Scottish independence would affect the world

And as others have noted, (see: "Why the world should care about Scottish independence"), the UK without Scotland would tip away from Labour toward the Conservative Party; and the UK without Scotland would make Britain more of a Euro-skeptic and less likely to vote "Aye" on a proposed referendum for EU membership.

Scottish Independence Would Shake Up the Global System

September 9, 2014 | Stratfor

Polls released today showed for the first time that a majority -- an extremely small majority, but a majority nonetheless -- of Scots favor independence, although other polls suggest the no camp remains in the lead. A poll is not the election, which will be held Sept. 18, but it is still a warning that something extraordinary might happen very soon. The political union between Scotland and England might be abolished after 300 years. The implications of this are enormous and generally ignored.

Obviously, this raises a host of question about how such a divorce might take place, whether the expected time frame -- divorce by 2016 -- will be adhered to, and how state property might be divided. It also raises the question of Scottish foreign policy. Will Scotland remain in NATO? Will it have membership in the European Union? Will it continue to use the pound sterling, and if not, how will it roll out its own currency?

These are important questions, but far more important issues will follow. One of the principles of the postwar world was the inviolability of Europe's borders. Border disputes were the origin of centuries of war, and so Europe's borders were frozen after World War II to avoid discussion. This may have left some people of one nationality on the wrong side of a border, but this was accepted since the risk of opening the door to border redefinition was considered far greater than any discomforts stemming from the borders that were locked in place.

This principle has been weakened since the end of the Cold War. Still, though the disintegration of the Soviet Union created fully independent states, these were recognized republics within the context of the Soviet Union. One could argue that this did not in fact represent border change. Later, the "Velvet Divorce" of Czechoslovakia into Czech and Slovak successor countries represented another shift, but in a country that had only existed since the end of World War I. The separation of Kosovo from Serbia was a more radical shift but was justified by claims of Serbian oppression. Though each shift weakened the principle of inviolable borders, each came with an asterisk -- that is, each had an aspect that stopped it from being the definitive case.

Scotland separating from England, by contrast, can't be minimized. If that centuries-old union can be revised, then anything can be revised. Scottish separatists' reason for splitting is that they are a separate nation, that each nation has the right to its own state and the right to determine its own destiny, and that they no longer choose to be in union. But if they have the right to determine this, why shouldn't others in Europe enjoy the same right?

For example, modern Spain is an amalgam of regions. One, the Catalan region -- which contains Barcelona -- has a strong separatist movement. If Scotland can leave the United Kingdom, then why shouldn't Catalonia be allowed to leave Spain? Farther east, the Treaty of Trianon gave Romania and then-Czechoslovakia large portions of Hungary along with the Hungarians living there. Why shouldn't Hungarians living in those territories have the right to rejoin Hungary? Meanwhile, if French-speaking Belgians and Dutch-speaking Belgians wish to part ways and return their two regions to their respective countries of origin, why should they not be allowed to? And why shouldn't the eastern part of Ukraine be allowed to secede and join Russia?

Raising the stakes, this is an issue that goes far beyond Europe. There are seemingly innumerable separatist movements in India, China, Africa and so forth. If Scotland has the right to leave the nation-state it is part of and form a new one based on ethnic identity, why can't anyone follow suit? And if anyone can do it, but they are blocked by the state they wish to leave, is resorting to violence in pursuit of independence legitimate?

The Scottish issue -- the claim that the Scots are a separate nation and that all nations have a right to self-determination -- simply cannot be asterisked. Having this happen in the heart of Western Europe would set a clear precedent that would expand geographically and conceptually. It would legitimize similar movements globally and force a reconsideration of what a nation is. Ultimately, a nation would be whatever the majority says it is.

It is doubtful that the Scottish precedent could be contained in Europe. And it is hard to imagine how this precedent might not lead to conflict somewhere, not in the British Isles but somewhere where the existing state would be less inclined to grant the right of self-determination to a separatist movement.

Of course, the separatists in Scotland may well lose, sentiment might change in the post-election negotiations, and so on. But if England and Scotland divorce, the right to separate will become an integral part of international custom -- and it will arouse other movements.

How we suddenly got taller. (Not evolution)

Several times I've heard people say knowingly that today's taller children are proof of evolution. 

In reply, I point to second- and third-generation children of Asian immigrants who tower over their parents. Evolution doesn't work that fast. Evolution is a scientific fact, but it doesn't become manifest in only a few generations. This is all nurture, not nature.

