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anonymous

A thousand trillion suns - 0 views

blogs.discovermagazine.com/...a-thousand-trillion-suns

longnow layscience

shared by anonymous on 06 May 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 06 May 10
     
    By Phil Plait in Bad Astronomy (Discover) on May 5, 2010.
anonymous

U.S.: The Ramifications of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...ns_deepwater_horizon_oil_spill

shared by anonymous on 06 May 10 - Cached
  • BP executives reportedly told the U.S. Congress on May 4 that while the oil is officially estimated to be gushing out at 5,000 barrels per day (bpd) the rate could be as high as 60,000 bpd. In other words, the problem could be far greater and more pressing than previously thought.
  • Offshore oil production accounts for about one third of global oil production, and the demand for it will not disappear. However, the United States already strictly regulates offshore drilling, and regulations will increase as a result of the Deepwater Horizon incident.
  • anonymous on 06 May 10
     
    By StratFor on May 6, 2010.
anonymous

U.K.: Electoral Uncertainty Looms - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...uk_electoral_uncertainty_looms

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 06 May 10 - Cached
  • Britons go to the polls May 6 to cast their votes in what is expected to be one of the closest elections in decades. While polls indicate the conservatives are favored over the ruling Labour Party and the insurgent Liberal Democrats, it is possible that a hung parliament or a weak coalition government could take office, coming at a time when Britain desperately needs strong leadership out of its economic doldrums.
  • The close electoral race has plunged the United Kingdom into a national debate about the possibility that no party will have an absolute majority with which to form a government, a scenario referred to as a “hung parliament.”
  • The electoral system employed in the United Kingdom is referred to as “first-past-the-post” — essentially a winner-takes-all system in which electoral districts elect individual members of parliament.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The lack of experience governing with hung parliaments in the United Kingdom’s political culture — not to mention the non-existence of inter-party dialogue necessary for coalition-formation to take place — only heightens the sense of uncertainty around the outcome for the election.
  • anonymous on 06 May 10
     
    By Stratfor on May 6, 2010.
anonymous

Objectivism & Politics, Part 50 - 0 views

aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/...ectivism-politics-part-50.html

criticalthinking politics tradition

shared by anonymous on 05 May 10 - Cached
  • Rand is unique in that she tried to justify capitalism and freedom using the same sort of rationalistic assumptions accepted by the Old Left. She insisted, just like so many of the so-called “scientific” socialists and progressives of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, that everything in the political and moral realms had to be explicity justified on the basis of “reason.” But whether used to provide the rationalistic justification of socialism, capitalism, or any other ism that a febrile imagination can dream up, all such rationalisms amount to the same thing: incapacity in the face of the complexities of the human condition.
  • Reverence for tradition is, for the intelligent, non-ideological conservative, merely a tool used to compliment less tacit forms of knowledge, such as science and individual experience.
  • Traditional usages often have proven their worth over time, and should not be tossed out merely become some rationalist fails to explain it by “reason.” The conservative proceeds cautiously when reforming a tradition, because he knows, from long experience, how easy it is to make things worse, and that when faced with any daunting complexity, sheer trial and error is often a far better guide than the so-called “reason” of conceited intellectuals.
  • anonymous on 05 May 10
     
    By Greg Nyquist at Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature on May 4, 2010.
anonymous

The Effects of the Gulf Oil Spill - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...0100503_effects_gulf_oil_spill

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 05 May 10 - Cached
  • That brings us to our primary question, which is not so much about the mechanics of the spill and the cleanup, but rather how deep an impression the cumulative effect will make on the American psyche — and how it will affect the nation’s behavior.
  • The political aftermath of Deepwater Horizon will necessarily be painful, and will constrain Obama’s ability to address energy strategy for at least the near term, but it is not yet clear whether the pain will cross a threshold. Our question is whether this incident will become influential enough to cause the United States to perceive — whether justifiably or not — offshore energy production to be unsafe and unreliable, and what the reaction to such a perception might be.
  • anonymous on 05 May 10
     
    By StratFor on May 4, 2010.
anonymous

Japan, U.S.: Tokyo's Policy Shift on Futenma - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...us_tokyos_policy_shift_futenma

