Habitual line-stepping

Even in a place like Trinidad where the population has got to be hardened by a constant stream of violent crime, you occassionally get an incident so heinous or brazen or shocking that it feels like a line has been crossed. I'm thinking of incidents like the Westmoorings Scott/Sa Gomes murders in the 90s (showed that rich white people were also vulnerable), or the Akiel Chambers incident (our children are under threat), or the Selwyn Richardson assasination earlier in the decade (and former AGs better watch out too). They're like little signposts on the road to anarchy. I'm going to say that with the storming of a factory in Diego Martin (owned by a minister's husband!) yesterday, we just passed another:

 

THREE young men who opted to do a "day's work" at a plastics factory near their homes in Diego Martin "crossed a gangland border", for which they were hunted down yesterday and killed by two gunmen reportedly dressed in tactical police wear.

 

I don't really have much more to say, except that I hope that someday I can read the papers back home and not get depressed.

France is awesome

From an Economist article on the defeat of France's attempt to ban online priacy, an explanation of the Socialists' crafty plan to win the vote:

 

According to Libération, a French newspaper, the Socialists had hidden behind heavy curtains in the entrance to the parliamentary chamber.

Seemed like a good idea at the time

The 5th Summit of the Americas and the associated “development” (all too common in the developing world to equate “infrastructure” with “big buildings”) look to my eyes like the Burj Dubai, or the City Center in Vegas; investments planned when money was easy that now seem ridiculously extravagant in hindsight. Our leader would beg to differ, of course:

“It was well worth it,” Prime Minister Patrick Manning declared yesterday, as he brought the curtain down on the Fifth Summit of the Americas, sponsored by the smallest country ever to have held a conference of this magnitude.

“We understand [that this might seem like a big waste of money]. But we also understand that as you host a summit like this, the eyes of the region and the world are indeed on you, and by all that we have said and done here, and what has come into the public domain over the last few days, attention and more attention has been focused on Trinidad and Tobago. Remember we had here 33 Heads of State and government and one President came to Trinidad and Tobago with 15 senior businessmen for the first time with a view to looking at investment possibilities.”

Trinidadians always buy into this idea that hosting something will get us lots of free press. I still remember all the hoopla around hosting Miss Universe back in 1999. Thing is: no-one really cares all that much who hosts the summit. Perhaps you get a few extra googles (and only a few), but the idea that these things pay for themselves is delusional. Especially when some of the coverage looks like this:

Summit meeting organizers on the island of Trinidad, which was transformed into a virtual police state for three days…

That’ll bring the tourists!

From the same article:

[Prime Minister Manning] denied that conflicts at the 2005 meeting, or Mr. Chávez’s history of using such events to rail against the United States and others, had anything to do with keeping the leaders’ discussions private. Public scrutiny “stifles a full and free expression of views,” Mr. Manning said, which “could lead in some instances to posturing.”

This is incredibly representative of Manning’s world view on so many levels. It really does explain a lot about the way he governs. Public scrutiny has no value, all it does is make you keep your mouth shut. Ok.

In any case, I was glad to see that Chavez has decided to drop the silly antics of the last 10 years or so. I doubt that this will lead to him doing anything to actually help Venezuela regain economic growth, but at least I won’t have to hear otherwise intelligent people in the US equate him to Kim Jong Il, or even Castro. Being elected to office means something, people (though given 2000, I guess Republicans have a hard time with that issue – BURN), and incompetent buffoon != dictator. Of course, some are still critical:

Senator John Ensign, Republican of Nevada, said on CNN that it was “irresponsible for the president” to be seen laughing and joking with “one of the most anti-American leaders in the entire world,” referring to Mr. Chávez.

Well, “one of the most anti-American leaders in the entire world” has announced that he’s re-opening the Venezuelan Embassy in DC, among other moves. Maybe he wasn’t anti-American so much as Anti-Bush. Would that the GOP could finally learn to tell the difference.

Has it come to this?

