He made me laugh. I loved how he would crack up in skits. He couldn’t hold a straight face at Tim Conway’s antics. In this memorable skit, At the Dentist, Harvey Korman has no lines but he can’t bear to watch the hillarity of Conway’s physical humour. Korman actually starts to cry from the laughter. The Carol Burnett show was something else.

From the New York Times:

Harvey Korman, the award-winning comedic actor who rose to fame playing second banana to Carol Burnett on her television variety series and who starred in hit movies like “Blazing Saddles” and “High Anxiety,” died on Thursday in Los Angeles. He was 81.

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The above is an interview of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the former Nigerian Minister of Finance and Foreign Affairs, now serving as a Managing Director at The World Bank in charge of Africa, South Asia, Europe and Central Asia Regions. Here is a report on her appointment in October 2007 from All Africa.

From the Associated Press:

The World Bank is stepping up efforts to help overcome the global food crisis by providing an extra $1.2 billion in grants and loans.

To deal with immediate and long-term food problems, the bank said Thursday that it will increase its overall support for agriculture and food aid to $6 billion next year, up from $4 billion in 2008.

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There is in Brazil a very real economic expansion and it has been sustained. The question is it deep enough to lift the 50 million Brazilians who live beneath the poverty line out of endemic poverty. While Brazil is throwing itself a shopping spree, half of all Brazilians still live on $2.00 or less a day.

A lot of this economic expansion comes from favorable conditions beyond the country’s borders. High global liquidity, China’s surging demand for Brazilian exports, and rising commodity prices have boosted the country’s fortunes. But what is going on inside Brazil’s borders?

President Lula da Silva gets much of the credit for strong growth and the 60% (the second highest in Latin America after Colombia’s Uribe) approval ratings that go with it, helping him maintain a strong support base in Brazil’s congress despite a seemingly endless series of scandals involving some of his closest associates. The credit really should extend back to the 8 year Administration of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who made significant structural adjustments in the Brazilian economy that are now paying dividends. For starters, Cardoso increased investment in infrastructure and in research & development (sugar ethanol for instance) as well as liberalized the foreign investment regime. Lula, to his credit, did not tamper with Cardoso’s broad macro-economic fixes. And Lula has tried to help the poor but it is just not enough.

Brazil’s $1.07 trillion economy, Latin America’s biggest, grew 5.4% in 2007, the fastest pace in three years and will likely expand another 4.0% this year. Controlled inflation led the central bank to cut the benchmark interest rate as low as 11.25% in September, encouraging people and companies to borrow record amounts and boosting Brazilian bank profits. Lending has increased every month since February 2004 to 992.7 billion reais ($599 billion) in March, 2008.

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Well not quite really. Carter is sincere in his faith, Obama isn’t. And Carter had slightly more experience than Obama when Carter became President. Carter had served four years as a Georgia state legislator and four years of Governor. Still while Carter meant well and achieved two important historic milestones, the Panama Canal Treaties and the Camp David Accords (it can be argued that Anwar el-Sadat was the prime mover of Arab-Israeli peace accords), his Presidency suffered from his own inexperience and mostly from the rather poor advice Carter received from his National Security Advisior, Zbigniew Brzezinski.

Zbigniew Brzezinski missed two rather important developments as Carter’s NSA– the fall of the Shah in Iran and the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. Rather big misses but Zbigniew Brzezinski, an important figure in the American foreign policy establishment as he is a professor at the Paul H Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and a member of the Trilateral Commission’s executive committee, prefers to dwell on the failiures of others rather than his own, even though both events under his watch were and remain rather significant geo-political seismic shifts. What if the US had worked with others who opposed the Shah but supported a more pluralistic Iran? What if the US had helped the fledgling Afghan Republic in 1976? His latest book is Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower (Basic Books, 2007).

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Father Michael Pfleger is a radical priest and the rector of St. Sabina Parish on the south side of Chicago. What is it about the south side of Chicago that makes its religious leaders go insane while on the pulpit? The above “sermon”, a guest appearance at the Trinity Church on May 25, 2008, is another rant that is hate-ladened and full of anti-white rhetoric.

I must now to address the one who says, ‘don’t hold me responsible for what my ancestors did.’ But you have enjoyed the benefits of what your ancestors did! And unless you are ready to give up the benefits — Throw away your 401 fund! Throw away your trust fund! Throw away all the money that been put away in the company you walked into ’cause your daddy and your granddaddy and your great grandaddy —Unless you are willing to give up the benefits, then you must be responsible for what was done in your generation! ‘Cause you are the beneficiary of this insurance policy!” He went on to mock Hillary Clinton, imitating her as saying, “Ah, damn! Where did you come from? I’m white! I’m entitled! There’s a black man stealing my show!” and going on to say, “She wasn’t the only one crying, there was a whole lot of white people crying! “

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One of my favourite economists, Lane Kenworthy of the University of Arizona has a recent post on his blog entitled “Sweden: Image and Reality”. Some highlights:

Sweden is often viewed as either social democratic paradise or lefty hell, depending on one’s political and economic orientation.

Parts of the popular image are true. Sweden has a strong political left; the Social Democratic party was in power continuously for more than four decades in the middle of the 20th century and has alternated in the government since then (it’s out at the moment). Around 80% of employed Swedes are union members, and 30% are employed by the government. More than half of the country’s GDP passes through the government in taxes, and government spending on redistributive transfers and public services is among the highest in the world. Income inequality is among the lowest. Female employment is high, and the gender pay gap is low. A 2008 Newsweek index of environmental performance put Sweden at the top. It is ranked as one of the world’s most peaceful nations.

