Audio: Victor Davis Hanson om Victor Davis Hanson

En svensker er en dansker uden hjerne? Det bliver der sagt i denne audio fra R. J. Moeller Show, der mest af alt handler om Davis Hanson selv:

Victor Davis Hanson

A professor of the classics for more than two decades in the California State University system, Dr. Hanson is a columnist at National Review, a senior fellow of military history at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, and the author of more than a dozen books.

VDH, as he’s affectionately known in conservative circles, graciously lent us a 1/2 hour of his time and we covered everything from his monthly lunches with Dr. Thomas Sowell to his Swedish ancestry to the current state of American higher education.

Startes HER – åbner Windows Media Player. Varer 34 minutter.

Andre kilder: A Voice in the Wilderness,

Det Sydkinesiske Hav

Problemer i en overrendt del af Stillehavet - forfatteren hedder Denmark:

Crowded Waters

The superpower battle for regional supremacy in the South China Sea is heating up once again.

By Abraham M. Denmark | June 7, 2011

For the last two years, a quiet showdown has played out over the South China Sea, the body of water bordered by China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei, the Philippines, and Taiwan. This little-known body of water is of vast strategic importance: Fully one-third of the world’s maritime trade traverses the South China Sea, and some optimistic estimates of its untapped stores of oil and natural gas would make it a second Persian Gulf. The South China Sea is also a major highway linking the oil fields of the Middle East and the factories of East Asia, with more than 80 percent of China’s oil imports (and large percentages for Japan and South Korea as well) flowing over its waters. As influential Asia-watcher Robert D. Kaplan has put it, the South China Sea’s importance to the region makes it the “Asian Mediterranean.”

Mere HER i Foreign Policy.

Opdatering 14. juni 2011:

Turbulent Waters in the South China Sea

Mounting territorial aggression destabilizes the region and puts the global economy at risk

By Michael Auslin – June 14, 2011

If China were a U.S. congressman, it would be Tweeting threatening pictures of its biceps to its rivals.

Beijing recently warned Vietnam and the Philippines not to explore for oil in disputed waters that China claims, and late last month Chinese naval patrol craft allegedly cut the surveying cable of a Vietnamese seismic research boat. Manila’s recent grievances against China are similarly severe. The Philippine government claims that China has harassed its exploration vessels, illegally unloaded supplies to build an oil rig in disputed waters and sent fighter jets into its airspace.

Mere HER i Wall Street Journal. Artiklen er endnu ikke lagt frem her hos AEI, men det plejer at ske.

Video: Hans Rosling i Seattle

Fødselstallet falder. Børnedødeligheden falder. Andelen af fattige mennesker i verden  falder. Folkesundheden stiger. Den såkaldte 3. verden indhendter Vesten i et forbløffende tempo. Fra Seattle BioMed 24. marts 2010, men først youtubet i februar 2011:

Hans Rosling Keynotes Passport to Global Health Celebration

Dr. Hans Rosling uses his famous Gapminder data bubble statistics software to unveil a fact-based world view. Using global health data, he demystifies the gap between the so-called developing and developed worlds.

Audio: Rachel Ehrenfeld om injurieturisme

Snublede lige over en audio med Rachel Ehrenfeld. Fra WNYC Radio:

Underreported: Libel Tourism

August 05, 2010

Rachel Ehrenfeld, writer and director of the American Center for Democracy, discusses the “libel tourism” bill passed last week by the U.S. Senate designed to shield U.S. journalists and writers from libel suits by repressive governments or wealthy business tycoons in foreign jurisdictions. Ms. Ehrenfield, the author of  Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It, talks about being sued for libel in England. Unlike the United States, the law is skewed in favor of the plaintiff in England, even though neither she, nor the wealthy Saudi businessman who sued her, were residents of the UK.

 Startes HER – åbner Windows Media Player – varighed små 16 minutter.

Francis Fukuyama om USA vs. Kina

Ingen udsigt til demokrati i Kina:

US Democracy Has Little To Teach China

Francis Fukuyama – January 17, 2011

The first decade of the 21-century has seen a dramatic reversal of fortune in the relative prestige of different political and economic models. Ten years ago, on the eve of the puncturing of the dotcom bubble, the US held the high ground. Its democracy was widely emulated, if not always loved; its technology was sweeping the world; and lightly regulated “Anglo-Saxon” capitalism was seen as the wave of the future. The US managed to fritter away that moral capital in remarkably short order: the Iraq war and the close association it created between military invasion and democracy promotion tarnished the latter, while the Wall Street financial crisis put paid to the idea that markets could be trusted to regulate themselves.

China, by contrast, is on a roll. President Hu Jintao’s rare state visit to Washington this week comes at a time when many Chinese see their weathering of the financial crisis as a vindication of their own system, and the beginning of an era in which US-style liberal ideas will no longer be dominant. State-owned enterprises are back in vogue, and were the chosen mechanism through which Beijing administered its massive stimulus. The automatic admiration for all things American that many Chinese once felt has given way to a much more nuanced and critical view of US weaknesses – verging, for some, on contempt. It is thus not surprising that polls suggest far more Chinese think their country is going in the right direction than their American counterparts.

