Black Hawk Down and the Silences of Ridley’s Scott’s Realism

A telling moment occurs in the film Black Hawk Down (Bruckheimer & Scott, 2001) when the reliable Shawn Nelson is literally struck deaf by the gunfire of his partner. Nelson can no longer hear his fellow American soldiers, their gunfire, or the screams of his dying enemies. Prior to losing his hearing, Nelson puts in a mouth protector, explaining that on his last mission, he almost bit off his tongue. Thus, Nelson ensures that he will be able to speak of any evil he hears, but, alas, he becomes deal. Nelson\u27s predicament somewhat parallels that of the audience of Ridley Scott\u27s technically masterful film. Exposed to the depiction of an intense battle and immersed in a realistic rendering, one can hear only the immediacy of battle. Its deeper political implications have been silenced

Metallic liquid hydrogen and likely Al2O3 metallic glass

Dynamic compression has been used to synthesize liquid metallic hydrogen at 140 GPa (1.4 million bar) and experimental data and theory predict Al2O3 might be a metallic glass at ~300 GPa. The mechanism of metallization in both cases is probably a Mott-like transition. The strength of sapphire causes shock dissipation to be split differently in the strong solid and soft fluid. Once the 4.5-eV H-H and Al-O bonds are broken at sufficiently high pressures in liquid H2 and in sapphire (single-crystal Al2O3), electrons are delocalized, which leads to formation of energy bands in fluid H and probably in amorphous Al2O3. The high strength of sapphire causes shock dissipation to be absorbed primarily in entropy up to ~400 GPa, which also causes the 300-K isotherm and Hugoniot to be virtually coincident in this pressure range. Above ~400 GPa shock dissipation must go primarily into temperature, which is observed experimentally as a rapid increase in shock pressure above ~400 GPa. The metallization of glassy Al2O3, if verified, is expected to be general in strong oxide insulators. Implications for Super Earths are discussed.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, 14th Liquid and Amorphous Metals Conference, Rome 201

Back to the Future for African Infrastructure? Why State-Ownership Is No More Promising the Second Time Around

Too many African state-owned enterprises (SOEs), particularly those in infrastructure sectors, have a long history of poor performance. African governments and donors labored through the 1970s and 1980s to improve SOE performance through “commercialization”——i.e., methods short of ownership change. These generally failed, giving rise, in the 1990s, to much more heavy reliance on private sector participation and ownership. This approach produced some successes, but Africa’s private participation in infrastructure (PPI) initiatives have been comparatively few and weak. A number of those that have been launched have run into problems, to the point where both investor and African government interest in the approach has waned in the last few years. The reform is not popular—surveys of public opinion in 15 African countries reveal that only a third of respondents prefer private to state-owned firms. Nonetheless, African states (and their supporters) should not jettison the PPI approach. Rather, they should acknowledge its limitations, and recognize the large scope and moderate pace of the preparatory measures required both to improve their investment climates and to make PPI work effectively.privatization, private sector, African state-owned enterprise, commercialization, private participation in infrastructure

United States Army Discharge Certificate

This certificate from the United States Army states that Bob Jones received an Honorable Discharge from his military service in April of 1946. He was a Technician Fourth Grade in the 3112nd Signal Service Battalion at the time of his discharge. Jones was a professor of physics at Linfield College from 1955-1987.https://digitalcommons.linfield.edu/lca_bobjones/1006/thumbnail.jp

The Evolution of Enterprise Reform in Africa: From State-owned Enterprises to Private Participation in Infrastructure — and Back?

Many African state-owned enterprises (SOEs), particularly those in infrastructure, have a long history of poor performance. From the outset, SOE financial and economic performance generally failed to meet the expectations of their creators and funders. By the late 1970s, the situation was alarming, and by early 1980s, critical. The poor financial performance of SOEs became so burdensome to government budgets that it attracted the attention of the international financial institutions, or IFIs. In response, in the 1980s, the World Bank approved SOE reforms that could be summed up in the term “commercialization”. By the mid-1990s, however, the idea of making SOEs function efficiently and effectively under government management was largely abandoned by the IFIs and privatization and private participation in infrastructure, or PPI became the order of the day. Once more, however, the results were disappointing. PPI has not been as widely adopted as anticipated, nor has it generated the massive resources and changes hoped for, nor has it been widely accepted as beneficial by the African public. The findings of recent studies in Africa suggest that PPI should not be jettisoned, and that the more productive path is to recognize the limitations of the approach, and to work harder at creating the conditions needed to make it function effectively. This will entail, as many have recognized, an end to the view that public and private infrastructure provision is a dichotomy – a case of either-or, one or the other – and a better appreciation of the extent to which the performance of each is dependent on the competence of the other. In other words, for the private sector to perform well, public sector capacity must be enhanced. Moreover, proposed tactics of reform should fit more closely with the expectations and sentiments of the affected government, consumer base, and general population. This broader approach implies, probably, a reduction in the scope and, certainly, a reduction in the planned speed of operations. Improving infrastructure performance is a long-term matter.Africa, Enterprise reform, State-owned enterprises, Privatization

Privatising Basic Utilities in Africa: a Rejoinder

.Poverty, MDG, Africa

Public enterprise reform in adjustment lending

Specific divestiture dates and institutional public enterprise reform should probably not be a matter of hard conditionality for sectoral adjustment lending. One alternative is to establish institutional development projects that parallel adjustment operations. Another is to establish primary conditions, nonfulfillment of which would bring an operation to a halt, and secondary conditions (including most institutional and public enterprise reforms), nonfulfillment of which would evoke sanctions but not end operations.Banks&Banking Reform,Enterprise Development&Reform,Country Strategy&Performance,Municipal Financial Management,General Technology