How did that happen?

It's hard enough as it is to secure rape convictions but you'd hope it wouldn't be much of a feat when the defendant's only defense is that he fell and landed in her:

A Saudi millionaire has been cleared of raping a teenager after claiming he might have accidentally penetrated the 18-year-old when he tripped and fell on her.
Property developer Ehsan Abdulaziz, 46, was accused of forcing himself on the girl as she slept off a night of drinking on the sofa of his Maida Vale flat.
He had already had sex with her 24-year-old friend and said his penis might have been poking out of his underwear after that sexual encounter when he tripped on the 18-year-old
Abdulaziz said he had accidentally fallen on the youngster as she tried to seduce him, and that was how traces of his DNA came to be in her vagina. (Mirror)

Now, this doesn't necessarily mean the jury believed him over her, but merely saw that this story constituted "reasonable doubt". Of course, someone obviously forgot to explain the meaning of "reasonable" to the jury. The standard itself  ("guilty beyond reasonable doubt") is perfectly understandable, but it requires the jury to consist of reasonable individuals as well, and we know from the O.J. Simpson & Casey Anthony cases that a randomly drawn jury, even after accounting for "strikes" (although I'm not sure if the British have these), can end up consisting of morons or simply weak-willed invididuals who are susceptible to the manipulations of a single strong-willed individual.
This is NOT a call for lowering the standard of evidence. Some American colleges are setting up Mickey Mouse courts to try serious offenses such as rape, using a much lower standard of evidence ("preponderance of the evidence"), while it shouldn't be their job to investigate rape claims in the first place; that job belongs to the police and prosecutors. Serious offenses require serious standards of evidence. It's just that people may fail that standard sometimes. This case clearly should have resulted in a conviction.

Syria, finally

It seems that the good guys have finally decided to act against Syria despite protests from the likes of Russia. As I argued earlier, non-action in the face of the likes of Bashar Assad would only make it easier for dictators to crush internal revolts in the future. The chemical attack on a residential neighborhood near Damascus was a direct result of earlier do-nothing behavior. The regime had already tried out chemical weapons several months ago on a smaller scale (and fired SCUD missiles into residential areas) just to see what the West would do. The West did nothing but slightly increased its rhetoric, so the regime decided to move it up a notch. (This should also remind us of the importance of American hegemony: without it Assad would have gone completely cavemen on his own people a long time ago with Russia nodding in approval.) The regime's timing could not have been more arrogant and bold: the attacks were carried out while UN inspectors were not many miles away. To anyone living in the West Assad's behavior may seem irrational, considering the international environment and Obama's threats about crossing the "red line", but it's a fact that Middle Eastern dictators have had problems in the past understanding the civil, diplomatic threats that Western leaders issue. Even Saddam Hussein believed, to the very last second, both in 1991 and 2003, that the United States would not invade.

For the West, there should be no turning back now. If the regime is left unpunished, Assad will become even more ruthless. The reverberations of Western inaction would be felt elsewhere too: America's enemies are surely paying attention. Obama may be extremely reluctant to act but even he should understand that it never had to come to this: had he been more decisive before, all this could have been avoided. But Obama, with his doctrine of realpolitik, was caught completely off guard by the Arab revolts that beautifully demonstrated the power of ideas, ideas that Obama's predecessor believed were not as alien to the ordinary Arab as was commonly and fashionably thought. America can now demonstrate that it stands behind those ideas by putting its money where its mouth is instead of being obsessed with maintaining the status quo, i.e., the one where ruthless dictators are kept in power for the sake of stability, breeding resentment toward America among the common folks.

To be sure, there are no easy solutions to the situation in Syria or the Greater Middle East in general. Arming moderate forces (probably easier said than done) within the opposition should alleviate the problem America faces with respect to Islamic rebels. Keeping boots off the ground seems like a no-brainer. As in Libya, air strikes and cruise missiles may be an effective and cheap solution (it should be noted that the West may wish for a regime change but doesn't seem eager to set that as an objective), contributing virtually nothing to America's long-term budget problems (which result from entitlement spending) while providing the kind of assets against the regime the rebels never could have dreamed of. In the long run, it can only be hoped that the ongoing revolutions mark the beginning of the end of autocracy in the Middle East, just as the 1848 revolutions did in Europe.

Why the North might want war

Many are asking what could North Korea possibly gain from an all-out war, a war that'd certainly lead to its own destruction. If North Korea really wants to provoke a war, it will be because of this:

(The Washington Post)

Their military equipment is at least fifty years old, nearing or way past its "best before" date. Soon it will be of little use and North Korea has absolutely no money (or anything for that matter) to obtain new equipment. And, with the Soviet Union long gone, they've got no real friends either. Combine this with the fact that the North Korean regime probably truly believes that the United States and South Korea are out to get them, just waiting for the right moment to invade, and you end up with a regime that believes it's running out of time. Either they set off what they believe to be inevitable now that they still have the initiative, or they wait and watch their (largely imaginary) military prowess decay and fade away, leaving behind a carcass of a country, to be consumed by the vulturous America and South Korea.

