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April 25, 2008

Update: Presidential candidates' missed votes

When we checked in last November, John McCain had missed the most votes of all the Democratic and Republican Senators running for President (there were quite a few back then), and Senators Obama and Clinton had missed the fewest.

So where do we stand now? The rankings are the same, and all have obviously increased the percentage of missed votes since then. But McCain has now become the most absent of all Senators, not just those campaigning for president. In fact, he has now missed more votes than Senator Tim Johnson, who suffered a brain hemorrhage in late 2006 and couldn't vote because of his medical condition.

Here's the attendance record (the percentage represents votes missed):

No surprise, the two candidates that have missed the most are also the likely presidential nominees. There are few professions that allow you to completely neglect your current job while you spend two years trying to get a promotion, but politics is apparently one of them. If a candidate really wants to win, he/she is going to have to skip a few votes. Fair enough.

But McCain has had a lock on the nomination for a while now. I can understand Clinton and Obama spending all their time in Pennsylvania or Indiana--to do otherwise would be campaign suicide. But what's McCain's excuse?

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April 24, 2008

World food crisis timeline

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has a pretty good time line of how the global food crisis has developed:

Sept. 7, 2007: Vietnam, the world's third-biggest rice exporter, restricts rice exports to slow inflation.

Dec. 4: Argentina temporarily restricts grain exports.

Jan. 1: China, the world's biggest grain producer, starts to curb overseas sales of wheat, corn and rice by issuing export permits.

Jan. 19: Egypt bans rice exports.

Feb. 8: The American Bakers Association asks the U.S. Department of Agriculture to curb wheat exports.

Feb. 27: At least four people are killed during three days of protests over high commodity prices in Cameroon.

March: Philippines authorities begin to crack down on hoarders.

March 17: India halts all exports of non-basmati rice. It also extends an existing export ban on crops such as peas and beans.

March 28: Vietnam extends rice export restrictions.

April 4: Haitians riot over rising food prices. At least three people are killed.

April 6: Egyptians riot over rising food prices.

April 9: Corn commodities on the Chicago Board of Trade reach a record $6.16 a bushel.

April 12: Police clash with 10,000 workers in Bangladesh who smashed vehicles and attacked factories, demanding higher wages to pay for food.

The Haitian prime minister is forced to step down in an attempt to defuse anger over food prices. A U.N. police officer bringing food to his unit in Port-au-Prince is killed.

April 14: U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says that a global food crisis has reached "emergency proportions." The World Bank has forecast that 33 nations from Mexico to Yemen may face social unrest.

April 16: Malawi plans to restrict corn exports.

April 17: Kazakhstan, the world's sixth-largest wheat exporter, bans wheat exports between April 27 and Sept.1.

April 18: India permits rice exports to Bhutan.

Indonesia, the world's third-largest rice producer, says it will hold back surplus rice.

April 22: Thailand, the world's largest rice exporter, is under pressure to restrict exports. A World Bank official likens any restriction to Saudi Arabia reducing oil exports.

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April 23, 2008

World food crisis roundup

The American mainstream media will eventually catch on to the enormity of global food crisis and give the story the coverage it deserves, but it definitely hasn't yet. In the meantime, here's what's going on in the rest of the world:

The Times: Rising food prices have led Gordon Brown to consider rolling back investments in biofuels, which are drawing a lot of criticism for using up valuable farmland as food is becoming scarce.

Deutsche Welle: Top EU leaders, including European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, voiced their worries about the prices of food, oil and other commodities on Wednesday. Japan, which imports more than half its food, is particularly concerned about spiraling food prices and said it would place the issue on the agenda at the summit of the Group of Eight rich nations, which it will host in July.

AFP: About 400 people demonstrated in eastern Afghanistan against skyrocketing food prices, witnesses said, in the country's first protest at food costs rising worldwide. The costs of wheat flour has reportedly more than doubled over the past year, with the prices of other staples such as oil and sugar also rising.

Reuters UK: Soaring food prices are a "massacre" of the world's poor and are creating a global nutritional crisis, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Tuesday, calling it a sign that capitalism is in decline.

Bloomberg: Almost half the population of Pakistan, the world's seventh-most-populous nation, faces difficulty gaining access to affordable food because of the soaring cost of cereals, a World Food Program official said.

BBC: "A silent tsunami which knows no borders sweeping the world". That is how the head of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) summed up the global food shortages.

UPDATE: I stand corrected. Some U.S. papers are picking up on the coverage:

The Washington Times: "Farmers and food executives appealed fruitlessly to federal officials yesterday for regulatory steps to limit speculative buying that is helping to drive food prices higher. Meanwhile, some Americans are stocking up on staples such as rice, flour and oil in anticipation of high prices and shortages spreading from overseas."

NBC11: "The price of rice has increased dramatically in recent weeks due to crop failure overseas and resulting hoarding, NBC11 reported. And at least one Bay Area store is asking customers to hold back on their rice purchases."

