Filed under: Developing Nations, History, Politics, Science/Technology, The Elephant's Child
Norman Borlaug was a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, the Congressional Gold Medal, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Medal of Science, and is credited with saving billions of lives by preventing world famine. This great agricultural scientist remained little known outside of his field.
Thanks to the green revolution, world food production more than doubled between 1960 and 1990. In India and Pakistan, grain yields more than quadrupled. But Dr. Borlaug was more than just a scientist, he was a humanitarian as well. A 2006 book about Norman Borlaug is titled The Man Who Fed the World.
He began the work which led to his Nobel prize in Mexico at the end of World War II. He used innovative breeding techniques to develop disease-resistant varieties of wheat that produced much higher yields of grain. But he realized early on that there was more to it than just plant breeding. It involved time of planting and harvest, and water and fertilizer as well as economics and of course, politics.
During the 1950s and 1960s public health improvements set off a population boom in underdeveloped nations. Books like Paul Erlich’s The Population Bomb were warning that mass starvation was inevitable. “Human misery is explosive”, Dr. Borlaug said, “We’d better not forget that.” Increased grain yields in India and Pakistan helped to relieve a simmering explosion there as farmers turned to their fields and the new bounteous crops.
“More than any other single person of his age, he has helped to provide bread for a hungry world.” Nobel Peace Prize committee chairman Aase Lionaes said in presenting the award. “We have made this choice in the hope that providing bread will also give the world peace.” Dr. Borlaug is one of the great heroes of the modern age, or any age. Few have accomplished so much.
You can read a biography of Norman E. Borlaug Ph.D. here. A Wall Street Journal article is here.
Note: Dr. Borlaug died Saturday, September 12, in Dallas, TX. I wrote the post after midnight, and said only “today” in the post, so it was confusing. Apologies.
Filed under: Developing Nations, Foreign Policy, Latin America, Socialism, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Democracy, Freedom, Honduras
The U.S. State Department staff have recommended that the ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya be determined to be a “military coup.” Last week the Obama-style Good Neighbor Policy announced that visa services for Honduran are suspended indefinitely, and that some $135 million in bilateral aid might be rescinded.
To recap a little recent history, Honduras has been quite aware of the tendency in Latin America for Presidents to suddenly get the ambition to convert their tenure into a more rewarding lifelong term. Observing this, the Honduran people wrote into their Constitution, Article 249, which states that any president who tries for a second term automatically loses the privilege of his office. Mr. Zelaya did attempt to secure a longer term with the help of his buddy Hugo Chavez (who has already declared himself Dictator for life), and the Supreme Court of Honduras ordered the Army to evict Mr. Zelaya from the country.
Back home, things have not been going well for President Obama. His approval ratings are tanking—according To Rasmussen, 42 percent strongly disapprove of his job performance, while only 32 percent strongly approve. His SEIU thugs, ordered to be approving attendees at ObamaCare town halls, have been a little thuggish and exceeded their instructions.
The British released the Lockerbie bomber in return for an oil agreement with Libya, ignoring American concerns. Obama’s budget management has proved to be ephemeral, and the Congressional Budget Office says spending will reach 23 percent of GDP without the health care plan or the Waxman-Markey climate bill.
So with things going so badly, Mr. Obama doesn’t need another loss, particularly from a small Central American country that dares to defy imperial orders from Washington. Behind the scenes, the State Department has been putting intense pressure on Honduras to return Mr. Zelaya to power. Mary O’Grady of the Wall Street Journal says:
Mr. Obama apparently wants in on this leftie-fest. He ran for president, in essence, against George W. Bush. Mr Bush was unpopular in socialist circles. This administration wants to show that it can be cool with Mr. Chavez and friends.
There have been reports that U.S. officials have been calling Latin governments to demand that they support the U.S. position. Prominent Hondurans complain that a State Department official has been pressuring the interim government to accept the return of Mr. Zelaya to power. So in effect they are demanding that Honduras ignore their constitution and follow U.S. orders. Threatening to use all U.S. power against a small, poor Latin Democracy is not exactly a way to be “cool.”