Notes Olga Khazan, "The average European man became about 11 centimeters taller between 1870 and 1970, gaining about a centimeter per decade. A mid-19th century British man stood just five feet, four inches tall, but he was five-foot-eight by 1980."

So I urge everybody to read this article. The upshot: lack of disease and better nutrition, especially in the early years, make children taller. Fewer children/smaller families mean less disease in families; hence smaller families in the West has led to taller children as well. Literate parents and cleaner cities also increase average height.

This may be especially interesting to Americans:

For centuries, Americans were the NBA players of the world. We were two inches taller than the Red Coats we squared off against in the American Revolution. In 1850, Americans had about two and a half inches on people from every European country. But our stature plateaued after World War II, and since then, other countries shot past us. White Americans have grown a bit taller since the early 1980s, but African Americans haven’t.

Today Danes, Germans and Norwegians are all taller than us. Why?  Better health care and nutrition than in the U.S.  Of course, immigrants are most probably bringing down our average, as this year's visit to my local Latin Festival showed me. 

How We Get Tall

By Olga Khazan

May 9, 2014 | The Atlantic

URL: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/05/how-we-get-tall/361881/

British gov't. to Russia: Crimea ain't Scotland

Irony can be pretty ironic sometimes: last year Russia passed a law banning "separatist propaganda" -- exactly the kind of propaganda that it funded in Crimea for months.  

So now if any newly minted Russian citizens in Crimea have second thoughts about joining up and agitate for returning to Ukraine... they can be legally convicted and thrown in jail.  

That door swings only one way, my Crimean friends!

Anyhow, the UK flatly rejected Russia's comparison of the hastily organized and sloppily conducted Crimean referendum -- with no OSCE or UN observers -- to the Scottish referendum that is still six months away, and has the UK government's full blessing.  

U.K. to Russia: Crimea Isn't Scotland

By Matt Ford

March 17, 2014 | The Atlantic 

URL: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/03/uk-to-russia-crimea-isnt-scotland/284455/

Was American Revolution worth it? Revisiting the 'American Dream'

This July 4th we can stop and ponder: was the American Revolution worth it? Here's what NPR had to say about the "American Dream," i.e. social and economic upward mobility:

So, in the 19th century in the U.S., there's unbelievable economic mobility. If your father, for example, was an unskilled laborer, sort of the lowest end of the working hierarchy, then you had an 80 percent chance of doing some more skilled, more highly paid job than your father. At the same time, in the U.K., you had about a 50 percent chance. Half the children of unskilled laborers were unskilled laborers themselves. But by just after World War II, the U.S. and U.K. are converging and the differences start to disappear. And by 1970, the U.K. has pulled ahead. So, by the 1970s, the children of unskilled laborers are more likely to do be doing something higher paying in the U.K. than in the U.S.

Why is that so?  Why is the "American Dream" more alive in Britain today than in America?  There are two basic theories, according to NPR:

• By the 20th century, the U.S. was a mature economy like Britain, without all the exceptional opportunities for growth that exist in a young, expanding nation.

• In early-mid 20th century, the welfare state and education in Britain grew at a faster pace.

These two theories are not mutually exclusive.  I would also point out the respective rates of unionization in the U.S. and UK: 11.1 percent vs. 25.8 percent.  The average in OECD countries for trade union density is 17 percent.  Nordic socialist paradises Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, which top almost every global indicator of economic and social well-being, have well over 50 percent of their workers in trade unions.  In the U.S. we blame falling wages all on globalization, but then we should ask why wages aren't falling elsewhere in G-8 countries?  Unions have a lot to do with it.

And then there is the U.S. tax system, which for the past 30 years has discriminated against wages in favor of income earned through interest and financial securities, thereby inflating inequality and crushing the "American Dream."  Remember this chart?:

Paul Pirie for WaPo  gives us more socio-economic data to ponder:

Most Americans work longer hours and have fewer paid vacations and benefits — including health care — than their counterparts in most advanced countries. Consider also that in the CIA World Factbook, the United States ranks 51st in life expectancy at birth. Working oneself into an early grave does not do much for one’s happiness quotient. This year the United States tied for 14th in “life satisfaction” on an annual quality-of-life study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That puts the United States behind Canada (eighth) and Australia (12th). A report co-authored last year by the economist Jeffrey Sachs ranked the United States 10th in the world for happiness — again behind Canada and Australia. The Sachs study found that the United States has made “striking economic and technological progress over the past half century without gains in the self-reported happiness of the citizenry. Instead, uncertainties and anxieties are high, social and economic inequalities have widened considerably, social trust is in decline, and confidence in government is at an all-time low.”

