Link Banana

Mark Helprin says that that’s the solution to the crisis in Darfur.

Which would the regime in Sudan prefer? To be annihilated, or to discontinue its campaign of mass murder in Darfur? Given Sudan’s record, very few nations would be willing to come to its aid with other than a pro forma whimper, and given the geography and the air and naval balance, no nation could. Though many a repressive dictatorship would protest, and Sudan’s patron, China, might determine to speed up the formation of the blue-water navy it is already building, little else would change except for the better.

Also of note, a damning rebuttal from Mark Goldberg.

Not being a parent, I was going to ignore the Ask Pablo column of yesterday and the Green Lantern column of today (linked above) until I noticed that they’re about the same topic. An interesting time to compare the dueling green-living columnists of Salon and Slate (respectively).

The Lantern, as usual, offers more links to outside sources on the subject, but also draws on his personal experience. Pablo offers some greater history and an interesting and unexpected solution. In the end, they both offer the same answer:

The bottom line is that cloth diapers are greener than run-of-the-mill Pampers and Huggies, as long as you’re committed to an energy-efficient laundry regimen. But that commitment takes more than just an EnergyStar washing machine and a clothing line for air drying. It also takes time, a commodity which will be in startlingly short supply once your offspring drops.

Who knew there was a CFO optimism index? Not me, that’s who. Not only does it exist, but all groups (European, Asian, and American) are now solidly pessimistic. It’s hard to take that as a good thing.

I’d heard and forgot about the news that 4000 Americans have died in Iraq until I saw this. It made me sit up and pay attention.

The Economist’s Correspondent’s Diary for last week is rather good.

The opposition mayors of two of the capital’s municipalities decided they had had enough of waiting for the city-wide authority and the national government to act. They came up with a plan, inspired by a successful initiative in the Colombian capital, Bogotá, to take one fifth of the cars off the road each day during rush-hour, based on the last number of their licence plates. Briefly, the hellish traffic eased, and despite the inconvenience of having to leave the car at home once a week, most residents told pollsters that they supported the measure.

Then the Supreme Court stepped in. In response to an initiative from one man, the judges ruled that the plan violated the constitutional right to free transit, making Venezuela (in the words of one of the mayors) the only country in the world in which vehicles have constitutional rights.

For Ad Age, Nat Ives unironically says that Ashley Durpé (the girl attached to the Eliot Spitzer scandal) has failed to properly leverage her new found fame. It’s a little too obtuse not to share.

Scandalites before her have certainly leveraged their notoriety into Jenny Craig endorsement deals; their own reality series; handbag lines; jeans commercials; guest turns on shows from “The View” to “Judge Judy”; and, in the case of Paris Hilton, renown for nothing other than being famous.

But extending Ms. Dupré’s moment into a real run in the spotlight is getting tougher with every passing day. Even the $1 million payout offered by Hustler could evaporate if “Girls Gone Wild” and others keep turning up pre-existing nude images of Ms. Dupré.

(via Daily Intelligencer)

The CS Monitor asks a question that should be answered quickly (and affirmatively).

The hand-wringing over talking to Hamas reflects a shift away from the black-and-white diplomatic approach of President Bush’s first term to a more realist and results-oriented tendency in the second. If the US can talk to archenemy Iran to get something it wants in Iraq, the reasoning goes, then why not explore what might be gained from someone sitting down with Hamas?

Lawrence Sheets has an interesting story in this month’s Atlantic about how highly enriched uranium (that’s the bomb kind) moves in the former Soviet Union.

The [Russian] FSB later sent their Georgian counterparts a brief report on the results. On page five of the letter, which I ultimately obtained from other sources in the Georgian government, the Russians confirmed that Khintsagov’s cache was indeed HEU. The FSB put the level of enrichment at 89.38 percent, just below the initial American assessment. Yet the letter went on to [make the erroneous claim] that because the material had been produced more than 10 years ago, its origins were impossible to determine.

Biologically, this isn’t that hard to believe. Socially, it would be difficult at best.

How does it feel to be a pregnant man? Incredible. Despite the fact that my belly is growing with a new life inside me, I am stable and confident being the man that I am. In a technical sense I see myself as my own surrogate, though my gender identity as male is constant. To Nancy, I am her husband carrying our child—I am so lucky to have such a loving, supportive wife. I will be my daughter’s father, and Nancy will be her mother. We will be a family.

