Lunch Break: Dow Erases Yesterday’s Gains on GM, China News

• GM auditors worry about company’s future – Washington Post
• Wen boosts spending without adding to stimulus – The Guardian (U.K.)

Mexico – Our Own Little Slice of Pakistan?

According to the U.S. Joint Operations Command there are at least two countries in the world in danger of “sudden collapse”: Pakistan and Mexico.

Can you imagine a collapse of the Mexican central government?  Perhaps army units around the country would align themselves with regional leaders or drug lords.  Next would come the potential for armed rivals fighting one another for central control.  What we’re talking about is Afghanistan just after the Soviets departed where there weren’t two sides in a civil war, but several.  What we might experience is hundreds of thousands of refugees on our southern border.

Our armed forces are currently stretched to the limit due to the Iraqi adventure.  What’s available to secure our southern border or insert into Mexico to keep or restore the peace?  China has spent the past several years working on its relations with Central and South America, primarily in places with oil, like Mexico.  How soon could the Chinese have a division or two on the ground, in Mexico?  When would they leave?

So, there’s a little bit of the nightmare scenario.  Do I believe any of the above will happen – no.  Could it? Yes.

Why Does Google Kiss China’s Ass?

I’m one of those people who love Google – but fear Google.  The love is for the fact that they came out of nowhere and did something better – search – and more unobtrusively, that they changed the whole state of the art.  I love the fact that they used the core values and spirit of ingenuity that made them a successful search engine and monetized the net for the masses through their better ad program.  I love Google labs … the list goes on.

I hate the fact that they condone and act as China’s censorship police.  I hate the fact that they stand up for their values only in the countries like the U.S. where they have rights.  In its relationship with China, Google has lost the mantle of “revolutionary.”  Google’s principle of “don’t be evil” is rendered meaningless when it becomes, “do no evil unless it means missing a business opportunity in a huge market.”

For some years now, Google has been allowed to do business in the Chinese cyberspace because it allows the Chinese government to use the Google search engine to effectively block out news and other information from the Chinese people.  Today, Google and others said they were sorry to the Chinese government for the fact that some searches yield naughty links among their results.

Google is big enough and popular enough that it could tell the Chinese to go pound salt.  If the popular search engine and other Google apps were taken away from the Chinese people, perhaps they would bring them back through a popular consumer uprising.  Google would rather take the path of least resistance – even if it means doing the harm of being the handmaiden of an oppressive national government.

I was in a bookstore the other day and took note of the smut mags atop the magazine rack.  Although not a consumer of those magazines, it’s always comforting in a way to see even a mainstream bookstore keep a few around.  Why do they?  Because they can.  They’re just making a small statement that this is American and we don’t censor — and neither should an American company.

Being “not evil” means not helping others (Chinese government) be evil as well.

Avian Flu Resurfaces in Hong Kong

Check out this story today from the L.A. Times.  The Avian Flu virus (H5N1) is still out there and health officials believe there is still a chance of a pandemic.  Hong Kong, which had been free of the virus in its poultry population for years had had to recently cull thousands of birds after an outbreak.

The map below came out in December from the World Health Organization.  It shows human cases of Avian Flu for the last half of 2008.  I hope that the worldwide recession won’t harm the good work being done to contain H5N1 and monitor its whereabouts.

Click Map for Full Size View

U.S. Sunday Papers | December 21

Los Angeles Times

• ‘Lethal Warriors’ in Iraq, linked to string of crimes back home
• Obama ups the ante on economic stimulus
• Op-Ed, Doyle McManus: Obama must spend wisely

New York Times

• Obama expands recovery plans
• Economy tests Obama’s vision of energy efficient auto industry
• White House philosophy stoked mortgage bonfire
• Russian push on treason raises fears
• Canada agrees to its own auto bailout
• Ambush raises unsettling questions in Afghanistan
• Op-Ed, Alan Blinder: Missing the Mark with $700 Billion
• Op-Ed, Tom Friedman: China to the Rescue? Not!
• Op-Ed, Olivier Roy & Justin Vaisse: Winning Islam Over

Washington Post

• Obama expands stimulus goals
• Extradition of terror suspects founders
• Tiny state, huge pain
• U.S. might double Afghanistan force
• Will executive pay packages get slashed?
• Op-Ed, Leonard Downie Jr.: Could we uncover Watergate today?
• Op-Ed, George Will: Executive powerplay makes Congress moot
  

Am I an American Idiot …

… Because I’m Not Buying Into This Chinese Olympics?

I tried. Honestly, I tried.

I tried to put my understanding of 20^th Century Chinese history aside, the human rights abuses, the religious intolerance, the prison and slave labor, the torture of U.S. POWs during the Korean War, the ubiquitous ‘Made in China’ that’s helped destroy U.S. manufacturing (and the middle class) – I tried to put it all aside and embrace the Olympic spirit. Peace, goodwill, yada, yada.

I missed the opening ceremonies but heard they were splendid. I looked forward to settling in on the couch and catching some sport from Beijing. Then I heard on the radio that Todd Bachman, the father-in-law of the U.S. Men’s Volleyball Team coach was murdered in Beijing and his wife was severely injured. This was an incredible tragedy, but I wasn’t going to be a hater for one random act of violence.

Then, I turned on the Olympics – and my stomach turned. In a glossy, bleary-eyed, NBC propaganda setup, there were shots of Tiananmen Square. Lo and behold there’s Chairman Mao’s picture right up there on the wall bigger than life. China hasn’t changed all that much, apparently. Read more

Monday a.m. – FBI looks at Cuyahoga County employees’ island retreats, Keno, Solzhenitsyn, China, WaPo-Kaiser-Harvard Poll

Ohio News

• Iraq war taking a back seat – Columbus Dispatch
• Countdown to Keno – Columbus Dispatch

Odds of being a winner: 1 in 9 million. Odds that Pampers and formula money will be spent by people willing to try: 100%

• Agents look into county employees’ island retreats – Cleveland Plain Dealer
• Both sides frustrated over immigration issue – Dayton Daily News

National/International

• Op-Ed, Clive Crook: Only luck can save U.S. economy – Financial Times
• Virginia emerges as key battleground state – Washington Post
• New poll shows Obama slim lead with low income voters – Washington Post
• Op-Ed, Fareed Zakaria: Beyond China Bashing – Washington Post
• Op-Ed, Jen Lin-Liu: Beijing under wraps – New York Times
• Solzhenitsyn, defied Soviets, literary giant, dead at 89 – New York Times

Oil Shock: Drilling for Answers on High Prices Part II of V

from The Washington Post

China’s Cars, Accelerating A Global Demand for Fuel

By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, July 28, 2008; A01

SONGJIANG, China — Nodding his head to the disco music blaring out of his car’s nine speakers, Zhang Linsen swings the shiny, black Hummer H2 out of his company’s gates and on to the spacious four-lane road.

Running a hand over his closely shaved head, Zhang scans the expanse of high-end suburban offices and villas that a decade ago was just another patch of farmland outside of Shanghai. To his left is a royal blue sedan with a couple and a baby, in front of him a lone young woman being chauffeured in a van.

“In China, size matters,” says Zhang, the 44-year-old founder of a media and graphic design company. “People want to have a car that shows off their status in society. No one wants to buy small.”

Zhang grasps the wheels of his Hummer, called “hanma” or “fierce horse” in Chinese, and hits the accelerator.

Read more