Fireworks: from online to Beijing

While China and the World celebrate the opening of the 2008 Beijing Olympics with a great show, many will worry about the fast rise of new economic powers. China’s dramatic growth is especially troubling to those in the Western hemisphere who were getting used to running the world with an increasingly clubby mentality. Many in America will dramatize as China’s political influence, GDP growth and even medal count will challenge USA’s supremacy in the world but this is unnecessary. The rise of emerging nations is good both for the world economy and America itself because the intercourse of trade and culture will foster innovation and enrich humanity beyond what is imaginable today, assuming however that nationalism (and overly ambitious politicians) can be held in check. The world is also becoming much more interesting and complex. For example as the chart shows China now has more people online than any other country (253m Chinese were using the internet according to the latest report by the China Internet Network Information Centre versus America’s 223m users according to Nielsen) but the number paint a false picture because China exercises heavy censorship and curtails too much the basic freedoms of its people. With a population of some 1.3 billion, China’s economy and online usage has plenty of room to grow but the world and the Chinese will be much poorer unless this great nation is let free of the tentacles of the state and communist elitism.

Bulging beyond the unthinkable

Modern life offers many benefits to humanity but sadly it has also increased the opportunity for self inflicting substantial pain. As standards and comforts of living have increased, the population of, especially wealthy countries, have begun to adopt more sedentary lifestyles and become prone to gaining weight beyond the unthinkable. America’s waists have the unenviable pleasure of leading the world in this sad race to self destruction.  Roughly a quarter of all adults, split roughly evenly between men and women, are obese, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. In medical terms, a person is obese when his weight to height ratio (or body mass index) is over 30! The map above shows the variation of obesity across US states with deep pockets of obesity in the South and central plains. Mississippi, home of the mud-pie, is the fattest state in the union, with nearly a third of its residents considered obese. Adults in the north-east and the West are among the leanest, and Colorado with its outdoorsy lifestyle is the only state with less than a fifth of adults reckoned to be obese. Americans who blame sugary or fast foods would do well it appears to move to the Rockies or at least visiting regularly some of their wonderful parks.

Gambling with your money

The blessed souls living in sunny quake-prone California are fervently looking forward to next Tuesday. Besides the string of primary elections, Californians will see the end (for now) of those annoying commercials that sell the virtues or ills of gambling. Gambling in the West has become a source of revenue for an ever expending government so the Governor and Indian tribes have partnered to expand the number of slot machines in the Golden state in exchange for sharing millions of revenues. Although self-reliance for Indian tribes has strong electoral support, it is rather amusing to see gambling being sold as a benefit to the people of California. The state politicians who pass every year law after law to ‘protect’ the good citizens of the state seem to have no qualms about authorizing up thousands of slot machines as long as it allows them to spend even more money to “save” helpless taxpayers. So Californians Help your state: Off you go gamble that paycheck.