Wow, what a great thing sanctions are

I'm so glad that we have perfected the use of sanctions to help further democracy in the world. It really has worked out so well for us so far. We were able to put the squeeze on the communist regime in Cuba, forcing them to overthrow their government and become a truly democratic society. We are well on our way to pressure Iran to stop enriching Uranium and being a jerk to the rest of the region. This is quite a useful tool, we should think of deploying it more often.

In reality though, I can't believe what I am reading about everything these days. Sanctions, especially the unilateral sanctions that we tend to prefer, have proven over the last five decades to do nothing in terms of actually forcing change. And yet our government, whether Republican or Democrat, seems oblivious to that fact.

Two recent examples from the news further this reality. Recently, President Bush met with a room half of Latin American diplomats, and half Cuban exiles. His speech was directed at the transfer of power in Cuba, and the President expressed concern that the people take this opportunity to shed the government that has controlled their destinies for the last half century. Mr. Bush also took the time to re-iterate the U.S.'s stance that the travel and trade embargoes on the island nation will continue until such a time as the country returns to a democratic state. These embargoes have worked wonderfully so far, haven't they? Really brought Cuba to see the error of their ways, didn't it?

Actually, the United States is a victim of its own policy, making us impotent as well as a hypocrite to boot. Since 2001, after a visit to the island nation by Hurricane Michelle, the United States authorized the sale of food and medical supplies to Cuba, in the pretense of humanitarian relief. The supplies could only be purchased "cash-only," as if that made a difference. Since then, the US has become one of Cuba's top 10 trading partners, racking up millions of dollars in trade with the verboden country. This has also aroused the ire of our allies, especially Canada, in relation to free trade, but that is a topic for another time.

Of course, the Cuban exile portion of the room leapt into an ovation, according to the New York Times. The diplomats remained silent, probably thinking of the rhetoric that was spewing forth and how they've heard this sort of speech before, only with regard to the leaders of the Middle East. It wasn't going to fly.

Indeed, this administration has stepped up the "sanction and embargo" theme in the volatile Middle East, this week condemning Iran and levying sanctions against the Qud Guards and several Iranian banking institutions, which Mr. Bush designated as sponsors of terrorism. Despite the fact that there have been sanctions imposed on the region since the 1979 uprising. Despite the fact that the Guards, and Iran, still does major business daily across the globe, in full flaunt of whatever we say against it.

The message we should be learning from all this is that unilateral sanctions do nothing anymore. Iran is in business with countries who will gladly fill any void left by the United States, especially considering Iran's vast petrochemical wealth. China, Russia, and the EU are just some of the international groups willing to deal with Iran in order to continue global economic growth. Nothing the US can say or threaten will cease that. Globalism has undermined these sorts of efforts before. Cuba did business with Russia, Canada, and the EU (and now the US as well, behind our own backs) for decades under a US "embargo". The Sudan, another black-listed country, has also turned elsewhere for economic investment, finding plenty of suitors who want to work with their own oil reserves. The list goes on.

The only way sanctions can work is if it is a concerted effort by the major economic powers of the world (the US, EU, China, India, Russia, and Canada) to really bring the pressure to bear on these nations. Unilateralism went out the window when globalism opened the floodgates. We no longer control the majority of trade and money flow in the world; if a country cannot do business with us, it can find other lucrative partners more than willing to turn a blind eye to whatever humanitarian, environmental, or political atrocity might be going on inside in order to further their own domestic economic agenda. If we continue to go it alone in this effort, we only end up looking ineffective and out of touch with reality, as the rest of the world sits silently during out tirade, then cleans up financially in the aftermath. Better international diplomacy, and a good dose of the real world and its new global structure, would greatly benefit any pipe dreams we may harbor to affect real change in the world via economic pressures. Until then, the audience is holding its breath.

The World with US Blinders

The war on terrorism that the United States has been waging since September 11, 2001 has taken a great many guises. The multinational invasion and “liberation” of Afghanistan in late 2001/2002, the unilateral “pre-emptive” strike against Saddam Hussein in 2003, new priorities in both domestic and foreign relation programs in the United States. However, one wonders if we have strayed too far in that direction. After all, while the loss of life was regrettable and abhorrent, and there certainly is at least one faction of radicals in the world who are determined to see the United States fall by any means necessary, there are far more pressing, and relevant, issues at hand in the world today. And the United States, by making the war on terror our #1 utmost priority, we have given way in many other areas, and one could make the case that we are losing our dominant edge in the influence over the future direction of the world.

