Michael Specter

Prachtige TED talk van New Yorker-schrijver Michael Specter over hoe de angst voor wetenschap onze beschaving ondermijnt.

Eindelijk goed nieuws!

Broer,

nrc.next bericht vandaag dat een Europese commissie heeft uitgevogeld dat door energie-overschotten aan mekaar te geven, heel Europa zijn broeikasgasemissies per 2050 met 80 procent kan terugdringen. Dus Spanje geeft bijv. tijdens hun siësta, wanneer het Spaanse energieverbruik laag is, zijn zonne-energie aan Nederland, waar men het hard nodig heeft voor de 4 uur Cup-a-Soup.
Dit is niet een vrijblijvend luchtkasteel: McKinsey, de unief van Oxford en E.On, een grote Europese energiemaatschappij hebben het allemaal bekeken en er brood in gezien. En nog belangrijker: het plan gaat uit van bestaande technologie, dus zonder wilde plannen over wetenschappelijke doorbraken die hopelijk tussen nu en dan zullen gebeuren.
Is schone energie dan echt mogelijk? Het lijkt er wel op, maar hoe langer we wachten, hoe duurder het wordt. Er moet dringend in infrastructuur worden geïnvesteerd, een dure grap. Maar het belangrijkste is dat energiemaatschappijen wordt ontmoedigd om nog kolencentrales of (zoals nu) gascentrales te bouwen door helderheid te geven over de plannen op de lange termijn.

Een milieuvriendelijke toekomst toegewenst door
Broer.

Obama speech in Iowa

According to the newspapers, Barack Obama gave a speech that trumped all the others in Iowa. What I've seen so far looks great. He is my choice for the next President of the United States, and he sums up in one fragment how he's different from his competitors (one certain lady in particular):

If we are really serious about winning these elections, Democrats, then we can't live in fear of losing. This Party, the party of Jefferson and Jackson and Roosevelt and Kennedy, has always made the biggest difference in the lives of the American people when we led not by polls, but by principle; not by calculation, but by conviction; when we summoned the entire nation to a common purpose, a higher purpose. And I run for the presidency of the United States of America because that is the party America needs us to be right now. A party that offers not just a difference in policies, but a difference in leadership. A party that focuses not on how to win, but why we should. A party that doesn't just offer change as a slogan, but real, meaningful change, change that America can believe in.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the next President of the United States.

PBS Frontline/world: Extraordinary Rendition

PBS has a half-hour documentary online called 'Extraordinary Rendition' which is about the somewhat forgotten story of what are called 'black sites'. These secret prisons located in various locations around the world, including Poland and Kenya, were and are used to hold and interrogate suspected terrorists. Given the covert nature of these prisons and the fact that they are not in the USA, I think it's fairly safe to assume that prisoners are being tortured there.

What is most disturbing to me about the Bush administration is not the fact that they are tough as nails on terrorism, or even that they went to war on a pretext. Actually, what disturbs me the most about the Bush administration is the shameless way in which they repeatedly attempt to circumvent the democratic system and the rule of law. Whether it's warrantless wiretapping, setting up a military prison in a legally ambiguous location like Guantanamo Bay, or these black sites, time and again they have shown that they will go to great lengths to avoid having to deal with petty issues like the Constitution.

Find the falafel

Once in a while I catch myself thinking, 'Why is it that there's been no terrorist attack on US soil, or even an attempt at one, since 9/11? Could it be that the intelligence community in the USA learned from that devastating attack, brushed up their act and are making real progress?'
From now on, whenever I think that, I should remember this report from CQ (Congressional Quarterly):

[T]he FBI sifted through customer data collected by San Francisco-area grocery stores in 2005 and 2006, hoping that sales records of Middle Eastern food would lead to Iranian terrorists.

The idea was that a spike in, say, falafel sales, combined with other data, would lead to Iranian secret agents in the south San Francisco-San Jose area.

Not only does this story reveal what kind of bigotry and prejudice apparently passes for professionalism among the people who are the last line of defense between Al-Qaeda and the United States, it also makes clear that the Feds have no clue where to look.

And I'm not saying that because I like falafel.

Let the discussion begin!

My brother and me have been e-mailing back and forth about American politics for some time now, vehemently disagreeing at times but always looking for the middle ground. We sent each other interesting links to news articles.
Now we feel that it's time to take the discussion online. We hope that reading this blog will give you readers some perspective on how non-Americans see US politics.