How Should the Education System Be Reformed?

I don’t know. But I do think we need to change education paradigms to suit the world we live in. “Changing Paradigms” is one of the best and conservatively sound presentations I’ve seen on the fundamental problem with education as it’s currently being done. This is a presentation given by creativity expert and education reformer Sir Ken Robinson at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), in which he tackles such questions as the lies the current education system tells to students about the meaning of their education and about their future, the way the current educations system numbs students’ natural abilities and stunts their potential rather than furthering it, and what about its very makeup is based on a worldview from 250 years ago that is now direly outdated, as well as how to reform the system so it serves everyone.

For a short, animated version of some of Ken Robinson’s main points about education reform, see here:

For Ken Robinson’s full-length speech at the RSA, see here:

Even though at first Sir Ken Robinson’s presentation may seem a surprising pick for conservative takes on education reform, in fact it upholds the essential conservative values of democracies: all men are born equal, all should have a chance to work hard and best use their abilities to advance through merit, and teachers (in this case) should be held accountable not to the checklist they can hand in at the end of the day, but rather to the success of having taught their students the information and thinking patterns the students need to be successful in their life after education — including the ability to think outside the box in a constructive fashion, in order to succeed in concrete ways.

Obama Is Made to Feel China’s Newfound Power

This is a translation of an article from the German news magazine Der Spiegel by Marc Hujer, originally published as “Obama bekommt Chinas neue Macht zu spüren” at Spiegel Online on Nov. 12, 2010. I post this here only because I think it is an important article, and no English translation is currently available. I will remove this post as soon as an official translation is available to English-language speakers.

This is what a power shift looks like: During his visit to Asia, Barack Obama is learning that American influence in the region is waning. While the U.S. president is holding speeches, Beijing is creating realities with its billion-dollar investments. During the G-20 summit, China’s delegation even gets away with a diplomatic affront.

One of president Obama’s favorite jokes is that really he’s just Number Two — Number Two after Michelle Obama. He married up, he adds, basking in the friendly laughter he elicits. It is a joke he can afford to make. As president of the United States, he is automatically considered Number One.

Now Barack Obama is traveling through Asia. His ten-day journey leads him via India and Indonesia to the G-20 summit in South Korea and then on to Japan. It is the longest trip of his presidency, and it comes directly after the lost mid-term election.

On the second day of the trip, he sits in one of the back rows at the Holy Name High School in Mumbai. At the front of the room, Michelle Obama dances, surrounded by tenth graders. Absent-mindedly, President Obama sways to the music. It is unlikely that he suspects he is up next, when two Indians walk over to him and bully him into dancing with Michelle.

By evening, these are the images that flicker across news screens. The question arises how seriously to take them. The man dancing there — is that world politics’ Number One?

Last week, Forbes Magazine gave a clear and sobering answer: No. Obama is now only world politics’ Number Two. Number One is someone who can tackle problems, who can overcome resistance. And for Forbes, that someone is China’s president, Hu Jintao. Hu can even re-route rivers, without interference from pesky bureaucrats and courts. What, in comparison, does Obama have to offer?

Obama wants to show China its limits

Obama’s trip to Asia was meant to turn the page by setting a new agenda, away from domestic squabbling after the defeat in the mid-term election, towards foreign policy. It was meant to give Obama, the self-proclaimed “first Pacific president,” new weight. Obama came to evoke common ground, with India, Indonesia, South Korea, and Japan. These countries are not just economic powers, but also democracies. Obama also came to secure business deals, to negotiate trade contracts that will secure American jobs at home. And he came to show China its limits, to draw a line in the sand for its model of authoritarian capitalism.

China has prepared for this. While Obama travels from Mumbai to New Delhi in India, while he sings the praises of India, the new economic superpower, and while he makes the long-craved promise to India’s parliament that the United States will support the country’s bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, President Hu pays a visit to France. In India, Obama announces trade deals worth 10 billion dollars. In France, Hu publicizes his own figures: 20 billion, doubling Obama’s.

