China

The standard response to the problem of evil is that evil is the result of human willing: thus the Holocaust or American racism cannot be laid at the feet of an omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly benevolent God. But I think this seriously ignores the problem of natural evil.

This weekend’s revelation that Mike Daisey’s story about Apple and Foxconn was partly fabricated has led some bloggers and journalists to return to the question of how we should interpret the relationship between something called “facts” and something Daisey is calling “higher truth.” This distinction seems spurious to me, though we often hear it described…

Scu pointed me to this discussion of a Cap and Trade dividend. One issue, which would also apply to a carbon tax + dividend: this would hit exports but miss imports. Contrast that with a plain-old VAT, which hits imports but is refunded on export. This would make our goods less competitive, while encouraging us to…

Walmart is planning to open several new ” urban ” stores in the District, and I’m pretty excited about it. ( via ) One of them will be just two blocks away from me, and I plan to shop there. Right now, I do most of my shopping at the rundown, overpriced Safeway or at…

I understand why folks do retrospective blog posts and best-of lists in early December, and I certainly benefit from it as I’m thinking about Christmas gifts, but it seems to violate the spirit of the list or retrospective itself to start before the year or decade is done. If this is the *only* lesson that…

The article is here , and mostly quotes PINR’s prior analyses. They see little risk of imminent conflict but rather note that this is a matter of asserting influence in the region: As PINR stated in May 2005, “it is feasible that Pyongyang would go one step further to declare itself a nuclear power by…

Oh my . Although, really, this just means we have to start feeding them. I make a low probability that they nuke China… say 1%. Look for an article on the Power and Interest News Report tomorrow. If this old report is correct, we only have ourselves to blame: our hawkish post-9/11 axis of evil…