But the difference is not just in economics or happiness, but also liberty.  Pirie points out that the British Empire (including Canada) abolished slavery in 1833, a full 32 years befoe the U.S. ratification of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. Today's slavery is the U.S. prison-industrial complex that incarcerates more adults, in both absolute and relative terms, than any other country by a wide margin, including Red China and Russia.  

And speaking of Americans' liberty, I have three words for you: N-S-A.  Do I really need to say more?  It doesn't matter, the spooks are archiving this post anyway.

Today, having mentioned some of these factoids to a Brit, I joked about our reneging the Declaration of Independence.  He said Britons are glad America is no longer their problem; they can't imagine trying to govern the U.S.  I joked back, "Yeah, we have enough trouble dealing with places like Texas!"  Can you imagine British PM David Cameron trying to talk sense to the folks in U.S. flyover country? You start to wonder who got the better end of the deal when the U.S. declared its independence....   

Happy 4th of July, everybody!  Have a hotdog and light off a roman candle for me.

UPDATE: If you think I'm unpatriotic, here's a guy who really can't stand the 4th of July: "Hatetriot's Day: July 4th Is America's Crappiest Holiday."

Austerity punks downgrade Britain's debt anyway

Sorry, I missed this story when it happened but it's still worth dwelling on because you won't hear this in the U.S. media.  Fitch's downgrade followed Moody's downgrade of Britain's sovereign debt in February.

Let me underline why these downgrades by the independent ratings agencies are so important: this is the exact consequence that advocates of austerity warned Britain to avoid, and yet austerity has made their worst nightmare come true.

For all you Tea Partyers, let me make it simpler: cutting government spending led to a weaker economy and thus higher government debt, which led to ratings downgrades.

Let me also point out the outrageous, self-serving logic of Fitch:

"The current pace of deficit reduction doesn't seem excessive," Fitch analyst David Riley said. "Other countries in Europe are cutting at a similar speed or even faster."

Translation: "As good little neoliberals, we at Fitch agree ideologically with rapid deficit reduction, but we base our ratings on actual results, which have been awful, so... take that."

That's called damned if you do, damned if you don't, folks.  It's safer to ignore the austerity punks and strive for a growing economy, because the austerity punks are fair-weather friends of budget-cutting states.

Fitch strips UK of triple-A rating, austerity debate deepens

By Christina Fincher and David Milliken

April 19, 2013 | Reuters

URL: http://uk.mobile.reuters.com/article/idUKBRE93I0SJ20130419?irpc=932

UK gov't. wakes up and smells Starbucks' tax dodge

Imagine!  After Reuters published an investigative report in October on how Starbucks paid no corporate tax in Britain, the company has been summoned to testify before the House of Commons public accounts committee!

Now, this may be partly because it's a U.S. company, so it's easy for Brits to pick on Starbucks.  On the other hand, other big "American" MNCs such as Amazon, eBay, Facebook and Google pay little or no corporation tax despite large British operations.  So probably Starbucks has been targeted because everybody can see how many Starbucks cafes there are and how much business they do, and it's absurd on its face to suppose that Starbucks is not a profitable operation in the UK.  The issue is now political.  As it should be.

If only the U.S. would follow suit, and at least shame such companies as G.E., Boeing, Verizon and Mattel that pay no corporate tax.  If only.

And if only we had a group like "UK Uncut" that protested such tax avoiders as Starbucks, highlighting how many social services could be funded if only the company paid its fair share of tax.  

And before you can say the U.S. statutory corporate tax rate is too high, let me remind you that, thanks to legal loopholes and overseas tax avoidance schemes, U.S. corporate tax receipts as a share of profits were "at their lowest level in at least 40 years" in fiscal year 2011, according to WSJ.

Starbucks wakes up and smells the stench of tax avoidance controversy

Cafe chain executive to face questions from MPs, while protesters plan to turn branches into creches and refuges.

By Simon Neville and Shiv Malik

November 12, 2012 | Guardian

URL: http://gu.com/p/3bmkn

Starbucks serves up a lesson on tax dodges

Seattle-based Starbucks is one of those ubiquitous consumer products, like iPhones, that I am just way too savvy, original and discerning to endorse.  In fact I enjoy taking pot shots at these Giants of Cool.

