Crossover Review

Here's a nice review of Crossover from Rick Kleffel at The Agony Column...

Untold News from Africa

Tired of bad news from Africa? Here's an article that presents some hope.

I got out my African atlas and did some more Googling on the subject, and found that there's quite a few African nations posting respectable economic growth lately. Also, the article seems to undersell Ethiopia, saying they've had %7 growth, while there are some newspaper articles on the net that insist it's been doing better than %10 for a few years now. Normally I'd rate The Economist as more reliable, but I recall when India first started growing at %7, the big business papers still referred to earlier predictions and insisted it was only %5. Western business papers are notoriously sheep-like, up-playing traditional cynicism and downplaying criticism of the 'big hype', it seems to me. The CIA world factbook says Ethiopia is growing at more like %9, so I reckon The Economist can take a leap on that one.

Of course it's too early to get excited -- the corruption is horrible, government is generally bad, and the hurdles to be overcome are enormous. But I think something fundamental has changed. For one thing, African governments have run out of excuses. Socialism has proven a disaster worldwide, and yesterday's Asian basketcases are today's dynamos. African nations could always deflect comparisons to China because China has such a different, cohesive society that is alien to most African societies. But then India took off, and how quickly people forget that for a long time, India was considered in worse shape than a lot of African nations.

Reading various articles, I get the impression that for the first time, African leaders are acknowledging what's possible, and taking seriously issues like financial responsibility. That's the China-India affect in one dimension. The other dimension is the simple hypothesis of the rising tide, in a global economy, lifting all ships.

Couple of points: Oil prices are way high, largely thanks to China-India demand. Ditto metals. So African suppliers are suddenly making a lot more money. Also, China is trying to win friends and secure those supplies with friendly investments in infrastructure and the like, while India is investing more just because there's money to be made, and Indian companies know more about making money in poor countries than most. As those trade ties develop, those are two huge new markets for Africans to sell into, and enormous emerging sources of investment and technology, too. Also, India was instrumental, along with South Africa and Brazil, in beating up the western agricultural lobby in the latest WTO rounds, and will surely get better deals for third world farmers in the future, as their general clout grows stronger. That's good for Africa too.

But mostly, a lot of African leaders are now saying that India is an alternative model. It's a model that doesn't rely on western aid, it isn't about cash crops that plunge in value when there's a market glut, or the weather turns bad, and it doesn't rely on just digging stuff out of the ground. Ethiopia for one is investing big in higher education, and I bet their wages would make Bangalore's look astronomical. Nigeria is talking about it too. Maybe soon those dinner-time phone calls will be coming from Lagos or Addis Ababa. Ethiopia has half its 70 million population living on land that's barely fertile -- one bad season, one more famine. There's no future in agriculture, and all this talk of agricultural growth and a 'green revolution' in Africa is bullshit. What they need is industry, services, technology. But first, they have to believe that poor third-worlders can actually do more than just grow bananas.

I've always believed, and I think the more China, India and some others continue to succeed, the more ordinary Africans will start to believe also. All the aid in the world will ultimately do no more than apply bandaids. The solutions to Africa's problems can only be found in Africa, and it always (that's worth repeating -- ALWAYS) comes back to economics in the end. I'll be keeping an eye on this one, and hoping.

Sabine Herold

Sabine Herold, whom I interviewed in Paris last year, is running for office -- something she insisted at the time she wasn't going to do, at least not soon. (via Captain Ed) Here's my article, for those who missed it the first time.

The most interesting thing about this will be simply to see how many votes she gets. She seemed to have no idea herself when we talked, and was mostly interested in organising things behind the scenes with Liberte Cherie, and with their new outgrowth, the political party Alternative Liberale. The encouraging thing about Sabine's change of mind is that it seems she's gained heart from the feedback to Alternative Liberale. But maybe she's seen enough to suspect she can actually win... though sensibly, she's not playing up her chances. Certainly she was angling more towards a business career when I spoke with her. I don't think she'd put that on hold to make a 'frivolous' run for office, she seemed far too focused for that.

