Today President Obama announced a new US development policy — the first ever issued by a US president. See the press release here.
Am currently wallowing in Political Order in Changing Societies, but hopefully more analysis and links on the policy coming soon. On that note, “The most important political distinction among countries concerns not their form of government but their degree of government.” Agree?
Melina Raquel Platas 
agree, to a point. It is the degree of government that gives states effective monopoly of violence within a given territory. At the very least states, regardless of regime type, should provide basic goods such as security and reasonably predictable laws. Arguments about regime type are merely normative.
That said, it could be that there is reverse causality between the form and degree of government, in which case Huntington should have qualified this statement.
Jeffrey Sachs proposes something similar in a writeup here http://bit.ly/b5ZEgd
and i quote…. “IN THE United States, I propose a new Department for International Sustainable Development, which would oversee U.S. foreign assistance and initiatives related to sustainable development in low-income countries, including water, food production, disease control and climate-change adaptation and mitigation.” –
Just to be fair, I hear Bush’s Millennium Challenge Corporation did a lot to shake up U.S. foreign assistance – in mostly a good way. I say mostly because the model of asking state’s to submit development proposals won’t work for the poorest states (their proposals won’t be able to compete with better off states), but for the middle range countries it sounds like a pretty neat idea.
Worth checking out because it’s a big deal in foreign assistance and has such a different approach than previous development assistance programs.
http://www.mcc.gov/
Degree vs. form… hmmm. I don’t know, form still sounds awfully important, but maybe that’s just because I value security and wealth along with a reasonable helping of individual liberty.
I had a rather hard time cohisong just one type of physician I would want to work for. So many of them fascinate me, and with me not really going into any medical field other than support, I never gave this any thought in the past. After reading the list, I am more favorable of working for a neonatologist. It is difficult to think about how neonatologist physicians sometimes have the most difficult job in the world, but I can only imagine how amazing it would be to be a part of saving a baby’s life. I had a coworker once whose baby was born at 36 weeks, and her baby had a lot of heart and lung problems. There were concerns about whether or not they would ever fully develop once she had him, but after many months in the NICU, and many scares that happened during it, the doctors were able to save him and he is now a very healthy 5 year old. It is because of that I have a higher interest in the neonatologist field.I hate to say which type of physician I would care less to work for, and it is because I worry that many will take it the wrong way. When I was 16, I used to help my mom at an assisted living home as a caregiver. We would get to work at 7:00 A.M. every morning to prepare breakfast for four of the elderly men and women that we were caring for. We would then make sure that all bedding was changed, rooms were cleaned, meals were prepared, and appointments were handled. We worked 12 hour days, and they were always grueling. The owner of the home made sure that everyone had their medicine and made it to their doctor appointments on time. However, she was more worried about getting paid for her services than actually helping the elderly. She would yell at them if they did something wrong, and even call them terrible names. My mom reported her and we both quit our job, but it has always left a sting in my heart since then. It is because of my experience with that situation that I do not think I could ever work for a gerontologist. I know that the situations would be much different, but ever since my experience with caring for elderly individuals it is very hard for me to think about assisting a physician in geriatrics because I worry that someone else might treat the elderly in the same way the owner of the home did. I am a firm believer that the elderly deserve the ultimate care and comfort when going through any treatment and aging in general, but I do not think I could ever work in that environment again.
Just reading the press release – the MCC is actually not as big a deal as I thought. Only about $1 billion a year, though the WH release does mention it wants to grow the program.
شبنم می‌گه:شهروندان لیبی و حامیان معمر قذافی توسط شورشیان قتل عام شدند.A grisly scene was doecivsred in Tripoli today, when reporters came across a former Gadhafi camp in central Tripoli where pro-regime fighters were found massacred, including a number that were bound before their execution.چندین نفر از کشته شدگان را در زمین بیمارستان پیدا کردند که برای سازمان ملل شوکه آور بود. اکنون غرب شیاد مکررا اعلام می کند که قذافی و شورشیان هر دو مرتب جنایت علیه بشریت شده اند ولی از جنایت ناتو/آمریکا سخنی بمیان نمی آورد.بنظر می رسد که غرب در نظر دارد از شورشیان تروریست حداکثر استفاده را بکند و بعد از غلبه کامل بر لیبی آنان را مانند طالبان با چسباندن مارک تروریست به قتل رساند. این کار توسط آمریکا ، انگلیس و فرانسه علیه مردم مسلمان مرتب در تاریخ تکرارشده است اما مسلمانان جاهل هنوز دوزاریشان نیافته است و همچنان با غرب علیه منافع خود همکاری دارند.باند مرتجع لاریجانی/توکلی مانند سران نوکرصفت عرب ازعاملین سازمان سیا/ ام آی 6 و موساد – شورشیان حمایت کردند.با وجود بمباران شدید لیبی توسط ناتو/ آمریکا، غرب هنوز نتوانسته است پایتخت را بزیر کنترل کامل خود در آورد.UN spokesman Rupert Colville promised an investigation into the killings, and urged rebel leaders to “take active steps to ensure that no crimes, or acts of revenge, are committed.”به سخنگوی سازمان ملل باید گفت: خفه شوید – خجالت بکشید . شما بیش از آنچه که فکر می کنید در دنیا افشا شده اید. مردم از بازی شما خسته شده اند. گورتان را گم کنید. شما در جنایت علیه بشریت با غرب شریک اید.Yet the growing concern about the behavior of the rebels hardly begins or ends with this single incident. Amnesty International is also reporting that the rebel faction has been conducting mass arrests of black people across the nation, terming all of them “foreign mercenaries” but with growing evidence that a large number were simply migrant workers.