The examples are evident enough. It was reported in this blog in May 2006 of the movements of many Latin American countries to the socialist left, headed by Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. While Peru and (for now) Mexico have stalled his agenda, it remains that he is a strong, central influence in the regions politics and economies. This is a region the United States spent decades, and billions of dollars, to help grow to its own desire, as some bonsai that needed constant pruning, shaping, and feeding. It didn’t work out as we had planned, as the repressive tactics that were utilized merely succeeded in spreading corruption and a widening poverty disparity. Coupled with our new apathy towards the region, as it is not a hotbed of terrorism, the people have responded by veering in a new direction, completely independent of America’s recommendations.

The same sort of independence is being seen in Asia. As our collective vision lies elsewhere, China, Russia, and India look to create a regional dominance in politics and economics, becoming the major influences in that part of the world. China and Russia have already asserted themselves in the cases of North Korea and Iran, two arguments that the United States wishes it had more solidarity on. The United States has been the dominant power in that region since the conclusion of WWII, and is now slipping in the face of new self-confident giants of regional policy.

While this is not inherently a bad thing, as the United States makes up a small portion of the world, it is certainly something to take note of. We would do well to build strong, multi-governmental bodies where we can work as a part of a team to help direct policies in these regions of the world. Not as a majority voice, nor as a major deciding factor, but playing as one of the team. That has not always been our strongest suit as a nation, and it would not be easy now to shift from strong-man in the group to team player. But this kind of shift is becoming increasingly necessary as we are so distracted in our own pursuit of physical stability against these “terrorists.” We have sought strictly bilateral agreements with select partners, in lieu of other stronger, more central treaties. A prime example is our vacillation over the nuclear proliferation with India versus with other nations, most notably the more unstable, but also “strategic” partner of Pakistan. A more inclusive solution, which might also help foster better relations between the two, would have been a preferred solution. But we chose not to.

We are not popular in the world, not by any means. Our policies, mostly generated by this administration, but not exclusively, have set a tone that many of the world perceives as unilateral, super-capitalist, and uncaring of more social concerns. If more regional bodies begin to exclude the United States out of negotiations, trade agreements, political disputes, then one can only wonder where the United States will lie in the final judgment. Would American businesses be cut out of the loop of new trade agreements? Could we stop a war when our voice is not considered relevant to the argument or region at hand? Would we be asked to help in times of need, or congratulated in times of prosperity? Life with the blinders on, as we have pursued recently, has its consequences. The beginning of which is only now starting to play out.

Red Scare or Red Herring?

With the energy crisis that is rapidly speeding towards America, indeed the whole world, there is a rush to politicize fossil fuels, as well as mounting international competition for those resources. Energy security and energy politics are the new buzzwords for governments everywhere. Russia was recently accused by Vice President Cheney of using their energy reserves as “tools of manipulation or blackmail.” Evo Morales, Bolivia’s new President, decided to nationalize their natural gas reserves, calling it, “a historic day in which Bolivia retakes absolute control of [Bolivia’s] natural resources.” For the United States, however, there is a single, primary competitor in the world of energy resources. The world’s largest fossil fuel user, it seems, is entering a direct confrontation with China, the world’s fastest-growing fossil fuel user. This competition is setting the stage for energy policies for decades to come, and unfortunately there exists a blindness associated with this duel that makes for bad politics, grandstanding, and a deflection from some of the real issues and solutions. Politicians have used China’s recent energy-gathering measures as a kind of new scare of Communist domination, when 1) China is merely playing the US’s game, and winning; and 2) there are more important solutions to be focused upon for our energy issues.

