-
" If, however, Obama accepts a War on Terror framework, as he already seems to have, as well as those "residual" forces in Iraq, while pumping up the war in Afghanistan, he may quickly find himself playing by Rumsfeld rules, whether or not he revokes those specific orders. In fact, left alone in Washington, backed by the normal national security types, he may soon find himself locked into all sorts of unpalatable situations, as once happened to another Democratic president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who opted to escalate an inherited war when what he most wanted to do was focus on domestic policy."
-
"Just over two years into George W. Bush's presidency, The American Prospect featured Bush on its cover under the headline, "The Most Dangerous President Ever." At the time, some probably thought it a bit over the top."
-
"'The problem of the U.S. economy in the past eight years has been a kind of corporate socialism…[a] hydra-headed monster of corruption and malfeasance.' He added, 'In the current financial crisis, the two groups who come out looking good are the Marxists and the Austrians,' since both schools of economists predicted that government will tend to come to the aid of the already-wealthy amidst cyclical booms and busts."
-
A Rigged System: You shouldn't need to hire a team of lawyers to run for Congress. – Reason Magazine"The system we have now selects for the sorts of people who want to make a career of politics. If, in order to successfully run for high office, you have to spend years culling favors and working your way up through one of the two major parties, the winners in this game are going to be the party loyalists and power-hungry climbers who couldn't hack it in the private sector—frankly, the last personality type we want governing."
-
"Local food production does not always produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions. For example, the 2005 DEFRA study found that British tomato growers emit 2.4 metric tons of carbon dioxide for each ton of tomatoes grown compared to 0.6 tons of carbon dioxide for each ton of Spanish tomatoes. The difference is British tomatoes are produced in heated greenhouses. Another study found that cold storage of British apples produced more carbon dioxide than shipping New Zealand apples by sea to London. In addition, U.K. dairy farmers use twice as much energy to produce a metric ton of milk solids than do New Zealand farmers. Other researchers have determined that Kenyan cut rose growers emit 6 metric tons of carbon dioxide per 12,000 roses compared to the 35 tons of carbon dioxide emitted by their Dutch competitors. Kenyan roses grow in sunny fields whereas Dutch roses grow in heated greenhouses."
-
"The Wall Street bailout looks a lot like Iraq — a 'free-fraud zone' where private contractors cash in on the mess they helped create" by Naomi Klein
-
(tags: music)
-
"The premiere of Law & Order: Criminal Intent Season 8, originally scheduled for Friday, November 7th, has now been pushed back to 2009. The exact premiere date is not yet known but will be posted as soon as it is determined.
USA believed that CI's new season was so strong that it would be best presented in an uninterrupted run of 16 episodes. As a strategic move based on the overall TV landscape and in this economy, it made sense to maximize the value of CI by moving to 2009. "
(tags: economics television) -
Princeton University – Evolution's new wrinkle: Proteins with cruise control provide new perspective"A team of Princeton University scientists has discovered that chains of proteins found in most living organisms act like adaptive machines, possessing the ability to control their own evolution."