ItoBlog

Highlights of Hitchens-Galloway debate

In case you missed the "Batte of the Titans" last Wednesday, you can listen to the highlights of the Hitchens-Galloway debate on BBC 4 Radio with good commentary. Click here.

Surprise, surprise

North Korea has just announced that it won't dismantle its nuclear programme until it gets a civilian nuclear reactor, undermining Monday's "historic" deal.  Here come the sticks in the wheels...

Link: BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | N Korea deal hits first hurdle.

A Wimp on Genocide

President Bush doesn't often find common cause with Cuba, Zimbabwe, Iran, Syria and Venezuela. But this month the Bush administration joined with those countries and others to eviscerate a forthright U.N. statement that nations have an obligation to respond to genocide.

Continue reading Nicholas Kristof article

Human behaviour

Taken from the Economist...

WHAT'S a girl to do when faced with the choice between a powerful action man who has great DNA but is likely to love her and leave her, and a carpet-and-slippers kind of bloke who will hang around and bring up the kids but may not be Mr Right in the genes department? Well, ideally, she should fool the latter into bringing up the former's children. And a piece of evidence that this is exactly what happens emerged this week from a research group led by Jan Havlicek of Charles University, in Prague.

Basically, the study shows that women tended to be much more aroused by the body odour of "dominant" males (ie. those males who have a tendency to be hard-up, to correct others, to want to control conversations, and to surpass others' accomplishments etc...) but only in special circumstances: a)  the  woman was already in a relationship and b)  she was in the most fertile phase of her menstrual cycle.

In other  words, "dominant" males' odour is more attractive at the point where a woman is both ready to conceive a child and cheat on her man. Which, given the research groups' previous studies that show "dominant" men are indeed more likely than others to leave a woman holding the baby, makes perfect sense.

Utopianism and Poverty

  An interesting article appeared in Foreign Policy magazine this month on development "utopianism". In the wake of recent major international gatherings and events aimed at tackling poverty in the world (eg. Live8, the G8 at Gleneagles and more recently, the Clinton Global Inititive) where world leaders and celebrities made passionate pleas for international cooperation and active involvement in the fight against poverty, it's worth asking where all this is going. Those leading these initiatives offer a simple and straightforward vision of how the world can change for the better. Their speeches, their long reports and policy papers filled with hundreds of recommendations and their it's-simple-as-that approach to global poverty certainly offer great hope to those suffering from it and, (let's not forget) give those in rich countries a sense of satisfaction and pride that they're not just sitting there idle, indifferent to the world's ills. And I'm sure, most of these activists are genuine and their activism is sincere. But, as this article explains, this approach to the world's ills and the hope it offers is in fact counterproductive and more than anything, hurts the poor. By promising so much, rich-world activists actually prolong the true nightmare of poverty. They wholly undersestimate self-seeking behavior and conflict, and they design grand schemes from the top without trying to first solve the larger, more pressing problems at the bottom. Piecemeal approaches, and not grand approaches to tackling poverty just might be the best way to eradicate poverty. An interesting read.

Hitchens-Galloway debate

I just finished listening to one of the most raucous debates on Iraq I have ever listened to . Notorious polemicist and liberal hawk Christopher Hitchens and loud-mouth self-proclaimed spokesperson for the anti-war left George Galloway sparred last night in New York in front of a wild crowd (I blogged about it a while back). Debates like these come round once in a blue moon. The two rhetorical heavyweights hate eachother with a passion (to say the least) and last night they showed it in front of a 1000-strong audience. The venom they spewed at eachother, the political low blows they both landed, their wit and awesome command of the english language made it a memorable debate, albeit one that, in the end, felt more like a verbal boxing match than a serious debate on the crisis in Iraq.

Listen to a sample:
(60min stream)      

Download in mp3 format Part 1 and Part 2

Or view the webcast here (RealPlayer needed).

UPDATE: I just listened to some parts of the debate again and it really struck me how Galloway got away with some of truly mind-numbing statements. Let's face it, a good 2/3 of the audience was clearly cheering him on throughout the evening. And this despite his ludicrous comments on the US and Britain being the world's real rogue states, the "heroic" resistance in Iraq and 9/11 came out of a swamp of hatred created by us." We're talking about a man who has proudly saluted Saddam for his "heroism", has visited Bashar Al-Assad just last month and praised his leadership and is an open apologist of Stalin... Just spit enough insults at Bush and play on the "US and Israel versus the world" clichés and you get a standing ovation. Mind-boggling. What has happened to the libera left? How can anyone take this Galloway seriously? Really.

Paradise Now

Last night, Yasmine and I went to see what is arguaby the best film I've seen since Turtles Can Fly. The film is called Paradise Now  and is directed by palestinian filmaker Hany Abu-Assad. The story is about two childhood friends who are recruited for twin suicide bombings in Tel Aviv and explores the psychological evolution of the two friends during their final hours. The director deftly avoids plunging into clichés and lame political correctness, and deals with the  subject with subtlety and depth. There is near-constant tension in the film that almost becomes unbearable, thanks to a very solid script and two absolutely brilliant actors. A real tour de force. Go see this film!

REMINDER: 12 Vues photo project

My friend Philippe (a.k.a Pippo) is working on a really interesting photography project called 12 Vues . I'm trying to recrute as many people as possible to join in and be part of it. The idea is pretty straightforward and consists in asking people from all over the world to take 12 snapshots of their day on the same day, Saturday, October 29, 2005 and then upload them on the project website.

There are 3 key rules to follow:

• take 4 pictures that say something about yourself and your environment (eg. self-portrait, your immediate surroundings, your office etc...)
• take 4 pictures of what, on the given day, you find beautiful
• take 4 pictures of what, on the given day, you find ugly

Essentially, the project is massive artistic and cultural exchange, where hundreds of people from all walks of life and from every part of the planet all take pictures on the same day, post them on a common site, share them and engage in a visual dialogue.

To find out more, visit the project website and sign up!

Bad day

Today, my laptop died. So much for that very short "resuscitation" last month when i miraculously found a way to make it work again (with the good help of some wiz kids). I spent a good part of this weekend trying to bring the magic back but this time, no luck. It's good for the bin. So, as I write this (on Yasmine's laptop), i am computerless and I am already starting to feel withdrawal symptoms. Hopefully, by next week, i wil be back online like before.

Hummer madness

I was strolling down a busy Parisian street yesterday to come across a depressing reminder of how long and difficult the road to energy conservation and generalised public transport is in traffic-ridden Paris. Here i was standing in front of a Hummer car dealer with prospective buyers inside, young and old... I'm at a loss of words when i see people ready to buy these gaz-guzzling behemoths. These people live in a city with one of the most efficient public transportation networks in the world, the smog is worsening year after year, traffic is worsening year after year, and they're ready to throw hundreds of thousands of dollars to burn 30+ liters of gas per 100km, drive their tank around the city and look like complete fools when they need to parallel park.

It's sad, it's pathetic and it's criminal.