GlobLog - March 2007
A direct link to each entry is obtained by using the button below the entry.

23:15 - I JUST VISITED THE BIRTHPLACE OF THE INDIVIDUAL: 

Our neighbour here in Umbria´s mountains keeps a copy of Jacob Burckhardt´s book The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy by his bed. That´s a good idea. Burckhardt argued that the lack of central control in 13th and 14th century Italy (before the Pope conquered the free city-states) opened up for experiments and eccentricities that led to modern individualism - the emergence of free spirits and an interest in individual behaviour as opposed to families, clans and collectives.

Sometimes you see the clues when you are out on town. We´ve just visited Assisi, where St Francis´ Basilica stands out as a brilliant expression of Renaissance art, filled with paintings by all the important artists of the day. But many visitors miss the most important work of art when they admire the spectacle. They should turn their head around. Right above the entrance is a small image of the Madonna with child, painted by Giotto. What is extraordinary about is that the Madonna is smiling.

For the first time in the modern history of art, we see a smile, and so the Madonna becomes more than a symbol: She becomes an individual, with her own inner life and emotions. In a small way, this painting helped us all to become a bit more individual, and when people are no longer just members of groups, but individuals with their own hopes, wishes and dreams, the Church´s and the collectives´ control of individuals´s thoughts and actions began to crumble.

The Madonna probably knew that. I think that is why she is smiling.

09:51 - DAGENS CITAT: 

"Kubanska myndigheter smygläser svensk post och orsakar diplomatisk kris. Detta samma vecka som statsministern hotar med politisk kris om svenska myndigheter inte tillåts göra detsamma."

- Peter Wennblad på Neos nya blogg

00:38 - AFTER ALL, IT´S WHERE ALL ROADS LEAD: 

I constantly hear that modern people do nothing but work, watch television and play videogames. But then I read in Neo that SCB´s studies show that time spent socialising with friends and family (excluding dinners, taking care of children etc) for the average Swede a normal workday has increased from 24 minutes daily in 1964 to 52 minutes today.

Speaking of that, now my family and I leave for Italy, a place where some overdue reforms take place right now, where I will first try to experience some happiness, and then theorise about it.

I will be gone almost a month. During that period I will read and write a lot, but I will do an awful job when it comes to blogging and responding to email, because I want SCB´s statistics to improve even more. (And furthermore, reading is down from 35 to 26 minutes for the average Swede.) Please be patient.

SCB reports that undefined activities has increased from 6 to 8 minutes. I might do some of that too.

And by the way, here is some statistics to play around with while I am gone. It could easily keep me busy for a month.

01:02 - NOW IT´S GETTING REALLY INTERESTING: 

At first, the European Union paid farmers to farm.

Then, EU paid farmers not to farm.

Now, it looks like EU pays non-farmers not to farm.

08:30 - JOINING CATO: 

 

23:29 - VOLTAIRE MEETS RAND: 

Magazines about culture and literature rarely devote much space to Ayn Rand. So it´s an interesting sign of the times that Sweden´s biggest, Voltaire, now devotes an entire issue to her and her ideas, with Mattias Svensson as guest editor. It´s beautiful and a great read (as if it wanted to show that there is no mind-body dichotomy), especially when Rand´s brilliance is explained - by a Marxist.

At the release party on Thursday in Stockholm they promise to serve hamburgers like Hugh Akston made them. Do you really need another reason to go? Here is the invitation (pdf).

21:03 - POÄNGEN MED EN ÅRSLÖN PÅ BANKEN: 

Tydligen tog det några år innan Erik Fichtelius fick Göran Persson att bli frispråkig, för första avsnittet av Ordförande Persson bestod mest av arkivmaterial. Och då blev det en påminnelse om hur Persson brukade sätta sig på sina ministrar, gång på gång. Den enda som inte stillatigande accepterade att förödmjukas var finansminister Erik Åsbrink. Kanske för att han till skillnad från de flesta inte var en politikerbroiler utan alternativ karriär, helt i händerna på arbetsgivaren.

Så blev det ett entimmes argument mot politikerbroilers och för dra-åt-fanders-pengar.

