Click on WORD or PDF for full content
Mary Anastasia O’Grady is skeptical of Fidel Castro’s recent declaration.
…If the regime is to stay in power, it needs a new source of income to pay the secret police and keep the masses in rice. The best bet is the American tourist, last seen circa 1950 exploiting the locals, according to revolutionary lore, but now needed by the regime. It wants the U.S. travel ban lifted. To prevail, Castro needs to counteract rumors that he is a dictator. Solution: a makeover in the Atlantic. …
…We are supposed to conclude that Cuba is no longer a threat to global stability and that Fidel is a reformed tyrant. But how believable is a guy whose revolution all but wiped out Cuba’s tiny Jewish community of 15,000, and who spent the past 50 years supporting the terrorism of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Syria, Libya and Iran? And how does Castro explain Venezuela, where Cuban intelligence agents run things, Iran is an ally and anti-Semitism has been state policy in recent years? Mr. Goldberg doesn’t go there with Fidel.
…When Castro declares that the Cuban model no longer works, Mr. Goldberg turns to Ms. Sweig, as if there is something profound to be grasped. He is not saying “the ideas of the Revolution” have failed, she explains, but only that the state “has much too big a role” in the economy. Right, except that the state-owned economy is the idea of the revolution. …
China is in the headlines for flexing its naval muscles and provoking regional disputes. In the WaPo, Anne Applebaum looks at the increasing economic strength of this superpower.
…Over the past decade, China has kept silent, lain low and behaved more like a multinational company than a global superpower — and garnered enormous political influence as a result.
The fruits of this success are everywhere. Look at Afghanistan, for example, where American troops have been fighting for nearly a decade, where billions of dollars of American aid money has been spent — and where a Chinese company has won the rights to exploit one of the world’s largest copper deposits. Though American troops don’t protect the miners directly, Afghan troops, trained and armed by Americans, do. And though the mine is still in its early phases, the Chinese businessmen and engineers — wearing civilian clothes, offering jobs — are already more popular with the locals than the U.S. troops, who carry guns and talk security. …
America fights, in other words, while China does business, and not only in Afghanistan. In Iraq, where American troops brought down a dictator and are still fighting an insurgency, Chinese oil companies have acquired bigger stakes in the oil business than their American counterparts. In Pakistan, where billions in American military aid helps the government keep the Taliban at bay, China has set up a free-trade area and is investing heavily in energy and ports.
…Quietly, the Chinese have also cornered the market in rare-earth metals, unusual minerals that have lovely names (promethium, ytterbium) and are vital for the production of cellphones, lasers and computers — not to mention hybrid cars, solar panels and wind turbines. Though China doesn’t control the world’s reserves of these elements, some of which aren’t all that rare, mining them is dirty, labor-intensive and ideally suited for cheap production in a country with low wages and lower environmental standards. Nobody else can compete, which is why China now controls 99 percent of the world’s supply of some of these elements. …
J.E.Dyer explains why China’s provocation of Japan should produce concern.
…Difficult as such positions can be for Asian nations to draw back from, it’s China’s prosecution of a material stake in the disputed economic zone off the Senkaku Islands that may keep both sides in confrontation. Japan has reportedly identified Chinese drilling equipment in the disputed area and suspects that Beijing is preparing to drill for natural gas there. Oil and gas exploration by both nations goes back to 2004; Japan has already stated concerns that drilling performed within China’s acknowledged economic zone could tap gas reserves in the area claimed by Tokyo. Taiwan is another claimant to economic rights in the area, a factor that serves to complicate relations among the parties.
China has assumed a position it cannot back off from gracefully — and one involving its most important economic interests. The outcome of this confrontation will be a point of no return in one way or another. Neither China nor Japan will rest if it loses this face-off. More than economic assets are at stake; this is about power relations and the future of Asia. Of greatest concern in all of this is the basic fact that China was emboldened to pick this fight. Beijing apparently calculates that the U.S. will acquiesce in whatever de facto diplomatic triumph China’s leaders can achieve over Japan.
Japan is unlikely to back down, however. The outcome of this incident matters too greatly to its national future. It’s trite to talk about being at a crossroads, but that’s because the metaphor usually fits. Americans are faced with a choice of our own in this situation: either we are relevant to its resolution — a resolution involving one of our closest allies — or we are not. If we’re not, the status quo of the “Pax Americana” will not last much longer.
The Daily Beast has a must-read article from Philip K. Howard on reforming government.
Government is broken. It spends money we don’t have, takes no responsibility for the future, and suffocates daily freedoms under a thickening blanket of unnecessary bureaucracy and litigation.