Mumbai university students ask President Obama how America has changed after the mid-term elections. They ask whether not just now, but over the last few years, the United States has been wielding the same sort of geopolitical power it once did. George W. Bush would have launched into a speech about what is great about America. Obama replies more pensively. He will turn 50 next year, he says. In the nearly 50 years that he’s been alive, the United States has always been able to dictate its position to the world:

The US was such an enormously dominant economic power, we were such a large market, our industry, our technology, our manufacturing was so significant that we always met the rest of the world economically on our terms. And now because of the incredible rise of India and China and Brazil and other countries, the U.S. remains the largest economy and the largest market, but there is real competition.

Obama and the mango tree in his front yard

Indonesia is the second stop on Obama’s Asian trip. It is easier for him to win sympathies here. After all, he lived in Indonesia for four years, so the country is home turf. But in the end, here, too, it’s the numbers that matter. And here, too, the Chinese are well ahead of him. One day before Obama steps off Air Force One, a Chinese business delegation promises Indonesia 6.6. billion dollars worth of investments into roads, bridges, and canals that Indonesia desperately needs. And Obama?

At the presidential palace in Jakarta, President Obama stands next to Indonesia’s president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and does his best to use as many Indonesian words as possible. He talks about his youth, his house in Jakarta with the mango tree in the front yard, about how Jakarta had only a single high-rise building back then. But when it comes to figures, to export contracts and direct investments like the Chinese have announced, he has little to offer: In Indonesia, he concedes, “we’re number three right now in terms of trade volume and investment.”

Democracy is complicated. One gets bogged down. And in a way, Forbes may have assessed correctly that the United States cannot compete on a level playing field with a country that can simply issue orders, and whatever arrangements it thinks will strengthen its power will promptly be made. It cannot compete on a level playing field with a country that knows nothing of majorities and mid-term elections. And, President Obama points out, is it really all about the numbers? ”Prosperity without freedom,” Obama says in Jakarta, “is really just another form of poverty.”

Made to feel irrelevant

On Thursday they finally meet, Obama and Hu, for the seventh time. They sit in a hotel suite in Seoul. Between them stands a table with a vase of flowers, behind it four flags: two American, two Chinese. Obama has crossed his legs. Hu sits straight, both feet on the ground. They exchange diplomatic phrases, the necessary niceties, words without weight, to avoid unnecessarily exposing themselves.

“The Chinese side values its relationship with the United States,” the translator says. And Obama replies, “It’s wonderful to meet with President Hu.” They go on like this for a few minutes, but it becomes difficult to hear what they are saying. The Chinese delegation standing next to Hu chatters loudly and unabashedly. The Americans are irritated, but they do not complain. Today is not about etiquette.

It’s about who can get away with what.

Perfect Metaphor for the Iraq War of 2003

This is exactly what happened. The part about taking the shirt off is Powell in front of the United Nations.

The Math: Random Traffic Jams

I drive a lot, so I’ve become interested in the reasons why traffic so frequently breaks down for no good reason and I have to sit on a perfectly good road where everything would be just fine if everyone did what they should do, which is drive straight ahead at a reasonable speed.

As a result, I’ve been reading a great deal about the technical issues concerning traffic flow, and I’ll be posting about them here occasionally. Civil engineering, after all, is a political issue.

For starters, the Wired blog on cars and car-related things has a short piece on the math behind random traffic jams. You know, the kind that you get to the end of and you think, “Where’s the accident? Where’s the construction? Why did I just waste an hour boxed in on a road made for driving at least 120 km/h — for nothing???”

Researchers at MIT say it has to do with the fact that when the person in front of us brakes, we want to be safe, so we brake harder than they do. It piles up. And thus Chicago’s Stevenson, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Edens Expressways turn into giant parking lots any given weekday from 8-10 am and 2-7 pm. And I’m sure it’s the same in most major and minor cities.