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 05 May 10 - Cached
  • As STRATFOR has noted, despite the politicized debates over changing the deal, the DPJ remains constrained by the same regional and geographic issues that held the LDP to the deal. Further informing Tokyo’s decision to more publicly shift its stance closer to supporting the original agreement, however, is the recent series of Chinese naval operations around Japanese islands.
  • anonymous on 05 May 10
     
    By StratFor on May 4, 2010.
anonymous

Eight Thoughts About Timescale - 0 views

www.warrensenders.com/journal

longnow

shared by anonymous on 04 May 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 04 May 10
     
    By Warren Sender at Running Gamak: Warren Senders' Blog on May 3, 2010.
anonymous

Viacom v YouTube is a microcosm of the entertainment industry - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...viacom-youtube

copyright

shared by anonymous on 04 May 10 - Cached
  • What if Viacom's frontline production people and even its mid-level execs have a theory about how to maximize shareholder value: they will produce things, make them well known, and stick ads on them to gain profits? They will seek out every conceivable opportunity to make their productions well-known, because though it may be hard to make money from popularity, it's impossible to make money from obscurity.
  • anonymous on 04 May 10
     
    By Cory Doctorow at The Guardian on May 4, 2010.
anonymous

PLoS Medicine: Why Most Published Research Findings Are False - 0 views

www.plosmedicine.org/...journal.pmed.0020124

layscience science

shared by anonymous on 04 May 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 04 May 10
     
    This isn't *lay* science, but an article published at the Public Library of Science by John P.A. Ioannidis on August 30, 2005.
anonymous

Forget Offshore Drilling Until We Get Some Answers - 0 views

www.tnr.com/...ling-until-we-get-some-answers

politics

shared by anonymous on 04 May 10 - Cached
  • a 2007 study by the Minerals Management Service (or MMS, the division of the Interior Department responsible for offshore drilling) found that this procedure was implicated in 18 out of 39 blowouts in the Gulf of Mexico over the 14 years it studied—more than any other factor. Cementing, which was handled by Halliburton, had just been completed prior to the recent explosion. The Journal notes that Halliburton was also the cementer on a well that suffered a big blowout last August in the Timor Sea off Australia.
  • anonymous on 04 May 10
     
    By William Galston at The New Republic on May 4, 2010.
anonymous

The Global Crisis of Legitimacy - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...00503_global_crisis_legitimacy

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 04 May 10 - Cached
  • Political crises — as opposed to normal financial panics — emerge when the reckless appear to be the beneficiaries of the crisis they have caused, while the rest of society bears the burdens of their recklessness.
  • think of nations as consisting of three basic systems: political, economic and military. Each of these systems has elites that manage it. The three systems are constantly interacting — and in a healthy polity, balancing each other, compensating for failures in one as well as taking advantage of success. Every nation has a different configuration within and between these systems. The relative weight of each system differs, as does the importance of its elites. But each nation contains these systems, and no system exists without the other two.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 04 May 10
       
      This is a useful observation. It'd be interesting to contrast other nations' manifestation of each.
  • The corporation is built around the idea of limited liability for investors, the notion that if you buy part or all of a company, you yourself are not liable for its debts or the harm that it might do; your risk is limited to your investment.
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • It is also a political invention and not an economic one. The decision to create corporations that limit liability flows from political decisions implemented through the legal subsystem of politics.
  • In a more natural organization of the marketplace, the owners are entirely responsible for the debts and liabilities of the entity they own. That, of course, would create excessive risk, suppressing economic activity.
  • contrary to the idea that there is a tension between the political and economic systems, the modern economic system is unthinkable except for the eccentric but indispensible political-legal contrivance of the limited liability corporation.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 04 May 10
       
      Statements like these are a reason why the accusations about StratFor being a Neocon front don't stick very well. This passage could have been lifted from the most pinko-leftist propaganda. :)
  • this is why classical economists never spoke of “economics” but always of “political economy.”
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 04 May 10
       
