When it comes to US diplomacy, all we have ever had is gossip: newspaper reports quoting unnamed sources speaking off the record? Thats gossip. The actual cable dumps themselves? Thats neither idle talk or rumor.
ALLOW me to also respond to my colleague's post defending the
latest document-dump by WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, in which he writes
Organisations
such as WikiLeaks, which are philosophically opposed to state secrecy
and which operate as much as is possible outside the global nation-state
system, may be the best we can hope for in the way of promoting the
climate of transparency and accountability necessary for authentically
liberal democracy.
submit that this is true only if an "authentically liberal democracy"
is a post-political paradise unlike any form of communal association
ever seen in human history.
From its origins in the 17th century,
liberal political theory has been motivated in part by the impulse to
check the power of the state—for the sake of both individual freedom and
the common good. That's what makes liberalism a theory of limited
government. But from the beginning this impulse was itself limited in
scope. None of the early modern liberals would have considered it either
possible or desirable for the state to strive for complete transparency
in matters of foreign policy and diplomacy. To do so would be to ask
the state to cease abiding by the most elementary rules of human
relations—including the rule so clearly explicated by my other colleague
in a post far more critical of WikiLeaks:
It's
part of the nature of human communication that one doesn't always say
the same thing to every audience. There are perfectly good reasons why
you don't always tell the same story to your boss as you do to your
spouse. There are things Washington needs to tell Riyadh to explain what
it's just told Jerusalem and things Washington needs to tell Jerusalem
to explain what it's just told Riyadh, and these cables shouldn't be
crossed. There's nothing wrong with this. It's inevitable. And it
wouldn't make the world a better place if Washington were unable to say
anything to Jerusalem without its being heard by Riyadh, any more than
it would if you were unable to tell your spouse anything without its
being heard by your boss.
The one line in this
admirably lucid statement that I would revise is the one about how there
is "nothing wrong" with this average-everyday form of duplicity. On the
contrary, as a form of duplicity it is morally troubling. But sometimes
securing the common good requires morally troubling actions. That's a
basic fact of politics that some contemporary liberals and libertarians,
like many anti-liberal leftists, will not abide. In their view, liberal
checks on government—like oversight by our elected representatives—is
insufficient. We need far more than that. We need to eliminate duplicity
altogether.
That is what I take Mr Assange to be getting at in his predictably pretentious and self-righteous denunciation of the "authoritarian conspiracy" that runs the United States. As David Brooks argues today,
Mr Assange could be considered an anarchist. He's out to tear down all
existing liberal democratic institutions—and perhaps all political
institutions of any kind—because they fall short of his preciously
naïve, anti-political vision of moral purity.
American liberals
and libertarians need to be very careful to distinguish their own
laudable efforts to achieve greater institutional transparency from the
efforts of this unelected fanatic to topple those same institutions. The
former can justly be described as an "authentically liberal democratic"
vision of reform. The latter is next of kin to nihilism.
(For
more on the anti-political temptations of contemporary liberalism and
libertarianism, I recommend the work of French author Pierre Manent.
See, for example, these two books. Photo credit: AFP)
US embassy cables: browse the database
Use our interactive guide to discover what has been revealed in the leak of 250,000 US diplomatic cables. Mouse over the map below to find key stories and a selection of original documents by country, subject or people
DOCTORS are being trained in how to deliver super-sized babies as the country's obesity epidemic worsens.
The large newborns - most born to obese and overweight mothers - are so big their shoulders are becoming stuck during labour.
In extreme cases doctors have to break their collarbones to free them and save their lives.
One in four Australian women is obese when they become pregnant, increasing health risks for both mother and baby.
In Melbourne, Royal Women's Hospital maternity services director Assoc Prof Louise Kornman said broken bones occurred in busy hospitals a couple of times a year.
"I would imagine this will gradually increase as the size of mothers having babies increases," she told the Herald Sun.
But doctors in Queensland say the shock procedure is carried out on up to 1000 infants across the state.
Brisbane obstetrician Dr Gino Pecoraro, president of the Australian Medical Association Queensland, said an increasing number of cases meant junior doctors now took part in regular mock-up trials.
He said obese and overweight women were more likely to give birth to babies over 4kg, with a greater risk of the babies becoming stuck in a condition known as shoulder dystocia.
"This is far more common in the last five years because of the obesity epidemic," he told the Courier-Mail.
"It is an emergency situation where the baby's head comes out but the shoulders get stuck, compressing the umbilical cord which delivers oxygen.
"We push down on the clavicle with our thumb and finger to free the baby."
It comes as Queensland is in the grip of an obesity epidemic, with almost half of expectant mothers now overweight or obese, and one in four classed as obese.
It is estimated shoulder dystocia affects up to 1.5 per cent of all babies with a birth weight of 2.5kg (5 pounds 8 ounces).
This incidence increases to around 10 per cent in babies weighing more than 4kg (8 pounds 13 ounces) and to 22.6 per cent in babies bigger than 4.5kg (9 pounds 14 ounces.)
Of the 66,097 babies born in Queensland last year, 12 per cent weighed over 4kg and it is estimated around 960 suffered shoulder dystocia at birth.
After delivery the injured newborn is unable to move its arm until the bone heals, which can take weeks.
Dr Pecoraro said despite the risks it was better to let an obese woman try and labour naturally rather than carrying out an elective caesarean.
Meanwhile, thousands of pregnant women are refusing to give up smoking despite an increasing number of Queenslanders abandoning cigarettes.
New figures released today in The Health of Queenslanders report shows the number of Queenslanders smoking has fallen by 6.6 per cent, from 22.1 per cent in 2001 to 15.5 per cent in 2010.
But chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young said one in five pregnant women who are past 20 weeks gestation are still smoking.
source : http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/daily_chart_1
Measured a different way, the correlation between money and happiness is surprisingly strong (click here to go to the origin source)
DISMAL scientists who look at happiness often contend that, beyond a GDP per capita of just $15,000 (measured at purchasing-power parity), money does not buy happiness. Up to that point the correlation between the two is strong, but thereafter it falls away. If this is true then some heretical conclusions follow: rich America is no happier than poorer Brazil, so what is the point in people who live in rich countries working harder to get ever richer? Politicians should concentrate on maximising the mental health of their voters, rather than the size of their pay checks. But plot the data another way, on a logarithmic scale where each increment represents a 100% increase in income per head, and the relationship between wealth and happiness looks more robust.
