CNN re Sumatra's disappearing forests

"Rainforests turned into smoldering ruins
By Arwa Damon, CNN
December 6, 2009 7:51 p.m. EST"

the url to this story is here.

not to be confused with-- oh, you know...

via Abdusalaam al-Hindi, who hasn't posted for a while.

More from Jim Rogers

More from Jim Rogers, this time sans bowtie:
"Britain & America have no clothes", part 1 of 3.

And, Part 2 and part 3.

I don't entirely agree with Rogers' views. For example, I think the massive US debt going forward means we do need to raise taxes on the wealthy to prevent stimulus-oriented public spending from causing inflation, and to prevent panicking foreign banks contemplating a possible collapse of the dollar.

In part two Rogers says, of the creditor-debtor relationship between China and the US, that

"it's the first time in history that an undeveloped nation financed a developed nation."

I don't know about that-- it seems to me that Europe and the US forced undeveloped nations to finance their growth, through the economic plunder of colonialism. But having said all that, there's still a lot of value to what he offers, and I think his misgivings about the bank bailouts are apt.

(Of course, as with any would-be economic sage-slash-teevee-talking head, it's useful to keep in mind how they might benefit or be hurt by different policies the government may take. This of course applies to Rogers, as well as Warren Buffet and Alan Greenspan, etc. It's very much to Rogers credit that he readily talks about his investment in Asia in this regard.)

cross-posted at Dead Horse.

It's True, you know*

photo copyright Brendan I. Koerner

Who, you may ask, is Brendan I. Koerner? Mr K. writes periodically for Slate, and Hugozoom's (two or three) regular readers may recall I posted this arresting image* from his website from last fall. He informs me he has a book out, Now the Hell Will Start, which he describes as a "non-fiction account of an American G.I. who married into a tribe of Indo-Burmese headhunters, circa 1944." The book's website is here, and he has an article, "The Greatest Manhunt of WW II" referencing it in Slate this week. Oh, and congratulations Brendan, on your new little one.

photo cropped from original for proper formatting.

in passing: Suharto

Initially I wanted to make the crack about how "only the good die young" upon hearing of Suharto's passing, but it occurs to me that in the recent geopolitical context that would suggest an appreciation of Benazir Bhutto that I never had.

While I didn't cheer her untimely death in December by any means, I recognize she and her husband were also judged to be kick-back dealing crooks, if on a somewhat smaller (and substantially less bloody) scale than Suharto and his family.

some additional thoughts[1.28]: occasional guest varmint Rob Payne has some pointed commentary about the US role in the subjugation of East Timor over at Halcyon Days.

Just as the US media tends to skip lightly over that, for some reason Suharto's US ties are also glossed over in The Year of Living Dangerously. Well, at least in the film. Anti-intellectual boob that I am, I dunno about the source novel. Then again, as Billy Kwan says, "If it's in focus, it's pornography, if it's out of focus, it's art." Maybe this is a guiding principle of journalism in some circles.