      This cuts to the myth of some idyllic "free market" in some earlier time. There may have been simpler economic creations, but there has not *been* a time when the political didn't mingle with the economic. Randians take note.
  • Emerging out of this complexity — and justifying it — is a moral regime. Protection from liability comes with a burden: Poor decisions will be penalized by losses, while wise decisions are rewarded by greater wealth.
  • Systemic risk emerges when it appears that the political and legal protections given to economic actors, and particularly to members of the economic elite, have been used to subvert the intent of the system.
  • the crisis occurs when it appears that the financial elite used the politico-legal structure to enrich themselves through systematically imprudent behavior while those engaged in prudent behavior were harmed, with the political elite apparently taking no action to protect the victims.
  • We now have a political, not an economic, crisis for two reasons. First, the crisis qualitatively has moved beyond the boundaries of a cyclical event. Second, the crisis is rooted in the political-legal definitions of the distribution of corporate risk and the legally defined relations between management and shareholder.
  • problem lies not with the market but with the political system that invented and presides over the limited liability corporation.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 04 May 10
       
      This is why the right-wing calls to stop persecuting the "wealth creators" are so hollow. On one level, they're right - those people aren't responsible. They're just gaming a system that's probably broken. This is why some kind of political alteration to corporations needs to occur.
  • The crisis was rooted in the appearance that it was triggered by the behavior not of small town banks or third world countries, but of the global financial elite
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 04 May 10
       
      "Appearance" is an operative word, too. No matter the cause, there's a perception problem that must be addressed.
  • The political elite is responsible for the corporate elite in a unique fashion: The corporation was a political invention, so by definition, its behavior depends on the political system.
  • part of this analysis is designed to explain why the Obama administration must go after Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and others.
  • The goal is not so much to achieve something as to create the impression that it is achieving something, in other words, to demonstrate that the political system is prepared to control the entities it created.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 04 May 10
       
      More of that "perception" stuff.
  • Europe thus has a double crisis. As in the United States, there is a crisis between the financial and political systems. This crisis is not as intense as in the United States because of a deeper tradition of integration between the two systems in Europe. But the tension between masses and elites is every bit as intense. The second part of the crisis is the crisis of the European Union and growing sense that the European Union is the problem and not the solution. As in the United States, there is a growing movement to distrust not only national arrangements but also multinational arrangements.
  • the important thing is to understand that both Europe and the United States are facing fundamental challenges to the legitimacy of, if not the regime, then at least the manner in which the regime has handled itself.
  • This is not simply a crisis within national elites, but within the multinational elite that created the European Union. If this leads to the de-legitimization of the EU, then we are really in uncharted territory.
  • The politically contrived corporation, and particularly the financial corporations, stands accused of undermining the wealth of nations. As Adam Smith understood, markets are not natural entities but the result of political decisions, as is the political system that creates the allocation of risk that allows markets to function.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 04 May 10
       
      Politics is everything, it seems.
  • anonymous on 04 May 10
     
    By George Friedman (StratFor) on May 4, 2010.
anonymous

The Effects of the Gulf Oil Spill - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...0100503_effects_gulf_oil_spill

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 04 May 10 - Cached
  • how deep an impression the cumulative effect will make on the American psyche — and how it will affect the nation’s behavior.
  • At the current pace, in five days the amount of oil spilled will surpass the 75,000 barrels spilled when a Union Oil well blew out off the coast of Santa Barbara in 1969. In 40 days the spill will surpass the 260,000 barrels spilled by ExxonMobil when the Valdez tanker hit a reef off the Alaska coast in 1989.
  • Both the Santa Barbara and the Valdez spills were significant political events in the United States, leading to a rise in environmentalism and stricter regulation on energy companies and offshore drilling. The Deepwater Horizon incident appears destined to have a similar or even greater impact. It has already prompted California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to abandon his push to expand regional offshore drilling, and caused pressure for U.S. President Barack Obama to suspend his recently announced plans to expand federal offshore drilling.
  • anonymous on 04 May 10
     
    By StratFor on May 4, 2010. A look at the psychological affects to the American mind.
anonymous

Oh Well - 0 views

www.slate.com/2251130

criticalthinking

shared by anonymous on 04 May 10 - Cached
  • But the real lesson of the oil spill may be how bad we are at dealing with unlikely but disastrous events. "We deal with them by ignoring them until they happen, and then overreacting," says John Harrald, a professor at George Washington University's Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and Risk Management.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 04 May 10
       
