Hmmmm. Sorry man but as long as you have situations like Zimbabwe where the leader of the neighboring country, South Africa, not only refuses to do anything but actively tries to prevent corrective action. Well there's nothing much the USA can do. Frankly Iraq is the last example of an American expeditionary force for positive change for the next two generations. A lot of people are bitter it happened. And a lot of people are bitter that we're getting ration of crap for having done it. And then there's people like me, and section9, who are very aggravated by those who oppose Iraq but turn around and want military force used in Dafur, Zimbabwe or Burma. Honestly the primary reason why Africa is a hellhole is because most of these dictatorial thugs are leftist. This means that the liberal left in America and Europe find they cannot oppose them. It's crazy, but it's also true. Anybody with two eyes can see that Mugabe has been a thug for decades. Yet it's only recently that anybody on the left has criticized him. Another problem is tribal politics and the spoils system. Everything revolves around looting the government and screwing the governed. And last, but not least, are the billions of dollars in well meaning foreign aid that helps prop up these thugs.

Hmmmm. "the one black dude on Barney Miller" Yeah he was pretty cool. Speaking as a naturalized citizen growing up in the wilds of rural New Hampshire, i.e. only non-white kid in my county, that guy was the sole example of cool I ever saw. :) As for the rest. Let's face it television degrades everything it touches. Look at how modern television weaves it's way through race and gender relations. IMO there's even a sort of pecking order in place that defines who can be portrayed as a doctor or as a total ditz. It's sad in a way because we're all, at one time or another, ditzes.

Hmmmm. I must admit that I rarely, if ever, go through the African-American section of any bookstore. I generally assume that these books reflect either a black Marxist or race demagoguery. I'm probably wrong for doing so but I've always figured that the title of the section not only reflects the subject matter but also the targeted audience.

Hmmmm. "I understand somewhere that relatively high unemployment in the US at least is based on the fact that we tend to have many more full time jobs than part-time jobs." National average is 4.7%. That's very very *low* unemployment. Iran has about a 40% unemployment rate. Germany's unemployment is around 8%. France is above 10%.

Hmmmmm. 1. "What keeps southern Chinese rice farmers in place at a high density? They have a tried and true ethos about how to run a village that works extraordinarily well." The villages may have a "high density" but if you factor in the rice fields then that density drops greatly. The reality is that no form of farming, other than hydroponic, can ever be really described as "high density". 2. The whole idea of the USA being "high density" and having a negative economic effect from it is frankly silly. If you count the total square acreage of every municipality, or city, of at least 2,500 population you'll see that the total impact of urbanization accounts for only 3% of the country's total land area. 300 million = 3% That's it. 3%. Not much "there" there. The biggest reason is that technology allows us to be much more efficient. So there's plenty of room for growth, both in population and in technology. So the whole idea that the economy is going to seize up one day because of too many people isn't something that we'll have to worry about in our lifetimes. Currently even with plenty of illegal aliens entering the country our population growth rate is a bit over 2.1 per couple. That's barely replacement rate.