African Summits
I meant to write up a summary of the recent summit activity on the continent but never got around to it. Fortunately, Alex Thurston at the Sahel Blog, did it for me: “Summits around the Continent”.
More reasons not to like direct democracy
I have thought for some time that California’s proposition system is once of the worse things that happened to that state. When I lived there my general rule was to vote against all propositions because the system is plain bad. The propositions themselves are written poorly, unnecessarily tie the hands of the state legislature (making them increasingly dysfunctional), and are decided by an electorate that really has no clue what they are voting on. Representative democracy is a much better (albeit imperfect) way to make law as it enables individuals to specialize. Unfortunately, California is not the only place that has such a system…

• Sarkozy apparently thinks that offering voters popular referendums will make him popular: “California on the Seine” (FP)
• But as Business Insider noted this week, the outcomes of such referendums can be quite odd: “10 Weird Examples of the Swiss Referendum System in Action.” They have added work-free holidays, disallowed the construction of new minarets, but rejected a ban on fighter jet noise in tourist areas.

Jeremy Lin
I’m still following the incredible arrival of Jeremy Lin into the NBA.  But some crazy stuff has been going on around him. Here SNL tackles the hypocrisy of the stereotyping surrounding Jeremy Lin.:
SNL: Linsanity (requires Flash)
– Thanks, Kathy for the link!