By Philippe Legrain
Sunday, April 6, 2008; B03
Washington Post
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton often likes to take credit for her husband's achievements as president. But then there's NAFTA. Clinton may have been present at the creation of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994, but she wants everybody to know that it's not her baby. She now proposes to "fix" the agreement to make trade "work for working families." Sen. Barack Obama, meanwhile, makes the fallout from NAFTA sound downright nuclear, lamenting that "entire cities . . . have been devastated as a consequence of trade agreements that were not adequately structured to make sure that U.S. workers had a fair deal." Despite the heightened rhetoric, he, too, wishes to "fix" the treaty, not nix it. Only the presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain, would leave NAFTA untouched; his priority is freeing up global trade.
The Democratic rivals have bought into most of the myths that have been peddled about the agreement and have placed their opposition to NAFTA at the center of their campaigns. Here's some information that could help them update their stump speeches.
1 NAFTA has transformed the U.S. economy.
Hardly. Critics rightly point out that NAFTA's economic benefits were oversold, but they're wrong to heap the blame for all America's woes on it. NAFTA, which expanded the existing Canadian-U.S. free-trade area to Mexico, has had only a marginal effect on the U.S. economy. Yes, exports to Mexico have more than tripled since 1993 -- but at $161 billion last year, they still account for only 1.1 percent of the economy. Considering that total U.S. exports have more than doubled over the same period, to more than $1.6 trillion a year, the boost from NAFTA is just a trifle.
Though imports from Mexico have risen nearly five-fold since 1993 -- potentially threatening some U.S. businesses -- they only amounted to $230 billion in 2007, or less than 1.7 percent of the $14 trillion U.S. economy. That's peanuts. And for all the fears of factories being shipped south on the back of an 18-wheeler, the total U.S. investment in Mexican factories and offices adds up to a mere $75 billion. Mexico received just $19 billion in foreign direct investment in 2006, while the United States attracted $175 billion. Thus, the "giant sucking sound" that Texas businessman and independent presidential candidate H. Ross Perot heard back in the 1990s doesn't sound so giant after all. But the benefits of NAFTA don't seem so remarkable, either.
2 NAFTA has put countless Americans out of work.
Not really. Obama claims that NAFTA has destroyed a million American jobs. Suppose he's right. Total employment still rose by 27 million jobs between 1993 and 2007, to 137.6 million, and the unemployment rate has fallen. At worst, then, NAFTA has cost only a tiny minority of American workers their jobs. And even that is a one-sided view. As Mexico opened its economy to U.S. trade and investment, NAFTA created new American jobs, too.
NAFTA critics also decry the trade deficit with Mexico, but at $70 billion a year, it accounts for only 0.5 percent of the U.S. economy. These figures should quiet NAFTA foes, who point to lost jobs and stagnant manufacturing wages, as well as boosters, who trumpet claims of rising output and record-high exports. The fact is, NAFTA has had only a fractional impact on these trends. Mexico's biggest impact on the U.S. labor market is not through trade, but through immigration. And the money that Mexican migrants send home contributes more to the Mexican economy than foreign direct investment does.
3 "Fixing" NAFTA would be easy and cost-free.
Not so. Any changes would require a lengthy and complex renegotiation with Canada and Mexico. As Canada's prime minister, Stephen Harper, has pointed out, "Of course, if any American government ever chose to make the mistake of opening [NAFTA], we would have some things we would want to talk about as well." Just the threat of pulling out of NAFTA would do some damage, too. Far from boosting America's international reputation -- something all presidential candidates agree is important -- it would fan fears that the United States is an unreliable ally and discourage foreign governments from committing to future agreements with Washington. The slim chance of concluding the World Trade Organization's Doha round of global trade talks would vanish. And if the next president wants, for instance, Mexico's help in dealing with immigration reform and Canada's hand in combating terrorism, then blaming America's friendly neighbors for its perceived woes is hardly the way to start.
4 Making NAFTA's labor and environmental regulations stricter would benefit U.S. workers.
Probably not. Clinton wants to make the treaty's labor and environmental provisions "far tougher and absolutely binding" and to require that all future trade agreements include similar language. The stated purpose is to raise labor and environmental standards around the world and to make it harder for companies to ship jobs to countries where workers have fewer protections than in the United States. But America's trading partners would probably see the move as covert protectionism -- since when have the Teamsters cared about Mexican wildlife? -- and may retaliate. Meanwhile, consumers would probably resent the increased cost of their imports.
In any case, tough social clauses could backfire on the United States. Canada's labor and environmental standards are generally higher than the United States', and Canadians could claim that lax American standards amount to unfair competition. Given that Canada and Mexico have joined global efforts to curb climate change, they might wish to restrict American imports if the United States continues to hold back. And Mexican workers arguably have stronger labor rights than Americans: Unlike the United States, Mexico has ratified most of the International Labor Organization's conventions on core labor standards, including those on freedom of association, collective bargaining and employment discrimination. If the United States bashes Mexican labor practices, what's to stop Mexico from objecting to American imports produced in non-unionized factories?
5 Renegotiating NAFTA should be a priority for the new president.
Absolutely not. With the housing market plunging, the financial system seizing up and the economy apparently shrinking, tinkering with a treaty that governs trade with two of Washington's trading partners is a costly distraction -- whatever your view of NAFTA. The next president will have much bigger things to worry about, such as stopping the economy from going into a tailspin; cushioning the blow for vulnerable Americans who lose their homes, their jobs and their health care in the downturn; and helping frame new regulations that protect the economy against future financial excesses without stifling the market. Compared to all that, changing NAFTA looks like small change.
Philippe Legrain is a journalism fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the author of "Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them."
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Iraq Is a Mess. But Germany Was, Too.
By David Stafford
Sunday, April 6, 2008; B03
Washington Post
Smash the enemy, deliver victory, topple the dictator, destroy his regime, eliminate his evil ideology, and establish peace and democracy. Oh, and -- almost forgot -- do this several thousand miles away on a distant continent while also fighting another life-or-death struggle elsewhere. Meanwhile, make sure to keep in step with our allies. And one last thing: Bring the troops back home as soon as possible.
Mission impossible? Entering year six of the Iraq war, with 4,000 Americans dead in the conflict, the president's popularity hitting new lows and results of the troop surge still fragile, it may look that way for the administration of George W. Bush. But we may also be rushing to judgment.
More than 60 years ago, during World War II, Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower didn't think that his similar, even more daunting, mission was impossible. By the time he had completed his crusade in Europe and thanked his staff for a job well done at a farewell ceremony in Frankfurt in July 1945, the German army, or Wehrmacht, no longer existed, Hitler was dead, the Nazi Party had been dissolved, war criminals were behind bars awaiting trial and retribution, de-Nazification had begun, and western Germany -- the part not occupied by the Soviet army -- was on its way to becoming one of the most successful liberal democracies of the Western world. The Third Reich was history.