The full article is here: “MIT Hopes to Exorcise ‘Phantom’ Traffic Jams”

And if you’re the kind who feels happy to complain to their elected official about how the roads and traffic flow on your commute are so poorly engineered that they’re taking years off your life, here’s a website that helps you write to them and let them know: http://www.mycommutesucks.org

Red Envelope Day

If you have a moment to spare, please check out the Red Envelope Day initiative. (Or on Facebook.)

On March 31st, participants in Red Envelope Day will send empty red envelopes to the White House. Each envelope will have the following message written on it:

“This envelope represents one child who died because of an abortion. It is empty because the life that was taken is now unable to be a part of our world.”

This is a non-aggressive, awareness-raising approach that makes the Pro-Life point while being respectful and to-the-point. For those of us who believe that human life should not be at the whim or convenience of those who feel that they have power over it, this is a chance to show an increasingly ruthless federal government that we care.

If you’re interested in the plain, objective numbers behind why this is necessary, here they are.

Why It’s Important to Keep on Pushing for a Ban on Abortions

Public Transport, Crime, and Racism

Over at the Freakonomics blog, Stephen Dubner kicked off a discussion about the demerits of public transport in certain areas of St. Louis. Apparently, inner city teenagers have been using the metrolink extension there in large numbers to travel to an upscale mall, spiking the shoplifting and assault incidents at that mall.

I’m a big proponent of public transport and think it should be expanded in all metro areas as much as is feasible, so I’m not going to dwell on that part of the argument. All traffic policy experts agree more public transport is a good thing, and if it’s properly administered, it ends up saving the community and the taxpayers money. I’ve yet to see a good argument against public transport, period.

In this particular case, if St. Louis built even more metrolink lines, I’m pretty sure that particular mall would be less of a focal point for delinquencies. The solution here would be better planning, more focused investment, and better enforcement of loitering laws — not griping. (In fact, I bet that simply patrolling the trains better to check that all passengers were ticket holders would reduce the problem further — and create jobs.)

What gets my hackles raised is the comment section of that discussion. A lot of the commenters seem to think that this is about “the rich” against “the poor,” and that “the rich” (meaning the shop owners at the mall) somehow deserve to have their products stolen by inner city punks.

I’m all for aiding the poor, even systemically, if that aid has pragmatic results. But I absolutely cannot stand it when people who are themselves middle class sneer at those of their peers who get robbed or stolen from and then complain about it — as if being prosperous earns anyone the duty to be victimized.

There is no excuse for the victimization many lower class citizens suffer for bad reasons, but surely that doesn’t mean they’re entitled to commit crimes against those loosely associated with their own grievances. The fact that more poor people get pulled over by cops doesn’t mean they can then go and beat up suburbanites at malls. Most of those cops don’t live in those suburbs. They live just down the road from the ghetto. And even if they did live right next to the mall, stealing from those cops’ neighbors, robbing and beating up their kids, and heckling their daughters doesn’t solve the problems the poor face, nor do their grievances justify that sort of behavior.

I’m not saying this as one of those suburbanites, either. Hyde Park in Chicago, where my university is, is safer than the rest of the ghetto that surrounds it. But here’s something interesting that happens to aforementioned sneerers, of which the university has its fair and smug share: Once it’s them who gets robbed or sexually assaulted, which happens rather more frequently than in the burbs and is almost never perpetrated by anyone who isn’t part of the poor inner city population, the former sneerers change their mind rather quickly. All of a sudden, the rule of law doesn’t seem so bad. I guess it’s just as long as it’s the other guy who gets beat up and robbed that it’s the just revenge of the underprivileged. Hypocrites.

And one last thing. A lot of those sneerers seem to be saying what they’re saying out of some misplaced sense that they’re combatting racism by advocating crime and putting down the victims as deserved victims. The opposite is true. The implication is that poor African Americans or poor Hispanics can’t help themselves, that crime is part of who they are, intrinsically, and that it’s their way to Get Respect. To say someone is inherently immoral because of their ethnic background is about as racist as it comes. So shut up, move where poor minorities live, and then get back to me about how that bit of self-righteousness worked out for you in a year or so. I have the feeling those safe burbs won’t look so bad.