So yes, in the crazy, self-induced world the North Korean regime lives in, a war would make sense.

Quiz

http://www.isidewith.com/ ---- I was listening to Bill O'Reilly talking about the elections and he's 100% right that if Obama wins it'll be because of the huge number of people who "want stuff" from the government and they think Obama will give it to them. In the long run it will not end well.

The price of a non-marketable good

Came across this crazy piece of news. A pair inherits an art piece ("Canyon") worth $65 million and has to pay an inheritance tax worth $29 million. The problem, however, is that the art piece includes a stuffed bald eagle, which cannot be sold since the bird is protected. (Obviously, if a stuffed bald eagle could be sold this would only encourage people to hunt them.) In other words, "Canyon" cannot be sold due to the stuffed bald eagle and yet the pair is stuck with a tax bill of $29 million. So how can it have a price tag of $65 million? How can a non-marketable good have a market value (the price of collectibles is obviously based on their market value, not some out-of-the-hat valuation)?

Even more worrying, the IRS is acting like the vengeful, petty bureaucrats that they are:

Placing a value on an item that cannot be sold is no easy feat. The venerable auction house Christie’s placed the value of "Canyon" at zero. The IRS initially put it at $15 million, then jumped the figure to $65 million when Sundell and Homem refused to pay, according to The New York Times.
The IRS, which declined to comment on the matter, is not only asking for $29 million in taxes, but also an $11.7 million “gross valuation misstatement” penalty, according to Forbes.

Inheritance taxes are nuts anyway. What exactly has the federal government done to deserve $29 million out of "Canyon"? They're simply robbing someone's estate.

Syria - what's taking so long?

The neocons are pushing for a regime change in Syria:

For the people and the fighters of Idleb, the fight goes on. They know that once Assad is finished with Homs and Hama, and once he thinks he can get away with it, he will turn his attention back to the north. Then it will be their turn, and the dictator will exact a bloody and terrible revenge for their effrontery.

What could prevent this is an effective coalition to counter the anti-Western one (Iran, Hezbollah, Russia) that currently underwrites the dictator. This Western coalition can only happen outside the auspices of the U.N., where Russia and China have already vetoed Security Council resolutions demanding Assad step down. (The Weekly Standard)

That was at the end of February. Now it's too late for the rebels in Idlib. Bolstered by Western inactivity, Assad resorted to tactics such as shellings residential neighborhoods.

The neocons, after years of ridicule, are still confident about their ideas, and why not? What has been happening in the Greater Middle East lately is more or less exactly what the neocons said would happen. Removing a constant, Saddam Hussein, from the Middle East helped alter what many considered a fixed status quo of autocratic regimes.

The intervention in Libya was a tremendous success. The cost of the operation has been estimated at about 3-4 billion dollars with the US being responsible for about a third of that amount. There were no casualties. In short, that's a lot of bang for the buck. In comparison, the United States spends nearly one trillion (a thousand billions) dollars on Medicare & Medicaid annually.

If Asssad is allowed to survive, the Western world has effectively helped set an example that whenever there's a internal revolt, you should resort to brutal measures to suppress the revolt. Any "peaceful solution" that preserves Assad as the head of Syria, as supported by second-rate countries such as Russia and the always-irrelevant UN, would be a travesty, an idealist piece of paper that only serves to bolster Assad's grip on Syria. The West needs to do more than just freeze credit cards.

No respect for adult entertainers

I hate it when porn stars, strippers & such are viewed as second-class citizens. I came across a news article from last summer about some Democrat Congressman (who looks a bit like Goebbels) having a "sexting" scandal involving Ginger Lee, a former porn star, now a stripper. The comment section of the Huffington Post article (also NYPost and Powerline) is another treasure trove of human stupidity with high-and-mighty conservatives ganging up on Lee:

We're supposed to take what a former porn star / current stripper has to say seriously?  -sbtrfly27

Maybe if we started calling them [porn stars] dim lights their futures might turn around. Would anyone want to be known as a porn dim light -Ginny Saul

Poor kid -- this must be *so* embarrassing for her. I'm sure she can't wait to get out from under the spotlight, and return to her simple, quiet lifestyle, and continue to make more films like "Share My C--k! 2" and "Manuel Ferrara F---s Them All!" -Yisrael Harris

I guess she didn't realize that you can block someone from texting you. That's why she's a porn star, not a rocket scientist. -Turtleposer

I find it hard to believe that a woman who takes on 3 guys at a time on film can be destroyed by texts containing sexual innuendo. -Shapi
Well, she's a porn star. She was overwhelmed by written language.  -Turtleposer

Did she obtain this moral code before or after she started performing sex acts for money? -imhotep40

And if you check her chin, you'll find ' Place Testicles Here'. -Adi Kotler

Post everything on this DIRTY WHORE! She is far from innocent and I hope she gets everything she deserves!!! -John Haines

And these people claim the moral high ground?