So what did the United States do right 60 years ago that it has -- so far -- failed to accomplish in Iraq since the iconic toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad and Bush's "Mission Accomplished" declaration aboard a U.S. carrier on May 1, 2003?
The question is, of course, superficial. It would be harder to think of two more different societies than Germany in 1945 and contemporary Iraq. The former -- despite Hitler and the Third Reich -- had a long tradition of law, order, constitutional government and civic society to draw on in rebuilding democracy. Nor was it riven by deep-rooted ethnic and sectarian religious tensions that erupted to the surface once the dictator's iron fist was removed. And although Germany certainly had hostile neighbors -- especially to the communist East -- the threat they posed served to create, not crack, political cohesion.
Yet in looking at Iraq over the past five years, it's hard not to find poignant echoes of the post-WWII experience and to wonder whether a better knowledge of that history might have helped prevent some basic errors. Or even -- because there may be some small crumb of comfort for optimists here -- that it's too soon to declare that the mission has failed. Sen. John McCain's 100-year horizon for a U.S. presence in Iraq may be stretching things. But let's not forget that the postwar occupation of Germany lasted for a full decade.
In 1945, the Allies had a carefully thought-out plan for what would follow victory. For two years before his forces crossed the German frontier, Eisenhower and his staff at Allied headquarters worked on detailed plans for the occupation. The lines of command were clearly drawn, and everyone agreed that the military would be in charge. Thousands of soldiers were trained in the tasks of military government. Compare that with the chaotically devised schemes for Iraq that were cobbled together at the last minute amid squabbling between the Pentagon and the State Department. Or with the confused and confusing mandate handed to the hapless Jay Garner, the first administrator of postwar Iraq, to devise a comprehensive plan for its administration in a matter of weeks.
Nonetheless, plans, however thorough, are worthless if they cannot be implemented. For that, establishing law and order is a minimal and basic condition. There was plenty of looting and disorder when U.S. forces entered Germany. In fact, it was on a scale far greater than anticipated or now remembered, most of it due to the rage that millions of slave laborers who'd been deported to Germany from Nazi-occupied countries, chiefly Poland and the Soviet Union, vented on their captors upon liberation.
As in Baghdad five years ago, the disorder also engulfed cultural institutions. When U.S. forces entered Munich, Hitler's spiritual home and the seat of Nazi Party headquarters, scores of works of art simply disappeared from museums and art galleries. For two or three days, the northern city of Bremen was "probably among the most debauched places on the face of God's earth," wrote one witness of the frantic looting that took place after Allied soldiers entered its bomb-shattered streets.
But this anarchy was quickly and forcefully stamped out, and enough Allied forces remained in the country and in all major cities to impose stringent and often ruthless order. Military tribunals promptly disposed of Nazis who were inclined to continue the struggle by executing them or imposing severe terms of imprisonment.
The way victory was declared was crucial. Immediately after entering Germany in September 1944, Eisenhower issued a proclamation that declared: "We come as conquerors, but not as oppressors." The emphasis on conquest meant that military government ruled. There was no glib talk of liberation, and no dealing, either, with the large number of anti-Nazi exiles who had jockeyed for recognition as some sort of government in exile. Too many of them were long out of touch with realities on the ground or had axes to grind.
Critics of the Bush administration's handling of Iraq point to the decisions by L. Paul Bremer, Garner's replacement, to dismiss Baathists from public office and to dissolve the Iraqi army as critical and disastrous turning points that created a vast legion of the unemployed and disaffected. Yet in 1945, the Allies implemented a similarly draconian policy in Germany. They dissolved the Nazi Party, carried out a thorough purge of Nazis in public office and even abolished the ancient state of Prussia, which they believed was at the root of German militarism. Millions of Wehrmacht soldiers languished in prisoner-of-war camps while their families struggled to survive.
None of this, however, had the catastrophic consequences seen in Iraq. One reason is that pragmatism almost immediately took hold. It quickly became clear that Germany could be rebuilt only with the help of numerous people who had been members of the Nazi Party.
The Allies entered Germany with a strict policy of "non-fraternization" that forbade their forces to have any but the most minimal and formal dealings with Germans. "Don't get chummy with Jerry," urged the G.I. newspaper Stars and Stripes. "In heart, body and spirit every German is a Hitler." But by July 1945, the policy had been abandoned as unenforceable. It was also alienating the very Germans needed to rebuild the country and establish democracy.
As for de-Nazification, it sounded good, and indeed was morally and politically necessary. But distinguishing between real and nominal Nazis often proved extremely difficult. Small officials who'd joined the party out of necessity were thrown out of office, while big businessmen who'd profited under Hitler were left alone. The policy generated growing hostility to the occupiers, and its implementation was soon handed over to the Germans themselves. This caused its own bitterness as the Germans were often seen as being too lenient.
Even so, despite this willingness to rethink and adjust, occupation policy floundered. Two years after Allied victory, Germany was in desperate straits, facing an economic crisis that threatened to nip democracy in the bud. Only the Marshall Plan, with its massive program of financial aid, saved the country from disaster. Self-government did not come until 1949, and Allied troops remained in West Germany as occupiers until 1955, a full decade after the defeat of the Third Reich. Unrepentant Nazis stayed active on the extreme fringes of West German politics for years, and a few ex-Nazis held high positions even in mainstream politics until the 1960s. The Christian Democratic politician Kurt Georg Kiesinger, who had joined the Nazi Party in 1933, was chancellor of the Federal Republic from 1966 to 1969.
Rebuilding a nation is possible. But even in the best of circumstances, it takes effort, time, patience and pragmatism. As 1945 confirms, liberation from a dictator in itself offers no easy path to peace or democracy. Battlefield victory is the easy bit. Building peace is a constant struggle -- and it's a matter of years, not weeks.
David Stafford is the author of "Endgame 1945: The Missing Final Chapter of World War II."
Sunday, April 6, 2008; B03
Washington Post
Smash the enemy, deliver victory, topple the dictator, destroy his regime, eliminate his evil ideology, and establish peace and democracy. Oh, and -- almost forgot -- do this several thousand miles away on a distant continent while also fighting another life-or-death struggle elsewhere. Meanwhile, make sure to keep in step with our allies. And one last thing: Bring the troops back home as soon as possible.
Mission impossible? Entering year six of the Iraq war, with 4,000 Americans dead in the conflict, the president's popularity hitting new lows and results of the troop surge still fragile, it may look that way for the administration of George W. Bush. But we may also be rushing to judgment.