16:32 - OR WAS IT?: 

Meanwhile, BBC publishes another, and much more pessimistic survey. This one is smaller and is done before the current security improvement, but in a big and chaotic country, all surveys contribute to the bigger picture. (Dick Erixon finds it revealing that Ekot only reports about the pessimistic survey...)

Most disturbing is the fact that 51 percent in this survey say that attacks on coalition forces are justified. You can´t blame the young American who does not want to go to such a place to try and restore security. Most bizarre is that only 35 percent think that the coalition forces should leave now. It´s a bit odd, but at least 16 percent want the troops there, but think that it is justified to attack them. So which alternative is it?

a) They want the troops to remain in Iraq because they want democracy and security, but think that it´s ok for those who don´t to attack them.

b) They want the troops to remain in Iraq, in order to attack them.

c) I pay too much attention to surveys done in chaotic regions where respondents fear for their lives.

10:19 - EVEN WORSE FOUR YEARS AGO: 

America´s non-existent plans for a secure post-war Iraq, and the power-hungry Iraqi parties´ persistent attempts to start a civil war have had horrible consequences. A new survey of 5 019 Iraqis by Opinion Research Business shows that 26 percent of Iraqis have seen a family member been murdered, and 14 percent have had a relative, friend or colleague abducted.

And yet, the most striking result of the survey is that a majority of two to one prefer this chaos to the old dictatorship - 49 percent preferred the present government, 26 percent preferred Saddam. It´s the strongest possible indication of how horrible Saddam´s totalitarian terror was that the present chaos seem more tolerable.

(Thanks Tino)

23:33 - PERSONLIGA PERSSON: 

I dag lämnade Göran Persson så slutligen rodret, och det bästa sättet att avtacka honom är väl att minnas några av hans mer minnesvärda uttalanden under statsministertiden:

”Jag kommer, och den regering jag tillhör kommer, med kraft i alla sammanhang brännmärka dem som utomlands talar illa om Sverige... Ingen har rätt att undandra sig rollen som ambassadör. Vi skall tala väl om vårt fina land!”

- I riksdagens budgetdebatt 14 juni 1995. 

”För mig är det oerhört slående vad politisk stabilitet betyder för ekonomisk utveckling när man ser det kinesiska exemplet.”

- På besök i Kina 4 nov 1996

"Ja, du. Kanske jag blir lite för duktig ibland. Jag har hela 90-talets historia ändå in på kroppen. Jag kan den i detalj. Kanske är jag för påläst och kan ibland uppfattas som lite mästrande."

- Besvarar frågan om vad han har för svaga sidor, Expressen 30 augusti 2000.

"Man får acceptera den konstitution de har kommit överens om."

- På besök i Nordkorea 2001

"Hur kan du som köpt en villa för 6 miljoner veta hur vanligt folk har det?"

- Sagt till Bo Lundgren i valrörelsen 2002 (före herrgården).

"Du investerar tungt i en borgerlig valseger. Tänk om det blir en socialdemokratisk valseger? Då får du hela kanslihuset emot dig, har du tänkt på det?"

- Till Jan Scherman efter TV4:s partiledardebatt tre dagar före riksdagsvalet 2002.

"Fri rörlighet för arbetskraft vill vi ha, men inte social turism. Där får vi inte vara naiva."

 - Ekot 11 nov 2003.

”Jag skulle tro att när vi kommer till valrörelsen kanske det inte är så många som talar om arbetslösheten.”

- 1 maj 2006 

" - - - "

- Valnatten 2006, när han bröt den demokratiska sedvänjan att gratulera valets vinnare.

Och så min personliga favorit:

"Vi når alla en punkt där det är dags att sluta."

- Perssons kommentar när Metallbasen Göran Johnson avgick. 

17:56 - EU IS TRYING TO FIX THE BULB EU BROKE: 

The EU is trying to get us to switch from traditional light bulbs to energy-saving bulbs. There is even talk of a ban on the conventional variety. But why don´t people make the change voluntarily? Because they are so expensive. Why are they so expensive? Because the EU introduced a 66 percent tariff on energy-efficient bulbs from China in 2002.

