Going Global

When Islamophobia Isn’t Funny - Loonwatch on rising right wing extremism and violence against Muslims in the West

Cannibis and mental health; correlation vs causation - ElectEcon The post links to a study (unfortunately not free). Apparently the 'main finding is that using cannabis increases the likelihood of mental health problems, with current use having a larger effect than past use'. Like that ever stopped anybody :)

The USA/China Relationship: Obama’s Conflict of Interest - Chicagoboyz The US needs more money, unfortunately printing it will scare off their creditors and spark inflation. So they're left with one more option; more debt. But convincing the likes of China to take more risk on US bonds is another issue altogether.

How Wars, Plagues, and Urban Disease Propelled Europe’s Rise to Riches - Economist's View Discussion on how the Europeans got rich and broke out of the cycle of diminishing returns that theoretically overtakes most economies. The result is a take on the teachings of Malthus; who generally stated that the richer a society gets, the more its population will increase, its rate of increase eventually overtaking the rise in wealth, eventually resulting in said society falling back into some form of self destruction.

Personally, i think colonial rule and the exploitation of 'free' foreign resources should have had a more (or just as) important role to play in Europeans getting rich. But i can't be arsed to go look for concrete evidence right now.

What Scientology doesn't tell you - ever wondered about that light sheen sometimes apparent on Tom Cruise's face? Thanks to Brad DeLong for the pointer.

Will PowerPoint be blamed for the financial crisis? is what Freakonomics is asking now.

Army of Dude links to this interesting article on soldiers who return home after war; namely Iraq. In the US, statistics have shown that war vets are 148% more likely to die in auto accidents than normal people are. Soldiers in the US take to motorbikes and bar fights to relieve adrenaline overloads. What of Sri Lankan soldiers though?

Being used to the adrenaline rush of war, and being around a climate of constant danger and uncertainty, conditions a soldier to thrive in such environments. Finding himself devoid of the excitement of battle denies him an outlet to this energy, sometimes resulting in disastrous effects to the soldier and society.

Deserters are a different story, although the crime waves influenced by army deserters over the past few years in Sri Lankan can probably be attributed to their disposition, one must also remember that usually crime is the only option available for an army deserter to make a living. (The Sri Lankan military recently pardoned all deserters btw.)

I live near an air force base where the soldiers are veterans who have been out of combat for a couple of years. Maybe this is a military strategy to ensure a more effective and long winded demobilization of the force, although i wondered why it was at the expense of the experienced and the battle hardened being kept away from the war during its peak; maybe my reasoning was off.

Anyways, new measures by the government to expand the military and maintain it as some form of peacekeeping force may contribute to calming the 'crotch rockets' of the Sri Lankan boys. Or who knows what would have happened if close to 200k battle high warriors started walking the streets looking for cheap thrills.

Makes this shocking accusation

By establishing a civil administration with its military personnel, under the guise of reconstruction and development the Government is attempting to change the demography of Tamil homelands in favour of the majority Sinhala population.

Like you mean, replace all the Tamils in there with Sinhalese? Or ensure that the 300,000 soldiers we have in the army settle down and marry into the Tamil population there and keep their crotch rockets firing long enough to out-reproduce the Tamils? Or are they planning vast re-movements of the population, moving in people from the South to dilute the concentration of Tamils in one place?

This has a more chilling note;

The Sri Lankan Government is also moving forward with schemes that will disable the socio-economic infrastructure of the Tamil people from being self reliant as one that would be controlled and made dependent on Sri Lanka’s South.

What he's trying to say perhaps, is that the government is trying to proactively restrict economic development in the North. By presumably denying opportunities for the North to prosper socio-economically in its own right through strong industries like tourism, trade and manufacturing.

This is unlikely because if the government were to do this, it would cripple and hold back the whole nation. The North-Eastern areas offer tremendous resources and capability for serious development.

If he is implying that the government, through the imposition of ownership rights and discriminatory laws, will deny the North-Eastern population ownership, property, entreprenurial and cultural rights then this gets more serious. But aside from being completely impractical if the goal is actual development, there is absolutely no evidence that this is going to happen.

KP seems all excited about his new venture

In this advanced cyber era I soon realised that it was possible (sharing of opinions) through a blog posting. This is why have I chosen to out to you using this method.

But he can at least make sense. And have credible statements to back up his claims.

KPs new blog. and why he simply had to be abroad at the time... thanks ICT4peace.

Chinese worker commits suicide after iPhone prototype goes missing creeepy..
                                                                                                                                

The IMF has just approved the long awaited loan and also agreed to release some 300 million of it immediately.

But what of the conditions? Earlier, reports indicated that the IMF was looking for concrete policy reforms in order to release the money. We are all aware of the Government's apparent dislike of IMF interference or 'conditions' but in this case it would seem that they have caved to a certain extent.

Or have they?

The main opposers of the loan were the USA, Britain and France. The concerns raised were mainly the lack of confidence in the Government's ability to carry out feasible reconstruction and ensure long term growth and also the human rights violation aspect of the post war era.

As for the human rights aspect of it, to my mind, they are fine ones to talk. Repeatedly, there have been atrocious abuses on human rights by these very governments that have been brushed aside as 'necessary' to 'secure democracy' etc. To me, the whole human rights issue is pure farce. It is merely a sign of power brokering going on behind the scenes. Of who our powerful allies are and of whom those allies are up against. In this respect, Sri Lanka is just a pawn.

As for the doubts in the government's ability to reconstruct the nation and then assure a robust economy with long term growth prospects, i have to admit i share some of those views as well. The type of structural reforms required for such a measure like the liberation of markets, devolution of power, social reform etc with an intelligent vision with relevance to the future seems out of reach to a government used to bullishly hugging power and having its own way all the time.

But as we wait and see, all we see coming out of the bigwigs in the state in terms of what is going to happen are short term things like repairing the balance of payments etc. These are merely operational changes and will not really improve the chances of our economy to break out of its 'third world' or 'developing' status. For that to happen, like i've been harping on this blog for ages, a vision is needed. It sounds corny when i say 'vision' like that i know, but isn't that how all the more 'developed' nations got to where they are today? If we continue to pay scant heed to events further than the next general election we will be stumbling in the dark as a nation forever.

The loan amount approved was $2.6 billion. $600mn more than what we originally asked for. Which is great. There is also the promised aid from China, India and i think Iran that is yet to materialize. Shit, i hope at least some of it will see the light of day in terms of actual benefit to the public.

On the bright side, we can probably expect a stock market rally again today, and this one may last for a while yet. Holders of high beta shares like JKH and others could probably make a good short term killing.