Anyway, I don't know if this story is making news in the U.S., but in Britain, Starbucks' brand name is taking a pounding after a Reuters investigation revealed that the chain has declared zero profit and paid zero corporate tax over the past three years on close to $2 billion in gross sales.  This is despite Starbucks' assurances to investors and analysts over the years that its UK business is indeed profitable, and its main source of revenue to expand into overseas markets!

So how does Starbucks get away with it, legally?  Three accounting gimmicks, according to Reuters.  First, by copying Google and Microsoft:

Like those tech firms, Starbucks makes its UK unit and other overseas operations pay a royalty fee - at Starbucks, of six percent of total sales - for the use of its ‘intellectual property' such as its brand and business processes. These payments reduce taxable income in the UK.

[...]  The fees from Starbucks' European units are paid to Amsterdam-based Starbucks Coffee EMEA BV, described by the company as its European headquarters, although Michelle Gass, the firm's president in Europe, is actually based in London.

Second, like most MNCs, Starbucks by pays "arms length" "transfer prices" to its Starbucks subsidiaries in other countries for its goods like coffee beans and wooden swizzle sticks.  This is basically Starbucks' right hand in a higher-tax country (Britain) paying Starbucks' left hand in a lower-tax country (Netherlands, Switzerland, etc.), and the right hand deducting the payment from its gross profit as a "business expense."

Third, Starbucks uses inter-company loans to its subsidiaries in other countries. Ridiculously, on paper, Starbucks' entire UK operation is funded by borrowed money, and to boot Starbucks UK pays its subsidiaries overseas a curiously high interest rate on that debt.  Starbucks UK (the right hand) gets to deduct the debt and the interest paid from its tax bill; meanwhile Starbucks overseas (the left hand) is based in a country that doesn't tax interest earned on loans.  The money is thus wiped clean.

Meanwhile, mom & pop coffee shops in the UK have no overseas subsidiaries with which to wipe out their tax liability.  Thus they compete with this giant on an uneven playing field. 

So you see, this game of tax avoidance that we all close our eyes to is not just a U.S. problem.  It's everybody's problem.  Governments have to start working together across borders to stop these MNCs from gaming the system at their host countries' expense.  

In the meantime, let's all agree to expand the definition of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to paying your damn taxes in every country where you operate, at least once in a decade, for crying out loud!

Until they pay their taxes... Boycott Starbucks!

London mayor Boorish Johnson toasting Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz for running such an unprofitable operation in Great Britain and paying no tax.

Brits still laughing at Romney since July

Brits are still making fun of Mitt Romney for his July 2012 visit to England on his Partial World Tour of Complete Excellence, when he called Ed Miliband of the Labour party "Mr. Leader" because he forgot his name:

"Let me tell you my favourite – it was when Mitt Romney came to Britain and called me ‘Mr Leader’. I don’t know about you but I think it has a certain ring to it myself, it’s sort of halfway to North Korea.

Miliband, who taught economics at Harvard, added: "Mitt, thanks a lot for that."

"I desperately hope Obama will win," he said. 

Even Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader David Cameron said at a recent gathering that: "Mitt Romney has that unique distinction of uniting all of England against him with his various remarks."

Clearly, Romney is not prepared to step out on the world stage.

Ed Miliband Thanks Mitt Romney For His 'North Korean Mr Leader' Greeting

By Ned Simons

October 3, 2012 | Huffington Post UK 

URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/10/03/ed-miliband-thanks-mitt-romney-for-his-north-korean-greeting_n_1934887.html?utm_hp_ref=uk

Labour wants Glass-Steagall for Britain

So liberals in the UK recognize the need to institute their own version of America's now defunct Glass-Steagall Act, but American liberals and conservatives still haven't come around to re-instituting this commonsense measure that was passed in 1933 after the Great Crash to separate banks' customers' deposits from banks' investment activities.

Miliband said: "Either they can do it themselves – which frankly is not what has happened over the past year – or the next Labour government will, by law, break up retail and investment banks."

Hear, hear!  Let's take a lesson from those who have taken a lesson from us!

UPDATE: Ed Miliband is the guy Romney called "Mr. Leader" on his Partial World Tour of Complete Excellence because Romney couldn't remember his name.