Let’s Ask the Economists…

Steven D. Levitt, the University of Chicago economist who wrote the best-selling book Freakonomics and runs a blog over at the New York Times, asked two friends and colleagues of his, Doug Diamond and Anil Kashyap, to explain the financial crisis to those of us who aren’t so good at deciphering all the jargon and convoluted details.

Diamond and Kashyap explain here, in clear layman’s terms, why the stock market has been so erratic in the last weeks, what steps the government is and isn’t taking (and why), why the private market cannot take care of this problem on its own (ostensibly), why bank assets are so hard to value right now, what the Treasury is doing about bad assets, whether the government’s plan will work and how soon, and how long the crisis is likely to continue.

If you’re still scratching your heads about what happened with the financial markets in the first place to spark this crisis, this episode of NPR’s This American Life is still the best thing out there that’s made for normal people like us. They talk to the people who were undermining the mortgage market in the first place, with a lot of refreshing honesty about why they did it and how… and it’s just a little bit reminiscent of the historically problematic attitude that, Hey, I was just doing my job. Following instructions. You know.

At What Time and On What Channel is the Oct 15 presidential debate?

In case you were wondering about when the next presidential debate is taking place and on what television channels it is showing:

The October 15th presidential debate between Democratic candidate Barack Obama and Republican candidate John McCain on the Hofstra University campus in Long Island, New York, is scheduled to take place at 8 pm Central Time (9 pm Eastern Time, 7 pm Mountain Time, 6 pm Pacific Time).

The presidential debate will be held in a standard debate format and will last 90 minutes. The debate will be broken into nine, nine-minute segments. The moderator will introduce a topic and allow each candidate two minutes to comment. After these initial answers, the moderator will facilitate an open discussion of the topic for the remaining five minutes, ensuring that both candidates receive an equal amount of time to comment.

The debate moderator will be Bob Schieffer of CBS, and the topic will be domestic and economic policy. The debate will be aired on television channels ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, PBS, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and BBC America.

This is the final debate and may be John McCain’s last big chance to change the momentum of the election in his favor. Voters so far have perceived Barack Obama as the more informed candidate when it comes to economic policy. Watch for lots of numbers being thrown around and some aggressive debating.

Presidential Poll Quickie: Oct. 9, 2008

I have an irrational love of numbers. The only numbers people interested in politics get to obsess over without reservations are polls. So here’s a brief summary of the latest national presidential election polls and polls in states that John McCain and Barack Obama appear to think are in play.

Although the October 7, 2008 presidential debate between Republican presidential candidate John McCain and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was widely seen as essentially a draw — which would benefit the front runner, Obama, but not affect climbs or falls in the numbers — there has been some movement in the polls since that debate.

National polls have seen McCain slowly and so far not significantly gaining on Obama. While a Gallup poll still has Obama leading by 11 percentage points with 52% over McCain’s 41%, a Rasmussen poll has Obama at 50% over McCain’s 45%, a Hotline/FD poll has Obama at 47% over McCain’s 41%, a Reuters/C-Span/Zogby poll has Obama at 48% to McCain’s 44%, and a GW/Battleground poll has Obama at 48% to McCain’s 45%. Obama’s numbers are generally down two or three percentage points from polls earlier this week, but they are outside the statistical margin of error.

In projections for the electoral college that average-in trends over several different recent polls, Obama is now projected to win 349 electoral votes over McCain’s 174, with North Carolina’s 15 electoral votes considered a toss-up. A candidate needs 270 electoral college votes to win the presidential election.

The battleground states of the moment are Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, Nevada, and North Carolina, which add up to a total of 98 electoral votes — enough to nearly swing the election one way or the other, although McCain would have to pick up all these states and 9 more electoral votes from elsewhere to win, since Indiana’s 11 electoral votes are currently credited to his 174. If McCain manages to hold on to all his current electoral votes, he would be most likely to pick those remaining 9 votes up in Michigan, New Mexico, or Virginia, which all currently poll for Obama at an average of 6% each.

