"If Barack Obama wants to question John McCain's service... he should have the guts to do it himself and not hide behind his campaign surrogates."

Said retired Admiral Leighton "Snuffy" Smith... speaking as a surrogate for the McCain campaign.

Questions:

1. Is it really so bad to use surrogates to articulate the arguments that wouldn't sound too pretty coming from the candidate's mouth?

2. Is every supporter who makes an argument a "surrogate" for the candidate? I think that "surrogate" implies that the campaign authorized the person to say something on behalf of the candidate and that it should not cover supporters who happen to say things, even when they say things that make you want to ask the candidate whether he would adopt the supporter's statement as his own.

3. Was Wesley Clark sent by the Obama campaign to say that John McCain's military experience — "riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down" — is not the kind of executive decisionmaking that a President needs to do and is therefore not much of a qualification for President? Clark was responding to a question about Barack Obama's lack of equivalent experience, and the point was to minimize McCain's service — which would be stupid — but to defend Obama's qualifications.

4. Wasn't Clark correct on the precise point that he made about executive experience?

5. Wasn't Clark a fool not to see how the other side would be able to use his remark?

6. How should Obama respond now? He has to say something today, and I feel as though I could type out the appropriately Obaman professorial distinctions and explanations that I expect to here, but this post is too long already.

7. Wesley Clark can't be the VP pick now, right? Or does the uproar over his remarks show that McCain supporters think Clark is a formidable opponent?

Child prostitutes sell themselves on Craigslist

For more than two years, undercover cops on the Sacramento Police Department's vice squad have been working one of the most draining beats: trying to crack down on online child prostitution.

Sacramento police have nabbed nearly 70 underage girls for child prostitution since 2005.

Police have nabbed nearly 70 girls under the age of 18 since 2005. Most of the girls were released to foster or group homes. Those are just the official figures; investigators think there are many more child prostitutes out there.

It is no easy task.

"We're asking these girls to do a big thing ... which is to stop what they're doing," said Sgt. Pam Seyffert of the Sacramento Police Department. "Stop what's working for them. Surviving is basically what they're doing."

Sacramento police are working with the FBI as part of a nationwide campaign to combat underage prostitution called Innocence Lost. The goal of the program, which is now in almost 30 U.S. cities, is to decriminalize the girls and concentrate on catching the pimps who control them.

"It really makes me angry," Seyffert said. "I think everybody on the team has different reactions to it, but I just flat out get really angry that some guy thinks he can take this girl and basically deprive her of her freedom."

It is not uncommon for the officers on the unit to put in 30-hour shifts. Oftentimes, their work is heart-wrenching.

Child prostitution is even tougher on the parents of these girls. Roslyn and Sergio's daughter had been missing for more than two weeks. They waited for hours at police headquarters in hopes that their daughter would be found.

Vice squad officers found her in a downtown apartment with Bruce William Carter, a 21-year-old man who police said had posed on the Internet holding fistfuls of cash. He pleaded not guilty to charges of statutory rape and was held in lieu of $35,000 bail.

The couple's daughter, who had just turned 17, was detained but not arrested.

"It hurt," said Roslyn, who appeared weary and a bit shell-shocked. "Because you don't want to see your children involved in things like this. You don't realize how dangerous the Internet is. Now, we got to keep her away from the Internet."

Police say most of the ads appear on Craigslist, the popular and free Internet classifieds site, under a category named "Erotic Services." Even though Craigslist has posted a bold disclaimer warning against human trafficking and the exploitation of children, law enforcement officials said it doesn't seem to deter girls from posting the ads or men who are searching for sex.

But why would a girl sell her body online?

To help answer that question, Sacramento police made arrangements for CNN to interview a 14-year-old girl who said she'd started selling herself as a prostitute at the age of 11.

"I wanted to feel loved. ... I wanted to feel important," said the teen, who did not want to be identified.

She said she used Craigslist because it was free and she could post dozens of ads a day. Even though she understood the seriousness of what she was doing, she said she didn't care.

"You could put stuff in your ad like 'wet and wild,' 'fun and sassy,' things like that to catch their attention, to make them want you," she said.

Craigslist executives said they abhor the fact that their site is being used for child prostitution but believe that the problem could be harder to track if they removed the category.