Like all countries, though, Sweden is more complex than the stereotype suggests.

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Nepal turned into a federal democratic republic Wednesday ending about four centuries old monarchial culture through an overwhelming 560 votes of the Constituent Assembly.

The main palace in Nepal’s capital lowered the flag of the country’s royal family Thursday, a day after lawmakers, led by former communist insurgents, abolished the monarchy that had reigned over the Himalayan land for 239 years.

Palace staff took down the small red standard with a flag-waving lion and replaced it with Nepal’s national flag, a red banner of two triangles adorned with a sun and moon.

The changing of the flag was “a decision by the government to show that Nepal is now a republic,” said a palace official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of palace rules.

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USA Today reports on mounting concerns in the United States as inflation rises.

The big concern: As energy and commodity prices soar, cost increases will seep into areas beyond food and energy, sparking a full-blown episode of inflation. So far, government statistics say that hasn’t happened. Core prices — those minus food and energy — have risen just 2.3% the 12 months ended April, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Nevertheless, the inflation that consumers feel the most is much higher. Energy alone has soared 15.9%, and the price of a barrel of light sweet crude oil has skyrocketed 107% to $131.03. Including food and energy, prices are up 3.9%, the government says.

Already, says David Huether, economist for the National Association of Manufacturers, soaring energy prices mean that the average worker’s wages have fallen, when adjusted for inflation. “If you exclude energy, real wages would be rising now,” Huether says.

Costco Wholesale Corporation reported its F3Q 08 earnings today. Costco is a good barometer for the economy as its sales are largely to small businesses and price sensitive consumers. In an inflationary environment, I would expect Costco’s sales to rise.

The decline of Christian values is destroying Britishness and has created a “moral vacuum” which radical Islam is filling, one of the Church of England’s leading bishops has warned.

In a lacerating attack on liberal values, the Right Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, said the country was mired in a doctrine of ‘endless self-indulgence’ that had brought an explosion in public violence and binge-drinking.

In a blow to Gordon Brown, he mocked the ’scramblings and scratchings’ of politicians who try to cast new British values such as respect and tolerance.

The Pakistani-born bishop dated the downfall of Christianity from the ’social and sexual revolution’ of the 1960s.

He said Church leaders had capitulated to Marxist revolutionary thinking and quoted an academic who blames the loss of ‘faith and piety among women’ for the steep decline in Christian worship.

I tend to agree with the Bishop though not completely, Islam is a danger to core Western values, not just Christian ones. I have no tolerance for intolerance and make no apologies for being free, a freedom that being a Westerner brings. Islam is wholly intolerant and while co-existence may be possible between Islamic lands and Western ones, Islam on our shores must be fought. Islam in Europe is tearing at our social fabric and absuing our tolerance. Our own liberal values may yet be the seeds of our demise. We face the greatest threat to our civilization since the Turks were last at the Gates of Vienna in 1683. Then Islam seemed poised to overrun Christian Europe. We are in a new phase of a very old war. Islamic immigration is a Trojan Horse that is permitting an erosion of liberal values. (more…)

Here is the Thursday, May 29th, 2008, edition of interesting reads from around the world.

The Rome Summit, Part III
In advance of next week’s Summit in Rome of world leaders at the headquarters of the FAO, the UK Guardian is exploring the global food crisis. In Part III, the series looks at the rise in food bills in Britain.

British Housing Prices Fall Sharply
The decline in the British housing market accelerated this month with prices falling at their fastest rate since the recession of the early 1990s. UK house prices fell by 2.5% in May compared with April – the biggest month-on-month decline since the building society started tracking the market in 1991. At £173,583, the average home is worth 4.4% less than in May 2007 – the biggest annual drop since December 1992. More from UK Guardian.

TICAD
African leaders meeting in Japan at the TICAD conference called Thursday for greater market access and improved infrastructure to better their agricultural sector while donor nations focussed on improving agricultural productivity in the face of soaring world food prices. All Africa and the International Herald Tribune report from Japan.

PM Brown Rebukes the US on Cluster Bombs
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown overrules his military and bucks the U.S. to support a treaty aimed against the munitions blamed for civilian deaths. In a major diplomatic defeat for the U.S., Britain broke ranks Wednesday and joined more than 100 nations in agreeing in principle to an international ban on cluster bombs, the small, insidious weapons that have killed thousands of civilians in the aftermath of battle. The Los Angeles Times has more on this story.

The Israeli Political Crisis
Israeli Defence Minister and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak called on Prime Minister Olmert to step aside while he resolves the corruption probe that may lead to his indictment. Haaretz reports that early elections are a possibility while the Jerusalem Post reports that Olmert has no intentions of quitting.

Argentine Farmers Suspend Exports & Block Roads
In a brief follow up to my post, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner Has A Problem, Argentine farm groups suspended grain exports and relaunched road blockades nationwide Wednesday, trying to overturn export taxes that have sparked waves of protests. More from the Miami Herald. The crisis in Argentina should it continue will impact global food prices.

Germany Willing to Admit Iraqi Refugees on One Condition
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats on Wednesday said they would like to see Germany take on thousands of refugees from Iraq. The hitch? They only want the Christians. More from the Der Spiegel. There were nearly 4 million Iraqi Christians before the US-led invasion. Prosperous by Iraqi standards, Iraq’s Christian minority has suffered greatly as they are caught in the crossfire of Sunni versus Shi’ite warfare.

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