I am in agreement with Tim Blair and Paul Kelly and I disagree with Alan Ramsey on the question of whether Australian Prime Minister John Howard will retire any time soon. I think there is absolutely no way he will go any time soon.
Howard waited nearly 25 years between being elected to parliament becoming Prime Minister. He continued to believe he could eventually get the job despite being written off reapeatedly. Given that level of stubbornness to get the job in the first place, I really cannot see him giving it up if he doesn't have to. It is possible that he might give it up voluntarily if defeat is looming and he doesn't want to go out with an election loss, but defeat isn't looming. Defeat appeared to be looming 18 months ago, but he stuck it out and won. At this point the opposition looks hopeless and Howard looks likely to win another election if he chooses to fight it.
Plus I see two other factors. When Howard was first elected, he announced in interviews that he saw himself as being PM for "about ten years". I can see no reason why he would have changed his mind, and the 10 years will not be up until March 2006. Secondly, if Howard holds the job until December 2004, he will become Australia's second longest serving Prime Minister. The man he will overtake, Bob Hawke, was PM for many of Howard's years in the wilderness, and was the man who beat Howard in the 1987 election. I would think that passing Hawke is something that would be very sweet to Howard. December 2004 will be either after the next election or so close to the next election that Howard will have to fight the next election if he still wants to be PM at that date.
And seriously, how many politicians have you ever seen give up a Prime Ministership willingly? Politicians do not leave office willingly. It is part of their nature.I would personally like to see Peter Costello succeed Howard as PM, but I cannot see this happening any time soon.
Tuesday, December 17, 2002
Monday, December 16, 2002
Brian Micklethwait over at Samizdata asks some questions on why it is so much more expensive to make telephone calls to some countries than others.
Firstly, here is a map of the world, which has been rescaled so that the distance of a place on the map is proportional to the cost of calling the country from the UK. This is for 1998, and the effect has become even more dramatic since then.
Secondly, I blogged on this very question in August. However, that was before I had many readers, so I will largely repeat myself now. The cost of calls has mostly very little to do with international bandwidth (although it has something to do with it when calling places that have to be reached by satellite rather than fibre optic cable, but there are not many such places left) and everything to do with the charges made by the telephone companies for terminating international calls in the country you are calling .
The (simplified) answer to Brian's main question is this. Back in the bad old days, international phone calls were governed by what was called the "settlements" system, in which countries had bilateral treaties, and agreed to charge the same amount for calls in each direction. If there were more calls made from country A to B than from B to A, then a "settlement" was made of the number of minutes of imbalance times a "settlement rate" per minute, as defined in the treaty. Settlement rates varied from country to country, and the more backward the country generally the higher the rate, but they were always far more than the cost of domestic calls.
Since then, we have had deregulation of telephone calls in some countries. If A deregulated but not B, the margins of phone companies in country A were eroded and calls got cheaper, but the settlement rate still provided a floor under the cost of calls to B. This sort of thing is still the case when you are calling Nigeria or the Ukraine from the UK.
If you have deregulation of telephone companies in both A and B, then telephone companies in country B are unable to charge any more for terminating international calls than they are for terminating domestic calls. In this case, you get international calls that are comparable in cost to domestic calls, as is the case when you call Australia, the US, or most of Europe. How low the cost of calls actually is still depends on what those domestic terminating charges actually are, which in turn depends on how efficient and competitive is the domestic market in that country. This is why calls to other EU countries vary in cost, even though deregulation has occurred in all those countries.
A final observation is that a few years ago, the US unilaterally lowered the settlement rates its carriers paid to telephone carriers in many of the worst foreign countries, and simply told them to accept the lower rates or they wouldn't be able to receive phone calls for the US any more. This is one reason why international calls from the US are cheaper than from many other places. Other countries have done similar things, but not always as successfully, as no other country has as much leverage as the US.
As for calls to mobiles, it used to be the case that it cost the same to call a mobile in country B as it did to call a fixed phone in country B. In the days of settlements, this was fine and everyone was making money, as the settlement charge was easily greater than the terminating charge that the mobile operator in country B charged for domestic calls. However, with the end of the settlements system, and the rapid fall in the cost of international calls to deregulated destinations, the cost of a "standard" international call is often less than the termination charges charged by a mobile operator in country B. For a brief while, this meant that telephone companies were losing money on international calls to mobiles, and also that it could be cheaper to (say) call a mobile in London from Hong Kong than to call that same mobile from London. Over the last year or so, this situation has changed, and international calls to mobiles in other countries now usually cost more than international calls to fixed phones in the same country. There are still a few anomalies, but this bug in the system is now largely ironed out.
Firstly, here is a map of the world, which has been rescaled so that the distance of a place on the map is proportional to the cost of calling the country from the UK. This is for 1998, and the effect has become even more dramatic since then.
Secondly, I blogged on this very question in August. However, that was before I had many readers, so I will largely repeat myself now. The cost of calls has mostly very little to do with international bandwidth (although it has something to do with it when calling places that have to be reached by satellite rather than fibre optic cable, but there are not many such places left) and everything to do with the charges made by the telephone companies for terminating international calls in the country you are calling .
The (simplified) answer to Brian's main question is this. Back in the bad old days, international phone calls were governed by what was called the "settlements" system, in which countries had bilateral treaties, and agreed to charge the same amount for calls in each direction. If there were more calls made from country A to B than from B to A, then a "settlement" was made of the number of minutes of imbalance times a "settlement rate" per minute, as defined in the treaty. Settlement rates varied from country to country, and the more backward the country generally the higher the rate, but they were always far more than the cost of domestic calls.
Since then, we have had deregulation of telephone calls in some countries. If A deregulated but not B, the margins of phone companies in country A were eroded and calls got cheaper, but the settlement rate still provided a floor under the cost of calls to B. This sort of thing is still the case when you are calling Nigeria or the Ukraine from the UK.
If you have deregulation of telephone companies in both A and B, then telephone companies in country B are unable to charge any more for terminating international calls than they are for terminating domestic calls. In this case, you get international calls that are comparable in cost to domestic calls, as is the case when you call Australia, the US, or most of Europe. How low the cost of calls actually is still depends on what those domestic terminating charges actually are, which in turn depends on how efficient and competitive is the domestic market in that country. This is why calls to other EU countries vary in cost, even though deregulation has occurred in all those countries.
A final observation is that a few years ago, the US unilaterally lowered the settlement rates its carriers paid to telephone carriers in many of the worst foreign countries, and simply told them to accept the lower rates or they wouldn't be able to receive phone calls for the US any more. This is one reason why international calls from the US are cheaper than from many other places. Other countries have done similar things, but not always as successfully, as no other country has as much leverage as the US.
As for calls to mobiles, it used to be the case that it cost the same to call a mobile in country B as it did to call a fixed phone in country B. In the days of settlements, this was fine and everyone was making money, as the settlement charge was easily greater than the terminating charge that the mobile operator in country B charged for domestic calls. However, with the end of the settlements system, and the rapid fall in the cost of international calls to deregulated destinations, the cost of a "standard" international call is often less than the termination charges charged by a mobile operator in country B. For a brief while, this meant that telephone companies were losing money on international calls to mobiles, and also that it could be cheaper to (say) call a mobile in London from Hong Kong than to call that same mobile from London. Over the last year or so, this situation has changed, and international calls to mobiles in other countries now usually cost more than international calls to fixed phones in the same country. There are still a few anomalies, but this bug in the system is now largely ironed out.
There is something almost sweet about this article from the Washington Post (via aldaily). It purports to tell the story of how Amy Nguyen of Atlanta, daughter of Vietnamese refugees, is being pushed hard by her parents who want her to go to medical school, but ends up giving a nice portrait of just how it is that poor immigrants turn into Americans in a generation or two. It also gives a nice demonstation of how Asian immigrants are moving away from the west coast and into the American heartland (due to the lower cost of housing, and due to business opportunities that exist in parts of the heartland that no longer to on the coast - in short essentially the same reasons why previous generations of immigrants have moved inland.
