--- So, we have some

--- So, we have some goodie articles from The Economist today. (subscription required)

The cover of the October 18th issue pretty much says it all. The opinion article goes into great detail about what this means, not only for China, but other national space programs as well.

As Sully would say, here are a few money quotes:

“The success of the Shenzhou 5 launch, carrying China’s very own
astronaut, is no small feat, especially for a developing country.
China’s Communist Party bosses will, no doubt, bask in the outpouring
of national pride at home, and the envy of other would-be space cadets.
After all, China is only the third country to put a man in space, after
Russia and America, and the poorest one at that. As a nationalist boost
that is fair enough, but it does carry one awkward implication. It is
that China should no longer be sent the $1.8 billion or so it is
getting in foreign aid each year (much of it from Japan). It may still
be a poor, if fast-growing, economy but if it chooses to spend its
money on space travel there can be no good reason for outsiders to
subsidise that choice.”
“…putting a man in orbit remains a rather wasteful sort of
publicity stunt. No one knows how wasteful, for China is even more
secretive than others both about its space budget and about the bigger
military budget of which it is part. China is not alone in burning up
money on unneeded space ventures—think of the original Russian space
station, or America's (still grounded) space shuttle. But those two
countries at least wasted their own money. China, which makes sure its
otherwise opaque statistics always support its claim to neediness, is
trading in space on the generosity of others. And it does not intend to
stop at a single demonstration shot (which may, outsiders guess, have
cost a total of $2 billion): more costly efforts are planned, including
eventually a moon landing and even a space station of its own.”
“Might those Chinese applauding this week's achievement feel
differently if they knew the price tag? The party is not about to ask.
There have been mutterings on internet bulletin boards; some of China's
scientists have wondered privately if the cash going into manned space
flight is well spent. China could be spending a lot more, say, on the
search for an AIDS vaccine (it has been woefully secretive about its
AIDS problem too, at the cost of many lives) or on better ways to
prevent outbreaks like that of the respiratory disease SARS. But those
Chinese, many of them in the countryside, with the greatest terrestrial
concerns, such as no real job, corrupt officials, lousy roads and
pockets of still considerable poverty, have little chance to say what
they think. Bizarrely, China has tried to appeal to its peasant farmers
by irradiating seeds in space to produce better strains—something
else that can be done more easily and cheaply on the ground.”
Amen! But then again, why should we have expected the Chinese to spend
the money in for the right purposes? When have the Chinese ever
done what was reasonable since the Communists took power in 1949? These
are the people that either killed or exiled all of their
professionals---doctors, lawyers, professors---in that spectacular, yet
failed, effort to go back to the stone age known as the Cultural
Revolution. I think this is the overlooked point of the media’s
coverage of this momentous event: how does this affect the average
citizen of the People’s Republic? The answer is that it won’t.
Unlike the American space program, where there was a small, yet
distinct economic advantage to researching space. In other words, we
got Tang out of the deal, as well as Velcro and all sorts of other good
stuff. The only Chinese who will benefit from China’s space program
are the moneyed players, who will use the People’s Republic’s
efforts on this front to enhance their satellite launching
capabilities, and the military, who, according to the Economist, is
keen to modernize its satellite capabilities, not to mention the
possibility of exploring space based weapons. This says nothing of the
bribes that will be paid to the party honchos. The editorial goes on to
say that other countries should be leery of this for reasons that have
nothing to do with this renewed space race.
China will be watched more closely for its military intentions. The
rockets that power China's space programme are virtually
indistinguishable from the intercontinental ballistic missiles that are
intended to carry its nuclear warheads. China has been modernising and
expanding its nuclear force for some time; it has already shown that it
can release more than one satellite from a single rocket, giving it a
capability to put multiple warheads on a single missile should it
choose to do so.
Shocked by America's technological wizardry on display in the first
Gulf war, and even more so by the speed of its victory in the second
(not to mention the earlier routing of al-Qaeda and the Taliban
government that supported it in Afghanistan), China is also working
feverishly to overcome more conventional handicaps. Fighter aircraft,
bombers, ships and submarines bought from Russia are aimed at deterring
America from coming to the assistance of Taiwan, which China claims as
its own, in any future crisis. So is the plan to deploy a new radar
satellite in 2005, able to peek though the clouds to track America's
naval movements near the island.”
On the whole, I find that last bit to be inflammatory because China
will forever be behind us. The Russian equipment they are buying in
great numbers is unlikely to be the top-of-the-line hardware the US
possesses, which is only likely to get better in coming years because
of increases in defense spending. This line of attach presumes that the
US has pretty much given up on weapons research; that the US is stuck
in a vacuum, and the Chinese will catch up sooner, rather than later.
Rubbish. For every frog they manage to leap, we’ve leaped five. This
does not mean the weapons they are currently in possession of are not
deadly or are not capable of great damage: they are. I’m not going to
deny that. It is also extremely possible that, as a result of their
space program, they will develop something we will have to
counterbalance. But it is unlikely that they will pass us by. It is
possible that China will make great strides, but with the corrupt
system they have in place now, and the potential fact foreign aid is
subsidizing their space program, it seems highly
unlikely---particularly if that Japanese spigot is shut off. --- The other article that’s
very, very good is about the ramifications for Iranian women by
granting Shirin Ebadi the Nobel Peace Prize. Ms. Ebadi, if you will
remember, is a former Iranian judge who was stripped of her post by the
Revolution in 1979 and has been fighting for women’s rights within
the system, instead of fighting against it. She is a chador-wearing
Islamic woman who believes Shari’a is a good legal system, but that
it needs to be refined to better protect women. The Economist is on the fence as to whether rewarding her for her activities, on the whole, are a good thing for Iranian women.