The first salvo fired in the energy wars between the two behemoths occurred last year, when the Chinese firm CNOOC Ltd. put in a bid for an American oil company, Unocal Corp. The bid, in good capitalist fashion, beat out a competitive offer from Chevron Corp. by over $2 billion. However, the deal was squashed. Why? Pressure from American politicians, worrying about the implications that China may be consolidating oil futures for itself, construed the take-over bid as a hostile maneuver against American national security. It drew immediate fire from politicians of all sorts, even prompting a threat of an investigation by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a secretive committee designed to investigate whether or not foreign takeovers and investments constitutes a threat to our national security. This would have been the first time CFIUS would be reviewing a natural resource company. Skeptics wondered about the true threat the bid posed. James Lewis, a technology transfer expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said “From a security perspective, it’s as much of a threat as when the Japanese purchased [New York’s] Rockefeller Center.” There was nothing untoward about the deal from the Chinese company (which was ultimately withdrawn in the face of such pressure). In reality, it was just good capitalism that was squashed by protective political maneuvers. This is not such new news for the United States, as protectivism has been documented in this administration towards the Vietnamese fishing industry, international steel industry, and others.

The rhetoric escalated this past week when Cuba announced that it was opening up a portion of its territory on the Florida Straits to offshore drilling – with China being one of the main bidders to attract the contract. China was not the only country negotiating the leases to drill off of Cuba’s coast; India, Spain, and Canada were also represented in the company’s agreements. This land is thought to hold a fair amount of oil and natural gas, commodities that are undoubtedly important given the instability in the Middle East, decreased American domestic production of oil, and rising demand worldwide. Politicians in the United States were quick to jump on the anti-China protectionist bandwagon. Senator Larry E. Craig, R-ID, even made a compliment which smacks of Cold War fear-mongering, saying “Red China should not be left to drill for oil within spitting distance of our own shores without competition from US industries.” Red China? Excuse me? Are we still stuck in the 70s here?

The rising concerns over energy, its availability and its pricing, has led politicians to use this as a new weapon to attack other governments, especially China. Yet nothing that China is doing is so unlike what other nations, the United States included, has done in the past to secure energy futures. Britain spent decades trying to subvert efforts for Iran to become a free nation with U.S. assistance. The companies of the United States hold oil development land rights across the globe, including Libya (not exactly the most U.S.-friendly nation), Venezuela, Australia, and more. China is asserting itself on the global scale now; they are stepping up and trying to secure their energy to ensure their future development. To use such trite phrases to intimidate them, or to spur anti-competitive action, is childish at best.

No, these observations are inherently counterproductive to developing a cohesive national energy policy. The anti-competitive statements merely prejudice our public and shift their attention away from viable solutions, of which protectivism is not one. Trying to bully China away from drilling in Cuba will not save the US from our energy woes either. Indeed, trying to form some anti-Chinese competition by drilling our own Florida Straits region is an equally undesirable answer. There is not enough oil residing there to last the U.S. more than 15 years, most likely in the range of a dozen; are we willing to allow their political grandstanding to set us back a decade or more in energy development and management, at which time we will have no reserves left and an even larger energy demand?

Fostering these sentiments and creating this antagonism is very easy politically for it requires no major input or sacrifice by the public, merely stirring up protectivist and nationalistic fervor among the public. But it doesn’t solve the underlying issues at hand. To achieve that, America needs to look at the more difficult, but entirely plausible, solutions of alternative fuels, conservation, and higher efficiency. These solutions are available to us; look at the new GM plan of the E85 standard, which uses a blend of 85% ethanol with 15% regular gasoline. Imagine cutting our transportation fuel usage by 85%. The world would be dumbstruck. Or the hybrid line of fuels which is gaining in popularity. Another efficient, gas and cost saving measure. CAFE standards are another option, used by Carter in the 70s to great positive effect, could be resurrected to help force the changes we all want to see. Smarter urban planning which allows for improved public transportation (or even non-motorized transportations, like walking or biking [gasp!]). These options are here for us to utilize, if only the politicians, our leaders, would get behind them and breathe life into them for a truly positive change in this country. The benefits are beyond comprehension. Instead, they seem to be focused merely on blowing a lot of hot air around. I hope there’s a change in the winds soon.

Is America Falling to the Left?

It is unmistakable the swing to the left that Latin American politics has taken of late. Beginning roughly eight years ago with the election of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, leftist leaders have popped up in a variety of countries, including Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and recently Morales’ election in Bolivia. And with elections in Peru, Mexico, and Nicaragua, even more Latin American countries could fall under leftist sway.

