Universal Value Exchange

Throughout west and central Africa, one of the staple food products is the black-eye pea. I had never really given much thought to this or even knew what a black-eye pea was. See the peas are eaten as a protein and the leaves are eaten like a spinach. The stems are feed to cattle that provide more of the food people need. Because its multiple uses, the black-eye pea affects the live and lifestyles of many. Since it is a staple food for hundreds of millions of people, increasing the yields of the plants can increase the quality of life for its consumers.

Scientists in Virginia are creating varieties that have a larger yield and can withstand drought and pests. In fact, some initial witchweed resistant varieties are already being planted in Africa. This article brings to mind many of the advances that American institutions have been giving to the world and should be highlighted.

Source: Team seeks to improve the black-eye pea by Associated Press, retrieved 2/19/08.

It shows how much Mitt Romney cares about America with his recent bowing out of the Presidential race. He wanted to make sure that America could push forward and he wanted to stop the bickering that had become so endemic. I see that as a major move by him and one that shows just what kind of man he is.

Now, he was went one step further, he has now endorsed John McCain. My opinion of Mitt Romney keeps going up. I think he is a fine American and my hat’s off to him.

The TEFL News Network has added a page specifically with some advice for new TEFL teachers. It has the usual advice just to research but it also seems to take on the over hyping of TEFL courses. This can be a bit of an issue for us expats.

For us expats, when we confront marketers looking to separate us from our cash, they come in various guises. All with the focus of getting us to use whatever so called essential service they have.

With TEFL courses, go back 10 years ago and they were the exception rather than the rule. New untrained TEFL teacher usually got on the job training and had to figure out for themselves how to use resources properly and how to put together a decent lesson. Now, they have courses for that and if you go on most internet forums, the marketers are there to tell you how much you need to take a course.

You can see it in the ebook craze. Everyone has an ebook for sale for expats. Maybe I should jump on that bandwagon sometime. The thing is that these ebooks cost money when most of the information is out there for free, you just have to ask.

I guess the rant is over now. Till next time.

Brazil is considering dropping visa requirements for US citizens. Currently, if Americans want to go to Brazil, they need to pay $100 and get a visa. This hurts tourism and a bill in Brazil’s Congress aims to scrap visa requirements for American, Japanese, Australian, Canada and New Zealand. This move surely would open up the Brazilian market for expats and tourists from these countries.

The roaring economy of Argentina has been based on several successes, including a booming agricultural sector and an upswing in construction and industrial production. It appears as though one of the successes, a booming agricultural sector is putting heavy demands on the people of Argentina. Argentina beef is some of the best beef in the world and consumers around the world are buying as much as they can and the price of beef reflects this attitude according to this report.

The average Argentinian eats about 60 to 70 kilos of beef per year. Any price hike is felt immensely by the ravenous beef consumer in this South American country. The President of Argentina, Nestor Kirchner, has decided to fight the high price of beef by first banning beef exports and now encouraging people to eat less beef. There are more heavy handed approaches such as price controls, but so far the President has decided to control prices through export taxes, export bans, and appealing to consumers to change their habits.

On the surface, this may seem like an anti-business initiative that hurts the Argentine economy, but I take this differently. This is a great opportunity for President Kirchner to look after the welfare of his people and control overpricing in the marketplace. Why should Argentine consumers have to compete with consumers in other countries for a product that benefits from the natural resources of Argentina? It is nice to see that in this age of globalization that some people are spared from the competitiveness that exists in the international marketplace.

As I was surfing tonight trying to look for Bolivian ISP, yes I really don’t have a life, I found this link to US Embassy inspections. You know inspections one government agency does as oversight against another government agency. Kind of interesting reading.

Embassy Inspections

They are just summaries and only a few embassies are listed but they are interesting nonetheless. It gives interesting reading if you have ever had more than limited dealings with an embassy. I never really knew these kind of inspection reports existed, but now I do.