More than 60 years ago, during World War II, Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower didn't think that his similar, even more daunting, mission was impossible. By the time he had completed his crusade in Europe and thanked his staff for a job well done at a farewell ceremony in Frankfurt in July 1945, the German army, or Wehrmacht, no longer existed, Hitler was dead, the Nazi Party had been dissolved, war criminals were behind bars awaiting trial and retribution, de-Nazification had begun, and western Germany -- the part not occupied by the Soviet army -- was on its way to becoming one of the most successful liberal democracies of the Western world. The Third Reich was history.
So what did the United States do right 60 years ago that it has -- so far -- failed to accomplish in Iraq since the iconic toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad and Bush's "Mission Accomplished" declaration aboard a U.S. carrier on May 1, 2003?
The question is, of course, superficial. It would be harder to think of two more different societies than Germany in 1945 and contemporary Iraq. The former -- despite Hitler and the Third Reich -- had a long tradition of law, order, constitutional government and civic society to draw on in rebuilding democracy. Nor was it riven by deep-rooted ethnic and sectarian religious tensions that erupted to the surface once the dictator's iron fist was removed. And although Germany certainly had hostile neighbors -- especially to the communist East -- the threat they posed served to create, not crack, political cohesion.
Yet in looking at Iraq over the past five years, it's hard not to find poignant echoes of the post-WWII experience and to wonder whether a better knowledge of that history might have helped prevent some basic errors. Or even -- because there may be some small crumb of comfort for optimists here -- that it's too soon to declare that the mission has failed. Sen. John McCain's 100-year horizon for a U.S. presence in Iraq may be stretching things. But let's not forget that the postwar occupation of Germany lasted for a full decade.
In 1945, the Allies had a carefully thought-out plan for what would follow victory. For two years before his forces crossed the German frontier, Eisenhower and his staff at Allied headquarters worked on detailed plans for the occupation. The lines of command were clearly drawn, and everyone agreed that the military would be in charge. Thousands of soldiers were trained in the tasks of military government. Compare that with the chaotically devised schemes for Iraq that were cobbled together at the last minute amid squabbling between the Pentagon and the State Department. Or with the confused and confusing mandate handed to the hapless Jay Garner, the first administrator of postwar Iraq, to devise a comprehensive plan for its administration in a matter of weeks.
Nonetheless, plans, however thorough, are worthless if they cannot be implemented. For that, establishing law and order is a minimal and basic condition. There was plenty of looting and disorder when U.S. forces entered Germany. In fact, it was on a scale far greater than anticipated or now remembered, most of it due to the rage that millions of slave laborers who'd been deported to Germany from Nazi-occupied countries, chiefly Poland and the Soviet Union, vented on their captors upon liberation.
As in Baghdad five years ago, the disorder also engulfed cultural institutions. When U.S. forces entered Munich, Hitler's spiritual home and the seat of Nazi Party headquarters, scores of works of art simply disappeared from museums and art galleries. For two or three days, the northern city of Bremen was "probably among the most debauched places on the face of God's earth," wrote one witness of the frantic looting that took place after Allied soldiers entered its bomb-shattered streets.
But this anarchy was quickly and forcefully stamped out, and enough Allied forces remained in the country and in all major cities to impose stringent and often ruthless order. Military tribunals promptly disposed of Nazis who were inclined to continue the struggle by executing them or imposing severe terms of imprisonment.
The way victory was declared was crucial. Immediately after entering Germany in September 1944, Eisenhower issued a proclamation that declared: "We come as conquerors, but not as oppressors." The emphasis on conquest meant that military government ruled. There was no glib talk of liberation, and no dealing, either, with the large number of anti-Nazi exiles who had jockeyed for recognition as some sort of government in exile. Too many of them were long out of touch with realities on the ground or had axes to grind.
Critics of the Bush administration's handling of Iraq point to the decisions by L. Paul Bremer, Garner's replacement, to dismiss Baathists from public office and to dissolve the Iraqi army as critical and disastrous turning points that created a vast legion of the unemployed and disaffected. Yet in 1945, the Allies implemented a similarly draconian policy in Germany. They dissolved the Nazi Party, carried out a thorough purge of Nazis in public office and even abolished the ancient state of Prussia, which they believed was at the root of German militarism. Millions of Wehrmacht soldiers languished in prisoner-of-war camps while their families struggled to survive.
None of this, however, had the catastrophic consequences seen in Iraq. One reason is that pragmatism almost immediately took hold. It quickly became clear that Germany could be rebuilt only with the help of numerous people who had been members of the Nazi Party.
The Allies entered Germany with a strict policy of "non-fraternization" that forbade their forces to have any but the most minimal and formal dealings with Germans. "Don't get chummy with Jerry," urged the G.I. newspaper Stars and Stripes. "In heart, body and spirit every German is a Hitler." But by July 1945, the policy had been abandoned as unenforceable. It was also alienating the very Germans needed to rebuild the country and establish democracy.
As for de-Nazification, it sounded good, and indeed was morally and politically necessary. But distinguishing between real and nominal Nazis often proved extremely difficult. Small officials who'd joined the party out of necessity were thrown out of office, while big businessmen who'd profited under Hitler were left alone. The policy generated growing hostility to the occupiers, and its implementation was soon handed over to the Germans themselves. This caused its own bitterness as the Germans were often seen as being too lenient.
Even so, despite this willingness to rethink and adjust, occupation policy floundered. Two years after Allied victory, Germany was in desperate straits, facing an economic crisis that threatened to nip democracy in the bud. Only the Marshall Plan, with its massive program of financial aid, saved the country from disaster. Self-government did not come until 1949, and Allied troops remained in West Germany as occupiers until 1955, a full decade after the defeat of the Third Reich. Unrepentant Nazis stayed active on the extreme fringes of West German politics for years, and a few ex-Nazis held high positions even in mainstream politics until the 1960s. The Christian Democratic politician Kurt Georg Kiesinger, who had joined the Nazi Party in 1933, was chancellor of the Federal Republic from 1966 to 1969.
Rebuilding a nation is possible. But even in the best of circumstances, it takes effort, time, patience and pragmatism. As 1945 confirms, liberation from a dictator in itself offers no easy path to peace or democracy. Battlefield victory is the easy bit. Building peace is a constant struggle -- and it's a matter of years, not weeks.
David Stafford is the author of "Endgame 1945: The Missing Final Chapter of World War II."
Friday, April 4, 2008
Tax Cuts And Revenues
Does reducing income tax lead to more money for governments? Those on the right say yes, and those on the left appear not to believe the claim. Why else would those on the left make campaigning to raise taxes careers?
The right is a champion of small government, and it sees reducing taxes as a vehicle for shrinking government. But if the right is correct that lowering taxes increases government revenues, then the right is advocating a policy that undermine its desire for small government.