Here are the developments in those battlground states:

Colorado (9 electoral votes) had been called a tie by the Denver Post earlier last week, with projections that it might return to its old habit of leaning GOP after generally favoring Obama following the Democratic National Convention in Denver. A recent Fox News/Rasmussen poll and an InAdv/Poll Position poll, however, have both put the mood there at 51% Obama over McCain’s 45%.

Florida (27 electoral votes) has been leaning slightly Obama recently, but the state is certainly still very much contested. The Republican-leaning Florida Chamber of Commerce has polled McCain at 45% to Obama’s 42%.  A non-partisan Mason/Dixon poll has Obama at 48% to McCain’s 46%, and a Rasmussen poll has Obama at 50% to McCain’s 47%.

Indiana (11 electoral votes) was called a tie by a Research 2000 poll earlier last week, but a more recent CNN/Time poll has McCain leading Obama 51% to 46%, and an even more recent Rasmussen poll has McCain even farther ahead, at 50% to Obama’s 43%.

Ohio (20 electoral votes) remains hotly contested, although it is currently leaning slightly towards Obama, who has lost a few percentage points in that crucial swing state. Earlier in the week, an ABC News/Washington Post poll and a poll by the Democratic-leaning PPP had both predicted Obama 6% ahead, at 51% to McCain’s 45% and 49% to McCain’s 43% respectively. Then, a later Fox News/Rasmussen poll had predicted McCain taking the lead at 48% to Obama’s 47%, only to have the most current polls by CNN/Time and ARG once again put Obama in the lead at 50% to 47% and 48% to 45% respectively. A three percent lead is close to the margin of error, so Ohio is essentially undecided.

Michigan (17 electoral votes) recently saw McCain pull his ad funding as the state seemed to slip further and further into the Obama camp, but Michigan will remain one of the states that McCain will have to pursue if he wants to retain a chance of winning. The numbers, however, are not at all good for McCain. The Democratic-leaning PPP’s recent poll has predicted a 51% to 41% lead for Obama, and, more significantly, the conservative-leaning Rasmussen has Obama ahead 56% to McCain’s 50%. This follows a tie two weeks ago.

Missouri (11 electoral votes) had Obama take the lead polls earlier in the week by CNN/Time (49% to McCain’s 48%) and by Fox News/Rasmussen (50% to McCain’s 47%), but the most recent poll by ARG puts McCain ahead once again at 49% to Obama’s 46%. Missouri may be the state currently credited to Obama’s electoral votes by long-term tendency that McCain needs to secure in order to have a chance to win.

Nevada (5 electoral votes), once a McCain state, has seen Obama’s consistent lead waver in magnitude over the last few polls, bouncing from 4 points (Rasmussen) up to 7 points (Reno Gazette-Journal) and back down to 2 points (InAdv/PollPosition). The state is certainly still in play.

New Mexico (5 electoral votes), where McCain had hoped to benefit from his popularity in neighboring Arizona and his hard-line talk on illegal immigration, still has Obama ahead by 5% each in recent Rasmussen and Albuquerque Journal polls.

North Carolina (15 electoral votes) is the most hotly contested state, with the Charlotte area polling heavily for Obama and the rest of the state leaning towards McCain. Unlike Obama’s native Illinois, where Chicago’s high Democratic numbers among blue collar workers and African Americans regularly overrule the rest of the state’s steady Republican base, Charlotte is not large enough (yet) to do the same in North Carolina. The polls there have been all over the place this week. The Democratic-leaning PPP put Obama at 50% over McCain’s 44%. CNN/Time called the state at tie at 49% each. SurveyUSA put McCain at 49% and Obama at 46%. The Republican-leaning Civitas/TelOpinion polled Obama at 48% and McCain at 43%. Rasmussen puts Obama at 49% over McCain’s 48%. The state is an important prize for the McCain campaign, so look for a lot of campainging there in the coming weeks, with plenty of appeals to the Southern conservative base by Sarah Palin.

