John and Stefan have made a very interesting point. However, globalization means much more than the theory of comparative advantage. Although oil may prove to be the lynchpin of an international trade thus influencing trade decisions especially across great distances, it certainly doesn't mean an end to globalization. I think it will take a war to stop my Chinese children from having their french fries & coke, my wife from pursuing her Japanese language and me from sharing my views with you people...
New Worlds: How The $200 Oil Scenario Could Change Everything
Email To A Friend
Please fill in the following information and we'll email this link.
SPONSORED BY
That's why last week's comment by Defense Secretary Robert Gates about the brief Gulf deployment of a second aircraft carrier was so terse and so telling. "I don't see it as an escalation," he said. "I think it could be seen, though, as a reminder." Gates would know—he was the CIA's deputy director in '88 and saw firsthand the treacherous complexities of an undeclared war.
Experts say that any U.S.-Iran conflict would involve a major naval element. Forty percent of the world's oil supply passes through the Gulf on vulnerable tankers. Add to that the menace from small boats bearing suicide bombers, like the ones Al Qaeda used on the USS Cole in 2000 and the French oil tanker Limburg in 2002, as well as the Iranian boats that swarmed an American freighter in January, and you've got a volatile zone where it's impossible to tell fisherman from foe.
As tensions mount, so does the chance for tragic errors. In March, a bullet warning boats away from a U.S. ship killed a peasant on the Suez Canal. It's easy to see how such an accident could lead to escalation. Not a prediction—just a reminder.
—Christopher Dickey
Department Of Dissonance: EU Orchestras Shush Up
Did you know that an orchestra playing "Madame Butterfly" can be louder (at 135 decibels) than a pneumatic drill (120 decibels)? The European Union does, and in April its legislation on workplace noise—first passed in 2006 and extended for entertainment industries—took effect. Classical-music venues are scrambling to comply, and it's causing a splitting headache. London's Royal Opera House has spent more than $100,000 on noise-reducing screens and high-tech earplugs for staff, as well as a "noise schedule" to make sure its musicians don't breach the average daily limit of 85 decibels. Unsurprisingly, some top players haven't taken kindly to the plugs; one oboist likened his plight to that of a blindfolded race-car driver.
Oboists aren't the only ones straining to adapt—in Scotland, bagpipers have their kilts in a twist. "This law is absolutely unworkable," says Roddy MacLeod, director of the Glasgow International Piping Festival. But since a pipe band playing at full pelt hits 122 decibels—the level of a chain saw—pipers will have to plug up, too, or risk having Brussels clamp down on their Highland airs.
—Sophie Grove
Technology And Society: Gaming To Relax
The CW has long held that videogames improve visual and spatial skills but that violent ones make it harder to control anger. Now a study by Carmen Russoniello of East Carolina University—to be released next week at the Games for Health Conference in Baltimore—finds that games can actually help you relax, affecting heart rates and brain waves in a way that suggests they could have therapeutic uses.
Discuss