Now Osram, owned by Siemens, is lobbying for an extension of the tariff. They love green technology - as long as we buy it from them, and pay too much.

(Via HAX)

17:14 - DAGENS FRÅGA: 

"Det är inte bara i centerpartiet och dess ungdomsförbund som dessa tankar frodas. De är inte heller ovanliga i folkpartiet och vårt eget ungdomsförbund. Så vem är udden egentligen riktad emot? ... Vi har stor respekt för Erik Ullenhags åsikter och han är varmt välkommen att vara med i vårt parti. Frågan är om vi är välkomna i hans?"

- Folkpartipolitikerna Niklas Frykman och Mathias Sundin stärker via Liberala Nyhetsbyrån mitt intryck att knappt en enda folkpartist håller med Ullenhags utfall mot centerliberalerna.

11:32 - MADE IN CHINA - NOW ALSO OWNED IN CHINA: 

China has just given private property legal protection. It´s an important step towards rule of law, especially for the city population and for businesses, instead of the traditional rule of the bureaucrat´s whim. But if you think this means anything near real property rights for the majority of Chinese, you are unfortunately mistaken. The Economist writes:

"This latest law, likewise, will not bring the full property-rights revolution China´s development demands. Indeed, it will not meet the most crying need: to give peasants marketable ownership rights to the land they farm. If they could sell their land, tens of millions of underemployed farmers might find productive work. Those who stay on the farm could acquire bigger land holdings and use them more efficiently. Nor will the new law let peasants use their land as security on which they could borrow and invest to boost productivity. Nor, even now, will they be free from the threat of expropriation, another disincentive to investment. Much good land has already been grabbed, and the new law will merely protect the grabbers´ gains."

13:40 - 40% MORE TO SOOTHE YOUR ANXIETY: 

Since the mid-1990s, the Swedish middle class is squeezed by globalisation, says TCO. So I took a look at what their colleagues at LO said about this, and in one of their reports (pdf, p 21) I found this graph, which shows Swedish real wages for different percentiles. Two decades of stability and security was two decades of wage stagnation, and then suddenly vicious global market forces made their entrance, and real wages jumped.

According to these statistics, the professionals in the private sector that TCO organises increased their wages by 40 percent in eight years. They are anxious all the way to the bank.

23:43 - A FEELING, GENTLEMEN, IS NOT AN ARGUMENT: 

I wrote that I didn´t hear a single Swede complain that globalisation destroys jobs yesterday since our exports grow dramatically, but that was yesterday. Peter and Ingemar email me to say that right after I wrote those words, two representatives from TCO - a big trade union for Swedish professionals - claimed in DN that the middle class has the most to lose from globalisation.

Perhaps they should have read the latest trade statistics first. Interestingly, their main argument against globalisation is not backed by statistics, but by a general sense of "middle class anxiety" that they have noticed in the US and surveyed in Sweden. But a feeling is not an argument, especially when that feeling is less a result of the facts, and more a result of precisely this type of trade union agitation, where TCO writes articles about how globalisation will destroy people´s lives. If you think that the feeling of anxiety is the problem, you are part of the cause.

10:48 - 2000 DAYS WITHOUT A TRIAL: 

Dawit Isaak is a Swedish citizen, imprisoned by Eritrea for his democratic views. Today he has been imprisoned for 2 000 days. It would be a good day for the EU to stop the annual transfer of around ten million euro in aid to Eritrea. If they want to oppress our citizens, the least they could do is pay for it themselves.

Read more here.

17:03 - FÖRVIRRANDE TIDER II: 

Hur var det nu:

Man vet att världen är upp och ned när världens bästa rappare är vit, världens bästa golfare är svart, folkpartiet angriper centern för att vara för liberalt och Thomas Bodström är vårt hopp mot integritetskränkande övervakning.

15:40 - ENEMY OF THE INTERNET: 

Egypt just confirmed its position as one of the world´s 13 Internet enemies, when the Alexandria Appeal Court upheld the four-year prison sentence against the blogger Abdelkareem Amer.

