This blog isn’t really about politics, but a recent statement about Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin struck me. Apparently, she doesn’t need foreign policy experience because Alaska is so close to Russia, with variations on the theme citing from seventy to 300 miles or so. Without even addressing the validity of that logic to begin with, it got me thinking – just how far is Anchorage from Moscow, where the real seat of Russian power lies? The answer to that (and any distance questions) is here, at the Distance Calculator.
Apparently, Anchorage is about 4,350 miles from Moscow, only about …read more

The University of Maryland runs an interesting International Policy program which conducts opinion polls around the world and posts them on their web site, WorldPublicOpinion.org. Most of the polls relate to politics/government policies and social issues like abortion and divorce but a recent poll looked at how folks in some of the largest Muslim countries view globalization and international trade.
The results of the poll: people in Egypt, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iran, Indonesia, the Palestinian Territories, plus the Muslim population of Nigeria in general are very favorable towards globalization and international trade, with 63% saying that globalization is good for their own …read more

Ever wonder who decides disputes at huge sporting events like the Olympics? Lawyers, not surprisingly, some of whom actually have a specialty of sorts in sports arbitration. They may not get paid at events like the Olympics, but it’s still an international business for some attorneys and other dispute-resolution experts.
Law.com has an interesting two-part interview here and here with an attorney who is currently in Beijing, in case anyone there is spoiling for a fight.
image in the public domain, from Wikipedia

Pallavi Aiyer moved from India to Beijing to be an English teacher in China (and to be with her boyfriend). Her memoir “Smoke and Mirrors: An Experience of China” thus includes many comparisons between her native country and her new country of residence. Combined, the two are refered to as “Chindia”.
Aiyer’s experiences as a teacher of English to Chinese journalism students and her travels to different parts of the country provide for fascinating insights into the modern Chinese culture. Almost all of the millions of students in China today are only-children who, compared with their parents, have obtained great material …read more

With the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics just days away, I am looking forward to learning more about China. Hopefully, we will get some human interest stories and documentaries about China in between the sporting events on television.
In case the TV studios shy away from anything more “political” (meaning anything which might be seen as controversial), today I will look at two new books on China which have made my reading list.
“The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom” by Simon Winchester portrays Joseph Needham (1900-1995) a …read more

This is an interesting article from the Financial Times about living car-free in Europe, Frankfurt to be specific. While I certainly agree that it’s a lot easier to live car-free in Europe than it is in the US, here in the Northeast it’s quite possible to live car free as well, as I did for quite some time when I lived in Center City Philadelphia. Indeed, the only time I really missed having a car was when I needed to visit friends in the suburbs, many of whom were also reachable by rail.
Increasingly, services like PhillyCarShare and ZipCar have …read more

My wife found out today that Häagen Dazs is not in fact a foreign brand of ice cream. In fact, it was started in New York over 50 years ago and given a name intended “to convey an aura of the old-world traditions and craftsmanship” the owner hoped to emulate. Now, whatever the merits of that particular ice cream, foreign-sounding names are a popular strategy here in the US. In fact, it’s so popular that Wikipedia has an entire entry dedicated to it.
For anyone with a passing knowledge of languages in which the umlaut appears, the name seems unlikely …read more

Johnny: Does Europe have a 4th of July?
Josh: No.
Johnny: Yes, it does. It comes right after the 3rd of July.
Ok, it’s an old joke, but it works to make a point.
Many countries have national days to mark a special occasion in that country’s history, but very few (France is an exception) celebrate as much as Americans celebrate the Fourth of July.
The old German national day was June 17th. It commemorated a day in 1953 when over 400,000 people protested against the socialist government of East Germany. At least 55 people were killed when Soviet troops squashed the uprising. (Refer to …read more

Today I installed a new printer at home. Every few years you just have to succomb to the hardware industry and risk your entire electronic life by installing drivers, applications and who-knows-what onto your PC which will impact some obscure settings or favorites. This time, the Firefox browser was hit and no longer responds. (This phenononom, btw, is called Schwarz’s Law: Try to upgrade one thing and you will invariably downgrade three others.)
But I digress.
The really amazing thing about installing the printer today (actually it is a multi-functional unit with printer, copier, scanner and fax) was that Canon added …read more

 
ShannonCherry over at Startup Spark noted that scientists have found a connection between novelty packaging/snappy logos and the area of the brain responsible for the “buy” impulse. That type of research is covering the biological/neurological aspects of spending money.
But are there cultural differences as to what and why people want to buy? Daniel Altman recently addressed this question and looked at buying behaviours in Seoul, Mumbai, Moscow and London. Not only the state of the local economy but also a diverse range of cultural influences affect how people save and spend money.
Korean nationalism plays a large role in Seoul, where …read more