Money quotes:

“Women were at the forefront of the 1979 revolution that toppled
the monarchy, although they had not done so badly out of the shah.
Under his rule, women got the vote, polygamy was, in effect, outlawed
and the divorce laws were egalitarian. If anything, the state was too
permissive for most tastes; the elite gyrated in bikinis to Shirley
Bassey, and swam in pools full of milk. The revolution promised women
dignity, as well as equality. A quarter of a century on, they have
neither. Rather than the flexible jurisprudence to which Shia Islam
lends itself, and which Ms Ebadi champions, Iran's Islamic Republic has
promoted what Farideh Gheirat, a leading women's lawyer, calls a
“bone-dry version”. Lawmakers and judges reinstated polygamy, made
it virtually impossible for women to divorce without their husband's
consent, and condemned adulteresses to be stoned to death.”

The Economist makes a very good point: just why should Ms. Ebadi
be celebrated for “fighting for women’s rights,” while she
upholds a system that, for the most part, acts in direct contravention
of that idea? Is it just the simple idea of fighting the good fight
that the Nobel committee is celebrating in Ms. Ebadi’s case? This
seems to be the case, because upon further inspection, it doesn’t
seem as if Ms. Ebadi, if she were a man---the true test of
equality---would have been given the award. They would have had
subjected just such a candidate to a harsher litmus test than they
apparently subjected Ms. Ebadi to. They would have claimed that such a
man could have done more; that they hadn’t gone far enough in
ensuring equal rights for women under Iran’s system of laws. Don’t
get me wrong, I’m still glad she got the peace prize. If the act of
granting the prize is lacking in this somewhat iffy recipient, at least
it made the statement that we should all be looking at the treatment of
women in countries where Shari’a is practiced. But as the article
goes on to point out, “Iranian
women, even many who are indifferent to her causes, are intensely proud
of Ms Ebadi's achievement. But do not expect her to become a role
model. Despite a dash of radicalism—she goes bare-headed outside
Iran—she remains wedded to the cautious reformism that is espoused by
Mr Khatami and his supporters. And that, many believe, has failed. A
small but growing number of women are coming to reject the legal
superstructure to which Ms Ebadi is committed.”
This, particularly when combined with the growing voting power of
Iranian women the article touts, seems to show that Ms. Ebadi has a way
to go in producing actual, quantifiable, results for Iranian women.
--- I’m having a very good time right now driving one of my Alpha
Male neighbors insane. {evil chuckle}
Now, this isn’t the nasty, next door neighbor who consistently makes
me feel like something you’d scrape off the bottom of your shoe while
saying eeeeewww
in a loud voice, because I lack the money he has. No, this is the guy
who lives on the other side of our house: the retired lawyer. We’ll
call him “The Gardener” because, for the five or six months he and
his wife actually reside in Cake Eater Land, all he does is work in his
garden. And have no doubts about it, it’s a spectacular garden. That
Type A personality of his decrees that it should be fabulous and well
kept. He achieves this, after spending hours and hours on a daily basis
working toward this goal and usually puts my small garden to shame. The
Gardener, like I said above, is a retired lawyer. If you were a Twin
Cities resident and I happened to mention his last name, you would
undoubtedly know who I was talking about. He’s fairly well known in
town. He was on the board of the major art museum in Minneapolis. His
CV serves him well, but now that he’s in retirement, and doesn’t
have a dang thing to do, he channels all of that Ayn Rand individualism
into his garden and the surrounding yard. My yard drives him nuts, and
it’s fairly obvious. Now, we get along just fine with the Gardener
and his wife (she’s a wee bit ditzy), and we’ve shared many a
dinner with them. On the whole, they’re pretty nice people, if not
indicative of the moneyed class they enjoy being a part of. In other