The large question is how did this come to pass? Not making any judgments on the merits or detractions of left governments in place in Latin America, but merely how did a segment of the political spectrum that the United States spent decades arduously striving to keep out of power return so confidently and abruptly? The United States used a multi-faceted campaign in Latin America to keep leftists, who were suspected of joining Cuba or the USSR, from coming to power. For example, the Chile Report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (1976) details the interference perpetrated by the United States in Chile from 1963 to 1973. Included in its findings, the United States spent millions on covert intervention in Chilean politics from 1970-1973. The money financed such operations as planted “news” stories in Chilean magazines and newspapers; propaganda; and political activities among workers, students, women’s groups and other civic organizations. President Nixon, with Henry Kissinger, even developed and executed a highly secretive coup to prevent Salvador Allende, Chile’s Marxist leader, from ascending to power after the 1970 elections. The coup failed, so the US used various economic and propaganda methods to discredit Allende and foster hostility against him. These included cutting off access to international loans and stimulating local capital flight; feeding misinformation to Chilean military officers to engender fear of Cuban subversives working in Chile; and financing opposition groups, including terrorist right-wing movements. This method of approach was not unique to Chile either; America spent a great deal of money and energy to keeping leftist movements under the rug in Latin America. So why have we seemingly surrendered so easily now?

One could make the argument that, not that the Cold War is over, there is little to no threat of leftist governments making deals with Communists to become a “danger” to America. This is largely true. While Castro remains in power, Cuba’s Communist threat pales in comparison to the USSR of yesteryears. However, this lack of ideological enemy does nothing to diminish the fact that there is a lot at stake in this for America, indeed all of the Americas.

Latin America’s shift to the left has been precipitated from decades of mismanagement, interference, and neglect by the West, most centrally the United States. The emergence of Communist Cuba brought the US to abandon the Monroe Doctrine and actively begin direct and indirect interference in Latin American politics and economies. What arose from decades of such intervention was a mutant form of US-bred capitalism. This system consolidated power into the hands of right-wing governments and perpetrated the spread of rampant cronyism. The majority of the populace did not see an up tick in their relative stations in life, nor was there an improvement in basic governmental services. The result? Distrust for the American way of doing politics and economics.

These rebellions against American hegemony have become increasingly visible. The Summit of the Americas last fall is a perfect example, with major demonstrations against the United States, and the election of a non-US-backed candidate to the Organization of American States. Venezuela’s nationalizing of its oil programs has led Bolivia’s president-elect to begin nationalizing his country’s natural gas resources. The list goes on and on.

What does that mean for us as a country? Plenty. If the socialist agendas espoused by these new leftist leaders begins to succeed, and it brings up the majority of impoverished peoples in terms of their quality of life, then the American methodology of economics as a model to the rest of the world is compromised. Countries have a viable alternative that excludes the United States completely. While it is not necessary for everyone to follow the US’s method of development, it has been a doctrine, enforced by our capitalist business method, that we have enforced for decades, and has helped make us a very profitable nation. Thus, this could also shut out American business interests, as these countries would be more likely to work with other socialist countries or countries that are merely not the United States. And since American business has depended on developing nations to provide labor, land, and materials for so long, their loss of VIP status in such regions of the world could have drastic repercussions in the American economy.

There are other areas where we could fall as well. Politically, we would be undermined by this ideology of social equality and justice, should it succeed where our efforts to extinguish it have failed. We lose face, and also compromise the ability to have an effective input into the decisions of other regional leaders. Isolated. And, taken to an extreme, the socialist movement could find its way back to our own soil. Last winter, Venezuela’s president decided to subsidize heating oil to the poorer residents of New England, a move that was wise politically for him, as it also bolstered his image in the United States. However, it also gives some segment of the US population a taste of what socialism might hold for us. It is not a perfect system; not by any means. But there has not been a large socialist movement since the early part of the last century. If it were to gain momentum, due to partly the actions of these neighbor governments, there could be some major policy changes, both domestically and internationally, for the United States.

And not let us forget the drug war, that pest of American foreign policy. I have been against the war since I was old enough to make up my mind about it. But it has been a cornerstone of america’s foreign policy, particularly in regards to Latin America. But the left’s ascendancy has the potential to recreate our allies and stances on the war. Morales in Bolivia recently promised to legalize coca, the main plant used in forming cocaine, and Mexico’s government recently legalized the possession of small amounts of a variety of drugs, from marijuana to ecstasy. These changes, so openly in contrast to American desires, flaunts the left’s newfound power, and might force some reckoning by the United States to arrive at a compromise.