Virginia (13 electoral votes) has traditionally been a GOP state and is one where McCain still has some chance of success, albeit the current polls by Suffolk (12%), SurveyUSA (10%), Fox News/Rasmussen (2%), and the Democratic-leaning PPP (8%) all put Obama fairly comfortably in the lead, if less so since the last presidential debate.

The McCain campaign will also need to keep an eye on states where McCain only leads by an average of 6% or less in the polls. Currently the only state in that category is West Virginia (5 electoral votes).

A Poetic Take on the Wall Street Scandal

Note: A “copybook heading” was a well-known proverb, verse, or aphorism that stood at the top of each page of every British child’s copybook up until the early 1900s. Schoolchildren practiced their handwriting by copying it over and over again until the page was full. Kipling wrote this poem after his son was killed in World War I, a war that many Britons blamed on the greed of the bigwig industrialists whose factories profited from the war effort while in high-flown patriotic prose they promised a glorious victory and a paradisaical future to the men who went off to be slaughtered in the trenches. In this poem Kipling criticizes those who suspended their judgment and common sense and followed suit with idiotic policy because of such rosy promises of prosperity.

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

by Rudyard Kipling

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn.
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breath of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market-Place;
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch.
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch.
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings.
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Heading said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul; But, though
We had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Heading said: “If you don’t work you die.”

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew,
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not God that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four-
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man –
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wobbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Some more notes:

“They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch.” Stilton is a British cheese. The Dutch are famous for their cheeses.

“The Cambrian measures” are a part of the ocean off Britain that now separates it from Europe.

“Feminian Sandstones” are a building material used to construct medieval churches and, earlier, pagan temples.

“The Carboniferous Epoch” is an era of geological change that formed many of the mountain ranges of the world.

Sunday Worthy Reads (October 5, 2008)

Here are some newspaper and magazine articles that I found insightful about topics I may not have time to blog about, but that are definitely worth reading:

International

Christina Lamb at the London Times examines the suggestion by a senior British general in Afghanistan that the war against the Taliban cannot be won and that the West should strike a deal with them, and provides context with a companion piece on Taliban fighting tactics and another one about the failure of the Western governments to truly reconstruct the country.

Syed Saleem Shahzad at Le Monde Diplomatique examines the deepening Taliban campaign on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border and investigates the influx of Turkish and European-born fighters to the area who are planning to support the Taliban.

James Risen at the New York Times reports on the links between Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s brother Ahmed Wali Karzai and the growing heroin trade that is corrupting wide swaths of the Afghan government.

At The New Yorker, Steve Coll analyzes the recent replacement of Pakistan’s spy-in-chief and whether that will end the Pakistani intelligence agency’s not-so-tacit support for the Taliban.

Coll also takes a close look at the inheritance that still funds Osama bin Laden.

Walter Mayr at Der Spiegel International reports on the ever more tense struggle between Russia and the Ukraine over the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Sevastopol on the Crimea, which the Russian navy appears to be hog-wild about forcing under Russian control, by whatever means necessary.

Thom Shanker at the New York Times reports on the establishment of a separate U.S. Armed Forces Command for Africa to counter Chinese, Russian, Middle Eastern, and Indian influences there. American attention will become more important now that South Africa’s future as a viable leader for the contintent has come into question.

Chris Kraul and Patrick J. Mcdonnell at the Los Angeles Times report on the emergence of Brazlilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as the major mover and shaker of the South American continent; Brazil is a legitimate regional power, and Lula is finally beginning to shift attention away from Hugo Chavez, who is mainly known for being outspoken and for advocating disastrous economic policies, and who has occupied an inflated role in our collective attention, as Venezuela is a decidedly second-rung power in South America.

Alex Perry in Time Magazine investigates the growth of piracy off the coast of Somalia, a strategically vital area for world commerce.

