Category Archives: International

CEI Podcast for January 12, 2012: Mistaken Deportations

Posted on January 12, 2012 | Leave a comment

Immigration Policy Analyst Alex Nowrasteh tells Jakadrien Turner‘s story and explains what it means for the immigration reform debate. Turner is a 14-year old girl from Texas who was mistakenly deported to Colombia. Turner is not Hispanic, does not speak Spanish, and has no connections to Colombia whatsoever. It took six months of pleading and legal maneuvering before authorities allowed her to return home. This was not an isolated incident. The way to prevent future cases like this, Nowrasteh argues, is radically simplifying our overly complex immigration and citizenship laws.

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Posted in CEI Podcast, Immigration, International

Tagged alex nowrasteh, deportations, ice, immigration reform, jakadrien turner, mistaken deportations, simplification

Christmas: Serious Business

Posted on December 12, 2011 | Leave a comment

Uriminzokkiri, the North Korean government’s official news website is threatening a real war on christmas:

“The enemy warmongers… should be aware that they should be held responsible entirely for any unexpected consequences that may be caused by their scheme,” it said.

“This issue… is not something to be ignored quietly,” it said.

Why such harsh words? Because in some years, South Korea places christmas lights within sight of its border with North Korea.

Leave aside the North’s official atheism; this doesn’t seem to be a religious issue. The lights send what is possibly a deliberate foreign policy message. Electricity is a rare thing in North Korea, especially outside of Pyongyang. The sight of bright electric lights shining from the hated South has to be bad for morale.

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Posted in International

Tagged christmas, christmas lights, korean christmas, korean government, religious issue, Uriminzokkiri, warmongers

CEI Podcast for November 17, 2011: Conflict Guitars

Posted on November 17, 2011 | Leave a comment

Have a listen here.

Conflict minerals are goods that come from sources that use the revenues to fund civil wars and other atrocities. CEI Founder and President Fred Smith talks about why restricting conflict mineral trade can mean more violence, not less. He also discusses why the Gibson guitar company was unjustly raided by the federal government for importing wood that may or may not have been illegally harvested by its suppliers.

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Posted in CEI Podcast, International, Trade

Tagged conflict minerals, fred smith, gibson, gibson guitars, gibson raid

Tom Palmer on the Arab Spring

Posted on October 28, 2011 | Leave a comment

This video is well worth the few minutes it takes to watch. Click here if the embedded video below doesn’t work.

Tom also plugs a new book he edited, The Morality of Capitalism. I’m a little over half way through it right now, and it is excellent. You can buy a hard copy here, and download a free electronic version (PDF format) here.

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Posted in Books, International

Tagged arab spring, morality of capitalism, reason tv, tom palmer

The Gulag Lives

Posted on September 20, 2011 | Leave a comment

As many as 200,000 people are currently imprisoned in concentration camps in North Korea. That’s about one percent of the population.

May those poor souls find a way out, and soon.

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Posted in International

Regulation of the Day 182: PowerPoint Presentations

Posted on July 6, 2011 | Leave a comment

A political party in Switzerland is seeking to ban Microsoft PowerPoint presentations in meetings. The Anti-PowerPoint Party (APPP), founded in May by Matthias Poehm, claims that wasted time from sitting through PowerPoint presentations costs the Swiss economy $2.5 billion per year. The party estimates Europe-wide costs to be $160 billion.

In Switzerland, 100,000 signatures is enough to trigger a referendum on almost any issue. The 245-member (and growing!) APPP is currently rounding up signatures for a referendum on PowerPoint presentations. Poehm, who founded the party to promote his new book, The PowerPoint Fallacy, urges public speakers to use flipcharts instead.

Poehm deserves credit for being a creative promoter. And I share many of his sentiments about PowerPoint. But PowerPoint policies are best set by individuals, not binding referenda. His book, now available in several languages, will hopefully persuade many individuals to spare their colleagues some tedium. But politicizing the issue, humorous though it is, might not be the best way to improve the quality of public speaking in Switzerland.

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Posted in International, Regulation of the Day, Technology

Tagged anti-powerpoint party, appp, matthias poehm, powerpoint, switzerland

Time to End the War on Terror

Posted on May 3, 2011 | Leave a comment

Osama bin Laden is dead. What now? Gene Healy offers his usual dose of common sense:

We now have nearly 100,000 troops in-country chasing what President Obama’s CIA director admits are “50 to 100″ al Qaeda operatives, “maybe less.”

Now is a good time to leave Afghanistan and Iraq. Libya, too. Better late than never.

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Posted in International

Osama bin Laden Dies

Posted on May 2, 2011 | Leave a comment

I was going to write something about this. But Radley beat me to it, and he said it far better than I could: Osama bin Laden may be dead, but he still won. Read the whole thing.

Not only did he spawn two long-term wars between the U.S. and Muslim countries — and for some reason we’re now in a third — but the cost in lost civil liberties has been enormous.

May his victory be a temporary one.

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Posted in International, Security Theater