French Presidential Politics

As an unabashed Francophile, I am following France's current presidential election fairly closely. I'm not sure that there is much to be learned, but it sure is fun.

The following three articles give a good summary of the state of play, which I should warn you, changes almost daily:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/27/AR2007032701719.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/28/world/europe/28france.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/world/europe/29paris.html

Moderate vs. Puritan Islam

I have just finished reading "The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists" by Khaled Abou El Fadl and recommend it highly to anyone wanting to understanding the schism in Islam between what El Fadl refers to as "Moderates" and "Puritains". (Click on post title above to see Amazon's listing and reader reviews for the book. Note that it is a real bargain to boot.)

El Fadl is an Islamic jurist who is Professor at UCLA. He takes an Islamic jurist's look at the Qur'am and how it can be (and, historically was) interpreted in a moderate way and how the Puritans have hijacked the holy book and the Islamic religion in a perverse fashion. His analysis should interest and appeal to Muslims and non-Muslims as well.

He concludes with a short but important chapter on what the moderates must do in order to reassert the primacy of their enlightened view of their religion.

Not a long book and reasonably accessible. Read it for sure.

Shooting The Messenger

Boy, do I identify with this cartoon. For more cartoons on Gore, click on post title above.

Gore: Don't single out cars and trucks to solve global warming

Agree with Al Gore in general or not, his advise regarding the automotive industry makes a lot a sense.


Gore: Don't single out cars and trucks to solve global warming

Harry Stoffer | Automotive News / March 21, 2007 - 11:41 am

WASHINGTON -- Automakers have an ally of sorts -- in Al Gore.

In a highly anticipated appearance before Congress today, the former vice president said he supports higher fuel economy standards. But automakers alone should not be expected to solve global warming, he contended.

"Don't single out cars and trucks," Gore said in a lengthy statement before a pair of House subcommittees. He described emissions from motor vehicles as "only a slice of the problem" and not the biggest slice.

Still, the future Gore envisions would be vastly different. He called for an immediate freeze on greenhouse-gas emissions and a 90 percent cut in those emissions by 2050. He did not say exactly how those moves could be accomplished.

The ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, said a freeze, if taken literally, would mean no new businesses, no economic growth and no more people.

Gore also called for:

• Taxes on the carbon in fuels, offset by cuts in payroll taxes.

• U.S. participation in a new international treaty on climate change, which would follow the Kyoto treaty rejected by Congress and the Bush administration.

• Programs that would encourage consumers to generate their own electricity through means that don't release greenhouse gases into the air.

Gore said such steps are needed to deal with "a crisis that is by far the most serious we have ever faced." He has achieved international recognition for his Oscar-winning documentary on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth.

Auto industry leaders who testified last week before a subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee said they could support a cap on total U.S. emissions. But they said the burden for compliance should be spread across all businesses.

Automakers say that regulators should determine the highest feasible fuel economy standards and that lawmakers should not arbitrarily set tougher standards.

Motivating Good Health Care Research?

Here is an area about which I know very little, but this article raises some very useful questions.

Race for the prize

Joseph Stiglitz

March 17, 2007 3:00 PM

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/joseph_stiglitz/2007/03/prizes_not_patents.html

Part of modern medicine's success is built on new drugs, in which pharmaceutical companies invest billions of dollars on research. The companies can recover their expenses thanks to patents, which give them a temporary monopoly and thus allow them to charge prices well above the cost of producing the drugs. We cannot expect innovation without paying for it. But are the incentives provided by the patent system appropriate, so that all this money is well spent and contributes to treatments for diseases of the greatest concern? Sadly, the answer is a resounding "no."

The fundamental problem with the patent system is simple: it is based on restricting the use of knowledge. Because there is no extra cost associated with an additional individual enjoying the benefits of any piece of knowledge, restricting knowledge is inefficient. But the patent system not only restricts the use of knowledge; by granting (temporary) monopoly power, it often makes medications unaffordable for people who don't have insurance. In developing countries, this can be a matter of life and death for people who cannot afford new brand-name drugs but might be able to afford generics. For example, generic drugs for first-line Aids defences have brought down the cost of treatment by almost 99% since 2000 alone, from $10,000 to $130.

