Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

“The stark prospects of climate change and its mounting economic and human costs are clearly brought out in this searching investigation. What is particularly striking is the identification of ways and means of sharply minimizing these penalties through acting right now, rather than waiting for our lives to be overrun by rapidly advancing adversities. The world would be foolish to neglect this strong but strictly time-bound practical message. ” Amartya Sen

[Figures now added]

Webdiary technical problems: It turns out that the database was deliberately suspended by our internet host (OnSmart) because of the load it was imposing on their server: they didn't, however, bother to tell us this until today (Tuesday). Unsurprisingly, we will be looking at moving to another hosting provider as soon as possible.

"Whilst UN conventions require Australia to treat all its residents equally, it is surely incumbent upon new arrivals to conform to the nation’s institutions, mores and values.":Raja Ratnam

"In a world where water can only become rarer and more precious, it seems foolish in the extreme to allow it to become a commodity; something to be bought and sold where the only motive is profit. In this instance it is not so much a case of ‘selling our souls’ but of ‘selling our lives’ and watching our future drain away through those ‘golden’ corporate ‘fingers’.": Roslyn Ross

"Hu, Wen, and the rest of the top leadership have turned themselves into superb firefighters with an uncanny ability to, in Party parlance, 'nip the seeds of opposition before they sprout.' Apart from sharpening the 'tools of the proletarian dictatorship' by strengthening the Peoples Liberation Army and the People’s Armed Police, they have created a labyrinthine 'advance warning' system to monitor threats ranging from peasant riots, urban unrest, and bird flu to the influx of Western ideas through the Internet." Willy Wo-lap Lam

"Our political systems and global politics are largely unequipped for the real challenges of today’s world. Global economic growth and rising populations are putting unprecedented stresses on the physical environment, and these stresses in turn are causing unprecedented challenges for our societies. Yet politicians are largely ignorant of these trends. Governments are not organized to meet them. And crises that are fundamentally ecological in nature are managed by outdated strategies of war and diplomacy.": Jeffrey Sachs

"Americans like to think that if poor countries simply open up their markets, greater prosperity will follow. Unfortunately, where agriculture is concerned, this is mere rhetoric. The United States pays only lip service to free market principles, favoring Washington lobbyists and campaign contributors who demand just the opposite. Indeed, it is America’s own agricultural subsidies that helped kill, at least for now, the so-called Doha Development Round of trade negotiations that were supposed to give poor countries new opportunities to enhance their growth." Joseph Stiglitz

Webdiary apologises for the problems we are currently experiencing with comments.  Our tech team is currently working on a solution and we hope to have the problem fixed soon.

SQL DB repaired.

"There’s a kerfuffle going on about the grant of citizenship and Australian values. What is it all about?": Raja Ratnam

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission would be looking beyond mere changes in media delivery technology to deeper issues in order to ensure competition was preserved, ACCC Chairman, Mr Graeme Samuel, said today.

"Fortunately, there are signs that both China and Japan are seeking to back away from the impasse of recent years. While Abe has maintained his position on Yasukuni, his summit with Chinese President Hu Jintao was a promising step forward. Some Chinese analysts, for their part, recognize the danger in stimulating too much nationalism toward Japan. The US should quietly try to nudge these steps forward. The US-Japan alliance remains crucial to stability in East Asia, but it takes three sides to make a triangle. " Joseph S Nye

An excess mortality of nearly 100 000 deaths was reported in Iraq for the period March, 2003–September, 2004, attributed to the invasion of Iraq. Our aim was to update this estimate. We estimate that as of July, 2006, there have been 654 965 (392 979–942 636) excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war, which corresponds to 2·5% of the population in the study area. Of post-invasion deaths, 601 027 (426 369–793 663) were due to violence, the most common cause being gunfire. The number of people dying in Iraq has continued to escalate. The proportion of deaths ascribed to coalition forces has diminished in 2006, although the actual numbers have increased every year. Gunfire remains the most common cause of death, although deaths from car bombing have increased.

"Toleration and respect for people who have their own beliefs are right and perhaps necessary to preserve an enlightened world. But there is the other side to consider. Violent responses to unwelcome views are never justified and cannot be accepted. Those who argue that suicide bombers express understandable grudges have themselves sold out their freedom. Self-censorship is worse than censorship itself, because it sacrifices freedom voluntarily." Ralf Dahrendorf

Solomon locks coffee-cups for a soft-hitting interview with Noel Hadjimichael

"There is a movement in medicine to require that applications for licenses to sell a new drug be "evidence-based." By contrast, trained economists view their discipline as having already achieved this scientific standard. After all, they express their ideas with mathematics and arrive at quantitative estimates of implied relationships from empirical data. But economics is not evidence-based in selecting its theoretical paradigms. Economic policy initiatives are often taken without all the empirical pre-testing that could have been done." Edmund S Phelps

"Japan’s new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has wasted little time in making his mark, particularly in foreign policy. His official visits to China and South Korea – two key countries with which relations suffered under the administration of Junichiro Koizumi – came within a week of his taking office and at a moment of crisis, with North Korea setting off an underground nuclear blast. That Prime Minister Abe and Chinese President Hu Jintao agreed that a North Korean nuclear test "cannot be tolerated" suggests that this new activism may help to stabilize Asian security.": Hideaki Kaneda

"At its recent annual meeting, World Bank officials spoke extensively about corruption. It is an understandable concern: money that the Bank lends to developing countries that ends up in secret bank accounts or finances some contractors’ luxurious lifestyle leaves a country more indebted, not more prosperous." Joseph Stiglitz

"Irrespective of the arguments put forward in support of intelligent design, which have been abundantly refuted, let it simply be stated that a theory based on an a priori declaration that things are not naturally explainable is not a scientific theory. By definition, the science is based on the idea that the object of study is naturally explainable. Why look for an explanation otherwise? What is truly wonderful is how much of nature, including the fundamental features of life, has already proven to be explainable.": Christian de Duve

"They’d sent out about 3,000 black spots in the last week and Blind Pugh had worn his white cane down to the size of a pencil stub. It was looking increasingly like they had found a bloke who knew a chap who had a friend who had had a conversation once with someone who actually knew what was going on. There was a real and present danger that the truth would out." From Chapter X of the Chronicles of Nadir, as told from the grave by Tom Lewis.

Solomon tries his hand at economics, via Thorsten Veblen: "To coin a phrase, we live in a world of conspicuous creation and purposeless splendour."

September statistics and financials

"Television and newspapers continue to trumpet every twist and turn of global financial markets. In truth, however, the big story is the uneerie calm that has engulfed virtually every major asset class, from stocks to bonds. Is the whole investment world on Prozac?": Kenneth Rogoff

"The world is consumed by fears that Iraq is degenerating into a civil war between Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds. But in this looming war of all against all, it is Iraq’s small community of Assyrian Christians that is at risk of annihilation.": Charles Tannock