Values unrelated to modern reality are not just electorally hopeless, the values themselves become devalued. They have no purchase on the real world.
There's no country in the world that's more devastated from natural resources than Afghanistan.
We didn't do anything wrong, but among the lessons learned, given the magnitude of the problems we now face in Afghanistan, a major U.S. force on the ground would convince the world we were in for the long-haul recovery of a country devastated by 21 years of warfare.
I want to be there for all those who are left behind in this world, whether it's because they are born poor, born a woman, or born in an area affected by devastation.
And why is our music called world music? I think people are being polite. What they want to say is that it's third world music. Like they use to call us under developed countries, now it has changed to developing countries, it's much more polite.
What we ask of the developed countries is to let the Third World find a third way.
Of course, aid is only one small part of international development. Some of the greatest benefits to the world's poorest can be achieved through policy changes by developed countries.
I want to remind you of one thing, which is, when I look around the world and look at the long-term economic fundamentals we have in this country, I think they compare favorably with what I see in any major developed country in the world.
I love travelling, and had the pleasure of being in the most developed country in the world and then parts of two of the most pristine natural areas of the world: the Galapagos islands and the Equador Amazon jungle. The contrast was incredible.
North Korea is not an undeveloped country; it is a country that has fallen out of the developed world.
For the developed world, there is a choice to be made: to promote economic policies that despoil indigenous lands or to support cultures and the remaining biological sanctuaries.
In the developed world, we are surrounded by electronics - from the computers on our desks to the smart phones in our pockets to the thermostats in our homes to our data in the virtual cloud.
I think there are a lot of misconceptions on both sides, the developing vs. the developed world, especially about America. I've felt the frustration in my lack of belonging to any one place, but I've also felt it liberating to be able to appreciate something without feeling disloyal to my own culture.
When thinking about the future, it is fashionable to be pessimistic. Yet the evidence unequivocally belies such pessimism. Over the past centuries, humanity's lot has improved dramatically - in the developed world, where it is rather obvious, but also in the developing world, where life expectancy has more than doubled in the past 100 years.
Inequality in the developed world fell for most of the 20th century; we can make it fall for most of the 21st century, too. But it won't happen without sustained pressure on politicians from electorates.
If Scotland was independent, we'd be the 14th richest country in the developed world.
Labour ministers often look puzzled when reports show that Britain has one of the lowest levels of social mobility in the developed world. They just don't get it. They see poverty, inequality, fairness, as all about income. For the past 12 years, they have relied on tax credits to solve this. But tax credits do not solve poverty: they mask it.
Listen carefully to the global warming alarmists, and the main theme that emerges is that what the developed world needs is a large dose of penance. What's remarkable is the extent to which penance sells among a mostly secular audience. What is there to be penitent about?
I think most people in the developed world would admit to carrying some sort of handheld device, whether it's a laptop or a cell phone, at all times.
I believe Android will be stronger in the developing world than it is in the developed world.