"It would be a bigger problem if we removed that category and had those ads spread throughout the site," said Jim Buckmaster, chief executive officer of Craigslist.

Both legal experts and police say Craigslist bears no legal responsibility. Undercover officers said the fact that the listings can be traced helps them pinpoint the girls and sometimes leads them to pimps.

For her part, Roslyn has a strong message for the man arrested in connection with her daughter's detention.

"I want him to stay away from my daughter," she said. "I'm going to put a restraining order on him. Every time he goes near my daughter, I'm going to call the police and have him put in jail."

Even though they have more work than they can handle, vice officers hold out hope that they can save more girls from a life of prostitution.

Next stage of advertisement

Lowe Ad Agency sent samples of laundry detergent to potential customers in Thailand. They wrapped the sample with a new t-shirt and addressed it with washable ink. By the time the samples arrived, the shirts were pretty dirty. Then voila, the solution was right there inside! Clever marketing. See more pictures at Ads of the World.

Map of the virtual world

I've found a little map utility to help people locate bloggers around the world. There's a menu item called "blogmap". The locations are approximate, because most bloggers want a certain degree of anonymity. It's a work in progress, but eventually I hope to construct a fairly comprehensive locater.

Trying to construct a physical map of the blogosphere created some challenges. For example some blogs specialize in places they do not actually inhabit. For example, it turns out that one of the better known blogs about Russia is physically edited and written out of Texas. But sometimes bloggers absolutely, positively want people to know where they are. Professor Bainbridge and Eugene Volokh both advertise themselves as being in UCLA.

The question is why would one build such a map? One reason is the belief that eventually the information will come in handy. If there's an accident or incident somewhere it pays to have some sense of whose site I should log onto; maybe even send an email to. One never knows when it will come in handy.

History irony

Here's a very old NYT article about a certain Hitler. I would say it's funny but I shouldn't.

Limits to Growth: China and India

A long list of concerns about China is feeding the trend: inflation, shortages of workers and energy, a strengthening currency, changing government policies, even the possibility of civil unrest someday. But most important, wages in China are rising close to 25 percent a year in many industries, in dollar terms, and China is no longer such a bargain.

Both China and India are facing problems with shortages of workers, rising wages, corruption, and inflation, which are causing large western industrial companies to begin building new factories in other countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines.

Inflation in China — more than 8 percent in February, March and April and 7.7 percent in May — raises the prospect that labor costs will soar even faster soon. That could push up prices for a wide range of goods exported to the United States.

China is also phasing out its practice of charging lower corporate tax rates for foreign-owned companies. By contrast, Vietnam still offers foreign investors a corporate tax rate of zero for the first four years, and half the usual rate of 10 percent for the next four years.

...A popular saying among Western investors these days is that Vietnam is the next China. Cambodia, with even lower wages attracting garment manufacturers, is called the next Vietnam.

But how long those analogies will hold — in a world where economies evolve from agriculture to manufacturing to services in a couple of decades — is unclear.

As foreign investors leap into each new country, they drive up the cost of workers and goods, a dynamic that makes it less likely that a shift in investment patterns will hold down inflation in American imports.

...even in India, workers with industrial skills or the ability to speak English are increasingly scarce — and their wages have been rising by 10 to 20 percent a year.

That has led to worries about India’s long-term competitiveness, even at companies investing heavily there, like Ford, which is planning to spend $500 million on factory expansion.

High fuel costs will soon enter the picture as well, perhaps inducing some western corporations to think closer to home when planning new factories. As automation takes over more of the manufacturing process, labour costs are less of a concern, and shipping costs take on greater relative importance.

China's remarkable growth rate has been part real and part bubble. Many analysts have been predicting an unlimited steep trajectory of growth in China for at least the next decade and a half. But the bloom may have partially gone off the rose. Chinese government duplicity has papered over much of the underlying instability in Chinese financial institutions and in Chinese society itself. Ham handed censorship of the internet and all public discourse, along with liberal arrest and harassment policies against perceived political dissidents, have projected a mirage of political stability to western analysts.

We will have to see how things look after high fuel costs, inflation, slower growth rates, less foreign investment, newer ways to circumvent government censorship, and less favourable international attention hit the CCP fan.