But, despite the high price they pay, developing countries get little in return. Drug companies spend far more money on advertising and marketing than they do on research, far more on research for lifestyle drugs (for conditions like impotence and hair loss) than for lifesaving drugs, and almost no money on diseases that afflict hundreds of millions of poor people, such as malaria. It is a matter of simple economics: companies direct their research where the money is, regardless of the relative value to society. The poor can't pay for drugs, so there is little research on their diseases, no matter what the overall costs.

A "me-too" drug, for example, which nets its manufacturer some portion of the income that otherwise accrues only to the company that dominates a niche, may be highly profitable, even if its value to society is quite limited. Similarly, companies raced to beat the human genome project in order to patent genes such as that associated with breast cancer. The value of these efforts was minimal: the knowledge was produced just a little sooner than it would have been otherwise. But the cost to society was enormous: the high price that Myriad, the patent holder, places on genetic tests (between $3,000 and $4,000) may well mean that thousands of women who would otherwise have been tested, discovered that they were at risk, and taken appropriate remediation, will die instead.

There is an alternative way of financing and incentivising research that, at least in some instances, could do a far better job than patents, both in directing innovation and ensuring that the benefits of that knowledge are enjoyed as widely as possible: a medical prize fund that would reward those who discover cures and vaccines. Since governments already pay the cost of much drug research directly or indirectly, through prescription benefits, they could finance the prize fund, which would award the biggest prizes for developers of treatments or preventions for costly diseases affecting hundreds of millions of people.

Especially when it comes to diseases in developing countries, it would make sense for some of the prize money to come from foreign assistance budgets, as few contributions could do more to improve the quality of life, and even productivity, than attacking the debilitating diseases that are so prevalent in many developing countries. A scientific panel could establish a set of priorities by assessing the number of people affected and the impact on mortality, morbidity, and productivity. Once the discovery is made, it would be licensed.

Of course, the patent system is itself a prize system, albeit a peculiar one: the prize is temporary monopoly power, implying high prices and restricted access to the benefits that can be derived from the new knowledge. By contrast, the type of prize system I have in mind would rely on competitive markets to lower prices and make the fruits of the knowledge available as widely as possible. With better-directed incentives (more research dollars spent on more important diseases, less money spent on wasteful and distorted marketing), we could have better health at lower cost.

That said, the prize fund would not replace patents. It would be part of the portfolio of methods for encouraging and supporting research. A prize fund would work well in areas in which needs are well known - the case for many diseases afflicting the poor - allowing clear goals to be set in advance. For innovations that solve problems or meet needs that have not previously been widely recognised, the patent system would still play a role.

The market economy and the profit motive have led to extremely high living standards in many places. But the health care market is not an ordinary market. Most people do not pay for what they consume; they rely on others to judge what they should consume, and prices do not influence these judgments as they do with conventional commodities. The market is thus rife with distortions. It is accordingly not surprising that in the area of health, the patent system, with all of its distortions, has failed in so many ways. A medical prize fund would not provide a panacea, but it would be a step in the right direction, redirecting our scarce research resources toward more efficient uses and ensuring that the benefits of that research reach the many people who are currently denied them.

It's About Time, But Don't Be Too Subtle

I am glad that someone is taking the lead here, although more directness and coordination (e.g., through AAMA) stands a better chance of driving change (maybe). To read the rest of the article, click on post title.

Industry chiefs: Higher CAFE is not the only answer

Harry Stoffer | Automotive News / March 14, 2007 - 12:44 pm / UPDATED: 3/14/07 2 P.M.

WASHINGTON -- Government should take steps to boost consumer demand for fuel-efficient vehicles, top auto industry executives told lawmakers today.

Simply raising fuel economy standards is not the answer to the threat of global warming or the nation's energy supply concerns, the executives argued.

In Europe, automakers achieve fuel economy levels that some members of Congress want to require in the United States. But much higher gasoline prices in Europe create consumer demand, Chrysler group CEO Tom LaSorda said in prepared testimony before a panel of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

LaSorda did not call directly for higher U.S. gasoline taxes but said "a new and unique formula" for the United States should include "harnessing of market forces." Other company executives noted that Chrysler has endorsed higher gasoline taxes in the past.

The House panel sought testimony on the industry's role in combating global warming and improving energy security. Called to testify today at the unusual hearing were the CEOs of the Detroit 3; the president of Toyota Motor North America Inc., Jim Press; and UAW President Ron Gettelfinger.

'New approach'

U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., chairman of the full committee, signaled before the hearing that he is receptive to ideas beyond corporate average fuel economy standards. In a conference call with reporters Tuesday, March 13, Dingell said: "We need a new approach." He did not elaborate.