The situation in which parents from a poor country work extremely hard at relatively menial jobs and drive their children to go to medical school is a very common one. I have seen it in Australia as well as in the US. It's always medical school. This is a high status profession everywhere. Parents understand it, and they understand that it is an option open to their children if they study hard, wheras it would never have been available back in the country they came from, in a way they do not necessarily understand that wider and more amorphous range of opportunities that exist in developed countries today. On the other hand, the thing the parents do understand is that by studying hard, their children can properly enter the middle class. Studying hard is not the only way to succeed, but it is one way, and it is one that is open to you even if you are poor yourself.
Often this sort of pressure works: you end up with serious, intense doctors who are often very good at their jobs technically but sometimes are a little lacking in bedside manner, and have no idea how to have any kind of fun, but they themselves are members of the middle class, and their children end up fairly normal, well adjusted Americans. This takes two generations.
Sometimes, though, you find that parents push children who don't quite have the necessary ability. Sometimes this means that the children are driven to an early nervous breakdown. Sometimes, the relationship between the parents and the children gets a little strained. Sometimes the dream doesn't quite work, but the children turn out okay anyway. (That seems to be how it is going for our Amy. She seems rather well adjusted in the circumstances: a good kid). Sometimes, though, for whatever reason the medical dream doesn't quite work out and the drive ends up going somewhere else, and the child ends up going in some slightly different direction, to the parents' initial disappointment and ultimate amazement. (Isaac Asimov was the child of poor Russian Jews living in Brooklyn, and he was driven by his parents to go to medical school in the 1930s. However, he didn't get accepted due to the combination of an abrasive personality and quotas on Jews in medical schools at the time. Instead he got a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Columbia, and became a science fiction and non-fiction writer, became wealthy, rich, and ultimately famous, and ended up inspiring everybody from Paul Krugman and Newt Gingrich to Master Asahara and (perhaps) Osama bin Laden (Hmm, what is my point here, precisely?).
The thing that comes out of the story, though, is that these people are becoming Americans, and good citizens at that. Many countries are keen on getting foreigners to come and do work that natives don't want to do. Sometimes this is exploitation. But in situations where the children of the immigrants are given citizenship, and are given opportunities to succeed in the same way as are natives, and to be accepted as full members of society, it really isn't. It's a two way thing, and America generally gets this, in a way that many other places don't. (I think Australians generally get this reasonably well, too). Some coutries are less accepting than others. Many countries mix up nationality and ethnic identity. It is much harder to become a German than to become an American, and I think Germany is the poorer for this.
In Australia, the humanitarian component of our immigration program has declined in size in recent years. This saddens me, for simple humanitarian reasons, and also because on past evidence I think that refugees and similar immigrants are often the ones who make the most of the opportunities given them, and who try the hardest to become succesful members of society. In the long run, they and their families seem to me to become many of our best citizens.
And there is this. At a wedding:
That's the other nice thing about this story: the actual Vietnamese immigrants themselves, despite lives of long hard work, actually seem to have found better lives for themselves.
The situation in which parents from a poor country work extremely hard at relatively menial jobs and drive their children to go to medical school is a very common one. I have seen it in Australia as well as in the US. It's always medical school. This is a high status profession everywhere. Parents understand it, and they understand that it is an option open to their children if they study hard, wheras it would never have been available back in the country they came from, in a way they do not necessarily understand that wider and more amorphous range of opportunities that exist in developed countries today. On the other hand, the thing the parents do understand is that by studying hard, their children can properly enter the middle class. Studying hard is not the only way to succeed, but it is one way, and it is one that is open to you even if you are poor yourself.
Often this sort of pressure works: you end up with serious, intense doctors who are often very good at their jobs technically but sometimes are a little lacking in bedside manner, and have no idea how to have any kind of fun, but they themselves are members of the middle class, and their children end up fairly normal, well adjusted Americans. This takes two generations.
Sometimes, though, you find that parents push children who don't quite have the necessary ability. Sometimes this means that the children are driven to an early nervous breakdown. Sometimes, the relationship between the parents and the children gets a little strained. Sometimes the dream doesn't quite work, but the children turn out okay anyway. (That seems to be how it is going for our Amy. She seems rather well adjusted in the circumstances: a good kid). Sometimes, though, for whatever reason the medical dream doesn't quite work out and the drive ends up going somewhere else, and the child ends up going in some slightly different direction, to the parents' initial disappointment and ultimate amazement. (Isaac Asimov was the child of poor Russian Jews living in Brooklyn, and he was driven by his parents to go to medical school in the 1930s. However, he didn't get accepted due to the combination of an abrasive personality and quotas on Jews in medical schools at the time. Instead he got a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Columbia, and became a science fiction and non-fiction writer, became wealthy, rich, and ultimately famous, and ended up inspiring everybody from Paul Krugman and Newt Gingrich to Master Asahara and (perhaps) Osama bin Laden (Hmm, what is my point here, precisely?).
The thing that comes out of the story, though, is that these people are becoming Americans, and good citizens at that. Many countries are keen on getting foreigners to come and do work that natives don't want to do. Sometimes this is exploitation. But in situations where the children of the immigrants are given citizenship, and are given opportunities to succeed in the same way as are natives, and to be accepted as full members of society, it really isn't. It's a two way thing, and America generally gets this, in a way that many other places don't. (I think Australians generally get this reasonably well, too). Some coutries are less accepting than others. Many countries mix up nationality and ethnic identity. It is much harder to become a German than to become an American, and I think Germany is the poorer for this.
In Australia, the humanitarian component of our immigration program has declined in size in recent years. This saddens me, for simple humanitarian reasons, and also because on past evidence I think that refugees and similar immigrants are often the ones who make the most of the opportunities given them, and who try the hardest to become succesful members of society. In the long run, they and their families seem to me to become many of our best citizens.
And there is this. At a wedding:
Later that night, the reception is held at Happy Valley Seafood Restaurant, a Chinese banquet hall with gold dragons on the red velvety walls. All the Vietnamese wedding receptions are held at Happy Valley because the parents like it. Many of their children would rather be in a hotel ballroom in Buckhead. But it's here on Buford Highway they always come. Amy sits near the entrance, signing in the 370 guests, including her parents.
Happy Valley is jubilant bedlam. Waiters crashing into each other with platters of jellyfish soup and chicken feet. Guests taking to the stage to sing Vietnamese karaoke. Old men clinking Heineken bottles, their hands stamped with tattoos from the reeducation camps.
That's the other nice thing about this story: the actual Vietnamese immigrants themselves, despite lives of long hard work, actually seem to have found better lives for themselves.
An incomplete post entitled Harry Potter and the Channel Tunnel Rail Link accidentally escaped into the wild a couple of hours ago. I have recaptured it for now, but if anyone read the first half and is now eager to read the rest, I will post a complete version in a couple of hours.
Update: Actually I got distracted by the subject of international telephone rates, and this post will likely not go up until tomorrow.
Update: Actually I got distracted by the subject of international telephone rates, and this post will likely not go up until tomorrow.
Getting Priorities Right.
Well we clearly cannot have the US navy taking something as dangerous as rogue MP3s into Iraq, can we? I mean, the Iraqis are bad enough with chemical, biological, and possibly nuclear weapons, but if they learn about music piracy, that would truly be the end of the world.
Well we clearly cannot have the US navy taking something as dangerous as rogue MP3s into Iraq, can we? I mean, the Iraqis are bad enough with chemical, biological, and possibly nuclear weapons, but if they learn about music piracy, that would truly be the end of the world.