words: we’re just not on their level---but it’s fairly obvious he
has high hopes for the husband and thinks him capable of a great number
of things. Me, on the other hand, well, I don’t know what the heck he
thinks of me, but I’m sure he doesn’t think I’m living up to
whatever level of potential he seems to think I possess, but he’s too
polite to say it. Our lawn has been a great strain on the Gardener, and
honestly, if I could do anything about it, I would. But the Great White
Hunter landlord doesn’t seem to think that good lawn and garden care
is a requisite for a rental property, hence he used to make it a
requisite that once you moved in here, you, the renter, were
responsible for lawn care. Pfft. Yeah, that’s going to increase the
property value, uh-huh, and there’s a bridge in New York that’s for
sale and I’m brokering the deal, wanna have a look? Once we decided
we’d finally had enough of that, they got a lawn service, but even
this guy who comes to mow is cut rate in the extreme: it takes him
about five minutes to do our entire yard and the result is
spectacularly bad, especially when he neglects to sharpen the blades on
his mower. But it’s generally not the length of the grass that
frustrate the Gardener: it’s the weeds that grow in profusion that
drive him truly insane. The main culprit that could ruin our domestic
bliss if it escalates its progression at all is the creeping charlie,
or what’s known to most horticultural types as vinca vine. This nasty
little creeping vine that sprouts all spring and summer long is, at
times, the only green thing on our lawn. And, in the way of creeping
vines, it hits his lawn, and this does not please him. This happens
with anything from our lawn that makes its way over to his, whether
that be leaves or whatever. But right now, the Gardener is cheesed with
us for one reason only: his lawn is free of that nasty autumnal
detritus of leaves and ours is not. Ours is completely covered with
leaves: they’re about three inches deep, in fact. You can’t see the
grass for all the leaves, and this lack of tidiness, this lack of pride
in our surroundings is driving him to the point where he spent a goodly
portion of yesterday just pacing up and down the fine line that
separates our lawn, sighing and shaking his head, as if we were his
children and he was contemplating cutting us out of the will for
failing to rake the leaves. And what’s funny is that this is a
calculated move on his part. He knows where our office is, and he was
pacing right under the window. I spied him looking up from time to
time, to gauge his progress in his guilt trip. Well, I’ve got news
for him. We called the manager: he said the lawn guys would take care
of the leaves so I am not going to sully my nice tan hands with
blisters from raking up at least twenty lawn bags worth of leaves. Nor
will I do this because I would have to pay to have them all picked up
by the garbage guys because we cancelled the lawn and leaf provision of
our pickup---if I’m remembering correctly, it’s something like
$3.00 per bag. The Gardener can dream on if he thinks I’m going to
break my back and bankrupt myself to please him. Doesn’t stop him
from pacing though. He was back out there again today. We’ll just
have to see how long this keeps up. And boy is it ever fun to watch.
--- Memo to DirecTv: {insert clearing of throat here} I DO NOT WANT A GODDAMN DV-R WITH TIVO SO STOP SENDING ME FLYERS
IN THE MAIL TRYING TO PEDDLE THE $##!@@$ THING TO ME! YOU WILL FEEL THE
FORCE OF MY WRATH SHOULD YOU TRY TO SOLICIT ME ONE MORE FREAKING TIME!
I TOLD YOU NO WHEN YOU CALLED ME; I’VE TOLD YOU NO WHEN YOU TRIED TO
SEND ME ONE FOR A TRIAL PERIOD. I’VE SHREDDED ALL THE FLYERS AND
ATTACHMENTS TO MY BILL THAT HAVE ADVERTISED IT. I AM COMPLETELY CAPABLE
OF CHOOSING MY SATELLITE COMPONENTS AND I DON’T WANT THIS THING! DO
YOU UNDERSTAND ME? OR SHOULD I COME DOWN TO PHOENIX OR WHEREVER THE
HELL YOU ARE AND MAKE YOU UNDERSTAND IN PERSON? I HAVE VERY PERSUASIVE
MEANS THAT I DON’T THINK YOU’D ENJOY ALL THAT MUCH, IF YOU GET MY
DRIFT. BACK THE HELL OFF AND REALIZE THAT FOR SOME PEOPLE, NO MEANS
PRECISELY THAT: NO!

Phew. I feel better now.