Perhaps the true aim of the right is for workers to keep most of what they earn, as a matter of principle, and the argument about increasing revenue is a just a smokescreen to weaken opponents of tax cuts.
There are studies that say tax reductions have led to increase in revenues, but there are so many confounding variables that it is difficult to believe the results of the studies. For example, during the period of the studies, tax enforcement could have increased, many workers could have gotten salary increases, government spending could have decreased or changes in the economic landscape made investment more attractive.
The right is a champion of small government, and it sees reducing taxes as a vehicle for shrinking government. But if the right is correct that lowering taxes increases government revenues, then the right is advocating a policy that undermine its desire for small government.
Perhaps the true aim of the right is for workers to keep most of what they earn, as a matter of principle, and the argument about increasing revenue is a just a smokescreen to weaken opponents of tax cuts.
There are studies that say tax reductions have led to increase in revenues, but there are so many confounding variables that it is difficult to believe the results of the studies. For example, during the period of the studies, tax enforcement could have increased, many workers could have gotten salary increases, government spending could have decreased or changes in the economic landscape made investment more attractive.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Top Scientists Warn Against Rush To Biofuel
James Randerson and Nicholas Watt
The Guardian,
Tuesday March 25 2008
Gordon Brown is preparing for a battle with the European Union over biofuels after one of the government's leading scientists warned they could exacerbate climate change rather than combat it.
In an outspoken attack on a policy which comes into force next week, Professor Bob Watson, the chief scientific adviser at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said it would be wrong to introduce compulsory quotas for the use of biofuels in petrol and diesel before their effects had been properly assessed.
"If one started to use biofuels ... and in reality that policy led to an increase in greenhouse gases rather than a decrease, that would obviously be insane," Watson said. "It would certainly be a perverse outcome."
Under the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation, all petrol and diesel must contain 2.5% of biofuels from April 1. This is designed to ensure that Britain complies with a 2003 EU directive that 5.75% of petrol and diesel come from renewable sources by 2010.
But scientists have increasingly questioned the sustainability of biofuels, warning that by increasing deforestation the energy source may be contributing to global warming.
Watson's warning was echoed last night by Professor Sir David King, who recently retired as the government's chief scientific adviser. He said biofuel quotas should be put on hold until the results were known of a review which has been commissioned by ministers.
"What is absolutely desperately needed within government are people of integrity who will state what the science advice is under whatever political pressure or circumstances," he said.
The EU plans to raise the compulsory biofuel quota to 10% by 2020, but Brown is understood to be ready to challenge this plan. A senior government source said last night: "There is a growing feeling that we need to get all the facts. Some biofuels are OK but there are serious questions about others. More work needs to be done."
Sources say the government has no choice but to implement the guidelines next month because Britain is obliged under EU law to comply with the 2010 target.
But the report on biofuels, to come from the head of the Renewable Fuels Agency, Professor Ed Gallagher, may be used to challenge the more ambitious target for 2020, which is not set in law.
John Beddington, the government's current chief scientific adviser, has already expressed scepticism about biofuels. At a speech in Westminster this month he said demand for biofuels from the US had delivered a "major shock" to world agriculture, which was raising food prices globally. "There are real problems with the unsustainability of biofuels," he said, adding that cutting down rainforest to grow the crops was "profoundly stupid".
Britain will move cautiously in its battle with Brussels because José Manuel Barroso, the European commission president, is championing the 10% target for 2020. Barroso this month dismissed as "exaggerated" claims that biofuels can lead to increases in food prices and greenhouse gas emissions due to deforestation. But other members of the commission and other countries, including Germany, sympathise with Britain.
Brown was due to release a report touching on issues including biofuels, when he met Barroso in Brussels last month. But the prime minister decided that the time was "not right or ripe".
The prime minister made clear that Britain is wary of the target when he said last November: "I take extremely seriously concerns about the impact of biofuels on deforestation, precious habitats and on food security, and the UK is working to ensure a European sustainability standard is introduced as soon as possible, and we will not support an increase in biofuels over current target levels until an effective standard is in place."
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2008
The Guardian,
Tuesday March 25 2008
Gordon Brown is preparing for a battle with the European Union over biofuels after one of the government's leading scientists warned they could exacerbate climate change rather than combat it.
In an outspoken attack on a policy which comes into force next week, Professor Bob Watson, the chief scientific adviser at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said it would be wrong to introduce compulsory quotas for the use of biofuels in petrol and diesel before their effects had been properly assessed.
"If one started to use biofuels ... and in reality that policy led to an increase in greenhouse gases rather than a decrease, that would obviously be insane," Watson said. "It would certainly be a perverse outcome."
Under the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation, all petrol and diesel must contain 2.5% of biofuels from April 1. This is designed to ensure that Britain complies with a 2003 EU directive that 5.75% of petrol and diesel come from renewable sources by 2010.
But scientists have increasingly questioned the sustainability of biofuels, warning that by increasing deforestation the energy source may be contributing to global warming.
Watson's warning was echoed last night by Professor Sir David King, who recently retired as the government's chief scientific adviser. He said biofuel quotas should be put on hold until the results were known of a review which has been commissioned by ministers.
"What is absolutely desperately needed within government are people of integrity who will state what the science advice is under whatever political pressure or circumstances," he said.
The EU plans to raise the compulsory biofuel quota to 10% by 2020, but Brown is understood to be ready to challenge this plan. A senior government source said last night: "There is a growing feeling that we need to get all the facts. Some biofuels are OK but there are serious questions about others. More work needs to be done."
Sources say the government has no choice but to implement the guidelines next month because Britain is obliged under EU law to comply with the 2010 target.
But the report on biofuels, to come from the head of the Renewable Fuels Agency, Professor Ed Gallagher, may be used to challenge the more ambitious target for 2020, which is not set in law.
John Beddington, the government's current chief scientific adviser, has already expressed scepticism about biofuels. At a speech in Westminster this month he said demand for biofuels from the US had delivered a "major shock" to world agriculture, which was raising food prices globally. "There are real problems with the unsustainability of biofuels," he said, adding that cutting down rainforest to grow the crops was "profoundly stupid".
Britain will move cautiously in its battle with Brussels because José Manuel Barroso, the European commission president, is championing the 10% target for 2020. Barroso this month dismissed as "exaggerated" claims that biofuels can lead to increases in food prices and greenhouse gas emissions due to deforestation. But other members of the commission and other countries, including Germany, sympathise with Britain.
Brown was due to release a report touching on issues including biofuels, when he met Barroso in Brussels last month. But the prime minister decided that the time was "not right or ripe".
The prime minister made clear that Britain is wary of the target when he said last November: "I take extremely seriously concerns about the impact of biofuels on deforestation, precious habitats and on food security, and the UK is working to ensure a European sustainability standard is introduced as soon as possible, and we will not support an increase in biofuels over current target levels until an effective standard is in place."