United States

Charles Duhigg at the New York Times examines the pressures that transformed Fannie Mae from a bank set up by the government to help Americans avoid bad home loans into one of the most profitable and defunct lender failures in history.

Adam Liptak at the New York Times previews the most important cases the U.S. Supreme Court will deliberate in its upcoming session. David Savage at the Los Angeles Times analyzes whether Roe v. Wade might be overturned this coming year (or at least curtailed), now that the Supreme Court appears less in favor of killing children out of convenience.

Peter Baker in the New York Times Magazine examines the story of U.S. Representative Tom Davis, a former GOP star now quitting Congress out of disappointment with his party, to continue the series begun two weeks ago by David Frum’s excellent piece on how the Republican Party is trying to redefine itself as a party that better represents the interests of the American people than it has for the last eight years. In the Atlantic Monthly, Ross Douthat considers how that challenge to the GOP is similar to the one facing the Democrats a decade ago.

Corby Kummer at the Atlantic Monthly analyzes how the recent food tainting scandals are a reflection of the same attitude towards regulation that led to the economic crisis at large.

Culture, Books, and Everything Else

Charles McGrath at the New York Times discusses comments made by Horace Engdahl, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, who said that U.S. literature is not relevant to world literature because it has become increasingly insular.

David Martin in the London Times Literary Supplement assesses the importance of VP candidate Sarah Palin’s Pentecostal faith, relates it to the movement’s strong influence and massive growth world-wide, and gives some reading suggestions.

Garrison Keillor in the New York Times Book Review reviews Julian Barnes’ new novel, Nothing to Be Frightened Of, in which Barnes explores the worries and fears agnostics have about death and about the meaning of life. The novel begins with the line, “I don’t believe in God, but I miss him.”

In the London Sunday Times, six British writers describe hilariously and thoughtfully what makes a perfect woman.

At What Time and On What Channel is the Presidential Debate on Oct. 7?

In case you were wondering about when the next presidential debate is taking place and on what television channels it is showing:

The October 7th presidential debate between Democratic candidate Barack Obama and Republican candidate John McCain on the Belmont University campus in Nashville, Tennessee, is scheduled to take place at 8 pm Central Time (9 pm Eastern Time, 7 pm Mountain Time, 6 pm Pacific Time). It will be held in a “town hall” format and will last 90 minutes. The debate will be aired on television channels ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, PBS, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and BBC America.

So Whose Economic Policy Will Save America?

Let’s ask the economists.

Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert cartoon, did. His thorough report is here. It basically says that economists who are Republicans favor John McCain’s policies, that economists who are Democrats favor Barack Obama’s policies, and that economists who call themselves independent favor Barack Obama’s policies, generally speaking. So no surprises there.

The Economist, a free market-leaning British magazine of the highest international repute, has a thorough and no-nonsense analysis of the two candidates’ economic plans in its latest edition. Now, The Economist has also interviewed all the members of the National Bureau of Economic Research (N.B.E.R.), which includes all the top economists in the U.S.

142 of them responded, with somewhat shocking results (at least for those of us who think in the University of Chicago/free market vein). The full data is available here.

First off, 46% of the top economists identified themselves as Democrats, 44% identified themselves as independent, and only 10% identified themselves as Republican. This does not mean that economists are mostly liberal: The Republican party has not been fiscally conservative for a while now, and so hardcore free marketeers would identify themselves as independent. Nevertheless, the high identification with the Democratic Party certainly is surprising.

Asked to grade the two candidates’ economic plans on a scale of 1 through 5, the economists gave John McCain’s plan a 2.1 (i.e., a D) and Barack Obama’s plan a 3.3 (i.e. a C). This isn’t sufficient from either, given the gravity of the current economic situation.

The economists further thought that addressing the housing and financial crisis was the most important thing a future president must do, and rated Obama’s plan at 3.1 and McCain’s plan at 2.0. The next important step the economists agreed on was to promote fiscal discipline, with Obama’s plan at 3.0 and McCain’s plan at 2.0. The scores were virtually the same for priorities three and four: boosting long-term economic growth (Obama 3.2, McCain 2.5) and reforming financial regulation (Obama 3.3, McCain 2.0).