Ironically, Egypt has also offered to host the Internet Governance Forum in 2009. Thanks, but now we´ve seen that you think that "governance" means "censorship", so no thanks.

13:53 - THE RICHER THEY GET, THE MORE THEY BUY: 

The National Board of Trade just showed that Sweden´s exports to China grew by 10 percent last year, to India by 42 percent and to the ten latest EU members by 28 percent.

I haven´t heard a single Swede complain that globalisation destroys jobs all day.

13:28 - CONGRATULATIONS CEPOS: 

The liberal Danish think-tank CEPOS is both impressive and influential, even though it has just been around just for two years. The second birthday party yesterday had the form of a seminar in Copenhagen on the sources of wealth, and I celebrated them by talking about the role of experiments and eccentricity and by wearing a tie.

In Kvällsposten Peter J Olsson writes about the seminar, Jyllands-Posten used the occasion to review my latest book and CEPOS has our lectures online.

22:59 - ÄR SKYTTEGRAVSGRÄVANDETS TID SLUTLIGEN INNE?: 

Apropå dagens debatt mellan Ullenhag och center-liberalerna hittade jag efter visst letande en gammal artikel jag var med om att skriva till Sydsvenska Dagbladet 5 juni 1999. Jodå, vi tog i så vi sprack med slagord och högtidsord, men läs till slutet, för då kommer den roliga överraskningen. Om du inte orkar med vår fin de siécle-ideologiska mallighet kan du fuska och scrolla ned på en gång.

Det finns ett större behov än på mycket länge av en stark liberal kraft. Leninismen försvaras av etablerade politiker, fascism är ett reellt alternativ i flera länder i Europa, alltför få står på allvar upp för tolerans och rättighetsfrågorna, de nya svenskarna får inte chansen att bygga en framtid i Sverige utan låses in i fattigdomsfällor och regeringen saknar lösningar på den massarbetslöshet som bitit sig fast. Det är i en sådan verklighet svårt att stämma in i den kör som påstår att liberalismen segrat.

De flesta svenska nyliberaler har känt sig hemlösa i det svenska partiväsendet, och i den mån de röstar har de främst valt moderaterna. Men är det inte bra att det finns liberaler i alla partier? En sådan tanke bygger på att exempelvis nyliberaler i moderaterna fick gehör för sina idéer. Så är dock sällan fallet. Moderaterna har sina rötter i konservatismen, och arvet väger tungt trots att liberala idéer har vunnit insteg i partiet de senaste decennierna. Ledande moderater är djupt påverkade av liberalism, men det stannar ofta vid en bolagsliberalism, där ideologin stavas tillväxt i stället för frihet. Det är en determinstisk tro att liberala reformer blivit nödvändiga pga informationsteknik och globalisering, inte en positiv strid för individens frihet. I delar av moderaterna frodas dessutom rent anti-liberala idéer och partiet släpper fram främlingsfientliga personer som Sten Andersson på ledande positioner.

Varför väljer då de flesta nyliberaler att rösta på moderaterna och inte folkpartiet? Folkpartiet har länge präglats av en socialt ingenjörsmässig syn där politiker ska lägga individernas liv till rätta. I kriminalpolitiken talar man om buggning i stället för integritet och periodvis har partiets alkoholpolitik varit extremt restriktiv. Alltför sällan betonas friheten och det personliga ansvarstagandet. Folkpartiet har successivt snävat in vad som är "riktig" liberalism. Såväl nyliberaler som liberaler av andra kulörer har nog känt sig ivägskrämda av den tvärsäkerhetsliberalism som präglat folkpartiet. Folkpartiet har en frihetlig idétradition som, i större utsträckning, borde bilda grund för partiets politik. Om så blir fallet kommer betydligt fler nyliberaler än i dag att söka sig till partiet.