Ed Miliband tells British banks: change now or be broken up

Labour leader gives ultimatum to City and says: 'We will split off casino operations'

By Toby Helm, Andrew Rawnsley, Phillip Inman and Daniel Boffey

September 29, 2012 | Observer

URL: http://gu.com/p/3an9y

Western hypocrisy on Pussy Riot

Indeed, hypocrisy can be pretty hypocritical sometimes.  Britain has no constitution therefore no constitutional protection of free speech.  And even in the U.S., accredited journalists are arrested with impunity simply for doing their job.  Check it out here.

By the way, the punk performance in an Orthodox Church during services was not the first time one of the Pussy Riot girls, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, engaged in some shocking political theater in an unexpected and inappropriate place, as The Exiled reminds us.

Well, at least it was in a biology museum, not a church.

The west's hypocrisy over Pussy Riot is breathtaking

By Simon Jenkins

August 21, 2012 | Guardian

URL: http://gu.com/p/39qap

Murdoch: Paid sick leave for Aussies and Brits, not Americans

Why does this eavesdropping old vampire think New York or anybody in America should listen to him?  He doesn't want American workers to have any paid sick leave. Meanwhile, guaranteed paid sick leave is good enough for his home country, Australia, and the center of his media empire, Great Britain.

Murdoch thinks his adopted country's citizens should work like dogs while the rest of the world lives a civilized life.  How kind.

Rupert Murdoch: Paid Sick Leave Rules Will Kill Small Businesses

By Nate C. Hindman

August 6, 2012 | Huffington Post

URL: http://huff.to/NY9bNU

Britain: Our 'special' friends w/out benefits?

America is kind of like Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian: you have to be ready to spend loads of money all over the world with us if you want to be our "special" friends.

Britain may not be able to afford 'special relationship' with US, General Sir David Richards warns

Britain could soon be forced to abandon the "special relationship" with the United States because it may not be worth the cost in military spending, the head of the Armed Forces said Wednesday.

By Jon Swaine

May 23, 2012 | Telegraph

URL:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/9286432/Britain-may-not-be-able-to-afford-special-relationship-with-US-General-Sir-David-Richards-warns.html

Recovered history: Rural Brits forced from their land and into factories

Take everything you thought you knew about Adam Smith and his contemporaries and capitalism and throw it in the crapper.  

According to Yasha Levine, the new book by Prof. Michale Perelmen, The Invention of Capitalism, shows what these Enlightened Ones really thought about industrialization and the poor, working class -- simply by quoting them!  (Gee, whoda thoughta doin' dat?!)

Now I'm not saying let's throw over the West to Marxism -- the likely throw-away retort of my would-be antagonists.  No.  But I am saying, once again:  there never was a golden age.  Our predecessors were almost always worse than we were, if not in words and refined manners then in thoughts and deeds.  (Think four-year-olds in factories; slavery; debtors' prisons; woman as second-class citizens, etc.)  And this is why conservatism is fundamentally wrong: there is not much good in history to harken back to.  The past is darkness illuminated only by occasional stars.  There is only forward, forward, to a perfection of human society.  

And that is why Progressivism is where it's at:  reining in capitalism's abuses and taming the corporations who have no allegiance to humanity, only the bottom line, because -- unlike our friend Mitt maintains -- they are not people.  We are the people.  And if we want corporations to act more like people, then we need government to force them.  That is the undeniable vector of political economy over the past 200 years, and that's where history is inevitably taking us further, whether Tea Parties like it or not.  

But to perfect ourselves we have to acknowledge our ugly qualities -- many of them inherited from even uglier forbears -- in the mirror.  So read this and get yerselves edumacated, folks.

Recovered Economic History:  "Everyone But An Idiot Knows That The Lower Classes Must Be Poor, Or They Will Never Be Industrious"

By Yasha Levine

April 5, 2012 | The Exiled

URL:  http://exiledonline.com/recovered-economic-history-everyone-but-an-idiot-knows-that-the-lower-classes-must-be-kept-poor-or-they-will-never-be-industrious/

W's 'smoking gun' Curveball comes clean

Lest we forget the deceit and ignominy of the Dubya years...

...Plus a scandalous new revelation about the real reason for Russian spy babe Anna Chapman's deportation from the U.S.!

Man whose WMD lies led to 100,000 deaths confesses all

Defector tells how US officials 'sexed up' his fictions to make the case for 2003 invasion

By Jonathan Owen

April 1, 2012 | The Independent

A man whose lies helped to make the case for invading Iraq – starting a nine-year war costing more than 100,000 lives and hundreds of billions of pounds – will come clean in his first British television interview tomorrow.