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Steroids Scandal

Now I understand it all. Click on post title to read rest of parody.


The Atlantic Monthly | April 2007

Inside the Bush administration’s steroids scandal

The Shots Heard 'Round the World

by John Freeman Gill

.....

Illustrations by Steve Brodner

An open letter from Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig:

ith Opening Day upon us and Hank Aaron’s hallowed career home-run record likely to come under controversial assault this season, it is with some urgency that I share with you disturbing new revelations about the conduct of several current and former Bush administration heavy hitters.

In recent weeks, baseball’s ongoing investigation, led by former Washington Senators left fielder George Mitchell, has turned up damaging new evidence.

Put simply, it has become clear that when key players in the Bush administration appeared in 2005 before the reform committee of Major League Baseball and declared under oath that they had never knowingly used steroids while conducting foreign policy, they were not being truthful with the American public. Formerly classified urine samples conclusively confirm the charges—first leveled in former Oakland A’s star Jose Canseco’s book, Juiced—that Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz regularly injected each other in the buttocks with anabolic steroids during the 2001 and 2002 seasons....

American Islam

I have recently finished reading "American Islam: The Struggle for the Soul of a Religion" by Paul M. Barrett and recommend it most highly. Through a series of sketches of American Muslims he describes the diverse counter-currents of that religion as it is practiced in the United States. For me, this diversity of thought and action was an eye opener. Along the way, the author shows the reactions of non-Muslim Americans to their new or old Muslim neighbors, not always edifying on both sides.

Here is a list of the profiles:

• The Publisher (Osama Siblani, publisher of The Arab American News in Dearborn, MI)
• The Scolar (Kaled Abou El Fadl, a liberal Muslim who seemed interesting enough to drive me to buy several of his books)
• The Imam (Siraj Wahhaj, of a mosque in Brooklyn and much in demand as a preacher in other parts of the country)
• The Feminist (Asra Normani, of Morgantown, WVa)
• The Mystics (focusing on American Sufis)
• The Webmaster (Sami Omar al-Hussayen formerly of Moscow, Idaho, but since deported after being found not guilty of terrorism charges)
• The Activist (Mustafa Saied who has rejected Wahhabism for a much more tolerant Islamic belief).

Read this book. It reads relatively quickly and is well-worth the investment in time. I can recommend the following review in The Washington Post on the book by Reza Aslam (whose book on Islam I recommended some time ago):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/15/AR2007021501527.html

An online discussion with the author in The Washington Post also is interesting:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/02/16/DI2007021601412.html

Press Source Confidentiality?

I have been watching the PBS series on the press with much interest. One of the issues raised is whether reporters should have immunity from naming sources. Much more subtle that I had realized.

In today's New York Times, there is an excellent column on the subject. Read the entire column by clicking on the post title. Here are a few excerpts.

Not All Sources Are Equal

By ANTHONY LEWIS

Published: March 7, 2007, New York Times

Boston

THE conviction yesterday of I. Lewis Libby Jr. on perjury and other charges, after a trial with a parade of press witnesses, leaves a legacy of intensified concern about legal proceedings that force journalists to disclose confidential sources. It is a legitimate and urgent concern. Without the ability to promise confidentiality, the press would have been unable to report notorious abuses of government power from Watergate through the Bush administration’s violations of fundamental rights in the “war on terror.”

But it is much easier to see the danger than to agree on a way to stop it. That is because there are compelling interests on both sides of the problem, as many in the press are loath to admit.

....

THOSE are some of the conflicting interests at stake on the issue of a testimonial privilege for the press. Can Congress figure them all out in a qualified privilege statute specifying in detail when journalists should have a privilege? I doubt it. I think a statute will have to leave the balancing of interests to be done by judges, case by case.

One respected judge, David Tatel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, has made a wise proposal. It is that the courts use their power to define privileges — a power affirmed by statute — to give a qualified privilege to journalists.

Judge Tatel’s proposal is aimed at the typical leak case: when a federal prosecutor is trying to find the source of a leak and subpoenas journalists. Judge Tatel suggests that a judge in this situation should weigh the public interest in the leaked material against the damage alleged by the government. If the leak were, say, the fact of the government’s lawless wiretapping, it is easy for me to see that the public interest should prevail.

Judges are not always wise. But in our system they are the ones we trust to weigh acutely conflicting interests. In the wake of the Libby case, Congress should pass legislation that makes clear the public interest in journalists’ confidentiality but leaves it to judges to weigh that against other social necessities.