Now a lot of this is speculation, some of it far-fetched. But it represents a possibility of what can happen if the United States remains apathetic to the changes that are transpiring around us. These are the dangers that lie in being too complacent over what is happening to our neighbors. I would not advocate for a second moving back to the contras and coups which defined our policy towards Latin America for a long time. However, there are great implications that could arise from what is taking place down south in its drive to the left. And I hope these countries succeed; I would not wish destitution on any nation, and socialism has a great deal of advantages to it; some of which we would be wise to heed for our own citizens. But this is a warning to our own country that our policies are not as powerful, as embraced, as they once were (or as we hoped), and their fall, without an alternative, could prove disastrous to this country. America would do well not to interfere, but to listen to what these countries are saying, acknowledge their messages, and work together to form a better future for all of us.

Update to "Brain Drain..."

What I pointed out months ago, and what others have been saying for years, has now hit the mainstream media. With the new edition of Time magazine, following closely on the heels of the 2006 State of the Union address, the topic of science education, funding, and development in this country and its future is now in main political sights. Where will this take us? Let a real battle for the future of our country begin.

Destructive Protectivism

The United States seems to be heading in a rather worrisome direction in terms of how the government handles competition from abroad. This is not about outsourcing, but it is about free-marked capitalism, a tenet of our economic society that our current President fiercely endorses (his notable refusal to bail out the auto industry is one such indication). With this passionate stance, it is hard to imagine that this same administration, indeed the entire US government, has been slowly trying to interfere with the markets, especially when it concerns products from other countries Too often, the knee-jerk reaction in the government at all levels has been to block moves, to impose tariffs, to ban products when it is contrary to what a large American corporation/industry desires The examples go on and on.

2002:The Bush administration places a tariff on the majority of steel imports from Europe, Asia, and South America that lasts for 20 months The range of the tariffs ran between 8 and 30 percent. These were imposed for two reasons, it seems. One was to protect the last remaining steel facilities in the Eastern United States from cheaper, better products from overseas. It was also done to gain political capital in the Rust Belt, which is a crucial battlefield in recent Presidential elections. The move was ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization, but that did nothing to stop the administration. It was only after the European Union and Japan announced they would impose sanctions on billions of dollars of US exports that the administration backed down from its claims.

2004:California begins the process to be the first state in the nation to allow hybrid vehicles to utilize the carpool lane with only a driver. This was to encourage people to buy and use hybrids, which dramatically reduce the amount of exhaust as well as gasoline consumption. At the time, the vast majority of the hybrid vehicles were supplied by Japanese companies, notably Toyota and Honda. The American auto industry responded with an intended lawsuit, claiming that this gave Toyota and Honda, who spent years developing this beneficial technology, an unfair advantage in the marketplace. Luckily, the suit never got far, and the hybrid exemption for the carpool lanes is now in effect.

1990s-2005:In one of the most egregious cases of tariffs, the catfish industry took a scathing response to the rise in quality and demand for Vietnamese catfish. The catfish industry in Vietnam had been growing slowly but surely since the Vietnam War, and by the 1990s they had begun to export their catfish across the world, including the United States. They had soon dominated over a fifth of the market in frozen catfish. The US catfish industry wouldn’t stand for that, so they went to their government for protectionist legislation. Boy did they get it. First, Sen. Trent Lott, R-MS, adds an amendment to an unrelated appropriations bill saying that only American catfish can be termed, “catfish”. The Vietnamese fish have to be called, “basra>” or “tra” despite the fact that they’re nearly identical fish. Rep. Marion Berry, D-AR went even further, insinuating that Vietnamese catfish are contaminated with Agent Orange. Haha. Then, the industry filed an anti-dumping suit against the Vietnamese catfisheries. This law usually works for industries that demonstrate an unfair competitive advantage, usually by subsidies. However, the US Commerce Department couldn’t find evidence that there was any heavily subsidizing of the catfish industry in Vietnam. Nevertheless, they bowed to pressure and declared that all Vietnamese industries – all of them – were by nature anti-competitive.

However, the Vietnamese catfish must have been that good, as a 2005 poll in Mississippi concluded that American consumers preferred the Vietnamese “basra” by a margin of 3 to 1. Similar, though slimmer, margins were found by a survey in Louisiana. This wouldn’t stand, so in August of 2005, largely under the radar of media attention, Alabama and Louisiana declared an out-right ban against catfish from Vietnam. Their reasoning rested on the case of the catfish possessing a “bioterrorist” threat to United States consumers. Wow.