Ah yes, another report (via slashdot that New Zealander Richard Pearse may well have been flying before the Wright Brothers. Even if true, this remains only a footnote, as the Wright brothers were the ones who actually managed to sell their inventions and thus actually found the aircraft industry. That said, over the last few years Pearse has become a little bit of a cult Kiwi hero.
Possibly the least known of Peter Jackson's films is the spoof documentary Forgotten Silver a which tells us that much of the technology of modern cinema was in fact invented by obscure and now forgotten New Zealander Colin McKenzie, who also went on to make the first full length feature film with sound - in 1908. Jackson was partly inspired by the Pearse story, and by reactions to the Pearse storyin New Zealand. (Forgotten Silver was so well done that when shown on New Zealand television, a great many people did not realise that it was a spoof and took the story seriously).
Possibly the least known of Peter Jackson's films is the spoof documentary Forgotten Silver a which tells us that much of the technology of modern cinema was in fact invented by obscure and now forgotten New Zealander Colin McKenzie, who also went on to make the first full length feature film with sound - in 1908. Jackson was partly inspired by the Pearse story, and by reactions to the Pearse storyin New Zealand. (Forgotten Silver was so well done that when shown on New Zealand television, a great many people did not realise that it was a spoof and took the story seriously).
Sunday, December 15, 2002
It just keeps coming
We have now got to the views of Trent Lott's mother, and the question of whether young Trent was in fact brought up the way he claims. Lott surely cannot survive much more of this. (Josh Marshall also continues to excel on the Lott issue. He's not amazingly kind to John Ashcroft, either).
We have now got to the views of Trent Lott's mother, and the question of whether young Trent was in fact brought up the way he claims. Lott surely cannot survive much more of this. (Josh Marshall also continues to excel on the Lott issue. He's not amazingly kind to John Ashcroft, either).
Adriana Cronin has a piece over at Samizdata on today's marches against the introduction of a very broad anti-subversion law in Hong Kong.
One of the striking things about Hong Kong is that the terrirory's elites when interviewed always make comments about how "Hong Kong is an economic city and the people are not interested in politics", and "Democracy requires a level of sophistication to avoid being the rule of the mob, and the people of Hong Kong lack that sophistication". (Plus various western sycophants have echoed the same words. For one thing if you can make yourself believe this, it is easier to pretend that you weren't screwing the people of Hong Kong over when you handed them over to the Chinese five years ago). However, whenever the people of Hong Kong are given the opportunity to show some democratic spirit, they always do so in huge numbers. We had enormous demonstrations after the massacre in Beijing in 1989 (and on its anniversary every year). We had huge numbers of votes cast in favour of democrats when the people were given limited voting rights by Chris Patten. And we had another demostration today. (If you read the chapter on Hong Kong in Ian Buruma's recent Bad Elements he goes and talks to ordinary Chinese people in the New Territories and he finds a very strong desire for democracy). A comparable country that is also ethnically Chinese is Taiwan, and that country has turned into a vibrant democracy.
I don't know what you do about it, but seeing the rights of the people of a rich, sophisticated and fairly liberal city slowly being taken away by the thugs in Beijing is pretty depressing.
I don't believe that China's fate is to be forever ruled by thugs, and I believe that in the long run China itself may evolve to democracy in the way Taiwan or South Korea did. (If this happens, it will be slow and painful, but it is not impossible). However, in the short term, having Beijing assert its power over Hong Kong is not at all good, although it was sadly predictable. The people of Hong Kong can protest and march for now, but if things really come to the crunch, the mainline Chinese can and will assert their much greater power. A military crackdown is not necessary to do this: you simply use laws like this anti-subversion law widely and arbitrarily.
One of the striking things about Hong Kong is that the terrirory's elites when interviewed always make comments about how "Hong Kong is an economic city and the people are not interested in politics", and "Democracy requires a level of sophistication to avoid being the rule of the mob, and the people of Hong Kong lack that sophistication". (Plus various western sycophants have echoed the same words. For one thing if you can make yourself believe this, it is easier to pretend that you weren't screwing the people of Hong Kong over when you handed them over to the Chinese five years ago). However, whenever the people of Hong Kong are given the opportunity to show some democratic spirit, they always do so in huge numbers. We had enormous demonstrations after the massacre in Beijing in 1989 (and on its anniversary every year). We had huge numbers of votes cast in favour of democrats when the people were given limited voting rights by Chris Patten. And we had another demostration today. (If you read the chapter on Hong Kong in Ian Buruma's recent Bad Elements he goes and talks to ordinary Chinese people in the New Territories and he finds a very strong desire for democracy). A comparable country that is also ethnically Chinese is Taiwan, and that country has turned into a vibrant democracy.
I don't know what you do about it, but seeing the rights of the people of a rich, sophisticated and fairly liberal city slowly being taken away by the thugs in Beijing is pretty depressing.
I don't believe that China's fate is to be forever ruled by thugs, and I believe that in the long run China itself may evolve to democracy in the way Taiwan or South Korea did. (If this happens, it will be slow and painful, but it is not impossible). However, in the short term, having Beijing assert its power over Hong Kong is not at all good, although it was sadly predictable. The people of Hong Kong can protest and march for now, but if things really come to the crunch, the mainline Chinese can and will assert their much greater power. A military crackdown is not necessary to do this: you simply use laws like this anti-subversion law widely and arbitrarily.
This story of the Sydney police working with Asian shopkeepers to smash a protection racket is very encouraging. Ethnic gangs of various sorts exist in Australia (as everywhere) and they mainly get publicity when they terrorise or harass people outside their own ethnicity. However, the vast majority of their victims are people from their own ethnic communities, who often are not able to receive proper police protection because the police do not have contacts in the community, and do not understand the language and/or culture of the victims of the crime. Obviously, such people are entitled to the same help from the police as anybody else, and in this instance it is good to see them getting it.
Saturday, December 14, 2002
The Top 10 Internet Hub Cities
This is like the old chestnut of "London Heathrow is the busiest international airport in the world" which means that Heathrow has more international flights than any other airport in the world. This has been repeated so many times, and misinterpreted so many times that a substantial portion of British people believe that Heathrow is the busiest airport in the world, where in fact Dallas, Atlanta, and Chicago (and now probably more) are substantially busier, but their traffic is mostly domestic.
Still, this is quite interesting. San Francisco is nowhere to be seen, meaning presumably that most of America's international traffic is to (or via) Europe rather than Asia. And what have the Danes been smoking lately?
Update The above post is possibly overly cryptic. I found an interesting list of the world's largest international internet hub cities (most of which are in Europe), and linked to this in the title of the post. It then crossed my mind that the list looked very similar to a list of the world's largest international airports, and that the lists were perhaps misleading in the same way. My first paragraph is talking about air hubs, and the second about internet hubs, although this is not particularly clear unless you have first followed the link. The point is that San Francisco, despite its status as the center of the internet universe is a hub for domestic and not international internet traffic. The US's principal hub for international traffic is New York, suggesting that the traffic is mostly going via Europe or to Europe.
This is like the old chestnut of "London Heathrow is the busiest international airport in the world" which means that Heathrow has more international flights than any other airport in the world. This has been repeated so many times, and misinterpreted so many times that a substantial portion of British people believe that Heathrow is the busiest airport in the world, where in fact Dallas, Atlanta, and Chicago (and now probably more) are substantially busier, but their traffic is mostly domestic.
Still, this is quite interesting. San Francisco is nowhere to be seen, meaning presumably that most of America's international traffic is to (or via) Europe rather than Asia. And what have the Danes been smoking lately?
Update The above post is possibly overly cryptic. I found an interesting list of the world's largest international internet hub cities (most of which are in Europe), and linked to this in the title of the post. It then crossed my mind that the list looked very similar to a list of the world's largest international airports, and that the lists were perhaps misleading in the same way. My first paragraph is talking about air hubs, and the second about internet hubs, although this is not particularly clear unless you have first followed the link. The point is that San Francisco, despite its status as the center of the internet universe is a hub for domestic and not international internet traffic. The US's principal hub for international traffic is New York, suggesting that the traffic is mostly going via Europe or to Europe.