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2008
US Ranks 22nd In Stability
A quote from the article below explaining the US low ranking: "Mr Le Mière said that the US had fallen down the scale, although it still scored an average of 93 out of 100, partly because of the proliferation of small arms owned by Americans and the threat to the population posed by the flow of drugs from across the Mexican border."
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From The Times (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3613926.ece)
March 25, 2008
The United Kingdom has been ranked as one of the most stable and prosperous countries in the world, beating the United States, France and even Switzerland in a global assessment of every nation’s achievements and standards.
A one-year investigation and analysis of 235 countries and dependent territories has put the UK joint seventh in the premier league of nations. The top ten comprise also the Vatican, Sweden, Luxembourg, Monaco, Gibraltar, San Marino, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands and the Irish Republic.
The US lies 22nd and Switzerland, normally associated with wealth and untouchable stability, is rated 17th, losing points in the assessment of its social achievements.
The bottom ten, surprisingly, do not include Iraq. They are listed as Gaza and the West Bank, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Ivory Coast, Haiti, Zimbabwe, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.
The UK received high marks despite the deployment of combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, the suicide bombings in London on July 7, 2005, the continuing threat from home-grown terrorists and the collapse of the Northern Rock bank.
The global check on every country recognised as an individual state or territory by the United Nations was carried out by Jane’s Information Group and is published today.
Christian Le Mière, managing editor of Jane’s Country Risk, which compiled the ratings, said: “The UK is a very stable country. But the top 20 or 30 countries are all stable. There are terrorist groups in the UK but there are effective security forces to deal with them. We took the July 7 bombings into account but the UK still came out very well.”
He acknowledged that it was a little unfair to put the Vatican at the top because it did not face the sort of threats and economic pressures of other countries. But under the rating system, which took into account each nation’s political structures, social and economic trends, military and security risks and external relations, the Vatican state scored an average of 99 out of 100. Sweden and Luxembourg were also rated 99, with the UK not far off, with an average of 97, but scoring 100 for its politics, economics and external relations.
Mr Le Mière said that the US had fallen down the scale, although it still scored an average of 93 out of 100, partly because of the proliferation of small arms owned by Americans and the threat to the population posed by the flow of drugs from across the Mexican border.
He explained that Iraq had managed to escape the ignominy of being in the bottom ten because, despite “extremely high levels of violence”, it had a “relatively stable Government” that controlled a significant area of the country and had good economic prospects. “Unlike Afghanistan, where – despite the presence of more than 40,000 foreign troops – the Government exercises poor control over large parts of the country and where 50 per cent of the economy is dependent on the opium trade,” he said.
Mr Le Mière gave warning of worrying trends in Africa where, he said, there was likely to be a struggle for resources. He added that it was the first time that a rating system for countries had been carried out on such a grand scale. The Jane’s system differed from government assessments of country risk because it was based entirely on objective analysis, “with no politicisation of the intelligence”, he said.
Most stable:
Every country has been given a risk rating out of 100 for all-round stablilty
1. Vatican 99
2. Sweden 99
3. Luxembourg 99
4. Monaco 98
5. Gibraltar 98
6. San Marino 98
7. Liechtenstein 97
8. United Kingdom 97
9. The Netherlands 97
10. Irish Republic 97
US: 22nd equal 93
Most unstable
10. Gaza and West Bank 27
9. Somalia 29
8. Sudan 35
7. Afghanistan 36
6. Ivory Coast 36
5. Haiti 38
4. Zimbabwe 38
3. Chad 38
2. Democratic Congo 38
1. Central African Republic 39
Iraq: 10th equal from bottom
Source: Janes Information Services
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From The Times (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3613926.ece)
March 25, 2008
The United Kingdom has been ranked as one of the most stable and prosperous countries in the world, beating the United States, France and even Switzerland in a global assessment of every nation’s achievements and standards.
A one-year investigation and analysis of 235 countries and dependent territories has put the UK joint seventh in the premier league of nations. The top ten comprise also the Vatican, Sweden, Luxembourg, Monaco, Gibraltar, San Marino, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands and the Irish Republic.
The US lies 22nd and Switzerland, normally associated with wealth and untouchable stability, is rated 17th, losing points in the assessment of its social achievements.
The bottom ten, surprisingly, do not include Iraq. They are listed as Gaza and the West Bank, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Ivory Coast, Haiti, Zimbabwe, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.
The UK received high marks despite the deployment of combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, the suicide bombings in London on July 7, 2005, the continuing threat from home-grown terrorists and the collapse of the Northern Rock bank.
The global check on every country recognised as an individual state or territory by the United Nations was carried out by Jane’s Information Group and is published today.
Christian Le Mière, managing editor of Jane’s Country Risk, which compiled the ratings, said: “The UK is a very stable country. But the top 20 or 30 countries are all stable. There are terrorist groups in the UK but there are effective security forces to deal with them. We took the July 7 bombings into account but the UK still came out very well.”
He acknowledged that it was a little unfair to put the Vatican at the top because it did not face the sort of threats and economic pressures of other countries. But under the rating system, which took into account each nation’s political structures, social and economic trends, military and security risks and external relations, the Vatican state scored an average of 99 out of 100. Sweden and Luxembourg were also rated 99, with the UK not far off, with an average of 97, but scoring 100 for its politics, economics and external relations.
Mr Le Mière said that the US had fallen down the scale, although it still scored an average of 93 out of 100, partly because of the proliferation of small arms owned by Americans and the threat to the population posed by the flow of drugs from across the Mexican border.
He explained that Iraq had managed to escape the ignominy of being in the bottom ten because, despite “extremely high levels of violence”, it had a “relatively stable Government” that controlled a significant area of the country and had good economic prospects. “Unlike Afghanistan, where – despite the presence of more than 40,000 foreign troops – the Government exercises poor control over large parts of the country and where 50 per cent of the economy is dependent on the opium trade,” he said.
Mr Le Mière gave warning of worrying trends in Africa where, he said, there was likely to be a struggle for resources. He added that it was the first time that a rating system for countries had been carried out on such a grand scale. The Jane’s system differed from government assessments of country risk because it was based entirely on objective analysis, “with no politicisation of the intelligence”, he said.
