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POPSWhy America Will Survive George W. Bush Otto von Bismarck saw how American blunders led to American power and allegedly said that God has a special providence for drunks, fools, and the United States of America. Walter Russell Mead (of the Council on Foreign Relations) puts Bush's 8-year stint in the White House into proper perspective. America's foreign policy has been short-sighted and often self-defeating from the get-go, alternately collaborative, passive, and interventionist. And, yet, miraculously, we always come out ahead. With the unstoppable rise of a global capitalist economy, Mead makes the case that America, for all its past and current faults, will continue to be the inevitable leader of this new international buoyancy. Not even our latest mistakes (unprecedented though they may be) can derail such a powerful incentive that is the modern American world trade system. Which means, more than ever, we're literally all in this together.
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POPSReality Lord of the Flies Drop a bunch of kids in an abandoned town and see if they get crazy enough to make some must-see TV. Yes, it's exploitative and a frightening snapshot of our voyeuristic society, but how can you not watch this?
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POPSThe Coming Death Shortage "Why the longevity boom will make us sorry to be alive" a must read. Though I fail to agree with many of the premises of this article, the critical views it presents are important and the issues need be taken into consideration seriously
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POPS0.3% of Saharan Sun Enough To Power Europe The visionary proposal comes as the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission released its strategic energy technology plan which highlighted photovoltaic cells as one of the eight technologies that need to be developed in the future. The plan also includes fuel cells, hydrogen, clean coal, second generation biofuels, nuclear fusion, wind and smart grids.
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POPSThe key to oil independence is a new electrical grid It seems that with alternative sources of energy, such as wind and solar, the United States has the potential means to substantially reduce our dependence on oil - especially once plug-in cars are on the market. But until we substantially upgrade our nation's electrical grid with modern technology that will enable the energy created by these sources to be transmitted intelligently around the county, their impact will be limited. It's going to take a greater commitment from Congress to jump start this. Making it happen will provide a huge boost to our economy, environment and political leverage with the Middle East, Russia, Venezuela and more.
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POPSOn Architecture and Elegance bridge is endowed with a subcategory of beauty we can refer to as elegance, a quality present whenever a work of architecture succeeds in carrying out an act of resistance—holding, spanning, sheltering—with grace and economy as well as strength; when it has the modesty not to draw attention to the difficulties it has surmounted. From philosophical historian Alain de Botton's inimitable The Architecture of Happiness , itself a paradigmatic illustration of the aesthetic elegance of well-engineered minimalism (be it architectural or textual). The NYRB's synopsis of de Botton's work makes note of this: The simplicity of his writing is not the product of a simple mind.... In The Consolations of Philosophy (2000) he remarked that "there are...no legitimate reasons why books in the humanities should be difficult or boring; wisdom does not require a specialized vocabulary or syntax."
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POPSDisappearance of Bees Finally Solved ? I really hope that this will start to clear up the mystery of the disappearing honeybees. They are an integral part of our harvest cycle and its really important we find out why the colonies are collapsing.
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POPSThe "Out-of-control" Military Machine Citizens must fight the militarism that's choking our democracy. Given the power and money of the military lobby, we're not likely to get any encouragement from either party or any presidential candidates, at least not at first. But we can force the issue into the dialogue and remember who listened and who didn't. Call it politics for the long run, the politics of hope with a sharper edge.
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POPSNassim Nicholas Taleb: the prophet of boom and doom In December he lectured bankers at Société Générale, France’s second biggest bank. He told them they were sitting on a mountain of risks – a menagerie of black swans. They didn’t believe him. Six weeks later the rogue trader and black swan Jérôme Kerviel landed them with $7.2 billion of losses. As a result, Taleb is now the hottest thinker in the world. He has a $4m advance on his next book. He gives about 30 presentations a year to bankers, economists, traders, even to Nasa, the US Fire Administration and the Department of Homeland Security. But he doesn’t tell them what to do – he doesn’t know. He just tells them how the world is. “I’m not a guru. I’m just describing a problem and saying, ‘You deal with it.’” take a moment and read the article
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POPSWe Can't Handle The Truth "They don’t mention that we spend almost a trillion dollars a year on a protracted war in Iraq, money that we must borrow from China and Japan. We spend 51% of our discretionary budget on our military. No nation on the globe spends more than 6%. Maybe this could be a reason our economy is faltering?"
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POPSVulberability of the power grid It's incredible to me that more isn't being done to make the United States power grid more state of the art. That means the ability to transfer greater amounts of electricity over larger distances with more reliability and security. It seems to me that this is just a disaster waiting to happen.
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POPSREALITY CHECK! There is a frightening new global trend of denial... Europeans think that they don't need to limit fishing... Car companies don't think they need to improve fuel economy standards... Bush thinks he can increase spending and cut taxes at the same time... Jingoists think we are winning the war in Iraq... Democrats think Hillary Clinton has enough experience to win an election... Polluters think that Global Warming won't really happen... Evangelicals think Jesus is coming back soon... Fundamentalists think they can win the war against modernity... The truth is: we're stuck with this world. The rules DO apply. No free passes. You have to face the music sometime. We must choose realism over comfortable delusion. Unfortunately, for now, wistful thinking will rule the day until we let it all collapse around us. Then we'll stand there scratching our heads saying: How could this happen?
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POPSStand with Tibet - Support the Dalai Lama " China's economy is totally dependent on "Made in China" exports that we all buy, and the government is keen to make the Olympics in Beijing this summer a celebration of a new China, respected as a leading world power. China is also a very diverse country with a brutal past and has reason to be concerned about its stability -- some of Tibet's rioters killed innocent people. But President Hu must recognize that the greatest danger to Chinese stability and development comes from hardliners who advocate escalating repression, not from Tibetans who seek dialogue and reform. " http://www.avaaz.org/en/tibet_end_the_violence/97.php/?cl_tf_sign=1
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POPSSolar powered Prius!! Now this is exciting news! This type of innovation is exactly what the world needs to help us lose our dependency on oil. It is also the type of progress that i believe will spur the economy out of its very nasty funk.
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