Why do Greens hate the Green Revolution?
One of the key questions of our time. I could come up with a couple of highly unflattering (to the Greens) answers to that question, but I will leave this to Tim Blair . I have written about this before . I will merely add that Norman Borlaug is a very great man.
Where does this anti-science, anti-technology activism come from, precisely? Why, when on issues like food production you can come up with stunningly good news, do you get such hostility to it? We get fervent anti-corporate rhetoric from people who claim they want to help people in the poor world, and yet they are opposed to technology that is the only thing that can feed the poor world. This is quite simply obscene.
(I do wish though that Glenn Reynolds would stop taking cheap shots at the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. The committee gives the prize to someone genuinely admirable more often than not, and the good done by giving it to the right people (Aung San Suu Kyi, Desmond Tutu, even Andrei Sakharov, just to give three that immediately come to mind - there are plenty more) outweighs the fairly minor harm of the occasions where they have got it wrong)).
One of the key questions of our time. I could come up with a couple of highly unflattering (to the Greens) answers to that question, but I will leave this to Tim Blair . I have written about this before . I will merely add that Norman Borlaug is a very great man.
"We need this. This serves a useful purpose," Borlaug says, rapping the table with a pen. "What's happened more and more, from my point of view, for the last seven or eight years since all of this biotechnology has been coming on, is that the gene for common sense and judgment has been eroded all to hell and it doesn't function anymore." Borlaug believes opposition to biotechnology stems more from fervent anti-corporate ideology than concern for human health or the environment.
Where does this anti-science, anti-technology activism come from, precisely? Why, when on issues like food production you can come up with stunningly good news, do you get such hostility to it? We get fervent anti-corporate rhetoric from people who claim they want to help people in the poor world, and yet they are opposed to technology that is the only thing that can feed the poor world. This is quite simply obscene.
(I do wish though that Glenn Reynolds would stop taking cheap shots at the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. The committee gives the prize to someone genuinely admirable more often than not, and the good done by giving it to the right people (Aung San Suu Kyi, Desmond Tutu, even Andrei Sakharov, just to give three that immediately come to mind - there are plenty more) outweighs the fairly minor harm of the occasions where they have got it wrong)).
People of Earth, Your Attention Please.
Well, people of London, mainly. Does anyone feel like meeting up for a pint and/or dinner some time over the festive season? It would be nice to organise a get together. If so, e-mail me at mjj12@btopenworld.com or post a comment to this post.
Well, people of London, mainly. Does anyone feel like meeting up for a pint and/or dinner some time over the festive season? It would be nice to organise a get together. If so, e-mail me at mjj12@btopenworld.com or post a comment to this post.
Bruce Sterling:
This is true, but I don't think it is the point really. If they were doing that, they would be fighting a fairly conventional guerilla war. The more conventional what you are doing becomes, the more insane the idea of fighting a war with America becomes. (America might take a hit or two first, but America will win in the end. The saner you are, the more likely you are to realise this). In order to declare such a war in the first place, you have to be pretty disconnected from reality. Hence, the whole martyrdom complex.
Al Qaeda is way into martyrdom per se. It doesn't make any tactical sense for three suicide car bombers to blow up one hotel. Shouldn't three guys have blown up at least three hotels? And how come it took Al Qaeda 19 guys to bag two skyscrapers, four airplanes and part of the Pentagon? If Al Qaeda had 19 Tim McVeighs and Unabombers on the loose in the USA, blowing up important buildings and people and then hiding and running away, man, the Administration would be coming out of its skin by now.
This is true, but I don't think it is the point really. If they were doing that, they would be fighting a fairly conventional guerilla war. The more conventional what you are doing becomes, the more insane the idea of fighting a war with America becomes. (America might take a hit or two first, but America will win in the end. The saner you are, the more likely you are to realise this). In order to declare such a war in the first place, you have to be pretty disconnected from reality. Hence, the whole martyrdom complex.
Iain Murray points to Peter Ridell's article in the Times, discussing how Britain's long term ban on political advertising on television is likely to be overturned as an illegal restriction on free speech by the European Court of Human Rights. However, both main political parties support the ban, as they think that paying for television ads will send them bankrupt. The fear that such a change will lead to hugely expensive American style political campaigns and associated fundraising is brought up at length.
Something similar happened in Australia about ten years ago. Australia had long allowed television political advertising, with the bizarre proviso that there was an "electronic media cooling off period" for three days before the election in which the election was not permitted to be mentioned in any way on television or radio (be it in advertisements, news programs or any other context).
About ten years ago, the two main political parties decided that television advertising was too expensive for them, and passed a law banning it, and requiring that established political parties be given a certain amount of free airtime, as in Britain. The television networks challenged this law in the courts, and the High Court of Australia eventually declared the law unconstitutional. (The Australian constitution does not explicitely guarantee free speech, but it does guarantee free electrions, and the court ruled that free elections are not possible without free speech, and therefore that the constitution implied free speech on political matters. This seems quite reasonable to me. The "cooling off period" was brought down at the same time). Therefore, Australian television networks continue to carry campaign advertisements.
Americans no doubt find the idea of banning political advertisements bizarre and undemocratic, and I pretty much think they are right. Politics is much more of a closed shop in Britain and Australia than it is in the US. You have to have go through a certain lengthy career path in the party and parliament before standing for any high office, generally, and the American idea that anyone can spend lots of money on a campaign, enter a primary, and get elected is something that the other countries don't really have. Politics is instead for a certain political class, and genteel bans on advertising and free air time given to established parties (and hence their chosen candidates) are a symptom of this. (Airtime is based on votes in previous elections, and it works on a basis of thresholds, so that the official opposition gets equal treatment to the government. Obviously, though, this protects the existing political class). Foreigners are astonished at the huge sums of money spent on political campaigns in the US, and the fact that this to some extent restricts politics to rich people is clearly not good, but American politics is much more of a free for all, and I think this is generally good.
The peculiar thing here is that Australian politics resembles British politics much more than American politics, even though political paid ads are allowed in Australia, and always have been. The sums spent on Australian campaigns are not especially large, and party structures in Australia are similar to those in England. It may be that the ban on TV ads in Britain is more of a symptom of the the closed shop than a cause of it. It may be that the huge sums spent on political campaign in the US have more to do with the structure of American politics (primaries especially) and government (directly elected executives and officials rather than a parliamentary system) and the wealth of America, and the history of American democracy (a free for all is the American way of doing things), than to the fact that paid TV campaigns are legal. If so, the structure of British politics remains safe, even if the law is changed.
Something similar happened in Australia about ten years ago. Australia had long allowed television political advertising, with the bizarre proviso that there was an "electronic media cooling off period" for three days before the election in which the election was not permitted to be mentioned in any way on television or radio (be it in advertisements, news programs or any other context).
About ten years ago, the two main political parties decided that television advertising was too expensive for them, and passed a law banning it, and requiring that established political parties be given a certain amount of free airtime, as in Britain. The television networks challenged this law in the courts, and the High Court of Australia eventually declared the law unconstitutional. (The Australian constitution does not explicitely guarantee free speech, but it does guarantee free electrions, and the court ruled that free elections are not possible without free speech, and therefore that the constitution implied free speech on political matters. This seems quite reasonable to me. The "cooling off period" was brought down at the same time). Therefore, Australian television networks continue to carry campaign advertisements.
