Joshua Foust on May 22 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
How many of you were as excited to find out we were torturing or helping out the torture of China’s non-terrorist-but-oppressed Uighurs? That line about releasing all Uighurs despite their status as a dangerous threat is extra-rich, too: why release them if they’re “the worst of the worst,” as Rumsfeld called them? Why be afraid [...]
Joshua Foust on May 20 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs
My China correspondent, Chris Bartlett, happens to live near where the earthquake in central China struck. He sent me an account of what happened there. He also reports now that, thanks to an “earthquake warning” from the government, tens of thousands of people are camped out in sports fields and in parks. His story is [...]
Keith_Indy on Apr 30 2008 | Filed under: Domestic Politics, Election 2008, Keith's Page
The sin of omission that Hillary is committing with the re-telling of the Indiana plant moving to China (while not mentioning that it was sold to China during her husbands tenure,) is starting to gather some light. The following story was linked by the DrudgeReport today.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/election2008/story/35337.html
It’s a story Hillary Clinton loves to tell, about [...]
Keith_Indy on Apr 24 2008 | Filed under: Domestic Politics, Election 2008, Keith's Page, Technology
Here’s an ad some of you may not have seen. But now (wonder of wonders) since Indiana is a battleground state in the Democratic primary, it’s been getting plenty of air play during the local news programs.
Hillary Clinton:
Right here over 200 Hoosiers built parts that guided our military’s smart bombs to their targets.
They were [...]
ChrisB on Apr 07 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
Another embarrassment for China.
PARIS, April 7 (UPI) — The Olympic torch was doused Monday in Paris as demonstrators protested China’s civil rights record and involvement in Tibet, police said.
After the flame was snuffed, the torch was put on a bus, moved to another location and relit, Sky News reported. The torch was then extinguished again [...]
MichaelW on Feb 25 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web
It’s not the one you might think. The most interesting observation:
“Not to be overlooked is the massive economic cost of reintegrating an antiquated North Korean economy into the modern economic world. The contrast between a backward North and a modern South recalls the challenges of reintegrating East Germany with the modernized West, a [...]
Peg on Feb 23 2008 | Filed under: Developmental economics, Domestic Politics, Education, Libertarianism, Milton Friedman Memorial Page, Peg's Page, regulation
Due to free markets, capitalism and freedom in general, the world is getting wealthier.
The last quarter century has witnessed remarkable progress of mankind. The world’s per capita inflation-adjusted income rose from $5400 in 1980 to $8500 in 2005.Schooling and life expectancy grew rapidly, while infant mortality and poverty fell just asfast. [...]
Lee on Feb 11 2008 | Filed under: Economics, Foreign affairs, Lee's Page
photo: Simón Pais-Thomas
Toronto police recently seized shipments of 10,320,000 counterfeit cigarettes from China (PRC authorities themselves intercepted nine billion in 2007). Chinese made counterfeits bearing fake American branding such as Marlboro, are produced “in underground operations, caves and old warehouses,” and shipped through Vancouver for sale on a vast black market that has developed [...]
Lee on Feb 04 2008 | Filed under: Foreign affairs, Lee's Page
(photo: Sébastien Boymond-Pfahrer)
Howard W. French notices that attempts to evade and promote evasion of China’s Great Firewall –which blocks vast regions of the web from the Chinese public– are taking off inside the PRC. Li Xieheng, who coded the Firefox proxy plug-in Gladder, has recognized the fundamental weakness of censorship: it relies on the public’s [...]
Lance on Jan 23 2008 | Filed under: Blogs, Developmental economics, Economics, Lance's Page, social science
Hat tip: Tyler.
Chris Blattman has a conjecture, possibly high wages in Africa are holding back growth:
One thing that has always struck me in the African countries I have worked is that the real wages (i.e. wages adjusted for the cost of living) of African formal sector workers seem to be incredibly high, at least compared [...]
Lee on Jan 20 2008 | Filed under: Economics, Lee's Page
Click to enlarge
I thought the map Lance posted from the other day (originally from Strange Maps), which expressed the GDP of foreign countries as US states, based on their approximate equivalent GSP, was a pretty interesting visualization. However, I got to thinking what the same exercise might produce if the big boys were projected onto [...]
Lance on Jan 18 2008 | Filed under: Developmental economics, Economics, Lance's Page, Law, Libertarianism, regulation, social science
This is a stunning statistic:
…the annual expansion in China’s trade has been larger than India’s total annual trade during last several years.
Tyler Cowen hones in on this point, amongst a bounty of good points:
The most important factor that still holds back large [Indian] firms from entering these products is a set of draconian labour laws [...]
Lee on May 29 2007 | Filed under: Environment, Interviews, Lee's Page
A few weeks back I posted a facile little rebuke aimed at the national security implications of Green Party presidential candidate Alan Augustson’s political platform. Alan responded to this in such a way that I realized I had little idea what the Green Party’s position on security matters was, relative to its environmental policies. Indeed, [...]
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