But then promoting Democracy doesn’t seem to be on President Obama’s agenda.
Filed under: Developing Nations, Environment, The Elephant's Child | Tags: African Subsistence Farmers, Feeding Humanity, Nutrition, Organic Food
We seem to have entered an age when belief in eating just the right food reigns supreme. There are, of course, organizations behind this. One of the most often quoted is the leader of the “food police”, the Center for Science in the Public Interest. They fancy themselves as a “watchdog” group, but their activities are more often savaging restaurants, disparaging adults’ food choices and issuing high profile, but highly questionable, reports condemning soft drinks, fat substitutes, irradiated meat, biotech food crops and anything that tastes good.
That the group is able to survive in today’s world is a testimony to today’s obsession with just the right food, the pure food, or organic food that will somehow make life more wholesome, and last longer. CSPI turns up often on slow news days.
Our friend Dennis Avery, Director of the Center for Global Food Issues (CGFI), part of the Hudson Institute, writes often about food issues, but his interest is more in seeing that the world has enough food. He points out, once again, in a new article, that organic food is just a superstition:
The Green Movement has been called “the new religion.” It surely isn’t that. Religion is a belief in a higher power than humanity. The Green movement believes nothing is more powerful than a press release from the Sierra Club or a lawsuit filed by Greenpeace.
The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine recently reviewed 162 scientific papers published over 50 years — and found that “there is currently no evidence to support the selection of organically grown foods over conventionally produced foods on the basis of nutritional superiority.” This is no surprise.
The first researcher to announce the health futility of organic foods was Lady Eve Balfour, one of the sainted organic pioneers. She turned her English estate into an experimental farm, to “prove” organic food was better. She finally admitted in 1977 that 30 years of testing had produced no evidence of nutritional or health differences for organic.
This will make no difference to the sales of organic food because organic food buyers are irrational. They think buying the most expensive foods buys longer, happier lives. No such luck. If organic were healthier, African subsistence farmers would have been outliving American housewives and stockbrokers for the past 90 years.
Instead, Americans eating industrially fertilized and genetically modified crops have been outliving Somalis and Nigerians by about 30 years. We not only have ample high-yield food, but our lives are also protected by vaccines, antibiotics and sterile operating rooms.
The short article is worth your time, for it explains a lot. As Mr. Avery explains: “If the world went all-organic, half the humans would die of starvation. Most of the remaining wildlife habitat would be plowed down to make room for more low yield crops.” That would be a particularly ugly outcome. Food fads are not always rational.
Filed under: Africa, Cool Site of the Day, Developing Nations, Foreign Policy, Freedom, The Elephant's Child
Uncommon Knowledge is back this week as host Peter Robinson interviews Dambisa Moyo, author of Dead Aid; Why Aid Is Not working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa. Dambisa Moyo grew up in Zambia. She holds a master’s degree from Harvard,an MBA from American University, and a doctorate from Oxford, and has worked for the World Bank and Goldman Sachs.
$1 trillion in aid to Africa over the last 50 years, she says, has done positive harm. Ten percent of Africans in the 1970s lived in dire circumstances. Today 70 percent of Africans live on less than $2 a day. Life expectancy is declining and poverty is endemic. The “glamor aid” business, so beloved by celebrities, is malignant. The Chinese, on the other hand, are there to do business and create jobs.
Fascinating discussion, and well worth your time. Each segment (of 5) is only about 7 minutes. I recommend them highly. You will find all sorts of interesting people in previous interviews: Former Prime Minister of Australia John Howard, Thomas Sowell, John Bolton, Andrew Klavan are just a few.
