Most Surprising Post Today--Sleeping Chinese Students

In my lifetime we've gone from the antlike masses of Chinese in their Mao jackets and their little red books to the bursting capitalism of their state economy.  But a constant has been: Chinese work hard.  But through Margaret Soltan at University Diaries comes this from the Taipei Times:

"While Lee was addressing the ceremony, a number of students in attendance were caught on camera dozing off, having breakfast, playing games on their cellphones or reading comic books…"

Diamond on Japan's History and Uniqueness

Hat tip Megan McArdle.  A couple sentences:

. Unlike the winter rains prevailing over much of Europe, Japan's rains are concentrated in the summer growing season, giving it the highest plant productivity of any nation in the temperate zones. While 80 percent of Japan's land consists of mountains unsuitable for agriculture and only 14 percent is farmland, an average square mile of that farmland is so fertile that it supports eight times as many people as does an average square mile of British farmland. Japan's high rainfall also ensures a quickly regenerated forest after logging. Despite thousands of years of dense human occupation, Japan still offers visitors a first impression of greenness because 70 percent of its land is still covered by forest.

This is an old Jared Diamond piece on Japanese prehistory. What does the factoid mean in the context of concerns over modern agriculture?

Faith in International Institutions--a Lost Cause

The Progressives had great faith in international institutions.  Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations was just one culmination of efforts at reforming the world, bringing (WASP) law, order and morality to everyone.  And Herbert Hoover wasn't that far removed from this faith.  Indeed, he was the exemplar of what could be accomplished for the needy by international aid efforts through his leadership of relief efforts in Europe during and after WWI.

And even later, from the 1930 blog:

Pres. Hoover says US should play a part in World Court; in Armistice Day speech, declares belief world will within a few years become firmly interlocked with arbitration and conciliation agreements, and disputes not resolvable through diplomacy will be arbitrated; sees important role for Court: “In the development of methods of pacific settlement ... a great hope lies in ever extending the body and principles of international law ... Our duty is to seek ever new and widening opportunities to insure the world against the horror and irretrievable wastages of war.”

The right's faith in international law has long since evaporated.

Same Old, Same Old

A cynical man says it's all a matter of whose ox is gored.  As evidence, yesterday I noted the ex-head of NOW threatening to defeat pro-life Democrats in an effort to purify the Democratic Party just as a couple weeks ago, the conservatives threatened to defeat Scozzafava(sp?) to purity the Republican Party.  And they did.

Meanwhile there's a Politico report the White House is concerned about leaks on national security, particularly with regards to Afghanistan strategy.  Didn't the Bush administration have the same concerns?  Next thing we know VP Biden will be declassifying material to undermine a Rep point.

And finally, a note that Rep. Hoekstra may have disclosed intelligence capabilities (i.e., that we read the email of radical clerics) which raises the ire of a liberal.

Politics is often a matter of tactics and rhetoric, which saddens my goo-goo side. But anyone who expects or sees consistency in their favorite politician is blind.

You Too Can Write Like an Academic

There's now software available to do the work, and all the thinking, for you.  Find it here.

Hat tip: American Historians Blog.

Straws in the Wind--the Rise of New Media

Was channel surfing the other day and caught the tail-end of an interview with someone plugging a list of the 100 most powerful people in the world (I think).  Two media people made it--the head of the BBC and the head of X.

Tyler Cowen plugged a video on a new city in China which is empty, though it's built for 1 million.  (It starts about 1 minute in.)  It's done by X.

What is "X"?

Al-Jazeera

The Virtues of Failure

Via Govloop.com here's a post at NASA's blog suggesting the need to celebrate failure. As you might expect, the writer gets a little pushback in the comments, given NASA's very visible failures in the past.  But I buy the basic point: you--the bureaucrat--can only learn if you admit your failures. That's what the FAA does--promise pilots they won't get into trouble when they report near-misses. Unfortunately, in the government context it seemed we (I, and maybe others) fell into the us versus them trap in dealing with auditors.  Not always, but often. The problem with GAO and OIG is the possibility adverse reports make it to the Washington Post and Congress.  Bosses don't like being hauled up before Congress to defend their operations, especially when, as is sometimes the case, they don't really understand the issues involved.

When I Was a College Student

My freshman year was in a dorm, built during the 1950's.  Between me and my roommate we probably had 3 or 4 appliances (clocks and radios).  That thought was triggered by this excerpt from a post quoted by Margaret Soltan:

Take Stanford University, where the student body avows itself as green as Kermit the Frog. Buttressed by a stack of PowerPoint graphs, a friend likes to demonstrate to his students that, as they have grown ever more Gaia-friendly over the years, their consumption of energy in the Stanford dorms has grown ever more mind-boggling. It’s those shiny gadgets of theirs. My friend does this for the sheer delicious malice of it, not because he expects a single student to unplug anything. He knows that, among any student body, ethics is primarily a fashionable pose.

What are the chances we could get college students to return to the good old days in the name of environmentalism?

Wash Your Hands

That's the message at freakonomics.

Congress: Ask the Bureaucrats

That's the message of this Government Executive piece--that much legislation is poorly designed and hard to implement, problems which could be avoided if only the legislators asked the bureaucrats who have to implement it for their input early in the process.