The sad thing is that adult entertainers don't get much respect from the left either. In fact, many academic feminists are devoted to putting them down, painting them as victims who cannot be trusted to make decisions on their own. Of course, such academic feminists are merely projecting their own feelings of inadequacy on those they envy, namely, sexually powerful women like Lee. The conservative reaction is a similar Freudian projection: The supposedly pious men hate themselves for how women like Lee make them feel while conservative women (and why not women in general) merely feel threatened by adult entertainers (i.e., jealousy):

I'm so sick of these women who act as if they are completely innocent and have no responsibi­lity at all. Men wouldn't cheat on their wives if there wasn't other women willing to cheat with them. -anotherwomanfromva

Of course, the vast majority of men (and an increasing number of women) consume pornography, and that majority includes a huge chunk of conservatives too. Too bad few have the guts to voice their support and respect for something they consume.

Oikeutta Qaddafille

Kymmeniätuhansia ihmisä tappanut Muammar Qaddafi sai muutaman minuutin ajan kokea saman, mitä hän pakotti monet libyalaiset (ja ulkomaalaiset) kokemaan 42 vuoden ajan. Tähän oikeudenmukaisuuden pilkkeeseen suomalaiset reagoivat odotetusti:

Yhdysvallat on ryhtynyt liittolaisineen tappamaan itselleen epämieluisia henkisiä johtajia lennokeilla ja nyt valtionpäämiehiä taistelukoneilla. Kansainvälisen yhteisön tulisi tuomita tämä kovin ottein. -millä oikeudella

Liittouma sai YK:lta oikeudet ilmatilan suojeluun, mutta tosiasiallisesti vastoin YK:n lupaa pommitti siviilejä ja perääntyviä maajoukkoja. Raukkamaista ja rikollista. Sarkozy ja Obama tulisi viedä Haagin sotarikostuomioistuimeen tuomittaviksi. -HINNATALAS

Antaa tietysti tyylikkään kuvan uusista vallanpitäjistä: vanha mies pyytää armoa pakomatkalla ja hänet murhataan...
Eipä ihme että Amerikassa ja Ranskassa ja Italiassa ollaan ylpeitä, tämähän on juuri sitä toimintaa mihin heitä koulutetaan. -Juho-Kusti

Laittomasta väkivallasta puheenollen, olikohan tämä Naton toimi lentokiellon ylläpitämistä vai siviilien suojelemista vai YK:n mandaatin vastainen? -Johan On

Taas on länsiliittouman siunauksella oksennettu eurooppalaisen oikeuskäsityksen ja ihmisarvojen kasvoille. Ja tälle irvokkaalle lopputulokselle kansa sekä johtajat hurraavat, niin barbaarisessa Afrikassa kuin "sivistyneessä" lännessä. -roomalainen

Tämä tapahtumasarja on aivan järkyttävää valtion sisäisiin asiohin puuttumista ja sen luonnonvarojen ryöstöä. Mitä tutkimista siinä on, että Gaddafi nyt tapettiin, kun sitä eilen oikein peräänkuulutettiin?
Eikö Naton pitänyt olla vain suojaamistehtävissä, eikä sodassa?
Vanha sana, mutta sitä tämä on: imperialismia. -Erkki

Suurin piirtein yhtä innostuneesti täällä suhtauduttiin Osaman kuolemaan.

Perverse incentives

Someone posted this video on HFBoards:

This could be used to demonstrate why the financial crisis happened. The cost of an RPG rocket seems to be at least $50 and can be as high as $500 depending on the model. In any case, a rocket is worth a lot more than a fish. The problem is, of course, that the individual firing the rocket does not bear any of the costs of firing the launcher (courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer) but receives all the benefits.

Strip clubs, pornography and feminists

The United States is an easy target when it comes to narrow-minded attitudes toward sexuality. Here's Texas, the heart of the Bible Belt:

In 2007, state legislators passed the Sexually Oriented Business Fee Act, which imposed the fee ["pole tax"] on nearly 200 establishments that feature live nude performances and allow the consumption of alcohol. The $5-per-customer entrance fee, which is imposed on the business and not the patron, is intended to raise money for sexual assault prevention programs and health insurance coverage for low-income people. (NYTimes)

This a form of collective punishment, which is kinda perverse in a country that values individual responsibility. The tax assumes that everyone attending strip clubs is responsible for the actions of a few rapists. 

Moreover, open attitudes toward adult entertainment have actually been found to reduce violence against women. So, if the aim is to reduce the incidence of rape, Texan lawmakers should consider subsidizing strip clubs rather than taxing them.