Filed under: Developing Nations, Global Warming, Religion, Science/Technology, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Environment, Junk Science, Liberalism is a Mental Disorder
Happy Earth Day! Steve Hayward, author of the Index of Leading Environmental Indicators (14th edition) which mostly consists of the good news. Today, at NRO, he points out his favorite tidbit from this year’s edition:
Elizabeth Rosenthal reported in the New York Times of a recent estimate from the Smithsonian Institution research in Central America suggesting that “for every acre of rain forest cut down each year, more than 50 acres of new forest are growing in the tropics on land that was once farmed, logged or ravaged by natural disaster… The new forests, the scientists argue, could blunt the effects of rain forest destruction by absorbing carbon dioxide, the leading heat-trapping gas linked to global warming, one crucial role that rain forests play. They could also, to a lesser extent, provide habitat for endangered species.” The next sentence, however, has a drearily predictable beginning: “The idea has stirred outrage among environmentalists,” not because it might be untrue, but because it might blunt support for “vigorous efforts to protect native rain forests.”
Mr. Hayward adds: “Imagine, Environmentalist outrage over potentially good news.” But then they have a lot of outrage over good news. The news that the globe is cooling, not warming, has sent them into paroxysms of fury. Suggest, correctly, that the Arctic and Antarctic have the normal amount of sea ice, or that polar bears are just fine and adapting to cooler and warmer weather just as they have done for at least 130,000 years, and you have a berzerker on your hands. They are not interested in good news — or perhaps it’s just that their definition of what is good news is different.
Filed under: Developing Nations, Progressivism., The Elephant's Child | Tags: Democrat Corruption, Environment, Junk Science
There has been a loud public outcry in vulnerable communities such as inner cities like Detroit. Billed as the biggest bedbug outbreak since World War II, the Environmental Protection Agency held a “bedbug summit meeting” last Tuesday to answer to the public complaints.
Nine years ago, zealots at the Clinton administration’s EPA took Dursban off the shelves. They banned the pesticide chlorpyrifos to praise and enthusiasm from the media and environmentalists. It was the most available pesticide to deal with bedbugs, cockroaches and other noxious pests. It had been available for 30 years in some 800 products in 88 countries around the world.
Henry Payne, writing in Planet Gore describes what happened:
But despite widespread protest in the scientific community, EPA Chief Carol Browner erased Dursban from the shelves. “EPA has gone to great lengths to present a highly conservative, worst case, hypothetical risk based in large part on dubious extrapolations… and exaggerated risk estimates,” said Michigan State University toxicologist J.I Goodman in a typical response.
Even Dr. Alan Hoberman, the principal researcher whose data Browner cited, told the Detroit News he disputed the agency’s interpretation of his findings.
Such critics were also ignored by the press—as was evidence that the nation’s urban poor would be most vulnerable to a ban. Children’s insect-bite allergies and cockroach-induced allergens outnumber pesticide poisoning by 100:1. “Hardest hit will be lower-income families in cities like Detroit, who can ill afford a weekly house call from the Orkin man,” warned News writer Diane Katz, now with the Fraser Institute. “Yet that is precisely what the EPA is recommending as a substitute for a couple squirts from a can of bug spray.”
Nine years later, there is still no satisfactory substitute for Dursban. The EPA, always ready to do the bidding of environmental activists, also banned DDT. That was responsible for millions of deaths in the developing world from malaria, which could have been prevented by spraying huts with a bit of DDT. Ill-conceived regulations have consequences.
The EPA Administrator who approved the ban of Dursban is now the “Climate Czar” in the Obama administration. She remains a zealot.
Filed under: Developing Nations, Heartwarming, Science/Technology, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Endangered Species, Environment, Gas Prices
Good News! A new orangutan population has been found in Indonesia. A team surveying forests snuggled between jagged, limestone cliffs on the eastern rim of Borneo island counted 219 orangutan nests, indicating a “substantial” number of the animals said Erik Melijard, a senior ecologist for the U.S. based The Nature Conservancy.
“We can’t say for sure how many,” he said, but even a cautious estimate would indicate “several hundred at least, maybe 1,000 or 2.000 even.”
The team also encountered an adult male— which threw branches at the crew as they tried to take photographs— a mother and a child. There are an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 orangutans left in the wild, 90% of them in Indonesia, and the remainder in neighboring Malaysia.
