Link Roundup

Firefox is once again bogged down by too many tabs that I think you might find useful or in the very least I'll probably find useful at some point in the future, so it's time for a dump:

• [Africa/Development] Good news in Africa - free trade agreement struck amongst 14 countries in southern Africa. (Club for Growth)
  
  
• [Africa/Development] One small positive outcome of Zimbabwe's incompetent / racist and despotic government: technology leaks. "The Nigerian states of Nassarawa and Kwara have persuaded white farmers from Zim to farm in their states. Loans and about 45,000 acres have been allocated to each farmer persuaded to head north." (The Croydonian)
  
  
• [Economics/Politics] The problem with green/blue bins: "Sorting of rubbish can be done very well by large machines at centralised factories (or even outsourced to foreign lands). But the green movement insist we do it at home as a penance for our consumerism, almost as if when we needed pins we were forced to make them at home. It is this forbidding of the division of labour that makes us poorer and is symptomatic of the green movement." (An Englishman's Castle via ASI)
  
  
• [China] Apparently some people who watched the Olympic opening ceremonies thought it was a metaphor for the rise of collectivism (Economist Blog, as first published, not surprisingly in a column from the NYT). If that's the case it's definitely not the China I know. More fisking on this idiocy from Imagethief quoting James Fallow.
  
  
• [Economics] Tragedy of the commons/bunnies (an illustrative flash game)
  
  
• [Development/Economics] Not surprisingly, the best form of wide scale disaster preparation is to encourage economic development. (Instapundit)
  
  
• [Development/Research & Development] Making design work for the developing world. (NHPR)
  
  
• [Commodities] Debunking 3 myths being pushed by environmentalists over offshore drilling. (Washington Post)
  
  
• [Finance] Confessions of a Risk Manager - the economic tension / culture at banks that led up to the subprime crisis. (Economist)
  
  
• [Politics] An unfortunate event in Waterloo, my home town: "I now realize that I was in Canada, where only politically correct speech is protected."(SDA)
  
  
• [Research & Development/Managing] "Design is the engine that can transform a company into a powerhouse of nonstop innovation." (Businessweek via Core77)
  
  
• [Regulatory] Safe Kids = Fat Kids. Unintended consequences. (WSJ)
  
  
• [Marketing/Managing/HR] Everyday psychology: "how to detect lies, make your smile more attractive, persuade people, avoid getting scammed, and reduce your cholesterol level. One example: one person expressing an opinion three times has 90% of the effectiveness as three people expressing it once." (Guy Kawasaki)
  
  
• [Marketing] Differentiating yourself from "commodity oriented competition" by beefing up your "intangibles". (Seth Godin)