A very annotated Saturday morning roundup

Haitians (usually) succeed in finding work and dignity in Brazil.

The Arab Spring (and its aftermath) is often compared to post-communist transitions, but Professor Owen offers up 19th century European revolutionary and opposition movements. Which is fair enough. But what he neglects to mention with regard to whttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhy Islamist groups appeal to voters is that in a number of Middle Eastern countries, Egypt for a very good example, the Islamist party is associated with social services that the state never bothered to provide.

Cutting defense spending may be necessary, but cuts in R&D will likely be an unintended consequence. Still, keep this in mind:

Military spending does not compare well economically with many other forms of government spending, some experts say. Professor Pollin calculated in a recent analysis that $1 billion in spending on health care produced an economic benefit about 14 percent larger than spending on defense. The impact of spending on transportation, education and energy were even larger.

A few presidential campaigns have taken on some unfortunate racial rhetoric.

Especially given the circumstances, Michelle Obama is awesome.

Ezra Klein's rambling ode to advertising was sent to me, unsurprisingly, by someone who works in advertising. He makes a few interesting points, but leaves out many others, like the BBC model (which is more effective than the NPR model). I also think of cases like the former Soviet Union--or just about any existing society without a free press--where the government may control the media, but the media is thus overwhelmingly worthless and people find ways to figure out what's going on. I use the former Soviet Union as an example because it was pre-internet and pre-social media. Newspapers reported propaganda, but people didn't turn to newspapers for information; information spread by word-of-mouth. Yes, free press is still tremendously important, and journalism matters beyond what word-of-mouth can convey. But advertisers needn't pat themselves smugly on the back, thinking they're singlehandedly credited with bringing about a free society.

On a more personal note, what I want to know is why Google thinks I'm fat. I got an ad for "Woman Within® - Plus Size" in my Gmail Sidebar.