Yet Another Sane Voice on Fuel Taxes

An article in today's Detroit News makes the argument for higher fuel taxes, among other useful points. To read the entire article, click on post title.


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"Fuel taxes move auto market

"The overriding consideration is that it is fuel taxation policies -- not automakers -- that drive consumers to buy differing vehicle types. If gasoline was priced two or three times higher in the United States and if high quality diesel fuel was available here at a lower cost than gasoline, then you can bet Americans would be interested in much more fuel efficient vehicles.

"In the meantime, with our lifestyle and relatively cheap fuel, there is a good reason that full-size pick-up trucks like the Ford-F-150 and the Chevrolet Silverado have been America's best selling vehicles for decades...."

Oil Pumping Innovations: The Whole Story?

There was and interesting article in the New York Times (click on post title to access article) about technologies/techniques which increase the yield from existing oil wells/fields. The article does admit that the costs of recovery using these technologies/techniques cost more than usual pumping, but are still profitable given today's oil market. The article argues that this makes the discussion of "the end of oil" questionable at best.

I am more interested in what the article doesn't say. Not only do these recovery techniques typically cost more, they also often require significant amounts of energy. Thus, the net energy extraction is significantly less than more "normal" techniques.

This means that the net effect on the total amount of energy available is less than one might think, although maybe more oil becomes available if alternative forms of power are used to drive these approaches. However, in most cases, we would probably find that significant amounts of CO2 are generated to increase the extraction of this additional oil, in addition to the CO2 that is generated when the oil is utilized. Thus, the effects on global warming of these "high-tech" extraction techniques is almost certainly adverse.

Ignatius: The Climate Change Precipice

I strongly recommend David Ignatius' column in today's Washington Post entitled "The Climate Change Precipice". Click on post title to read column.

In that article, Ignatius refers to a report by Peter Schwartz of the Global Business Network on this subject: http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/opinions/documents/gbn_impacts_of_climate_change.pdf

I have just scanned the report, but at first glance it looks excellent. I have been a fan of Peter Schwartz and his approach (systems- and scenario-based) for many years now.

Friedman Column Well-Worth Reading

I found this column especially enlightening - and challenging. To read all of it, click on the post title above. Through it, I discovered the site of MEMRI which I think will be most useful in learning about the Muslim world: http://memri.org/aboutus.html

March 2, 2007

Op-Ed Columnist, New York Times

The Silence That Kills

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

On Feb. 20, The A.P. reported from Afghanistan that a suicide attacker disguised as a health worker blew himself up near “a crowd of about 150 people who had gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to open an emergency ward at the main government hospital in the city of Khost.” A few days later, at a Baghdad college, a female Sunni suicide bomber blew herself up amid students who were ready to sit for exams, killing 40 people.

Stop and think for a moment how sick this is. Then stop for another moment and listen to the silence. The Bush team is mute. It says nothing, because it has no moral authority. No one would listen. Mr. Bush is losing a P.R. war to people who blow up emergency wards. Europeans are mute, lost in their delusion that this is all George Bush’s and Tony Blair’s fault.

But worst of all, Muslims, the very people whose future is being killed, are also mute. No surge can work in Iraq unless we have a “moral surge,” a counternihilism strategy that delegitimizes suicide bombers. The most important restraints are cultural, societal and religious. It takes a village — but the Arab-Muslim village today is largely silent. The best are indifferent or intimidated; the worst quietly applaud the Sunnis who kill Shiites.

....

The world worries about highly enriched uranium, but “the real danger is highly enriched Islam,” Mr. Fandy added. That is, “highly enriched Sunnism” and “highly enriched Shiism” that eats away at the Muslim state, the way Hezbollah is trying to do in Lebanon or the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt or Al Qaeda everywhere.

....

“The battleground in the Arab world today is not in Palestine or Lebanon, but in the classrooms and newsrooms,” Mr. Fandy concluded. That’s where “the software programmers” reside who create symbolic images and language glorifying suicide bombers and make their depraved acts look legitimate. Only other Arab-Muslim programmers can defeat them.

Occasionally an honest voice rises, giving you a glimmer of hope that others will stand up. The MEMRI translation Web site (memri.org) just posted a poem called “When,” from a Saudi author, Wajeha al-Huwaider, that was posted on Arab reform sites like www.aafaq.org.

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