"Curveball", the Iraqi defector who fabricated claims about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, smiles as he confirms how he made the whole thing up. It was a confidence trick that changed the course of history, with Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi's lies used to justify the Iraq war.

He tries to defend his actions: "My main purpose was to topple the tyrant in Iraq because the longer this dictator remains in power, the more the Iraqi people will suffer from this regime's oppression."

The chemical engineer claimed to have overseen the building of a mobile biological laboratory when he sought political asylum in Germany in 1999.  His lies were presented as "facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence" by Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, when making the case for war at the UN Security Council in February 2003.

But Mr Janabi, speaking in a two-part series, Modern Spies, starting tomorrow on BBC2, says none of it was true.  When it is put to him "we went to war in Iraq on a lie. And that lie was your lie", he simply replies: "Yes."

US officials "sexed up" Mr Janabi's drawings of mobile biological weapons labs to make them more presentable, admits Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, General Powell's former chief of staff. "I brought the White House team in to do the graphics," he says, adding how "intelligence was being worked to fit around the policy".

As for his former boss: "I don't see any way on this earth that Secretary Powell doesn't feel almost a rage about Curveball and the way he was used in regards to that intelligence."

Another revelation in the series is the real reason why the FBI swooped on Russian spy Anna Chapman in 2010. Top officials feared the glamorous Russian agent wanted to seduce one of US President Barack Obama's inner circle. Frank Figliuzzi, the FBI's head of counterintelligence, reveals how she got "closer and closer to higher and higher ranking leadership... she got close enough to disturb us".

The fear that Chapman would compromise a senior US official in a "honey trap" was a key reason for the arrest and deportation of the Russian spy ring of 10 people, of which she was a part, in 2010. "We were becoming very concerned," he says. "They were getting close enough to a sitting US cabinet member that we thought we could no longer allow this to continue." Mr Figliuzzi refuses to name the individual who was being targeted.

Several British spies also feature in the programme, in the first time that serving intelligence officers have been interviewed on television.  In contrast to the US intelligence figures, the British spies are cloaked in darkness, their voices dubbed by actors.  BBC veteran reporter Peter Taylor, who worked for a year putting the documentary together, describes them as "ordinary people who are committed to what they do" and "a million miles" from the spies depicted in film. He adds: "What surprised me was the extent to which they work within a civil service bureaucracy. Everything has to be signed off... you've got to have authorisation signed in triplicate."

Would-be agents should abandon any Hollywood fantasies they may have, says Sonya Holt at the CIA recruitment centre. "They think it's more like the movies, that they are going to be jumping out of cars and that everyone carries a weapon... Yes we're collecting intelligence but we don't all drive fast cars. You're going to be writing reports; you're in meetings so it's not always that glamorous image of what you see in the movies."

Britain Vice PM: Israeli settlements are 'vandalism'

When you're not beholden to the Israel lobby as a politician, sometimes you can get away with telling the truth. Hear, hear!

Nick Clegg: Israel Settlements Are 'Deliberate Vandalism'

By David Stringer

January 16, 2012 | Huffington Post

URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/16/nick-clegg-criticizes-israel_n_1208661.html

STEM education myth pervades UK, too

Looks like they have the same situation in the UK as we have in the US: near unanimous agreement that the country needs more science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) graduates to be competitive globally; and at the same time, statistics showing a large number of their STEM graduates out of work, or not working in a STEM profession, even before the recession.

I'm not a conspiracy nut, but on our side of the pond, I'm starting to think this is partly about inflating the bubble for school loans, which now totals nearly $1 trillion in the US -- more than credit card debt!

Or more likely, it's just lazy thinking by people on both sides of the Atlantic who should know better. Namely, scientists who are trained to analyze numbers and reach inescapable conclusions.

There is a third, more alarming possibility though: our business leaders and policy makers may have no other answers, because the neo-liberal consensus has ruled out all others. We've already vilified and destroyed private-sector unions who might have prevented STEM jobs from leaving the country. Raising taxes or cutting subsidies on corporations which ship STEM jobs abroad is out of the question. Government and university budgets for research are on the chopping block, despite the many innovative ideas -- and business startups -- they spawn. And protectionism is now a dirty word on the left and right. And so public and private sector leaders continue to say that more and better education/training is a panacea for disappearing high-skilled, middle-class jobs in developed countries, because they have to say something.

I admit it, it's frightening to think that even more MAs and PhD's in STEM won't make us more competitive, because if not, then what in the world can we do? But hard truths must be faced. How long are ordinary folks going to passively accept the STEM education myth instead of demanding real answers to the lack of good jobs?

