Seven interesting stories from the last two weeks that together tell us where we've got to, and where we're going:
Spacecrafts Powered by Thunder:
Good news and bad news from the space research front. Scientists have
invented a new engine that is four times as efficient as existing
spacecraft engines, and which uses sound waves to move the pistons that
power the engine, allowing longer trips when solar energy won't do the
job. But like existing space engines it's a nuclear technology based on
radioactive plutonium, a toxic substance that outlasts the spacecraft
itself by centuries. Remember those Sci-Fi movies where the crippled
alien spacecraft turns out to be a deadly booby-trap? That's what NASA
produces, and a dozen Soviet and American spacecraft have already
discharged large amounts of radioactive plutonium and uranium into
Earth's atmosphere. Longer trips, bigger engines, greater risk. The
legacy of the human race is that wherever we go, we leave a poison
trail.
Citizens Assembly to bring Proportional Representation and/or Instant Runoff Voting to Canada?:
The minority government in Canada is turning out even better than I'd
hoped. There's a lot of jockeying going on by the opposition parties
for continued support of the Liberal government. One of the demands is
for a Citizens Assembly, a group of people selected at random from
voters' lists, to create a referendum question on reform of the
electoral process, results of which would be binding on the government.
Leading proposals for reform are European-style proportional
representation and instant runoff voting. Twenty-first century, here we
come.
Bush Envoy Baker Plays Both Ends Against the Middle in Carlyle Group Scandal:
James Baker, Bush's special envoy to Iraq, has taken conflict of
interest to a new height. While his job as envoy is to convince other
countries to forgive Iraq's crushing foreign debts so that country can
make a clean start (assuming it can solve its non-financial problems),
the company of which he is a senior partner, Carlyle Group, is selling
their members' influence and pull with the Iraq government to these
same foreign governments as a collection agency. In other words, please
forgive my debts, but if you can't, grease the palm of my buddies here
and I'll get you your money before I declare bankruptcy. Disgraceful.
The guy has a great future with Halliburton.
US 'Productivity' Mostly a Function of Longer Hours, More Two-Income Families:
A recent productivity study by the OECD indicates that the superior
productivity that made the US dollar so strong for so long until the
Bush debt undermined it, was the result not of working smarter but
working harder. Americans now are up there with the Japanese working
fierce hours, often in more than one job, and usually with both parents
working, to make the same income that a European makes in a 35-hour
week with 7 weeks' paid vacation. (thanks to JR Mooneyham for the links)
WWF Confirms Resource Use at 120% of Sustainable and Increasing Fast:
A recent study by the WWF determines that we are currently using
resources at a rate 20% greater than Earth's ability to replenish them.
This is consistent with the results of previous studies, which I have
documented in the chart that has appeared often on these pages.
Jon Schell: 'Unconquerable' World Degraded by Bush/Corporatist Propaganda, Greed:
The optimist Jonathan Schell, whose inspiring book Unconquerable World
I reviewed on these pages, is becoming a little less so. Here's a
sample passage from the recent essay that shows what's getting him
down:
Once, observers imagined that we
were entering an information age, but they were wrong. It is a
misinformation age. The stupendous machinery of modern media has
reached into every cranny of American life. Its outlets have been
posted in every household, like a mechanical standing army. The steady,
mild propaganda of advertising has long saturated the home for hours
every day, the mental equivalent of low-level radiation. Now the public
is being dosed with more virulent stuff. The standing army has been
given increasingly insistent political marching orders. Stalin and Mao,
confined mainly to radios and megaphones, could only dream of such
penetration of daily life by their propaganda apparatuses.
Brooke's Story: Sister of US Soldier Killed in Iraq Speaks Out:
A new website tells the moving story of how the family of a US soldier
who died in Iraq are coping, and what they think of the lies and the
liars that needlessly cost Ryan Campbell his life.
(The picture at top has nothing to do with the seven stories, but wouldn't it be a great subject for a photo caption contest?)
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