Another corruption scandal rocks Colombia

First it was the “para-politics” scandal which linked Colombian politicians and government allies with right-wing paramilitaries. Then came the FARC-politica brouhaha where opposition figures had been accused of close ties with leftist guerillas. Now the latest Colombian corruption scandal revolves around accusations by a former senator over the buying of votes by the government.

Yesterday Colombia's Supreme Court sentenced ex-legislator Yidis Medina to three years and four months of house arrest after she confessed that she was bribed in order to pass an amendment permitting presidential reelection. The Yidis-politica affair has led to the investigation of numerous senior government members including an ex-Interior Minister and a top advisor to President Alvaro Uribe (image).

According to Medina’s testimony, she was offered quite a prize by the government for her support:

On another occasion Medina was called to the presidential palace and met with (ex-Interior Minister Sabas) Pretelt De La Vega, President Uribe and members of the presidential staff. In that meeting “they expressed their concern about my vote and asked what I wanted in return for supporting the bill,” Medina claims.

During that meeting, Medina says, Pretelt De La Vega explicitly mentioned the possibility of offering her a consulate.

Despite mounting evidence of government corruption and malfeasance a poll released today showed that most Colombians in the five largest cities would grant Uribe a third term in the presidency. The results reflect Uribe’s high popularity throughout the country and shows that he’s untouchable in the eyes of most Colombians.

Though Colombians have mobilized en masse to march against violence it’s too bad that there isn’t a widespread protest against the fraud that has hurt the country.

Farewell Mr Gates

Bill Gates insists he is not retiring

Bill Gates has announced he will end his day-to-day role as head of software giant Microsoft by July 2008.

Mr Gates said the move would allow him to spend more time on health and education work at his charity, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

"This is a hard decision," said Mr Gates, adding that he was not retiring but "reordering [his] priorities".

Mr Gates will continue to serve as the company's chairman and advise on key development projects after July 2008. "I'm not leaving Microsoft," said Mr Gates."What's happening now is we're starting the transition plan... I'll be working as hard as I ever have during these next years."

The firm said it would take two years to make sure the transition takes place smoothly.Mr Gates said there was a "common thread" between his work at Microsoft and the foundation.

How Microsoft's market value compares

"I'm very lucky to have two passions that I feel are so important and so challenging," he said.

'No huge shock'

Microsoft's chief technical officer Ray Ozzie will be given the title of chief software architect and work with Mr Gates on all product issues.

Microsoft Founded in 1975, now the world's biggest software company Flagship products are the Windows operating system and Office suite of word processing and spreadsheet software Windows runs on about 90% of the world's PCs 2005 revenues - $42.6bn What now for Microsoft?

Craig Mundie meanwhile will assume the title of chief research and strategy officer.

At the same time Mr Mundie will work with general counsel Brad Smith to focus on the firm's intellectual property and technology policies.

The change comes as Microsoft gears up for the delayed launch of its new Vista operating system, now scheduled to be available to the public in January 2007.

Shares in the firm closed up 0.9% at $22.07 before the announcement but after the news emerged, they fell 9 cents in electronic trading on the Inet electronic brokerage.

Analysts said the move had not come as a huge shock and that two years provided enough time to make the change.

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Fund of $29.1bn $10.5bn in grants since 1994 Aims: reducing poverty and improving health and access to education Largest grant: $1bn to the United Negro College Fund 70% of aid spent outside US

"The people who are taking over are very experienced and have been with Microsoft for a while," said Jean Orr, an analyst with Nutmeg Securities.

Daryl Nanes, principal at Nanes Delorme Capital Management, said: "I don't think Gates stepping away from his day-to-day responsibilities at Microsoft will be negative for the rest of the market.

"But Microsoft shareholders are assumed to have some jitters about the ambiguity regarding the future leadership of the company that Gates founded and ran for over 20 years," he added.

Medvedev talks to western media

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has spoken with the Reuters news agency about Russia's domestic and international affairs. This is Medvedev's first interview with a Western media outlet since taking office in May.

(more)

The Russian president says poverty and corruption are the biggest internal threats to Russia's security. He said freedom, democracy and respect for private property are the foundations of the country's foreign policy, as a response to Russia's western detractors (read more).

