February 25, 2003

ON HYDROGEN, FASCISM AND POWELL'S VIEW OF VIETNAM AlterNet explains why hydrogen is not , at least in the short run, a clean or renewable energy alternative, and may in fact detract from important renewable energy programs already getting traction. In the International Herald Tribune, 80-year-old Norman Mailer weighs in with a warning that the U.S. has already attained a "pre-fascistic atmosphere" and that, alas, fascism, not democracy, may be the natural state for nations. Robert Scheer brings to our attention this remarkable excerpt from Colin Powell 's 1995 autobiography: "I recently read Bernard Fall's book on Vietnam, 'Street Without Joy.' Fall makes painfully clear that we had almost no understanding of what we had gotten ourselves into. I cannot help thinking that if President Kennedy or President Johnson had spent a quiet weekend at Camp David reading that perceptive book, they would have returned to the White House Monday morning and immediately started to figure out a way to extricate us from the quicksand of Vietnam." 1:05:38 PM   comment []

MEANWHILE, IN OTHER NEWS The U.S. supreme court just sent the case of a black Texas death row inmate back to a lower court, ruling that the judge and the lower court unfairly allowed systematic racial bias in jury selection to go unchallenged. Three guesses who the only dissenting judge was? The Economist reports a breakthrough in fibre optics (subscriber-only story) called Photonic Crystal Fibres (PCFs) , which may enable tremendous advances in the miniaturization of testing equipment, increased efficiency and longevity of fibre cabling, and the manipulation of single atoms. In the search for blame for accounting regularities of Royal Ahold NV , the world's third largest retailer, which resulted in restatements of at least $500 million and the collapse of Ahold's share price, the BBC says the problem may lie in loose regulations governing foreign operations of Dutch parent companies. Many companies base their global or European operations in the Netherlands for tax reasons and to simplify regulatory requirements. The discrepancies involve overbooking of promotional allowances (amounts kicked back to the retailer by suppliers for promotion of their brands) in U.S. and possibly South American operations. 11:56:27 AM   comment []

© Copyright 2003 Dave Pollard. Last update: 02/03/2003; 12:57:08 PM.