These are but a few examples of the types of tariffs that the government has been trying to implement, or that industry has been pressuring them to advance. It is a natural feeling to want to protect our own industries, but these measures take nativist thinking to a new, and dangerous, level. Such extended forms of economic isolationism and protectivism have never really worked. Europe in the few decades preceding the 1990s relied on such an approach in their auto industry, when faced with competition from leaner, cheaper Japanese models. The US stood against them and forced themselves to adapt and change. The resultEurope’s market share fell dramatically, while the US survived and began a new era of car manufacturing that could rival Japan’s. And, in the new era of globalization, such measures are not likely to be tolerated by other areas of the world. As exemplified by the response to steel tariffs by both the EU and Japan, protectivism will only lead to further economic rivalries, tariffs, embargoes, and complications. It is counter-intuitive to the notion of a free market to combat improvements in an industry with such backwards thinking. It reflects poorly on our own industries, as well as a combative attitude of our government. That is not conducive to this new world of global trade. I hope we can rise above this current trend to show the world we are still the masters of innovation, and of the free market economy.

Brain Drain to the World

The brain drain has begun. This article has to be one of the saddest, yet most unexpected, that I’ve read in a long, long time. It is no surprise to those who follow that the United States has been falling behind in science for quite sometime now. At first it was merely the slipping test scores and international competitions. We invented a programming competition in the 80s, and we came in first every time for the first few annual events. Last year, we finished a measly 17^th. Our math, science, literacy, geography scores are falling in comparison to the rest of the world.

The tide began to turn against us a long time ago. For me, the first real clue was when several high tech companies moved their research labs overseas. It was the first instance I had where they had not moved merely their manufacturing, as companies have been doing in the global arena for years, but pure R&D. Signifying that other countries had finally caught up to our level. China produces an enormous amount of college graduates every year. And the quality of education in Singapore, India, China, Japan, Germany, has reached the point where they can attract the top-name companies, and the research labs they possess. There once was a time when, if you wanted your child to go to the very best school in the world, s/he went to the United States.

Now, however, that is not necessarily the case. The home-grown universities are beginning to generate higher-quality educations, for a fraction of the price. And their dedication is beginning to show dividends.

And how are we keeping up with the rest of the world in science (my forte)? We slash funding for research. We deny access to stem cell lines. At the fundamental level of education in this country, K-12, when we should be inspiring children, planting in them a life-long desire to question, to learn, to progress, we want to teach them Intelligent Design. With all of the inherent problems in our education system, with all the bungles, red tape, excessive bullshit schools have to wade through, with all the inaccuracies, bad teaching, poor funding, we worry about Intelligent Design? Months, years have been spent debating a topic which was solved in the 1920s. And no other country in the world is having similar problems. It is purely an American phenomenon.

South Korea has taken up the torch to become the leader in stem cell research. They are doing things we can’t even come close to. Achievements that could have gone to the US, along with all the financial rewards (patents on medications, therapies, royalties, licensing), have slipped from our fingertips. We sit, debating on an issue which no other country seems to quarrel with. You don’t hear about stem cell debates in Europe; they realize the possibilities that lie within these multi-faceted cells. But we sit and bog ourselves down in these so-called “ethical” debates. And now we have lost two people who, "Without a doubt, are the best people I know to find out which genes are altered to cause cancer." Singapore is a more attractive place for the top two minds in our country rather than their homeland to continue their very important research. What a sham. It has been a long time since I have felt ashamed of what my country is doing to itself, how it is rupturing its future. Today I do.

Text of the article: Scientists Leave U.S. To Do Stem Cell Research

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7001126033

November 21, 2005 3:00 p.m. EST by Andrea Moore

Stanford, CA (AHN) - Two government biologists recruited by Stanford University have decided to work in Singapore, saying they will face fewer restrictions on stem cell research overseas.

Neal Copeland and Nancy Jenkins, geneticists for the National Cancer Institute in Frederick, Maryland. A California ballot measure approved in 2004. say they are concerned about delays in the allocation of $3 billion set aside by a

The married couple are famous for discovering a way to accelerate the identification of cancer-causing genes in mice. The hope is to advance this discovery by using embryonic stem-cell cultures to build models of different cancers. If researchers can learn which genes are mutated in cancer, they may be able to develop drugs to block mutations.