These countries produce palm oil, used not only in food and cosmetics, but it is in great demand for making “clean burning” fuels in Europe and the United States. Some rain forests where the animals spend most of their lives, have been clear cut. Palm oil plantations, a lucrative source of employment and palm oil production, have led workers to kill orangutans as marauding pests, in spite of efforts to save the animals.
The inaccessibility of the area where the new population was found, as well as its poor soil and steep topography have shielded the area from development. A Canadian scientist, Birute Mary Galdikas, who has spent nearly 40 years studying orangutans in the wild, says that most of the remaining populations are small and scattered, which makes them vulnerable.
The orangutan is called the “man of the forest.” The story inadvertently shows how very difficult it is to get good estimates of the numbers of a species in the wild.
Filed under: Africa, Developing Nations, Foreign Policy, Terrorism, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Oil Supertankers, Piracy on the High Seas, Ransom, Somali Pirates
In earlier days, first you did the former, then the latter. Today the problem is more difficult. There are ships and crews held for ransom for months. The 25-man crew of the Sirius Star had been held for two months. The U.S. Navy released a film of a canister of cash — supposedly $3 million — being parachuted onto the deck of the oil supertanker.
The pirates originally wanted $16 million, but settled for 3. Then the story gets a little fuzzy. One account says they squabbled over the loot, then a wave washed over their getaway boat and drowned five of them. The picture, however shows a placid sea with no storm on the horizon.
Now it is reported that one pirate washed ashore with $153,000. Another account says the other three swam to shore. A third claims that Somalis traveling along the shore have slowly collected dollars floating in on the tide.
The U.S. Navy is in charge of a task-force designed to prevent such piracy. Some ships have contracted with Blackwater to protect them. Because there is essentially no government in Somalia, there is no law to deal with them. Pirate movies are all very well, but this is not a story of adventure or heroics, and possibly not even truth. But there you are.
Filed under: Africa, Developing Nations, Foreign Policy, News, Terrorism, The Elephant's Child
The Sirius Star, the oil-laden Saudi supertanker which was captured by Somali pirates last November 15, has been ransomed. Its cargo of crude oil was valued at U.S . $100 million at the time. It has been held ever since with its 25-member crew for ransom.
The U.S. Navy released photos Friday showing a parachute, carrying what was described as “an apparent payment” floating toward the tanker. Five of the Somali pirates who released the hijacked oil supertanker, drowned while trying to make their escape with their share of the loot.
Pirate Daud Nure said the boat with eight people on board overturned in a storm after dozens of pirates left the ship following a two-month standoff in the Gulf of Aden. Three people reached shore after swimming for several hours.
More than a dozen ships with about 300 crew members are still being held by pirates, including the weapons-laden Ukranian cargo ship MV Faina, which was seized in September.
The AP notes that “the multimillion dollar ransoms are one of the few ways to earn a living in the impoverished, war ravaged country. Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991 and nearly half of its population depends on aid.” Of course AP, as usual, portrays the bad guys as victims.
Filed under: Developing Nations, Energy, Environment, Freedom, Health Care, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Socialism, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Environmental Extremism, Green Politics, Social Justice
Sustainability is identified as the code word for eco-friendly policies, lower industrial production, lower personal consumption, economic equality and other measures of global “social justice.” City mayors and City Councils all over the country have been recruited by ICLEI– Local Governments for Sustainability. Originally called the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives — hence the acronym — the group is the product of a United Nations conference: The UN World Congress of Local Governments for a Sustainable Future. That conference, held in New York City in 1990 brought together delegates from 200 local governments and 43 countries. They were united by a belief that cities do not need to wait for national governments before taking action on global climate issues. (And the chance for a free trip to a conference and a chance for some good shopping as well).
Ambitious local politicians around the world are using ICLEI as an international platform that allows them to build their careers and quickly network with one another on environmental issues. The international organization is headquartered in Toronto, Canada, and has 150 staff located in 11 offices worldwide. (www.iclei-usa.org)
The Capital Research Center has done marvelous work in explaining the “wonders” of ICLEI and their vision of sustainability. Seattle’s mayor Greg Nickels is the poster child of mayors who have bought into the ICLEI vision.
