#5 Markov Award of the week

Click Andrey to find out what TH!NK3 article was his favourite this week:

#4 YouTube Clips

Last week I linked to the Wikileaks Afghan War Diary, 2004-2010. Now Amnesty International has a comment for us:

Speaking of Afghanistan: Isn't it sort of funny how the countries that send troops call themselves "donor countries"? As if to equivocate foreign aid and military campaigns. And there is more rough stuff from Amnesty International. This one from Congo:

Joseph Dunia Ruyenzi, a human rights defender with the Promotion of Democracy and Human Rights (PDH) speaks out about the Congolese government and armed groups that perpetrate human rights abuses.

Guess blogging from my Copenhagen apartment is not so bad after all.

Then two more short clips from our very own United Nations deserve a bit more attention: One from the flood in Pakistan and one about the Gaza Flotilla.

#3 China Developing Traffic-Straddling Bus That Drives Over Cars

No, you are not going into a tunnel. It's the train passing over you.

#2 A little too much internet activism

Idealist.org / Trends in Nonprofits' Use of Social Media:

Almost 85% of organizations are committing at least one-quarter of a full-time staff member's work hours to the management of their social networking accounts, demonstrating the importance that nonprofits find in using online social networking as a tool in an overall media strategy. Overwhelmingly, organizations are using their social networks for traditional marketing purposes (92%), but increasingly they are starting to delve into fundraising (45.8%), program delivery (34.5%), and market research (24.3%).

That's what we like to read here at TH!NK, right? People are eager to click links at Facebook! And, apparently, celebrities are a bit too eager to jump on the Youtube frenzy. From Change.org / Faux Foundation Gets Celebs To Front For Big Oil:

You can almost forgive Sandra Bullock, Lenny Kravitz, Eli Manning, Emeril Lagassi and a red carpet full of other celebrities for being duped. After all, the group they are speaking for is called America's Wetland Foundation. And the message sound alright if you don't look too closely.

Turns out Big Oil is funding a non-profit funding another NGO... or something of the sort... to fool the celebs into campaigning for not making the oil companies pay for the pollution!

I have revealed my internet "surfing" methods in these MDG press clips articles: How I trawl YouTube, how I use Google Reader. I'm not done yet, but for now here's just one little thingy for you: A Google Custom Search Engine I call "Source Examiner". It's basically a regular Google search with preference for a certain selection of sites and another handful blacklisted.

I think perhaps Bullock could have used a search for "Women of the Storm" in it a couple of weeks back.

#1 "If this is the best you can do, stop. Humanity will thank you."

Currently being a sort-of-official development blogger right now, possibly the most inspiring note I read this week was AidWatchers.com / What aid critics could learn from movie critics. If not for the message then for the quote from The Wall Street Journal:

"[...] if 'Legion' [...] are the best you can do, stop making movies, period. Humanity will thank you for it."

In case you are so fortunate not to have seen it, I'll tell you 'Legion' sucks. Should we start making fun at aid that sucks?

Perhaps not. But evaluation could probably improve. If you want to compare one pesticide to another, one organic fertilizer to another, you are expected to describe the difference between the treatments of crops in statistical terms and measurements. Developments projects? - not so much. Back in the days, being engaged in a "charity" was more than enough. Now you have to lend out your own money in "micro loans" because it's officially genius and the poor will work their own way out of poverty.

One problem: Micro loans haven't been evaluated by much else but neoliberalist assumptions. The ones that are willfully spammed on us and the ones that have seeped into our existence. How much have they got to do with reality?

Just read my print newspaper that some hard line academics are trying to apply actual scientific evaluation methods to development aid projects. Calling it  "J-PAL" so Google that. Of course, here at TH!NK3 we're supposed to crack the code of how to get political commitment beyond the usual four year election terms. Now we're talking ten years statistical evaluation...