Svenska liberaler har varit ledande i kampen för demokrati, tryck- och yttrandefrihet, näringsfrihet, frihandel, jämställdhet mellan könen och för folkbildningen. Den röda tråden bakom dessa frågor är tron på individens fria utveckling. Vi är övertygade om att det är idéer om individens frihet som innehåller lösningarna på flera av dagens utmaningar som segregation och massarbetslöshet. Och vi menar att frihandel och globalisering är vägen till en fredligare och mer välmående värld. Visst finns det stora skillnader oss emellan, men det centrala är att riktningen och utgångspunkten är gemensam. Att vi har olika åsikter om hur långt vi ska gå vad gäller lägre skatter och ett mindre reglerat näringsliv hindrar inte att vi kan göra sällskap på vägen.

Det behövs en liberal kraftsamling som ständigt står upp för individens värde. Men för att så skall ske måste socialliberaler och nyliberaler sluta gräva skyttegravar mellan varandra och, utan att sopa meningsskiljaktigheter under mattan, förenas i ett kompromisslöst försvar av liberalismens kärnvärderingar.

Erik Ullenhag, förbundsordförande i Liberala Ungdomsförbundet

Johan Norberg, nyliberal debattör

07:46 - ULLENHAG VS (FP)-LIBERALS: 

Folkpartiet´s Erik Ullenhag solves the contradictions in his DN article in Ekot in this way:

It is good that centern has begun to use the word "liberal", but it´s bad that they have become liberal.

His argument is that these slightly more radical liberal policies ("neo-liberal") will not find public support. But it turned centern into the third biggest party - at least bigger than folkpartiet. And the problem for Ullenhag´s own party is that this article gives centern another boost, because what he says is that all those in folkpartiet who still embrace those old liberal ideas do not belong in his party.

22:23 - ANARKI, STAD OCH UTOPI: 

Årets andra nummer av det liberala samhällsmagasinet Neo är ute nu. För en gångs skull skriver jag ingenting, men missa inte det tankeväckande temat om städer, stadsplanering och arkitektur.

09:33 - BREAKING NEWS: NORWAY IS NOT THE LAST SOVIET STATE: 

I have always been fascinated by John Cowperthwaite, the governor of Hong Kong who refused to collect government statistics, because that would only give the government the tools to act in paternalist ways. But at the same time, I love statistics, rankings and graphs, because they condense so much information. So I was happy to read The Economist´s defence:

"Far from letting governments loose, statistics are often an economic liberal´s best friend, a way to hold Leviathan to account."

That also goes for international rankings of different aspects of freedom, which almost always show a very strong correlation with wealth and wellbeing. That was shown by a new International Property Rights Index the other day, for example. By the way, Sweden got a flattering third place, and Norway - far from being "the last Soviet state" as a Swedish minister once claimed - protects property rights better than any other country.

But protecting property that happens to be there is just one aspect of freedom. What about openness, regulation, small government, democratic freedoms? What happens when you look at different aspects of freedom in one and the same index? The Latin American NGO Cadal (pdf) just combined economic freedom, political freedom and freedom from corruption in one index, and apparently these are the ten freest countries:

1. Iceland

2. Denmark

3. New Zealand

4. Finland

5. Luxembourg

6. Switzerland

7. Sweden

8. Britain

9. Australia

10. The Netherlands

Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are last of the 140 countries measured. The last Soviet states...

09:33 - U 2, DEAR BONO: 

"One of the things that I have learned of in Africa is the crucial role that commerce will play in taking its people out of extreme poverty."

- Bono points out that trade and profit save the world, in New York Times.

(Thanks David)

09:01 - YOU WON´T REMEMBER THIS BLOG POST: 

The ad is about shampoo, but you see more skin than hair, or it´s about ice cream, but there are more lips than ice cream in it. The growing number of commercials with erotic and sexual content are often blamed on market forces. In the struggle to get our attention, the corporations get increasingly shameless. A race to the racy.

But sex doesn´t sell, according to British research that The Economist writes about. Women were actually less likely to remember sexual advertisements than non-sexual. Predictably, men were more likely to remember them, but (predictably again) they couldn´t remember what product it was all about.

14:18 - DAGENS HAIKU: 

Hittegodsavdelningen

"Vänstervanten

Blev en minkpäls

Retoriken övermannade tjänstemannen"

Från Haiku Moderne

12:20 - ABOUT SAHLIN, NOT JUST MONA: 

I know that everybody´s obsessed with her personal behaviour, but it´s time to take a look at her political behaviour. I write about the next leader of Sweden´s social democrats, Mona Sahlin, in Dagens Industri today (subscribers only).