Do we really need more science graduates?

By Charlie Ball

July 20, 2011 | NewScientist

URL: http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/bigwideworld/2011/07/do-we-really-need-more-science-graduates.html

1001 Muslim inventions that changed the world

Last month I was fortunate to see in the Science Museum in London the exhibition "1001 Muslim Inventions:"

http://www.1001inventions.com/

You can watch an interesting film starring Ben Kingsley and other British actors to demonstrate more colorfully some of Islamic scholars' more important breakthroughs:

http://www.1001inventions.com/themovie

As the film points out, the era we call The Dark Ages was confined to Europe, while it was a Golden Age for the Islamic world. Many of the advances in medicine, astronomy, mathematics, geometry, and architecture that we rely on today came from this period.

Afghanistan coalition forces' latest weapon: Cash?

You know me, I'm in favor of withdrawal from Afghanistan, but if we're going to do this, just throwing money at the problem (yeah, typical liberal idea) might be the safest -- and cheapest -- tactic available. Just think, if we had been bribing them since 2001 to do what we wanted, how many hundreds of billions of dollars could we have saved by now? Afghanistan has a population of 29 million (ca. 2009). We have spent over $500 billion on war operations and foreign aid for Afghanistan. That would be well over $17,000 for every man, woman, and child in Afghanistan, in a country where GDP per capita is about $800 per year (ca. 2008).

Instead, we could have given them each $5,000 in 2002 and called it a day! No more Taliban! We could have even offered them a bonus: "If there's no more Taliban here two years from now, you each get $5000 more!" We could have offered them each $5,000 bonuses every three years -- "Still no more Taliban?" -- and still saved money.

What's more, by subsidizing their lavish $800-a-year lifestyle, we could cut down on poppy production and the illegal opium trade, (93% of the world's opium comes from Afghanistan), which farmers there rely on to survive.

Like I said, sometimes burning cash is the cheapest tactic. Plus there's a nice little bonus for us: no U.S. soldiers coming home wounded or in body bags!


Army tells its soldiers to 'bribe' the Taleban
By Michael Evans
November 16, 2009 Times Online

URL: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6919516.ece

What made -- and un-made -- British jihadists?

Below is the link to a long but excellent article, which shows you why and how some young Muslims in Britain chose violent jihad -- then chose to renounce their former selves. Some takeaways...

In Western countries, the jihadists are like a gang. The gang recruits young men, usually second-generation immigrants, who are looking for an identity, real values, a purpose, and friends. The allure of jihad wouldn't be so strong if the separation between Muslim immigrants and white (and sometimes black) Britons wasn't so big. They don't feel at home in their adopted country, although their parents brought them there to escape the extremism and privation of their Muslim homelands.

We can also thank the strong and well-funded and extremist Saudi Wahhabist influence in Britain for creating so many extremists. "Saudi literature is everywhere in Britain, and it's free," said one ex-jihadist.

One notorious (now reformed) jihadist named Maajid never even attended mosque as the son of liberal immigrant parents. His journey toward extremism started when he and his white friend were attacked by skinheads. One by one, a group of neo-Nazis targeted his white friends and attacked them! From there he started associating with blacks, then read Malcolm X, then met a radical Muslim group when he was in college living among mostly fellow Muslims, and the rest was history.

You should also note how he says it was hard from him to recruit extremists in Egypt after 9/11, because of the people's sympathy for America, but then the bombing in Afghanistan and Guantanamo made recruitment "much easier." His turnaround really started after he was arrested and tortured by the Egyptians, abandoned by his Islamist erstwhile comrades, and forgotten by the British government. Amnesty International, despite knowing who he was and hating his beliefs, fought to have him released on the grounds of free speech. "I felt," he said, "maybe these democratic values aren't always hypocritical. Maybe some people take them seriously." Then he met two of the repentant murderers of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in prison, who told him he had "got the theology wrong," and, "It was always left for people to decide for themselves what interpretation [of the Koran] they wanted to follow." Moreover, he realized that "the idea of enforcing sharia is not consistent with Islam as it's been practiced since the beginning."

Other ex-Islamists all report similar experiences. When Bush invaded Afghanistan and imprisoned Muslims in Guantanamo, world events seemed to confirm their radical ideology. But when they saw white non-Muslims standing up for human rights and protesting the war in Iraq, "their jihadism began to stutter." These British ex-jihadists also couldn't help but notice that "whenever Islamists won a military victory, they didn't build paradise, but hell."