Seattle Post Intelligencer: "Media reports are starting to trickle in about grocers limiting some food purchases, while Costco Wholesale Corp. is seeing higher-than-usual demand for staple foods such as rice and flour as consumers appear to be stocking up."

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April 22, 2008

The silent tsunami

The Economist takes a look at rising food prices around the world:

Famine traditionally means mass starvation. The measures of today's crisis are misery and malnutrition. The middle classes in poor countries are giving up health care and cutting out meat so they can eat three meals a day. The middling poor, those on $2 a day, are pulling children from school and cutting back on vegetables so they can still afford rice. Those on $1 a day are cutting back on meat, vegetables and one or two meals, so they can afford one bowl. The desperate—those on 50 cents a day—face disaster.

Roughly a billion people live on $1 a day. If, on a conservative estimate, the cost of their food rises 20% (and in some places, it has risen a lot more), 100m people could be forced back to this level, the common measure of absolute poverty. In some countries, that would undo all the gains in poverty reduction they have made during the past decade of growth. Because food markets are in turmoil, civil strife is growing; and because trade and openness itself could be undermined, the food crisis of 2008 may become a challenge to globalisation.

To distribute merely the same amount of food as last year, the WFP needs an additional $700 million in funding this year. For a little perspective, that is roughly what it costs to fund one day of the war in Iraq.

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April 15, 2008

Judged by the company you keep

In its annual report on the death penalty, Amnesty International notes that just five nations are responsible for 88% of the known executions in the world. They are, in order:

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Global food crisis hits home

The U.S. is experiencing the worst food inflation in 17 years. Though, for a little perspective, U.S. households still spend a smaller chunk of their expenses for foods than in any other country--about 7.2%.

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April 14, 2008

Biofuels: Crime against humanity?

Last week it was the UN expressing concern about the growing global food crisis. This week it's the IMF and World Bank calling for "an integrated response through policy advice and financial support," following the resignation of Haiti's prime minister due to riots over higher prices for staples like rice and beans.

From the WSJ:


On Sunday, the committee that oversees the World Bank noted that "large groups of poor people are severely affected by high food and energy prices across the developing world." The committee echoed the IMF committee's call for "timely policy and financial support to vulnerable countries" and urged rich countries to be more generous in "immediate support for countries most affected by the high food prices."

The World Bank plans to nearly double its agricultural lending to Africa next year to $800 million, and is urging members to ramp up relief for hard-pressed nations. The World Bank, IMF and big industrialized nations also are pushing for the completion of the Doha global trade talks, though cutting food subsidies in the U.S. and Europe under a trade deal would boost prices of food for impoverished importing nations.

The U.S. was a prime target at the weekend meeting of finance ministers, with many leaders taking shots at U.S. support for corn-based ethanol and other biofuels. "When millions of people are going hungry, it's a crime against humanity that food should be diverted to biofuels," said India's finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, in an interview. Turkey's finance minister, Mehmet Simsek, said the use of food for biofuels is "appalling."

Ethanol is quickly being recognized as a poor substitute to fossil fuels by everyone except corn farmers in the Midwest and the presidential candidates pandering to them. A study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development concluded that biofuels "offer a cure [for oil dependence] that is worse than the disease." A National Academy of Sciences study said corn-based ethanol could strain water supplies. The American Lung Association expressed concern about a form of air pollution from burning ethanol in gasoline.

As Obama likes to say about Iraq, we need to be as careful getting out of this environmental (and energy) mess as we were careless getting in, and a heavy reliance on biofuels isn't the answer. Will any of the presidential candidates have the political courage to honestly address this issue going forward? None have so far.

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April 11, 2008

Kurt Vonnegut Day

One year ago today, Kurt Vonnegut died. He's up in heaven now, but that hasn't stopped him from sharing his thoughts on this comedy we call the human condition. His new book, Armageddon In Retrospect, is a collection of 11 short stories about war.

It doesn't sound like his best work, according to The Onion's A/V Club anyway:

The stories that make up the bulk of the volume are a mixed bag. In the best of them, "Guns Before Butter," a group of American POWs debate what their first meal will be once they're released. It's funny and low-key, and it manages to make its point without didacticism. The rest don't succeed nearly as well. "The Unknown Soldier," a short piece about the first baby born in the new millennium, is slight and mean-spirited, while "The Unicorn Trap," about a family in the Middle Ages forced to make a difficult choice, is overwritten to the point of self-parody. As always, Vonnegut pleads for understanding and decency, but here, the message is muddled by clunky prose and predictable plots. A little context might've helped, but as is, Armageddon strives to be a middle finger to the heavens, and winds up more like a shrug.

It's probably not a great idea to publish every scribble he left behind. Even Vonnegut had bad writing days. Still, it's at the least a nice reminder of what was.

So it goes.

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Shamed by a small town in Sweden

To say that the United States has utterly failed Iraqi refugees is a gross understatement. Consider this: After the much shorter 1991 Gulf War, more than 30,000 Iraqis were resettled in the U.S. But between the beginning of the 2003 invasion and the end of January 2008, only 3,775 were granted entry.

