This map of New York City, produced by photographer Eric Fischer, is colour-coded by race: Red is White, Blue is Black, Green is Asian, Orange is Hispanic, Gray is Other, and each dot represents 25 people. Compare it to this one of San Francisco – a far more integrated city:
38 more US cities available to view on Fischer’s Flickr page.
Foreign Affairs has just published a fascinating short essay by Seth Cropsey online:
While visiting Japan in late August, Admiral Robert Willard, the leader of the U.S. Pacific Command, told journalists that China is almost ready to make operational the world’s first anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM). Anti-ship cruise missiles already exist in abundance, but they travel at about one-tenth the speed of a ballistic missile, possess far less kinetic energy, and are proportionately less lethal. According to recent Pentagon reports, the Chinese ASBM will have a range of at least 1,000 miles, whereas a long-range cruise missile has a range of about 600 miles. Chinese military planners expect that the missile’s maneuverability will allow it to hit and put out of action or destroy large-deck aircraft carriers while they are at sea and too distant from the Chinese mainland, as a result of the fact that even the next generation of naval fighter aircraft will lack the range to return to their carriers safely if launched further than 600 miles from their intended target. This unprecedented missile range and accuracy would allow China to finally achieve its oft-stated goal: denying major U.S. naval forces a significant portion of the Western Pacific.
What could this mean?
Such an extension of Chinese firepower would erode the United States’ ability to honor its commitment to defend Taiwan if it were attacked. The U.S. Navy has no defense against the ASBM, nor does it have one in development. If the United States cannot counter and overcome the ASBM, U.S. influence in Asia will likely decline, China’s implicit claim to regional hegemony will gain traction, and a regional arms competition, driven by territorial disputes in the South China Sea, may erupt.
What can the U.S. do?
China’s ASBM threat is serious, but the United States has the capacity to respond. Reductions in the size of U.S. carriers, increases in their number, and changes in aircraft design to expand their range, as well as other new technology, could neutralize the threat of Chinese missiles. Yet the growing U.S. deficit makes this unlikely, as does U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ skepticism regarding the utility of such large naval forces. For the immediate future, the administration is right to shore up U.S. alliances in the Western Pacific and continue to pursue a region-wide agreement on how to resolve territorial disputes in the South China Sea. It should also increase the level of naval exercises with allies in the region and proceed as scheduled with joint naval exercises planned with Japan in December on or around the Ryukyu Islands, which form the eastern perimeter of the East China Sea.
This may be the best policy article I’ve read this year – and one of the most unnerving.
David Foster Wallace in the Atlantic has a good question:
What if we chose to regard the 2,973 innocents killed in the atrocities of 9/11 not as victims but as democratic martyrs, “sacrifices on the altar of freedom”? In other words, what if we decided that a certain baseline vulnerability to terrorism is part of the price of the American idea? And, thus, that ours is a generation of Americans called to make great sacrifices in order to preserve our democratic way of life—sacrifices not just of our soldiers and money but of our personal safety and comfort?
In still other words, what if we chose to accept the fact that every few years, despite all reasonable precautions, some hundreds or thousands of us may die in the sort of ghastly terrorist attack that a democratic republic cannot 100-percent protect itself from without subverting the very principles that make it worth protecting?
Is this thought experiment monstrous? Would it be monstrous to refer to the 40,000-plus domestic highway deaths we accept each year because the mobility and autonomy of the car are evidently worth that high price? Is monstrousness why no serious public figure now will speak of the delusory trade-off of liberty for safety that Ben Franklin warned about more than 200 years ago? What exactly has changed between Franklin’s time and ours?
In still other words, what if we chose to accept the fact that every few years, despite all reasonable precautions, some hundreds or thousands of us may die in the sort of ghastly terrorist attack that a democratic republic cannot 100-percent protect itself from without subverting the very principles that make it worth protecting?
Is this thought experiment monstrous? Would it be monstrous to refer to the 40,000-plus domestic highway deaths we accept each year because the mobility and autonomy of the car are evidently worth that high price? Is monstrousness why no serious public figure now will speak of the delusory trade-off of liberty for safety that Ben Franklin warned about more than 200 years ago? What exactly has changed between Franklin’s time and ours?
Via Bruce Schneier.
Somehow, with all the excitement of the UN General Assembly last week, I missed this press release:
22 September 2010 – The United Nations and partners today launched the Year of the Bat to conserve the world’s only flying mammal and its critical role in seed dispersal and pollination for the benefit of humankind.
Who on earth writes this stuff?
“From insect-eating bats in Europe that provide important pest control to seed-dispersing bats in the tropics that help sustain rainforests, bats deliver vital ecosystem services across a wide range of environments,” the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said, noting that bat populations have declined alarmingly in recent decades due to habitat loss, human disturbance at hibernation sites, increasing urbanization and epidemics.
Vital ecosystem services?
The joint campaign, led by the UN Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) and the Agreement on the Conservation of Populations of European Bats (EUROBATS), concluded under the auspices of the CMS, will draw attention to the world’s 1100 bat species – around half of which are currently at risk.
“Compared to animals like tigers and elephants, bats receive little positive attention,” EUROBATS Executive Secretary Andreas Streit said. “But they are fascinating mammals and play an indispensable role in maintaining our environment.”
True. And the first thing they need is someone who can draft a half-decent press release on their behalf.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQruuwuJnKE[/youtube]