Mere HER hos Carnegie Endowment. Jeg havde problemer med linket, så her og her er alternativer. Michael Ledeen har også noget at sige om Kina:

China: The First Mature Fascist State

January 20, 2011 – by Michael Ledeen

For nearly ten years, I have been arguing that China may well be the first example of a mature fascism in power.  The highest praise imaginable has been bestowed on this theory, by the People’s Republic itself.  When I published an updated version of my theory (first published in the Wall Street Journal in  2002 and reprised in different form in NRO thereafter) in the Far East Economic Review in May, 2008, the entire issue was banned in China.

Mere HER hos Pajamas Media. Desuden link her til en artikel i Canada Free Press af Daniel Greenfield:

• The Chinese Dragon and the American Eagle

Victor Davis Hanson om byers undergang

Få artiklen læst højt via Windows Media Player – her:

The Destiny of Cities

By Victor Davis Hanson – Autumn 2010

Throughout history, forces both natural and human have made cities rise and fall.

As the world steadily grows more urbanized, with 50 percent of its population no longer rural, it is more important than ever to ask how cities either perish or manage to survive. The question can be hard to answer. Why, following centuries of periodic depopulation and neglect, are Rome and Athens once again capitals, while Leptis Magna and Ephesus—once-thriving imperial powerhouses on the coasts of Libya and Turkey, respectively—are long deserted? Was it climate, or location, or a larger cultural tradition of resilience that eventually brought Rome and Athens back in a way that didn’t happen with the other two cities?

Mere HER i City Journal.

Video: Hans Rosling om verdens børnedødelighed

Vi lærer også om verdens faldende fødselstal. Optaget af TED i september 2010:

Hans Rosling: The good news of the decade?

Hans Rosling reframes 10 years of UN data with his spectacular visuals, lighting up an astonishing — mostly unreported — piece of front-page-worthy good news: We’re winning the war against child mortality. Along the way, he debunks one flawed approach to stats that blots out such vital stories.

Kan også ses hos TED. Desuden link her til Roslings Gapminder.

Video: Joel Kotkin om fremtidens byer

Fra TVO den 15. oktober 2010 – The Agenda med Steve Paikin:

Joel Kotkin: Challenging Urban Legends

“The Next Hundred Million” Author Joel Kotkin, and why he believes our future lies not in large urban centres, but in smaller, more human scale communities like suburbs.

De artikler, der nævnes i videoen, er indsat i en postering nedenfor denne. Tidligere blogget om samme emne:

• Joel Kotkin om atomisering af nationer

Børnetallet falder

America’s One-Child Policy

What China imposed on its population, we’re adopting voluntarily.

Sep 27, 2010, Vol. 16, No. 02 • By Jonathan V. Last

For the last several months, Chinese officials have been floating the idea of relaxing the country’s famed “One-Child” policy. One-Child has long been admired in the West by environmentalists, anti-population doomsayers, and some of our sillier professional wise men. In Hot, Flat, and Crowded (2008), for instance, Tom Friedman lauded the policy for saving China from “a population calamity.” What Friedman and others fail to understand is that China is built upon a crumbling demographic base. One-Child may or may not have “saved” China from overpopulation, but it has certainly created a demographic catastrophe.

Between 1950 and 1970, the average Chinese woman had roughly six children during her lifetime. Beginning in 1970, the Chinese government began urging a course of “late, long, few,” and in a decade the fertility rate dropped from 5.9 to 2.1. But that wasn’t enough for the government. In 1979, they instituted the One-Child policy—which is more complicated than it sounds.

Mere HER i The Weekly Standard.

Hvorfor lærer vi ikke noget?

For syv år siden tilbragte jeg nogle dage i Singapore på vej til Australien. Skønt en virkelig stor del af Singapores befolkning er muslimer, så jeg til min store undren ikke en eneste muslimsk klædt kvinde. En forespørgsel fortalte mig, at regeringen havde forbudt alle former for muslimsk påklædning inklusive slørtildækning i Singapore. Tænk, hvor er de kloge dernede, og tænk, hvilken uro og larm de undgår ved én gang for alle at sige stop. Hvorfor lærer vi dog ikke noget, hvor vi kan?

Fra Kort Sagt i Jyllands-Posten.

Singapore: tre muslimske mødre tiltalt i incest- og voldtægtsag

De tre mødre er gift med samme mand. De tvang deres døtre til at gå i seng med manden, - børnenes egen far. To af døtrene blev gravide og måtte gennemgå en abort. Manden har voldtaget i alt 6 af sine døtre.

Sagen blev afsløret, da en kun 15årig datter gik til politiet. Faderen er en 46årig forretningsmand, der desuden underviser i religion. Hans standpunkt er, at koranen siger, at en mand ejer sine døtre og at han derfor har alle seksuelle rettigheder over dem.

Han er blevet idømt 32 års fængsel og 24 piskeslag.

De tre koner har erklæret sig skyldige i at have hjulpet manden med sit forehavende. Der falder dom i sagen den 21. marts.

Kilde: Khaleej Times

Singapore er ud over at være en by også et selvstændigt land. Religiøst fordeler befolkningen sig således:  buddhisme: 42,5 pct., islam: 14,9 pct., kristendom: 14,8 pct., taoisme: 8,5 pct., og hinduisme: 4 pct.

Kilde: Udenrigsministeriets Landefakta.