As to whether she'd achieve something if she got in... well, that's the big question, isn't it? Anyone who tries to actually change anything in France at present gets beaten down by the system. If Nicolas Sarkozy becomes President, and tries to actually reform things, the unions will be out striking immediately, and unless he's prepared to be a French Thatcher, and actually smash the strikers, he'll be forced to back down once more. Curiously, though, Sarkozy is currently Interior Minister, making friends with all the police and security figures he'd need on his side if it did come to that...

UPDATE:

There's a lot of talk too about Ségolène Royal, as this article illustrates.

I think I know what Sabine would say -- you can't be serious. A Socialist who is not a Socialist? Then why be a Socialist at all, if one doesn't believe in Socialism? And why this sudden discovery of conservatism? How convenient, just when French public opinion is swinging that way, to suddenly have a conversion, and rob Sarkozy of his landslide?

Sadly, I think this sudden surge in the approval ratings is just another sign of the French public's general unseriousness when it comes to reform. Yes, they want change, but they want it pretty-wrapped in safe, familiar Socialist colours so it doesn't look so scary. Sarkozy, at least, has been pretty consistent with his message.

One thing's for sure, I can't see the French military voting for Royal. Young troublemakers given compulsory military service? I'm sure the army will be thrilled to bits...

Publisher's Weekly

Lou Anders just posted some further nice things about Publisher's Weekly's review of Crossover.

The Publisher's Weekly review below:

"Set in the far future, Australian author Shepherd's energetic debut introduces Cassandra Kresnov, an experimental killer android-with-a-heart who has defected from her League Dark Star special ops assignment. Graced with a yen for human art almost as insatiable as her libido, Kresnov first tries to melt anonymously into Tanusha, the sybaritic capital of Callay, a planet of the League's galactic archenemy, the Federation. But Cassandra can't leave her martial past behind when she's caught up in a heroic struggle to protect the Callayan president from assassination by Federal forces. Shepherd's intriguing heroine and strong female characters bode well for this projected series. Lacing Cassandra's search for identity and acceptance with plenty of hand-to-hand combat and racy sexual exploits, Shepherd also convincingly presents vividly realized ethical dilemmas: what happens to soldiers when the war is over? can a culture that opposes the artificial manufacture of life accept its creations? Shephard grapples with some genuinely thought-provoking questions on the nature of humanity."

I actually hadn't thought there was that much sex in it, but everyone keep remarking on it... oh well. Sales-wise, there's probably worse things to have a lot of in a book...

The Sport of the Future

It's Australian Football. Of course. Here's the link on the push to make footy global (and don't miss the link to the guy who points out why soccer sucks so badly compared to footy -- I couldn't have put it better myself).

The key here is to get junior numbers in each of these nations high enough that they can each produce a player who can make the AFL in Australia. That will in turn create more interest in the sport back in the home nation, boost junior numbers again, thus getting more players into the AFL, etc. Papua New Guinea is doing brilliantly, New Zealand has some kind of chance, and South Africa could be the big one, in the future. Beyond that, it's all speculation, but if just PNG and South Africa end up with say twenty players in the AFL (two a year for ten years), that's enough for a high-level national team. And international footy would be horrendously good fun, and would win many converts.

The big advantage footy has is that it's great fun to play, and is the most spectacular spectator sport in the world. That has to count for something, once it starts getting discovered. I mean, I don't mind soccer, I'll be watching some of the World Cup like any sports fan, the skills are impressive at the highest level, and an event that huge generates a buzz all of its own. But it doesn't change the fact that for a footy fan, watching soccer is like a Formula One fan watching a soapbox derby. It's just so SLOW!

But I'm just intrigued by this kind of thing -- how do you take something small (globally speaking) and make it big? How do these things evolve? Surely, in this globalised world of rapid change where all products compete against all, a relatively unknown sport that just happens to be more entertaining than anything else, will eventually grow accordingly?

Truth in Media

Here are three links, all from Instapundit, all on the same theme -- truth in media.

I read something a little while ago suggesting that people's general trust of journalists has fallen so low, they're now regarded only as more trustworthy than used car salesmen and politicians. I've been thinking about it, and I think that condemnation isn't really accurate.

I have much more faith in used car salesmen and politicians than in journalists.

This isn't just some frustrated spray at modern journalism, nor is it a personal attack on individual journalists, many of whom have excellent ethics and are trying their best to do good. It's just an observation that modern journalism is not structurally capable of consistent accuracy.