But at least it's still legal in Texas to take your clothes off for money. In the so-called progressive Nordic countries women's rights and liberties are being curbed by feminists (a female supremacist movement that opposes individual liberties and equal rights) to a much, much greater degree than some conservatives in the United States ever could. Here's Julie Bindel, a feminist author, writing about banning strip clubs and pornography in Iceland:

Iceland has passed a law that will result in every strip club in the country being shut down.

Even more impressive: the Nordic state is the first country in the world to ban stripping and lapdancing for feminist, rather than religious, reasons.

So, feminists are united with religious extremists in their contempt of women's right to make decisions about their own lives. Only their reasons differ.

Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir, the politician who first proposed the ban, firmly told the national press on Wednesday: "It is not acceptable that women or people in general are a product to be sold."

This is just idiotic. How is selling "yourself" at a strip club any different from selling "yourself" at an office? Nearly every profession is a mixture of inherent talent and obtained skill and those are the things you're selling. The labor market consists of people selling themselves. So, the problem is not that these people are selling themselves as "products"; the problem is that feminists don't happen to like this particular product even though it's none of their business. Feminists, like religious extremists, have a vision of what a proper woman is like (even their rhetoric is similar: "It is not acceptable that women..."). Any deviations from this standard are to be looked down upon. Feminists perceive women not as adult individuals capable of using their own discretion but as child-like members of a collective who are to do what the collective tells them to do.

Supporters of the bill say that some of the clubs are a front for prostitution – and that many of the women work there because of drug abuse and poverty rather than free choice. I have visited a strip club in Reykjavik and observed the women. None of them looked happy in their work.

What an idiot. If "not looking happy" or "working just to make ends meet" is a qualification for banning an occupation, I guess all of us are to be unemployed in the not-so-distant future. Simple-minded authoritarians like Bindel are not really helping the situation by not showing much of any respect for these women. If feminists and cultural conservatives actually respected women working in the adult industry (and taught their children to respect them as well), these women might have a better time at work and life in general. I'd guess that a big reason why some women in the adult industry don't feel appreciated is precisely because narrow-minded people like Bindel don't appreciate them as adults capable of making their own decisions. Instead, they're trying to force-feed the "you're a victim" mantra. This could also explain why drug abusers and poor people are overrepresented in the adult industry; only they've really got nothing to lose. Mainstreamization of pornography would attract more "mainstream" people. In fact, it's not surprising anymore to find that an adult entertainer holds an academic degree. Of course, feminists probably consider well-educated women who choose to work in the adult industry as traitors.

Let's end this post on a positive note:

Let’s look at attitudes towards women – studies of men who had seen X-rated movies found that they were significantly more tolerant and accepting of women than those men that didn’t see those movies, and studies by other investigators, female as well as male, essentially found similarly that there was no detectable relationship of the amount of exposure to pornography and any measure of misogynist attitudes. No researcher or critic has found the opposite, that exposure to pornography – by any definition – has had a cause and effect relationship towards ill feelings or actions against women. No correlation has even been found between exposure to porn and calloused attitudes toward women.

China is not a model

The Economist has another typical article that degenerates into treating China with words like "ooh" and "aah". First the article lists economic and political similarities between the US and the EU and then starts drawing comparisons to China, implying that the Chinese government (or any authoritarian regime) could cope with financial crises more effectively than "dysfunctional" democracies. Maybe, but let's not start treating China as some kind of a model until comparisons between the West and China become valid. Despite the fact that the Chinese GDP soon catches up with that of the US, their current GDP per capita is less than one tenth of that of the US. The time to start drawing comparisons is when the Communist party has made it possible for the Chinese to enjoy Western levels of prosperity. With their current political and economic system there's no chance of that happening.

There's one good point there though: "Every year China continues to grow, the case that countries need to be democracies in order to become wealthy and developed becomes more tenuous."

Of course, this is nothing new. During the Cold War many 3rd world countries adopted the Soviet system as an economic model. What failed them was not any lack of democracy but the centrally-planned economic system that China has now somewhat abandoned. Even in the West many countries were economically liberal before they were politically liberal. It was the wealth brought on by Capitalism that made people in the West demand more political liberties. This is also what makes the Chinese leadership so nervous.

It is Capitalism that brings stability in the first place because materially well-off people have a lot to lose if they resort to petty factionalism. (No wonder then that Communist revolutions took place exactly where Marx least expected them.) This is why democratic countries that have been made prosperous by Capitalism are stable while attempts to introduce democracy prior to Capitalism tend to result in failures.