Have we really been reduced to celebrating positive second derivatives when it comes to the economy?

Exports booming in at least one sector

Another reminder in the Times today that irrational drug policy and illegal guns are two of America's biggest exports, and together, they produce disastrous results in Latin America and the Caribbean. It's amazing to me that Trinis spend time whinging about the supposed threat of deportees (who commit a vanishingly small percentage of our crime), but continue to support drug prohibition, and are pretty silent about the guns coming in from Miami and such.

I wonder if anyone will ask Obama about America's destructive drug policy at the Summit, rather than focusing everything on Cuba? Don't get me wrong, I think US Cuba policy is terrible, but I also think the impact on say, Trinidad, of lifting the embargo will be limited (if not slightly negative, since Cuba will become competition for outsourcing and tourists). To be honest, the talk about Cuba strikes me as a lot of grandstanding — it's a very easy way to look like you are "standing up" to the powerful Americans. A more cynical person than me might even think that that's why the embargo is still around – it gives both American and Latin politicians a nice punching bag to exploit.

In any case, a rational conversation about drug policy in our hemisphere would be nice. I'm not going to hold my breath.

Because we all know how much the Bushies hated Saudi

I was giving a quick read to the Economist’s take on Obama’s G20 tour, and the reaction to it back here in the US. Two things annoyed me in this article. Thing 1:

So far, the optimists form a sizeable majority. Pundits lauded Mr Obama’s performance in Europe. Public approval for his handling of foreign policy rose from 54% in February to 61% at the end of March, according to Gallup. These are impressive numbers. But the same poll found that disapproval of his handling of foreign policy had also gone up by six points, from 22% to 28%. Only the “don’t knows” declined. As Mr Obama starts to have a track record, more Americans are forming opinions about it.

First off, the last sentence should have been left on the editing room floor, as it says nothing. But secondly, if you are going to try to draw conclusions based on 6- and 7-point poll movements, you absolutely have to provide the margin of error. Did we learn nothing from Nate Silver, people?

Thing #2:

For many conservatives, the defining image of Mr Obama’s European tour was not the adoring crowds but the way America’s new president bowed before the king of Saudi Arabia. Bloggers juxtaposed his cursory nod to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth with the deep bow he gave to the dictatorial ruler of a far less reliable ally.

Now, look. I don’t think that Obama is going to be particularly groundbreaking when it comes to relations with Saudi Arabia, and I actually have some sympathy for the argument that we should be less friendly with them. However, this is an odd argument for conservatives to make, given Bush’s famous friendliness with the Saudi royal family (oh wait, I forgot – Bush isn’t actually conservative, or… something — activate competence dodge!). Moreover, our freedom to rile up the Saudis has been thoroughly compromised by the need to keep our bases there, due to some unpleasantness above their northern border that we apparently had something to do with. Gah! One set of war-mongering foiled by previous ill-advised war-mongering! Must remember to lay off the couscous while making mongering plans!

Random thoughts on sub-optimal transit funding

One really annoying thing about transit policy is the way that budgets get closed. Frequently, you have a budget gap, and since we hate transit in this country, the state/local govt will insist that the department close it. It seems to me (based on casual observation) that the bias in closing these gaps is to cut service, rather than to raise fares (or cut salaries/admin). I think there are a couple of reasons for this: 1) fare hikes are felt by everyone, and service cuts only by a small percentage of riders. It's like the reason we get protectionism, but in reverse, which is kind of odd to me. This is like the only place where concentrated harms lose out. (2) Fare hikes (much like tolls) are pretty intuitive to grasp for the dim-witted people who are in local govt. Service cuts are less easy. If I'm a local pol and drive everywhere (and they all fucking drive because they get free parking and are massive hypocrites) I don't really understand the impact of making someone walk an extra 5 minutes to get a different bus, for example, or how much time having to transfer adds to a commute. As a result, I think pols are less likely to vote for fare hikes than might be ideal.

Testing

Testing posterous (I do what drbluman tells me is awesome).