11:48 - THE LISBON PROCESS MESS: 

Europe should now be three years away from being the most competitive and the most dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world. I read in FT that this is not really happening: 

"The US reached the EU´s current level of gross domestic product per capita in 1985, according to the report by Eurochambres, the pan-European business lobby.

The EU´s employment rate and level of investment in research and development were reached by the US in 1978, and its level of productivity (expressed in GDP per employed) was reached by the US in 1989, the report said."

But don´t give up. The EU economy still has time to catch up with the US by 2010. If we grow by more than 8 percent annually until then.

00:19 - INNAN HAN SJÄLV FICK EN SLÄNG AV DEN GENEN: 

Erik skickar mig ett citat från en debattartikel från september 2005. Det skulle faktiskt kunna fungera som ett utmärkt inlägg i Torekull/Bildt-debatten, apropå hur den avslöjar pressens oförmåga att begripa nya medier:

"Ibland kan jag tänka att dagspressen gömmer samma dödliga gen av alltför stor kärlek till det förflutnas formler, att inte heller den förmår omvandla gammal kunskap till framtidsrecept.

Många ännu rika eller latent rika tidningar tycks inte på djupet förstå möjligheterna i sin formidabla kompetens. Medan hela världen bloggar om sig i ett mångfaldens kakafoniska utgivarskap med mobiltelefonernas på-plats-fotografer överallt, förblir dagspressen kär i sina alltför stora fasta staber och låser därmed sina resurser och sitt ansvar att fortlöpande skriva den stora berättelsen om samtiden."

Upphovsmannen? Bertil Torekull. Tro´t eller ej.

15:46 - LOOK WHO´S TALKING: 

I read that the trade unionist Hans Tilly has run out of argument against an open economy, because now he calls centern´s Fredrick Federley a person of the "extreme right" because Federley is a liberal. Federley can now refer to Godwin´s law and declare victory in the debate.

But Tilly´s insult is interesting, because he just turned the word upside down. Historically, the extreme right means radical conservatism, fascism and national socialism, ideologies that are defined by their opposition to personal freedom, economic freedom and internationalism, the three values Federley champions. If someone is on the extreme right in this debate it´s Tilly, jugding by his opposition to foreign workers and economic liberalism.

Here is an old article by me on why fascism and socialism has more in common with communism than with liberalism.

11:41 - FIVE QUESTIONS TO MIKAEL WIEHE: 

1) In Dagens Nyheter today, you praise the Cuban dictatorship for its accomplishments in life expectancy, health and education. In this regard, Cuba was ahead of all other Latin American countries (and many European countries) before Castro. Would you have written the same kind of article in 1955, praising Batista´s dictatorship for those accomplishments?

2) You write that Cuba has the longest life expectancy in the Americas. Where do you get your statistics? From the Cuban government? According to the UNDP (pdf), Chile has longer life expectancy than Cuba, and so has Costa Rica. And Canada, of course.

3) Speaking of statistics, you write about how incredibly popular the Cuban system is in Latin America. Would you write the same thing about Bush and the US? According to the latest Latinobarómetro, Castro is less popular in Latin America than Bush, and is less popular than any democratic Latin American leader.

4) You write that it´s impossible to understand and condemn Cuba´s policies unless we first look at how the US undermines human rights, for example in Guantánamo. Does that mean that it´s impossible to understand and condemn American policies unless we first look at how Cuba undermines human rights?

5) You praise Cuba for being an economy without American multinationals, because these apparently attack freedom and welfare everywhere. Later in the same article you claim that it is the absence of those multinationals (the American embargo) that makes Cuba poor. What a convenient inconsistency! If the US is somewhere, the poverty there is their fault. If the US is not somewhere, the poverty there is also their fault. The only certainty is that America is always wrong, whatever they do.

(For the record, the embargo is stupid and wrong, precisely because free trade and multinationals have a beneficial effect.)