As expected

Online message boards of major Finnish news organizations got quickly filled with typically anti-American reactions to the news of Osama bin Laden's death. There are dozens of threads that deal with the issue, each one spanning many pages. Below is a sample of these reactions, taken from just one page of two threads at YLE & HS websites. I didn't even bother to go through more pages but the threads are a treasure trove of human stupidity. I won't provide translations but subjects range from conspiracy theories (e.g., bin Laden was killed years ago and kept in a freezer somewhere until Obama decided to boost his approval ratings) to snobby pseudo-intellectual "won't change a thing" type of comments with the typical "America behaved recklessly" comment thrown in every now and then:  

On tiedossa, että bin Laden ei ollut mukana syyskuun 11. 2001 tapahtumassa ja bin Laden on ollut kuolleena jo vuosia ja CIA käytti joulupukkiaan aina kun USA'n politiikka sitä tarvitsi ja nyt ovat Barak Obaman vaalit kynnyksellä, joten CIA lahjoitti vainajan Obamalle vaalityöhön saavutuksena ja CIA'n pomo sai puolustusministerin paikan Obaman hallituksessa. -Santa Laden



Osamaa on pidetty WTC iskun päätekijänä mutta todisteita ei ole tuotu esiin.
Terrori-isku oli järkyttävä mutta homma haiskahtaa, koska Obama on itse ollut koulutuksessa USA:ssa ja hyvissä väleissä G.W. Bush Junioriin.

En juhli kenenkään ihmisen kuolemaa.
Sairasta on tämä USA:n ulkopolitiikka, kun tehdään väkisellä terroristi yhdestä vastarintaa tekevästä lähi-idän partasissistä ja saadaan aina jostain tekosyy sotia. -Osama partamies


Jaha. Obaman suosio on romahtanut niin alas että on ollut aika ottaa ruumis pakkasesta ja julistaa piru tapetuksi. Liittynee samaan imagokampanjaan kuin viime viikkoinen Obaman syntymätodistuksen julkistus.Puolitoista vuotta vaaleihin. Eikös tämä tullut vähän liian aikaisin? Vai onko lähemmäksi vaaleja suunnitteilla jokin "estetty" terrori-isku Detroitin kenkäpommittajan tyylii. -Julmuri

--


Vai voitti oikeus! Ja kattia kanssa, En puolustele Al-Qaidaa, mutta ei tuo amerikkalaisten touhukaan ole kansainvälisen oikeuden mukaista. miksi eivät ottaneet Bin-Ladenia kiinni ja tuoneet kansainvälisen tuomioistuimeen tuomittavaksi? Samanlaisia terroristeja kaikki, mutta valitettavasti amerikkalaisia vain ei saada syytteeseen. -Huonoa oikeutta



Kenenkäs kanssa Bushit nyt kaveeraa, kun binLaden kupsahti? -Tänään ystävä, huomenna vihollinen

Supervallan presidentti antaa luvan tappaa. Yleensä tällaisesta rangaistaa, mutta nyt hän pääsee kuin koira veräjästä ja kansa juhilii. Osama on toki rikollinen, mutta se ei mitenkään voi poistaa toisen rikosta. Ja Suomihan pitää suhteita valtioon, jonka ulkopolitiikka perustuu vastustajien tuhoamiseen. Tällainen toiminta johtaa aina uuteen kapinaan ja kierre on ikuinen. -Välkivallaton



Obamahan ei tosiaan niitä sotakäskyjä antanut vaan Bush (joka muuten valittiin ei yhdesti, mutta kahdesti presidentiksi). Aloituskäskyn jälkeen jenkit ovat tuhonneet ehkä pikemmin 60,000 henkeä ja pari Reuterssin kuvaajaa. Sitten on tietysti nuo pari aikaisempaa sotaa ja atomipommia. -Hessu

----

Sources:

YLE

Helsingin Sanomat

At Least They Have a Diversity of Opinions

Vivian Schiller, the now-former president of National Public Radio (the American equivalent of YLE, although much more insignificant), resigned after her colleague was caught saying (among other things) this:

"Liberals today might be more educated, fair and balanced than conservatives,"

Conservatives are probably going to take the thing about not being as well educated as liberals as a compliment, as they should. It's the anti-intellectualism of American conservatives, and conservatism in general, that makes conservatism pragmatic. This is in sharp contrast to the liberal idealists now occupying the White House who are more prone to idealist, theoretical considerations that end up ballooning the federal deficit for the sake of an ideology.

The claim about liberals being more fair & balanced than conservatives is pretty funny, especially considering how this news wasn't even considered main headline-worthy on CNN while Fox News thought otherwise. This is nothing new. For example, both the despicable union demonstrations in Wisconsin and the Planned Parenthood case have hardly been mentioned by Fox's competitors. A Fox News host today noted that if the Tea Party were involved in some demonstration in a manner similar to the Wisconsin unions, CNN would be all over it. (A similar point is often raised by the lovely Megyn Kelly, who's always quick to note that a given news story was first broken by Fox.)