At Singapore of Molecular and Cell Biology, the couple's discoveries would first be patented and used in Singapore.

"It is a loss for Stanford and a loss for America," Irving Weissman, director of Stanford's Institute for Cancer and Stem Cell Biology and Medicine told The Associated Press. "Without a doubt, they are the best people I know to find out which genes are altered to cause cancer."

Pursuing the Pearl

China’s economic boon in the last 10-15 years is probably the best thing that could happen to the United States. It has brought innumerable and invaluable attention to our own situation in the world, our desires, our policies, and our future. More than any other nation in the globalization movement, China has brought the powerful gaze of American society to bear upon itself. And from that introspection, we all can benefit, should the American’s take stock of what the Chinese have so kindly pointed out to us.

The booming Chinese economy has thrust many issues to the forefront of global awareness. None of those is more prominent than the consumption patterns of Western nations, especially the United States. Any environmentalist, when the subject of 1st world nation consumption is broached, will immediately recount the fact that the Untied States, despite being only 5% of the world population, consumes approximately 25% of the resources of the globe. While this can be a mere factoid at times, when one looks at the development of 3rd world nations, it becomes alarmingly prominent. The 3rd world desires one thing more than others: to have a standard of living equal to that of the first. Especially upon gaining that first taste of 1st world living, their desire increases exponentially. They want to drive a new car, watch MTV, and drink a cold Coke in their very own house. And who could blame them? The problem with this is the model that the 1st world nations, especially the United States, have set for this mode of consumption. China has begun to emulate this form of consumption, and it could have dire consequences. For one example, the per-captia household size in China is steadily decreasing, from 4.5 persons per house in 1985 to 3.5 in 2000, and on track to be 2.7 by 2015. With the dream of everyone owning their own home, even though their population growth is near zero they are projected to add 126 millions new households in the next 10 years (more than the total number of households in the United States). If you also add in the number of per capita cars that the United States has which China would like to acquire and the other accoutrements that make up a “1st work lifestyle,” the world is unable to support such a large number of people living as we do. This has caused a deal of alarm, as the two major economic powerhouses will quite possibly become competitors in the resource market.

How can we deny them the chance to become as great as us? To suppress the world as we extend our own legacy is shortsighted, and will not have a good ending. They look to the 1st world as the benchmark of standard of living, including consumption patterns. They could very easily point to the United States and say, "Look, you did whatever it took to grow into what you are now ... now it's our turn. You have no moral authority to tell us otherwise, so be gone." However, if the 5.8 billion other people in the world started acting like Americans, the world would fall far beyond our poor power to compensate for the destruction. Someone has to take a stand somewhere and try to divert the river from its present course. While we do not have the right to tell them not to grow, there should be some sense of duty that we need to advise them how we have destroyed our own soil, water, and air. We grew; we industrialized during a very primitive time, environmentally wise, and are only now being to see the consequences. People then did not know about greenhouse gases, CFCs, the fragility of ecosystems, the dangers that strip-mining and clear-cutting have to the greater environment (agriculture and urban life included). Even as late as the 50s companies were pouring mercury into the oceans by the tons. DDT was legal into the 70s. Now that is not to be used as an excuse for our growth while other nations lingered, nor is it an excuse for our current environmental problems. Environmental science has always lagged behind economic prosperity; it wasn't considered a viable problem/concern until now.

Now must the introspection turn inward. If we cannot forbid them to grow, but the world cannot sustain the whole planet consuming as we do now, where do we tread? Advising is a credible solution, but if the 1st world nations are to provide a positive role-model, a co-creator of solutions to problems both of our own making and others following, there are serious issues that need to be addressed. And I think that these issues have not been pushed to the forefront as ardently until China clamored upon the global stage to stand next to us. Only then, with their shadow looming over the economic, social, and environmental horizon could we awake from our complicity as the world’s head honcho that we’ve held for 50 years. Only then could we look at our reflection, magnified five times, and see what we would look like should we continue down this road. And this is a good thing, as Americans are unwilling to look at these issues when it is at their convenience. But the competition is driving these points home, and opening eyes to the fact that solutions need answering. Thank you China.