A 20 cent green tax on paper and plastic shopping bags as well as a ban on foam containers goes into effect on January 1, 2009. He recently shut down a couple of streets to keep people from driving. The Parks Commission is planning to ban beach fires to prevent their contribution to global warming. Utility ratepayers are encouraged to pay a little more on their electric bill every month — a “green” premium — to allow the city to “invest in” solar power pilot projects (Solar? We can go months here without ever seeing the sun!).
Forbes Magazine ranked Seattle the “Most Overpriced City” in 2004 and 2005. In 2008 Forbes called Seattle “America’s Most Increasingly Unaffordable City.” The inflation rate at that time was 5.8%, the highest in the U.S.
At the prompting of ICLEI, and environmental activists, bottled water is being banned by cities all over the country. Ann Arbor, Albuquerque, Suffolk County NY, Takoma Park MD, San Francisco and Salt Lake City. The City of Chicago has used the trend as an excuse to levy a new tax of five cents per bottle of water regardless of size. Washington State is looking into a statewide anti-bottled water law. The proposed law would ban the sale of petroleum-based water bottles as well as prohibit state agencies from buying such products. To top off the insanity, the bill imposes fines for the sale of petroleum-based bottles at $250 per day!
The website www.enjoybottledwater.org explores the depths and complete nuttiness of environmental water nannies. Bottled water has been essential to saving lives in disasters large and small across the world. It is essential for firemen, necessary at athletic events, and useful for people on the road.
In June, 2008, the nation’ s mayors passed a resolution on bottled water resolving that:
The Conference of Mayors encourages cities to phase out, where feasible, government use of bottled water and promote the importance of municipal water.
Last year Seattle and Seattle suburbs were arguing over new sources for municipal water because of the danger of insufficient supplies. Then there is the constant chlorine contretemps which is why many people turn to bottled water, and of course the ferocious fluoride fuss.
If you are really interested in food police, a visit to Activist Cash to investigate the Center for Science in the Public Interest which sounds like a wholesome group, is highly worthwhile. It’s founder, Michael Jacobson argues that people can’t be trusted to make wise and healthful decisions on their own. “People tend to eat most healthily during hard times,” Jacobson has argued. “Heart disease plummeted in Holland and Denmark during the most severe food shortages of World War II. Records of English manors in the 1600s reveal that the peasantry feasted on perhaps a pound of bread, a spud, and a couple of carrots per day.” And that, to Jacobson, is “basically a wonderfully healthy diet.”
So there you go. Environmental activists want to control the water you drink and what you drink it out of, the food you eat, what kind of Christmas tree you buy and what you do with it when you are done with it, and then they want to control the big stuff too.
They want you to drive an electric car. They want you to use only wind and solar power which will not produce enough electricity to maintain your lifestyle or keep your house warm. They want to ban all fossil fuel use, and keep all natural resources where they ‘naturally’ belong — still in the ground. They would prefer that you do not reproduce, for they believe the world has too many people, and they are reasonably unconcerned about other people dying. They want to do all this in the name of saving the planet from vastly over-hyped global warming that scientific observation suggests is a natural process of warming and cooling that has been going on for centuries.
Environmental activists are not particularly interested in the environment. They care about control. They care about eliminating capitalism and freedom, in some vague hope of a socialist utopia to come.
Filed under: Africa, Developing Nations, Terrorism, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Indian Navy, Piracy on the High Seas, Task Force 150
A Hong Kong-registered ship named Delight is the latest to fall into the hands of pirates off the northern coast of Africa. It is now steaming toward Somalia, where it will undoubtedly be held for ransom as was the Sirius Star pictured below.
The Somali government, such as it is, lacks basic law-enforcement agencies to disrupt pirates. It also has a very long coastline along the Gulf of Aden. The neighboring countries of Yemen and Djibouti are a little more stable, but have no more capabilities than Somalia.
There have been 90 attacks on ships by Somalian pirates this year. Commercial vessels in this high-tech era have small, mostly unarmed crews. The International Maritime Bureau says that pirates are currently holding 15 ships and more than 250 sailors. The pirates are well equipped with modern weapons, satellite phones, GPS trackers and fast attack boats.