(via Boing Boing, who followed this with Bad Questions to Ask a Transsexual)

Thomas Goetz’s profile of PatientsLikeMe has gotten a fair amount of attention on the blogs today. It’s a pretty interesting profile of a rather interesting site.

One afternoon in late November when I visited the office, Jamie turned to a nearby whiteboard and traced out an x-y axis, slashing a descending line from left to right. “We have the ability to run a probability engine,” he said. “We can mathematically model each patient. We can tell them what’s going to happen in their life. We can tell you when you’ll need a wheelchair.” He made a mark along the line. “And we can even tell you the day you’ll die, with remarkable certainty.”

Today, Bhutan became a democracy. While admitting his faults, The Economist point out that monarchy wasn’t too bad to the small country:

Few elected governments could boast of the king’s record. Accelerating a reform process begun by his father, whom he succeeded in 1972, the king transformed Bhutan from one of the world’s most reclusive poor countries to one of its more enlightened.

Over the past 25 years its economy has grown at an average annualised rate of 7%, mainly on the back of sales of hydro-generated electricity to India. With massive investments in public health care, life expectancy has risen from 40 years at the time of the king’s succession to 66 years today. The school enrollment rate leapt by over 20% in the 1990s.

It’s best not to call them all facts, because a lot are just playful space wasters. Still it’s interesting:

6 Barbary macaques have a distinctive way to get their mates to make a sperm donation: yelling. If the female does not shout, the male almost never climaxes.

7 How do we know this? German primatologist Dana Pfefferle watched a group of macaques, counting the females’ yells and the males’ pelvic thrusts. She says this work is “quite weird, but it’s science.”

8 Here in the US of A, that kind of stuff ends up on YouTube.

(via clusterflock)

Though I doubt it would happen, such talk’s got to worry Beijing at least a litle.

“If there continue to be no signals of compromise, I see boycott measures as justified,” Mr Poettering told Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper ahead of a debate this week about Tibet at the European parliament.

The idea of European politicians boycotting the opening ceremony of the Olympics was mentioned last week by French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, although he later backed away from the idea.

…himself. This is one of those annoying videos that I can’t seem to ignore even as I find it, well, annoying. It’s surreal, it’s silly, and it’s surprisingly entertaining.

(via clusterflock)

This isn’t so much news as a reminder of long established facts. Americans can love driving far more than anyone else because gasoline here is so much cheaper than anywhere else.

I was to post this yesterday (that being Easter), but never got around to it. But it turns out the last Soviet premier is and was a Christian.

Mr Gorbachev’s surprise visit confirmed decades of rumours that, although he was forced to publicly pronounce himself an atheist, he was in fact a Christian, and casts a meeting with Pope John Paul II in 1989 in a new light.

(via Andrew Sullivan)

EDIT (3/29/2008): A different report says that Mr. Gorbachev is an atheist. I don’t know what to believe. (via AS)

At first I dismissed this as a poorly produced piece fan-made internet garbage. Now I’ve watched it at least five times and think it’s the best thing I’ve seen in ages. Long live camp.

Also of note, this video provoked what may be the best YouTube comment in history:

This seals it - the internets need to be banned.

EDIT (3/24/2008): I’ve also written a review of the video as it fits into camp. It’s not great, but you might be interested.

There’s a lot I don’t get about Patrick French’s Op-Ed about the Dalai Lama. Principally why, other than the title, it’s not really about the Dalai Lama. What he does have to say about the man does seems the exact opposite of The Economist’s advice (and everything I’ve ever been told about Tibet).

The Dalai Lama should have closed down the Hollywood strategy a decade ago and focused on back-channel diplomacy with Beijing. He should have publicly renounced the claim to a so-called Greater Tibet, which demands territory that was never under the control of the Lhasa government. Sending his envoys to talk about talks with the Chinese while simultaneously encouraging the global pro-Tibet lobby has achieved nothing.

No we didn’t stave off a recession, but The Onion does financial news right:

Successfully adding yet another infuriating block of text to an already indecipherable paragraph, some investors said they hoped to stave off bankruptcy for Bear Stearns, which, during last year’s impossible-to-write-about mortgage crisis, saw its value depreciate almost as quickly as readers’ interest in this story.

If you’re interested, Popped Culture assembled (for last year) a pretty interesting run down of pop-culture takes on da Vinci’s infamous last supper.

(via Neatorama)