So why is this particular news headline-worthy? Because NPR enjoys privileges that other channels don't. The medium has lately been dominated by conservatives while Democrats have been wanting to level the playing field via legislation. Fox News, a champion of individual liberty (at least in the relative sense), is of course anxious to report scandals involving pro-government forces especially if Fox is worried that it could one day be competing with powerful state-controlled media outlets. We could use some of Fox's spirit here in Finland where the state-controlled YLE dominates and hardly anyone has any problems with it (except for the licence fee). This isn't exactly a wonder in a country where party differences are marginal and consensus dominates. The very fact that Finns (this applies to other Europeans as well) consider Fox News a problem while not noticing the obvious bias of our state-controlled broadcaster pretty much shows how YLE is a problem.

The Economist and its leftward spiral

The Economist warns of the dangers of Big Government. Funny, because I vaguely remember the Economist advocating not only Barack Obama's election but also the fiscal stimulus, the bank rescue package and the health care reform. This is the trend the news magazine has had for at least the past four years that I have been a subscriber. First they advocate interventionist policies and then, especially if those policies backfire, they argue that we should be cautious of such policies. Usually they leave cunning openings for themselves, allowing them to take credit however things turn out. I guess they really want to make it seem like they're sticking to their stated principles while in fact advocating policies that betray those principles.

Keynes on reparations

Finished reading Keynes's The Economic Consequences of the Peace, published in 1920. A few notes:

-Keynes recommended that Germany should be made to pay no more than £2 billion in reparations. The actual size of the bill was initially settled at £24 billion, which Germany is still paying. The antagonists of the story are the French, who wanted Germany to bleed (going as far as insisting that German private property abroad should be expropriated), and Wilson, who was just too weak to resist the French. In fact, the book could be used to argue that France caused the Second World War.
-In retrospect, it seems that Keynes was wrong about the economic consequences of the peace. As the German economy grew in the '20s, it became more apparent that the problem with reparations was political and that Germany regained its status as an industrial powerhouse faster than expected (at least until the Crash of 1929). The reparations didn't ruin the economy but the psychological effects of the Treaty of Versailles were effectively used by the nazis to seize power. Before Versailles, Germans were led to believe by the Allies that peace would be built on Wilson's Fourteen Points. Because of French opposition and Wilson's weakness, it didn't turn out that way.
-Two numbers struck me, as they always do. Germany had a population of nearly 70 million in 1914, before the outbreak of the war. Russia had a population of 150 million around the same time. Today Germany has just 80 million and Russia 140 million inhabitants. To get a better picture of the effects of the two world wars on the populations of these two countries, compare their demographic story to that of the United States which had around 100 million inhabitants in 1914 and has 310 million inhabitants today.
-Keynes recommended arranging some huge international loan to help Europe rebuild. Keynes argued that in practice the lender would have to be the United States. This didn't come to fruition but this is exactly what happened after the Second World War in the form of the Marshall Plan. Also, apart from the Soviet Union, the Allies turned out to be far more lenient toward Germany after the Second, at least after initially contemplating plans to turn Germany into a cripple. (The onset of the Cold War surely contributed to this.)

Some quotes:

"The policy of reducing Germany to servitude for a generation, of degrading the lives of millions of human beings, and of depriving a whole nation of happiness should be abhorrent and detestable, -abhorrent and detestable, even if it were possible, even if it enriched ourselves, even if [it] did not sow the decay of the whole civilised life of Europe. Some preach it in the name of Justice. In the great events of man's history, in the unwinding of the complex fates of nations Justice is not so simple. And if it were, nations are not auhorised, by religion or by natural morals, to visit on the children of their enemies the misdoings of parents or of rulers."
...
"If we aim deliberately at the impoverishment of Central Europe, vengeance, I dare predict, will not limp. Nothing can then delay for very long that final civil war between the forces of Reaction and the despairing convulsions of Revolution, before which the horrors of the late German war fill fade into nothing, and which will destroy, whoever is victor, the civilisation and the progress of our generation."
...
"But who can say how much is endurable, or in what direction men will seek at last to escape from their misfortunes?"

Avatar: Cameron's manifesto

One word defines this film: naivety. In James Cameron's world, white men are evil capitalists who're willing to slaughter innocent natives or sacrifice colonists and marines for a profit. The natives are of course depicted as beings living in total harmony (even symbiosis, as in the film) with nature, which is how the left views tribes living in rainforests and on the prairie. In fact, harmony is an understatement: Cameron goes to great lenghts to push some sort of a Gaia hypothesis.

Of course, I wouldn't use the word harmony to describe the relationship some natives are perceived to have with their environment in our world. In reality, the relationship is one of oppression, based on keeping the native population in check. This also explains why natives (be that the Na'vi in Avatar or some bushmen in Africa) have little use for precious minerals lying beneath their "sacred" lands.