Want a little more perspective? Sodertalje, a town in Sweden has taken more Iraqi refugees than the United States and Canada combined. Sweden took in more than 18,000 Iraqis last year alone. Sodertalje Mayor Anders Lago told Congress yesterday, "We did not start the war in Iraq, however we assume a huge responsibility for those that were affected." The chairman's response: "You put us all to shame." Watch a brief video here (Jump to around 0:50 for English).

But Sweden's doors are now closing. Who can blame them? They can only clean up after our mess for so long. It's time for the rest of the world—a Coalition of the Willing, perhaps—to step up and take a little more responsibility.

The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that nearly 4.5 million Iraqis have been forced out of their homes by the war—the war we started. Most of these aren't insurgents or radicals; they're ordinary Iraqis who just want to raise a family in relative peace.

Megan McArdle says this story makes her ashamed of her country for the first time in her life. She must not have been paying attention to the last seven years if this is her first, but the fact that her shame is directed toward the country rather than the administration is telling. We can only focus blame on the Bush administration for so long. At a certain point, Bush's failings become our failings, and Bush's America just becomes America.

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April 10, 2008

Google to track refugees

Is there anything Google can't do? The search company has unveiled a new feature for its mapping programs that will help track refugee movement around the world.

The maps will aid humanitarian operations as well as help inform the public about the millions who have fled their homes because of violence or hardship, according to the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, which is working with Google on the project.

"All of the things that we do for refugees in the refugee camps around the world will become more visible," U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees L. Craig Johnstone said at the launch in Geneva.

Users can download Google Earth software to see satellite images of refugee hot spots such as Darfur, Iraq and Colombia. Information provided by the U.N. refugee agency explains where the refugees have come from and what problems they face.

It may not be a groundbreaking technological development or even that successful in addressing refugee crises, but kudos to Google.

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April 9, 2008

My pet peeve

When someone says "no pun intended" to draw attention to a clearly intended pun.

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Afghan farmers switch to wheat

A little follow-up to the global food crisis story: Afghan farmers are switching from growing poppies to wheat, primarily because it has become more profitable--wheat prices have doubled in the past year due to shortages.

So the same forces provoking riots and protests in many developing nations may be the answer Afghan farmers have been looking for. This food crises is a huge issue that deserves a lot more coverage than it's been getting.

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UN warns of more food riots

While the American press (and blogosphere) has been mesmerized by the Democratic horse race, Egyptians have been protesting and rioting this week over, among other things, rising food prices. This is just a sign of things to come, warns the United Nations.

Sir John Holmes, undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and the UN's emergency relief coordinator, told a conference in Dubai that escalating prices would trigger protests and riots in vulnerable nations.

"The security implications [of the food crisis] should also not be underestimated as food riots are already being reported across the globe," Holmes said. "Current food price trends are likely to increase sharply both the incidence and depth of food insecurity."

As well as this week's violence in Egypt, the rising cost and scarcity of food has been blamed for:

· Riots in Haiti this week that killed four people
· Violent protests in Ivory Coast
· Price riots in Cameroon in February that left 40 people dead
· Heated demonstrations in Mauritania, Mozambique and Senegal
· Protests in Uzbekistan, Yemen, Bolivia and Indonesia

The biggest challenge to addressing this problem? Climate change, he says.

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April 8, 2008

McCain: For unilateral war before he was against it

Compare this statement made by John McCain two weeks ago as he attempted to reach out to the international community and distance himself from Bush's go-it-alone style of foreign policy:

"When we believe that international action is necessary, whether military, economic or diplomatic, we will try to persuade our friends that we are right. But we, in return, must also be willing to be persuaded by them."

With this passage, taken from his U.S. Senate website from early 2001:

In this dangerous environment, the U.S. must be willing to act alone, not only in Iraq but in North Korea, if necessary. While other nations "may risk their own populations, the United States will do whatever it must to guarantee the security of the American people," McCain wrote in January. "And spare us the usual lectures about American unilateralism."

The interesting thing here is not just that McCain went from dismissing lectures about American unilateralism to giving them. The passage helps answer the question, "How different would a McCain administration have been from Bush's if he had won in 2000?" The answer is, not very. McCain wanted to invade Iraq well before September 11 and was willing to pull the trigger much sooner than Bush was. And he had no problems doing it unilaterally.

Would he have managed it better? Maybe, maybe not. But he still bought into the foolishly idealistic notion being pitched by neoconservatives that overthrowing Saddam Hussein would "set off a democratic chain reaction through the region." That was a dumb idea in 2003, when there was at least some faulty intelligence about WMDs and the shadow of 9/11 to cloud lawmaker's judgment. To make that argument in early 2001 shows the poorest of judgment.

So which McCain approach to foreign policy will we get if he wins in November? Has the five-year war in Iraq taught him a thing or two about the difficulty of waging unilateral war? Or are his efforts to reach out to the international community nothing more than pre-election pandering?

Hopefully we'll never find out.

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