It’s left to the modern word to police them. The Bush Administration set up a global effort called Combined Task Force 150 under the watch of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet. The current commander is a Commodore of the Danish Royal Navy.
Tuesday, a Somali pirate mother -ship aimed grenade launchers at an Indian naval frigate and tried to ram it. The Indian ship Tabar returned fire, set the pirate ship on fire and sunk it. India’s action has probably saved many other ships. At the moment force is the only way to raise the cost of piracy.
The costs of dysfunctional countries can be severe. The Combined Task Force has 2.5 million square miles to patrol. That is a lot of ocean.
Diplomacy, and even talks without preconditions, aren’t going to be the answer.
Filed under: Developing Nations, Foreign Policy, News, Terrorism, The Elephant's Child, Uncategorized | Tags: Piracy on the High Seas, Saudi Oil Tanker, Somali Pirates
Pirates have seized a Saudi-owned supertanker leaded with more then $100 million worth of crude oil off the coast of Kenya — the largest ship ever hijacked according to U.S. Navy officials. Somali pirates have become increasingly brazen, but this is the first time they have attacked a fully laden oil tanker. “This is unprecedented” the International Herald Tribune quotes a spokesman for the Fifth Fleet, Lt. Nathan Christensen. “Its the largest ship that we’ve seen pirated. It’s three times the size of an aircraft carrier.” The supertanker, the Sirius Star, was hijacked more than 450 nautical miles southeast of Mombasa, Kenya, far to the south of previous attacks. Pirates range over an area from the Gulf of Aden to the Kenyan coast, more than a million square miles. Most ships do not have heavy security, while the pirates are fast and well armed. And most are taken for ransom. Shipping firms are usually prepared to pay, for the sums demanded are still low compared with the value of the ships and their cargo. This seems like a remote crime — piracy in 2008? But the International Chamber of Commerce keeps track of Commercial Crimes. Here is a map of piracy incidents just in 2008. Once it was the Barbary Coast pirates, but now apparently everything old is new again.
Filed under: Developing Nations, Environment, Global Warming, Humor, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Environmentalism, Green Politics, Hypocrisy, Junk Science, Liberal lies
Junk Science’s Steven Milloy reports on the latest thing in green travel:
The World Wildlife Fund’s website states that “It is clearly time for all Americans to roll up their sleeves, to take steps to reduce emissions, to prepare for climate change, and to encourage others to do the same.” We Americans must use compact fluorescent light bulbs, reduce hot water use, turn thermostats down in the winter and up in the summer and use low-flow shower heads and faucets. We should pledge to commute by carpool or mass transit, switch to green power, and get more fuel-efficient cars. We should make our lives more expensive and less convenient so that the Green elites don’t feel too guilty while jet-setting to exotic locales.
That’s for us. For their wealthy donors they have something else in mind:
“Join us on a remarkable 25-day journey by luxury private jet,”invites the WWF in a brochure for its voyage to “some of the most astonishing places on the planet to see top wildlife, including gorillas, orangutans, rhinos, lemurs and toucans.”
For a price tag that starts at $64,950 per person, travelers will meet at the Ritz-Carlton in Orlando, Fla. on April 6, 2009 and then fly to “remote corners” of the world on a “specially outfitted jet that carries just 88 passengers in business-class comfort.” “World class experts — including WWF’s director of species conservation — will provide lectures en route, and a professional staff will be devoted to making your global adventure seamless and memorable.” Travelers will visit the Amazon Rain Forest in Brazil, Easter Island, Samoa, Borneo, Laos, Nepal, Madagascar, Namibi, Uganda or Rwanda, and finish up at the luxury Dorchester Hotel in London.
According to the calculator on the WWF’s website, it would cost in excess of $44,000 to offset the carbon emissions from the jet travel alone. But there is some doubt about the whole carbon-offset thing. it may be just a rip-off. And so it goes.
