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POPSNigaz With attitude the Russians from a joint venture with the Nigerian State petroleum company.
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POPSWhy some still support Ahmadinejad The internal politics of Iran are complex and certainly not the cartoonish people vs. the government caricature being promulgated in the US. Much of internal politics is governed by perceptions of old actions of interference by foreign powers and national pride as this letter to the BBC can attest. Yes, the people of Iran do need change, yes the government is not of all the people (and likely a minority of the people), but there are many there that support the government as well. Knowing why and understanding how to weaken that support so that sane governance can return to Iran should be the key strategy for world governments.
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POPSCanadian Health Care; Just Say Yo But the bottom line is that America’s health care system spends nearly twice as much per person as Canada’s (building the wealth of hospital tycoons like Mr. Scott). Yet our infant mortality rate is 40 percent higher than Canada’s, and American mothers are 57 percent more likely to die in childbirth than Canadian ones.
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POPSVitamins Don't Work - Or Worse An interesting article listing clinical trial and meta-study results of vitamin usage. It may be that not only are vitamin supplements not needed - they may hurt you.
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POPSCapitalism in Crisis
An interesting column by Richard Posner on the background of and some lessons from the financial crisis. In short: 1) Capitalism is risky and is prone to bubbles and depressions (take home message is not that capitalism is 'bad' but that one must diversify and hedge); 2) The crisis is a consequence of deregulation (not that deregulation is 'bad' but that deregulated capitalism carries with it more of the bubble/depression risks). But in the end, as with so many, Posner concludes that the whole mess should be laid at the feet of government. This is not the right conclusion, not that government is not the responsible party, they are. But the key issue that underlies the government's failure is not that government is inherently 'bad' as many are often led to conclude but that it was made that way. A systematic attack and undermining of governance has occurred in the U.S. since the early 1980s. Not all was bad, likely much of it early on was needed, but like so many other human expe
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POPS"Losing Mum and Pup" A "tell all" story by "Christo" Buckely on the lives of his parents. This news item is worth the full read. Hope to get the book.
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POPSChina: Stimulus Appears To Kick In. China had a massive (relative to economic size) stimulus that is _investing_ in the country's infrastructure. Obama's stimulus, also beginning to show signs of helping the economy, has been hampered by old guard thinking that promotes destructive and vicious partisanship and thinks that the only solution to any economic problem is more tax cuts. Will this be seen as the moment where backward thinking and vicious partisan politics in the U.S. hampered our response and opened the door to Chinese supremacy in Asia? Let's hope not.
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POPSWater Water, as well as energy, looks to be one of the driving issues of the 21st century. And in some ways they can be seen as the same issue given that with enough inexpensive energy we could purify and transport water. (Though perhaps energy will never be that inexpensive.)
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POPSStudy: Cool Spells Normal in Warming World Easterling, D. R., and M. F. Wehner (2009), Is the climate warming or cooling? Geophys. Res. Lett., doi:10.1029/2009GL037810, in press. (accepted 30 March 2009) Abstract Numerous websites, blogs and articles in the media have claimed that the climate is no longer warming, and is now cooling. Here we show that periods of no trend or even cooling of the globally averaged surface air temperature are found in the last 34 years of the observed record, and in climate model simulations of the 20th and 21st century forced with increasing greenhouse gases. We show that the climate over the 21st century can and likely will produce periods of a decade or two where the globally averaged surface air temperature shows no trend or even slight cooling in the presence of longer-term warming.
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POPSLimbaugh's Legions Insane conspiracy theories being flamed by the Limbaugh-right wacko movement, the same people that gave you 8 years of the Bush Administration, are beginning to produce the instability they crave. They truly are the modern day Bolsheviks.
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POPSHolonomic brain theory Interesting little bit on holonomic brain theory. I had no idea that Bohm got involved with brain science. The theory seems to go against some of the current paradigm of functional mapping of the brain but I would say that consciousness and, arm movements let's say, are two very different things.
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POPSObama: Community Organizer Having been a community organizer is apparently good qualification for the job of President of the U.S.A. Could you imagine Bush doing this? In the Onion perhaps.
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POPS Scientists worldwide admit global warming is a hoax More: Not all scientists were fooled by Mr. Gore’s ruse, but many remained silent nonetheless. The Associated Press quotes an anonymous marine biologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who says she knew all along that “this climate change stuff was completely bogus.” “But I played along,” she said. “The opportunities for securing global-warming-related grant money were just too great for me to resist.” “Sweet, sweet grant money,” she added.
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POPSThe War Not Lost A very interesting interview with Thomas Ricks on the Iraq War, discussing its failures, its successes and why. The interview gives new insight into a war that may not be winnable, but now seems to be on the verge of not being lost.
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POPSAmericans Oppose Non-Existent Threat Of Replacing Dollar Thank goodness there are politicians there to save us from non-existent threats! I mean in this time of real ones that are quite daunting it is always good to have a paper one that can be taken on and brought under control. It seems that a good portion of the country is still living in fantasyland.
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POPSCity-States In some sense, all cities are islands, isolated and on their own. Much of current national level political tension in the world today is played out between those in cities and those from the more rural areas. But... Using the political-geographic definition there are presently only three city-states in the world.
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