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You remember the Waxman-Markey bill – The American Clean Energy And Security Act.  It passed in the House of Representatives in June of 2009.  Oh well, the Senate – being the Senate – allowed the historical moment to pass.  In this case, the cowardice, political cynicism and utter lack of clear thinking has been a […]

I sometimes disagree with choices Google makes, but one note they have consistently hit is the importance of transparency. As a corporate entity they are obligated to follow the rules in the countries in which they operate – as long as they want to work there. This often means they have to be the tool […]

–>Just wanted to pass on a heads up I received from PBS about a program being aired on their network this evening at 10 PM (www.pbs.org/pov/tvschedule).  It’s  THE OATH by Laura Poitras.    Film synopsis: Filmed in Yemen and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, The Oath interweaves the stories of Abu Jandal, Osama bin Laden’s former bodyguard, […]

Documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras’s ‘The Oath’ will air on PBS tonight. According to PBS: Filmed in Yemen and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, The Oath interweaves the stories of Abu Jandal, Osama bin Laden’s former bodyguard, and Salim Hamdan, a prisoner at Guantánamo facing war crimes charges. Directed by Laura Poitras (Flag Wars, POV 2003; the Oscar®-nominated […]

This film deserves the Oscar it received for best foreign language film. It is the story of a young Jewish family that flees Nazi Germany in the late 1930s to Kenya. Walter Redlich, who had been a lawyer in Germany, is left to manage a farm in a deserted region.  His wife, Jettel, and daughter, […]

China is an economically successful country.  Growth rates of 8-11% per year.  Fx reserves north of $2.4 trillion, closing in on 20% of US GDP.  Investment rates that represent 40-50% of GDP (vs. 15-20% in the US).  Private credit growth of 32.5% last year, vs. 5.6% in the U.S.   A Human Development Index that now stands at 49.7, […]

There is a very good story in the NYT about an initiative being launched today to finance clean-burning cookstoves for the developing world.  I have written about the pernicious health impacts of burning biomass in open fires and the burden of black carbon deposition that so badly exacerbates global warming.  The NY Times reports “Nearly […]

In a recent post I expressed dismay about Jeffrey Goldberg’s “Point of No Return” article: its implicit suggestion that the United States should attack Iran’s nuclear facilities so as to save Israel the trouble of doing something so senseless and self-defeating, and the decision by The Atlantic to publish a piece of work that is […]

I was a bit late to the webcast since I had class, but I tuned in to hear the speech made by Graca Machal. She is the third wife of former South African president Nelson Mandela and the widow of the late Mozambican president Samora Machel. She is the only person in the world to have been […]

Not much to report so far, but the tone has been set by the General Assembly President Joseph Deiss, who says, “We must achieve the Millennium Development Goals. We want to achieve them. And we can achieve them.” The Gates Foundation has a live stream of the conference that you can access here.

The Economist’s lengthy Special Report on Latin America last week is worth a read (see leader below), even though it failed to emphasize and adequately explain two critical causes of the region’s recent success — 1) the consensus among Latin American politicians that conquering inflation has benefitted the poor and strengthened democracy; and 2) the massive build-up in fx reserves that […]

You would not think it if you were judging the world by the quality of the work of the US Senate – scary thought – but there has been considerable progress made on confronting the climate crisis:  from the EU’s (relatively) hard-charging approach, to the rapidly growing attention to clean energy and other clean tech […]