Both the Democratic and Republican parties are to blame. Instead of appealing to our better nature, they promise short-term self-interest of continued entitlements or lower taxes. Instead of leadership for a responsible society, they attack each other with partisan half-truths, oblivious to the critical need to change course.
Changing leaders is not enough. Decades of accumulated law and bureaucracy have made it impossible for anyone to use common sense. New leaders come to Washington and immediately get stuck in the bureaucratic goo.
Government needs to be cleaned out. Government has a vital role in a crowded society, as a steward of common resources and public services. But it cannot deal effectively with the important challenges of today—whether to contain runaway entitlements or to create clean energy—when resources are committed to goals of past decades. Accumulated law has become a fortress for the status quo. Unnecessary law and bureaucracy also act as a heavy weight on society, making it hard for teachers, doctors, and other citizens to pursue their dreams. Many Americans no longer feel they can make a difference.
Government will never fix itself. Washington and state capitals have become disconnected from the public they serve, focused on partisan tug-of-wars instead of on the vital needs of society.
Change can only come from outside pressure. Americans must come together to demand a new approach to governing. …
In Investor’s Business Daily, Brian Deagon writes about the Tea Party’s use of the internet.
Type TeaPartyPatriots.org into your Web browser, and the roots of the upstart political movement are quickly exposed.
On the right are listings of Tea Party events across America — the latest of 6,000 events posted in the 18 months since the movement and Web site sprang up.
At the site’s lower part are state-by-state lists of links to individual Tea Party groups — 2,400 in all, says Robert Gaudet, the software consultant who designed the site. …
…The site has 127,000 registered members, with hundreds signing up each day. Along with other related sites he created, Gaudet estimates that he has an e-mail list of 1 million Tea Party enthusiasts.
The Internet has allowed the Tea Party movement to be radically decentralized. Really, the movement doesn’t use social networking, it is social networking. No single leader sets priorities and marshals forces, yet activists have managed to channel huge sources and attention on political races and issues. …
We hear about another interesting new advance from the Economist, on dirigible transport.
TRANSPORTING large, clunky bits of equipment has always posed a challenge. Roads and railways do not reach everywhere, and even if they did, many cumbersome and heavy constructions need to be hauled in pieces, only to be put together at the final destination. Aeroplane cargo faces even tighter restrictions on shape and size, not to mention the need for runways. Heavy-transport helicopters, such as the Mil Mi-26 or Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane, address some of these difficulties, but their payloads are limited to 20 and nine tonnes, respectively, and the huge rotors create a powerful downdraft that makes handling that payload rather tricky. So people have long been looking for other ways round the problem. Now, Skylifter, an Australian aeronautical firm, thinks it has found the perfect solution.
The company is developing a piloted dirigible capable of carrying loads of up to 150 tonnes over distances as great as 2,000km (1,240 miles) at a speed of 45 knots (83kph). This would permit the craft to transport not just hefty components, but entire buildings, to remote areas. The company envisages modules ranging from rural hospitals and disaster-relief centres to luxury airborne cruise ships.
Rather than use either a spherical or a cigar-shaped aerostat, as the gas-filled envelope of a lighter-than-air craft is known, Skylifter has developed a discus-shaped one. This means that like a traditional, round balloon—and unlike the elongated dirigible blimps that have hitherto been used as serious modes of commercial transport—the craft is “directionless”. In other words, it is oblivious of where the wind happens to be blowing from, which simplifies load-handling in places where the wind is fickle. At the same time, being flatter than a sphere, the aerostat acts less like a sail than a traditional balloon does, making it easier to steer. The flying-saucer shape also acts as a parachute, affording greater control during descent. …
For years, cardiologists have recommended aspirin in low dosages for heart health. Turns out it also prevents bowel cancer. New Scientist has the story.
A LITTLE aspirin might just go as far as a lot when it comes to preventing bowel cancer – with fewer side effects.
So says a five-year retrospective study led by Malcolm Dunlop of the University of Edinburgh, UK, that compared the aspirin habits of 2800 people with cancer and 3000 without. The team found that the risk of getting cancer was 25 per cent lower in those who had been taking 75 milligrams of the drug daily compared with those who had not …
This small reduction in risk is comparable to that from earlier studies in which the doses were much higher. Andrew Chan of Harvard Medical School in Boston is not convinced: “I still believe that lower doses are not as effective as higher ones.” His 20-year follow-ups on 80,000 women and 50,000 men showed that daily doses of 325 milligrams worked best for preventing bowel cancer.