Can we make Paul Krugman president?

The claim that climate legislation will kill the economy deserves the same disdain as the claim that global warming is a hoax. The truth about the economics of climate change is that it’s relatively easy being green.

As America gets ready for a messy battle over climate change legislation, Paul Krugman gets in early to say, really, it’s not going to cost that much to save the planet.

Peepoo bags are worth more than the sum of their parts

This tweet from Jay Oatway reminded me of the World Toilet Summit I went to in Macau last year. The summit wasn’t as popular as the Sexpo of the same year and venue, but it was treated by journalists with almost as much fascination. Not that that translated into much coverage.

The problem was, the summit was very serious and had few opportunities to laugh at poos and wees (not that I eschewed those chances, as my column linked to above well shows). Unlike the Sexpo, where couples giggled over the sight of a man painting pictures with his willy, the conference attendees here were pretty much set on saving the world.

Sanitation — or, the clean and effective treatment, disposal, or recycling of human waste — is a life-or-death matter for the 2.6 billion people in the world who don’t have access to a proper toilet. That lack of sanitation infects water supplies, soils, foods, and pretty much anything else the human hand can touch, resulting in mass disease and death.

2.6 billion people. Think about that next time you flush.

Follow that link from Jay’s tweet and you’ll find a page about Poopee Bags, which were distributed for free at the WTO summit (that’s World Toilet Organisation, by the way). These are glorious little disposable bags that carry away and protect your effluent, until eventaully biodegrading.

People who design these sorts of things are my heroes. I’ve always liked talking about poo, but I’m even more willing to talk about how to best get rid of it. Mark it up alongside drug law reforms, digital media, and dick jokes as one of my pet topics.

My portfolio online

This will be of interest to few people other than me (but, Hell, that’s an important audience), but I have launched an online portfolio. Its chief purpose is to serve as an easy access point to my stories whenever I feel like going back to them, but those who know me personally and live outside Hong Kong might also be interested in my columns, which have only recently been published online.

Other highlights include:

• An interview with Sting (full transcript)
• An interview with Robert Smith
• My column about nude modelling
• My column about getting a male Brazilian (not for the faint of heart)
• A long-overlooked story about the cult of Cantopop

The portfolio doesn’t contain all my work, but I will be adding to it later.

Homework and sexuality

For a laugh, I recently joined a Facebook group called HOMEWORK IS GAY. My friend and I taunted a few of the zany teens on that page, and made fun of their dislike for the much-reviled work of the home. We had little to no success in changing attitudes.

Today, however, I am proud to announce a forceful response to those nefarious teens. I have established a group called HOMEWORK IS HETEROSEXUAL, and you can join it now, for free.

Here is the mission statement:

This group has been established in response to the nefarious HOMEWORK IS GAY group set up by a disreputable bunch of teens, probably in Australia. The mission of this group is to promote homework as a necessary and helpful means to furthering one’s education, enhancing one’s career prospects, and, especially, to restore homework to its rightful place as a stoically heterosexual endeavour.

HK Ham weighs in on the rugby

Since leaving New Zealand almost five years ago, I have watched only a few All Blacks rugby test matches. Passions run high for rugby in New Zealand — there is apparently nothing my country loves more than watching 30 strapping young men run around a paddock cuddling each other to the ground.

It’s also funny to watch the reactions unfold in the national press. Depending on whether they win or lose — no matter the margin — the All Blacks are either hailed as a Gods or as the worst team of the last decade.

This week, it’s the latter, because on Saturday we lost by three points to South Africa. If Daniel Carter’s cross-field kick in the last minute was just a few centimetres shorter, it would have been caught in the field of play and ended up as a certain try. We would have won the game by two or four points, and the commentators would be hailing the All Blacks’ spirit, tenacity, hunger to win, skill under pressure, and refound vigour under what is supposed to be an ailing coaching regime.

But Carter’s kick was a few centimetres too long. So. Worst team of the professional era.

What is hardly mentioned is that South Africa happen to be a very good team. They were bruising on attack; every one of their kicks was right on the money; their rush defence was incredibly effective and frazzled the All Blacks; and their backline was clinical when given the opportunity on attack.

Despite all that, the bumbling All Blacks — who couldn’t win a lineout; who had a malfunctioning midfield; who gave away a simple chance for three points; who were stung by two unilkely penalty goals from about 60 metres — still almost won. If that Carter kick had been a few centimetres shorter…

From afar, it’s funny to read rugby journalists who despair at the loss of a game. Sometimes I just want to give them a big hug and tell them it’s going to be all right — that our national pride really needn’t hinge on the sporting efforts of a few young men in tight shiny shirts.

So, Chris Rattue, instead of writing hyperbolic sentences like this:

A sequence of dreadful All Black performances this season reached a nadir of sorts in Hamilton, where helter-skelter desperation should not be confused with any validity to the running rugby claims…

How about instead taking a deep breath and repeating to yourself sentences like this: “It’s just a game”.

Handsome Furs in Hong Kong

A fantastic Sunday night set from the Handsome Furs at Grappa’s Cellar. I caught the following song portion on low-grade video, purely for your entertainment.

More countries see the light on drug decriminalisation

As the world wakes up to the fact that a war on drugs is futile, destructive, expensive, and helps no one except the criminals who profit from it, countries not totally mired in ideology are taking steps to decriminalise.

For some Latin American countries, they might be baby steps, but at least they’re now inching away from the cliff.

From the Guardian:

“The tide is clearly turning. The ‘war on drugs’ strategy has failed,” Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a former Brazilian president, told the Guardian. Earlier this year, he and two former presidents of Colombia and Mexico published a landmark report calling for a new departure.

“The report of the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy has certainly helped to open up the debate about more humane and efficient policies. But, most of all, the facts are speaking by themselves,” said Cardoso.

Reform campaigners have long argued that criminalisation enriched drug cartels, fuelled savage turf wars, corrupted state institutions and filled prisons with addicts who presented no real threat to society.

The US used its considerable influence to keep Latin America and the UN wedded to hardline policies which kept the focus on interdictions and jail sentences for consumers as well as dealers. The “war” was first declared by the Nixon administration.

The economic and social cost, plus European moves towards liberalisation, have emboldened some Latin American states to try new approaches.

The best way to disempower the people who will kill to protect their drugs trade? Take away their business; put it in the government’s hands. Then use that money to treat the people who need help, provide safer drugs, educate the population about the dangers of drug-taking (similar to alcohol), and then get on with the business of fighting real crime.