How the world would have voted in the US presidential election

The Economist's Global Electoral College.

What's bigger than a landslide?

Cosmopolitan Democracy, the movie

It's 90 minutes long, but this video from a conference on cosmopolitan democracy is worth the time. As a result, I've ordered two books by Daniele Archibugi, The Global Commonwealth of Citizens: Toward Cosmopolitan Democracy, and Cosmopolitan Democracy: An Agenda for a New World Order.

You can watch the video here.

I learned that cosmopolitan democracy is much bigger in Europe (which makes sense), the world may love Obama, the first cosmopolitan president, even more than the US does, and Keynes had a idea in the 1940's for an international currency clearing house that is fascinating. Another well-made point is that United States has been a force in opposition to authoritarianism around the world, a fact the world appreciates, but Bush screwed everything up. Hopefully we'll get back on track.

Btw, the site that hosts the vid, globaldemo.org, will be getting more of my attention soon.

"Global New Deal"

I'm looking forward to the G-20 meeting this April. Gordon Brown is calling for a "global New Deal" to ameliorate the global economic slowdown, and a reform of the international financial system. Other Euro leaders concur. 

Read the article here.

Expanding the EU, sort of

This is from last summer's Economist. If economics is driving integration, this development might accelerate the process. Does money trump culture? 

Club Med http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11707183

The Med's Moment Comes http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11703160

The view from Club Med http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11735453

Sarko's Southern Dream http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11751636

I like the idea of wedding the know-how and experience of an aging EU with the labor and energy of a youthful northern Africa and Middle East. I haven't seen anything new on this idea since July's Economist.

Rereading Appiah, #2

From page xv of Cosmopolitanism, (quoted from Christoph Martin Wieland)

Cosmopolitans... regard all the peoples of the earth as so many branches of a single family, and the universe as a state, of which they, with innumerable other rational beings, are citizens, promoting together under the general laws of nature the perfection of the whole, while each in his own fashion is busy about his own well-being.

The perfection of the whole. I think we've moved slightly in that direction, but only inches compared to the miles that are necessary. I'm curious as to the mechanisms necessary to continue this promotion of perfection of the whole. It's something I intend to pursue.

Rereading Appiah, #1

From page xiii of Cosmopolitanism,

The challenge, then, is to take minds and hearts formed over the long millennia of living in local troops and equip them with ideas and institutions that will allow us to live together as the global tribe we have become.

Appiah meets evolutionary psychology. How long until a critical mass of people realize we have become a global tribe?