To be more specific, the relationship with nature is one of death, famine and an endless stream of deadly diseases. The population size is kept constant so that there's no need to build megacities, not to mention spaceships. It is only after this "harmony" is broken that man is able to break free from the oppression of his environment and of his tribe where individuals are delegated to roles they were chosen for by their elders (or some imaginary beings).

This oppression, or harmony, is not anyone's choice. It's merely a sad state of affairs. An individual wishes to preserve his or hers genetic heritance. Pumping out as many babies as you can, hoping that one or two of them reaches maturity is not ideal considering the opportunity costs of being nothing but a birth machine which is why we desire to improve our living standards so that we can settle for a smaller number of children. To get around this oppression, we discover ways to exploit our surroundings, to cultivate land. This results in production surpluses. We end up having countries instead of small and isolated tribal areas which are far from ideal from a genetic point of view; problems such as inbreeding depression result from low levels of genetic variation.

Since living in that state of oppression is not a choice, it's only stupid for people to perceive this primitive way of life as something that is much closer to man's true nature. It's usually echoed that Western people have lost their touch with that something magical in the dirt and have embraced techno-consumer culture instead. Of course, that "something magical" is nothing but ignorance. Having lost this ignorance does not make us Westerners any poorer but richer, both materially and spiritually. Science and magic cannot co-exist. Pockets of superstition and oppression such as Indian tribes or Islamic neighborhoods cannot exist where the West rules.

And then there's imperialism. We are to believe that Westerners only brought tears and sorrow to the darkest corners of the world while in reality we brought technology, education and, ironically, the means (agricultural technology, food aid and modern medicine) to maintain surplus populations in 3rd world countries, populations that would not exist without Western aid. (This wouldn't be such a bad thing if 3rd world economies were liberalized in order to end this dependency. Aid, however, only provides an excuse not to liberalize.) Of course, property should not be taken by force (although property rights of extraterrestrials have not been defined: would we consider aliens as animals, comparable to dogs and cats instead of humans?) as in the movie, not when it's already being utilized by the natives.

Even worse, in the film imperialism is mixed with modern American politics. America never was an imperial nation (except for their sole possession, the Philippines). The film makes references to America's post-9/11 foreign policy, mentioning well-known concepts such as "pre-emptive strikes" and "shock & awe". In the movie, marines are used to further commercial interests, pushing the ridiculously simplistic view that the Iraq War is/was about oil. This only hurts the credibility of the movie and it's totally unnecessary. (The same thing happened with V for Vendetta.)

As a 3D experience the first half of the movie was incredible but the story (its premise was copied directly from Unreal) turned out to be so repulsive, predictable and naive that I was in great pains watching the second half. No wonder: Cameron's political views have been well known since at least Aliens but while Aliens is a brilliant movie with subtle reflections on human nature, Avatar is an in-your-face type of political manifesto.

Nobel & Americans

As I predicted a few weeks back, at least the vast majority of Americans see Obama getting the Nobel for what it is worth, a low attempt by irrelevant foreign powers to interfere with America's politics. A respectable 36% of Democrats did not think Obama deserved the prize so "only" 59% of American Democrats are totally insane.

Of course polarization may serve the interests of the Democratic party because instead of focusing on making themselves look relevant again, the Republicans have instead opted for going insane, making sure that no one will care about them when the election day hits.

Muslim immigration leads to White flight

According to this news piece, native Finns are taking their children out of schools with significant immigrant populations (mainly Muslims, of course). Not just that, but they're also willing to move to have their children put in another school. This will further erode the areas with significant immigrant populations as the population actually capable of paying taxes moves out, leaving behind only those consuming welfare services. And not just that, but the demand for these welfare services increases as the amount of immigrants does. This is what happened in the United States as a result of desegregation. White Americans responded by moving elsewhere, leaving cities like Detroit to rot. Add rent controls to the mix and you'll end up with ghettos. This flight is taking place in cities across Europe and it has, in just a few years, landed in Finland and is now destroying the ridiculously naive "people's home" state, first conceived in Sweden.

This will also reflect on educational attainments. Immigrants tend to have much lower test scores than natives. Also, the natives will suffer if teachers are forced to devote more and more time on immigrant pupils. As I have argued before, one reason why Finland does well in international comparisons (the so-called "PISA" test) is because of our homogeneous population. This also means that our education system cannot be "copied", i.e., no lessons can be drawn from our system unless our demographic structure is copied too.

So, what is happening is that westerners are moving elsewhere as their neighborhoods are being invaded by alien, collectivist cultures where ethnic and religious indentities matter more than the individual. People do care about what is happening but few dare to speak out because of the intellectual climate where those criticizing immigration policies are quickly labeled as racists. So, don't expect anyone to do anything. The trend will continue until we're on the verge of a collapse.