Filed under: American Elephant, Conservatism, Developing Nations, Economy, Election 2008, Foreign Policy, Liberalism, News, Politics | Tags: debate, John McCain, Obama
Man that was quick. So quick in fact that they had the video out before Obama had finished praising McCain for being right. Apparently he said it 7 times total.
It’s essential to note, that while Obama has his talking points down about McCain being wrong about everything, when it comes down to the facts, Obama is forced to admit, over and over, that McCain’s position is the right one. And throughout the campaign, from the surge to meeting with foreign leaders, to going to Washington to work on the bailout, to Georgia, it has been Obama who has modified his position to match McCain’s — after which he inevitably claims that it was his position all along.
My first impression is that McCain won decisively. I was very aggravated at first as McCain seemed to be letting Obama get away with far too many lies, but as the debate wore on, it was clear that McCain was the one in command of the facts, McCain was the one who looked presidential, bipartisan, and ready to lead, while Obama came across as nasty, bitter, partisan, and as though he were reciting talking points rather than speaking from a thorough understanding and comfort with the issues.
McCain was calm cool and collected. Obama was aggitated, angry, barely civil and constantly interrupting. McCain seemed presidential, Obama seemed unprofessional. I was reminded strongly of Gore’s performance 8 years ago when he kept sighing and clicking his tongue every 2 seconds.
More to follow.
Filed under: Developing Nations, Foreign Policy, Liberalism, News, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Politics, Terrorism, The Elephant's Child | Tags: Congressional Democrats, Democrat Demagogues, Dirty Tricks, Foreign Policy, Nancy Pelosi
President Alvaro Uribe of Columbia came to Washington this week to plead for a free trade pact. He didn’t come asking for very much — only that Congress keep its word on an agreement that will drop tariffs on American goods sold in Columbia. Columbia is perhaps the most valuable ally that America has ever had in Latin America.
President Uribe is looking for a chance to help his country develop as a democracy and prosper in a difficult region. The main result of the free trade agreement would be an increase in investments in his country, and an opportunity for America to sell more to Columbia. The more Columbia is allowed to develop and increase legal investment, the more it will help them to defeat terrorist groups and illegal drugs.
Last July, Columbia put its’ own men in harm’s way in a daring rescue of three Americans held hostage by FARC Marxist terrorists. For that, somebody should get a medal, let alone a trade agreement.
Instead, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who killed the free trade deal last April, refused to meet Uribe, and did not even acknowledge a White House invitation to an event in his honor. Later, her staff complained that Uribe did not call her.
Pelosi has offered a variety of excuses, but the motive seems to be paying attention to the demands of Big Labor at election time. Harry Reid, Chris Dodd and Bill Richardson, supposed Latin experts, seemed unaware of the message that their treatment of Uribe sent to the region.
But Governor Sarah Palin, who is supposed to be a foreign policy lightweight, asked to meet with Uribe on Tuesday in New York. Way to go, Sarah. At least someone knows how to behave when an important leader comes to our country. And she puts our country’s interests ahead of politics, as well.
Filed under: Africa, Conservatism, Developing Nations, Economy, Election 2008, Foreign Policy, History, Liberalism, News, Politics, The Elephant's Child, Uncategorized | Tags: Africa, Democrat Demagogues, Economics, James Shikwati, Liberal lies, Socialism, United Nations, World Poverty
Here is someone you should know. James Shikwati , a Kenyan libertarian economist, is director of a Kenyan Think Tank, Inter-Region Economic Network (IREN). He burst upon world attention in 2005, with an interview in Spiegel Online, entitled “For God’s Sake, Please Stop the Aid!”
SPIEGEL: Stop? The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and poverty.
Shikwati: Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid. The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape. Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor.
SPIEGEL: Do you have an explanation for this paradox?
Shikwati: Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound, development aid is one of the reasons for Africa’s problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn’t even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.
SPIEGEL: Even in a country like Kenya, people are starving to death each year. Someone has got to help them.