Americans no doubt find the idea of banning political advertisements bizarre and undemocratic, and I pretty much think they are right. Politics is much more of a closed shop in Britain and Australia than it is in the US. You have to have go through a certain lengthy career path in the party and parliament before standing for any high office, generally, and the American idea that anyone can spend lots of money on a campaign, enter a primary, and get elected is something that the other countries don't really have. Politics is instead for a certain political class, and genteel bans on advertising and free air time given to established parties (and hence their chosen candidates) are a symptom of this. (Airtime is based on votes in previous elections, and it works on a basis of thresholds, so that the official opposition gets equal treatment to the government. Obviously, though, this protects the existing political class). Foreigners are astonished at the huge sums of money spent on political campaigns in the US, and the fact that this to some extent restricts politics to rich people is clearly not good, but American politics is much more of a free for all, and I think this is generally good.
The peculiar thing here is that Australian politics resembles British politics much more than American politics, even though political paid ads are allowed in Australia, and always have been. The sums spent on Australian campaigns are not especially large, and party structures in Australia are similar to those in England. It may be that the ban on TV ads in Britain is more of a symptom of the the closed shop than a cause of it. It may be that the huge sums spent on political campaign in the US have more to do with the structure of American politics (primaries especially) and government (directly elected executives and officials rather than a parliamentary system) and the wealth of America, and the history of American democracy (a free for all is the American way of doing things), than to the fact that paid TV campaigns are legal. If so, the structure of British politics remains safe, even if the law is changed.
Okay, I have avoided talking about the whole Trent Lott thing, because I am not in America, and the blogosphere is full of it already. However, I can't help but read a lot about it, and at this point, my jaw is starting to drop in horror. My comments in a moment, but first a few repeated quotations explaining why my jaw is dropping in horror.
Start with Andrew Sullivan.
Josh Marshall has the following to say.
And, by the way, there is this lovely Council of Conservative Citizens which Lott is close to. In the brief this group has recently filed in a case defending the lovely practice of cross burning, we get this
Yum. As Josh said, you can defend cross burning on free speech grounds as you would defend flag burning (which I personally will defend on free speech grounds) but I am not sure that is exactly how I would go about it. And as Brink Lindsey points out, these are really lovely guys.
As pointed out by Brink and Andrew Sullivan, here is how these guys defend Lott now.
And this is all just the start. It goes on and on and on.
You do have to ask one question here, and that is "Given that almost all of this was known already, why did this man become senate majority leader in the first place?"
My own politics here. I come from the left. I was brought up to favour social justice. I was brought up to dislike poverty. I was brought up to loathe and detest racism. When I was 19, I would have described myself as a socialist. When I was 19, I would have described myself as a Green. I changed. I realised that government is not the solution to the world's problems, that large government is inefficient and effective, and that the left wing caricature of big business as a group of greedy capitalists out to exploit the third world and rape the world of its resources is largely wrong. I discovered that the mainstream Green movement's cries of impending doom are largely wrong, and I grew tired of the movements undemocratic nature, anti-technology bias, and refusal to listen to clear thinking. I became aware of the fact that free trade, and capitalism, and not aid that enriches corrupt officials and builds pointless dams is the best way to help the poor world become less poor. I became annoyed by the political correctness of the left, and its unwillingless to listen to views other than its own. I found its attitude that "Because we so obviously care and everybody else doesn't, we are morally superior to everyone else" to be tiresome. It's corollaries that "Because we are morally superior, we don't have to listen to your arguments" and "Because you use economic arguments, you are using the language of the enemy, and so you are one of them" are really tiresome. (This is obviously a caricature, and I am ranting about the people who annoy me the most. There are plenty of moderate lefties who don't fit it, but you can find people who fit the entire caricature pretty easily. The key reason I left the left is essentially that I concluded that large government is not the solution to the world's problems).
I discovered that the political left is on its last legs, quite frankly, and I needed somewhere else to go. Many right wing parties support free trade and theoretically support smaller government, and so there there is a certain temptation to support them. And there are plenty of actual enemies out there to fight. If you want to actually help the poor world, there is a tremendous fight against agricultural subsidies to be waged. Free markets are about creating more competition and lowering prices, making the economy on the whole more efficient, and thus helping consumers, not about doing deals, protecting vested interests, and keeping the present rich as rich as possible. And the right wing political parties, the Liberal Party in Australia, the Republican party in America, and others, are also the parties of the traditionally wealthy, who in the South one imagines meeting at the Augusta Country Club to discuss how to get the Bush admistration to protect their hereditory wealth for them. In most cases, people who are already rich become quite conservative: they want government to protect their interests in particular, and not to foster a healthy competitive economy. This flows into true conservatives in a more literal sense: people who want to keep the values of the past. Racist values at times do get mixed into this. Christian Conservative values do at times get mixed into this.
In a sense, if there is a grain of truth in the left's caricature of the right, this is where it is. The vast majority of Republicans are not like this at all. If you come from the left but have moved right because you find the left silly, this is what you are sensitive about. The racist right is not large, but it is the demon you were brought up to loathe most. If you have moved, say, into the Republican party, and you find that your fellow Republicans loathe it too, and will not tolerate it, then fine. You as a former leftie haven't betrayed anyone. If, however, they are willing to keep its company, you find yourself asking questions about them. Do they secretly share its views. If not, why are they willing to tolerate it. Is it because they want to gain power or stay in power so much that they are willing to sign a pact with the devil? Why is the president prepared to tolerate it. (George W Bush is clearly anything but a racist. But still, why did he visit Bob Jones University? Personally I think it was no more than an error of judgement, as he only appears to have done this type of thing once. Plus he has appropriately rebuked Lott). Combine this with the Lott business, though, and people start asking questions about Bush's party, and inevitably some of the mud sticks to him. Was gaining power so important to him that he was willing to cosy up to people like this? If so, does he really have any principles?
What it comes down to is this very unoriginal conclusion. If the Republican party is willing to keep company with someone as loathesome as Trent Lott, and to keep him in a position of leadership, people like me will never vote for the Republican Party. (Of course, I am not American, so I wouldn't anyway). Probably younger people brought up Republican in a post desegregation society will see the Lott affair as a relflection on Lott in particular more than on Republicans in general. Their response is likely to be to hold their noses and vote vote for those Republicans who clearly do not hold Lott's views, but if Lott remains Senate leader, non-traditional potential Republican voters will see the whole party as contaminated by this stench.
In this case, the Democrats will campaign ruthlessly on the issue for the next two years, on a "Where there is smoke there must be fire" basis. The tactic won't even be particularly unfair, given that Lott has managed to get away with these revolting viewpoints in the Republican party, and has managed to actually become senate majority leader, with them. (I have been trying to avoid saying something about this being the party of Lincoln. Oops, failed). The Republicans will suffer very badly in the 2004 elections as a consequence.
However, this pragmatic reason is not why Lott must go. The reason why Lott must go is that the man's views are loathesome.
One of the joys of the blogosphere is that you can rant at length and then send it to the whole world, and nobody will tell you to stop.
Update I am very unconvinced by this William Saletan piece in Slate. There are simply too many instances of Lott having dubious connections and saying dubious things coming to light. His apologies are too half-hearted. It's easy to say something you don't mean in passing because you didn't think about it, but if you do, you simply come out and unequivocally apologise. "I believe that the end of segregation was a tremendous advance for this country. If what I said could have been construed to suggest otherwise, then that was not what I intended and I apologise". He has instead just waffled. Plus one thing that bothers me is the business of voting against the Martin Luther King Day holiday. That just seems a matter of spite. And check out Jake Tapper's piece (via Andrew Sullivan ) in Salon on Lott's friendship with segregationist Richard Barrett. (The piece is subscription only, but you can read it by clicking on some ads, plus Sullivan quotes the important bits. I wonder if his editors at Salon mind).
Start with Andrew Sullivan.