Most stable:
Every country has been given a risk rating out of 100 for all-round stablilty
1. Vatican 99
2. Sweden 99
3. Luxembourg 99
4. Monaco 98
5. Gibraltar 98
6. San Marino 98
7. Liechtenstein 97
8. United Kingdom 97
9. The Netherlands 97
10. Irish Republic 97
US: 22nd equal 93
Most unstable
10. Gaza and West Bank 27
9. Somalia 29
8. Sudan 35
7. Afghanistan 36
6. Ivory Coast 36
5. Haiti 38
4. Zimbabwe 38
3. Chad 38
2. Democratic Congo 38
1. Central African Republic 39
Iraq: 10th equal from bottom
Source: Janes Information Services
Saturday, March 22, 2008
To Keep and Bear Arms (Washington Post)
By Charles Lane
Saturday, March 22, 2008; A13
Nearly 135 years ago, the United States experienced what may have been the worst one-day slaughter of blacks by whites in its history. On April 13, 1873, in the tiny village of Colfax, La., white paramilitaries attacked a lightly armed force of freedmen assembled in a local courthouse. By the time the Colfax Massacre was over, more than 60 African American men lay shot, burned or stabbed to death. Most were killed after they had surrendered.
Though it caused a national sensation in post-Civil War America, this horrible incident has been largely overlooked by historians. It deserves fresh study today not only to illuminate the human cost of Reconstruction's defeat but also to enrich our understanding of constitutional history. Some of the most relevant lessons relate to the issue at the heart of District of Columbia v. Heller, the case on the D.C. gun control law currently before the Supreme Court: whether the Constitution guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms.
During oral arguments on Tuesday, the justices debated what the framers of the Second Amendment intended. The members of the court did not mention Reconstruction. Yet during this period, we the people gave the Union a second "founding" through constitutional amendments abolishing slavery, granting blacks citizenship and enabling them to vote. And, to clarify blacks' newly secured freedom, Congress wrote laws identifying the specific rights of individual U.S. citizens. One of these was the right to have guns.
Before the Civil War, gun ownership was a prerequisite not only of militia service but also of participation in sheriffs' posses and for personal defense. But it was a right for whites only. Southern states forbade slaves to own guns, lest they revolt. (Free blacks, in the North and South, could sometimes have guns under tight restrictions.) After the Civil War, the same Congress that made African Americans citizens through the 14th Amendment considered the antebellum experience and concluded that equal access to arms was a necessary attribute of blacks' new status.
The Freedmen's Bureau Act of 1866 promised that "personal liberty, personal security, and the acquisition, enjoyment, and disposition of estate, real and personal, including the constitutional right to bear arms, shall be secured to and enjoyed by all the citizens." This was no theoretical concern. As senators noted during the debate on the bill, many Southern states sought to reimpose legal bans on gun ownership by blacks -- leaving them at the mercy of Klansmen and other white terrorists.
Nowhere was the need for black access to weapons more clearly demonstrated than at Colfax, where freedmen rallied -- shotguns in hand -- to defend their local elected officials from heavily armed whites led by ex-Confederate officers. They were also reacting to the murder of an unarmed black farmer. The black men, supporters of Abraham Lincoln's Republican Party, acted as a posse sworn in by a (white) Republican sheriff. But after a standoff of several days, they were overwhelmed by the white force, which had not only rifles but also a small cannon.
New Orleans-based U.S. Attorney James R. Beckwith charged the perpetrators under an 1870 federal law that made it a crime to conspire "to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any citizen with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise and enjoyment of any right or privilege granted or secured to him by the constitution or laws of the United States." Among the rights that the white paramilitaries had conspired to violate, according to Beckwith's indictment, was the freedmen's "right to keep and bear arms for a lawful purpose." This indictment was similar to others filed by federal prosecutors across the South -- where forcibly disarming freedmen was a common Klan offense.
No one was ever punished for the Colfax Massacre. Beckwith secured only three convictions, and they were later overturned by the Supreme Court in one of the worst miscarriages of justice in American history. Yet Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite's opinion accepted Beckwith's invocation of the freedmen's individual right to be armed. Waite's objection was that the Second Amendment protected that right against violation by Congress, not by private parties such as the paramilitaries at Colfax. Thus, only a state, not the federal government, could criminalize the conspiracy that Beckwith charged.
Firearms pose threats to modern-day urban dwellers -- crime, suicide, accidents -- that may outweigh any self-defense they provide. Unlike 19th-century rural Americans, we can call on professional police.
In the D.C. gun case, the Supreme Court should find that local governments may enact reasonable and necessary restrictions on dangerous weapons. To be sure, if the justices also back an individual right to keep and bear arms, that will be harder for legislators to do. But as a matter of historical interpretation, the court would be correct.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Charles Lane, a member of the editorial page staff, is the author of "The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of Reconstruction." His e-mail address islanec@washpost.com.
Saturday, March 22, 2008; A13
Nearly 135 years ago, the United States experienced what may have been the worst one-day slaughter of blacks by whites in its history. On April 13, 1873, in the tiny village of Colfax, La., white paramilitaries attacked a lightly armed force of freedmen assembled in a local courthouse. By the time the Colfax Massacre was over, more than 60 African American men lay shot, burned or stabbed to death. Most were killed after they had surrendered.
Though it caused a national sensation in post-Civil War America, this horrible incident has been largely overlooked by historians. It deserves fresh study today not only to illuminate the human cost of Reconstruction's defeat but also to enrich our understanding of constitutional history. Some of the most relevant lessons relate to the issue at the heart of District of Columbia v. Heller, the case on the D.C. gun control law currently before the Supreme Court: whether the Constitution guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms.
During oral arguments on Tuesday, the justices debated what the framers of the Second Amendment intended. The members of the court did not mention Reconstruction. Yet during this period, we the people gave the Union a second "founding" through constitutional amendments abolishing slavery, granting blacks citizenship and enabling them to vote. And, to clarify blacks' newly secured freedom, Congress wrote laws identifying the specific rights of individual U.S. citizens. One of these was the right to have guns.
Before the Civil War, gun ownership was a prerequisite not only of militia service but also of participation in sheriffs' posses and for personal defense. But it was a right for whites only. Southern states forbade slaves to own guns, lest they revolt. (Free blacks, in the North and South, could sometimes have guns under tight restrictions.) After the Civil War, the same Congress that made African Americans citizens through the 14th Amendment considered the antebellum experience and concluded that equal access to arms was a necessary attribute of blacks' new status.
The Freedmen's Bureau Act of 1866 promised that "personal liberty, personal security, and the acquisition, enjoyment, and disposition of estate, real and personal, including the constitutional right to bear arms, shall be secured to and enjoyed by all the citizens." This was no theoretical concern. As senators noted during the debate on the bill, many Southern states sought to reimpose legal bans on gun ownership by blacks -- leaving them at the mercy of Klansmen and other white terrorists.
Nowhere was the need for black access to weapons more clearly demonstrated than at Colfax, where freedmen rallied -- shotguns in hand -- to defend their local elected officials from heavily armed whites led by ex-Confederate officers. They were also reacting to the murder of an unarmed black farmer. The black men, supporters of Abraham Lincoln's Republican Party, acted as a posse sworn in by a (white) Republican sheriff. But after a standoff of several days, they were overwhelmed by the white force, which had not only rifles but also a small cannon.
