Day: November 7, 2001

Don’t Ya Hate It When…

…the things that you obssess and worry about turn out to be nothing at all, but then something comes totally out of the blue that really ruins your day. That’s the story of my life the past couple weeks.

Anyway, tomorrow I’m having some wisdom teeth pulled. I had one pulled a few years ago, and was surprised at how easy it was (after hearing horror stories about the procedure from friends and family). I scored an 84 on that Blogaholic quiz that’s making the rounds, and you can bet that all of the Tylenol with Codeine in the world couldn’t keep me from blogging.

Now if everythimg else would just settle down and go this smoothly.

World Bank: The Developed World Must Follow Through with Trade Liberalization to Help the Developing World

Much of the emphasis on globalization has been on opening up often extremely protectionist markets in the developing world. But the World Bank’s recently released Global Economic Outlook 2002 also emphasizes the other end of the equation — developed countries must liberalize their own markets, allowing in textile and agricultural imports from the developing world.

In a press release announcing publication of the Global Economic Outlook, Uri Dadush, Director of the World Bank’s Economic Policy and Prospects Group, said,

To make this happen, the developed countries have to be willing to put agriculture and textiles on the negotiating table because those are the products that the world’s poor produce. A round that brings down barriers in agriculture, advances the timetable on textiles, and agrees to curtail antidumping at the same time it takes up the concerns of the industrialized countries has the potential for being a true ‘Development Round.

The World Bank predicts short term economic problems due to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, but thinks the long term prospect for the global economy is very good. Growth in trade in 2001 decline sharply from 13 percent in 2000 to as little as 1 percent in 2001, but it is expected to rise to 7.3 percent 2002-2003.

Source:

Launching ‘Development Round’ Could Help Poor Countries Facing Global Downturn. World Bank, Press Release, November 2001.

Zambia’s President is Stupid

Another example of just how retrograde some governments in the developing world tend to be: the BBC reports that 27-year-old estate agent Wilfred Nkabeka was recently sentenced to two years in jail for defaming the president of Zambia, Frederick Chiluba.

After having a bit too much to drink, Nkabeka told anyone who would listen that Chiluba was “stupid” and referred to him with other colorful phrases. Nkabeka was arrested and conviction of defamation.

Ironically, the political party that Chiluba belongs to is called the Movement for Multiparty Democracy. Apparently observers need to put a big asterisk next to the “Democracy” to indicate that it is only a broad suggestion. (No wonder Zambia is among the poorest performing of poorly performing states in Africa).

Source:

Zambian jailed for calling president stupid. The BBC, October 31, 2001.

Ann Quindlen: Women Should Have to Register for the Draft, Just Like Men

Newsweek columnist Anna Quindlen wrote a column the other day noting that although 1 in 5 new military recruits are women, men are still singled out and required to register with selective service for a potential future draft. Quindlen argues that this is a sexist anachronism. But, really, the entire selective service process is an anachronism.

To be sure, if there’s going to be mandatory draft registration, it should not discriminate against sex. Quindlen writes that when Jimmy Carter restored draft registration after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, both he and the Army chief of staff wanted registration to apply to both men and women.

Congress, however, rejected that idea and the Supreme Court held that since women were not allowed to serve in combat positions, it didn’t make sense to require them to register for the draft. But now women are actively engaged in combat in Afghanistan, so that argument doesn’t hold much water anymore.

But as much as I agree with Quindlen about the discriminatory nature of a male-only draft, the problem is really with the draft itself. For example, Quindlen chides feminists for not being more vocal about including women in the draft,

In 1980 NOW released a resolution that buried support for the registration of women beneath opposition to the draft, despite the fact that the draft had been redesigned to eliminate the vexing inequities of Vietnam, when the sons of the working class served and the sons of the Ivy League did not.

Huh? On this point I agree with the National Organization for Women — the draft is in principal wrong, and the Selective Service registration requirement should be eliminated. But, beyond that, as NOW put it in that 1980 resolution, people should “oppose any registration or draft that excludes women as an unconstitutional denial of rights to both young men and women.”

Opposition to the draft is not, as Quindlen implies, solely based on the class-based inequities of the Vietnam-era draft. In fact, at this point the selective service is largely symbolic with the Pentagon itself acknowledging in 1993 that eliminating it would have “no effect on military mobilization requirements, little effect on the time it would take to mobilize and no measurable effect on military recruitment.”

Draft registration is an anachronism whose time is long past. Lets kill the program outright, not waste time trying to reform it to be sex neutral.

Source:

Uncle Sam and Aunt Samantha: It’s simple fairness: women as well as men should be required to register for the draft. Anna Quindlen, Newsweek, November 5, 2001.

A Dishonorable Discharge for Selective Service Doug Bandow, Cato Institute, September 20, 1999.

Canada Gives Parents a License to Kidnap

A recent decision by a jury in a Canadian child kidnapping case gave a new meaning to the word bizarre.

The case started with Carline Vandenelsen, 39, who kidnapped her three children from her husband, Craig Merkley, 45, who had custody of the children. Vandenelsen thoroughly planned the kidnapping, confided in several people that she planned to kidnap her children, then hid them in her trunk while she crossed over the border into the United States. Yet, a jury recently acquitter her of kidnapping by agreeing with her defense’s bizarre legal theory.

See if this makes sense to you. Under Canadian law, parents accused of kidnapping can be acquitted if they committed the crime to prevent the children from imminent harm. Vandenelsen argued that she believed a court was about to sever her parental rights over her children. She reasoned that if her children were deprived of her by the courts, that they would suffer harm. Therefore, she argued, she was acting lawfully to protect her children when she kidnapped them.

And a jury agreed with this idiotic theory. This is especially puzzling since Canadian law requires that there been an objective need for a protective abduction, and it is hard to see a court order regarding custody of children fulfilling that criteria (in fact, the jury implicitly undermines its own decision by agreeing with this reasoning).

The jury did not get to hear the evidence a judge used to first limit Vandenelsen’s visits with her children to alternate Saturdays. Merkley tape recorded calls between Vandenelsen and her children. A court psychiatrist who analyzed the tapes testified that Vandenelsen was so emotionally abusive to her children that her access to them should be restricted to special occasions (the tapes are sealed per a court order). The judge in the case was set to make a final decision on the matter before she fled the country.

Even though the didn’t hear the tapes, it is still difficult to understand why a jury would buy Vandenelsen’s defense. As Merkley put it, “I think that they’ve just declared open season for anyone who wants to abduct their children.

Source:

Abduction of triplets a ‘necessity,’ jury rules. Francine Dube, National Post, October 27, 2001.