Obamalle Nobel

Vain yhdeksän kuukautta presidenttinä toiminut Barack Obama on voittanut Nobelin rauhanpalkinnon. Samalla koko palkinto menettänee uskottavuutensa kymmenien miljoonien amerikkalaisten silmissä. Kaleva-lehti on toista mieltä:

Sosialistiksi ja kommunistiksi haukuttu Obama saanee arvostelijat hiljenemään, ainakin hetkeksi. Heidän on pakko huomata ainakin jossain määrin se, että vaikka kotimaassa kaikki näyttää menevän pieleen, niin ulkomailla Obama on yhä erittäin korkeassa arvossa ja hänen linjaansa uskotaan.

Onpa typerä analyysi. Obaman vastustajat lähinnä näkevät tämän ulkovaltojen puuttumisena Yhdysvaltain sisäpolitiikkaan. Republikaanien kupissa ei paljoa paina, miten paljon norjalaiset, ruotsalaiset tai ranskalaiset Amerikasta pitävät. Nobel-palkinnot eivät todellakaan ole tehneet Al Goresta tai Jimmy Carterista mitenkään pidettyja, vaan monet republikaanit näkevät erityisesti jälkimmäisen lähinnä maanpetturina.

Samalla palkinto on läimäys päin presidentti George W. Bushin kasvoja, vaikka sitä ei sanottukaan aivan suoraan.

Juuri näin. Tällä eleellä osoitettiin, että koko muu maailma on demokraattipuolueen takana, mikä lähinnä lisää republikaanien ponnisteluja Obaman sisäpolitiikan vastustamiseksi.

Galbraith

Now that Rajendra K. Pachauri, some IPCC hotshot, is marketing John Kenneth Galbraith, an economist who died some years back, it's quite fitting to post here something I wrote as part of an academic writing course last spring:

Galbraithian Ideas - a Renaissance

John Kenneth Galbraith, an American-Canadian economist who died in 2006, was and is better known for his books than for any actual research on economic matters. This is why his reputation is two-sided: On the one hand his ideas are popular especially on the left of the political spectrum but on the other hand as an economist he was not very remarkable. Paul Krugman, a Nobel-winning economist, was not happy with Galbraith’s apparent mainstream influence, calling Galbraith a “policy entrepreneur”. This, however, was in 1994 and anyone who has been reading Krugman’s NYTimes blog lately has surely noticed how Krugman now seems to have a more favorable opinion of Galbraith or at least of his opinions. The initial friction never seemed to make much sense: after all, both Galbraith and Krugman are Keynesian economists.

An interesting paper by L.A. Duhs poses a relevant question: Did Krugman come to accept Galbraith’s views as an economist or as a columnist with a political agenda? After all, Krugman had criticized Galbraith for offering “easy solutions where there are likely to be none” (Duhs 2). Is Krugman now imitating Galbraith by offering simple solutions to complex problems? A particularly interesting section in the paper explores how Krugman first criticized Galbraith’s vision of a future America in The New Industrial State where big corporations exercise monopoly power and act as price makers, i.e. are able to set prices due to the absence of competition. However, based on Krugman’s NYTimes columns it seems that he would now agree with Galbraith on issues of corporate power. We are left with an interesting question: Has Krugman progressed or regressed into a Galbraithian? (Duhs 4–6)

Economists, such as Milton Friedman, who have traditionally been associated with the political right, did not think much of Galbraith’s economic views either (Lockett 3). In a NYTimes blog post Barry Gewen observes that “When Milton Friedman’s stock is high, John Kenneth Galbraith’s is low, and vice versa.” At the moment it seems that Friedman’s (who once called Galbraith “a missionary seeking converts”) stock is low and Galbraith’s name is experiencing a renaissance. A new school of economics called behavioral economics which attempts to take a more “realistic” approach toward consumer behavior, expresses the view that consumers are not rational and that it should be up to economists to study how consumers actually behave (Duhs 18). This is in contrast with some neoclassical models which assume that utility-maximizing individuals are rational. Galbraith, a Keynesian, argued against this neoclassical assumption and against the assumption that, left to their own devices, markets would always strike a balance. In The New Industrial State he explained how market failures (which often result from government action) can lead to disproportionate corporate power. In The Great Crash, 1929 Galbraith criticized businesses for speculative, short-sighted behavior.

All these ideas are now resurfacing in a way that appears more populist than scientific. This is why it is important to remember that not much of Galbraith’s writings were based on hard research.

Dush, L.A. "From Galbraith to Krugman and Back." University of Queensland.
Galbraith, J.K. "Countervailing Power." The American Economic Review 44.2 (1954): 1-6.
Gewen, Barry. "The Return of John Kennety Galbraith." The New York Times. 17 December 2008.
Lockett, Peter. "Milton Friedman and Economic Policy." University of Adelaide.