11:12 - PLAYING WITH FIRE: 

"Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga (´the all-powerful warrior who goes from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake´)"

- The name Sergeant Joseph Désiré Mobutu chose for himself as he took power in Congo 1965 and destroyed his country, encouraged by the CIA.

11:02 - HOW TO SAVE THE COUNTRY AND WIN THE ELECTION AFTERWARDS: 

27.8% (+10.1%)

- The result for my favourite party, the liberal Reform Party, in the Estonian election yesterday, after having turned a communist economy into one of the world´s most liberal and dynamic economies.

14:53 - FEAR ITSELF: 

It´s an old truth that the greatest harm rarely comes from terrorist acts and diseases, but from our fear of them and our reactions to them. The greatest cost in human lives from SARS and bird flue in the affected countries so far has come from less visitors and less trade, because this deepens poverty and reduces living standards.

I just learned an interesting example of this from John Mueller: After the terrorist act on 9/11 2001, many Americans avoided flying and preferred the (much more dangerous) car. Until the end of 2001 around 1 000 more Americans died because they drove rather than flew.

15:27 - DON´T BE AFRAID OF BRAZILIAN MEAT: 

In Dagens Nyheter, Jenny Jewert writes about a study from Naturvårdsverket (pdf), the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, and concludes that it´s better for the planet to eat Swedish meat than to import it from Brazil. That´s true, as long as the food is produced under ideal environmental conditions in Sweden. That is not always the alternative, and just because one potential form of production would be more environmentally friendly, that doesn´t automatically mean that it´s better to spend extra resources on that, when cheaper meat saves resources that can be spent on technologies and solutions that would make an even bigger difference for the environment.

Even more interesting is that the same study explains that "the food mile" isn´t everything - it might be worse for the planet to produce local meal with more energy, chemicals and artificial fertilisers, than to buy environmentally friendly meat from Brazil and ship it here. And one conclusion is that "from an environmental perspective it would be good if meat production was reduced in regions of Europe with very large animal populations".

Here are some other things to consider before you abandon food from abroad.

16:46 - FOR MOST PEOPLE IT´S NOT A GAME: 

Most people in the world are farmers in poor countries. If you are one of them, 3rd world farmer won´t interest you much. But for us in the minority, this online game from the IT University in Copenhagen is an excellent way to learn about how poor farmers struggle against the weather, disease, corruption and guerillas to feed their families.

Waldemar Ingdahl is apparently addicted to the game, and reports that a mobile phone is more important than foreign aid.

11:53 - PERHAPS NOT...: 

But a reader in Shanghai just emailed me that he can read my blog without any difficulties (but not Bildt´s since all wordpress blogs are censored).

Anyway, it must be a difficult job to decide what is too dangerous for people to read and what´s not. You can´t just rely on software. When I was in China last year I met one of the tens of thousands of policemen who follows the web to decide what to censor. He looked a bit exhausted and explained that he was afraid to be corrupted by Western ideas on democracy and human rights.

10:28 - BANNED IN CHINA: 

The real threat to democracy is of course censorship. Jörgen Modin introduces me to greatwallofchina.org, where you can test if your web site is censored in China. The results might vary because of firewalls and timeouts, but it looks like my blog is censored. Perhaps because I write things like this.

Why don´t you test yours a couple of times.

(How ironic, looks like Bildt´s threat to democracy is also censored...)

10:12 - A PRESS STATEMENT IN NAME ONLY: 

Bertil Torekull barely scratched the surface. I have discovered something even more troubling.

It´s called a "press statement", and traditionally it was a message sent to the press, and the journalists in all their wisdom could decide if we were supposed to read them, and how they should be interpreted. But now, the government has undermined this democratic system by publishing them directly on the web, with total control of the content and the headline.

If blogs that allow comments are Hugo Chávez, then press statements that doesn´t must be Chairman Mao.

00:08 - A DANGEROUS MAN: 

"Beware the man pictured here! He is Sweden’s answer to Hugo Chávez, and threatens to undermine his country’s system of constitutional democracy."

- The British journalist Francis Sedgemore takes a look at the Swedish debate about how Carl Bildt´s blog destroys democracy.