BEST OPINION
The World Bank:
Hats off to Ngozi
They do not want Jim Yong Kim, the American public-health professor, to head the World Bank. The job requires expertise in government, finance and development, and only Nigerian finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has all three. Some mild Obama barbs and a surprising level of passion makes this a story we're suddenly interested in.
BIGGEST LET-DOWN
Health-care reform on trial:
Full-court press
Living the SCOTUS drama, they breathlessly explain there's more to story than the "imminent" risk of losing the mandate. The Court spent six hours (instead of the usual one) hearing arguments on the questions of whether a ruling must wait until 2015; whether the states can be obliged to expand Medicaid; and whether the rest of the law survives if the mandate is, in fact, struck down--in addition to the more popular mandate issue.
There's hardly any analysis of Kennedy's thought process, which is the only unknown left in this issue. I was hoping for a reasoned analysis, ultimately leading to some odds. What do they think the decision will likely be? Their answer is that they don't know, but but it's going to be huge! "Washington subsists on hyperbole. But this time it is all true." Calm down, Economist.
MOST FUN
Californian water technology:
Salty and getting fresh
Light, interesting, and such a cute headline--a good gateway piece for people who think The Economist is a tough read.
A bunch of San Diego firms made their name supplying reverse-osmosis spiral modules, the secret sauce of industrial desalinization, to the world's roughly 13,000 plants. Ironically, the city itself, desperate for potable water, has yet to make use of the technology locally. Until now.
Loved this sentence: "Fondling a pipe of membranes (they are rolled like toilet paper but the size of a cannon), Poseidon’s Peter MacLaggan explains the scale: if water molecules were blown up to the size of tennis balls, salt molecules would be softballs (roughly 50% bigger in diameter), viruses would be trucks, and bacteria would be the size of power plants."
Add to that the universal fascination with news about drinking our own toilet water and we have a winner.
BEST GOSSIP
Banyan:
Rewriting the rules
The weekly Asia column is all about China, and it's juicy. And poorly sourced. But what the hell, this is good shit.
Remember when Chongqing’s communist party chief, Bo Xilai, was thrown out on his ear March 15th? As the son of one of Mao's colleagues (a "princeling") and a favorite contender for the Politburo’s Standing Committee, the pinnacle of power in China, this was peculiar and rather sudden. Apparently, the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, has even been talking trash about him in public, a scandal in itself. Bo fell from grace, far and fast. So that's our first "dot."
Around the same time as Bo's falling-out, you might recall an odd incident where a Chinese police chief sought refuge in, of all places, the American embassy and was "holed up" there for hours on end without an explanation (during or since) from our government or China's? Well that was the Chongqing's police chief. Yeah. That darling, Bo, had fired him, and he feared for his life. He was seeking asylum in America, but eventually (for reasons unknown) gave up. That's our second dot.
Now, what was new news to us wasn't the police chief who crashed the party at our embassy, or the Maoist populist golden boy who got the shaft, but the unfortunate disposition of a third individual, a certain British businessman by the name of Neil Heywood, who had died in November in--you guessed it--Chongqing. The Chinese say it was alcohol poisoning, which sounds a bit racist if you ask us, but I digress. Because now we get to connect the dots!
Mr. Heywood didn't have too much to drink. He was murdered! And quickly cremated. It appears he had a fight over some business with buddy boy Bo's wife, and Bo poisoned him. The police chief confronted him on this and was promptly fired, precipitating his attempted escape to America. The U.K. has asked China for an investigation, but that's pretty much as close as The Economist comes to confirming any of this insanity, which, in a way, makes it even more fun. I mean horrible. Isn't it just awful? Makes for a great Banyan, though.
BEST SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Bespoke pets:
Just press “print”
An unbelievable advancement in both additive manufacturing (3D printing) and genetics promises a future of custom "printed" cats and dogs.
It almost seems impossible: "The firms researchers have used nanotomography, a precise form of CT scanning that has a resolution of 500 nanometres (billionths of a metre), to analyse the position and nature of every single cell in a variety of animals, particularly breeds of dog. This knowledge not only permits existing breeds to be re-created, but allows entirely new combinations of form, colour and behaviour to be invented, at the customer’s command."
Apparently the firm's ultimate goal is not only to print the ideal pet, but other companions as well; "custom-printed boyfriends and girlfriends for those who cannot find the right partner by conventional means." Kevger is not in the market, but our single readers will be happy to learn that the live devices should be ready by Valentine's Day 2013--or at the latest, "April 1st of next year."
Very cute, Economist. This year's April Fool's Day article is a must-read, and also a must share--especially with the sweet, loving, gullible pet-lovers in our lives.
