Month: July 2004

AIDS Causes Life Expectancy Crash in Some Africa Countries

Earlier this month the United Nations released its Human Development Report 2004 which notes that the AIDS crisis has caused declines in life expectancy compared to 25 years ago.

In Rwanda, for example, the life expectancy in 1970-1975 was 44.6 years. In 2000-2005, however, it had declined to 39.3 years.

The African states of Tanzania, Cote d’Ivoire, Zambia, Malawi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Mozambique, Burundi, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Congo, Swaziland, Botswana, and Namibia all saw declines in life expectancy.

In the case of Zambia, whose life expectancy rate is now estimated to be only 32.4 years, life expectancy today is lower than it was in 1960. Not surprisingly, 16.5 percent of the adult population of Zambia is believed to be HIV positive.

Source:

Big fall in African life expectancy. The BBC, July 15, 2004.

UN Human Development Report 2004. United Nations, 2004.

Are Blogs a Liability in Academia

My wife recently posted about an interesting exchange she had about her blog. Last Fall she applied to a number of PhD programs. At one of the places that turned her down, she heard through a pretty reliable source that not only did students and faculty read her weblog, but that if she wanted to have a better chance at being admitted to a PhD program she should shut down her blog altogether.

She links to a debate among others in academia about whether or not students and others should stick with anonymous blogs and web sites rather than risk harming their careers.

But there are two distinct issues. My wife mentions that there are people who are employed by the university we work at who engage in protests against the war in Iraq during their personal time, and of course I blog about those folks sometimes here on my own time. I think it would be absurd to sit around worrying that this is going to hurt careers either way. I wouldn’t want to work for someone who is going to let their personal feelings about my political views affect our personal relationship. I work everyday with people whose political/social views are 180 degrees opposite of mine, and never think twice about it because it is completely irrelevant to our professional relationship.

On the other hand, a lot of the academic bloggers who are anonymous spend a lot of time bitching about their colleagues and students. I don’t have a lot of sympathy or use for that form at all. If you have those sort of problems, be an adult about it already and talk privately with the people involved, friends/spouses you trust, or any number of outlets that are usually omnipresent at universities. Creating an anonymous blog so you can publicly complain about how horrible your co-workers are or how stupid you think some student is seem to me the least productive solution imaginable.

U.S. Withholds $34 Million from the UN Population Fund

The United States this month announced it would withhold $34 million allocated to the United Nations Population Fund for the third year in a row.

Under the provisions that the UN Population Fund money is allocated, it cannot be given to the agency if the State Department determines that there is a direct link between the UNPF and China’s practice of coercive abortion as part of its one child policy.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said of the withheld funds,

These Chinese programs have penalties that amount to coercion. THerefore we feel, by funding these programs, we would be indirectly helping the Chinese to improve their management of programs that result in coercive abortion, and that’s prohibited by our law.

Sources:

US cuts UN funds in abortion row. Jill McGivering, The BBC, July 17, 2004.

U.S. Blocks Aid to U.N. Population Fund. Barry Schweid, Associated Press, July 16, 2004.

U.S. Once Again Sets Bad Example with Shrimp Duties

While it calls for developing nations to open up their markets, the United States this month imposed duties of shrimp from Vietnam and China of 93 percent 112 percent respectively.

The duties will hit Vietnam especially hard as shrimp exports account for two-thirds of that country’s exports and 2 million people are employed in the industry.

The U.S. Commerce Department ruled that the two countries were exporting shrimp to the United States at below market prices. This is the standard dumping claim which the United States has repeatedly used to enact protectionist measures against competitors.

Rather, shrimpers in Vietnam and China tend to fish shrimp on large farms and, of course, labor costs in Vietnam and China are significantly lower than in the United States, allowing those two countries to sell shrimp cheaper. That’s not dumping, that’s comparative advantage. (Ironically, the U.S. shrimp industry complains about use of antibiotics, which is odd since that is an objection other countries frequently offer against U.S. beef and other products).

Even if the dumping claim were true, under the logic of the free trade principles that the United States pushes other countries to adopt, it shouldn’t matter. If China and Vietnam want to sell shrimp below market prices that would be rather foolish of them, but it would be a great boon to American consumers.

Source:

US slaps duties on Asian shrimps. The BBC, July 6, 2004.

Shrimp Duties May Shake The. Associated Press, July 5, 2004.

Defending America

I’m with Glenn Reynolds on this quote from John Kerry’s speech tonight,

I defended this country as a young man and I will defend it as President. Let there be no mistake: I will never hesitate to use force when it is required. Any attack will be met with a swift and certain response. I will never give any nation or international institution a veto over our national security. And I will build a stronger American military.

First, it’s interesting that Kerry now sees his service in Vietnam as defending the United States. So does he now see his anti-war efforts as undermining America’s efforts to defend itself? Does Kerry believe anything about Vietnam that isn’t politically expedient at the moment?

As for responding to attacks — the President of the United States has at his disposal the most powerful military in world history. Don’t tell me you’re going to use that power to respond to attacks — tell me you’re going to use it to prevent attacks in the first place, even if it pisses off the rest of the world.

Take a hypothetical — suppose a President Kerry has relatively strong evidence that Iran is funding a terrorist organization that is plotting attacks against the United States. I don’t want to hear that he’s going to talk to our allies and then talk to the terrorists,

We need a strong military and we need to lead strong alliances. And then, with confidence and determination, we will be able to tell the terrorists: You will lose and we will win. The future doesnÂ’t belong to fear; it belongs to freedom.

Even Jimmy Carter could have done that. What I want to hear is that he’d give the Iranians an ultimatum and then eliminate the threat using whatever means necessary.

We don’t need anymore Afghanistans, where we get rid of a despotic government after terrorists it harbors kill thousands of people.

Best Buy Customer Service in One Act

Conversation over a reasonably fast, reasonly cheap PC I bought at Best Buy this week:

Me: I really like this one, but I need to know whether it has an AGP slot or a PCI-Express slot for the graphics card.

Best Buy Staff: Oh no, all of these machines have AGP slots. You wouldn’t want to run a PCI card for graphics if you want to use the machine for gaming.

Me: No. PCI-Express is a new standard that is replacing AGP. HP and other manufacturers are starting to ship PCs with PCI-Express motherboards, but Radeon and Nvidia don’t have high-end cards out for PCI-E yet.

Best Buy Staff: Oh. [Pops case and peers inside]. Oh yeah, that’s an AGP slot.

[Two hours later at home with the computer and a Radeon 9800 XP Pro].

Me: Goddamit, that’s an PCI-Express slot.