Random charts - Afghanistan

 

 

 

Source: Quarterly Report to the U.S. Congress: Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction Oct 30th, 2014 (276-pg PDF)

Random charts - gender gap

 

Source: The Global Gender Gap Index 2014

Its conclusion? "... The Global Gender Gap Report 2014 provides a comprehensive overview of current performance and progress over the last nine years. On average, in 2014, over 96% of the gap in health outcomes, 94% of the gap in Educational Attainment, 60% of the gap in economic participation and 21% of the gap in political empowerment has been closed. No country in the world has achieved gender equality. The highest ranked 0countries—Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark —have closed over 80% of their gender gaps, while the lowest ranked country—Yemen—has closed a little over half of its gender gap... 

The Report continues to highlight the strong correlation between a country’s gender gap and its economic performance and also summaries some of the latest research on the economic and societal case for gender equality. Because women account for one-half of a country’s potential talent base, a nation’s competitiveness in the long term depends significantly on whether and how it educates and utilizes its women. The Report highlights the message to policy-makers that, in order to maximize competitiveness and development potential, each country should strive for gender equality—that is, should give women the same rights, responsibilities and opportunities as men."

Random charts - maps

Source: 38 maps that explain the global economy

The first map above demonstrates how big the issue of "open defecation" is and notes: "... Given India's dense population, open defecation is a major public health problem, with feces inevitably contaminating drinking water. This leads to intestinal disease and contributes to India's high rate of child malnutrition. This malnutrition problem is more widespread than you would expect given India's income level and, by stunting kids' development, contributes to slower economic growth in the future. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's budget calls for spending that will aim to eliminate open defecation by 2019..."  One can hope!  A lot more on this topic can be found here.

The second map above uses "... historical data to show the world's "economic center of gravity" over time. The map plots the center point in three-dimensional space, which renders the north-south aspect somewhat less interesting, but the east-west movement over time is fascinating. A thousand years ago, economic activity was centered near the middle of the Eurasian landmass. By the early 20th century, the Industrial Revolution in Europe and the growth of the United States pulled the center way to the west. But since 1980 or so, Asia has been growing faster than the US and Europe and dragging the middle back to where it was centuries ago. By 2025, McKinsey thinks the global economy will once again be balanced around the middle of Eurasia..."

Check out the other 36!

Random chart - risks

Source: NHS (U.K.) Atlas of Risks

In at last - ALL-DOCK

Received my Kickstarter-funded 'ALL-DOCK Universal USB charger for Tablet, Smartphone, iOS' last week, slapped it together, and am in business! Good-looking, black rubberized... Nice.

 

As was manifestly clear even then...

The 'Yawn!' blog entry from March 2010 looked at the New START agreement and was singularly unimpressed despite it being touted by President Obama as "... the most comprehensive arms control agreement in nearly two decades..." which demonstrated that "... the United States and Russia -- the two largest nuclear powers in the world - also send a clear signal that we intend to lead. By upholding our own commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, we strengthen our global efforts to stop the spread of these weapons, and to ensure that other nations meet their own responsibilities."

A recent article 'New START: Russia and the United States Increase Deployed Nuclear Arsenals' notes that "... Three and a half years after the New START Treaty entered into force in February 2011, many would probably expect that the United States and Russia had decisively reduced their deployed strategic nuclear weapons.

On the contrary, the latest aggregate treaty data shows that the two nuclear superpowers both increased their deployed nuclear forces compared with March 2014 when the previous count was made.

Russia has increased its deployed weapons the most: by 131 warheads on 23 additional launchers. Russia, who went below the treaty limit of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads in 2013, is now back above the limit by 93 warheads. And Russia is now counted – get this – as having more strategic warheads deployed than when the treaty first went into force in February 2011! ..."

Not a real shock for anyone paying attention!

Apparent success!

 

The ACLU has posted an infographic (see below) called the 'The Torture Architects' which purports to show "... the participation of key high-level officials in the torture program based upon publicly available information..." They needed to be called out since "... those in the upper echelons of the administration who crafted, approved, and oversaw the program have escaped legal accountability..."

This 'name and shame' effort inexplicably spares the Secretary of State at the time, Colin Powell, who has been shown to have been up to his eyeballs in knowledge of and acquiescence in the use of the "enhanced interrogation tactics" (a.k.a. torture). This blog has opined on this several time before (see here and the associated links).

"The Powell Rehabilitation Project"  can chalk up a victory!