MORE ON LOTT: Let's recap a tiny bit. He fought integration of his college fraternity; he has hobnobbed with white supremacists; he submitted an amicus brief defending Bob Jones University's right to prohibit inter-racial dating; he has twice regretted the fact that Strom Thurmond didn't win the 1948 presidential election on an explicitly segregationist platform; he voted against the Voting Rights Act extension in 1982; in 1983 he voted against the Martin Luther King Jr holiday; last year, he cast the only vote against the confirmation of Judge Roger Gregory, the first black judge ever seated on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In these last three instances, even Strom Thurmond voted the other way. I don't know. What do you think? Again, much of this was already well known about him.
Josh Marshall has the following to say.
In 1989," according to a March 29th, 1999 article in The Washington Post, Trent Lott, "refused to co-sponsor a congressional resolution designating June 21 as Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner Day after the three civil rights workers murdered 25 years earlier in Mississippi."
And, by the way, there is this lovely Council of Conservative Citizens which Lott is close to. In the brief this group has recently filed in a case defending the lovely practice of cross burning, we get this
The particular emphasis of the Council is the protection of the expressive rights of the millions of Americans of British and European descent who hold to conservative views on matters of racial and ethnic relations.
Yum. As Josh said, you can defend cross burning on free speech grounds as you would defend flag burning (which I personally will defend on free speech grounds) but I am not sure that is exactly how I would go about it. And as Brink Lindsey points out, these are really lovely guys.
So I decided to check out the group's website. Let's put it this way: It ain't subtle. At the top of the homepage is a Confederate battle flag. Elsewhere there's a link to an anti-Martin Luther King Day tract, a link to a headline "Caucasian Skull Oldest Found in Americas," and a photo of a black Vanderbilt professor, identified in the caption as an "affirmative action hireling," posing in front of a Che Guevara banner, under the headline "Vanderbilt University 'Professor' Shows His Colors!"
As pointed out by Brink and Andrew Sullivan, here is how these guys defend Lott now.
Sad, sicko raciopaths rule the day, dear friends, and they roil about like maggots in a garbage can eating the flesh of aracial whites who are too stupid to even know they're being repressed and exterminated by those who hate all whites and who seek high profile examples such as Trent Lott to condemn any expressions of white identity. And, the whites who have been weakened by years of trying not to be white, lest any non-white people be offended by their whiteness and white ways, go happily to their genocide rather than standing up and demanding the right to their own self-determination and identity.
And this is all just the start. It goes on and on and on.
You do have to ask one question here, and that is "Given that almost all of this was known already, why did this man become senate majority leader in the first place?"
My own politics here. I come from the left. I was brought up to favour social justice. I was brought up to dislike poverty. I was brought up to loathe and detest racism. When I was 19, I would have described myself as a socialist. When I was 19, I would have described myself as a Green. I changed. I realised that government is not the solution to the world's problems, that large government is inefficient and effective, and that the left wing caricature of big business as a group of greedy capitalists out to exploit the third world and rape the world of its resources is largely wrong. I discovered that the mainstream Green movement's cries of impending doom are largely wrong, and I grew tired of the movements undemocratic nature, anti-technology bias, and refusal to listen to clear thinking. I became aware of the fact that free trade, and capitalism, and not aid that enriches corrupt officials and builds pointless dams is the best way to help the poor world become less poor. I became annoyed by the political correctness of the left, and its unwillingless to listen to views other than its own. I found its attitude that "Because we so obviously care and everybody else doesn't, we are morally superior to everyone else" to be tiresome. It's corollaries that "Because we are morally superior, we don't have to listen to your arguments" and "Because you use economic arguments, you are using the language of the enemy, and so you are one of them" are really tiresome. (This is obviously a caricature, and I am ranting about the people who annoy me the most. There are plenty of moderate lefties who don't fit it, but you can find people who fit the entire caricature pretty easily. The key reason I left the left is essentially that I concluded that large government is not the solution to the world's problems).
I discovered that the political left is on its last legs, quite frankly, and I needed somewhere else to go. Many right wing parties support free trade and theoretically support smaller government, and so there there is a certain temptation to support them. And there are plenty of actual enemies out there to fight. If you want to actually help the poor world, there is a tremendous fight against agricultural subsidies to be waged. Free markets are about creating more competition and lowering prices, making the economy on the whole more efficient, and thus helping consumers, not about doing deals, protecting vested interests, and keeping the present rich as rich as possible. And the right wing political parties, the Liberal Party in Australia, the Republican party in America, and others, are also the parties of the traditionally wealthy, who in the South one imagines meeting at the Augusta Country Club to discuss how to get the Bush admistration to protect their hereditory wealth for them. In most cases, people who are already rich become quite conservative: they want government to protect their interests in particular, and not to foster a healthy competitive economy. This flows into true conservatives in a more literal sense: people who want to keep the values of the past. Racist values at times do get mixed into this. Christian Conservative values do at times get mixed into this.
In a sense, if there is a grain of truth in the left's caricature of the right, this is where it is. The vast majority of Republicans are not like this at all. If you come from the left but have moved right because you find the left silly, this is what you are sensitive about. The racist right is not large, but it is the demon you were brought up to loathe most. If you have moved, say, into the Republican party, and you find that your fellow Republicans loathe it too, and will not tolerate it, then fine. You as a former leftie haven't betrayed anyone. If, however, they are willing to keep its company, you find yourself asking questions about them. Do they secretly share its views. If not, why are they willing to tolerate it. Is it because they want to gain power or stay in power so much that they are willing to sign a pact with the devil? Why is the president prepared to tolerate it. (George W Bush is clearly anything but a racist. But still, why did he visit Bob Jones University? Personally I think it was no more than an error of judgement, as he only appears to have done this type of thing once. Plus he has appropriately rebuked Lott). Combine this with the Lott business, though, and people start asking questions about Bush's party, and inevitably some of the mud sticks to him. Was gaining power so important to him that he was willing to cosy up to people like this? If so, does he really have any principles?
What it comes down to is this very unoriginal conclusion. If the Republican party is willing to keep company with someone as loathesome as Trent Lott, and to keep him in a position of leadership, people like me will never vote for the Republican Party. (Of course, I am not American, so I wouldn't anyway). Probably younger people brought up Republican in a post desegregation society will see the Lott affair as a relflection on Lott in particular more than on Republicans in general. Their response is likely to be to hold their noses and vote vote for those Republicans who clearly do not hold Lott's views, but if Lott remains Senate leader, non-traditional potential Republican voters will see the whole party as contaminated by this stench.
In this case, the Democrats will campaign ruthlessly on the issue for the next two years, on a "Where there is smoke there must be fire" basis. The tactic won't even be particularly unfair, given that Lott has managed to get away with these revolting viewpoints in the Republican party, and has managed to actually become senate majority leader, with them. (I have been trying to avoid saying something about this being the party of Lincoln. Oops, failed). The Republicans will suffer very badly in the 2004 elections as a consequence.
However, this pragmatic reason is not why Lott must go. The reason why Lott must go is that the man's views are loathesome.
One of the joys of the blogosphere is that you can rant at length and then send it to the whole world, and nobody will tell you to stop.
Update I am very unconvinced by this William Saletan piece in Slate. There are simply too many instances of Lott having dubious connections and saying dubious things coming to light. His apologies are too half-hearted. It's easy to say something you don't mean in passing because you didn't think about it, but if you do, you simply come out and unequivocally apologise. "I believe that the end of segregation was a tremendous advance for this country. If what I said could have been construed to suggest otherwise, then that was not what I intended and I apologise". He has instead just waffled. Plus one thing that bothers me is the business of voting against the Martin Luther King Day holiday. That just seems a matter of spite. And check out Jake Tapper's piece (via Andrew Sullivan ) in Salon on Lott's friendship with segregationist Richard Barrett. (The piece is subscription only, but you can read it by clicking on some ads, plus Sullivan quotes the important bits. I wonder if his editors at Salon mind).
Friday, December 13, 2002
Virginia Postrel expresses her amazement (although given her politics, I suspect she is not actually amazed but more simply just impressed) that she can buy five pounds of flour for 69 cents. Brad DeLong follows up by observing that the average American can buy 450 times as much flour for the wages of an hours work than could the average medieval peasant of 1500, and by that measure people today are 450 times richer than in 1500.
