More Trouble in Russia

More suicide bombings today in Dagestan. I know there were a lot of terrorist attacks in the North Caucuses last year (Foreign Policy puts it at more than 500), but since the attacks today are coming on the heals of a double bombing in Moscow I really do not see how this will not ratchet up pressure on Moscow to do something drastic. Already, people are complaining that Medvedev needs to take a more hard-line against the perpetrators. If Moscow does start taking a more aggresive stance hopefully they will be more competant than the last time.

Looking at this whole situation from a more theoretical position, it seems that separatists in the North Caucuses are trying to incite an overreaction from Russia that will further alienate the local populations and mobilize support for thier movement. This may be why Medvedev is moderating his rhetoric, to avoid railroading Russian policymakers into doing something that will only make things worse. If that is the case, Mr. Putin certainly didn't get the memo.

North Korean public sentiment

It would be really easy to make too much of this Washington post report about public sentiment in North Korea. The biggest caveat is that it is based on surveys of defectors, not the people who are still living in North Korea. While defectors may be drawn from all strata of North Korean society, by definition it does not include those people who are most attached to the regime.

However, it is striking that even among defectors, the position of the Kim regime is slipping. I don't have time to read the East-West Center report right now, but I plan to do so soon and blog about its contents. I think the ground is finally slipping from beneath the Kim regime. I'm terrified about the results, to be honest, but I'm hoping for positive change. And less starvation.

Question for the blogosphere?

There is a little known IGO known as the Arctic Council, which is pretty unique because it brings in indigenous groups on a level equal to states on decision-making. Every country with territory north of the Arctic Circle is represented, along with self-governing territories (like the Faroes and Greenland) and officially recognized indigenous groups, like the Saami and the Inuit. It's the logical place for all matters arctic. (For the record, any country that is closer to the Arctic Circle than the Equator can have observer status.)

So, why did Canada have a big meeting of just 5 of the countries from the Arctic Council to discuss shipping issues in the region? Sweden, Finland, and Iceland were all excluded on the basis that it was about shipping in the Arctic Ocean and the territorial claims made by the five invited groups, rather than an issue affecting the Arctic region in general.

On the one hand, it strikes me as a bad idea to bypass the one successful forum for these very issues. On the other, I know that I don't know much about the Arctic Council beyond what I've written here. Anyone have any thoughts?

Jesus Deserves Better Than This

Some ultra-right wing, would-be domestic terrorists were arrested in Michigan. Apparently, they were preparing for battle against the Anti-Christ by shooting cops.

Moscow Bombings

Two suicide bombings hit Moscow on Monday. At least 38 people are dead and one of the bombs went off in the subway station underneath the Federal Security Services building (the Russian intelligence agency and successor of the KGB). Given Russia's interest in regional security and desire for infuence in its near abroad (I don't think they're purchasing amphibious assault ships from France just to look cool), I would not be surprised at all to see more overt military operations in the North Caucuses. There were a lot more suicide attacks last year in Russian than in previous years, but to my knowledge this is the first one in Moscow since 2004. Putin certainly isn't leaving any ambiguity about Russia's actions, saying that the attackers "will be destroyed".

Too big to govern, ctd.

Apparently, Russian leadership agrees with me on the difficulty of governing a country of Russia's size. Now, they are not giving up any sparsely populated lands, or freeing Chechnya, but Medvedev announced that they are reconfiguring the country's time zones, dropping from 11 to 9 zones, with the possibility of shrinking to 5 eventually.

I'm not sure this will help with the separatist problems, but it might increase efficiency. Hopefully, they do not go too far in this direction (China has issues because it is all on one time zone). I will be interested to see what effects it has.

"Foodies on Food Stamps"

There's a new fake-outrage on the blogosphere, and that's of hipsters using food stamps to buy gourmet food. The original Salon article explains the idea and mocks (to a degree) those who are doing this, and two responses defending the hipsters are here and here. I'll be the first to say that I think Whole Foods (where some of these people are shopping) is crap, that I think "organic" is a marketing scam, and that extreme hipsters drive me nuts.

And yet, I'm happy about these kids buying what they want with food stamps. I grew up on the kind of food one associates with food stamps and government assistance (often procured from my older half-sister and grandmother, who would trade food stamps or government commodities to my mother for services such as cleaning or helping them move). Guess what? Yes, it sucks. Wonderbread sucks. Commodity cheese and farina suck. They have no taste. They are horrible for your body.

Now, of course, it is easily possible to cook well and cheaply. I personally subsist on lots of eggs and beans, both of which are cheap. But I refuse to fault any young poor person who'd rather eat this:

than the following:

Is there a golden mean to be found? Probably. But, policy makers and opinion makers cannot find that mean. Economists (including Greg Mankiw in his ubiquitous textbook) have long held that policy makers shouldn't force the poor to spend their assistance on what policy makers think is morally appropriate, and instead let them use it in ways that increase their own utility. That may go too far, but I'd prefer it to any form of nanny state control over the poor, particularly over poor people trying to eat well.

Missiles pointing at Taiwan

I have done some significant study of the issue of Chinese missiles pointing at Taiwan, and I cannot understand why China continues to build up more. I'm left inferring that China is worried that behind an impenetrable defense, Taiwan would be likely to declare independence. However, Taiwan's defense has not been impenetrable for awhile, and China has more than enough missiles to at least make a contest of Taiwanese airspace by annihilating much of Taiwan's air defenses.

If China is hoping to actually achieve superiority, though, in order to eventually conquer the island, it is not going to work. This is because Taiwan will respond to all moves by China to increase its threat over Taiwan, such as by buying F-16s as they are currently considering. If China wants Taiwan to buy F-16s, this is the perfect ploy.

Maintaining rough deterrence should be the rational goal of both sides. Sure, Taiwan wants to be independent, and China wants to retake Taiwan, but I can't imagine either considers those goals to worth the costs. With that in mind, why is China needlessly increasing the costs, especially when Taiwan has signaled (through not buying everything America is willing to give it) that it is fine with the level of deterrence China has over it?

Yay?

It looks now like it was not actually a North Korean attack, but instead an accident. This is good news, overall, because no one could really stomach a new Korean war.

Since it seems that roughly 40 of South Korea's sailors may have drowned in the accident, I hope they can find what happened and make sure it does not happen again. My thoughts are with their families.

Track of the Day

I've had a not very good day, but this song came on and put a smile on my face. NSFW, because of language, but there you go.