Shikwati: But is has to be the Kenyans themselves who help these people. When there’s a drought in a region of Kenya, our corrupt politicians reflexively cry out for more help. This call then reaches the United Nations World Food Program — which is a massive agency of apparatchiks who are in the absurd situation of, on the one hand, being dedicated to the fight against hunger while, on the other hand, being faced with unemployment were hunger actually eliminated…and before long, several thousand tons of corn are shipped to Africa…and at some point, this corn ends up in the harbor of Mombasa. A portion of the corn often goes directly into the hands of unscrupulous politicians who then pass it on to their own tribe to boost their next election campaign. Another portion of the shipment ends up on the black market where the corn is dumped at extremely low prices. Local farmers may as well put down their hoes right away; no one can compete with the UN’s World Food Program. And because the farmers go under in the face of this pressure, Kenya would have no reserves to draw on if there actually were a famine next year. It’s a simple but fatal cycle.
It’s a stunning interview, and do read the whole thing, by clicking on the link above. In another essay, Mr. Shikwati emphasizes that what the developing world needs is trade, not aid, to help the poor.
This is pertinent, not only because of the failure to pass the Free Trade Agreement with Columbia, but because of the Democrat Congress’s reasons for voting against the bill. American Unions have been losing membership and influence in recent years, and they have been ardent supporters of the Democrat Party. They are now calling in the debt. The unions want to force other countries throughout the world to adopt their union rules and environmental rules, and to refuse any trade agreements that do not contain those requirements.
Over the past several decades, in contrast to the claims of Democrats, remarkable progress has been made against poverty around the globe. According to data from the World Bank, the number of extremely poor people has shrunk to fewer than a billion in 2004 from about one and one half billion in 1981. Most of this has been accomplished through increased free trade.
Mr. Shikwati’s comments are also pertinent because the developed world’s rush to put farm crops into their fuel tanks has disrupted the world food supply, and rising energy prices are also harming poor countries. There is both a short-term and a long-term problem. Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank points out that food prices have risen 83 percent since 2005 “threatening to drive over 100 million people into extreme poverty”. Such a move, he added, would “reverse the gains made in overcoming poverty in the last seven years”. Yet we must make sure that we are enacting policy changes that assure that emergency relief will not be required next year and thereafter.
Senator Barack Obama has sponsored a “Global Poverty Act” that would require the United States to increase foreign aid by approximately $65 billion per year. If the Senate passes the bill, it would be Mr. Obama’s first significant legislative accomplishment. Derived directly from the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, the idea has been for donor countries to devote 0.7% of their GNP to aid.
The idea of making the goal of international development aid by rich countries 0.7% of their national income, rather than of any demonstrated need by developing countries or evidence that any such aid could be used effectively is illogical. Nowhere in the world can we point to a country that has escaped poverty through foreign aid, in spite of more than $2 trillion of foreign aid spending so far. The correct question is: How do countries develop economically? What actually works?
The answer is foreign investment and increased trade. If rich countries would open their markets to developing countries, those poorer countries could work their way out of poverty and wouldn’t require foreign aid.
The latest report from the United Nations indicates that the goal, of cutting in half the proportion of people worldwide who live on less than $1 per day between 1990 and 2015, was already 80 percent achieved by 2004, 11 years before the deadline. As The Heritage Foundation reports:
US contributions to this goal are substantial. The U.S. is the largest source of foreign direct investment in developing countries, the largest recipient of developing country exports, and the largest provider of development and humanitarian assistance to developing countries. In a world economy that is increasingly market-oriented and globalized, unprecedent levels of resources are flowing to developing countries. The share of these resources coming from the private sector, primarily through the mechanisms of trade, investment and remittances, dwarfs official aid flows.
Democrats are always anxious to solve problems by taking money from taxpayers to give to those with the problem. But problems are most often not so simplistic that they can be solved by simply throwing money at them. The socialist idea that “redistribution” is the answer and the problem is “rich people” doesn’t meet the most elementary logic test. If we have already met 80 percent of the goal eleven years ahead of time, maybe we should keep on with what we have been doing: Increasing trade, increasing investment, and sharing knowledge.
But that requires looking into what is actually being done, and what the results have been; rather than attempting to grandstand with a bill to solve world poverty to enhance one’s resume.