If you buy a car from a used car salesman, everyone's aware of the phrase 'buyer beware'. There's money involved, and people don't like to get ripped off, so the cultural tendency is to distrust everything he says. Also, you can get Uncle Jack who knows a lot about cars, or some independent agency, to inspect the car before you buy. In journalism, unfortunately, we haven't arrived at the cultural tendency to be immediately suspicious of everything we see on the news. The surveys show we're getting there, but we're not there yet. Also, you can't get Uncle Jack or an independent agency to inspect the journalist's story to prove its accuracy, because we the consumer don't have access to the journalist's contacts, and the journalist won't give them up even if asked. And it's too time consuming to ask the responsible ombudsman to check it out for you, and his impartiality is usually questionable anyway, because he's often employed by the same organisation.

Then there's politicians. Everytime a politician makes an assertion about anything, there's a howl of public protest from everyone whose job it is to assert the opposite. Opposition politicians, interest groups, skeptical media commentators, etc. The contrary viewpoint is built into the way the system works. In Australia's Westminster system, we have an opposition cabinetmember for each portfolio, so the Education Minister is opposed by the Shadow Education Minister, and so on. As the name implies, their job is to shadow the Minister, and find fault with everything they do and say. Needless to say, the media doesn't have this structure built in either (although increasingly, they have bloggers doing much the same thing).

Worse, the media deal in half-truths. They'll tell you what's going on, but not the context. Bobby punched Billy. Bobby is therefore a bad person, and deserves to be punished. But never mind that Billy assaulted Bobby's wife, you don't need to know that. The media will print that Bobby punched Billy, and that's unequivocally true. But it can be used to create an impression that is an outright lie -- that Bobby is a bad person, and Billy an innocent victim. That kind of bias sometimes arises through prejudice, sometimes through malicious intent, but usually just through laziness, ignorance or time constraints. Or political correctness (insert your own ethnic or religious possibilities for Bobby and Billy here). Context is everything, and it's almost impossible to deliver clearly in most modern media formats, especially when we start talking about nations, religions and geo-politics.

Lastly (although I could go on and on) the media, being commercial, is primarily about attracting eyeballs to read the advertising. That's why all the journalists in Iraq are currently in Baghdad, and they never go to the Kurdish north. Not much explodes in Kurdistan, and the Kurds are more pro-American than Texas, so it doesn't sell. Conflict, blood and gore, controversy. It's not always newsworthy, and it's usually utterly devoid of context, but gets eyeballs on advertising.

I think the future of journalism is increasingly in opinion pieces, which is one reason why blogging is taking off. Sure, a conservative shock jock or a liberal bleeding heart are also completely biased, but neither they nor their readers/listeners have any illusions about it. Knowing that, we can guess where the bias lies, and sort out the rest for ourselves. It's this pretense at impartiality and omnipotence that is slowly rendering mainstream media less and less relevant.

Crossover Cover

The whole cover for Crossover is finally finished, front and back. Check it out.

Maoisms

Doing my assignments, I come across interesting phrases... like this from Chairman Mao:

'Democratic Centralism'.

Coming from Mao, doesn't that sound a bit like a 'friendly mugging'? Or a 'consensual rape'?

Miners and Shovels

There's that old adage about how the guys who made money in the gold rush weren't the miners, but rather the guys who sold the miners the picks and shovels. Well, there's an impending gold rush into space tourism, with various people getting into launch industries, but I think this is the guy who's selling the picks and shovels.

Launch industries are going to be very cost-sensitive and competitive. Once the sub-orbital tourism concept is proven, the rush will be on to get prices down as far as possible, because the lower the price, the larger the market. That means lots of new investment in technologies to make it cheaper and safer, and lots of new companies going out of business. The same dynamics ought to apply when they start going orbital. It's going to be a very tough market to succeed in, long-term.

Bigelow, on the other hand, is light years ahead of all competitors in the one area of technology everyone going into orbital space will need -- habitat. Everyone will have to come to him, he'll have very little competition for a long time, and he can pretty much price his product how he likes.

Marx is Nuts

Not much posting at the moment, got a bunch of uni assignments due... but after much study and reading, I've concluded that Karl Marx, and probably a lot of his peers, likely had Asperger's Syndrome. Think about it.