New Orleans-based U.S. Attorney James R. Beckwith charged the perpetrators under an 1870 federal law that made it a crime to conspire "to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any citizen with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise and enjoyment of any right or privilege granted or secured to him by the constitution or laws of the United States." Among the rights that the white paramilitaries had conspired to violate, according to Beckwith's indictment, was the freedmen's "right to keep and bear arms for a lawful purpose." This indictment was similar to others filed by federal prosecutors across the South -- where forcibly disarming freedmen was a common Klan offense.
No one was ever punished for the Colfax Massacre. Beckwith secured only three convictions, and they were later overturned by the Supreme Court in one of the worst miscarriages of justice in American history. Yet Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite's opinion accepted Beckwith's invocation of the freedmen's individual right to be armed. Waite's objection was that the Second Amendment protected that right against violation by Congress, not by private parties such as the paramilitaries at Colfax. Thus, only a state, not the federal government, could criminalize the conspiracy that Beckwith charged.
Firearms pose threats to modern-day urban dwellers -- crime, suicide, accidents -- that may outweigh any self-defense they provide. Unlike 19th-century rural Americans, we can call on professional police.
In the D.C. gun case, the Supreme Court should find that local governments may enact reasonable and necessary restrictions on dangerous weapons. To be sure, if the justices also back an individual right to keep and bear arms, that will be harder for legislators to do. But as a matter of historical interpretation, the court would be correct.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Charles Lane, a member of the editorial page staff, is the author of "The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of Reconstruction." His e-mail address islanec@washpost.com.
The Art Of Blogging (New York Times)
March 20, 2008
Basics
So You Want to Be a Blogging Star?
By PAUL BOUTIN
MARK CUBAN, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, has a full plate. Besides his basketball team, the busy billionaire also owns part of a media company, and serves as chairman of the TV channel HDNet. He recently competed for five weeks on “Dancing With the Stars” on ABC. How on earth does he find time to blog?
Yet his site, blogmaverick.com, is one of the top 1,000 Weblogs, according to the search engine Technorati. Thousands read Mr. Cuban’s posts every single day. If he can do it, why can’t you?
“Don’t go into blogging to make a living,” Mr. Cuban warned in an e-mail message. Still, he and other top bloggers with day jobs agree most people could attract a following on the Web. And whether a person blogs to make a little money, to influence opinion or just for sheer ego gratification, amassing a large audience is the goal.
Here’s what a number of successful bloggers with successful nonblogging careers say are the ways to think about getting into the business of blogging.
Don’t expect to get rich. You can easily place automatically served ad banners from Google or AdBrite onto your blog. It is as simple as signing up with an ad service and placing a snippet of HTML code into your blog. Many of the ads will be specific to the topic of your posts and the service will credit your account whenever a reader clicks on one of the ads. You get a check only if the account builds to a set amount, $100 in the case of Google.
But Philip Kaplan, president for products at AdBrite, cautions that only one in six blogs draws even 500 page views a day. At that pace, you would make at most $45 a month, even if the site were decked out with full-page ads. Mr. Kaplan estimates only 3 percent of active sites make more than $1,000 a month from advertising.
“In 3.5 months we made $9.47,” complained one blogger, Ted Dziuba, who yanked the automatic ads off of his site, Uncov.com.
Write about what you want to write about, in your own voice. Mr. Dziuba, a software engineer at Persai, a Web news filtering service, began blogging out of sheer frustration with buggy, overhyped Web 2.0 applications. Uncov.com became a magnet for techies with similar complaints, and unintentionally raised awareness of Persai. Thousands of Uncov readers signed up for a test of Persai’s service. Eventually, even advertisers took notice. “Once I started getting 2,000 to 3,000 page-views per day,” he says, “advertisers started coming to me.” He says advertisers have contacted him directly with offers of $750 for a month of display ads.
Mr. Cuban said: “Blog about your passions. Don’t blog about what you think your audience wants. Post because you have something you are dying to write about.”
Fit blogging into the holes in your schedule. “Deal with the rest of your life first,” advises Glenn Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee who posts constantly throughout the day on his site, Instapundit.com. The volume and regularity has helped make his political opinion site one of the most popular on the Internet. “The blog is best handled by inserting it into the small bits of free time that rest among the bigger chunks of your work.” Mr. Reynolds slips in posts between classes, as a break from writing law review articles and during slow time at home.
Just post it already! The hurdle that stops many would-be bloggers is fear of clicking the “Publish” button. Xeni Jardin, who juggles blogging at the quirky alternative-news site BoingBoing.net with a career as a freelance journalist for NPR, Wired magazine and others, resists the urge to polish her blog prose the way she would a radio script. “Don’t bottle up your ideas forever believing you have to hit the same kind of mature, complete, perfect point as you would with a magazine or newspaper article,” she says. “Blogs are always in progress.” Boing Boing’s bloggers are known for going back to posts to update them, adding new information and striking out factual errors.
Keep a regular rhythm. Bloggers disagree on how often they should post. Mr. Reynolds and Ms. Jardin post several times a day. Mr. Cuban and Mr. Dziuba will go a week without a post. What matters, they agree, is that you establish a reliable rhythm for readers, so they know they can rely on you to have new material for them every so often.
Likewise, there’s no one right length for blog posts, but the most successful sites seem to have their own reliable formats, just like most professional publications. Mr. Reynolds rarely goes beyond two or three lines per post. Boing Boing entries run one to three paragraphs each, always with a photo. Mr. Cuban’s Blog Maverick entries can take up the entire browser window — when the guy’s on a roll, he’s on a roll.
Join the community, such as it is. There’s an unwritten rule — actually, it’s written about a lot on blogs — that you should always link back to bloggers whose ideas you repeat, or from whom you get a cool link to another site. Don’t use other bloggers’ photos or excerpt their writing without a prominent link back to the original. When in doubt, give credit.
More to the point, linking to other bloggers is the best way to get them to link to you. Links from other bloggers increase your readership two ways: they send readers directly from other sites, and they raise your ranking in search engine results. A blogger who posts about a hot topic like Eliot Spitzer’s secret life, but has no inbound links, will lose out to one who already has dozens of inbound links from other sites.
Plug yourself. That’s what all the name-brand bloggers do. It’s not bad form to send a short note to a prominent blogger drawing his or her attention to a really good blog you wrote. Some bloggers place links to their sites in comments they write on more established blogs. (And some bloggers are on to the trick and refuse to allow it.)
