You might think it strange I put this post under the politics heading on my blog, but think about this little fact for a second: Wal-Mart buys 1.1% of all Chinese output Think about that. Now think some more. Good grief. via one of Simon World‘s very worthy Asia by Blog updates.

Say what you want about his philosophy—I agree with some of it, and have serious reservations about other parts of it—but Peter Singer, along with Renata Singer (whom I assume to be his wife, as a guess) hit a couple of nails on the head in this article called Rootless, Voteless but Happily Floating.

Not compared to most people, you’re not. And it’s not getting better, either.

John Wendel, my indefatigable source for good Op/Eds, sent me this.

Last post of the day, a link to a post by Drezner on what happens when women become doctors?Okay, he’s just linking too, but here’s a chunk of a quote from the original: With women becoming doctors in ever-increasing numbers, medicine is generally becoming more patient friendly, treatment is improving and malpractice suits may become less common, experts say. But, they add, the feminization of medicine is helping to lower physician salaries, encourage part-time doctoring and exacerbate a looming shortage of physicians. Interesting stuff, but as comments note, it’s not the whole story.

Here’s a link from Danwei on China and the world economy, according to Lord William Rees-Mogg.

This post on the Copyleft Creative Commies T-shirt is kind of cool and inspiring. If anyone else in Korea wants to go in, I think I may try to arrange an order of shirts: its easier to get’em shipped together, dont’cha think? via kitta.net And yes, Bill Gates did call people who support Copyleft “sort of modern-day Communists”. What a dork. Do you imagine he even senses there might be irony there?

Ritu links to this Jared Diamond article, The Ends of the World as We Know Them. It’s about the collapse of societies and it is timely in that way that it’s really always a timely issue, though sometimes more timely than usual.

One of my onetime regular readers posted a link to an article about “The Role of U.S. Criminal Negligence on a Global Scale”. Look at this silliness: At least 55,000 people were killed by the tsunami that devastated coastlines from Indonesia to Somalia. Almost a third of the dead are children. Thousands are still missing and millions are homeless in 11 countries. Hundreds of thousands have lost everything, and millions face a bleak future because of polluted drinking water, a lack of sanitation and no health services, according to UN undersecretary Jan Egeland, who is in charge of emergency relief …

For those who fear that the ridiculousness of the 2004 American Presidential election will be lost on future generations, fear not.