I think in actual fact the situation is even better than Brad and Virginia have said. Yes, we are 450 times richer in terms of the amount of food staples we can buy.
However, consider someone who was 450 times as rich as the average person 500 years ago. That person could spend a small fraction of his income on food, and then the rest of his income on other things. However the selection of other things that could be bought was not all that great.
Now consider the average person in America today. He can spend a similar proportion of his income on food as the rich person of 500 years ago. He could then spend the rest of his income on other things. The choice of things to spend the money on today is enormous: vastly greater than what could be purchased in 1500. Cars, DVD players, computers, a much greater selection of foods, and a great many things that would have appeared to be magical in 1500. In purely material terms, the average person today is much better off than a very rich person of 500 years ago, due to the greater choice of products that can be bought. In this instance, greater choice means greater wealth. I think that greater choice indicates at least as great an increase in wealth as the dramatically lower prices (in terms of income) pointed out by Brad and Virginia.
I was talking about similar things when I wrote this article about Ikea a week or two back.
Also slightly related to this is an article (abstract only available online, sadly) by William Nordhaus of Yale, on the "price of light", that is the cost of artificial illumination. He was mainly demonstrating how measures of inflation fail badly (and therefore that statistics understate economic growth badly) over long periods of time.
Traditional measures of the cost of light do not take into account the fact that the quality of the devices we use for illumination (oil lamps, gas light, electric bulbs) have improved dramatically over time (getting brighter for instance). Uf you measure the actual cost per lumen-hour Nordhaus concluded that the cost of light dropped by a factor of 400 between 1800 and 1992. (This is in inflation adjusted terms, I think. I don't actually have the paper handy, so I cannot check that. In terms of the increase in the amount of light that can be purchased with the fruits of an hour's work, the result will be even more impressive).
Of course, our response to this drop in cost is to buy a lot more light (which is not the case so much with wheat) but this is another remarkable statistic.
(Further googling finds me extensive comments on this paper by Brad Delong, which leads me to conclude that Brad is familiar with it)
I think in actual fact the situation is even better than Brad and Virginia have said. Yes, we are 450 times richer in terms of the amount of food staples we can buy.
However, consider someone who was 450 times as rich as the average person 500 years ago. That person could spend a small fraction of his income on food, and then the rest of his income on other things. However the selection of other things that could be bought was not all that great.
Now consider the average person in America today. He can spend a similar proportion of his income on food as the rich person of 500 years ago. He could then spend the rest of his income on other things. The choice of things to spend the money on today is enormous: vastly greater than what could be purchased in 1500. Cars, DVD players, computers, a much greater selection of foods, and a great many things that would have appeared to be magical in 1500. In purely material terms, the average person today is much better off than a very rich person of 500 years ago, due to the greater choice of products that can be bought. In this instance, greater choice means greater wealth. I think that greater choice indicates at least as great an increase in wealth as the dramatically lower prices (in terms of income) pointed out by Brad and Virginia.
I was talking about similar things when I wrote this article about Ikea a week or two back.
Also slightly related to this is an article (abstract only available online, sadly) by William Nordhaus of Yale, on the "price of light", that is the cost of artificial illumination. He was mainly demonstrating how measures of inflation fail badly (and therefore that statistics understate economic growth badly) over long periods of time.
Traditional measures of the cost of light do not take into account the fact that the quality of the devices we use for illumination (oil lamps, gas light, electric bulbs) have improved dramatically over time (getting brighter for instance). Uf you measure the actual cost per lumen-hour Nordhaus concluded that the cost of light dropped by a factor of 400 between 1800 and 1992. (This is in inflation adjusted terms, I think. I don't actually have the paper handy, so I cannot check that. In terms of the increase in the amount of light that can be purchased with the fruits of an hour's work, the result will be even more impressive).
Of course, our response to this drop in cost is to buy a lot more light (which is not the case so much with wheat) but this is another remarkable statistic.
(Further googling finds me extensive comments on this paper by Brad Delong, which leads me to conclude that Brad is familiar with it)
Spam of the year.
"Dear google.com,
I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories..."
(Pointed out in the print edition of New Scientist ).
Thursday, December 12, 2002
Scott Wickstein uses the expression Classic Den Beste to describe this piece in which Steven ruthlessly and in great detail demolishes the anti-Americanism of Harold Pinter. It's well worth reading. On a lighter note, my favourite piece of classic Den Beste is the USAF versus dragons discussion. Steven responded to the (terrible) movie "Reign of Fire". In this movie, ancient dragons are discovered underground and revive. We flash forward 20 years, and civilization has been destroyed by dragons but a few brave people hold out.
Steven responded to this by writing a series of articles in his usual style discussing just how the US Air Force, and in a pinch the RAF, would do in aerial combat against dragons. It was his usual thorough discussion of how this particular weapon would do against dragons, just what the capabilities of dragons would be likely to be, whether the USAF pilots superior training would be effective, et cetera. Stylistically it was just like one of his discussions of how (say) the US marines would do against the Iraqi Republican Guard. Steven eventually concludes that
The follow-up articles, in which questions of more experienced pilots flying lower tech planes, Vietnam, dogfighting, air to air missiles, are even better, WWII in the Pacific, the transition to jets at the end of WWII, the manoeverability of the Mitsubishi Zero, and much more are discussed, all in the context of fighting dragons. It's all completely deadpan, and it is hilarious.
In all there is about 5000 words of this. If you were trying to parody Steven Den Beste, it is hard to imagine a better effort, but he did it himself.
Steven responded to this by writing a series of articles in his usual style discussing just how the US Air Force, and in a pinch the RAF, would do in aerial combat against dragons. It was his usual thorough discussion of how this particular weapon would do against dragons, just what the capabilities of dragons would be likely to be, whether the USAF pilots superior training would be effective, et cetera. Stylistically it was just like one of his discussions of how (say) the US marines would do against the Iraqi Republican Guard. Steven eventually concludes that
What I suspect that they'll discover is that dragon skin makes good shoes and belts, assuming they can find any pieces large enough to be used for that after all the shooting stops.
The follow-up articles, in which questions of more experienced pilots flying lower tech planes, Vietnam, dogfighting, air to air missiles, are even better, WWII in the Pacific, the transition to jets at the end of WWII, the manoeverability of the Mitsubishi Zero, and much more are discussed, all in the context of fighting dragons. It's all completely deadpan, and it is hilarious.
Of course, since dragons are mythical semimagical creatures anyway, it's difficult to guess what flight characteristics they might have. (As Bill points out in another email, strictly speaking dragons as described are impossible for several important physical reasons.)
Flapping wings have many virtues, but one thing they don't do is create huge amounts of thrust (i.e. comparable to a jet engine). The fastest winged creature in existence is a falcon in full dive, which can reach 200 MPH. No natural flier is remotely that fast in level flight. The wings of a dragon are not designed for high speed anyway; they would create tremendous turbulence and drag (if they didn't break off).
An A-10 Thunderbolt II (i.e. the Warthog) is rated 450 MPH. F-15's can exceed Mach 2 for short periods, and typically cruise at 600+ MPH. It is inconceivable that dragons would be able to fly at speeds remotely that fast.
Which means is that the jets would control the pace of combat. They can circle the dragons, come into them from behind, make slashing attacks and leave again, and then reform for the next attack. They can choose when to engage and when to run away, and they can engage when conditions are to their greatest advantage. If the dragon lands, they can strafe and bomb; if the dragon stays in the air they can circle and slash.
Or they can stand back and fire missiles from outside of firebreath range. The problem there would be coming up with a missile which would home in on a dragon, given that they're all designed to attack aircraft. Radar homers would probably be useless; a dragon is big, but it's also flesh (unless it's a bronze dragon heh-heh-heh).
