Adios Cuba

Ask an expatriate: the downsides of living abroad are many. I thought I knew them all, but there's one that is slapping me in the face as I'm, once again, touring home during a holiday: the end of vacations.

An expatriate wants and is expected to go back home as often as possible. It's a way to keep in touch with family and friends. There aren't too many of those, thousands of kilometres away from home. Sure, you find new friends, but old friends will always be home. So a typical holiday becomes a trip back home, a touring of cousins, friends, cities, places and people. And the next holiday, 6 months later, is the same. And the next, and the next.

When is it that you're supposed to take a real holiday and discover a new part of the world? Or relax on a beach? Or hike in the Alps? Apparently, if you don't have at least 5 weeks of holidays per year, you might as well forget it. If you don't go back home when you have a chance, your family and friends will ask how come you don't. You might get nervous that you'll lose touch with them. You might plainly lose touch with them, making reunions awkward.

There's got to be a way around it. It must lie ahead on the road of experience abroad.

The "scenic" route from adolescence to adulthood?

The New York Times just toured the room and failed to see the elephant in the middle.

The most emailed article today is The Bank of Mom and Dad. It shows how young adults rely on their parents' financial support at the beginning of their professional life. It explains how salaries have decreased, rent has increased, etc. creating the need for external support to take off.

But no mention of so-called "internships".

"Internships" are no longer apprenticeships - they're underpaid, if at all, normal jobs. Interns get normal entry-level responsibilities, are expected to work full-time and receive very little or no salary compared to the normal pay scale. Internships are mandatory for people wanting to build careers in very competitive fields such as international relations or communications. They competee against each other and, contrary to unionized worker, receive no protection from the law. You can hire someone and not pay them as long as you call it an internship. That this is not yet a scandal escapes my understanding.

Better: there are internships offered at Anti-Slavery International and the International Organization of Labour. Oh, the irony.

How to stop democracy on its tracks

Psst - I have secret and valuable information: the biggest world news at the moment is this: Berlusconi refuses to concede defeat after the latest election in Italy. If it were given its right place, it would be all over the front page of all newspapers.

In a well-functioning democracy, those who deserve the congratulations are not the winners, but the losers who give up power. Democracy is not about receiving a legitimate right to power from the people - it's about accepting that people have withdrawn their support. In every undemocratic society, you have groups who claim - sometimes rightfully so - a legitimate right to exercise power. It's only that the ruling elite doesn't want to give up. When, in a democracy, losers refuse to give up power, we walk a very thin ice.

Europe seems a stable system and we're not really worried about democracy there. It's telling of the success of the European Union considering how those concerns would have been natural 60 years ago. But we should be careful not to be overconfident. Berlusconi's behaviour is as threatening to democracy as it gets. It creates doubts in people's mind, leading to a loss of legitimacy for the elected government; it creates confusion within the ministries as to who's giving orders; it casts a doubt on the basis of a democracy: the elections.

Al Gore needs to be praised for giving up his claim to power after the Supreme Court ruled in favour of George Bush in 2000. There might have been reasons to doubt the outcome, but what really matters is democracy - not the party in power for the next four years. Berlusconi, if he loves Italy more than himself, must understand that sooner rather than... too late.

Duke: Proper trial optional

Let's have some intellectual fun again, let's spin out our prejudices, let's show how stupid we are, let's hurt for the pleasure of discussion, let's make our minds based on uninformed opinions.

Let's discuss the Duke University rape accusations.

For the weeks and months to come, I know I will be angry every time I will hear about the case. Everybody will have an opinion and nobody will have access to the facts. We will heart of this through the medias and we know that they magnify what's news - not exactly a "fair justice" process. It's ok if you want to be entertained - not so much if you want to call a fair judgment.

Even when someone tries to discuss things objectively, calling for moderation before we make judgments without the facts, she'll say something as stupid as:

"Frankly, I admit, I am really curious about her fingernails. If there was a violent struggle, why isn't there skin or DNA on the nails?"

I can see many reasons: she might have had her hands held, she might have grabbed clothes instead of skin, she might have used fists instead of open hands, etc.

For the duration of that trial, we should sit on the bench and wait for the judicial process to unfold. Instead of discussing the case itself, we should seize the opportunity to discuss racial and social tensions. Why is it that this university is so white in such a black neighborhood? How can justice be done in such a high profile case?

Why I don't like hybrid cars

They're the vehicle of choice of Paragons of virtue. They're incentivized with tax breaks. They're cool and allow their drivers to look down on other people. They're deemed good for the environment.

Then why don't I like hybrid cars?

I'm green and have argued repeatedly in the past, including in public and political settings, that we should reduce our oil consumption. I make a point of not owning a car. I sigh and argue when I hear about "high oil prices". I wish everybody would take the environmental impact more seriously.

Then why don't' I like hybrid cars?

Because hybrid cars are not good for the environment. They're just "less bad" - at best.

First, a car is a car is a car. Its construction involves a lot of energy and resources. Most of the time, it will only be parked in a driveway or in the street. If more people got a Zipcar, we wouldn't have 90% of the available cars standing still.

