Jay Marcyes

the other 6 pages: 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Best quotes

From a senior adviser to McChrystal:

"If Americans pulled back and started paying attention to this war, it would become even less popular" (pg 6)

From Andrew Wilder on how useless throwing money at the problem is:

"A tsunami of cash fuels corruption, delegitimizes the government and creates an environment where we're picking winners and losers" (pg 6)

And one final one about what the war actually is good at doing:

So far, counterinsurgency has succeeded only in creating a never-ending demand for the primary product supplied by the military: perpetual war. (pg 6)

Another good read on understanding healthcare. Right up there with this introductory guide to healthcare.

I was reading this Gawker post on whether we will ever get a Frost/Bush type interview and one of the commenters pointed out the logical fallacy common among George Bush haters.

I was not trying to debate Bush's greatness […] but rather to get people to make up their minds as to whether he was stupid or cunning.

I've watched your argument being formed over the past eight years by the left.

- George Bush must be the stupidest President that ever lived.

- Wait! He took us to a false war. He must be crafty.

-Wait! He said something stupid, but we couldn't have been taken to war by someone stupid, so he must have been the puppet of smart people who are only good at taking us to war, but not at anything else. […] make up your mind and tell me what you think Bush is. (comment link)

I'm not a George Bush lover by any mean (nor a Republican for that matter). I just get annoyed by people blinded by hate. How can you not see the flaw in reasoning like this: On the one hand he is dumbest guy in the world not even capable of tying his shoes let alone running the country. On the other hand he was the political mastermind behind The Pentaverate that duped the American people into making him President in order to mold the good ole' USA into a Police State with him as its Emperor

Sadly, now the right does the same thing with Barack Obama. Will it never end?

I'm shocked to find that there is no true IT labor shortage in the US and that companies are just using H-1B visas for their own nefarious purposes. I would have never saw that coming.

Due to an extensive public relations campaign orchestrated by an
industry trade organization, the Information Technology Association
of America (ITAA), a rash of newspaper articles have been appearing
since early 1997, claiming desperate labor shortages in the
information-technology field. Frantic employers complain that they
cannot fill many open positions for computer programmers. Yet readers of the articles proclaiming a shortage would be perplexed if
they also knew that Microsoft only hires 2% of its applicants for
software positions, and that this rate is typical in the industry.
Software employers, large or small, across the nation, concede that they
receive huge numbers of resumes but reject most of them without even
an interview. One does not have to be a "techie'' to see the
contradiction here. A 2% hiring rate might be unremarkable in other
fields, but not in one in which there is supposed to be a "desperate''
labor shortage. If employers were that desperate, they would certainly
not be hiring just a minuscule fraction of their job applicants.

My favorite quote:

The solution to malaria, much like varied solutions to ending our addiction to aid, can be found within Africa. My problem with the strategy of dealing with malaria employed by Malaria No More, Nothing but Nets, et al is that it erodes the ability of local capacity to deal with this problem. It is also not infinitely sustainable, and dare I say it,  smacks of paternalistic ethos. It’s a band-aid on a gashing wound. It’s the “fly-to-Africa-and-adopt-a-brown-baby-instead-of-investing-in-a-sustainable-business-that-can-help-the-entire-family” syndrome. Africa’s capacity to tackle these issues is vastly eroded by a Western celebrity culture of “look at me, look at me, I am saving Africa”-ism, and the misguided notion that Africans can’t do anything for ourselves, therefore it is the West’s right to do things for us. (emphasis mine)

This whole post reminded me of a review by Gilbert Cruz of the book Dead Aid by Dambiso Moyo:

Poor Africa, it's both the literal and figurative meanings of the phrase that gall Dambisa Moyo. A Zambian-born, Harvard -and Oxford- educated economist who worked at Goldman Sachs for almost a decade, Moyo is paritcularly angry at the way overly solicitous Western financial aid has made Africa's "poor poorer." As she writes, "The notion taht aid can alleviate systemic poverty...is a myth." That $1 trillion-plus the U.S. has poured into Africa? Mostly useless. All that bono-supported "glamour aid"? Somewhat insulting. The truth, Moyo argues, is that massice foreign aid encourages corruption and stifles the investment and free enterprise that can provide long-term stability. Her alternative solutions include widespread microfinancing and unfettered agricultural trade with the West. Africa could also use more foreign direct investment -- which China regularly provides, despite howls over its deals with the continents more unsavory regimes. Still, Moyo notes, China's "foray into Africa is all business" --there's not a smidgen of pity invloved. Which is the way it should be.

You know what they say, "the path to a poorer and more corrupt Africa is paved with good intentions."