A more direct way to draw a crowd is to submit your blog posts to news aggregation sites like Digg, Fark and Boing Boing. Readers vote on how much they like the posts and new readers are drawn to the list of most popular posts. Granted, it helps if your blog post includes a home video of someone being attacked by a cat or really arrogant e-mail messages from a hedge-fund manager. Those get passed around virally in an instant.
Allowing readers to post comments on your blog not only increases readership, it provides a sense of live interaction with the rest of the world. But beware: the insulting comment is an Internet art form. “There’s a big difference between being flamed on someone else’s blog, and having them come do it in your own home,” Ms. Jardin said.
In the end, the biggest threat isn’t that you’ll fail to learn to blog. It’s that if you blog regularly for long enough, and begin to get comments and links from other bloggers, you’ll have trouble doing your day job.
“I can’t stop reloading,” confessed a colleague over IM after a post of hers began to attract dozens of comments. “I should be working, I know,” she added a few seconds later. “I have an unhealthy obsession.” Isn’t that the whole idea?
Basics
So You Want to Be a Blogging Star?
By PAUL BOUTIN
MARK CUBAN, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, has a full plate. Besides his basketball team, the busy billionaire also owns part of a media company, and serves as chairman of the TV channel HDNet. He recently competed for five weeks on “Dancing With the Stars” on ABC. How on earth does he find time to blog?
Yet his site, blogmaverick.com, is one of the top 1,000 Weblogs, according to the search engine Technorati. Thousands read Mr. Cuban’s posts every single day. If he can do it, why can’t you?
“Don’t go into blogging to make a living,” Mr. Cuban warned in an e-mail message. Still, he and other top bloggers with day jobs agree most people could attract a following on the Web. And whether a person blogs to make a little money, to influence opinion or just for sheer ego gratification, amassing a large audience is the goal.
Here’s what a number of successful bloggers with successful nonblogging careers say are the ways to think about getting into the business of blogging.
Don’t expect to get rich. You can easily place automatically served ad banners from Google or AdBrite onto your blog. It is as simple as signing up with an ad service and placing a snippet of HTML code into your blog. Many of the ads will be specific to the topic of your posts and the service will credit your account whenever a reader clicks on one of the ads. You get a check only if the account builds to a set amount, $100 in the case of Google.
But Philip Kaplan, president for products at AdBrite, cautions that only one in six blogs draws even 500 page views a day. At that pace, you would make at most $45 a month, even if the site were decked out with full-page ads. Mr. Kaplan estimates only 3 percent of active sites make more than $1,000 a month from advertising.
“In 3.5 months we made $9.47,” complained one blogger, Ted Dziuba, who yanked the automatic ads off of his site, Uncov.com.
Write about what you want to write about, in your own voice. Mr. Dziuba, a software engineer at Persai, a Web news filtering service, began blogging out of sheer frustration with buggy, overhyped Web 2.0 applications. Uncov.com became a magnet for techies with similar complaints, and unintentionally raised awareness of Persai. Thousands of Uncov readers signed up for a test of Persai’s service. Eventually, even advertisers took notice. “Once I started getting 2,000 to 3,000 page-views per day,” he says, “advertisers started coming to me.” He says advertisers have contacted him directly with offers of $750 for a month of display ads.
Mr. Cuban said: “Blog about your passions. Don’t blog about what you think your audience wants. Post because you have something you are dying to write about.”
Fit blogging into the holes in your schedule. “Deal with the rest of your life first,” advises Glenn Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee who posts constantly throughout the day on his site, Instapundit.com. The volume and regularity has helped make his political opinion site one of the most popular on the Internet. “The blog is best handled by inserting it into the small bits of free time that rest among the bigger chunks of your work.” Mr. Reynolds slips in posts between classes, as a break from writing law review articles and during slow time at home.
Just post it already! The hurdle that stops many would-be bloggers is fear of clicking the “Publish” button. Xeni Jardin, who juggles blogging at the quirky alternative-news site BoingBoing.net with a career as a freelance journalist for NPR, Wired magazine and others, resists the urge to polish her blog prose the way she would a radio script. “Don’t bottle up your ideas forever believing you have to hit the same kind of mature, complete, perfect point as you would with a magazine or newspaper article,” she says. “Blogs are always in progress.” Boing Boing’s bloggers are known for going back to posts to update them, adding new information and striking out factual errors.
Keep a regular rhythm. Bloggers disagree on how often they should post. Mr. Reynolds and Ms. Jardin post several times a day. Mr. Cuban and Mr. Dziuba will go a week without a post. What matters, they agree, is that you establish a reliable rhythm for readers, so they know they can rely on you to have new material for them every so often.
Likewise, there’s no one right length for blog posts, but the most successful sites seem to have their own reliable formats, just like most professional publications. Mr. Reynolds rarely goes beyond two or three lines per post. Boing Boing entries run one to three paragraphs each, always with a photo. Mr. Cuban’s Blog Maverick entries can take up the entire browser window — when the guy’s on a roll, he’s on a roll.
Join the community, such as it is. There’s an unwritten rule — actually, it’s written about a lot on blogs — that you should always link back to bloggers whose ideas you repeat, or from whom you get a cool link to another site. Don’t use other bloggers’ photos or excerpt their writing without a prominent link back to the original. When in doubt, give credit.
More to the point, linking to other bloggers is the best way to get them to link to you. Links from other bloggers increase your readership two ways: they send readers directly from other sites, and they raise your ranking in search engine results. A blogger who posts about a hot topic like Eliot Spitzer’s secret life, but has no inbound links, will lose out to one who already has dozens of inbound links from other sites.
Plug yourself. That’s what all the name-brand bloggers do. It’s not bad form to send a short note to a prominent blogger drawing his or her attention to a really good blog you wrote. Some bloggers place links to their sites in comments they write on more established blogs. (And some bloggers are on to the trick and refuse to allow it.)
A more direct way to draw a crowd is to submit your blog posts to news aggregation sites like Digg, Fark and Boing Boing. Readers vote on how much they like the posts and new readers are drawn to the list of most popular posts. Granted, it helps if your blog post includes a home video of someone being attacked by a cat or really arrogant e-mail messages from a hedge-fund manager. Those get passed around virally in an instant.
Allowing readers to post comments on your blog not only increases readership, it provides a sense of live interaction with the rest of the world. But beware: the insulting comment is an Internet art form. “There’s a big difference between being flamed on someone else’s blog, and having them come do it in your own home,” Ms. Jardin said.
In the end, the biggest threat isn’t that you’ll fail to learn to blog. It’s that if you blog regularly for long enough, and begin to get comments and links from other bloggers, you’ll have trouble doing your day job.
“I can’t stop reloading,” confessed a colleague over IM after a post of hers began to attract dozens of comments. “I should be working, I know,” she added a few seconds later. “I have an unhealthy obsession.” Isn’t that the whole idea?
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