from opium is going to begin.<br /><br />The first paragraph that essentially tells us that Afghan opium farmers have never had it this bad (doubt it). In the second we learn that apparently there's also some program run by the US Marines, and as a result "the start" of a shift away from opium "could be possible" within mere months:<br /><br /><blockquote>As farmers around Marja, the heart of Afghanistan’s opium industry, confront harsh environmental conditions and new interdiction efforts, they are also receiving offers of aid in exchange for growing different crops. Both they and the military said that the start of a shift to other sources of income could be possible by the end of this year, when poppy planting would resume.</blockquote><br /><p>In the third we get a generic affirmation and a rebuttal (opium prices are up because of the shortage). The next few arguments are non-novel and pretty general ones for and against the program's success, and slowly the reader gets the impression that there isn't anything more to learn about the specific programs, and moves on, with the impression that there's a vague government program that might help rid Afghanistan of heroin.<br /><br />So it's a huge surprise that half way through the <em>second</em> online page we learn that, in fact, an unknown but potentially huge portion of this program that's supposed to transition farmers from opium to legal crops is a huge sham:<br /><br /><blockquote>Assessing the program’s effect remains difficult. In many cases, according to Marines on patrols who had to verify that poppy fields were destroyed, farmers were paid based on estimates of a field’s size, which Afghans often inflated.<br /><br />Marines and poppy farmers also agreed that many farmers waited until the end of the season to register for payments. Then they quickly harvested their opium, plowed under the stalks and collected payments nonetheless.<br /><br />“That was the only bad thing,” said Cpl. David S. Palmer, who led the squad that provided security for the verification team. “A lot of people were double-taking on us, and there was nothing we could do about it.”</blockquote><br /><p>The only bad thing indeed. But never fear, because it's the thought that counts – in the next too many paragraphs we learn that it's an important "stepping stone," it might be working because "what began as a trickle of cooperative farmers...became a busy queue," the program's helping them "reseize the moment," it's providing "much-needed assistance to some of the poorest people in the world," and the "ultimate hope" is peace and a drug-free Afghanistan. Oh yeah, and "[t]he Taliban’s murder and intimidation program is still ongoing." But don't worry, because "through the subsidies, groups of farmers have begun to meet and cooperate with the Americans and Afghan troops."<br /><br />No real background or reference about past efforts at anti-poppy campaigns, and no citation of any critical voices. And obviously the copy editor wasn't paying attention, because the giant gaping hole in the subject of the article isn't even mentioned until three-quarters of the way through a two-page articles. Let's give it up for another drug war hack job from the New York Times.Stephen Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12118017106106571684noreply@blogger.com0