Burma

I keep realizing I haven't mentioned the horrifying tragedy in Burma and then realizing I'm not sure what I could possibly say about the horrifying tragedy in Burma. But I suppose one thing to say is that, as is usually the case in these situation, you've got a natural disaster which is then compounded by bad, unaccountable government (sort of like Katrina amped-up by a few orders of magnitude) of the sort that really only an autocracy can bring you. It's a reminder that we should be fairly confident that, over the long haul, democratically governed nations can survive and prosper in ways that it's very difficult for dictatorships to do.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2008/05/burma/44721/