The economists were then asked to rate the candidates’ tax plans according to efficiency, equity, simplicity, and to give the tax plans an overall rating. John McCain’s tax plan received a 2.8 rating over Obama’s 2.7 on the efficiency count, but Obama’s plan topped McCain’s 3.8 to 1.7 on equity, 2.6 to 2.3 on simplicity, and 3.2 to 2.2 overall.

Perhaps most strikingly, 80.7% of the economists thought Obama would pick a better economic team (to McCain’s 13.6%) and 80.1% of the economists thought Obama had a better grasp of economic policy (to McCain’s 7.8%). Moreover, the economists rated the importance of this election for future economic policy at 4.15 out of 5 — i.e. crucial.

Let’s hope some more surveys come out so we can put this one in context, but it’s certainly an occasion for conservatives with independent minds to stop and think.

The John McCain campaign explains his economic platform here.

The Barack Obama campaign explains his economic platform here.

Presidential Poll Quickie: Sep. 28, 2008

I have an irrational love of numbers. The only numbers people interested in politics get to obsess over without reservations are polls. So here’s a brief summary of the latest national presidential election polls and polls in states that John McCain and Barack Obama appear to think are in play.

Recent national polls appear to more clearly favor Barack Obama over John McCain that has previously been the case. A Gallup poll has Obama ahead at 50% to McCain’s 42%, a Rasmussen poll has Barack Obama ahead at 50% to McCain’s 44%, and a Hotline/FD poll has Obama ahead at 47% to McCain’s 42%.

Current electoral vote totals put Barack Obama at 286 electoral votes and John McCain at 252 electoral votes, a gain by Obama of 13 electoral votes over last week.

In Florida, John McCain continues to hold on to the slightest of leads over Barack Obama, at 48% to Obama’s 47%.

Iowa appears to have gone from a battle ground state to solidly for Barack Obama, with all more recent polls putting Obama ahead of McCain in that state, and the most current Iowa poll putting Obama at 51% to McCain’s 43%.

Michigan no longer appears to be a battle ground state. The newest poll there puts Barack Obama 13% ahead of John McCain, at 51% to 38%.

Missouri appears to edging towards a toss-up, with John McCain’s lead over Barack Obama there melting to 48% to 46% in one poll and to 47% to 46% in another poll.

In hotly contested Nevada, John McCain holds on to a slim lead of 46% over Barack Obama’s 45% in the most recent poll.

After John McCain pulled ahead in New Hampshire earlier in the week by two points, four successive polls have shown Obama in the lead, with the most recent one putting Obama at 48% and McCain at 44%.

In the usually solidly Republican North Carolina, Barack Obama now leads John McCain at 49% to 47%, according to the latest poll, following two polls that had tied the two candidates at 45% each and at 46% each.

John McCain seems to be currently ahead in Ohio, which has been back and forth frequently. A poll earlier last week had reduced Obama’s lead to a tie at 46% to 46%, and the newest poll gives McCain a slight lead at 47% to Obama’s 46%. Unless something drastic happens, Ohio will, as usual, add suspense to the presidential election until election night and make its 20 electoral votes a deciding factor.

Barack Obama continues to hold on to his lead in Pennsylvania, with 47% to John McCain’s 43% in the most current poll and 49% to 45% in one the day before.

Virginia, which has voted Republican since the end of the Dixiecrats, now appears to have tilted in Obama’s favor at 50% over McCain’s 45%. The polls in Virginia have been going back and forth frequently, so nothing is settled yet — it looks like this state might be one of the ones to watch election night. Virginia has 13 electoral votes.

After only showing a one-point lead in the Big Ten Battleground poll two weeks ago in Wisconsin, Barack Obama is now once again clearly in the lead in that state, at 49% to John McCain’s 43%.