      This is like the "big number" problem, where humans have hard time thinking of big numbers, because they're so abstract. For the same reason, we can't figure odds and don't understand sudden systemic changes.
  • anonymous on 04 May 10
     
    Why we're so bad at dealing with unlikely disasters like the Louisiana oil spill. - By Christopher Beam - Slate Magazine on May 3, 2010.
anonymous

Foreign Policy Watch: Reading Iran - 0 views

fpwatch.blogspot.com/...reading-iran.html

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 03 May 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 03 May 10
     
    By Jeb Koogler at Foreign Policy Watch on May 3, 2010.
anonymous

How Our Brains Make Memories - 0 views

www.printthis.clickability.com/...cpt

shared by anonymous on 03 May 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 03 May 10
     
    By Greg Miller at Smithsonian.com in the May 2010 issue.
anonymous

Obama the Centrist - 0 views

delong.typepad.com/...obama-the-centrist.html

politics

shared by anonymous on 03 May 10 - Cached
  • My complaints about Obama are not that he is too bipartisan or too centrist. I am at bottom a weak-tea Dewey-Eisenhower-Rockefeller social democrat – that is, with a small “s” and a small “d.” My complaints are that he is not technocratic enough, that he is pursuing the chimera of “bipartisanship” too far, and that, as a result, many of his policies will not work well, or at all.
  • In all of these cases, Obama is ruling, or trying to rule, by taking positions that are at the technocratic good-government center, and then taking two steps to the right – sacrificing some important policy goals – in the hope of attracting Republican votes and thereby demonstrating his commitment to bipartisanship. On all of these policies – anti-recession, banking, fiscal, environmental, anti-discrimination, rule of law, healthcare – you could close your eyes and convince yourself that, at least as far as the substance is concerned, Obama is in fact a moderate Republican named George H.W. Bush, Mitt Romney, John McCain, or Colin Powell.
  • anonymous on 03 May 10
     
    By Brad Delong at Grasping Reality with Both Hands on April 30, 2010. This is a sober look at the actual policies that Obama has been promoting. It's anything but Socialist and - if a Republican was doing the stuff he's doing - Fox wouldn't have a problem at all, imho.
anonymous

Generational Battle Brews Over Gilded Baby-Boom Pensions | GOVERNING - 0 views

www.governing.com/...over-gilded-baby-boom-pensions

generations

shared by anonymous on 03 May 10 - Cached
  • • "As a Gen-X'er, I have heard the same things since I entered the workforce: 1) You will make less than those who came before you. 2) Your benefit package will be less robust than those who came before you. 3) You will pay more for your lower-quality benefit package. 4) You will be required to work harder on more complex tasks than those who came before you."
  • In many cases, the most viable way to achieve intergenerational equity will be to bill incumbent workers for a higher share of their retirement benefits. To some, that will feel like a pay cut, but if elder workers' benefits are untouchable, then heftier payroll deductions may be the only option left.
  • anonymous on 03 May 10
     
    By Girard Miller in Governing on October 8, 2009. Referenced by Neil Howe (http://blog.lifecourse.com/2010/05/generational-equity/)
anonymous

Scientists say paper battery could be in the works - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...idUSTRE5B642U20091207

technology longnow

shared by anonymous on 03 May 10 - Cached
  • anonymous on 03 May 10
     
    By Jackie Frank at Reuters on December 7, 2009.
  • anonymous on 03 May 10
anonymous

China: The Shaky Structure of an Economic 'Miracle' - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...aky_structure_economic_miracle

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 03 May 10 - Cached
  • A serious defect of East Asia’s export economic model is that it discourages the development of household consumption as a source of economic growth. Families are encouraged to save rather than spend, which depresses their consumption. At a certain point, leading East Asian economies have undergone transitions during which policies were adjusted to stabilize or boost consumption while allowing fixed investment to taper off, thereby creating more balanced economies. China, however, has yet to do so, and thus remains dangerously reliant on exports and investment.
  • anonymous on 03 May 10
     
    By StratFor on April 26, 2010.
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