Medvedev says Russia wants to see an agreement come out of this week's summit between Moscow and the European Union, although he admitted there were problems in the country's relationship with the EU. Medvedev believes that some EU governments are ready to improve the relationship, but other European nations are standing in the way. The president says Russia respects the fact that the discrepancy is an internal matter for the EU (Talks had been stalled since late 2006, when Warsaw objected to a Russian ban on meat imports from Poland).

Talking about his relationship with predecessor Vladimir Putin, Medvedev says a change in tone is to be expected but would not affect Russian policy.
Medvedev said, "Putin and I are good partners in dealing with the federal government's complex issues. We will work together for as long as is needed to achieve the goals which stand before us... within the framework of the law, of course."

Medvedev says he doesn't think Russia's economy is overheated, but he'll keep a close watch to make sure no problems develop. He says the real threat is international financial instability and global production problems. The Russian president says he'll do everything in his power to control inflation.

West declares Russia as 'the leading antidemocratic force'

A publication of Freedom House human rights organization , based in Washington, says that Russia has become 'the leading antidemocratic force' in the region.

"Over time, we have seen rising oil prices correlate clearly with sharply falling democracy performance, especially in Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan," the group's director of studies, Christopher Walker, said in an interview.

The report says that these three former Soviet republics are basing their development on energy resources, and the last decade was marked by "sharp and systematic erosion of accountability and transparency".

In Russia, by last year, it became clear that Vladimir Putin's era had ushered in a new elite that grabbed power, Freedom House said. Experimenting in "authoritarian capitalism," an "Iron Triangle" of state power, industry chiefs and security services is leading a decline in the electoral process and increased control over political opponents and news media, the report said.

Human rights activists believe that "the growing authoritarianism is also shaping foreign policy, producing "a more assertive and often belligerent posture by Russia toward its neighbors."

Earlier the same American human rights organization monitoring levels of freedom all around the world announced that the worst situation with human rights is in Tibet, which is now under control of China, and in Chechnya, which is now under the invasion by Moscow. At the same time the report by the Freedom House stressed that the situation in Chechnya is the "worst of the worst".

Freedom House also pointed out that "an indigenous Islamic population is engaged in a brutal guerrilla war for independence from Russia".

Tel Aviv to start bombing Iran after U.S. elections?

The war of nerves between Tehran and Washington is continuing. US faithful ally, the Zionist enclave in occupied Palestine -- Israel is threatening with attacks on Tehran's nuclear facilities. The more often Iran expresses the opinion that a threat of war is real, the more often and bold Tel Aviv gets.

The version that Israel will certainly attack Iran is supported by Western media, which are playing the part of the "informational special forces" in anti-Iranian alliance.

Daily Telegraph reported that John Bolton, the former American ambassador to the United Nations, has predicted that Israel could attack Iran after the November presidential election but before George W Bush's successor is sworn in.

The ex-diplomat claims that the US will not get involved in the military action against Iran."If you had asked me a year ago I would have said I thought it was a real possibility. I just don't think it's in the cards," Israeli Zionist Mignews quoted Bolton as saying.

Earlier this month Israel conducted a large-scale military training exercise, which in the opinion of Western commentators reminded of a rehearsal for bombing Iranian nuclear facilities.

According to the US administration, the purpose of the military exercise was long-range flight training, as well as demonstration how serious Israel is about Iran's nuclear program.

Zionist authorities demonstratively refused to give any comments on these exercises. But even one who is far from politics can see that Tel Aviv would very much like Iran to know about these exercises and feel the "breath of war".

Earlier on, Shaul Mofaz, a former Israeli Zionist regime's defense minister who is now a deputy prime minister, publicly stated that Tel Aviv "may attack Iran unless Iranian authorities curtail their nuclear program".He complained that international sanctions against Iran have proven ineffective."If Iran continues with its program for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack," Shaul Mofaz warned.

Meanwhile Iranian Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Taskhiri warned the US and its allies against attacking his country.He repeated the words of President Ahmadinejad that Iran is not as weak as Iraq.

Earlier, President of Iran has warned on several occasions that if Tel Aviv goes for a military scam, "Israel will be wiped off the map".