It's not really that complicated. If white Western societies can successfully integrate Muslims, they will not feel alienated and look for a radical identity. (I cannot fail to mention that, for whatever reason, I haven't yet figured it out, the USA is light years ahead of Britain in this regard.) And if white Christians would be, well, more Christian, and embrace Muslims with love and acceptance, there would be many fewer terrorist recruits. That is not to say, "It's all our fault," but we do have a role to play, and a responsibility to build tolerant, loving societies -- as saccharine and heretically un-military as that solution may sound in today's post-9/11 world, where violence is always the answer.

What Makes a Young Person Embrace Death and Murder? Former Jihadists Speak Out

By Johann Hari

November 17, 2009 | The Independent UK

URL: http://www.alternet.org/world/143978/what_makes_a_young_person_embrace_death_and_murder_former_jihadists_speak_out?page=entire

Krugman: 'Obamacare' based on successfull Swiss model

The Swiss Menace

By Paul Krugman

August 16, 2009 | New York Times

It was the blooper heard round the world. In an editorial denouncing Democratic health reform plans, Investor's Business Daily tried to frighten its readers by declaring that in Britain, where the government runs health care, the handicapped physicist Stephen Hawking "wouldn't have a chance," because the National Health Service would consider his life "essentially worthless."

Professor Hawking, who was born in Britain, has lived there all his life, and has been well cared for by the National Health Service, [and is still alive! - J] was not amused.

[Investor's Business Daily is the Right's answer to Pravda. It is a total throwaway of lies and distortions. Reading it will make you dumber. Seriously. - J]

Besides being vile and stupid, however, the editorial was beside the point. Investor's Business Daily would like you to believe that Obamacare would turn America into Britain — or, rather, a dystopian fantasy version of Britain. The screamers on talk radio and Fox News would have you believe that the plan is to turn America into the Soviet Union. But the truth is that the plans on the table would, roughly speaking, turn America into Switzerland — which may be occupied by lederhosen-wearing holey-cheese eaters, but wasn't a socialist hellhole the last time I looked.

Let's talk about health care around the advanced world.

Every wealthy country other than the United States guarantees essential care to all its citizens. There are, however, wide variations in the specifics, with three main approaches taken.

In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We've all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false. Like every system, the National Health Service has problems, but over all it appears to provide quite good care while spending only about 40 percent as much per person as we do. By the way, our own Veterans Health Administration, which is run somewhat like the British health service, also manages to combine quality care with low costs.

The second route to universal coverage leaves the actual delivery of health care in private hands, but the government pays most of the bills. That's how Canada and, in a more complex fashion, France do it. It's also a system familiar to most Americans, since even those of us not yet on Medicare have parents and relatives who are.

Again, you hear a lot of horror stories about such systems, most of them false. French health care is excellent. Canadians with chronic conditions are more satisfied with their system than their U.S. counterparts. And Medicare is highly popular, as evidenced by the tendency of town-hall protesters to demand that the government keep its hands off the program.

Finally, the third route to universal coverage relies on private insurance companies, using a combination of regulation and subsidies to ensure that everyone is covered. Switzerland offers the clearest example: everyone is required to buy insurance, insurers can't discriminate based on medical history or pre-existing conditions, and lower-income citizens get government help in paying for their policies.

In this country, the Massachusetts health reform more or less follows the Swiss model; costs are running higher than expected, but the reform has greatly reduced the number of uninsured. And the most common form of health insurance in America, employment-based coverage, actually has some "Swiss" aspects: to avoid making benefits taxable, employers have to follow rules that effectively rule out discrimination based on medical history and subsidize care for lower-wage workers.

So where does Obamacare fit into all this? Basically, it's a plan to Swissify America, using regulation and subsidies to ensure universal coverage.

If we were starting from scratch we probably wouldn't have chosen this route. True "socialized medicine" would undoubtedly cost less, and a straightforward extension of Medicare-type coverage to all Americans would probably be cheaper than a Swiss-style system. That's why I and others believe that a true public option competing with private insurers is extremely important: otherwise, rising costs could all too easily undermine the whole effort.

But a Swiss-style system of universal coverage would be a vast improvement on what we have now. And we already know that such systems work.

So we can do this. At this point, all that stands in the way of universal health care in America are the greed of the medical-industrial complex, the lies of the right-wing propaganda machine, and the gullibility of voters who believe those lies.