Heat seekers are a different matter; if a dragon has firebreath, how warm is it? It's probably running hot anyway just because if its proportionately large volume relative to surface area. Still, it might not be hot enough to be detected by an AIM-9 Sidewinder unless that was recalibrated to look for a different kind of heat signature.
Which is why I think that it would mainly be necessary to rely on non-guided weapons. For fighters, that means their cannons, which is why the A-10 would be particularly effective. Its 30 mm GAU-8 gun is truly fearsome; it's a 7-barrel Gatling gun, which has a very high muzzle velocity which is added to the forward velocity of the jet resulting in monumental kinetic energy, specifically designed to pierce very heavy armor. I don't believe that even mythical creatures would be resistant to it.
In all there is about 5000 words of this. If you were trying to parody Steven Den Beste, it is hard to imagine a better effort, but he did it himself.
I was talking to a South African friend of mine today, and the subject of the impending cricket world cup to be played in South Africa from February came up. We discussed who we thought would win it. The two most favoured sides are Australia and South Africa. These clearly are the two best teams in world cricket, and they are playing in conditions and cultures that are familiar to them. Both sides have bowlers capable of taking advantage of the hard, bouncy pitches of South Africa, and both have batsmen who play well in one day cricket. Australia in recent years have had a psychological edge over South Africa, and when they play in a big match South Africa tends to crumble. For this reason, if the two sides meet in a semi-final or in the final, my expectation is that Australia will win.
So, how about the other sides. In no particular order
England have been traumatised by their present tour of Australia, are carrying a lot of injuries, and do not really have the playing depth to compete. They will not make the semi finals.
New Zealand have an exceptionally fine captain in Stephen Fleming, are extremely well coached, are often the best prepared side in world cricket and play well in South African / Australian conditions with hard pitches. My expectation is that they will start extremely well and will make the semi finals. In the end they probably lack the playing depth to win the tournament, but they will acquit themselves extremely well.
Sri Lanka are close to being the best side in the world when playing on the subcontinent. If the tournament were being played in India or Sri Lanka, they would be a good chance to win it (as indeed they did when it was last played there in 1996). However, their performances in South Africa (both during their current tour and their previous one in 2000-01) have been very disappointing. Muttiah Muralitharan, one of the best bowlers in the world, has not been very successful against either Australia or South Africa. I do not expect Sri Lanka to make much of a dent on the tournament.
India are the great frustration of world cricket. They have on paper the best batting side in the world, although their bowling is ordinary. In India they can be magnificent. Elsewhere they are very inconsistent. (Actually, that is wrong. Outside India they lose consistently). Their present performance in New Zealand is not inspiring. I don't expect them to go very far in the tournament either. For them to have a shot at winning the tournament, one or more of their world class batsman (probably Sachin Tendulkar) is going to have to have an absolute blinder of a tournament, by which I mean he is going to have to score four or more centuries. He is going to have to do this against the bowlers of South Africa and Australia, which will be hard. To win, India have to score large totals consistently and prevent their opposition from doing the same. They do not have the bowlers to win low scoring matches. A win by India in the tournament is unlikely, although not actually impossible.
Pakistan are for me the great unknowns. They have the ability to produce wonderful players from nowhere, and they have the ability to win anywhere in the world. The last time the tournament was held in conditions like this (in Australia in 1992) they won it. They have bowlers who can exploit bouncy pitches. They played wonderfully to beat South Africa in Port Elizabeth yesterday. (Saleem Elahi appears to be one of those exceptionally good players who appear from nowhere). And yet against Australia a couple of months ago they were terrible. I would bet a large sum of money on Pakistan puting in at least one shocking game and at least one brilliant game in the tournament. (This happened when they won the tournament in 1992, and happened when they were beaten finalists in 1999, although on that occasion their shocking game was the final). However, my feeling is that if any side other than Australia or South Africa wins the tournament, it will be Pakistan. For me they are clear third favourites.
The West Indies only have a chance to get anywhere in the tournament if Brian Lara can recover from hepatitis, get fit, and then dominate the tournament like nobody has ever dominated a World Cup before. Lara is inconsistent, but goes through hot patches every now and then, and when he does he bats more like a god than any other player I have ever seen (with apologies to Viv Richards, who isn't far behind). This is not especially likely to happen, but boy will it be something to watch if it does.
Zimababwe, Bangladesh, Kenya, Namibia, Holland and Canada are just there to make up the numbers.
My overall prediction is that the semi-finalists will be Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and Pakistan. If Australia and South Africa are in different semi-finals, the final will be Australia versus South Africa. If not, the final will be Australia versus Pakistan. In either case, Australia will likely win the final.
So, how about the other sides. In no particular order
England have been traumatised by their present tour of Australia, are carrying a lot of injuries, and do not really have the playing depth to compete. They will not make the semi finals.
New Zealand have an exceptionally fine captain in Stephen Fleming, are extremely well coached, are often the best prepared side in world cricket and play well in South African / Australian conditions with hard pitches. My expectation is that they will start extremely well and will make the semi finals. In the end they probably lack the playing depth to win the tournament, but they will acquit themselves extremely well.
Sri Lanka are close to being the best side in the world when playing on the subcontinent. If the tournament were being played in India or Sri Lanka, they would be a good chance to win it (as indeed they did when it was last played there in 1996). However, their performances in South Africa (both during their current tour and their previous one in 2000-01) have been very disappointing. Muttiah Muralitharan, one of the best bowlers in the world, has not been very successful against either Australia or South Africa. I do not expect Sri Lanka to make much of a dent on the tournament.
India are the great frustration of world cricket. They have on paper the best batting side in the world, although their bowling is ordinary. In India they can be magnificent. Elsewhere they are very inconsistent. (Actually, that is wrong. Outside India they lose consistently). Their present performance in New Zealand is not inspiring. I don't expect them to go very far in the tournament either. For them to have a shot at winning the tournament, one or more of their world class batsman (probably Sachin Tendulkar) is going to have to have an absolute blinder of a tournament, by which I mean he is going to have to score four or more centuries. He is going to have to do this against the bowlers of South Africa and Australia, which will be hard. To win, India have to score large totals consistently and prevent their opposition from doing the same. They do not have the bowlers to win low scoring matches. A win by India in the tournament is unlikely, although not actually impossible.
Pakistan are for me the great unknowns. They have the ability to produce wonderful players from nowhere, and they have the ability to win anywhere in the world. The last time the tournament was held in conditions like this (in Australia in 1992) they won it. They have bowlers who can exploit bouncy pitches. They played wonderfully to beat South Africa in Port Elizabeth yesterday. (Saleem Elahi appears to be one of those exceptionally good players who appear from nowhere). And yet against Australia a couple of months ago they were terrible. I would bet a large sum of money on Pakistan puting in at least one shocking game and at least one brilliant game in the tournament. (This happened when they won the tournament in 1992, and happened when they were beaten finalists in 1999, although on that occasion their shocking game was the final). However, my feeling is that if any side other than Australia or South Africa wins the tournament, it will be Pakistan. For me they are clear third favourites.
The West Indies only have a chance to get anywhere in the tournament if Brian Lara can recover from hepatitis, get fit, and then dominate the tournament like nobody has ever dominated a World Cup before. Lara is inconsistent, but goes through hot patches every now and then, and when he does he bats more like a god than any other player I have ever seen (with apologies to Viv Richards, who isn't far behind). This is not especially likely to happen, but boy will it be something to watch if it does.
Zimababwe, Bangladesh, Kenya, Namibia, Holland and Canada are just there to make up the numbers.
My overall prediction is that the semi-finalists will be Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and Pakistan. If Australia and South Africa are in different semi-finals, the final will be Australia versus South Africa. If not, the final will be Australia versus Pakistan. In either case, Australia will likely win the final.
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