Second, hybrids still consume oil and pollute the environment. They go at the pump just like any other car. And add to that their battery. What will happen with these once hybrids start showing up at the dumps? I never heard of it - which is a good reason to be concerned.

Third, hybrids are not more efficient than all other cars. They're not even always the most efficient car of their category. A Prius doesn't do better than a Civic on highways. The new Lexus hybrid is much worst than most cars - it's even below the national average.

Finally, environment-conscious Europeans haven't embraced hybrids. Why is that? Because there are alternative solutions to dual power with its additional equipment that makes the car heavier... and less efficient.

Let's get over hybrids, back to the main point: we should consume less oil.

What can you tell the IRS that they don't know already?

Ever since the day I filled my first tax form, I never understood how a society could rest on such a complicated system. 12-16 months after the fact, you're asked about the fiscal details of the previous year. Did you have medical expenses? How much? Which were deductible? See the two-pager on deductible medical expense, then fill form J-9, then G-11 and you're done. Now let's move to tuition fees, work expenses and retirement savings.

I've also realized with experience that having an accountant preparing your tax report doesn't make things much simpler. You still have to collect all the documents during the year and pick the relevant ones to give your accountant.

This is why I'm sympathetic to this solution: "With a small adjustment in processing procedures, the revenue service could send you a tax form already filled out with the information it has for you - a Simple Return - rather than a blank tax form." See the whole piece in the New York Times.

With Internet services that ask you questions ("How much did you earn") and then fills the form for you, the accountant's role is becoming more and more an advisory service ("Did you know that this was deductible?"). This can save you money, which is the only reason why I would be reluctant to accept the idea that the IRS would fill my tax form.

"It's chilly in here", said Satan

I was just back from ski in hell, had parked my flying saucer home and was about to go in the backyard to pull the teeths from my chickens when I saw this news:

Apple Allows Windows on Its Machines (Apple)

For 2 minutes, I looked for signs of an April Fool. Actually, even now as the news start to make sense and appears on the front page of the New York Times, I still wonder if it's an April Fool or not. That alone says how big and unexpected, just a few months ago, this announcement is.

Less than a year ago, Apple machines weren't even compatible with Windows. They were running on PowerPCs, a competitor to Intel. And Intel was the enemy. And Windows too. Now it looks like my Mac is about to turn into a PC.

Not that I mind. Apple considers itself as a hardware company so this is just one way to sell more hardware. Go Apple. As long as they keep developing Mac OS X - 75% of the reason why I'm a Mac user - they can allow any alien on other people's machines. Hey, I might even install Windows one of these days!

I expect Apple to gain a bit of market share with high-end and style-conscious users. As long as nobody will offer technical support, I don't expect the mass market to pay much interest. Those who needed Windows but weren't convinced by the emulation solutions offered - often too slow.

And Bono is happy

Here's bad news for my rhetoric and good news for the rest of the world.

Aid rose 31.4 percent to $106.5 billion, a sum which represents 0.33 percent of their gross national income and is half way toward the long-standing U.N. goal of 0.7 percent.

After years of polishing a speech on how the West is greedy, I'll have to adapt it and update my statistics. It's good news for the developing world, development agencies and... national industries. Yes, much of this "development aid" goes to rich countries' industries and consultants. It can be tied aid (money that goes only to a country's industry) or untied aid, in which a country pays for an industry located in any country - but it happens to be in developed countries most of the time, anyway.

I'm surprised by this statistics.

But even after stripping out debt relief, aid rose by 8.7 percent, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said.*

My experience and theoretical knowledge of debt relief tells me that countries shift their aid from specific programs to debt relief. I wouldn't have expected an increase once the debt relief money was withdrawn. Then, it must really be good news.

This is a huge leap for the US:

U.S. aid as a proportion of national income rose to 0.22 percent, its highest since 1986, from 0.17 percent in 2004.

Congratulations, Americans!

* It's the Organisation, not the Organization. Link to the original press release.

Update: From the Financial Times: "According to OECD rules, rich governments’ commercial loans such as export credits, count as part of a country’s aid effort when they are written off, even though a borrower country may not be servicing that debt. Non-governmental organisations, including Oxfam, Save the Children and ActionAid, criticise the practice of counting debt relief as aid, arguing that official commercial debt, such as export credits, subsidises the companies of the wealthy countries and is not comparable to spending on activities such as combating HIV-Aids."

But mostly: "Excluding debt relief, the UK was one of only three countries whose aid contribution fell in real terms last year. The others were Germany and Portugal." The UK, champion of aid increase in 2005! Put your money where your mouth is!

I change climate, ask me how

This is too good to be true. It's a veiled request for culture jamming from GM.

Chevrolet is asking web surfers to create an ad for their Tahoe. They provide images and music and you provide the titles. You can really write whatever you want. Any idea what to say for another SUV?

I wonder if GM doesn't mind the bad publicity and is actually using it to promote their truck. I mean, the image they provided - it's almost as if they gave us the narrative.

Anyway, here's my ad.

Update: The New York Times has an article on the topic. Looks like jamming the ad is what most people did.